But then again, not sure we are speaking of the same. I have definitely found people that would like to have Taiwan’s system ie. more freedom, no communism, cool pop singers and all that. But that is hardly what I mean by the “Old Right”. What I meant is people who were actually yearning for the old pre-49 regime KMT. I would imagine that most of those existing today are in Taiwan, Malaysia, US and Canada and have been out of China for decades. For people that have been inside China for the last 60 years, it is hard to imagine how they could have kept alive those convictions for so long.

Old Right: Admirers of Taiwan and the KMT, practically invisible in the mainland today. I never met one, so not sure if they are conservative characters or not. I assume many members of the FLG would respond to this description.

Maybe it was living in the old capital of Nanjing for 2 1/2 years, or the fact that I had lived in Taiwan and spoke openly about it, or simply the fact that, being of a Thatcherite point of view conservatives are more likely to express their true opinions to me, but I met a good number of this type of person whilst in China. They were almost universally people of the yeoman type – the kind of people who become police officers, skilled labourers, NCOs, small business owners etc. These people are also the back-bone of the KMT in Taiwan.

FLG members – well, I cannot say for sure if I have met them, but I know people who are members of similar groups, and the one thing most certainly not is conservative. These are the wide-eyed idealists, believers without any sense of proportion, the group which they most nearly resemble is the one you call “Right Left”, although they are essentially members of what might be called China’s “Millenialist Faction”.

In any case, power or not, I don’t see what this has to do with he being Left. Or at least he is representing that kind of position. Of course a different thing is what he thinks in private (but then you could say this about any politician)

But in spite of all the bells and whistles, I think there is still a very intuitive concept that all of us grasp of what makes a conservative mindset, in the lines of the Britannica definition above. That is what I mean by conservative, a certain type of character, regardless of the political affiliation or the labels that you may put on it in each different country.

Indeed, it is during the long process from 49 to 78 that the paradigm changed, not immediately in 1949. I just read an article by MacFarquhar in the last China Quarterly which says just that: the “liberation” was in fact only a military victory, the real social revolution came afterwards when Mao abandoned his initial idea of the “New Democracy” in favour of radical reform.

Regarding Left/Right, well they are just words, I guess it is not really important which ones we choose as long as we understand each other. What I would definitely like to see is the end of the ridiculous Cold War rethoric of some hardcore Americans bigots, who continue to think that the Chinese are the red menace. What a bunch of 脑残, any European country today is way more socialist than China!

Many people in the West, especially Americans, have taken to making distinctions between “political” or “social” conservatism/liberalism. For example, you’ll get people who declare that they are “politically liberal but socially conservative”. Sometimes, of course, that’s a perverted way of saying “I’m pro-democracy and Christian!”, which is a combination strongly ingrained as being the right one to have, and thus necessarily needing to be reconciled.

I think that distinction might be useful here. “Right” and “Left” though, are usually applied to political ideology, so that’s okay, but I think saying “conservative” and “liberal” while mixing political and social dispositions amongst the Chinese might contribute to additional confusion. Historically, “communism” is Left, liberal, revolutionary, but its obvious that there are many socially “conservative” predispositions to those who profess to be “communist”.

Finally, I’m not so sure the FLG would be classified as the Old Right. And, LoL, your “Right Left” term is indeed dysfunctional! But I understand what you mean, just don’t think the term is useful.

Rock on, Uln.