Xiaohong Xu
@Xiaohong__Xu
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Michigan sociology prof. Studies revolutions & social conflicts, development & political economy, political culture, China & E Asia. Cofounder, @THiS_TheHisSoc
Ann Arbor, MI
Joined February 2017
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Delighted to see my article “Modernity and the Politics of Newness: Unraveling New Time in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966 to 1968” is now officially published in Volume 41, Issue 3 of Sociological Theory. Pls find the full article here as well:
Very excited to share my paper with Isaac Reed, “Modernity and the Politics of Newness”, which just came online first in Sociological Theory and will appear in its Sept. issue. 1/
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My two cents on the upcoming CCP’s 20th party congress as a historical sociologist of Chinese Communism. To have a good sense of it, it’s essential to look from inside out, especially from inside of the party’s history. 1/11
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The process will be slow but generally irreversible. The fracturing and leverages will create more spaces for civil society. These are silver linings in an otherwise unnerving situation. 11/11
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To understand Chinese politics in long duree, a good place to start is sociologist Dingxin Zhao’s The Confucian-Legalist State: A New Theory of Chinese History (Oxford 2018). Our scholarly collective,
@THiS_TheHisSoc
, is to hold a panel discussion on Nov 20 at 8pm (ET), 1/3
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The 20th party congress will be the Xiists’ zenith, just as the 9th was for the Maoists. The next phase will see both the internal fracturing of the Xiists over succession and an increasingly strident technocracy. 10/11
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Will there be surprising political shakeups, as waves of twitter rumors have it? No. On the contrary, the congress will be an unprecedented moment of triumph and consolidation for the Xiists (yes, I believe such a term is warranted due to their ideological coherence). 2/11
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This societal alienation from a triumphant dominant faction without an expiration date is unprecedented since 1978. At the same time, societal elites are more autonomous from the state in terms of resources and ideas than in the 1970s. 8/11
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There are signs everywhere that much of Chinese society has grown blasé and even tired of the Xiist program, just as the popular attitude toward the Maoist program in 1969 (which was little known to the outside world then). 7/11
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What about other factions? The truth is that all other previously powerful factions are dead and should be recognized as such. There will still be some non-Xiists (such as Wang Yang and Hu Chunhua) in the politburo and even in the standing committee. 4/11
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This means that, after the congress, technocrats in domains from public health thru economy to foreign policy will gain increasing leverages as the Xiists’ fixers. The dependency between them will begin to subtly shift, as that between Mao and Zhou Enlai in the 1970s. 9/11
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Does it mean the Xiists will get away with everything? Not really. They secure this victory at some great prices. It will not be a victory like Mao’s 7th party congress in 1945 but a victory like Mao’s 9th party congress in 1969 (except without a succession plan). 6/11
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How is that possible given the grave situations on COVID policy, economy, unemployment, government debt, currency depreciation, and foreign policy? These setbacks are important but timing and momentum are more overriding for the Xiists. 3/11
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But they will appear as the Xiists’ hired technicians, instead of a member of independent political forces worth reckoning with. All the signature policies of the Xiists will be honored in the congress. 5/11
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Very excited to share my paper with Isaac Reed, “Modernity and the Politics of Newness”, which just came online first in Sociological Theory and will appear in its Sept. issue. 1/
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Super excited to be a respondent to this talk by Michael Burawoy on decolonizing sociological canons, Marxism, & Du Bois next Saturday, moderated by Yan Long at Berkeley &
@fredyan
at Tsinghua, joined by 3 original sociologists zooming from China. The event will be in English.
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Excited to present my paper “The Chinese Cultural Revolution and An Uncanny Origin of Contemporary Global Capitalism”, at 4pm PT today on panel “Frontiers of Global Theorizing” (Joint Session for Theory Section & Global & Transnational Sociology Section)
#ASA2022
#Sociology
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@kang8mao
I disagree on your pessimism. Techno totalitarianism is not a one way traffic. Each technological breakthrough in communication in modern era has brought a wave of totalitarian tendency and none has persisted.
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These are all stark contrasts between Mao and Xi. Mao himself put it well in a letter to his wife on the eve of the Cultural Revolution: he was part tiger (authoritarian) & part monkey (rebellious) but the tiger part is stronger than the monkey part. 1/
When many believed Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) was another Napoleon, a wise man said: world-historical facts often appeared twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. That man is Marx.
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I contributed to this fascinating discussion on the prospect of Chinese economy, where I predict a discernible change in policy style after the 20th Party Congress. 1/8
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w/ recent release of its Chinese edition. Panelists include Liang Cai (Notre Dame, history), Shuang Chen (U of Iowa, history), Zhiyuan Cui (Tsinghua, public policy), Zhe Wu (Academia Sinica, history), Yongle Zhang (Peking U, law), and moderator Nianshen Song (Tsinghua, history).
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Another SSHA panel, held tomorrow at 8am, that yours truly has organized—w/
@zanyfaint
—on the pathway of China’s reform, featuring some of my favorite China scholars, with
@IsabellaMWeber
and
@YanjieHuang_ny
as panelists and
@hofunghung
as the discussant. Check it out.
#ssha2021
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Excited to discuss “belligerent nationalism in big power politics” with this group of experts. It’s a much discussed public concern. Yet I am sure the panel will engender many refreshing ideas. Thanks to Ana and Fiona for putting it together. Register if you’re interested.
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Sociologists, have you been troubled by the dozen of emails that ASA send you every day since they switched to ASA Connect? Who came up with such an annoying system? How do you deal with it?
#sociology
#ASA
#sociologytwitter
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Register and come if you are interested!
Next Tuesday (10/6) at Noon:
@Xiaohong__Xu
will talk about how the Cultural Revolution has shaped contemporary
#China
and its relationship to global capitalism. Zoom Registration:
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Looking forward to moderating this event. It will be a stimulating conversation!
We’re excited to hold a zoom discussion on
@geosteinsoc
’s new book The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought, joined by excellent discussants Emmanuelle Saada,
@hofunghung
,
@matthikaru
,
@nickhwilson
, moderated by
@Xiaohong__Xu
. Please register here
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Please join us this Friday to discuss
@hofunghung
’s thought-provoking new book on the evolving US-China relations in recent decades from the perspective of political economy!
Please join "THiS Book Boom Room" to discuss Johns Hopkins sociologist Ho-fung Hung's new book, Clash of Empires: From ‘Chimerica’ to the ‘New Cold War’ (Cambridge University Press, 2022). This event will be held on 12/9 at 8pm EST via Zoom Webinar:
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Excited to speak on this forum commemorating Max Weber, about rethinking the Axial Civilizations and Weber’s Great Divergence question in the age of US-China conflicts. Heard at least thousands will tune in—that’s the scale of China’s intellectual avidity, despite its politics.
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@MaryGao
What’s truly remarkable is that all this time, not a single person dares to point out the elephant in the room. To use Xi’s own misogynistic words: it turns out no one could man up to save the system (from him). 竟无一人是男儿
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Super excited about giving a talk in the Sociology Department at Boston College this Wednesday, drawing unexpected historical connection between Chairman Mao and neoliberalism!
Can’t believe the last time I visited Boston College was already 16 years ago. The best memory...
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Bottom line: earlier scholars of Chinese politics may have mistaken a modus vivendi for Weberian institutionalization. Xi will not be shackled by it.
How would "age limit" matter in the upcoming CCP Party Congress? Would the “Seven up Eight down” rule (you stay in Politburo at 67 and you are out at 68) still work? We now know this rule was violated in 2017. In effect, “age limit” has never been institutionalized. A thread. 1/9
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I am in a random Ann Arbor public library right now and six of the seven people sitting around this big desk are Michigan faculty members, all of us seemingly in humanities or social sciences.
#AcademicTwitter
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My take on the possibility of the Xi administration’s changing policy style as part of the discussion on the prospect of the Chinese economy is now up on Foreign Policy. The whole discussion is worth reading
5/ The past decade has provided a guide to Xi’s vision for China’s future, writes Ryan Hass in a roundup of takes from ChinaFile contributors. This period will be one of tighter party-level control over economic decision-making.
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Very much agreed. A fundamental condition of China’s stability and peaceful development in the last four decades was a set of modus vivendi about succession that Deng’s reform coalition had reached. 1/
I am glad to talk with
@cdcshepherd
about the dynamics of succession in China’s upcoming Party Congress. Succession remains the most vital issue in China and is unlikely to be institutionalized in the near future. Succession means struggle.
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I wrote this oped with Neil Gong about how
@AndrewYang
can and should engage the Asian American experience and the racial question in America.
Sociologists:"Instead of avoiding race, he should lean into it. At the debates and after, he must explain how his background offers a fresh perspective on polarized race relations and why his policies can provide a way forward."
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Yes! I look forward to taking part in this symposium next week in Oxford on “contingency in revolutions”, with so many of my favorite scholars committed to exploring this intellectual frontiers together.
I am very excited to be in Oxford next week for two days to discuss revolution and contingency; a workshop that is convened by Ivan Ermakoff and
@AnneMWolf
. 1/3
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Andrew Yang is an Asian American candidate but most Americans probably have no clue his candidacy may be the single most important democratic progress in the pan-Chinese world since Taiwan’s democratization, which is significant given how bleak China’s politics has become lately
Whoa, Andrew Yang seems "to temper the most virulent opponents of affirmative action in spaces like WeChat" because of his "strong stance in favor of affirmative action and for other kinds of egalitarian policies.” -
@ProfJanelleWong
.
h/t
@ModelMajorityP
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If you're attending AAS & interested in politics of family, please check out my panel on "The Familial Is Political". I am giving a paper "When the Political is Familial: Family Metaphors in Hong Kong’s 2019-2020 Protests"
#AAS2021
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The panel will be in Mandarin. The panel is part of a series of “THiS Book Boom Room: China in Historical, Ethnographical, and Comparative Lenses” in AY 22-23. Most future panels in the series will be conducted in English. Please follow
@THiS_TheHisSoc
and stay tuned.3/3
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I workshopped a paper today online in a joint theory & social movement workshop in my dept. I set my expectations low given how messed up things are lately. Yet, man, it was really dynamic and helpful! And I have to say a sense of normalcy in an extraordinary time is therapeutic.
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Mao often engaged in drafting or revising public documents & paid close attention to their meticulous details but left to others their execution & management. He was a man of (political) letters whereas Xi is a micromanager and more like Chiang Kai-shek in this aspect.4/
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Happy about completion of a paper that’s 14 months overdue. Guilt relieved and praying it be a record that I will never break.
#AcademicTwitter
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Come meet my daughter’s new friend—a twig she found in our backyard and has been in good accompany with. Strange things start happening when you don’t get to meet any old friend face-to-face for more than 5 weeks.
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While they both have tiger (authoritarian) parts, Xi has no monkey (rebellious) part & does not entertain the kind of bottom-up initiatives that an once-anarchist Mao had enjoyed. Xi rarely speaks off the scripts prepared by his staff, which is a standard bureaucratic habit. 2/
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Please join us tomorrow if you are attending AAS! Very excited about this conversation!
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Finally got a hard copy. It’s indeed a great collection, with many illuminating contributions. I think the volume would be completer to have a chapter on the All China Red Workers Rebel Corps, arguably the greatest independent labor movement in the history of the PRC. ACRWRC…
'Proletarian China', our new book edited by
@FangYiren
and
@Bartleby
, is out! It features a mosaic of perspectives on what being a worker meant, and how it was experienced, in China over the past century. Buy it from
@VersoBooks
or download it FOR FREE at
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I did a podcast on the 2019 Hong Kong protests!
🎙️ NEW PODCAST: Hong Kong Protests.
@nicolekwu
,
@Xiaohong__Xu
& Edgar Chung (senior student
@UMengineering
) shared their personal memories of Hong Kong and explained how the recent protests started.
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That’s no longer the case. Once the modus vivendi is broken by Xi, the succession problems will wreck havoc on Chinese politics and society. 3/
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I had thought in similar veins for years & am now really excited to read this book & see a scholar articulating these ideas in such a fine and trenchant way! I disagree on how China fits in this big picture but that’s precisely ground for productive engagement.
Today is publication day for The Triumph of Broken Promises
@Harvard_Press
!
A few thankful thoughts below...
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I am super pumped for this conversation! More comparative historical flash talks to come
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@amycatalinac
Thanks for voicing out! It’s even worse for academics holding China and India passports.
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This is what I received today.
What's the etiquette regarding sending work emails during a coup?
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Exactly. And it will likely break the post-Tiananmen taboo on publicizing internal dissensus, making it possible to co-catalyze with popular discontent and thus creating pluralist public politics.
On the good side, the disruption of the succession rule means greater uncertainties, i.e., more possibilities of political change in the post-Xi era. Competition among aspiring candidates may result in pluralization of the top power. Last time, it led to the economic reform...
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A must-read paper on historical sociology today. Can’t wait to read and discuss it with my students in the fall.
At long last, happy to share that my article with Nick Wilson, “What Do Historical Sociologists Do All Day? Analytic Architectures in Historical Sociology,” is now out at AJS. Read on for details (THREAD) 1/11
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After the first in-person conference since Covid in Philly, I am gearing up for the first in-person workshop tomorrow. Kudos to whoever picked the image for the bulletin: it’s very fitting, as Shanghai was the site of the central Cultural Revolution episode that my paper examines
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The point: Hu & Wen were more like social democrats who actually brought real progressive changes. The left who bid their hope on Xi today are more like the “police socialists” whom Lenin ridiculed for believing that the Tsar was the best socialist.
Lots of caveats about this comparison, but I want to compare XJP's common prosperity speech in 求实 with something similar by HJT, the OG Chinese leader who tried to address inequality and redistribution. Word clouds are kind of shite, but I'll use them to illustrate the point 1/
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In contrast, Mao’s informal conversation and speech was often one of his most powerful political weapons. Mao was a politician of words but not of management whereas Xi is the opposite. 3/
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This meeting has lasted for 9 hours and there have been a lot of touching moments—Freedom is an endless meeting
There’s a Chinese language room on Clubhouse about concentration camps in Xinjiang in which both Chinese & Uighur millennials and Genx are talking frankly and emotionally. Yes there are trolls & deniers but still, this is the most powerful room on Clubhouse right now.
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They did it because they knew a fundamental condition of China’s instability under Mao was the failure of establishing succession mechanisms. Deng’s moderate success had made many to consider China to be an outlier among authoritarian regimes in solving the succession issues. 2/
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It’s even worse for scholars holding China and India passports
Understandably, focus will be on those planning to physically immigrate *to* the US and who now can’t. But spare a thought for your (likely junior) academic colleagues who already live and work here, but who are on *visas*. Their lives are abt to be even more precarious (1/9)
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My daughter asked what happened in DC and this is the most difficult dinner conversation topic to date.
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Academic problem: Many years ago, I heard from a panel discussion on grant application that one needs to be cautious about putting all your best ideas in your proposal because some reviewer may take your ideas and move fast than you because of their higher status, visibility,1/2
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SSHA attendees, there is a panel on “Crisis and Social Transformation” tomorrow noon (ET) that yours truly has organized, featuring some of my favorite scholars. Check it out if you are interested!
#SSHA
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Agree with everything that Ho-fung Hung said in this post (and in his book China Boom & related writings since). Trust people who can tell you the big, slowmoving & invisible macrosocial processes, not just the short-term changes of social moods.
Alt title: "I have told you so (long ago), now you freaking know"
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@JoeWongComedy
@AndrewYang
Joe, I know u decided to continue ur support because it's good for the country and for humanity. But the way u were treated was not humanity first & reflects the AsAm reality of fobbiphobia as racism diverted. He owes u an apology & it should be a teaching moment for AsAms!
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Thrilled and looking forward to meeting everyone soon!
We are excited that Xiaohong Xu and Yun Zhou will be joining 〽️Sociology as assistant professors this fall. Luciana de Souza Leão will join us as an
@umichLSA
Collegiate Postdoctoral Fellow, after which she will transition into an assistant professor position with us. Welcome!
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Super pumped for this SSHA panel in Chicago to talk about “Karl Polanyi in Shanghai”, when he will have an unlikely encounter with Mao, Arendt, and Weber.
Fri 3:00-4:30: II. Extending Classical Traditions, featuring
@eidlin
@alizaluft
@ewschoon
and
@Xiaohong__Xu
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And it took almost 5 months to come out, when people are no longer paying attention😅
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This whole thread is worth reading. Rational analysis from one of the best medical teams in China.
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@lulusouzaleao
Not by sociologist but Andrew Liu’s comparison of tea industry from 18th to 20th cent. China and India is kinda sociological and provocative
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Will share my view systematically while relating to Burawoy’s talk and papers, whose ideas have had indelible influence on me. It’s the first public talk organized by THiS (Theory, History, Society) scholarly collective.
@zanyfaint
@utopiamatcha
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@ewschoon
@alizaluft
@seattlesquinn
@LauraK_Nelson
@nickhwilson
@yrlsoc
@marieeberry
@victoriadreyes
@isaacariailreed
Steinmetz 2004 and Ermakoff 2014 are great. John Walton’s “making a theoretical case” is also a favorite of mine.
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This was the logo of the legendary University of Michigan program in comparative study of social transformations. Looking through its working papers series makes you marvel at the immense intellectual creativity first spawned here from the late 1980s to the 2000s.
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You understand Hong Kong better when you understand Hannah Arendt. And vice versa.
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Super excited to wrap up this semester with a talk at NYU Abu Dhabi!
My colleague, Elisabeth Anderson, has invited
@Xiaohong__Xu
(University of Michigan) to speak on the Cultural Revolution at the Social Science History Seminar this Tuesday (12/1).
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I identify a distinctive “laobing (original Guard)” policy style of Xi’s administration in its first 2 terms, which bears the imprint of Red Guard politics of the Cultural Revolution. It’s in stark contrast with the technocratic policy style of the Jiang & Hu administrations.2/8
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@yrlsoc
@JoshPacewicz
@nataliebaviles
@geosteinsoc
@BrundageStuart
@SimeonNewman
@ProfYangZhang
@rjemigh
@nickhwilson
@ei_schwartz
It was a fantastic experience being part of this collective intellectual initiative. Really looking forward to seeing the book in print!
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China’s frustrated millennials turn to memes to rail against grim economic prospects | South China Morning Post
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Second, as competing factions recede, the Party bureaucracy will be politically more submissive. This will make it possible for Xi to yield more policymaking autonomy to technocrats. 8/9
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and unmatchable resources. I only realized how traumatizing that thought had been to me very recently when I am secure and confident enough to not feel scared of ideas being expropriated. This fear should never be possible in academia.2/2
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Coronavirus as state of exception. Instead of a public crisis becoming an opportunity to improve the governance, the crisis of governance incompetence is turned into an opportunity to perpetuate the power that’s failing.
Giorgio Agamben on the coronavirus as state of exception. He is talking specifically about Italy and thus offers an important counterpoint to much of the discourse about China.
@ilmanifesto
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Two conditions will change after the 20th Party Congress, leading to the decline of the “original Guard” policy style and the ascendance of the technocratic policy style.6/9
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@PM_Thornton
Indeed. Thanks for pointing it out. Even in 1969, the numerical strength of PLA in the 9th PC did not translate into real political leverage, as Lin Biao knew even before his fallout with Mao.
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@jeffguhin
@epopppp
@lulusouzaleao
@PamOliver1180
@braydenk
@DanFChambliss
@nalanpog
I haven’t read Brint’s book but based on my experience of studying in two countries and teaching in three countries (including places where funding is allegedly generous but academic freedom is truncated), his optimistic conclusion may not be off base.
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@ProfYangZhang
Thanks for the compliment! I take it as a reminder to me to produce better works😁
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Dovetails perfectly with my argument about political ramifications of the Cultural Revolution”. In fact, Le Bon’s insane popularity was one of triggers of my question
Le Bon’s dual utility: "His elitist diagnosis of the crowd fits perfectly into the liberal attempt at delving deep into the roots of the Cultural Revolution and also the Party’s attempt at transitioning from a revolutionary Party to a stable bureaucratic apparatus."
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Due to some personal circumstances, I won’t be able to participate in person at Oxford. I am thankful that Ivan Ermakoff and
@AnneMWolf
have made it possible for me to present and participate remotely.
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Great work and interview. Perhaps one way to describe my book project is I am examining an even more extreme case of the Chinese communist party and looking not at party experts but at historical events and the ideological transformations in & thru them
Stephanie Mudge
@stephaniemudge
is the essential scholar of the neoliberalization of left parties across the Atlantic-and she takes an excellent deep dive with
@DanielDenvir
on
@thedigradio
here
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Technocrats will be able to coordinate across domains to research, recommend, and make policies, just as Mao yielded more policymaking autonomy to Zhou Enlai and the State Council after the 9th Party Congress in 1969. 9/9
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