Xu Jilin on China’s Intellectuals and the Rise of the Private Sphere (Part 2)
"In my view, hope for the future lies not in [China's] public sphere, but primarily in its private sphere. A friend once said, 'Have grand ideals, but do small things'."
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Today’s edition opens with an introduction by David Ownby, founder of the wonderful Reading the China Dream blog and recently retired professor of history at the Université de Montréal. Few scholars in the English-speaking world have studied and engaged with Xu Jilin’s work as closely as David. He has very kindly agreed to introduce the second part of this particularly insightful and thought-provoking interview with Xu. Part one, which explores sexuality, boredom and political apathy among China’s youth, can be found here.— Thomas
Xu Jilin (b. 1957) is a prominent historian and public intellectual, a professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai. The discovery of his writings and his voice changed the course of my professional career, leading to a prolonged engagement with contemporary Chinese intellectual life that I have shared with the world via the Reading the China Dream website.
When I first discovered Xu in the mid-2010s, he had just finished a phase of his career where he sharply criticised intellectual justifications for Chinese exceptionalism (the “China model”, etc.) that circulated widely in China, pointing to similarities with pre-war Germany and Japan. It was impolitic to say “this way lies fascism”, but that was his message in a nutshell.
In the interview translated here (which was taken down shortly after it was posted), Xu reflects on his own life as an intellectual, on the rise and fall of the public sphere, on the many effects of social media on Chinese culture and thought, and on the rise of a vibrant private sphere that offers “warmth” to the Chinese people despite the “chill waves sweeping through steep skies” (Xu here uses a poem by Mao Zedong to obliquely criticise the current regime).
Looking back from 2025, Xu notes that the public sphere that had opened up in China beginning in the 1980s was already starting to close down around 2010, and it is true that his writings from 2015 on are somewhat less fervently engaged in current politics and intellectual debates. Now he says he feels “unemployed”, because with the closure of the public sphere, there are fewer ideas with which to engage. In addition to the political pressures on the public sphere, social media has fractured public opinion and public attention in many of the same ways that it has everywhere. Online influencers have replaced intellectuals as opinion leaders because of their charisma and their turn of phrase, not because they can put together a convincing argument. The logic of China’s thought world is thus driven by the commercial pursuit of volume (number of clicks, amount of traffic) and not by the intellectual pursuit of truth and beauty.
In some ways, we might view this as Xu’s swan song, but Xu will continue to write and think, because that is what he does. This interview is full of his reflections on the complexity of China’s media-driven culture, on the relationship between entrepreneurs and ideas, on young people and how they engage in the world, and on the pleasures of life in the many and varied “molecular communities” that have sprung up as China’s public sphere has dissipated. Xu finds hope here, believing that the vibrancy of Chinese culture and ideas will survive and indeed thrive despite the “chill waves” of the past decade.
David Ownby
Key Points
The rise and fragmentation of online media in China has led to an increasingly stratified society, where people from the same generation inhabit different physical, informational and even ideological realities.
Nowhere is this divide more obvious than between China’s urban and rural populations.
Although China has a wealth of “intellectuals", it lacks “true intellectuals”—those who think independently, resist conformity and are willing to express their own judgments publicly.
From around 1980 to 2010, China had a thriving “public sphere” where major social and political issues were debated openly.
This space has since disappeared due to “external factors” and widening divisions among opposing groups of intellectuals.
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Studying intellectual trends in China has therefore become increasingly challenging, as most meaningful discussions now take place in small private circles.
Yet, it is precisely the recent flourishing of this private sphere—manifested in group chats, independent bookshops, “academic bars” and so on—that warrants our attention, for it is there that hope for China’s future lies.
• Xu: “This is not something that foreign scholars understand: they see only the ‘Chill waves sweep[ing] through steep skies’ [in China], but do not understand the flip side: the ‘earth's gentle breath grows warm’.”
Although intellectuals still play an important role in contemporary China, their influence in the public sphere has waned, overshadowed by online opinion leaders who prioritise generating traffic over meaningful, reasoned debate.
The Author
Name: Xu Jilin (许纪霖)
Year of birth: March 1957 (age: 67-68)
Positions: Professor and Zijiang Scholar, East China Normal University (ECNU); Deputy Director of the Institute of Modern Chinese Thought and Culture (under the Ministry of Education), ECNU
Research Focus: China’s modern and contemporary intellectual history; 20th and 21st century Chinese culture
Education: BA East China Normal University (1978-1982)
Other: Owing to the Cultural Revolution, the university entrance exam was still suspended when Xu graduated from high school in 1975. As a result, he was sent to work in the countryside as part of the “Down to the Countryside” movement. He began his bachelor's degree in 1978 after the exam was reinstated.
Experience abroad: Australian National University (2000); National University of Singapore (2000); Harvard University (2001-2); University of British Columbia (2004); University of Tokyo (2005); Taiwan’s Academia Sinica (2008); France’s École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (2009); and Japan’s Aichi University (2010).
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH XU JILIN: THE GENERATION BORN IN THE 1990S AND 2000s NO LONGER BELIEVES IN ANY GRAND NARRATIVES (EXCERPTS)
Xu Jilin (许纪霖)
Interviewers: Pan Hongliang (潘洪亮), Wang Huanchao (王焕超) and Zhu Kailin (朱凯麟)
Published by Tencent Research Institute on 22 January 2025
Translated by by Paddy Stephens
(Illustration by OpenAI’s DALL·E 3)
N.B. The following excerpts have been rearranged for clarity and brevity. Readers are encouraged to read the original article in full.
6. Living in Different Worlds
Interviewer: “I noticed that in your book, when discussing intellectuals, you distinguished between city intellectuals [城市知识分子] and those in towns or small towns [小镇知识分子或城镇知识分子]. When discussing the trends [we observe] among different groups of young people, should we also analyse the differences in the mentality and behaviour [心态和表现上的区别] of young people in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai, as opposed to those in third- and fourth-tier cities, or even fifth-tier towns?”
Xu Jilin: “I would say that the emergence of new kinds of media has made the world more stratified [变得分层化]. In other words, members of a same generation now live in different worlds. I mean this not only in terms of their real or physical worlds [现实的世界、物理的世界], but also in terms of their ideas and understanding of the world [观念的世界、认知的世界]. For example, in the past, information was released by mainstream media, which disseminated various kinds of information and ideas to secondary media. As long as you controlled the mainstream media, you controlled everything. But today, especially with the advent of self-media [自媒体; e.g. microblogging and podcasting] and social media, such authority is now decentralised [没有中心了]. These new media form public opinion, creating internet sensations or the latest hot topics. Mainstream media really struggles to grasp how these phenomena emerge. The result is enormous variation in the information that people have, as well as the worlds they encounter and interact with.”
“This variation stems partly from the physical world people live in, namely cities—such as first-tier cities, new first-tier cities, second- and third-tier cities, as well as small towns and even lower-tier rural areas. You can see that today, several influential social media platforms are clearly stratified in this way [层次划分]. For example, RedNote [小红书] is primarily concentrated in first-tier and new first-tier cities, as are [WeChat] Channels. Douyin [抖音; i.e. the Chinese version of TikTok] may be more popular in second- and third-tier cities, while young people in small towns are more likely to use Kuaishou [快手]. These four platforms (RedNote, [WeChat] Channels, Douyin and Kuaishou) each constitute separate worlds.”
“Therefore, we can see that the rural-urban divide is not just a physical one; there is an increasingly stark divide [越来越悬殊] between the worlds of information and ideas [that they encounter], creating a kind of barrier [隔膜] between them. We no longer experience a common world [面对一个共同的世界]: each person inhabits their own world. With the rise of social media and other digital media, we are becoming increasingly disconnected from any shared [reality]. As a result, it is becoming increasingly apparent that people are struggling to understand each other [鸡同鸭讲].”
Interviewer: “In fact, social isolation [人情的隔离] [probably] affects how companies position themselves in the [Chinese] market.”
Xu Jilin: “Yes. Businesses cannot cater for everyone; they have to position themselves [in the market]. Today, there is horizontal stratification, as well as different vertical systems which feel very distinct [有相当的隔膜感]. So, we are restricted simultaneously by both these vertical and horizontal systems. Ultimately, we are living in small compartmentalised spaces [生活在一个小小的格子里面].”
7. Disappearance of the "True Chinese Intellectual"
Interviewer: “Speaking of ‘solitary free-thinkers’ [精神孤独者, which Xu describes as people with the ability to make independent judgements (独立判断能力), who have a distinctive voice (声音是独特的) and who can endure the loneliness that comes with that], do you believe that intellectuals still exist [in China] under today's conditions?”
Xu Jilin: “In my view, there are still many intellectuals [in China] today, but it depends on what we mean by 'intellectuals'. If we understand it in the sense in which I used it earlier, an intellectual must be someone who thinks independently and is not eager to conform [不是急于归队的]. Such people are becoming increasingly rare.”
“In the past, people were constrained by various ideologies; [China’s] organic intellectuals to use Gramsci’s terminology, were caught in ideological battles and forced to pick a side. This same issue exists today: amidst the cacophony of conflicting voices, you must make such a choice. But in my view, a true intellectual does not pick sides. They hold on to their own convictions. If they choose a specific stance, they do so like Han Kang, the South Korean author who won the Nobel Prize in Literature this year [2024]. She has chosen the most fundamental form of humanitarianism [最基本的人道主义]: feeling the suffering of ordinary people and respecting the dignity of human life. This is her choice. But [as a true intellectual] she will not engage in simplistic classifications or partisan judgments. In the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, [this means avoiding questions like] are you standing with Russia or with Ukraine. Because above Russia and Ukraine, there is a higher value, that of the greater good of humanity [更高的全人类利益] or the value of individual life.”
8. The Rise and Fall of China’s “Public Sphere”
Interviewer: “Do you believe there are still public intellectuals [in China] today?”
Xu Jilin: “[China] no longer has any real public sphere [公共领域]. It did exist in the last 20 years; [no, sorry,] for almost 30 years from the 1980s to the early 21st century, China had a public sphere. What characterises the public sphere, according to Habermas, is that significant social and political issues can be openly discussed within it. For example, in the 1990s, there was a four-year-long debate between liberals and the New Left. Almost all major issues in China were up for debate [摆上台面来讨论]. But now, the public sphere has disappeared. There is nothing left of the conditions that allowed it to exist [其所赖以存在的外部条件已经荡然无存]. Many different voices have now moved into the private sphere [私人领域]—[a term] I have shortened to ‘siyu’ [私域]. Today, the public sphere is in decline [衰落], while the private sphere is thriving [繁荣]. You can see various examples of the private sphere in society, such as interest clubs, reading groups, independent bookshops, academic bars [学术酒吧], group chats, and so on.”
“The defining characteristics of the private and public spheres are that the private sphere is closed off in some way [有某种封闭性], while the public sphere is open [开放]. The private domain is becoming increasingly vibrant [活跃], but it is certainly not the [same as the] public domain, and it rarely produces texts [that enter the public sphere] [有公共文本的产生]. As a result, I [often jokingly] say that I am now unemployed. I have followed intellectual trends in contemporary China for a long time and, in the past, the public sphere had enough texts for research. But nowadays [it does not]. [Indeed,] I cannot take a comment written by a friend in a group chat as research material. That is content from the private sphere, which is not meant to be shared with a broader audience.”
“The public sphere that Habermas referred to emerged [in China] after the reform and opening of the 1980s. First, there was the ideological liberation movement [思想解放运动], followed by [a period of] intense cultural activity [文化热], which we also refer to as the ‘second Enlightenment Movement’ [第二次启蒙运动]—[the first being] the May Fourth Movement [in 1919]. This led to the creation of a very lively [活跃] public sphere, where significant social and political issues were discussed. It remained that way until around 2010. It started in newspapers and magazines, followed later by the internet and BBS [i.e. internet forums]. The public sphere created and shaped public opinion, with public intellectuals its most active participants.”
“During that period, there was such a thing as public life [公共的生活], particularly when it came to civic engagement and the polis [城邦有关的公共生活]. In comparison, however, for intellectuals the private sphere [私人生活] was somewhat lacking [缺席] and underdeveloped. Within the [Chinese] market, entrepreneurs were busy making money; brimming with confidence in China's future, they had no time to engage in public issues. They were more focused on reaping the benefits of that era [获取时代的红利], so there was a sense of distance [存在隔膜] between entrepreneurs and intellectuals. But around the 2010s, things began to change, and the public sphere started to decline. Due to both external and internal factors, such as changes in the overall public opinion environment [整个舆论环境] and internal divisions among intellectuals [知识分子内部的分裂,分化], the public sphere has completely disappeared [荡然无存]. We no longer see the kinds of vibrant public discussions of major issues that we saw between the 1980s and 2010.”
9. The Flourishing of China’s “Private Sphere”
Xu Jilin: “What we see now is the increased vibrancy [活跃] of the private sphere. How should we understand this? There is a very interesting passage in Mao Zedong's poem [Winter Clouds]: ‘Chill waves sweep through steep skies, yet earth's gentle breath grows warm [高天滚滚寒流急，大地微微暖气吹]’.
“Institutions [in China] impose various kinds of restrictions. For example, within universities many people feel trapped within the system [困在系统当中‘被卷’] and unable to express themselves fully [无法舒展自己]. However, outside the system, within [Chinese] society, they are very active [活跃]. This is [what is known in English as] society, or more precisely, civil society, which did not really exist in the 1980s and 1990s. After 30 years of gradual development [积累], such a civil society has emerged.”
“Many entrepreneurs have felt lost [迷茫] in recent years. Their enthusiasm for investment in various areas has waned, and they are uncertain about the future. On the other hand, they now have more leisure time and money. Some are more willing to engage with scholars whose analysis and wisdom they hope will help them grasp the major trends of the future. The business community now has a much closer relationship with academia than before. This is a new development in recent years, particularly in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and some emerging first-tier cities.”
“On the other hand, the private sphere is developing extremely quickly. There are various types of private groups: peer advisory groups [私董会], interest clubs, reading groups, independent bookstores etc. There are many of them, and they are very active [活跃]. They have formed what I call ‘molecular communities’ [分子化的社群]. [Social anthropologist] Biao Xiang [项飙] often talks about ‘communities’ [社群] which, in urban areas, present themselves as ‘molecular communities’. We used to say that, with modernisation, we would gradually become atomised, lonely individuals, but that is just one part of the story. After all, most people in China still want to belong to some kind of group. Apart from the traditional ties of family or geographic proximity, many voluntary groups have emerged in first-tier cities in recent years, based on shared interests, knowledge and hobbies.”
“These communities are different from traditional communities based on family ties and geography. The latter are natural, innate [先天] and difficult to leave [很难‘退群’]. In contrast, you can enter and exit ‘resource-oriented’ [资源型] communities freely. Thus, it is possible to leave them. They are also relatively cohesive [相当高的黏合度], which is why I refer to them as ‘molecular communities’.”
“It is difficult for an individual to resist the ‘chill waves’ [referenced in Chairman Mao’s aforementioned poem] but as long as you join a private group [私域] or form one with a few others, you can huddle together for warmth [抱团取暖] and motivate each other, feeling that you are not alone in your path [觉得吾道不孤]. In today's Chinese society, these kinds of ‘molecular communities’ are everywhere. Yet they are independent of one another, with little to no connection between different groups. Internally, they are tight-knit [紧密], providing mutual warmth [互相取暖]; externally, they are quite isolated—fragmented even. They have a particularly strong sense of internal cohesion and unity, with, in some cases at least, a degree of intimacy [亲密感] akin to a religious community [团契般].”
“From my own experience, [I would say that] the increased vibrancy of the private sphere [私域] is a new phenomenon [新状况] that has emerged only in the past decade or so. It is not something that foreign scholars understand: they see only the ‘Chill waves sweep[ing] through steep skies’, but do not understand the flip side: the ‘earth's gentle breath grows warm’.”
“The rise of private groups [私域的活跃] is also linked to what I have said about the post-polis era in ancient Greece’s later period. In the polis era, the polis was [firmly] at the centre: people were [first and foremost] citizens, forming the public sphere. However, in the post-polis era, they [increasingly] developed into independent individuals [形成了一个个的独立自我], who then came together in the private sphere to form ‘molecular communities’. These communities were detached from the polis, thus giving rise to this situation, which is a unique feature of the post-polis era [Note: see Part One of this interview].
“I have observed this significant change taking place during the pandemic. In my view, hope for the future lies not in [China’s] public sphere, but primarily in its private sphere. A friend once said, ‘Have grand ideals, but do small things’ [有大理想，但做小事]. Looking at how things stand today, these specific, practical, small things mostly exist within private groups.”
10. Intellectuals Out, Influencers In
Interviewer: “You study both intellectuals and contemporary youth culture. In your observation and analysis of these two groups, do you see any structural parallels [同构的地方] between them?”
Xu Jilin: “No, they are structurally very different. Intellectuals are a modern phenomenon; they may have always existed, but their central role is a post-19th century development. In that era, intellectuals had discourse power [话语权; i.e. influence]. In the 21st century, although intellectuals are still important [in China], discourse power has already shifted to online influencers and opinion leaders. They are not intellectuals, but they do publicly express opinions in a manner that mimics intellectuals.”
Interviewer: “Against this backdrop, I am very curious about your research. You have been studying contemporary young people in recent years; how do you conduct your research?”
Xu Jilin: “There are still some textual sources available for studying young people. Another rapidly growing area looks at the cultural public sphere [文化公共领域], rather than the political. You can see how lively this field is [多么热闹]—new topics are constantly emerging [for us to research]. This field has risen in prominence, but it differs from past [research on the public sphere] in one crucial respect: influencers have taken over the core role once held by intellectuals.
“The intellectual-led public sphere no longer exists. I previously referred to the public intellectual sphere [公共思想界] [from the 1980s to 2010], where intellectuals engaged in public discussions. Some well-known figures emerged from this sphere, whether from the liberal camp, the New Left, or the New Confucians. But nowadays, do these figures still have any influence on the public? They do not.”
“Influencers are now the most prominent players. They primarily discuss non-political topics relating to culture, entertainment and, of course, topics relating to their own and other people’s personal lives [人生话题]. Their logic is fundamentally different from that of intellectuals—they operate according to the logic of online influencers. So what logic governs influencers and capital? Influencers are inevitably governed by online traffic and engagement metrics. I have observed an interesting phenomenon: in the past, annual forums used to invite intellectuals, but now they invite influencers instead. Why? Even if I personally view a particular influencer as being [in intellectual terms] below an academic, they generate a lot of traffic [有流量], and can therefore help increase the forum’s own reach [扩展论坛本身的流量] as well.”
“Ultimately, the world of influencers [网红界] is driven entirely by commercial logic. This is fundamentally different from how intellectuals operated in the past. Previously, discussions were about who presented the best argument or most reasonable ideas, but that is no longer the case today. There are still intellectuals, but they have disappeared from the public sphere [去公共化]. They have been pushed out of the public space, not by any specific individual or ideology, but by the commercial logic of [maximising] online traffic [流量] that now dominates [our media landscape] today.”
Interviewer: “Do you yourself also experience this kind of online traffic-related anxiety? After all, you also make videos and express yourself publicly.”
Xu Jilin: “Of course I do. Over the past two years, I have been talking about ‘dimensionality reduction’ [降维], which means making a sort of compromise [和解] with the era in which we live. You have to accept partially the logic of maximising online traffic [以流量为核心] to reach a larger audience [把你的声音更大程度地释放出去]. I have experimented with this myself, moving from mid-length videos to short videos. This is the age of video, not the age of the written word.”
“After two years of experimentation, I now understand the logic [of how it works]. The key is not what view you express, but whether you express it well, cleverly and whether or not it can grab viewers’ attention [有没有爆点]. Your argumentation and reasoning [论证理由] are not important. The second point is not to strive for depth [追求深度] [of views]: the shallower and cleverer, the better. Intellectuals are not particularly good at any of this [这都不是知识分子的长项]; modern self-media creators understand all of this [much] better than we do.”