Hong XuGraduate Student
I am a Ph.D. candidate in History at Emory University. Before coming to Emory, I was an international affairs journalist at China Central Television and an independent scholar in Beijing. My research examines the intellectual, religious, and transnational dimensions of China’s modernization, with particular interests in Chinese-Western encounters, the history of freedom, and the history of political thought.
I am completing my dissertation, “Liberalizing the Chinese Empire: Christian Reformers and Late Qing Modernization.” Drawing on a wide array of untapped Chinese and Western sources, including diaries, letters, and periodicals, the project recovers an alternative vision of China’s modernization. While mainstream narratives focus on secular, state-centric efforts, my work examines how the late Qing Christian intellectuals Shen Yugui, Young John Allen, and Gong Xinming fused a Western Christian idea of knowledge with an unofficial strand of Chinese Confucianism. This fusion aimed to strengthen the Chinese people and their creativity across political, economic, and cultural arenas. It diverged from the approach of conventional reformers, who sought to strengthen the imperial state and its official Confucianism by assimilating Western secular techniques.
Several publications have emerged from my current and earlier research. My first book, China’s Quest for Liberty: A Personal History of Freedom (St. Augustine’s Press, 2019), explores why individual liberty under the rule of law was first institutionalized in the West and how it might be established in China. My preliminary study of Allen and Gong appeared as an article in the Summer 2022 issue of The Kosmos, an independent Chinese journal of history and ideas. The Fall 2024 issue of Pietas: A Journal of Tradition, Place, and Things Divine featured an article about my engagement with the American political philosopher Ellis Sandoz and his scholarship on the Western history of liberty.
Education
- C.R.U. Communication University of China
Research Interests
Modern China
Chinese-Western Encounters
History of Freedom
Intellectual History
Religious History
Dissertation
"Liberalizing the Chinese Empire: Christian Reformers and Late Qing Modernization"
