Questioning the Chinese Model

In the early twenty-first century, the Chinese literary world saw an emergence of fictional works – dubbed as "oppositional political novels" – that took political articulation as their major purpose and questioned the fundamental principles and intrinsic logic of the Chinese model. Based on close readings of five representative oppositional Chinese political novels, Questioning the Chinese Model examines the sociopolitical connotations and epistemological values of these novels in the broad context of modern Chinese intellectual history and contemporary Chinese politics and society.

Zhansui Yu provides a sketch of the social, political, and intellectual landscape of present-day China. He investigates the dialectic relationship between the arts and politics in the Chinese context, the mechanisms and dynamics of censorship in the age of the Internet and commercialization, and the ideological limitations of oppositional Chinese political novels. In the process of textual and social analysis, Yu extensively cites Western political philosophers, such as Hannah Arendt, Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, and references well-regarded studies on Chinese literature, politics, society, and the Chinese intelligentsia. Examining oppositional Chinese political novels from multiple perspectives, Questioning the Chinese Model applies a broad range of knowledge beyond merely the literary field.

Questioning the Chinese Model sheds light on oppositional political novels produced in early twenty-first century China.

• Imprint: University of Toronto Press
• Published: February 2023
• Pages: 266

• epub: 9781487544362
• pdf: 9781487544379
• hardcover: 9781487544348

Zhansui Yu is an associate professor of Chinese in the World Languages and Cultures Department at Nazareth College

"Questioning the Chinese Model analyzes influential and provocative novels from early twenty-first century China that strip the political meaning of that nation’s developmental model down to its core. The art and ingenuity on display in these works is proof that the traditional mission of the Chinese intellectual to remonstrate with sovereign power lives on, undiminished and unafraid.​"

Jeffrey C. Kinkley, Courtesy Professor of History and of World Languages and Literatures, Portland State University

"Questioning the Chinese Model is a very absorbing and thought-provoking account of Chinese ‘oppositional political novels’ in the early twenty-first century. Zhansui Yu has succeeded in demonstrating how powerful storytelling can impact the sociopolitical discourse and the dynamics of the contemporary Chinese intellectual realm. Insightfully written, the book proves that fiction can act as a potent spear penetrating the darkness."

Liu Jianmei, Professor of Chinese Literature, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

"Building on previous studies of Chinese political fiction, this well-written and well-researched book offers a detailed and insightful study of five ‘oppositional political novels’ published from 2004 to 2012. The author shows how these very popular works of fiction employ many literary devices to undermine the official Party line and present a devastating factual critique of the so-called ‘Chinese model.’ Anyone who wants to understand what the Chinese life feels like for the vast majority of Chinese people should read Questioning the Chinese Model."

Michael S. Duke, Emeritus Professor of Chinese Literature, University of British Columbia