Time: September 12th, 2014
Lecturer: Professor LI Fan
Host: Professor ZHANG Shuguang
Commentators:JIA Xijin, HU Xingdou, ZHANG Lifan, XU Xin, GAN De’an

After defining the civil society, Professor LI Fan pointed out that there were there ways to form a civil society, namely, the European way, the American Way, and the post-colonial way. He briefly introduced the three ways. In retrospect, Professor LI thought China took the European way to form a civil society.

Professor LI thought there were two reasons why China formed a civil society. Firstly, the economic development enabled the emerging and expansion of China’s self-governing society. Secondly, as the emergence of the awareness of civic rights, more conflicts between citizens and the public powers came into being. And non-governmental organizations, with the help of Internet, sprung up with the middle and lower class of the society getting more and more radical. Professor LI also proposed that there were two stages of the development of civil society in China. The first stage was when the society asked the government for room to develop; and the second state was when the society denied the government when conflicts became more and more frequent.

Professor LI also reviewed the relation between state and society in the context of civil society on the basis of the status quo, and analyzed the challenges posed for China’s politics by civil society.