The Chinese Academic Legacy of Historical Political Science

Historical political science, in its exploration of the frontiers of current Chinese political science, needs to pay tribute to similar intellectual contributions in modern Chinese academic tradition, and draw nourishment from its tortuous gains and losses. Liang Qichao was one of the pioneers of modern Chinese political science, and his introduction to Western studies with the aspiration of Enlightenment laid the modern foundation of this discipline. The maturity of his experience as a modern state-builder gave birth to Liang’s enlightenment reflection in his middle and later years. Liang’s conscious promotion of the inherent historical and civilized dimensions of political science constitutes one of the modern sources of historical political science. Qian Mu speaks highly of Liang’s “epiphany in his later years”, where he proposes more systematically a series of academic concepts and topics of comparative political significance according to the Chinese historical tradition. This created a modern political science tradition based on the awareness of Chinese civilization. It is necessary to establish an effective connection between political practice and historical tradition to develop historical political science in the context of the modern republic, toward achieving a more creative and meaningful second voyage.