Chinese society and social theory

Despite its pragmatic and positivistic outlook, Chinese sociology has produced impressive theoretical accounts of Chinese society. In this entry, the works of four major Chinese social theorists are discussed. Fei Xiaotong offered a functional analysis of China’s rural economy and social change, and he conceptualized the differential mode of association of rural people in the traditional Chinese social order. Yang Ching-Kun delineated the impacts of modernization and of the communist revolution on the Chinese family and village and captured the diffused rather than institutionalized character of Chinese religion. Sun Liping analyzed how market reform gave rise to a fractured Chinese society under the power and institutional settings of communist civilization. Wang Mingming articulated the tianxia worldview and highlighted the rich fabric of intercultural exchange in the history of Chinese civilization. Despite their differences, Chinese social theorists share certain characteristics with regard to subject matter, intellectual formation, conceptual strategy and level of analysis.