ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the complex relationship between politics and the seemingly 'depoliticised' civilising projects in post-Mao China. It provides a concept pan-politicisation to capture the characteristic and process of the government's involvement in shaping and formulating dominant civilising discourses such as wenming, suzhi, hexie and zhongguo meng in post-Mao China. The chapter also examines the pattern of the development of a pan-politicisation project and the government's role in different stages of development. It argues that throughout the process of pan-politicisation, the relationship between the Party line and academic discourse breaks away from the Maoist predominant top-down relation, towards a mix of top-down and bottom-up relations. The chapter also argues that the more covert thought unification process represents a millennium-old canal complex of governance. It investigates the complex process of pan-politicisation that involves participation from the populace and dialogue between intellectuals and government officials.
