ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Chinese intellectual search for a civic and territorial notion of national identity. Today's Chinese intellectuals continue this tradition by inventing a pan-Chinese identity, as is well demonstrated by the case of the 'Zeng Guofan phenomenon'. More specifically, China in the 1980s and 1990s was caught up in two major sociopolitical processes: accelerated modernization and the abrupt ending of the Cold War. In the official Chinese Communist Party (CCP) historiography, Zeng stands condemned as a 'traitor to the Han', a 'traitor to his country', and a 'cold-blooded killer'. The debate on Zeng Guofan versus Hong Xiuquan involves a clash of two remarkably different paradigms, namely evolution versus revolution. At the cultural level, the debate on Zeng Guofan is primarily about Confucianism - the culture of the intellectual elite and of the general populace - and traditional Chinese values, or in short Chineseness.
