"“Confucius said: ‘Benevolence is the characteristic element of humanity.’ ‘The benevolent man loves others.’ Who did he love? All men? Nothing of the kind. Did he love the exploiters? It wasn’t exactly that, either. He loved only a part of the exploiters.” (Mao, 1964, Talk on questions of philosophy) “The power of role models is infinite. You should take them as examples in pursuing virtues. Confucius said, ‘When we see men of virtue, we should think of equaling them.’” (Xi, 2014, Foster and practice core socialist values from childhood) Why is the People’s Republic of China ideologically different from the West? To what extent have the recent political developments, including the Hong Kong social unrest, Xi’s third term, and the “Zero Covid Policy” shaped post-pandemic China? Is a democratic future still imaginable? In this course, we aim to answer these questions within broader historical and theoretical contexts, focusing on PRC’s political debates that have profoundly shaped the country’s socio-political transitions from the Maoist era to Xi’s rise to power. We will read the philosophical texts concerning the ideology, legitimacy, and ruling principles of the Communist Party, as well as political-economic analyses of the current system. In particular, we try to understand the regime’s ruptures, contradictions, and unsolved dilemmas. Meanwhile, an investigation of Chinese politics will shed new light on our understanding of questions that equally challenge the West, not least party politics, representativeness, revolutionary movements, etc. In this sense, China is both a subject and a method for the inquiries of this course. "