Negotiating Liberal Values Under Colonialism: Lao Sze-kwang, Hong Kong and “Free China”

Abstract

This essay introduces texts written in the 1950s and 1960s that left behind conceptual traces of the pressing questions that were raised for various authors from their experiences of exile under colonialism in Hong Kong. The primary focus was a comprehensive investigation into China’s recent history and the working out of broader theoretical frameworks inspired by contemporary thinkers (mostly from Europe and the United States). The critical appropriation of “liberal values” became an important starting point in the theoretical writings of Lao Sze-kwang (勞思光 1927–2012). Intertwining the historical contexts of migration, exile, and Cold War colonialism with the development of Lao’s thought will reveal his explicit concern with establishing open value systems. Exile in the form of a specific colonial “liberal environment” provided him with a space where he could reappropriate and communicate ideas related to the Confucian tradition, as well as critically comment on the contemporary liberalism of F. A. Hayek (1899–1992).