It's important for Westerners to realize that the Chinese never had a Locke, or a Rousseau, or a Hobbes. The foundational political philosophy taken for granted

It's important for Westerners to realize that the Chinese never had a Locke, or a Rousseau, or a Hobbes. The foundational political philosophy taken for granted in the West has no parallel in China. Their political philosophy is grounded in a very different hierarchy of values. I was quite young around the time of Tienanmen Square, but I seem to recall a Statue of Liberty and a lot of talk about democracy, before the protests were crushed. I wonder how Locke, or a Rousseau, or a Hobbes would have fared in the face of the equivalent state suppression.