Pragmatic and Free of Ideology: Chinese American Conservatism and Translation of Political Thought Across Cultures

Conservative Chinese Americans are exerting growing significance in U.S. politics, yet traditional wisdom of "liberal racial minorities" struggles to explain why. In the meantime, a dramatic radicalization can be observed within this group over the past decade. By analyzing the writings of Chinese American conservatives born in the early 1960s, I argue that pragmatism, in private as well as public sphere, explains both phenomena. These conservatives' pragmatism traces its roots back to Chinese political discourses in the 1980s, which they transplant to the U.S. context upon immigration. More broadly, it reflects the prevalence of a transnational neoliberal regime.