Xu Youyu

Xu Youyu (, born 1947 in Chengdu) is a Chinese scholar in philosophy, a public intellectual, and a proponent of Chinese liberalism.

Biography Xu was a teenage Red Guard at the time of the Cultural Revolution. He was a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences at the time of the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, and he tried in vain to persuade students to leave Tiananmen Square before the army suppression, as they refused to believe the soldiers would open fire on peaceful student protesters. Investigated after the protests as a student sympathiser, he refused to admit guilt. His career suffered as he was demoted as director of his research centre and remained so until his retirement, having been denied research funding and unable to supervise postgraduate student projects.

Xu is an expert on Western social theories, including Marxism and the Frankfurt School, and a noted historian of the Cultural Revolution. He is one of the signatories of the Charter 08, a manifesto to promote political reform and democratization in China.