Remembering Peter R. Moody, Jr. by Letian Lei

My acquaintance with Professor Peter R. Moody, Jr. (1943-2026) began when I submitted a draft of my modest work on contemporary Chinese conservatism for his review. I was not only seeking the counsel of an American scholar profoundly versed in Chinese political thought but also paying homage to his pioneering research on the subject. Since that time, despite the Atlantic Ocean separating us, we maintained a frequent correspondence. Our discussions were exhaustive, ranging from the universal convergence of Western traditions and Chinese classics to the impact of the current Trump administration on American higher education, and from the Brezhnevian “era of stagnation” to the shifting tides of Chinese politics under Xi.

Moody’s focus was not limited to Chinese politics; he was also a dedicated student of Chinese culture. Whether discussing Han Feizi or the “Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius” campaign, he spoke with effortless command; his intellectual reach extended across the breadth of the Confucian classics, history, philosophy, and literature. The line of Li Bai he often quoted as his personal motto – “Such is the pleasure of life in the world, as all things since antiquity have flowed away like the eastward-running water” – left an indelible impression on me.

This “Renaissance man” quality which is a rarity among American political scientists specializing in China was perhaps a heritage from his distinguished family. His father, Peter R. Moody, Sr., was a man of both action and intellect: after serving with distinction in the military during World War II, he traded his uniform for academia, earning a PhD in English from Cambridge and serving as a professor at the United States Air Force Academy.

Peter R. Moody, Jr. was born in San Francisco the year before his father deployed to the front. Whether his interest in China was sparked by childhood encounters with local Chinese communities or by the shared spirit of resistance against fascism during the war remains a mystery. When I asked if he had ever given interviews or written a memoir, Moody simply replied with characteristic understatement: he believed he might have contributed a few worthwhile academic insights, but he considered his own life’s journey unremarkable and not worth recording.

Indeed, the life of the younger Moody lacked the grand, turbulent scale of the elder’s. He attended the U.S. Air Force Academy High School, received his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt, and later earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from Yale. Shortly after graduation, he began his teaching career at Notre Dame, serving as assistant professor, associate professor, and professor until his retirement. Having lived in South Bend, Indiana, for over half a century, it is there that he will now rest in peace. Moody spent his life within the ivory tower, with little engagement in the media. Yet from his quiet existence in this Midwestern university town, he poured his lifelong care and intellectual fervor into the ebb and flow of events on the other side of the Pacific – into the shifting winds and clouds of a land thousands of miles away.

Moody was an outlier among Western sinologists of his generation, having been spared the trajectory from fervor to disillusionment with Maoism. Much like the idealistic Chinese youth of the 1930s and 1940s who looked toward the “clear skies” of the Yan’an “liberated zones,” many young Western leftists – who would later become prominent sinologists – traveled to Beijing during the Cultural Revolution, the “center of world revolution,” to witness this imagined utopia firsthand. The young Moody chose to pursue advanced studies in Taipei, likely unfettered by such romanticism and possessing the sobriety to weigh the lesser of two evils between “feudal fascism” and authoritarian capitalism.

In 1971, Moody defended his doctoral dissertation. His advisor was David N. Rowe, a sinologist then known for his “anti-communist” and “conservative” stance. Moody’s dissertation was concerned solely with the pragmatic games of interest groups. He argued that the failure of the Chinese Communist Party to achieve institutionalization between 1956 and 1969 stemmed from the fact that those political factions attempting to establish rules were unable to outlast those who secured power by breaking them.[1] This work served as the foundation for his subsequent publications, including Opposition and Dissent in Contemporary China (1977)[2] and Chinese Politics after Mao: Development and Liberalization (1983).[3]

With the passing of the strongman era, political democratization began to emerge on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The political reforms in mainland China and the lifting of martial law in Taiwan during the mid-to-late 1980s were particularly striking. Moody’s focus shifted toward democratic transition, an intellectual interest reflected in his works Political Opposition in Post-Confucian Society (1988),[4] Political Change on Taiwan: A Study of Ruling Party Adaptability (1992),[5] and Tradition and Modernization in China and Japan (1995).[6]

Moody’s approach to studying the politics of China and East Asia generally adhered to the “modernization theory” paradigm. He maintained a view of gradual evolution, positing that change is typically the result of the interplay and compromise between tradition and modernity, and between government and opposition. Consequently, throughout the waves of democratization that swept across Eurasia, Moody remained steadfastly concerned with the legacy of “Confucian society,” the adaptive resilience of the “ruling party,” and the interaction between “tradition” and modernity. In contrast, the “revolutionary” paradigm – which once captivated North American academia – tended to interpret social history as a process of rupture, holding a deep-seated skepticism toward existing order.[7]

Viewed through the revolutionary lens, the transformation from a “semi-colonial, semi-feudal society” to democratic capitalism seemed achievable in a single stroke, while the key to “leaping into communism” lay solely in “the audacity of one’s conviction.” Prior to 1949, “revolutionary” sinologists largely viewed the revolution with sympathetic understanding, particularly regarding China’s liberal intellectuals; after 1949, however, they discovered that the reality of the post-revolutionary society did not align with their pre-revolutionary ideals. Those who insisted on the normative position of revolution found themselves calling for the next revolution – much like the writings of Arif Dirlik[8] – while others turned to acknowledge the explanatory power of modernization theory, as seen in John King Fairbank’s final work, China: A New History (1992).[9]

While the modernization and revolutionary paradigms differ in their paths – reform versus revolution, realism versus utopianism, elitism versus populism – both subscribe to historical progressivism. Both share the belief that China and its people should not, and will not, be absent from the common human enterprise of Enlightenment and liberation: from scarcity to abundance, from tyranny to democracy, from dependency to independence, from brutality to humanity, and from superstition to secularism. Moody remained, to the end, a guardian of common sense and reason.

Moody’s final monograph, Conservative Thought in Contemporary China (2007),[10] stands as the magnum opus of his scholarly career. His earlier works had established his reputation as a renowned scholar of Chinese politics, but this book solidified his stature as a profound political theorist. Most American scholars of Chinese politics specialize in comparative politics or international relations, focusing on domestic affairs or foreign policy, and rarely venture into political theory. Yet the genuine questions within Chinese politics and the profound inquiries of political science must always be explored from the heights of theory and thought.

In recent decades, political theorists have sought to integrate non-Western thought into the discipline, fostering a budding scholarly trend known as “comparative political theory.” Moody’s tireless contributions to The Review of Politics – where he long served as book review editor – will be remembered as an enduring, pioneering contribution to that field.

Two months before his death, he closed his last letter to me with the words: “I hope we can keep in touch…” At the time, I did not grasp the weight behind those ellipses. Reading them now, I feel as though I have been struck a heavy blow to the chest. Though I am an agnostic, I find myself praying for the soul of this devout Catholic, that he may find salvation and enjoy eternal peace and joy in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Letian Lei works on modern China, intellectual history, and political theory. Having studied in Prague, Edinburgh, Vienna, Geneva, and Bloomington, Indiana, he is currently pursuing a PhD at Cornell University. His dissertation is tentatively titled "The Chinese Ideology: Liberalism, Conservatism, and the Left, 1978-2021." His articles have appeared in Journal of Political Ideologies, The China Quarterly, Waiguo Zhexue, and Sixiang.

Originally published by Kelli Brown at reviewofpolitics.nd.edu on September 02, 2026.