Is there a Chinese word for liberation? When I studied Mandarin Chinese in the early 1990's my teacher told me that there is no word for "liberation" because it is not a concept in Chinese culture. She thought for a minute, tried a few Chinese possible words [ I have forgotten them] and said "no, it's not a concept in China". I think that we were talking about mainly political liberation rather than other types.  

Was that true then? Is it the case now?
Your teacher was probably not very good.

The typical Chinese word for "liberation" is 解放, and it has been used in the same sense of political liberation for many years. Apart from its use in Communist Chinese apparatus (i.e. People's Liberation Army), you also have examples like:


婦女解放運動 - women's liberation movement
奴隸解放運動 - slavery abolitionism
民族解放運動 - national liberation movement
巴勒斯坦解放組織 - Palestinian Liberation Organisation


Alternatively, "liberation" can, and has, sometimes been translated using 自由 ("freedom"), depending on the context. Examples include the French newspaper Libération, which has occasionally been translated as 自由報 or 自由人報. Similarly, the video game Assassin's Creed III: Liberation has been translated in Taiwan as 刺客教條3：自由使命.

This might be because the word 解放 may be perceived as carrying revolutionary connotations (which some might want to avoid), which is not altogether dissimilar from the situation in English. This works because often the meaning of "liberation" can be expressed as 爭取自由/平等 or equivalent.