China Goes Its Own Way

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    MARTIN JACQUES GORDON CHANG WEI JINGSHENG

    NATHAN GARDELS DANIEL BELL

    Buoyed by its creditors hold on the United States and its ability to withstand the

    harsh winds of recession blowing from across the Pacific, China has graduated in

    its own mind from an emerging economy to a world power. From their confronta-

    tion with Google to their renewed repression of dissidents to their dissing of

    President Obama, Chinas leaders clearly feel that the time has come for the world

    to accomodate China, not vice-versa.

    Is the West ready for this new reality? Is Chinas new arrogance

    well-founded, or is it going to be the next bubble to burst? As it

    moves beyond the primary stage of socialism is it ready to open

    up politically?

    In this section, some top China scholars, one of Chinas most

    well-known dissidents and a former US spy chief discuss these issues.

    China Goes

    Its Own Way

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    From Communism to Confucianism:

    Chinas Alternative to Liberal Democracy

    DANIEL A. BELL is professor of political philosophy at Tsinghua University in Beijing and

    the author ofChinas New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society.

    beijingFour decades ago, it would have been suicidal to say a good word about

    Confucius in Beijing. Confucius was the reactionary enemy, and all Chinese were

    encouraged to struggle against him. Chairman Mao himself was photographed on the

    cover of a revolutionary newspaper that announced the desecration of Confuciuss

    grave in Qufu. My own university was a hotbed of extreme leftism.

    How times have changed. Today, the Chinese Communist Party approves a film

    about Confucius starring the handsome leading man Chow Yun-Fat. The master is

    depicted as an astute military commander and teacher of humane and progressive

    values, with a soft spot for female beauty. What does this say about Chinas politi-

    cal future? Confuciusbombed at the box office, leading many to think that the revival

    of Confucianism will go the same way as the anti-Confucius campaigns in the

    Cultural Revolution.

    But perhaps its just a bad movie. Confucius received the kiss of death when it went

    head-to-head against the blockbuster Avatar. A vote for Confucius was seen as a vote

    against the heroic blue creatures from outer space. In the long term, however,

    Confucian revivalists may be on the right side of history.

    In the Cultural Revolution, Confucius was often just a label used to attack politi-

    cal enemies. Today, Confucianism serves a more legitimate political function; it can

    help to provide a new moral foundation for political rule in China. Communism has

    lost the capacity to inspire the Chinese, and there is growing recognition that its

    replacement needs to be grounded at least partly in Chinas own traditions. As the

    dominant political tradition in China, Confucianism is the obvious alternative.

    The party has yet to re-label itself the Chinese Confucian Party, but it has moved

    closer to an official embrace of Confucianism. The 2008 Olympics highlighted

    Confucian themes, quoting The Analects of Confucius at the opening ceremonies and

    playing down any references to Chinas experiment with communism. Cadres at the

    newly built Communist Party school in Shanghai proudly tell visitors that the main

    building is modeled on a Confucian scholars desk.Abroad, the government has been

    symbolically promoting Confucianism via branches of the Confucius Institute, a

    Chinese-language and cultural center similar to the Alliance Franaise.

    Of course, there is resistance as well. Elderly cadres, still influenced by Maoist

    antipathy to tradition, condemn efforts to promote ideologies outside a rigid Marxist

    The party has yet to

    re-label itself the Chinese

    Confucian Party, but it has

    moved closer to an official

    embrace of Confucianism.

    SPRING 201018

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    framework. But the younger cadres in their 40s and 50s tend to support such efforts,

    and time is on their side. Its easy to forget that the 76-million-strong Chinese

    Communist Party is a large and diverse organization. The party itself is becoming

    more meritocraticit now encourages high-performing students to joinand the

    increased emphasis on educated cadres is likely to generate more sympathy for

    Confucian values.

    But the revival of Confucianism is not just government-sponsored. On the con-

    trary, the government is also reacting to developments outside its control.There has

    been a resurgence of interest in Confucianism among academics and in the Chinese

    equivalent of civil society. The renewed interest is driven partly by normative con-

    cerns.Thousands of educational experiments around the country promote the teach-

    ing of Confucian classics to young children; the assumption is that better training in

    SPRING 2010 19

    The biggest capitalist class in China has the least percentage of the population, yet

    it is the group receiving the most benefit from the current regime. However, some

    people within this class have also realized the inevitability that the Chinese

    Communist Party cannot carry on much further. A group of men of letters fed by

    these people is therefore designing various schemes for the post-Communist era.

    There is a common element of interest with the big capitalist class that is

    shared by the poor and petty bourgeoisie: democracy and human rights. So

    democracy and human rights are on the minds of most of the Chinese people.

    However, the democracy advocated by the different classes is different in nature.

    This is why the argument over the different kinds of democracy in Chinas future

    has been getting more and more intensified over the last few years.

    One faction thinks that the democracy means that every person in all classes

    will participate while another faction emphasizes a democracy ruled by the elite.

    Generally speaking, the people who have power, influence and university

    educations are more likely to lean toward a democracy ruled by the elite. The rea-

    son is very simple; because they themselves are the elite. It is human nature that

    people want to hold power and influence in their own hands. If complete control

    is not possible, then the inclusive group could be expanded further. But overall,

    the closer they hold power to themselves, the better.

    For the same reason, the poor people who constitute Chinas vast majority and are

    far away from power and influence dont want power controlled by the elite minority.

    Thus, for me, the essence of a democratic politics is really a politics that is

    good for the pooror at the least a politics not aligned against the poor.

    WEI JINGSHENG

    Elite

    Democracy

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    the humanities improves the virtue of the learner. More controversially because its

    still too sensitive to publicly discuss such questions in mainland ChinaConfucian

    thinkers put forward proposals for constitutional reform aiming to humanize Chinas

    political system.

    AN UPHILL STRUGGLE | Yet, the problem is not just the Chinese govern-ment. It can be an uphill struggle to convince people in Western countries that

    Confucianism can offer a progressive and humane path to political reform in China.

    SPRING 201020

    The following excerpt is taken from Chinas New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday

    Life in a Changing Society by Daniel A. Bell (Princeton University Press, 2009).

    BEIJING Does Confucianism pose a challenge to Western-style liberal democ-

    racy? There are reasons to think that they are compatible, if not mutually rein-

    forcing. Many theorists argue that they are compatible, such as Sor-Hoon Tan in

    his book Confucian Democracy. In political practice, they have often proved to be

    compatible: Wang Juntao, a leading Chinese dissident who was jailed for five

    years over the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests, argues that many of the

    key figures in various democracy movements in contemporary Chinese history

    drew inspiration from Confucian values. Such influential early-twentieth-century

    figures as Sun Yat-sen, Kang Youwei, and Liang Quichao received a Confucian

    education, and they argue that democratic institutions such as parliamentary

    systems, elections, and equal rights are natural extensions of Confucianism.

    Jiang Qing, the contemporary Confucian intellectual, contrasts his

    Confucian theory with Western-style liberal democracy and argues that

    Confucianism is more appropriate for China. But his institutional proposals take

    on board certain liberal assumptions such as freedom of religion: He argues for

    the establishment of Confucianism as a state religion and compares the system

    to state religions in the United Kingdom and Sweden with other religions not

    being prohibited.

    Even official sources point to the possibility of reconciling Confucianismwith liberal democracy. On October 12, 2006, the newspaper Nanfang Zhoumou

    (Southern Weekly)perhaps the leading intellectual newspaper in China

    published an editorial on the meaning of the term harmonious society. It

    invokes the quote in the Analects of Confucius that exemplary persons seek

    harmony, not conformity. Then it breaks down the characters in the term

    harmony, with the explanation that the first literally refers to grain into the

    mouth, meaning people and social security, and the second refers to everything

    A Challenge

    to Western-

    Style Liberal

    Democracy?

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    Why does the revival of Confucianism so often worry Westerners? One reason may

    be a form of self-love. For most of the 20th century, Chinese liberals and Marxists

    engaged in a totalizing critique of their own heritage and looked to the West for inspi-

    ration. It may have been flattering for Westernerslook, they want to be just like us!

    but there is less sympathy now that Chinese are taking pride in their own traditions

    for thinking about social and political reform. But more understanding and a bit of

    open-mindedness can take care of that problem.

    For most of the 20th century,

    Chinese liberals and

    Marxists looked to the West

    for inspiration. There is less

    sympathy now that Chinese

    are taking pride in their own

    traditions for thinking about

    social and political reform.

    SPRING 2010 21

    can be spoken, meaning democracy and the freedom of speech. The editorial

    goes on to say that the welfare state requires democracy and the rule of law as

    an underlying framework.

    Confucian emphasis on meritocracyrule by the most talented and public-

    spirited members of the communitymight seem to conflict with democracy,

    but there have been institutional proposals to combine the two desiderata. In a

    manuscript titledA Faith in Life and Kingly Way of Politics (unpublished in main-

    land China), Jiang Qing puts forward an interesting proposal for a tricameral leg-

    islature that includes representation for peoples representatives, Confucian

    elites chosen by competitive examinations that test for knowledge of the

    Confucian classics, and elites entrusted with the task of cultural continuity. The

    last proposalthat elites would include descendants of Confuciuss family

    stands about as much chance of being realized as proposals for reinstituting

    more seats for hereditary aristocrats in the British House of Lords. But the pos-

    sibility of a bicameral legislature, with one political institution composed of dem-

    ocratic leaders chosen by free and fair competitive examinations, and another of

    meritocratic leaders chosen by free and fair examinations, is more consistent with

    commitments to Confucian meritocracy and modern-day democracy.

    But which institution should have priority? Here things become more com-

    plicated. At the local level, all sides in the debate recognize that leaders should be

    democratically elected. The Chinese government introduced direct village elec-tions in 1988 to maintain social order and combat corruption of leaders, and they

    have since occurred in some 700,000 villages across China, reaching 75 percent

    of the nations 1.3 billion people. Of course, such elections are not free of prob-

    lems. There have been worries about the quality of decision-making and the

    extent to which local elections really curb the power of local cadres and wealthy

    elites. In response, the government has backed experiments with deliberative

    continued on next page

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    A Challenge

    to Western-

    Style Liberal

    Democracy?

    (continued)

    Another reason may be that the revival of Confucianism is thought to be associat-

    ed with the revival of Islamic fundamentalism and its anti-Western tendencies.

    Perhaps the revival of closed-minded and intolerant Christian fundamentalism also

    comes to mind. But the revival of Confucianism in China is not so opposed to liberal

    social ways (other than extreme individualistic lifestyles, in which the good life is

    sought mainly outside social relationships). What it does propose is an alternative to

    Western political ways, and that may be the main worry. But this worry stems from an

    SPRING 201022

    democracy at the local level designed to address such problems. Such experi-

    ments hold the promise of aiding the democratic education process and secur-

    ing more fair outcomes from that process. Once democracy becomes institution-

    alized at the local level, it can then be further extended to township, city, and

    provincial levels.

    But empowering democratically elected leaders at the national level is far

    more controversial. It is one thing to debate and vote on the price of water and

    electricity and the relocation of farmers one expects that local citizens with the

    detailed knowledge required for making choices that intimately affect their daily

    lives are best placed to make such judgments. It is another to ask voters to make

    informed judgments about empirically complex issues such as settling inter-

    provincial disputes or assessing the trade-off between economic growth and safe-

    guarding the environment for future generations, the sorts of issues that may be

    only distantly related to their lives. And what about asking the people to make

    life-and-death decisions such as whether or not to go to war or how best to curb

    virulent contagious infections? With respect to decision-making at the national

    level, one hopes not only for fair representation and local solidarity, but also for

    deliberators with the ability to process large amounts of information as well as

    sensitivity to the interests of different kinds of people, including foreigners and

    future generations that are affected by national policies.

    It is not just the government that balks at the prospect of turning over thelevers of the Chinese state to 800 million residents with primary-school educa-

    tion. Few academics teaching in mainland Chinese universitiesincluding those

    who call themselves liberalsfavor countrywide democracy within the next

    decade or so (and discussions are completely free in the context of alcohol-fueled

    dinners with friends). The influential intellectual Yu Keping titled his recent book

    Democracy Is a Good Thing, but the lead essay argues that our construction of

    political democracy must be closely integrated with the history, culture, tradition

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    honest mistake: the assumption that less support for Western-style democracy means

    increased support for authoritarianism. In China, packaging the debate in terms of

    democracy versus authoritarianism crowds out possibilities that appeal to

    Confucian political reformers.

    Confucian reformers generally favor more freedom of speech in China. What

    they question is democracy in the sense of Western-style competitive elections as the

    mechanism for choosing the countrys most powerful rulers. One clear problem withIn China, packaging the debate

    in terms of democracy versus

    authoritarianism crowds out

    possibilities that appeal to

    Confucian political reformers.

    SPRING 2010 23

    and existing conditions in our nation. In practice, it means that elections should

    be extended all the way up to the choice of representatives for the National

    Peoples Congress, but only from candidates screened by the party.

    Even those critical of the lack of commitment to democracy among contem-

    porary Chinese intellectuals may betray certain assumptions that are difficult to

    reconcile with rule by elected politicians. Cai Dingjian of the Chinese University

    of Law and Politics has written an essay (in Chinese) titled In Defense of

    Democracy! A Response to Contemporary Anti-democratic Theory. The essay is

    an important academic and political contribution to the debate on democratiza-

    tion in China. Cai argues forcefully against some of the most frequent objections

    to democratic rule in Chinathat it benefits only majorities, that it undermines

    stability and economic development, and that it contributes to corruption. To

    support the view that the quality of the people does not undermine the

    prospects of democracy, however, he draws on Singapore founding father Lee

    Kuan Yews point that Singapores Chinese immigrants (largely from poor or

    undereducated backgrounds) have succeeded in establishing a good society

    based on the rule of law. What Singaporean Chinese can do, mainland Chinese

    can do, whether its the rule of law or democracy.

    But Singapores rule of law relies on legal punishments that control

    detailed aspects of everyday life: as the joke goes, Singapore is a fine city. And

    Singapore wasnt anything close to democracy at Chinas level of wealth and edu-cation (the same is true of Taiwan and South Korea). Today, there are elections,

    but Singapore-style democracy means overwhelming dominance of the ruling

    Peoples Action Party along with harsh punishments for opposition politicians

    that range from public humiliation to bankruptcy and exile.

    Even more worrisome, Lee himself is perhaps the most notorious defender of

    rule by meritocratically selected political elites, a view he supports with dubious

    continued on next page

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    A Challenge

    to Western-

    Style Liberal

    Democracy?

    (continued)

    eugenic theories. Lees view is that education wont suffice; there will always be a

    minority of people endowed with superior innate intelligence (such as his own

    son, the current prime minister of Singapore, and other family members that con-

    trol key levers of the economy), and they should be societys leaders. And the rulers

    themselves get to decide on who counts as the best and brightest. This is not,

    to put it mildly, the kind of model supporters of democracy should endorse.

    So for the foreseeable future, it is highly unlikely that democratic rule at the

    national level will emerge in China. The proposal most likely to garner support

    from government officials and intellectual elites who are best positioned to think

    about and implement political reform is for a strong, meritocratically chosen leg-

    islature that has constitutional priority over the democratically elected house. The

    proposal might gain additional support if it incorporates the following features:

    The deputies in the meritocratic house are chosen (by examinations) for

    seven- or eight-year terms and there are strict penalties for corruption.

    The examinations test for the Confucian classics, basic economics, world

    history, and foreign language, and they are set by an independent board of aca-

    demics randomly chosen from Chinas universities that is sequestered from the

    rest of society during the examination process.

    There is substantial deliberation before decisions are taken in the merito-

    cratic house, and most debates are televised and transmitted to the public on

    the Web. The national democratic legislatures main function is to transmit the peo-

    ples (relatively uniformed) preferences to the meritocratic house. At the provin-

    cial, township, city, and village levels, the top decision-makers are chosen by

    means of competitive elections, and decisions are taken in deliberation forums.

    Freedom of the press is basically secure, and there are many opportunities

    to raise objections and present grievances to deputies at the national level.

    Farfetched? Its no less so than scenarios that envision a transition to

    SPRING 201024

    one person, one vote is that equality ends at the boundaries of the political commu-

    nity; those outside are neglected. The national focus of the democratically elected

    political leaders is assumed; they are meant to serve only the community of voters.

    Even democracies that work well tend to focus on the interests of citizens and neg-

    lect the interests of foreigners. But political leaders, especially leaders of big coun-

    tries such as China, make decisions that affect the rest of the world (consider global

    warming), and so they need to consider the interests of the rest of the world.

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    Western-style liberal democracy (because both scenarios assume an end to one-

    party rule), and it answers the main worry about the transition to democracy: that

    it translates into rule by uneducated people.

    As more Chinese gain access to education, and democratic values and prac-

    tices become more entrenched, the democratic legislature can be empowered

    relative to the meritocratic house. Strong democrats may prefer to abolish the

    meritocratic house in due courseor at least reduce it to an advisory and sym-

    bolic function if it helps to strengthen the democratic systembut there may

    be a case for more permanent empowerment of the meritocratic house when

    democratic processes threaten to get out of hand.

    During a seminar at Tsingua University in October, 2006, the comparative

    political scientist Adam Przeworski noted that nonpartisan institutions play an

    important role in resolving conflicts when partisan politics cannot produce suffi-

    cient consensus for nonviolent decision-making, and that the meritocratic house

    could serve this function in the Chinese context. Like the Thai king, it would inter-

    vene only in exceptional cases.

    There may be the worry that the strong meritocratic system becomes

    entrenchedfossilized, like the American constitutional systemand hard to

    change once its in place. But what if it works well? The deputies debate at length.

    They favor policies that prioritize the needs of the disadvantaged. They consider

    the interests of all those affected by policies, including future generations andeven foreigners. For long-term planning, they favor technological change that

    frees workers from the need to engage in drudge labor. They also try to limit the

    environmental impact of new technologies. And what if the large majority of

    Chinese seem satisfied with strong meritocracy? Should we complain just

    because the system doesnt satisfy our ideas about democratic rule, or should we

    allow for the possibility that there are morally legitimate, if not superior, alterna-

    tives to Western-style liberal democracy?

    Rather than subordinating

    Confucian values and institu-

    tions to democracy as an a pri-

    ori dictum, they contain a divi-

    sion of labor, with democracy

    having priority in some areas

    and meritocracy in others.

    SPRING 2010 25

    Hence, reformist Confucians put forward political ideals that are meant to

    work better than Western-style democracy in terms of securing the interests of all

    those affected by the policies of the government, including future generations and

    foreigners.Their ideal is not a world where everybody is treated as an equal but one

    where the interests of non-voters would be taken more seriously than in most

    nation-centered democracies.And the key value for realizing global political ideals

    is meritocracy, meaning equality of opportunity in education and government, with

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    positions of leadership being distributed to the most virtuous and qualified mem-

    bers of the community. The idea is that everyone has the potential to become

    morally exemplary, but, in real life, the capacity to make competent and morally

    justifiable political judgments varies among people, and an important task of the

    political system is to identify those with above-average ability.

    CONFUCIAN VALUES IN PRACTICE | What might such values mean inpractice? In the past decade, Confucian intellectuals have put forward political pro-

    posals that aim to combine Western ideas of democracy with Confucian ideas of

    meritocracy. Rather than subordinating Confucian values and institutions to democ-

    racy as an a priori dictum, they contain a division of labor, with democracy having

    priority in some areas and meritocracy in others. If its about land disputes in rural

    China, farmers should have a greater say. If its about pay and safety disputes, work-

    ers should have a greater say. In practice, it means more freedom of speech andassociation and more representation for workers and farmers in some sort of dem-

    ocratic house.

    But what about matters such as foreign policy and environmental protection?

    What the government does in such areas affects the interests of non-voters, and they

    need some form of representation as well. Hence, Confucian thinkers put forward

    proposals for a meritocratic house of government, with deputies selected by such

    mechanisms as free and fair competitive examinations, that would have the task of

    representing the interests of non-voters typically neglected by democratically selected

    decision-makers.

    One obvious objection to examinations is that they cannot test for the kinds of

    virtues that concerned Confuciusflexibility, humility, compassion and public-

    spiritednessand that, ideally, would also characterize political decision-makers in

    the modern world. Its true that examinations wont test perfectly for those virtues,

    but the question is whether deputies chosen by such examinations are more likely to

    be farsighted than those chosen by elections.

    There are reasons to believe so. Drawing on extensive empirical research, Bryan

    Caplans book The Myth of the Rational Voter:Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies shows

    that voters are often irrational, and he suggests tests of voter competence as a rem-

    edy. So examinations would test for basic economic policy (and knowledge of inter-

    national relations), but they would also cover knowledge of the Confucian classics,

    testing for memorization as well as interpretation. The leading Confucian political

    thinker, Jiang Qing, argues that examinations could set a framework and moral

    vocabulary for subsequent political actions, and successful candidates would also

    need to be evaluated in terms of how they perform in practice.

    SPRING 201026

    In the past decade,

    Confucian intellectuals have

    put forward political pro-

    posals that aim to combine

    Western ideas of democ-

    racy with Confucian ideas

    of meritocracy.

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    Farfetched? Its no less so than scenarios that envision a transition to Western-

    style liberal democracy (because both scenarios assume a more open society). And it

    answers the key worry about the transition to democracy: that it translates into short-

    term, unduly nationalistic policymaking. Its also a matter of what standards we

    should use to evaluate Chinas political progress. Politically speaking, most people

    think China should look more like the West. But one day, perhaps, we will hope that

    the West looks more like China.

    Voters are often irrational.

    SPRING 2010 27