The party and the sage: Communist China’s use of quasi-Confucian rationalizations for one-party dictatorship and imperial ambition

Journal of Contemporary China

Volumn 24, Issue 96, 2015, Pages 1032-1047

  Ford, Christopher A ^a  

^a US Senate   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMMUNISM; GEOPOLITICS; NATIONAL POLITICS; PARTY POLITICS; POLITICAL DISCOURSE; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

CHINA;

EID: 84943347974     PISSN: 10670564     EISSN: 14699400     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2015.1030954     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. Yu Keping, Democracy is a Good Thing: Essays on Politics, Society, and Culture in Contemporary China (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2009), p. 155.
2. Anne-Marie Brady, 'State Confucianism, Chineseness, and tradition in CCP propaganda,' in Anne-Marie Brady, ed., China's Thought Management (Oxford: Routledge, 2012), pp. 57-59.
3. Anne-Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), p. 181
4. Brady, 'State Confucianism, Chineseness, and tradition in CCP propaganda,' p. 62.
5. Song Xianlin, 'Reconstructing the Confucian ideal in 1980s China: the "culture craze" and new Confucianism,' in John Makeham, ed., New Confucianism: A Critical Examination (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), p. 84.
6. Song Xianlin, 'Reconstructing the Confucian ideal in 1980s China,' pp. 91, 97 (Chinese transliterations deleted).
7. Simon Shen, Redefining Nationalism in Modern China: Sino-American Relations and the Emergence of Chinese Public Opinion in the 21st Century (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), p. 29.
8. Daniel A. Bell, China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 5, 8-9.
9. Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China: From Revolution through Reform, 2nd edn (New York: Norton, 2004), p. 323.
10. Valérie Niquet, '"Confu-talk": the use of Confucian concepts in contemporary Chinese foreign policy,' in Brady, ed., China's Thought Management, pp. 76-77.
11. Zuo Xuan, 'Harmonious society not just utopian dream,' Global Times Online, (27 October 2010) (quoting Zhang Jian).
12. Rorry Daniels, Strategies of Regime Legitimacy in China: How Unequal Application of Confucianism and Capitalism Support One-party Rule, Masters dissertation for the Center for Global Affairs, New York University, December 2011, pp. 1-2.
13. Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, pp. 62-63.
14. Niquet, '"Confu-talk,"' p. 76.
15. Jiang Zemin, Report to the Sixteenth Party Congress (8 November 2002)
16. Lieberthal, Governing China, pp. 352, 368.
17. Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, p. 117.
18. Brady, 'State Confucianism, Chineseness, and tradition in CCP propaganda,' pp. 63-66.
19. Jiang Zemin, Report to the Sixteenth Party Congress, p. 374
20. Elaine Jeffrey, 'Prostitution and propaganda in the People's Republic of China,' in Brady, ed., China's Thought Management, pp. 146, 153.
21. Hu Jintao, Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress (15 October 2007), available at: http://news.xinhuanet. com/english/2007-10/24/content_6938749.htm
22. Brady, Marketing Dictatorship, p. 59
23. Yu Keping, Democracy is a Good Thing, p. 169
24. Niquet, '"Confu-talk,"' p. 81.
25. Brady, 'State Confucianism, Chineseness, and tradition in CCP propaganda,' p. 66.
26. Yu Keping, Democracy is a Good Thing, p. 169.
27. David Bandurski, 'Hu calls for stronger web controls,' China Media Project, (21 February 2011), available at: http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/02/21/10152/.
28. 'Li Changchun speech marks rise of "harmonious culture" in party media policy,' China Media Project, (5 December 2006), available at: http://cmp.hku.hk/2006/12/05/134/.
29. Bandurski, 'Hu calls for stronger web controls.'
30. 'Web culture with Chinese characteristics,' China Media Project, (undated), available at: http://cmp.hku.hk/2007/08/08/567/.
31. Qian Gang, 'How much Internet freedom do Chinese citizens have?,' China Media Project, (28 January 2010), available at: http://cmp.hku.hk/2010/01/28/4355/.
32. Suisheng Zhao, 'Rethinking the Chinese world order: the imperial cycle and the rise of China,' Journal of Contemporary China 24(96), (2015), DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2015.1030913.
33. The principal exception to this generalization is the work of Jiang Qing, who advocates an odd system of tricameral governance in which political authority is shared between a chamber made up of Confucian scholars, a chamber elected by democratic franchise and a chamber composed of eminent personages from all walks of life, including 'the descendants of great sages of the past, [and] descendants of [past] rulers.'
34. Jiang Qing, A Confucian Constitutional Order, edited by Daniel A. Bell and Ruiping Fan, translated by Edmund Ryden (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 41, 37.
35. Daniel Bell, he has promoted this idea overseas, publishing an opinion piece in the New York Times on the subject in mid-2012
36. Jiang Qing and Daniel A. Bell, 'A Confucian constitution for China,' New York Times, (10 July 2012), available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/opinion/ a-confucian-constitution-in-china.html?_r=1.
37. More commonly, however—and in no way surprisingly, given the origins of Neo-Kong theory as a hothouse flower of the CCP propaganda apparatus—the Neo-Kongs simply seem to feel that the CCP's present-day agenda points the way to a virtuous system of Confucian governance, or at least that it is a good solution until such time, perhaps far in the future, as such an idiosyncratic tricameralism becomes feasible or an actual Sage King emerges in the world.
38. Daniel A. Bell, 'Deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics: a comment on Baogang He's research,' in Ethan J. Leib and Baogang He, The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 153
39. Citing the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference [CPPCC] as a salutary example of a modern Chinese institution inspired by '[t]he ideal of decision making by a wise and public-spirited elite.'
40. Yan Xuetong, Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, edited by Daniel A. Bell and Sun Zhe, translated by Edmund Ryden (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), p. 219
41. Offering the CPPCC as an example when discussing the role of 'the moral principle of democracy' in helping maintain the ancient ideal of 'humane authority.'
42. (Discussing 'meritocracy').
43. Bell, China's New Confucianism, pp. xiii-xiv, 149, 179-185, 191.
44. Daniel A. Bell, Professor, Tsinghua University, interview in Beijing, 17 October 2011.
45. Yan Xuetong, Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, p. 219.
46. Yang Yanyin, '3 aspects of new media use,' People's Daily Online, (12 June 2010), translated by David Bandurski, available at: http://cmp.hku.hk/2010/06/22/6281/.
47. Yan Xuetong, 'In Search of Common Values: What China Can Propose to the World,' remarks at Tsinghua University, School of Economics and Management, 22 April 2012 (public debate with Professor Timothy Garton Ash of Oxford University).
48. Bell, 'Deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics,' p. 155.
49. Bell, China's New Confucianism, pp. xiii-xiv, 191 (emphasis added).
50. Jiang Qing, A Confucian Constitutional Order, p. 27.
51. Daniel A. Bell, 'A visit to a Confucian academy,' Dissent (online edition), (22 September 2008) (interviewing Jiang Qing), available at: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=146.
52. Jiang Qing, A Confucian Constitutional Order, pp. 28-29.
53. Yun-han Chu, President, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, interview in Taipei, 10 August 2011.
54. 'The return of history,' The Economist, (1 March 2014), p. 48.
55. Yan Xuetong, 'How China can defeat America,' New York Times, (20 November 2011), available at: http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/how-china-can-defeat-america.html?pagewanted=all.
56. Zhang Weiwei, 'Meritocracy versus democracy,' International Herald Tribune, (10 November 2012).
57. Yan Xuetong, Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, pp. 47-49, 52-53, 58-59, 64-65, 68-69, 71, 79-81, 87-88, 91, 99-100, 168-169.
58. Guanzi that 'One who enriches his own state is called a "hegemon." One who unifies and corrects others is called a "sage king."'
59. Rather conveniently for the CCP, however, the Neo-Kongs do not seem to think it 'moral' to intervene to protect a population against 'systematic denials of the right to free speech or the heavy-handed treatment of political dissidents in the name of social order.' These things, Daniel Bell explains 'would not be viewed as violations sufficiently serious to justify humanitarian intervention by foreign powers.'
60. Bell, China's New Confucianism, p. 33.
61. Wang Faan et al., China's Strategy for Invigorating the Armed Forces Amid Peaceful Development [Zhongguo Heping Fashan Zhong De Qiangjun Zhanlue] (Beijing: Military Science Press, 2011), ch. 1.
62. Jane Perlez, 'Chinese president to seek new relationship with US in talks,' New York Times, (28 May 2013) (recounting Xi Jinping's declaration, in preparation for his Sunnylands summit with Barack Obama, that he seeks a 'new type of great power relationship' with the United States), available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/ world/asia/china-to-seek-more-equal-footing-with-us-in-talks.html?_r=0.
63. Geoffrey Wade, The Zheng He Voyages: A Reassessment, ARI Working Paper 31 (Singapore: Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, October 2004), pp. 11-16, 18.
64. Yan Xuetong, 'In search of common values.'
65. Yan Xuetong, 'How China can defeat America.'
66. Yan Xuetong, remarks to the author, Tsinghua University, 23 April 2012.
67. Zhao Tingyang, quoted in 'Nothing new under heaven,' The Economist, (18 June 2011), p. 50.
68. Michael Pillsbury, In Search of China's Current Strategic Assessment, unpublished manuscript (4 August 2011), p. 37 (discussing Zhao Tingyang and citing and quoting numerous works).
69. Bell, China's New Confucianism, p. 24.
70. June Teufel Dreyer, 'The tianxia trope: will China change the international system?,' Journal of Contemporary China 24(96), (2015), DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2015.1030951.
71. William Callahan, 'History, tradition and the China dream: socialist modernization in the World of Great Harmony,' Journal of Contemporary China 24(96), (2015), DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2015.1030915.
72. Daniel A. Bell and Yingchuan Mo, 'Harmony in the world 2013: the ideal and the reality,' Social Indicators Research 114(1), (October 2013), a text preceding note 12.
73. Wang Yiwei, '"China model" breaking hegemony of Western universal values,' People's Daily Online, (15 January 2013), available at: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90883/8092980.html.
74. Yu Keping, Democracy is a Good Thing, p. 169.
75. Wang Yiwei, '"China model" breaking hegemony of Western universal values.'
76. Callahan, 'History, tradition and the China dream.'
77. Peter Perdue, 'The tenacious tributary system,' Journal of Contemporary China 24(96), (2015), DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2015.1030949.
78. Ironically, Perdue traces the origins of much of this romanticism—and, specifically, the concept of a 'tribute system' which supposedly exert[ed] benevolent pressures to enforce hierarchy peacefully—to the bogus and self-justificatory historiography of Kuomintang propagandists of the Nationalist era, who offered a 'vigorous defense of imperial expansion' and 'openly praised and promoted military conquest, economic expansion and cultural unification' as a means to regain glory lost by their country during its 'century of humiliation' at foreign hands.