A July 10 Op-Ed article in the New York Times, A Confucian Constitution for China, recently caught my attention. The first paragraph of the article challenges the notion that China must, according to the views of many Westerners, become more democratic and that "framing the debate in terms of democracy versus authoritarianism overlooks better possibilities." Reading this far, I could certainly agree with the notion that there might be other possibilities and was intrigued what the authors might propose.
The second paragraph, however, quickly changed my opinion and caused me to wonder what ivory tower the authors have been locked up in. This paragraph claims that "[t]he political future of China is far likelier to be determined by the longstanding Confucian tradition of 'humane authority' than by Western-style multiparty elections." Again, I agree that a Western democratic ideal of multiparty elections isn't at all likely in China's foreseeable future, but the notion that an far more ancient ideal of Confucian humane authority is going to determine China's political future seems equally unlikely.
While I don't claim to be an expert on Confucianism (儒家; rujia), I have done a lot of reading about it and have at least a basic understanding of what its about. For a short and oversimplified explanation, its essentially a system of social behavior (for ruler as well as the ruled) based on moral principles derived from the teachings of Confucius (孔子; Kongzi), a teacher and philosopher in ancient China. Having lived in China for a few years, I've been able to get a bit of a feel for how Confucianism impacts modern Chinese society. There's a lot to be said for certain aspects of Confucianism as a moral ideology and it still plays a very important role in Chinese culture and society. However, I think its use as a political tool in modern China has been more in terms of image rather than substance its impact therefore somewhat overrated.
I also don't claim to be able to determine or predict how China's political system may change, but rather than any type of dramatic change (whether Western democracy or Confucian humanity), I think China will continue to do what its been doing for the past 30 odd years - evolve gradually, according to circumstances, experimenting a bit with various ideas (even including some democratic notions - e.g., China already has some voting for low level government administration), trying to evaluate what's working and what isn't, and adapting along the way (somewhat limited by differences in political ideology within the Chinese Communist Party, which despite being a single party has conservative and liberal factions).
Although this is a very broad generalization, in my opinion, Chinese leaders since the late 1970s (post Chairman Mao and beginning with Deng Xiaoping) have tended to be largely pragmatic. Their main concerns (aside from maintaining their own political power) seem to be continuing China's rapid economic development (which seems to be slowing a bit after about 30 years of about 10% annual growth), maintaining political and social stability (what Hu Jintao often refers to as a "harmonious society"; 和谐社会; hexie shehui).
While it would be inaccurate to say that moral ideology plays no part in Chinese governance, I think its more accurate to say that to whatever extent moral ideology does play a role, that role is clearly outweighed by pragmatism as well as staunch determination to retain the PRC government's power. Throughout China's long history, many leaders have portrayed themselves as the image of Confucian virtue and benevolence while often ignoring the substance of Confucian ideals of humane authority for their own benefit and/or for what they perceived as more practical considerations.
Perhaps the Times article's authors are expressing what they ideally envision as China's political evolution which admittedly could be positive in many respects (who can argue with the idea of governance based on virtue and benevolence?). However, I suspect that this belief may be just as unrealistic as the notion (criticized by the article) that China will become a Western-style democracy. For what its worth, my prediction (or, more accurately, guess) is that China's political evolution will continue to be gradual and experimental, incorporating elements of various ideologies (democratic, socialist, etc.) as well as practical considerations. This may not be so bad since neither democracy or socialism seems to have worked without serious flaws in recent history.
Posts
Whatever the Chinese do it will be slow and deliberate. Democracy in China? Not in our lifetime!
ReplyDelete