The Everlasting Empire (34 page)

The latent threat posed by provincial assemblies to China’s unity was duly recognized by the first Republican president, Yuan Shikai (18591916), who ordered their dissolution in early 1914, a mere five years after their convention. Yet the idea of provincial autonomy that emerged in the wake of the late Qing reforms did not disappear in the immediate aftermath of the assemblies’ dissolution. Rather, it gave rise to a shortlived federalist movement, which articulated provincial identities and local interests as opposed to those of the center. Although not overtly separatist, this movement and the sentiments it generated posed a rare alternative to the millennia-long dominance of “unitism” in China’s political tradition/

The “federalist” challenge was short-lived, though. By the 1920s, as the country sank into a civil war led by local military potentates, the socalled warlords, the idea of provincial autonomy rapidly lost its appeal, and the federalist movement evaporated. Some scholars, most notably Prasenjit Duara, lament the demise of federalism, which Duara describes as having been caused by the “interplay of power politics and authoritative language, [which] enabled the hegemonic, centralizing nationalist narrative to destroy and ideologically bury the federalist alternative.”
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Yet this explanation, which reduces political processes to the interplay of “hegemonic narratives,” strikes me as somewhat reductionist. From the point of view of the majority of political actors, what was at stake was not just a narrative but the very real survival of China as a unified entity. Rival warlords, who were too ready to pose themselves as champions of regional interests, became the major destabilizing force; they repeatedly defied the central government, became engaged in devastating internecine warfare, and mercilessly plundered the populace. It is against this menace—rather than out of abstract commitment to the “nationalist narrative”—that political unification became an urgent imperative.
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The warlord era, with its unmistakable resemblance to earlier periods of political fragmentation in terms of domestic devastation, served as a powerful reminder of the advantages of political unification. The quest for unification duly became the major political factor in the Republican

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era. It played the decisive role—arguably, more than either anti-imperialist propaganda or promises of social justice—in the success of the Northern Expedition undertaken by the Nation’s Party (Guomindang, GMD, a.k.a. Kuomintang, KMT) in 1926–1928. By the same token, the inability to complete an effective unification may be considered the single most unforgivable failure of the GMD leader, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek, 1887–1975), who eventually had to acquiesce—even if grudgingly—in the ongoing autonomy of his warlord allies.
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Conversely, the successful unification of both China proper and its ethnic peripheries became one of the greatest attainments of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and its leader, Mao Zedong, and an important—perhaps the primary—source of the Party’s legitimacy. Unity meant peace and stability—and for Chinese statesmen there was no plausible alternative to it either with or without the emperor.

Nowadays, the quest for unity remains an important factor that influences the complex relations between Mainland China and the fugitive government of the Republic of China on Taiwan. Calls for Taiwan independence emerged strongly in the 1990s in the wake of democratization on the island; they peaked under the rule of native GMD leader Lee Tenghui (Li Denghui, r. 1996–2000) and of his successors from the radically pro-independence Democratic-Progressive Party (DPP). The independence rhetoric adopted by Lee and by the DPP strained the atmosphere across the Taiwan Strait and for a short while even aroused war expectations. As of 2011, the situation has markedly improved, but the Mainland’s resolute opposition to Taiwanese independence remains unshaken.

Scholars often analyze Mainland-Taiwan relations from a geopolitical perspective or in terms of Chinese national pride, and these approaches are surely valid. Yet I believe that the Mainland’s unwavering opposition to Taiwan independence is also deeply connected to the threat that the independence discourse poses to the principle of political unity, and thereby to the perceived stability of the Mainland itself. The DPP and its allies’ claim that a distinct Taiwanese regional identity merits political independence, and this runs counter to the fundamentals of China’s political tradition, in which regional differences were widely recognized but were never conceived of as justification for political secession. Should this norm be transgressed, China may face the prospect of disintegration into dozens of independent states, as many provinces in China proper (e.g., Fujian or Guangdong) or even subprovincial units may claim a degree of cultural difference from Beijing similar to that adduced by the supporters of Taiwan independence. Thus if the Pandora’s box of distinct identities is opened and the hegemonic position of the unity discourse shattered, one may realistically expect China’s descent into deep turmoil akin to that of the early twentieth century. Arguably, it is precisely this fear of

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potential disintegration that shapes the approach of the Mainland Chinese leadership to the Taiwan issue. Now, as in the past, for the Chinese, Mengzi’s twenty-three-centuries-old dictum “Stability is in unity” requires no elaboration.

MONARCHISM

While the concept of unity remains the single most significant legacy bequeathed by the imperial age to China’s modernity, the second pillar of the imperial political culture—the principle of monarchism—collapsed immediately with the advent of the new age. The republican form of government, which in the early twentieth century was advocated by only a tiny number of elite radicals, emerged suddenly as a new political norm. Introduced without an intervening age of constitutional monarchy, and amid great confusion, to a largely unprepared population, the Republic, not surprisingly, malfunctioned. Its leaders—presidents, prime ministers, grand marshals, and the like—lacked the emperors’ exclusive authority and were unable to effectively perform stabilizing tasks. Since the Republican heads of state owed their nominal authority to a vaguely understood popular will, their position was repeatedly contested, and many political actors refused to comply with the leaders. This lack of sufficient legitimacy became particularly damaging when the Republic’s leaders faced the warlords’ challenge.

The proliferation of warlordism in the Republic was the direct result of a botched transition from an imperial to a republican form of rule. In the Qing, as in most of the preceding dynasties, the military command structure was decentralized to prevent the emergence of powerful generals who would be able to challenge the emperor’s power; yet insofar as substantial numbers of commanders remained fundamentally loyal to the emperor, this decentralization was not inimical to political order. When the Republic inherited this decentralized system, its leaders were unable to rein in powerful warlords. Soon enough, these warlords divided the country among themselves; and while displaying nominal fidelity to the concept of unified rule and to republican legitimacy, they were practically engaged in defending their autonomy. The reason for this situation was self-evident: unlike the emperor, the “republic,” the “nation,” and the “constitution” were abstract symbols that could not issue orders and demand absolute loyalty. Thus, even when most warlords succumbed to the rule of the GMD, they continued to challenge the Party leader, Jiang Jieshi, causing persistent malfunctioning of the GMD military and civilian structures. The inability of the GMD leaders to subdue holders of the gun became the major source of their disastrous performance vis-à-vis the Japanese aggressors and Communist rebels.
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The correlation between the supreme ruler’s weakness and the proliferation of domestic disorder was clear to all major leaders of the Republican age, and it may explain why each of these leaders sought quasiimperial status for himself. Chinese history for much of the twentieth century can actually be interpreted as a process of gradual detoxification from the country’s lengthy addiction to imperial rule. One Republican president, Yuan Shikai, fully assumed emperorship in 1915; but his imperial pretensions were rejected by military commanders, and he had to abdicate a few weeks after ascending the throne. Other leaders did not claim the throne directly but developed a variety of personality cults with quasi-imperial pretensions, as is clearly evidenced by the activities of Sun Yat-sen, Jiang Jieshi, and, most blatantly, Mao Zedong. The last was doubtless the most successful candidate for emperorship in the aftermath of the 1911 revolution, and his power over the Party, the army, and society exceeded what the Leninist system could have allowed. The imperial style of Mao, and, to a lesser degree, of Jiang Jieshi, may appall Western observers who are intrinsically averse to dictatorships; but it is worth noting that both leaders were active during a period of transition from monarchism to alternative forms of rule, and their quasi-monarchic behavior may have been requisite to China’s gradual adaptation to novel forms of government.

China’s “imperial detoxification” accelerated under the next generation of leaders, who were born in the very late years of the empire: Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) on the Mainland and Jiang Jingguo (Chiang Ching-kuo, 1910–1988) in Taiwan. Both had dramatically reduced personality cults and presided over smooth transitions to essentially nonmonarchical government. Taiwan adopted Western-style parliamentary democracy; yet the advantages and drawbacks of this decision cannot be adequately summarized at this stage and will not be dealt with here. The Mainland, alternatively, evolved into a kind of Leninist oligarchy with power shared by a group of top Party leaders, members of the Politburo Standing Committee. These leaders act as a “collective emperor”: while none of them possesses the imperial aura and exclusiveness, as a group they enjoy nearly absolute power and symbolize the state’s unity, stability, and prosperity. The transformation from autocratic to collégial rule began with Deng Xiaoping, but it was under his noncharismatic successor, Jiang Zemin (b. 1926), that China truly entered a new age. Jiang instituted the system of mandatory retirement and imposed term limits for top executives; in 2002 he set an example by voluntary stepping down and allowing the next generation of leaders to assume power. As of 2011 it is widely anticipated that the current incumbent, Hu Jintao (b. 1942), and his colleagues would likewise cede power to the next generation of Party leaders in 2012.
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Currently (2011) China’s experiment with oligarchic leadership appears impressively successful, and it may even be interpreted as a neat solution to the perennial weaknesses of monarchic rule. The principle of collective leadership, term limits, and the introduction of a mandatory retirement age may prevent the rise of inept leaders; these safeguards may also preclude top executives’ remaining in office after becoming physically or mentally debilitated, as occurred with the first generation of CPC leaders. Current chief executives undergo lengthy processes of recruitment, training, and socialization into the top leadership, which renders them incomparably fitter for their tasks than were the majority of the emperors. Assuming that this system of leadership selection, training, and rotation is maintained appropriately, then the CPC can be credited with mending one of the weakest aspects of China’s imperial system—the emperor’s potential inadequacy—without jeopardizing the principle of a single source of legitimate authority. This said, a word of caution is required. The current system can be effectively maintained only insofar as the collective leadership adheres to the Leninist principles of resolving internal contradictions confidentially and presenting a unified front to the outside world. Any deviation from this facade of unity may have the disastrous consequence of exacerbating political conflicts in the Party and in society at large, as happened on the eve of the tragic events of the 1989 Tiananmen incident.
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INTELLECTUALS

If the emperor was the major victim of China’s drive into modernity, the intellectuals could have been among the major gainers. The abolition of the monarchy ended their humiliating position as the ruler’s servitors, while their political and cultural prestige remained—initially—largely intact. This placed them in an ideal situation to exercise unhindered leadership; and in the immediate aftermath of the empire’s collapse it seemed that this would be the case. Intellectuals of the early Republican period did not just orchestrate the cultural renovation that profoundly changed Chinese society, but also played an extraordinarily important role in the political dynamics of that age. For a considerable period, one can discern clear continuity in the position and self-image of Chinese intellectuals as their society’s moral and, potentially, political leaders; yet far-reaching changes that occurred in the nature, composition, and social role of the intellectual stratum brought about gradual erosion in its political power.

It was the abolition of the imperial examinations in 1905, not the Republican Revolution of 1911, that had the most profound impact on the intellectuals’ life. This abolition, and the accompanying educational reforms, brought an end to the millennia-old association between educa

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tion and political careers. New avenues of social advancement were open, and many ambitious individuals were able thenceforth to pursue prestigious careers outside the government sphere. Gradually, the composition of the intellectual stratum changed, an increasing proportion of it becoming skilled professionals with minimal, if any, political involvement. Members of the new intelligentsia (
zhishifenzi
, literally “the knowledgeable elements”) differed markedly from the imperial literati in the nature of their education, in their career patterns, and most notably in the degree of their attachment to the political realm.