The Everlasting Empire (37 page)

EPILOGUE: STABILITY VERSUS PROGRESS

Many scholars of the history of China’s Communist Party have noted the pendulum-like trajectory of the Party’s course: a certain policy is first adopted and radically pursued, then discarded and discontinued, and then recurs again, sometimes in a more radical form than before. The last section of the discussion above suggests that at times this pattern of development may be identified, mutatis mutandis, in longer historical arcs as well. Having discarded the imperial system as a source of stagnation and an impediment to “modernization” and “progress,” the renovated

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Chinese political elite is gradually shifting toward a more accommodative view of the past. Having lost its revolutionary zeal, the CPC leadership in particular has come to appreciate the value of stability and tranquillity. Hence the lessons embodied by the imperial political system, which excelled at ensuring long-term stability, cannot be ignored.

Interest in the legacy of the past is increasing in China almost daily, paralleling the rise in national pride and the resultant more affirmative view of the imperial enterprise. This interest has copious manifestations. On the popular level it is promoted through a variety of popular publications, movies, TV serials, and even Internet games that deal with emperors, meritorious ministers, generals, and other heroes from the past. On the level of official discourse it is reflected in the adoption of new terminology, such as Hu Jintao’s invocation of the term “harmonious society” (
hexie shehui
) as a substitute for the class-based ideology of the past. On a more substantial level we see the work of certain members of the academic community who are eager to promote a “Confucian revival.”
³³
Even if largely superficial, these phenomena cannot be ignored.

With the diminishing appeal of Marxism-Leninism, China faces a dangerous ideological void that should sooner or later be filled in. While a few Chinese intellectuals—and many foreign observers—would like China to embrace Western liberal ideals, and while the ideological gap between China and Western democracies is indeed narrowing, it is highly doubtful that Western democratic discourse will prevail in the long term. Aside from being potentially detrimental to CPC power, and lacking demonstrable advantages in ensuring prosperity and stability for non-Western countries, the democratic discourse of the West is problematic in China owing to its patently alien roots. Should China fully embrace it, the country would forever be compelled to follow the ideological lead of alien powers, who would oversee and judge its “advancement” on the path toward democracy and human rights, much as the USSR dominated China ideologically when the latter embraced the Soviet model of development. This situation is incompatible with China’s growing power, prestige, and assertiveness. In this context, the search in China’s immensely rich past for appropriate ideological solutions to the country’s current problems, followed by the synthesis of these traditional elements with modern Western (either Marxist or liberal or both) ideas, appears by far the more advantageous course.

Which aspects of Chinese traditional political culture are applicable nowadays? Perhaps the single most important one is the legacy of the political center maintaining its hegemonic position vis-à-vis a variety of social groups and local interests, and reining in centrifugal socioeconomic and political forces. In this context, the ability of the Party leadership to act as “a collective emperor” and maintain a single legitimate locus of

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power on Chinese soil is the most essential precondition for China’s political stability and governability. The idea that “oneness [of the ruler] brings orderly rule; doubleness brings chaos”
³⁴
in its modified (oligarchic rather than monarchic) form remains broadly acceptable to the vast majority of China’s political actors—or so, at least, the present observer remains convinced.

The second—closely related—pillar of traditional political culture that retains ongoing relevance is the concept of political unity. As argued above, this concept was least influenced by China’s entrance into modernity; and it arguably reflects the broadest consensus on the Chinese mainland. Both the turmoil of the Republican period, and, more recently, the disintegration of the USSR and Yugoslavia, contributed toward the everstronger belief that “stability is in unity.” Significantly, the actualization of this ideal—much as in the past, especially under the Qing—remains highly flexible: as the cases of Hong Kong and Macao exemplify, the central government can grant certain areas real autonomy, much beyond what is acceptable in most nation-states. It may be expected that China will apply similar flexibility in settling the Taiwan issue, and, perhaps (though this is less likely), in resolving tensions on the country’s ethnic frontiers. Insofar as the overarching principle of political unity is not compromised, China may well be able to allow a considerable degree of local variation with regard to its practical implementation.

The third, and perhaps most controversial, pillar of traditional order that may be of relevance today is political elitism. Surely, after a century of “masses-oriented” discourse one can expect neither a reemergence of the stratum of “scholar-officials” in its traditional form, nor a reappearance of the erstwhile rigid bifurcation between “superior” and “petty” men. Yet the advantages of meritocratic rather than excessively egalitarian modes of rule are evident to many in China, and it is plausible to expect further professionalization of the political elite amid ongoing depoliticization of the “masses.” It is also possible that attempts will be made to utilize the power of the newly emerging socioeconomic elites, turning them from the state’s and the Party’s potential competitors into their voluntary aides. However, in this regard the trends are still unclear, and the Party’s radically egalitarian past may prevent successful co-optation of the members of new proprietary classes.
³⁵
Concomitantly, the Party’s strongly pronounced commitment to the economic interests of “the people”—which clearly echoes not only modern concerns but also the “people-oriented” discourse of the past—may ensure that it continues to enjoy a sufficient degree of popular support, at least insofar as it is able to satisfy the rising economic expectations of the masses.

Time will show whether the CPC will be able to creatively synthesize China’s traditional values and norms with current social and ideological

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realities, forming a new viable ideological framework for Chinese society. Yet the very possibility that the lessons of the Chinese empire—the most durable political entity in human history—have relevance for the rapidly advancing and innovating Chinese society of the twenty-first century testifies to the empire’s remarkable posthumous strength. Now, as always, studying China’s past is essential for an understanding of China’s future.

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Notes

INTRODUCTION

1. For a brief summary of changing Western attitudes concerning the Chinese model, see Blue, “China.”

2. Major English- language studies that directly address the relations between China’s past and its present include Ho and Tsou,
China’s Heritage
, especially Ho’s “Salient Aspects” therein; Solomon,
Mao’s Revolution
; Metzger,
Escape from Predicament
; Pye,
The Spirit of Chinese Politics
; in addition many other studies of premodern China were clearly influenced by the modern perspective (e.g., de Bary,
Waiting for the Dawn
).

3. Elizabeth Perry (“Introduction”) demonstrates how political scientists’ interest in China’s historical peculiarity increased during periods of radical upheaval (e.g., the Communist victory, the Cultural Revolution [1966–1976], or the Tiananmen drama [1989]), and decreased during periods when China’s political processes were relatively predictable and “normal.”

4. Montesquieu (1689–1755) was among the first to associate “Oriental despotism” (including that of China) with climatic conditions (Blue, “China,” 88); and this “environmental determinism” peaked in Wittfogel’s seminal
Oriental Despotism
. The fallacy of this approach is evident, however. Suffice it to mention that China is the most climatically heterogeneous land empire on earth (see McNeill, “China’s Environmental History”), and its historical trajectory simply cannot be reduced to environmental factors. Besides, Wittfogel’s “hydraulic” theory ignores the fact that massive hydraulic works began in China at a relatively late stage of its history, and that during much of its formative age— especially during the so- called Springs- and- Autumns period (770–453 BCE) its political structure was quite similar to the European “multicentric” system, which, according to his theory, could not emerge in the arid areas of the loess plateau (see more in chapter 4). Alternatively, the view that China’s “authoritarianism” reflects weaknesses in its national character became popular among Chinese liberal thinkers in the early twentieth century, most notably during the so- called New Culture Movement (1915–); it curiously resonates with behavioral approaches toward Chinese political culture, such as those of Solomon,
Mao’s Revolution
; Pye,
The Spirit of Chinese Politics
.

5. For detailed analysis of the empire’s ideological foundations, see Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
.

6. Eisenstadt, “Frederic Wakeman’s Oeuvre,” xv– xvi. For Gramsci’s notion of hegemony, see, e.g., Femia,
Gramsci’s Political Thought
; Adamson,
Hegemony and Revolution
.

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7. See, especially, Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
.

8. It is still regrettably common to reduce the analysis of Chinese political culture to a few allegedly primordial features of Chinese civilizations, such as the notion of “divine kingship” or the importance of patrilineal kinship (see, e.g., Baum, “Ritual and Rationality”; Jin Taijun and Wang Qingwu,
Zhongguo chuantong zhengzhi wenhua
).

9. See Liu Zehua’s introduction to Ge Quan’s
Quanli zaizhi lixing
, 1–3.

10. Tu, “The Creative Tension between
Jen
and
Li
.” In a slightly different context, Philip Huang insightfully identifies paradoxes and tensions within the Chinese legal system as the reasons for its flexibility and its longevity (
Civil Justice
, 15–18); and this observation is valid for the imperial political system in general.

11. Balazs, “L’Histoire.” The importance of these alternative materials is particularly vivid in studies of the late imperial period; but even for the preimperial and early imperial periods we are now less dependent on official historiography, especially because of the successful incorporation of material and epigraphic evidence.

12. These are the words of a peer reviewer of this book at the manuscript stage.

13. For earlier studies, see, e.g., Eisenstadt,
The Political System of Empires
; Doyle,
Empires
(the latter being a strictly Eurocentric study). Among recent publications, see Alcock,
Empires
; Mutschler and Mittag,
Conceiving the Empire
; Scheidel,
Rome and China
; Burbank and Cooper,
The Empires in World History
; and, most notably, Morris and Scheidel,
The Dynamics of Ancient Empires
.

14. Jack Goldstone and John Haldon provide a refreshing analysis of empires’ life span, which combines sociological and historical approaches. They argue that empires were “the normal or model form of large political entity throughout Eurasia until quite recently,” and identify the empire as “a territory … ruled from a distinct organizational center … with clear ideological and political sway over varied elite, who in turn exercise power over a population in which a majority have neither access to nor influence over position of imperial power” (Goldstone and Haldon, “Ancient States,” 18–19).

15. The role of ideological factors in empires’ varying trajectories is still highly contestable, as is illustrated by two very recent publications. Goldstone and Haldon place ideological factors on a par with institutional developments as essential for state formation in general and for the maintenance of an empire in particular (“Ancient States,” 18ff.). In contrast, Walter Scheidel, who specifically compares the Chinese and Roman empires, is dismissive of the importance of ideology in the Chinese case, which, in my eyes, greatly impoverishes his discussion (“From the ‘Great Convergence,’ ” 21–22).

16. See, for example, Cao Deben,
Zhongguo chuantong zhengzhi wenhua de xiandai jiazhi
.

17. For ecological challenges to China, see, e.g., Elvin,
The Retreat of the Elephants
.

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CHAPTER 1
THE IDEAL OF “GREAT UNITY”

1. For China’s geographic heterogeneity, see McNeill, “China’s Environmental History.” For the diversity of the core “Han” population, see, e.g., Honig,
Creating Chinese Ethnicity
; Leong,
Migration and Ethnicity
.

2. For the history of the Shang dynasty, see Keightley, “The Shang.”

3. See details in Li Feng,
Landscape and Power
.

4. For instance, in an inscription on the Guai Bo-
gui
vessel, the author, a leader of a non- Zhou polity, refers to his father as “king” but reserves the designation “Son of Heaven” for the Zhou monarch (see ibid., 183–185). Even centuries later, in the Warring States period (453–221 BCE), as major regional lords elevated their status to that of “kings,” none dared proclaim himself “Son of Heaven.”