Yao Yang on Rebuilding China's Political Philosophy, “The Challenges Facing the Chinese Communist Party and the Reconstruction of Political Philosophy”
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A New Chinese Civilization
Translation by David Ownby
"Yao Yang (b. 1964) is a professor at the China Center for Economic Research and Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University. .. Yao is generally identified with China’s New Left, and has worked frequently with New Left scholars such as Wang Shaoguang 王绍光 (b. 1954) and Hu An’gang 胡鞍钢 (b. 1953). At the same time, Yao also seems to be open to the ideas of other schools of thought in China (such openness is of course not unique to Yao). For example, in a 2009 essay on “The Dilemma of China’s Democratization,” published in the Hong Kong journal Twenty-First Century 二十一世纪, Yao adopts the language of the New Left to praise the “responsive democracy” of China’s reform and opening period, but also suggests that this will be insufficient in the long run. Yao argues instead China will inevitably need to implement elections and a full range of civil liberties if the government is ultimately to be seen as legitimate. "
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Over the course of the last two millennia, foreign cultures have impacted China on two occasions, one was the arrival of Buddhism and the other was the arrival of Western culture. Buddhism had a limited impact, but it took more than a thousand years for Chinese culture to completely absorb it: Chan (Zen) Buddhism, the most “Chinese” of the various schools, became the dominant Buddhist sect in China, and Song Neoconfucianism 理学 transformed traditional Confucian teachings by absorbing the Buddhist practice of personal enlightenment.
In comparison, the impact of Western culture on Chinese culture has been all-encompassing, including technology, the organization of production, political systems, culture, and philosophy. China has been constantly dealing with this impact since 1840. The experience has been so violent and pervasive that the idea that Western civilization is the "end of history" is still "common knowledge" for many Chinese people today. However, what we should do is not transform Chinese culture into a part of Western culture, but rather absorb some of the values of Western culture and make them into a part of Chinese culture, just as we historically did with Buddhism.
The impact of Western culture on China began with the First Opium War, when China was forced to open its doors to the Western powers. During the Second Opium War, British and French allied forces invaded Beijing and burned down the Summer Palace. It was only after this that the Qing court begin to awaken to the danger of the situation, giving rise to the Foreign Affairs movement 洋务运动. The crushing defeat of the Qing army in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895 made insightful people realize that merely "studying barbarian technology" could not save China, and that institutional change was necessary. But the changes that ensued did not save the Qing government, and the new republican government was unable to maintain a long-lasting form of republican rule.
The outbreak of the October Revolution in Russia brought Marxism-Leninism to China and with it, new hope. In the wake of the May Fourth Movement, the Chinese Communist Party was born. The Party’s goal was to realize Marx's vision of destroying the old social structure and building a new society without class distinctions. Foreign invasion forced the Party to cooperate with other political actors, in order to save the country, which was the most important task. After the founding of New China in 1949, the Party began to undertake a comprehensive socialist transformation of Chinese society, which largely laid the foundation for China's economic take-off after 1978.
Since reform and opening, the Party has abandoned Soviet-style socialist dogma and made the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation the Party's overall goal. In terms of philosophy, it has returned to the Chinese tradition of pragmatism, in which practice is the sole criterion of truth; at the practical level, it has adopted a moderate 中庸, gradual reform strategy, completing the transition from a planned economy to a mixed market economy; in terms of politics, it has continued the Chinese tradition of meritocracy 贤能主义, establishing a system for the selection of the best cadres, which has become one of the distinguishing features of the contemporary Chinese political system.
The Chinese Communist Party is a product of the spread of Western influence to the East, but the secret of its success has been its combination of Western thought and practice with Chinese reality and tradition. The challenge before the current generation of Chinese scholars is to elevate this process to a theoretical level, and to absorb and digest Western ideas within the framework of Chinese culture, thus creating a new Chinese civilization. As in the case of the absorption of the Buddhist impact, we will know that we have succeeded in digesting Western culture when Chinese people no longer notice it in the everyday course of their lives.
This goal may take several generations to achieve, but it is crucial that we start today. The year 2021 links the past and the future: it marks both the centennial of the founding of the Communist Party of China and the first year of China's progress toward its second 100-year goal: to build a modern socialist power by the 100th year of the founding of New China and to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It is the binding duty of this generation of Chinese intellectuals to sum up the Party's successful experience of the past hundred years and to create new theories, with a view to creating the initial design of a new Chinese civilization at the moment of the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.
The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Revolution from the Perspective of the Second Cultural Challenge
The impact of Western culture on China far exceeded that of Buddhism. While India, the mother country of Buddhism, did not have a more advanced civilization than China, Western civilization had an overwhelming advantage over China, on technological, economic and social levels, as well as intellectually. When China was forced to open its doors in 1840, although its economy ranked first in the world in terms of volume, and its per capita income was only slightly lower than that of Western countries, China was a completely agricultural civilization, and China's politics, economy, and culture all bore the marks of a traditional society.
At that time, the West had already experienced the baptism of the Enlightenment and launched the process of modernization, entering the stage of industrial civilization and achieving an exponential leap in productivity. The unsettling Western impact meant that China's modernization process could not be smooth. During these turbulent times, Chinese society needed strong leadership, but neither the Qing government, the Beiyang warlords, nor the Guomindang were up to the task of building a modern state and promoting modernization in China.
It was not until after the October Revolution in Russia that a group of intellectuals, mainly from Peking University, began to promote and study Marxism in earnest, eventually founding the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. From the outset, the CCP positioned itself as a Marxist party. The mission set by First National Conference of the CCP [July 23-August 2, 1921] was that of eliminating classes through implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat; the CCP united with the Third International and the Party's cause was part of the world proletarian revolution. It is worth noting that although the First National Congress set the task of transforming China and determined the criteria and time limit for its accomplishment, stipulating that the transformation would continue "until class distinctions in society have been eliminated," it did not mention which direction China should take once class distinctions had been eliminated.
After the founding of New China, the Communist Party of China began to fully implement the program established by the First National Congress and launched successive waves of social reform movements throughout the country. Land reform realized Sun Yat-sen's long-cherished dream of "land to the tillers;" the socialist transformation of urban industry and commerce eliminated private ownership of industrial production; the women's liberation movement brought women out of their homes and raised their political, social, and economic status; the literacy movement and universal education greatly improved the people’s human capital level, especially that of the lower classes, and greatly increased social mobility; the patriotic health movement curbed the infectious diseases that plagued the population, and the low-cost, broad-coverage health care system improved the health of the population and greatly reduced infant mortality rates. Today, most citizens are unaware of these achievements and take them for granted, but a horizontal comparison shows that very few developing countries (or regions) have done as well as China.
Take the example of India, which is in many ways quite similar to China. The countries are roughly equal in terms of population and size; both have enduring, resplendent civilizations; their recent histories are also very similar, New China having been founded in 1949 while India declared its independence in 1947; and in the decades following their founding, both countries embarked on an independent development path and both adopted an industrial policy of import substitution.
However, by 1978, the achievements of the two countries were vastly different. India was still a poor country at this time, but China, though poorer, was far ahead of India in other respects: in China, adult literacy was 25% higher, life expectancy per capita was 12 years higher, and infant mortality was 50% lower. The only indicator in which China performed less well than India was its higher education enrollment, and it took until 2002 for China to surpass India on this front.
This is partly a legacy of the Cultural Revolution, and partly due to the difference in the educational development strategies of the two countries: China focused on providing basic education to the general population, while India placed more emphasis on elite education. Although both countries have actively promoted industrialization, China's performance was much superior to that of India: in terms of manufacturing as a percentage of GDP, China was 23% higher than India, and in terms of manufacturing employment, China was 4.3% higher than India. Such achievements laid a solid foundation for the take-off of the Chinese economy after reform and opening. Today, China’s manufacturing industry accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s added value, surpassing that of the United States and Japan combined; this achievement would be unimaginable in the absence of the achievements of the earlier era.
How should we evaluate the 20th century Chinese revolution? How should we evaluate the role played by the Chinese Communist Party in this revolution? The first thing to be affirmed is that the 20th century Chinese revolution was an inevitable stage in China's modernization. Some conservative liberal scholars argue that China missed an opportunity to establish a constitutional monarchy at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and that this was the cause of a century of turmoil in Chinese society.
This view, if not simply an error in understanding, is fanciful historical romanticism. In matter of fact, after Qianlong [who reigned from 1735 to 1796], each subsequent Qing emperor was worse than his predecessor. Yet two thousand years of imperial rule and nearly three hundred years of Qing control meant that the path toward a republic would not be easy, and that revolution was inevitable. This is a common phenomenon in the process of Eurasian countries in their transformation from ancient to modern societies. The most important differences between modern and ancient societies are industrialization, the leveling of social structures, political openness, interpersonal and social relations that go beyond ties of blood and geography, and the rationalization of intellectual life.
The revolution broke down the old social structure, expanded the scope of interpersonal interactions, and broadened political participation, thus providing the conditions for industrialization. Without revolution, China's modernization would have been much more difficult. By contrast, countries that did not experience revolutions (such as those on the Indian subcontinent) took much longer to dismantle the institutional legacy of traditional society, and their economic and social development has been much slower as a result.
History gave the Chinese Communist Party the opportunity to transform China. The Party itself was a product of the spread of Western influence to the East, and the social transformation the Party pursued after the founding of New China was also the result of practicing one aspect of Western culture (Marxism). In terms of importing Western ideas and putting them into practice, no organization in modern China can rival the CCP.
However, this was not a case of complete Westernization, but a selective absorption of Western civilization. Of course, the Party made errors of one kind or another in the social transformation it carried out after the founding of New China. The legacy of some of these mistakes could be long-lasting, and the most important of these mistakes was the repudiation of traditional Chinese culture. During the revolutionary period, this repudiation was necessary because the old system relied on traditional culture, especially its political culture. However, after completing the period of basic reconstruction, what the Party needed more than anything else was a theory that would provide long-lasting peace and a practice that would promote economic construction.
The Sinicization of the CCP
Future historians will likely see Deng Xiaoping's greatest achievement as having led the Chinese Communist Party back to China. The first step in this process was the repositioning of the idea of “class struggle.” The “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China,” promulgated in June of 1981, carefully summarized the Party's experience and the lessons learned in the first 30 years of its existence.
In 1982, the 12th Party Congress redefined the principle contradictions in Chinese society: "Following the elimination of the exploiting class as a class, most of the contradictions existing in our society do not have the nature of class struggle, and class struggle is no longer the main contradiction. Due to domestic factors and international influences, class struggle will continue to exist to a certain degree for a long period time and may intensify under certain conditions. The main contradiction of our society is the contradiction between the growing material and cultural needs of the people and the backwardness of social production. Other contradictions should be solved at the same time as this main contradiction. It is necessary to strictly distinguish and correctly deal with the two types of contradictions of different nature, namely, the contradiction between the enemy and us and internal contradictions within the people."
The Party’s mission has also undergone significant changes: "The overall mission of the CCP at the present stage is to unite all ethnic groups throughout the nation to be self-reliant and struggle to gradually modernize industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology, and to build China into a highly civilized and highly democratic socialist country. The focus of the CCP's work is to lead the people of all ethnic groups in the construction of a modernized socialist economy. It should vigorously develop social productive forces and gradually improve socialist relations of production in accordance with the actual level of the productive forces and the requirements of development. The material and cultural living standards of the people in urban and rural areas should be gradually raised on the basis of the development of production and the growth of social wealth."
Since class struggle was no longer the main conflict and the task of social transformation had been completed, the Party could no longer rely on dogmatic Marxist theory to guide its future practice. When Deng Xiaoping led the Party’s transition from social transformation to economic construction, it was China’s philosophical tradition of pragmatism that guided his practice. The great discussion on the criterion of truth, which began in May 1978, at the time took aim at the "two whatevers 两个凡是."[2]
Looking back, this was a new beginning, in which the CCP abandoned dogma and embraced pragmatism. Marx grew up in the German tradition of discursive philosophy, but consciously transcended it, especially when writing Das Kapital, in which empirical methodology was very important. But for Chinese people, his theories remained nonetheless too abstract, especially his theories about ultimate truths, which have difficulty taking root in China, where people celebrate life in the present world. Deng Xiaoping's reform practice started from the simple understanding that "poverty is not socialism." Deng realized that the dogmatic implementation of Marxism had left China behind its neighbors and that the introduction of a market economy was the way for Chinese socialism to reinvent itself.
The next question involved practice. Deng Xiaoping's "cat theory"—"It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice"— was perfectly timely, insisting that as long as everyone agrees on the goals, the means by which the goals are achieved are secondary. In the 1980s and 1990s, almost all reforms were aimed at solving the most urgent problems of the era. Rural reform was initiated by peasants and grassroots cadres to solve material problems of adequate food and clothing, and soon evolved from "making the group responsible for production 包产到组" to "making the household responsible for production 包产到户.” This reform was ultimately able to dispel the leaders' doubts because it solved China's food supply problem virtually overnight.
Inspired by the rural reforms, the financial relationship between local and central government also began change with the implementation of the "cooking in separate kitchens 分灶吃饭" system [i.e., fiscal decentralization], which greatly increased local enthusiasm and laid the foundation for the "tax-assignment" reforms 分税制 that began in 1994. Gradualism became the most important feature of China's reform, which was all the more evident in the urban reforms that began in the fall of 1984. The core of the urban reforms was the transition from planned prices to market prices through a "two-track price system 价格双轨制:" goods produced by the plan had prices fixed by the plan, while market prices prevailed for goods produced outside of the plan.
As the reforms progressed, the scope of market pricing was gradually expanded. In the eyes of orthodox economists, this idea of "two prices for the same thing" could not work, because it would give rise to a black market and the resale of plan-produced goods for profit. Black markets and "speculators 倒爷" did appear, but the two-track price system was generally successful, allowing China to avoid hyperinflation. Moreover, an unintended benefit was that the market track under the dual-track price system created room for rural enterprises to survive, and greatly stimulated China's process of rural industrialization. In the 1990s, the dual-track price system completed its historical mission, marked by the 1994 exchange rate convergence, and price reform was completed with a new round of reforms around state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
Like the rural reforms, this was a bottom-up exercise, driven by the pressure that SOEs exerted on local government finances. In 1995, the central government introduced the policy of "grasping the large and letting go of the small 抓大放小," [i.e., consolidating large SOEs and allowing smaller ones to privatize] and the reform of SOEs was carried out nationwide.
All of these practices ran ahead of Party theory; official ideology has always recognized practices that have proven to be successful. As a recognition of rural reform, the 13th Party Congress in October 1987 put forward the theory of the "primary stage of socialism," and the Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee in October 1993 echoed Deng Xiaoping's remarks on his “southern tour,” stipulating that the goal of China's economic reform was to establish a socialist market economy. Compared with the theory of the "primary stage of socialism," the theory of the "socialist market economy" was not only a recognition of existing reforms, but also a guiding role for future measures. The reforms of the 1990s accelerated China's move toward a mixed-ownership economy.
The results of the reforms were reflected in the constitutional amendments in 1999, which established the individual economy and the private economy as important elements of the socialist market economy. At the 16th Party Congress, held in 2002, the "Three Represents" theory was written into the Party Constitution, a theory that states that the CCP represents "the development requirements of China's advanced productive forces, the direction of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the Chinese people.”
Following the reforms of the 1990s, China's society and economy had undergone huge changes, and the "Three Represents" theory was a response to these changes. Under the banner of the "Three Represents," the Party opened its doors to people from all walks of life. The CCP is no longer a party that represents only particular groups, as is the case with Western political parties, but provides a forum for the expression of various interests; through the process of democratic centralization within the Party, the Party itself has become a mechanism for the summation of various interests.
The World Significance of Chinese Civilization
One of the major challenges currently facing the CCP is the tension between Party practice and Party theory. At the theoretical level, sinicization has just begun. It is very difficult to reintegrate the Party's theory with Chinese tradition; after all, anti-tradition has been the guiding principle of the 20th-century Chinese revolution.
However, from the perspective of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Party, and as we enter the final sprint to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it is time to take Chinese tradition seriously at the theoretical level. This requires that we fully recognize the excellent components of Chinese tradition and combine them with Marxism and other excellent components of Western culture to eventually form a unified political and philosophical theory. In my opinion, the excellent political and philosophical components of the Chinese tradition are pragmatism, a balance between individualism and order, meritocracy, and the rule of virtue 德治 [i.e., as opposed to the rule of law].
One, Pragmatism
The first characteristic of Chinese civilization and the Chinese people is pragmatism. When the main body of Chinese civilization developed in the Yellow River basin, the region was much wetter and warmer than it is today, with a subtropical climate, and an abundant supply of water and grass, plants and animals. Our ancestors thus developed an optimistic and worldly outlook and began to praise life on earth at an early age, as evidenced the beautiful love poems in the Book of Songs: " Guan-guan go the ospreys/On the islet in the river/The modest, retiring, virtuous, young lady/Will be a good mate for our prince.”
Nature smiled on our ancestors, hence our ancestors had no fear of God, but only a yearning for their life in the world. Because they did not believe in God, the Chinese did not believe in eternal truths, which the first imperative of pragmatism. Many major conflicts in the Western world grew out of the belief that their truth was more worthy of pursuit than those of others; the Crusades, the Thirty Years' War, and the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, all originated in differences of belief. Pragmatism will dissolve such conflicts, and there has never been a war in Chinese history over beliefs.
In times of peace, pragmatism rejects dogma and opens the door to institutional and technological innovation. Practice is the only criterion of truth; practice creates the world, and was a prerequisite for reform and opening. In line with this, pragmatism rejects taking the means as the end, and instead begins with the end, insisting that as long as everyone agrees on the goals, the means by which the goals are achieved are secondary.
When we apply this principle to the real world, it means that a system’s goal should be that of serving people and society, and that the system itself cannot be the ultimate goal for the whole society to believe in and pursue. This is quite different from the West's view of liberal democracy as the ultimate goal. For a pragmatist, the criterion for evaluating the suitability of a regime is not its form, but whether it can achieve the goal of legitimacy. Liberal democracy can achieve some legitimacy goals, but not all, and therefore should not be seen as the "end of history.”
Two, A Balance between Individualism and Order
The general perception today is that Chinese culture is a collectivist culture. This is quite different from the views of the revolutionaries and thinkers of the late Qing and early Republican period. According to Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), Chinese society was like a sack of potatoes, with each potato being independent and colliding with each other. According to Liang Shuming (1893-1988), Chinese society was a small group society based on kinship and locality, while Western society formed a civil society due to religious fellowship. These sages' views are more realistic than the ones that are popular nowadays. Because of the absence of religion, Chinese grassroots society has been based on ties of kindship and geography.
Buddhism briefly broke this pattern in certain places, but following the sinicization of Buddhism, ties of kinship and locality consolidated their hold on Chinese grassroots society. Between the family and the government, there are few other social groups in Chinese society. At the grassroots level, what dominates Chinese society is family-based individualism, and moral norms must be maintained based on ties of kinship and geography. Beyond such ties, Chinese society must rely on the government to maintain order. From this perspective, China's strong government is exactly what grassroots family-based individualism demands, and Chinese collectivism is actually an expression of the common people's obedience to authority in exchange for order.
This is very different from the West, especially England. In England, religion and courts grounded in customary law became the dominant force in grassroots society before the king's power took over, and continued to function as intermediate organizations between the individual and the king's power, serving to organize and manage society and to counter the king's authority. Chinese society lacks such intermediate organizations, and large attempts at social mobilization and organization need to be handled directly by the government.
As a result, it is more difficult to establish an accountable government in China than in the West. But the Chinese model of individualism + strong government also has its own advantages: on the one hand, the Chinese admire individual effort and success, which makes it easier for the Chinese to accept liberal principles of individual values and to nourish entrepreneurs; on the other hand, it is easy for society to follow the government's lead when needed, and it is easy to generate social cohesion in times of crisis, which helps to successfully resolve such crises. This is evidenced by the fact that China has surpassed the United States as the country with the most billionaires, and at the same time, it has been more successful than the West in dealing with the pandemic.
Three, Meritocracy
One consequence of Chinese-style individualism is meritocracy 贤能主义. Unlike the Western monolithic theory of human nature, Confucianism holds that human nature is diverse, fluid, and malleable. People are born different, but with the exception of the extremely intelligent and the extremely stupid, people’s achievements depend on individual efforts over the course of their lives. For Confucians, there is no abstract equality, because what talents and achievements a person ultimately possesses are the result of individual effort, and abstract equality ignores the role of effort. Confucianism recognizes only relational equality, and in terms of social distribution, advocates that rewards be proportional to effort, which is similar to Aristotle's proportional equality.
The impact of this view of human nature on Chinese society has been profound and lasting. At the personal level, it manifests itself in esteem for individual achievement; at the political level, it manifests itself in political meritocracy, i.e., it requires officials to have levels of morality and competence that match their public positions, and the higher the position, the higher the expectations. From the recommendation system 察举制度 of the Western Han Dynasty, to the imperial examination system organized in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and then to today’s cadre selection system today, meritocracy has always played a prominent role.
Any particular strength of a people must also be its weakness, and meritocracy is no exception. Its most serious weaknesses are twofold: first, it overlooks innate differences between individuals, as well as family and social circumstances, and ignores the role of individual and social contingencies while rewarding individual achievement; second, it weakens the sense of social community and reinforces individualism’s tendency to reject a sense of social community. Within China, a strong government can partially compensate for these flaws; however, overseas, these weaknesses create the image of the Chinese as "only caring about themselves," "not caring about politics," and "unable to integrate into local society.”
However, meritocracy can be an antidote to contemporary Western populism. Western liberal democracy was originally not a pure democracy, but a republican system that mixed elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. But after World War I, and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, democracy came to dominate and ultimately evolved into today’s populism. In response to the impact of postwar democratization and the civil rights movement, Western intellectuals contributed to these changes by providing theoretical justifications for further democratization and equality, pushing the above-mentioned changes forward.
However, pure democracy does not allow for rational political decision-making, either at the theoretical or the practical level. For any society, the abandonment of the principles of political hierarchy and meritocracy can have disastrous consequences in the long run. China's political system may not be fully replicable in other countries, but the political meritocracy behind it is something that other countries can learn from. Compared to perfecting democracy, reintroducing meritocracy and improving republican institutions is the way to deal with Western populism.
Four, Rule of Virtue
One of the past criticisms of Chinese politics was that China had only "the rule of man" but not "the rule of law. This criticism has a great deal of validity, but it is too arbitrary to completely dismiss the idea of the rule of man. A perfect rule of law does not exist in the world, so there is always room for the rule of man. Thus the question is not whether to accept the rule of man, but rather what kind of rule of man we want to have. Chinese political history tells us that the rule of virtue is the fundamental principle guiding the rule of man.
For Confucianism, the highest goal of state governance is "benevolence 仁," as in the expression "benevolence means to love the people." To govern benevolently is to serve the people of the world. To achieve benevolence, the rulers themselves must first possess a high degree of virtue and be able not only to exercise restraint but also to judge what constitutes benevolence. Unlike contemporary Western democracy, which emphasizes the accountability of government officials, Chinese politics emphasizes their responsibility. Accountability is a passive constraint imposed on officials, while responsibility is a requirement that officials must take the initiative to serve the people.
The former thus weakens the moral demands on officials, while the latter requires that officials must have high moral standards and competence. Neither should be taken to extremes: if the former is too extreme, a president like Trump will emerge; if the latter overemphasizes official activism, it will lead to the violation of the rights of the people by officials. In modern society, the best combination should be to take the rule of law as the foundation and to require that officials practice a rule of virtue.
Constructing the Political Philosophy of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
Since reform and opening, the Party has accelerated the process of the sinicization of Marxism, which has taken the initial form of the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Socialism is the most notable result that Western influence has left on China, and evidence of China's absorption of the excellent culture of the West. However, the question of how to define "Chinese characteristics" is still an open one. I illustrated above that Chinese culture possesses qualities that are of global significance. These qualities should be the elements that make up our "Chinese characteristics.”
The question is how to combine these qualities to form a political philosophy. Today's world civilization is a continuation of the Axial Age. In that exciting period, Chinese civilization shone brightly and left a heritage of limitless intellectual resources for future generations. To build China's own political philosophy, we must look to that era for resources. As far as the potential of political philosophy is concerned, Confucianism is undoubtedly the most time-tested doctrine. The most feasible solution is start with Confucianism to build a political philosophy with "Chinese characteristics."
Consistent with the Chinese tradition of pragmatism, Confucian understanding of human nature arises from empirical observation of human beings, not from theoretical constructions, as in Hobbes and Locke. Human nature is the combination of the universal characteristics of human beings. However, these universal characteristics are a collection of individual characteristics, which depend on one's innate nature, lived environment, and personal effort. Modern psychology also tells us that individuals differ greatly at the physiological level, and that these differences are the result of the accumulation of innate and acquired factors. Therefore, it is not very meaningful to talk about universal human nature. Each person winds up with a different human nature, and this is very important to the political process.
In political participation the smallest “unit” is the individual, and this participation involves a variety of factors such as individual virtue, the amount of knowledge the individual possesses, their judgment, and their ability to act. Given differences in individual achievements, not all individuals should participate in all political processes. Political hierarchies are inevitable, and different levels require different individual virtues and abilities. The higher the hierarchy, the more complex the decisions involved will be, and therefore expectations will be the higher in terms of virtues and competencies.
For this reason, the selection of officials should not be left entirely to the people to decide, but needs to be done by a central organ. As an organ whose duty is to select officials, the officials of the central organ itself must also be highly virtuous and competent, and for this reason, the central organ also sets the general policy for the country. However, the power of the central organ must be constrained by an elected sovereign body, and its appointments and general policies must be approved by this sovereign body before implementation. There are two reasons for this: first, the highest ideal of Confucian politics is benevolence, and the central organ will not be afraid to submit its decisions to the sovereign body for consideration if they are conducive to the implementation of benevolence; second, by submitting its decisions to the sovereign body for deliberation, the central organ can eliminate the public's doubts as to whether the central organ is sincere in implementing benevolent government.
Here, the sovereignty of the sovereign body is passive in that it does not initiate legislation and personnel appointments, unlike the sovereignty of similar bodies in liberal democracy. Consistent with liberal democracy, an executive body (government) is established under the sovereign body. In addition, to prevent the central organ from abusing its power or making poor decisions, an admonitory body 谏议机构 is established specifically to oversee the actions of the central organ.
The goal of state governance is to strike a balance among political actors, provide social order, and achieve specific social goals. Liberal democracies leave the choice social goals to the majority of voters, which is not necessarily socially optimal, because consensual social goals may not be the choice of the majority of voters. At the core of the Confucian political structure described above is the traditional Chinese political meritocracy, but it also incorporates Western elements of democracy, and checks and balances on power.
Such a republican system facilitates the implementation of consensual social goals and prevents the arbitrary exercise of power. It has many similarities with liberalism, the most important of which is the same protection of fundamental individual freedoms. However, it rejects abstract equality and accepts only equality under the principle of proportionality. The resulting Confucian liberalism both inherits the core values of liberalism, and also reflects reality better than liberalism, and therefore is more likely to be carried out.
The contemporary Chinese political system overlaps highly with the Confucian political structure described above: the CCP is the central organ, the National People's Congress is the sovereign body, the State Council is the executive body (government), and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference is the admonitory body. The sinicization of the Party at the theoretical level must begin with the absorption of Confucian political philosophy. Marxism, itself a product of the West's transformation of primitive capitalism, became, after its introduction into China, the weapon of the Party's victory over the old system and all its subordinate forces, and provided the theoretical basis for the Party's transformation of Chinese society.
However, Marxism in its original form is not suitable as the ideological guide for the Party to accomplish the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation; what we need to do is to develop a 21st century Marxism in the process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Moreover, Marxism is a product of Western civilization, and for the Chinese nation to take its place within world civilization, it must offer the world a culture that China has created. How to construct a new theory of the Party while maintaining the essence of Marxism is the most important task for the Party on the occasion of its centennial.
One possible orientation is to distinguish between Marxist philosophy and Marxist practice, inheriting the former and discarding the latter. The core of Marxist philosophy is dialectical materialism and historical materialism, both of which have something in common with Chinese pragmatism and the Confucian ideal of the middle way. The basis of Marxist practice is Marxist political economy, the core of which is the theory of exploitation based on the labor theory of value. In the early days of capitalism, production was relatively simple and the division between capital and labor was relatively clear; however, under today's globalized pattern of production and exchange, capital and labor have long formed a situation of extreme interactivity [lit., “there is something of each of us in the other 你中有我、我中有你”], and factor-based distribution has proven to be a more effective social distribution mechanism.
China's practice also shows that the establishment of a market mechanism to achieve factor distribution is the secret of the success of reform and opening. Using Marxist philosophy as the guide and Confucian politics as the body to reconstruct the Party's theoretical system is the way for the Party to complete its return to China and a key step in Chinese civilization’s absorption of Western civilization.
Notes
[1]姚洋最新万字方案: 中国共产党面临的挑战与政治哲学的重构, published online by文化纵横/Beijing Cultural Review on July 2, 2021.
[2]"We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave," from a February 7, 1977 editorial in the People’s Daily.
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