[Part 6 Confucian State] China Governance History
Zhao neatly sums up the history in his New Theory of Chinese History
This is a brilliant, major book. It is ambitious in every sense. Zhao attempts to rewrite both macro-sociological theory and Chinese historical development, and he gives a new answer to the old question of why Europe ultimately developed and China did not. He largely achieves these ambitious goals through an extraordinary combination of erudition and analytical power. ― Michael Mann, University of California, Los Angeles
Dingxin Zhao wrote:
Chapter 2:
Summary
This chapter summarizes Western Zhou history from its origin to its decline. Three pivotal institutions of Western Zhou origin exerted an enduring impact on the history of China: the Mandate of Heaven, the kinship-based “feudal” system, and lineage law. The Mandate of Heaven concept, which originated as the early Zhou rulers’ justification for their overthrow of the Shang state, endured as a foundation of state power, widely accepted among Chinese rulers, the elite, and the people. The dominance of this political concept made government performance one of the most important bases of state legitimacy. Correlative thinking, historical rationalism, and religions characterized by a sense of immanence, which flourished throughout premodern China, all appeared during the Western Zhou period in part thanks to this political concept.
The Western Zhou “feudal” system took shape in the course of Western Zhou kinship-based military colonization. This political arrangement not only sustained Chinese culture when ancient China faced many potential intruders, but also contributed to the spread of Western Zhou culture and identity, and its writing system. This last, in turn, would become the medium of communication among peoples of different linguistic backgrounds and would contribute to the lasting existence of vast “Chinese” empires in the absence of modern infrastructural technologies. Moreover, to regulate the relationships between the Western Zhou court and the enfeoffed [land in exchange for service] city-states, the Zhou rulers gradually improvised a system of lineage law. The development of lineage law furthered the importance of family in Chinese culture. Lineage-law tradition together with Mandate of Heaven ideology to a great extent redirected Chinese thinking from miracle-granting heaven and ancestors to benefits derived from worldly good conduct. Such good conduct, centered as it was on lineage rituals, familial ethics, and beneficent rule, laid the intellectual foundation for Confucianism. Finally, the growth and proliferation of the lineages and the complicated, protocol-governed rituals centered on the lineage principles facilitated notions of hierarchical division of labor and meritocratic selection of officials from among qualified members of the aristocracy. Hierarchy, division of labor, and meritocracy contributed to the emergence of bureaucracy during the Western Zhou period.
A few other Western Zhou characteristics important for our understanding of Western Zhou history and its legacies are mentioned in the chapter. In the Western Zhou economy, land was not privately owned and self-employed farmers and artisans were few. Universal education for the children of city dwellers may have existed. Most importantly, whereas most historians have seen the country dwellers as slaves or as members of the lowest classes, I point out that most country dwellers of the Western Zhou period lived quite beyond the reach of the city-states in “unpopulated” areas. This gave both the city dwellers of the Western and early Eastern Zhou eras an exit option—they could flee the bounds of the state system for one of the uncontrolled areas. This constituted an important source of “political freedom,” especially for the city dwellers.
Chapter 3:
Summary
Like the preceding chapter, this one sets the stage for fuller and deeper analyses. I assert, based on available data, that the Chinese population might have increased about threefold between the eighth and third centuries BCE, and that population growth did not seem to have played a crucial role in shaping Eastern Zhou history. I also claim that, Western Zhou having experienced a large influx of non-agrarian peoples from the north, that influx decreased during Eastern Zhou as northern China’s climate entered a prolonged warmer phase. In other words, Eastern Zhou’s historical development was largely driven by internal forces rather than by interactions between the Chinese and the people of the steppes.
The chapter then moves on to characteristics of the early Chinese city-states that are crucial for understanding Eastern Zhou history. Most important in that regard is that, perhaps with the exception of Chu, the early Eastern Zhou city-states were not run by bureaucracies and had no standing armies. These city-states began as lineage-based organizations with dukes acting as lineage heads. The city-states’ lineage-based origins delayed the differentiation between state and family in politics and strengthened the kinship-based culture of China. Kinship-based society offered fertile ground for the later rise of Confucianism, a philosophy that sees the foundation of a good society in a family-centered political order. Moreover, in the Western Zhou court, enfeoffed and lineage-based city-states also made salient two kinds of identities among the city dwellers: a pan-Zhou identity and a kinship-based identity. Unlike their Greek counterparts, city dwellers in China did not possess a territory-based identity, and the Chinese city-states were not territorial states. The salience of pan-Zhou and kinship-based identities and the absence of place-based identity among the city dwellers had the following implications: during the Age of Total War, although all the major city-states had developed into territorial states, the social relations caged into these states were not yet territory-based. Even though the interstate wars turned increasingly brutal, neither patriotism nor any other place-based identity took root in early China. Consequently, people accepted “foreign” rulers with little psychological aversion, and local scholars frequently traveled to other states to attain better positions, both of which were conducive to the unification of China.
This chapter then proceeds to briefly introduce the origins, geographies, and cultural/political features of the major Eastern Zhou city-states, as well as a tripartite periodization of Eastern Zhou history. The tripartite periodization starts with the Age of Hegemons (770–546 BCE), during which militarily more successful city-states were competing for significance within the Zhou political framework, and improvising rudimentary forms of bureaucratic government and other governing structures, largely for the purpose of winning wars. Following the Age of Hegemons was the period I have named the Age of Transition (545–420 BCE), during which in most militarily successful city-states the ducal power was undermined by the rising power of the aristocratic lineages and the decline of the feudal order. The last of the three periods is the Age of Total War (419–221 BCE), in which full-fledged bureaucratically governed territorial states emerged and achieved the capacity to wage wars that mobilized the majority of the adult male population and the country’s resources and lasted for months or even years. By virtue of the Qin conquest, total war facilitated China’s unification.
This author ventures to affirm that the tripartite periodization is not just a better scheme for conveying the contours of development of the Eastern Zhou states as well as the changing patterns of their interactions. It also reveals the logic of Eastern Zhou economic and ideological developments, which could not be conveyed by the conventional twofold periodization (i.e., the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods).
Chapter 4:
Summary
After the collapse of the Western Zhou political order, the city-states formerly under the control of the Zhou court entered a new phase in their relationships. These states sometimes fought against each other one to one, and at other times aligned into opposing blocs. Large states emerged, state capacity was enhanced, standing armies appeared, and new institutions developed. These developments coincided with the formation of a new hegemonic political order and the emergence of a kind of instrumental rationality aimed, not at the pursuit of private gain, but at the gain of an entire lineage or a state—that is, the publicly oriented instrumental rationality (see chapter1).
This chapter has three major focuses. First, it examines the emergence and nature of a hegemonic system of interstate relations. Second, it analyzes two important institutional innovations in these militarily more successful city-states—bureaucratized counties and secondary feudalization. Third, it discusses the impetus to rationalize warfare during the Age of Hegemons, the military advantages that rationalization (i.e., instrumental strategies) afforded, and how this fostered an efficiency-motivated culture and accelerated history’s cumulative developmental process.
The chapter has also clarified two important subjects on which historians have provided confusing accounts. First, in analyzing the patterns of war networks, we realize that early Eastern Zhou China was not sequentially dominated by five hegemons, as many historians believe. Between 770 and 643 BCE, China had four rather separate theaters of war, each dominated by a state that benefited from its instrumental military reforms and its more protected location. Between 643 and 546 BCE, ancient Chinese interstate politics shifted to a balance of power between Jin and Chu, with Chu having the upper hand most of the time. Second, based on the seasonal aspects of warfare, among other evidence, we realize that although rituals figured significantly in early Eastern Zhou warfare, they did not determine some of the crucial facets of war conduct, because the outcomes of a war could not only alter a state’s military strength but also determine its fate. The constant possibility of a life-or-death outcome swiftly advanced efficiency-oriented war strategies at the expense of Western Zhou ritualized war conduct. The chapter’s final section analyzes the general patterns of Eastern Zhou warfare as revealed by the war distance data. That data shows that changes over time in the patterns of armies’ travel distances closely reflected the dynamics of Eastern Zhou politics, the states’ relative military strengths and capacities to exact resources from the populace, and the changing natures and structures of the states.
Chapter 5:
Summary
Secondary feudalization, developed during the Age of Hegemons, strengthened the power of aristocratic ministers at the expense of ducal houses, triggering a general crisis in the feudal order and the collapse of a hegemonic system of interstate relations that had formed after the collapse of the Western Zhou dynasty. The pivot point in this historical process was the 546 BCE truce agreement between Jin and Chu, which also included many other smaller states. Following the truce agreement, Wu attempted to achieve a hegemonic status defining interstate relationships, as Chu and Jin had done in the past. But despite defeating Chu in several major battles, Wu remained limited by its unfavorable geopolitical situation. Having overextended itself militarily, Wu quickly met its demise, a collapse that signified the end of the hegemonic system of interstate relations that had existed for over two hundred years.
Eastern Zhou politics after the 546 BCE truce agreement entered the Age of Transition, characterized by the worsening of the feudal crisis and eventually the development of bureaucratic states empowered by Legalist doctrines. In this Age of Transition the most historically significant event was the metamorphosis of Jin. The 546 BCE truce agreement, having removed the major external threat to Jin, allowed Jin’s six most powerful aristocratic lineages to turn their attention to domestic power struggles. Large-scale civil wars soon broke out among the six lineages, wiping out three of them. In 453 BCE the surviving three divided Jin into three new states. Compelled by historical circumstances, Wei (one of the Three Jins) turned itself into a full-fledged bureaucratic state (among other major reforms), which not only eliminated the possibility of a recurrence of the feudal crisis but also greatly strengthened its military capacity. These transformations made Wei the strongest state at the time (see chapter 8).
The collapse of the hegemonic interstate system changed the nature of warfare. During the Age of Transition, far fewer states were conquered, because the larger states, plagued by the feudal crisis, had less capacity for territorial expansion. Once the larger states were no longer able to maintain the interstate political order, skirmishes among minor states became a commonplace.
Finally, the efficiency-oriented rational culture and cumulative development that had begun in the Age of Hegemons surged during the Age of Transition. Politically, the state’s administration and taxation capabilities greatly increased as bureaucracy and meritocracy became the norm. Economically, private ownership of land came into being, and market relations burgeoned. In the cultural and ideological spheres, private education was established, and learned men started to voice their concerns and to propose solutions to society’s problems, leading to the flourishing of ancient Chinese philosophies. These new developments are the foci of the next two chapters.
Chapter 6:
Summary
During the Age of Transition, with the feudal crisis and rise of bureaucratic states, the status group called shi emerged. Some of these shi wrote treatises voicing their concerns about the problems of society and recommending what they saw as remedies. This facilitated the emergence of various philosophies during the Age of Total War. The most influential ones were later labeled Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism. The shi and the philosophies they developed had two major characteristics, acquired from the historical/structural conditions that had nurtured these thinkers and shaped their thoughts.
First, although the successful shi enjoyed great prestige and power during the Age of Total War, they did not as a group have organizational bases and military means independent of the state. Individual shi came to power through a ruler’s recognition. Almost all of ancient China’s extant philosophical writings are therefore treatises written to appeal to the rulers. The activities of shi in the end only expanded state power without being able to balance it. Second, ancient Chinese philosophies were precocious in the origination of historical rationalism. The early maturation of historical rationalism suppressed the development of theoretical-formal rationality in China, and greatly lessened the possibility for Chinese philosophers to theorize privately oriented instrumental rationality into positive values.
Although different ancient Chinese philosophies flourished during the Age of Total War, Legalism was the prevailing ideology of rule, with which no other ancient Chinese philosophy could compete. What emerged during the Age of Total War was, therefore, a synergistic relationship between warfare and Legalist reforms that was partly inspired by Legalist doctrines. While increasingly fierce military competition called for thorough Legalist reforms, successful Legalist reforms greatly strengthened the states, allowing them to fight more efficiently. As a result, the scale and duration of warfare kept increasing.
Chapter 7:
Summary
This chapter asserts that, theoretically, political actors have three ideal-typical ways of mobilizing their followers to fight: to pay them, to convince them that they are fighting for their own cause, or to coerce them into fighting and reward those who fight well. Which of the three becomes a state’s dominant mode of military mobilization depends on the nature of that state and its relationship with the society. A state’s mode of mobilization will further shape the patterns of development of that state, its society, and the relationships between the state and society. In general, a weak state with enough money tends to rely on the first strategy, which further weakens that state. The second mobilization strategy can become dominant in states with a variety of strengths; the dominance of this strategy will boost state power and coalesce the identity of the people being mobilized. Only an extremely strong and autonomous state can employ the last-mentioned mobilization strategy; in turn, this strategy further enhances state power at the expense of societal forces.
The military mobilization strategy adopted by the ancient Chinese states during the Age of Total War was very close to the last-mentioned of the three ideal types. It was totally unattainable in the early modern European states but readily accessible to the ancient Chinese states for a very simple reason: state power was limited in Europe by dynamic checks and balances among the king, aristocracy, high clergy, and urban bourgeoisie, whereas it was augmented in ancient China by the collapse of aristocratic power amid the feudal crisis, leaving the state’s rulers as the only powerful political actor.
Empirically, this chapter shows that military competition in conjunction with the feudal crisis prompted the state of Wei to initiate Legalist reforms. Wei’s military dominance thereafter compelled the other states to learn from it, triggering waves of isomorphic changes. The Legalist reforms greatly expanded a state’s power, giving it tighter control of the society and the ability to extract more resources for warfare. The reforms also made possible large-scale water projects for enhancing transportation and agricultural production, also for the purposes of war. Finally, the rise of state power after Legalism took hold fostered quick development of extensive technologies, that is, inventions aimed at extracting more output from more coordinated and organized inputs. That capacity placed a lid on the booming market economy, thereby firmly subordinating it to political forces. State dominance permitted the organization of the whole society into a war machine, which in turn made possible wars that lasted for years and inducted a large proportion of a state’s adult male population. It was this kind of total war that permitted Qin’s conquest of China, to which we now turn.
Chapter 9:
Summary
Seven states emerged to become major figures in interstate warfare during the Age of Total War, five of which, Qin, Wei, Qi, Zhao, and Chu, were significantly more powerful than the other two, Han and Yan. Historians tend to portray the interstate politics of the time as being dominated first by Wei. When Wei declined about the mid–fourth century BCE, Qin and Qi became the superpowers. Not until Qi was defeated by Yan in 284 BCE did Qin become the only superpower in ancient China. This chapter, based on war data and other evidence, shows that interstate politics during the Age of Total War was dominated solely by Wei and then by Qin, and that Qin was sole superpower after Wei’s decline in the mid–fourth century BCE.
The chapter explored the reasons behind Wei’s decline; the inability of Qi, Chu, and Zhao to compete with Qin after Wei’s decline; and Qin’s increasing dominance. In a nutshell, Wei lost out because of its poor geopolitical position, which worsened after it alienated its two old allies Zhao and Han. Qi was never able to fully transform its wealth into military power, because Qi’s highly eclectic intellectual atmosphere nurtured a balanced view of politics that hampered the implementation of radical Legalist measures like those that Shang Yang and Li Si had put into practice in Qin. Chu was reduced from its earlier superpower status during the Age of Hegemon to a large but militarily weak state during the Age of Total War, largely because its anti-reform aristocratic class remained strong. Zhao was a militarily powerful state, but its geopolitical position was less favorable and its arable land less fertile than those of many other states. Relative to the other states Qin’s geopolitical and geographical positions were the most ideal. Equally important, Qin’s aristocratic tradition was very weak, and its policy of importing talent and instrumentally effective ideas and institutions from the other states was very strong. Both factors facilitated radical Legalist reforms in Qin that few states (perhaps not even Wei) could match, and allowed Qin to maintain its superpower status beginning in the mid–fourth century BCE.
Nevertheless, for almost a century, Qin would have been unable to match the other states if the latter had united under an anti-Qin banner. How, then, did Qin manage to conquer all the states and unify China? Ever since the collapse of the hegemonic interstate system in the sixth century BCE, the norms and institutions that had once regulated interstate relations gradually lost their relevance. By the Age of Total War, the interstate system had sunk into Hobbesian anarchy. Without norms and institutions acting as a regulatory force, an anti-Qin alliance could not be maintained because the parties to it did not trust one another, often disregarded each other’s interests, and each wanted the others to bear the brunt of Qin’s assault. Moreover, Qin could break any anti-Qin alliance by making deals with the states that benefited less from the alliance and then defeating them and the others one by one. In short, almost like a “controlled experiment”, the Chinese interstate system demonstrates that no interstate alliance could survive in the absence of mutual trust, and ironically, that Hobbesian anarchy became the vehicle whereby one state achieved complete domination. Qin’s success was also fostered by two other conditions that the early modern European international system did not share. First, the war theater of Eastern Zhou China was less than two million square kilometers and entirely located in the temperate zone. With Qin’s greatly expanded military power after the Legalist reform, the stage was simply too small to accommodate more than one “tiger.” Second, neither nationalism nor patriotism emerged in Eastern Zhou China, despite the incessant warfare. Talented individuals were inclined to leave their natal states for better opportunities in bigger and stronger states, and the masses did not care who ruled them. Both attitudes greatly lowered the cost of conquering another state and contributed to Qin’s victory.
Chapter 10:
Summary
The Age of Disunion was a time of ideological realignment and dominance by various military leaders, during which the Confucian-Legalist state model and the norm of civilian rule were both greatly weakened. Between the third and sixth centuries CE, many small states divided China; nomadic and semi-nomadic states ruled throughout northern China, Buddhism achieved great influence in both the state and society, and warlords and generals dominated politics in a slew of small and mutually hostile states. Yet China did not remain divided, as did Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Instead, Buddhism was sinicized and its influence in Chinese politics marginalized, the originally nomadic elites adopted Chinese culture and identity, and China eventually was reunified under the Tang dynasty. Moreover, by the Song dynasty, civilian rule existed not just as an ideology, but also as a framework of concrete institutions that were sustained by the civil-service examination system and the various check-and-balance mechanisms cumulatively developed by former Chinese rulers. Many occurrences and recurrences had contributed to China’s reunification and associated cultural developments, but Confucianism as an ideology and Confucian-minded scholars as political actors were the key. China’s rulers, regardless of their ethnic origins, perceived Confucianism as a more useful ruling ideology than Buddhism. They also perceived civilian administration as conducive to this continued rule. These were the key logics behind the historical development outlined in this chapter, and the key facilitators of a full-fledged Confucian-Legalist state and a “Confucian society” during the Song dynasty (chapter 12).
Chapter 11:
Summary
This chapter explains why the frequent dominance of empires of nomadic or semi-nomadic origins in China did not alter the Confucian-Legalist state or culture in any fundamental way. It then explains the dynamics of millennia-long nomad-Chinese geopolitical competition. The explanation rests on the interplay of three sets of structural factors and associated mechanisms: climatic and ecological conditions, the mentality of the rulers on both sides, and most importantly, the comparative advantages of the nomads and settled Chinese, which derive from different environmental conditions, modes of production, and sociopolitical organization. The comparative advantages that the nomads and agriculturists alternatively enjoyed not only shaped the contours of nomad-Chinese geopolitical relations, but also sowed the seeds for the eventual decline of nomad power in China as well as elsewhere in Eurasia.
Chapter 12:
Summary
This chapter focuses on two crucial developments in Song China—the rise of Neo-Confucianism and the expansion of the civil-service examination. These developments led to the disappearance of the “great family” aristocratic tradition, the sustained dominance of civilian officials selected for merit in politics, the emergence of a Confucian gentry class, the development of a Confucianized and pluralistic religious ecology, and most importantly, the penetration of Confucian ideology and institutions into local society and people’s daily lives. Together, they contributed to the perpetuation of the Confucian-Legalist political system in China until, in the nineteenth century, China was compelled to embark on a “modernization project” under the pressure of the Western imperialism.
Chapter 13:
Summary
During the Song dynasty, large metropolitan centers appeared and market relations greatly expanded. By the time of the Ming and Qing dynasties business activities even attracted some Confucian gentry. But although Ming-Qing commerce was able to generate strong and diverse economic dynamism, the Neo-Confucian ecumene was not undermined and the Chinese merchants riding the waves of commerce wielded no centralized, coercive political or military powers and had no ideologies that might justify money making and convert their despised activities into positive values. China’s economic actors were simply too weak and decentralized to be able to undermine the dominance of the Confucian-Legalist state. In the end, notwithstanding similarities with Western Europe, China had no way to break with the Confucian-Legalist patterns of the Chinese past and embark on industrial capitalism before being compelled by Western imperialism.
[from the final section of the book]
Concluding Remarks
From Past to Present
The single biggest rupture between imperial and modern China is the virtually irreversible decline of Confucianism, galvanized by Western and Japanese imperialism. The Republican Revolution of 1911 put an end to the millennia-old Confucian-Legalist political system. About the time of the May 4th Movement in 1919, Chinese started to identify Confucianism and Confucian culture as the source of China’s weakness. Ever since, the Chinese state and the majority of intellectuals have made great efforts to destroy traditional Chinese culture and tear down the institutions that supported it. The Communist Revolution of 1949 and the radicalism that was rampant during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) only brought that radical trend to its extreme.
In China today, the Confucian moral and political order is again being promoted by a few intellectuals and even partly endorsed by the state. But these attempts to restore it as China’s dominant value system have been futile. The obstacles are not merely the result of China’s century-long radical modernization drive. If modernization were the only factor behind the collapse of Confucianism, other world religions, such as Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Judaism, would face the same fate. But each of these religions has survived the onslaught of modernization and remained a powerful social force. The singular collapse of Confucianism had much to do with the nature of Confucianism itself. Although Confucianism is regarded as a religion by many scholars, we should keep in mind that this “religion” speaks more to the moral order of this world than to a transcendental divine order. Confucianism was dominant in imperial China not only because it provided a legitimate basis for state power and a moral order for society, but also because Neo-Confucian institutions (particularly the civil-service examination and lineage communities) reinforced it. Once these functions and institutions vanished, Confucianism became rootless and its influence shrank—from being an almighty organizing force of state and society to merely a decentralized and noncoercive ideology/philosophy. This is the central problem faced by those who endeavor to restore Confucianism to a measure of its traditional status.
Many characteristics of modern China and its near future are related to the collapse of Confucianism. First, Chinese are proud of the fact that China is a major world civilization, but this pride is also a burden. Now that the Chinese are getting rich, some Chinese intellectuals wish urgently to construct a Chinese model in the modern world—a moral, political, and international order that incorporates various Western elements while placing Confucianism at the center. Hindering the effort is the incongruity between the increasingly prevailing Western notion of individualism and the collective orientation of Confucian values. More importantly, as noted earlier, Confucianism has little institutional support in China. It therefore seems unlikely that its recent advocacy by some Chinese intellectuals will be effective, although the tension this has created will have real repercussions in society.
Second, in today’s China, only a few intellectuals are actively constructing and promoting moral and political visions centering on Confucianism, even though some of their concerns are more widely shared. Westernization is still what really drives China’s current development, by which I mean a widespread desire to get rich, an increasing acceptance of individualistic cultural values, and the prevalence of a progressive vision of history. In other major civilizations, including the modern West, various world religions have survived the onslaught of modernization, acted as brakes on individualism, and balanced the progressive impulses of society. The collapse of Confucianism left China without those brakes. In comparison with other countries, conservative forces are considerably weaker in China. The progressive sense of history is widely shared among government officials, intellectuals, and the general populace. Westernization thus finds its most unreserved expression in today’s China.
The collapse of the Confucian-Legalist state and the decline of Confucian culture also have completely altered China’s religious ecology. In imperial China, Confucianism supplied morals to local popular religion. Without Confucianism, popular religion is now promoted by Chinese officials as a source of local festivals, mostly for the purpose of attracting tourists. Among the populace, its magic has regained predominance. More importantly, the collapse of Confucianism provides room for the growth of other religions, particularly Protestantism. At this point the Protestant population of China is estimated to be between fifty-eight and seventy million people, and the number increases daily.
The collapse of the Confucian-Legalist state and the declining importance of Confucianism, however, do not mean that the past has become irrelevant in today’s China. The millennia-long domination of the Confucian-Legalist state has given China a strong state tradition, a huge core territory, a large population with a shared identity, and a pro-education ideal.
China’s huge territorial size and large population made it very difficult for foreign powers to dismantle it in the heyday of imperialism. Shared identity made China’s nation building an easier task, in comparison with most other developing countries. China’s strong state tradition has played a crucial role in its recent economic success (though the same strong state tradition also led China to disaster during the Maoism regime). China’s long tradition of the civil-service examination had fostered in China a culture that stressed the importance of achievement through education. A strong state, human capital, and a large population with shared identity are the key conditions enabling China’s recent economic success.
Due to the millennia-long existence of the Confucian-Legalist state, by the nineteenth century over 90 percent of China’s population experienced a shared Neo-Confucian culture. Beginning in the eighteenth century, with the explosive rise in population, Han Chinese also migrated in large numbers to regions that until then had largely been populated by ethnic minorities. This demographic legacy makes it almost impossible for China’s ethnic minorities to achieve independence even if they desire it. In recent decades, nationalistic consciousness has been on the rise among the Tibetans and Uyghurs. I expect similar consciousness to rise among other major ethnic minorities, in part because the Chinese government’s policies toward ethnic minorities have been working unintentionally to strengthen ethnic identities. But although the independence movement of some ethnic minorities has gained momentum, their chances for independence are very slim due to the overwhelmingly large Han populations.
The Confucian-Legalist state tradition also instills in China a tradition of civilian rule that is quite unusual among the developing countries. Warlordism dominated Chinese politics between the late 1910s and early 1930s. Still, no warlords of this period declared a military government and, moreover, these warlords were all instrumental in the establishment of key civilian institutions in the places they controlled. Once China was reunified, whether under the nationalist or the communist government, the state implemented various divide-and-rule and checks-and-balances mechanisms on the military power with little resistance. In short, unless China runs into another prolonged civil war, its military is unlikely to have a major say in politics. In fact, I venture to argue that, even if China later experiences a regime change, civilian rule will resume very quickly after the initial chaos because of its strong civilian-rule tradition.
The legacies of the Confucian-Legalist state tradition have given China an inward-looking character. China’s long history and frequent changes of fortune make Western imperialism less likely to leave a permanent mark on Chinese psychology in the same way as in many other developing nations. China’s large territory and population also alleviate the Chinese people’s concern about foreign threats and compel the Chinese government to focus on the innumerable domestic problems. Chinese foreign policy has so far been moderate most of the time, instead of hawkish, in part because of the dominance of civilian officials in politics.
In chapter 1, I suggested that state power can be legitimized in three ideal-typical ways: by an ideology that promises a better future, by commonly accepted political procedures (e.g., regular competitive elections), and by the state’s satisfactory provision of public goods. I also asserted that China has inherited a strong tradition of performance-based legitimacy derived from the concept of the Mandate of Heaven (chapter 2). In today’s China, performance-based legitimacy means that the government’s right to rule is primarily justified by its economic and moral actions. Performance-based legitimacy has compelled the regime to make greater effort and has thus greatly contributed to post-Mao China’s economic success and to a general improvement of Chinese living standards in recent years. But performance-based legitimacy requires ever higher levels of performance. The state in imperial China had no major problem maintaining performance legitimacy because it faced only limited demands, and maintaining power was really its primary goal. The present-day Chinese state, however, faces too many demands because it promises to bring a better and happier life to the people. Chinese living standard has greatly improved in recent years, but the Chinese soon began to take their newly acquired affluence for granted and have raised their expectations accordingly. More importantly, economic development brings with it new problems, such as rising inequality, ethnic conflict, corruption, massive layoffs, and environment degradation. Notwithstanding that the Chinese government is spending more and more money on dealing with these problems, riots, protests, and ethnic violence are frequent in China. At present, the Chinese state faces no major political crisis, largely thanks to the rising economy. When the economy slows significantly, however, another large-scale anti-regime protest, similar to the 1989 Beijing Student Movement, is likely …
… Problems of Social Sciences Inquiry
What do social scientists do? As I see it, we are storytellers, wishing to tell stories that more accurately reflect what happened in the past or is happening now. This is hard to do. Obtaining good data is always a problem …
… The Nature of History
The theoretical framework and narrative style of this book were also shaped by my understanding of history. Different research focuses can to a certain degree differently conceive the nature of history. For the purposes of this book, I see history as ongoing, improvisational music composed of four “main notes”, which is used to analogize the four ideal types of social power—ideological, economic, political, and military—generated by social actors’ competition for dominance …
The Source:
Dingxin Zhao, The Confucian-Legalist State A New Theory of Chinese History, Cambridge 2015
Evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age.