03/01/2024 No. 201
 
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"Liberations" and the cultural rise of China
By Yongnian Zheng Translator Sheng-Wei Wang
March 1, 2014


Editor’s Note: This paper is the third part of the abridged edition of the speech entitled "Can China Provide the World with Another Cultural Paradigm?”, given by the author in December 2011 at  the Zhejiang Humanities Lecture Hall.  We thank Professor Zheng for giving us the permission of translating it into English and publishing both the Chinese and the English versions on www.ChinaUSFriendship.com. This paper first appeared on www.zaobao.com (12-27-2011).

 

China is qualified to provide another cultural paradigm for the world. But the Chinese culture today is in a state of contraction. The key is a lack of cultural development and innovation. If so, how is it possible for the Chinese culture to be creative and innovative? Many things need to be done here. But particularly important are three "liberations," namely, to liberate it from the state of colonized "ideas and ways of thinking," from political power, and from the influence of interests.

 

First of all, Chinese culture must be liberated from the colonized "ideas and ways of thinking." China lost confidence in its own culture after being defeated militarily and politically by Western countries since the late Qing Dynasty. Many people have attributed the ultimate reason for the backwardness of China to culture. The central theme of the May Fourth Movement can be described as De-Sinification. Of course, it is not possible to get rid of the traditional culture that has developed for a few thousand years as much as people desired. The New Life Movement of the Chiang Kai-shek regime in the 1930s was to revert to traditional culture. Although Mao Zedong was the vanguard of the anti-traditional culture, he was also aware of the practical functions of traditional culture. During the era of the revolutionary war, he advocated the Sinification of Marxism. After the founding of the People’s Republic, many movements on the surface were anti-traditional, but in fact they reverted to tradition. For example, the Campaign of Learning from Lei Feng was an advocacy of absolute political loyalty. During the Cultural Revolution Mao was engaged in something like a "personality cult" and so on: these were even more traditional tendencies.

 

However, it should be noted that the China factor in all these movements was relegated to the "subconsciousness" of these people. Anti-tradition was the main line of the Chinese revolution. After the May Fourth Movement, learning from the West turned into a pursuit of truth from the West. Because the West became the truth, then the non-West including China itself became not the truth. Here the West included Western liberalism as well as Marxism and all things from the West.

 

Learning from the West is not wrong, but taking the West as the truth is gravely mistaken. China does not deny other cultures and values, but the Chinese culture itself must hold the central position. Because there was no Chinese consciousness in the process of learning from the West, the Chinese culture has lost its pivotal position. The problem is that the Western expressions framed by Western culture cannot explain everything about China. Today, more and more Chinese people have realized that Western words cannot explain the Chinese culture. However, very few people want to create or to invent. It is needless to mention the thousands of years of Chinese history and tradition, so why can the Chinese not even produce their own voices about the rich experiences since China's reform and opening up? Why can they not produce their own concepts and theories? Most people continue to choose to use the West to explain themselves. If this situation does not change, China will never have its own voices, own concepts and own theories, of course, let alone the soft power of culture. Therefore, the intellectuals must make great efforts to liberate themselves from the more than a century state of being “colonized” way of thinking and ideas. Learning from the West can continue, but China's pivotal position must also be established.

 

Second, Chinese culture must be freed from political power. The Chinese tradition has lasted for thousands of years; the mainstream culture was a dependent culture with imperial power at the core. This imperial culture was not to be blamed since it was only the result of the imperial system, just like the Christian and Muslim cultures that used religion as their core. But what is emphasized here is that the dependent nature of the Chinese culture has effectively impeded cultural innovation and expansion.

 

Traditionally, Chinese intellectuals were divided into political and apolitical intellectuals and represented by those who believed in Confucianism vs. Daoism (Taoism). The Confucian spirit concerned the worldly affairs whereas the Daoist spirit stood aloof from worldly affairs. Confucianism cared about social and political relations whereas Daoists did not care about the real world; the latter tended to lose confidence in the real world and so often became pro-nature and retreated to the thick forest or remote places in the mountains. Daoists stressed a quiet mind and should have had a lot of time to think about problems. But because they did not pay attention to the realities of society and politics, the contribution of Daoism to Chinese knowledge was very limited. Daoism advocated the unity of man and nature, and did not make an object-subject distinction between them. This philosophy of the unity of man and nature possessed substantial rationality from a certain perspective, but was difficult to evolve into a framework of scientific thinking and research. China did not have modern natural science; this was to some extent associated with the Daoist attitude.

 

Confucianism holds the central position of Chinese social and political knowledge. However, Confucianism depended on the emperor power, serviced the power and often became the slave of power. Historically, the imperial power needed to get two kinds of absolute loyalty: first, loyalty to the knowledge, namely the Confucianism; and second, loyalty of the eunuchs. Both of these loyalties ensured the absoluteness of the emperor power. Confucianism managed the state affairs and eunuchs managed the imperial internal affairs. The loyalty to Confucianism can be divided into two types: one is the loyalty to speak the truth, the other is the loyalty to tell lies, that is, the blind loyalty. Although in history there was no lack of loyalty to speak the truth, most were "blind loyalty," namely, the selfish "blind loyalty" to satisfy self-interests without hesitation of telling lies. From the knowledge point of view, the traditional Chinese imperial rule was far more advanced than in the other civilizations, which owed its credit to Confucianism. The West emphasizes the rule of law, the Chinese people emphasize the rule of man. With the rule of law and an effective state system, even the ordinary people can rule a society. But in China, Confucianism does not promote the rule of law. Without an effective state institution, a very smart person must be the emperor; otherwise the world is difficult to control. The fact that China has not developed a doctrine of national institution building has a lot to do with Confucianism servicing only the emperor.

 

Compared with traditional China, the Chinese society has recently undergone large changes. However, has the Chinese intellectuals’ dependence on power changed? Not only has it not changed, but it has strengthened. On the relationship of power, the intellectuals in China today can be divided into three categories: the intellectuals in the first category are in favor of authority and the intellectuals in the second category are against authority. These two types form the main body. The intellectuals in the third category do not care about politics and power, similar to the traditional Daoists. We need not discuss in detail the intellectuals who work for power. We all recognize that they are the hired scribblers who say good things to defend the present regime. The intellectuals in the second category are against authority and against the existing system. In fact, these people are also in pursuit of power, that is, they are trying to use their knowledge to influence the actual politics or even take actual political power. They therefore tend to consciously stand in opposition to authority, and oppose for the sake of opposition. That is, they want to get power by being anti-authority.

 

Whether it is to serve the authority or to oppose the authority, it is difficult to produce knowledge on China. Where does the power of the intellectuals come from? In China, people often tend to treat those intellectuals who frequently discuss political affairs and concern about the reality as public intellectuals. This concept came from the West, but in China it has been deformed. The primary task of intellectuals is to explain the world. By explaining the world, intellectuals can get power. If you can explain the world well, know how society actually works, where the problems lie, and how to solve the problems and improve society, even if you do not have any position of power, you will get power. Some politicians may use judgments and diagnostics to reform society. Chinese intellectuals clearly are not in this situation. They are always not able to explain the world, but have a huge ambition to transform the world. The results are predictable; they lead to a vicious interaction between power and knowledge, that is, knowledge challenges power and power curbs knowledge. There is no border between knowledge and power; both want to penetrate each other, and the result is that neither side is professional. The authority is not professional, has no confidence, but always wants to control everything. The intellectuals are not professional; they do not explain the world, but want to interfere in politics. We can imagine that if this vicious mode of interaction does not change, the creation of Chinese culture or knowledge still has no hope.

 

The third liberation is liberation from material interests. To a large extent, in today's Chinese society, the negative impact of material interests on cultural innovation is far greater than the negative impact due to power. Chinese civilization has endured political trials, but has not gone through the test of commercial civilization. From Emperor Qin Shi Huang's “burning books and burying Confucian scholars alive" to Mao's "anti-rightist movement," many Chinese intellectuals maintained their faith in knowledge and embodied their courage against power. However, the commercial revolution since the reform and opening up has completely washed away the faith in knowledge that the intellectuals should have; they surrendered to material interests. Wen Jiabao has lamented before: why did China not have economists working for the poor? In fact, it is very easy to understand. China now has a large number of intellectuals working for interests, that is, to speak for the interests of various groups. There is no profit to gain by speaking for the poor. Naturally, the poor will not have their own intellectuals. In terms of the words of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci's concept, China does not have "organic intellectuals" that a nation and a country should have.  Organic intellectuals can go beyond the specific interests, and speak for the overall interests of the nation and the country. One can even say that the ruling party has no such organic intellectuals either. Everyone would like to share an interest from the ruling party, but no one thinks for the long-term interests of this organization. From the point of view of knowledge supply, the intellectuals should take responsibility for the problems that China is now facing, such as income disparities, social injustice, moral decline, and so on. Intellectuals fail to look beyond their own interests to provide useful and effective knowledge for the reform policies.

 

Intellectuals cannot go beyond their own interests and they pursue self-interest as goal. This feature also makes the political power easily absorb and digest the intellectuals. This point can be illustrated given the design of the current research system as an example. With the increase in government financial resources, the government puts more and more money in universities and research institutions. However, there is no evidence to answer over these years the frequently discussed "question posed by Qian Xuesen," that is, why does China not have academic masters? The reason is very simple: China does not have a system designed for breeding masters. The Chinese system is designed to control the development of knowledge rather than to promote knowledge development. Under the research and evaluation system in China, professors and scholars have a very hard life and worry all day about publishing papers. The Chinese assessment system requires professors to write great articles every year. Is this possible? As a result, it is not possible to write even a single good article in a lifetime. Doing research and writing a paper are entirely different matters. Good articles are based on long-term research. If the time is completely used in writing papers, how will they have time to do research?

 

The wage system of Chinese universities and research institutions is also designed to stifle the creation of knowledge and innovation. In China, the basic wages of professors, teachers and researchers are very low. Without extra income they will even face difficulties to feed their families. This requires them to spend a lot of time to apply for research funding and in a variety of ways to transform in disguise research funds as their own income. This has created a lot of negative results. First is the rich-poor divide; in China a poor professor is no different from the poor people in society, but the rich professors are like the rich people in society. Second, China does not encourage scientific research and education. For many people, research and education are only sidelines, because they have to spend a lot of time in getting money. Third, they have become slaves to money. The more funds are controlled by the educational and scientific research departments, the worse becomes the servility of the intellectuals. Now there are many designed research projects soliciting people from various areas to apply: if you listen, I will give you money; if you do not listen, I will not give you money. In addition to solid corruption, this system brings about administrative control. In the West, more than 90% of the income of professors, teachers, and researchers come from their basic wages and these wages can give them a decent life so that they will have sufficient time to engage in research and education. What is the current situation in China? For many people, maybe less than half of their income comes from their basic wages and the rest from other resources. Who will have the time to do serious research, in the case that the basic wages cannot maintain a decent life? If we wish to mimic the West by adjusting the wage system so that 90% of the income comes from basic wages, then the result will be very different. So, why not reform the Chinese system?

 

Even more worrisome is that the entire educational system of China from kindergarten to post-doctorate is based on interests. This very long chain of education is divided by various interests. So many institutions that are dependent on education have designed numerous projects and imposed them on students and their families, through a formal system and informal social pressure, in order to pursue their own interests. The goal of education is to impart knowledge and knowledge production, but now all aspects of education in China are for money with absolutely no other goal. After three decades of reform and opening up, more and more investments are put into education, but has China had a decent Chinese scholar? Let alone a master? Now, even academicians have become tools for fighting for the interests of various organizations. The educators in China should take a look at the situation during the period of the National Southwestern Associated University. Under a very bad situation in its time, it trained so many masters. It can be said that more money has produced more corruption in education. China is caught in a vicious cycle. The result is at the expense of those who receive education and their families. Because education is a prerequisite for cultural development and innovation, in such circumstances, China is simply not up to the production and innovation of knowledge and cultural systems.

 

On the other hand, especially for cultural innovation, China has leashed a large number of non-creative writers, artists, singers and so on. Why can the government institutions not be commercialized? China's market is so big and these groups can have a good life through the market mechanism; at the same time, the pressure of market mechanism can also stimulate their creative spirit. Why can this reform not be carried out?

 

Even more serious is that the "rent-seeking" of government departments of such a system is for the pursuit of material interests. Take the Ministry of Education as an example. Over the years, how many projects has the Ministry of Education designed with every conceivable description of review, assessment and so on? Many projects are impressive on the surface, but the actual goal is to openly ask for money from the community, from the schools.

 

Now we are all talking about cultural innovation and knowledge innovation. But if all these systems cannot be reformed, then culture and knowledge innovations are nothing but an illusion. Although more and more people see the importance of culture "going out," without creativity and innovation based on their own culture, what does "going out" mean? On the contrary, if the thinking of the Chinese culture creators continues to be colonized and continues to be the slave of power and material interests, then it is inevitable that the Chinese culture will continue to shrink.

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Yongnian Zheng is Professor and Director of East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He is Editor of Series on Contemporary China (World Scientific Publishing) and Editor of China Policy Series (Routledge). He is also a co-editor of China: An International Journal. He has studied both China's transformation and its external relations. His papers have appeared in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Political Science Quarterly, Third World Quarterly and China Quarterly. He is the author of 13 books, including Technological Empowerment, De Facto Federalism in China, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China and Globalization and State Transformation in China, and coeditor of 11 books on China's politics and society including the latest volume China and the New International Order (2008). Besides his research work, Professor Zheng has also been an academic activist. He served as a consultant to United Nation Development Programme on China's rural development and democracy. In addition, he has been a columnist for Xinbao (Hong Kong) and Zaobao (Singapore) for many years, writing numerous commentaries on China's domestic and international affairs. Professor Zheng received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Beijing University, and his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He was a recipient of Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1995-1997) and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2003-2004). He was Professor and founding Research Director of the China Policy Institute, the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. Tel: (65) 6516 5067; E-mail: eaizyn@nus.edu.sg
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