THE CHINA MIX: CONFUCIANISM, CAPITALISM, COMMUNISM
Capitalist Modernization in China and East Asia
Max Weber thought that Confucianism and the Chinese character did not favor the creation of capitalism in China. Since Confucian culture promoted the ideals of harmony and adjustment to the world, it did not breed the psychological anxieties and tensions that would push people to change their present condition. However, he did point out that China could successfully adopt capitalism after it had already been developed elsewhere. Weber also described the aspects of the Chinese character that made such success likely: adjustment to one’s environment, great patience, self-control, ability to endure monotony, hard work, concentration, and focus.
The advantage of late development for countries like China is that what took the West centuries to pass through can be digested and incorporated within several decades and adapted to fit the culture. The early developers ushered in entrepreneurial capitalism but by the 1930s a transition to corporate capitalism was taking place which means that control passes from a single individual, the founder/owner, to a bureaucratic and technocratic elite of managers. Since companies require long-term plans, technical expertise, and sophisticated management skills as they become highly complex, the most successful ones are those whose employees are cooperative, well-disciplined, and devoted to the organization, conditions which turned out to be quite variable for East Asian capitalism.
Weber believed that the major religions outside the West had hindered the development of capitalism. Yet, as capitalism flourished in Japan and then in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, it was clear that modernization takes a different shape depending on the cultural tradition from which it has emerged. In other words, there is no break between tradition and modernity, since the values of the past considerably influence the course that modernity will follow.
In the West, capitalist modernity took the form of a market economy, individualism, and democracy but in East Asia, a capitalist economy has often been coupled with an authoritarian state, government leadership and direction of the economy, the promotion of family-like relations in all types of social organization, and an integration of personal development with group values. Those in the upper echelons of government, descendants of the Confucian scholar-official, are accorded much respect and have great influence within the public realm, often overshadowing media figures, prominent business leaders, and intellectuals.
Vigorous debates on Asian values took place in the 1990s after the rapid development of East Asian capitalism had captured international attention. Singapore’s long-time prime minister Lee Guan Yew popularized the idea that East Asian nations shared a basic Confucian orientation and that authoritarian government, rapid economic growth, and the promotion of Confucian values were the keys to their successful modernization. Actually, at the time, Taiwan, experiencing high levels of economic and technological progress, was heading in a more democratic direction politically. This showed that there was no necessary conflict in East Asia between modernization and democracy, but the Western tendency to equate Confucianism with the autocratic rule of the Qing dynasty made Lee’s notion of Asian values seem persuasive.
China’s modernization presents an interesting case since its foundations were put in place by a Maoist regime that was virulently anti-Confucian and anti-capitalist. Mao Zedong rejected Confucianism for its justification of dynastic exploitation of the people but he did not reject the Chinese past. Nor did he advocate full-out westernization. His approach to understanding history was Marxist, yet, in his view, Marxist internationalism did not require the denial of a country’s history. For him, Chinese thought from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen provided a valuable legacy. In addition, he saw nationalism as an important vehicle for self-determination for those who had been colonized or exploited by the West.
The Reform Era
Many Western observers were gratified that as China began to achieve high rates of economic growth, it seemed like they were becoming more like them. This validated their belief in a universal rationality that motivates all people to behave in a way that maximizes their material well being. If people are given the chance, they will recognize the superiority of capitalist economies in terms of producing economic growth. Western commentators also tended to believe that once people were materially satisfied and reached middle-class status, they would opt for freedom, which means a democratic political system. But this hasn’t happened in China.
What role does Confucianism play in the way China’s political economy is evolving? First of all, we must become clear about what we mean by Confucianism. We can distinguish between existing state policies over more than two millennia and the teachings of the master himself. As the historian He Bingdi noted, dynastic rule was usually “ornamentally Confucian and functionally Legalist.” Confucian teachings view the individual as capable of self-cultivation and of living morally in a manner worthy of a human being, whereas Legalist philosophy sees human nature as corrupt. From the Legalist perspective, people must be strictly controlled, which can serve as a justification for repression. Xi Jinping appeals to Confucius for legitimacy as well as to Marxism-Leninism, but his policies, more repressive than responsive, tend towards Legalism.
Over the course of dynastic history, there were times when Confucian scholars did their best to restrain the worst tendencies of rulers by invoking Confucian rituals and ethics. The magistrates and governors who ran the Chinese empire under the authority of the hereditary ruler had to pass examinations and promotion depended on learning as well as competence in statecraft. The diasporan Confucian scholar Tu Weiming asserts that there are several Confucian qualities that serve as the basis for a Chinese form of modernity: distributive justice, sympathy, duty consciousness, ritual, as well as public spiritedness. Clearly, values like distributive justice, duty consciousness, and public spiritedness fit in with Xi Jinping’s attempts to move China away from individualism and materialism which flourished during the period of high economic growth and the development of an urban consumer society.
The West views Confucianism as placing the social order above the individual, and historically Confucian thought has been interpreted and applied in this manner. Tu Weiming has tried to offset this one-sided emphasis by giving self-cultivation a central role in Confucian teachings. Without the self-knowledge and the realization of the individual, the family cannot be strong and there can be no wise governance. For him, the person is the center of relationships and social connectedness is central to personal identity, so a balance between individual and society is necessary. Tu believes that Western notions of individual freedom and democracy can help Confucian China move away from its prioritizing of society over the individual. But the nationalistic New Confucians of the mainland recoil from this attempt at expanding Confucianism to become universally valid.
Political Confucianism and Xi Jinping
Mainland New Confucianism, emphasizing the political rather than the philosophical dimension, arose to counter the domination of political discourse in the 1980s by socialism and liberalism, two Western imports. The goal of this revived Confucianism was to institute a more Chinese orientation to development. Jiang Qing has been in the forefront of efforts to revive religious Confucianism based on ancestor worship and sacrificial rituals while others want Confucianism to be the civil religion. Jiang maintains that political order must be established on an orthodox set of values that promotes social well being, led by people of intellectual and moral excellence. A supervisory group of Confucian scholars should evaluate the correctness of any state policy, since they are the only people with true understanding of the Confucian classics.
Although Xi reaffirms Marxism and avoids explicitly religious overtones, his policies suggest that he may be playing the role of a sage-king. He is the leader for life, his picture is everywhere, his thought is the country’s guide, and the gap between the benevolent supreme leader and the people is vast. There is an image of Xi as the father of the country, a ruler focused on the good of the people. This shows the benign side of hierarchical relations, modeled after the parent-child relationship.
By upholding the notion of tianxia (all under heaven), Xi is making a connection with China’s imperial past when China was the center of the East Asian world and other peoples acknowledged Chinese cultural superiority while attempting to assimilate Chinese ways. His mission is to lead China back to the central place that it once occupied. At the same time, though, he distinguishes Chinese diplomacy from that of the West; Chinese foreign policy is based on allowing each nation its own form of government, whereas the West pressures others to adopt liberal democratic forms.
Xi Jinping’s Marxism
The question arises as to whether Xi’s ideology is actually more Confucian than socialist. There is no doubt that Chinese Marxism has undergone much change since the time of Mao Zedong. For Mao, the party was the state and the party was centered on workers. Rather than electoral democracy, criticism, self-criticism, and rectification were used to educate and discipline party officials who put their own interests above those of the party-state. But these purification campaigns could become a cover for those in charge to root out opposition instead of dispersing power and promoting the honesty and effectiveness of cadres.
Mao also put forward the idea of the mass line to ensure that officials consult the people in order to understand their needs and wishes. The party proposes a policy based on ideology and then checks with the people to understand the real-world situation and revises the policy, and then guides the people in its implementation. This can be either a way of ensuring greater responsiveness on the part of government officials or of spreading propaganda.
Jiang Zemin made a significant departure from earlier interpretations of Marxism by no longer viewing the party as representing the industrial working class. He expanded the notion of worker to include highly educated people in the fields of science and technology, culture, and organizational management. Entrepreneurs were permitted entry into the party because they were viewed as performing labor to build a strong socialist state. As a result, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) represents the nation as a whole with its diverse population, a shift from the party as an instrument of class struggle to the party as a means to increase productivity, thereby making the nation more powerful.
Xi believes, like Mao, that Marxism changes over time and that it must be adapted to fit Chinese conditions. His form of Marxism also requires that the party is strong and there is a focus on the quality of the supreme leader. Here Xi’s Marxism and the ideas of the political Confucians blend into each other, becoming, in effect, national Marxism. Xi has reversed Mao’s emphasis on placing Marxist ideology in the forefront and having the party take precedence over the state. For Xi, the state comes first and national Marxism is the ideology that supports the state. So there is a shift from the party-state to the state-party.
The Costs of Nationalism
A nationalist orientation is also evident in Xi’s emphasis on the uniqueness of the Chinese tradition and his belief that the Confucian past has nurtured qualities of excellence that enable China to stand out. As a Confucian, he is taking the best practices from the past, relying on traditions of Chinese statecraft as a guide, while leaving behind class struggle. But serious issues remain, despite CCP success in raising China to its present eminence economically and militarily, for which Xi gives the CCP due credit.
Problems have arisen in connection with the capitalist road that the government embarked upon at the time of reform in the late 1970s. The desired goal of economic growth leading to increased national power has been achieved quite rapidly. Nevertheless, not everyone is happy with the ways things have turned out. China’s inequality is even worse than what we find in the US and the UK. The focus on industrial progress and urbanization means that the rural areas are less developed economically, leading to population exodus. In China, the result has been a large floating population that does not have the right to settle in the cities, only work there temporarily. This is a new class of exploited workers.
In 2021, the number of rural migrants was almost 300 million, that is, over one-third of the total labor force. They are a marginalized group, suffering institutionalized discrimination due to the household registration system which does not allow them access to the same social services granted to those registered in the city. Their children also have less access to education and health care and are often separated from their working parents for many years. Yet, it is these migrants who have supplied the cheap labor that made possible the booming economies of the coastal cities.
Xi Jinping has stated that it is now government policy to facilitate rural development and to address some of the negative effects of capitalism. He is aware that those suffering injustice can cause social unrest. But reversing 40 years of reform requires greater government intervention in the economy, less autonomy for the entrepreneurial class, and less favoritism toward entrenched urban residents. This new direction may collide with Xi’s desire to continue building China’s national strength through capitalist growth and to use nationalism to shore up his own legitimacy and that of the Communist Party. Political Confucianism also reinforces the tendency to put national greatness above justice for the exploited workers. It has been difficult to maintain a delicate balance among Confucianism, capitalism, and communism in Xi’s China today.
