Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2

by Wm. Theodore de Bary

  Reform has also eliminated life tenure for cadres and the “iron rice bowl” of industry. At precisely the same time that the limited tenure policy and the contract system were being implemented, much of the protection and many of the benefits for women in industry began to disappear one by one. As a result, the problems of “same work—different pay” and unequal promotions for men and women have arisen.

  In 1988 a series of women’s issues became even more pronounced. Not only women, but the many men whose interests are intertwined with women’s and who are with women from morning to night, were affected, as well as all the families concerned about a daughter or a wife. Let us take a glimpse at the issues in the natural course of that one year.

  First quarter. In the process of democratic elections for people’s congresses at every level and for the Seventh National People’s Congress, few female cadres were elected, highlighting the problem of women’s participation in government.

  Second quarter. With the simultaneous implementation of enterprise self-management and discretionary hiring and contract systems, women’s social benefits, salary, employment, and promotions were all threatened, rendering women workers’ problems more acute.

  Third quarter. In job assignments for college graduates and those who failed to pass the college entrance examinations, employment problems for women surfaced anew. This directly endangered young women intellectuals’ future prospects and development.

  Fourth quarter. With the deepening of economic reform and the widespread pursuit in industry of peak work capacity, the increased vigor of enterprises and the increasingly tense double burden for women came into direct conflict. The call for “equal work—equal pay” causes women to face even more severe challenges in light of the actual work assignments and the disadvantaged position women encounter returning to work after childbirth. Under the circumstances, some women will inevitably decide to return to the home. But people will interpret this not as the will of society but as the conscious choice of women.

  The travesty is that these pressures women endured then and continue to endure are never seen as social problems; they are construed as merely individual problems. Criticizing society as unfair is to no avail. The balance of justice has never been the moving force in the progress of history. If one is only willing to face reality, then one must see that the emergence of women’s problems is actually a means for society to resolve many other social problems that emerged with reform (such as excess labor, labor productivity, and so on). Women have thus been the cornerstone in the development of society’s productive capacity. Historically it has been so; in reality it is so. No wonder authoritative sociological publications are unwilling to print much on women’s issues, for to speak excessively of women’s liberation at this point would be to say that women’s problems are obstructing society’s reform and economic development. This means that Chinese women, who have worked hard all along to recognize their unity with society, cannot but acknowledge that women’s issues in the midst of economic reform have been abandoned by society. There are truly women’s problems, in that they have become sociologically insignificant.

  What Exactly Are the Issues?

  Discussions of women’s issues in the past were always about women enduring oppression, discrimination, and enslavement; these were the pernicious vestiges of feudalism and the product of capitalist exploitation. To put it bluntly, these were mostly the problems of working women and could be categorized as problems of class.

  Today, however, just as issues of class in China and the world have receded, women’s issues have gradually become more pronounced. They are reflected not only in the problems of women workers and of all women at work but also in the lives of women of every class and in every facet of women’s lives. Especially in contemporary China, women’s problems come from every direction, creating among those who concern themselves with women’s issues a sense of crisis.

  It is hard to deny, even for Chinese women accustomed to the catch phrase “Socialism liberates women,” that the crisis objectively exists. If we use the obvious “equality of men and women” standard to measure women’s actual plight, then Chinese women’s liberation seems to be taking the road of regression. In the face of this “reverse tide,” the long-parroted, never tested, never deeply researched theory of women’s liberation appears exhausted. It is this weakness of conventional theory that compels us to face the reality of Chinese society and the reality of Chinese women, to investigate conscientiously all these earth-shattering women’s issues.

  [Shehui kexue zhanxian 4 (1988): 300–310; trans. adapted from Gilmartin et al., Engendering China, pp. 361–364]

  THE NEW AUTHORITARIANISM

  Many intellectuals debated the merits of the “new authoritarianism” during the latter half of the 1980s. To its proponents it had some resemblances to what earlier was called “political tutelage” or “guided democracy,” but its main emphasis was on the need for stability as a precondition for economic growth. We see in the excerpts below, a decade after Deng’s opening to the outside world, the influence of Western political experience and philosophy and references to the Four Dragons—Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. Wu Jiaxiang, a noted advocate of the new authoritarianism, was a researcher at the Investigation and Research Division of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Office at the time of the debate. Rong Jian, an important opponent of the new authoritarianism, was a doctoral student in the philosophy department of People’s University in Beijing.

  WU JIAXIANG: “AN OUTLINE FOR STUDYING THE NEW AUTHORITARIANISM,” MAY 1989

  3. The development of human society cannot be without authority; authority provides stability. Similarly, it cannot be without liberty; liberty provides vitality. A stable and yet continuously changing society is a modern society in which authority and freedom are integrated. . . .

  4. The fundamental program of the new authoritarianism is the market economy. Without a new authority, marketization cannot be accomplished, and without that, there can never be true democratic politics. . . .

  5. The new authoritarianism is dedicated to forming the political power necessary to resolve major social problems and liberate society from crises during the stage of society’s transformation. It has been said that China’s most critical problem today is that the country is not clear on what its critical problems are. This is a clever saying but expresses poor judgment. In fact, China is already clear on its problems; the reason there has not been an effective resolution is that a sufficiently large and strong political power has not yet been amassed. There are two aspects to this political power that are necessary to solve society’s problems: the government’s power and the power of the masses. . . .

  6. The new authoritarianism is most concerned about the form of the redistribution of social power resources in a traditional society when the old authority has declined or even collapsed. . . .

  7. The new authoritarianism’s “bible” is human equality. The realization of this equality, however, is certainly not as relaxed, romantic, and poetic as is perhaps envisioned by some radical democrats. . . . The hierarchy that authority (the old one) created must be abolished by authority (the new one). There is no other way.

  8. The new authoritarianism holds a critical attitude toward Rousseau’s theory of the general will and the theory of sovereignty. Rousseau’s theory is a politically malformed baby of French literary romanticism. If we were to follow this theory, the result could only be a return to the traditional monarchical autocracy or to a traditional government by gangs. An indivisible general will and popular sovereignty is merely a fantasy in Rousseau’s mind. In practical politics, one either has an indivisible dictatorial power, a divisible checked-and-balanced party politics, or warlord or gang politics in which each piece of authority occupies a “mountaintop.” . . .

  9. China’s new authoritarians are particularly concerned about how democratic politics can fit the conditions of a large country. As we all know, Aristotl
e, Rousseau, and Montesquieu were all admirers of small countries. In their view, democracy befits a smaller country, whereas autocracy is more suited to a large country. . . . [The new authoritarianism] seeks to combine a powerful central government with regional self-rule, and it is precisely in this sense that I call the Federalists of the United States the American examples of new authoritarianism.

  10. The new authoritarianism is not particularly picky about the form in which society produces its new authority. It is almost impossible to have a design or a set of rules for how the new authority of a society is to be produced. . . .

  11. The new authoritarianism is, first and foremost, a political philosophy. Its scope of study is restricted to the question of what kind of government strategy and plan should the rulers have. It does not extend to how a good ruler may be produced or how the ruler could maintain the position. In other words, it explains what the new authority is and what it does but not how the new authority is obtained. Second, I believe the new authoritarianism is a philosophy of history. From the perspective of the new authoritarianism, a typical history of politics must go through the evolutionary stages—namely, the old authoritarian stage, the new authoritarian stage, and the liberal democratic stage. . . .

  The fortunate societies are the ones that can successfully go through all three stages; the unfortunate often interrupt the process of evolution. . . . China had some problems: the muddleheadedness of the Qing monarchy plunged China in modern times into a protracted stage of chaos in which there was no clear idea of authority. It is more difficult to go from a stage of chaos to the new authoritarian stage than to go directly from the stage of the old authoritarianism to the new authoritarian stage. As soon as a normal process is interrupted, it is extremely easy to plunge history into a pitiable cycle of old authority and chaos with no authority, replacing each other repeatedly. Therefore, we can see that the new authoritarian stage is a stage that cannot be leapfrogged by any nation that seeks to realize modernization. Any attempt to do so would only bring about disaster. . . . History has demonstrated that the monarchical form was the ideal instrument. . . for going through the new authoritarian stage. It was able to minimize the crisis of the legitimacy and unity of the authority during the period of social transformation and was able to reduce the use of violence while enhancing the use of the government’s prestige. Therefore, according to my theory, I do not consider the new authoritarianism to be merely a summation of the post-World War II political system in Latin America and the East Asian region; rather, I see it as a philosophical summation of a certain stage of development in the history of humanity as a whole.

  [From Liu and Li, Xin quanwei zhuyi, pp. 47–53; trans. adapted from Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 23, no. 3 (Spring 1991): 16–23]

  RONG JIAN: “DOES CHINA NEED AN AUTHORITARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE COURSE OF MODERNIZATION?” MAY 1989

  China’s reliance on political authoritarianism during the period of developing a liberated economy may appear, phenomenologically, to reflect that China, too, cannot bypass what seems to be a necessary and unavoidable stage in the progress toward modernization. This may well further confirm the resolve on the part of the highest level decision [makers] and policy makers in the reforms to carry out an intense concentration of power. In reality, the reforms have already shown signs of developing in this direction. Nevertheless, I believe that to carry out, under China’s present conditions, a coexistence between political authoritarianism and a liberated economy would invite a confrontation with an ever-sharper contradiction than that which existed in those countries where modernization has already been completed or is being completed. The reasons are the following:

  First, from the perspective of the progress of modernization in what were the nondeveloped countries, especially from the perspective of the Four Little Dragons in Asia, the premise of political authoritarianism is the thorough dualism between politics and economics. By “thorough,” we mean the privatization of the ownership system (or socialization), the “marketization” of the economy, and the independence of the enterprises. On the other hand, it remains dubious as to whether this same dualism can become a reality in China . . . still saddled with a basic problem, namely, that the question of the system of ownership has not yet been resolved. . . .

  Second, China’s traditional system was based politically on an intense concentration of power. Even though this basis has suffered tremendous impact since the reforms began, it has become ossified but has not died and is still the greatest current roadblock to the liberalization of the economy. Clearly, we cannot use this kind of “political authoritarianism” to facilitate the development of the commodity economy. . . .

  Third, in China’s traditional system, the contradictions between “vertical strips and horizontal blocks” have existed for a long time; these are the contradictions between the center and localities. The reason for the long-term existence of such a contradiction is that the traditional system simply had not resolved the problem of the dualism between politics and economics. . . . Fourth, . . . when the Four Little Dragons in Asia, as well as other developing countries, carried out their political authoritarianism, there was a close connection between that and the prevailing international conditions at the time. The state of the cold war created an excuse for every dictator to carry out autocratic government. But now the world has already moved into an age of moderation, and it is precisely in this general trend of moderation that a worldwide tide of democracy, especially that in the developing countries, has become the mainstream of the world. . . . Faced with such a worldwide democratic tide, China cannot be negligent and certainly cannot be immune from its influence. . . .

  The fifth and most important issue is that the broad masses of the people, who have already spent forty years under the traditional system of management with its high degree of concentration of power and have also experienced the tempering of the economic reform and the last few years of democratic enlightenment, today have a greatly enhanced democratic consciousness. The clamor for political reform is rising by the day. . . . According to the historical experience of the democratization of the world, unless the people’s democratic demands can be met and realized through normal means, they are bound to be vented through abnormal means, such as demonstrations, protests, strikes, and even violent behavior. . . .

  From this argument, we may see that at the same time that China takes steps toward the unity of liberalizing the economy and democratizing politics, it must also carry out a thorough reform and transformation of the traditional, highly centralized political system and economic system. The essence of the reform should be the following: on the one hand, creating the social conditions for the liberal development of the economy and, on the other hand, creating the social conditions for the transition from political authoritarianism toward democratic politics.

  [From Liu and Li, Xin quanwei zhuyi, pp. 113–131; trans. adapted from Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 23, no. 2 (Winter 1990/1991): 57–61]

  YAN JIAQI: “HOW CHINA CAN BECOME PROSPEROUS”

  Yan Jiaqi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, led the discussion on political reform during the eighties and clearly admired the political structure of the Western liberal democracies. Note that the question of how China is to achieve wealth and power goes back to the self-strengthening movement of the 1860s, when it was also linked to domestic political reform. Like the self-strengthener Feng Guifen, Yan seeks to release the energies and enthusiasm of the Chinese people through political reform and to bring about wealth and power.

  Give Free Play to People’s Initiative

  China is at present engaged in a reform of its political and economic structures. However, if this reform cannot bring into full play the enthusiasm and initiative of individuals, then it is of little use. Each person comes to know politics through his personal experiences. A successful reform must be conducive to bringing into play the initiative of the individual. . . .

  Us
e Systems to Limit the Tenure of Leaders

  China has a very long history. However, despite the differences among the political systems of the various dynasties, they were all built on the foundation of the “perfect man.” Whenever Chinese society is faced with all sorts of serious problems, the only remedy that comes to the mind of the Chinese is to hope for the appearance of a morally upright and perfect leader, whose efforts will then change the status quo. For all the complexities of the “Cultural Revolution,” its guiding idea is exceedingly simple—that is, China must search for a perfect leader in order to transfer the highest state power. The tremendous calamities caused by the “Cultural Revolution” shook this idea to its very foundations. As I see it, the starting point for China’s political structural reform is to admit that no one is perfect. Since human beings have all kinds of defects and weaknesses, a system is needed to restrain them. . . .

  Democracy Is an Error-Correcting Mechanism

  Though it promoted “big democracy,” the Cultural Revolution actually was a period of the total destruction of democracy. To call the destruction of democracy “big democracy” was a great invention in human history. Therefore, I think there is a need today for clarifying the meaning of democracy, to prevent certain people from using the banner of “democracy” to trample on democracy. I believe the most important foundation for democratic politics is to recognize the imperfectibility of human nature—to err is human. In an organization or group that cannot fully agree on goals, opinions, or values, the adoption of democracy means the making of group decisions according to agreed-on procedures and the will of the majority. The practice of democracy often requires people to bow to mistakes. When a majority of the people realize that the original decisions were wrong, then they can be corrected according to procedures that are agreed on by most people and predetermined. . . . When a country or an area has such an error-correcting mechanism, it has democracy; when a political party or a social organization has this kind of error-correcting mechanism, it has democracy. There are various forms of decision making in human society; on questions where there are clear goals and no disagreements over values, decision making should be left to science, advisory groups, and think tanks. Consequently, on scientific questions, we will not resort to majority rule but will have to follow the dictates of truth constantly; on questions of democracy, however, we must be constantly ready to follow mistakes [made by the majority]. The premise of democracy, like those procedures of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, as I just related, is to recognize the imperfectibility of human nature, recognize that the decision makers possess different cultural levels and capabilities, recognize that people may freely express their opinions, desires, and emotions, and make or revise decisions through procedures.