The Useless Tree

Confucius Institutes are not about Confucius

There is a bit of a dust up over Confucius Institutes, those Chinese-government sponsored organizations that promote Chinese language teaching in US (and locations all over the world). But before we get to the details of this kerfuffle, a word about Confucius Institutes.

They are not about Confucius.  Rather, the PRC government has chosen to use the name of Confucius as a trademark of sorts for a global soft power branding project.  The Institutes, most of which in the US are hosted by colleges or universities, focus on language learning, with a variety of other cultural activities: Lunar New Year parties: calligraphy; a little Peking Opera; etc.  As far as I can tell - and I have been in conversation with many US academics who have CIs on their campuses (my college does not have one) - there is no systematic effort to engage with Confucian thought in any serious manner. 

Indeed, I find no direct reference to Confucius the man and thinker on their English language web page; though there is a little video on Hai Rui, an upright bureaucrat from the Ming Dynasty (no mention is made of the fact that his story was central to the initiation of the Cultural Revolution in 1966).  The Confucian-killer Qin Shihuangdi seems to get more attention there than Confucius himself.  Bottom line: CIs are not the place to go if you want to learn about Confucianism.

And there are ironies here. The Chinese Communist Party, born of the anti-Confucian radicalism of the May 4th period and vehemently anti-Confucian up through the 1970s, is now reaching for The Master as a happy, avuncular image to adorn a most un-Confucian authoritarian-capitalist modernity.  Kam Louie, in a great piece, "Confucius the Chameleon: Dubious envoy for Brand China (pdf!), gets at some of the problems here:

There is an implicit belief among most people that because Confucianism has long dominated Chinese culture and because Confucius is a Chinese name, we should adopt it to represent China. But that’s like proposing changing the Voice of America to the Voice of Jesus. Most Americans may identify themselves as Christians, but America is much more interesting and diverse than one dominant religion or one individual. In the same way, an institute that purports to promote Chinese culture should not do so in the name of one person, especially if that name or person has generated bitter controversies in the recent past.

And you know there are Christian conservative in the US who would be very happy to change the name of the VOA to the "Voice of Jesus."  Louie continues:

...the confusion surrounding the debates on how to salvage tradition in a new China have been compounded by incoherent interpretations of Confucius’s teachings in recent years. All the indicators suggest that domestically, the advocacy of Confucianism will in practice lead to  the promotion of very conservative and inconsistent values. Internationally, if such values are to be paraded as the best of “Chinese” essences, China’s contribution to world culture will be a confused and regressive one.

He may be right: there is a conservative bias in Confucianism that will limit its applicability in an open, dynamic, globalized postmodern context.  And he is certainly right in suggesting that the explicit purpose of the current CCP-sponsored Confucian revival in the PRC is designed for conservative political purposes: to maintain the legitimacy and power of one-party authoritarianism.  But, for all of that, I still think there is something interesting and valuable in applying Confucian ideas to contemporary questions.  

In any event, to get back to the recent controversy...

About a week ago the US government issued a policy directive indicating that the visas for some Chinese nationals working at Confucius Institutes in the US might be invalid.  The directive is specific and narrowly drawn: the issue involves Chinese nationals whose visa is sponsored by a college and university who then go on to teach in elementary or high schools.  It is not an assault on CIs generally.  Rather, it is an action to implement existing visa limitations that attached to foreign nationals at college and universities. The State Department has since clarified its stance: 

Regulations related to J-1 visas, which are given to people participating in work- and study-based exchange programs, make it clear that foreign professors, academics, and students at the university level are prohibited from teaching in public or private schools at the precollege level, the State Department official said. Those visa holders will have to leave the United States by the end of June and must reapply for the correct visa to return to this country.

It would seem, then, that some sort of other arrangement needs to be made for the elementary and high school teaching functions of CIs.  The underlying problem is that CIs have tended to be embedded in colleges and universities (unlike other organizations like Germany's Goethe Institutes or France's Alliance Française, which are not connected to higher education institutions). At most, a rather minor inconvenience that will likely be tidied up in short order.

You wouldn't know that from this op-ed in the Global Times english edition: "Why is Washington so Scared of Confucius?":

The issue shows that the US' cultural confidence is not as strong as we thought. The promotion of Chinese language and culture by Confucius Institutes makes some Americans uneasy. Only culturally weak countries have such sensitivity.

That seems like a bit of a jump from a rather technical consular issue to a sweeping condemnation of US cultural weakness.  The US is not afraid of Confucius; rather, the US generally doesn't care very much about Confucius.

There is, however, a long-standing critique of CIs in the US, but is not so much a matter of cultural anxiety as it is a political question.  CIs are CCP-sponsored institutions and their mission is to support the soft power of the PRC. The money that flows from the PRC to finance CIs has certain strings attached to it. You will not find an open debate about current political issues in Tibet or Xinjiang being sponsored by CIs.  We all know that. The worry is that the political agenda expands further to limit academic freedom.  US colleges and universities are very defensive about academic freedom.  We don't like political limitations on academic inquiry.  And CIs naturally raise those questions.  We should ask those questions and work to ensure that CIs do not violate academic freedom.  That's how we roll.  And our approach has been very successful in academic and intellectual terms, as tens of thousands of PRC students (including the daughter of President-to-be, Xi Jinping), who travel to the US for college and graduate school, know well.

The People's Daily apparently got a bit stroppy over this:

“This absurd measure reflects illogical thinking and an immature mentality,” said an editorial by state-run People’s Daily. “Finding scapegoats, witch hunting and shifting focuses are not the right ways to do things.”

Ironies about here. At present the PRC is carrying out a policy to crack down on illegal foreigners in China, people whose visas are expired or inappropriate.  Heated rhetoric about "throwing out the foreign trash" has been circulated by prominent media figures.  Foreigners in China are under general suspicion.  So, it seems an odd time for the People's Daily to be complainig about "finding scapegoats" and "witch hunting."

Perhaps we should all just chill out and listen to Confucius, Analects 5.12:

Zi Gong said, "What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men." The Master said, "Ci, you have not attained to that."

子貢曰：「我不欲人之加諸我也，吾亦欲無加諸人。」子曰：「賜也，非爾所及也。」

Daoism is not a Strategy

A rather odd blog post over at Huffington Post College, by Keith Weigelt, a Professor at the Wharton School, gets off to an incongruous start:

I am a strategist in the Daoist tradition. One tenet of Daoism is that individuals are responsible for their reality.

I am not sure what it means to be a "strategist in the Daoist tradition," since Daoism, generally - or, at least the Daoist principles I find in the Daodejing and Zhuangzi - are not really "strategic" in the common sense of that term.  And for that common sense meaning, I would turn to the OED: "....a plan for successful action based on the rationality and interdependence of the moves of the opposing participants."

On the face of it, Daoism urges us to eschew planning precisely because we cannot really control the complex reality that surrounds us (which we might take as dao - way).  Let's go to passage 24 of the DDJ:

Stretch on tiptoes and you never stand firm.  Hurry long strides and you never travel far.

Keep up self-reflection and you'll never be enlightened.

Keep up self-definition and you'll never be apparent.

Keep up self-promotion and you'll never be proverbial.

Keep up self-esteem and you'll never be perennial.

Travelers of the Way call such striving 'too much food and useless baggage.'  Things may not all despise such striving, but a master of the Way stays clear of it.

I take this as a rejection of self-conscious definition of interests and preferences and, thus, an undermining of the first stage of any sort of planning.  

And I am completely aware that this could also be seen as a king of meta-strategy; that is, by avoiding "strategy" in the first instance, you actually come out in a better place.  A sort of anti-strategic strategy.  Very Daoist that.

But that sort of anti-strategy strategy is not what Weigelt seems to have in mind.  He is a game theorist:

We all have the power to change our reality because of what game theorists call interactive payoffs. When you interact with others, the consequence of your decision depends on the behavior of others. One's world is not filled with solitude. Because consequences depend on one's actions and those of others, you must consider their actions in choosing yours.

This is a good starting point for understanding game theory but, again, it has virtually nothing to do with Daoism.  Of course a Daoist would agree that the consequences of our actions depend on the behavior of others.  But a Daoist would also assert that we cannot know what the actions of others might be and that there are myriad other unforeseen factors that can disrupt any expectation of the behavior of others.   Zhuangzi is the antithesis of a game theoretic strategist:

Birth and death, living and dead, failure and success, poverty and wealth, honor and dishonor, slander and praise, hunger and thirst, hot and cold - such are the transformations of this world, the movements of its inevitable nature.  They keep vanishing into one another before our very eyes, day in and day out, but we'll never calibrate what drives them. (5.4)

死生存亡，窮達貧富，賢與不肖，毀譽、饑渴、寒暑，是事之變，命之行也；日夜相代乎前，而知不能規乎其始者也.

Instead of Hinton's "we'll never calibrate what drives them," Graham gives us: "knowledge cannot measure back to where they began."  We cannot know the origin or development of the most basic human forces: life, death, failure success, poverty wealth....  That last pair - poverty and wealth - is especially telling for Weigelt, who is ultimately interested in understanding and reversing economic inequality in the US.  That is a noble cause, one that I certainly support.  But it is not at all clear how his game theoretic approach to that problem has anything to do with Daoism.

Weigelt also states:

Daoists believe since interactions define the future, they must be actively managed.

To which we have to reply: No. Daoists do not believe that our interactions with others must be actively managed.  Quite the contrary, we have to let go of conscious management and let relationships emerge and unfold in context as they will, without our purposive effort to steer them in certain directions.  

We'll let Zhuangzi (5.5) have the last word:

聖人不謀，惡用知?

The Sage never makes plans, so what good is understanding?

On Global Cultural Influence in Modern/Post-Modern Times

In a comment on a recent post of mine about the potential universalities of Chinese culture, a reader writes:

All this talk of imposing or importing outside values on China but there is little talk I hear of importing Chinese values to the west. I believe that the west needs more of Chinese values, especially Confucian values, than China needs western values.

He thus asserts an asymmetry in global cultural influence: the US, or the "West" more broadly, seems to set the international cultural agenda (and let's think of "culture" broadly here to include political-economic principles as well as art and social behavior and patterns of consumption).   My sense is that this is a pervasive view among Chinese intellectuals.  I ran into it most notably in 2006 at a conference in Beijing, "The International Symposium on Confucianism in the Postmodern Era."  I blogged it then and made this observation:

...there was a certain anxiety among some of the Chinese participants about the Western origins of postmodern theory.  They pointed out that these ideas - as well as the ideas of nationalism and the state - are "Western" and do not fully capture the subtlties of Chinese intellectual history.  At one level, they are right - these concepts are "Western".  But, as I argued in response to these points at the conference, such concepts have become deeply inscribed into the national discourse of China.  Can we conceive of "China" in terms other than "nationalism," or "sovereignty," or the "state."?

    I think the tension here is a recognition that Chinese dicourse has been colonized by Western notions.  My sense is that there is really no escaping this.  Rather than looking at the revival of Confucianism as the retrival of some sort of "authentic" or "real" Chinese mind or discourse, it seems to me we have to situate that revival, and continuing debates about Chinese-ness, in the context of global postmodernity. 

     I understand the frustrations of Chinese intellectuals in having to use a language of postmodernity/modernity created somewhere else.  But it is a frustration similar to those in the US, conservative commentators, who worry about the loss of some sort of essential national qualities.  I think we have to embrace the disappearance of "authenticity" everywhere.  So, the situation of Chinese thinkers is actually the same as that of Western thinkers (though the critique may be that that is easy for me to say, since the terms of the debate are "Western"). We are all in the same globalized boat, struggling to extract meaning from the churn and flux of the world-wide cultural economy.  One of the Chinese academics said something along these lines and I found myself nodding in argeement - a moment of transnational understanding.

It may be best to understand this as "modernization" and "post-modernization," instead of "Westernization."  Yes, certain processes of modernization were formed in China as a result of imperialism.  That is the case in many parts of the world - some of which are in the "West" (that's my Irish nationalism coming through...).  But, the "West" is a hopelessly vague concept, as Lewis and Wigan make clear in their marvelous book, The Myth of Continents.  It is a political concept, and its meaning changes with shifting political struggles (in WWI the Germans were "Eastern").  

I think we can say, however, that the "West" was not the "West" until modernization took hold.  Indeed, the "West" was not the "West," in the manner that it is often construed by critics, until the mid-20th century, when civil and human rights became more prominent.

Moreover, Imperialism and colonization, however horrible their depredations, are essentially past (I'm open to certain understandings of "neo-imperialism" but this is not 1895...)   They brought in their wake modernization. But notice that the US was being torn up by the furies of modernization (the US Civll War)  at the same time imperialism was wreaking modernizing havoc on China. Similarly, Germany coalesced into a modern state (1870) as China was attempting "self-strengthening" and Japan was rushing forward with the Meiji Resotration.   So, yes,  modernization via imperialism forced China and Japan to change; but modernization via domestic upheaval caused the "West" to change as well.  

What matters is modernization, and its evolution into post-modernization.  The modernizing processes of centralized/rationalized political power and large-scale industrialization and social mobilization and cultural secularization are powerful and pervasive and (to use one of Marx's favorite terms) ineluctable.

If China is to exercise greater global cultural influence, therefore, it must do so within the parameters of modernity/post-modernity, even if those are perceived by Chinese intellectuals as being created and reproduced by the "West."  It is very hard to conceive of a China-defined global transformation on the scale of the modernizing/post-modernizing effects of the past two hundred years.

Thus we should not expect a singular and unitary "Chinese" effect on global culture.  Rather, bits and pieces of Chinese behavior and understandings will drift out and through global cultural flows.  Some of this has already happened.  Daoism circulates, in a wide variety of ways, through global channels, as does Buddhism (can we call this "Chinese"?).  There are all sorts of Chinese products and practices that move globally: tai qi; Sunzi; chunjie; etc.  

But "China" will not be the definer of global culture.  All cultural products, wherever they are from, must fit into, or run parallel to, the dominant process of modernity/post-modernity.  And the latter, post-modernity, makes it especially difficult to construct conherent and stable definitions of "China."  How can "China" dominate global cultural flows, when global cultural flows are constantly redefining "China"?

All of this poses a certain challenge to Confucianism.  To have more of an effect on global cultural flows, Confucianism needs to be accommodated more thoroughly with modernity and post-modernity.  This is possible but it requires an uprooting from its Chinese soil.  As I wrote in 2006, reflecting upon that conference:

...I have continued to sense a certain unease among Chinese intellectuals about being "takers" of global culture instead of "makers" of global culture (those are my terms).  They worry that postmodernism is just another Western import, destined to shape Chinese intellectual life in terms of someone else's language and ideas.  Of course, the source of this worry may well be the decline, nay disappearance, of Marxism from serious consideration.   Marx was invoked exactly twice at the confernce, neither time to very much effect.   Given the vacuum that has now opened up at the center of intellectual life, other Western ideas are flowing in.  So, several Chinese commentators again today, just like yesterday, expressed a concern that China needs to produce its own ideas to put forth into the world.

    They shouldn't really worry.  As one of my American colleagues here poitned out today, Taoism has certainly travelled to the US and other places; it is a significant Chinese cultural contribution.  So, I am imaging that Confucianism can and should make a similar transformation, from something uniquely identified with China to something widely dispersed around the world and integrated into cultural practices in a wide variety of settings.

    But maybe Confucianism is different.  Maybe it is too closely identified with China, and East Asia (of course, it has moved historically to Korea and Japan and Vietnam) to allow it to be merged into Western societies.  Yet that is what has to happen if China really wants to expand its role as a cultural producer instead of just a cultural consumer.

    So, give it up, China.  Let go of Confucianism.  Don't try to force it to remain narrowly Chinese, or East Asian.  Let it go out into the world and settle and transform in unexpected places.

Confucianism will thus take on new forms, forms that are not as closely associated with "China," or the definition of "China" that the PRC government attempts to maintain.  There will have to be a more democratic understanding of Confucianism, or else it will be seen simply as a crude apology for authoritarianism.  There will have to be a more individualized Confucianism, or liberal societies will not embrace it (this is not to say it will have to jettison its familial and social ethics; rather, these will have to be re-imagined in the context of a stronger sense of individual self-possession).  Instead of being associated with hierachies of power, it will have to adapt to horizontal network relationships.  

All of this is possible, to my mind.  But it might not be desirable for those who want to hold on to a more traditional "Chinese" notion of Confucianism.

Chen Guangcheng, Mozi, and Daoism

This just in from a Reuters profile of Chen Guangcheng:

From Chinese history, Chen said he admired 5th-century BC philosopher Mo Tzu, and Taoism founder Lao Tzu, the works of which had also been read aloud to him.

I must say it's great to see a reference to Mozi (Mo Tzu), an odd man out in the cannons of Chinese thought.  He, and his followers, were extraodinarily influential in pre-Qin times, but they fall out of the picture for centuries until being "rediscovered" in the Qing. 

And it makes perfect sense that Chen, a man seeking consistent application of the law to all Chinese equally, would be inspired by Mozi.  Perhaps the most famous concept associated with Mozi is jianai - 兼爱.   For a long time the most common translation, coming from Burton Watson, had been "universal love."  This always struck me as a bit too hippy-ish.  Ivanhoe and Van Norden render it: "impartial caring," which strikes me as better.  While Fraser goes with "inclusive care," also good. 

What is common to all of these translations is a divergence from Confucianism, which, generally, tells us that our obligations to our family and closest relations are of greater importance than our obligations to others outside of those more immediate social networks.  That is not to say that Confucianism does not recognize obligations to strangers; it does.  Rather, it formulates an ethical hierarchy of sorts, positing the fulfillment of family duties as more important than fulfillment of duties outside the family. 

Mozi rejects such ethical particularism.  Here is a sample:

Our teacher Mozi says, “If people regarded other people’s sates in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own state to attack that of another?  For one would do for others as one would do for oneself.  If people regarded other people’s cities in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own city to attack that of another?  For one would do for others as one would do for oneself.  If people regarded other people’s families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another?  For one would do for others as one would do for oneself.  And so if states and cities do not attack one another and families do not wreak havoc upon and steal from one another, would this be a harm to the world or a benefit?  Of course one must say it is a benefit to the world.”   (Ivanhoe and Van Norden translation, 68-69)

Classical golden rule thinking: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Of course, Confucius also articulated the golden rule, though in the negative: don't do to others what you would not want done to yourself.  The general sense, positive or negative, is the same.  The key difference, however, is that Confucius qualifies the universality of ethical reciprocity by his focus on family-first morality. 

Mozi is is more universal, more inclusive.  He rejects the idea that family obligations should always trump ourmore general obligation to maintain equal concern and treatment for all, an idea that comes close to modern, liberal notions of equality. 

But Mozi is not a liberal. Far from it.  He advocated for a centralized, monocratic administrative system run by a strong leader who rigorously enforced political unity. Ultimately, Mozi's politics is about the suppression of politics in the name of authoritarian stability.   I suspect these are not quite the aspects of Mozi's thinking that Chen value.  But who knows?  Chen has not experienced the dynamic, chaotic give-and-take of democratic politics.  His stay in the US will certainly be instructive in this regard.

So, I guessing Chen like Mozi for his inclusive/impartial care doctrine.

As to Daoism, it is easy to see how Chen would be drawn to Zhuangzi and the Daodejing.  Both texts value individuals at the margins of society: the weak, the poor, the disabled.  They also put forth powerful critiques of the powerful and the rich.  As here in  Daodejing 75:

The people are starving, and it's only because you leaders feast on taxes that they're starving.

The people are impossible to rule, and it's only because you leaders are masters of extenuation that they're impossible to rule.

The people take death lightly, and it's only because you leaders crave lavish pleasures that they take death lightly,

they who act without concern for life: it's a wisdom far beyond treasuring life.

Sounds very much like something Chen would say himself...

Reply to Eric X. Li: Cultures are not Incommensurable and the CCP is not Confucuian

Over at the Huffington Post, Rachel Beitarie interviews Eric X. Li, under the title "Democracy is not the Answer."  Li, who describes himself as a Shanghai venture capitalist (which carries a bit of irony, as I will attempt to demonstrate), is a well known apologist of authoritarianism, author of such pieces as: "Why China's Political Model is Superior."  In the most recent interview he engages in a bit of facile Confucius-citing, so I figured that brought his arguments into the general ambit of this blog.  As you might guess, I disagree with him fundamentally.

Li's general project is to construct a kind of Chinese exceptionalism, to show that, whether in the political or economic or cultural realms, China is sui generis and, as the second title above suggests, superior to others.  As an American I am quite familiar with exceptionalist type arguments and, anticipating the Chinese nationalist critique that this post is likely to inspire, I state here that I also reject claims of American exceptionalism.  Whether American or Chinese or French or whatever, exceptionalist arguments are generally historically flawed, deeply flawed, and, bascially, intellectually uninteresting.

Let's go right to a big issue.  Li states:

...And cultures are fundamentally incommensurate to each other, as they have been developed under vastly different conditions, including hard conditions such as geography and climate. On the abstract end, one can claim we all want certain things, such as dignity - who can argue against that? Sounds universal? Yes. But what dignity means not only can be different but also totally opposite among cultures.

Incommensurability is a big philosophical idea, with various debates surrounding it.  In ethics, the notion of "incommensurable values" raises quesitons arising from the idea that: "Values, such as liberty and equality, are sometimes said to be incommensurable in the sense that their value cannot be reduced to a common measure."  I think this is what Li means when he says "cultures are fundamentally incommensurate with one and other..."

But this is where he goes wrong: moving from incommensurable values to incommensurable cultures.  These are not the same and the difference makes a difference.

Most problematically, Li does not define what he means by "culture."  And he provides only the crudest intimation of what he is getting at, something about "geography and climate."  Obviously, he wants to say that "Chinese culture" is not the same as "American culture" or "Western culture," etc.  But at this level of abstraction the invocation of incommensurability makes little sense.

The basic problem is that "culture" is not a useful category for discussing value incommensurability becuase  the value incommensurability problem exists within every category of "culture" that Li implies.  The tensions between freedom and liberty, or -  to invoke a case that Chinese exceptionalists seem to focus on - between individual and collective interests, are common within "American culture" and "Western culture."  We argue about them all the time. 

To avoid this obvious reality, Li has to conjure straw men:

One fallacy in the modern Western political ideology is the so-called freedom of speech. It makes a presumption that speech, unlike acts, is harmless and therefore can and must be allowed absolute freedom....

A quick class in constitutional law would yield rather quickly the understanding that speech is not an absolute freedom, that is it limited in the interest of public safety ("imminent lawless action" anyone?) and other public goods (obscenity). Now, Li might argue that the parameters of free speech are wider in the US than in China, to which there are two responses: 1) this is a political, not cultural, practice that can be developed in various cultural contexts; thus, speech is freer in Taiwan than in the PRC;  2) within American culture there continues to be wide divergence among various groups on what appropriate limits on speech should be, with some American groups coming much close to a "Chinese" standard than others.  Value incommensurability, in other words, is not simply an inter-cultural phenomenon. 

The problem here, for Li, is the underdeveloped concept of "culture."  It seems that he wants us to believe that "cultures" are distinct and impermeable and unchanging.  And that is simply historically and empirically false.  "Cultures" (I put it in scare quotes precisely because of the variability of any specific definition of any particular "culture") are always, and have always been, dynamic and open and overlapping.  Li seems to recognize this when he writes:

This is not to say that aspects of alien cultures cannot be imported and absorbed. Buddhism came into China from the outside and became a major feature of the Chinese civilization. The success or failure of such importation depends on how consistent it is with the fundamentals of the host cultures, whether in its original or adapted forms. Marxism found deep resonance in China's Confucian egalitarianism and its modern features were much needed in China's desperate attempt to modernize. As such, Marxism's adapted forms have taken roots in modern China.

But this just killed his assertion of cultural incommensurability.  If Buddhism is imported and absorbed then it becomes a local expression of the more general category of "Buddhism," and that general category provides a measure by which it can be compared to other examples of the general category - which seems to me to be the very definition of "commensurability."  Same with Marxism.  Now, we can argue that there are important differences between Chinese and Soviet Marxism (there are!) but that discussion operates within the framework of "Marxism" which, again, provides a set of measures to draw similarities and differences.  Commensurability, again.

This shows how useless the term "culture" is.  "Chinese culture" is a collection of many, many practices and ideas and beliefs.  It is big and vast and complicated. Within it are its own instances of value incommensurability (which is one possible way to understand Chen Guangcheng's stance v. those who seek to repress him).  In its vastness, there are similarities and differences with "American culture."  Most aspects of "Chinese culture" are certainly commensurable with "American culture" or other instances of "culture" globally.  (I am not quite ready to say all instances of "Chinese culture" are so commensurable - I am open to suggestions for more specific instances of incommensurability operating at something less abstract than the level of "culture").  Here are two examples:

1) Scientific research.  We must recognize science as a "cultural" practice, in the conventional sense of "culture" as a set of orientations and beliefs and practices.  As such it clashes with other cultural practices - i.e traditional forms of epistemology; magic; superstition; etc.  Scientists in China perform research according to widely held views on proper methodology and reporting. They also perform it within a broader "Chinese cultural" context.  Science, much to the delight of Chen Duxiu, has become a part of "Chinese culture," in a way that it was not at the beginning of the twentieth century.   And they're good at it.  Moreover, they want to be good at it -  a Nobel Prize or two would be highly coveted.  They may have some rather small variations to the usual practice of science, such that we could refer to something as "Chinese science."  But, even if that is the case, there remains a rather well articulated measure for valuing the practice of science.  Thus, that part of "Chinese culture" that expresses itself in scientific research is certainly commensurable with other forms of scientific research world-wide.

2) Women's rights. In traditional China, women did not enjoy the kinds of legal protections that are now common throughout the world.  Indeed, the Communist Party made a rather big deal of how it was the liberator of women from the feudalistic, Confucian patriarchal exploitation of the past.  The New Marriage Law of 1950 was seen, wtihin China, as elevating the social and political status of women, ideally at least.  And today, women in China complain that their rights are not being duly protected, that the social and political gains of the revolution are deteriorating in the opening and reform period.  Whatever one thinks of these particular complaints, what is notable is that they assume a general standard of "women's rights," a general standard that can be used to measure the progress or backsliding of "Chinese women's rights."  Once again, we have inter-cultural - or perhaps we should say transcultural - commensurability.

We could go on, examning more partiuclar facets of "Chinese culture" to demonstrate commensurability with those same aspects of other cultures.  Indeed, the work of Longxi Zhang is interesting in this regard. But one really needs to be called out: economics.

I, for one, absolutely believe that economic life is  a kind of cultural practice.  Markets are based upon certain cultural assumptions and, as they operate, they change other cultural practices.  Contemporary China is a powerful example of this.  Perhaps nothing has changed "Chinese culture" as much as economic reform of the past thirty years.  And those changes have increased the economic-cultural commensurability between China and the US and the "West" and other cultural formations.  Yes, of course, there are differences in how the Chinese and American economies operate.  But mere difference is not incommensurability, which suggests no general standard can be used for comparison and judgment.  And we know, obviously, that every day business men and investors and traders and, yes, "Shanghai venture capitalists," work hard to find ways to make big piles of money from the dynamic pattern of similarities and differences between China's economy and other economies.  

Further, economics, as an intellectual discipline, basicially rejects cultural incommensurability.  It claims to be a universal science (a claim that I do not really accept because they take it too far, ignoring cultural differences within a broader commensurability).  Ask Justin Lin Yifu if China is economically-culturally incommensurable and I suspect he would just laugh.  

And there's your irony: if Eric X. Li was right, he'd be out of a job.  And the fact that he is a successful transcultural investor demonstrates that he is wrong in his assertion of cultural incommensurability.

So, what happened?  Li made too sweeping a claim to try to defend the political authoritarianism of the CCP.  He is trying to construct a grand China exceptionalist argument to wall off the Party from political critics, like Ai Weiwei and Chen Guangcheng.  But upon scrutiny his Great Wall of Chinese Expcetionalism crumbles.  And he is left with a rather bare political apology. 

To get back to the beginning of this post, Li also tries to argue that Deng Xiaoping was something of a Confucian:

In the Chinese tradition, an enduring definition of the end of political governance was articulated by Confucius two and a half millenniums ago. He called it Xiao Kang (as differentiated from Da Tong -- an unattainable ideal). In contemporary terms it can be described as a society of general peace and prosperity with a just legal order and built upon a righteous moral foundation. Interestingly enough, when Deng Xiaoping launched his reforms in 1979 he declared that the goal of the Chinese nation in the next phase of its development was to build or, perhaps more accurately, rebuild a Xiao Kang society.

It was probably no accident that Mr. Deng, in declaring China's national goal, did not rely on the modern Communist ideologies that were instrumental in the revolution that established the People's Republic, but rather reached deep into China's ancient tradition, to Confucius. Measured by the "end" as articulated by Confucius and by Deng, the current one-party state model has so far served China well, albeit with real shortcomings.

Yes, xiao kang is common in Party decriptions of economic reform.  But it is, in the words of John Wong: "... fuzzy and grossly imprecise, especially when applied to a transitional economy like China."  He goes on: "To an ordinary Chinese [xiao kang] may vaguely convey the feeling of being 'neither rich nor poor' or  buqiong buhu". Moreover, it is not a central concept of the Analects or Mencius, no where near the importance of ren or yi or li.  And it is not at all clear that xiao kang is a concept that differentiates Chinese developmental goals for those of other countries, or at least not as it is used in this China Daily op-ed:

The xiaokang idea came fromthe late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s and early 1980s while he was working on the country's developmental blueprint.

The government's goal now, for 2020, is to make sure that xiaokang is everywhere and the people are well-off, in a way that is similar to developed countries in the West.

Oops - that writer needs to read the incommensurability memo...

But the big laugher here is the implication that Deng Xiaoping was a Confucian.  He was not.  He was a dedicated communist-nationalist.  His highest priority was maintaining the institutional integrity of the CCP, which he guided as the country careened into the Great Leap Forward, and saw destroyed by Mao during the Cultural Revolution, and rebuilt after 1979.  It was the Party that he sought to maintain when he gave the order to kill hundreds and hundreds of people in Beijing in 1989.  Those main lines of his career have nothing to do with Confucianism.  Indeed, Deng was anti-Confucian in his willingness to use force to defend the Party.  Xiao kang is small beer in the fullness of Deng's political life.  He was much more interested in building up China's economy as the basis of national strength, something more in line with Legalist thinking. I think the turn to reform in 1979 was a great thing for many Chinese people, and Deng deserves credit for that.  But he was not motivated by Confucianism.

To be clear: Confucianism is a valuable philosophy.  We all can learn from it; we all should learn from it.  I teach it to my students. I think about ways it applies to my own life.  But it is precisely because I take it seriously that I reject its association with the Chinese Communist Party.  Were Confucius alive today he would reject much of what occurs in Chinese politics and economics.

Reply to James Fallows: The Return to a Universal China

In a post last week, James Fallows raises an interesting question: "What is the Chinese Dream?"  He is, of course, alluding to the notion of the "American Dream," and wondering whether contemporary China has a similar summarizing cultural symbol that captures the aspirations of the society as a whole. 

It should be noted at the outset that any such endeavor is flawed in the sense that a "dream" of this sort is never fully inclusive of an entire society.  The "American Dream," obviously, often fails.  But Fallows's exercise is still worthwhile, if we are seeking a comparison of contemporary China and the US, at least along the "soft power" lines of symbolic imagery.

One point he raises, that I want to push back on, is the "non-universal" quality of Chinese ambitions.  He writes:

...After China's centuries of seeming to move backward as a society and its more recent decades of tragedy and turmoil, the simple bourgeois comforts are much of what the modern Chinese miracle could and should provide.

But there is a way in which the question does make sense, as an expression of concern about what the rise of a "non-universal" nation will mean for the rest of the world.

He contrasts this immediate, particularist, material Chinese focus with the universal projects of the West:

Through the centuries of Western military, technological, and economic dominance, "universalism" of some sort has been so basic a part of international relations that it barely needed to be discussed. The leaders of the French Revolution issued their Declaration of the Rights of Man -- not the rights of Frenchmen. The Declaration of Independence began, "When, in the course of human events," not "events in the colonies of North America." With varying degrees of sincerity, Western colonialists tried to create replica British, French, or American citizens in their colonies. Long before the colonial era, Christian missionaries wanted to bring people worldwide to their view of the one true universal faith. 

We must first recognize that imperialism and colonialism and coercion were the means by which various universal ideals were imposed upon others around the world.  And we must also recognize the terribly human cost of those impositions. 

But Fallows's point, I think, is that, after WWII, certain ideas - popular sovereignty, human rights, bourgeois materialism - did become widely dispersed and absorbed into the indigenous practices of many, many countries around the world, China included.  And to the degree that those "universal" ideals create hopes and aspirations in individuals in many different parts of the world, they could provide a kind of soft power resource for those places that are perceived to be permitting their expression to the greatest degree.  The "American Dream" can be understood as being consistent with certain globally-dispersed aspirations (thus the large number of people from other countries who seek citizenship in the US to pursue those aspirations).  Can the "Chinese Dream" be similarly conceived?

Maybe it can. And that might be possible because China is becoming "universal," at least in a certain sense.

Nine years ago I gave a lecture on this very topic, entitled, "The Return to a Universal China," later condensed into an LA Times piece: "Pop Culture Leads -- Freedom Follows"  There, I argued that in imperial China there was a sort of universalism:

In imperial times, a universal ideal of Chinese-ness was to be found in the Confucian classics. Anyone, regardless of ethnicity, could learn to live the good life. Qian Long was Manchurian, not Han Chinese, yet he was, in his time, the epitome of Chinese culture. Indeed, the primary means to political power and wealth was cultural attainment, tested by the rigorous bureaucratic examination system. Independent merchants may have made fortunes through their entrepreneurial wiles, but, once successful, they quickly took on the trappings of the Confucian gentleman and made sure their sons studied the classics and practiced the rituals.

The universal civilizational ideal disciplined both politics and economics. This, of course, was lost in the 20th century, with the decline of the Chinese imperial state and the rise of Maoist socialism.  The rest of the story is well known:

In communist China, the party monopolized political power and the state controlled how wealth was produced and distributed. The party-state was also in the business of regulating culture. Mao even launched a Cultural Revolution in a desperate effort to destroy any possible challenge to his own preeminence. The Confucian gentleman was dead and the Red loyalist supreme.

China's universalist aspiration was also killed. It seemed, for a fleeting moment, that traditional Sino- centrism might be replaced by socialist internationalism, that China would be a part of a grand global revolutionary project. But nationalism proved the stronger force. Mao was, in the end, much more interested in socialism in one country -- his own -- than in building a worldwide movement.

By putting "politics in command," Mao rendered a universal China impossible.  

Deng Xiaoping's "opening and reform," however, re-calibrated the balance between culture (which was traditionally the realm of Chinese universalism), politics and economics.  The Party would hold on to political power but would permit much greater latitude for individuals pursuing self-interest in the economic and cultural spheres.  And that has opened the way for new universalist possibilities:

The political liberation of culture and wealth is not unprecedented in Chinese history. In the early decades of the 20th century, the old ways had been discarded and the new was everywhere intoxicating the young. But war destroyed this efflorescence, and communist victory brought back a stricter political regime. Now, however, the openness is even headier. Globalized communications and transportation make virtually any cultural form anywhere available to the Chinese. And they seize the opportunities with passion.

Oddly enough, globalization has also reconstituted a Chinese universalism of sorts. Imperial universalism was founded on the notion that (almost) anyone could become Chinese; now, universalism is a matter of Chinese becoming (almost) anything.

That last paragraph holds up pretty well nine years later.

The issue, however, is that the contemporary cultural transformation of China, the destabilizing openness to a much wider range of expressions of "Chinese-ness," is very much still in process.  The Party tries to contain cultural change at the margins, when it threatens to undermine its political hegemony.  Many Chinese people, especially older generations, are uncomfortable with the loss of traditional (even if that means "socialist") foundations for meaning and ethics.  Problems and tensions abound.  But many Chinese embrace the new possibilities.  They move forward creatively and happily and ingeniously, re-inventing Chinese-ness and China at every step.  

There have been other moments in Chinese history when cultural change and openness shaped identity in new and beautiful ways: the Tang Dynasty.  Perhaps that could be a model for a new "Chinese Dream".  Kaiser Kuo, who named his metal band "Tang Dynasty," suggested as much a few years ago:

Kuo and his fellows tried to conjure up the feel of a time when China grew steadily more enriched by exposing itself to foreign cultures like India, Central Asia, West Asia (Turkey, Iran), East Europe (Hungary) through extensive travel and trade.

"It embraced many non-Chinese cultural elements, from the Buddhist religion to grape wine to Central Asian music," Kuo says.

Maybe that's what a universal China looks like....

Chen Guangcheng: It ain't over 'til it's over

The news this morning, that Chen, with his family, may be able to travel to the US to study at NYU, is good. Let's hope it works out.  But, as we have most chaotically learned in the past 48 hours, the details matter.  There are still multiple points at which expectations could break down, and Chen and his supporters will not be able to truly breath easy until he steps off the plane in New York.

Some hopeful signs include visits by US embassy officials with Chen at Chaoyang hospital, where they report he is receiving "excellent" medical attention for three bone fractures. The same source (Richard Buangan's Twitter) also reports that Chinese officials have been talking to Chen about the abuses heaped upon him by Linyi officials.  If those responsible for Chen's mistreatment are finally brought to heel, that would be a truly significant outcome.  But, again, we'll have to wait and see how far that goes...

Beyond the particulars of Chen's security and travel plans, various political questions remain.

The Chinese media is now starting to frame the story, and China Media Project has a good first take on these efforts.  As suggested by this excerpt from a Beijing Daily editorial, they are laying the basis for ultimately tagging Chen as a traitor:

. . The United States and other Western countries have paid particular attention to Chen Guangcheng for some time. It is through the packaging of the United States and Western media that this so-called “rights defense hero” has been marked as a striking political symbol, and has become established as representative figure opposing society and opposing the system. But looking at again at the situation, it is clear that Chen Guangcheng cannot represent very many. Who he really represents is the backstage boss, namely the interests of the hostile forces of the West. Chen Guangcheng has already become a tool and pawn by which politicians in the United States blacken China. . .

It is not too far from "tool and pawn" of the US to traitor. I expect that to become the central theme of the official narrative on Chen.  What is ironic here is that Chen is precisely the opposite.  He is not someone who is "opposing society and opposing the system."  He has attempted to use the principles and procedures provided by the Center's own project of expanding the "rule of law."  What he has done is not oppose the system but reveal a fundamental flaw in the system: the ways in which the expansion of "rule of law" is obstructed by local level Party power.  This is a big problem. It is even back-handedly recognized by an English-language op-ed in The Global Times:

Admittedly, today's China has some loopholes in grass-roots governance.

There are systems and laws in China, but the sense of the law at the grass-roots level is still weak.

Some local governments and officials act based on local policies and practices rather than laws.

Chen fights against the local government over forceful abortion and sterilization. As a densely populated province, Shandong has higher pressures on implementing the one-child policy.

In Chen's hometown, Linyi, a city in the southeast of Shandong, there are disputes between the villagers and local governments in implementing the one-child policy, and local officials may adopt some forceful ways to stop those breaching the policy.

However, this is just a local case, an interlude for China in realizing the rule of law. If Chen had stuck to proper ways to help people safeguarding rights, this would have contributed to improving grass-roots governance and achieving social development.

The problem is not "loopholes." The problem is systemic. Chen was using the law to redress local problems, he was sticking to "proper ways."  It was the local Linyi officials who used their power to repress him.  That is the problem.  And it has been a problem  throughout the reform period (for detailed stories of local abuses, based on extensive reportage from the 2000s, see: Chen Guidi and Wu Juntao, Will the Boat Sink the Water?  review here).

Sadly, the structural power dynamics (party domination of the legal system) that gave rise to the Chen Guangcheng case, will not change easily or soon.  Thus, even if Chen is able to travel to NYU, should he return sometime in the future, it is virtually inevitable that he will again be engaged in precisely the same struggle that created this most recent dramatic series of events.  And I am sure he is well aware that his struggle for a more humane and just legal system in China is for the long term, regardless of what happens in the next few months or years.

It is also too early to tell how all this is playing out at the highest levels of the CCP.  No doubt this case is becoming enmeshed in the power transition now underway, to be completed this fall, involving the highest political positions in China: the Standing Committee of the Politburo.  A farily common analytic line is that there may be splits among the current Standing Committee, with Wen Jiabao viewed as a more moderate voice, perhaps willing to compromise and work for some form of political reform versus the likes of Zhou Yongkang, who oversees the security apparatus and is assumed to take a harder line.  It is really impossible to know for sure how this is playing out.  It might be best, however, to understand it as a dynamic process.  There is no one end point where one side or another can claim clear victory.  Rather, every aspect of the on-going Chen case will be shaped by current differences at the top levels of power and struggles to shape the future composition of the Standing Committee.  Thus, every facet of Chen's situation - getting a visa; investigating Linyi officials; media representations; permission to return - will be subject to change depending upon how higher level power dynamics are playing out.

So, hold on to your hats.  This saga is far from over....

(cartoon from NYT)

The Core Issue in the Chen Guangcheng case

The story has changed in the past twenty-four hours, but it is important to maintain focus on the central problem in all of this: the PRC government has failed to provide a consistent and fair rule of law and Chen has been brutally victimized, and continues to be brutally victimized, as a result. 

We can debate whether the US government has handled this well or not, and whether Chen himself has made tactical errors (and who could blame him if he has, after a year and a half of unremitting pressure and abuse).  But those are secondary issues.  The core of the matter is the continuing inability of central PRC government officials to recognize or rein in the illegal actions of the Linyi thugs.  Either that, or the central Party leadership is in total agreement with the Linyi thugs and supports the use of illegal means to repress citizen activists. They have either failed to provide rule of law or they do not, regardless of their statements to the contrary, really want to provide rule of law.  That is the issue.

Ths US government cannot solve this problem.  It is not a problem of the US government.  Only the political leadership of the PRC government can solve this problem.

Thus far, the US embassy in Beijing has gone above and beyond the call of duty to help Chen.  The story of bringing him into the embassy grounds reads like a tale of Cold War espionage.  And I, for one, believe that while Chen was in the embassy, the US representatives there made plain that he could have asylum if he wanted it but he did not; he wanted to try to stay in China and continue to press for improvment of the legal system.  Perhaps the most reliable source is Jerry Cohen, a man who has worked in and with China for decades on questions of law and the legal system.  Chen, while at the embassy, asked for Cohen to advise him, via telephone, and Cohen did.  And here was Cohen's understanding as Chen left the embassy:

Cohen said that on Monday night, Chen was undecided and fretful for his family. “I’m very, very fearful. I’m very, very insecure. I’m very uncomfortable,” Cohen said Chen told him on Monday. But throughout the talks, Chen maintained that he wanted to remain in China, according to Cohen and U.S. officials, because he didn’t want to live without his family and felt he could achieve more in China. “Chen is brilliant and to accept asylum and fade away, that wasn’t an appealing option,” Cohen said. “He wants this. He told me in the conversations we had in the last couple of days that he wants the rights of any other citizen.” By Tuesday, Chen was feeling better about the arrangement and by the time he left the embassy he was comfortable with it, Cohen said.

Staying in China necessarily reduced the power of the US government to protect him.  The US cannot contravene the sovereignty of the PRC; the US government cannot become an extraterritorial legal guarantor.  The US can monitor and pressure and protest; but it cannot shield a PRC citizen from the legal force of his or her own government.  Everyone knows this.  Thus, the choice to stay in China was a risky one, dependent on how the highest levels of the PRC government would respond.   It would be quite easy for that leadership to make certain promises behind closed doors and then renege on them in practice.  The US would be in a reactive mode, and would have to calculate what it wanted to give up in order to get the outcome it wanted in Chen's case. 

And we know now that Chinese authorities have responded badly.  First of all, someone threatened Chen's family.  Indeed, the family has been used as a bargaining chip.  Initially, Chen was told, while in the embassy, that if he were to seek asylum and leave, he would have to leave his family behind.  That was the position of the PRC government.  Clearly, that weighed heavily on his mind and shaped his decision to stay.  Then, his wife and children were brought to the hospital but were told they could be sent back to Shandong at any time - which in itself is a not-so-veiled threat of physical abuse.  When Chen was reunited with his family at the hospital, and his wife told him how fearful they were of being sent back, that is when he changed his decision and stated that he wanted to leave China with his family - an option which the PRC government had not made available in earlier negotiations.

Once again, Chen shows himself to be more of a Confucian than the PRC government.  When he finally had a chance to reunite with both of his children, he sought to act in their best interest.  It is important to keep in mind that one of the ways the Linyi thugs have pressured him is to break up his family:

"They broke up and hurt Chen Guangcheng's family," Chen's lawyer, Li Jinsong, said Thursday. "It was the local government officials who wouldn't let the son go home because he was getting older and was better able to understand things, and what the local officials most feared was that Chen Guangcheng and his family would be able to communicate with the outside world. So, he was left with his maternal grandmother."

So we should not blame Chen for the rather chaotic change of direction the story has taken.  But that change has put him and the US in a weaker position.  Quite simply, if the PRC leadership sees that the US values a certain outcome in this case, it will demand something in return.  And the fact that this is all happening while high-level negotiations are going on means that the PRC will likely try to link the resolution of the Chen case to other issues.  Will they say that Chen and his family can have passports and leave if the US backs off its plan to sell advanced jet fighters to Taiwan?  Of course, the US will not allow the Chen case to determine national security and other issues.  But the back and forth on this will drag on for a long time. 

The bottom line here is what it has long been.  If the PRC leadership - Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao and company - want to treat Chen humanely, they can treat Chen humanely.  Up to this point, they have clearly demonstrated that they do not want to treat Chen humanely.  They have chosen inhumanity.  And that choice creates a systemic problem, as Mencius noted:

...only the Humane are fit for high position: when the Inhumane hold high position, evil is sown among the people.  When the Way isn't in a leader's thoughts, officials stop fostering the law.... (4A.1)

是以惟仁者宜在高位。不仁而在高位，是播其惡於眾也。上無道揆也。下無法守也...

That's the core issue of the Chen Guangcheng case...

What's Next for Chen Guangcheng?

Wow.  Interesting turn of events.  So, Chen is out of the US embassy and, after a quick medical check at a local hospital, has been released.  He plans to stay in China.  The US government statement on the matter tells us:

"Mr. Chen decided to depart the embassy today and travel to a hospital in Beijing. He did so on the basis of a number of understandings. China acknowledged that Mr. Chen will be treated humanely while he remains in China… He has been reunited with his family - his wife and two children - at the hospital, and they remain together with him as a family. He had not seen his son in a few years, and his wife had not seen him (the son) either, so this was a family reunification after a long and difficult separation.

"When he leaves the hospital, the Chinese authorities have stated that Mr. Chen and his family will be relocated to a safe environment so that he may attend a university to pursue a course of study. I think many of you know that he is a self-taught lawyer, that he has long sought the opportunity to study at university... We understand that there are no remaining legal issues directed at Mr. Chen, and that he will be treated like any other student in China."

This is fairly remarkable.  In the past few days knowledgeable analysts of Chinese politics suggested that the Chinese government would not provide any guarantees or assurances on Chen and his treatment.  To do so would risk being perceived as giving in to a dissident and, worse, compromising with the US on a matter of domestic politics, something the Party is loath to do.  It is unclear how firm the Chinese commitment is to keep Chen safe.  But, on the face of it, the mere suggestion that they recognize the need to state publicly that his safety requires their attention is a change from before, and maybe, depending how things play out, a change for the good.

Even more notable is this, from the US statement:

"Chinese officials have further stated that they will investigate reported extra-legal activities committed by local Shandong authorities against Mr. Chen and his family. The United States will take a continuing interest in the well-being of Mr. Chen and his family, including seeking period welfare visits and raising his case with the appropriate authorities. We will look to confirm at regular intervals that the commitments he has received are carried out. "

This is the key.  The central problem in the CGC case has been the impunity of local officials.  They have held Chen under house arrest and brutally mistreated him without proffering any legal decision or reason.  They have flouted the rule of law.  Indeed, Chen is a symbol of all that is wrong with the Chinese legal system. Up until now, Central authorities have simply looked the other way (it is highly, highly implausible that leaders in Beijing did not know that Chen was being held in the manner that he was). 

If a serious investigation is launched by Beijing against the Linyi officials, it could signal that more reform-minded forces are steering the process.  Wen Jiabao has called for some sort of political reform - though he has seemed powerless to pull it off - and an investigation of the CGC case would be a perfect launching pad for a reformist program, even if that meant only a modest improvement in the rule of law.  Moreover, if reformists have the upper hand in this case, that could suggest they are in an advantageous position in terms of the leadership transition slated for this fall.  In that regard, this could be a turning point, or, should more conservative political forces prevail, a repetition of the usual pattern of repression.  Everything is of heightened political significance in Beijing these days because of the looming succession, which was roiled by the still unsettled Bo Xilai affair.

If there is no investigation, and Chen is hounded and harassed and rearrested after Hilliary Clinton leaves, then we will know that reformists at the Center have no power and the hard-line Legalist (who ironically politicize and weaken the rule of law) repressers will dominate the leadership transition.

A lot is riding on what happens in the next few months.

Ominously, the official Chinese statement makes no mention of the assurances noted in the US text.  The incident is framed as US interference in domestic Chinese affairs and an apology is demanded.  Sardonically, it states: "China demands that the U.S. apologise over this, thoroughly investigate this incident, punish those who are responsible, and give assurances that such incidents will not recur."  The irony here is the call for an investigation.  What we have is a situation in which local Linyi officials appear to be acting illegally, brutually mistreating a Chinese citizen, and drawing upon the authority granted them by the higher levels of the Party (the Chinese political system is unitary, not federal, and local officials are clearly subordinate to the Center), and the Center seems to be avoiding any serious investigation of the case.  But they want the US to investigate its role.  I guess they want parity in investigations...

In a sense, the most important political phase of the Chen Guangcheng saga has just begun.  He has become more than a symbol of Chinese law and politics; he is now the crux of reform or repression.

And there may be reason for pessimism.  There are now tweets and reports from Zeng Jinyan - a Chinese human rights activist and wife of Hu Jia - that Chen was forced to leave the embassy with threats from Chinese authorities that if he did not leave his wife and daughter would be sent back to Shandong immediately.  This could mean that the Chinese government is playing a short-term game: get Chen out of the embassy and deal with him a bit later, after media attention has died down. 

Much has yet to be learned....

Stand with Chen Guangcheng

Chen Guangcheng, the courageous human rights lawyer in China, who has been subjected to brutal "house arrest" for years, has escaped his captors and is apparently in hiding, perhaps in the US embassy, in Beijing.  Here's what I blogged five and a half years ago:

  Chen Guangcheng believes in the rule of law.  He believes that the law should apply equally to everyone.   He believes that government officials who break the law should be held accountable.  He is performing a civic duty precisely in line with the Communique of the Sixth Plenum [of the 16th Central Committee].  But he has been arrested and brutalized.  His tormentors have made a mockery of the very idea of the rule of law.  And until President Hu Jintao finds the political courage to allow the law to develop in a truly equal and just manner, until he accepts that idea that honest people like Chen Guangcheng have a right and a duty to demand that the law apply to everyone equally, including Communist Party officials, until then the words of the Communique are empty.

Hu Jintao has not had the political courage to do the right thing for all these years.  Nor has Wen Jiabao.  Indeed, Chen, in the midst of his escape, has put out a video directly asking Wen for justice:

 

Let's hope that the Party Center let's him go free.  I fear, however, that that will not be the outcome.  

 In a way, this is a test of whether the Center is willing to embrace something like a Confucian ethic.  I see Chen as a genuinely Mencius-like figure.  He stands consistently for fairness and justice for the powerless, and he is willing to speak up to the powers that be, demanding redress for legal and economic inequality.  And his righteousness is obvious to all who know him. Clearly, the right thing to do is free him from the brutal, illegal, deeply inhumane assaults he has suffered for so long.

But I am afraid the Center will show itself to be the bastion of hard-line Legalism that it has always been.  They will interpret Chen as a challenge to their power and they will find a way to crush him.  Or if they exile him, they will punish those who have supported him.

All we can do is stand in witness and call for justice:

Free Chen Guangcheng!