The folks over at the New Legalist web site have responded to my last response to them. I guess we could call this a debate. The post, authored by Sherwin Lu, is entitled: "Who is 'Distorting Chinese History and Chinese Philosophy': The New Legalists or Prof. Sam Crane" It is labeled "Part I," so I guess more is on the way.
To begin, I must thank Mr. Lu. He has done more to make my case for me than I could ever have done. You might remember that, way back when, in February 2008, when I put up my first post on the New Legalists, I said their analysis was: "...unremarkable because it has traces of the Say No nationalists of the 1990s." Well, this time around, Mr. Lu goes for a declamation that directly hearkens to those "Say No Nationalists:"
Just for the record, I really don't resent or worry aabout anything. And I am most happy to accept a critique of US hegemony. Claims of exceptionalism of all sorts, I reject, be they assertions of American exceptionalism or Chinese exceptionalism. I am, after all, a standard issue US left-liberal academic and am used to having American conservatives complain that I am insufficiently patriotic, etc.
My main purpose in all of this is simply to point out that the New Legalists are in the thrall of contemporary Chinese nationalism and, therefore, their readings of Chinese history and philosophy are biased in favor of whatever serves the power interests of the Chinese state. They are unable, therefore, to look dispassionately at key historical questions. And Mr. Lu, in his invocation of the "Say No Nationalist" rhetoric has demonstrated clearly that that is the case.
Let me make two points in response to Mr. Lu's piece. 1) his analysis of nationalism is historically muddled; and 2) his view of Chinese military history is blinkered and flawed.
(This gets a bit long, so I am putting it below the fold...)
First, nationalism. Mr. Lu makes a distinction between "defensive" and "offensive" nationalism, in a rather crude attempt to assert that Chinese nationalism is "defensive" and therefore good in some way, while US nationalism is "offensive" and thus bad. Now, I am most happy to accept that the US, and other Western states, have engaged in inhumane and brutal wars that were rationalized by nationalist claims. But I would reject the idea that some sort of "defensive" nationalism is immune to the same sort of offensive and violent assault on others. Notice how Zhao Suisheng handles the question of "defensive nationalism:"
Defensive nationalism does not exclude a threat of prejudice and hostility toward other nations...Other than the concern over the possible challenge to its nationalist legitimacy and outward economic development strategy as well as the rise of ethnic nationalism as domestic constraints on pragmatic Chinese leaders, there is no other value system powerful enough to neutralize nationalism in China. In most countries, nationalism is not an isolated sentiment. It coexists with other value systems that influence its content and character. One powerful restraining force on the negative side of nationalism is liberalism, which is very weak in China at the moment....
In other words, "defensive" nationalism is not necessarily better than Mr. Lu's "offensive" nationalism. As Zhao suggests, it can became hostile toward others under certain circumstances. A deeper historical analysis reveals just how common that transformation is. Let me cite one source: Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Harvard University Press, 1992). In it, Greenfeld analyzes the historical rise of nationalism in England, France, Russia, Germany and the US. I would call Mr. Lu's attention especially to the section on German nationalism. Greenfeld writes:
...France was ultimately responsible for the emergence of German nationalism...France gave Germany the Enemy, against whom all the strata of the disunited German society could unite, on whom everyone could blame their misfortunes and vent their frustrations. Hatred of France inspired the uncertain patriotism within the German breast; it provided this new and as yet flickering passion with a reason for existence and with a focus. Without the decade of collective effervescence and common effort, the vital enthusiasm which was sustained by the persistence of the French menace, German nationalism would not have survived its birth. The French victories preserved it through the first tender years, and, thanks to them, nourished by the incessant patriotic agitation which was its mother's milk, it could stand, in 1815, on its own. (372)
In other words, German nationalism started out in a defensive mode, defined against the threat from France. Early German nationalists understood their historical mission as saving the nation from the evil French invaders. But that defensiveness evolved, over the course of the 19th century, into a more "offensive" expansion of power. We needn't have to remind Mr. Lu of what became of German nationalism in the twentieth century.
We could push a bit further, in a direction rather more discomforting to "Say No" Chinese nationalists. I think it is safe to assert that Japanese nationalism also started out as a "defensive" ideal. Japan was responding to "Western" invasion. Japanese nationalists came to believe that in order to save the nation they had to not only transform it but embark upon an imperialist mission of their own. What started as "defensive" became horribly "offensive."
Thus, I think the way in which Mr. Lu's presents the "defensive" v. "offensive" distinction does not stand historical scrutiny. It's all just nationalism. It is all just a matter of constructing a notion of national identity, pointing to an existential threat and calling for the defense of the nation, and, eventually, striking out against the Enemy, whoever they might be. That's how virtually all nationalisms work, German, Japanese, American and, yes, Chinese.
And that is why I am generally anti-nationalist. I have nothing against Chinese nationalism in particular. It is nationalism in general that I believe harms more people than it helps. And the New Legalists are engaged in a nationalist project.
One more thing before I move on to Chinese military history. Mr. Lu asserts that I am: "..trying to obliterate the over 2000 years’ existence of the Chinese nation from history." In saying this, Mr. Lu demonstrates that he does not understand what nationalism, or the nation, is. It is, by definition, a modern phenomenon. Whatever the relationships that may have existed among people who lived in China 2000 years ago, they were not constitutive of a "nation." There was no nation anywhere then. "Nations" as such did not emerge until the processes of modernization arose - you can pick a date for that, but no one would press those processes back 2000 years. Mr. Lu is thus engaging in the shallowest primordialism, obviously characteristic of a committed nationalist, not a student of history.
Secondly, let's turn to questions of Chinese military history. Mr. Lu argues:
Traditional Chinese society was a highly developed agricultural one. Farming people lived on the land and tended to stay at one place without much mobility. But their prosperity often invited looting raids or even large scale invasions from neighboring nomadic tribal peoples in all directions. Therefore, and also because traditional Chinese philosophy did not allow aggression against other peoples for selfish purposes – therefore, on the whole, Chinese military actions on the borders were defensive or preventive. And those peoples’ joining the Chinese nation usually led to protection and support from the central government and an assimilation of the more advanced culture into and a betterment of their life, not like modern colonization or other forms of control by Western countries, which led to even wider gaps between them and the controlled countries.
I agree with the assertion that Chinese society was agricultural, and distinct from the nomadic pastoralists who lived further West. But his argument that "traditional Chinese philosophy" somehow constrained the use of state power is naive in the extreme. It is also odd that he would invoke a Confucian principle here (since it is the Confucians who counseled the avoidance of war) - after all, he is trying to defend Legalism, or some modern variant of it, which ridiculed Confucianism as weak and useless. Here is an interesting paper by Yuan-kang Wang, from Western Michigan University. He argues:
...To what extent does Confucian culture influence China’s use of military force against external security threats? By examining Song China’s relations with the Liao empire during the crucial years of 960-1005, I argue that, despite having a pacifist Confucian culture, China has been acting like a realist power in Asia, expanding its political and military interests as its power grew. By doing so, this article makes the case against Chinese exceptionalism. Chinese use of force was rooted in the structure of the system; culture played a supplementary role in China’s military policy. Despite having different cultures, the Chinese experience was no less different from that of the West: both were driven by the anarchic structure of the system...
In any event, Confucanism - as I have suggested in other posts - is best understood as prescriptive, not descriptive of the realities of ancient Chinese politics and power. Of course, the imperial Chinese state used coercion and organized violence. All states everywhere rely upon coercion and organized violence. Indeed, Legalism is preeminently a theory of managing coercion and organized violence to maintain political power.
The contention that the use of Chinese military power was defensive or preventative and therefore justifiable is vacuous. All states everywhere justify the use of force in defensive or preventative terms. Why are ancient Chinese claims exceptional in this regard? Indeed, the following assertion that the effects of the use of force brought "advanced culture" and better material conditions to those upon whom it was inflicted is standard imperialist rhetoric. In making these points, Mr. Lu is essentially saying that China acted, and reasoned, in the manner of imperialists throughout history.
Instead, we might ask: why does Mr. Lu assume that the Mongols and Uighurs and Tibetans and others were somehow so "inferior" that they had to be "civilized" by China? They did not want to have Chinese emperor rule over them. Just ask the Zunghar Mongols. They fought back and they fought back hard but they lost by force of arms and Chinese rule was imposed on them. Whey does he only consider the threat that the Mongolians posed to China? What of the threat China posed to the Mongolians?
Historian Peter Perdue points out, in his magum opus, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (notice that he uses the term "conquest"), that the expansion of the borders of the empire that occurred under the Qing was not simply a peaceful, natural, inevitable process, as Mr. Lu would like us to believe. In referring to nationalist Chinese renditions of Qing history, Perdue states:
The teleology of nationalist history implied that the Qing had merely fulfilled the mission of its predecessors to encompass all the territory that "naturally" belonged to China. The modern Chinese state then inherited this space and made it the basis of China's imagined community. Modern textbook accounts that stress the continuity of the Qing with earlier dynasties implicitly assume that this remarkable territorial expansion made little difference. (506-507)
And that remarkable territorial breakthrough of the Qing, which unprecedentedly expanded the reach of the empire, was accomplished by diplomacy, economic tactics and tremendous military power. The Qing, in short, was an expansionist empire. Notice the difference between Ming and Qing, which Perdue outlines in an article in Han van de Ven's book, Warfare in Chinese History:
By the sixteenth century, the Ming rulers had reluctantly accepted coexistence with the alien Mongols. Even though Mongols were not seen as human, they were recognized as permanent features of the northwest environment, as enduring as animals or water. The Qing stance was, by contrast, both incorporationist and eliminationist. Mongols were recognized as humans, with the responsibility of making moral choices. They could choose to join the Qing realm of civilization, which defined them as subordinate, constrained subjects, or, if they rejected this view of proper relationships, they would be exterminated. An autonomous political or cultural sphere for a Mongolian people was an impossible option. (271-272)
Exterminated. And many were. The threat of force was always present, and brutally demonstrated, in Qing foreign policy.
I could go on but, alas, I know it is all to no effect. Nationalists are ideologically committed, their minds are closed. Any counter-evidence or contrary historical narrative will be cast aside in favor of the singular morality play of the nation.
To be clear: I think studying ancient Chinese classics is important and educational. I read Han Feizi with my class. I think the New Legalists do a service by making the Huang-Lao texts more widely available. But the problem with the New Legalists is their nationalism. They are not interested in the complexities and varieties of history, or the subtleties and interpretive possibilities of the old texts. Rather, they look to the past for material to rationalize the power and interests of their own ideological construct of "China." They condemn other Chinese people who do not share their definition of "China." In all of this, they are rather like the neo-conservatives in the US, peddling a historically bankrupt notion of exceptionalism.
Too bad they ignore the other great currents of Chinese tradtion, especially that which springs from Mencius, who argued against the proto-Legalists of his day:
Mencius said: "To pretend force is Humanity - that's the mark of a tyrant, and a tyrant needs a large country. To practice Humanity through Integrity - that's the mark of a true emperor, and a true emperor doesn't need a large country. T'ang began with only seventy square miles, and Emperor Wu began with only a hundred square miles. If you use force to gain the people's submission, it isnt' a submission of the heart. It's only the submission of the weak to the strong. But if you use Integrity to gain the people's submission, it's a submission of the sincere and delighted heart. (3.3)
What makes Legalism so attractive to these nationalists? Confucianism and Taoism are definitively Chinese ideologies with long histories and plenty to admire. But that may be the problem. These ideologies have a significant amount of common ground with Western-style Liberalism, but Legalism is completely antithetical to it. I wonder if the New Legalists aren't allowing themselves to be defined by Western values, the same way somebody who is raised a Catholic but spends their life rejecting and rebelling against it is defined by Catholicism all their life.
Posted by: Peter | July 08, 2009 at 05:42 PM
I must say, Sam -- you know you've reached a new height in "blog world" when people dedicate posts to you with roman numerals at the end to signify forthcoming multiple installments.
I'm jealous! :)
Posted by: CP | July 14, 2009 at 07:18 PM
Do they admire Qin Shi Huangdi or something?
Posted by: Apocryphon | July 20, 2009 at 01:21 AM