When Martin Jacques Fools the World

Couldn't resist the title, which came to mind after I read this recent BBC commentary by Martin Jacques: "Is China more legitimate than the West?" (his book is entiteld When China Rules the World) There are many problems with the piece, perhaps the least of which is its main thesis, but let's start there.

Jacques argues:

Now let me shock you: the Chinese state enjoys greater legitimacy than any Western state. How come?

In China's case the source of the state's legitimacy lies entirely outside the history or experience of Western societies.

This was less shocking than simply inane.  What does it mean to say that the PRC state is more legitimate than any in the "West"?  He gives us no definition or basis for understanding what he means by "legitimacy."  Serious considerations of the topic, remind us that legitimacy is not simply popularity.  And it's obvious that Jacques has not really done any sort of systematic analysis to back up his claim.  He's just throwing rather empty rhetoric out there to demonstrate his admiration for the CCP.  

But he gets into some historical trouble with that second assertion, that China is somehow "outside the history or experience of Western societies."  This belies a certain inattentiveness to both Chinese politics, from at least 1911 onwards, as well as international relations more broadly.  As Amitav Acharya (pdf!), among others, argued years ago: "...China uses Westphalian language to stake its  claims to territory and sovereignty."   Imperial China did not operate with the same understanding of sovereignty as the Western powers in the 19th century.  This created big, big problems that weakened the Celestial Empire's capacity to resist imperialist encroachments.  Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, Chinese states, both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China have not repeated that mistake.  They have embraced the Westphalian notion of sovereignty as exclusive and extensive political dominion within a given territory, and they have used that concept to define and defend Chinese interests in terms very much within the experience of Western societies. 

And, yes, we all know that Westphalian sovereignty is regularly violated by the Great Powers that say they respect it.  We all learned this in our international relations theory classes, of which, perhaps Jacques needs a bit more.  The point is that the concept of sovereignty, as adapted from the Westphalian idea, matters because it defines a good part of the give and take, and hypocrisy, of contemporary international relations, China included.

But there are bigger problems with Jacques's piece.  Take this assertion:

...China is not primarily a nation-state but a civilisation-state. For the Chinese, what matters is civilisation. For Westerners it is nation. The most important political value in China is the integrity and unity of the civilisation-state.

He's taking an idea - China as "civilization state" - first forwarded by Lucien Pye twenty years ago and misapplying it by putting it in the service of a facile historical exceptionalism.  Yes, Chinese history is different than American or British or French history.  Yes, the idea and practice of "national identity" and "nationalism" arose in the West (theorists differ on where it started and when, but the modern concept is generally understood to have developed outside of China).  But it is rather clear at this point that "nation" is very important to "the Chinese" (is there a singular, monolithic "Chinese" experience?  I don't think so...).  Similar to the embrace of Western notions of sovereignty, many Chinese people, especially poltiical leaders and intellectuals, have worked hard, for over a hundred years, to define and reproduce various understandings of modern national identity in China. 

It is curious that Jacques discounts the importance of nationalism in China.  I don't know him, but his biography suggests that he was trained as an economist, with a focus on Marxist theory.  And that might explain his disregard for nationalism.  Remember: Benedict Anderson, in his classic study, works hard to convince those on the left that Marx was wrong in this regard, that nationalism is, in fact, a powerful political force, not just in Europe but all around the world. 

Jacques really misses the boat here.  Of course, other aspects of his argument have some merit.  China has gained a great deal of economic and political and military power in the past three decades.  And the PRC is pressing against certain international rules and practices that its leaders feel do not serve its interests.  But there is nothing particularly remarkable here.  Other "Western" powers have behaved in similar ways.  Moreover, it is not at all clear that China will "rule the world" any time soon.  It will be more powerful.  It will get its way in some areas where in the past it did not.  But global power is diffuse.  Capital in dynamically mobile. Advantages come and go, and that pattern seems to be accelerating as globalization makes everything - production, information, understanding - move faster and faster and faster.

Assertions of cultural exceptionalism thus seem untenable in a world that fragments and shifts and chages so quickly.  And nostalgia for a world that never existed is simply misplaced, as with this line from Jacques:

The Chinese idea of the state could hardly be more different [than that of the "West]

They do not view it from a narrowly utilitarian standpoint, in terms of what it can deliver, let alone as the devil incarnate in the manner of the American Tea Party.

They see the state as an intimate, or, to be more precise, as a member of the family - the head of the family, in fact. The Chinese regard the family as the template for the state. What's more, they perceive the state not as external to themselves but as an extension or representation of themselves.

This strikes me as the fluffiest form of faux-Confucianism, uninformed by serious engagement with Chinese history or philosophy.  Has he never read Mozi, the inspiration of an early Chinese utilitarianism?  Is he familiar with Han Feizi, who rejects the government-as-family metaphor?  Or the myriad ways in which family interests can clash with, and thus often take precedence over, state interests? How one could ignore the horrible assault on families and family institutions by a tyrannical state during the Great Leap Forward, and by omission assume that the memory of tens of millions of deaths is politically and culturally insignificant, is beyond me. 

So, to answer the question that Jacques poses, no, China is not more legitimate than the West.  Not, at least, until the CCP allows for truth telling about the worst famine of the twentieth century. 

Comments

[Christopher]

Nice post, Sam.

[godfree]

Famine is not a distinguishing mark of the Chinese Government and there seems little doubt that the Chinese practice of not crying over spilt milk is the culturally preferred path. The government there made huge changes as a result of that disaster, and that's probably enough for most people.
By contrast, India's ongoing famine receives no attention in our media, even though it's longstanding, just a preventable (much more so, many would argue) and is almost entirely political in origin – just as Amartya Sen predicts.
Speaking of whom, Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winner, points out that in 1949 China and India had striking similarities in their social and economic development. But, Sen goes on to say, over the next three decades, “there is little doubt that as far as morbidity, mortality, and longevity are concerned, China has a large and decisive lead over India.” As a result, Sen estimates that close to four million fewer people would have died in India in 1986, if India had had Mao’s health care system and food distribution network.
-- Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 205, 214.

Noam Chomsky made an interesting calculation using Sen’s data: "There is this anticommunist study called The Black Book of Communism. It talks about what it calls the “colossal failure” of communism and accuses communism of having caused the deaths of 100 million people." Now even if that number were true, which it is not—still, as Chomsky puts it, and let me quote: “in India the democratic capitalist ‘experiment’ since 1947 has caused more deaths than in the entire history of the ‘colossal, wholly failed…experiment’ of communism everywhere since 1917: over 100 million deaths by 1979, tens of millions more since, in India alone.”2
2. Noam Chomsky, “Millennial Visions and Selective Vision, Part One,” Z Magazine (January 10, 2000)
http://revcom.us/a/046/health-care-economy.html

[JamesP]

This would be more convincing if either Sen or Chomsky knew anything about China.

Even the most cursory glance at local data will show you that food insecurity, malnutrition, etc, with the accompanying preventable deaths, continued in China up to the early 1980s - exactly the period at which the Maoist food distribution was abandoned. So will talking to anybody over 40 or so; one of the chief memories of even the 1970s, as I found in my own interviews, was of being hungry much of the time, even for city dwellers.

Sen bizarrely trusts Chinese central national data, self-admitted by Deng Xiaoping to be a barrel of lies. Even today, Chinese figures are wildly unreliable, as the NBS itself frequently complains; far, far more so in the 1970s. That's why local studies are so important.

As for Chomsky, the idea that communist states never experienced ordinary, annual preventable deaths of their own outside of the periods of state murder is fucking ridiculous. They were *in addition* to the usual problems of bad government, not over-and-above.

The only scrap of truth here is that the Maoist rural healthcare system was pretty good - not all its admirers claims, but it did a lot with a little, and suffered greatly from the 1980s reforms.

[JamesP]

As a side note, obviously - after glancing at his blog - this will have no chance of convincing the original commentator, who thinks Xi Jinping is the next Nelson Mandela and makes other ... interesting ... claims. It's here as a public service for others.

[FOARP]

Jacques cannot speak Chinese and has never lived long-term in China. If someone tried to put themselves forward as an expert on the UK without ever having properly lived there or learned to speak English I would laugh at them, as would the majority of British people. Unfortunately people are rather more credulous when it comes to China.

Jacques gets away with making bald statements about how you can analogise from learning Chinese to learning about China (how would he know?), how Chinese see the state as part of the family (really? not in my experience), how China is only 'calling itself' a nation-state (errr . . . did he pay attention to that whole Senkakus thing?) and so forth based on the flimsiest of evidence. Take his assertion that the 'one country, two systems' arrangement with Hong Kong shows that China is really a 'civilisation state'. Even accepting that nothing has changed in Hong Kong and there is no process of mainlandisation there (something a great number of Hong Kongers would challenge, particularly in the wake of the NME debacle) plenty of nation-states have arrangements allowing local autonomy (which is all 'one country two systems' actually is when you strip it of its excuse-making for not immediately forcing communism on HK). It was not even the first time a territory had been reabsorbed into China under these terms - Weihaiwei was returned to the Republic of China in 1930 under similar terms. 'We' (by which I guess he means . . . erm, I'm not sure, but let's say the British people) did not automatically disbelieve the Chinese government's commitment to autonomy in HK, otherwise 'we' would never have allowed Hong Kong to be transferred to the PRC. The comparison to the reunification of Germany is simply assinine - the DDR was a bankrupt state which was happily voted out of existence by its own people. HK was the exact opposite - the entire reason why the PRC government was so willing to allow a relationship of autonomy was because HK was so much richer than the rest of China and both they and HK's residents wanted it to stay that way.

Similarly the idea that the PRC now is 'one country many systems' has quite simply no basis in fact. The fate of the supposedly autonomous areas of Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang indicates very clearly that the opposite is true - China is the unitary state that it claims to be.

Similarly his idea that a China-dominated world would see the nation-state disappear. Has he even been paying attention this year? We have seen continual crises between China and her neighbours that has in every instance seen both the Chinese and their neighbours rally to nationalism.

And the idea that Taiwan would be able to keep its multi-party system whilst accepting PRC rule simply because he believes that all the PRC government cares about is 'sovereignty' is simply inane. Put simply: the independence issue is a major part of Taiwan's party system and is THE divide between the pan-blues and the pan-greens. The idea that the PRC government in its current form would allow pro-independence paties like the DPP and the TSU to operate in a Taiwan absorbed into the PRC is nonsense given that advocating independence is anathema. Even HK's arrangement is only set to last for 35 more years - the end goal is not a mere re-assertion of sovereignty but total absorbtion.

I could go on, but what would the point be? The man appears to know almost nothing about modern-day China.

[Ngok Ming Cheung]

When you attacked Mr.Jacques on the question on whether China is more legitimate than West you didn't really address the question. Sure on the question of sovereignty and nationalism you were correct that China has changed from the imperial China to more a western stance, but that is beside the point. When he says that China is more than a national state my view is yes and no. China is a national state with attending characteristics, but China is also a civilization state similar to the Jews that cultural influence and history are very important. When he raised the question of legitimacy and contrasting leadership changes he didn't give a definition which he obviously taken for granted, Here I will try to remedy that. He mentioned various indexes on measuring the well being of her citizens contrasting to West which is not the same as popularity contest. Obama was elected and probably will be re-elected with like 52% of the votes, yet the percentages of elegible voters is more like 26%. The rules are such that so call democratically elected president doesn't really represent the majority of the people. He was elevated to the top because of a great speech in the Democratic convention of 2004 and circumstances of electoral politics. So called Democracy may make you feel good, but with the "Citizen United decision" money is speech and the question of "Why Kansas vote against their interest" I really question the legitimacy of the ruling elite. While you may feel China with their closed picking of leadership I suspect Xi is really better qualified and legitimate representive of Chinese people without the trappings of so call democracy.

[Ngok Ming Cheung]

When Mr.Jacques says West I think he means more United States rather than West in general. The quesion of legitimacy can be put in many ways; here I would like to mention the book by Chris Hedge, "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt", in which he describes the life of people in Pine Ridge, South Dakota; Camden, New Jersey; Welch, West Virginia; and Immpkalee, Florida; Anyone who has read this book can't but feel this government that allow the present affair to continue cannot be legitimate.

[Ngok Ming Cheung]

As for the famine during the Great Leap Forward, as someone who left Shanghai in 59 who lived in the city and left early I do remember some of the privation even in the city, not to mention for the people in the rural areas. I agree that's some of the history that needs to be addressed, including Cultural Revolution. But remember Mao was the leader and probably beared most of the responsibilty for the fiasco and also the founding father of People's Republic of China. How long did we in United States deal with the legacy of slavery and the genocide of American Natives? Probably even today most would not accept resonsibilty for their forefathers. Give another 50 years I am sure history will give its verdict.

[Claire]

Martin Jacques is not far off when he says that the majority of Chinese see the government as a sort of intimate part of their family, the invisible patriarch. I live and work in China. The majority of people I have spoken too about issues of the moment respond, 'the government are responsible' or 'the government will take action'. They are, through no fault of their own some may say, except perhaps putting up with the status quo, naturally when self-preservation and getting your basic needs met are the order of the day and the status quo permits both, in a position where they have no power, but no responsibilities either - much like children in a family. So, I can certainly understand MJ's analogy. All you clever clogs think that your average Chinese has read Chomsky and Sen? Pah! What planet do YOU live on.

[skc]

Great post. Nice to read a thorough and reasoned skewering of Jacque's piece, if for no other reason than that it is much more logical than Jacque's index effort.

Jacque's entire piece is doomed to the logic dust bin for precisely the reason you stated: he can't claim the CCP is legitimate, or that it is more legitimate than some other country's government, without first defining the metrics of said legitimacy. Sure, he's entitled to his opinion, just as Ngok is entitled to his opinion about Xi's qualifications, but in and of itself that is hardly worth talking about. I'm surprised Jacque's piece made it past the copy editor.

I agree with Claire, insofar as that Chinese people will look to government to solve things beyond their control. However, i don't think that's unique...I imagine lots of people on Staten Island are looking to their government right now too...and I don't think reliance or dependence on the government in some aspects of their lives equates to them considering the government as an extension of their family.

[Brainit]

@Claire

Just because you live and work in China and has talked to a couple of "natives" doesn't mean you have a good understanding of how an authoritarian state like China works, and how fear, brainwashing in school and self-censorship works.