Confucian scholar Jiang Qing (not to be confused with the wife of Mao Zedong) makes no secret of his belief that democracy, liberal, socialist or otherwise, is not the way forward for China in terms of its political development. Jiang argues that democracy, especially in the Chinese case, fails to maintain the Confucian ideal of social harmony. In place of the model of popular sovereignty espoused by democracy, Jiang argues that political authority ought to be based squarely on what he calls the “Way of Humane Authority,” a fundamentally undemocratic system dominated by a what is essentially a constitutional monarchy dominated by a Confucian theocracy. Though adapted for the modern age, the Way of Humane Authority represents a fundamentally anti-modern and reactionary strand of Confucian thought.
The main concern of the Way of Humane Authority is the issue of legitimation. To Jiang, how authority is to be legitimized is far more important than how it is to be implemented: implementation is but the means by which legitimate authority is realized. While the implementation of authority is heavily dependent on circumstance, the legitimization of authority is timeless and universal. Thus, legitimate authority can in theory be implemented through a variety of systems of government depending on the context.1
Jiang identifies three forms of political legitimacy: spiritual legitimacy, cultural legitimacy, and popular legitimacy. Spiritual legitimacy is based on the power of morality and faith. Cultural legitimacy is based on the power of tradition and history. Popular legitimacy is based on the power of the people. Effective implementation of the Way must be based on maintaining proper balance between all three forms of legitimacy. If too much emphasis is placed on a single form of legitimacy, disharmony and calamity is the result. This is not to say that all forms of legitimacy are equal, however, as will be soon shown; indeed Jiang’s conception of balance is strictly vertical and not horizontal in nature.2
While monarchy has historically been the means through which legitimate authority has been realized in China, Jiang argues that the present circumstances no longer support such a system and that any future system must be based on the tripartite separation of powers. But in contrast to western democracies where this separation is based on executive, legislative, and judicial authority, Jiang proposes separation along the lines of spiritual, cultural, and popular authority. The highest branch of government in Jiang’s model is the Academy. The academy is entirely the domain of spiritual authority. Its main function is to ensure that the rest of the government continues to uphold a Confucian values and traditions. To fulfill its role, the Academy is granted six powers: the power of supervision and remonstrance, the power of education and examination, the power over rituals of state, the power of recall, the power of mediation between the other bodies of state, and the power to uphold morality.3
The next branch of government is the tricameral parliament. In this parliament each of the three forms of authority is represented. Spiritual authority is represented by a body of qualified scholars chosen either by recommendation or examination. Popular authority is represented by an assembly of representatives elected in the same manner as in the West. Cultural authority is to be represented by a body of hereditary nobles selected from prestigious lineages (i.e. descendents of great men). Each house of parliament can propose legislation, but it must pass at least two of the three houses. Importantly, the house representing spiritual authority has unlimited veto power.4
The third branch is the office of a hereditary monarch, who is the symbolic head of state. This office is hereditary because Jiang believes that elected leaders lack cultural legitimacy. Jiang proposes that in China’s case, the monarch should be a descendent of Confucius, on account of the House of Kong’s universal prestige. While the monarch plays no role in common matters of government, he has supreme authority in transcendent matters of state. The monarch has the power to make war and peace, sign legislation into law, appoint civil and military officers, declare emergencies, and pardon criminals.5
It is quite evident that in Jiang’s proposed model of government, disproportionate power is given to spiritual authorities, and very little is given to popular authorities. Not only do spiritual authorities have complete control over the most important branch of government, but also wield significant power in another. Meanwhile, popular authority is only represented in one part of a single branch of government. Even cultural authority would have a greater share of power, being not only represented in parliament, but also embodied in the monarch. Thus, Jiang’s imagined government is one where effective judicial, supervisory, examinatory, and legislative power is concentrated into the hands of a Confucian scholarly elite, with most of the remaining powers in the hands of a hereditary aristocracy. The common people receive only a token share of power. This system ultimately more closely resembles an idealized version of an old European monarchy than anything modern or anything Chinese.
- Qing Jiang et al., “The Way of the Humane Authority,” essay, in A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 29–32. [↩]
- Jiang et al., “The Way of the Humane Authority,” 28-40 [↩]
- Qing Jiang et al., “The Supervisory System of Confucian Constitutionalism,” essay, in A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 44-64 [↩]
- Jiang et al., “The Way of the Humane Authority,” 40-3 [↩]
- Qing Jiang et al., “A Confucian Constitutionalist State,” essay, in A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 71–96. [↩]