Author: e24

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.” 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 no form of legitimacy should be given precedence over another; indeed, the classics clearly state that heaven (sacred legitimacy) is sovereign over earth (cultural legitimacy) and man (popular legitimacy).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, the will of the people is only represented in one part of a single branch of government. Even cultural authority would have a greater share of power than popular authority. Cultural authority is not only represented in parliament, but is also embodied in the monarch. It is clear that Jiang held popular authority in very low regard, and thus gave it only token representation in government. Jiang’s proposed model is furthermore highly convoluted, with a lack of clear distinction between the three forms of authority. Even if one form of authority is to receive a minimal share of power, it would make much more sense to invest each form of authority with its own branch of government: spiritual authority with the combined judicial/supervisory/examination branch, popular authority with the legislative branch, and cultural authority with the quasi-executive branch.

1. 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. [↩]
2. Jiang et al., “The Way of the Humane Authority,” 28-40 [↩]
3. 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 [↩]
4. Jiang et al., “The Way of the Humane Authority,” 40-3 [↩]
5. 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. [↩]

Heyin Zhen was a prominent Chinese feminist and anarchist thinker in the early 20th century. She was critical not only of the oppression of women under the established Confucian order, but also of the bourgeois reform movements that ostensibly championed the liberation of women from said oppression. In her article “On the Matter of Women’s Liberation,” Heyin argued that the gender equality championed by these reform movements could not actually liberate women; true liberation could only come through the abolition of all forms of oppression, be it social, political, or economic. 

Heyin argued that traditional patriarchal values regarded women as commodities to be exploited by men for the sake of procreation and parenthood. As such, women were confined to the house and regarded as slaves; indeed all manor of customs and language were developed to uphold this status of confinement. At the same time, Heyin noted that men too suffered from oppression under the patriarchy. Because women were confined to the home, men were forced to shoulder all the financial burden of family.¹

For Heyin, the oppression of labor suffered by men was no lesser evil compared to the oppression of confinement suffered by women. As such , Heyin rejected the idea that women could be liberated simply through the assumption of male gender roles. She noted that lower-class women were long forced to shoulder part of the financial burden alongside the men; such an experience was anything but liberating.² For these same reasons, Heyin was very critical of the male-led gender reform movements in China at the time. She further asserted that these male reformers did not truly care about the rights of women, and only sought to use gender reform to further their own interests. Heyin listed three purported ulterior motives of the male reformers.  First, Chinese men saw that the colonial powers were strong and thus sought to emulate them; it just so happened that women in these countries had more freedoms than in China. Second, the economic hardships of the late Qing meant that keeping women out of the labor force was no longer sustainable even for the middle class, thus women were encouraged to “free” themselves from domestic confinement and make their own living. Finally, having long struggled to support their households, these men sought to transfer their burden over to women in the name of “equality.”³  

In attacking the male gender reformers, Heyin asserted that the patriarchy could not and would not reform itself out of existence. Indeed, any “feminist” reform championed would be invariably tailored to ensure the continued existence of the patriarchy. Such reforms, though giving the appearance of emancipating women, in reality allowed men to continue their exploitation of women in a modern environment. If men could not be trusted to free women, the logical conclusion would be that women would have to lead their own liberation. Yet even here Heyin urges caution. 

Heyin was no less critical of contemporary female reformers than she was of their male counterparts. She argued that the reforms championed by such women only created a superficial parity between men and women without actually removing the underlying oppression. Heyin was especially critical of the women’s suffrage movement. Heyin argued that only a small minority of (upper class) women would actually be empowered by the right to vote and this empowered minority would only contribute another layer to the oppression of the unempowered majority. Heyin’s rejection of such tokenization encompassed not only gender, but class as well. She asserted that even the most progressive champions of the masses (i.e. socialists) became just as oppressive as every other member of the ruling class soon as they achieved power.³ Heyin’s attitude towards politics amounted to a wholesale rejection of authority, regardless of who wielded it. To her, any relationship, political or otherwise, that involved one party asserting power over another other was inherently oppressive and worthy of being opposed. Being equal in name only could by no means be called “liberation” if there was no equality in practice. Heyin thus believed that the only true liberation for women was total liberation: liberation not only from the patriarchy, but also from all other forms of oppression and exploitation.  

1. Zhen Heyin, “On the Question of Women’s Liberation,” Tianyi Bao, 1907. [↩]
2. Ibid. [↩]
3. Ibid [↩] [↩]

Although Rujia is in the modern day inextricably associated with Kongzi, traditional accounts have generally rejected the notion that the philosopher invented an entirely new school of thought. Kongzi himself is said to have remarked “I am a transmitter and not an innovator; trusting and adoring the ancients, I would dare to compare myself to the old Peng.”¹ Among Rujia Scholars, the ancient ways that Kongzi sought to transmit are best embodied in a canon of Five Classics. Among the canonical Classics is the Shujing, or the Book of Documents.

The Shujing is purportedly an anthology of court records going back to the reign of the mythical Emperor Yao. These records are collectively supposed to provide insight into the ancient ways that Kongzi and other Rujia scholars sought to emulate. In reality, however, many of the “records” are far younger than they are purported to be, as evidenced by archaeology as well as linguistic analyses of the text. A further 21 entries, though formerly viewed as authentic, have been since classed as apocrypha of the early centuries CE.²  The oldest stratum of the authentic Shujing consists of Five Proclamations by the Duke of Zhou on behalf of the underage King Cheng of Zhou. Although they date to several hundred years before Kongzi’s time, the Proclamations promote certain values that are very similar to those later embraced by Kongzi and his successors. 

The Proclamations continually emphasize the importance of the present monarch following in the footsteps of his forbears, completing whatever unfinished business that they had started and constantly looking to their example for guidance. At the same time, the Proclamations also call for the maintenance of the institutions of the deposed Shang Dynasty to at least some extent: “The punishments shall be determined by what were the regular laws of Yin (Shang)/ “Your Majesty, commence the rites of Yin and sacrifice in the new city…” The Proclamations likewise call for the reigning monarch to follow the examples of the former Shang kings who were righteous.³

This submission of the reigning monarch to the guidance of his predecessors can be said to reflect an extension of the central Rujia value of filial piety. As later stated by Kongzi, a son’s duties to his father do not end with the death of the latter, but continue beyond the grave: “If for three years [the son] does not abandon the ways of his [late] father, he may be called filial.”⁴ In the context of kingship, this is translated into the expectation that the reigning monarch should pursue more or less the same policies as his predecessors. Having ruled in the prior generations, the kings of the former Shang Dynasty can likewise be seen as spiritual fathers to the current Zhou monarch; thus, their legacy too must be honored. This means that the ruling king should preserve the institutions of the previous dynasty and continue to follow the example of its rulers. 

The calls to preserve the institutions of Shang are also very much in line with later Rujia attitudes towards tradition and innovation. Kongzi and other Rujia scholars were greatly concerned with preserving the supposed ways of wise rulers from antiquity. Indeed, the reason why the Classics including the Shujing were so prized was that they were believed to be primary sources on these ancient traditions. In practice, this meant that Rujia scholars generally preferred adhering to time-honored traditions to engaging in institutional innovation. The belief was that these ancient rulers behaved and governed in accordance with the natural order of the world; it was for this reason that their reigns were so long and prosperous. Conversely, the troubles of Kongzi’s own time were caused by the abandonment of the ways of the ancients under later Zhou rulers.  The Proclamations likewise call on the reigning monarch to look to the example of former Shang kings precisely because the latter were supposed to have governed in accordance with the will of Heaven. While the Shang kings governed well, their house remained in power and the realm prospered. But when the last Shang king, Di Xin, disregarded the will of Heaven, the realm fell into disorder and decline before the Heaven-fearing kings of Zhou stepped in and replaced the Shang.⁵ 

The model of kingship portrayed in the Proclamations of Zhou has bears striking parallels to that which was promoted by Kongzi and his disciples centuries later. Kongzi, who was well versed in the Shujing (at least in its contemporary form) would almost certainly been familiar with the Proclamations.⁶ It is very likely that the content of the Proclamations had a profound impact on the Kongzi’s beliefs. These beliefs would be passed on to the philosopher’s students from them to posterity. Thus, Kongzi was not wrong when describing himself as a “transmitter and not an innovator.” 

 

 

 

 

1. Analects 7.1 [↩]
2. Michael Nylan, “The Documents (Shu 书),” essay, in The Five “Confucian” Classics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 123–36. [↩]
3.  Qiu Kong and James Legge, “Zhou Shu,” essay, in Book of Documents One of the Five Classics of Ancient Chinese Literature Compilede by Confucius. English Translation by James Legge (1815-1897) (North Charleston, SC, USA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Dragon Reader, 2016). [↩]
4. Analects 1.11 [↩]
5. Legge, “Zhou Shu” [↩]
6. Analects 7.18 [↩]