China may have invented the first printing press in 593 and published the first woodblock-printed newspaper, Kaiyuan Za Bao, in Beijing in 713. But in 2010 it wants to curb the newest information innovation led by Google.
To avoid censorship, Google has moved its search engine to Hong Kong and threatened to leave the Middle Kingdom after murky party hackers, hidden for deniability somewhere deep in the bowels of the Communist bureaucracy, breached Google's proprietary systems and pieced together the email exchanges of Chinese dissidents in order to trace their social networks.
Clearly a clash -- of civilizations? -- is shaping up that pits the raucous free-for-all of the Internet against China's long-standing Confucian proclivity for order, respect for authority and a conformist notion of social harmony.
As they try to rebalance a relationship in which China still largely depends on American consumption of its exports and the U.S. largely relies on China's purchase or our Treasury debt, these tightly tethered partners in prosperity will only intensify their interaction in the coming decade. Inevitably, as the geo-civilizational plates push up against one another and produce tremors, might the cultural equivalent of subduction take place? Might, for example, more appreciation for freedom of expression flow Eastward and a greater appreciation of governing in the common interest and long-term perspective flow Westward?
To be sure, there is much cultural history under the bridge of today's interdependence that contributes to the tectonic pace of convergence. China's ancient "Warring States Period" ended with a commitment to unified territorial integrity and stability that led to a modern focus on political control and social harmony. The path to peace after the West's religious wars in the Middle Ages led to the opposite ideals: tolerance and diversity. In the Confucian tradition, China has relied on ethics, including obligations of the ruler to the ruled, and education to keep its institutions responsive, fair and honest. The West has relied on the check of democracy.
Nonetheless, as the political philosopher Daniel A. Bell proposes, some common ground can be envisaged along the fault lines.
Counterintuitive as it may sound to the Western ear, China may be more open to fundamental political reform than the United States. Since the rule of law in the U.S. is based upon the notion that the state itself is constrained by a body of pre-existing law that is sovereign, any thought of rewriting the Constitution is anathema.
In China, however, some intellectuals point out that Communist Party theory posits that the current system is the "primary stage of socialism," meaning that it is a transitional phase to a higher and more superior form of socialism. The economic foundation will change with broader prosperity, and thus the legal and political superstructure must also change.
That has led some contemporary Confucian scholars to argue that new post-Communist institutions for the higher stage of development should designed based on indigenous sources of legitimacy from within the Chinese experience -- meritocratic knowledge of the governing class, the people and tradition.
Bell, who teaches at Tsinghua University in Beijing, has taken these ideas a bit further. He envisions a meritocratic upper house whose members are chosen not by election, but examination; an elected national democratic legislature that advises the upper house on "preferences;" direct elections up to the provincial level and freedom of the press. The "symbolic leader of the state" would be chosen from among the most august members of the meritocratic house.
Such a formulation and others similar to it -- about which there is a rich debate across China today -- sticks to the Confucian idea of excellent meritocratic government mitigated by popular accountability, but not completely ruled by it. This seems precisely the kind of non-Western political modernization we will see as China adopts its own form of democracy.
China desperately needs such a system of accountability to stem the arbitrariness, corruption and cronyism that has accompanied the primary stage of socialism. Yet such an approach as put forth by Bell seems likely to also maintain stability in a way that parliamentary democracy of the West might not, and thus would be an acceptable course of change in China.
Paradoxically, while Chinese intellectuals seek to expand democratic accountability as the poor become more educated and prosperous, the U.S. has the opposite problem: Too much short term focus by the citizens of the prosperous consumer democracies is undermining long-term sustainability.
Thus, while institutional innovation in China might focus on a truly empowered yet checked elected house, the U.S. would benefit from the type of long-term deliberation offered by bodies such as a meritocratic upper house and some entity with the responsibility for continuity of governance that stands as a unifying symbol for the whole in an every more cultural diverse society.
During the first round of globalization at the opening turn of the 20th Century, Sun Yatsen tried to blend the institutions of Western democracy with Confucian meritocracy. Perhaps today, as the "rise of the rest" challenges Western dominance, the political imagination may again be open to new ideas. This time, it won't be just Western ideas flowing East, but Eastern ideas flowing West as well.
Nicolas Berggruen is founder and president of Berggruen Holdings and the Nicolas Berggruen Institute (NBI). Nathan Gardels, a senior adviser to NBI, is editor-in-chief
of NPQ.
I am convinced that the acceleration of the advance of human society only began with the printing press. Why?
Until the printing press came along, the rich and powerful controlled the dissemination of knowledge. Broadcasting information was slow and very expensive, so it could be easily controlled.
The introduction of the printing press loosened the reins, somewhat. Because it became quicker and cheaper to disseminate information, more people could do it. This ultimately subverted the iron-fisted control of society by the rich and powerful.
Better information mobility led to new forms of human organization, as well as advances in economic activity and the growth of knowledge. The printing press was a prerequisite for the end of feudalism, and catalyst for the spread of science, which was a prerequisite to the industrial revolution. All of this has led to accelerating change.
The net is a new manifestation of this process. Disseminating information world-wide has become incredibly cheap and essentially instant.
The Chinese, being a very conservative state wants to put a lid on this for two critical reasons: (a) it is a direct threat to the power of their leadership, and (b) they are afraid of change. Every authoritarian government will want/attempt to do this. The corporate world will want the same control for their own profit.
This conflict to control information will be THE big battle of the 21st century.
Confucius, he say: Regime that seeks to restrict advancement by hiding head up bottom, is needlessly duplicating effort. Since it already has s**t for brains.
“a transitional phase to a higher and more superior form”
If meritocracy cannot outmaneuver and overwhelm democracy, without the latter having one hand tied behind its back. Which is the naturally more meritorious of the two?
creator of Google - Russian vs China?
Honestly, today's Asia is much closer than before.
Before we are left out by not acknowledging our backyards need cleaning and NOT cleaned...
Saga will continue. I love my country but am sadden that we probably have highest number of citizens never traveled outside of US and rely on news media.
Our news media is no longer reliable... cut costs - sharing news and much more...
It was broadcast in Asia, how our media is no longer multi-latitude, but controlled by a few...
meaning, station to station are controlled by conglomerate; newspaper is a dying proposition...
this has been brewing for sometime-- Goggle is competing with a Chinese based company called BAIDU and used across the board in China & rest of so East Asia.. in most part. I would surmise it more to do w ith this than Confucius. Their own bill Gstes of sorts as it were.. the guy who owns this company is young in his 30's & I believe was educated in US.
As for Sun Yetsun-- we in the West keep forgetting-- China was closed to the West in the most part in t he 20th century. and only now in the 21th has it been truly open to the West in it's 3,000 yrs history.
Bell's theories appear to be based on a fantasy of "mandarin" meritocracy that has not existed in China for centuries. They are hardly the ground for projecting the future of the Chinese state.
The corresponding idea that Western democracies should learn "Confucian" discipline is another tired idea of the 1980s. In any case, there is no evidence that having an appointed or hereditary upper house (cf. Canada, UK) improves the performance of a legislature.
There's plenty of interesting stuff to say about the conflict between Google and the Chinese government, but this is musty "clash of civilizations" stuff masquerading as analysis.
There is no struggle Both co-exist in a fairly organic and fluid system of interdependence.
State control prevents excesses oflaissez-faire capitalism, maintaining a considerable degree of orderly interactions between he public and private sector.
It is workable because Chinese are eminently practical and pragmatic people with considerable commitment to societal cohesion, and upward mobility,
If you don't think Plato (or Jesus) has anything to do with current debates, then you don't know Plato (or Jesus). Trust me, this is *very* old stuff. As Harry Truman used to say "There's nothing new under the sun, just history you don't know."
Think for a moment about the gay marriage debate. Leviticus does condemn (male) homosexuality -- along with wearing garments of mixed material and eating shellfish -- in an obscure passage. How many have been citing that older-than-Confucius passage to justify prejudice? Of course the commandments themselves (much more significant) condemn covetousness, and the U.S. has a covetousness industry (Madison Avenue). Mad men get a pass, and gays can't marry. See how it works?
Jesus had a phrase for this too: Straining at a gnat, swallowing a camel (Matthew 23).
We've all seen the flaws of democracy, where too many (ill/uninformed) people voicing their opinions drown out the relevance of the discourse.
I do have my doubts though, if China will really go that way. It would require tremendous change, and the current system of corruption is making the few at the top quite fabulously wealthy. Will they accept change of that sort?
Every country has a rich elite. But this is an admonishment is especially astonishing coming from an American!
Of course you omitted to mention certain facts that may run contrary to Western liberal dogma, namely:
1.For the FIRST TIME in its ,5,000 year history NO Chinese is starving.
2. China now has a prosperous middle class.
3. Current Chinese leadership consists of a fairly healthy mix of highly educated technocrats and/or Party functionaries.- a meritocracy rivaling and often exceeding American political demobuggary..
4. China mix of of economic freedom and socialist society has few precedents.
( Soviet NEP during 20s, may be )
It is no accident that China made such a miraculous Leap Forward,. as it were.
Would be officials had to undergo incredible torment as they were sealed off in rooms and spent days
completing their complex exams. Failure to pass these exams meat a grim future for the potential official.
I venture to suggest the system of meritocracy is nothing new. Indeed, might it not be merely a reversion to the past?
This is simply untrue. Google is fully engaged in a wide variety business ventures in China.
The roll out of Google’s Android based phones is going full speed ahead. The music portal will remain open. Gmail stays.
Regardless, the notion of Google , a marginal player in Chinese search market, "threatening" China cannot be taken seriously. I am sure TOM Online, the largest search provider in China is ECSTATIC.
Your views of China need to be updated. While it is beginning to make a minor comeback, most of confucian style thinking lost it's influence at the turn of the last century. Thinking of China in those terms is like imagining Americans as a bunch of gunslinging cowboys riding horses.
Other than that, I would say that your article is very good, though I would point out that China is being threatened by some of the same things tearing this country apart. With TV's and the internet becoming more and more common in China, the Chinese people are likely to find themselves being influenced by unknown personalities that control the media that may wish to achieve benefits for themselves at the cost of the general public.
Like Lyndon Johnson? Ronald Reagan? George W Bush?
What does the United State's show the world?One of the highest murder rates in the world with guns, hate spewers dominating the media, a population who values profits over health and education for all, and the slaughter of war and military bases all over the world (at least 700).
How many military bases does China have outside of China? How many Chinese shoot each other?
Come see it, live it, then you can criticise it. Google showed corporate responsibility, a rare thing.
Before you reply to this, please be respectful of my religion. I think we should at least teach my religions view that the world began in 1410. All evidence to the contrary was put there by my God to test the faith of his TRUE followers.