|
China
in the Twentieth Century: OYCF 2001 Retreat Summary Perspectives Editors (Editors' Note: The Overseas Young Chinese Forum (OYCF), the publisher of Perspectives, held its third annual retreat during May 25 to May 28, 2001, in Bristol, Rhode Island, USA. More than 70 scholars, students and professionals attended this retreat. The theme of the retreat was "China in the 20th Century: A Review." During the retreat, the participants examined Chinese history in the 20th century in ten panel discussions focusing on economic development, political system, law and order, intellectual landscape, rural development, student movement, cultural revolution, evolution of culture, religion and ethnic relationship. The following is a brief summary of the discussion. The moderator summarized each panel, and some of the panel summaries were reviewed and revised by the speakers. Bo Li and Junling Ma edited the entire retreat summary.) Panel
1: China's Economic Development in the 20th Century The discussion commenced with a review of China's economic development in the 20th century by Gregory Chow and Hehui Jin. Chow is professor of economics at Princeton University and is a member of OYCF's advisory board. Professor Chow could not come to the retreat in person, but he sent his speech in writing, which was summarized and presented by the moderator. (The speech is published in its entirety in this issue of Perspectives.) Jin is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Stanford University. According to the speakers, Chinese economy in the 20th century experienced high growth rates and modernization in spite of war and political instability. Professor Chow divided China's 20th century into three periods. Chinese economy began its modernization process in the first period (1901 to 1911) as a result of foreign invasion. During the second period (1911-1949), the institutional structure of a national market was established, which made economic growth possible despite instability and war. Professor Chow focused on the third and post-1949 era and discussed the failure of the central planning, the reform and open-door policy, the gradualist approach in enterprise reform, and the sustainability of China's high growth rates. According to Professor Chow, China succeeded in carrying out the economic reform because of the leaders' (especially Deng's) pragmatism, the gradualist and experimental approach to reform, widespread support, political stability, and the ability of the central government to manage the economy. Professor Chow was also optimistic about the future of Chinese economy. He believed that strength in human capital, combined with market institutions and political stability, would be able to sustain China's high growth rates for a long period of time. Jin showed China's economic growth records in the pre-war Republic era (1912-1936), the Maoist era (1952-1976) and the reform era (1978-2000) to illustrate that modern industries grew very fast in all three periods. Jin pointed out that institutional and structural changes played an important role in achieving high economic growth. For example, high growth rates were possible during the 1912-1936 period, despite wars and political instability, because the Republic government for the first time established a unified national market over fragmented local economies, thus providing the institutional basis for economic growth. Jin went on to analyze how China established, after 1949, its central planning system, which was different from the Soviet model. Compared with the Soviet model of vertical, industry-by-industry administration, China's central planning relied heavily on horizontal coordination among local governments. Jin noted how China's central planning system was shaped by Mao's experience of relying on peasant movements, and by the decision to have the agricultural sector subsidize industrialization. Finally, Jin gave credit to China's recent efforts in reforming government and non-government institutions to foster a market economy. During the discussion, some participants challenged Professor Chow's confidence in China's inexpensive human capital and the sustainability of its high growth rates, asking whether growth would be otherwise limited by other factors of the economy, including political constraints, environmental problems and the lack of natural resource. Issues discussed in this panel also included those relating to the substitution of resources, technological progress, the accumulation of human capital, and the role of federalism in China's economic development.
In this panel, Professor Bin Xiao of Zhongshan University and Dr. Junning Liu of China's Academy of Culture discussed the evolution of China's political system in the context of China's long history and deep-rooted culture. Professor Xiao characterized China's political evolution as a process from an empire to a party-state and saw the latter as the continuation of the former, while Dr. Liu described the process in a diagram illustrating the ascending trend of power concentration over a period of more than two thousand years. Professor Xiao identified six features of the Chinese Empire. First, the dynastic change was always accomplished by means of violent force. Second, within dynasties political power was always monopolized by one family. Third, the emperor's power was absolute and could not be challenged except through violent revolution. Fourth, political power was highly concentrated at the center and the central government dominated, among other things, all official appointments, military command and tax collections. Fifth, each empire had a two-court system for purpose of governing. The inner court centered on the emperor, including his family members and relatives, whereas the government bureaucracy formed the outer court with the Prime Minister as the head. The inner court dominated the outer court. Sixth, the changes of dynasties corresponded to the alternating cycles of peace and turmoil, and of unity and disunity. Professor Xiao then analyzed the party-state and found the same or similar features. Professor Xiao concluded that both the 1911 revolution and the 1949 revolution failed to establish a truly new political structure. In reviewing China's political history in the 20th century, Dr. Liu illustrated the one-sidedness of the state-civil society relationship, and its inherent unfairness and lack of equity. The state can always request individuals to contribute and sacrifice for the state. Furthermore, the state views the society as an inexhaustible source of revenue and wealth, without realizing that it also provides a comfortable soil for corruption. Power always comes from the top (the central government), never from the bottom (the people). If staying this way, China cannot become a federal state with vertical separation of power. While lamenting on the extraordinary sacrifice Chinese people made for a seemingly unobtainable utopia, Dr. Liu acknowledged that, for complex reasons, communism had its enormous appeal in the early 20th-century China. The presentations were followed by discussion on various social, cultural and historical reasons for China's political reality, and the driving forces behind China's political reform. Panel
3: Law and Order in the 20th Century China Professor Jian Fan teaches law and is also the Dean of Nanjing University Law School. The central message of Professor Fan's remarks was that China has to build a legal system based on its own traditions and conditions. Professor Fan started by giving several examples of progresses and challenges China is currently facing, aiming at showing positive signs of progress and the complexity of the current conditions. Professor Fan then reviewed China's legal history in the last 150 years. Several things stood out. First, historically China had developed a system of administrative law and criminal law. Second, since the middle of the 19th century, China's legal thoughts and legal system have been heavily influenced by foreign countries, first through the continental European tradition (especially the German tradition as interpreted by Japan), then through the socialist tradition of the Soviet Union. Third, in the last twenty years, China has experienced rapid developments in its legal system and legal thoughts, especially in the areas of legislation, legal profession and court system. Fourth, China still faces daunting challenges in its legal reform. Problems include the absence of judicial independence, lack of proper judicial restraint, widespread judicial corruption, deficient implementation and enforcement of law, poor quality of judges, lack of proper legislative procedure, and need for a healthy legal culture, etc. The problems with China's legal system, however, cannot be solved overnight. Furthermore, according to Professor Fan, Chinese problems require Chinese solutions. We have to view China's problems in the context of Chinese conditions and devise solutions or give recommendations that fit China's circumstances. Many of the current practices in China are the results of history, culture, tradition and economic conditions. Finally, Professor Fan said that Chinese government's current focus on economic reform is sound because without a relatively developed economy, there won't be democracy or the rule of law. Some participants challenged Professor Fan's thesis. One retreat participant observed that, although localization ("Ben Tu Hua" in Chinese) is important, some universal values and ideals must be our goals, otherwise we risk losing some fundamental values that are universally treasured. In other words, no matter how much localization there is, there must be some fundamental standards that are applicable to all legal systems. Panel
4: China's Intellectual Landscape in the 20th Century In this panel, Hongbiao Yin, an associate professor from Beijing University, reflected on the rise of socialist thoughts in the 20th century China and the challenges it is now facing. In the same panel, Dr. Junning Liu reviewed the Chinese reception of liberalism, a weak albeit persistent voice of those independently minded intellectuals seeking individual freedom and constitutional democracy. Professor Yin began his presentation by noting that socialist thoughts went through a cycle in 20th century China: first rising from the bottom, then reaching the peak, and finally declining to a historical low point. Today socialist thoughts face enormous challenges both in China and internationally. Socialism, according to Professor Yin, is a word with rich meanings and a number of different interpretations. It includes (1) communist socialism, which advocates eradication of capitalism and ultimate collectivism, (2) moderate socialism, which advocates social improvements to make up capitalist ills, and (3) various other schools that fall between these two extremes. Professor Yin reviewed the fate of different schools of socialism in China, including the downfall of the socialism advocated by Dr. Sun Zhongshan, and the rise of communist socialism. Professor Yin observed that, before 1949, Mao Zedong advocated the concept of "new democracy" and the development of a society for the co-existence of diversified classes, including capitalists. This approach could have allowed a healthy development of economy and intellectual freedom. New democracy, however, was only to be a transitional ideology, and in the 1950s, Mao gave up new democracy and transformed China into Soviet-style socialism which included extreme collectivism. Unfortunately, while socialism is a valuable "tool of critique" against capitalist deficiencies, its realization as a form of government resulted in catastrophe. While Deng Xiaoping's pragmatic and creative "socialism with Chinese characteristics" achieved breakthroughs in the economic fields, it has yet to meet the political challenges facing China. The economic reform has created a private sector and a new "capitalist class." Contrary to the ideal of socialism as a protection of the weak and underprivileged, however, today's "socialist" state looks more and more like an ally of the increasingly powerful capitalist class, leaving the underdogs out of the game. Professor Yin concluded his presentation by asking whether China should return to new democracy, or democratic socialism, which would allow co-existence of diversified groups, including private enterprises, but would not have the government shy away from taking necessary actions to prevent social injustice. Dr. Liu began his presentation by comparing the fate of liberalism against that of socialism in 20th century China: while socialism dominated the center stage, liberalism only played a marginal, if any, role in the intellectual landscape. Liberalism had its weak voice in the 1920s due to the advocacy of Dr. Hu Shi and several other liberals, and it was always overwhelmed by socialism. Liberal thoughts, however, persisted among those independently minded intellectuals, and today liberalism is a compelling rival of socialism. Liberalism, as it is understood in China, stands for individual freedom within a democracy. It is predicated on the notion of individuals as autonomous agency with inalienable rights and human dignity, and it advocates limited yet effective government, the function of which is to provide law and order necessary for the enjoyment of individual freedom and rights. According to Dr. Liu, liberalism provides a better alternative to authoritarianism and is the best ideology for a country. Compared against communism, which assumes the ultimate truth of itself and thus excludes all other thoughts and ideologies, liberalism provides a platform that guarantees freedom of thinking and expression and thus the co-existence of all ideologies and schools of thoughts. One institutional condition guaranteeing individual rights and freedom is a limited yet effective government; that is, a government operates under constraints of a Constitution and has specific powers, which powers are separately exercised by several departments that mutually check and balance against each other. History shows that it is only wise to construct democracy under the framework of liberalism, and liberal democracy is a democracy that has a limited government and protects individual freedom. Instead of pursuing the goal of equal outcome and equal wealth, liberal democracy believes in equal process (procedural equality) and focuses on addressing social inequality by giving everyone the same opportunity to compete. The speakers' presentation inspired an intense debate on the question of which approach provides a better solution to China's problems. While there is a consensus on the desirability of democracy and individual freedom as advocated by liberalism, participants debated on (1) whether liberalism addresses China's most pressing needs, especially when many people are still struggling for mere survivals; (2) whether China can further develop its economy without democracy and more individual freedom; and (3) how to achieve democracy and more individual freedom in China. Some participants observed that, while a small group of people are ripping huge economic and other benefits from the expansion of individual freedom in China, various weak groups of the society, including peasants and workers, are being left out. These participants believed that it is the responsibility of intellectuals to advocate on behalf of the underdogs, and in this regard, the power of government, not limited government, is desirable. Echoing Professor Yin's question at the end of his presentation, these participants thought that democratic socialism might be the way out of China's present difficulty. In contrast, several other participants pointed out that the current injustice and inequality in China are often not the result of limited government, but rather the result of unlimited, corrupt and arbitrary government. The small group of people who are ripping huge benefits right now are able to do so not because of any limit on government's power, but because of a precisely opposite reason: these people are connected to an unlimited and unaccountable government. The solution to the problem is not to increase the government's power, because under the current system the increased power will be further abused; rather, the solution is to limit the government's arbitrary power, to build checks and balances within the government, to separate government from business, to allow the existence of a true civil society, to promote the formation of various interest groups and non-governmental organizations to lobby and advocate for the weak and underprivileged, and to introduce competitive elections so the government is accountable to the people. In addition, several participants pointed out that limited government does not mean weak government. Liberalism advocates limited government, but it also advocates strong and effective government. Government should be effective in providing law and order and ensuring equal opportunity. The United States and the Great Britain are examples of limited but strong and effective government. Finally, liberal democracy does not reject all propositions of democratic socialism. For example, liberal democracy does not reject, but advocate, limited income redistribution for the purpose of providing equal start for all. In addition, if democratic socialism accepts, as some people claim, individual rights and limited government, then there is probably not much fundamental difference between liberalism and democratic socialism. Panel
5: China's Rural Development in the 20th Century In this panel, Professor Jianfu Yao, a Senior Research Fellow from Research Center for Rural Economy of China's Ministry of Agriculture, reviewed the history of China's rural development in the 20th century and also gave an in-depth presentation on the challenges faced by China's agricultural sector upon China's imminent accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Professor Yao opened his presentation by discussing the challenges of WTO. Undoubtedly, the accession into WTO will intensify China's economic reform, accelerate China's integration into the world economy, and eventually benefit China's overall economic development. According to Professor Yao, however, the short-term negative impact of the WTO membership on China's rural development before year 2010 should not be overlooked. Traditional Chinese agriculture is based on intensive and small-scale farming (0.4 acre per farmer's family in China compared to 66.8 acres in U.S.), which means higher costs and higher prices. As such, China's agricultural products are not competitive in the international market. The accession into WTO inevitably will cause an increase in agricultural import, depress the prices of agricultural products, and result in loss of jobs in agriculture, especially in those land-intensive sectors. In order to realign the agricultural structure and prepare for the WTO entry, China needs to encourage the development of labor-intensive and technology-intensive agricultural sectors, such as vegetable, fruits, flowers and product processing. In addition, China needs to anticipate and prepare for post-WTO trade issues, including anti-dumping, agricultural protection measures, and technological and other non-tariff trade barriers. Professor Yao noted with worry that social unrest may result from depressed agricultural prices and a tremendous influx of unemployed peasants into urban areas. Professor Yao then discussed two problem areas of China's agricultural development in the 20th century: collectivization and modernization. As to collectivization, China followed Soviet Union's path of collective farm, which proved to be a failure. China's traditional agriculture took the form of intensive and small-scale farming, but collectivization deprived peasants of their ultimate shield of protection and incentive to work. According to Professor Yao, China should have focused on traditional family-style farming, at the same time promoting specialization such as marketing, end product processing and technical service. On agricultural modernization, Professor Yao noted several unrealistically grand goals (as seen from slogans such as "Agricultural Modernization by 1980") and pointed out that, in making or implementing agricultural policies, China had often neglected regional differences and local conditions, which inevitably resulted in wastes. After one century of efforts, agricultural modernization is still a daunting task facing China. Panel
6: Student Movements Since May 4th The speakers of this panel included Professor Hongbiao Yin from Beijing University and Professor Dingxin Zhao from the University of Chicago. They discussed the Red Guard movement in the Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Beijing student movement, two historically significant events in 20th century China. Professor Yin began his presentation by reflecting on the history of Chinese student movements in the 20th century. He distinguished between two types of student movements: (1) Protestation Movements that were spontaneous and critical of governmental authorities, and (2) Mobilized Movements that followed a top-down pattern and primarily served various political purposes of the establishment. The Red Guard movement took place during the 1966-68 period and involved almost all high schools and universities in China. It was, according to Professor Yin, essentially a Mobilized Movement, although the movement also had certain elements of protestation. Professor Yin elaborated on the unique nature of the Cultural Revolution's top-down mobilization process. The supreme leader Mao Zedong launched and mobilized the movement and pushed it to extreme, but he did so outside the "system" and directed the movement against his bureaucracy. The Red Guard movement proceeded largely under the sponsorship and protection of Mao as the highest authority. At the height of the movement, the Red Guards were invincible against their targets, be they powerful officials or the already designated "class enemies." But student organizations were disbanded, in many cases against the Red Guards' own will, once Mao determined that he did not need the movement any more. In essence, the Red Guard movement was caught in the middle of the conflict between Mao and the bureaucratic system, and was exploited by Mao as a tool to purge and then to regain full control of the system. At the same time, Professor Yin went on to point out, the Rebel Faction of the Red Guards sought the opportunity in the Cultural Revolution to defy what they perceived as the bureaucratic oppression and to find a route to a true socialist society. The Red Guard movement, as such, was not without elements of protestation. Gradually, the Red Guards were immersed in the struggle against party and government leaders, in most cases succeeding in paralyzing various functions of the administrative apparatus. Showered with the freedom of association, demonstration and publishing, the Red Guards pushed the limits of power, challenged the ideology of "Blood Origin," and even demanded reinstating some individuals stigmatized by previous leaders. The movement, however, was also increasingly plagued by factional fighting and rivalry, and was finally disbanded by Mao. Professor Dingxin Zhao's presentation was based on his critically acclaimed book The Power of Tiananmen (University of Chicago Press, 2001), which is probably the first comprehensive and authoritative sociological study of the 1989 Beijing student movement. Professor Zhao led the audience through a rigorous academic journey as well as a critical examination of the 1989 student movement. He told a vivid story of how he investigated the truth behind the April 20, 1989 Xinhuamen Incident to illustrate his research methodology. Instead of accepting the established account of the incident ("a riot caused by the police beating of students"), Professor Zhao tried to reconstruct the incident and traced the sources of various rumors. He eventually found that the "evidence" of the so-called "police beating" ("blood all over a student") was actually created by some broken glass from a bus window. In such a rigorous spirit, Professor Zhao's research was determined to challenge many conventional views and force readers to reexamine the 1989 movement. Professor Zhao did not stop at uncovering the historical facts. He went further to explore the social, political, cultural and structural underpinnings that made it possible for rumors to become accepted "truth" and to have significant impact on public opinion and ultimately on the course of the movement. For example, Professor Zhao challenged the widely held notion of two-line struggle between reformers and hardliners in Beijing; and he thought that the role of the behind-the-scene elite in mobilizing students had been overstated. Professor Zhao attributed student mobilization largely to what he called the ecology factors: the concentration of the universities in Haidian District, the spatial layout of student activities inside a campus, and the interactions among student dorm mates. As far as the student leaders are concerned, Professor Zhao said: "I don't blame the student leaders. Everyone has his or her limits. What we need to do is to look into the structural conditions and processes that facilitated the rise and domination of radical student leaders. At the end of the panel, two speakers briefly commented on the differences and similarities between the Red Guard movement and the 1989 Beijing student movement. Panel
7: The Cultural Revolution
After giving a brief overview of the Cultural Revolution, Dr. Wang presented data, records and documents to illustrate and reconstruct the violent period from the summer of 1966 to 1968. Dr. Wang noted that in a country with a long tradition of reverence for teachers and respect for educational institutions, thousands of teachers were beaten, in many instances to death, in that short period of time, not to mention numerous suicides following prolonged physical and mental torture. According to Dr. Wang, the causes of such violence include, among other things, the official goal of the Cultural Revolution (denouncing the "capitalist" intellectuals) and the rise of the Red Guards under Mao's encouragement. Dr. Wang stressed that, in order not to repeat history, we must at least admit and analyze what happened during the Cultural Revolution, including its darkest side. In Su's presentation, he first gave the audience an overall assessment of the Cultural Revolution. According to Su, a key feature that distinguishes the Cultural Revolution from other recurrent political campaigns in socialist China is "unlimited democracy" (Da Min Zhu). The Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1968 was a campaign in which the party-state apparatus at all levels receded the leadership of the movement; in fact such apparatus was challenged, dismantled and rebuilt through waves of unregulated mass movements. Power struggle was thus a defining theme throughout the process of unlimited democracy. The society was in a mode of perpetual power dispute, and the contest for political power was not conducted through ballots but through factional mass actions that often resulted in staggering violence. Power struggle in the Cultural Revolution was carried out under an institutional framework called class struggle. To defeat the opponents was to label them as class enemies so as to eliminate them politically and often also physically. In the height of the unlimited democracy, the coercive and violent powers of police (to arrest), prison (to incarcerate and to punish) and court (to adjudicate), which are usually monopolized by the state, were all exercised directly by mass organizations. In addition, according to Su, the constantly changing rules for defining a legitimate movement goal contributed to the unprecedented scale of mass mobilization. Su laid out eight zigzag turns of movement directions during the Cultural Revolution, largely originated from Mao who masterminded the deepening or demobilizing of mass movements. Finally, Su briefly shared his research on the Cultural Revolution in the local counties of Hubei Province. He showed how local politics of elite cleavage exacerbated factional violence, a phenomenon unseen in major urban centers where the Cultural Revolution movements carried a stronger ideological overtone. In the discussion that followed the presentation, Su challenged the notion that the Cultural Revolution is a special product of the Chinese culture. He reminded the audience of the abundance of similar tragic movements in other parts of the world. In responding to a question on comparing the Cultural Revolution with social movements elsewhere, Su pointed out that the tragic nature of the Cultural Revolution did not lie in the right of collective action, but in the peculiar situation where the state ceased to enforce law and order. During the Cultural Revolution, the state's monopoly on the use of violence, which is a necessary element of social peace and order, was (often purposively) broken, and violence became a legitimate tool of tens of thousands of mass organizations. The result was catastrophic. Finally, when asked to speculate whether the Cultural Revolution would ever happen again, Su replied that an adequate answer would require a dissection of the Cultural Revolution phenomenon into various components. According to Su, the whole package of the Cultural Revolution probably would never repeat. Various components of the Cultural Revolution, however, could definitely reappear. Panel
8: The Evolution of Culture: A Game Theoretic Approach The speakers of this panel included Lin Tao, a Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and Junfu Zhang, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution. In this panel, the speakers introduced game theory to the audience and used it to explain the evolution of culture, highlighting the role of individual actions in shaping culture and influencing its course of evolution. Lin Tao opened the discussion by explaining several basic concepts of game theory such as "equilibrium" and "strategy." He then argued that every type of culture is an equilibrium of certain game, and the evolution of culture is actually the evolution of the equilibrium. Tao used the example of "corruption culture" to illustrate how a cultural equilibrium is formed, why it may be very stable, and how it can be broken. The analysis highlighted the importance of social and political institutions because these institutions often set rules of the game, which produce specific cultural equilibria. Junfu Zhang continued the discussion by first attempting to define culture. According to Zhang, culture is a collection of behavioral norms that are usually enforced by habit, psychology and social pressure. Culture is formed either through a coordinated political process or via a spontaneous order, and it evolves through three mechanisms: transmission, variation and selection. According to Zhang, culture can be considered an equilibrium of a coordination game. As such, in order to steer certain bad culture towards a better one, coordinated efforts of variation and interaction are needed. During the Q&A, the speakers used the transition from traditional Chinese characters to modern ones in early 20th century to show how culture could be changed and a new equilibrium could be established. Some participants commented that culture should be studied in more sophisticated frameworks such as repeated games and games with uncertainty. Finally, Zhang clarified that the purpose behind the exercise was to analyze culture as a dynamic concept instead of a static one, thus dispelling the notion of cultural determinism and inspiring activism among the audience to analyze existing Chinese culture and take actions to modernize it or reorient it towards a better one. Panel
9: Religion and China in the 20th Century Wentong Zheng is a Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Economics at Stanford University. In his presentation, Zheng summarized the historical evolution of religion in China and analyzed its role in the 20th century. Zheng first reviewed the history of religion in China before the 20th century. Starting from ancestral worship back in Xia Dynasty to the Taiping Rebellion in Qing Dynasty, Zheng traced some defining moments in China's religious history such as the birth of Confucianism and Taoism, and the introduction of Buddhism, Christianity and Islamism into China. The review also included some obscure groups that were rarely known, such as the Ye-Li-Ke-Wen Group during the Yuan Dynasty. Zheng further summarized the characteristics of various religious groups and different historical experience they had. A picture of tolerance where a person could hold multiple faiths and a theme of symbiotic relationship between religion and politics emerged from Zheng's presentation. Zheng then moved into the 20th century, which was described as an abrupt departure from China's long history of religious tolerance. According to Zheng, intellectual movements and geopolitical struggles that swept through China for most parts of the 20th century created a very hostile environment for various religions in China. A critical attitude towards religion started with the May-Fourth generation of Chinese intellectuals who were heavily influenced by the Enlightenment-era thoughts. These intellectuals believed that all religions are antithetical to science and reason. China's pains and humiliations in face of Western invasions also added an element of anti-imperialism to Chinese people's negative attitude towards Christianity and other "Western" religions. After the founding of the People's Republic and particularly during the Cultural Revolution, various religions were virtually extinguished from the Chinese soil as they were depicted as spiritual opium and incompatible with the dominant atheistic ideology. The foundation of massive religious organizations, however, still existed in China. This is evidenced by the surge in religious activities since China adopted the reform and open-door policies in 1978. During the 1990s, the popularity of moral pluralism, along with rapid economic development, increased personal freedom, massive social dislocation and endless human search for meanings, all contributed to a strong surge of religions in China. During the discussion, some participants were interested in religion's influence on one's spirituality, while others were more concerned about religion's role as a social institution. Participants exchanged their views on the proposition that the Chinese history of religious tolerance partly benefited from the lack of critique or debate tradition in Chinese scholarship. Participants also explored religion's influence on political systems, and they debated whether the possibility of individual deification in eastern religions unwittingly pulled China away from a more democratic form of government. Panel
10: Ethnic Relations in China: A Historic Review Xiaojiang Hu is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Harvard University. Hu has conducted in-depth research and stayed in Tibet for one year for fieldwork relating to her doctorate dissertation. Her article on Tibet was published on Perspectives, Vol. 2, Nos. 2 and 3. In her presentation, Hu compared the evolution of "empire" in the East against that of "kingdom-colonies" in the West to illustrate the source of disagreement between Chinese and Western views of Tibet, which was described as a confrontation between two kinds of civilization. Hu first drew a diagram setting forth the evolution of civilization in two different forms: the Western kingdoms and the eastern empires. In the West, various kingdoms fought for territories but rarely established a unified empire. The expansion of these kingdoms was largely accomplished through colonizing new territories in Africa, Asia and America after the invention of large boats. Modern history, however, saw the end of colonialism and the independence of most colonies. In the East, in contrast, there was not such a process from colonization to de-colonization. China developed a huge empire in its very early years and for the most part of its long history it regarded itself as the center of the world, treating neighboring states as subordinates. But China's control over the subordinated territories was mostly loose and informal because, among other things, these territories were remote and their physical condition was harsh. As such, the inclusion of these distant territories was not always definitive. The Chinese Empire lost territories such as Vietnam, Outer Mongolia and Korea in modern history. Nonetheless, when People's Republic was founded in 1949, China soon took control of Tibet as the government undertook to unify the whole nation and end the long embarrassing history of foreign invasion. Therefore, while Westerners argue that China should give up its control over Tibet because they tend to view Tibet as a former colony, Chinese people tend to see Tibet as an achievement of the unification efforts and an integral part of the empire. The difference in history, according to Hu, results in differences in opinion, and the differences in opinion create international problems for China. Tibetan exiles, understanding quite well the differences in psychology between East and West, have often been successful in winning sympathy from the international community. Hu ended the presentation by urging for more constructive dialogues between Beijing and the exiles, so that governance of Tibet can be achieved with more effectiveness and stability. In general, Hu suggested a more proactive ethnic policy in China, calling for more attention to, and more studies of, ethnic issues as the ongoing economic and social changes inevitably create more and more inter-ethnic interactions and also more opportunities for conflicts. |