From Kang Youwei to Deng Xiaoping

Zeng Yi, ed., “From Kang Youwei to Deng Xiaoping.”[1]

Principle speakers:  Tang Wenming 唐文明, Department of Philosophy, Tsinghua University, and Zeng Yi 曾亦, Department of Philosophy, Tongji University

Other participants:  Hao Zhaokuan 郝兆宽, School of Philosophy, Fudan University, Chen Bisheng 陈壁生, School of Chinese Classics, Renmin University, Qi Yihu 齐义虎, Department of Philosophy, Tongji University, Guo Xiaodong 郭晓东, School of Philosophy, Fudan University, Wu Zengding 吴增定, Department of Philosophy, Beijing University, Zheng Zongyi 郑宗义, Department of Philosophy, Chinese University of Hongkong, Chen Ming 陈  明, Department of Philosophy, Capital Normal University, Fang Xudong 方旭东, Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University, Chen Qiaojian 陈乔见, Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University, Hong Cheng 洪橙, King’s College, London, Bai Tongdong 白彤东, School of Philosophy, Fudan University
 
Introduction by David Ownby

This round-table discussion published in November 2016 is a good example of the application of Gan Yang’s 甘样 call to “unify the three traditions” translated elsewhere on this website.  The two principle speakers, Tang Wenming and Zeng Yi, are New Confucians of somewhat different ideological orientations:  Tang is generally more “liberal” and Zeng more “leftist.”  Most of the other participants identify more or less as New Confucians, but there is considerable ideological divergence, and the goal seems to be to have a genuine discussion, and not to rehearse the choir.

The tone of the discussion is friendly, even jovial, but the object is deadly serious:  rethinking China’s reigning national mythology to open a space for Confucianism as a significant part of China’s past, present, and future.  And even if the goal is eventually to unify the three traditions (in fact, reduced to two in this exchange—reform and revolution), that goal cannot be reached without challenging and setting aside basic elements of modern and contemporary Chinese history, and above all Party history, as taught in China’s schools, and as enacted in China’s political rituals.  Readers who do not follow intellectual life in contemporary China may well be surprised by the overt hostility expressed by participants not only toward the extremes of revolution, but to revolution in general. 

In terms of substance, Tang and Zeng make two basic propositions.  The first is that Kang Youwei 康有为 (1858-1927), the architect of the failed 1898 reforms, be seen as the “legislator” of modern China.  “Legislator” is a term borrowed from Rousseau, who, in The Social Contract, uses it to refer to the figure who intervenes at a critical moment to give concrete institutional shape to the popular will.  To my mind, what they mean is “conceptual founder,” the person that lays the intellectual groundwork for something to come.  In existing historiography, Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong share the position, Sun being the founder of the first, failed revolution, and Mao the founder of the second, successful revolution.  By recognizing Kang as “legislator,” Tang and Zeng reframe Chinese modern and contemporary history to include two major streams:  the reformist stream and the revolutionary stream.  Kang represents the reformist stream.  The revolutionary stream is represented by Sun and Mao.
New Confucians like Tang and Zeng celebrate Kang Youwei in contexts like these because his ideas already sought some version of “unifying the three traditions.”  The constitutional monarchy he defended, as well as the Confucian religion he sought to create, would have blended East and West, past and future, in a new package of universal significance.  For Tang and Zeng, Sun and Mao were merely “nation-builders,” not legislators, and despite important successes, their visions lacked the completeness of Kang’s program.  Notably, Tang and Zeng blame the CCP’s current legitimacy crisis on the lack of a national religion that would bind the people to one another and to the state in a web of shared values.  They acknowledge that communism functioned as the national religion during the early years of the PRC, but insist that its flame was extinguished by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.

The second claim advanced by Tang and Zeng is that Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening should be seen as the revival and advancement of Kang Youwei’s reform proposals from the end of the nineteenth century.  Although this idea has been widely discussed by China historians outside of China,[2] in China it is part of the recent re-embrace of Kang Youwei, and its goal is to supplement Deng’s pragmatism with something more substantive:  Confucianism.  The hope is to get past current debates which oppose the PRC’s first 30 years under Mao with its second 30 years under Deng by suggesting that both were incomplete.  The three traditions must be reintegrated before China can be whole again.
One might add that while liberal-leaning Confucians were among the participants in this debate, important Liberals themselves were absent.  The goal of initiatives like this one is to identify common ground between the New Left and New Confucians, in the hope that state authorities will embrace this new vision to the exclusion of the Liberals.  I suspect that this is why the discussants talk about “the left” and the “left wing,” but never use the term New Left.  They are hoping to go beyond factional groups and connect at the level of thought.  
 
Translation by Selena Orly, Zhang Hongbing, and David Ownby
 
Hao Zhaokuan: According to my understanding of today’s agenda, modern Chinese thought has two main currents: one is a clearly identified revolutionary stream, and the other one—previously not so obvious but now increasingly becoming the mainstream—is the reformist stream. Yesterday’s discussion focused on the revolutionary thread. Since, in the context of modern Chinese history, revolution originated with Sun Yat-sen and eventually reached its climax in Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, today’s discussion will be about the reformist thread.  In modern China, reformist thought originated with Kang Youwei and flourished under Deng Xiaoping. This reformist wave has continued to the present day, and remains in the ascendance. I think that the main purpose of this discussion should be to understand the current of reformist thinking within modern Chinese thought from the Confucian standpoint.
Let me first ask Professor Tang Wenming to say a few words.

Tang Wenming: When I got the program’s agenda yesterday and found out that I was scheduled for this discussion, I really wondered what Zeng Yi was thinking. (laughter)

Zeng Yi:  Well, we’re both studying Kang Youwei, aren’t we? (laughter)

Tang Wenming: But why talk about Deng Xiaoping here? Last night Zeng Yi and I were chatting and he said that the left doesn’t understand Deng Xiaoping. This is a question the left really must face, even if they have a great deal of difficulty doing so.  Indeed, I’ve seen many leftists who, when trying to talk about Deng Xiaoping, wind up talking about Mao Zedong. For example, leftists often stress that the achievements of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms are based on the industrial foundation established in the Mao era and even believe that the reason why China’s reforms did not fall apart like in the Soviet Union is also because of Mao. Therefore, I think that Zeng Yi’s motive in arranging this discussion has in fact been to facilitate an effective dialogue between the left-wing and the Confucians. Of course, this is only my guess. Anyway, this is what I’m going to talk about.[3] 

Hao Zhaokuan: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.  (laughter)

Zeng Yi:  The two most representative dynasties in Chinese history are the Han Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. In terms of their ruling ideologies, these two dynasties have one thing in common: their founders were both poor rebels who were eventually managed to return to the right path, to return to Confucian orthodoxy, which is truly great. Today’s left-wing refuses to return to the right path, they are unwilling to take off their armor, they cling to their old ways, they confuse means and ends. Marxism originated in the West and was never universal, which means that the Chinese Communist Party should have the courage to return to the right path. Otherwise the left-wing’s understanding of China and of Confucianism will always remain superficial. Of course, I agree with all of Wenming’s hard work; we have to revisit the “legacies” of the left-wing and decide which to keep and which to discard.

Tang Wenming: So let me start with a question: Who would be the equivalent of Rousseau’s “legislator” in modern China? Western classical political philosophers, such as Plato, and modern political philosophers who draw on classical resources, such as Rousseau, all like to talk about this concept of the “legislator”. I’ll first put forward my own ideas and then we can continue the discussion. I believe Kang Youwei to be the “legislator” of modern China. Neither Sun Yat-Sen nor Mao Zedong can be regarded as such. Why? I think that we must first distinguish between the two concepts: that of a “legislator” and of a “state-builder.” Rousseau once specifically pointed out that “legislators” are not respected like “state-builders,” because their significance may take several generations to be recognized. Because they have seized secular political power, “state-builders” can build a state according to the ideas of the “legislator”.

Chen Bisheng: According to the Gongyang school,[4] Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals to "establish the laws of the Han dynasty.”[5]  When we get to the Song period, the Spring and Autumn Annals also “established the laws of the Song dynasty" or even “established the laws for all ages.”  In other words, the Confucian vision as expressed in the Spring and Autumn Annals achieved the status of a kingly way, but was only realized in later generations. Is this what you mean? 

Tang Wenming:  Bisheng said it well, this is exactly what I mean. Therefore, although Kang Youwei was often misunderstood during his lifetime, today we can finally understand him. It hasn’t been one hundred years yet, and in comparison to Confucius’ misfortune, this should not be considered particularly tardy.

After Kang Youwei’s exile in 1898, his thought went in three major directions. First was republican constitutionalism, which had become a world trend at the time. Second was unified national power, which is reflected in his advocacy for monarchy. Of course, the monarchy is no longer possible in today's China. However, I think, there still exists a need for some kind of equivalent. Third was state religion; this is something that modern China needs, but unfortunately, trends have not moved in that direction. We can see that Kang Youwei accepted the reality of the Republic, and even though he advocated the establishment of a monarchy, it was merely a constitutional monarchy with limited powers. But Kang Youwei was also deeply aware of the mob mentality or the populist danger that republican politics can produce. I think that both his “state religion” theory and his advocacy of “constitutional monarchy” were meant to protect the Republic. In my opinion, some of Kang Youwei's arguments are very close to those of de Tocqueville [who also worried about the dangers of populism]. This is because Kang Youwei was clearly aware that, as far as a republic is concerned, in the absence of a monarchy and of state religion, there may eventually appear the danger of national division. One might say that this is a danger that China faces even now. I think that is exactly the significance of our current rethinking Kang Youwei and even our return to Kang Youwei.

Zeng Yi: I agree with Wenming. In fact, during his lifetime, not only was Confucius not employed by the kings of his age, but was also repeatedly misunderstood and even ridiculed, until hundreds of years later when his thoughts were finally truly grasped by the people of the Han dynasty. Given that it took this long for Confucius to be recognized, why should it not be the same for Kang Youwei?

Tang Wenming:  If my viewpoint is acceptable, then if we look at modern Chinese history in this way we can formulate some alternatives [to current historiography]. We can say that the Party-State established by the Chinese Communist Party is a substitute for the constitutional monarchy and state religion. Liang Shuming[6] already pointed out that the 1911 Revolution overthrew the monarchy, but that China still had to establish a political organization that could functionally replace the monarchy. From this perspective, the significance of the Communist state can be fully incorporated within the Confucian standpoint. I think this is a place where the left-wing can begin a dialogue with Confucians.

In addition, once the PRC was established, faith or belief in communism actually took on the function of state religion. Liang Shuming also made a similar argument about this.

However, since the 1980s, faith in communism has declined, and although it hasn’t been clearly stated that communism should be abandoned, it is obvious that it cannot perform the function of state religion any longer. I think that the CCP legitimacy crisis is, first and foremost, a crisis of state religion. This is the biggest shortcoming in our current system.  Although the CCP as an organization is still here, the faith that once upheld it is gone. Nowadays, CCP members join the party merely in organizational terms, not in terms of faith; they all believe in liberalism. 

So, now when we look back at Kang Youwei, and ask why is it that he continued promoting the movement for the establishment of a state religion even after the Republic of China had  been founded, I think that one of his thoughts had to be that modern countries still need a state religion.  Later on, after the founding of the New China, the faith in communism was established, which in fact was the establishment of a new kind of state religion, which bore out Kang Youwei’s far-sightedness or vision.  In other words, Kang Youwei’s advocacy for a state religion during the late Qing-early Republican period was finally realized 40 years later --- in the PRC.

So we might say that, just as in Gongyang argument in which the Confucian vision finally “established the laws of the Han dynasty,” so Kang Youwei’s vision was realized in the founding of New China and its laws.  Sadly, thirty years on, the state religion is gone. That is why I believe that we now need to turn back to Kang Youwei’s proposal to rebuild a new kind of state religion based on Confucianism. 

Chen Bisheng:  What Wenming said means taking Kang Youwei as the sage[7] of the present dynasty [the PRC]. The left has always revered Mao Zedong as a sage, but Wenming reduces Mao’s role to that of the founder of the PRC, the Great Ancestor and Founding emperor of the present dynasty. So the left-wing won’t necessarily be happy with Wenming’s proposal. (Laughter). 

Zeng Yi: What Wenming is saying is that he wants to seek out a position for the left-wing within Confucianism, but the left-wing won’t necessarily be happy about this! This is because the left-wing sees things in terms of “Marxist essence and Chinese utility 马体中用.”[8] In other words, what they want is to find a position for Confucianism within a modern China based Marxism.  The key question here is who will finally absorb whom. This is like what happened after the anti-Japanese War, when the GMD and CCP proposed to establish a “coalition government,” but within it, both actually sought domination. (Laughter).

Hao Zhaokuan: How could anyone not appreciate Wenming’s pain-staking labor?! (Laughter).

Bai Tongdong: The left-wing doesn’t work and play well with others.  Better not let them in the sandbox. (Laughter).

Chen Ming:  But Wenming is very generous!  (Laughter).

Tang Wenming: I think that it has already become impossible to restore the faith in communism. If we are to build up a state religion, the only possibility is Confucianism, which represents Chinese civilization. This is an unrealistic or impractical position for the left-wing.   I believe that the construction of modern China can only take shape after political and cultural consciousness[9] is fully unified and when the notions of political and religious nation are merged together.  From the perspective of civilization and world history, what we mean by political maturity is simply the integration of political and cultural consciousness.

Kang Youwei originally proposed “China 中华” as the nation’s official name. Afterwards, both the “Republic of China” emerging from the 1911 Revolution and the “People’s Republic of China” founded by the CCP kept this designation.  As far as its modern meaning is concerned, we find in the name the notions of both "China" and "the Republic." "The Republic" refers to the popular community led and organized by the Communist Party. The "China" aspect reflects a thousand years-old civilization. In other words, if People’s Republic of China is to truly be worthy of its name, Confucianism must be established as the state religion [to do honor to the notion of China].  There is no other alternative.  This is the main reason why I’ve been talking about state religion in recent years.

Zeng Yi: Wenming has been talking about state religion all these years, but only a few people truly understand him, and a lot of people have denounced him.  (Laughter).

Tang Wenming:  Of course, seeing  Kang Youwei as the legislator of modern China raises many questions, and I still haven’t thought everything through. For example: how should we regard the 1911 Revolution? How about the New Culture Movement? Actually, these two questions can be handled relatively easily, since after all Kang Youwei was still alive at the time, and he clearly expressed views about the 1911 Revolution and the New Culture Movement.
But how should we regard the founding of the PRC in 1949? How about the Cultural Revolution? Deng Xiaoping’s Opening and Reform? These questions seem relatively more difficult to deal with.

In recent years, there has emerged a new tendency in China’s intellectual circles, a combination of Confucianism and left-wing thought.  However, from the perspective of the left-wing’s intellectual lineage, how to absorb Confucianism is actually a rather difficult question. Confucians may experience similar difficulties as well.  Thus if the two groups regard one another as possessing historical legacies that have to be integrated, it may well be problematic. For example, Mao Zedong expressed a strong demand for equality. How should Confucianism acknowledge this point? How should it incorporate this? This needs to be made clear not only theoretically, but a real plan needs to exist on the institutional level as well.  Looking at Deng Xiaoping from the perspective of Mao’s commitment to equality, it is obvious that Deng took a revisionist path. Of course, this was a very important step—indeed a very even fortunate step—for modern China.  Going forward, Confucianism still has to be established as the state religion, only after which, in my view, can the construction of a modern Chinese as a democratic state can be completed.

Chen Bisheng: Chen Ming’s “civil religion 公民宗教” is in fact another expression for “state religion.”

Guo Xiaodong: The Central Committee recently defined China’s “core values” in 28 characters.[10]  According to Wenming’s theory, these might contain the same meaning as the "state religion."

Hao Zhaokuan:  Wenming’s viewpoint is very bold. If we accept his argument, then Kang’s successors Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong were merely followers who put his ideas into practice.  To be even more straightforward, Kang Youwei’s relationship with Sun and Mao, is the same as Confucius’ relationship with Han Gaozu 汉高祖 [i.e, the founding emperor of the Han dynasty, r. 202-195 BCE] and Emperor Han Wudi 汉武帝 [the emperor who began the formal institutionalization of Confucianism as state ideology, r. 141-87 BCE].  I worry that this theory will be harshly criticized by both the left and the right.
In fact I have always very much approved of Wenming’s views. (Laughter). When I first got to know him in one of the meetings organized by Zeng Yi, I asked Guo Xiaodong: “Who is this? He speaks so nicely, and every sentence touches my heart!” (Laughter). Later on, although I couldn’t really agree with his every point, I could understand what he was getting at. I think that his viewpoint comes out of good intentions.

Fang Xudong: You’ve become Wenming’s bosom buddy. (Laughter).

Tang Wenming:  Actually, I’m more favorable to New Left thought than Zeng Yi is.  In my view, the 1911 Revolution overthrew the monarchy and thus solved the problem of popular rule, but not the problem of unity.  Only with the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 did China become a unified country on a democratic basis.  Toward the end of his life, Liang Shuming came to fully affirm the CCP’s achievement of unity.  I approve of Liang’s change of mind on this matter.

Zeng Yi:  In my view, the overthrow of the monarchy in the 1911 Revolution only accomplished part of the mission of establishing popular rule.  Later, the October Revolution broke out in Russia, and Li Dazhao (1888-1927) and Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), [the founders of the Chinese Communist Party], welcomed it as the “victory of the common people.”  This suggests that the final achievement of popular rule did not occur until the establishment of the New China on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat.  In other words, in terms of the CCP’s narrative, the 1911 Revolution only chased the emperor from the scene, and the “three great mountains”[11] still weighed heavily on the people.  For this reason, only when the laboring masses achieved their liberation and seized political power was popular rule truly established.

Guo Xiaodong:  Yet from the point of view of the left, Deng Xiaoping’s reforms led to social divisions , and even the “landlord troops 还乡团”[12] have returned, so how can we still talk about “popular rule”?

Tang Wenming:  Indeed.  Most likely, from Liang Shuming’s perspective, the greatest significance of the New Culture Movement was the creation of the military agency required for the construction of a democratic country, a working class with the will to build the country so as to accomplish the nation-building mission of “unity,” after which a genuine establishment of popular rule could be realized.  Hence the establishment of the People’s Republic by the CCP brought together the tasks of unity and popular rule.  In this sense, the overthrow of the monarchy during the 1911 Revolution, the introduction of Marxism into China, and finally the land revolution, all step by step transformed the people into the agents of revolution and nation-building.

Hao Zhaokuan:  It looks like Wenming is further left than Zeng Yi (Laughter).

Zeng Yi:   I have long felt that Wenming’s understanding of the people and of equality is not purely Confucian.  (Laughter).

Hao Zhaokuan:  We’ll end the first part of the discussion here.  I’ll ask Professor Zeng Yi to introduce the next part.

Zeng Yi:  Yesterday Wenming and I talked a lot about left-wing views. Actually, among Confucians, Wenming leans a fair bit to the left, so he has a sympathetic understanding of the left, and does his best to absorb leftist ideas into Confucianism.  A few minutes ago, Wenming said that his affirmation of the left referred mainly the CCP’s contribution to nation-building.  Of course, by “nation-building” he meant not only the creation of the present regime but more broadly the transformation of China into a modern country.  Wenming and I share this positive view of the party-state.  In the final analysis, we live in the space created by the CCP and “if you eat at the master’s table, then you owe the master your loyalty”[13]  To not affirm the present regime, or the founding emperor of that regime, is not acceptable.  Of course, from the perspective of the present day, the structure of modern China remains incomplete, and it is our expectation that contemporary Confucians will carry out that mission.  Indeed, as a Mainland New Confucian, I feel that this should be our basic starting point.  Our viewpoint is completely different from that of New Confucians in Hong Kong and Taiwan, because their hope is invested in the contribution that China’s classical culture can make to humanity at large, and they do not talk too much about how to use the essential ideas of Confucianism to build the country.
A few minutes ago, Wenming said that he was not clear as to where this discussion was heading.  My initial plan was for everyone to discuss Deng Xiaoping’s reforms from a Confucian perspective.  The objective of our first discussion was to discuss Mao Zedong’s revolution from a Confucian perspective.  This is because from a Confucian perspective, and particularly a Gongyang perspective, the theory of “unifying the three traditions” can evoke revolutionary Confucian thought, and on this basis reflect on Mao Zedong’s revolution, affirming his establishment of the People’s Republic as well as his partially accomplished transformation of traditional China to modern China.  As for Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, obviously the economic results were achieved under the guidance of liberal theory, but I feel that we can understand this according to Gongyang “three ages” theory, by which I mean to stress the moderation and conservatism of Deng’s reforms.  At present the New Left is very contradictory.  During the early period they did not agree at all with Deng’s reforms, but later, in their arguments with the right they asserted that the success of Deng’s reforms was completely the result of the basis built during the Mao period.  Zengding, is this how you used to see things?  (Laughter).

Wu Zengding:  I’m not sure. (Laughter).

Zeng Yi:  My feeling is that, at least up until three or four years ago, this kind of argument was quite widespread on the left, although now it seems to be disappearing.

When we talk about reformist thought in modern China, this basically covers two periods:  The first began with Kang Youwei’s 1898 reforms and ended with the New Policies of the late Qing; and the second began with Deng Xiaoping, and was largely limited to the economic realm.  Both periods were quite short, and added together come to fifty years, some ten years less than the revolutionary periods.  My feeling is that if we want to understand thought in modern China, the only way to arrive at a complete understanding is to look at both revolutionary and reformist periods.  The early period was led by revolutionary thought, and was fiery and dramatic.  Reformist thought actually came earlier, but because of the collapse of the Qing dynasty was interrupted until the era of Deng’s reforms, or for seventy years of revolution, after which we returned to the reformist path Kang Youwei had initially started down.  When we talk about “returning to Kang Youwei,” this is basically limited to academics and ideas.  But in fact, thirty years ago Deng Xiaoping had already started a return to Kang Youwei in terms of political practice, bidding adieu to seventy years of radicalism and returning to a stable, conservative, moderate reform path.  So when we talk about “returning to Kang Youwei” now, it is our interpretation of the path of Deng Xiaoping.

An understanding of this reformist path should, in my opinion, include the following elements:  First, the conservative nature of the reforms.  We see new buildings everywhere and all the time, but many of these are not of high quality, and after a few years they have to be demolished and rebuilt.  This is not the same outside of China, where even old buildings are more solid than ours.  The reason for this is that foreigners think about building houses in a different way than we do.  They look further into the future, and if there are problems they repair them, which is why their buildings survive.  We build houses the same way we carry out revolutions, in the sense that we don’t like old houses, and prefer to tear them down and build new ones.  In the past when the CCP waged revolution, it did not hesitate to destroy the old world.  Later, in nation-building, they adopted the same strategy, believing that they could only build new and better houses on empty land.  The downside of this way of thinking is first that it destroys a lot and second that it is costly, not to mention that it is actually quite difficult to clear away enough space to build a truly new foundation.  Perhaps the material manifestations of tradition can be labeled the “four olds”[14] and swept away, but can we do the same thing with the traditions that live in people’s hearts and minds?  Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution with the goal of extirpating the “four olds” from the dark recesses of people’s souls.  But the reason that the Cultural Revolution failed is because it is impossible to completely root out tradition.  This is why when Deng Xiaoping launched his reforms and put an end to revolution, many of the “four olds” naturally came back.  This means that traditions live deep in the hearts and minds of the people, and cannot be cut out.  In my view, what we mean by reform is the search to better oneself on the basis of existing traditions, in which we manifest considerable respect for tradition.  This is the spirit of conservatism.

Tang Wenming:  Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution can be traced back to the New Culture Movement [of the 1920s], and the spirit of the two was identical.  Both hoped to “wage revolution in the deep recesses of the soul.”  They were not content with overthrowing the systemic nature of the monarchy, but hoped to extricate feudal remnants in culture, language, and psychology as well.

Guo Xiaodong:  At the time, an important part of the New Culture Movement was the baihua 白话 campaign [the campaign to replace the use of the literary language with something closer to spoken Chinese] led by Hu Shi (1891-1962) and others.  Their actions were driven not only by the concern to increase literacy, but also by their conviction that classical Chinese contained many feudal remnants.

Chen Bisheng:  Kang Youwei’s thought was extremely complex.  He was a representative character in the reformist movement, but if we read his On Great Unity [大同书], we find that he had a revolutionary side as well.

Tang Wenming:  Kang himself realized that On Great Unity was too radical, and ordered that it not be published while he was alive.  Otherwise, the damages inflicted by radical thought on China might have happened a few years earlier.

Zeng Yi:  Let me continue with the second aspect of reformist thought, which is the return to “modest prosperity 小康” from “great unity 大同.”[15]  Bisheng just said that Kang Youwei’s thought was very complex, and in fact this is related to Kang’s understanding of the Gongyang “three ages” theory.  This is the central part of Kang’s theory.  According to this, China had for several thousand years lingered in the “Age of Disorder 据乱世,” while the West had entered the “Age of Approaching Peace 升平世” or even the “Age of Universal Peace 太平世.”  Each age had its corresponding political form:  that of the Age of Disorder was monarchy, of the Age of Approaching Peace, constitutional monarchy, and of the Age of Universal Peace, the democratic republic.  According to this theory, the West was obviously China’s objective, which meant that Kang’s 1898 reform proposals imitated the West.  The problem is that China’s imitation of the West had two stages:  constitutional monarchy and democratic republic.  There’s an old expression in Chinese: “aim high, and achieve the middle; aim for the middle and achieve less 取法乎其上，得乎其中；取法乎其中，得乎其下.”  Following this wisdom, China aimed high, hoping to proceed directly to the democratic republic.  Prior to the 1898 reforms, this is how Kang Youwei thought.

Tang Wenming:  Later on, the CCP even more thought this way.  In talks with the GMD, they felt that the GMD platform was too unambitious.

Hao Zhaokun:  To say nothing of the Great Leap Forward.  The CCP always feels that progress it too slow, so they take three steps instead of one in a rush toward Communism.  The result was they fell on their face.

Zeng Yi:  According to the historical materials in our possession now, prior to 1898, many people around Kang wanted to join with Sun Yat-sen and carry out revolution.  Since the goal of a democratic republic was too distant, the only possibility was to overthrow the monarchy through revolution.  But the goal of constitutional monarchy was different.  It could have been attained through reform measures, in a peaceful transition from a monarchical system to a constitutional monarchy.  In addition, the Guangxu 光绪 emperor (r. 1875-1908) and the empress dowager Cixi 慈禧 (1835-1908) both felt that constitutional rule was possible.  So the difficulty of the objective could have determined the means by which the goal was realized.  So why did China later become more and more radical?  In my view, the basic problem was that we set our sights too high, and kept setting them higher and higher.  We might say that the goal of representative democracy left China divided for more than thirty years, and the distant ideal of communism led China on a detour of thirty years.

Hao Zhaokuan:  And even in the pursuit of communism, the more purely Marxist-Leninist the party, the more radical the measures they followed, the more cruel the means they employed to realize communism.  The Khmer Rouge are the best example.  In general, dogmatists are the most likely to preach the orthodoxy of Marxism-Leninism, and to be the most cruel in practice.  This explains the purges throughout the Soviet Union in the 1930s, which were led by dogmatists like these.  Still, they can’t be compared to Pol Pot.

Guo Xiaodong;  Some members of the New Left defend the Cultural Revolution, from a purely left-wing standpoint, arguing that Mao Zedong was doing his utmost to prevent revisionism and damage to socialism, which was a proper starting point.  They seem not to have understood at all that this proper starting point, when put into practice, led to cruel struggles and cold-blooded attacks.  Confucians are different.  Even if they have high ideals like the “great unity,” in practice they can settle for “modest prosperity.”  Thus in essence, Confucians advocate gradualism. 

Chen Bisheng:  When Confucius said “I take my inspiration from the Chunqiu, and model my behavior from the Xiaojing 吾志在春秋，行在孝经,”[16] this is what he meant.  The Chunqiu is full of idealistic things, while the Xiaojing remains in the realm of basic ethics.

Guo Xiaodong:  So Confucians say, “I dream of great unity, but practice modest prosperity 志在大同，行在小康.”

Zeng Yi:  Since Kang Youwei’s goal was constitutional monarchy, then his path was that of reform.  Later on, Sun Yat-sen made a democratic republic his goal, and had to take the revolutionary road to pursue this more distant objective.  And one revolution wasn’t enough.  There was a second, and then a third, until we got to never-ending revolution.  Look at all the fighting in the early Republic.  First was the national protection movement, prompted by Yuan Shikai’s attempt to have himself named emperor, then the reaction to Zhang Xun’s 张勋 (1854-1923) effort to reestablish the monarchy, and finally the Guomindang’s efforts to fight the Beiyang government, all of which were related to the goal of establishing a democratic republic.  Once the Communists took power they didn’t bother with the democratic republic, but instead talked about equality, in the name of which they destroyed the family and the state, and once they took political power they couldn’t wait to carry out the transition to communism, which led to consequences we are all aware of.  Of course, ideals always seduce people, and when I was little I spent my days dreaming of the arrival of communism.  Later on, when Deng Xiaoping came to power, no one talked anymore about what year or what month communism would arrive, and I spent many years lost and confused, worried that good times would never come.  (Laughter).  Looking back, I was very immature.  But weren’t the masses the same?  They spent their time “gazing at plums to quench their thirst 望梅止渴” [i.e., dreaming of utopian solutions].

Guo Xiaodong:  After the 1911 Revolution, China became the first republic in Asia!

Hao Zhaokuan:  At the time Chinese people thought this was something to be proud of! (Laughter).  Later, after the CCP set up a communist country, this pride was even greater, but we fell behind North Korea.  The goal of the left was high, but illusory.  They fooled themselves, and they fooled the people.  Everybody had really drunk the kool-aid.[17]

Zeng Yi:  Sun Yat-sen established the first republic in Asia, which seemed fantastic, but it left China in chaos for decades.  Later on, the CCP felt that the goal of the GMD was too unambitious, and came up with an idealistic plan which was communism.  Then they criticized the GMD for being “counter-revolutionary,” which of course was right.  Whether in theoretical terms or in terms of practice, after the success of the Northern Expedition, the GMD was never again very radical, and naturally evolved in the direction of “counter-revolution.”  Yet the CCP wanted to fully implement the revolution, and in pursuit of this goal, they eventually achieved a nation-wide victory, after which socialist transformation was smoothly accomplished.  But the Great Leap was a failure, as was the Cultural Revolution.  Finally, with Deng Xiaoping, revolution plainly ended, and modern China fulfilled a cycle of reform-revolution-reform.
So why did Deng Xiaoping carry out reform?  One of his main motivations was to lower our objectives.  The higher the goal, the more drastic the means; if we set lower goals, we can also moderate the means a bit.  I remember quite clearly, throughout the 1980s there were many debates in the theoretical field where people would first say that we should not implement communism, then that we were in the early stages of socialism, then that we weren’t even there yet, and finally that we needed to learn from capitalism.  At the time, I was fairly left-wing, and this theoretical revisionism often caused me confusion and pain.  (Laughter).  We might say that the reason Deng Xiaoping carried out reform was because there was no way to realize communism.  Of course, this is not how official propaganda put things at the time, instead they continued to say that once we had arrived at Marx’s “great influx of material wealth,” then we could once again promote communism.  For thousands of years, Confucians had taken “modest prosperity” as their goal, a goal shared by the CCP at the present moment.  The goals are the same, and the means employed are not too radical.  In my view, when Confucians talk about improvements or when Deng Xiaoping talked about reform, the goals determined the means to be employed, and the idea was the gradual amelioration of our present conditions.

Guo Xiaodong:  This is truly the case.  Since Deng Xiaoping managed to achieve his goal of modest prosperity through reforms, then why should we follow Mao and carry out revolution?

Zeng Yi:  It was precisely because Deng Xiaoping chose the path of reform that he was able to achieve a stable pace in practice.  In the past the authorities said that reform was like “feeling the stones to cross the river,” a phrase that used to be criticized by both the left and the right.  Why?  Because they felt that this meant that there was no goal, that everything was pragmatism, and people said sarcastically that if we wandered into deep water, we might well drown.  I have a different understanding of this.  When I was a child I spent time in the countryside, and frequently had to wade across the river.  I was always very careful when I did so, and would first seek out a stone and establish a firm footing, after which I would look for the next stone.  Each step was cautious all the way across.  In this sense, “crossing the river by feeling the stones” truly is the most apt description of the reform process.  It’s neither too fast nor too slow, not too moderate or too extreme—this is the spirit of reform.  It is clear that both Kang Youwei and Deng Xiaoping share a common point, which is the advocacy of gradual reform.

In addition, Deng’s implementation of reform was also to some degree a reaction to the damage caused by revolution, in my view.  When Kang Youwei opposed Sun Yat-sen’s revolution, this was because of Kang’s deep insights into politics.  Even before the 1911 Revolution, Kang had often spoken of the scourge of the French Revolution.  But people in the GMD did not agree.  Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 (1869-1936) wrote an essay entitled “Refuting Kang Youwei’s Views of Revolution 驳康有为论革命书,” which took direct aim at Kang’s arguments.  From today’s perspective, Kang is the one whose views are more valuable.  Mao Zedong believed until his death that there was nothing wrong with the Cultural Revolution, which he saw as the greatest legacy he had left to China.   A few minutes ago, Guo Xiaodong said that like people Mao felt that revolution was the most essential thing.  After the 1911 Revolution, Kang’s worries were born out, as Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang all began to talk about independence.  And look at what happened later in Yugoslavia and the USSR.  Without exception, revolution is followed by a country’s splitting up.  By contrast, reform is moderate, and avoids this consequence.  At present, under the direction of the Western powers, the fires of revolution are burning everywhere [a reference to “American adventurism” in places like Iraq].  Thus in this sort of international environment, we should not only fully negate the Cultural Revolution, we should also fully negate revolution itself.

Guo Xiaodong:  In the 1930s, there was also the establishment of Manchuguo,[18] an even longer-lasting disastrous effect of revolution.  All of these disasters, including later examples like Russia and Eastern Europe and the revolutions in the Arab world, give credence to Kang Youwei’s fears, even if he himself did not live to see them realized.  And it is true that it is the Western powers that are now holding high the banner of the revolution, which they have used to overturn the political power of a good many nation-states to the point that those of us living in the places of origin of the revolution no longer dare to talk about it, because we have long since become the object of the Western revolution.  This is a true historical paradox!

Hao Zhaokun:  Zeng Yi’s condemnation of revolution goes much further than Deng Xiaoping’s.  If the left hears him, they’ll want to skin him alive!  (Laughter)

Zeng Yi:  But in Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, all of the “corrections” occurred in practice.  He negated the Cultural Revolution, but in terms of theory he engaged in no thorough-going reflection about revolution in general, just saying “let’s not debate it.”  Now as we return to Kang Youwei’s criticism of revolution, it is important to clarify the errors our party has committed.

Hao Zhaokuan:  The reason Deng Xiaoping said “let’s not debate” was because in theoretical terms he could not refute the left.  It looks to me like Zeng Yi, from his Confucian viewpoint, wants to negate not only the Cultural Revolution, but revolution in general.  (Laughter).

Zeng Yi:  Finally, there is a third component to the reformist path, which is to return to China’s centuries-old moral tradition.  In the past, we took Marxism as the source of morality, as well as the basis for the political legitimacy of the regime.  This is why the propaganda war between China and the USSR in the 1960s was so fierce, because both sides claimed the moral high ground.  In the opinion of people at the time, if we weren’t practicing Marxism, then it was as if the regime had no legitimacy and the country risked falling apart.  Now, no one believes in Marxism as a source of legitimacy, but we have yet to find a replacement.  I think we should do as Sun Yat-sen did in his later years, and return to the moral tradition of Confucius and Mencius.  A few days ago, President Xi made a serious criticism of “di-sinicization 去中国话化,”[19] which seemed to suggest that China or the Chinese tradition will become the new source of morality, which gives people hope.

Guo Xiaodong:  Not only does the Gongyang “three ages theory” contain the notion of a return to traditional morality, the idea of “unifying the three traditions” does too, in the sense that with each change of regime, Confucians continue to stress continuities that lay behind different institutions, continuities that constitute the “way.”  When people in the Han period talked about “change through restoring the past” this was precisely what they meant.   It seems to me that the left still wants to “advance with the times,” but you can’t keep repeating the same empty ideals.  If you really want to understand the realities and needs of the times, you have to leave old baggage behind.

Zeng Yi:  It’s true.  The left doesn’t have much to talk about these days aside from the notion of equality.  Wenming spoke out in favor of equality a while ago.  The idea of equality appears in ancient thought, and there are rich resources in both Buddhism and late-Ming Neo-Confucianism on that front.  But today, equality is greatly linked to populism.  If taken to extremes, the idea of equality becomes a two-edged sword, and can be very dangerous and unhelpful to reform.  Because today’s reforms will necessarily produce a certain amount of inequality, otherwise the economy can’t develop.  Moreover, at least for Confucians, this is not a mainstream idea, because Confucians are more concerned with hierarchy.  When Confucians say “those who preside over states or family domains do not worry that they will have too few people, they worry that distribution of goods may be uneven 不患寡而患不均,”[20]  they are not talking about left-wing notions of equality.  I once had a friend who by chance happened to see that the salary of the leader of his work unit was 8000 RMB, while he was making only 4000.  His leftism immediately kicked into high gear (laughter).  I said, he’s only making twice as much, it’s just what you’re worth.

Wu Zengding:  You philistine! (Laughter).

Zeng Yi:  He also said: “When I see those nice cars on the road I feel like I should scratch them up.” I said, “After all, you’ve got a car, and I don’t.  Should I scratch yours?”  (laughter).  You can see how dangerous ideas of equality are.

Wu Zengding:  Look how you slander the left-wing!  (Laughter).  Let me add that the left-wing idea of equality is not to take somebody’s money out of envy.  This was Ah Q’s idea of equality.

Zeng Yi:  You guys want to scratch someone’s car, not trade with him.  What you want is to drag him to your level.

Wu Zengding:  By equality we mean that no one should dominate or be dominated.  Society has no masters and no slaves, no oppressing classes and no oppressed classes.  This is equality for the left.  The way you put it is so vulgar! (Laughter).

Hao Zhaokuan:  Zeng Yi, have you finished talking?

Zeng Yi:  Not yet!  Let me say one more thing.  When Gongyang thinkers talk about the “three ages theory,” then mean basically two things.  First is to protect the worthy and appreciate great kindness.  In Confucius’s Spring and Autumn Annals it is explained that one does not publicize the flaws of a lord, and should a lord die, the date of his death will recorded so as to remember his great feats. 
In the past the CCP distributed the land to the peasants, allowing them to achieve liberation, and for this reason the CCP always says that “the party’s kindness is higher than heaven and deeper than the sea.”  Because of the kindness of the party and the government, the people protect the party and government, which is the ultimate reason that the CCP was able to seize political power.  What I just said surely warms the cockles of the heart of the left-wing.  (Laughter).  With Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, people became richer, yet there were cases of those who “pick up their bowls to eat meat, and set down their bowls to curse their mother 端起碗吃肉，放下碗骂娘” [i.e., someone who is perpetually unhappy despite material improvements].  This is someone who is ungrateful.  In addition, the government sometimes engages in bad and even ugly things, and yet continues to wantonly promote itself, which calls into question even further the “respect for the exalted” mentioned in the three ages theory.

Second, ruling begins close to home.  The king who hopes to govern the world must establish priorities, starting with the central kingdom and later dealing with barbarians.  What we find in the pages of the Spring and Autumn Annals are considerable details about our own country, and fewer about foreign countries.  Once we arrive at the Age of Universal Peace, then things far and near, large and small will be as one, and we will only quibble about small problems.  When I was small, I thought that the communist ideal would quickly be realized, but when I looked around me I also found many things that were not to my liking, especially an important number of class enemies.  So then I started wondering about the following question:  when we arrive at communist society, will there still be bad things?  Sadly, at the time there was no one who could explain this to me.  This lasted until I read the Gongyang commentary, when I discovered that communism was the same thing as the Age of Universal Peace talked about in that text, when things would be perfect and arguments confined to very trivial questions.  I finally understood that this is a utopia, which has never come to pass.

Guo Xiaodong:  Prior to the 1980s we talked about “internationalism,” and about exporting revolution.  We felt that we had managed ourselves very well, and were ready to save the suffering Westerners.  The logic here is like that of the Gongyang three ages theory.

Hao Zhaokuan:  Actually, when the US exports values like democracy and liberty, it is also became it feels that it has managed itself very well.  The internal logical is the “internationalism” of the left-wing.

Zeng Yi:  But when we got the Deng Xiaoping era, we suddenly discovered that we were not ruling ourselves well, or to put it in Gongyang terms, we were still in the Age of Disorder.  So why should we tell other countries what to do or preach “internationalism”?  So we lowered our goals to modest prosperity and the Age of Approaching Peace.

Hao Zhaoguan:  Zeng Yi has worked a fair bit on Kang Youwei, and a few minutes ago have us a detailed introduction to Kang Youwei and Gongyang thought on revolution and reform.  But this introduction is clearly biased, and his goal is to offer a new interpretation of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms from the perspective of Kang Youwei’s reformist thought.  It looks to me like Zeng Yi has become estranged from his left-wing friends. (Laughter).

Zeng Yi:  In fact, I’ve gotten closer and closer! (Laughter).
 
 
Translator's notes

[1] “Cong Kang Youwei dao Deng Xiaoping 从康有为到邓小平”is the transcript of a round-table discussion animated by Tang Wenming  唐文明 and Zeng Yi 曾亦 and published on November 6, 2016.  The text is available on the New Confucian website, Tianfu 天府 at  https://sns.91ddcc.com/b/45992 . It was also published in the journal, Tianfu xinlun 天府新论 [New Analects of Sichuan], 2016, no. 6, pp. 55-70 under the title: “Zhang Sanshi: Zhongguo daolu zhong de gailiang huo gaige wenti 张三世：中国道路中的改良或改革问题.”
 
[2] See for example, Paul Cohen, “The Post-Mao Reforms in Historical Perspective,” The Journal of Asian Studies 47.3 (Aug. 1988):  518-40; and Luke S. K. Kwong, “Chinese Politics at the Crossroads:  Reflections on the Hundred Days Reforms of 1898,” Modern Asian Studies 34.3 (Jul. 2000):  663-95.

[3] Tang and Zeng are joking about the differences in their intellectual opinions, Tang accusing Zeng—humorously—of manipulating him into a certain position.

[4] The Gongyang, or Gongyangzhuan 公羊传, is a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, a Zhou-period work classically attributed to Confucius, in which Confucius appears as a visionary reformer.  Over the course of China’s long history, the text has been used by Confucians such as Kang Youwei and the contemporary Mainland New Confucian Jiang Qing 蒋庆 (b. 1953), as a source for the advocacy of profound political changes which will nonetheless emerge organically from the Confucian tradition.

[5] The expression we have translated as “to establish the laws 制法,” contains the same character is in the expression “legislator” 立法者.  In fact, in terms of grammar and meaning, 制法 and 立法 are virtually synonymous.  The character fa 法 can, depending on context, mean law, institution, principle or standard, the Buddhist dharma, a magic power…Any basic structuring principle can be a 法.  Although we hestitated to translate 制法 as “establishing the laws” because this leads the Western reader to think of formal law codes (which did of course exist in China) rather than basic principles, we decided that if we were to keep Rousseau’s “legislator” we should also keep “laws.” 

[6] Liang Shuming (1893-1988) was a famous “Confucian rural reformer” during the Republican period, who famously quarreled with Mao Zedong in the early 1950s.

[7] Sage 圣人 might be seen as the Chinese/Confucian equivalent of Rousseau’s legislator.

[8] This is of course a play on Zhang Zhidong’s (1837-1909) famous suggestion to let “Chinese learning serve as base, and Western learning as function 中体西用” in China’s modernizing reform.

[9] The term we have translated as “cultural consciousness” 教化自觉 is complex.  Under the dynasties, jiaohua 教化 meant to “transform through teaching,” which the Confucian state saw as its primary mission:  the transformation of the people and the body politic through Confucian practices and beliefs.  When the term is used today, it refers to a policy of culture-building through education, propaganda, etc., but since there are different opinions as to what kind of culture China should have, jiaohua has an indeterminate quality it did not possess in the pre-modern period. 

[10] These include the national values of prosperity, democracy, civility and harmony; the social values of freedom, equality, justice and the rule of law; and the individual values of patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendship.  The 12 values are expressed in 24 characters.  It is not clear why Guo speaks of 28.

[11] These are imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism, as noted by Mao Zedong in his famous 1925 essay on “Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society.”

[12] “Landlord troops” refers to groups organized by landlords, often with the support of the GMD, who, during the anti-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil war returned to villages in which land reform had already occurred and restored the previous order. Guo might be referring to land confiscation or any number of abuses that have occurred frequently in rural China in the Reform and Opening period.

[13] “食君之禄，忠君之事,” a remark attributed to Xu Sheng 徐盛, a Warring-States period general.

[14] The reference is to Cultural Revolution campaigns against the “Four Olds 四旧:”  old customs, cultures, habits, and ideas.

[15] The concepts “modest prosperity” and “great unity” are part of China’s classical heritage, appearing first in the Book of Rites 礼记.  The two were often seen as opposites, “great unity” being an ultimate, perhaps utopian goal, and “modest prosperity” a more selfish, if attainable alternative.  In the context of Reform and Opening, Deng Xiaoping used “modest prosperity” as the rough equivalent of “middle-class,” in essence saying “let’s forget revolution and get rich enough for everyone to be comfortable.”

[16] The citation is taken from a from a commentary on the Classic of Filial Piety.  See https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&chapter=174097&remap=gb .

[17] The Chinese expression is as if they were “injecting chicken blood (打鸡血).”  “Injecting chicken blood” was a health craze during the Cultural Revolution, and now has come to mean to have an unreasonably enthusiastic interest in something, to have bought into something ridiculous. 

[18] Manchuguo 满洲国 was a state, established by the Japanese military in 1931 in the Chinese north-eastern region of Manchuria, which claimed to unite Chinese, Manchus, and Japanese in a multi-ethnic enterprise.  Manchuguo returned to China after the end of World War II.  It is not clear to which “revolution” Guo attributes the establishment of Manchuguo.

[19] It is not clear exactly what is being referred to here, but Xi Jinping has made such remarks on more than one occasion.  See for example http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2014/0911/c1001-25642291.html .

​[20] From The Analects, see http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf  p. 89.