Ren Jiantao, "An Ounce of Prevention"

Ren Jiantao, “An Ounce of Prevention:  Technological Revolution and Great Changes to State Governance”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Ren Jiantao (b. 1962) is a well-known political scientist in China, and teaches at the prestigious Tsinghua University.  In terms of ideological orientation, Ren is a social scientist and “conservative liberal” like Gao Quanxi (b. 1962) (the constitutional scholar and Trump supporter) and Xu Zhangrun (b. 1962) (the legal scholar, also formerly of Tsinghua, who has paid very heavily of late for daring to criticize Xi Jinping); the three are friends and have published together.
 
Whatever his “orientation,” Ren is an extremely energetic scholar and addresses a wide variety of subjects in his writings and talks.  A quick glance at his Aisixiang page reveals recent articles on topics as diverse as:  Confucian thought, power and transcendence, contemporary Chinese concepts of internationalism, the indigenization of the social sciences in China, artificial intelligence and social control, and a third Confucian way outside of Mencius and Xunzi—among many, many others.
 
The text translated here addresses the theme of artificial intelligence, one of Ren’s major concerns in 2020.  He published three articles on the topic over the course of the year, one dealing with the question of AI and social control, one dealing with the meaning AI to the centrality of  “human-centered politics,” and this one, on AI-technology and the future of good governance (click here for English-language summaries of the first two texts).  All three texts are thoughtful, if quite abstract, reflections on what the application of quantum mechanics to various technological fields will mean for the future of humanity.
 
Much Western commentary on AI in China is appropriately negative and focused on the use of face-recognition technology in Xinjiang (see here for a balanced, if succinct, treatment of China and AI, which attempts to give a broader picture).  Ren does not mention Xinjiang, although he does note the dangers of the over-use of AI-driven technology for the purposes of social control.  His concerns about the dangers of AI are more fundamental and systemic, as he sees quantum mechanics as calling into question the “certainty” of the Newtonian world on which the decision-making practices of governments, businesses, and, to some degree, humans in general are based.  In other words, in addition to the risks of governments either over-employing new technologies (for convenience’s sake), or under-employing new technologies (out of laziness or complacency), to which must be added of course the risks represented by the technologies themselves, the fundamental danger is that the entire calculus of decision-making will become alien and unmanageable. 

To my mind, climate change (among other things) has already pushed “risk society” to a point where this calculus is problematic (the recent problems in Texas are a good example of this, as Ezra Klein recently pointed out in an opinion piece in the New York Times), but Ren is imagining a scenario where the technologies themselves “push the envelope” in ways that threaten our current fragile “equilibrium.”

Ren is thus concerned both about the current state of “modernity” as well as about the threats AI represent to that order.  He notes that China is still attempting to complete the transition from “premodern to modern” in terms of governance (let us recall that he is a proponent of constitutional rule and property rights), which means that China’s leaders are not well prepared for the imminent arrival of the Second Axial Age.  Indeed, one danger is that China might bask in the comfort of her recent rise—and the West’s apparent decline—and put off dealing with the challenges of the coming technological revolution.
 
In any event, the only solution Ren sees, for China and the West, is increased and improved democracy.  It is not clear from his text how this will be done and who will lead the way, but Ren is imagining a fundamental rethinking of politics and governance based on his belief that our current practices are inadequate to deal with the risks appearing in the very near future.   Following the German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1944-2015), Ren argues that “it is necessary to solve the governance challenges brought about by the technological revolution through democratic governance in which each person assumes his or her own responsibility.”  This will be achieved through three “expansions.”
 
First is an expansion of rights to include “the rights of machines, the rights of human-machine hybrids, the rights of organ transplants,…the rights of the immortals that break the boundary between life and death, and the rights of things that break the certainty of classical science.”  Second is an expansion of democracy, with must include “constitutional governance, pluralistic governance, procedural governance, and shared governance.”  Third is an expansion of ways to constrain power:  “The purpose of limiting power is not to render power powerless, but to make power act in a regulated manner. The regulation of power not only means that power must be used for public welfare, public purposes, that power serve the interest of the public.”
 
Ren seems to be imagining an enlightened populism that will engage existing governments in positive and mutually beneficial ways, a hope that strikes me as radically optimistic if not utopian.

Technical note:  the footnotes to Ren’s text were not available in any of the online versions I was able to locate, and the original publisher, Jiangsu Social Science, only provides the table of contents to its print publications on line.  Although I often ignore footnotes because most of my readers who are concerned with such details can read Chinese and thus seek out the information they need by themselves, in this case, I would have liked to know whom Ren is citing.  My impression is that he is heavily influenced by Ulrich Beck, which is of course imminently sensible.
 
Favorite Quotes
 
“State governance in China today is under tremendous pressure to undergo a double transition: one is the transition from pre-modern/non-modern to modern, and the other is the transition from modern to post-modern or whatever the alternatives may be. China is at a critical moment in the transition from pre-modern/non-modern to modern. This means that the task of state governance based on classical science, that is, the modernization of the state governance system and governance capacity, remains the primary task to improve the current state of governance in China. But this should not limit our efforts to imagine the great changes in state governance the technological revolution will require, and if we focus solely on the immediate tasks of state governance this will indeed limit our imagination.
 
One result of this would be that people might under-imagine the mature modern era and therefore limit their imagination of state governance to visions of how China can successfully move to the threshold of modernity. A second result it that they might fail to imagine alternatives to the present, and thus linger in a perpetual state of exuberance about replacing Western solutions with Chinese ones. Third, there is a basic lack of imagination about the great changes in state governance brought about by the technological revolution, and not much interest in focusing on the challenges of the great changes in state governance and the strategies necessary to deal with them. This is naturally detrimental to China's long-term development. In order to ensure the long-term, sustainable, and healthy development of the country, we need to focus on the modernization of the state governance system and governance capacity in the present and the future, and at the same time pay serious attention to the big question of how to deal with national governance at the critical moment of the advent of the technological revolution and humanity’s Second Axial Age.”
 
“The political form of the public-private divide needs to be revisited, the idea of political equilibrium needs to be rethought, the political participation of citizens needs to be expanded, and the relationship between politics and non-politics needs to be redefined. In general, ‘the political decision-making process can no longer be understood as consisting of a few wise men or leaders, whose rationality goes unquestioned, even if it is necessary to suppress the wishes and ‘irrational resistance’ of those affiliated institutions, interest groups, and citizen groups, which is the imposition or enforcement of some pre-determined model. The articulation of procedures and decision-making processes, and the implementation of these decisions, must be understood as a process of collective action, and this implies collective learning and collective creation even in the best of cases.
 
However, this means that the official decision-making authority of the political system will be necessarily decentralized. The political-administrative system can no longer be the sole and central site of political practice. With democratization, networks of agreement and participation, negotiation, reinterpretation, and possible resistance are formed across formal horizontal and vertical structures of authoritativeness and competence.’ This is an overview of the changing political dynamics in risk societies, where centralized models of governance need to give way to democratic models of governance…
 
For a decentralized body politic, the key to this adjustment is to further strengthen the governance objectives of respecting human values, protecting human freedom, defending human creativity, and enhancing human development. For a centralized body politic, the key is to shift from using technology as a means to control people to using technology for the benefit of the people and promoting human values. Therefore, the purely efficient orientation of national governance needs to be corrected; the mechanisms of freedom, democracy, rule of law, and justice in national governance must be established.”
 
Links to other texts on this site
 
For texts related to constitutional rule, click here.

For texts related to democracy, click here.

Translation
 
Since China established its goal of modernizing its national governance system and governance capacity, researchers in the humanities and social sciences have produced a mountain of literature on the subject. However, the themes addressed by this literature are basically limited to how to move from pre-modern or non-modern governance to modern governance. Scholars seem basically uninterested in the challenges to governance, the completely new changes, the possibilities and prospects of the deeper modernity that technological changes are bringing about.  The time has come to broaden our perspective and examine the issue of national governance in the context of the long process of technological evolution. This is a matter neither or prophecy nor precaution, but is instead a necessary emergency response when the tide of technological revolution is rapidly sweeping in and we seem to be totally unprepared. This is exactly what is meant by the term "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure 曲突徙薪:"  on the eve of technological breakthroughs, we need to foresee of the great benefits, risks, and dangers to the human condition, in order to anticipate the future, promote development, and prevent disasters before they occur.
 
Technology is Shaking Up Modernity
 
The rapidly unfolding technological revolution is not an outgrowth of the controllable technology that mankind has confidently mastered for more than 300 years, but instead a new technological great leap that may fundamentally change the human condition, existing organizations, modes of operation, and basic goals. We are on the eve of a technological revolution whose dimensions we cannot currently imagine. In the face of this revolution, humanity is in a state of passive distress. The reason for this is that our triumphant "modernity" has led us to have great confidence in our ability to respond to different environments and challenges. Humanity has become accustomed to the "modern," and takes it for granted. Judging from the current situation, "modernity" is indeed a huge system whose operation is both complex and familiar.  Its mutual support systems have been described from different perspectives. "The main difference between modern society and traditional society is that modern people have a stronger ability to control their natural environment and social environment. This control is based on the expansion of scientific and technological knowledge."

These features of modernity have been greatly developed, and in terms of scope have evolved to become global processes. Although what we call classic modernization theory has undergone major revisions, in that it no longer stresses the normativity of the West, it no longer overlooks or even completely ignores the contributions of non-Western countries to modernization, and no longer see unicity and unidimensionality as essential features of modernity, these remain minor changes in detail that do not affect our overall understanding of the advance of modern society. 

In sum, "modernity" is indeed a complex and delicate system beyond the imagination of premodern or non-modern societies.  Since "modern" evolved out of "tradition," it is seen as the result of inheriting and carrying forward the advantages of that tradition. It thus seems natural for people to sing the praises of modernity. In progressive and historicist thinking, "modern" is the natural benchmark for all of our thoughts and actions.
 
In fact, our “naturalization” of modernity has become problematic, and may indeed be the most important spiritual cause of the current "modern" dilemma. Once the historical origins of modernity are revealed, people will immediately understand that “modernity” is not an immutable or eternal system. Its arrival is a very recent phenomenon.  In chronological terms, it began in the 13th and 14th centuries, took shape in the 17th century, and matured in the 18th century. In the 19th century it began to spread around the world, and in the 20th century it became an unstoppable global torrent. In spatial terms, it started in backward Europe, and in the process of surpassing Asia, became a form of local knowledge, a regional system, and a demonstration effect, that gradually spread to Asia, Africa, and Latin America, becoming a process of spatial expansion in which Western knowledge evolved into a global wave. Understood in this way, "modern" may be nothing more than a moment, a link, in a longer historical evolution.
　　
In terms of its underlying intellectual structure, as I said above, modernity is a social mechanism based on science and technology. Although science and technology have advanced so rapidly in the course of the evolution of modernity itself that it is difficult to identify precisely which scientific and technological achievements established its foundations, it is nonetheless clear that modernity is a vast system based on classical physics or Newtonian mechanics. "Newton’s work gave classical science an independent existence, after which it began to fully influence human society."  This influence is manifested, first of all, in the fact that it contributed to the comprehensive transformation of traditional science into classical science. It not only allowed mankind to say goodbye to traditional science, but also shaped new principles in the basic philosophy of science. Gravity was no longer a mystery, but a fact established by experience. This became a classic principle of the mechanized picture of the modern world.
 
Second, it contributed to the formation of a worldview and an epistemology different from those of traditional societies. "Since physics began to bear the imprint of Newton's way of thinking, the concept most closely associated with the mechanistic view of nature has been long-distance acting forces that cause motion. For 18th and 19th century materialism, the fundamental categories that were considered to explain the inseparable linkage of things were no longer matter and motion, as in the 17th century, but matter and force." Research that Newton originally undertook to shore up belief in God in fact contributed to a new type of worldview and epistemology that was alienated from religious faith.

Again, this is demonstrated by the fact that it led to the creation of a mechanism for the understanding of human society as based on discernible causality. "The impact of Newton's ideas was huge; whether they were understood correctly or not, the entire program of the Enlightenment, especially in France, was consciously based on Newton's principles and methods, and at the same time it gained confidence from his amazing achievements and the far-reaching effects growing out of them. And this, quite rapidly, changed, or in fact largely led to the emergence of central concepts and orientations of the development of modern Western cultural, moral, political, technical, historical, and social life.  No field of thought or life was immune to the effects of this cultural change." 

In sum, the central characteristic of modernity in terms of its general identity is certainty. This certainty is a scientific certainty that is different from divine certainty. Uncertainty and divinity remain within its frame of reference, but scientific certainty itself constitutes the basic foundation for cognition and action in the face of the world we live in.
　　
But the mechanistic vision of the world, which was the achievement of classical science and technology, is being destroyed by modern science and technology. The development of science and technology has drawn two frighteningly different pictures of the world: beginning with Einstein's relativistic mechanics, people must adapt to a new vision of the world and arrive at cognitive and action plans that are significantly different from those that correspond to mechanistic mechanics. At the same time, the evolution of quantum mechanics from science to technology will create a far different picture of the world than that of relativistic mechanics, and lead to very different ways of perceiving and acting. In the former case, relativistic mechanics brings people a world different from the world of absolute time and space revealed by Newtonian mechanics, a world composed of relative time and relative space.

But Einstein himself did not fully realize the revolutionary significance of relativistic mechanics; he "considered relativity as a logical and evolutionary development of earlier physics."  However, it has greatly contributed to conditionality in thinking about physical phenomena, especially space-time, and thus to the variability of thinking in the process of social action and social/state governance. In the latter case, the revelations of the quantum world are even more revolutionary. "For non-scientists and scientists alike, relativity is a symbol of the revolution in science in our century. And for those in the know, quantum theory (especially in its improved form, quantum mechanics) may be an even greater revolution."  

Quantum theory has undergone three waves of theoretical development (pre-quantum theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum field theory) and has entered the field of technological applications, from which revolutionary technologies such as quantum computing, quantum communication, and quantum precision measurement, etc., have emerged, all linked to physical properties incomprehensible to the classical world, such as quantum wave-particle duality, quantum tunneling, and quantum entanglement. Some scientists have even surprisingly claimed that out-of-body experiences and the immortality of the human soul can be confirmed through the study of quantum mechanics. The advent of the interactive revolution of quantum technology with other branches of science and technology is setting off an unprecedented and mind-blowing global technological revolution.
 
The coming global technological revolution will completely reshape people's concepts, understanding, and actions in at least four ways. First, it will completely change the certainty with which we perceive physical phenomena and replace certainty with uncertainty.   Second, it will completely change the relationship between technology and people. For one thing, there may be historic breakthroughs concerning the boundaries between human life and death. This is a breakthrough led by genetic engineering, especially gene splicing. If organ transplants in clinical settings reach the human brain, this will be another kind of crossing of the life divide.

Various cognitive and behavioral rules established on the basis of existing intergenerational presumptions concerning life and death may need to be revisited. Third, the human-machine relationship will probably move from one of a clear boundary to something more like a human-machine unity. Whether AI whole-brain emulation can compete directly with the human brain is already a topic of sharp debate. The emergence of a human-machine entity and a human-machine subject will fundamentally change the definition of what it means to be human.

Fourth, on the eve of a breakthrough in interstellar exploration, how humans, who have long used Earth as a spatial sphere or dependent entity, are prepared to deal with aliens is no longer merely a topic for science fiction. According to reports pending corroboration, nearly 60 species of aliens are currently living on planet earth, so how a new social contract between earthlings and extraterrestrials will be established no longer seems to be a ridiculous question.

In addition, it will completely reshape the structure of human activities in terms of how we associate. Since the advent of modernity, the relationship between humans and their surroundings has increasingly become one in which man controls the use of resources. Although this anthropocentric concept had been severely criticized prior to the technological revolution, at the moment of the arrival of this revolution, the interdependence of human beings and their environment, and how to survive in the new environment resulting from the technological revolution, is a reality that drives people to face the problems anew.

The current connection of human beings to technological products as being strictly instrumental needs to be fundamentally adjusted. The idea of robots’ rights are a reflection of the changing relationship between humans and their environment. Finally, it will without a doubt fundamentally change the way humans govern their own affairs. This change is not only reflected in changes in the mode of social autonomy, but even more so in major changes in the mode of state governance.  Changes in society will first be guided by changes in criteria for membership in society, and second, by the fact that the social contract must be rewritten. Changes in state governance will be due first to the fact that the state is no longer able to base its mode of governance on certainty, but also to the fact that the long-term goals of stability and prosperity as defined by state governance will become complicated to the point that state governance will have to redefine its value objectives, institutional mechanisms, and practical initiatives in a holistic manner.
　　
State Governance:  From Certainty to Uncertainty
 
As mentioned above, the modern state and its mode of governance are based on the epistemological foundation of Newtonian mechanics or mechanical physics. This is, of course, a statement that addresses only the core knowledge on which the governance of the modern state rests. The composition of modern science and technology is very complex. In terms of basic scientific principles, physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, astronomy, geography, ecology, and agronomy all have different impacts on modern human cognition and action. In terms of technological development and application, the basic sciences have led to the creation of applied mathematics, physical engineering, chemical engineering, biological engineering, aerospace engineering, etc., all of which have played a major role in changing the shape of matter to suit human needs. The dehumanization and mechanization of science and technology (and, by extension, automation, artificial intelligence, etc.) coincide with the characteristics of the world guided by Newtonian mechanics.
 
Regardless of how people judge of the impact of science and technology on modern society, in terms of factual understanding, we have to admit that:  first, from the time of Newton down to the present, the development of science and technology, on the whole, has carried forward the conceptual framework and spirit of application of Newtonian mechanics, although it has made great leaps forward in depth, systematization, and refinement; and second, human beings have indeed planned the modern social action pattern on the basis of Newtonian mechanics, thus highlighting a behavior pattern characterized by standardization, validity, and finality.
 
If we say that Newtonian mechanics established the position of classical science, and Einstein's relativistic mechanics has yet to be fully applied in the field of technology, then the rise of quantum mechanics will bring mankind to an unprecedentedly new situation. The corresponding impact on human management of social affairs and national governance processes can be imagined as a strong evolutionary process: classical mechanics is still the most powerful form of science affecting human self-cognition, self-management, and self-control; the impact of relativistic mechanics has yet to be fully felt; and the universal application of quantum mechanics will bring about a sea change in human cognition and action patterns.

If we look at both ends of the spectrum, we need to focus first on the modern model of state governance based on classical mechanics in order to highlight its basic features. Second, we will focus on the challenges to the state governance model in the context of the contemporary technological revolution and the major changes that may be required in state governance to address such challenges.
 
The classical model of natural science and modern technology have joined hands to shape the philosophy and action plan of national governance. This can be understood from two perspectives: social cognition and social control. If we say that human self-knowledge in traditional societies has been based on humanistic concepts, historical experiences, and the lived environment, human self-knowledge in modern societies is mainly based on science and technology. The rise of social science proves this point, because if we say that traditional social operation and state control relied mainly on divine guidance and the leaders' will, modern social operation and state governance rely mainly on scientific understanding and technological design. The rise of social management, state governance, and public administration confirms this.
 
Modern social science is to some extent an imitation of modern science. "Social science takes the ideal of science very seriously, and it retains a certain normative force even when that ideal fails to materialize as hoped. For example, the 'scientific method' for example was particularly valued by social scientists who sought the control and certainty of 'real' science."  Social science is the fundamental mode of modern human self-knowledge, and in imitation of natural science's objective, accurate, and refined understanding of natural phenomena, and social scientists do their utmost to attempt to understand society and the state in the same way, and to design and manage them well.
 
Historically, the 17th century was a period when classical science rose and flourished, while at the same time people began to observe political life in a scientific way, especially Hobbes in England, who created modern political science, and William Deeds, who explored economic issues under the name of "political arithmetic." This new tradition of observing and understanding socio-political phenomena continued until the 19th century, when it eventually evolved into a vast social science encompassing different disciplines. Moreover, social science research explicitly departed from the old traditions of humanism and history, accepted and internalized the research methods of the natural sciences, thus creating its own research paradigm.

"At the beginning of the 19th century, with the specialization of scholars and disciplines, the different branches of social science, with the exception of economics, tended to abandon the ideas of the 18th century pioneers and to rebuild their science yet again. Modern psychology, for example, was reinvented along the lines pioneered by Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), based on experimental physiological techniques. Modern anthropology, whose roots might be traced to 18th-century philosophical history, became anthropometry [the systematic measurement of the physical features of the human body] and the study of race.

Even sociology, guided by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and his followers, ceased to focus on historical developments, and by the late 19th century, evolutionary thinkers reconstructed sociology through a focus on contemporary developments."  This shows the importance of the influence of the natural sciences on the social sciences. The social sciences' focus on objectivity, causality, the study of behavioral follow-up, the importance of rationality, and the reduction of complex phenomena all demonstrate its efforts to use the natural sciences as a guide in order to rigorously construct knowledge about society.
 
Social and state governance, or public management, is precisely behavioral pattern planning based on the understanding of social science. State governance belongs to the sphere of public management. Public management is the management of public affairs guided by public goals.   Public affairs are governed by the particular rules of politics, while management is guided by the classical sciences. In terms of its direct origins, public management is undergirded by the natural or behavioral sciences of management science and engineering and business administration.

In terms of its evolution over time, from the foundational scientific model of management, to the relatively independent administrative model, to the more recent public management model, public management has consistently been characterized by scientific enthusiasm and technological impulses. With this mindset, even public management thinking about state governance has tended to diminish, ignore, and even disregard its public dimension. As Phillip K. Tompkins (b. 1933) points out, "Scientific management theory emerged in the early 20th century when engineers like Frederick Taylor sought to place every aspect of work performance and industrial production on a rational and efficient basis, a theory that organizational performance could be enhanced by systematic work procedures, standardized tasks, and by providing economic incentives to produce good performance. Efficiency and productivity are the dominant values."

When state governance entered the stage of administration, management expectations and management goals changed in specificity, but not in terms of fundamental structural characteristics."  Administrative management theory was the result of the efforts of a number of theorists in the United States and elsewhere in the 1920s and 1930s who sought to distinguish basic, perhaps even universal, principles to be followed in structuring and managing complex organizations. This theory argues that organizational performance can be enhanced by constructing an administrative organization that is characterized by a clear path of authority from top to bottom, a clear division of labor among departments, and the assignment of rights and powers to administrative managers that correspond to their responsibilities. Structural and administrative rationality are the main values."  

The object of scientific and administrative management is not only the state, but extends as well to industrial and commercial organizations.  Still , their science-based management principles based on science have exactly the same characteristics: the object is certain, the subject is clearly defined, and the boundary between them is clear, the organization is rational, and the goal is results. These are all management behaviors based on certainty.
 
Public management also seeks such scientific rationality. The organizational structure of public management includes not only public organizations (e.g., the state) but also private organizations (e.g., business and industry), but the former are the primary objects of public management. The goal of public management was meant to be two-fold:  justice and efficiency. However, we must admit that an empirically-driven efficiency has become the basic focus of public management.

On the one hand, efficiency-oriented scholars of management openly ridicule scholars who emphasize political attributes such as democracy in administration as merely adopting a "diffuse, literary, metaphorical approach to thinking and writing," an effort that promotes nothing but their "deepest values and preconceptions," "uncritical criteria" that would not "earn more than a passing grade" in a basic course in logic. On the other hand, they emphasize the need for administrative actions to be firmly oriented towards efficiency, which clearly tilts the scales of justice and efficiency in the favor of the latter. This principle of efficiency was transferred from business and industry to public entities. "The principle of efficiency can best be understood in terms of its application to business organizations.

This application is guided primarily by the goal of making a profit. In business organizations, the efficiency criterion indicates the selection of the alternative that will result in the greatest net benefit (material gain) to the organization from among all the alternatives available to the individual. This 'financial balance sheet' type of efficiency includes two situations: seeking maximum revenue when costs (expenses) are seen as fixed, or seeking minimum cost when revenue is seen as fixed. In practice, of course, the search for maximum revenue and minimum cost occur at the same time, and what we really seek to maximize is the difference between the two (revenue and costs)."  

By transferring such efficiency controls to the public domain, one can derive management principles that reduce administrative costs and improve administrative performance. This is precisely the principle of transformation followed by what is called the entrepreneurial reform of the public sector, which aims to create an "entrepreneurial government."  In this concept, justice, if not forgotten, is at best a secondary priority, and efficiency comes first. This is a sign of a modern breakthrough in human management: prior to the age of technology, human beings could not effectively guarantee the performance of management activities; in the age of technology, the efficiency of human activity is increasingly guaranteed, serving the purpose of permitting humanity to achieve great emancipatory achievements. One wonders, however, if this has been something of an overcorrection.
 
The greatest spiritual motivation behind business and public management’s search to reduce costs and increase efficiency comes precisely from the rationality promoted by classical science.
 
In management, “rationality is about choosing a satisfactory alternative course of action using a value system that evaluates the consequences of these actions." Here, the emphasis on consequences, the choice of alternative courses of action, and the pursuit of satisfactory outcomes all reflect the classical scientific notion of the deterministic construction of causality. Hence, a more complex understanding of what constitutes rationality becomes necessary in the face of the differences in intentions and goals between individuals in an organization and the organization itself.

"A decision can be called 'objectively' rational if it really maximizes a certain value in a given situation. A decision is 'subjectively' rational if it maximizes value relative to the subjective knowledge of the decision maker. The adaptation of means to ends is called 'consciously' rational if it is a conscious process. The process is called 'intentionally' rational if it is carried out intentionally (by a person or organization). If a decision is directed toward organizational goals, we say it is 'organizationally' rational; if it focuses on individual goals, we say it is 'personally' rational."  Although contexts vary, the "rationality" of classical science, which defines its object in clear terms, makes the final decision. We might say that this is the most striking quality of management activity since the age of classical science and technology.
 
But with the advent of the great technological changes of our time, we can already anticipate that the rational management activities based on certainty of the past will be unsustainable. As quantum mechanics transforms technology, it may completely overturn the certainty that classical technology has lent to management in general. As mentioned above, the full range of uncertainty that is rapidly being generated is reflected in management activities, and projected onto its component parts, processes, and expectations, culminating in a situation that is naturally bridged by a series of mediating scientific concepts and management ideas. 

In science, the inaccuracy principle revealed by quantum mechanics already provides insight into understanding the material world under uncertainty; the precise determination of the position and momentum of an electron within an atom is impacted  by the interference of the measurer on what is being measured.  In addition, the quantum world is not concrete, and precise determination based on probabilities is subject to even more fundamental limitations. This leaves the notion of classical mechanics open to great challenge, producing a thorough shock to the ideas on which classical physics is built.

"Modern physics accomplished two conceptual changes: relativity criticized absolute time and Euclidean space, and quantum theory criticized the classical law of cause and effect." This principle does not lead to agnosticism, but it does bring to light the fact that there are limits to the degree of empirical objectification possible in science. Today the technological applications of quantum mechanics are developing rapidly, and together with various other breakthrough technological advances, our modern ideas that are broadly based on certainty will be greatly affected.

At the same time, uncertainty has become more consciously and widely accepted and is expected to become a fundamental concept in the development of certain management activities in socio-political affairs. This shift has been mentioned in the four major changes referred to above. What is at stake in the concept of uncertainty in state governance is that this model of governance can no longer follow simple classical mechanics and its concept of certainty, and the model of management/governance of people, society, and the state based on classical science, with its emphasis on standardization, efficiency, and outcomes, must undergo structural changes.
 
The shift from certainty to uncertainty in state governance is an extremely serious challenge. This severity is manifested in several ways. First,  while the status quo can still be maintained, the linear mindset of state governance that connects motivation to outcome must be change, and the cost-benefit expectations of state governance initiatives must become more refined and complex.

Second, the object of state governance can no longer be the outcome of the interaction between people, things, environment, and governance, all defined as if they possessed certainty. In addition to the dynamic and unmeasured nature of these elements, new forms of matter and correlations must be considered, in addition to new thinking about the nature of subjectivity in the governance of social and political affairs. In terms of state governance, whether state subjectivity can maintain its absolute authority is also a question that requires careful consideration.

Third, even if the state body can maintain its structure and functions, the ways, means, initiatives, and purposes of state governance may need to be completely refigured. This reconfiguration will occur not at the interface of the national and the supranational, but instead at the interface of the national and the post-national. In addition, even if state governance continues, the traditional choice between the state’s taking action or leaving it to the autonomy of the people may no longer be a simple either/or decision.

Fourth, state governance must consider how previously unconsidered objects and matters of governance are to be included within the scope of governance. Examples might include: the immortal who breaks through the boundary between life and death and the constraint of generations; the new composite body that breaks the boundary between human and machine; how to regulate an artificial intelligence that has developed to the point of controlling man himself…In short, the foundation of certainty on which state governance has been based for a long time is being fundamentally changed, and uncertainty is rapidly becoming an issue to which state governance has to accord priority.
 
The Path toward Good State Governance
 
On the eve of the structural breakthroughs of the contemporary technological revolution, state governance in general continues to adopt the established strategy of slavishly following precedent 萧规曹随. This is a tendency decided by the stubborn pursuit of efficiency as the key to good governance, based on the certainty principles of classical science.  Think about it:  how can structural reforms be envisioned and actions undertaken by a model of state governance in which the components of state governance are clearly defined and all of their possible permutations clearly understood through the aid of the tools of science, on the basis of which measures are taken with sufficient confidence that satisfactory governance performance will be achieved?
 
Generally speaking, the basic goal of modern state governance is good governance 善政良治. This goal, based on the integration of traditional politics and modern management, is reflected in a combination of good government and good governance. To be more precise, in the case of Western countries, although forms of government differ, modern good government should be democratic government. The reason why democracy has become good government is first that it has solved the problem of national sovereignty in an appropriate manner; popular sovereignty and popular consent, which are inherent in popular sovereignty, have put an end to the monarchy of ancient societies, where the will of the body politic was controlled by a sometimes arbitrary individual and the affairs of the state were handled at will in dictatorial style.

Secondly, democracy solved the problem of the use of state power in a fairly reliable way, establishing mechanisms to eliminate the abuse of power, and ensuring that the rights of the people not be violated. On this basis, the democratic principle of "majority rule" ensured that the phenomenon of deliberation without decision rarely occurs; at the same time, the problem of tyranny of the majority has been resolved by protecting the rights of the minority.

Third, it solves the problem of the coordination of decision-making and implementation mechanisms in a fairly reasonable way. This is a problem of the administrative execution of political power. Due to clear regulations concerning the responsibilities of power, the system achieves the outcomes of legislative justice, administrative performance, and judicial fairness. As a result, the efficiency and effectiveness of state governance are guaranteed, so that power cannot arrogate to the beneficiaries of state power. Although democracy possesses certain ambiguities, and defects large and small, it is nonetheless widely recognized in the contemporary world as a goal of good governance.
 
Good governance is a goal that is more likely to gain acceptance than good government. This is because it is guided more by technical considerations, can better meet the expectations of managers to improve performance in different countries, different political systems, and different governance models, and is more likely to make people forget the value differences, political divisions, policy disagreements, identity polarization, and wins and losses that are part of the political process. Thus, whether governance is good or bad is something that can be measured by a defined system of indicators outside of political considerations.

Logically, good governance is a political prerequisite for good government, and good governance is the inevitable result of good government combined with the proper use of management techniques. However, the actual evaluation of good governance is often divorced from the conditions of good government, becoming a system of management evaluation that can be internationalized. This is one way to "scientifically" evaluate good governance.

If we compare the United National Development Program governance indicators, the World Bank's World Governance Indicators, and the World Economic Forum's Global Governance Initiative, we find that, with the exception of some systems that focus on democratic governance, most systems have similar indicators regardless of the particular form of the political system. These governance indicator systems, even if political factors are involved, are limited to political participation that can be presented and evaluated by available data, especially the differences in participation caused by gender and rich and poor, representation and identification, actual implementation of responsibilities, timely and effective policy responses, etc.
 
The indicators of economic governance are taken very seriously and have become one of the most important indicators of governance performance. According to the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama (b. 1952), there are serious problems in governance in the United States today:  the patronage system 庇护制 [this usually means the asylum system, which makes no sense in this context] slows down decision-making, and also hinders the timely, effective, fair, and just government decision-making. By contrast, China's centralized system of power deserves more attention in terms of the timeliness of decision-making, the efficiency of development, and the protection of national interests.
 
The global gross domestic product (GDP) measurement index evaluation provides a richer view of national governance performance measured by economic development. Good governance seems to be, above all, a governance situation that can be reflected in the continuous growth of the economy. "Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the most powerful number in human history. No statistic has ever delivered a punch like GDP. On the surface, GDP only measures the production of a national economy during a certain period of time, the total value of its products and services. But if the growth rate of GDP changes is graphed over time, the meaning revealed goes far beyond the scope of statistics, becoming a core indicator reflecting economic development and progress.
 
Positive GDP growth is not only a goal openly pursued by every government, but is also the only way out of an economic crisis. The world’s economy and politics are hugely affected by GDP."  How did GDP data come to play such a heavy role in the evaluation of a country’s economic and social development? The short answer is because GDP is hard data, an indicator showing the certain state of the current economic situation, allowing people to grasp the state of economic growth with confidence.
 
There are many arguments about what kind of state governance can be called good governance. These disputes themselves have clearly shaken people's simple faith in good governance. These disputes first revolve around the standards of good government. People suspect that the Western version of constitutional democracy surely cannot be the only political arrangement the produces good governance. Surely a system of checks and balances and division of power is not the only way to fight corruption and ensure that public power serve public interests? Surely separation of the state and society is not the only way to ensure that power be limited and rights guaranteed?
 
Such disputes are endless, and I am afraid that a global consensus will remain out of reach. But these controversies seem to diminish in the face of conclusive GDP indicators, because GDP growth, especially sustained growth, seems to present a result that does not conform to what we imagine the norms of good government to be, but which achieves good governance. This result is enough to overturn people's originally firm beliefs in good government. Science, after all, is persuasive in its conclusiveness. As a result, when people deal with issues of good government and its evaluation, which is in a secondary position relative to good governance, sure data become the hardest of indicators. This is one measure of the profound influence of classical science on national governance and its evaluation.
 
Whether good governance can be separated from good government has become an urgent, practical question that needs to be answered. The answer is clearly no, such separation is not possible. But this “no” is not something that can be determined once and for all based on existing models of good government. Because both good governance and good government are even now on the verge of major restructuring, whether to respond to these questions or instead reject the debates, or how to effectively respond…all of these remain hotly debated issues. But responding to the challenges of national governance caused by technological change may have become as important as the issues discussed above.
 
On the eve of great technological changes, the economic and social developments brought about by technology, and especially methods of economic development and social control, have significantly changed the economic and social concepts and modes of action as we once understood them. For the public at large, this change may be a change in their experience of daily life, in the sense that technology brings people novel experiences, convenience, and more desires, as well as the means to satisfy those desires. Even if we do not notice it, technology exerts a tremendous power on people's daily lives. These daily lives are made up of individual experiences and group encounters, and technological changes might reduce profits or naturally reduce risks.
 
But in terms of national governance, opportunities and risks appear at the same time. On the one hand, regardless of regime form, all countries are aware of the great significance of technological changes and the technological revolution for the country’s prosperity; at the same time, when a country adopts new technologies, it must truly practice prevention and avoid risks, because while achieving good governance is a worthy goal, it is also important to avoid dependence on or worship of technology.  Most countries find that adopting the technologies is easy, while remaining cautious is difficult.
 
The reason for this is that the great benefits highlighted by and hidden in the technological revolution are likely to bring about two tendencies in national governance.  One is to not abandon the national governance model shaped by classical science. Some countries worry about regime form and some countries do not. But almost all countries worry about and pursue the goal of good governance as expressed in GDP. Once such pursuits are seamlessly integrated with various new technologies, it can be expected that as long as these technologies increase GDP and promote economic and social development, states will strive to be the first to actively employ them in national governance.
 
A second tendency will be to use the new technology only for the purpose of improving their own governance outcomes and performance. For this reason, they will refuse (or avoid) an examination of the legitimacy and legality of the introduction of these technical methods into processes of socio-economic development and state control. This will not only encourage the reckless behavior of science and technology extremists, but also inspire people at different bureaucratic levels to brazenly use new technologies to seek capital for their personal advancement.
 
This undoubtedly locks in place the structural mechanism of modern society as a risk society. Classical science and technology already created a risk society mechanism that allowed industrial society to develop on the platform of a risk society:  risk society collapses the risk calculus constructed by law and science, as "unknown and unpredictable outcomes become the dominant force of history and society."  Mankind’s ability to control science and technology is actually very limited, constrained by factors such as the social environment, the political system, administrative mechanisms, social expectations, cultural traditions, technological level, etc., and the social amplification of risks has always been an acute risk management problem.

For this reason, risk society makes people fearful of sudden surprises beyond natural and health issues:  "Market collapse, the devaluation of capital, bureaucratic scrutiny of industrial decisions, the opening of new markets, massive waste, loss of the prestige of legal processes. With smoke alarms, toxic leaks, etc. more or less constantly on the rise, what emerges in a risk society is the political possibility of disaster. Avoiding and managing these risks may include a reconceptualization of power and authority. Risk society is a disaster society in which abnormal situations are in danger of becoming common occurrences."  
 
If this is describing the risk situation of the classical science and technology era and its later development, then the various new technologies with which we are still coming to terms will only raise the risk level, so that the situation becomes more difficult to control and hence more dangerous. Because a seemingly brand-new technological era is approaching, whose overall risk profile is only just emerging, and which we are only beginning to control. People are already anxious and suspicious. If these risks are downplayed by those who run nation-states, and the relevant technologies are put into full use, it is to be expected that the structural risk of risk society will intensify and the danger of risks occurring will greatly increase. 
 
On the eve of the technological revolution, emerging technologies have already been hurriedly introduced into the field of national governance: artificial intelligence monitoring systems are widely used by states, especially face recognition, which has been widely installed in public places. Big data has also become an important means employed by states interested in tight control. However, the accuracy of face recognition has technical risks, and there are obvious misunderstandings and mistakes; big data enables those collecting the data to understand all aspects of society, but there is are great risks in terms of data security, and almost no guarantees of citizens' privacy rights. 
 
Although these risks remain in the realm of what is still technically controllable and foreseeable, the next wave of technologies may expose national governance to huge, unpredictable major risks. One reason for this is that the countries may be too enthusiastic about the economic benefits of new technologies, and another is that the country may have high expectations for the social and political control new technologies will make possible.  Moreover, the public at large appreciates that their desires be satisfied and order upheld.
 
Just imagine the fundamental challenge to national governance and social control, still based on principles of certainty, if quantum mechanics truly reveals a new world where there is no boundary between life and death for human beings, or finds a new way to acquire and apply high-level energy in the material world.  Once the people who hold power in state governance lack prudence, face few institutional restrictions, are too bold in their decisions, or lack guarantees, state governance will not only find it difficult to achieve the goal of good governance, but may also encounter unprecedented chaos and fall into a very precarious situation.
 
The technological revolution provides new methods, new expectations, new visions, and new possibilities for national governance. However, the technological revolution will also pose severe challenges, subversive questions, thorny agendas, and awkward predicaments for national governance. In short, technology can help people, and also destroy people; technology can help government to please the people, just as it can have tragic consequences; technology can help people obtain what they are yearning for, yet can also destroy what people cherish; technology can be used to maintain the order that state is determined to impose, yet it can also fall into a state of over-control and bring society into a state of dead silence.
 
Technology is thus a double-edged sword. Even in spatial and temporal situations when technology was under control, random losses of control led to chaos in national governance and triggered two world wars.  If the current technological revolution leads human society into a state of constant change for which is unprepared, then state governance—providing that the state still has reason to exist and remains the strongest agent of governance—must respond urgently, both to avoid giving into the temptation of the benefits of new technologies and their reckless promotion, and to avoid losing national development opportunities and competitive advantages among countries due to strong control of the technology itself in process of governance.
 
Since the global breakthrough of technology is still in its embryonic stage, the state of national governance after the technological revolution is fully realized is a state that cannot yet be portrayed comprehensively, but can only be imagined. For this reason, it is urgent to summarize the basic tenets of good governance before the emergence of modern technology and in the midst of the contemporary technological revolution, and to highlight what good governance should look like.
 
In his thoughts about the risk society, Ulrich Beck proposes a solution to the dilemma, one that is instructive for planning the new situation of state governance on the eve of the technological revolution. The solution to the dilemma of the risk society and the inspiration arising out of technological change are issues that need to be discussed separately. As far as the governance of risk society is concerned, two important causes of risk first need to be analyzed. From the perspective of science, we should be guided by the concept of reflexive modernization and understand the insecurity of science (technology) itself, and thus in a sense focus scientific skepticism on science itself. This might be seen as allowing base-level scientization 科学化, which anxiously seeks the validity of science, to develop into the reflexive scientization of a more thoughtful science.
 
Next we must allow scientific knowledge to become a non-monopolistic knowledge. "The program of modernity, or enlightenment, is not yet complete. The problem of the virtual rigidity of its industrial understanding of science and technology can be revised and transformed into a dynamic theory of scientific rationality that incorporates historical experience, and in this way further develops itself in a way that can be learned." This is the narrow pathway proposed to enable the normative development of science itself.
 
From the socio-political perspective, "risks depend on decisions. Industries produce risks, and in this sense they are politically reflexive." This means that the political form of the public-private divide needs to be revisited, the idea of political equilibrium needs to be rethought, the political participation of citizens needs to be expanded, and the relationship between politics and non-politics needs to be redefined. In general, "the political decision-making process can no longer be understood as consisting of a few wise men or leaders, whose rationality is not questioned, even if it is necessary to suppress the wishes and ‘irrational resistance’ of those affiliated institutions, interest groups, and citizen groups, which is the imposition or enforcement of some pre-determined model. The articulation of procedures and decision-making processes, and the implementation of these decisions, must be understood as a process of collective action, and this implies collective learning and collective creation even in the best of cases.
 
However, this means that the official decision-making authority of the political system will be necessarily decentralized. The political-administrative system can no longer be the sole and central site of political practice. With democratization, networks of agreement and participation, negotiation, reinterpretation, and possible resistance are formed across formal horizontal and vertical structures of authoritativeness and competence." This is an overview of the changing political dynamics in risk societies, where centralized models of governance need to give way to democratic models of governance.
 
Beck's two ideas on the governance of risk society are enlightening for state governance planning at the advent of the technological revolution: in the face of global breakthroughs in science and technology, it is important to fully realize the importance of reflecting on science and technology itself and to promote a strict regulation of state governance use of science and technology as a means of human development; at the same time, it is necessary to solve the governance challenges brought about by the technological revolution through democratic governance in which each person assumes his or her own responsibility.

On the eve of the technological revolution, the state must be more attentive to and fully respect the people in order to deal with the critical situation of national governance, and absolutely cannot take the opposite path. In response to overall high risk, on the eve of the technological revolution, it is necessary to anticipate [literally, “pre-stress” 预应力] the structural changes in socio-politics, so as to effectively respond with three rapid expansions.
 
The first is the rapid expansion of rights. The rights of machines, the rights of human-machine hybrids, the rights of organ transplants, other new rights of human beings, the rights of the immortals that break the boundary between life and death, and the rights of things that break the certainty of classical science, all require careful consideration and clarification from the perspective of the philosophy of rights. Second, the rapid expansion of democracy. Democratic governance means constitutional governance, pluralistic governance, procedural governance, and shared governance. Therefore, it requires not only the rapid expansion of the team of governance subjects, but also the efficient collaboration among them; furthermore, it requires that the governance agenda, the gathering of resources, the governance process, and the governance results be agreed on by the subjects participating in governance.
 
The third is the rapid expansion of ways to constrain power. The purpose of limiting power is not to render power powerless, but to make power act in a regulated manner. The regulation of power not only means that power must be used for public welfare, public purposes, that power serve the interest of the public; power’s eagerness for quick success and instant benefit must also be restrained, so as to avoid society’s impetuous search for profit, so as to allow society to seek a peaceful and orderly development approach. In this way, the technological revolution can be prevented from bringing about governance disorder, and the technological great leap forward can be put on a benign governance track.
　　
Entering the Second Axial Age
 
As already noted, the marriage of science and technology has produced a very rich and highly developed human society. Classical science has made it possible for “people,” as classically understood, to make full use of existing material things, to discover the basic conditions of the functioning of the material world through scientific research, and to alter the form of material existence to suit human needs through technology. Modern science is breaking through the definition of "man" as established in the Age of Enlightenment, and is also breaking through the established concept of material things. Thus, science and technology will offer mankind two completely different experiences and ways of life.
 
Today’s basic humanistic values can be traced back to the period from 800 to 200 B.C. This period is called the Axial Age by Karl Jaspers (1883-1969). To be precise, it should be called the First Axial Age. The Axial Age was a civilizational breakthrough in human development. This breakthrough was highlighted by the simultaneous discovery of the hidden secrets of human life in China, India and the West. "The new feature of this era was that human beings in all three regions of the world became aware of the existence of the larger whole, of themselves and of their limitations. Humanity experienced the horror of the world and their own weakness. He explored fundamental questions. Faced with emptiness, they sought liberation and salvation. By recognizing their own limits in consciousness, they fixed the highest goal for themselves. In the light of the profundity of the self and of transcendent existence, they came to feel the power of the absolute. All of this was the product of reflection. Consciousness became conscious of itself, and thought became its own object. People sought to convince others through the exchange of ideas, reason, and feelings, which at the same time produced spiritual conflicts. The most contradictory possibilities were tested. Discussions, the formation of factions, and the division of the spiritual kingdom into opposing sides, created a restlessness and movement on the verge of spiritual chaos. This era produced the basic categories that still define the scope of our thinking today, and created the source of the world religions on which mankind still depends. In every sense of the word, humanity has taken steps toward universality. As a result of this process, previously unconsciously accepted ideas, habits and circumstances have been examined, probed, and purged. Everything is caught up in the vortex.  As for the traditional entities that were still alive and real, their expressions were clarified and therefore qualitatively changed."
 
Jaspers' account of the fundamental features of the First Axial Age gives an idea of the far-reaching effects of the civilizational breakthroughs of this era. The core value of the First Axial Age, the fundamental value that dominates the human spiritual world up to today, is the value of "humanity in all its glory 大写的人". In the ancient scientific world, the antagonism between science and humanities resulted in the absolute dominance of humanities over the spiritual life of human beings. Science became, in a sense, a projection of humanistic ideas. This is what Newton referred to when he identified the difference between his scientific method and the ancient scientific (Aristotelian) method at the time of the rise of classical science.
 
However, the rise of classical science did not subvert the fundamental beliefs established in the Axial Age in terms of values. On the contrary, it allowed the ancient humanistic concepts (as well as medieval values) to provide strong support for modern society and the rise of classical science through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this sense, it is true, as Jaspers says, that the spiritual legacy of the Axial Age is still cherished by mankind to this day: the profound values and beliefs of religion, the holistic concepts of philosophy, the reflective qualities of culture, spiritual consciousness, the universal pursuit of value construction, the impulse to explore known and unknown things, the mutual debates concerning different opinions, all of this has always been a profound conceptual and behavioral driving force behind "modern" development. 
 
However, those who cite Jaspers often quote his insights on the First Axial Age without giving due attention to his views on the Second Axial Age that he also discussed, and most of them even fail to mention this Second Axial Age that is currently being created by the rapid development of science and technology. At a time when the technological revolution is unleashing great changes, it is necessary and important to review this discussion.
 
Jaspers clearly pointed out that "the new and completely different factor of our era is the development of science and technology in modern Europe, which is not only very different from what Asia has produced, but also quite different from the Greek heritage. Looking back, the overall picture of history to date demonstrates a continuity, a real unity. Its last glorious description can be found in Hegel's view of history. The advent of modern technology has changed this situation."  It is important to note that Jaspers’ judgment here of the entirely new world being created by modern society is still largely dependent on classical science and the technological energy it expresses, and is also roughly limited to the historical record of the great successes of classical science and technology.

The pursuit of conclusive and testable universality, the acceptance of imperfection, the fascination with microscopic phenomena, the carving out of a scientific universe, and the search for the thoroughness of concrete understanding are all new features of classical science that differ from previous human perceptions. Modern science has indeed engaged in aberrations, but its quest for truth can defend science and deepen it.
 
In terms of modern technology, Jaspers points out that the technological revolution since the 18th century has been an existential revolution of the whole of humanity. However, after technology pushed mankind onto the path of mass production, the deterioration of technology required human control. Technology has reduced manual labor but increased labor itself; technology and the use of machines have transformed labor; technology has driven large-scale organizational operations; technology has triggered the growth of bureaucracy.
 
However, technology is a means and requires guidance; technology is limited to what is inanimate and universal; technology is a constraint on the finite matter and power of a given moment; technology must be subject to human constraints; and technology is predetermined by its end. In short, technology cannot transcend human values and still continue to progress and function. Humankind can no longer escape from the great influence of technology and return to its original state of birth. Therefore, mankind must understand one thing: "Technology is only a means; it is not good or evil in itself. Everything depends on what man makes from it, for what purpose it serves man, and under what conditions man places it."    Once technology breaks free from man it becomes a raging monster, and the mastery of technology depends on man's comprehensive ability to master it.
 
Based on his evaluation of modern science and technology, Jaspers hesitates before offering his opinion about the entry of mankind into a new axial period. "If a new axial period can emerge, it must be in the future, just as the First Axial Age followed a long interregnum, the Promethean era, which laid the foundations for the discoveries that eventually led to the separation of human life from the animal kingdom. We may already be facing a new axial age that will surely establish a unified world-wide entity that will be beyond our imagination. To imagine it also means to create it. No one knows what it will bring."  The new axial age, as opposed to the First Axial Age, can therefore certainly be called the Second Axial Age.
 
The Second Axial Age, because it was brought about by the scientific and technological revolution, will be characterized by technological dominance compared to the humanistic awakening of the first axial period; the predictable face of the second axial period is that of a unified world entity, and in fact we can already see the contours of such an entity, in terms of scientific and technological cooperation, market expansion, transnational establishments, global organizations, etc.  Compared to the full reign of the First Axial Age, which lasted for more than two thousand years, the uncharted character of the Second Axial Age is still very prominent. Although Jaspers was cautious in announcing the arrival of the Second Axial Age, the rapid progress of science and technology has given strong support to the assertion that humanity has already entered it.
 
The characteristics of the Second Axial Age are not yet sufficiently clear to permit a complete portrayal or in-depth description. However, the prominence of some key features already affords us a rough understanding of its constitutive characteristics: with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, bioengineering, big data, aerospace engineering, quantum technology and so on, the Second Axial Age has highlighted the transformation from the co-existence of human and animal in the pre-axial period to human domination over animals in the first axial period, and then finally to the tipping point where the natural limits of human life give way to longevity and immortality.

In the Second Axial Age, humans will no longer be biologically and socially limited beings, but may become complex beings the mix the biological and the social in ways that transcend current boundaries. Human beings in the Second Axial Age must have both national and supranational visions in the construction of political society in order to prepare the psychological and material conditions for supranational or even global governance.
 
Although the unknowns of the Second Axial Age are not as clear, as Jaspers asserted, some of the knowns are clearly demonstrated, and the high risk of technology, especially the risk of certain technologies that could destroy humanity, has prompted a cautious and even suspicious attitude toward the second axial age. In this regard, the use of all available means to control technological risks and to ensure that new technologies benefit humanity has become a priority for humanity, so to guide the healthy development of the Second Axial Age as its contours become more clearly visible. The first of these mobilizable means of controlling technology is undoubtedly state governance.
 
What makes state governance the most powerful instrument to guide the development of the Second Axial Age? As things stand, the state remains the most developed, best organized, most functional, and most satisfying entity for controlling society compared to all other socio-political organizations. Individual spiritual self-consciousness and commitment to action are naturally the direct motivation for guiding science and technology to develop in a healthy manner. It is of great value to strengthen the sense of responsibility of individuals, especially scientists and technologists, when scientific madmen and technological geniuses may at any time break free of political, legal, and ethical norms and venture into certain technically forbidden areas that are beyond human control.
 
The power of individuals to aggregate is amazing, but completely dispersed power is very weak. Various social organizations, such as scientific research organizations, technological innovation organizations, industrial and commercial organizations, social interest organizations, public welfare organizations, etc., remain limited in their scope of action and effectiveness by the division of interests and the form of aggregation of these organizations, even if they have gathered a great deal of material and spiritual resources. 
 
On the eve of the technological revolution, the state remains the political entity with the most tightly organized form, maintaining the most powerful resource mobilization capacity and the most impressive institutional effectiveness. In the face of the technological revolution, which is still little understood, the only force that can counteract its powerful dynamics is the power of the state. Moreover, following a wave of globalization, today’s state has entered a phase of renaissance, which can respond appropriately to the need for control of the technological revolution.
 
The technological revolution and state governance are thus in a concomitant relationship. This is not to say that state governance can thus effortlessly respond to the technological revolution. Looking at both ends of the spectrum with the central purpose of guiding technological development in a healthy direction, state governance must make structural adjustments in the face of the technological revolution, while neither suppressing nor overusing technology itself. A little analysis shows that, in terms of their respective dynamics in advancing human development, state governance must make global adjustments to itself in response to the long-term development or global renewal of technology.
 
For a decentralized body politic, the key to this adjustment is to further strengthen the governance objectives of respecting human values, protecting human freedom, defending human creativity, and enhancing human development. For a centralized body politic, the key is to shift from using technology as a means to control people to using technology for the benefit of the people and promoting human values. Therefore, the purely efficient orientation of national governance needs to be corrected; the mechanisms of freedom, democracy, rule of law, and justice in national governance must be established.
 
In the concrete implementation of the governance of the technological revolution, the adaptation of state governance, especially the governance of state power itself, is of the utmost importance. This implies a major change in the status quo of state governance: while it is important for the creators of technology, companies, social organizations, and the public to adapt to the dizzying advances in technology, it is even more important for state power, especially governmental organizations, to keep up with the pace of change and play a role in a timely manner. In the face of the accelerated arrival of the Second Axial Age, the core governance requirements are to strengthen the government's self-confidence and enthusiasm.
 
"First, the government must innovate in the field of regulation, just as technology companies are constantly innovating. Rather than waiting for every problem to be fully exposed, governments should act more quickly and take an incremental approach, implementing limited initial regulatory measures and then continuing to learn and draw lessons from this experience."  This is naturally not a an instantaneous, once-and-for-all solution for governments. But it is far better to actively engage in technology governance than to stand idly by or blackmail technology for domination. In actively engaging in the process of technology governance, the government's standard of governance will steadily improve.
 
Second, "a more active approach to regulation requires government officials to have a deeper understanding of technology trends, which in turn requires more dialogue between those who create technology and those who regulate it." This is the basic spirit of public management that values active government action and close cooperation between government and society. This naturally requires the government to skillfully implement cooperative governance with all parties involved, based on respect for the people and institutions involved in science and technology.
 
Again, the transnational complexity of high-tech governance needs to be clarified. "Information technology, and the companies that create it, have increasingly gone global ...... Its reach and geographic coverage surpasses that of any other technology in history, and surpasses that of any single government as well. How can ...... governments regulate a technology that is larger than itself? ...... The unstoppable process of technology development is forcing the emergence of more international cooperation." Governing new technologies is indeed a quite powerful way to promote close cooperation in interstate governance. Finally, the governance of high technology by states or governments is not simply the implementation of their political will or policy will: "Many issues require compromise." 

For technology companies, they cannot solely rely on their creativity; for governments, they must grasp the balance between over-regulation and under-regulation. A mutual compromise may be the most effective way of governance to achieve the most effective regulation of high technology. These assumptions are still based on the particular perspective of the rapid development of information technology on the eve of the technological revolution. Imagine, if a global breakthrough in technology comes, how much vision, proactivity, effective cooperation, and long-term foresight will be needed for national governance to be effective enough to handle it! This can only be a fundamental, all-round and continuous change in national governance. A major change in national governance is unfolding before our eyes.
 
State governance in China today is under tremendous pressure to undergo a double transition: one is the transition from pre-modern/non-modern to modern, and the other is the transition from modern to post-modern or whatever the alternatives may be. China is at a critical moment in the transition from pre-modern/non-modern to modern. This means that the task of state governance based on classical science, that is, the modernization of the state governance system and governance capacity, remains the primary task to improve the current state of governance in China. But this should not limit our efforts to imagine the great changes in state governance the technological revolution will require, and if we focus solely at the immediate tasks of state governance this will indeed limit our imagination.
 
One result of this would be that people might under-imagine the mature modern era and therefore limit their imagination of state governance to visions of how China can successfully move to the threshold of modernity. A second result it that they might fail to imagine alternatives to the present, and thus linger in a perpetual state of exuberance about replacing Western solutions with Chinese ones. Third, there is a basic lack of imagination about the great changes in state governance brought about by the technological revolution, and not much interest in focusing on the challenges of the great changes in state governance and the strategies necessary to deal with them. This is naturally detrimental to China's long-term development.

In order to ensure the long-term, sustainable, and healthy development of the country, we need to focus on the modernization of the state governance system and governance capacity in the present and the future, and at the same time pay serious attention to the big question of how to deal with national governance at the critical moment of the advent of the technological revolution and humanity’s Second Axial Age.
 
Note

[1] 任剑涛, “曲突徙薪：技术革命与国家治理大变局,” posted to Aisixiang on September 30, 2020, originally published in Jiangsu Social Sciences 江苏社会科学 in the 5th issue of 2020.