China‘s president borrows from Confucius

Jonathan Watts
Guardian Weekly   retrieved fromhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/story/0,,1742975,00.html , 2006.05.17
President Hu Jintao has attempted to stabilise China‘s wildly spinning moral compass with a lecture on socialist ethics that owes more to Confucius than Mao Zedong.
Less than a month after it was made, the widely publicised speech on eight honours and eight disgraces looks set to become the new guide for political correctness. But it is far from certain that the morality lesson will be taken to heart in a country where the closest thing to a state religion is the worship of money.
Hu delivered his sermon on the "socialist concept of honour and disgrace" at the Chinese People‘s Political Consultative Conference on March 4. Underlining the Communist party‘s attempt to reinvent itself as the party of management rather than revolution, the speech extolled the unradical eight virtues of patriotism, public service, scientific knowledge, hard work, unity, honesty, civil obedience and plain living.
The eight disgraces included lawlessness and the embrace of chaos (which Mao would have been guilty of) and the pursuit of profit and luxury at the expense of others, a charge that might be levelled at many Communist cadres and businessmen over 25 years of economic growth.
The propaganda machine has been quick to spread Hu‘s gospel. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the concept of honour and disgrace "is a perfect amalgamation of traditional Chinese values and modern virtues". In a front page commentary, the People‘s Daily, mouthpiece of the Communist party, said that studying this important speech was a pressing task for China.
Hu‘s political disciples are already publicly on message. The People‘s Liberation Army has announced that, in future, recruits will be taught, shock, horror, how to tell right from wrong. The education minister, Zhou Ji, has said the concepts of honour and disgrace will be incorporated into the national curriculum. The All-China Women‘s Federation has rallied to with an appeal for its members to apply Hu‘s words in families. There is talk of a revival of the cult of Lei Feng, the mythologised icon of selflessness during the cultural revolution.
There is widespread agreement within China that the country needs new guiding principles. Since 1979 the introduction of market reforms has steadily eroded the legitimacy of communism as a ruling ideology. Instead, society has become more materialistic and competitive.
The lack of moral cohesion is often blamed as a factor in individual cases of corruption and abuse of power, as well as wider social problems of inequality and unrest. But those seeking something more spiritual often risk persecution. Growing numbers are turning towards Buddhism and Christianity despite restrictions on worship that can lead to imprisonment of members of underground churches. This also applies to Tibetans who openly venerate the Dalai Lama. Many religious cults and spiritual movements, such as Falun Gong, are also outlawed.
The government is looking outside the political sphere for an ethical focus. Nationalism is a key element. One favoured institution is Shaolin temple, home of Chan Buddhism (better known in the West by its Japanese name, Zen) and kung fu. The abbot, Shi Yongxin, is a delegate to of the National People‘s Congress, and the monastery was recently given permission to open the first buddhist orphanage in China.
More spectacular has been the rehabilitation of Confucius. During the cultural revolution the ancient sage was condemned as a proponent of feudal values. Last year those values - respect for hierarchy, unity and morality - were held up as a moral foundation for modern China. The state funded lavish celebrations for the anniversary of Confucius‘s birth, organised a symposium on the contemporary relevance of his teaching and widened the study of his work in schools and universities.
Traditional ethics are also being used to project soft power overseas, where the government is establishing a network of Confucian institutes to teach Chinese language and culture. Closer to home Hu has started quoting the analects of Confucius to explain his vision of a harmonious society in which an enlightened elite rule on behalf of the masses. As commentators have noted, this argument sounds remarkably similar to the mandate of heaven theory used to justify the old imperial system.
Hu should be applauded for considering something other than material progress, but lectures on individual morality are no substitute for the reform of a political system that has nurtured rampant corruption. Top-down moralising about frugality and respect for authority is unlikely to impress millions of poor peasants pushed off their land by corrupt cadres who have grown rich by practising the opposite of what Hu preaches.
As the president may find out, the danger of appealing to tradition is that he risks sounding out of touch with a contemporary reality that is a long way from his ideals.