A Confucian constitutional order: how China's ancient past can shape its political future

Abstract

A Constitutional Order: How Chinas Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future, by Jiang Qing, translated by Edmund Ryden; edited by Daniel A. Bell and Ruiping Fan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. x + 256 pp. US$39.50/£27.95 (hardcover), also available as an eBook.This book is densely packed with strenuous theoretical assertion and fairly polite, but sharp, disagreement. Daniel Bell provides an incisive introduction Jiang Qing's proposed Confucian constitutional order. Bell regards Jiang's proposals as strikingly original and thought-provoking, but asks why Jiang cannot make room for modern personal autonomy, and acknowledges his own misgivings as whether Jiang's proposals can achieve substantial political influence.The book's contents include five rejoinders by Joseph Chan, Bai Tongdong, Chenyang Li and Wang Shaoguang. Master Jiang Qing, founder of academy, Yangming Jingshe, is given ample opportunity reply, and does so with robust enthusiasm.Like editors Bell and Ruiping Fan, five professors avow serious interest in Jiang's ideas. None, however, subscribe entirely his proposals. Chan and Bai regret Jiang's unrealistic idealism or impractical utopia. The discussion ignores what Bell labels the quo in China; he believes that Jiang's lack of discussion of PRC's political order stems from belief that status quo- problematic term in and of itself-has no future and that Party preclude him from commenting directly on CCP regime. Jiang himself observes provocatively: ... liberalism and new Left are dominant trends in scholarship in China today... (p. 161).Jiang is provocative also in treating Confucianism as state religion. He laments condescendingly: ... China's current world of thought shows that Chinese people have already lost their ability think independently . . .. Moreover, it is a great tragedy that Chinese are unable to go back inherent patterns of Chinese Thought (p. 27)! The Chinese fell victim liberalism and Westernization in process of disenchantment that was launched with May Fourth Movement. Jiang intends solve this problem through restoration, rooted in sanctity of heaven. He turns West into straw man, cherry-picking highly selective insights demonstrate how flat, vulgar Western civilization based on liberal assumptions has corrupted Chinese culture. Western civilization becomes monolithic entity, rather than loose sets of engagements between different cultures and religions.Jiang accuses American constitutionalism of hypocritical pluralism that disingenuously supports dominant Protestant values. He places Francis Fukuyama at end of history as apologist for final triumph of liberalism and cites Karl Friedrich that is the of common man. In Jiang's mind, common man is too common-a hopeless short-term thinker who practices blind, self-indulgent materialism and is slave politics of desire. Jiang's state will espouse Way of Humane Authority, in opposition Western pluralism and moral relativism.Jiang's projected state enjoys three forms of originating with traditional triad of heaven, earth and human. His triad is reflected in tripartite state structure. The House of Ru is predicated in sacred legitimacy of heaven. The House of Nation represents culture and, some extent, China's multinational ethnicity. Jiang attempts bridge contemporary world, incorporating notion of electoral democracy within House of People.His constitutional order rests on controversial distinction between rujia' (the scholars as secular moral force) and rujiao (the scholars as custodians of religion). The appearance of new sage kings is regarded as improbable, but Jiang awaits new generation of modern scholars. …