An Ontological Exit for Chinese Democracy: Beyond the State-Society Divide

Abstract

Indeed Confucian societies including China are often seen as lacking in self-consistency. Lucian Pye, who makes this observation, argues that this lack is a cultural, not political, question. If this is true, then China's democratic prospect should be a matter of cultural reformation. This means that the assumed subjectivity in each Chinese citizen reflects more of a political advocacy than of reality. Therefore, democratization as a political discourse interferes in the creation of a ”correct” subjectivity in Chinese citizens. In the following discussion, I will also explore the meaning of democratic subjectivity, based on the following works: literature by Lucian Pye, David Dewei Wang (a Taiwan-born literature critic in the United States), and the debate between the Chinese liberals and the so-called new leftists. I hope to open up the meaning of democracy to allow agency for every Chinese practicing and interpreting subjectivity at the ontological level. In the end, this paper will attempt to provide an analytical scheme that preserves fluidity concerning the future relationship between the Chinese state and the society, thus testifying to a democracy, in the Confucian context, that cannot be defined.