Conservatism in China
Conservatism in China emphasizes authority and meritocracy stemming from Confucian values, and economically, it aims for state capitalism rather than free markets. Many Chinese conservatives reject individualism or classical liberal principles and differ from modern Western conservatism because Chinese conservatism has a strong communitarian element. A major concern of modern Chinese conservatism is the preservation of traditional Chinese culture.
History
Imperial China
Chinese conservatism can be traced back to Confucius, whose philosophy is based on the values of loyalty, duty, and respect. He believed in a hierarchically organized society, modeled after the patriarchal family and headed by an absolute sovereign. However, Confucius also believed that the state should employ a meritocratic class of administrators and advisers, recruited by civil service exams. An alternative school of thought called Legalism argued that administrative discipline, not Confucian virtue, was crucial for the governance of the state.For thousands of years, China was ruled by monarchs of various imperial dynasties. The Mandate of Heaven theory was invoked in order to legitimize the absolute authority of the Emperor. In the nineteenth century, imperial rule was challenged from within and without. The Taiping Rebellion was a massive popular movement that aimed at both social and political revolution, but the Tongzhi Restoration rejuvenated the regime with a combination of military innovation and social order. The historian Mary C. Wright calls this "the last stand of Chinese conservatism," although later historians have different views.
Republic of China
The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 overthrew Puyi, the last Chinese Emperor, and ushered in the Republic of China. The Chinese nationalist party Kuomintang was originally a social democratic party that advocated Westernization during the Sun Yat-sen period. Chiang Kai-shek, who succeeded Sun as leader of the KMT, was originally classified as "centrist", with the more Buddhist traditional and conservative "rightist" Western Hills Group and the "leftist" Reorganization Group led by Wang Jingwei. KMT was a Chinese nationalist party that ruled mainland China from 1927 to 1949, and after the anti-communist Shanghai massacre in 1927, Chiang was reinforced in right-wing and conservative elements.Chiang's Nationalist revolution became "conservative" in rejecting the communist attack on social hierarchies and inequalities, but remained revolutionary in the party-state's attack on the "materialist" order and mobilization of the masses to avoid a Western style capitalist modernity. The New Life Movement was a government-led civic campaign in the 1930s to promote cultural reform and Neo-Confucian social morality. The goal was to unite China under a centralised ideology following the emergence of ideological challenges to the status quo. This movement was related to Chiang Kai-shek's anti-Communist campaign at the time, but today it also inspires conservatives like General Secretary Xi Jinping of the Chinese Communist Party.
Following his defeat in the Chinese Civil War by the Chinese Communist Party, Chiang continued right-wing authoritarian ruling the island of Taiwan until his death in 1975.
Mao era
On the mainland, Chinese conservatism was vehemently opposed and suppressed by the CCP, especially during the Cultural Revolution. Members of the "Five Black Categories"—landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, bad influencers, and right-wingers—were violently persecuted. Young people formed cadres of Red Guards throughout the country and sought to destroy the Four Olds: old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits—leading to the destruction of a large part of China's cultural heritage, including historical artifacts and religious sites. Among them, some Red Guards who embraced local officials were pejoratively called "conservatives."After the reform and opening up
Following the Mao era, cultural conservatism developed as a loose grouping of intellectual trends focused on indigenous sources of modernization. In recent decades, Chinese conservatism has experienced a national revival.The influence of neoconservatism in political and intellectual circles increased following 1989. This trend of neoconservatism advocated a state-centered "realistic response" to what they perceived as a failure of the Mao-era socialist approach and the advancement of Western hegemony. Adherents of this view contend that liberal democracy is a nihilistic and Eurocentric model incompatible with Chinese cultural and political tradition.
Conservatives have called for a new religious consciousness and opposed the secular order envisioned by proponents of the New Enlightenment. Confucianism has increased its presence in mainstream Chinese thought. In addition to a New Confucianism, some conservatives embrace the Sino-Christian theology movement.
CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has called traditional Chinese culture the soul of the nation and the foundation of the CCP.
Since Xi took office as CCP general secretary and became the top leader in November 2012, social conservatism has been strengthened, including the traditional gender role for women.
Types
As a term, conservatism has been used to characterize multiple intellectual trends, including Confucian revivalists, cultural nationalists, and proponents of realpolitick. A common theme among the diverse trends of conservatism in China is the continuity of the Chinese civilizational tradition and opposition to Western secular modernity.Chiangism
Chiangism is the political philosophy of President Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who used it during his rule in China under the Kuomintang on both the mainland and Taiwan. It is a right-wing authoritarian nationalist ideology based on mostly Tridemist principles mixed with Confucianism. It was primarily practiced as part of the New Life Movement, as well as the Chinese Cultural Renaissance movement. It was influenced by other political ideologies, including socialism, fascism,party-state capitalism
and paternalistic conservatism, as well as by Chiang's Methodist Christian beliefs.
Cultural conservatism
Dai Jitao Thought
Dai Jitao Thought is an ideology based on the interpretation of the Tridemism by some Kuomintang members, including Dai Jitao, since Sun Yat-sen's death in March 1925. Dai Jitao Thought became the ideological foundation of the right wing Kuomintang, including the Western Hills Group. Dai Jitao himself described it as "Pure Tridemism".Left-conservatism
Neoauthoritarianism
Neoauthoritarianism is a current of political thought within the People's Republic of China, and to some extent the Chinese Communist Party, that advocates a strong, centralized state to facilitate market reforms as necessary for democratic political reform, emphasizing stability. Though incorporating aspects of Marxist–Leninist and Maoist theories in its origination, it was described as right-wing by Yuezhi Zhao, and earlier as classically conservative by Barry Sautman, with formal debate not involving Marxism.Its origin was based in reworked ideas of Samuel Huntington, who advised the post-Communist East European elite to take a gradualist approach towards market liberalization, rejecting earlier optimistic modernization theories; hence, "new authoritarianism." The concept of liberal democracy led to intense debate between democratic advocates and neoauthoritarians prior to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, with the Neoauthoritarian wing close to Zhao Ziyang.
The Tianamen Square protests led to the debate being stalled. Though Deng Xiaoping was reputedly open to Neo-authoritarian ideas, the current was further moderated by his commitment to keeping state control over the commanding heights of the economy. Chris Bamall considered Chinese policy following Deng's death consistent with Neoauthoritarianism under Jiang Zemin and the early leadership of Hu Jintao up to the late 2000s, including decoupling the Renminbi currency from the dollar, liberalizing prices, and passing a law allowing an increase in inheritance in 2008.
Nigel Inkster considers Jiang Shigong a major promoter of the ideas of neoauthoritarianism. CCP senior official Wang Huning, widely regarded as the grey eminence and chief ideologue of the CCP, has criticized aspects of Marxism and recommended that China combine its historical and modern values. According to Christer Pursiainen, "Consequently, the CCP's transformation into a right-wing elitist party occurred during the 1990s under Jiang Zeming's reign."
Background
Following the 1978 Third Plenum, which made Deng Xiaoping paramount leader, China employed a variety of strategies to develop its economy, beginning the reform and opening up. By 1982 the success of China's market experiments had become apparent, making more radical strategies seem possible and desirable. This led to the lifting of price controls and agricultural decollectivization, signaling the abandonment of the New Economic Policy, or economic Leninism, in favour of market socialism.With economic developments and political changes, China departed from totalitarianism towards what Harry Harding characterizes as a "consultative authoritarian regime." One desire of political reform was to "restore normalcy and unity to elite politics so as to bring to an end the chronic instability of the late Maoist period and create a more orderly process of leadership succession." With cadre reform, individual leaders in China, recruited for their performance and education, became more economically liberal, with less ideological loyalty.
Emergence and rise
Having begun in the era of Chairman Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, decentralization accelerated under Deng Xiaoping. In a neoauthoritarian vein, Zheng Yongnian believed that Deng's early reforms shifted power to local governments, aiming eventually to give it to individual enterprises. Local government, however, opposed enterprise profit retention, and began bargaining with the central government, taking over enterprise decision-making power. This inhibited the industrial efficiency that reforms aimed aimed to achieve. Thus, decentralization limited progress.Though the government clearly opposed liberalization in December 1986, democratic and Neoauthoritarian political discussions centered in Beijing emerged in academic circles in 1988. Neoauthoritarianism would catch the attention of the Chinese Communist Party in early 1988 when Wu Jiaxiang wrote an article in which he concluded that the British monarchy initiated modernization by "pulling down 100 castles overnight", thus developmentally linking autocracy and freedom as preceding democracy and freedom. Neoauthoritarian school was influenced by Brazil led by João Figueiredo, Singapore led by Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, South Korea led by Park Chung-hee, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, Taiwan led by Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui, and Turkey led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Turgut Özal.