Don't Blame it All on Mao - China Has Always Been This Way (Part 1)
"China didn't become a dictatorship because of Mao. They welcomed Mao because they've always been fond of dictators."
-Anonymous
One of the biggest topics of discussion and concern in any political circle in the world today is China, and unless that circle is a CCP thinktank, very little of the discussion will be positive. Everything about modern Chinese society, from their tolerance of (and even government participation in) IP violations (Rapoza, Forbes) to their rigorous censorship of any information they consider inconvenient, to their bullying of their neighbors, to their unbridled arrogance, to their denial of their murderous history (stretching from the "Great Leap Forward" to their 1951 "Liberation" of Tibet (Sun Hongnian, The 14th Dalai Lama) to Tiananmen Square in 1989... China seems to take great delight in being the antithesis of every value the world has of personal liberty or Human Rights. Hell, they even put the phrase Human Rights in quotes in their April 2013 "Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere," something the Chinese do when they deny something truly exists. China does not believe such a notion as Human Rights truly exists, except when they are accusing the US of violating them (State Council Information Office), which they do mainly by citing the same Western media which they say cannot be trusted in the very next breath, but I digress This communique is so blatant that it refers to Free Press, Free Speech, and any desire for self-determination as "extremely malicious," calling such ideals a Western attempt to undermine the CCP's rule. Let that sink in. The CCP is so self-centered (and fearful of the West) that they not only think the entire world's drive toward liberalization in the past century or two has been "Western-dictated," but they actually think the entire purpose of it all has been with them in mind, and that the Chinese People could not possibly have any desire to control their own lives unless eeeeeeeeeevil Western puppeteers put those notions in their heads (The Economist, "Tilting Backwards"). It's ludicrous! Everyone values their personal freedoms, right?
...Um, well, actually...
The Chinese kind of have an entire, millenia-old society built upon the opposite principle; the principle that a desire for individual liberty is not only a sign of greed but an actual mark of insanity. This is the part of China's cultural heritage that many in the West simply don't grasp: they've never shared the post-enlightenment views of the Liberal Democracies, and they recoil at the very notion. In fact, they consider the notion of personal freedom inherently evil. Chinese society did not become autocratic because of Communism. It's the other way around: they became Communist because it dovetailed nicely with their already existing tendency toward dictatorial central authority, reinforced by millennia of literature. Communism was a natural fit because they have been an autocratic society utterly devoid of personal liberty for more than 3,000 years (Cao Dawei & Sun Yanjing, China's History, 193). Simply put, China's current attitude (belligerently dead-set against any and all of the values held dear to the entire rest of the world and built upon a granite foundation of dictatorship) isn't exactly new. In this article (and its follow-up) I intend to show that the traits that make China so reviled throughout the world (the closed-mindedness, lack of innovation, murderously tyrannical political system where no individual has rights, censorship of any information they deem inconvenient, and brazen bullying of their neighbors) are not recent developments. They've been the backbone of China's civilization for millenia. As much as we'd like blame it on Mao, we can't. He wasn't the father of totalitarianism in China: just its second-latest installment.
Originality is Considered Rude
Anyone who has ever been a teacher in any class where writing projects were a major part of the grade has had many a migraine brought on by students who attempt to get away with plagiarism. From personal teaching in several countries (including, most recently, China) I can confidently assert that plagiarism runs more rampant in China than anywhere else I have ever seen, and part of the baffling reason (which many teachers here simply do not grasp) is that the students are not even aware that it is wrong. More to the point, neither do the parents. I will never forget the revelatory moment in 2016 at an expensive private school in Chaoyang, Beijing when one of my Year 5 student's parents came up to the school to ask why her son got a grade of "0" on his essay project about ancient Rome. The reason, for the record, was because the report was copied from online, as was made grossly apparent by a 5th grade ESL student who had trouble spelling his own name and determining what tense a sentence should be written in, turning in an essay that opened with the line "when discussing the impact of Roman law upon Mediterranean Culture, it is necessary to first understand the fundamental differences between the quasi-Hellenistic basis upon which Roman society was built and the God-King cultures of the Middle East and Mediterranean at the time of Rome's rise." After a quick check, in the presence of the senior teacher and vice principal, to see if the student had even the foggiest notion of what the words "fundamental," "quasi-Hellenistic," or "Mediterranean" meant, I let it be known that the student would receive a zero for plagiarism.
The student's mother was in my office the same day demanding for me to be fired (and arrested for "teaching false values" as well as "improper teaching methods which cause damage to a child"). Well, I gave the litany of proofs that the paper had been copied, and that was when the conversation took a turn I was not expecting. The mother went on to say (in a mix of broken English and Weixin translations) that her son had taken the time to find a paper from a recognized expert online and copied it with his own hand, and that he should be given full marks for this.
What does a teacher do when a parent says "of course my kid copied it! That's why it should have been an A!" After taking the parent aside and consoling her with false promises that I would be sternly reprimanded, the principal (a Western-educated lady of 28 years named "Ling" who, despite having only a year of teaching experience, was vice-principal because of being the only Chinese staff member with the triple-threat advantages of a Master's Degree from a Western university, an IELTS score north of 6.5, and an aunt who happened to be the wife of the CEO of the company that owned the school) called me into the office later the same day to explain that it was going to be difficult to convince Chinese parents that plagiarism was wrong.
I had to listen to the sentence several times before it finally sank in: difficult, to explain to the parents, that stealing someone else's ideas, is considered a bad thing.
See, in China, a written work is not considered valid unless it was taken from someone who is considered to be an expert. But don't take it from my anecdotal account. Take it directly from Shi Zhongwen, the author of China Intercontinental Press's China's Culture, a State-sponsored publication of the Chinese government.
"Confucius himself once advocated, 'Only elaborate on the theories of the predecessors and do not have original ideas of one's own."
... Although they had the ability to create independently, they must express their ideas with the help of the ancient sages (Shi, 22)."
Given that Confucianism (which, as I've just shown, does not have high regard for intellectual property) has been the central ideology of China since the Han Dynasty (Shi, 29), and basically remained that way until it was replaced by Marxism-Leninism (which does not have high regard for any property) in the 20th century (Mao, 3), it's not hard to see that originality and innovation are not China's strong suit. Even one of their most famous inventions, gunpowder, came about not by ingenuity but by serendipitous accident. Somehow, and I do not know how, a Chinese physician stumbled upon an explosive concoction while trying to make medicine (Cao, 112). Bear that in mind the next time someone recommends a Chinese herbal remedy to you.
This opens another discussion about China's reasons for copying other nations' ideas, specifically in the realm of technology: the inability to develop any of their own. While the apologists would point out that ancient China enjoyed a level of technology that was centuries ahead of the West in many fields (evidence of metallurgical techniques not discovered in the West until the Late Middle ages exists on the warriors at the Terra-Cotta Army in Xi'an, constructed several centuries B.C.), this was little more than the ability to call upon the talent pool of the world's largest population to develop applications of what was known about the world before Confucius's time. Throughout history, China's approach to science has been based upon a direct desire to fulfill the immediate needs of an agricultural society. After Confucius, there was no further effort put into theories. There was nothing more than development of already-existing principles. There is a difference between innovation & discovery, and Research & Development, and China limited themselves to the latter at the expense of the former (Shi, 121). In short, the Chinese reached a point where they believed their society was perfect, that they knew all they would ever need to know and that there was no need for further science (Shi, 122). This belief in their own perfection was so deeply rooted in the "Middle Kingdom's psyche that when they encountered vastly superior Western Technology during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, their internal propaganda machine began churning out "proof" that Western Science was, in fact, ancient Chinese science long forgotten by China.
"Qing stuck to the idea that Qing was different from alien nations and all the western knowledge originated from the Chinese culture (Cao, 183)."
Finally, it must be pointed out that the entire first half of the 20th century, including both the Xinhai Revolution led by Sun Zhongshan and the Maoist Revolution of 1949 were part of a movement called the "Westernization movement," a movement that began with Baron Li Hongjiang's drive to copy not only Western technology, but Western civil institutions as well (Cao, 194). Let's also not forget that the ideology that replaced Confucianism (Marxism-Leninism) is named for the German who established it. The Chinese didn't even come up with that on their own.
Automatically Autocratic
China's legions of apologists argue that Kenneth Rapoza (cited above) was writing from a decidedly amateurish and only lightly informed perspective when he wrote "that's mainly because of the fact that individual rights remain a theoretical notion at best: Chinese civilization exists courtesy of a top down structure." I, however, would counter by stating that Shi makes exactly the same assertion multiple times in China's Culture. First, the book states this when discussing the power wielded by the emperors of China.
"In Chinese traditional culture, the emperors have a higher authority than the gods (Shi, 8)."
Later, in discussions the discussion of the centrality of Confucianism to Chinese culture, Shi asserts the same thing several times.
"Those centralized empires required a powerful hierarchy, and ritual thoughts advocated by the Confucianism (Shi, 32)."
and then (including the same typos as the publication itself)...
"Because it advocats the centralized government and the maintenance of hierarchy, it cannot help but reject equality and democracy (Shi, 35)."
In all fairness, one can't completely blame the Chinese emperors for developing an authoritarian system, given the vast area and population they sought to rule in an age where technological limitations meant travel and communications were painstakingly slow (Shi, 26). However, early in China's history there came two men who took the principles of autocratic rule out of the category of "unfortunate necessity," and built an entire culture upon them. One, as I've remarked extensively, was Confucius, whose ideology "propogated centralized rule... [and intensified] the power of concentration of Chinese culture and the monarch's control of popular thought (Cao, 60 & 61). The other was the man who made it possible for Confucianism to permeate every aspect of Chinese culture, mainly by making it illegal to hold to any other school of thought. That man is none other than the first emperor to unite China's warring states (and according to many academics, the one whose name is the origin of the Western name "China"): Qin Shihuang.
To call Qin Shihuang a murderous barbarian would earn a great deal of outrage from vast numbers of Huns and Visigoths, most of whom who would be cut straight to the core by a comparison they considered quite uncalled for, but that is an issue for later. The topic of this section will be his repression of dissent, and his unrelenting desire to control every aspect of day to day life in the empire he named after himself, "Qin Di Guo."
Qin Shihuang came to power in the Qin state at a young age. At 13 he was already king, and was already expending vast amounts of state wealth building a mausoleum for himself (Rushing, Historic Mysteries) which was intended to be greater than the "tombs of the Kings of the West," by which he meant the tombs of the Pharaohs: the Pyramids. To build this mausoleum, Qin used a labor force that eventually consisted of 10% of the entire population of China (Zhang Lin, The Qin dynasty Terra-Cotta Army of Dreams, 11), most of whom would end up in mass graves, ordered to their deaths by Qin Shihuang's successor to keep the mausoleum's location a secret. One of Qin Shihuang's first acts, once he conquered the other warring states and forged China's first empire, was to abloish the country's federal system and set up a system of 12 ministers, whom he directly appointed, who controlled every aspect of Imperial affairs (Zhang, 8). Qin Shihuang's reign was characterized by the introduction of China's first household registry system, a practice in which every household was required to register their location and household census information any time they moved, added a new wing to their house, or even switched to growing a new crop, and the crown's penalties for failing to seek approval first typically amounted to family extermination. It should be noted that at the time this article is being written, China's household registry policy, one of the strictest internal control systems in Human history, has continued almost unabated sin its inception in the 3rd century B.C. (Cao, 37). Thankfully, they've lightened the penalties for violators.
Another practice Qin instituted was the worship of ancestors as deities. Given Qin's own well-documented obsession with death (Zhang 12, Rushing), it can be presumed the one he sought to see deified by this practice was himself. Qin's reign was also characterized by the destruction of ancient records deemed inconvenient to the State, constant spying on all parts of the empire, and the construction of stone tablets all over the country lavishing the narcissistic emperor with praises while reminding passersby of the laws and the penalties for breaking them (Zhang, 10).
The final piece of Qin's totalitarian rule was to control the people's thoughts. To this end, he abolished private schools, burned all history textbooks in the country and ordered his own appointed "scholars" to rewrite them, and buried alive any who questioned his version of history, or were even suspected of knowing it was false (Cao, 56).
Hmm... censorship, nosy and overbearing control of everyday life, rewriting history to suit the state and brutally repressing any dissent, eh? Yep. Sounds like China.
So, having established that China's first tyrannical emperor enacted policies bearing a striking resemblance to those of the current one, the 22 centuries in between now bear some examination. In short, with the exception of a bright spot mainly centered around the Tang Dynasty (and even that had its shadowy years), it was more of the same. The Ming Dynasty, founded by the peasant who led the revolt against the Mongols using something they had never seen before (guns) and subsequently declared himself emperor, wasted no time in setting up a secret police force (Cao 146). This began a trend toward ever-increasing central authority which continued through the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Cao 149), culminating in a system where power was held in the hands of one man (Cao 151). Shi comments further on the nature of the men to hold this power.
"During the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, China's politics became increasingly corrupt. The governments of the time felt humilated when compared to the outside world and practiced tyranny within its own borders (148)."
The only thing Shi, Cao and Zhang do not acknowledge is that with the exception of Sun Zhongshan, who only led the fledgling Republic of China for a matter of weeks (Huang Yaping, Sun Yat-Sen in Shanghai, 8 & 9), every Chinese head-of-state since then has been cast from the exact same mold. The main thing that made Sun Zhongshan so exceptional among them was precisely that: he was an exception.
They Were Blood-Red for Centuries Before Marx was Born
When one speaks the words "China" and "massacre" in the same sentence, one is usually speaking of recent history, be it Tiananmen Square in 1989, tibet in 1951, the Culture Revolution, Mao's "Great Leap Forward," or the country's neverending crackdown on Uighurs or Tibetan monks. Then, when one hears the phrase "ritual Human sacrifice," the first name that comes to mind is usually "Aztec." It may surprise many to know that the Chinese engaged in the same practice on a grand scale during the time of their so-called "sage emperors." In 1040 B.C, when Egyptian Power was in decline, Assyria's penchant for collecting books was leading them to conquer other countries so they could steal them, Mycenae was beginning to transform into what would become the Greek city-states, and a tiny little confederation of tribal city-states called the Israelites were beginning to build the society that would spread Monotheism throughout the entire Western World, what was the "Glorious Middle Kingdom," which hails itself as the fount of all civilization doing?
Why, they were raiding their neighboring nations and taking prisoners to be put to use as slaves and then used as Human sacrifices to the ghosts of their ancestors (Choi, Live Science) or, if they were unlucky enough to be young girls, buried alive with deceased nobles so they would not have to go through the afterlife without having concubines readily accessible. As Cao writes...
"More than 500 slaves were offered as sacrifices during a festival during the Shang dynasty (23)."
This tendency for Human sacrifice, especially for slaves to be buried alive with their masters, did not end with the Shang Dynasty though. Remember Qin Shihuang? He had a particular penchant for slaughter. As mentioned above, an entire tenth of his country's population were conscripted into forced labor to build his tomb. Upon his death (at which point the mausoleum was still not complete), those currently working on the project were buried alive (Zhang, 15), and many of their skeletons still had their shackles on them (Rushing). Furthermore, while it was normal for Chinese emperors and nobles to take a few of their favorite concubines to the grave with them (and the concubines in question were considered of no use unless they were still alive when they were entombed), Qin Shihuang's son ordered that every childless concubine his father owned (and his harem numbered in three digits) was to be buried alive with Shihuang (Zhang, 18). Qin's flock of "faithful ladies," were not the only ones who followed him to death though. Zhang goes on on the same page to cite a document called the "Hanshu" which states "thousands of officials were killed and thousands of craftsmen were buried alive in order to keep the tomb a secret." The fact that many of these officials were born in lands not under Chinese rule but were conquered as the first emperor sought to expand his claim (no doubt by drawing a nine-dash-line on a map and claiming it had always been his), only makes their murder more poignant.
China loves to remind the world that they have 5,000 years of history. But the time has long arrived to call things as they are. Yes, China has a 5,000 year history. And it is a history of tyranny, oppression of their neighbors under a hegemonic Tributary system, closed-mindedness, and rampant bloodshed. Or, as Xi Jinping would call it, "barbarism with Chinese characteristics."
Works Cited
Books
Cao Dawei & Sun Yanjing. Trans. Xiao Ying, L Li He & He Yunzhao. China's History. Beijing. 2010. China Intercontinental Press.
ISBN 978-7-5085-1302-7
Huang Yaping. Trans. Pan Qin. Sun Yat-Sen in Shanghai. Shanghai. 2011. Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House.
ISBN 978-7-5458-0131-6
Mao Zedong. Selected Quotations. Beijing: Foreign Language University Press. 1972.
ISBN 0-8351-2388-X
Shi Zhongwen & Chen Qiaosheng. Trans. Wang Guozheng. China's Culture. Beijing. 2010. China Intercontinental Press.
ISBN 978-7-5085-1298-3
Sun Hongnian, Zhang Yongpan & Li Sheng. The 14th Dalai Lama. Beijing. 2013. China Intercontinental Press.
ISBN 978-7-5085-2642-3
Zhang Lin. Trans. He An. The Qin Dynasty Terra-Cotta Army of Dreams 2005. Xi'an Press.
ISBN 978-7-80712-184-8
Government Documents
Communist Party of China General Office Central Committee. Trans. Mingjing Magazine. "Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere." . 22 Apr. 2013.
(visible on the web here
State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China. Human Rights Record of the United States in 2016. Beijing. 2017. China Intercontinental Press.
ISBN 978-7-5085-3615-6
From the Web
"Tilting Backwards." The Economist. 24 Jun, 2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2018.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/06/political-rebalancing
Choi, Charles Q. "Ancient Human Sacrifice Victims Faced Slavery Before Death." Live Science. 16 Jun. 2017. Web. 25 Mar. 2018.
https://www.livescience.com/59513-ancient-china-human-sacrifice-revealed.html
Phillips, Tom. "China Accuses Western Media of Fake News About Human Rights." The Guardian. 2 Mar. 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2018.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/02/china-accuses-western-media-fake-news-human-rights
Rapoza, Kenneth. "In China, Why Piracy is Here to Stay." Forbes. 22 July 2012. Web. 27 Mar. 2018.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/07/22/in-china-why-piracy-is-here-to-stay/#79363fb80060
Rushing, Scotty. "The Lavish Qin Shi Huang Tomb – Built for Immortality." Historic Mysteries. 9 Feb. 2017. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
https://www.historicmysteries.com/qin-shi-huang-tomb-first-emperor-china/