Chinas rise and the open principle

In this scholarly work, Yan Xuetong draws lessons from Chinese classics for the great task of Chinas rise and he does it with great finesse.

TRUTHS about the play of power in relations between countries have been studied and written about for centuries. They remain as valid today. Three great minds come to mind. One is Thucydides The History of the Peloponnesian War, especially its Chapter XVII, which contains the Melian Dialogue. The other two are Nicolo Machiavellis The Prince and the even more instructive The Discourses. The last is Carl von Clausewitzs On War. They are yet to be mined fully for the truths they contain.

China is as rich in its classics on power. The Princeton-China series aims to open a window on Chinese scholarship by translating works by the most original and influential Chinese scholars in the humanities, social sciences and the law. This volume is published in that series. Yan Xuetong, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, has been branded a hawk by many in the West. This book proves them to be completely wrong.

It repays study for two reasons. First, it is based on scholarship on international affairs of a very high order, which is completely absent in South Asia. Yan has studied Western as well as Chinese classics thoroughly. Secondly, he has emerged as a leading public intellectual, a man of integrity and commitment. In 2008, Foreign Policy named him one of the worlds hundred most influential public intellectuals. Three critics of Yans analyses presented their papers on three of his essays, to which he responded. The volume contains all that plus an interesting interview with him in which he was asked intelligent questions.

Yan is a scholar as well as a political commentator. He brings to bear on his commentaries the insights he gained from the classics.

China was unified by the first emperor of Qin in 221 BCE. Before that, the Spring and Autumn Period (ca 770-476 BCE) and the Warring States Period (ca 475-221) were a time for ruthless contest for territory among the small states.

Yan writes: As a political scientist, my purpose in studying pre-Qin interstate political thought is not to understand the past so much as to draw lessons for the present, especially for the great task of Chinas rise. Discussion of the authenticity of the pre-Qin works and the authenticity of the historical events they refer to is a task for historians, not the reason why political scientists study ancient documents. In the twenty-first century, China faces the historic test of success or failure in its rise to becoming a superpower, while the world is faced with the uncertainty that this might bring. A study of pre-Qin interstate political philosophy may provide guidance for Chinese foreign policy as well as for the world. From Chinas point of view, we can draw on the experience of success or failure of rising powers from pre-Qin thought. From the point of view of the world as a whole, we can reflect on how Chinas rise can be of benefit to the stability of the international order and the progress of international norms.

Hegemony vs humane authority

This is the central theme in his analyses: hegemony versus humane authority. A great thinker in the Confucian school, Mencius (372-289 BCE), held that using force and pretending to benevolence is the hegemon. The hegemon will certainly have a large state. Using virtue and practising benevolence is the sage king. The sage king does not rely on having a large territory.

The familiar Chinese formulation against hegemony is rooted in Chinese thought of centuries past. Its modern target is the United States of George W. Bush. Chinas rise is not inspired by aspiration to hegemony, we are told. Yan holds before it the model of humane authority. Power is not shunned. It is deployed humanely.

Yan writes: Since the end of World War II in 1945, the United States has always enjoyed hegemony, whereas since 1840, China has repeatedly suffered from invasions by Western powers. China looks at hegemony from the point of view of the political justness of the international order, whereas the United States looks at hegemony from the point of view of the stability of the international order. In reading Mencius and Xunzi we realise that Mencius evaluates hegemony according to whether its political goals are right or not, whereas Xunzi assesses hegemony in terms of the stability of the international order. Xunzi (312-238 BCE) was a Confucian scholar of the Warring States Period.

Yan emphasises throughout the need for a strong and morally informed political leadership. China must be a responsible state. Its ascent must attract more first-class people than the United States can. He criticises Chinas immigration policy for being less tolerant than that of the United States.

Yans analyses are based on the writings of seven Chinese thinkersGuanzi, Laozi, Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, Xunzi and Hanfeizi. The three basic sways of understanding how to maintain peace advocated by the pre-Qin thinkers carry two messages for Chinas international security policy. First, China should mainly rely on its own military construction to maintain its own peaceful environment. Given that the concept of peace cannot yet become the external security policy of all states, and given that international order and norms are not yet able to effectively prevent war breaking out, China has no option but to increase its military capacity to maintain its own peaceful environment. Second, China should press for the establishment of an international security system and norms, and promote the realisation of universal world peace. Since the United Nations Charter of 1945 provided legitimacy for each nation to achieve independence, the number of countries in the world has not ceased to grow and this tendency has not diminished even today. This implies that it is not possible to implement world peace by establishing a world government.

He adds: The pre-Qin thinkers developed two ideas, namely that all under heaven is an authority and that humane authority is based on morality. These two ideas have implications for Chinas rise: only when the international community believes that China is a more responsible state than the United States will China be able to replace the United States as the worlds leading state. Whether a state is a responsible major power is not something that the state itself can decide; it is a matter of judgment by other states. Should China increase its material power without at the same time increasing its political power, China will have difficulty being accepted by the international community as a major power that is more responsible than the United States. Examples of the irresponsibility of the United States in the international community are many, but even these are not such as to lead most countries in the world to think that China is more responsible than the United States.

Yan has no illusions about the U.S. It substituted political alliances for territorial annexation. Hegemony generates its own legitimacy. The international responsibility, ideology, and power of a hegemon are all able to create legitimacy whereby it can use force externally: (1) When a state is accepted by a good number of other states as a hegemon, these states think that that state has the duty to protect its allies militarily, uphold the current international order, and maintain its own hegemonic status; (2) One reason for accepting a hegemon is that a fair number of states accept its ideology. The dominating ideology of the hegemonic state gives rise to the conceptual superiority of its civilisation, such that the hegemon has the legitimacy to use military force against states of peripheral civilisation; and (3) When a hegemon is accepted by other states, it then has the status to guide the formation of international norms. The interest in upholding the international norms formed under its guidance is for the most part at one with the interests of the hegemonic state itself. This also provides grounds for the legitimacy of using military force to uphold these kinds of interests (emphasis added, throughout). It all depends on the strategic credibility of the leader of the alliance.

Balanced development

Hence this advice to his own country which is quoted in extenso: A strategy for Chinas rise must adopt the principle of balanced development of the factors of comprehensive national power. The principle of economic construction as the centre is of assistance in increasing a states material power under certain conditions, but this principle cannot become the basis of comprehensive power for Chinese national resurgence. By adopting the principle of balanced development of the factors of comprehensive state power, China will maintain balanced development of both political and economic power. It is only by constraining the worship of money formed by placing the priority on economic construction that the factors of comprehensive state power can be developed evenly. The focal point in improving political power is to improve national leadership. And the key to this lies in constructing a system for promoting superior cadres and demoting inferior ones. Seen from the point of view of increasing international political power, China must stress the construction of a system that attracts talented persons..

The strategy of Chinas rise must tend toward strategic creativity. A successful strategy for the rise of a major power is created by adapting to constantly changing international circumstances. Ever since 1949, when the new China was founded, China has proposed many strategic foreign policy principles according to the international environment of the time. These principles are variously used to respond to the international environment; hence, contradictions are unavoidable. Since the circumstances of international competition are constantly changing, China must adapt to the times and adjust the guiding principles of its strategy of ascent. It should not be constrained by old principles. Still less should it restrain the adjustment of its strategic principles on account of any long-lasting, unchanging theory. Following the rise of Chinas power status, the limitations of the principle of non-alignment have already become apparent.

U.S. hypocrisy

Needless to add, Yan rejects the American model completely. China should not adopt the Unites States current way of acting, saying that all states are equal while in practice always seeking to have a dominant international status. The United States policy of saying one thing and doing another is, in fact, seen by international society as hypocritical hegemony.

Second, China should reflect on the principle of reversed double standards, namely, that more developed countries should observe international norms more strictly than less developed ones. For instance, the Kyoto protocol sets different standards for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions for developed and developing countries. China should not follow the United States in imposing a single standard on international society. This is especially so in politics, where the principle of having dual standards is more beneficial in upholding the stability of the international order than that of having one standard. There are more than two hundred political entities in the world. The differences between them are too great. Having a single standard can only lead to conflict and is not helpful in reducing friction among states. Third, China should promote the open principle of the traditional idea of all under heaven as one, that is, China should be open to the whole world and all the countries in the world should be open to China.

Foreign policy

Yans interview is most revealing. He comes from a family of intellectuals. During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent into the countryside to undergo hard labour and there he suffered grave hardships. He went to the University of California, Berkeley and learnt and reflected a lot. When I came home, the purpose of my study was to encourage study of Chinas foreign policy. In the States many people study Chinas foreign policy, but almost nobody did similar research in China itself. There was only some research done by the relevant government departments and research into the history of Chinas foreign affairs. Even today, Chinese scholars have written textbooks only on the history of Chinas foreign affairs and there is still no textbook on Chinas foreign policy. At the time nobody in China studied what the motives for Chinas determination of foreign policy were, or how Chinas foreign policy worked. Or the reasonableness of foreign policy organisations, or what the relationship was between domestic politics and foreign policy. Even now I have not been able to do this. But I have always tried to open the door. In 1993 I wrote Zhongguo de Anquan Huanjing (Chinas security environment) and in 1995 Zhongguo de Anquan Zhanlue (Chinas security strategy). Before then there were no published articles on those topics. I have always held that Chinese scholars should assess the successes and failures of our own policy and come up with the reasons for this. Otherwise, China will never reduce the proportion of its failures. The most important thing I have done is to unite academic research and foreign policy research.

For all his fame, Yan has no illusions about the impact of his writings on Chinas policy. I do not think that I myself have any direct impact on Chinas policymakers. I just reckon that my articles have some influence on a few people who work in the relevant government departments. Maybe they have an indirect influence on policy, but I do not have a direct influence.

On think tanks

The influence of a scholar comes through his published articles. In the Chinese political establishment there is no system of think tanks, strictly speaking. In France, by contrast, the government provides every Minister with a sum of money to hire policy advisers. This is rather like the old Chinese system of personal legal assistants. These policy advisers constitute a think tank. Since the founding of a new China in 1949, the state has not allowed high officials to have their own personal advisers or to rely on non-governmental advisory organisations. Even their secretaries are strictly limited to the government departmental staff. Scholars may take part in conferences and air particular views, and they may influence the way other people think, but this does not mean that they play the role of a think tank. To exist, a think tank requires a clear and definite organised channel of communication. Advisers who are unpaid are not part of a think tank in the proper sense of this term. To the question Do you think a scholar could be part of a think tank or be a policy adviser? Yan replied Not only can be, he should be. Giving advice on policy is the responsibility of the intelligentsia to society. I think that if we were to revive the personal legal assistant system and establish a system of think tanks it would enable policymaking to be more scientific. I want to be both a scholar and a policy adviser myself.

One incident at Berkeley deserves mention. When I was studying for my PhD in Berkeley, we had one Palestinian auditing the course. After class I asked him privately why people should want to get involved in terrorism. He asked, in reply, why Chinese people engaged in guerrilla warfare during the Japanese occupation. That left a deep impression on me. This is a case of someone who lives without knowing what it feels like to have a sore back.

In 2012, India does not suffer from a surfeit of sympathy for Palestinians. Its stand on Palestine is of a piece with its stand on Myanmar. Nuances or calibration is foreign to Indias policymakers. Arrogance and smugness are not. Pro-establishment writers and TV anchors and performers share these traits self-consciously. Yans book should be compulsory reading for anyone who prefers scholarship and reflection to the craft that passes for foreign policy discourse in India. It is harsh but true to say that we have no equal in his field to Yan.