{"id":21781,"date":"2013-08-22T12:57:37","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T16:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=21781"},"modified":"2022-04-07T16:54:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T20:54:58","slug":"chinese-government-philosophy-in-the-headlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/08\/22\/chinese-government-philosophy-in-the-headlines\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese government philosophy in the headlines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jon, my former virtual landlord, sent me <a href=\"http:\/\/ricochet.com\/main-feed\/Under-Tocqueville-s-Influence-China-Chooses-Despotism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this link<\/a> and said &#8220;Does this sort of thing really matter any more? Aren&#8217;t all governments doing this?&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Under Tocqueville\u2019s Influence, China Chooses Despotism<\/strong><br \/>\nPaul A. Rahe<\/p>\n<p>In the last few days, the national press has been full of reports suggesting that China\u2019s new President, Xi Jinping, is orchestrating a revival of Maoism and a crackdown on those in China who would like to introduce within that country the procedures, practices, and institutions that distinguish the West: the rule of law, constitutionalism, freedom of the press, judicial independence, civil associations, and \u201cuniversal values\u201d \u2013 which is to say, a respect for human rights. <em>The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&#038;rct=j&#038;q=&#038;esrc=s&#038;source=web&#038;cd=4&#038;cad=rja&#038;ved=0CE4QqQIwAw&#038;url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424127887323455104579014960827162856.html&#038;ei=irkTUtu1OITfyQHJ7YD4Aw&#038;usg=AFQjCNEOz13jeFzM80rbg-YCCeVkr-189w&#038;bvm=bv.50952593,d.aWc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">which broke the story on Saturday<\/a>, claims that Xi is receiving strong support from former President Jiang Zemin; and on Monday <em>The New York Times<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/08\/20\/world\/asia\/chinas-new-leadership-takes-hard-line-in-secret-memo.html?_r=1&#038;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">filled in some of the details<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Communist Party cadres have filled meeting halls around China to hear a somber, secretive warning issued by senior leaders. Power could escape their grip, they have been told, unless the party eradicates seven subversive currents coursing through Chinese society.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>These seven perils were enumerated in a memo, referred to as Document No. 9, that bears the unmistakable imprimatur of Xi Jinping, China\u2019s new top leader. The first was \u201cWestern constitutional democracy\u201d; others included promoting \u201cuniversal values\u201d of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civic participation, ardently pro-market \u201cneo-liberalism,\u201d and \u201cnihilist\u201d criticisms of the party\u2019s traumatic past.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Even as Mr. Xi has sought to prepare some reforms to expose China\u2019s economy to stronger market forces, he has undertaken a \u201cmass line\u201d campaign to enforce party authority that goes beyond the party\u2019s periodic calls for discipline. The internal warnings to cadres show that Mr. Xi\u2019s confident public face has been accompanied by fears that the party is vulnerable to an economic slowdown, public anger about corruption and challenges from liberals impatient for political change.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The evidence now suggests the contrary &mdash; that Wang Qishan is by no means alone in his convictions, that Xi Jingpin and his lieutenants take quite seriously the possibility that China is in a pre-revolutionary situation, and that they are intent on putting a lid on everything. Where Tocqueville might have suggested that the way forward was for the country\u2019s leaders to embrace the \u201cseven subversive currents,\u201d to carry out a revolution from above, and to gradually introduce into the country the rule of law, constitutionalism, freedom of the press, judicial independence, civil associations, and a respect for human rights, they have decided in this year &mdash; the 120th anniversary of Chairman Mao\u2019s birth &mdash; to return to the path he charted more than 60 years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jon, my former virtual landlord, sent me this link and said &#8220;Does this sort of thing really matter any more? Aren&#8217;t all governments doing this?&#8221; Under Tocqueville\u2019s Influence, China Chooses Despotism Paul A. Rahe In the last few days, the national press has been full of reports suggesting that China\u2019s new President, Xi Jinping, is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,84,28],"tags":[780,506,217,1464],"class_list":["post-21781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-government","category-media","tag-communism","tag-revolution","tag-rights","tag-xijinping"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5Fj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72885,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21781\/revisions\/72885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}