The highly distinctive characteristics of East Asian polities may be rooted in history, but are they declining with modernization? In some ways they are getting stronger. As the ideology of anti-colonialism has weakened, there has, if anything, been a reversion to more traditional familial attitudes. Moreover, while the family itself is changing — in China, it is far less patriarchal than previously — it remains very different to the Western family, especially in terms of values and attitudes: [408] indeed, family customs have been amongst the slowest of all Asian institutions to change. Such is the profundity of the forces that have served to shape East Asian politics that it is impossible to envisage these societies somehow losing their political distinctiveness. [409]

INDIGENOUS MODERNITY

The picture that emerges from these four examples is not the scale of Westernization but, for the most part, its surprisingly restricted extent. The subjects considered, moreover, could hardly be more fundamental, taking us, in contrasting ways, to the very heart of societies. We can draw two general conclusions. First, if the impact of Westernization is limited, then it follows that these societies — and their modernities — remain individual and distinctive, rooted in and shaped by their own histories and cultures. It also follows that their modernization has depended not simply or even mainly upon borrowing from the West, but on their ability to transform and modernize themselves: the taproots of modernization, in other words, are native rather than foreign. Japan, the first example of Asian modernity, is a classic illustration of this. It may have borrowed extensively from the West, but the outcome was and is entirely distinctive, an ineluctably Japanese modernity. Second, if the process of modernization is simply a transplant then it cannot succeed. A people must believe that modernity is theirs in order for it to take root and flourish. The East Asian countries have all borrowed heavily from the West or Japan, usually both. Indeed, an important characteristic of all Asian modernities, including Japan ’s, is their hybrid nature, the combination of different elements, indigenous and foreign. But where the line of demarcation lies between the borrowed and the indigenous is crucial: if a society feels that its modernity is essentially imposed — a foreign transplant — then it will be rejected and fail. [410] This must be a further reason — in addition to the fact that colonial powers deliberately sought to prevent their colonies from competing with their own products — why, during the era of colonialism, no colonial societies succeeded in achieving economic take-off. The problem with colonial status was that by definition the colony belonged to an alien people and culture. The only exceptions were the white-settler colonies, which, sharing the race and ethnicity of the colonizing power, namely Britain, were always treated very differently; and Hong Kong, which, to Britain ’s belated credit, from the late fifties (a full century after its initial colonization), succeeded in becoming the first-ever industrialized colony, with the tacit cooperation of China.

Given China ’s long history and extraordinary distinctiveness, it is self-evident that China ’s modernization could only succeed if it was felt by the people to be a fundamentally Chinese phenomenon. This debate was played out over the century after 1850 in the argument over ‘Chinese essence’ and ‘Western method’ (as it was also in Japan), and it remains a controversial subject in present-day China. The conflict between Chinese tradition and Western modernity in China ’s modernization is well illustrated by a discussion I organized almost a decade ago with four students in their early twenties from Shanghai ’s Fudan University, one of China ’s elite institutions. It is clear from the exchange that maintaining a distinct Chinese core was non-negotiable as far as these students were concerned: the two women, Gao Yi and Huang Yongyi, were shortly off to do doctorates at American universities, while the young men, Wang Jianxiong and Zhang Xiaoming, had landed plum jobs with American firms in Shanghai. [411]They were the crème de la crème, the ultimate beneficiaries of Deng Xiaoping’s open-door policy, Chinese winners from globalization.

Wang: In the last century Chinese culture became marginal while Western culture became dominant. The Chinese have been much more preoccupied with the past, with their history, than the West. We have to understand why we are behind other countries, why we haven’t been able to develop our country. The West has won a very great victory and this has meant a big crisis for Chinese civilization.

Gao: Our traditional values are always in conflict with modern Western values. We are always at a loss as to how to deal with this. These two value systems are always in conflict. We constantly feel the need to return to our long history to understand who we really are. The reason why we pay so much attention to our history is because the traditional way remains very powerful.

Are you more optimistic for the future? Do you think that Chinese culture will remain marginal?

Wang: Our civilization is entering a critical period. In the last century we used Western thinking to develop Chinese society and culture. That is not good. We must build up our own knowledge, our own methodology, in order to develop the country and our culture. We must build up our own things, not just bring Western thoughts to our country. That’s mostly what we have done in the twentieth century. But this century I think the Chinese will develop their own knowledge.

If China does this, can it become more central and important in the world?

Wang: Not the centre of the world, but China will realize its own modernity, which will not be the same as that of the United States, nor, by the way, will it be like the Soviet Union. It will be something new.

What will be distinctive about it?

Wang: We can build our own modernity based on Chinese culture. Of course, we will use some elements of Western culture but we can’t transplant that culture to China. A mistake that Western countries make, especially the United States, is to want to transplant their systems and institutions to other countries. It’s wrong because it ignores the cultural core of a country. I always like to focus on the cultural core: to transform or remove the cultural core is impossible.

And the cultural core is…?

Wang: Five thousand years of history.

What are the values of this cultural core?

Wang: It’s composed of many elements: our attitude towards life, the family, marriage and so on. During the long history of Chinese civilization — because our country is so big — we have developed many different ideas and attitudes.

You and Zhang are both studying international finance and yet your argument is all about the distinctiveness of China.

Wang: Globalization is Westernization. But it should be a two-way process: we accept Western ideas while at the same time people in Western countries should seek to understand and maybe accept some of our ideas. Now it is not like that: we just accept Western ideas, there’s no movement in the opposite direction. That’s the problem. As a result, we lose something from our own culture, which worries us a lot. Now we are afraid of losing our own culture. We accept Western ideas not because they are good for us but because of their novelty. They are new to us so we accept them. But on the whole I don’t think they will be good for us. Maybe in twenty years’ time we will give them up.