A CIVILIZATION-STATE

China, by the standards of every other country, is a most peculiar animal. Apart from size, it possesses two other exceptional, even unique, characteristics. China is not just a nation-state; it is also a civilization and a continent. In fact, China became a nation-state only relatively recently. One can argue over exactly when: the late nineteenth century perhaps, or following the 1911 Revolution. In that sense — in the same manner as one might refer to Indonesia being little more than half a century old, or Germany and Italy being not much more than a century old — China is a very recent creation. But, of course, that is nonsense. China has existed for several millennia, certainly for over two, arguably even three, thousand years, though the average Chinese likes to round this up to more like 5,000 years. In other words, China’s existence as a recognizable and continuing entity long predates its status as a nation-state. Indeed it is far and away the oldest continuously existing country in the world, certainly dating back to 221 BC, perhaps rather longer. This is not an arcane historical detail, but the way the Chinese — not just the elite, but taxi drivers too — actually think about their country. As often as not, it will crop up in a driver’s conversation, along with references to Confucius or Mencius, perhaps with a little classical poetry thrown in. [590] When the Chinese use the term ‘China’ they are not usually referring to the country or nation so much as Chinese civilization — its history, the dynasties, Confucius, the ways of thinking, their relationships and customs, the guanxi (the network of personal connections), [591] the family, filial piety, ancestral worship, the values, and distinctive philosophy. The Chinese regard themselves not primarily in terms of a nation-state — as Europeans do, for example — but rather as a civilization-state, where the latter is akin to a geological formation in which the nation-state represents no more than the topsoil. There are no other people in the world who are so connected to their past and for whom the past — not so much the recent past but the long-ago past — is so relevant and meaningful. Every other country is a spring chicken by comparison, its people separated from their long past by the sharp discontinuities of their history. Not the Chinese. China has experienced huge turmoil, invasion and rupture, but somehow the lines of continuity have remained resilient, persistent and ultimately predominant, superimposing themselves in the Chinese mind over the interruptions and breaks.

The Chinese live in and through their history, however distant it might be, to a degree which is quite different from other societies. ‘Of what other country in the world,’ writes the historian Wang Gungwu, ‘can it be said that writings on its foreign relations of two thousand, or even one thousand, years ago seem so compellingly alive today?’ [592] The Chinese scholar Jin Guantao argues that: ‘[China ’s] only mode of existence is to relive the past. There is no accepted mechanism within the culture for the Chinese to confront the present without falling back on the inspiration and strength of tradition.’ [593] The Chinese scholar Huang Ping writes:

China is… a living history. Here almost every event and process happening today is closely related to history, and cannot be explained without taking history into consideration. Not only scholars, but civil servants and entrepreneurs as well as ordinary people all have a strong sense of history… no matter how little formal education people receive, they all live in history and serve as the heirs and spokesmen of history. [594]

The author Tu Wei-ming remarks:

The collective memory of the educated Chinese is such that when they talk about Tu Fu’s (712- 70) poetry, Sima Qian’s (died c. 85 BC) Historical Records [the first systematic Chinese historical text, written between 109 and 91 BC, recounting Chinese history from the time of the Yellow Emperor until the author’s own time], or Confucius’s Analects, they refer to a cumulative tradition preserved in Chinese characters… An encounter with Tu Fu, Sima Qian, or Confucius through ideographic symbols evokes a sensation of reality as if their presence was forever inscribed in the text. [595]

The earliest awareness of China as we know it today came with the Zhou dynasty, which grew up along the Yellow River Valley at the end of the second millennium BC. Already, under the previous Shang dynasty, the foundations of modern China had begun to take shape with an ideographic language, ancestor worship and the idea of a single ruler. Chinese civilization, however, still did not have a strong sense of itself. That was to happen a few centuries later through the writings of Master Kong, or Confucius (to use his Latinized name). [596] As discussed in Chapter 4, by this time the Chinese language was used for government and education, and the idea of the mandate of Heaven as a principle of dynastic governance had been firmly established. Confucius’s life (551–479 BC) preceded the Warring States period (403 BC- 221 BC), when numerous states were constantly at war with each other. The triumph of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) brought that period to an end and achieved a major unification of Chinese territories, with the emergence of modern China typically being dated from this time. [597] Although Confucius enjoyed little status or recognition during his lifetime, after his death he was to become the single most influential writer in Chinese history. For the next two thousand years China was shaped by his arguments and moral precepts, its government informed by his principles, and the Analects became established as the most important book in Chinese history. Confucianism was a syncretic mode of thinking which drew on other beliefs, most notably Taoism and Buddhism, but Confucius’s own ideas remained by far the most important. His emphasis on moral virtue, on the supreme importance of government in human affairs, and on the overriding priority of stability and unity, which was shaped by his experience of the turbulence and instability of a divided country, have informed the fundamental values of Chinese civilization ever since. [598] Only towards the end of the nineteenth century did his influence begin to wane, though even during the convulsions of the twentieth century — including the Communist period — the influence of his thinking remained persistent and tangible. Ironically it was Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader most hostile to Confucius, who was to pen the Little Red Book, which in both form and content clearly drew on the Confucian tradition. [599]

Two of the most obvious continuities in Chinese civilization, both of which can be traced back to Confucius, concern the state and education. The state has always been perceived as the embodiment and guardian of Chinese civilization, which is why, in both the dynastic and Communist eras, it has enjoyed such huge authority and legitimacy. Amongst its constellation of responsibilities, the state, most importantly of all, has the sacred task of maintaining the unity of Chinese civilization. Unlike in the Western tradition, the role of government has no boundaries; rather like a parent, with which it is often compared, there are no limits to its authority. Paternalism is regarded as a desirable and necessary characteristic of government. Although in practice the state has always been rather less omnipotent that this might suggest, there is no doubting the reverence and deference which the Chinese display towards it. [600] Similarly, the roots of China ’s distinctive concept of education and parenting lie deep in its civilizational past. Ever since Mencius (372–289 BC), a disciple of Confucius, the Chinese have always been optimistic about human nature, believing that people were essentially good and that, by bringing children up in the right manner through the appropriate parenting and education, they would acquire the correct attitudes, values and self-discipline. In the classroom, children are expected to look respectfully upwards towards the teacher and, given the towering importance of history, reverentially backwards to the past in terms of the content of their learning. Education is vested with the authority and reverence of Chinese civilization, with teachers the bearers and transmitters of that wisdom. A high priority is placed on training and technique, as compared with the openness and creativity valued in the West, with the result that Chinese children often achieve a much higher level of technical competence at a much younger age in music and art, for example, than their Western counterparts. Perhaps this stems partly from the use of an ideographic language, which requires the rote learning of thousands of characters, and the ability to reproduce those characters with technical perfection. [601]