Vohra, Ranbir. China's Path to Modernization: A Historical Review from 1800 to the Present. Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall, 1987. Print

NOTES

Chapter: On the eve of European Aggression

The collapse of the Chinese traditional order resulted from 2 major phenomena: internal decay and external aggression. Internal decay reflected a dynastic decline that was traditional. External aggression brought new forces into play that demanded non- traditional response, which China found difficult to develop because it was in the throes of dynastic decline.

China’s traditional political culture

Geographical Setting

China possessed all the necessary ingredients to make it economically self-sufficient.Nature had also endowed the country with ample reserves of coal, iron, copper, tin, lead and silver. China therefore never had to look beyond its borders for trade to supply any of its real needs.

The geographical setting in which Chinese civilization developed thus gave the Chinese a sense of self sufficiency, exclusiveness and cultural superiority which they have not lost to this day. (Reinforcing Confucian values)

History

Confucianism and ideology

The chief components of Confucianism, (Confucius c.551 – 479 B.C.) and Mencius portrayed an idealized picture of the past when (supposedly) wise moral rulers guided and led their people by the example of their own ethical conduct rather than by harsh laws.

Confucians were against war because it was wasteful and brought human misery, real authority came not from physical power but from virtue that radiated humanity and benevolence.

Confucianism stressed five human relationships/bonds that would bring tranquillity and harmony to society – between father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brother, prince and subject, friend and friend.

Confucians looked upon the family unit as the foundation of civilization. All loyalty was focussed on the family at the expense of every other social or political institution.

Confucius put great emphasis on “ancestor worship” as a concept of filial piety. Filial piety came to influence the institution of marriage and the development of Chinese humanism. An individual was to learn to serve and submit to his family and dispense benevolence. This was essential for proper regulation of a family.

If families were well regulated, then the state would also be well regulated and there would be universal tranquillity and harmony.

Since everything in Confucianism depended on correct behaviour, the Confucians emphasized the need for self-discipline and self examination and the continuous cultivation of the inner virtues of righteousness, propriety, wisdom, faithfulness and most important of all, REN (compassion, human-heartedness, goodness, benevolence).

The making of imperial ConfucianismHan Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D 220)

The Confucian element is the reassertion that good government depends not on laws and institutions but on the ethics and moral leadership that its primary duty is to look after the welfare of the people.

Confucian thinkers tired to use the imperial system itself to achieve their ends. The bureaucracies, recruited through an examination system, were trained in Confucian classics and the orthodox ideology was perpetuated.

The examination based on Confucian texts later made Confucianism the official ideology of the bureaucracy, the ideology of the educated. It became the hallmark of high culture and gradually was accepted as national ideology by all Chinese.

The traditional political culture made China synonymous with the greatest civilization on earth. Chinese culture provided the ultimate unity to the state, and that unity was strengthened more by the belief that there could never be more than one Son of Heaven. In other words, there could never be more than one government over the state that coincided with the culture area. All peoples outside the culture area were barbarians.

This secular ideology was all-embracing, relating mankind to the universe, the individual to the family, the family to society, private life to public life, and culture to politics.

Obedience to authority was inculcated as a virtue.

Manchu China c. 1800: The myth and reality

China never came close to the Confucian utopian ideal, but the Confucian political, social and economic framework did prove durable over the centuries.

When China entered the 19th century, the sophisticated imperial system, which had once allowed for technical developments and economic growth, had lost its resilience and dynamism and the gap between Confucian ideals and the socio-political reality had begun to widen.

Some suggest that in the late Ming – early Qing period, China saw a tremendous growth in silk and porcelain production, which led to the emergence of “workshops”

and the “sprouts” of capitalism, and that had it not been for the destructive presence of the West, China would have produced its own industrial revolution. However, there is very little evidence to support this.

The political system

The Qing continued the Ming approach to mercantilism, meaning the repressive system of tariffs, duties, and squeeze were perpetuated and national market kept from developing.

The government had no constructive policies that would have fostered manufacturing industries.

In external trade, the Manchu policies were even more restrictive of growth than the Ming government.

Around 1760, China began its century of isolation from the west by cutting off all foreign trade and restricting it only to one port in Canton, where it was to be kept under strict supervision.

The emperorConfucianism places the highest importance on the role of the emperor in the Chinese socio-political system. The accepted myth was that the emperor was the “Son of Heaven”, the ruler of all mankind, the fountainhead of civilization, the ultimate defender of ideology, a most humane sovereign, whose only raison d’etre was his concern for the welfare of the common man. And he was endowed with supreme power.

The examination system, the Gentry, the Bureaucracy

Officials were all product of the imperial examination system.Based on Confucian text, seen as the only avenue of upward mobility. The million plus members of the gentry constituted an important part of the ruling class of china. They were educated in the same Confucian texts and were instilled with the same ideology and world outlook; spread over the entire country, the possessed deep-rooted, vested interest in the existing system and helped to strengthen the cultural unity of the country.

The Confucian myth is that the officials and gentry were wise sages who helped sustain the moral order and who worked zealously for the welfare of the people. In reality, they connived and competed with each other to exploit the peasantry in order to build up private fortunes.

By the 19th century the central government became more inefficient and ineffective at the local level, the gentry became increasingly un-Confucian.

They separated themselves from the common people and ruled from a distance.

The Confucian, Manchu political system can be compared to a colonial one because the Manchu rulers wanted to preserve itself by giving maximum free play to supportive traditional institutions which indoctrinated people to make them subservient.

The function of the Beijing government was negative. In the face of European aggression, neither the emperors nor the officials were in a position to “lead” society.

The examinations had become stereotyped, knowledge has been stultified and there was little allowance for creative political thought. Education was not for broadening cultural horizons or liberating the spirit of enquiry, but for memorizing texts that exulted in the conservatism and a backward-looking Confucian ideology that effectively shut out the world beyond the borders of the middle kingdom.

The Manchu rulers who themselves were “barbarians” should have been aware of the danger that the “barbarians from the West” represented. However, they have become so sinicized by 1800 that they too had acquired the Confucian blindfold, to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the Han population. The Manchus had to out-Confucian the Confucians.

Corruption

Behind the façade of Confucianism, which continued to be affirmed publicly in every possible manner, existed a vast web of nepotism and corruption, which had come to be built into the system. For example, Chinese officials received meagre salaries, but as they were expected to keep up a lifestyle befitting of their status, were allowed to make up for the balance through corrupt practices. This was justified through the Confucian concept of kinship, whereby they had to provide for their innumerable relatives who could demand to be looked after.

To receive a higher paying post which would result in a higher paying salary, the officials would have to bribe their superiors who in turn had to bribe theirs, thus resulting in a system of corruption that extended from the eunuchs and princes in the imperial palace, in Beijing to the magistrate clerk. The ones who suffered the most were the peasantries who were wrung dry through unfair taxes.

The financial base of the empire

Economic figures were never accurate because many of the figures were often ritualistic.

Officials abused their position by imposing miscellaneous taxes.

When foreign aggression placed additional financial demands on the central government, the antiquated revenue system could not meet the need. Additional land levies were impossible as the peasants were already taxed to the limit. The development of new sources of wealth required a revolutionary change in the agrarian based Confucian ideology and China was not yet ready for such a change.

The military system

The Chinese were a pacifist people who had contempt for the military man and for military affairs.

Confucianism? Or contempt due to the fact that the Manchu dynasty not only kept the senior-most military posts in Manchu hands but also kept the Han out of the main fighting armies?

Gradually lost its efficiency and became corrupt. The banner forces (Manchu army) were ill treated, ill paid and ill supplied. They were not able to engage in trade or labour and had to work as artisans or peddlers.

The army had become so worthless that it often could not even enforce law and order. In some places, these soldiers even became the cause of disorder; even they even committed local banditry.

Law in traditional China

Confucianism ideology stressed the overriding obligation for all persons to preserve harmony and not disturb the natural order. They believed that by following the ritualised rules of social conduct, by moral persuasion and by maintaining the proper attitude towards authority, there was no need for laws and punishment.

However, Confucians recognized that only the educated superior person could be expected to have the moral understanding and self-discipline that would avert the need for punishments.

The preservation of the Confucian moral order was more important than any respect for an abstract legal doctrine.

As the Qing administration deteriorated, this meant that the government was progressively aware of the actual conditions in the countryside, because magistrates tended to cover up criminal activity in his district in order to not be suspended or demoted.

Legal institutions may in fact have done as much to undermine the social order as to uphold it, by strengthening irrational tendencies, which were at variance with the common sense humanism of Confucianism.

The Commoners: The Ruled

PeasantsIn spite of Confucian lip service to the peasants and their supposed high position within the ranking class structure, they were in fact at the bottom of society.

According to Confucian myth, Chinese society was egalitarian. In reality, China was a two-class society: the landlord-gentry-scholar-bureaucrats forming the ruling elite, and the illiterate peasants, the exploited masses.

Elements of Confucian high culture had trickled down to the peasantry and had come to provide basic family values and patterns of familial and social relationships.

With an abundance of manpower and limited technology, the agricultural economy worked fairly well until the 19th century. A population explosion had occurred and this resulted in the decline in the peasant economic situation, manifested in decreasing acreage of small holdings, in increasing tenancy, agricultural unemployment, indebtedness and in peasant rebellions.

Agrarian distress from 1800 onwards resulted in death by the millions.

By mid 19th century, corruption in taxes often meant an increase in 300 – 1000% of what the peasants had to pay. The imperial system of granaries broke down and was abandoned. The government and upper classes performed no function that the peasants regarded as essential for their way of life.

Artisans and Merchants

Although called a class in Confucian terminology, the merchants never came to form an independent class as they did in Japan or India. Chinese guilds were unable to promote effectively the special interests of the merchants or provide a voice in government affairs. They served more as control mechanisms for the government.

Trade and merchants thus remained subservient to government officials and dependent on official goodwill. The merchants learnt to work as allies of the government and kept the officials happy with gifts and donations.

As the conditions of law and order deteriorated, the richer guilds began to organize their own militias. By fixing prices and arbitrating disputes, the guilds tended to reduce the competitive tensions between merchants.

To discard their lowly status and gain higher social honour, many wealthy merchants abandoned the mercantile world to join the gentry’ class. They became landlords and encouraged their children to sit for the official exams. Thus the development of capitalism and entrepreneurial spirit remained thwarted by unfavourable social circumstances (Confucian)

Secret Societies and Peasant rebellions

Confucian political theory accepted peasant rebellions as a legitimate response to dynastic decline. Yet nothing was so abhorrent to Confucianism as “disorder”. This ambivalence came to be resolved in practice by the acceptance of the leader of a successful rebellion as a man of great virtue who had received the Heavenly Mandate to rule China.

By 1800, the Qing power declined, peasant uprisings led by secret societies began to harass the government. The rising of the White Lotus Society lasted nine years (1796 – 1804) and cost the government 120 million taels to suppress (three times the annual state revenue).

In the process of containing the early 19th century uprisings, the Qing military had deteriorated because the government had to raise a militia for several hundred thousands to achieve victory.

By 1800, the Confucian imperial system had become too set in its ways and it was no longer possible for its operators to change it in any significant manner. The ruling classes were themselves the prisoners of the system. The system still held the country together but had begun to tarnish the impressive façade of the ideal monolithic centralized power structure. Cracks that were created by the very contradictions between the imperial Inner court and the bureaucracy, the central government and the provinces, the bureaucracy and the gentry, the gentry and the people, in short, the government and the people as a whole.

Chapter 2The End of Isolation, The beginning of political change: 1800 – 1860

When China entered the 19th century, there was little reason for any Chinese to imagine that within a few decades their traditional polity would be shaken to its very roots and never recover from the shock.

For 2000 years, China had perfected one of the world’s most durable political systems and had developed a uniquely indigenous civilization that had deeply influenced the culture of the peripheral countries but also drawn them into a China-centred international order.

The success of the system and its self-sufficiency had led to a sense of complacency, which was heightened by China’s self-imposed isolation.

China’s isolationist policies came at a totally wrong time. When the emperor Qian-Long ordered that all foreign trade be restricted to the single port of Canton (Guangzhou), he was unaware that a new, potentially dangerous dynamism was emerging in the occident (West), which was bound to affect China.

A revolution in science and technology led by Britain, was transforming the Western nations into competitors in the global arena for markets, raw materials and colonies. It was only a matter of time until the expansive, aggressive West, incapable of being contained within the Chinese international system of “tribute and trade” would shatter the isolationist walls raised by China.

China’s ignorance of the west was colossal, and such knowledge may have helped China to be better prepared for the onslaught.

China’s world order and Foreign Trade

The Chinese international structure was totally different from any part of the world. First, it was premised on the belief that China was the cultural centre of the universe and that all non-Chinese were uncivilized “barbarians”Second, since the Chinese ruler, was considered the ruler of all mankind, all other barbarian rulers owed allegiance to Beijing. There could be no Western-style

diplomatic relations. Countries wanting to trade with China had to send “tribute” missions and kowtow before the emperor.

The non-Chinese Asians accepted it without difficulty and continued to pay regular tribute to Beijing. There was little reason for the Chinese to doubt their prominence in their world order.

The Guangzhou System of Trade and its collapse

The foreign trade system in Guangzhou reflected the Chinese government’s attitude that trade was secondary to the maintenance of the Chinese world and internal order.

Foreign traders could not communicate with the officials directly but would have to send their “petitions” through the Cohongs.

The Westerners were dissatisfied with their circumstances but were willing to accept the humiliating treatment because they were loath to give up their highly profitable trade in China. By accepting their inferior position, the Westerners strengthened the Chinese belief in the pre-eminence of the Middle Kingdom.

The Cohong had the monopoly of foreign trade and was a merchant organization.

If the Chinese had not been so self-absorbed and intent on keeping their country closed off, they might have realized that the Guangzhou system of trade was collapsing and that is it did collapse, the tribute system would go down with it. The relationship between tribute and trade was established by China to control the barbarian.

For the Chinese, “tribute” was more important than trade. (Confucian philosophy)

By the end of the 18th century, British trade with China had expanded tremendously. The trade was one sided because the Chinese agrarian-based economy was relatively self-sufficient and there was no demand for European goods in Chinese.

Demand for Opium increased in China and the trade balance reversed in favour of the British.

The British free-traders and industrial manufacturers, proponents of the new philosophy of capitalism and laissez-faire, pressured the British government to end the age of mercantilism by abolishing the EIC’s monopoly and encouraging free trade aspirations of the British merchants.

Internal Decay

The critical Confucian values that held state and society together had begun to erode by the opening decades of the 19th century. A pop

Corrin, Jay, June Grasso, and Michael Kort. Modernization and Revolution in China (East Gate Books). Revised ed. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. Print. 

NOTES

China is one of the world’s oldest, geographically contiguous civilizations and for this reason alone; history probably looms larger in the Chinese consciousness than it does in the minds and thoughts of others.

Modernization is defined as the process by which societies move from a rural, agrarian base to urban, industrial structures of living via the application of science, technology and rational modes of thought.

Revolutions bring about radical changes in the economic and political orders of a country; they produce shifts in consciousness and social structures and are always marked by the emergence of a new ruling elite, whose values achieve legitimacy through acceptance by the larger society.

At the centre of Chinese history is the ongoing struggle between the forces of modernity and the pull of tradition.

The Middle Kingdom

In ancient times, they called their land “Zhongguo” – the central territory/Middle Kingdom.

Chinese tradition and mythology affirmed that their emperors ruled over “all under heaven” in a universe that composed of concentric circles of which China was the core, and which became less civilized the farther one strayed from the centre.

Traditional beliefs further affirmed that China’s earliest emperors gave humanity fire, hunting, agriculture, writing, silk, musical instruments and most of the other prerequisites of civilized life.

Although the Chinese were not the first to develop civilized life, their basis was a highly efficient agricultural system utilizing sophisticated and extensive water control and irrigation techniques that enabled them to grow enough food to support what was considered the largest concentration of human beings in the world.

China’s core was Confucianism, an ideological and ethical system dating from the sixth century B.C. whose primary concern is maintaining a stable and humane social order.

Chinese civilization and technology was adept.

Chinese engineering accomplishments – from flood control and irrigation systems along the Yellow River to the building of the 2000 mile long Great Wall in the

beginning of the 2nd century B.C. and the construction of the 1,200 mile long Grand Canal in the 6th century A.D. – matched any in the ancient world.

The Chinese were the first, over 2 millenias ago, to develop a relatively efficient bureaucratic system of government, one that they improved on in succeeding generations.

Patterns of Traditional Chinese Life

Maintaining unity and continuity was a constant challenge.

The Four Orders

The most basic of Chinese fundamental constants is that Chinese civilization has always rested on an agrarian, peasant base. Chinese thinkers themselves accorded the peasantry’s contributions partial recognition. In their view of society, the peasantry was assigned second place in terms of status, only inferior to the scholar-officials who governed the state. Chinese peasants generally lived and died in their own encapsulated world. One of the most important divisions in traditional Chinese society was that between the masses who lived in the villages and those who lived in the towns.

Urban China housed the other 3 orders: the governing officials and the class of large landowners, the artisans and the merchants, and lastly a mixed group of others.

Each individual had to contribute to the general welfare and do nothing to disrupt the order and stability deemed so vital to the functioning of the system on what community life depended.

The individual was first subordinated to the family, the basic economic, political and moral institution of Chinese society. It was the family that owned property, not the individual, paid taxes, and frequently took responsibility for the legal or moral transgressions of one of their members.

The family was therefore crucial to maintaining social discipline and keeping the people in place. This was done through an autocratic and hierarchical structure headed by the grandfather or father.

The concept of filial piety went beyond absolute deference to one’s father to include subservience to any superior and submission to the state.

While the peasants fed China, a class called the gentry did the governing. Although in China the gentry were the large landowners, formal membership was based on the official examinations, based on Confucian texts.

Living alongside the gentry families in the towns were the merchants. Confucianism did not consider commerce a productive endeavour since merchants themselves merely bought and sold what others made, rather than create new wealth.

China’s merchants were never able to establish the independence of action that Europe enjoyed. This was largely because early on Chinese faced a unified state that had developed the strength to control many human activities, including commercial life.

In Western Europe on the other hand, the merchant class was able to maneuver and grow in the urban cracks and crevices of Western Europe’s decentralized medieval society.

A typical problem for the Chinese merchants was that whenever a great demand for a product developed, the government would move in and set up a monopoly to generate revenues for itself. Moreover, Chinese merchants tended to invest in land and in the education of their sons and aspire to gentry’ status. This meant that China’s merchants did not develop into a self-conscious entrepreneurial class like the bourgeoisie of the Western Europe that was to be the driving force behind commercial capitalism and the Industrial Revolution.

The Dynastic Cycle

Social stability existed because the peasantry had enough land to support itself and pay the taxes necessary to maintain the government. Eventually, the quality of the emperors would decline.

Chinese tradition provided an explanation for the dynastic cycle. The failure of the old dynasty was proof that it had lost the support of the gods, what was called the “Mandate of Heaven”

The Confucian Outlook

The prime directive of Confucianism was to maintain social order and good government. Confucianism assumed that the harmony and order required by society could not be imposed solely from above. This meant that all individuals had to understand and accept their place in society.

Confucianism therefore was a strict hierarchical outlook assigning places to most people from birth. And while it assumed that government was based on a moral code, Confucianism always stacked the deck against the individual and in favour of authority, from the peasants at the base of power structure to the emperor at its pinnacle.

A concept that perhaps best illustrates the essence on Confucianism is the concept of Li – proper conduct according to status.

Confucian scholars provided 4 other virtues to complement li: benevolence, righteousness, wisdom and good faith.

Confucius was convinced that his knowledge and teaching held the secret to good government from state to state in a yet divided China looking for a ruler willing to sample his intellectual and political wares.

Confucius suggested that good government began with a ruler knowing how to behave; naturally, the foremost experts in proper behaviour were none other than those with a mastery of Confucian teachings and broad education and knowledge of Chinese culture. Therefore, Confucian scholars were the perfect and only choice to serve as the rulers, advisers, administrators, and officials. Over time, only Confucianism was accepted and became the official ideology of the Chinese state, a complex and sophisticated system based on a rigorous system of examinations was developed for training and selecting these men.

Imperial China

Under the Han (206 B.C. – 222 A.D.), Confucianism became the official state doctrine, and the system of examinations for selecting officials was introduced for the first time.

The Chinese Bureaucracy and Governmental System

The emperor memorized and learned to accept the ancient Confucian system of values and behavioural rules; he did not learn, as is the tradition in the West, to think critically and question what he was told. Rather than being trained in specific governing techniques, he was drilled in proper Confucian behaviour and the management of people in general.

The legal system in China did not function as it does in the modern West, where a well-developed civil code regulates relations between individuals and law is viewed as protecting the individual against not only criminal acts committed by other citizens but against abuses by the state. In China, law was subordinated strictly to the interests of maintaining order. The law served the state, not its subjects.

The emperor stood at its head and had absolute power, and the quality of the government fluctuated with the quality of the emperor.

The emperor was considered all-powerful but he was nonetheless bound by Confucian guidelines.

The elites power and pervasiveness in Chinese life make it reasonable to call traditional China a bureaucratic society, ordered and restrained by the administrative system to which in ancient times it had given birth.

China’s last dynasties

Centuries of cultural contact between China and various foreigners shrank, therefore decreasing the stimulation provided by alien ideas and techniques. Intellectual life began to stagnate. Technological progress in many areas, including agriculture ebbed to what was probably its slowest pace in China’s history. The Chinese began to fall behind in military techniques; they made much less progress in the use of firearms, for example, than the Japanese.

More importantly, the technological lag relative to the distant inhabitants of Western Europe, who were learning to overcome many technological problems inclusing how to travel global distances by sea.

From the later part of the 17th century until the middle of the 18th century, China was the most populous and possibly the most prosperous country in the world. The Manchus strengthened inter-regional ties, promoting both prosperity and unity.

China’s population began to outrun its available natural resources.

The Tributary System

The Manchus, by restoring the empire’s military strength, were successful in controlling the encroachments of the European powers who hoped to open China for trade.

For the Chinese, relations between nations were based on the idea of Confucian hierarchy, in which each member state held a prescribed position. Just as in the Confucian social order the father or the emperor was supreme in his realm, so China in the world of nations stood at the top. China was the centre of the world; all the peripheral states held inferior positions. China therefore could not recognize others as equal trading partners because anyone not a part of Chinese culture ipso facto was a “barbarian”. Any state wishing to establish relations with the Middle Kingdom first had to fit itself into the tribute system.

The Chinese were willing to engage in trade and maintain peaceful relations provided it remained on their terms. Tribute system, Cohongs etc.

Like other “barbarians” – Asian, European and so on, the British traders were confined to a designated place, Guangzhou, Canton. This angered the British who were a rapidly expanding colonial power and not in the habit of being told what to do. Making matters worse, the conditions at GZ were hardly conducive to promoting the type and level of trade the British desired.

Despite all these problems, the “Guangzhou System” of trade was quite profitable for the individual Europeans engaged in it, even as it drained the West of Gold and Silver. Trade peaked between 1760 – 1840 with the greatest beneficiary being the British EIC, holder of the monopoly on all tea imported into GB until 1833.

However, the British remained unable to sell their manufactured products in China, which might have reduced their trade imbalance.

The process of Chinese decline was both relative and absolute and had 2 parts. 1. Western nations propelled upwards by the commercial revolution of the 17th

and 18th centuries and then by their industrial revolution of the nineteenth century.

2. China, after centuries as the top crust of world civilization, was pushed downward by a series of forces, some internal, emanating from deep within its own history, and some external, generated by the rising and immensely

powerful European mass that was crashing with increasing force against the vulnerable Middle Kingdom.

The internal factors undermining China were deeply rooted and extraordinarily difficult to counteract. There was little China could muster against European technology, especially after the Industrial Revolution was underway. Chinese technologies lagged because China had not developed the scientific method of thinking and research whose products were making the Europeans so strong.

It is not that the Chinese lacked a history of scientific achievements; indeed the opposite is in fact the case. But the systematic application of theory, experimentation and practical approach that developed in Europe after 1600 and produced a veritable explosion in scientific and technological advances there did not take place in China.

Several factors account for this:

Confucian tradition stressed memorization and rote, not critical thinking and the creative development of new ideas. It also tended to separate intellectual and practical work, with hands-on labour consigned to an inferior position.

Many of the early machines of the IR were the result of the marriage of intellectual work and mechanical skills. Even the Chinese language itself was an obstacle to scientific achievements.

In addition, stifling formality and tradition surrounded not only Confucian ideas but the written ideographs that expressed them. This formality had grown since the Ming dynasty. All of this encased Chinese thought inside an intellectual great wall that was far more effective against new ideas than the Great Wall of stone was against new invaders.

A related factor in China’s weakness was the failure of the Chinese economy to grow and expand like the economies of the West. Western economic growth was both a cause and effect of the scientific and technological progress that made these new barbarians so irresistible.

Part of the explanation for failure to develop capitalism lies in the anti-commercial traditions of Confucianism and the suffocating impact of the Chinese imperial state and its bureaucracy on the merchant activities.

It makes more sense to look at the conditions in China and try to understand what happened there in light of the problems and choices the Chinese faced.

The problems China faced at the time of the European incursion may well have been a function of what once had been China’s strength: its size, its deeply rooted traditions, and its sophistication. China’s large population, once a source of power, seems to have reached a point, no later than the 18th century, where it began to weigh China down.

As China’s population passed a certain point, the amount of land available per family began to decrease. In a country lacking in modern industrial technology, per capita

production began to fall. Over time, this fall in productivity gradually transformed China from a rich country into a poor one. In addition, the huge population made human labour so cheap that it became unnecessary to introduce new, labour-saving technology.

Before European missionaries and traders began to arrive in China, Chinese technological progress had already ground to a halt, leaving the MK at a great disadvantage vis-à-vis the new, aggressive adventures from across the sea.

China was far larger than Britain, so much so that even the resources of North America would not have been enough to overhaul its gigantic economy. Given the size and traditions of their country, and whatever their attitude toward change, there is little the Confucian scholars could have done to overcome the legacy transformed by the alchemy of the time from a golden pedestal into a leaden anchor.

As a result, the MK was forced to perform a long and painful kowtow at the feet of foreign barbarians.

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/main_pop/kpct/ct_china.htm#9

Notes

Family and State

Government and society in China were grounded in the Confucian philosophy, which held that there was a basic order in the universe and a natural harmony linking man, nature, and the cosmos (heaven); it also held that man was by nature a social being, and that the natural order of the universe should be reflected in human relations. The family unit was seen as the primary social unit; relationships within the family were fundamental to all others and comprised three of the "five relationships" that were the models for all others: sovereign-subject, husband-wife, parent-child, elder brother-younger brother, friend-friend. In this hierarchy of social relations, each role had clearly defined duties; reciprocity or mutual responsibility between subordinate and superior was fundamental to the Confucian concept of human relations. The virtue of filial piety, or devotion of the child to his parents, was the foundation for all others. When extended to all human beings, it nurtured the highest virtue, humaneness (jen), or the sense of relatedness to other persons (Theme 3).

Family

1. In traditional Chinese society, therefore, the family, not the group or the individual, was central. The kinship network linked related families and also the living with the deceased through veneration of ancestors. 

2. The eldest male held supreme authority within the family (Theme 3); the status of females was unequal. Property was owned jointly by males and passed on to males equally. Emphasis was on the paternal line of ancestors; great importance was attached to honouring these ancestors to ensure the continuity and prosperity of the family. Families arranged marriages. 

3. Because of the strong sense of identification between an individual and his family and the idea of mutual responsibility, population registration, taxation, and self-policing were carried out for the government not by individuals but by families grouped, for administrative efficiency, into larger units under the bao-jia (pao-chia) system. Families and neighbours were responsible for mutual surveillance.

State

1. In traditional China it was assumed by adherents of all schools of thought that government would be monarchical and that the state had its model in the family (Theme 3). The ruler was

understood to be at once the Son of Heaven, and the father of the people, ruling under the Mandate of Heaven. Traditional thinkers, reflecting on the problem of government, were concerned primarily not with changing institutions and laws but with ensuring the moral uprightness of the rule and encouraging his appropriate conduct as a father-figure (Theme 3). The magistrate, the chief official of the lowest level of government and the official closest to the people, was known as the "Father-mother" official. Even today, under a radically different form of government, the Chinese term for state is guo-jia or "nation-family," suggesting the survival of the idea of this paternal and consensual relationship (Theme 3 and Theme 5). The first and third of the "five relationships" — i.e., emperor and minister, father and son — indicate the parallels between family and state.

2. The notion of the role of the state as guarantor of the people's welfare developed very early, along with the monarchy and the bureaucratic state. It was also assumed that good government could bring about order, peace, and the good society (Theme 3 and Theme 5). Tests of the good ruler were social stability, population growth (a reflection of ancient statecraft where the good ruler was one who could attract people from other states), and ability to create conditions that fostered the people’s welfare. The Mandate of Heaven was understood as justifying the right to rule, with the corollary right to rebel against a ruler who did not fulfil his duties to the people. The state played a major role in determining water rights, famine control and relief, and insuring social stability. The state encouraged people to grow rice and other grains rather than commercial crops in order to insure an adequate food supply, it held reserves in state granaries, in part to lessen the effects of drought and floods, particularly common in northern China. For fear of losing the Mandate of Heaven governments levied very low taxes, which often meant that the government could not provide all the services expected of it, and that officials ended up extorting money from the people.

The Perfectibility of Man and the Moral Role of Government

1. The dominant strain of Confucian thought stressed the perfectibility of man (Theme 4). Confucius (a political philosopher who lived c. 551-479 BC) expressed a belief in the fundamental similarity of all persons and in the perfectibility and educatability of each individual. Mencius and Hsun Tzu, two of his prominent successors, held different views on human nature, Mencius arguing that it contained the seeds of goodness, and Hsun Tzu that, in its uncultivated state, human nature tended to evil. Both, however, believed that human beings were perfectible through self-cultivation and the practice of ritual (Theme 4). From the 11th century onward, Neo-Confucian philosophers, engaged in the renewal and elaboration of Confucian thought, subscribed to

the Mencian line, stressing the potential goodness of human nature and the importance of developing that goodness through education. 

2. Belief in the innate goodness and perfectibility of man has had strong implications for the development of the Chinese political system. The ruler's main function in the Confucian state was to educate and transform the people (Theme 4). This was ideally accomplished not by legal regulation and coercion, but by personal rule, moral example, and mediation in disputes by the emperor and his officials. Confucian political theory emphasized conflict resolution through mediation, rather than through the application of abstract rules to establish right and wrong, as the best means for achieving social harmony. 

3. The belief that the state was the moral guardian of the people was reflected in a number of institutions. Most important among these was the merit bureaucracy, or civil servant, in which all officials were to be selected for their moral qualities, qualities that would enable them not only to govern, but to set a moral example that would transform the people. Because Confucianism was a moral system, the Confucian classics had to be mastered by prospective officials. Official position and examination degree, not wealth or business acumen were universally recognized marks of status.

The Individual and Society

1. The relation between the individual and the state was understood not in adversarial terms, as is characteristic of the modern West, but in consensual terms (Theme 3 and Theme 5). Therefore, China did not develop an elaborate system of civil law. Instead, mediation between aggrieved parties was prescribed, with local leaders emphasizing negotiation, compromise, and change through education rather than assignment of blame and punishment. 

2. Neo-Confucian ideals held that:

› the educated individual had a responsibility to serve the state (Theme 5);› a morally upright official should courageously remonstrate with the ruler if his policies are damaging to the state;› the state could prosper only if the people prospered; and› any disruption in the economy or social order was probably due to corrupt political institutions. 

3. These ideas contributed to the longevity, strength, and adaptability of traditional Chinese political institutions. The best people were motivated to serve in government. While corruption was not uncommon, the ideal of public service and responsibility for the people's welfare remained strong. A powerful tradition of remonstrance and reform helped to insure that the system adapted to change.

Advanced Commercial Development in Place of Industrial Development

1. Geographic unity, river systems, and canals facilitated the development of internal trade in China. The mainland forms a natural unit almost cut off by mountains from the outside world. Its size and the political unity that prevailed for much of its late imperial history, however, promoted interregional trade within China (Theme 6). The absence of trade barriers and the existence of a vast and varied geography meant that shortages in one part of China could be made up through trade with another. Similarly, labor needs in one area could be filled by migration or by shifting manufacture to another area. Geographic factors that facilitated this internal trade were the Yangtze River, the complex network of rivers in the south, and China's long coastline. China, in contrast to the West and Japan, thus never felt pressure to develop labor-saving technologies or engage in extensive expansionist or colonizing activities. (This also contrasts markedly with the political and economic history of Europe, where the existence of many small countries led to trade barriers and local shortages, prompting individual countries to make technological advances and wage costly wars that contributed to the rise of large financial empires and political imperialism.) 

2. The Chinese state control of commercial development fluctuated. Responsible for popular welfare, the state encouraged the production of staple food crops; merchants, on the other hand, were considered unproductive and therefore constituted the lowest class in the traditional Confucian hierarchy. From the Tang dynasty (618-907) onward, however, with growing population and expansion of territory, state control of the economy gradually receded. Except for strategic goods like salt and certain metals — like copper and lead needed for currency — the state did little to control commerce. (This contrasts with European states, where cities required a charter from the royal house, and with Japan, where cities were allowed to develop only in the castle towns of the daimyo and in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo, these latter three having special functions connected to the central government). Moreover, the Chinese government did not rely very heavily on commercial taxation; its main sources of income were land and salt taxes. (This contrasts with Western Europe, where government taxes on commerce were heavy.) This environment fostered the development of an intricate market network which extended deep into the countryside and which was comprised of periodic, village markets with links to regional markets (Theme 6). A primitive national market, remarkable given China's vast territory, existed in certain essential commodities, such as grain, cotton, and tea. A number of factors, including China's size, the difficulties involved in using metal currencies in conducting long-distance trade, and the minor role played by government in regulating the economy, help explain why China was the first country to develop paper money, sophisticated brokerage practices, and banking institutions.

China Before the Modern Era

China's stable social and political institutions spawned great scientific achievements, intellectual and artistic developments. The "golden age" of the Tang (618-907) and Song (Sung) (907-1127/1279) dynasties was followed by the commercial expansion and economic prosperity of the Ming (1368-1644) and early Qing (Ch'ing) (1644-1912) dynasties (Theme 1 and Theme 6). Marco Polo, travelling to China during the Yuan dynasty when the Mongols controlled China (1279-1368, between the Song and Ming dynasties) commented with amazement on the contrast between its civilization and that of Venice, an advanced enclave in Europe at the time. Most Europeans dismissed his tales of the Chinese cities as fantasy.

China in the 18th and 19th Centuries During the Period of European Economic Expansion

1. In the 16th century, under the Ming dynasty, the Chinese economy was still the most sophisticated and productive in the world, and the Chinese probably enjoyed a higher standard of living than any other people on earth. The Qing (Ch'ing) or Manchu dynasty (1644-1912) continued this splendor. Contemporary Chinese called the 18th century, when all aspects of culture flourished, "unparalleled in history." China was a prosperous state with abundant natural resources, a huge but basically contented population, and a royal house of great prestige at home and abroad (Theme 1). 

2. Yet by the late 18th century, the strong Chinese state contained seeds of its own destruction, particularly its expanding population. Having remained at 100 million through much of history, under the peaceful Qing (Ch'ing), the population doubled from 150 million in 1650 to 300 million by 1800, and reached 450 million by the late nineteenth century (cf. population of the United States was 200 million in the 1980s) (Theme 2). By then, there was no longer any land in China's southern and central provinces available for migration: the introduction of New World (American) crops through trade — especially sweet potatoes, peanuts, and tobacco, which required different growing conditions than rice and wheat — had already claimed previously unusable land. With only 1/10 of the land arable, farmers had an average of only three (3) acres, with many having only one acre. The right of equal inheritance among sons (versus primogeniture as practiced in Japan) only hastened the fragmentation of land holdings. To compound these problems, the state was losing its control in much of the country. By the 19th century, district magistrates at the lowest level of the Chinese bureaucracy were responsible for the welfare, control, and taxation of an average of 250,000 people (Theme 3). This left control and responsibility for government increasingly in the hands of local leaders whose allegiances were to their localities and families, rather than to the state. 

3. The traditional labour-intensive and highly productive agricultural system that prevailed throughout the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing(Ch'ing) (1644-1912) periods, while very sophisticated, provided neither incentives to modernize nor surplus for the state, and eventually resulted in what has been called China's "high-level equilibrium trap" (or "agricultural involution"). A Chinese peasant had little capital to invest in machinery, his fields were small enough

that his family could farm them effectively with manual labour and too small to make the use of machinery profitable. Wealthy landlords who controlled properties large enough to make the use of modern agricultural technology feasible, found it more profitable to rent the land to numerous small tenant farmers, from whom they collected an average of half the harvest in rent (Theme 2). Chinese peasants thus seldom had any surplus income. Because they produced most of the goods, including handicrafts, they needed, they did not stimulate a domestic market for manufactured goods 

Confucianism and Industrialization

Wei-Bin ZHANG

NOTES

Since industrialization has become a global phenomenon, an increasing number of commodities are available to an increasing number of people in the world. Industrialization has brought about material affluence to not a small number of the population in the world. A cursory comparison of the living conditions of many economies in the world between the beginning of this century and the present reveals great material progresses. These progresses are strongly related to cultural values.

W.B. Zhang examines issues related to whether or not Confucianism may provide possible contribution to the industrialization of the Confucian regions. The issues related to relationships between capitalism and Confucianism were examined by Weber.

Earlier in the 20th century, Confucianism was generally perceived as an obstacle to modernization.

Due to Japan’s economic success and China’s failure to modernize, it was argued that Japanese Confucianism was not an obstacle to modernization; while Chinese Confucianism was.

There is a tendency to credit the Confucian work ethic and encouragement of learning with providing people in the Confucian regions with the motivation, discipline and skill necessary to engage in many essential processes of modernization.

Confucius: moral thinker, knowledge mirrors his age, practical thinker; his ethics has meaning for all times in China. How he is treated in China has always symbolized the current state of the Chinese mind. Neglect of Confucius’ teachings is almost associated with social chaos and sufferings in China’s history. When Confucianism is socially despised, the Chinese people are faced with the fate of working under the control of the foreigners. The historical humiliations, suffered at the hands of the Mongols, the Manchus, and the West were all preceded by the decline of Confucianism. When Confucius is respected, Chinese experiences order and prosperity.

In contrast to China’s performance, Japan’s success in modernization has been mainly due to properly applying the Confucian principles.

The traditional cultural manifestations of the Confucian principles have much to do with this traditional economy. It is generally held that Confucianism shaped the social fabric, forged status consciousness and provided the system of role enforcement before modern times.

Confucianism may affect the region in 2 ways:

1. It directly affects social economic behaviour and institutional structures. For example, the “over-emphasis” on children’s education due to Confucian values and tradition.

2. It affects perception and value structures. How decisions are made and how the Chinese culturally interprets behaviour might be deeply influenced by Confucianism.

There is often confusion about Confucianism principles and their manifestations, such as acts of filial piety, propriety and ceremony. Confucian philosophical tradition does not hold that there is a unique correspondence between a principle and its manifestations under varied circumstances.

This implies that special customs designed under the Confucian principles for an agricultural economy may be invalid for an open industrial economy.

Confucianism may refer to 2 different aspects, the first is its basic principles, and the second is the manifestations of its principles.

The institutional structures, choice of officials through examination system, the concept of officials through examination system, the concept of filial piety, customs and ceremonies, the patterns and contents of conscience of the population and actual forms and patterns of human interaction in traditional China were influence by or designed under the direction of Confucian principles. There are intimate relationships between a principle and its manifestations.

To the mind characterized by the linear scientific vision there is a unique correspondence between industrialization and ideology. In other words, if one ideology proves to be suitable for industrialization, other ideologies would not fit for similar economic processes.

Max Weber held a traditional vision of dynamic evolution to conclude that Confucianism and other religions, except for Protestantism, which had proved to be the ideology for industrialization, are detrimental to modernization initiated in Western Europe. (Weber 1905, 1951)

Theoretically non-linear economics shows that it is quite possible for one ideology to sustain multiple economic development patterns, or that 2 ideologies may lead to a similar pattern of economic development.

The difference between Japan and China’s industrial processes shows that 2 cultures with similar traditional ideologies may lead to divergent paths of economic development. 2 economies with different cultural backgrounds and ideologies may lead to similar economic development processes and live similar material lives, even though they feel and interpret ‘symbols’ in different spirits.

WB Zhang’s paper provides insight about why some Confucian regions are capable of rapid industrialization, while some others still remain at initial stages of industrialization.

The Confucian principles

The meaning of Confucianism is ambiguous in the sense the different people understand the term to mean different things.

It may refer to philosophical tradition by Confucius, to the institutions and customs that were created under the influence of Confucian doctrines.

Free Will and Rationality

Confucianism views society as changeable rather than stationary, organic rather than mechanic.

Natural Equality and Social Inequality

Man is born naturally equal. Nothing to do with any external factor such as family background or race. Confucian tradition believes that the mind matter for being human. Men are naturally equal but not necessarily socially and economically. There is a permanent belief in Confucian tradition that a good society should be hierarchically organized with virtuous and talented men at the top. This structure is not to serve any privileged class or group of people, but to best serve the people. By putting cultivated and talented people in important positions, society benefits as a whole.

Confucius advocated universal education and taught that diplomatic and administrative positions should go to those best qualified academically, not socially. In Confucian tradition, education is the only factor determining social status. Officials are selected on the basis of their assimilation of education.

Self-Cultivation through Education and Equal Opportunity in Education

Confucius placed benevolence, justice, ceremony, knowledge and faith as among the most important virtues. He held that – it is benevolence, which must be at the heart of humanity. He believed that benevolence has to be tempered with justice and reinforced by knowledge.

The welfare of the people and the Benevolence policy

The central purpose of Confucius’ doctrine is to guarantee and improve the living conditions of the people. Confucius considered the living conditions of the people to be of primary concern to the government. Confucius suggested that a ruler should put the worthiness first among his priorities, the livelihood of the second and military matters last.

The political economic method he advocated was to let people freely do what they consider for their own best, without the government intervention when necessary.

Hierarchical Social Structure Supported by Talent and Merit

Employ people according to their talents.Confucian society is hierarchical.A good society should properly utilise human potentials. To put virtuous and talented men at high positions is to diffuse their positive potential throughout the whole society.

Modern economics is concerned with similar principles but different terms and in much broader perspectives. It may be argued that Confucianism is to actualise potential sources of increasing returns to scale through properly operating social organizations.

Mutual Obligation Rather Than Law in Maintaining Social Justice

Confucius preferred virtue and propriety to law in maintaining social justice since he did not believe that law would make the people’s heart virtuous. Confucius tried to find a way to secure social justice in a feudal-bureaucratic society.

The Values of Social Symbols and the Rectification of Names

Social symbols like wealth, teacher, and emperor are significant in society. The Confucian doctrine of the rectification of names requires that there should be a correct correspondence between the actuality and the essence that the symbol is supposed to stand for. If one is virtuous and talented, one should hold power, obtain riches, and get respected and livelong as well. Confucius held that every social symbol contains certain implications that constitute that class of things to which the symbol corresponds. He used the rectification of names to advocate not only the establishment of social order in which names and ranks are properly regulated, but also the correspondence of words and actions and actuality.

Market Mechanism with Government Intervention

In a good society, the government should intervene as little as possible in people’s economic affairs. Taxation should be as low as possible. The less involved in economic activities (and education) the government, the better for society. People should be rewarded differently according to merit rather than according to working hours. Moreover, the government should maintain public infrastructure (in particular, irrigation systems) in good condition.

Respect for Hard Work and Frugality

Confucius held that man has 7 feelings given by nature, not by learning. They are joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, hatred and desire. Confucius considered the impact of consumption on the mind in the long term. He advised people to spend less because extravagance leads to insubordination, and parsimony to meanness. It is better to be mean, than to be insubordinate. He did not value consumption because he believed some forms of pleasure do not have a desirable impact on the mind in the long run. Hard working and frugality are highly value in Confucianism. Since wealth is a

respectable symbol in a just environment, hard work for the purpose of acquiring wealth is highly valued in Confucianism. Knowledge accumulation for the purpose of earning a high salary is considered a commonly acceptable purpose.

Emphasizing social harmony and justifying rebels against corrupt governments

The dominant theme in Confucian political ideology is not power but ethics. The state is seen as a mechanism for exerting social control and establishing and maintaining moral order. The government is not a means to use people for some special purpose but is considered as a body of organizations whose end is to serve the people.

Confucius held that the best policy of the government is to maintain peace and establish order in society. He proposed five methods – respecting people’s business and sincerity, loving people, taxing properly, and operating economically.

Economic development in the Confucian regions

Japan is the first non-Western country to become industrialized.

Japan

Agricultural economy with virtually no modern industry. Used Tokugawa Confucianism as the state ideology.Began to start its industrialization with the Meiji Restoration of 1868 to create a modern industrial society by imitating European and American technology and institutions. Rapidly developed basic conditions for industrialization for that special international environment: armaments, industrial bases, successful military campaigns and colonies. Extended its control over weaker countries but also shared other power’s global interests.

The economic miracle is due to rapidly spread education and fast development of modern science and technology. The institutional values were quickly switched from Tokugawa Confucianism of fixed class by birth to Meiji Confucianism of social position by education.

Japan never fully practiced the most important feature of Confucianism, social position determined by education and merit.

As for as economic efficiency is concerned, it might not be economically effective of Tokugawa Japan to use examination systems to determine people’s social positions because talent accumulated through traditional education could hardly enlarge the national pie but might complicate division of consumption of the pie; but modern science and technology have changed the economic efficiency of this Confucian practice enlarges the national pie rather than merely complicate the division of consumption of the pie.

It might be argued that Japan has been the master in applying the Confucian main practical principle of putting the talented at the right position for social benefits.

Another character of Japan’s modernization is that the Japanese have accepted neither capitalism not socialism nor traditional Confucianism as its dominant ideology. No extreme ideology was used as a dominant ideology for national management.

Mainland China

Mainland China established social order only after 1949. Before that, there had been no consensus among the Chinese people.

Before the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the Han Chinese was under control of the Manchus. Since then, China was characterized by domestic chaos conflicts among local warlords without any central authority or national consensus.

It may be argued that a main feature of modern China has been that Chinese intellectuals have great ideological conflicts with the state. The traditional harmony between scholars and the state was broken under the influence of Western civilization.

Confucianism and Industrialization

As the orthodox philosophy for Chinese civilization for over 2500 years, Confucianism has influenced the Chinese mind on both conscious and unconscious levels through the teachings of arts, literature, poetry, customs and ceremonies. The mind affects action. The connection between Confucianism and action (including political and economic decision-making) is found in the mind.

If China has deeply understood the Confucian principles and had applied them to reality, they might have made social and economic progresses more rapidly and there might have been less cultural misunderstanding between the West and the Confucian regions.

The people’s livelihood and Mass education

A main feature of Confucianism is that it highly values knowledge and its social and economic role. Classical Confucianism holds that the first thing for the government to be concerned with is providing the people a basic livelihood. Once the people’ livelihood is secured, education should be spread.

The people’s livelihood is the essence for the state. The government should first guarantee the livelihood of the people but material living conditions are the ‘initial concerns’ of the government in socio-economic development processes.

It should be noted that the contents of traditional education are different from that of modern education. Even if the government is economically oriented, a modern government should emphasize science and technology for economic purposes because science and technology are basic to economic development. Man must get basic education in order to become a modern worker. This change in economic policy means that it is necessary to carry out policies and mass education at the same time in

order to secure the peoples’ livelihood. The industrialization of the Confucian region had been initiated with economic reforms as well as education.

Human capital plays in increasingly important role in economic production in modern times. Education and training are significant in determining qualitative aspects of the labour force. The economic successes of Japan and the other Confucian regions are closely related to their emphasis on human capital accumulation by education.

As far as patterns of industrial processes are concerned, Japan and the 4 tigers had followed similar patterns of economic development. Political freedom was not emphasized in the initial stages but the peoples’ livelihood and training in science and technology were emphasized in the initial stages of their economic development.

In modern China, Confucius was repeated criticized before the economic reform was started. Confucianism was perceived as a symbol of the evils of society. Moral education (ideology) rather than the people’s livelihood was the main reason for Chairman Mao and the Party.

With regard to the reason for Mainland China’s poverty before the economic reform, we quote Mencius:

“Now the livelihood of the people is so regulated, that, above, they have no sufficient wherewith to serve their parents, and below, they have not sufficient wherewith to support their wives and children… In such circumstances they only try to save themselves from death, and are afraid they will not succeed. What leisure have they to cultivate propriety and righteousness?”

When the Confucian mind is concerned with social systems, it will not accept either socialism or capitalism (the 2 extremes of Western rationalism) as its ideal. Neither socialism nor capitalism will find a lasting home in the (educated) Confucian mind.

Objective symbols as Social Success

Socio-economic transformation is not only a process of developing and applying science and technology to economic production and consumption, but also a process of transforming values of social symbols.

Social rank in China as been determined more by qualification for office than by wealth. This qualification was determined by education. Traditional China made education the yardstick of social prestige. Successfully completing one’s examination was the most important step toward class advancement.

The literati had been the ruling stratum in China before the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Merchants tended to be looked down upon in practice.

‘Social value distribution’ shifts so rapidly that it is difficult to foresee what professions are socially or economically ‘profitable’ in next decade developed economies. Whether or not a society is able to create and maintain new ‘social value structures’ in a proper way strongly affects its economic development.

The contents of traditional Confucian learning did not benefit economic development because it was wasted talent, time and resources and the educated officials had few opportunities to improve economic efficiency of the rice economy.

Despite the high respect for learning in China and the practice of social mobility as a result of learning, Chinese life had not become materially comfortable.

The secret of Japanese success is that it practiced the traditional Chinese principles: social positions are determined by merits and learning and the reason for China’s slow economic development until the economic reform is that it had destroyed this traditional Chinese practice.

Irrespective of its emphasis on self-cultivation, Confucianism greatly values objective symbols as official positions, wealth and educational degrees. As far as practice is concerned, the Chinese always paid high respects to the people sporting high social symbols (such as power and learning). To have power means to be rich in Confucian tradition. The association of (just) power with wealth is theoretically justified. In traditional China, education is seen as a prerequisite for power (and consequently social respect and money).

An important feature of capitalism is the intense personal interest in the pursuit of profit on the part of the people who are most involved.

Keynes said that the essential characteristic of capitalism is an intense appeal to the moneymaking instinct of individuals. He characterized capitalism as the belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will work for the good of us all.

The emphasis on seeking after objective symbols as concrete goals of one’s life means that it is not difficult to switch the Confucian mind from scholarship to materialism. Objective rather than spiritual symbols are concrete and have a clear fixed goal in sight.

The Chinese mind is pragmatic and devoted to seeking ‘profit’. But in traditional (agricultural) China this profit was defined in a complicated way. It included ‘academic face’, material rewards and other social rewards. People work hard to accumulate their ‘wealth’, which was not necessarily oriented to economic activities.

The Chinese mind is traditionally devoted to hard work in order to pursue concrete goals (scholarship or official position) because the Chinese official and economic markets are merit-dependent and competitive.

Before the Meiji Restoration, the social structure was almost fixed. Birth rather than education determined ones social class. The Japanese chose different symbols of social importance before the Meiji Restoration from the traditional Chinese. Education was socially respected as Confucianism was accepted as the state ideology. However, there was no dominant elite class that would prevent new knowledge from being introduced into Japanese society. The real significance of the Meiji Restoration was to restore the Confucian principle that a man’s social value is not determined by birth but by merit and education in Japan. There was no dominant social group to ‘control’ learning, the Japanese mind was able to rapidly switch from Tokugawa

Confucianism to the traditional Chinese social system of mobile class structure with education as the main criterion.

Market Mechanisms and Government Intervention

Economic freedom with minimum government intervention is a main feature of Confucianism. Confucianism influenced the development of ideas related to market economies. In the Enlightenment, China was perceived as a model of society, subject to the rule of law and the maximization of the happiness of the people. China, under the impulsion of Confucianism, had long since virtually abolished hereditary aristocracy, was used as a weapon to attack against hereditary privilege.

Conclusion

The successful industrialization of the Confucian regions is characterized by strong government leadership, severe competition in education, a discipline work force and principles of equality (in the Confucian sense) measured in merit and frugality.

The rapid industrialization of the Confucian regions has transformed their social, political and ideological spheres.

W.B. Zhang holds that the Confucian principles are basically suitable for economic development but the concrete manifestations of these principles designed for agricultural economies do not promote modernization. He concludes that industrialization of each Confucian region should be a process to further promote the Confucian principles rather than to work against them, to abolish some of the Confucian practices rather than to exactly follow all of them, to design or imitate (from the West) new rules and concrete moral standard rather than to pursue the traditional practice.