Which Ideals Should Inform China’s Political Reform? Response to Sam Crane’s Review

In 1995, Professor Crane and I co-organized a demonstration on the Williams campus to protest restrictions on academic freedom in Singapore. In my new book, the longest chapter is a defense of academic freedom and a critique of censorship. But for some reason Crane thinks I have evolved into a defender of “authoritarianism” over the years. I promised to myself that I would ignore his review but it’s easier said than done, if only because the review seems to be making the rounds on social media and friends say I should respond. So here goes.

I did not write the Dean of Shandong for those who are convinced the Chinese political system is fundamentally evil and the earlier it collapses, the better. I wrote the book for those curious about the inner workings of Chinese academia and I draw implications for evaluating the Chinese political system. Nor did I write the book for those who lack a sense of humor. My book deals with serious subject matter — bureaucracy, academic meritocracy, Confucianism, monarchy, Legalism, corruption, collective leadership, censorship – but I wrote it with a light-hearted touch, heavy on the self-criticism, to show the humanity and humor that so often informs my interactions with Chinese friends and colleagues, in contrast to the negative stereotypes about China so pervasive in the West. It’s part of the reason my book was selected as a book of the year by the Financial Times and even my harshest critics such as China uber-hawk Gordon Chang find the book “entertaining.” But Crane seems to have read the book as a deadly serious tract on Chinese politics.

Regrettably, Crane says hardly anything about the arguments and the stories that inform my book. His “review” consists of empty virtue signaling that has nothing to do with my book. He criticizes a couple of sentences completely out of context (the comment about Xinjiang is part of a long paragraph about what’s wrong with China – the critical intent is obvious — and the comment about the role of party secretary fails to note I discuss the role of the party secretary in academic institutions, not at higher levels of government where their work might involve dealing with political dissent and such). He devotes much effort to criticizing a book I wrote in 2015 and selects the harshest polemical reviews of that book (I wrote responses to the reviews which he doesn’t mention; he mistakenly identifies Huang Yushun as a “foreign China analyst” when in fact he is Chinese scholar living and working in China).  

Crane learned nothing from my new book (and, I confess, I learned nothing from his review). So why did he bother writing the review? The reason is that he has a political axe to grind and that’s what he did. My political sin, it seems, is that I do not favor overthrow of the Chinese political system. Let me plead guilty as charged. 

Does it follow that I seek to defend “authoritarianism”? I do not think it’s helpful to divide the political world into “democracies” and “autocracies”, as both President Biden and Professor Crane favor. We should compare ideals with ideals, and highly imperfect political realities with highly imperfect political realities. Ideals are meant to provide moral standards that allow for critical evaluation of the political reality and to suggest standards for improvement. In the United States, intellectuals and political reformers typically invoke “democracy” as an ideal. In China, however, intellectuals and political reformers do not defend “authoritarianism” （专制主义）， which is highly pejorative in Chinese. So we need to think of which political ideals might inspire reform, and that’s why I wrote (an earlier) book defending the ideal of “political meritocracy at the top, experimentation in the middle, and democracy at the bottom”. We may have gone two steps backward and one step forward since I wrote the book, but the ideal, let me suggest, is still valid and widely adhered to as an inspiration and source of criticism in the Chinese political context. So if we want to compare ideals with ideals in slogan form, with respect to the question of how political leaders should be selected, the relevant dichotomy should be something like “electoral democracy” in the U.S. case versus “vertical political meritocracy” in China.

If we want to compare highly imperfect political realities, then it’s a different story. In the United States, the reality is closer to “one dollar, one vote” than “one person, one vote”. In China, the Legalist tradition is hugely influential (as I try to show in my book), in combination with Leninist legacies, especially at higher levels of government. So if we want to compare highly imperfect political realities in slogan form, it should be something like “electoral dollarcracy” in the United States versus “Leninist Legalism” in China. 

In any case, the relevant question is: given that both countries have highly imperfect realities, which political ideals should inspire political reform? For Crane, the same liberal democratic ideals that should inspire reform in the United States should serve to inspire reform in China. I think we should allow for the moral relevance of cultural particularity and that the Confucian and socialist traditions can inspire China’s reform. There are some universal human rights – “negative” rights against torture, slavery, genocide, and systematic racial discrimination as well as “positive” rights to life and basic material needs – but beyond that different political communities can adhere to different standards regarding such issues as the best way to select and promote public officials and to organize economic life.

One last thing. Crane criticizes me for having “hope” that China improves. Here too, I plead guilty as charged, though I do my best to give reasons for hope, it’s not blind hope. 

Daniel A. Bell (University of Hong Kong)

Dec. 16, 2023