Political Culture- Rebecca Chang

Chine Political Culture

l   Definition of political culture: public attitudes toward politics and its role within political system

A.     Basic social features:

a.      Huge population: second populous country

1.      1950s: most Chinese live in the countryside, but the proportion has shrunk dramatically with the economic reform

2.      Late 1970s: de facto relaxation of rural to urban migration restrictions liberated the underemployed farming population to seek work in cities

3.      2010: nearly as many Chinese lived in cities as in the countryside

b.      Geography: population is concentrated in the eastern third of the land

1.      Reasons: only a quarter of China’s land is arableàland shortage

1)      Agricultural decollectivization and a return to household farming: land is used for property borders, burial grounds, and bigger houses

2)      Local government land requisitions for lucrative residential and industrial development further reduce arable land

China's arable land in 1986. The area of arable lands is gradually diminishing

c.       Multiethnic state: Chinese have maintained large armed forces to quell secessionist efforts

1.      92 %: Han

2.      8 %: 55 recognized ethnic minoritiesà including Tibet (bordering India) and Xinjiang (bordering 3 new post-Soviet states)

Geographic distribution of China's ethnicity

d.      Same Chinese written language: Chinese is a unifying force, practically defining what it is to be Chinese

B.      Political socialization:

a.      Mass media: Chinese authorities recognize the importance of the Internet to economic modernization, but also view it as a threat to their rule

1.      Features:

1)      More open (comparing to the past)

2)      No true freedom of the press

3)      Legal restriction on journalists

4)      Financial incentives for self-censorship

2.      Relaxation:

1)      People can be exposed to news and opinions about public affairs in their country through access to Hong Kong

2)      Chinese connect with one another to transmit information through blogs, bulletin boards, e-mail, telephone, and text message

3.      Limitation:

1)      Communist Party Propaganda Department and State Council Information Office direct the world’s most extensive system to control, censor, and monitor material considered politically subversive

2)      Certain topics remain taboo (multiparty competition, urban protests, and labor strikes…etc.)

3)      Great Firewall: internet censorship blocks content by preventing IP addresses from being routed through standard firewall and proxy servers at Internet gateways

b.      Education system:

1.      Cultural revolution: Mao’s successors inherited an educational system designed to build communist values

1)      High school graduates were sent to factories or farms to acquire work experience and learn from the masses

2)      The content of university education was redesigned to include more politics in every specialization

It shows how Chinese students wave Communist flags and a portrait of late leader Mao Zedong to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of China's Communist Party, indicating his ideology and himself are still influencing people nowadays 

2.      Today: return of university entrance examinations and huge numbers of Chinese studying abroad restored the respect for expertise

C.      Political culture: recent changes both inside and outside China have left their imprint on the way Chinese view their government and their relationship to political authorities

a.      Geographic influences:

1.      Access to oceans/ice free ports

2.      Many large navigable rivers: attracted population, so that overwhelming majority of people in China have lived in these areas for centuries

3.      Major geographical/climate splits between north and south: created a cultural split between the north and the south

4.      Geographic isolation of the western part of the country

5.      Mountain ranges, deserts, and oceans that separate China from other countries: allowed the Chinese to ignore the rest of the world whenever they wanted to until the 19^th century

b.      Historical eras:

1.      Dynastic rule: Confucian values

1)      Strong sense of hierarchy: “superior” and “subservient” positions

2)      Early relative isolation: a strong sense of cultural identity (ethnocentrism, the sense that China is central to humanity and superior to other cultures

3)      Tension between the Hans and other groups: Tibetà a strong sense of Tibetan ethnicity has created resistance to Chinese control

2.      Resistance to imperialism: strong sense of cultural identity blossomed into nationalism as it resisted persistent attempts by imperialist nations such as England, France, Germany, and Japan

1)      Hatred of the “foreign devil”: let China to be cautious and suspicions in its dealing with capitalist countries ever since

3.      Maoism: while Lenin emphasized the importance of a party vanguard to lead the people to revolution and beyond, Mao resisted the inequality implied by Lenin’s belief

1)      Collectivism: valuing the good of the community above that of the individual

2)      Struggle and activism: actively pursue the values of socialism

3)      Mass line: a line of communication between party leaders, members, and peasants that would allow all to struggle toward realization of the goals of a communist state

4)      Egalitarianism: hierarchy was the key organizing principle in Chinese society before 1949, and Mao’s emphasis on creating an egalitarian society was in opposition to it

5)      Self-reliance: rely on their own talents to contribute to their communities

4.      Deng Xiaoping Theory: practical approachà dramatic turnaround of the Chinese economy through a combination of socialist planning and the capitalist free market

c.       Political knowledge: block for democracy is citizenry knowledgeable about politics and interested in public affairs, able to monitor the performance of representatives and leaders

1.      Political knowledge distribution: not uniformly distributed

1)      Active knowledge and interest are seen among men, the more highly educated and the one with more income

2)      Urban people are more knowledgeable and more interest in politics than rural people are

d.      Political values:

1.      Strong impact due to political system: a majority of Chinese in the PRC reject every democratic value, and support for democratic value is generally lowest in PRC

2.      Influence of non-Chinese political socialization: the traditional Confucian orientation to the moral state is least evident in Hong Kongà reject the view that everything should be left up to virtuous leaders

3.      Impact of socioeconomic development: urban Chinese are much more supportive of democratic values than are mainland Chinese in general

e.      Informal relationship: patron-clientelism: an important principle is to study their relationship with past leaders

patron client relationship

f.        Chinese nationalism: in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Chinese nationalists fought hard against the western imperialists that dominated China, and they eventually won their country’s independence

1.      Chinese people strongly oppose to the protests that erupted in some western cities as the Olympic torch passed through on its way to Beijing

2.      Chinese nationalists used the internet to express their anger toward pro-Tibetan western press coverage of the unrest in Tibet

D.     Sovereignty, authority, and power:

a.      Before 20^th century:

1.      Dynastic cycle: long periods of rule by a family punctuated by times of “chaos”, when the family lost its power and was challenged by a new, and ultimately successful, ruling dynasty

2.      Mandate of heaven: the right to rule as seen by the collective ancestral wisdom that guided the empire from the heavens above

b.      After 20^th century:

1.      Republic period: foreign invasion invoked nationalism

2.      1949: communist leader Mao Zedong took over China and brought in a new regime with values that often disagreed with traditional concepts of power

3.      Political structures reflect both modern influences and weight of tradition: governed by authoritarian elites who are not bound by rule of lawà as long as the rulers are above the law, the constitution will not be a major source of legitimacy for the state

c.       Legitimacy:

1.      Legitimacy of traditional China (dynastic rule): mandate of heavenàhereditary connections within the ruling family. But when problems occurred and the dynasty weakened, rival families challenged the throne

2.      Legitimacy of the Chinese Republic: popular government, nationalism

3.      Legitimacy of People’s Republic of China: established in 1949 by Mao Zedong, communism and Maoism

1)      Ideology: Maoism

-          Idealistic

-          Egalitarian

-          Mass line: required leaders to listen to and communicate with ordinary folksàa source of legitimacy

2)      Maoism and Leninism: democratic centralism

-          Communist belief in a small group of leaders who make decisions for the people

-          Allowed leaders to make decisions that could not be questioned by the people

-          Give the authority figure control over policymaking power

-          Organizing principle for both ideologies

3)      Politburo of the Communist Party: remains the legitimate source of power in China after Mao’s death

-          Military: represented in the government by the Central Military Commission

d.      Historical tradition:

1.      Authoritarian power: empire ruled from a central place by either an emperor or a small group of people

2.      Confucianism: emphasized the importance of order and harmony, and encouraged Chinese to submit to the emperor’s power, and reinforced the emperor’s responsibility to fulfill his duties conscientiously

3.      Bureaucratic hierarchy based on scholarship: government jobs were highly coveted and extremely competitive, with only a small percentage of candidates mastering the examination system

4.      The “Middle Kingdom”: the place that is the center of civilization; foreigners were seen as “barbarians” whose civilizations are far inferior to China’s, not just in terms of power, but also in terms of ethics and quality of life

5.      Communist ideology:

1)      Maoism: emphasize the “right thinking” and moralism of Confucianism, but contradicted the hierarchical nature of the old regime with its insistence on egalitarianism

2)      Deng Xiaoping Theory: a practical mix of authoritarian political control and economic privatization

	Confucianism	Maoism
Responsibility of ruler to people	Mandate of heaven	Democratic centralism
Vision of ideal society	Harmony and obedience	Self-reliance and struggle
Relationship between rulers and subjects	Hierarchical social and political organization; unequal positions	Egalitarian social structure: mass line between rulers and subjects
Loyalty	To family	To the state, Mao