— from For Truly Great Men, Look to This Age Alone,
China Heritage, 27 January 2018

At the time, independent commentators detected a troubling imperial ambition in Mao’s poem. Only a few months earlier, the Communist leader had travelled to Chungking, the wartime capital of the Nationalist government, to negotiate peace with republican president Chiang Kai-shek. Now critics claimed that the trip was in part undertaken so that Mao could symbolically ‘declare himself emperor’ 稱帝 of a new Chinese regime. Chiang Kai-shek, himself no stranger either to ambition or authoritarianism, went even further. After reading ‘Snow’ he fulminated In a letter written to the Nationalist Party littérateur Chen Bulei 陳布雷 that: ‘He [Mao] wants to be an emperor, to declare himself a king, a hegemon. He’s planning a revival [of empire], to move [the country] backwards.’ 想當帝王稱王稱霸，想復古，想倒退。

Friends All Over the World

Two millennia of dynastic rule had bequeathed to modern China a rich corpus of imperial practice, language, ideas and stratagems. Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Mao, his comrades and their propagandists consciously employed imperial metaphors and made grandiloquent gestures familiar from the country’s past. The Party Chairman was also an avid reader of historical works and classical texts and he masterfully applied what is known as 帝王之術, perhaps best translated as ‘the dark arts of the emperors’, to manipulate his comrades and dominate the Communist Party.

This imperial aegis was not limited to the territory of China. The Communist Party saw itself not only as leading the revolutionary transformation of an ancient land and, after what they regarded as a series of unalloyed successes, Party leaders, in particular Mao, formulated a global role for Beijing. As scientific socialists who believe that they were fulfilling the inexorable promise of history, they were confident that Beijing was at the centre of an unfolding world revolution. Despite its impoverished economy and long-suffering populace, the People’s Republic launched itself into a fitful competition with the Soviet Union. Efforts were made both to export Mao Zedong Thought and its model for revolution as well as to build up a global alliance of what Mao would eventually call ‘Third World Countries’ in Asia, Africa and Latin America, or 亞非拉 in the shorthand of the time. The strategy was summed up in the seemingly anodyne formulation ‘We Have Friends All Over the World’ 我們的朋友遍天下. This Mao-era enterprise, along with an expanded ambition, not to mention a much stronger economy and military, has been considerably reinvigorated under Xi Jinping (one should point out that it was hardly in abeyance during the Deng-Jiang-Hu decades). Given the post-dynastic history of twentieth-century China, therefore, it is hardly surprising that, to this day, people are alert to and wary of what is known as ‘the imperial mindset’ 帝王思想.

Whose Shared Destiny?

In October 2013, Xi Jinping — a man now widely recognised as being possessed of a latter-day afflatus of a Mao Zedong —  announced the concept of ‘Communities of Shared Destiny’ 命運共同體. The expression had initially been employed in 2007 to describe a supposedly indivisible Mainland-Taiwan relationship. We would note that the Communist goal of bringing the territory of the Republic of China under its control (or ‘imperium‘), whether by negotiation or military force, has underpinned the designs of a broader ’empire redux’ on the Mainland since 1981, when Marshal Ye Jianying, head of the National People’s Congress, elaborated a new policy for unification. (We would note that ‘re-unification’ — a common United Front English-language term for subsuming the island-nation — is anachronistic: despite being claimed both by the Republic of China after 1912, and the Communist People’s Republic from 1949, Taiwan was only effectively ruled as part of the ‘China’ created by the Manchu-Qing empire.)

From 2013, ‘Community of Shared Destiny’ has been Beijing’s shorthand for its global presence. As I wrote in the 2014 China Story Yearbook, which took ‘Shared Destiny’ as its theme, the expression:

provides substance and diplomatic architecture to the revived concept of All-Under-Heaven or tianxia 天下, one which assumes a belief that China can be a moral, political and economic great power.

I also quoted the historian Wang Gungwu who was upbeat about the prospects for a modern vision of tianxia promoted by China in the twenty-first century:

This would not be linked to the ancient Chinese empire. Instead, China could be viewed as a large multinational state that accepts the framework of a modern tianxia based on rules of equality and sovereignty in the international system today.

In pursuing a very modern agenda for a potentially regnant China in East Asia, Xi Jinping and his cohort draw heavily on the tradition of State Confucianism. This is a body of thought and practices developed from the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) combining statecraft with a holistic socio-ethical ideology that pursues practical (and often bloody) goals while gesturing to abstract hallowed values. In this he was proceeded by the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, mentioned earlier. Chiang outlined his vision in (the largely ghost-written) book China’s Destiny 中國之命運. And, if anything, Xi Jinping sees himself as a man of destiny, l‘homme providentiel, who, like Mao, and Deng, before him, wants to lead the country to fulfill a mission that commingles national aspiration with Marxist-Leninist globalism. (In early 2014, I found myself in discussion with some of the Party IR thinkers who contributed to the Community of Shared Destiny policy. I asked whether their background briefing touched on Imperial Japan’s infamous hope to construct a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere 大東亜共栄圏, one that extolled the concept of 八紘一宇 hakkō ichiu, that is ‘Everything in the Eight Directions Under One Rule’, a Japanese version of tianxia? I was hardly surprised when the conversation stalled.)

In her 2018 essay on China as nation, party-state and empire, which we quoted in the introduction to China Heritage Annual 2019, the political scientist Vivienne Shue observed that:

As a result of China’s meteoric economic growth over the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century, however, and with its startling accomplishments in pulling such large numbers of its own people out of poverty, other countries began calling for Beijing to drop its arm’s length stance toward fuller participation in the international community, ease its suspicion of multi-lateral organization, and begin ‘stepping up’ to its responsibilities as a ‘major power’ in global affairs. Along with this, however, at least in some quarters of the English-speaking world, there also surfaced disquieting intimations and alarms that any future aspirations as a global player China might pursue would be bound to turn out to be imperial ones. And true enough it is, that when Xi Jinping and other Party leaders today call for the ‘rejuvenation of the nation’, what they plainly seem to want to bring to mind is a time, before the Party had been born and before the nation had been built, a time of empire: when China stood as an economic, technological, and cultural colossus, at the cosmopolitan core of immense networks of production and trade, skills and learning—admired, envied, deferred to—and governing within its own realm, entirely according to its own lights.

***

In Homo Xinensis Militant, part of our series ‘Drop Your Pants! The Party Wants to Patriotise You All Over Again’, we observed that:

As the public and regional stance of China’s Communist Party-led army-state has become more abrasive, its propaganda arm has become increasingly energetic in promoting the idea that Party was from the time of its conception the carrier of traditional Chinese ‘Peaceful DNA’ 和平基因. In a speech made on 15 May 2014 to mark the sixtieth anniversary of The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries 中國人民對外友好協會, a state-funded united front organization that masquerades as an NGO, Xi Jinping declared that:

The genetic makeup of The China Race contains no taint related to invasion or global hegemonic impulses. The Chinese people resolutely reject any suggestion that ‘When a Country Becomes Mighty it Will Invariably Act Like a Hegemon’. 中華民族的血液中沒有侵略他人、稱霸世界的基因，中國人民不接受‘國強必霸’的邏輯

— from Homo Xinensis Militant
China Heritage, 1 October 2018

Gullible members of the international media, some foreign governments and many business people and fellow-traveller academics, play the role of unpaid propagandists when they promote the risible ideas expressed by Xi Jinping, that is the fallacy that throughout its history ‘China’ was basically peace-loving and non-expansionist. These conceits reflect a carefully honed official line developed by the Communists from their first attempts to manage, and massage for its purposes, Chinese history in the 1930s.

Controlling the narrative, creating shorthand verbal formulations that encapsulate Party policy, imposing Party ideas on ‘influencers’, getting the message out via the apparat, manipulating the media as well as a full spectrum of foreign friends — these are all aspects of what under Xi Jinping is called The China Story 中國的故事. It has been an effectively strategy employed by the Communists since the Yan’an era (1935-1948). Today, as they promote an ahistorical view about dynastic China, empire and their own party-state, they also rely on sympathetic freelance supporters.

The People’s Red Empire of China

The concepts of ‘kingly rule’ 王道 and ‘hegemonic rule’ 霸道, touched on in the quotation from Xi Jinping above, have featured in Chinese discussions of political power since before the first dynasty in the second century BCE. They are also crucial today as the People’s Republic of China positions itself for an ever-greater global role. Chinese officialdom frequently uses these terms, and Professor Xu Zhangrun 許章潤 of Tsinghua University, pointedly addresses the age-old dichotomy between kingly and hegemonic rule in the following essay. In particular, he asks whether China under Xi Jinping can, should or will be a ‘Red Empire’.

Professor Xu’s work has previously featured in China Heritage. In August 2018, we published a translation of his controversial and courageous appeal to the Chinese government:

• Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes — a Beijing Jeremiad 我們當下的恐懼與期待, China Heritage, 1 August 2018

This was followed in November by annotated translations of two further essays which, along with his Jeremiad, are included in our Lessons in New Sinology:

• Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, And Teachers, Then? They Just Do Their Thing! 哪有先生不說話 ?!, China Heritage, 10 November 2018; and,
• Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, To Summon a Wandering Soul 私塾先生, China Heritage, 28 November 2018

In December 2018-January 2019, Professor Xu published a further series of three essays written to commemorate China’s era of ‘Reform and Openness’ 改革開放. The first two appeared in the online Mainland Chinese edition of Financial Times, the last was published online in Hong Kong. Over the coming weeks, we will offer annotated translations of that series under the title ‘After the Future in China, a Triptych for Today’. Below, ‘China’s Red Empire — To Be or Not To Be?’ is an excerpt from the third essay in that cycle of works. As the author could not find a publication venue on the Mainland, it appeared on the independent Hong Kong website The Initium.

Xu Zhangrun is an admirer of Cicero, the Roman statesman, orator and lawyer. One of the noteworthy forms of public appeal in ancient Rome was the Provocatio (prōvocātiō), a speech or document issued by a plaintive or their spokesman to challenge an order, coercitio, by a magistrate. Xu Zhangrun has commented that he thinks of this recent series of three essays as his version of a Provocatio. In traditional terms, these three lengthy feuilleton could perhaps be called 策論 cè lùn, a genre that combines advocacy with warning.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
16 January 2019

***

Update:

From the time of its appearance on 16 January 2019, the bilingual version of ‘China’s Red Empire’, excerpted and published below, was widely distributed by readers in Beijing and throughout the People’s Republic. On the morning of Sunday 20 January 2019, Beijing Time, we were informed that online access to this essay on China Heritage had been blocked.

We take this opportunity to acknowledge the unimpeded circulation on the Chinese Mainland first of China Heritage Quarterly from 2005, the publications of The China Story Project (Journal, Yearbook, etcetera) from 2012, and of all the articles published in China Heritage from 1 January 2016 up to 20 January 2019. We are glad that, for some fourteen years, Mainland readers have enjoyed unimpeded access to all of our publications; it would appear that China Heritage has joined the distinguished ranks of others who are ‘screened from view’ 被屏蔽.

We reiterate the credo of mentors and friends in China, stated with clarion clarity from the time of Mao Zedong’s demise:

讀書無禁區

— The Editor
20 January 2019

***

Further Reading:

• Ruling The Rivers & Mountains, China Heritage, 8 August 2018
• The Party Empire , China Heritage, 17 August 2018
• Homo Xinensis, China Heritage, 31 August 2018
• Homo Xinensis Ascendant, China Heritage, 16 September 2018
• Homo Xinensis Militant, China Heritage, 1 October 2018

***

Translator’s Note:

Xu Zhangrun’s discussion of China and Empire was originally published in two parts:

• ‘China Is Not a Red Empire — Part I: The Potential for China to Go Astray’ 中國不是一個紅色帝國（上篇：誤入歧途的潛在勢能）, The Initium, 10 January; and,
• ‘China Is Not a Red Empire — Part II: Generational Blindspots and the Philosophy of Constant Struggle’ 中國不是一個紅色帝國（下篇：代際盲點與鬥爭哲學）, The Initium, 11 January 2019

The following material has been selected from the full text — one that is over 10,000 Chinese characters in length — with the author’s permission. Due to the often elliptical nature of Professor Xu’s style, which favours an admix of literary and modern Chinese, along with gibes and colloquialisms, the translator has where necessary added explanatory material, marked by brackets [ ].

A full, annotated translation of the text will be published in China Heritage along with the two other essays that make up ‘After the Future in China — a Triptych for Today’. All three essays are offered both as Lessons in New Sinology and as chapters in China Heritage Annual 2019 — Translatio Imperii Sinici.

 — Ed.

---

China’s Red Empire — To Be or Not To Be?

中國不是一個紅色帝國

Xu Zhangrun

許章潤

translated excerpts by Geremie R. Barmé

[working draft, 16 January 2019]

 

For some time now the People’s Republic of China has been enjoying an inexorable rise as a great power with a civilisation renewed. Finally [after 150 years, history has] dealt a great hand. But, from 2018, things have taken an ugly turn and the nation’s fortunes seem on the wane; it’s as though everything is going downhill and people are understandably anxious.

The evidence for the downward turn abounds: despite that good hand, China now seems to be playing a lousy game, finding itself beset by problems both at home and abroad. There’s even chatter that people should psychologically prepare themselves for ‘hard times ahead’, as well as possible ‘military clashes’. Gossip is a barometer of the times. What’s going on? How have things reached such an impasse so suddenly?

Putting aside for the moment all the factors related to the Global Great Game and the shifting epicentre of world power along with everything that means, if one just focusses on China itself it’s not hard to shaft home responsibility for the present state of affairs to [the party-state] setting the nation on what would appear to be a course to become a ‘Red Empire’. There’s even an impression within the general public that China is pursuing the idea of Empire. Along the way the country is courting enmity in every direction and generating opposition from all quarters. The greater the rhetorical clamour, the more precipitous the decline in the nation’s reputation.

On one hand, China’s political system has developed in such a way that it has scant wriggle room, nor does it now have the wherewithal to offer the public the kind of largesse or support-winning concessions of the recent past. Moreover, because of a general anxiety that the whole show may well come apart at the seams, there has been a ratcheting up of political repression. Then, on the other hand, the vaunted ‘Original Intent’ [part of a slogan about the Party’s historical mission first used by Xi Jinping on 1 July 2016] of the Communists to rule forever is now further entrenched and [the Leader] has carved out a forward path on the basis of what is essentially the usurpation of party-state power [a reference to the amassing of power by Xi Jinping and the ‘terminal tenure’ granted to him in March 2018]. As conflicts intensify and pressure builds by the day — and grow because those in power don’t want to confront substantive issues [that require attention] — they have decided to backtrack [that is, revive aspects of pre-Reform Mao-era policies]. Their behaviour only serves to whet further the party-state’s totalitarian appetite, it also adds to the sense among the public that you really do want to become a Red Empire. Be it either inside or outside the system, at the very centre of power or merely on the periphery, everyone is completely aware of what is unfolding and [if this is indeed the way forward] there will be no turning back.

曾幾何時，大國崛起，文明復興，勢不可擋，一手好牌。時惟戊戌，情勢逆轉，彷彿國運不再，開始走下坡路了，遂致人心惶惶。表諸現實，便是「一手好牌打成爛牌」，而內外交困。「要準備吃苦日子」與「軍事鬥爭」之輿議紛紛，堪為晴雨表。原因何在？為何走到這一步？拋開大國博弈、權勢轉移所引發的世界體系震蕩等外在因素，追根究源，就在於近年來的立國之道指向「紅色帝國」，或者，予人「紅色帝國」的公眾印象，四面樹敵，八方開懟，以至於聲勢日甚，而聲譽日窳。一方面，既有體制的騰挪空間已盡，無法揮灑進一步讓步協商的紅利，毋寧，因恐懼散伙而日益收緊；另一方面，維續既有統治萬世一系的初心不改，奠立於超級元首集權的黨國體制日益僭政化。由此矛盾日烈，已到臨界，不欲突破，遂掉頭回轉，不惟導致內政日益嚴重之黨國極權，同時更加強化、坐實了紅色帝國的大眾形象。對此，體制內外，朝野上下，心知肚明，此乃不歸路也。

No one quite expected that China, a country still on the path to modernity, would end up here. But then again, what is now unfolding is not entirely beyond the overall logic of history. In this writer’s opinion, even if China today is a Large-scale Totalitarian Power, it has not been, needs not become, should not and cannot itself be a Red Empire. However, because of the country’s sheer size and scale, it has both the potential, and even a propensity, to become one. That’s why I believe that it is a matter of urgency for this country to focus once more on what is integral to its modern development — a process of change that has unfolded over a period of one and a half centuries, and one which embraces the political aspirations of myriads of people [this is the theme of the first essay in this three-part series, which will be published in an annotated translation over the coming weeks]. China should take stock, shift gear and truly work towards becoming a People’s Republic, one that is underpinned by constitutional governance and democracy. To do so is both in the public interest and a matter of collective redemption; it is also how this country can truly contribute to lasting world peace. There should be no more procrastinating.

中國的現代進程走到這一步，雖非始料所及，卻也未出大歷史框架。筆者判斷，中國是一個超大規模極權國家，不曾、不必、不該也不可能是一個紅色帝國。但因其超大規模，確有走到這一步的潛在勢能。因而，基於建設「現代中國」這一大歷史進程，破解紅色帝國之道，撥轉華夏邦國重歸「立憲民主、人民共和」這一近代中國的主流歷史意識和政治意志，既為邦國公義所在，而為全體國民的集體自救，也就是在為世界永久和平出力，須臾不能再拖了。

Is China a Red Empire or
Just a Large-scale Totalitarian Power?

紅色帝國還是超大規模極權國家

During the twentieth century, the contestation between the United States of America and the Soviet Union was a clash between two forms of extremism, a take-no-prisoners pitched battle between two versions of modernity. It was also an extrapolation of the life-and-death struggle between what one could call [in traditional Chinese terms] the ‘Superior Way’, one that championed Freedom and Good Government and an ‘Inferior Path’, consisting of Totalitarianism and Merciless Governance. The Soviets inherited the expansionist tendencies of Tsarist Russia and, by means of sheer brutality and the prosecution of unjust wars, it was able to establish an empire that straddled Europe and Asia. Domestically it [the Soviet Communist Party] combined the formidable power of the one-party state and the authority of a Supreme Leader with a political dogma that was treated like holy writ to wage a vicious war. Pursuing the logic of [what Mancur Olson called] ‘stationary bandits’ [to extract wealth from its subjects over the long term] to subdue and remake the state. With his control over the KGB and the Party apparat the Supreme Leader was able to manipulate the nomenklatura and the whole bureaucratic system. In turn, the party-state dominated every aspect of society and developed a massive machinery of control organised in a top-down, hierarchical fashion.

In the process, it [the Soviet state] gave itself absolute authority and declared that its actions were determined by the iron-clad laws of history. Under this regime Rule by Falsehood and the Annihilation of Belief were taken to their logical extreme and in the process a political credo that promised the withering away of the state created in its stead a party-state which evolved into a nation that was effectively colonised by a one-party dictatorship. Pursuing a ruler-centred politics that then sidelined the state itself, the Soviet Union became a behemoth with a thirst for totalitarian control that could not be slaked.

In its relations with other countries and within the evolving world-system, the Soviets pursued a traditional form of imperialism [following Moscow’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, China called it 蘇修社會帝國主義, ‘Soviet Revisionist Social Imperialism’, or 蘇修 Sū xiū for short]. Availing themselves of conquest and through political coups they built a Red Conglomerate that traversed East and West. With the Warsaw Pact countries forming the imperial core, the Soviet Union oversaw the growth of a global system of control that linked its centre with an international periphery. After 1949, China for a time unfortunately allowed itself to become a part of the peripheral reaches of this system [resulting from the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance signed between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic in 1950]. Finally, because of a host of factors — native historical-cultural resistance, the particular personality of the leader [Mao Zedong], along with geopolitical considerations — China and the Soviets parted ways acrimoniously, a split that nonetheless had a felicitous impact on the eventual Sino-US rapprochement in 1972. The intermingling of global imperial ambition with a vision of a worldwide red empire was an odious and fearful thing, a murderous regime that was a threat to humanity. Because of it, first and foremost, the people of the Soviet Union suffered the calamity. As for the Soviet Empire: it was born in injustice, and ended in opprobrium. Today, even the thought of that Red Empire makes one shudder.

二十世紀的美蘇爭霸，是兩種絕對主義的對壘，也是兩種源自現代性的普世理念的決戰，根本演繹的還是王道自由善政與霸道極權惡政的殊死搏鬥。其間，蘇俄一脈，承繼沙俄的擴張衝動，以霸蠻勢能和不義戰爭，建立起一個橫跨歐亞的超級帝國。一方面，就內政來看，其以黨國統御，領袖君臨，尊奉惟一意識形態為聖經，而以殘酷鬥爭與坐寇邏輯開道，將國家征服收編。超級元首駕馭克格勃統轄政黨，再以政黨機器制御官僚體制，然後復用由此紐結一體的黨國體制吞噬社會，最終形成一個層層下轄、騎在國民頭頂的龐大鎮壓機器。在此進程中，秉持歷史鐵律和國家至上的扭曲定位，將謊言治國與祛除信仰推到極致。由此，國家消隱民族變成黨國，再變為專政黨的殖民地，最終形成的是基於君民統治觀而非整體國家觀的超大規模、變本加厲的極權政制。另一方面，在國家間政治與世界體系中，蘇俄不折不扣奉行傳統帝國邏輯，恃征服和顛覆為手段，建立起東西縱貫的龐大紅色集團，而以華約為中樞，形成中心—邊緣的全球制轄體系。1949年後的中國一度不幸裹挾於這一體系的邊緣地帶，終因文明傳統、領導人性格和地緣政治衝突等原因，而分道揚鑣，其實開啓了1972年中美走近的歷史機緣，未始非福也。凡此兩項疊加，則此超級帝國蔚為龐然紅色帝國，最為邪惡恐怖，塗炭生靈，危害人類，首先是自己的國民遭殃，而終究生於不義，死於恥辱。至今想起，依舊令人不寒而慄也。

The demise of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole world superpower. Through a covert form of American Imperium it built and maintains the World-System. It was an imperium that enjoyed a decade of relative glory in the wake of the Second World War, and its salad days continued up to the time of the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Whether we consider the former Red Empire of the Soviet Union or the Empire of the Free World, it is evident that, by comparison, Modern China has not been, needs not become, should not and cannot itself be a Red Empire.

蘇俄既終，則當世惟剩美帝一霸獨強，以隱蔽帝國的霸權秩序維繫世界體系，歷經「二戰」後又一個十來年輝煌小週期，直至雙子塔轟然倒塌。不論其為紅色帝國還是自由帝國，與此兩霸比勘，吾人可得斷言者，則現代中國不曾、不必、不該也不可能是一個紅色帝國。

1. Modern China Has Not Been an Empire

In the first place, modern China has never been an Empire. Following the 1911 Revolution, the dynastic Qing empire was transfigured to become a nation-state. By that time, not only had the Chinese cultural world that extended through East Asia thereby making China an imperial presence in the region [and influenced the cultures and politics of Vietnam, Korea and Japan, among others] all but disappeared, but great swathes of its borderland territories were lost. For the next forty years [from 1912 to 1949], warfare and internecine divisions left the country both much reduced and widely scorned. When the Red Rulers took charge in 1949 and restored unified rulership, in the process they imposed a proletarian dictatorship and instituted a policy of relentless class struggle. This resulted in a pitiless totalitarian state. Overseas, first they split with the Soviet Revisionist and then they attempted to export their form of revolution to South-east Asia, while also lavishing aid on friends in Asia, Africa and Latin America [under Mao and Zhou Enlai China developed a strategy for cultivating relations with former Western colonies to create a ‘Great Unity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America’, later called the ‘Third World’]. Such gestures of bravado were only possible because the rulers were exploiting their own population; but, even then, the potential of the Maoist regime was hamstrung [by domestic economic policies that effectively impoverished the nation]. The most it achieved was to wedge itself unenviably in the interstices left by the two hegemonic imperial powers. They couldn’t even break out of the First Island Chain [that is the islands at the edge of China’s ‘maritime border’ from the Kuril Islands, Japanese Archipelago, Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the northern Philippines and Borneo from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the Malay Peninsula]; moreover, the northwest borderlands were effectively completely sealed off [by the Soviet presence].

Mao’s China may well have aspired to be a hegemon [Mao famously declared that while China should prepare for war with the Soviet Union it would never be a hegemon, although in reality he harboured both regional and global ambitions], one that could extend itself and its influence, but it fell victim to its own vacuous dreams of ‘making the whole world red’ [that is, supporting revolutionary struggles around the globe]. It simply never had the resources to achieve its hegemonic goals and at best could only ever enjoy a measure of satisfaction by championing Mao’s theory that the globe could be carved into ‘Three Worlds’ [a theory that Mao articulated in the early 1970s]. Finally, [following Mao’s death] it had no choice but to start over, acknowledge reality and clean up the mess. [This is elaborated at length in the first of Professor Xu’s three essays, ‘Humble Recognition, Boundless Possibility’ 低頭致意, 天地無邊, the annotated translation of which will be published by China Heritage.] The country only just managed to made it out of the Cultural Revolution in one piece and in the aftermath there was simply no room for Imperial Designs. After all, [for decades] the country had been bound in a straight jacket of totalitarian-generated poverty.

首先，現代中國不曾是一個紅色帝國。辛亥以還，中華帝國蛻轉為民族國家。不僅華夏帝國賴以伸展的傳統東亞中華世界早已煙消雲散，而且，既有疆域亦多流失。四十年里，左右拉鋸，一路逶迤，滿目瘡痍。至紅朝當政，重歸一統，對內奉行階級鬥爭，厲行專政，建構起酷烈極權體制。對外與蘇修鬧翻，往東南亞輸出革命，在亞非拉灑金出力。但是，雖竭盡民力，卻受勢能囿限，終究只是在兩霸縫隙間討生存。連第一島鏈都出不去，西北邊疆亦且封鎖得嚴絲合縫，雖有霸王之志，也想伸展手腳，耽溺於「世界一片紅」的南柯綺夢，奈何無霸王之力，只能以「三個世界」劃分過過乾癮。最後不得已，「撥亂反正」，還得以四個「低頭致意」，收拾殘局，死裡逃生，哪裡談得上什麼帝國。毋寧，乃陷萬民於苦難之極權政制的鐵桶也。

And, now, here we are with the Belt & Road Initiative unfurling o’er sea and land, aided and abetted by an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that’s been up and running for some time now. Despite these, the existing global system remains unchanged, and unchanging. China’s grand moves are all part of an effort to come up with something particular and new in the face of the pre-existing order. Superficially, it might look all bright and shiny, but in reality China is still a second-order economic power that has been pretty much forced to launch these measures for the sake of its own survival. This is all a far cry from becoming a ‘Red Empire’. After all, if such an empire really were to come into being, it would have to assume real responsibility for overseeing global regulation [both of the bodies it chose to create and those with which it was involved]. Imperial gestures and feints cannot obscure the fact that, ultimately, the Chinese system is obsessed with self preservation. Domestic political considerations far outweigh what on the surface appears to be an expansive global mission. Yet, none of these moves [overseas] are a logical extension of core national interest. Certainly, they satisfy the needs of the dominant political party [the Communists], but they hardly reflect any national logic. As for the will of the people: none of this has anything in particular to do with that. You might put out willow branches [an ancient custom signifying good fortune], but they won’t necessarily sprout trees that can provide real shade. Even less [will these new institutions really] create a matrix for an imperial-like presence.

逮至今日，「一帶一路」水陸並進，「亞投行」早已隆重開張，實為固守舊制不思更張，以至於因其異數而為主流所拒後的另起爐灶，則看似熱鬧，其實依舊不過是第二大經濟體求生存的不得不然，距離挑肩全球治理的紅色帝國之境，還差得遠呢。再說了，其所凸顯的是帝力揮發而保衛政權之戰，內政考量遠高於全球鋪展訴求，既非純然國族利益的伸展，政黨理由遠高於國家理性，更與公民理性無關，則縱便有心插柳，也難能綠樹成蔭，同樣談不上什麼帝國經緯也。

2. China Has No Need to Become a Red Empire

Moreover, there is no need for Modern China to become a Red Empire. Generally speaking, empires both past and present were possible because of a combination of geopolitical and climatic factors, along with mass mobilisation and grand narratives that worked together but were led by self-interest. That was the case both with the Roman and the Ottoman empires, as well as with the British and the more recent American Imperium. Perhaps only the Soviet Union, driven as it was by [Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist] ideology, was both economically rapacious while also paying heavily for its imperial reach. Eventually, such folly led to its downfall.

In its quest for profit today China has no need to pursue the arrant willfulness of empire; it can achieve its goals by being enmeshed with the open economic structure of the World-System, it can act as a powerful adjutant through free and equitable trade. For the decades up till the present [era of Xi Jinping from 2013] China through its actions humbly acknowledged these possibilities and earned a pretty penny for its efforts. If it is now to act in a contrary manner, not only does it give others the pretext for opposing it, but it will also generate resentment in all quarters, and to what end?

Moreover, empire comes with responsibilities, something summed up in the expression ‘Burdens of Empire’. For China, a polity that itself is not yet truly modern — it lacks a reasonable political system — now to take on hefty responsibilities of the kind demonstrated in the foreign aid lavished on other countries in the Mao era, and more recently featured in the massive ‘cash splashes’ of the present incumbent — the People’s Republic will in effect [to use a colloquial saying] ‘be giving itself an extravagant appearance of greatness merely by battering its face until it is swollen’. Such behaviour goes against National Rationalism as well as being in contravention of Popular Rationalism. This is neither wise nor felicitous. Again, to what good end? The public regards those impressive ‘cash splashes’ [in foreign aid doled out by Xi Jinping, a topic featured in Professor Xu’s July 2018 Jeremiad] to be offensive; they are a topic of constant nationwide disquiet. Of course, it is not hard to predict that this kind of extravagant gesture will perforce be curtailed due to the ongoing deterioration of the Chinese economy.

其次，現代中國不必是一個紅色帝國。古今帝國成長多半仰仗地利天時，蠱惑於宏大敘事，為利益驅動所主導。羅馬、奧斯曼如此，英帝國如此，美帝國同樣如此。唯有蘇俄帝國，倒彷彿更多地基於意識形態的衝動，大肆搜刮的同時還賠錢做買賣，終於在癲狂中把自己作死。就此而言，今日中國牟利無需恃帝國之身，毋寧，更多地以匯入自由經濟的世界體系，在自由而公平的貿易中取長補短。前此幾十年，就是這麼「低頭致意」做的，賺了不少血汗錢呢。否則，反倒授人以柄，招致八方敵意，何苦來哉。而且，帝國意味著責任，故有「帝國負擔」一說。以中國尚未完成現代化之身，尤其是優良政體尚付闕如，而背承重負，有如毛時代之外援與近年之大撒幣，實在是打腫臉充胖子，不僅背離國家理性，也違迕公民理性，不智不祥，同樣何苦來哉。大撒幣招致全民反感與舉國異議，隨著經濟下滑必將有所收斂，也是預料中事。

3. China Should Not Be a Red Empire

In the third place, China should not be a Red Empire. After all, from a broad historical perspective the main tenor of Chinese civilisation is one that favours Righteous Government rather than the Rule of the Hegemon. Imperial ideals are no longer germane to this world. The military ventures of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty and Emperor Yang of the Sui exhausted their subjects and squandered the wealth of their kingdoms. As a result, both men have been scorned throughout Chinese history. Or, to consider a more recent example, the idea of a Red Empire flies in the face of [what I have described elsewhere as] China’s Modern Historical Awareness and Political Aspirations. China’s quest for ‘Wealth and Power’ [starting in the late-nineteenth century] was about independence, not hegemony. The pursuit too of ‘civilisation’ and ‘democracy’ were about improving the political landscape of China itself and enabling the commingling of our culture with that of the rest of the world. This has little to do with imperial intent, let alone ‘Red Empire’.

再次，現代中國不該是一個紅色帝國。畢竟，整體而言，中華文明主流崇仰王道而非霸道，帝國理想並不合心意。漢武隋煬窮兵黷武，勞民傷財，歷來備受詬病，其因在此。就晚近來看，紅色帝國指向恰與近代中國的主流歷史意識和政治意志兩相刺謬。其中的「富強」旨在自立，而非稱霸；「民主」與「文明」追求內政的優良境界與國族文化的普世融和，亦與帝國指向無關，更不用說紅色帝國了。

In regard to the shifting centre of power in the present World-System, a burgeoning great power [like China] will invariably strategically pander to the dominant great power so as to vouchsafe for itself sufficient leeway for its continued growth. [In China] that strategy was summed up [by Deng Xiaoping] in the expression ‘hiding your potential and biding your time’. It presupposed that China would not pursue an imperial model of development, far less that it would become a Red Empire that put everyone on edge and generated universal distrust. Add to that is the fact that what most concerns the Chinese State these days is its own political longevity; all of its endeavours are focussed on that end. Imperial ambition can be realised only if there is a willingness to squander vast amounts of national wealth on the quest and to be prepared to impose major burdens on your citizens. Sure, you may well be heartened by the clamorous support of members of the mindless mass, but the vast majority of your people — and let’s not forget that it is a population that has only recently begun to enjoy a measure of economic security and prosperity — will be affronted. In turn, this could threaten the very political system that you are straining to protect. Such behaviour is, to say the least, ill-advised. Let’s not forget [what the Taizong Emperor of the Tang dynasty said]:

To mount the spectacles of prosperity, expenditures must necessarily increase and with that the tax burden on your people. Such impositions will cause great suffering which, in turn, may threaten the state itself. Once the state is thus threatened, its ruler may well fall.

It’s ancient prediction with contemporary relevance. As for differentiating between friends and foes on the global scene, such determinations needs must reflect rational national self-interest and one’s own political maturity. These things serve domestic politics just as they are determined by domestic politics. Only a crazy man would want to create unnecessary problems for himself and his country.

就當下世界體系中的權勢轉移而言，成長中的大國為了自我發展，絕對以安撫守成大國為獲取生存空間的妥協應對之策，所謂「韜光養晦」，奧義在此，決定了中國何需將自家弄成個帝國模式，更不用說是個家家防範人人喊打的紅色帝國了。再者，當下國朝最為擔心的還是自家政權的維續，一切以此為軸打轉。帝國雄心依恃國力，而必耗費民力，雖能收穫部分盲眾的歡呼，但總體得罪絕大多數好不容易才過上幾天溫飽日子的國民，從而必然危及政權，非智者所為。所謂「欲盛則費廣，費廣則賦重，賦重則民愁，民愁則國危，國危則君喪矣」，古人言猶在耳，未謂不預也。至於國家間政治中的敵友之別，例屬國家理性與國族政治成熟範疇，同樣服務於內政，最終落定於內政，對此，除非瘋子，誰也不會造次。

4. China Cannot Possibly Be a Red Empire

And now to my final point as to why China cannot possibly become a Red Empire. New China has its origins in [the Xinhai Revolution of] 1911 [and the founding of the Republic of China in 1912], it went through 1949 [the establishment of the People’s Republic of China] and then ‘1978’ [when, at a Party plenum, the policies later known as Reform and Openness were initiated]. For over a century this country has, overall, been doing its best just to survive. It is only in the last decade or so that the Chinese have really had the wherewithal to enjoy something like the good life — enough to eat, some spare cash to spend; even grifters and crooks have got a taste for new opportunities. As for that talk about ‘The Age of Independence’ [under Mao], ‘The Age of Wealth’ [with Deng, Jiang and Hu] and ‘The Age of Power’ [under Xi Jinping], all of that is only meaningful relative to the nation’s feeble and impoverished past. In a global context, the Chinese are still poor and hard-pressed; our culture is in deficit; we could never hold our heads high in the past, and have not enjoyed much wealth; true prosperity still lies in the future. This country has neither the wherewithal to maintain a military presence world wide, nor has it established any replacement organisations that can offer the world significant public goods [in the manner of pre-existing global bodies].

Empires are organised according to a system of ‘core and a periphery’, along with liminal bordering zones. China can boast no such thing. Furthermore, even if it is evolving a slapdash global operation system via its foreign aid projects and the Belt and Road Initiative, it has no way of effectively manipulating it [for particular purposes]. Just look at what’s unfolding on our own front door: there’s a constant state of tension all the way from the East to the South China Seas, a new Great Game is unfolding in these waters. It will be impossible for China to rest on its laurels, let alone enjoy the kind of deep water and distant ocean capabilities presently enjoyed by the American Imperium. That’s why I argue that given China’s present capacities, even if it did want to become a global hegemon and focussed its efforts in that direction, this country still doesn’t have the wherewithal truly to become a Red Empire.

最後，現代中國不可能是一個紅色帝國。新中國起自「1911」，歷經「1949」，再經「1978」，以迄於今。一百年間，總體而言，不過求生存而已。國民填飽肚子，手上有點兒餘錢，花花腸子嘗到了甜頭，也就是晚近十來年的事兒。所謂「站起來、富起來、強起來」，只是相較曾經的積弱積貧而言。置諸世界，比對之下，依舊人民窮困，文化凋零，過去未曾站直，從來不曾富有，繁盛有待來日。既無全球投放軍力的實力，亦無力提供全球公共產品和替代性治理結構。而通常為帝國所必需的「中心—邊緣」結構及其「外圍地帶」，不僅尚付闕如，而且，縱便經由外援和「帶路」組合所拼接的地緣結構，亦無有效控制。就在家門口，從東海到南海，依舊齟齬不斷，大國博弈洶湧，中國難能消停，更不用說如美帝一般縱情於深藍遠海了。故而，以此現有國力而欲成就全球霸業，縱為之，亦不能。

This is a pragmatic overview of how things stand at the moment. It is an understanding based on the long-term perspective of Modern Historical Awareness and Shared Political Aspiration, which I have repeatedly argued have been the [underlying and abiding] goals of Modern China. It is a quest that has taken the form of a search for ‘Wealth and Power, Democracy and Civilisation’. There was a period [of some thirty years, from c.1949 to 1978] during which Class Struggle was the dominant state policy [under Mao], but it was at complete variance with core Chinese civilisational tenets of Pacifisim, Rationalism and Human-heartedness. And that’s why those policies were decisively rejected [after Mao’s death and following 1978]. Speaking of the tradition, the concept of ‘All-Under-Heaven’ 天下 tianxia [which was both part of classical thought and dynastic practice] envisaged a territorial arrangement that allowed for numerous points of significance, it offered a kind of encompassing view that in its nature [even as tianxia is revived as a concept today] would be resistant to such wild imaginings as ‘Red Empire’.

此就現狀掃描，據實描述，概莫如此。再就近代中國主流歷史意識與政治意志來看，其以「富強、民主與文明」為鵠的，雖曾一度以階級鬥爭為綱，卻絕對刺謬於和平理智與人文化成的華夏文教本義，故爾早被拋棄。而且，後者的天下意識意味著一種互為邊疆的多中心結構而言，本身就堅拒任何紅色帝國夢囈。

The moment one moves against this current of Modern Chinese History [that has to do with the country becoming a stable, wealthy and equitable nation] there will be a [popular] reaction. Recent events involving the regnant authorities have proven this time and again. Moreover, as I have stated in the above, today the people of China — the vast multitude of this country’s inhabitants — are finally enjoying the pleasures of sufficiency; they are far from being like the blind masses of the past. They are particularly affronted by the profligate waste of foreign aid, disgusted by the extravagance of leaders who are barely worthy of the name that is put on show in their pursuit of their ‘global vision’. Ever since Communist ideology collapsed the centre finds itself with no real belief system and, with each new leadership team, yet another political formulation has to be dreamed up. Over time these efforts are increasingly threadbare. ‘New Theories’, ‘New Thinking’ and ‘New Eras’ come tumbling out, one after another; they reflect the untethered nature of the system, its ideological dead heart, as well as the fact that true philosophical thinking about the state is itself in a state of suspended animation. All such ‘theorising’ is but a patchwork response slapped together in the most half-hearted fashion.

一旦偏離此一主流，即會遭遇反彈。幾年來的國朝情勢，已然對此證之再再。再者，如前所述，好不容易安享兩天吃喝玩樂市民生活的億萬國民，早已不是前現代的盲眾，最反感基於所謂國家榮譽的援外大撒幣，最痛恨枉為領導人的虛幻世界圖景而耗費民力。還有，自從共產意識形態破滅，國朝即無信仰，隨政治任期換屆而迭出心思，在捉襟見肘中疲於應對。所謂的新理論、新思想和新時代之第次出籠，恰恰表明瞭無定性，意識形態虛空，國家哲學懸置，不過架漏牽補，敷衍了事。

What about all that hyperbolic talk about Confucianism, Nationalism or, for that matter, fin-de-siècle consumerism? None of it makes one whit of difference. If you are going to force people into silence, blind them to reality, hamper the natural and free growth of inquiring minds, and instead feed them a diet of a dated nineteenth-century Germano-Slavic dogma [ie, Marxism-Leninism], then all you’ll end up with is a nation of reduced intellect, a country that has crippled itself. That’s why you can promote your ‘Original Intentions’ [a major Party slogan inspired by the Communist Manifesto] as much as you want, but everyone knows that in matter of fact you are bereft of ideals. So, what’s left? ‘Defending the Rivers and Mountains [of China], Ruling over the Rivers and Mountains and Living off the Rivers and Mountains’ [for more on this see Ruling The Rivers & Mountains, China Heritage, 8 August 2018] — your credo is naked pragmatism, your policies blatantly opportunistic. In your heart of hearts you have no appreciation of moral worth or understanding of sincerity. And, as I discuss below, to be able to boast of cultural superiority you actually need to ground yourself in something real, vital and substantial.

Who is going to really fight for an empire that is built on sand? The Grand Enterprise of Empire — including that of a Red Empire — hah! You know what: to get something like that up and running you actually might need a skerrick of, well, you know: Ideals! And maybe something approaching Sincerity. You simply gotta believe in something. Anyway, what I’m saying is that no matter what Modern China really is and what Modern China really will be, it is certainly not going to be realised in the form of Red Empire. Of course, this is beyond the comprehension of The One [當軸 dāng zhóu, literally, ‘the drive shaft’, that is, Xi Jinping], or maybe they are just pretending that they don’t get it? Nor, for that matter, is it something that the Old White Dude holed up in the White House on the other side of the Pacific can possibly imagine. As for the lapdog academics and media types who lavish all that verbiage on ‘the modern empire’, trying to make sense of their own nonsense, it’s all just too pathetic.

縱便儒義高陳，民族主義和末世消費心理大行其道，亦不濟事。蓋因鉗口遮眼，壓抑心智自由成長，只許十九世紀「日耳曼—斯拉夫」式教條一花獨放，則國族心智孱弱，終究無法挺立也。因而，嚷嚷初心，實無理想，只剩「保江山、坐江山、吃江山」的赤裸裸實用主義與粗鄙機會主義，骨子裡既無道義自信，亦無下文所說的基於文明的崇仰意識方可深植於心的文明優越感，哪裡還會為什麼帝國不帝國的去拼命。而帝國大業，包括紅色帝國在內，嘿嘿，有時候還真要有那麼點兒叫做什麼理想呀、情愫呀的東東來支撐才行呢。總之，凡此決定了現代中國不可能是一個紅色帝國。此非當軸所能理喻或佯裝不知，亦非大洋對岸白宮廷帷內的老白男們所可想象者也。至於學人報人以「現代帝國」措辭狀述當下中國，而力爭自圓其說，也是一說，就是有點兒小兒科罷了。

To sum up, at the moment China is not so much a Red Empire as a Large-scale Totalitarian Power. However, in light of the fact that Beijing rejects political reform and resists building a modern political system in keeping with its actual social and political maturation — thereby refusing attempts to turn ‘China’ into ‘Modern China’ — and given the potential [of the power-holders] for overreach, China might actually become a Red Empire. That’s why the neighbors are obsessively speculating [about the way things are tending] and why the established powers are on edge. Meanwhile, you’ve got a clutch of Old White Mental Retards in the White House with their brutish ways who are dead-set on reviving a worldview that sees everything in terms of narrow, nineteenth-century-style national sovereignty. Their perceptions are heavily influenced by the power politics of the [1919] Treaty of Versailles. As a result of their reckless behaviour they make Him [the Chairman of Everything Xi Jinping] feel as though he’s being cornered. What may well result is a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, something that will have the most baneful consequences.

And here we have a government that is ‘taking a walk on the other side’ [相向而行, an expression used by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, often in contradictory ways; here the author is satirising officialdom while using the expression to mean ‘to be at loggerheads with you’ and hinting at the popular Cultural Revolution version of contrariness summed up in an old quotation from Mao: 凡是敵人反對的我們就要擁護, 凡是敵人擁護的我們就要反對 ‘whatever the enemy opposes, we will support’, and vice-versa] and trying its best to distract people from focussing on its domestic political difficulties — regardless of whether the cost of these might end up being either a civil or an overseas war, something that is not far from the realm of possibility. It looks as though ‘Military Struggle’ or ‘a Great Patriotic Struggle’ [for more on this, see below] has top billing on the agenda and the possibility of things blowing up is increasing. That is because, although we have previously said that ‘only a crazy man would want to create unnecessary problems’. We unfortunately find ourselves in an era with ‘Two Old Red Guards in Power’ on either side of the Pacific. So don’t those ‘crazy men’ I’ve been talking about exist for real?!

綜上所述，與其說當下中國是一個紅色帝國，不如說是一個超大規模的極權國家，因其不思政改，拒絕以優良政體為現代中國升級換代，而為現代中國的最終完型加冕，則按照晚近勢能伸展，有可能發展成為一個紅色帝國，這才令四鄰八鄉猜忌，惹守成大國忌憚。就此而言，白宮那批存在認知障礙的老白男們魯莽行事，退守基於十九世紀式的主權國家格局，深濡凡爾賽式強權政治色彩，一下子把人逼到牆角，有可能導致一個「自我實現的預期」，同樣危乎殆哉。這邊廂，「相向而行」，為了轉移內政吃緊，而不惜內戰甚或外戰，亦且不無可能。現在看來，「軍事鬥爭」或成「偉大鬥爭」日程之首，而定時引爆的可能性正在增長。因為，雖如前文所言，「除非瘋子，誰也不會造次」，可不幸時逢太平洋兩岸均為「老紅衛兵執政」，這世上就有些弱智的瘋子呢？！

China’s Red Empire — a self-fulfilling prophecy?

自我坐實的紅色帝國

… …So, allow me to recap: how can a Large-scale Totalitarian Power that refuses to consider any meaningful kind of political reform, one that has no intention of establishing a constitutional democracy, not strike fear into people’s hearts? If it continues to grow both in power and in hubris who knows what might unfold? For that reason one must also predicate one’s thinking on the possibility, and speculate about the significance, of the rise of a Red Empire.

This is a direct challenge to the post-WWII [ideal] model of nation states [as liberal market democracies], a model that was further affirmed in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. Real existential terror is not about concerns involving the militarisation of the South China Sea, or the global expansion of the Belt-Road Initiative or, for that matter, from ‘Made in China 2025’ and the spectre of a new colonial power. Of course, all of these things present challenges of one sort or another, but in their disparate ways they are also understandable when considered in the context of the growth of a major new power that is trying to plan a future on the basis of a rational calculus and national interest.

Rather, the real concern is that the world must now contemplate the continued rise of a polity that is fundamentally totalitarian in ambition and one that is rapidly re-invigorating its internal governance to serve its particular ends. This is something that should unsettle the whole world; it is a reality that makes people ‘Worry About China’ both at home and abroad.

… …而一言以蔽之，就在於一個超大規模極權國家，不思政改，無意建設立憲民主政體，不禁令人恐懼。一旦坐大，難防不測，而有紅色帝國崛起的預設和預期。其所挑戰的是「二戰」後奠立、「蘇東波」後最終成型的普世良政典範。因而，既非什麼南海的軍事化與「帶路」擴張，亦非「2025」或者「新殖民主義」就引發憂懼，事實上，凡此雖多紕漏，卻為一個成長大國基於國家理性的應有佈局。毋寧，恰在於內政之紅色極權政治赤裸裸的加速度，這才真正令世界不安，引發出內外一並產生的根本憂懼。

… …

‘Struggle’, an Unacceptable Keyword

 「鬥」字訣要不得

At this crucial juncture, and just as I was writing this, the Peak [Leader, that is Xi Jinping] has repeatedly pronounced on the need for ‘Constant Struggle’, thereby sending out a dark message. At the start of the new year of 2019, numerous articles in the main official media touted headlines featuring the words ‘Constant Struggle’ and ‘Military Struggle’, causing widespread consternation. [For example, at a meeting of the Party’s Central Military Commission on 4 January 2019, Xi Jinping emphasised ‘the need to prepare for military struggle’ 做好軍事鬥爭準備工作]. In fact, talk of ‘The Great Struggle’ has been a feature of official discourse since the Nineteenth Congress of the Communist Party [in October 2017], although not in such an extravagant and repetitious fashion as now [the timing of such militaristic talk was not accidental; it is part of the psychological warfare Beijing continues to wage on Taipei. Only days before the meeting of the Party’s Military Commission, Xi made a major speech on Taiwan]. It is a major issue deserving of considered analysis, in the first place because of its impact on China’s domestic political scene, at the same time it has an impact on the nation’s interactions with other countries and global politics in general.

People should not forget that for over thirty years the power-holders imposed a pitiless philosophy of class struggle through constant political movements. During those decades not only were the butchers themselves sacrificed on the altar of ideology, mourned in turn after others had been mourned for, but more importantly the countless multitudes of China were caught up in the maelstrom. It feels like only yesterday that bloody violence swept the land. Having barely survived that calamity you can just imagine how people must be reacting to the renewed drumbeat of war. The word ‘Struggle’ weaves through this threnody. People can only imagine the worst, for the drumbeat signals an end of talk of peace, and presages but rather civil war [since the renewed jingoism is aimed at Taiwan, part of Beijing’s ongoing refusal to rule out the use of military force to occupy the island, which it claims as part of its People’s Republic]. At times of crisis, a state of emergency is the Red Empire’s default posture [such a crisis being the economic problems besetting the country in 2018-2019]. It’s a ‘killer app’ they turn to in response to any major threat.

The calls to ‘Liberate Taiwan’ or ‘Resolve the Taiwan Issue’ are like a Sword of Damocles hanging over us all; once chanted the domestic atmosphere tightens overnight, international relations become strained as the sword may be drawn from its sheath — but these are merely the basics of the ‘Philosophy of Constant Struggle’. As I have said in the above: China has not been, needs not become, should not and cannot itself be a Red Empire. And that’s why it must not allow itself to be sidetracked yet again and return to the path of the past.

走筆至此，必須要說的是，關鍵時分，層峰以一連串「鬥爭」，再度釋放不詳信息。新年伊始，首席官媒亦且「鬥爭」標題迭出，「軍事鬥爭」字樣赫然，令國人膽戰心驚。其實，「十九大」之後，「偉大鬥爭」修辭即已進入官方話語，只不過不如此番之大言儻論、連篇累牘也。茲事體大，首先關聯內政，同時及於國家間互動和全球政治，亟需慎思明辨。須知，長達三十多年里，國朝奉行殘酷鬥爭哲學，曾經連年「運動」，不僅劊子手們自己也先後走上祭壇，哀復後哀，而且，更要命的是使億萬國民輾轉溝壑。血雨腥風不過就是昨日的事，好不容易熬過這一劫，又聽鼙鼓，你想天下蒼生心裡該是何種滋味。故而，此刻再以排比句式連提「鬥爭」，予人浮想聯翩之際，等於宣告邦國和平不再，毋寧，重啓內戰。而這恰是紅色帝國每遇危機之際的拿手好戲，也是支應對手的殺手鐧也。「解放台灣」或者「解決台灣問題」如利劍懸頂，就在於一旦內政吃緊，大國關係緊繃，則隨時出鞘，便源此「鬥爭哲學」也。中國不曾、不必、不該、也不可能是一個紅色帝國，已如前述，則斷斷不可滑入此途，重蹈覆轍。

The reality is that in any normal society or political environment contradictions and clashes, complaints and clamour are commonplace. The true art of politics is knowing how to deal with such things in a peaceable manner that can bring people together. Clashes that unfold around [irreconcilable issues of] political contestation invariably lead to violence and rivers of blood flow in their wake. Time and again we have seen that only constitutional democracies have the stable political wherewithal to resolve conflicts peacefully. [In China] If only after the ‘First Year of Popular Rights’ [that is, the year 2003, when there was a glimmer of hope that a modicum of political relaxation might presage gradual reform] that already marked the first peaceful transition of Party power [with the ‘selection’ of Hu Jintao as Party General Secretary, the first time in China since 1949 that the political succession was not determined by a coup or a purge], a few more such transitions occurred and their format regularised so that a normal style of political contestation could mature within the framework of constitutional democracy ensuring that ‘the people are sovereign, the public vested with power’. If people were confident that a kind of Chinese-style stable and gradual transition would unfold, they could have understood and been willing to wait.

本來，無論市民生活還是政治場域，矛盾與衝突，吵吵復嚷嚷，蔚為常態，堪稱家常。而政治就在於迎應它們，適為合眾群居的和平哲學。衝突圍繞著統治展開，最為劇烈，每致血流成河，惟立憲民主政治破天荒啓動了和平解決的穩定正當程序。從「民權元年」開啓的黨內「禪讓制」，若果踐行幾輪，修葺完善，而轉至「主權在民，授受以公」的立憲民主競爭機制，可謂中國式轉型正義，也算是一種穩妥過渡，大家想必理解，可以等。

Tragically, instead we had ten long years of ‘Harmony’ [under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, that is from 2003 to 2012], years in which the political mantra was ‘drag it out’; nationwide demands for significant change were simply delayed. That window of opportunity available during those years that offered a space for some form of political uplift or historical advance was, time and again, ignored. Instead the power-holders blathered meaninglessly and played a game of ‘passing the [political] parcel’. The backsliding originating in those years was only a prelude to the kind of vast backsliding that we have witnessed over the past five years [from the Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Party Congress in November 2013 to now]. Although time has passed in impotence, the [urgent and existing socio-political] dilemmas have not disappeared along with it; on the contrary they have only been further exacerbated. Nonetheless, at least everyone is aware that no matter what happens, China cannot return to the past state of civil war [on the occasion of his seventy-third birthday — 26 December 1966 — Mao congratulated himself on the fact that the country was in a state of ‘all-out civil war’ 全面內戰]. No more ‘mucking around’ [折騰 zhéteng; a colloquialism used, uncharacteristically, by Hu Jintao with the meaning of ‘side-tracked’, ‘to be unsettled’. For a discussion of this term see Heritage Glossary]!

Although [the leaders of the Hu-Wen era] didn’t have the internal fortitude to forge forward politically, at least they weren’t stupid enough to behave too outrageously. For their part, they were happy to operate their ‘Nine-man Oligopoly’ [at the time the Standing Committee of the Politburo had nine members] while the Red Gentry divided up the spoils of the nation among themselves; at the same time they gave license to the masses to pursue their petit-bourgeois dreams, thereby ‘filling the belly and softening the will’ [實腹弱智, short for 實其腹, 弱其志, from a famous line in Laozi’s The Tao and the Power 道德經: ‘The Taoist rules by Emptying the Heart-and-Mind/ And Filling Belly,/ By softening the Will to Achieve,/ And strengthening the Bones’ 虛其心, 實其腹, 弱其志, 強其骨, trans. John Minford]. People on both ends of the spectrum conspired, dreaming their different dreams despite sharing the same bed. Who would have thought that in the nationwide frenzy of corruption they actually managed to paper over the gimcrack structure [of the party-state]; it even flourished and generated a level of ‘moderate prosperity’ which, however, was ‘all appearance and no heart’.

And now, in the blink of an eye, the first five years [of Xi Jinping’s rule] have passed during which an Anti-Corruption Movement has been used to shake up the bureaucracy and deal with the problems that accumulated over the previous years. It might have been brutal but it can claim a measure of success. But overall, things have gotten worse and that is because there has been a steadfast refusal [by the leaders] to engage with political mechanisms that rely on democracy and the rule of law. They have consistently rejected the fundamental aspiration of the age, that is to allow people to express themselves politically via the ballot box. There has been a trenchant dismissal of pluralism and [a refusal to allow] the expression of divergent opinions. And, furthermore, it is this very state of repression that has made it possible [for the Party] to abandon ‘the peaceful transfer of the throne’ [禪讓 shàn ràng, an ancient term denoted orderly power transitions between rulers, used here to describe the handover of party-state power first between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao and, again, a decade later with the retirement of Hu Jintao and the elevation of Xi Jinping, although the latter did involve a power struggle with Bo Xilai and a dramatic political purge].

And now, here we are, reciting the mantra of ‘Constant Struggle’ again. Even now, that same window of opportunity [mentioned above] exists even if in only the most tenuous sense. It could be slam shut in a flash and its loss could even hasten the further deterioration of things, so much so that it could hasten the reinstitution of the mechanisms of terror germane to that ‘philosophy of constant struggle’. And, along with that, the murderous machinery that kept it all running would once more come into operation. If things really unfold in that way, the common people will be reduced to being mere spectators as the party-state becomes embroiled in its own internal struggles [here 七鬥八鬥, literally, ‘to struggle seven or eight times’, a reference to the Cultural Revolution slogan: ‘constant struggle will create a revolutionary new world’ 七鬥八鬥, 鬥出一片新天地]. But the people are also hostage [to the system] and despite all of the hard work they have done to ensure themselves a happy life, ultimately won’t they also then end up as a kind of human sacrifice that ends up being buried along with it all!?

可惜，恰恰在此，十年「和諧」，以「拖」字訣應對舉國變革要求，玩「擊鼓傳花」把戲，於「溫吞」中一再錯失推動政治升級和歷史邁步的時間窗口。其之已然開始後撤，實際開啓了晚近五年大規模後撤之先導趨勢也。而矛盾並沒隨著時間流逝而消失，遂層層積累，以至於斯。但好在明白，再怎麼著，也不能重啓全民內戰，「不折騰」。故爾，雖無政治決斷之剛健，卻也不敢太過瞎胡來。這邊廂容忍權貴分贓以坐實九人寡頭體制，那邊廂讓小民沈湎於市民生活而實腹弱智。兩邊同床異夢地合謀，全民腐敗的熙攘中，居然架漏牽補，甚至於蒸蒸日上，造成了一個「不見精神，但有繁華」的小康之局。轉眼前五年過去，以「反腐」為旗幟的吏治整頓，迎應的是前期沈痾，雷厲風行，頗見成效，卻因未能真正啓動民主法治登場機制，一再拒絕用選票兌現人民主權位格的時代訴求，而且更加排斥多元議論，不意間竟因勢禁形隔，甚至連「禪讓」亦且不再，滑到如今的「鬥」字訣，豈惟更且不堪。如此不僅還將錯失依舊存在、但已岌岌可危、可能稍縱即逝的時間窗口，而且將可能導致情勢急轉直下，重回鬥爭哲學那個恐怖機制，再度轟隆啓動絞肉機也。若果真的如此，「七鬥八鬥」，億萬國民既是看客，也是人質，其必與其苦心經營的和平家園，最終一同淪為殉葬品，何所來哉！？

So, what’s brought about the present situation? Of course, the personality of He-Who-is-in-the-Driver’s Seat [again 當軸, that is, ‘the drive shaft’, or Xi Jinping] is a factor, but the crucial this is the system itself. That is to say, a system that insists on maintaining a ‘Five-in-One’ dominance [that is, by the merging of party and nation 黨國一體, party and government 黨政一體, economy and government 經政一體, army and government 軍政一體 and army and ruler 君師一體]. For such a system that has squandered all leeway yet is determined to undertake a draconian purge [of its own corruption] means that those in power [orchestrating the purge, that is Xi Jinping and Wang Qishan] must devote themselves entirely to maintaining the kind of high-pressure environment that in turn threatens the stability of the whole system [and the minute they let up, the inertia of the system will reassert itself].

The irony of the situation is that for the system to be maintained, harsh measures amounting to nothing less than a purge [of the kind witnessed during the Anti-Corruption Campaign] have been necessary, yet even then there is no viable way ahead, in particular rational alternatives that could contribute to any kind of modern political transformation [discussed at length in the previous essays] have been rejected. An irony certainly, but also a reality.

Once more we are contemplating the same kind of contradiction [that existed over a century ago] regarding the ‘Great Qing Dynasty’ and ‘China’ [that is, as the dynasty reformed people debated was the dynasty ‘China’ and was ‘China’ the same as the ruling Qing dynasty? Or, to cast the paradox in today’s terms: is the Communist Party’s party-state coterminous with China itself, and vice-versa?]. We find ourselves moving along knowing full well that what lies ahead is a dead end. We have no choice but to wait until we reach the end, and no one knows when that might be. It’s the kind of knotty problem eventually faced by all of the totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century. It was the kind of dilemma faced in the end by Soviet Russia, a hopelessly impossible situation that could only be resolved, or at least ameliorated, by the introduction of constitutional democracy [and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and re-assertion of Russia].

To do otherwise means you simply keep on going until it all came apart at the seams. Of course, in the process of waiting it out, you find yourself under the dead weight of a sclerotic system and you end up throwing millions of innocent lives into the ditch, part of a grotesque human sacrifice. The root cause of all of this: again, it is a refusal to accept the kind of sustainable political legitimacy offered by constitutional democracy. You respond to political crises by making economic concessions [to the population], by employing increasingly repressive measures and by blatant deception. Under no circumstances are you willing to concede power to the people. But here you are today: the size of the economic cake is smaller [and you don’t have the wherewithal to offer further state largesse, economic concessions, incentives, tax bribes, etc, to bribe people] and competition for every slice is more intense than ever. You are left with only the other two choices [that is, increased repression and deception]. So, let’s just see not only what will do, but what you can do.

造成這一現象的原因，既有當軸個人因素，更多的是體制本身使然。就是說，在維持筆者前文所謂「五位一體」的前提下，厲行整肅，既有體制空間早已用竭，全憑當事者以人身為投入的高壓維持，而牽動的是這個體制的根本。可為了維續根本，卻又必須動手，但卻不能再往前走，雖說明知那是現代國族政治意義上的根本解決之道。再者，囿限於此體制內部的整肅，而非指向立憲民主的良政設計，則「整肅」本身卻也嚴重傷害了其欲維護的體制本身，看似吊詭，卻扎實發生了。「大清」與「中華」的矛盾及其悖論，就這樣再度浮現。如此，遂陷入死衚衕，只能等待終結時分不知何時降臨。此一糾結，見諸二十世紀的所有極權政制晚期，特別是蘇俄一系極權政制之遷延待決，只當引入立憲民主政治方能破解，或者，有所紓解。否則，等待它的便是崩解，土崩瓦解。在此過程中，拖死的不僅是僵硬體制本身，更是作為殉葬品的億萬生靈。而究其根源，就在於拒絕適能提供「政權的永久正當性」的立憲民主公道，遂以讓利、高壓和欺瞞三位一體支應，就是不肯還政於民。迄至利益蛋糕縮減，讓利不再，爭利日甚，便三缺一了，看你怎麼辦，又能怎麼辦。

… …

6 January 2019
Erewhon Studio
Tsinghua University

2019年元月6日，定稿於清華無齋

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Source:

• Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, ‘China Is Not a Red Empire — Part I: The Potential for China to Go Astray’ 中國不是一個紅色帝國（上篇：誤入歧途的潛在勢能）, The Initium, 10 January; and,
• Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, ‘China Is Not a Red Empire — Part II: Generational Blindspots and the Philosophy of Constant Struggle’ 中國不是一個紅色帝國（下篇：代際盲點與鬥爭哲學）, The Initium, 11 January 2019

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