Christopher L. Bennett
CHINESE HISTORY – SELECTED ESSAYS
Part I
King Cheng, who called himself Qin Shihuangdi, is generally regarded as the man who unified China. But this is an oversimplification of a process that was well underway before Shihuangdi was born. At best, Shihuangdi took the final steps in the process of creating China.
The cultural unification of the region we know as China may have begun under the Zhou Dynasty, in which all occupied lands were placed under the rule of the members of a single extended family. This spread the influence of one culture far and wide, standardizing language and writing. This cultural assimilation probably did not extend to the local peasants, but as the feudal age continued and the population of shih multiplied, an increasing percentage of the population would have shared this common cultural heritage.
The rigid Zhou feudal system proved ultimately ineffectual, with no mechanism for eliminating incompetent officials or promoting exemplary ones, and grew ever more fragmented as family ties grew increasingly tenuous with the passing generations. By the Warring States period it had essentially broken down, and increasingly gave way to military conquest and assimilation of territory by the strongest warlords.
The state of Qin had numerous advantages in the struggle for power. In a time when raw force brought political advantage, the Qin were fearsome, ruthless fighters relatively untamed by civilized etiquette, and thus able to dominate in contests of brute strength. Their territory was fertile, productive and easily defended, giving them considerable wealth to support their military campaigns. And their peripheral status in the Zhou feudal structure gave them an advantage in an era when an alternative to that ossified system was needed. It was easier for them to innovate and seek new economic and political systems, because they had not strongly embraced the traditional Zhou ways to begin with. Thus they were pioneers in casting off the last vestiges of the feudal system and developing new approaches to agriculture, in the form of freehold farming, and to political administration, in the Legalist system and the inception of a merit-based bureaucracy. Qin thus became one of the most efficiently run states in all of China, as well as the most ruthless.
Qin=s campaign to conquer all of China began in the 330s BCE, decades before Shihuangdi=s birth. Shihuangdi happened to be the ruler who was in power at the end of the process. However, he did play an important role in consolidating Chinese unification. He defined the basics of the imperial administrative system which provided the model for subsequent empires. He officially standardized writing, coinage, weights and measures, and built an elaborate network of roads.
In a way, Shihuangdi may have also played a role in the unification of Chinese thought, by ordering the destruction of most philosophical and scholarly writing. This narrowed the pool of surviving literature which the Chinese could look to as their cultural heritage, perhaps reducing the diversity of ideas and cultural traditions on which the people could look back for inspiration.
But Qin Shihuangdi does not deserve sole or primary credit for Acreating@ China. After all, the empire he created was ultimately an expression of his personal will, and disintegrated promptly after his death, torn apart by the vengeance of the people he had brutalized. If China had been solely the creation of Shihuangdi, it would have been scattered to the winds of history.
Rather, China was already becoming China well before Shihuangdi, in a long, gradual process of sociopolitical evolution and cultural syncretism. The Qin conquests were the labor pains of this nascent entity, and Shihuangdi was its midwife.
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China=s civil service was one of the most essential and enduring elements of its civilization for two millennia. This nationwide bureaucracy, theoretically based on merit rather than lineage or royal favor, gave Chinese government a distinctive character and deeply affected the shape of its culture.
The seeds of the Chinese bureaucracy were sown in the Qing Dynasty, whose Legalist ruler sought to sweep away the familial order of Confucianism, replacing hereditary aristocracy with appointed officials. Although Confucian values made a clear and lasting comeback after the Qing, the principle of appointing officials based on qualifications rather than blood was accepted as worthwhile by the Han rulers, notably Wudi. Local officials were called on by the state to recommend worthy civil-service candidates, who were then given written examinations to confirm their worth. Later, a system was established for educating promising youths in preparation for civil-service posts in adulthood -- the first state-sponsored university.
Of course, the system had flaws. Though candidates were supposed to be recommended on merit and ability, and often earned recommendation through clerical work in local districts, there was nothing to prevent local officials from nominating family members and cronies. The officials were themselves wealthy and powerful, and were likely to recommend fellow members of their class. The Confucian concept of merit had come to be reinterpreted as a hereditary trait acquired from one=s ancestors -- just another way of keeping an elite class on top. Also, only the elites had the wherewithal to meet the literacy requirement for any official post in a system based on written examinations. Those who became officials were often able to appoint their successors, making many government posts essentially hereditary. As time passed, the system functioned less and less as intended and increasingly resembled a conventional aristocracy. Still, the examinations guaranteed that those chosen were at least literate and mentally competent, and the recommendation system ensured that all regions were represented in the government.
Post-Han states introduced further innovations in their efforts to organize the chaos of the times. The Sui and then the Tang Dynasty built on their predecessors= foundations, bringing the institution of the civil service examination to full flower. Applicants were tested on their knowledge of Confucian classics and their writing ability. Understanding of law, economics, political science or other fields relevant to government were not emphasized. This is perhaps understandable considering that the officials= task, in principle, was not to make policy or decisions but to enact the policies and decisions of the emperor.
In theory, anyone could take the exams. In practice, most candidates came from the national universities, which did restrict enrollment to aristocracy only. Others were recommended by local prefects, which carried some of the same limits as the past recommendation system, except some preliminary exams were required. Also, the more widespread use of paper by this time made written matter, and thus literacy, more widely attainable.
Those who passed the exam became eligible for (but not guaranteed) appointment to official posts. Appointments were based on evaluation of a candidate=s qualifications and preferences. Three-year terms were implemented, after which an official=s performance would be assessed with an eye toward renewal, promotion, demotion or dismissal. The Censorate branch of the civil service monitored the rest of the service for impropriety and corruption. Where once official posts were lifelong and inheritable, now civil servants were answerable for their performance.
Naturally, this system had its own flaws. Like any test-based system, its judgments came increasingly over time to be based on form rather than substance. Candidates were evaluated on their ability to compose essays and poetry in formalized styles, with the actual content becoming largely irrelevant. (Poetry was perhaps included due to the belief that poetry was a reflection of the state=s influence on the people: Agood government evokes joyous poetry, and unhappy poetry is symptomatic of bad government.@[1] A candidate=s poetic mood may have demonstrated his attitudes toward the state and thus his ability to fit into it.) The examinations tested recollection of traditional texts and conformity to traditional values, rather than innovation or flexibility.
But this was what the emperors desired, and it did serve a purpose. The education needed to pass the exams was loaded with conservative, Confucian values such as respect for tradition and ritual, deference to superiors and loyalty to the emperor. The system=s members were selected for their acceptance of the very principles on which the system operated. This helped the system run smoothly and achieve considerable stability. Indeed, the civil service even outlasted dynasties. The bureaucratic principles formalized by the Tang were carried over into all subsequent Chinese dynasties, undergoing further evolution but enduring until the founding of the Republic of China in 1912.
By recruiting its members from all across China and assigning them outside their home provinces, the civil service also provided a unifying influence on Chinese culture. This was enhanced by the fact that all education basically existed to prepare examination candidates and staff the bureaucracy. To meet the tradition-laden, formulaic standards of the exams, education nationwide became standardized. All learned Chinese knew the same classics, voiced the same values, wrote in the same literary idiom. Even across the vast expanse of China, encompassing a wide range of regional and ethnic populations, a unified Chinese culture emerged.
China stands out in human history as one of the most enduring single civilizations ever to exist, remarkably cohesive across time and territory despite the rise and fall of dynasties and the migration and conflict of ethnicities. The stability and uniformity of the overarching civil service was a major factor in preserving this Chinese identity. Its rigidity certainly limited it in many ways, but gave it the strength to serve as the backbone of Chinese civilization.
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China is a country with a long tradition of rule by absolute despots. Its philosophical systems, though, are dominated by concepts that seem incompatible with despotism, such as the benevolence and strong morality of Confucianism, or the Daoist and Buddhist tendencies to refrain from action and involvement in the world. How can we reconcile this paradox?
Perhaps the first step is to examine why it appears to be a paradox. To modern, Western minds, the concept of despotism or absolute rule is synonymous with tyranny and injustice. This is the outgrowth of the ideals of individual liberty which developed in the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and came to dominate Western thought thereafter. In this worldview, it is a given that the individual has the right to self-determination, and that no mortal has more than a limited authority over another, that authority being based on the collective consent of the community. In this paradigm, despotism cannot be moral.
But Chinese moral and political philosophy developed along different lines. Early in Chinese history, the doctrine was developed that the ruler held the Mandate of Heaven, and served as the worldly representative of divine will or cosmic order. Of course, leaders in many cultures have claimed similar divine sanction. But the Chinese model stresses that the Mandate is conditional upon the just behavior of the ruler and the well-being he brings to the people. Although the ruler alone makes the final decisions for all China, he is obligated to make those decisions for the good of his subjects, for his continued rule depends on their contentment.
Confucianism meshes smoothly with this principle, and adds a reinforcing element. Confucian moral principles revolve around the family and the duties of its members. Children and wives are obligated to obey the father, but the father is obligated to take good care of his wives and children. A proper Confucian gentleman cannot think only of himself and exploit his family to serve his own self-interest. He has all the power in his family, but he is obligated to use that power responsibly for the good of all.
In Confucian political philosophy, the emperor is equivalent to the father: the dominant male in whom all power resides, but who is therefore responsible for protecting the extended Afamily@ of China and helping all its members to prosper. Confucians recognize that power is not a license, but a burden and a sacred trust.
It is questionable, though, whether it is really practical for one person to make all the decisions for a nation of millions. In such a system, there is much to be said for delegation of authority. And many aspects of such a large, dynamic society function best if left to themselves, free to develop in response to local conditions and needs. This is where Daoism and Buddhism came in. These belief systems stress the unreality of life and the value of non-action. They encourage letting life happen around you rather than attempting to bend it to your will. This outlook can be a useful check on despotic power.
Daoism and Buddhism also provided an outlook easing the people=s endurance of despotic rule, even as Confucianism encouraged them to obey it. When conditions became too harsh and restrictive, the people could just shrug it off as illusion, or as the suffering which comes from desire for illusory things. Or they could console themselves with visions of Buddhist paradise and reward in future lives.
To Chinese eyes, a despot was not a brutal tyrant, but a wise father figure, granted power by cosmic will. All the people were his children, obligated to obey and sometimes chafing under their lack of freedom; but ultimately, ideally, they trusted the ruler to take good care of them. In this worldview a moral despot was not a paradox.