Andrew Singer Talks About China

Vol. 3, Issue 8

Aug 06, 2024

Today’s Issue continues the conversation of Chinese and American cultures and how they impact and affect the relationship between the two countries. Part I explored the early modern cultural discussion during the first half of the twentieth century. Part II brings us up to the context of today.

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Chen Meng, Chinese Women’s Table Tennis, Paris 2024 Olympics

Why is culture important?

Culture is the largest part of what makes us who we are. It colors how we think, conceive of the world, and act. It is part mythological, part idealistic, and very much embedded in the nuts and bolts of daily realities. It is our respective origin stories.

Culture evolves. It ever shapes and is shaped (sometimes warped) by governance and politics. Governance is imbued with a cultural dimension--whether as a foundational cornerstone, a philosophical outlook, and/or a strategic tool. Culture shares a symbiotic connection with power. This is true in both China and America.

Culture is pride in our countrymen. During these weeks of the Paris Summer Olympics, it is the national displays painted on the faces of spectators in the stands. It is the joy and despair of the players when they win and lose. It is my wife getting up at 4:00 a.m. to go down to the den and watch a Chinese women’s table tennis star battle her way towards the finals. I could hear Liana clapping enthusiastically from upstairs every time the Chinese player scored a point, and she scored a lot of points!

Confucius playing the guqin at Apricot Tree Forum

What does it mean to be Chinese to a Chinese person?

We hear often that Confucianism and Daoism are the bases of Chinese culture. Both seek to achieve societal and personal harmony--one through organizing and living life in accordance with specific behavioral precepts and the other through living in sync with the rhythms of the natural universe. Even if more aspirational than realized in the complexity of the every day twenty-first century world, Confucianism and Daoism provide a familiar existential grounding for many Chinese. Tu Wei-ming, a Confucianist living in America (and a Harvard professor), writes that “the meaning of being Chinese is basically not a political question; it is human concern pregnant with ethical-religious implications.”1

In my experience, the Chinese are much more connected to their history and culture than Americans, in ways both apparent and not. This is in part because that history is so much longer. It is in part because the Chinese language courses through linguistic veins that keep the past flowing in the present. It is also in part because culture is top of mind as successive governments over the past century have either a) wanted to eliminate the old or b) mold and use the old, both in attempts to move China forward. This latter begs the question, however, because many Chinese are thus not aware how nuanced and tangled their history and culture are in fact.

Referencing the complexity that is China, Joerg Wuttke (longtime and recently-retired, China-based European businessman and Chamber of Commerce leader), recently said that in his opinion “‘The essence of China is [the terracotta] warrior,’…In China, he explains, things seem deceptively uniform. But like the terracotta warriors, no two of which are exactly alike, this impression conceals deep diversity. ‘To me, the soldiers are a reminder of what China stands for. Long history and diversity below uniformity.’”2

What does it mean to be American to an American person?

Independence is the notional linchpin of being American. To be independent is to be free. The whole living better than the generation before, being able to pull oneself up by the bootstraps, the power to control one’s life at all levels and at all times. This is the basis of the American cultural ethos.

In today’s America, however, freedom (or at least the idea of it) too often becomes the end in itself, without consideration and appreciation given to the means by which the end is to be achieved. And therein lies a problem.

Philosophy Professor Bryan Van Norden (of my alma mater, Vassar College) touched on freedom. modern society, and America during a recent interview in Beijing (in English):

"Modern ethics emphasizes the notion of freedom. Freedom is a very important value, but by itself it is not a complete value. If we are told to be free, well, what do we choose? The lack of an answer leads to alienation, anxiety, and angst in modern society. We are told to be free but given no guidance. We need people to give us guidance about what we should use our freedom to do.
“Here's where Confucius and Mengzi [Nos 1 and 2 in the Confucian hierarchy] are helpful in China and around the world to give a sense of what makes life worth living. It fills in our sense of emptiness. Modern science and technology are wonderful in telling us how to achieve our goals, but modern science does not tell us what goals to achieve or why to achieve them. This is why many people are looking to the wisdom of the past because it can help us to become better human beings."

What does it mean to be Chinese to the government of China?

As I wrote in the last Issue, Kiang Kang-Hu (left-leaning politician, scholar, and academic) critiqued the representation of China in America during the interwar years. He was upset by who was allowed to speak on behalf of China as well as the image of the growing nation that those representations highlighted. Xi Jinping has, in effect, taken this to heart in his leadership of China.

Xi often speaks of “telling China’s story well” (讲好中国故事). He wants China to own this story. It is a powerful tale based in history and on culture. In Xi’s words, it is a documented and glorious recounting of “fine traditional Chinese culture” that “‘…includes million years [sic] of humanity, 10,000 years of culture, and more than 5,000 years of civilization.’”3 This is the basis of China’s rising. It is the legacy of long ago civilizational development and growth, of Confucianism and Daoism, of invention and innovation, of societal primacy in a global world.

A corollary of this view is that Xi forcefully advocates for the Chinese Communist Party being solely responsible for leading China to realize the “China Dream.” This is to be done by the Party exercising comprehensive control of the people and representing China’s ideological and moral authority. It is carried out politically and culturally through patriotic education and propaganda, as well as official, quasi-official, and unofficial media.

How is China’s Story Being Received Abroad (and in part domestically)?

Xi has his critics. In fact, there is no shortage of those who want to look beyond the Party-line cultural China story to see a story that could be better told, or at least told differently:

Geremie R. Barmé (The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology) writes that “[t]he Other China is not the China of stentorian slogans, cutting barbs, sarcastic put-downs. It is not the China of clichéd patriotism and exaggerated public performance; nor is it the China of crude stereotypes and bottomless grievance. It is a China of humanity and decency, of quiet dignity and unflappable perseverance. It is a China that finds expression in myriad ways in a country dominated by a political party that would bend all to its will;….”4
Catherine Churchman (Victoria University, Wellington) notes that in her experience as an educator and historian, “one of the main problems [in China’s soft power] is that the Chinese culture promoted overseas by PRC apparatchiks is totally unappealing to the majority of young people.”5 The teaching of such culture in her opinion relies on “boring textbooks,” is “disconnected from local context,” and is promoted by institutions (e.g., Confucius Institutes) that “exist for the express purpose of letting foreigners understand China on terms acceptable to China.”
Orville Schell (Asia Society) has compared the writings of Xi Jinping and revered Chinese author Lu Xun (a contemporary of Pearl Buck and Carl Crow) and concluded that notwithstanding her “spectacular record of material progress, [China] remains spiritually incomplete.”6 Schell laments that Xi-era CCP writings and governing documents lack “precisely those truly human, moral and spiritual dimensions that made Lu Xun’s century-old stories and essays still so affecting today.” He pines for “Lu’s relentless curiosity, skepticism, wittiness, sense of irony, and penchant for honestly probing the darkest recesses of both his own being and Chinese culture.”

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What takeaway can I offer? Noting (Parts I and II) that China reflects a more hybrid, pragmatic world view v. a more rigid, universalist America, social harmony v. independence, is a first step. More importantly, we need to listen and hear what each says and foreshadows in these regards because that will inform and aid us in understanding how both will ultimately act. Culture is as culture does.7

Andrew’s China Newsletter

Andrew Singer Talks About China

Vol. 3, Issue 8

Culture is as Culture Does? (Part II)

Chen Meng, Chinese Women’s Table Tennis, Paris 2024 Olympics

Confucius playing the guqin at Apricot Tree Forum

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