Political Order 3: Democratic China?
- Jia Han
- Mar 13, 2024
- 4 min read
J. L Han
3-13-2024
If you compare all known political orders, democracy undoubtedly is one of the best, if not the best. As mentioned before [1], the End of History Theory predicts that all nations will eventually become liberal democracies. Such a theory seems reasonable. If a political order is good, others should follow or emulate it. However, the real world is complicated. Democratic transition can be complex and difficult. Just watch a short video: Why So Many Countries Failed To Adopt British Democracy?[2]. We have more to say about this later.
Let us study how two main types of democracies came into existence. The first type originated in ancient Athens. (There were other democracies in ancient Greece. However, Athens was the most important one.) Religion was essential to Greek poleis. However, politics in the polis was secular in the sense that religion did not interfere with politics or political institutions. This is described in [3]: “Religious cults articulate, reflect, and reinforce the bonds of the city-state. Many ancient historians (most notably Thucydides) and political thinkers showed little interest in the religious side to polis existence. Perhaps this is because the paramount preoccupation of Greek political thought was the attainment of stability and avoidance of violent revolution. Or perhaps religious cult was too close a shadow of political secular structures — rather than an alternative power base — for it to be considered central to any study of politics.” Another important factor in ancient Athens was equality (the details are complicated thus omitted here).
The second type of democracy is liberal democracy originated in America. America inherited much from Great Britain, including the Rule of Law, property rights, Protestantism, and so on [4]. Britain was part of Christendom, which was descended from the Rome Empire. Christendom inherited many political and legal institutions from the Rome Empire. Although some of these institutions had been reformed in the millenia since, the framework remained the same. British political and legal institutions were not secular. Reformation caused complete rethinking of the relationship between religion and political order. Mark Lilla’s The Stillborn God provides a good account of political thinking since Reformation. Democratic transition of Christian and post-Christian nations is covered in [5]. Note that religion is not considered in these, nor in most research on democratization. We should recall the key features of the Bible (the NT in particular): equality among all people and no instructions about governance. These stand out when compared with non-Christian nations.
It is time to consider nations of other civilizations. Most major religions will not permit secularism. For example, a major doctrine of Islam is who should be Caliph, the leader of all Muslims. Muslims have two major factions: Shiite and Sunni whose key difference is who would qualify to be Caliph. And the criterion was blood relationship, i.e. how close that person is counted as Muhammud’s descendants. The official religion of China dictates a hierarchical order for all people under the emperor’s rule. Both have two obstacles of a democracy: religion, and inequality. They are not easy to overcome.
Both ancient Athens democracy and modern liberal democracy are essentially secular. In any event, these religious doctrines do not interfere with political institutions. What about other civilizations? After realizing that democratic transition should take religion into account (Christian case being an exception rather than rule), I wrote several short articles [6-9]. These were merely notes and further studies are required. However, it is clear to me now that one cannot disregard religion when studying democratic transitions.
At the very end of The Stillborn God (p.308), Mark Lilla wrote:. “Time and again we must remind ourselves that we are living an experiment, that we are the exceptions. We have little reason to expect other civilizations to follow our unusual path, which was opened up by a unique theological-political crisis within Christendom. This does not mean that other civilizations necessarily lack the resources for creating a workable political order; it does mean that they will have to find the theological resources within their traditions to make that happen. Our challenge is different. We have made a choice that is at once simpler and harder: …” If you understand the whole book, this implies that in other nations religion might not be separable from politics. Thus, some nations are not likely to become democracies, not liberal democracies anyway.
Later after I studied the Bible further, it is clear to me that God’s plan is not to realize the best political orders on the earth. It is much too complicated to elaborate here.
刘军宁 is the only Chinese scholar that I know of who got the main path correct. He noted that only England got it right while French and Germany got it wrong (The Stillborn God can explain partially this divergence). He criticized 胡适，陈独秀, which is also correct. One key mistake of Reform in late Qing Dynasty was 中学为体，西学为用. China’s problem was its official religion/ideology. When it was proposed Confucianism had some positive impact on Chinese politics but is now vastly outdated. Confucianism when integrated with Marxism became very reactionary [10]. Although 刘军宁 pointed out problems faced by today’s China, this is vastly insufficient. [11] is a good book about the history of democratic struggles. As you can see, many America Founding Fathers had great knowledge of politics, history, philosophy, economics.
References:
Why So Many Countries Failed To Adopt British Democracy (10-28-2022)
Rosalind Thomas, Robin Osborne (Editor), “Classical Greece: 500-323 BC,” Oxford University, 2000. p.74.
James D. R. Philips, Two Revolutions and the Constitution: How the English and American Revolutions Produced the American Constitution, 2021
韩家亮：民主为什么扩展？(short summary of Fukuyama’s book)
韩家亮：民主与中华文明 http://hx.cnd.org/?p=20179
韩家亮: 比较马克思主义与儒教（5） http://beijingspring.com/bj2/2010/280/410201954706.htm Also 韩家亮：法西斯、共产党、和儒教 http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=32280
James Miller, Can Democracy Work? Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
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