ON JULY 19th the graduates of one of China's leading business schools settled down in their academic finery to listen to a farewell address by Qin Xiao, the chairman of a state-owned bank. They little expected what they were about to hear. Instead of rallying them to further the cause of China's socialist modernisation, Mr Qin urged them to resist the lure of worldly things and to pursue “universal values” such as freedom and democracy.
Mr Qin's speech to
an audience of 2,000 people in Tsinghua University's sports centre fanned the
flames of an ideological debate that has been smouldering in China for the past
two years. A philosophical question of whether universal values exist has
turned into a political fight, dividing scholars, the media and even, some
analysts believe, China's leaders. The schism is likely to become more apparent
as the Communist Party prepares for a sweeping change of leadership in 2012.
Liberals will try to goad incoming leaders into making their views clear.
Mr Qin, who
retired on September 21st after nine years as chairman of China Merchants, the
country's sixth-largest bank, said recognition of universal values was at the
heart of big issues facing China's development, from urbanisation to the
provision of public services and the ownership of state assets. “Universal
values tell us that government serves the people, that assets belong to the
public and that urbanisation is for the sake of people's happiness,” he said.
Supporters of the “China model”, he added, believe the opposite: that people
should obey the government, the state should control assets and the interests
of individuals are subordinate to those of local development.（編按》秦曉在清華大學演講原文：“普世價值”告訴我們,政府是服務於人民的,資產是屬於社會大眾的,城鎮化是為了人的幸福的。而“中國模式論”鼓吹的卻正好相反:人民要服從於政府、政府要控制資產、百姓的利益要讓位於地方建設。）
The term
“universal values”, or pushi jiazhi, is a new one in Chinese political
debate—surprising given that concepts commonly associated with it, such as
freedom, democracy and human rights, have been bickered over incessantly for 30
years. Many Chinese scholars think the debate really took off in 2008 after an
earthquake in Sichuan province that killed around 80,000 people. Ten days after
the disaster, a liberal newspaper in the southern province of Guangdong, Southern
Weekend, published an editorial that praised the government's swift response.
It said it had “honoured its commitments to its own people and to the whole
world with respect to universal values”.
That single
mention of the term was enough to enrage hardliners. A flurry of commentary
appeared in Beijing newspapers and on conservative websites attacking the idea
of universal values as a Western plot to undermine party rule. China was
preparing to host the Olympics in August 2008 with the slogan, “one world, one
dream”. But conservatives feared that embracing universal values would mean
acknowledging the superiority of the West's political systems. In September,
after the games, the party's own mouthpiece, the People's Daily, weighed
in. A signed article accused supporters of universal values of trying to
westernise China and turn it into a laissez-faire economy that would no longer
uphold “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
The debate picked
up in December 2008 when hundreds of liberal intellectuals and out-and-out
dissidents signed a manifesto in support of universal values, known as Charter
08. China faced a choice, it said, of maintaining its authoritarian system or
“recognising universal values, joining the mainstream of civilisation and
setting up a democracy”. This was a step too far for the party leadership.
Recently, Chinese officials have been issuing warnings about diplomatic trouble
if the Nobel Peace Prize, due to be announced on October 8th, goes to the
charter's organiser, Liu Xiaobo. Mr Liu, who is the bookies' favourite to win
the award, is serving an 11-year jail term for his role. On September 28th, a
Chinese foreign-ministry spokeswoman said his acts were “completely contrary to
the aspirations of the Nobel Peace Prize”.
China's strong
economic performance during the global financial crisis has been a morale
booster to conservatives. In a veiled demonstration that China has its own
values, the authorities in Beijing this week staged the capital's first
large-scale celebrations of Confucius's birthday (his 2,561st) since Communist
Party rule began. Conservatives like to contrast what they see as a Confucian
stress on social harmony and moral rectitude with the West's emphasis on
individual rights.
But the rival
camps are still at daggers drawn. Liberals see the prime minister, Wen Jiabao,
as a champion of universal values. In November 2008 an article posted on
Guangdong newspaper websites named both Mr Wen and President Hu Jintao as
supporters of the notion. Neither man has used the term pushi jiazhi publicly,
but the liberals' case for Mr Wen, at least, is a strong one. He wrote in 2007
that “science, democracy, rule of law, freedom and human rights are not unique
to capitalism, but are values commonly pursued by mankind over a long period of
history.” An appeal by Mr Wen in late August for political reform has prompted
a slew of veiled responses in the conservative media, castigating Western-style
democracy.
Conservatives
claim support from the party's publicity department, which controls the media
in Beijing. They were encouraged by a speech on September 1st by Vice-President
Xi Jinping, who is all but certain to take over from Mr Hu as party chief in
2012 and as president a year later. Mr Xi's speech was peppered with references
to values, but did not come close to suggesting that any were universal. He
cited the examples of several ordinary party members who, by devoting themselves
to its interests, had answered “the basic question of what the main goals and
highest values are for a communist”. A Chinese scholar with close ties to
conservative officials says there are divisions among top leaders over
universality.
They have certainly
vacillated. The government's first white paper on democracy in China, in 2005,
began: “Democracy is an outcome of the development of political civilisation of
mankind. It is also the common desire of people all over the world”. A drafter
says he now believes those words were “inappropriate”.
