This is the fourth in a series of posts summarising and discussing “Chinese History Revisited” (中國文明的反思; transliterated, “Reflections on Chinese Civilisation”), written by Mainland journalist Xiao Jiansheng (萧建生).

Click on the tag “Chinese History Revisited” to see the entire series.

A house built on sand

In Chapter 4 Xiao focuses on the Han (漢) and Tang (唐) Dynasties in an attempt to explain why Chinese prosperity during both dynasties proved to be fleeting. Xiao compares the prosperity of Han and Tang China to a nest built on reeds - once the fragile foundations were undercut, the entire edifice fell apart.

Palmerston: The closest English analogy - one which Xiao himself uses later in the chapter - is that of a house built on sand.

Xiao sets the scene by describing Tang China in 782AD, after the An Shi Rebellion (安史之亂). Due to the strain of the Rebellion on the Treasury, then-Chancellor Li Mi (李泌) decided that the State would no longer sponsor the over 4,000 ambassadors and over 10,000 foreign students living in the capital Chang An (長安). He therefore gave them a simple choice - retain their respective nationalities and leave China, or stay - and naturalise. To the Chancellor’s surprise, all the envoys - and the vast majority of students - chose to stay. Despite the Rebellion, China remained the pre-eminent economic power of its time, with extensive international trade a vibrant community of expatriates and naturalised foreigners - including the 胡姫 (waitresses - transliterated, “orchids”) in the verse of Li Bai (李白). Yet this prosperity was fleeting - the An Shi Rebellion marked the beginning of the end for the Tang Dynasty. Xiao’s stated aim is to show that the decline of Han and Tang civilisation was caused by systemic weakness in the system of governance of the time.

Measures to consolidate absolutist rule

This discussion begins by setting out what he considers to be the three main reasons for the popular acceptance of absolutism in the Han Dynasty, in contrast with the eruptions of discontent which followed the assertion of Qin Imperial power. First, unlike the previous Shang and Zhou insurrections, which were relatively short and had relatively enlightened leaders, the peasants’ revolt which toppled the Qin Dynasty was followed by an 8-year war with little in the way of ideological justification. Second, rebel leader (and Han opponent) Xiang Yu (項羽) made the mistake of attempting to reinstate the Western Zhou framework, but in so doing failed to remove feudal lords’ military powers or to establish a system of locally elected officials to stem feudal power - which in turn gave the feudal lords the opportunity to exert power at the expense of central government. Third, Xiang’s nemesis (and inaugural Han Emperor) Liu Bang (劉邦) allowed for the concurrent operation of a province/prefecture system and of feudal states, only to kill the feudal lords he initially appointed (replacing them with his relatives) after his power was consolidated. In short, Liu Bang and the later Han Emperors were smart enough to boil the frog gradually.

Palmerston: Xiao overtly compares the concurrent existence of direct rule and a vassal system with “One Country, Two Systems”. This parallel alone should be grounds for considerable discomfort in the contemporary Hong Kong reader.

Xiao proceeds to argue (based on his previous chapter) that the Qin Dynasty showed that brutality alone was not enough to ensure Imperial authority, and describes (at great length) the measures adopted by Han Emperors to increase Imperial power: the conferral of legitimacy on absolutist rule, the Imperial Civil Service examinations, and the use of ritual to entrench social stratification.

As far as legitimacy is concerned, Xiao deals with two distinct issues: the undermining of the vassal states and the adoption of the variant of Confucian theory espoused by Dong Zhongshu (董仲舒). Xiao’s remarks on the undermining of the vassal states deviate little from the comments made in relation to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. As for Dong, his theory of the heavenly mandate and the equation of the will of Heaven with the will of the Emperor provided the perfect theological and ideological basis for centralised absolutism. Dong’s corollary that the Emperor had to rule justly and could, in extreme circumstances, legitimately be overthrown was, however, given short shrift. From the adoption of Dong’s bastardised version of Confucianism by Emperor Wu (漢武帝), Confucianism and Legalism became the twin ideological pillars of the State - the former to ensure docility, the latter to justify harsh punishment. The upshot, Xiao argues, was that dissent became not merely unnatural, but immoral and therefore deserving of suppression.

The Imperial Civil Service examinations were implemented in the Tang Dynasty to replace the old Han Dynasty system of nomination by local noteworthies - which, in due course, was hijacked by cliques. Xiao refers to three flaws in the examination system. First, successful candidates felt personal fealty to owed their status to the Imperial examination system and therefore felt greater personal fealty to the Emperor. Second, the examinations had entirely Confucian curricula and justified centralised rule. Third, in entrenching orthodoxy, the examinations ensured intellectual stagnation for centuries.

Palmerston: Xiao’s point on personal fealty is, to say the least, not his best point - only Xiao’s criticism of intellectual stagnation truly hits home.

The third measure is that of ritual. Before Liu Bang, Xiao writes, there was at least some semblance of equality between a monarch and his ministers; even Liu Bang himself, at least in his early reign, was highly dismissive of Confucian formality, to the extent of taking the hats of Confucian students and publicly urinating in them. Only later did Liu Bang insist on the ritual formality now beloved of period dramas, with disobedience punishable by dismissal or even death. Tang stratification would extend to such matters as building height, fanciness of attire and avoidance of the Emperor’s name when writing.

Palmerston: Yes, you did just read about a Han Emperor urinating in somebody’s hat.

Central and local government

Xiao’s next subject is the grave defect in the division of responsibility between the Emperor and his ministers. Xiao sets out the ministerial system in considerable detail - Han Chancellors had their own independent Chancellaries, independent of the Imperial Court, to conduct administrative affairs; only for major affairs of State was the Emperor consulted; the Tang system involved a cabinet of Chancellors who discussed matters of State amongst themselves before presenting the Emperor with their proposals.

The problem, however, as Xiao points out, is that these systems - which could have functioned as ways of supervising and limiting Imperial power - were only as effective as the Emperor of the time allowed them to be, and later Han and Tang Emperors had few compunctions about going over the heads of their Chancellors. In a system where Imperial power was hereditary, god-given and unimpeachable, and where Chancellors were Imperially appointed and could be dismissed - or killed - at will, the most any Chancellor could do as an act of protest was to die, or to resign. Unlike a constitutional monarchy, the Emperor retained a highly active role in administration of the realm - and there was no constitutional protection of the Chancellor’s office, or of his person. Nor were there other constitutional limitations on executive power in the form of separation of powers, media freedom, independent prosecutions or jury trials.

There were, Xiao acknowledges, periods of enlightened rule during both dynasties - but what made them unique was, he argues, the combination of absolutism and humane government. Xiao argues that there is no logical connection between absolutism and humane government, whereas there is such a connection between absolutism and despotism. An Emperor practising enlightened absolutism must be of good moral character, but hereditary absolutism lends itself much more readily to corruption than to moral standing. In the absence of any effective system of curbing Imperial power, the system of governance in the Han and Tang Dynasties - one of governance by men, rather than one enshrining the rule of law - virtually ensured corruption and misrule. With the abolition of the office of Chancellor in the later Ming (明) and Qing (清) Dynasties, Imperial absolutism would reach new heights while Chinese society crumbled around it.

Xiao proceeds to lavish attention on the system of local government, which he identifies as the main apparatus of centralised absolutism. While the county/prefecture system (郡縣制) established by Qin Shihuang and developed in the Han and Tang Dynasties may have been justified by the size of China and poor transport and communications, the decay in the Chinese body politic invariably began, Xiao argues, at the local level.

As Xiao observes, local officials were appointed by the Emperor and charged with carrying out Imperial edicts - they were, therefore, servants of the Emperor, but overlords of the people they governed. The results included selective implementation of edicts depending on personal benefit, lying to, brown-nosing and bribing superiors and the use of connections to get promoted - and as the Emperor could not have personal knowledge of every official, he was powerless to eliminate the cliques. This phenomenon only worsened with the expansion of Imperial bureaucracy - and as officials increasingly bled their subordinates or the public dry, the masses were inevitably driven to revolt. In a system where incorruptible officials were either forced out or made to “go with the flow”, change from within the system was impossible and insurrection inevitable.

Palmerston: Something about this seems disturbingly familiar.

Xiao describes the onset of bureaucracy in the Western Han and Eastern Han periods, and how the reforms by Wang Mang (王莽) (in the Western Han period) and corruption in the Eastern Han bureaucracy both directly led to insurrection.

Xiao then proceeds to outline an even more dangerous (in Xiao’s submission) form of local government was adopted in the Tang Dynasty - government by plenipotentiary (節度使). Han feudalism (as short-lived as it was) did not involve the cession of military power. However, due to territorial expansion, border areas of Tang China were put under the combined civil and military administration of plenipotentiaries. This, in essence, created states within the State; as plenipotentiaries’ powers were unchecked, they began to harbour ambitions of secession, or even succession to the throne. This was not helped, Xiao continues, by the fact that many plenipotentiaries were not of ethnic Han origin - or by the pervasive corruption in the Imperial Court.