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README.adoc
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Duplicate pool: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ayou-are-not-chinese-argument
[[in-memory-of-bethune]]
==== In Memory of Bethune (纪念白求恩)
Amazing quote from <<mao-zedong>>'s short essay "In Memory of Bethune" (纪念白求恩), an eulogy to Canadian communist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bethune[Norman Bethune] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/白求恩[白求恩]) who worked as a medic for the CCP during the Second Sino-Japanese War, saying that the CCP should embrace help from Communists from other countries to their revolution:
____
“一个外国人，毫无利己的动机，把中国人民的解放事业当作他自己的事业，这是什么精神？这是国际主义的精神，这是共产主义的精神，每一个中国共产党员都要学习这种精神。列宁主义认为：资本主义国家的无产阶级要拥护殖民地半殖民地人民的解放斗争，殖民地半殖民地的无产阶级要拥护资本主义国家的无产阶级的解放斗争，世界革命才能胜利
"What kind of spirit is this for a foreigner who has no self-interested motives and regards the liberation cause of the Chinese people as his own cause? This is the spirit of internationalism, this is the spirit of communism, and every Chinese Communist Party member must Learn this spirit. Leninism believes that the proletariat of capitalist countries must support the liberation struggle of the people of colonial and semi-colonial countries, and the proletariat of colonial and semi-colonial countries must support the liberation struggle of the proletariat of capitalist countries. Only then can the world revolution be victorious.
____
This is the prefect reply to <<not-chinese>>!!!
Brought to our attention by Reddit user No-Lingonberry-2173 at: https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/1bn47e5/comment/kwgqaye/
Sample sources:
* https://baike.baidu.com/item/纪念白求恩/1685623
* https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_25.htm
[[the-ccp-would-not-be-in-power-if-it-werent-for-the-second-sino-japanese-war]]
==== The CCP would not be in power if it weren't for the Second Sino-Japanese War (如果没有抗日战争，中共就不会执政)
@@ -6040,7 +6060,9 @@ ____
Hello, I'd like to report a person who abused Github, this person has created multiple accounts and added some offensive repo, these repo are not related to technology and disgusting content, causing many users to search this spam repo. These contents violate the Github's terms, I hope Github can banned this account.
____
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Poor <<wumao>>s. With this language/intonation, they are off to a bad start from th emessage itself.
Poor <<wumao>>s. With this language/intonation, they are off to a bad start from th emessage itself. Reblogged:
** https://blog.csdn.net/Twanghey/article/details/134708706
** https://blog.csdn.net/xiaoyalian/article/details/137002309
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/388634161/answer/2112339988 shows how to do it with adblock plus by removing specific page elements for the search. Similar to greasefork methods mentioned at <<disturbs>>.
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/388634161/answer/2101125957 does not understan what off topic means, and says that the attack is worse on <<stack-overflow>> and rants <<meant-to-be-used>>. Due to their limited English, they do not seem to realize that both keyword attacks are by the same person, <<ciro-santilli>>.
@@ -6746,10 +6768,13 @@ TODO review:
* https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/[]. Does not appear to be very China focused.
* https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/ (流浪防区) https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/mnbpum/if_you_want_to_experience_the_censorship_and/ claims pro-CCP, but e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/mn68dy/各位键委如何看待gfw/ has <<gfw>> talks
** https://www.reddit.com/r/DoubanGoosegroup Appears anti-CCP with <<backlinks,Backlink>>: https://www.reddit.com/r/DoubanGoosegroup/comments/ud50yd/中国主要科技与互联网公司市值变化与apple对比/ Main post was also laughing at the Chinese economy First charst are 流浪 like https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/浪 On 2023-01-31, Ciro Santilli's Reddit account was banned from that sub for no apparent reason
* https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl
* https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl (流浪防区)
** https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/mnbpum/if_you_want_to_experience_the_censorship_and/ claims pro-CCP, but e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/mn68dy/各位键委如何看待gfw/ has <<gfw>> talks. It actually appears to be quite a diverse sub.
** https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl/comments/17lmayu/轉發_防不胜防防不胜防啊经过对光猫固件分析发现更多插件/
** <<backlinks>>:
*** 2024-03-25 https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/1bn47e5/github_上自带大翻译的那个竟然是100的洋人那么问题来了/ by user steambap, possibly the same as: https://github.com/steambap[]. Complaining about <<not-chinese>>
*** 2022-12-06 comment on https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl/comments/ze5wcd/github也在墙外了/ has GitHub been blocked by the <<gfw>>
** https://www.reddit.com/r/DoubanGoosegroup Appears anti-CCP with <<backlinks,Backlink>>: https://www.reddit.com/r/DoubanGoosegroup/comments/ud50yd/中国主要科技与互联网公司市值变化与apple对比/ Main post was also laughing at the Chinese economy First charst are 流浪 like https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/浪 On 2023-01-31, Ciro Santilli's Reddit account was banned from that sub for no apparent reason
* https://www.reddit.com/r/CLTV/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/hanbenwei/ e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/hanbenwei/comments/1akit4d/七五新疆暴动干了什么/
@@ -17969,6 +17994,7 @@ For Zhihu backlinks, see: <<zhihu-questions-related-to-ciro-santilli>>.
For lower profile links, see: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/wiki
* 2024-03-25 https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/1bn47e5/github_上自带大翻译的那个竟然是100的洋人那么问题来了/ by user steambap, possibly the same as: https://github.com/steambap[]. Complaining about <<not-chinese>>
* 2023-11-15 https://www.reddit.com/r/github/comments/17vv8kh/whats_the_deal_with_these_repos_that_repeat_on/
* 2023-10-30 https://www.reddit.com/r/ADVChina/comments/17jz3do/github_history_of_ccp_dictatorship/ "Github: History of CCP Dictatorship" on the ADVChina <<reddit>>
* 2023-08-23 https://t.me/XueXi_China/65965 by <<gfwfrog>>'s Telegram reposts anonymous submission of <<github-com-cirosantilli-china-dictatorship>>. Let to a bit of traffic: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/1060

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贾植芳-《访苏联归来》新译本序.md
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贾植芳：纪德《访苏联归来》新译本序（1998）
# 贾植芳：纪德《访苏联归来》新译本序（1998）
注：此文为贾植芳先生为法国文学家纪德三十年代在苏联的游记《访苏联归来》的中译本写的序言。 以下为正文：
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现在引述纪德的一句话，作为这篇序文的结论：“惟有能摆脱功利追求的作品，才是有价值的。”再引证我在前文引证过的纪德早年所说的另一段话：“只有当我最初的思想支配我正在写的那本书，它才可能成为一部杰作。”我认为纪德这几句格言式的话，可以作为本书的最恰当不过的题词。苏联虽然已在历史面前解体了，但纪德这本纪实性作品，作为历史经验或教训，绝不会失去其应有的历史意义与文学价值，反而通过历史实践的检验，确定了它在世界文学史上的历史地位。说到这里，我相信，朱静先生在繁重的教学工作之余，花了心血重译这本旧书，也正因为它是旧书而会发出永远的历史光芒。她的辛劳，会值得我们感谢的！
一九九八年四月上旬在上海寓所
# Jia Zhifang: Preface to the new translation of "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union" by Gide (1998)
Note: This article is the preface written by Mr. Jia Zhifang for the Chinese translation of Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union, a travelogue written by French writer Gide in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The following is the text:
After Mr. Zhu Jing wrote her "Biography of Gide" and published it as one of the "Biographies of World Cultural Celebrities" series by Taipei Yeqiang Publishing House last year, I advised her to skillfully re-translate the political and political circles of the 1930s. Gide's "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union" caused an uproar in the literary world, and he volunteered to recommend to Mr. Zhu Jing that as a person who has come from the depths of history, he would write a few words for this new translation. This suggestion of mine was made in recent years after being sealed for fifty years in compliance with the author's will. It was also written in the same period as Gide's "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union" and even has striking similarities in content. It is also a colleague of his in our country's intellectual circles. The well-known "Moscow Diary" by Romain Rolland became a hot topic in the literary world and caused controversy after two translations were published in my country.
Gide was a person who loved to travel, and he was a scholar-type questioner who did not immerse himself in writing about his studies. He likes to walk around, seek life in life, experience life, understand the world and himself. Therefore, Mr. Zhu Jing asked her student Huang Bei to re-translate another book "A Journey to the Congo" published in 1927, which also caused controversy in France, in which he exposed and accused the evils of colonial rule. This will help us understand Gide. The attitude towards life and writing concepts expressed in "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union" will be more comprehensive and in-depth.
Andre Gide is an ideological writer, a writer who is far away from utilitarianism and likes to think. Although he started writing very early, he understood himself, the world and life through writing. As he said in his early years: "Only when my first thoughts, my awakening natural thoughts support the book I am writing, can it become a masterpiece." Although he wrote a lot in the past few years, he never received recognition from the world. The books he wrote in his early days were only printed in three to five hundred copies. In that society with a developed cultural market, this was a very special phenomenon. cultural phenomenon.
Gide himself felt depressed by not being understood and accepted by others. In order to escape loneliness and seek new knowledge, he often traveled. From July 1926 to May 1927, he traveled along the Congo River to several French colonies in Equatorial Africa. After returning to China, he published "A Journey to the Congo" and then "Return from Chad". He witnessed and heard with his own eyes. He put aside political issues and introduced the situation of French colonial equatorial Africa in detail and concretely from the perspective of sociology and ethnography, recording the injustice and ugliness under the colonial system. He pointed out that it was the colonial system that destroyed Africa. This is the rational and objective questioning attitude towards reality that Gide always insisted on.
After Gide's "A Journey to the Congo" was published, he was besieged by right-wing newspapers and periodicals, and Gide responded tit-for-tat in his article. He pointed out that if the colonial government continued to rule like that, the colonial system would not last long. Later, the history of Africa really confirmed the correctness of Gide's conclusion, and the colonial system was unworkable.
This debate greatly increased Gide's popularity, and it has gone beyond the circle of literary enthusiasts to the entire society. Gide's original purpose in writing "A Journey to the Congo" and "Return from Chad" was to arouse citizens' awareness of justice and say a few words of justice to the indigenous Africans, but the development of the matter far exceeded his original intention. . Gide's little sympathy for the indigenous Africans gradually led him to the prevailing communist ideology at the time. In the late 1920s, the Soviet Union was an emerging thing. The right attacked it and slandered it, while the left supported it, yearned for it, and placed hope in it. Gide has been thinking hard for forty years. His dissatisfaction with the confinement of Catholicism and the constraints of his family gave him a hope and yearning for the Soviet Union that advertised communism. He said: "I want to shout loudly for the Soviet Union. My cry will definitely be heard and it will definitely work. I must go to the Soviet Union to see it."
In the 1920s and 1930s, as the democratic political system of Western Europe was challenged by fascism and exposed its weakness, intellectuals were originally idealists and romantics who harbored the ultimate concern and pursuit of human destiny. The Soviet Union under Stalin's dictatorship took advantage of this favorable international situation and proposed the anti-fascist international united front strategy. This won the praise and support of conscientious intellectuals around the world. Therefore, the left-wing ideological trend in the 1930s became a worldwide trend. The mainstream trend of thought, the so-called red 1930s, was formed in this way. For European intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s, especially left-wing intellectuals, they were a fanatical class. Out of dissatisfaction or indignation with the reality of the society in which they lived, they were keen to join the reform social movement and to establish a new society. Moral system. The Soviet government took advantage of the situation and took advantage of this trend of thought. It encouraged them through propaganda machines, heated up their enthusiasm, and fueled the flames. These naive and simple intellectuals were full of daydreams and longings for the Soviet Union, and regarded the Soviet Union as their Platonic ideal. The Utopia worshiped Stalin as a god, and Gide was also one of these naive intellectuals. He said: "I wholeheartedly wish it success, and I am willing to contribute to its success." He lectured, made reports, and chaired conferences everywhere. Letters from proletarians around the world to Gide piled up, which made him I saw a representative writer of communism. He often wore the uniform of the Leftist Writers Association and showed up everywhere. His fanatical artistic conception suited the political needs of the Soviet Union, which was surrounded by all forces at that time. In order to get rid of its isolation and win the sympathy of international public opinion, it often invited left-wing intellectuals from various countries in the name of writers associations and artists associations. A representative figure of the Communist Party went to the Soviet Union to visit. For example, during the same period, France's Babisset, Romain Rolland and Gide were invited. In May 1936, Gide was invited to the Soviet Union with great hope to attend Gorky's memorial service held in Moscow's Red Square. He delivered a passionate speech. He said: "In our thoughts, the future of culture and The fate of the Soviet Union is closely linked, and we must defend it!" After the memorial service, Gide and his delegation continued to visit the Soviet Union, and he received a grand reception as a distinguished guest. At first, Gide was full of expectations and feelings for the Soviet Union. He said: "I don't think people anywhere will show such deep and strong human feelings as in the Soviet Union!"
But soon, the reality of the Soviet Union that he saw with his own eyes shattered his idealistic illusion. He paid little attention to the natural scenery in various parts of the Soviet Union. He was concerned about the living environment of the Soviet people and their inner world. He was deeply worried about the future of the Soviet Union. After independent thinking, he wrote the book "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union", which truly recorded what he saw, heard and felt in the Soviet Union. He believes that he has the right to do so, which is a normal manifestation of the conscience and social responsibility that a writer should have as a writer. He said: "If I made a mistake at first, then the best way is to admit my mistake as soon as possible... In my opinion, there is something more important than myself, and that is all mankind, all mankind destiny, the culture of all mankind.”
Although the Soviets tried their best to show Gide the Soviet-style freedom and happiness, Gide used a Westerner who advocated freedom and individuality to tell the truth from the uniformity of people's clothes and the uniformity of the houses and furniture in collective farms. Tianji: "Everyone's happiness comes at the expense of personal happiness. If you want to be happy, just obey the (collective), right?" Gide pointed out keenly that in the Soviet Union, only one kind of policy was allowed for anything and any issue. A point of view, an opinion, is what we know as "uniformity of public opinion." People have become accustomed to this uniform ideological rule and are insensitive. Gide found that no matter which Soviet person he spoke to, they all said exactly the same thing. Gide said that this is because the propaganda machine has unified their thoughts, making them unable to think independently. On the other hand, a little dissent, a little criticism can lead to great disaster. Gide severely criticized: "I don't think in any other country today, even in Hitler's Germany, people's minds would not be so restricted, and people would not be so submissive, so fearful, and so obedient." Therefore, human beings are different from other lower-level animals in that they have brains and thinking instincts. Using totalitarian means to deprive people of their freedom of thought, or to agree with people's thoughts and make people become a vacuum zone, is tantamount to removing people's souls. This is totalitarianism. The result of this rule is also the maintenance of totalitarianism, allowing it to continue to exist. "Faced with this current situation of poverty of thought and stereotyped language, who dares to talk about culture?" Gide asserted: "This will lead to terrorism." It is worth pondering that Gide's hidden worries and worries at the time suddenly disappeared in the blink of an eye. time, it became a living reality of Soviet life. Beginning with Gide's visit to the Soviet Union in 1936, the Great Purge and Counterrevolutionary Movement, initiated and led by Stalin himself, was fully launched in the Soviet Union and lasted until 1938. History seemed to have returned to Niklasso In the long poem "Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia", the husband cursed the life in the autocratic era of Tsarist Russia. It was a terrifying and dark era in which "even stones can cry", just like the French enlightenment scholar Montesquieu in the eighteenth century. The historical experience summarized is: "The authoritarian political system requires terror." What is even more surprising is that Stalin's anti-revolutionary campaign in 1936 actually started one year after the promulgation of the national constitution.
Gide was disgusted by the cult of Stalin's personality that he saw everywhere in the Soviet Union. He believed that the disgusting name for Stalin was too stupid and instead belittled Stalin. He pointedly pointed out: "This approach set up a terrible and insurmountable distance between Stalin and the people."
Gide In the Soviet Union, portraits of Stalin can be seen everywhere. He visited a so-called modern painting exhibition, and the theme of every painting in the exhibition revolved around Stalin. Gide said bluntly: "They are no longer painters...Stalin's cultural autocracy has killed so many artistic 'geniuses.'" "Life lies in movement, and artistic life lies in innovation, which lies in constantly breaking through traditions and norms. Once art When a work is placed under orthodoxy, no matter how high its skill, it dies; uniformity kills the vitality of art.”
Gide is a very popular writer among young people in Europe, especially in France. His early works reflect the distress, confusion and ideals of a generation of young people. He was also very interested in young people in the Soviet Union and was willing to talk to them. He made sharp criticisms of the self-centered education under the Stalin system. He was sensitive to the fact that the Soviet people cared very much about what foreigners thought of them. "For them, The trip to the Soviet Union was dark." The little girls in the kindergarten were not interested in whether there were kindergartens in France. They just wanted to know whether the French knew that the Soviet Union had such good kindergartens as theirs. A Soviet sailor said to Gide: "If we want to report all the beautiful and great new achievements that have happened in the Soviet Union, we would not be able to collect all the papers in the world." This kind of arrogant mentality is enough to explain being shut down in his own country. The ordinary people here are fooled into being stupid, ridiculous, and pitifully numb. This kind of stupidity is not new to us either. During the "Cultural Revolution", didn't we often hear such heroic words in newspapers and periodicals or verbally? -----"There are three billion class brothers in the world who are living in poverty, hunger, cold, and dire straits under the iron heel of the imperialist revisionists, waiting for us to liberate them." "The enemy is in chaos day by day, and we are getting better day by day. "Socialism is heaven, capitalism is hell." etc. are derived from the thinking model created by Stalin. Under the new historical situation of reform and opening up, looking back, it is really full of absurdities and bitter tears. I can’t bear to look back on those days!
Gide believes that what is even more tragic is that the arrogant Soviet youth are actually innocent. This is a product created by the entire propaganda machine and education machine. Such young people cannot be more comfortable for the rulers. The Soviet Union trained its youth to be soul-drained people. Gide sighed sadly: "The brains of the Soviet people have been wiped clean!" This is really like our country's traditional Confucian governance: "The people can make it happen, but they cannot make it known." Or he has been paying attention to this famous saying since the 1950s. A modern expression that is ever popular in our country and a code of life of "being a taming tool of the Party". Before going sightseeing in the Soviet Union, Gide was in capitalist Europe. He idealized the Soviet Union based on an idea and a pursuit, and imagined the Soviet Union as an utopia with no restrictions and no taboos that he had always longed for. , free country. He envisioned a communist Soviet Union without the moral codes he collided with in capitalist society, and he hoped to see in the Soviet Union "what a country without a church, a society without a family can give us." He believed that the church and the family were the two worst enemies of a progressive society, which was actually a misunderstanding or misunderstanding. And our modern Chinese intellectuals who have been influenced by the cultural spirit of the "May 4th" are all motivated by opposing the feudal autocratic system based on agricultural production or the system since the Republic of China that has long hindered social progress, backward production, poor people, and suppressed cultural publishing. Disguised feudal rule, I was pleasantly surprised to find this famous saying from the Marxist classic "The Communist Manifesto": "The liberation of the individual presupposes the liberation of the entire society." The socialist revolution started by the Soviet Union and won, for China It is a great inspiration and support force and a model for the vast number of working people in the world who live under the old system, including intellectuals like me. Therefore, "Today in the Soviet Union is our tomorrow" and has become our generation's Intellectuals fought for it and pursued life through life and death, so much so that they paid a heavy price with their lives.
It is said that when Gide took a closer look at this utopia, he saw harshness, rigidity, dogma, suspicion, power, and hypocrisy, which created an unbearable and suffocating living environment. He pointed out: "Changes in social conditions will not promote changes in human nature. We cannot look at the problem mechanically. Without the transformation of individual hearts, we see the old bourgeois society formed again, the 'old people' reappearing, and they are thriving again. It has become developed." Here Gide reveals the transformation of people's inner world. He pointed out: "Those in power in Soviet society, instead of trying to transform themselves, formed a new privileged class. Under the banner of revolution, they deceived the people, grabbed the fruits of the revolution, and prospered. This kind of 'new people' 'Their hearts are more greedy and vicious than the 'old people'. They are people who have revolutionized the 'old people'. In order to protect their vested interests, they are more vicious and ruthless towards people who have different opinions." Gide was disappointed. Yes, disillusioned.
Gide, who was greatly disappointed, relied on his own conscience to report the truth about the Soviet Union that he saw as belief. In November 1936, Gide's "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union" was officially published. It sold 100,000 copies that year and attracted the attention of various countries, which led to the publication of translations. The Soviet Union was greatly disappointed in him, and mobilized the left-wing influence in various countries around the world to accuse and attack him, calling him a "wolf in sheep's clothing", a "crazy anti-Soviet and anti-communist element", and a "fascist spy". . The coming together of Gide and the Soviet Union was accidental, and their breakup was inevitable. After "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union", he wrote "Supplement to "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union", which more pointedly put forward his views on some sensitive issues in the Soviet Union. Gide said: "People who visit the Soviet Union have preconceived ideas and their own sensitivities. People who are friendly to the Soviet Union often refuse to see the dark side, or at least refuse to acknowledge its dark side. Exposing the Soviet Union Those who tell the truth are often those with hatred, and those who love it are making up lies.” The Soviet Union and its followers in the world were afraid of criticism from others and the exposure of the true situation of the Soviet Union. They tried their best to defend the Soviet Union. Strive to prove that the current situation in the Soviet Union is completely natural, or that this is the only correct way to move toward communism. They tried their best to prove that Gide was wrong, that he looked at the Soviet Union through colored glasses, and even said that this was a manifestation of his bourgeois worldview limited to class prejudice. These comments are no stranger to people of our generation who have gone through history. At most, we feel why this non-utilitarian liberal writer has such strict requirements for an emerging political and social system. Is it a bit too much to blame? In other words, I was amazed by the debate over this cultural-political phenomenon. To be honest, I didn’t understand this book at the time. On the contrary, with the drastic changes in China's political situation, China is still full of fascination and yearning for the Soviet Union. It is true that "practice makes true knowledge". After the political movements after liberation, and I was regarded as a "dictatorship object", after long-term imprisonment and labor reform, I have experienced various hardships and heard and witnessed the reality of my country, especially in the 1990s. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and before that, China overthrew the "Gang of Four" and others who "brought disaster to the country and the people". I gained personal liberation and changed from a "ghost" to a human being. , has successively published academic works on Soviet studies, such as the "Internally Released" Dissidents of the Former Soviet Union, "The Science of Power" by Avtor, and "The Soviet Union" edited by Boros Levitsky. "The Terror of Stalinism in the Thirties", "Let History Be the Judge - The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism" by Roya Medvedev and his "The Terror of Stalinism in the Thirties" The Japanese translation of "Opinions of the Minority" and the English translation of "Oriental Despotism" by the German Karl Weft, known as a Western Marxist, as well as literary and artistic works translated and published in my country since the 1980s that describe Stalin's rule. , such as Bosternak's "Doctor Zhivago", Rybakov's "Children of Arbat Street", Solzhenitsyn's "Cancer Ward", "Gulet Islands", etc., to After reading Romain Rolland's "Moscow Diary" in the 1990s, I truly understood Gide's "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union" and "Supplement to "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union", and I was deeply impressed by this man who insisted on his own conscience. I would like to express my sincere respect for a writer with a strong sense of social responsibility and his strength of personality who dared to withstand the political turmoil of the time. This is why I encouraged Mr. Zhu Jing to translate this old book that has been out of print for a long time. I think it should be of great value to our readers. A new book that is not outdated, this is called "Historical Experience Worth Noting".
It should be added that among the other category of people invited to the Soviet Union quoted by Gide, those who are "friendly to the Soviet Union" tend to "refuse to see the dark side, or at least refuse to recognize it." "The dark side," "Those who love it are making up lies," according to my memory, a French leftist writer who was invited to visit the Soviet Union in the same historical era as Gide to write about his actual combat experience in participating in the First World War, wrote Barbitia, who is famous for "Under the Line of Fire", also wrote a book about his visit to the Soviet Union at that time, "Seeing a World from a Person - A Biography of Stalin". Shortly after this book was published, it was translated from French into Chinese by Xu Maoyong , and was published by Life Bookstore, but what is incredible is that this work, which eulogized the Soviet Union and Stalin based on his own ideas and enthusiasm, did not have the sensational effect that the translator expected in the fiery 1930s, and it seemed that it did not It has not been reprinted. What is more worthy of study and thinking is that the French writer Romain Rolland, who visited the Soviet Union in the same historical era as Gide, although it was published fifty years after the writer's death, the content is also similar to Gide's "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union". "Moscow Diary" has the same purpose but when Gide's "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union" was published in France, it also joined in the criticism and denunciation of Gide. As the new translator of this book, Mr. Zhu Jing, said: " Why did he order it to be hidden for fifty years but then came to accuse those who told the truth? "He is not a citizen under Stalin's rule. Like the Soviet writers in the Stalin era or the Chinese writers in our country during the "Cultural Revolution" from the 1950s to the 1950s, in order to seek personal safety and even glory and wealth, he "had no choice but to make this move" "What about knowingly committing the crime? Therefore, when Romain Rolland's "Moscow Diary" was published in two translations in the new era of our country at the same time, it became a hot topic of discussion in our country's literary circles. I think this is probably one of the reasons. one.
Gide said to readers: "Sooner or later you will open your eyes. You will have to open your eyes. At that time, you will ask yourself, how could you honest people keep your eyes closed for so long and not see the facts?"
I think today’s readers will feel the same way as Gide when they read Mr. Zhu Jing’s new translation.
Gide did not read Romain Rolland's "Moscow Diary" during his lifetime. What made Gide sad at that time was not Romain Rolland's accusation against him. He said: "What makes me sad is that there are too few great men who can remain great until the end of their lives." ”
Now I quote a sentence from Gide as the conclusion of this preface: "Only works that can get rid of utilitarian pursuits are valuable." Let me quote another passage from Gide's early years that I quoted above: " Only when my original thoughts dominate the book I am writing can it become a masterpiece." I think these aphoristic words from Gide can be the most appropriate epigraph for this book. Although the Soviet Union has disintegrated in the face of history, Gide's documentary work, as a historical experience or lesson, will never lose its due historical significance and literary value. Instead, through the test of historical practice, it has confirmed its role in the world historical position in literary history. Speaking of which, I believe that Mr. Zhu Jing spent time re-translating this old book in addition to his heavy teaching work. It is precisely because it is an old book that it will emit eternal historical light. Her hard work will be worthy of our gratitude!
In early April 1998, at my residence in Shanghai

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# Andrew J. Nathan: The Puzzle of China’s Middle Class (2015)
My spiritual home S 2018-05-16
Author Li Anyou
January 16, 2017 (Chinese version publication date)
Chinese middle class puzzle
Written by Li Anyou
Translated by Chen Wanlong
This article is the transcript of a lecture delivered by Columbia University professor Andrew J. Nathan at the "Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World" in October 2015. Lipset is the main founder of modernization theory. He discusses the occurrence and existence conditions of democracy from the perspective of socio-economic structure. The English version of Professor Li Anyou's speech was published in the April 2016 issue of Journal of Democracy, issue 27 overall. The Chinese translation was first published in "China Strategic Analysis" 2017 Issue 1, January 15, 2017.
> I personally never met Seymour Martin Lipset; he had already left by the time I arrived at Columbia. Lipset wrote an autobiographical article, "A Steady Job: An Academic Memoir," in which he reviewed his experience in becoming a PhD student at Columbia University in 1943. I found it very interesting. He said that he got a teaching position in the sociology department of City College of New York at the time, and that teaching position required that the candidate be a registered graduate student. Because Columbia University was only a mile away, just downhill and uphill, he went to Columbia University. [1] I thought to myself, if only choosing a graduate program were that simple today.
As a doctoral student and young lecturer at Columbia University, Lipset worked with academic giants such as Robert Merton and Paul Lazarsfeld, who laid the foundation for modern political sociology. . By the time I entered graduate school in the mid-1960s, Lipset's work had become required reading for our Ph.D. Now, as a senior scholar, I complain that students don't read the classics in the subject. But Lipset's "Political Man" published in 1960 is an exception, and everyone will read it. Particularly influential was his 1959 article "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy", which is included as a chapter in this book , entitled "Economic Development and Democracy". This article discusses one of his classic propositions: "The more developed a country's economy is, the more likely it is to sustain its democratic system." [2] Lipset (under the influence of Aristotle, Machiavelli and Weber) proposed that economic development will expand the middle class, and the middle class will support democracy.
There has been much debate about how exactly this theory should be understood,[3] but there is no consensus in this area. Regarding this issue, I insist that: first, the middle class will be more inclined to choose democracy. They will support democracy if it already exists; they will want it (though not necessarily act on it) if it does not exist yet. This tendency to support democracy is based both on material interests (for example, the middle class hopes to have the rule of law to protect their property ownership) and on cultural values ​​(for example, independent economic status and educational opportunities will bring independent individuals self-esteem and preference for freedom of thought and expression). Second, however, the existence of a middle class does not necessarily lead to social change toward democracy. Such changes also depend on the positions of other classes, the balance of power within the system, and the emergence of unpredictable crises. Third, although the examples examined in Lipset's 1959 article all come from the Western world, Latin America, and English-speaking countries outside Europe in the 1940s and early 1950s, the logic of his assertions is certain (also has been shown) to apply to other parts of the world and later periods of middle-class development.
In this context, the situation of China's middle class seems to have become a puzzle. At some times, it can be safely said that China's middle class is calling for democracy: in 1989, the democratic movement spread to more than 300 cities, involving not only students but all types of urban residents; in opposition to the construction of garbage incineration plants and chemical plants in the neighborhood movement; in the protests against counterfeit and substandard goods, environmental pollution incidents, and disasters such as the Tianjin chemical warehouse explosion in August 2015; in the rights protection movement, the new citizens’ movement, feminists, and the expansion of civil rights in the struggles of other groups within society’s movement space.
Based on these examples, many scholars (both Western and Chinese) predict that as the middle class grows, it will put more pressure on governments to liberalize. [4] The West’s “engagement” policy toward China is partly based on this expectation. The hope is that this engagement will create a middle class that will advance democracy.
However, most of the time, China's middle class does not behave in line with such expectations. When encountering conflicts with the authorities, most members of the middle class try to avoid challenging the system. They will adopt a strategy of remonstration, stating their loyalty to institutional rules and policies, and only criticize low-level officials for implementation issues.
In numerous surveys, middle-class respondents have shown high support for China’s authoritarian system. Recently, Tianjin announced that people’s trust in the government, the Communist Party, the courts and the police exceeded 80%. In a recent survey by Bruce J. Dickson, he found that respondents’ “satisfaction with the central government” averaged 7.59 (on a scale of 0-10), with urban residents and those whose incomes have improved showing Higher support for the central government. Chen Jie’s surveys and interviews (see his 2013 book A Middle Class Without Democracy) have reached similar conclusions: China’s middle class broadly identifies with the system and more so than other social classes. Disapproval of the democratic system shows that the middle class is unlikely to be a promoter of democratization in the near future. [5]
So what went wrong? Is China an "exception"? (“Exceptionalism” is another of Professor Lipset’s most frequently discussed topics. Of course, he is referring to the United States, not China.) In terms of the performance of the Chinese middle class that is different from that of the middle class in other countries, is there really a “China model?” "Woolen cloth? In fact, Lipset's method of focusing on the historical and sociological background is very effective in studying China, because the situation of China's middle class is indeed different from the countries Lipset studied in many important aspects, so Their performance also differs in many ways.
## Who belongs to the middle class in China?
Before we analyze the situation of the middle class, we need to understand who we are talking about. Not everyone who considers themselves middle class is what Lipset calls middle class. For example, the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey sampled the entire Chinese population (including urban and rural areas) except Tibet, and asked respondents to answer questions about where they fit into 10 social status levels from the lowest to the highest. In terms of position, 58.2% of the respondents positioned themselves in the middle position, that is, 5 to 7. This finding is understandable if we consider that 77.2% of respondents said that their family's financial situation is better than it was a few years ago. For example, when a worker is able to send money back to the countryside to help her family build a tile-roofed house and buy a motorcycle, she has reason to think that she has risen to the middle class. But we would not think of her as middle-class in Lipset's sense.
Defining China's middle class by income is not a good way. The incomes of Chinese people are changing too fast for one income group to stabilize into a definable class. (Moreover, many Chinese families have such diverse sources of income that they cannot accurately tell how much money they earn, and some are unwilling to do so even if they could.) Defined solely by income, in 2005 There are more than 800 million Chinese people who can be counted as middle class, which is about 57% of the total population. [6]
But this is not the middle class we want to explore and who, according to Lipset's theory, should support democracy. When Lipset explained the pro-democracy preferences of the middle class, he considered rural small landowners, urban small businessmen, and white-collar independent professionals as the typical social positions of the middle class he studied at the time. They possess material wealth and certain skills and dignity, so that they have the need to be free from deprivation by authoritarian governments and the right to express their demands.
As a result, Chinese sociologists (possibly influenced by Lipset's theory) also use people's occupations as the main indicator of social stratification when analyzing China's social structure. (Interestingly, they reject the word "class" because it is associated in Marxism with exploitation and class struggle, which cannot exist in today's "harmonious society." So they used the word "stratum" instead of Lipset's "class.")
In China, the most widely used method of classifying social class was established by the late sociologist Lu Xueyi of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and his colleagues. They distinguished 10 occupational groups, ranging from high-level state and business leaders (above the middle class) to industrial workers, agricultural laborers and the unemployed (below the middle class). The middle class refers to "people who are mainly engaged in mental work, whose source of livelihood mainly depends on wages and salaries, who have the ability to earn higher income, better working environment and a considerable level of family consumption and leisure life, and have a certain degree of autonomy at work. rights, and have good citizenship, public moral awareness and corresponding cultivation". [7] They include professional and technical personnel, white-collar workers and individual industrial and commercial households working in party and government agencies and enterprises.
## What is the difference between China’s middle class?
The differences between the Chinese middle class and the middle class defined by Lipset are mainly reflected in four aspects. First, China's middle class accounts for a much smaller proportion of the total population. Lu Xueyi and his colleagues estimated in 1999 that the middle class accounted for 14.1% of the total population; Lu Xueyi said in a subsequent interview that this number would grow to 22%-23% by 2008. [8] Other scholars also gave similar data. Although Lipset did not explicitly say what proportion of the total population the middle class he studied should account for, he proposed a "diamond-shaped" social structure in which the middle segment accounted for the largest proportion. Instead, Chinese sociologists complain that Chinese society is "pyramid-shaped": a smaller middle class squeezed in by a tiny upper class and a huge lower class. The middle class occupies a privileged social island—specifically, living in the “gated communities” that are so common in cities today. Members of the middle class may fear that in a majority-dominated society they must subordinate themselves to the interests of the lower classes.
The second obvious difference lies in the nature of the profession. China's middle class mainly consists of civil servants, employees of state-owned enterprises and employees of universities, hospitals, media and other institutions belonging to or controlled by the state. Younger generations prefer such jobs because they pay decent wages, are more secure, and offer more fringe benefits than most in the private sector. Ambitious young people strive to join the Chinese Communist Party because party membership is the key to influence and success in almost every field.
Unfortunately, I do not have any precise figures on how many middle-class people are directly or indirectly employed by the party and the state. A survey in three major cities showed that 60% of middle-class respondents were employed by state agencies, and this factor showed a clear negative correlation with support for democracy. [9] Most doctors work for state-owned hospitals, and most writers write for official writers' associations. Lawyers and law firms appear to be independent, but are actually monitored by the state. The only industries with a large number of independent practitioners are art and architecture, but most of them also rely on commissions or orders from the state to make money. Independent business owners make up only a small part of the middle class, and they also rely on close ties with the government to “get” their business done. In short, this is a dependent middle class, not an independent one.
This is worth exploring further. Sociologist Luigi Tomba believes that the rise of China's middle class began with the housing reform in the 1990s. This reform heavily favored employees in government departments and state-owned enterprises. Those government agencies and state-owned enterprises owned most of the properties during the Mao era and then rented them to their employees. In the housing reform, government and state-owned enterprise employees became property owners at a small cost through the following three channels: first, the privatization of existing unit housing; second, the unit built new housing and subsidized it. The property is sold to employees at a reasonable price; the third is that the unit subsidizes loans or purchase money for employees to purchase commercial housing. These employees who get the house at a very low price can usually sell it at a high price in the commercial housing market. As a result, these public sector workers “have become what is called the ‘properted class’ today.” [10] Government employees also enjoy better health insurance, pension funds, and (in recent years) higher wage growth rates than employees in other fields.
The third special feature of China's middle class lies in its "newness". The Lipset middle class originated in medieval European cities and emerged as an unusual class in the 17th century. It has grown up alongside modern nation-states and democratic institutions and has a widely recognized and legitimate identity. On the contrary, strictly speaking, China's middle class did not exist before 1979. A small middle class that existed before the communist revolution was completely wiped out in the 1950s, replaced by what Jean-Louis Rocca calls "a large group of people who lived a simple life and were led by a small number of party elites". an army of stratified workers. [11]
The middle class re-emerged during the "reform and opening up" period in the 1980s, and did not develop rapidly until the economic takeoff in the 1990s. In 2012, China's per capita gross national income (purchasing power parity) reached 40 times that of 1980; urban residents accounted for 52% of the total population from 20% in 1978; and the number of college enrollment increased from 2 million in 1990 to 17 million in 2005. [12] This rapid change means that most of China’s current middle class are the first generation members of this class. Their lifestyles are obviously different from their parents’ generation, and they are also surrounded by people similar to them, with a completely new society. identity person. Even in middle-class families with two generations, cultural differences between the generations are often stark.
It is difficult to imagine the extent to which such rapid change can disorient individuals and their social environments. These people who live in urban communities are in the process of forming a lifestyle, in part by consciously emulating what they understand to be Western consumption habits. For the mature middle class, wealth is a stimulus toward political participation; for the new middle class, political participation is a distraction. At present, China's middle class has not yet formed a common understanding and interests, let alone a stable belief in social wealth, and it is this belief that will give more mature middle classes the confidence to safeguard their rights and interests.
The final difference is their associational life. The rich social life of the Western middle class is one of the important themes Lipset discusses. In "Steady Jobs," Lipset writes: "Saskatchewan [Canada] is an extremely politically active region with a population of only 800,000, but local community organizations and government provide created at least 125,000 jobs. When I learned about this situation, I became sensitive to the relationship [between civil society and democracy].” [13] What he actually wanted to point out is that the relationship between schools and libraries Boards of directors, collective barns, welfare societies, and other "societies" in Tocqueville's sense—rather than formal political organizations—were the training grounds for effective political participation.
China's middle class does not have such corporate life. The government outlawed any organization that might compete with top-down “mass organizations” of youth, women, and workers. It allows some professional organizations (rather than mass organizations) to focus on environmental issues, but it strongly discourages local environmental protests. The government also suppresses the rise of independent media and controls the Internet. It allows small-scale volunteer organizations to work in areas such as public health, environmental protection, education reform, and disaster relief, but strictly limits them to the provision of services and does not allow for policy advocacy. [14]
The government seeks control over religious life by recognizing the five major religions and exercising control over their personnel, property, and activities. Independent religious organizations can only operate underground and avoid contact with the authorities as much as possible. The government occasionally tolerated local civil society organizations that aimed to fight discrimination or defend women's rights, such as Yi Renping and the New Citizens Movement (now suppressed). In 2015, the authorities rounded up more than two hundred human rights lawyers and related employees, bringing an end to their small efforts to bravely use the legal system to safeguard the interests of various vulnerable groups.
Urban communities have no equivalent of elections in rural areas (which are tightly controlled by the CCP). Community and residents' committees, considered "autonomous" institutions, are organized from the top down, controlled by government employees, and have many tasks to undertake. These tasks include conveying government policy information to residents, assisting with household registration management and family planning, carrying out health cleaning and mediating disputes. As Tomba said, one of the preset functions of community and resident committees is to make middle-class residents feel that they are more "civilized" and have higher "quality" than the lower-class people, and to contribute to social harmony and political obedience. Proud to be a typical example. Of such committees, Benjamin Read writes: “Not only are they an important part of the surveillance networks established by security agencies, they also help the state act on surveillance information and, from time to time, intervene as part of political campaigns. "[15]
Perhaps the most active middle-class social life platform at present is the homeowners committee that represents homeowners against real estate companies and property management companies. The interests of these micro-associations must be limited to matters at the residential community level, and they generally only negotiate with private real estate companies (rather than with government departments), and real estate companies are usually managed by local governments and subject to party supervision. To represent the country in carrying out family planning and publicity work. While it may be that for some local leaders, owners' committees can serve as a school for citizen organization and action, such struggles with property companies over issues of contract compliance and living conditions cannot be escalated to the level of class interests that confront the existing political order.
## What are they thinking quietly?
Although different from the middle class in Lipset's sense, China's middle class does have some important characteristics related to support for democracy that he defines. Members of China's middle class do own some property, and they hope that the government will protect their property through the rule of law; they have stable jobs, which gives them an expectation of living a dignified life; and when they receive education, they have the opportunity to explore the world. and tools for independent thinking. They have been deeply influenced by Western values through consumption, television, movies, the Internet, travel and studying abroad.
To be sure, despite the rise of social media, most of China’s middle class still get their information primarily from media that is directly or indirectly controlled by the government. CCTV's "News Network" will focus on the chaos in the Middle East and North Africa after the Arab Spring; it will also use the stability of Iran to compare the dire situation in Iraq after the government was overthrown by the West; and it will also focus on reporting on the crisis and slow growth of the Western economy. . Government propaganda also rejects "Western democracy" and celebrates "socialist democracy" that is said to be more authentic and culturally appropriate for China, but it still creates an affinity for the concept of democracy among viewers. Those who have access to outside information or have traveled abroad are more likely to agree with Western values and are more likely to criticize China's system. [16] Therefore, we have reason to explore: Behind the understandable political caution of this fragile and dependent new class, what are they secretly thinking?
The results of the 2008 Asian Barometer survey give us some clues. We can define the middle class among the survey respondents as those urban residents who have received at least a secondary education, believe that their family income can meet their basic needs, and have some savings. According to this standard, 14.2% of the effective sample can be regarded as middle class. [17] These financially well-off and relatively well-educated urban residents are more likely than non-middle-class respondents to express dissatisfaction with the current way politics is run (29.7% vs. 18.9%). [18] They are also more likely to Support a range of abstract liberal democratic values such as separation of powers and judicial independence (46.2% vs. 24.7%). [19]
This attitude becomes even more pronounced as younger generations join the ranks of the middle class and older ones drop out. Indeed, due to the rapid spread of secondary and higher education in China, the middle class is younger than the rest of the Chinese population. In the Asia Barometer survey, 29.5% of middle-class respondents were aged 18 to 29, while this proportion was only 18.5% of non-middle-class respondents. Younger members of the middle class are more likely than older members to express dissatisfaction with the way politics is run (34% vs. 27.9%) and more likely to endorse liberal democratic values (50.4% vs. 44.5%). [20]
In 2005, Zhang Wei, a political scientist at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, wrote a very insightful book using in-depth interview research methods. In the book, he warned that the middle class has a tendency to alienate. Unlike Lu Xueyi and other leading sociologists who believed that the middle class would be a force for social harmony and stability (based on their education, social privileges, and higher "quality"), Zhang Wei found that China's middle class Is silent, indifferent and alienated:
## Political alienation is passive political indifference. Compared with ordinary political indifference, political alienation is not stable. More directly, political alienation itself is a tension of expectations, a hidden state in which political expectations have not been released. A closed political order can suppress enthusiasm for political participation, and at the same time, it may also accumulate strength for future enthusiasm for political participation... Once political alienation becomes explicit into political participation, the pressure on the political order may be more intense than usual political participation. [twenty one]
This analysis rings true. The Chinese middle class I have met (certainly not a representative sample) would feel politically blocked. They responded to this situation in different ways. Some became dissidents; these people existed, and they were heroic. The question here is why their numbers are so small. There are also some middle-class people who choose to immigrate. There are many such people; but considering China's huge population base, they still account for a very small proportion. Most of the middle class can be classified into the other four groups.
Perhaps the largest group is the politically anesthetized. My impression is that this is especially prevalent among the second generation of the middle class. Because they are young, they have little memory of 1989 and even less understanding of the Cultural Revolution. They grew up in an environment that emphasized career and consumption. They understand that politics is something that cannot be touched, and everyone understands this tacitly. An exaggerated depiction of this group can be seen in the popular Chinese film series "Tiny Times," in which beautiful, wealthy young Shanghainese are left to juggle their clothes and their love interests. [twenty two]
The second group is the acceptors. [23] I have met young scholars who have never heard of Liu Xiaobo and are not interested in what happened in 1989. Some of them are "political counselors" who work hard to teach their students to be loyal. The feeling I got from talking to them is that they like the China where they live, the Chinese system is like this, and the truth of the system is the truth they are ready to accept. Even if China maintains its authoritarian system, their lives are freer and better than those of the previous two generations who lived under Mao. Therefore, as Shi Tianjian said, although respondents to the Asia Barometer survey believe that democracy is very needed and suitable for China, they also believe that China’s system is already very democratic (7.22 on a scale of 0-10) [ twenty four]
The third group is the ameliorators. They have seen the shortcomings of the system, but they have also seen progress within their lifetimes. They believe that through education, writing, or legal work, they can advance the future in their own way. If one believes that such progress can be achieved, it is certainly worth striving for.
The last group might be called the alienated. Such people may be more common among older or more educated members of the middle class. They have no illusions about the system, but they are not yet ready to take the big risks involved in an opposition movement, nor are they ready to give up their advantageous positions and resources to live a less powerful life abroad. If they could design a perfect world, things might be different, but for now, these people will continue with their current lives.
All four groups are realists in some sense, and I respect them for that. The pro-democracy movement of 1989 took place in part because the nascent middle class felt that its new prosperity was threatened by inflation and corruption. This gave a section of the middle class an opportunity to express their concerns about the political system. Today, however, inflation is under control, corruption is deterred and investigated, and the system is determined to rein in power. China's middle class knows that now is not a good time to challenge the authoritarian political system. These considerations, I think, lead to the somewhat puzzling findings described at the beginning of this article.
However, I would like to use another "A" word to describe a common characteristic of people who decide to live in their given reality: they are anxious. What China's middle class lacks is a sense of security. Economically, except for a small group of people who are rich enough to transfer assets overseas, the wealth growth of China's middle class still relies on the management capabilities of an opaque bureaucratic system, and this ability will experience great risks in the unclear future. big change. Every slowdown feels like a harbinger of impending disaster. Politically, the middle class is caught in the middle. Above is the ruling party, which is undergoing a treacherous and dangerous struggle in the form of an anti-corruption campaign. Below are a large number of workers and farmers who are considered uncivilized and suppressing the anger of dissatisfaction. Moreover, from the perspective of the middle class, their interests and those of the lower class are opposed to each other.
Such is the ambivalence of those trapped in an unstable reality. This is why the current system seems so afraid of the middle class, even though this class expresses high levels of support for it. Xi Jinping’s regime is already trying to intimidate the middle class, both through a new national security law and the drafting of laws on cybersecurity and foreign civil society organizations, as well as through a crackdown on rights lawyers, increased demands for ideological unity and the creation of a A system that looks like a new totalitarianism. The pressure on a “harmonious society” had continued to increase during the previous Hu Jintao period, and the opening of some limited and small-scale civil society activities has also transformed into more repressive and threatening policies. These measures seemed to prevent the middle class from challenging the regime, but they also paid the price of increasing their anxiety.
## Cultural particularism?
Does all this mean that China is culturally special? Indeed, there are some arguments that the reason why China's middle class is more politically compliant is because of the Chinese people's preference for harmony and collectivist values. I agree that different cultures are unique blends of behavioral patterns and values (neither Chinese nor American culture is monolithic). Moreover, as Shi Tianjian has pointed out, in the past Confucian society, the concept of focusing on collective interests and hierarchy was indeed relatively stronger. [25]
But here again we should follow Lipset's lead. His in-depth observations on American exceptionalism, written in several books, emphasize that institutional rather than cultural factors characterize the United States' lack of a strong socialist movement, racial divisions, and the recurring resurgence of right-wing extremism. [26] This statement is also true for the attitude of China's middle class: this attitude is a reaction to the institutional realities that today's China has inherited from the past (one-party system, state-controlled economy, and the persistence of a large class of workers and farmers) . The economies of many other late-developing countries followed similar institutional paths, and their middle classes similarly remained inactive until they became stronger. In this sense, China's middle class is not special at all.
But China is changing. What kind of future will China's middle class face? Although Lipset cautions that social scientists are not good at predicting the future, we may still want to hazard some guesses. [27] As long as China’s economy continues to grow at its current level (reportedly 7%, but a more accurate figure may be around 5%) and the political system remains stable, the middle class will expand further. The implications of this plot development for the prospects of democracy are anything but one-sided. Chinese sociologists hope that continued prosperity will reduce social conflict and that a stable middle class will continue to support the current regime. On the other hand, if the values of the middle class become increasingly liberal, their political alienation will grow even as they continue to endure a regime that continues to deliver prosperity.
While a top-down democratic transition by a faction within the regime is unlikely to occur, if it did occur we should expect the middle class to welcome the attempt as long as the process does not disrupt social peace and economic stability. Once the regime looks headed for disintegration, as it did in 1989, the middle class may once again awaken politically and act on its long-buried grievances. [28] But even if this scenario develops, we cannot expect that the middle class will become the decisive force in democratization unless it somehow overcomes its cultural and social isolation from other classes, or it experiences certain The process finally became the largest class in China's "diamond-shaped" social structure.
However, if economic growth stagnates, or if the current regime begins to turn left (which is highly unlikely) and infringes on the interests of the middle class, the peaceful life of the middle class will be threatened. The urban lifestyle will be unsustainable, and more and more college graduates will be unable to find good jobs. We should remind ourselves that Lipset did not say that the middle class would always support democracy. In another famous article, "'Fascism'—Left, Right, and Center" ("'Fascism'—Left, Right, and Center"), Lipset tells us that when the economic and social status of the middle class less secure, they may support some form of extremism. [29] In China, this kind of extremism is likely to arise from xenophobic nationalism, which the government has been promoting as a resource to support its legitimacy. To express this nationalist anger, the middle class may accuse the government of treason or weakness, which could push the regime in a more authoritarian direction.
Both assumptions about the future are fraught with risks, and it's this thinking that keeps China's middle class where it is today. What the middle class really worries about is an economic or military crisis, or an internal power struggle that triggers a breakdown in order. Concern about this crisis also explains why the middle class continues to embrace liberal values while still supporting an authoritarian system.
(Li Anyou: Professor of the Department of Political Science, Columbia University. Chen Wanlong: Mainland Chinese sociologist.)
[1] Seymour MartinLipset, “SteadyWork: An Academic Memoir,” Annual Review ofSociology 22 (1996): 7.
[2] PoliticalMan: The Social Bases of Politics, expanded and updated ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 31.
[3] For a literature review of this theoretical controversy and its application in China, see Jie Chen and Chunlong Lu, "Democratization and the Middle Class in China: The Middle Class'sAttitudes Toward Democracy," Political ResearchQuarterly 64 (September 2011): 705–19.
[4] For a review of English academic research on this issue, see Bruce Dickson, The Dictator's Dilemma: The Chinese Communist Party's Strategy for Survival (Oxford University Press, 2016). For a review of Chinese academic research, see Cheng Li, “Chinese Scholarship on the Middle Class: From Social Stratification to Political Potential,” in Li, ed., China’s EmergingMiddle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2010), 55–83.
[5] Tianjian Shi, "China:Democratic Values Supporting an Authoritarian System," in Yun-han Chu et al., eds., How East Asians View Democracy (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2008), 229; Dickson, appendix toDictator's Dilemma; Jie Chen, A MiddleClass Without Democracy: Economic Growth and the Prospects for Democratization in China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
[6] Based on a definition of the middle class, consumption expenditure per person per day in 2005 was between US$2 and US$20 (purchasing power parity). According to this definition, it can be calculated that in 2005, more than 800 million people in China belonged to the middle class. This algorithm is based on Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators for Asia and thePacific 2010 (August 2010), 5, www.adb.org/publications/key-indicators-asia-and-pacific-2010.
[7] LuXueyi (ed.), "Research report on socialstrata in contemporary China" (Research report on socialstrata in contemporary China), Beijing: Social Sciences Literature Press, 2002: 252.
[8] See "Lu Xueyi Exclusive Interview: Middle Class Grew by OnePercentage Point per Year", Xinhuanet, August 17, 2009, http://news. xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-08/17/content_11894452.htm.
[9] Chen and Lu, “Democratization and the Middle Class in China,” 713–14. This study was conducted in Beijing, Chengdu, and Xi’an.
[10] LuigiTomba, The Government Next Door: Neighborhood Politics in Urban China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 104.
[11] Jean-Louis Rocca, A Sociology of Modern China, trans. Gregory Elliott (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2015), 16.
[12] On income, see: http://knoema.com/pjeqzh/gdp-per-capita-by-country-1980-2014?country=China; on urbanization, see: World Bank and the Development Research Center of the StateCouncil, People's Republic of China, UrbanChina: Toward Efficient, Inclusive, and Sustainable Urbanization (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2014), 3; on college admissions, see: Jing Lin andXiaoyan Sun, “Higher Education Expansion and China’s Middle Class ,” in Li, ed., China’s Emerging Middle Class, 222.
[13] Lipset, “SteadyWork,” 9.
[14] Jessica C.Teets, Civil Society Under Authoritarianism: The China Model (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
[15] Benjamin L. Read, Roots of the State: Neighborhood Organization and Social Networks in Beijing and Taipei (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 107.
[16] Haifeng Huang, “International Knowledge and Domestic Evaluations in a Changing Society: The Case of China,” American Political Science Review 109 (August 2015): 613–34.
[17] The middle class defined in this way is smaller than the more than 20% defined by the sociologists quoted in this article. There is no direct way to compare the two groups, but given that the middle class as defined by the Asia Barometer Survey is more urban and wealthier than the middle class that defines it as a larger group, it would be appropriate to use this data .
[18] The Asia Barometer survey asked: “How satisfied are you with the way democracy works in your country?” The question was designed for cross-country surveys, and because all Asian governments claim they are democracies, We can also trust this overall satisfaction rating with the political system. For a comparison, see Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman, “Satisfaction with Democracy: A Note on a Frequently Used Indicator in Comparative Politics,” European Journal of Political Research 42 (May2003): 391–408.
[19] These are the proportions of people who support at least four of the seven “liberal democratic values” listed in the Asia Barometer survey. For findings on the generalizability of the pattern that more modern populations hold more liberal values, based on the World Values Survey and comparisons of Asian and non-Asian countries, see Christian Welzel, “The Asian Values ThesisRevisited: Evidence from the World Values Surveys,” JapaneseJournal of Political Science 12 (April 2011):1–31.
[20] For similar findings on attitudes toward young people in Asia and China, see Yun-han Chu and Bridget Welsh, "Millennials and East Asia's Democratic Future," Journal of Democracy 26 (April 2015): 151–64, and Min-hua Huang, Yun-han Chu, and Cao Yongrong, “China: The Impact of Modernization and Liberalization on Democratic Attitudes,” in David Denemark, Robert Mattes, andRichard G. Niemi, eds., Growing Up Democratic: Generational Change in Post-Authoritarian Societies ( Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, forthcoming).
[21] Zhang Wei, "Conflict and uncertainty: political analysis of the middle stratum in Chinese society", Beijing: Social Sciences Literature Press, 2005: 406-407 .
[22] See www.youtube.com/watch?v=q61X3zfBE8g.
[23] For this analysis, please refer to: Eva Bellin, "The Dog That Didn't Bark: The Political Complacence of the Emerging Middle Class (with Illustrations from the Middle East)," in Julian Go, ed., Political Power and Social Theory , vol. 21 (Bingley, U.K.:Emerald, 2010), 125–41; Kellee S. Tsai, “Capitalists Without a Class: Political Diversity Among Private Entrepreneurs in China,” ComparativeStudies 38 (November 2005): 1130–58; Teresa Wright , Accepting Authoritarianism: State-Society Relations in China's Reform Era (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 2010).
[24] TianjianShi, The Cultural Logic of Politics in Mainland China and Taiwan (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 195. These data come from the 2003 Asia Barometer Survey on China.
[25] Shi, CulturalLogic. However, Shi Tianjian would agree with Lipset: cultural personalities and values will be gradually shaped by social structures and institutions.
[26] Seymour Martin Lipset with Earl Raab, The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790–1977 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Lipset, American Exceptionalism: ADouble-Edged Sword (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996 ), Lipset with GaryMarks, It Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000).
[27] Seymour Martin Lipset, “Predicting the Future: The Limits of Social Science,” in Consensus and Conflict: Essays in Political Sociology (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1985), 329–60, orig. in Lipset, ed., TheThird Century : America as a Post-Industrial Society (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1979), 1–35.
[28] Andrew J.Nathan, “Foreseeing the Unforeseeable,” Journal of Democracy 24 (January 2013): 20–25.
[29] InLipset, Political Man, ch. 5.
Note: This article comes from the "China Strategic Analysis" website, for which I would like to express my gratitude.
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