Modernity with Chinese characteristics

A stone statue of the Chinese philosopher and teacher Confucius, who lived between 551 and 479 BC.  

Xi has also gone out of his way to stress that rights and obligations of the Chinese people should be based both on socialist and Confucian values.

A century after the May Fourth Movement — a student uprising that saw Western democracy and science emerge as the templates for the rise of modern China — the West is fast losing its soft power gleam. Confucianism is back with a bang, though suitably amalgamated with the principle of ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’, on President Xi Jinping’s watch. In Mr. Xi’s “new era”, the imagination of a uniquely post-Western China is gathering steam.

The search for a Chinese model of modernity is represented by those belonging to the millennial and ‘Gen-Z’ categories, who are coming into their own at a time when China’s economic rise has become the envy of many. For those born during and after the 1980s, a pervasive perception of technological advancement, often conflated with modernity, has been reinforced by China’s leadership in 5G technology and emergence of e-commerce and social media icons like Alibaba and Tencent.

The idea of a ‘Chinese dream’ — a Confucian-socialist nation as distinct from the ‘American dream’ or anything else that the West may have on offer — is now beginning to find its groove. “There’s the sense that they (young people) don’t want to Westernise as they modernise. What they witness in their lifetime is this rags-to-riches story without [a] parallel on the world stage. And they feel that exceptionalism. They are proud of that,” said Zak Dychtwald, author of Young China: How the Restless Generation Will Change their Country and the World, as quoted by state broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN).

Confidence among youth

A joint survey by Tencent Big Data and China Youth Daily shows that 73.1% of the respondents belonging to China’s Gen-Z, that is those born between 1995 and 2000, are confident about their leadership. They point out that though not perfect, their country has been progressing well.

When asked about one of Mr. Xi’s centenary goal of making China an advanced socialist country by 2050, 31% said they “must work hard” to realise this goal. Nearly 25% said they were personally committed to accomplishing this task.

The Chinese youth are also rapidly logging in frequent-flyer miles, and their overseas travels are reinforcing their pride in “civilisation-state”. Though they have been exposed to Western consumerism and popular culture, the West in the eyes of many young people is losing its lustre — in sharp contrast to its appeal among people of an earlier generation. “...[W]orld events like Brexit, France’s Yellow Vests protests, the Trump presidency and the partisan fighting in the U.S. have more or less undermined confidence in some of the leading Western democracies. This, by contrast, reinforces the view in China that the country is doing something right,” said a CGTN article, titled “China's Gen Z: Patriotic and no longer looking up to West.”

Amid the demographic shifts and a transitioning economy, Mr. Xi has been reworking the terms of the social contract with his people, including the youth. He has been unambiguous in declaring that the Communist Party of China will remain the strategic anchor of society and state, and steer China’s rise. But he has also made it plain that he intends to weave Confucianism into the CPC’s socialist discourse.

“The rule of Virtue may be compared to the Pole Star, which stays in its place while the myriad stars pay it homage,” said Mr. Xi during an internal party meeting as he quoted Analects, a book containing the ideas of Confucius.

Mr. Xi has also gone out of his way to stress that rights and obligations of the Chinese people should be based both on socialist and Confucian values. During an address commemorating the May Fourth Movement earlier this month, Mr. Xi spotlighted that Chinese youth should develop and practice “core values of socialism”, but also draw “morality from the traditional virtues of the Chinese people” — a reference to Confucian principles.

“After 2016, we realised that we are actively in a post-Western era and Chinese intellectuals also expressed doubts about Western modernity,” says Shi Anbin, a professor at Tsinghua University. He added: “This is the right moment for us to re-think Chinese modernity by integrating values of liberalism, Marxism and Confucianism.”