中國是文明國家，不是民族國家

文明國家與民族國家

 

Civilization state versus nation-state

http://www.martinjacques.com/articles/civilization-state-versus-nation-state-2/

 

2011年1月15日 - 南德意誌報

 

中國給歐洲帶來了一個巨大的問題：我們不理解它

中國給歐洲帶來了一個巨大的問題：我們不理解它。 更糟糕的是，我們甚至沒有意識到這一事實。 我們堅持通過西方的棱鏡看世界。 沒有任何其他傳統、曆史或文化可以與之相比。 我們的優越於所有人，而其他人如果偏離我們的，就會因此而被削弱。 這不是說我們的智慧，而是我們的無知，這不是我們的世界主義的表現，而是我們的狹隘和地方主義的表現。 這是至少兩個世紀甚至更長時間處於上升狀態的結果。 歐洲中心主義——或者也許我們應該說西方中心主義——已經成為我們的普遍標準，在不同程度上，所有其他標準都失敗了。

當我們進入一個歐洲將逐漸被邊緣化、美國將經曆不可逆轉的衰落、新興國家將成為主要參與者、中國將取代美國成為主導力量的時代時，這種心態有可能成為我們最大的障礙。 換句話說，那些我們現在看不起的國家和文化將越來越成為未來的仲裁者。 如果我們拒絕用我們自己的西方術語以外的任何東西來理解它們，我們將如何理解它們呢？ 如果我們繼續認為他們的文化和政治不如我們的文化和政治，他們會如何看待我們？

這把我們帶到了中國。 我們選擇在絕大多數情況下根據西方價值觀來看待中國：我們最關心的是缺乏西式民主、缺乏人權、西藏人的困境以及該國糟糕的環境記錄。 毫無疑問，您可以在該列表中添加更多內容。 我並不是說這些問題不重要——它們確實重要——但我們堅持用自己的方式來評判中國，這讓我們偏離了一項更重要的任務：用中國自己的方式來理解中國。 如果我們做不到這一點，那麽很簡單，我們永遠不會理解它。 這就是為什麽在過去的三十年或幾十年裏，西方主流對中國的評論完全未能正確地理解中國，從預測天安門廣場事件後政權即將垮台以及國家可能解體，到此後不斷堅持 經濟增長不可能持續，政權也無法維持。 幾乎沒有人預測到會發生什麽； 三十多年來經濟取得了驚人的增長，政權取得了巨大成功，現在享有比 1978 年改革時期開始以來任何時候都更大的合法性和威望。

我們不能再讓以西方為中心的對中國的價值判斷取代以中國本身的方式來理解這個國家。 這不是一件容易的事。 中國在最基本的方麵與西方截然不同。 也許最基本的區別是它不是歐洲意義上的民族國家。 事實上，自1900年左右以來，它才這樣描述自己。任何對中國有所了解的人都知道，它的曆史要早得多。 正如我們今天所知，中國的曆史可以追溯到公元前 221 年，在某些方麵甚至更早。 那一天標誌著戰國時代的結束，秦國的勝利，以及秦帝國的誕生，秦帝國的邊界涵蓋了今天中國東半部的很大一部分，也是迄今為止人口最多的地區。

兩千年來，中國人一直將自己視為一個文明而不是一個國家。 當今中國最基本的特征，以及賦予中國人認同感的特征，並非源於上個世紀中國稱自己為民族國家的時期，而是源於過去兩千年，當時中國最能被描述為一個文明—— 國家：國家與社會之間的關係，非常獨特的家庭觀念，祖先崇拜，儒家價值觀，我們稱之為“關係”的個人關係網絡，中國食物及其周圍的傳統，當然還有中國人 語言及其書麵形式和口頭形式之間不尋常的關係。 其含義是深遠的：歐洲的民族認同絕大多數是民族國家時代的產物——在美國幾乎完全是民族國家時代的產物——而在中國，相反，認同感主要是由國家曆史塑造的 作為一個文明國家。 盡管中國今天將自己描述為一個民族國家，但從曆史、文化、身份和思維方式來看，它本質上仍然是一個文明國家。 中國的地質結構是文明國家的地質結構； 民族國家隻占表層土壤。

中國作為一個文明國家，有兩個主要特點。 首先，它的曆史非常悠久，甚至可以追溯到羅馬帝國解體之前。 其次，中國的龐大規模——無論是地理還是人口——意味著它擁有巨大的多樣性。 與西方認為中國高度集權的看法相反，事實上在許多方麵事實恰恰相反：事實上，無論是現在還是在王朝時期，在這樣的基礎上治理國家都是不可能的。 它實在是太大了。 這對中國人的思維方式產生了深遠的影響。

1997年，英國將香港移交給中國。 中國的憲法提案可以用一句話來概括：“一個國家，兩種製度”。 西方幾乎沒有人對這句格言給予太多思考或相信。 人們的假設是香港很快就會變得像中國其他地區一樣。 這是完全錯誤的。 香港的政治和法律結構與1997年一樣與中國其他地區不同。我們不認真對待中國人的原因是西方具有民族國家心態，因此德國在1990年統一 它完全是在聯邦共和國的基礎上進行的； DDR實際上消失了。 “一個民族國家，一種製度”是民族國家的思維方式。 但作為一個文明國家，中國的邏輯卻截然不同。 由於中國幅員遼闊，具有如此多樣性，因此它必須具有靈活性：“一種文明，多種製度”。

中國作為一個文明國家的理念是理解中國本身的一個基本組成部分。 它具有多種含義。 中國的國家與社會的關係與西方有很大不同。 西方普遍認為中國政府缺乏合法性，缺乏公眾支持，但事實上，中國政府比任何西方國家都享有更大的合法性。 我們逐漸假設國家的合法性在很大程度上取決於民主進程——普選權、政黨競爭等。 但這隻是一個因素：如果這是整個故事，那麽意大利國家將享有強大的合法性，而不是長期缺乏合法性的現實。 為了解釋這一點，我們必須回到複興運動，將其視為僅部分完成的項目。

中國國家之所以在中國人眼中擁有強大的合法性，與民主無關，而在於國家與中華文明的關係。 國家被視為中華文明的體現、守護者和捍衛者。 維護中華文明 — 文明國家的統一、凝聚力和完整性被視為最高政治優先事項，被視為中國國家的神聖任務。 在西方，國家被不同程度地懷疑甚至敵意，並因此被視為局外人，而在中國，國家被視為親密的人，家庭的一部分，甚至是家庭的一部分。 一家之主； 有趣的是，在這種背景下，民族國家的中文術語是“民族家庭”。

或者考慮一個完全不同的例子。 超過 90% 的中國人認為自己是漢族這一民族。 這與世界上其他人口最多的國家 — 印度、美國、印度尼西亞和巴西 — 這些都是高度多種族的國家 — 截然不同，非同尋常。 當然，實際上漢族是許多不同種族的產物，但漢族並不這樣認為自己。 其原因將我們帶回到文明國家及其決定性特征之一，即中國的非凡長壽。 幾千年來，由於文化、種族、民族等諸多過程的影響，漢族眾多種族之間的差異已被削弱到不再顯著的程度。

如果我們堅持認為中國是或者應該是我們自己文明的產物，我們就永遠無法理解它。 我們目前對中國的態度是傲慢和無知的結果。 它可能會讓我們感到困惑、困惑和疏遠。 我們的曆史遺產及其所產生的心態無法讓我們為目前正在我們麵前展開的新世界做好準備。

 

Civilization state versus nation-state

 

http://www.martinjacques.com/articles/civilization-state-versus-nation-state-2/

15/01/11 - Süddeutsche Zeitung

 

China confronts Europe with an enormous problem: we do not understand it

China confronts Europe with an enormous problem: we do not understand it. Worse, we are not even conscious of the fact. We insist on seeing the world through our Western prism. No other tradition or history or culture can compare. Ours is superior to all and others, in deviating from ours, are diminished as a consequence. This speaks not of our wisdom but our ignorance, an expression not of our cosmopolitanism but our insularity and provincialism. It is a consequence of being in the ascendant for at least two centuries, if not rather longer. Eurocentrism – or perhaps we should say western-centrism – has become our universal yardstick against which, in varying degrees, all others fail.

This mindset threatens to become our greatest handicap as we enter an era in which Europe will be progressively marginalised, the United States will experience irreversible decline, the emergent nations will become major actors and China will replace the United States as the dominant power. In other words, those countries and cultures that we now look down upon will increasingly become the arbiters of the future. How will we ever make sense of them if we refuse to understand them in anything other than our own Western terms? How will they view us if we continue to look down upon their culture and polities as inferior to our own?

Which brings us to China. We choose to see China overwhelmingly in a context calibrated according to Western values: what overwhelmingly preoccupies us is the absence of a Western-style democracy, a lack of human rights, the plight of the Tibetans, and the country’s poor environmental record. No doubt you could add a few more to that list. I am not arguing that such issues do not matter – they do – but our insistence on judging China in our own terms diverts us from a far more important task: understanding China in its own terms. If we fail to do that then, quite simply, we will never understand it. That is why mainstream Western commentary on China over the last three or more decades has singularly failed to get China right, from predicting the imminent downfall of the regime after Tiananmen Square and the likely break-up of the country, to the constant insistence ever since that the economic growth could not possibly last and that the regime would be unable to sustain itself. Virtually no-one predicted what has happened; phenomenal economic growth for over thirty years and a regime that has been hugely successful and which now enjoys greater legitimacy and prestige than at any time since the reform period began in 1978.

Our western-centric value-judgements about China must no longer be allowed to act as a substitute for understanding the country in its own terms. This is no easy task. China is profoundly different from the West in the most basic of ways. Perhaps the most basic difference is that it is not a nation-state in the European sense of the term. Indeed, it has only described itself as such since around 1900. Anyone who knows anything about China is aware that it is a lot older than that. China, as we know it today, dates back to 221BC, in some respects much earlier. That date marked the end of the Warring States period, the victory of the Qin, and the birth of the Qin Empire whose borders embraced a considerable slice of what is today the eastern half of China and by far its most populous part.

For over two millennia, the Chinese thought of themselves as a civilization rather than a nation. The most fundamental defining features of China today, and which give the Chinese their sense of identity, emanate not from the last century when China has called itself a nation-state but from the previous two millennia when it can be best described as a civilization-state: the relationship between the state and society, a very distinctive notion of the family, ancestral worship, Confucian values, the network of personal relationships that we call guanxi, Chinese food and the traditions that surround it, and, of course, the Chinese language with its unusual relationship between the written and spoken form. The implications are profound: whereas national identity in Europe is overwhelmingly a product of the era of the nation-state – in the United States almost exclusively so – in China, on the contrary, the sense of identity has primarily been shaped by the country’s history as a civilization-state. Although China describes itself today as a nation-state, it remains essentially a civilization-state in terms of history, culture, identity and ways of thinking. China’s geological structure is that of a civilization-state; the nation-state accounts for little more than the top soil.

China, as a civilization-state, has two main characteristics. Firstly, there is its exceptional longevity, dating back to even before the break-up of the Roman Empire. Secondly, the sheer scale of China – both geographic and demographic – means that it embraces a huge diversity. Contrary to the Western belief that China is highly centralised, in fact in many respects the opposite is the case: indeed, it would have been impossible to govern the country – either now or in the dynastic period – on such a basis. It is simply too large. The implications in terms of the way the Chinese think are profound.

In 1997 Hong Kong was handed over to China by the British. The Chinese constitutional proposal was summed up in the phrase: ‘one country, two systems’. Barely anyone in the West gave this maxim much thought or indeed credence; the assumption was that Hong Kong would soon become like the rest of China. This was entirely wrong. The political and legal structure of Hong Kong remains as different now from the rest of China as in 1997. The reason we did not take the Chinese seriously is that the West is characterised by a nation-state mentality, hence when Germany was unified in 1990 it was done solely and exclusively on the basis of the Federal Republic; the DDR in effect disappeared. ‘One nation-state, one system’ is the nation-state way of thinking. But, as a civilization-state, the Chinese logic is quite different. Because China is so vast and embraces such diversity, as a matter of necessity it must be flexible: ‘one civilization, many systems’.

The idea of China as a civilization-state is a fundamental building block for understanding China in its own terms. And it has multifarious implications. The relationship between the state and society in China is very different to that in the West. Contrary to the overwhelming Western assumption that the Chinese state lacks legitimacy and is bereft of public support, in fact the Chinese state enjoys greater legitimacy than any Western state. We have come to assume that the legitimacy of the state overwhelmingly rests on the democratic process – universal suffrage, competing parties et al. But this is only one element: if it was the whole story, then the Italian state would enjoy a robust legitimacy rather than the reality, a chronic lack of it. And to explain this we have to go back to the Risorgimento as only a partially fulfilled project.

The reason why the Chinese state enjoys a formidable legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese has nothing to do with democracy but can be found in the relationship between the state and Chinese civilization. The state is seen as the embodiment, guardian and defender of Chinese civilization. Maintaining the unity, cohesion and integrity of Chinese civilization – of the civilization-state – is perceived as the highest political priority and is seen as the sacrosanct task of the Chinese state. Unlike in the West, where the state is viewed with varying degrees of suspicion, even hostility, and is regarded, as a consequence, as an outsider, in China the state is seen as an intimate, as part of the family, indeed as the head of the family; interestingly, in this context, the Chinese term for nation-state is ‘nation-family’.

Or consider a quite different example. Over 90 per cent of Chinese think of themselves as of one race, the Han. This is so different from the world’s other most populous nations – India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil, all of which are highly multi-racial – as to be extraordinary. Of course, in reality the Han were a product of many different races, but the Han do not think of themselves like that. And the reason takes us back to the civilization-state and one of its defining characteristics, namely China’s remarkable longevity. Over thousands of years, as a result of many processes, cultural, racial and ethnic, the differences between the many races that comprised the Han have been weakened to the point where they were no longer significant.

We will never make sense of China if we persist in treating it as if it is, or should be, a product of our own civilization. Our present attitude towards China is a function of arrogance and ignorance. And it threatens to leave us bewildered, confused and alienated. Our historical inheritance, and the mentality it has engendered, ill equips us for the very new world that is presently unfolding before us.