2025 Daniel A. Bell 如何理解中國政治的新時代

如何理解中國政治的新時代

2025年2月5日 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPeoqgwFNb8

葉誌雄：為好奇者策劃對話 | The Front Row Podcast 主持人

貝淡寧 (Daniel A. Bell) 是香港大學法學院政治理論係教授、係主任。

他曾於2017年至2022年擔任山東大學（青島）政治與公共管理學院院長。

他的研究方向為比較政治理論，尤其關注儒家和法家思想。

他的著作包括：
《山東院長》（2023年）、
《公正等級》（與王培合著，2020年）、
《中國模式》（2015年）、
《城市精神》（與阿夫納·德沙利特合著，2012年）、
《中國新儒家》（2008年）、
《超越自由民主》（2007年）、
《東方遇見西方》（2000年），
均由普林斯頓大學出版社出版。
他還著有《社群主義及其批評家》（牛津大學出版社，1993年）。

貝淡寧的最新著作《山東院長》以內部人士的視角，探討了中國學術界和中國政治體製。

時間戳：

00:00 引言
00:50 中國學術界的現實
06:05 賢能政治作為一種替代理想
11:02 規模在政治中的重要性
16:30 中國的腐敗與治理
23:20 法家思想的實踐
24:43 儒家思想對中國政治的影響
32:58 馬克思主義在中國政治中的應用
43:19 一人統治的迷思
51:14 中國的公關問題
56:12 中國賢能政治與民主的未來
01:00:04 批判“可愛”
01:04:56 文化洞察：加拿大 vs. 中國
01:08:49 香港精神
01:10:30 給即將步入職場的畢業生的建議
01:13:03 哪裏可以找到貝教授

葉誌雄

今天我們討論的是中國政治哲學 馬克思主義 法家思想 儒家思想 當你思考中國政治和哲學時，這些詞對你來說可能聽起來有些大，但如果你想了解它們對當今中國政治的影響，今天我邀請到了丹尼爾·貝爾教授。他是山東大學的第一位外籍院長，也是中國大學的第一位外籍院長。他之前常駐山東，山東是著名中國哲學家胡適的故鄉。作為中西政治哲學的專家，他是幫助你理解影響當今中國的不同哲學的最佳人選。我希望你喜歡我和丹尼爾·貝爾教授的談話。我在閱讀《中國學術的現實》時，第一個問題是，你最近的一本書《山東大學的院長》，你對西方學術環境和中國學術環境進行了比較或對比。大多數人認為你知道在中國，一切都是審查製度，沒有學術自由，但你似乎有不同的看法或看法，不同的生活態度。經驗

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引言
今天我們來談談中國政治哲學。馬克思主義、法家思想、儒家思想，當你思考中國政治和哲學時，這些詞對你來說可能聽起來有些高深，但如果你想了解它們對當今中國政治的影響，今天我邀請到了丹尼爾·貝爾教授。他是山東大學的第一位外籍院長，也是中國大學的第一位外籍院長。他之前常駐重慶，也就是著名中國哲學家康德的故鄉。作為中西政治哲學的專家，他是幫助你理解影響當今中國的不同哲學體係的最佳人選。我希望你喜歡我和丹尼爾·貝爾教授的對話。這是我在閱讀時提出的第一個問題。

中國學術界的現實

你最近的著作《山道院長》中，對西方學術環境和中國學術環境進行了比較或對比。大多數人認為中國到處都是審查製度，沒有學術自由。但你似乎有不同的看法，不同的視角，以及不同的生活、文化和文化體驗。嗯，中國確實存在審查製度，而且中國大陸的審查製度也在加強。我不想否認這一點，但有很多領域
存在大量的知識交流和爭論。所以，如果你研究儒家思想，就會發現有很多不同的爭論，其中一些非常激烈。例如，最近的爭論是，是否有一篇有影響力的文章認為性愛機器人是儒家理想的妻子。你可以想象，儒家女權主義者會對此做出激烈的反應。這隻是眾多爭論中的一個例子。不觸及最高層的政治，就能蓬勃發展，而且他們討論的問題
對中國以外的人可能不太感興趣，比如儒家思想，
對我的家鄉加拿大人來說
就不太感興趣，嗯，而且
也不太擔心政治正確，嗯，我的意思是，現在隨著美國新政府的上台，術語可能有所改變，但許多
學者覺得，在涉及性別或種族的問題上，他們如履薄冰，嗯，但在
中國，這種非正式的審查製度較少，所以你提到了我的書《尚道院長》，我在書的開頭就列舉了中國所有的問題，因為你必須表達這些觀點，才能
表達你真正想說的話。中國存在一種非正式的審查機製，你很容易
被貼上標簽一個中國辯護者，你首先必須說，你知道中國有很多侵犯人權的行為，這些都是錯誤的。當然，這都是事實。但隻有這樣，人們才會聽。所以，即使在學術上，如果你想在學術期刊上發表文章，而不使用威權主義的語言來討論或描述中國的政治體製，你就會被打倒，很難發表。幸運的是，以書籍形式出版實際上比以文章形式出版更自由。呃，非正式審查較少，而且有更多的空間。嗯，我稱之為原創思維。在英語世界，另一個關鍵的區別是，在中國，人們非常致力於服務社會。所以，尤其是在人文或社會科學領域，你會專注於自己的工作，而不是為社會做貢獻。你知道，在象牙塔裏服務，在中國，這種傳統較少，部分原因是。這和公共政策體係有關，但我認為它有更深的根源。嗯，我們可以把它稱為
儒家關於美好生活的理念，同時也服務於社會。但更多的是隱性或顯性的
假設，即作為一名學者，你不僅僅是發表文章和維護真理，而不管對社會的影響如何，你的工作應該與為社會福祉做貢獻更緊密地聯係在一起。是的，這些
隻是一些簡單的區別，但這取決於領域，取決於時間段，取決於
我們將其與哪個國家進行比較，我的意思是，甚至與中國進行比較，我的意思是，現在的香港，在很多方麵，
更接近西方的體係，在這種體係中，你的獎勵幾乎完全取決於你在頂尖學術期刊和大學出版社的出版記錄，而你是否為社會做出貢獻，在招聘和晉升方麵幾乎完全無關緊要，這更接近西方的模式。香港的好的一麵是，這裏的學術自由比中國大陸多得多。香港在某種程度上更接近新加坡，在那裏，你幾乎可以隨心所欲地做和說，隻要不涉及香港政府。我指的是我在新加坡的經曆。我認為情況在某些方麵已經發生了變化，但我仍然認為新加坡政府存在某種形式的審查製度，正式的、非正式的審查製度。但除此之外，新加坡的學術環境非常非常自由。香港的情況與新加坡有點相似。我認為近年來，新加坡開放了空間，甚至允許批評意見進入公眾，以便公眾同意。我的第一份工作是在19124年的新加坡和美國。坦率地說，那段日子在學術自由方麵並不理想，但為了寫另一本我稱之為“中國模式”的書，在中國，很難以一種平衡的學術方式來探討一些問題。

這些政治敏感問題，所以我實際上去了新加坡，嗯，待了一個學期，在那裏我
可以擁有英文和中文的圖書館，並且幾乎完全擁有學術自由，所以新加坡
比以前好得多。談到中國模式，你提到的一個關鍵假設是

賢能政治作為一種替代理想

麵臨的挑戰是，是否存在一個清晰的比較，或者我們應該如何比較
民主和專製政府，其中自由民主
顯然是更優的替代方案？我想問你的問題是，你為什麽認為這是錯誤的？對我來說，這隻是因為這些標簽太模糊了，嗯，一方麵，它們是描述性的
你知道，民主意味著你通過自由和公正的競爭性選舉來選出政治領導人，通常
它涉及自由主義價值觀，比如法治、權力分立和
保護個人權利，而且它也是一種規範性的說法，認為這是一種比
替代方案更好的製度，你知道的，但民主的
標簽和威權的標簽都包含了如此多種多樣的政府形式，以至於它對於
對政治世界進行分類並不是很有用。我的意思是，正如我之前提到的，我的第一份工作是在新加坡，而它在西方被貼上了
一種威權政府的標簽。拉埃爾（Lael）被用來形容朝鮮，你知道，還有沙特阿拉伯，所以我的意思是完全不同，中國也是如此。我的意思是，要理解政治體製，你首先必須了解，什麽是激勵理想，然後試著思考我在多大程度上，這些理想在實踐中得以實現，以及在多大程度上，有辦法縮小理想與現實之間的差距。我之前一直生活在加拿大和英國，我有點被這種觀點洗腦了，認為隻有一種合法的政治體製，那就是，通過自由公正的競爭性選舉選出政治領導人，並享有相關的自由，而所有其他的體製，都應該被貼上威權主義的標簽，從根本上來說都是不合法的。我帶著這種包袱來到新加坡，花了很長時間才適應，也許我甚至沒有很好地適應新加坡，花了很長時間才擺脫這種教條主義的觀點。可以說是我的體製，但實際上，直到我在北京新加大學待了八年，我才意識到，我的同事們談論的不是如何培訓，如何選拔和提拔能力和德行均超乎平均水平的領導者，如何衡量能力，如何衡量德行，能力和德行之間有什麽關係？然後我意識到，這種思維方式在中國既是一種理想，也是一種製度，嗯，也是一種實踐，有著悠久的曆史。試圖理解這一點非常令人著迷，所以我用了“政治賢能政治”這個標簽，中文版可能更準確。我寫了《中國模式》這本書，試圖理解這種理想，展示了它的
優勢和劣勢，並提出了縮小理想與現實之間差距的方法。所以，這是一種非常不完善的賢能政治，就像美國的民主一樣，它也是一種非常不完善的民主。但我們需要意識到首先，什麽是根本的理想，然後是它的優點和缺點，並思考如何縮小理想與現實之間的差距。如果我沒有在北京的大學裏待了這麽多年，我甚至不會想到這個問題。嗯，未來領袖。我在新加坡待了三年，但我沒有。這對我的政治
體製來說是一個衝擊，但很難接受這種教條主義的觀點，認為新加坡的政治體製
從根本上來說是不合理的，因為它與我小時候學到的那些理想不符。幾乎毫無疑問，嗯，現在我認為新加坡也是一個
精英政治體製，是的，不完美，但它可能是世界上最接近理想的政治體製。我非常欽佩你在播客中采訪的許多領導人，比如kisher maani。我非常欽佩他們，事實上，即使在新加坡。我在那裏的時候，我在一家辦公室工作，
我認識瑞典國王，和他一起出去玩，他邀請我和當時在他研究所工作的妻子一起吃飯，還有我當時的妻子，我非常欽佩他，但我仍然
沒有改變他那種教條主義的觀點，好吧，他是一位非常傑出和鼓舞人心的政治開國元勳，
但即使這樣，也沒有從我的思想體係中擺脫出那種教條主義的觀點，即隻有一個
合法政府，而它不是新加坡的政府，我之前不知道這一點，所以很高興聽到你
在新加坡的根源和經曆。那麽回到政治賢能政治的問題，那麽你心目中的理想版本是什麽，應該如何建立新加坡政府呢？

為什麽規模在政治中很重要？

規模對政治很重要，對吧？這就是為什麽在較小的政治共同體中，建立某種民主機製更為重要。
這是J·庫索等人在《柏拉圖哲學》中提出的一個老觀點。
我有一個新加坡的例子，它讓我想起了這一點。我非常欽佩喬治，
我有點失望他在選舉中落選了。
不久之後，我在新加坡坐出租車，我和出租車司機聊天，我說，這到底是怎麽回事？
我的意思是，喬治非常出色。然後出租車司機說，我同意他很出色。我說，他
說，但我沒有投票給他。我說為什麽？他說，因為他沒有參加我父親的葬禮。我想，哦，我的天哪。我意識到，隻有在非常小的柏拉圖共同體中，這才會成為問題。對吧？我的意思是，在中國，
你知道嗎？總統可以參加每個人的葬禮。所以，在小社區中，與選民建立直接聯係，擁有更強大的民主機製，這一點更為重要。在像中國這樣的大社區中，民主機製就更加強大。這是一個非常深刻的例子。但中國幅員遼闊，所以在不同級別的政府中，選拔和提拔領導人的方式也各不相同。這不是我個人的想法，而是通過采訪領導人，包括組織部領導，這個部門負責選拔和提拔中國政治體係中的領導人。我問他們，你知道哪些能力重要嗎？在選拔過程中，哪些美德重要？然後，我被告知，這取決於政府級別。從低級到中級，更重要的是運用我們今天所說的民主機製，看看領導人在多大程度上支持了人民，他們在多大程度上服務於當地社區等等。而如果承認更高級別的政府，那麽政府的問題就會變得更加複雜，對領導者來說，更重要的是，不僅要能夠……執行政策，而不是思考如何製定明智的政策，這些政策不僅影響當地社區，也影響國家，以及子孫後代和其他國家。這需要經濟學、國際關係、哲學和曆史方麵的知識，例如，如果你研究環境科學，還需要有良好的政治判斷記錄。所以，隨著你在政治指揮鏈中向上攀升，更重要的是要有更基於精英的選拔和提拔政治領導人的方式。所以，中國的基本製度是，在基層政府中采用民主的領導人選拔製度，然後，隨著你在更高層級的政府中晉升，它逐漸變得更加基於精英。我的意思是，這是理想的，但在你做得好的地方，還有實驗的空間。中國的成功，在一定程度上，是因為它已經在中層進行了大量創新和實驗。政府在如何選拔和提拔領導人方麵，那麽問題來了，好吧，我們或多或少地……呃，那麽，建立更加精英化的領導人選拔體係究竟意味著什麽呢？首先，領導者擁有超乎尋常的分析能力非常重要，因為問題非常複雜，這需要掌握許多不同學科的知識，並且具備非常好的分析能力。你可以說中國政治體製有很多不好的地方，但有一點是肯定的，我認為新加坡的情況非常相似，這裏的領導人通常都非常……才華橫溢，我的意思是，在政府高層，這一點毋庸置疑，嗯，但是……政治不像學者，如果你是學者，你知道，你隻是待在辦公室裏……讀書或進行不與他人打交道的實驗，你仍然可以取得成功。但在政治中，你花費大量時間與……利益相關者打交道，這需要良好的人際交往能力或情商，嗯，嗯，如果你缺乏這些，就很難在這個體係中立足，所以再次強調……在政府高層任職非常重要，要展現出你具備這些技能，最重要的是要有一定的品德，也就是願意服務社區，而不是為了個人和家庭的利益而濫用公共資源，嗯，換句話說，不要腐敗。問題是，我們如何才能更好地評估這些技能，組織部門就是其中之一，它是世界上最大的人力資源部門，要理解中國的政治體製，我們必須明白，當你談論政治精英主義的理想時，
實際上，當你在實踐中思考它時，你或許應該公平地看待這一點，這源於
像你這樣的經濟學家的著作，她談到中國在很大程度上實際上是精英統治的，
如果你想想像像鮑裏斯·約翰遜這樣的人，他確實幫助清朝建立了一個更加繁榮的國家，
但他們麵臨的問題是腐敗盛行，所以當我

中國的腐敗與治理

我開始擔任山東大學的校長，這所大學是山東省首屈一指的大學，致力於解決億萬人民的問題。當時正值反腐風暴的高峰期，所以我們不得不設立小型辦公室，不僅是我的辦公室，連我隔壁的市委書記的辦公室也非常小。官員們不得不被拆分成兩組。所有的餐食都必須記錄，我們必須記錄我們點的每一道菜，而且公費消費不準飲酒。所有這些措施都使得花錢變得非常複雜。這使得包括我在內的人們更加保守，缺乏創新和實驗精神。這並非一個非常新穎的觀點，但根據我自己的經驗，我可以支持我的觀點：過度的，或者說，法律主義的腐敗手段，讓人們擔心走錯一步會受到懲罰，往往會使公職人員非常規避風險，並且在糟糕的環境下變得保守。方式
意思是不願意考慮新的挑戰和應對這些挑戰的新方法，嗯，坦率地說，這對國家的長遠發展不利。所以，反腐運動最明顯的弊端，尤其是那些
涉及嚴厲手段、讓人們害怕受到懲罰的運動，就是它會讓官僚和公職人員保持低調，不像他們本來應該的那樣勇於嚐試和創新。而且，坦率地說，在公職人員之間以及公職人員與其他人之間建立信任，很大程度上需要通過聚餐和飲酒來建立，尤其是在山東省，那裏的人均酒精消費量是中國最高的。這在某種程度上被視為美好生活的一部分，或者說是建立信任的方式。所以，由於這些非常嚴格的反腐措施，所有這些活動都結束了，讓人們比以前更加個人主義，是的，我的意思是，我認為這正在改變一個對懲罰的恐懼有所減少，即使是現在，比如現在出門在外，不必把每道菜都記下來，而且我認為公共場合可以喝啤酒，人們也不像以前那樣害怕和擔心做錯事了，所以情況有所放鬆，但我認為還有很長的路要走，最終，我們必須減少對懲罰的恐懼，更多地依靠其他機製來控製腐敗，包括像新加坡那樣提供更高的工資，但中國仍然是一個相對貧窮的國家，所以新加坡的工資可能很低，但一定程度的道德自律很重要，這就是傳統混亂的地方。我補充一下，你談到了法家思想，實際上我記得在你的書中，你談到了你與法律打交道，這其實是一個非常有趣的軼事，關於政府如何實施非常嚴厲的措施，事實上，你看到的是法家思想，然後隨著時間的推移，它開始使用更溫和的
手段，比如說混淆視聽的ISM，你被迫通過道德手段進行自我約束，我想是的。
我認為這對新加坡來說應該不陌生，你知道新加坡曾被稱為“精致城市”，但現在
人們對罰款的依賴減少了，人們已經內化了罰款，比如你不應該走路，不要亂扔垃圾等等，所以中國的情況類似，所以我並不反對法家思想本身，我的意思是，有時候
你會反對，記住法家思想意味著嚴厲的懲罰，必須嚴格而統一地執行。
同樣，你知道，沒有例外，也不考慮特殊情況。
如果存在嚴重問題，這可能是必要的，而且我們希望快速見效，最終可以有效地讓人們改變主意，意識到這一點。我的意思是，例如在酒駕問題上，人們知道這一點。這樣做有點不好，但對他們的行為影響不大。十多年前在中國發生的事情是這樣的，
統計數據顯示，酒駕引發的事故非常多，最終政府決定嚴肅對待這個問題。例如在北京，
他們在很多街角對行人進行隨機檢查，如果酒精含量略微超過規定，他們的車至少會被暫時沒收，六個月內不得開車。所以，在這場運動剛開始的時候，我也遇到過這種情況，嗯，就我的情況而言，它確實有效。從那以後，如果我酒駕，我一滴酒都沒喝過，所以最終，哎呀，不需要那麽多檢查了，這改變了人們的看法，盡管他們內心深處知道喝酒不喝酒是不對的，但最終這些嚴厲的措施是有效的，沒有必要再以同樣的程度執行，它從法律監管變成了道德自律，而且它非常有效，所以法律主義是有效的，可以這麽說，如果人們已經知道某件事不好，但它並沒有真正影響他們的行為，如果這隻是一種非常短期的、臨時的應急措施，而情況變得更糟，我的意思是，在運動開始後不久，情況變得更法律化，我的意思是，如果我幾個月後以同樣的方式被抓到，我就會被送進監獄，沒有任何借口，你知道，嗯，所以情況變得更糟了，但現在在北京開車，酒精檢查非常少，你仍然需要偶爾檢查，但幾乎沒有，但是現在幾乎再也沒有醉酒打鼓的事了，當然，還有其他處理方法。現在有一種做法，嗯，如果你在開車時喝酒了，那麽有一種服務，你可以打電話，然後他們會過來，一個人騎著自行車過來，你可以把自行車折疊起來，放在汽車後備箱裏，然後他們會幫你開車，這是一種非常有效的處理他問題的方法。所以，一方麵，你把它從法律監管轉變為道德自律。另一方麵，你也有實際的方法來處理這個問題。在我們看來，你知道

法家思想的實踐

嚴厲的懲罰實際上或多或少是你想要在國家樹立的道德文化的先導，但這並不意味著如果人們內心深處不知道其中有什麽問題，嚴厲的懲罰就不會奏效。我的意思是，沒錯，真正的先導是某種道德信念，即你所做的事情是錯的，但這不會影響你的行為。如果法律到位，把錘子放在你的頭上，那麽它就會起作用。所以，真正的先導是某種觀點，你知道你做錯了，但並沒有錯到那種程度，這時法家的手段就可以發揮作用了。是的，就像在新加坡隨地吐痰一樣，我們都知道這是不對的，但過去人們經常在街上隨地吐痰，但現在幾乎沒有人會這樣做，也沒有人會因為亂扔垃圾或衝廁所之類的事情而受到懲罰，到目前為止，我們已經討論過很多了。有很多關於法家思想的內容，但我們也看到儒家思想實際上對中國政治哲學有很大的影響，嗯，這就是我提出一個大問題的地方，我請你幫我總結一下儒家思想數千年豐富的曆史，但也許你能解釋一下儒家思想是如何影響今天的中國政治的，嗯，正如你所說，我的意思是混淆

儒家思想對中國政治的影響

是一個非常豐富多元的傳統，如果我們想把它縮小到核心的
一些主張，我的意思是，我認為，如果你是fion，你基本上
認為美好的生活包括培養人道和和諧的社會關係，這
聽起來有點瑣碎，誰會不同意呢？但你對美好生活還有其他看法，對吧？它可能是一種宗教生活，讓你把自己與
社區或家庭分離，嗯，但對於困惑的人來說，不，我的意思是，它真的在培養人道的社會
關係，嗯，但最好的生活是你作為一名公職人員為社區服務，因為那是你擁有政治權力後能做最多善事的方式。聽起來，誰會不同意呢？嗯，很多人不同意
一些宗教理想認為，最好的生活包括與社區分離，或者例如，你知道，在柏拉圖的《理想國》中，最好的生活包括尋求事實是，隻有第二種選擇，你才會回到
洞穴裏，服務社會。儒家認為，最好的人生就是服務社會。
而要做到這一點，理想情況下，你必須致力於不斷完善自我，嗯，嗯，並且有一個機製，允許根據官員的卓越能力和德行來選拔和提拔他們。這種理想在中國政治體係中有著巨大的影響力。嗯，在整個曆史中，但最著名的是
它通過庫魯，嗯，科舉製度，或者說
科舉製度被製度化。但最近，這種理想在中國經濟改革時期得到了複興。
公職人員的選拔是根據他們的能力，你怎麽衡量呢？嗯，你如何通過經驗和在基層政府的成功來衡量？嗯，你如何衡量呢？嗯，然後通過德行，也就是不腐敗，並且表現出一些服務社會的意願。嗯，所以這種政治精英主義的傳統在過去幾十年裏得到了強有力的複興。嗯，所以人們說中國有很多經濟改革，但沒有政治改革。嗯，沒有政治改革。
改革是什麽意思？政治體製與文革時期的體製完全不同。
現在有一個非常強大、製度化且複雜的官僚體係，旨在選拔和提拔具有特定能力和德行的公職人員。雖然這個體係非常不完善，而且不斷變化，但它確實存在。嗯，它背後的理念是一種非常古老的混亂，即神權政治的理念，但這也不是明顯的混亂。我的意思是，大多數人可能也持有類似的觀點。嗯，即使是法家，但法家隻在乎能力，而不在乎德行，對吧？我的意思是，像法家這樣的人。
例如商鞅，嗯，你知道，他對統治者有很大的影響。
後來成為中國的第一位皇帝，唐玄宗。他說，好吧，你想任命……
賢能政治，你怎麽做到的？根據敵方士兵斬首的數量，這是一種非常客觀的方法。衡量成功的人，他們對美德持懷疑態度，我認為這都是虛偽的，也許這就是法家和有神論者有共同之處的地方，但不，混淆說不，我們既需要能力，也需要德行，能力
不應該僅僅是軍事上的成功，還應該以有效的方式服務社會，以促進人民的福祉，所以這是一種方式，嗯，而且我的意思是，儒家價值觀影響政治體係的具體方式，我的意思是想想在楚國，它是儒家文化的發源地。在山東省，公職人員的晉升取決於他們的
FAL（能力），這在中國曆史上也有悠久的傳統。嗯，你如何衡量這一點呢？他們會直接采訪那些正在考慮晉升的公職人員的父母，如果父親年邁的父親母親說我的兒子或女兒不太好，這
就會對他們的晉升機會產生負麵影響。你知道我來自肯，我的意思是在肯唱這首歌會很瘋狂，但在一個國家，人們普遍認為腓立比很重要，嗯，這也是一種衡量標準，如果人們不能
善待自己的父母，或者對父母懷有敬畏之心和關愛之心，那麽很難將這種愛和關愛延伸到家庭之外，所以這也是一種衡量
公職人員品德的標準，這直接讓人感到困惑，但我的意思是，現在要想再次成為公職人員，你必須經曆所有這些考驗，而第一個考驗就是進入一所
好大學，並在學業上取得好成績。你該如何做到這一點呢？你需要通過大學考試製度，大學考試製度的內容是什麽？嗯，它需要學習一些知識。古典文學研究者必須學習一些令人困惑的思想，或者說，他們必須學習一些道理。他們不僅要記住，還要懂得如何解讀這些段落。所以，儒家傳統對當今政治體係有著非常具體的持久影響。有時，這種影響來自底層，而不是政府本身。所以，清明節是全國性的節日。清明節是怎麽來的呢？不是政府決定把它定為全國性節日，而是成千上萬的工人會請假去掃墓，在那天祭拜祖先。最後，政府說，我們就要把它定為全國性節日。所以，其中一些力量也來自下層。嗯，你能不能講講他公開演講時談到的“無柄”問題？學者是最高尚的職業，而不是奮鬥者。這才是理想的生活，所以我認為中國的政治生活應該會很相似，最優秀、最有德行的人都應該努力成為政治家，這似乎與美國形成了鮮明對比。美國
整個國家都是一種文化，都在模仿或試圖模仿資本主義，而塔隆集團則主要
專注於資本主義領域。你怎麽看待這種觀點？我認為是對的，但請記住，中國是一個非常多元化的國家，所以這種混亂的影響在山東省和中國相關地區更為強烈。如果你去南方，你會發現
那裏的創業精神更強，也更接近於這樣一種理念：獲得成功的途徑是通過賺錢。這又是一個非常具體的方式。在中國大部分地區，尤其是南方，幸運數字是8，對吧？因為它聽起來像B，又像胖子，聽起來像是靠車牌和手機賺錢。你會想看到幸運數字8。我想新加坡的情況也類似，如果我沒記錯的話，但在山東省，幸運數字是7。為什麽？因為有句俗話說，如果你57歲了，還在政府部門任職，你還有晉升的希望。但如果你58歲了，你的職位基本上就走下坡路了。所以，在我所在的大學，一個7號的辦公室比8號的更有聲望。在山東省，人們甚至會爭著要7號的電話號碼。所以，中國是一個多元化的國家，這種“最好的生活是學者的生活，尤其是學者官員的生活”的觀念，在中國受儒家傳統影響較大的地區更為盛行。

馬克思主義在中國政治中

我的下一個問題是，馬克思主義在中國政治中的影響。我認為大多數西方評論員或西方媒體對共產黨的看法非常粗略，他們認為共產主義就是壓製和缺乏政治權利，完全的國家控製，而更微妙的國家控製則取決於具體情況。我的意思是，共產主義傳統也非常多元化，就像儒家傳統一樣，雖然可以說相當新，而且缺乏多樣性，但馬克思對共產主義的最初設想是這樣的：
資本主義的問題在於，資本顯然歸資本家所有，而廣大工人必須
工作來賺錢，所以工作是謀生的手段，而不是生活的首要需求。我們應該走向一個工人不再被迫工作作為謀生手段的社會，最終如何通過發展經濟來實現這一點？發展經濟，讓先進的機器完成社會必需的工作，滿足人們的基本需求，然後他們……自由地發揮他們的批判才能。你如何才能做好這一點？你必須經曆資本主義的進程。這是
馬克思自己的觀點，馬克思自己的曆史理論，因為隻有通過資本主義，你才能發展技術和有效地運用技術的能力。資本家需要相互競爭才能獲利，而做到這一點的方法就是不斷改進技術。作為資本主義的副產品，
你擁有了技術，更好的機器。
最終，我們會達到一個點，根據馬克思的說法，資本主義可以被推翻，我們可以走向共產主義。在這個製度下，技術是基礎，基本上歸人民所有。
而人民，社會必要的工作由機器完成，然後人們被創造。
去發揮他們的創造性才能。這就是我們的想法。現在在中國，馬克思主義
正在卷土重來，因為人們對人工智能抱有相當樂觀的看法。如果以一種對社會有益的方式進行管理，或者以一種合理的方式進行監管，那麽人工智能不僅現在，而且幾十年後，都能讓我們……對社會有益，也許幾十年後我們就能擁有先進機械，
這是社會必需的工作，是肮髒危險的重複性工作，如果不是必須，人們不會願意做，然後我們就能自由地
實現創造才能。這也是為什麽馬克思主義現在在中國複興的原因之一，因為馬克思主義的共產主義理想現在似乎更有可能實現。D shaing 說得對，我們需要經曆資本主義，發展生產力，但這隻是一種手段，最終我們需要走向一個更加共產主義的社會，所以
這也是為什麽共產主義正在卷土重來的原因之一。它與混亂的理想不同。需要重複的是，混亂的理想是通過和諧和人性化的社會關係來實現我們的創造性本質，這不需要涉及創造性勞動，但對於馬克思主義者來說，我們真正通過創造性勞動來實現我們的創造性本質。那麽，我們如何調和這兩者呢？我的意思是，在實踐中，它們可能會發生衝突，對吧？我的意思是，當我在《中國》中提出了一些想法。你知道，有一次，一位年輕女士走過來對我說，你知道，這並不抽象，我感到一種緊張。我的意思是，一方麵，我想通過工作實現自我價值；另一方麵，我對年邁的父母負有義務，他們之間會發生衝突，在時間和精力方麵，我該如何處理？所以，他們之間沒有和諧的、必然和諧的方法來處理這個問題，但我認為這兩種理想都很重要。如果你想了解中國的政治製度和軍事理想，我認為我們現在需要了解這兩種理想。關於馬克思主義的另一個更曆史性的觀點是，為什麽它……為什麽它真的……成為中國的主導意識形態？原因之一是，對馬克思來說，……我認為幾乎所有馬克思主義者都會同意這一點，Garmin 的最終目標，或者至少……最重要的是為人民提供物質福祉，嗯，這種思想可以追溯到很久以前，我的意思是儒家很久以前，甚至連被認為是儒家最理想的梅尼斯都持有這種觀點。他說，首先，人們必須擁有穩定的物質生活，有時“hung”（懸而未決）可以翻譯成財產或基本的物質需求，然後他們才能有道德。因為如果你總是為生活必需品而掙紮，你怎麽可能有道德呢？我的意思是，這也是一個經典的馬克思主義觀點。首先，你滿足了人們的基本物質需求，然後他們才能踐行道德。他們才能關心他人的福祉，並對家庭以外的社會承擔義務等等。所以，在中國曆史上，政府一直持有這種強烈的觀點。我們需要應對饑荒，我們需要應對貧困，這在西方政府甚至還沒有考慮過這種觀點之前就存在了。政府應對的義務之一是減輕貧困，這在西方是一個相對較新的想法，大概有三四百年的曆史了。但在中國，這可以追溯到早期的混亂時期，嗯，這也是馬克思主義在20世紀在中國紮根的原因之一。當然，它的陰暗麵也是，你知道列寧主義對馬克思主義傳統的看法，我的意思是，一方麵，你需要一個強大的中央組織來統治國家。另一方麵，我們可以依靠極端措施來清除政治對手。這種觀點也有很大的影響，尤其是在戰時。我的意思是，坦率地說，共產黨為什麽能贏，比如說在內戰中，他們之所以能獲勝，是因為他們有一個更強大、更有效的列寧主義組織，領導人的言論會傳達到基層，而且很有效，有時是相當嚴厲的措施。在戰爭時期，這或許是一種有效的策略，但一旦你開始在和平時期統治一個國家，這種方法往往會導致災難，就像隨後發生的19世紀那樣。關於馬克思主義，赫裏提出的完整問題是，你知道，有一種觀點認為，國家會逐漸消失，當你榨幹了所有你能榨幹的東西，當你的機器變得如此先進時，國家就會消失。但在中國，你認為情況並非如此，國家將繼續扮演強勢角色，即使在理想狀態下也是如此。所以，馬克斯沒有預料到現在對我們來說顯而易見的幾個發展，一是他對機械和技術非常樂觀，他認為機械最終可以達到我們做社會必要工作的程度，但他沒有預料到機械會變得如此先進，以至於可以主宰人類，甚至對人類構成生存威脅，現在隨著人工智能的發展，我的意思是，這是我們擔心的事情，所以國家迫切需要對人工智能進行監管，以確保人工智能服務於人類的需求，並防止或至少將人工智能可能對人類構成生存威脅的風險降至最低。在這種情況下，人類會成為奴隸，而不是技術成為奴隸。或者說，“奴隸”這個詞比較極端，我的意思是，理想情況下，機器應該為人類服務，而不是人類服務。國家需要確保這種可能性。氣候變化等問題也是如此。馬克思無法預料，或者至少他沒有預料到，技術會發展到足以破壞環境的程度，並創造一種環境，使環境再次對人類構成生存威脅，例如氣候變化和全球變暖。因此，為了監管這些，我們需要強有力的遏製。顯然，原子能，你知道，核武器，我的意思是，這是一個根本性的威脅，我們需要一個國家來監管核武器。當然，今天我們也想到了流行病。我知道我們需要一個國家來應對這些，所以出於所有這些原因，存在著馬克思無法預見的生存威脅。嗯，還有，
馬克認為，一旦我們擁有了先進的機器，人們的基本需求得到了滿足，我們就不需要國家了。因為國家的主要目的是行使強製手段，特別是為了統治階級的利益。但如果沒有統治階級，嗯，那麽就不再需要國家了。它會逐漸消亡。現在我們知道，即使有了先進的機器，以及人與人之間在社會和物質上的平等，我們仍然需要一個全A的國家。一個至少有能力防止生存威脅變得嚴重的國家。國家的存在實際上是為了提供保護，以確保
生產資料不會真的對你不利。我想，是的，這是其中的一部分，但我的意思不僅僅是提供保護，而是努力確保，我的意思是，直到我們達到這樣的狀態。存在一種高級共產主義社會，人們的基本物質需求因為先進的機械而得到滿足，但要嚐試引導技術發展，使其有利於人類，這意味著技術服務於人民，而不是反過來。在我們達到這種高級共產主義狀態之前，需要一個更積極的政府來努力確保技術服務於人民，而不是反過來。快進到今天，當我們回顧總統和他的政策時，我們看到兩項基石政策。強國，也就是雙循環，他試圖通過加強國內消費來增強中國的國內經濟，同時，他一直在對外推行共同繁榮，你知道，這似乎是一個更
更馬克思主義的政府，某種意義上，它正試圖更積極地將財富重新分配給最貧窮的階層，但其中有多少可以歸因於總統本人，又有多少可以歸因於更大的政策機構，也就是中國共產黨？我認為，現在有一種傾向，認為在中國的政治體製中，隻有一個人決定一切。我的意思是

一人統治的迷思

2012年，中國麵臨三大問題或挑戰。首先，腐敗現象完全失控，對政治體係構成了威脅。為了進入學校或醫院獲得公共服務，你必須行賄，這真的激怒了人民。其次，經濟發展速度過快，導致貧富差距過大，這又引發了人們對富人的強烈不滿，有些人認為這個體製不公平，人們不再擁有像以前那樣平等的競爭和發展機會。第三，經濟發展帶來了巨大的環境災難性後果。我的意思是，你知道，我當時住在北京，那裏的情況非常糟糕。汙染完全失控，影響了人們的日常生活，影響了中國大部分地區。水質非常糟糕等等。所以，這三個問題一直困擾著我們。無論誰是頭號人物，這些問題都會得到解決，嗯，這或多或少就是2011-12年以來發生的事情。在減少腐敗方麵，尤其是在減少收入差距和減少溫室氣體排放方麵，以及在為貧困和弱勢地區人民提供更平等的機會方麵，都投入了更多精力，而且采取了更有力的措施來應對環境可持續性問題。嗯，現任領導人當然是平等之首，而政治局
常委會在某種程度上發生了變化，因為在2011-12年之前，常委會中有九位領導人，每個人基本上都控製著係統的一部分，對任何影響他們利益的事情都有否決權，所以很難完成工作，因為政治體係中有很多否決權，所以最終走向了一個由七人組成的製度，其中有一個平等之首，這樣更容易解決阻礙減少腐敗、處理腐敗等必要變革的利益問題。環境，減少收入或貧富差距，嗯，所以，我的意思是，無論誰是第一，這些都可能都會發生。是的，我的意思是，我們可以說，國家主席謝誌雄或總書記，無論你怎麽形容他，他都致力於馬克思主義理想，嗯，這有助於解釋我們為什麽會發生變化。但我不會過分強調政治體係中某位領導人的個人偏好，但我想說，他們在解決他們指出的三個問題上取得了巨大進展，即使就我本人而言，去年我去那裏的時候，你也能看出，例如，所有車輛的廣泛電氣化，所有主要城市的空氣質量在過去10年裏都得到了顯著改善。我認為，如果你在2012年問一個人，他們可能無法想象會發生這種事。沒錯，這個問題的出發點是，當你看看中國的政治時，許多
外界，比如西方媒體，對中國的了解非常不透明，
以至於它無法將自己充分地傳達給外部公眾，
因為他們過於專注於與國內溝通，比如與自己的國家溝通。
中國在哪些方麵未能很好地向外界傳達自己的信息？這部分與政治體製有關，甚至與反腐運動有關。反腐運動的弊端在於，
它使公職人員變得更加保守，更不願承擔風險。所以，
要以一種對中國以外的人有說服力的方式進行溝通，如果你隻是說中國有什麽好處，而
沒有意識到中國存在的問題，那麽，
這聽起來就像空洞的宣傳，不會對人們有說服力。但如果
你……嗯，這就是為什麽我們需要一種更能展現中國……的溝通方式。
向外界展示當然，它有很多優點，但也有一些缺點。讓我們以更現實、更人性化的方式描繪中國，嗯，這樣才能與人們互動，嗯，但由於政治體製中的保守主義，你知道，不是任何時候，而是經常，當記者甚至學者想要描繪一個體製，或者描繪一個更平衡、更現實的中國形象時，他們就會遇到問題，我的意思是審查製度，或者，就記者而言，他們會與當局發生衝突，所以這是問題的一部分，嗯，根源，但私下裏人們也認識到這一點，我的意思是，包括政府內部，但嗯，尤其如此，嗯，這不僅在高層，而且在中層。公職人員通常非常規避風險，而且
比較保守，所以即使是我自己的書，好吧，在我最近的書《山東喧囂》中，我試圖展現的是，
即使在中國的公職人員和官僚中，也有很多的人性和幽默感，而且
我試圖以相對平衡的方式描繪這一點，嗯，我確實得到了一些
官員的許可，可以在書中進行交流，但嗯，
因為它對事物的描述方式並不完全積極，所以它尚未被
中國大陸接受出版，但在香港又一次被接受，這表明香港的學術自由比主要在中國更自由，但我的意思是，即使我的書，你大概也能看出，我盡可能地
積極地對待那些並非嚴格受體製約束或在中國土生土長的人們，
如果我的東西遇到麻煩，我可以想象，呃，其他人說，
我的意思是，有跡象表明，事情情況有所改善，我的意思是，即使是最近，嗯，你可能也知道抖音難民的現象，這才發生在過去幾周，你知道人們逃離了抖音，
去了沙胡，也就是中國的應用程序，你知道，
還有那麽多外國人。現在，因為我們有了便捷的在線翻譯方式，所以，
可以更多地交流中國的人性和幽默，包括那些
進展不如預期的事情，這以一種更加平衡和人性化的方式描繪了中國，實際上，我認為這對提升中國的軟實力比坦率地說，
官員們試圖展示中國好的一麵，而不去直麵問題時所做的更有幫助。
這隻是問題的另一個方麵，也是
明雲的想法，他們實際上有一個合適的命名慣例，我認為他
指出，他們通常不會試圖宣傳自己更柔和的形象，甚至他們可能在海外，或者不太熟悉語言差異。一個明顯的例子就是

中國的公關問題

2008年北京奧運會開幕式上，一個人物被選為代表中國文化，通常被翻譯成“和”。我記得當時我在NBC的英文頻道上觀看，當時評論員們說，哇，看看這個，這就是中國的“和諧”。他們指著齊步走的士兵說，如果每個人都以同樣的方式思考和行動，那真是太可怕了。但任何了解中文和理解“混亂”的人，我的意思是每個知識分子都知道，這句話出自孔子，對吧？這意味著你應該尋求“多元”和“和諧”，而不是“趨同”，“趨同”可以翻譯成“一致”或“一致”。所以，中國人的“和諧”理念實際上包含對多樣性的熱愛，用來表達這一點的比喻非常清楚。例如，如果湯裏隻有一種配料，比如鹽，那就沒有味道。嗯，音樂裏有那麽多元素，但隻有一個音符，要讓它變得優美，那就太無聊了，我們
必須有很多音符。嗯，即使在政治上，這種理念也被非常明確地運用，如果你是一個統治者，你隻聽從一種政治觀點，那將是災難的根源，因為你永遠無法發現哪裏出了問題，也無法糾正它。政治統治者之間必須有多元的觀點。這被用來表達“和諧”的理念，所以僅僅因為
這種翻譯錯誤，在英語中，當你想到“和諧”，尤其是在政治環境中，它會觸發所有
警鍾，聽起來像是“一致”或“統一”，這與中文的“和諧”理念完全相反。所以，從根本上來說，最簡單的方法就是確保翻譯正確，這是一種避免誤解的方法。所以，再次強調，在中國文化中，“和諧”的核心思想，我認為我們應該翻譯“多樣性”和“和諧”之類的詞，以防止誤解。多年來，政府一直在改變其不同部門的名稱一次又一次地更新，對吧？所以我認為，例如，在新加坡，我們有這個相當於aan champo的部門，以前是通訊和信息部，現在是數字發展信息部，因為現在有了更加數字化的維度，可以傳遞信息。一些政府部門的翻譯標簽隻是申楚，你知道，申楚是最初的宣傳部門，現在我認為宣傳中的宣傳聽起來有點重要，我的意思是，它有點像通訊，你知道，會更中立一些，或者統戰統一戰線，我的意思是戰時統一戰線指的是聯合，你知道，在戰時，共產黨和國民黨會聯合起來對抗日本人，現在這個戰時術語不合適，我的意思是，我們需要想一個不同的，我認為中文也應該改變，以反映新現實，這不是我們正在談論的，但它聽起來很險惡，你知道，在外麵，當你想到這個統一戰線部門時，嗯，哪個這其實並非他們的主要工作。即使是黨委書記，我在書中也提到過，尤其是在基層政府，他們不會把太多時間花在讓人們遵守黨的路線上。大多數時間，尤其是在大學，他們把時間花在協調人際關係和做一些非學術性的工作上，這很重要。這又回到了你之前的問題。在西方大學，沒有黨委書記，這當然在某種程度上是好事，因為這意味著審查較少。但另一方麵，如果有一個黨委書記負責處理這個問題，那就稱之為大學裏的社會問題。例如，我在山東大學的時候，發生了一起非常嚴重的車禍，
然後黨委書記不得不安慰孩子的父母。我的意思是，這種事情是好事。如果有這樣的工作，我們可以稱之為和諧書記。如果我們有這樣的職能，它不一定是壞事。當然，如果能擺脫政治審查的影響，理想情況下，嗯，這可能是值得學習的，這並非我的臆想，在中國曆史上，心理治療首次出現了如此巨大的增長。現在的心理治療師通常是黨委書記，因為他們習慣於處理人際關係衝突，並試圖以良好的方式協調關係，而且他們擁有同樣的技能，這使得他們能夠成為有效的心理治療師。你知道，這些東西都很吸引人。你寫了一篇
關於中國50年後或2015年會是什麽樣子的有趣文章，在文中你提出了一個願景，即精英管理製度

中國賢能政治與民主的未來

民主可以相互補充，人民可以更廣泛地參與政治，但同時你仍然可以找到
稱職的公職人員。那麽，在一個更加民主、更加賢能的中國，未來會是什麽樣子呢？
嗯，這很難說，正如你所知，那篇文章相當具有推測性，並且包含一些幽默。那麽，未來會涉及什麽呢？現在的統治組織
大約有1億人，也許20年或30年後會是1.2億人，這是一個非常龐大的組織，內部也必然存在多樣性，因此，在統治組織內部有更多民主的空間。如何實現這一點，以及如何將其製度化，
避免引發公開衝突和派係鬥爭，這是一個非常重要的問題，但它不能被
持續壓製。所以我幾乎可以肯定，當你談論這一點時，你會再次意識到這一點。對那些私下裏的人來說，我的意思是，在中國，一旦你與人們建立了一定程度的信任，你就能進行非常開放的對話。我認為，人們強烈認識到需要在執政機構內部建立更多的民主，以便所有黨員都能在政治體係中擁有某種發言權，而不是那種自上而下的權力。現在，這種權力可以采取不同的形式。我的意思是，可以采取某種抽簽製度，即在執政機構內部隨機選出人員，因為這已經是一種非常好的質量檢查，然後，他們可以在政策上擁有某種發言權。在執政機構內部，可能會有更多的選舉機製，更多的審議機製，這是一回事。那麽在執政機構之外呢？有一種方法可以……同樣重要的是，要讓整個政治體係擁有某種持久的合法性，讓執政機構之外的人也擁有某種合法性的印記。那會是什麽呢？我的意思是，它可以采取不同的形式。我的意思是，這可能是隱性的，
可能是某種我們尚不清楚的人工智能，可以進行
一些磋商，以及在廣大民眾中進行，嗯，也可能是一場
全民公投，也就是說，你看，你給了我們一個政黨30年的
執政時間，足夠長，足以做出影響子孫後代的決策，
這使我們能夠長期培訓和招募人才，並且我們可以處理氣候變化等問題，而不必擔心
每四五年就選舉一次，嗯，但是，在30年後的某個時候，
政治體製會受到某種製約，嗯，而且，在一個更大的範圍內，言論自由也會大大增加。我的意思是，如果你和中國的知識分子交談，就像任何人一樣，我在這裏要做一個概括性的陳述，但我要說的是，這基本上是正確的，幾乎所有50歲以下的人都支持更多的言論自由，嗯，在中國，這幾乎是唯一能團結大家的東西。自由主義者、社會主義者、儒家以及其他人士都堅定地致力於言論自由，所以在那些脫離了民主體製的人中，他們擁有更多的言論自由，更多的組織和政治途徑，能夠表達自己的聲音，同時也要認識到，最終，統治組織會做出最終決定，尤其是在重大問題上。我的意思是，這是一種將更強大的民主機製與精英政治體係相結合的方式。你為什麽批評“可愛”？表麵上看，這真的很奇怪，但東亞文化有這種

對“可愛”的批判

儒家傳統中，他們有一個共同點，就是這種“可愛”文化。社交媒體上有很多可愛的動物，比如表情符號。當然，在外麵也有一些，但遠不及。我的意思是，即使是像我這樣的官僚體製中的官員，當我與其他官僚交流時，我總是會使用表情符號和笑臉來表達我的情緒。當我和一位美國一流大學的教授分享這個表情時，我在社交媒體上向他展示了一點。我很快地翻閱了一下，問他大學裏有這個嗎？他隻是淡淡地說“不，不，所以，有這個代碼”。這種“cess”文化的好處在於，它是一種交流情緒的方式，可以軟化原本僵硬的溝通方式。我的意思是，精英管理的弊端，你也知道，新加坡的情況也一樣，它會導致一種高度競爭的社會，人們往往雄心勃勃，害怕失去，害怕失去，嗯，對，沒錯，這就是精英管理製度的弊端。你總是想領先於雄心勃勃、位居第一的人，但這種精英文化總是在反抗說“不，我們不在乎，我們隻想享受生活”。這是一種我們可以指責的語言，一種無憂無慮的生活方式，這是一種非常反差的生活方式，幾乎是對這種高度競爭、雄心勃勃的反抗，它起源於日本。正是這些可愛的少女，或者說是少女們，發展出這種可愛文化，並迅速傳播到其他國家，這種超級精英管理製度的混亂遺產，在教育、巴解組織體係中也存在，並延伸到經濟領域。其弊端是，如果政府官員利用稅收來逃避責任，或者在應該做出艱難決定的時候開玩笑，這可能會釀成災難。我用一個東亞以外的例子來說明，比如鮑裏斯·約翰遜。在我看來，他非常有魅力，有些人不明白這一點，我明白。我的意思是，如果我必須和一位政客約會，我很想和鮑裏斯·約翰遜約會，他非常有魅力，非常幽默，也很可愛。但說到做決定，他很糟糕，我的意思是他會逃避責任，撒謊。我在擔任院長的時候，就看到了自己的這個缺點。有時我會開玩笑，試圖裝可愛，以此來逃避責任和艱難的決定。這就是這種可愛文化的弊端，也有一些自我批評。新加坡也是如此。如果你觀察一下政治格局，我認為我們看到了類似的情況：政客們更多地使用社交媒體，不是為了
傳達政策立場或他們必須做的棘手事情，而是為了讓自己更受歡迎。所以你會看到他們關注Dan Trends，在官方旅行中帶你四處參觀，比如去哪裏。他們要去哪裏，甚至在最近的美國大選中，我想我們也看到了這一點。很多選舉營銷都更多地關注個性而非政策。所以從某種意義上說，個人的個性掩蓋了政策，這或許是對“可愛”的正確批判。
但另一方麵，如果你想讓自己討人喜歡，或者展現你作為公職人員的人性，
那就沒問題，隻要它不會占用你太多時間去做你應該做的事情，也就是思考造福人民的政策，
隻要它是一種逃避責任和做出艱難決定的方式，嗯，那麽我認為沒有什麽問題。
你必須找到適合我的風格，你必須表現得恰到好處，我想，沒錯，金古就是這樣。
他私下裏真的很迷人，也很可愛，呃，除了
才華橫溢、富有創造力之外，我希望有一兩次能和他一起出去吃飯，
我希望當時做了筆記，這樣我就可以了。講故事，但我隻記得被他迷住了。
這就是人們對他私下的印象，但當他公開露麵時，他要嚴肅得多。
所以可能有一個金牌表情包，因為你必須要嚴肅，你必須做出艱難的決定，而他沒有。
當然也沒有用他的可愛來妨礙他們。你自己是加拿大人，你也在中國，所以我想問。
你希望更多人了解中國和加拿大最好的地方是什麽？讓我先從加拿大說起。我的意思是，
我認為加拿大有兩個地方很可愛，一個是蒙特利爾，

文化洞察：加拿大 vs. 中國

我來自蒙特利爾，這座城市很酷，很有創意，也很安全，所以它真正融合了秩序和和諧的精髓，既注重秩序，也熱愛多樣性。蒙特利爾非常有創意，而且是雙語城市，就像新加坡一樣。蒙特利爾大多數人會說兩種語言，幾乎每個人都能完美地掌握法語和英語。雙語是一種特殊的體驗，你可以更輕鬆地從他人的角度想象自己。有很多證據表明，雙語實際上是對他人產生更多同理心和同情心的重要方式。蒙特利爾的缺點是冬天非常非常冷，我已經很多年沒在冬天回去了。除此之外，蒙特利爾是一個很棒的地方，但在東亞，它並不那麽出名，因為人們更傾向於去多倫多和溫哥華。我強烈地認為，當然，我有偏見，因為我來自那裏，但我認為坦白說，這就像加拿大最棒的地方，嗯，另一方麵，我，嗯，我們稱之為冰球，在加拿大，我們稱之為冰球迷，嗯，冰球是一項非常美麗的運動，但它鮮為人知，我的意思是在新加坡，我不知道現在有沒有聯賽，它是一項真正將偉大、美麗與力量融為一體的運動，嗯，而且觀看比賽非常美妙，嗯，我認為，如果你喜歡運動，這也是加拿大最棒的地方，我也喜歡，我喜歡所有運動，但也可能因為我來自蒙特利爾等等，但在我看來，冰球是一項將優雅與力量融為一體的運動，觀看比賽非常美妙，他們非常強壯，
不僅傳球，而且很會服從別人，甚至當你采訪冰球運動員時，他們總是有點困惑，貶低自己，說我做了所有事情對於球隊來說，你知道，嗯，嗯，嗯，目前蒙特利爾加拿大人冰球隊可能是冰球界最令人興奮的年輕球隊，這是K隊目前最好的兩個部分，如果我可以這麽說的話，嗯，那麽
關於中國，嗯，中國是一個多元化的國家，我的意思是，它是一個大陸，而不是一個國家，而且，甚至不僅僅是城市和鄉村之間的差異，它們是完全不同的世界，不同的城市也有不同的精神和氣質。你知道，上海和北京的人真的非常不同，他們通常不會互相討厭。表達這一點非常有趣，我寫了一本名為《城市精神》的書，嗯，我和我的合著者在《從耶路撒冷到東方》中嚐試了這一點，我們試圖表達其中的一些內容，然後我又寫了一本關於城市精神的中文書，特別是關於中國城市。
再次強調，要了解中國，你必須了解它內部的多樣性。中國在國外並不為人所知，即使在山東省，我也對吉南和欽達的區別很大，嗯，探索中國的多樣性非常有趣，這在國外並不為人所知，這是中國的一部分，也是日常生活中的人性和幽默，你知道，人們真的認為政治體製是這樣的，他們是這樣的，我的意思是，政客們非常無聊，而且經常很嚴厲，但在日常生活中，以及官僚機構的中層，正如我試圖在這本新書中展示的那樣，有很多人性和幽默，我認為向世界其他地方傳達這一點也很重要，如果今天有香港精神，香港精神會是什麽樣子，所以香港非常迷人，因為嗯

香港精神

它致力於共產主義，這寫在基本法裏，對吧？我的意思是，雖然香港是共產主義國家，但人們
卻在慶祝賺錢，嗯，這通常會以非常醜陋的形式出現。香港存在巨大的貧富差距，他們提到貧富差距，而公共住房中一半的人住在公共住房裏，這與新加坡的公共住房相比非常糟糕。所以，共產主義的弊端非常明顯。但另一方麵，香港有這樣的社會秩序，你知道有這樣一句話，如果你去美國最窮的地方開勞斯萊斯，你會被石頭砸到車窗，但如果你去香港最窮的地方，人們會來欣賞一輛金色的勞斯萊斯。你知道，那裏的情況有點奇怪，有點奇怪，我的意思是，人們對財富的尊重在香港非常強烈，但我認為這種尊重目前受到了儒家思想的緩和。呃，精神，我的意思是香港，他們沒有經曆過革命，所以當然，革命是為了消除混亂，但沒有成功，但在香港，沒有那種混亂，所以日常的家庭生活很大程度上受到混亂倫理的影響，以及他服務家庭、服務社區的承諾，並在家庭內部擴大這種愛和關懷。外人，你在香港在很大程度上擁有這種精神，所以這再次緩和了資本主義的過度行為，所以如果我試圖表達香港的精神，我實際上在那本書中有一章，它應該是這樣的，你通常會給你的C什麽建議，我的學生非常多樣化，你知道，其中一位非常有孔子思想的人，他是教師的老師，他有一個很好的榜樣

給即將步入職場的畢業生的建議

在教學中，他有時會根據學生的需求、興趣等給出相互矛盾的建議。所以，沒有普遍適用的建議，我的意思是，必須了解學生的個性，了解他們所有閃光點。
隻有這樣，我才能按照K的模式再次與學生互動。但是，如果有一個普遍的觀點，也就是未來是絕對不確定的，但唯一可以確定的是，如果我們幸運地度過難關，不發生毀滅全人類的戰爭，那麽，它正在經曆技術和社會的快速變革。所以，當我在大學的時候，我們會思考，我們想要什麽樣的工作。有一種假設，一旦你找到工作，就幾乎一直到退休，但現在，我的意思是，你知道，在新加坡，我認為新加坡在培養學生應對世界大戰方麵可能比世界上任何其他地方都做得更好。不斷變化的，而且需要不斷學習，並準備好在你的一生中嚐試完全不同的事情。實際上，就像你教的兩節課一樣，你實際上認為我讀《論語》的框架是正確的，而不是采取一種普遍的觀點，而是試圖理解每個人的個體背景。K和他的學生，每個學生都是不同的，你基本上把它想象成一架飛機，你必須具備一些背景知識。他在教學生的時候，故意隻說他認為正確的部分，然後他希望學生能夠自己發展剩下的部分。所以，擁有這種背景知識很重要，了解學生是誰，他們的興趣是什麽，他們在後來的中國曆史上以什麽而聞名，以及K為什麽這麽說，然後哪些部分應該通過不斷的詮釋和重新詮釋來填補。這就是為什麽Go的呼聲有點像它傳遞了錯誤的信息，因為學生必須記住部分經典文本，包括《論語》，他們必須記住正確的解釋，因為你知道孔子會讓人震驚，但沒有一個正確的解釋，有些解釋比其他解釋更好，但解釋會隨著新知識和新挑戰而變化，等等，以及誰在什麽情況下進行解釋，嗯，所以了解這些非常重要，以便理解和欣賞文本，我們能找到你的作品嗎？這是你的新書，名叫《在哪裏可以找到貝爾教授？》，《山頓的一位中國大學小官僚的自白》，這本書的寫作方式試圖
展現人性和幽默，並試圖從我擔任院長的一些經曆中得出一些啟示。所以這是另一個叫做

哪裏可以找到貝爾教授？

這是一本來自山頓的《中國大學小官僚的自白》，這本書的寫作方式試圖展現人性和幽默感，同時也試圖從我擔任院長的一些經曆中得出一些啟示。所以，這本書叫做《中國模式》，它更具學術性，嗯，它試圖展示它的內容。
試圖係統地討論什麽是賢能政治，它的優點和缺點是什麽，以及如何
縮小理想與現實以及中國環境之間的差距。還有一本最近出版的書，叫做《等級製度》，是與黃平合著的。黃平是我在香港大學的同事，實際上也是我的妻子。
所以我們試圖表明，任何現代社會都需要等級製度。嗯，我們知道哪些等級製度是壞的，基於種族、性別或階級，哪些是好的，以及為什麽需要對此進行理論化，並展示大量的例子。這就是我們在那本書中試圖做到的。所以這些書在
常見的地方都可以買到。亞馬遜等等，謝謝教授的到來，謝謝你的參與，我
期待你的播客，我喜歡你的播客，我看了整個
關於 Go Kingu 博士的播客，非常精彩，嗯，我期待聽到更多你的播客，也希望學到更多。謝謝你，希望你喜歡丹尼爾·貝爾教授的這一集。
如果你在 YouTube 上觀看，我們非常希望你能點擊下麵的訂閱按鈕。
如果你在其他平台上收聽播客，我們非常希望你能在 Spotify、蘋果或其他任何你收聽播客的地方給我們一個 fstar 評分。
謝謝你收聽 fal 播客，我們希望在下一集節目中與你見麵。

How To Understand The New Age of Chinese Politics

2025年2月5日 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPeoqgwFNb8

Keith Yap: Curating Conversations For The Curious | Host of The Front Row Podcast

Daniel A. Bell is Professor, Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. 

He once served as Dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University (Qingdao) from 2017 to 2022.

He specialises in Comparative Political Theories, focusing on Confucianism and Legalism. 

His books include 
The Dean of Shandong (2023),  
Just Hierarchy (co-authored with Wang Pei, 2020), 
The China Model (2015), 
The Spirit of Cities (co-authored with Avner de-Shalit, 2012), 
China’s New Confucianism (2008), 
Beyond Liberal Democracy (2007), 
East Meets West (2000), 
All published by Princeton University Press. 
He is also the author of Communitarianism and Its Critics (Oxford University Press, 1993).

Bell’s latest book, The Dean of Shandong, is an insider’s perspective of Chinese academia and China’s political system.

TIMESTAMPS: 

00:00 Intro
00:50 The Reality of Chinese Academia
06:05 Political Meritocracy As An Alternative Ideal
11:02 Why Scale Matters In Politics
16:30 Corruption and Governance in China
23:20 Legalism in Practice
24:43 The Influence of Confucianism in Chinese Politics
32:58 Marxism in Chinese Politics
43:19 The Myth of The One Man Rule
51:14 China's PR Problems
56:12 Future of Meritocracy and Democracy in China
01:00:04 Critique Of Cuteness
01:04:56 Cultural Insights: Canada vs. China
01:08:49 The Spirit of Hong Kong
01:10:30 Advice for Graduates Entering the Workforce
01:13:03 Where To Find Prof Bell

Intro

today we are talking about the philosophy of Chinese politics Marxism legalism Confucianism these might sound like big words to you when you think about Chinese politics and philosophy but if you want to understand their influence on Chinese politics today this is the viewers for you today I am joined by Professor Daniel Bell he's the first foreign dean of shantong University and in the first

foreign dean of any Chinese University he was previously based in chiu the

hometown of the famous Chinese philosopher confusious as an expert of both Western and Chinese political philosophies he's the best person to help you understand the different philosophies affecting modern China today with that I hope you enjoy my conversation with Professor d one of the first questions I had when I was reading

The Reality of Chinese Academia

your most recent book the dean of shanto was that you draw a comparison or a

contrast between the Western AC academic environment and the Chinese academic environment and most people kind of assume that you know in China it's all censorship there's no academic freedom but you seem to have a different view or different take and different LIF experience from it well there is

censorship so and there's increased censorship in in Mainland CH I don't want to deny that um but there are many

areas where there's tremendous amount of intellectual engagement and argumentation so if you work on

Confucianism for example it's really diverse debates some of which are are very heated for example the latest

debate now is whether is there's an influential article arguing that sex

robots are ideal Confucian wives and as you can imagine there's a furious

reaction from Confucian feminist so that's just an example of so so much uh

lots of debates that don't touch on the highest level of politics can and do flourish and they address issues that

wouldn't be of great interest to to people outside of China where for example the Confucian condition isn't of

great interest to you know or to people from Canada where I'm from um uh and

there's also um less of this kind of worrying about politically correct uh

terminology I mean in now maybe it's changing a bit now with the new Administration in the US but many

academics have felt that they're treading on eggshells when it comes to issues relating to sex or race um but in

China in that sense there's less of this informal censorship so you mentioned my my book the dean of shando so I began

that book by listing all that that's wrong with with China because you have to express those views in order to get

on to what you really want to say there's a kind of informal censorship mechanism where it's very easy for you

to be labeled as a China apologist so you have to begin by first saying you know China is has many human rights

abuses and these things are wrong sure which is of course is all true but only then will people even listen so even

academically if you want to publish an article in an academic periodical and you don't use the

language of authoritarianism to discuss or to describe the Chinese political

system you would get knocked down it' be very hard to get published fortunately publishing in book form is actually

still more free than publishing in article form uh there's less of this informal censorship and and more um room

for um well I'm going to call it original thinking in in the anglophone world another key difference is that in

China there's a very strong commitment to serving the community so the idea that you would do your especially in an

area in Humanities or social sciences that you would just do your own work completely separate from contributing to

the good of the community you know serving in the Ivory Tower there's less of that tradition in China and partly

it's it has to do with the plal system but I think it has much more deeper Roots um you know we can label it

Confucian ideas of the best life and while serving the community but there's much more of a implicit or explicit

assumption that as an academic you're not just there to publish articles and pro truth regardless of the impact on

the community that your work should be more closely tied with contributing to the good of the community yeah so those

are very briefly some differences but it it depends on the field it depends on the period of time uh it depends on

which country we're comparing it to I mean or even on the part of China I mean in Hong Kong now Hong Kong in many ways

is much closer to the kind of Western system where you're you're rewarded

almost exclusively according to your uh publishing record in leading academic

journals and and University Publishers and whether or not you contribute to the community is almost completely

irrelevant when it comes to uh hiring and promotion uh which which is closer to the kind of uh Western model the good

side in Hong Kong is that there's there's much more academic freedom than there is in mainland China Hong Kong in a way is much close of Singapore where

you can more or less do and say what you want so long as it's not about the Hong Kong government I mean my experience in

Singapore I think things have changed in some ways but I still think there's some form of censorship formal informal

regarding Singapore government but other than that it's really a very very free academic environment in Singapore Hong

Kong is a bit similar to that I think in Singapore in the recent years there's been an opening up of spaces for even

critiques to enter the public for agree so my just my first job was in Singapore n Us in 9124 and those days

frankly were not ideal in terms of academic freedom but to write this other

book that I that I wrote called the China model in in China it was very hard to um to address in a kind of balanced

Academic Way some of these politically sensitive issues so I actually I went to Singapore um to spend a semester where I

could have grade libraries in English and Chinese and completely almost complete academic freedom so Singapore

is much much much better than it used to be talking about the China model one of the key assumptions that you've

Political Meritocracy As An Alternative Ideal

challenged is that there is a clear comparison or the way we should compare

governments is between a democracy and autocracy in which the liberal democracy

is clearly the superior alternative my question to you is why do you think that's a false that to me well it's just

that the labels are are so vague um and on the one hand they're descriptive you

know democracy means you select the political leaders by means of free and fair competitive elections and usually

it involves uh liberal values like like rule of law and separation of powers and

protection of individual rights and it's also normative saying that that's a better system uh than the

Alternatives and you know the so but that's such a the both the Democratic

label and the authoritarian label includes so many kinds of diverse forms of government that it's just not very

useful for classifying the political world I mean when I as mentioned my first job was in Singapore and and it

was labeled in the west as a kind of authoritarian government the same Lael was used to describe North Korea you

know and and and Saudi Arabia and so I mean just completely different reck and and the same goes with China I

mean to make to understand the political system you have to understand first of

all what are the motivating ideals and then try to think of to what extent

those ideals I realize in practice and to what extent there's a way of reducing the gap between the the idea and the

reality I had spent all my previous life in Canada and the UK and I was kind of

I'm going to use the word brainwashed um by this view that there's only one legitimate political system and that's

one that selects political leaders by means of free and fair competitive elections along with the associated freedoms and all the others are are are

should be labeled authoritarian and are fundamentally illegitimate and I carried that baggage with me in in

Singapore it took a long time to adjust and maybe I didn't even adjust well in Singapore it took a long time to knock

that kind of Dogma dogmatic view out of my system so to speak but it's only

really when I was in Beijing where I spent eight years at at shinga University and then I realized that well

my colleagues are not talking about um they're they're talking about how do we train how do we select and promote

Leaders with above average ability and virtue how do we measure ability how do we measure virtue what's the relation

between ability and virtue and then I realized that this this this uh this way of thinking has such a long history both

as an ideal in China as and as a and as a institution um and and practice it's

very fascinating to try to make sense of that so so I use a label of political meritocracy in Chinese CH which is more

more more accurate perhaps and I wrote this book The China model which tries to make sense of that ideal shows its

advantage and disadvantages and and suggests ways of reducing the gap between the ideal and the reality so

it's a highly imperfect plal meritocracy just like democracy in for example the US would be highly imperfect democracy

but we need to have a sense of first of all what is the underlying ideal and then it's advantages and disadvantages and think of ways of reducing gap

between ideal and the reality and I wouldn't have had I wouldn't even have come up with that question had I not

spent so many years at a university in Beijing with trains um uh Future Leaders

whereas in Singapore I did spend three years there and I didn't it I I hadn't quite it was a shock to my political

system but it was really hard to get that this this dogmatic view that the signapore political system is fun

fundamentally illegitimate because it doesn't correspond to the sorts of ideals that I had learned as a kid

almost without question um and now I think Singapore is I mean also a

political meritocracy yes imperfect but it's probably the closest to the ideal of any political system in the world

have great great admiration and many of the leaders that you interviewed on your podcast um you know like kisher maani

and and I have great admiration for and in fact even in Singapore when I was there I my worked uh in an office where

where I I knew go King Sweden and went out with him he invited me for and my wife who was working with in his

Institute for meals and my then wife and and I admire him so much but I still

didn't change his dogmatic view that well okay here's a very brilliant and inspiring political Founding Father um

but it didn't still even that didn't knock this kind of dogmatic view out of my system that there's only one

legitimate form government and it's not the one in Singapore I didn't know that so so it's interesting to hear your

roots and experience in Singapore so then going back to the question of political meritocracy what would then be

the ideal version in your mind as to how it should ested SN government so um

Why Scale Matters In Politics

scale matters for politics right and and that's why it's much more important to

have some sort of democratic mechanisms um in smaller political communities this

an Old Point made in in plagal Philosophy by J cuso and others um and

and I there's one example from Singapore which really to to me brought this to my mind I admire Georgio very much and I

was a bit disappointed that he lost um his post in an in an election and

shortly after that I was in a taxi in Singapore and then I I speak to the taxi driver and I said so this really what

happened I mean George he's so outstanding and then taxi driver says I agree he's outstanding and I said and he

said but I didn't vote for him I said what why and he says because he didn't come to my father's funeral I thought oh

my God and I realize only in a very small Plato Community would this be an issue right I mean in China would you

know know presid she could go to everybody's funeral right so so it's

much more important in a small po Community to have um direct relation with one's constituents and have much

much stronger Democratic mechanisms in a large po Community like China this was an example that that brought it home but

China is a huge country right so at different levels of government um

there's there's different ways of selecting and promoting leaders and this is not my own idea it's through

interviews with leaders including members of the including the leader of the Department of organizations U which

selects and promotes leaders in the Chinese political system and I asked them you know which abilities matter

when it comes to selection process which virtues matter and then um I was told well depends on level of government at

lower to Mid levels then there's more it's more important to use what we would

call today Democratic mechanisms as see to what extent the leaders have supported the people um to what extent

um they serve their local community um and and among others whereas admit to

higher levels then the issues of government become much more complex and it's much more important for leaders not

just to be able to implement policies but to think of how to um arrive at

informed policies that affect huge amounts of stakeholders not just the local community but the local country as

well as future generations and and people outside the country and that requires knowledge of economics and and

international relations and philosophy and history and for example if you on environment on on environment on

environmental science um and it also requires a track record of making good political judgments so as you go up the

chain of political command so to speak it's much more important to have more meritocratic uh ways of selecting and

promoting political leaders so the underlying um system

um in in China is to have kind of De Democratic systems of selecting leaders

at lower levels of government and then and then as you go up at higher levels of government it progressively becomes more meritocratic I mean that's the

ideal but in between what do you do well then there's room for experimentation and part of China's success to the

extent their husband success is that there's been lots of innovation and and experimentation at Mid levels of

government when it comes to how to select and promote leaders so then then the question Okay so more or less we

have uh so what does exactly does it mean to have more meritocratic systems of selecting leaders well so for one

thing they it's important for leaders to have above average analytical ability again because the issues are so complex

and it requires a knowledge of many different disciplines and and a very good analytical mind and you can say

many bad things about the Chinese political system but one thing for sure and I think Singapore here is very similar the leaders typically are quite

brilliant I mean it at higher levels of government no doubt about that um but it

also again politics is not like an academic if you're an academic you know and you just stay in your office and

read books or car out experiments that don't deal with other people you can still be successful but in politics you spend much of your time dealing with

stakeholders and and and and and it requires good people skills or EQ um and

it's and it's very hard to get through the system if you lack those so again it's very important at high levels of government to show that you have those

skills and most important of all is to have a certain degree of virtue meaning a willingness to serve the community as

opposed to misusing public resources for your own your family interest um in

other words don't be corrupt and question is how do we assess those skills well again that's where the department of organization is this it's

like the world's largest um Human Resources uh Department uh that that

that's a kind of work they do and yes it's highly imperfect um and it's constant experimentation but that's a

system that's in place and if we want to understand Chinese the Chinese politic system we have to understand that when you talk about the ideal of political

meritocracy actually and you think about it in practice you maybe it might be fair to see that and this is drawing

from the work of like Economist like you right where she talks about the fact that China's been actually meritocratic

for the most part if you think about someone like bosil he did help Propel Ching to like a much more prosperous

State uh but the problem they face is the issue of endemic corrupt so when I

Corruption and Governance in China

uh began to serve as Dean at Shandong University which is the Premier University in Shandong province of

problems of 100 million people um and it was right pretty much at the height of

the anti-corruption campaign so we had to have small offices

not just me but the party secretary whose office was next to me literally uh quite small officers so we literally had

to like dismantle officers and put separate them into two um all the meals

had to be we had to literally record the every dish that we ordered and no

alcohol at public expense um and so there were all these measures in place

that made it quite complicated to spend money um for example which made people

including me more conservative and and less like Innovative and experimental

than we would otherwise have been so this is not a very original point but certainly drawing on my own experience I

can support the point that um excessive let's just say legalist means of dealing

with corruption and making people worrying about making the the wrong steps and being punished for it um tends

to make public officials very risk averse and and conservative in a bad way

meaning that unwilling to consider new challenges and new ways of dealing with those challenges um

which isn't very good frankly for the long-term future of the country so the

most obvious downside of a of a corruption campaign especially one that

involves um harsh means and and makes people fearful of being punished is that

it makes bureaucrats and public officials Keep Their Heads down and and not being as experimental and Innovative

as they would otherwise been and also like frankly um a lot of the uh trust

building um among public officials and between public officials and others

involves um meals and and and and drinking alcohol especially in shanong

Province where where there's a oboke it's the highest per alcohol consumption um per capita alcohol consumption in

China and and it's kind of viewed as part of part of the good life or way of building trust so all that much of that

came to an end because of these very strict um uh anti-corruption measures and makes people a bit more I and

individualistic than they would otherwise be yeah I mean I think it's changing a bit there's kind of less uh

fear punishment and even now for example the rules for um now you when you go out

you don't have to write down every dish and I think beer is allowed on public experence and people aren't so fearful

and worried about taking the wrong steps as they used to be um so it's loosening up a bit but I think there's still a

long way to go um and ultimately there has to be less Reliance on fear of

punishment um as way of controlling corruption and more on other mechanisms including like obviously Singapore

giving higher salaries but China is still relatively poor country so you can have Singapore Stell salaries but a

certain amount of moral self-regulation is important and this is where the confusion tradition has lowed to add as

you spoke about legalism actually I I recall in your book you kind of talk about your running with the law and that

was actually a very interesting anecdote about how the government kind of implemented very harsh measures in fact

what you see legalism and then as time went by it started to use the softer

means of maybe say confusion ISM where you were kind of pushed to self-regulate through moral means I think that's right

and I don't think it should be unfamiliar to Singapore where you know it was known as I meant you know all this stuff as the fine City but now

there's less Reliance on fines people have internalized um for example you shouldn't J JW walk and don't throw out

garbage and so on don't Litter so it's similar in in China where so I'm not against legalism per se I mean sometimes

you do and remember legalism means it's it's it's har it's harsh punishment that's applied rigorously and uniformly

and equally you know with without exceptions and and without taking into consideration of special circumstances

and that might be necessary if there's a serious problem and then and and we want quick results and it could ultimately be

effective in terms of um making Mak people change their their minds and realize I mean so in the case of

drinking and driving for example people knew that it's kind of a bad thing to do but it didn't affect their behavior that

much so what happened in in China about well more than 10 years ago the

statistics were showing there were so many accidents caused by drunk driving and finally the government decided to take it very seriously and in Beijing

for example they just on many street corners they they they did random checks

of uh of people and uh and if they were slightly above the limit they would the cars would be

at leas temporarily confiscated and you wouldn't be allowed to drive for six months so uh at the very very start of

this campaign this this happened to me as well um and and it like just in my

case it worked I mean after that I'd never had a single drop if I was driving alcohol so and then eventually whoop no

need to have uh so many checks and and it changed people's view that even

though that were deep down they knew was a bad thing to drink and dry but eventually these harsh measures were

effective and there was no need to enforce them anymore the same extent and it changed from like legal regulation to

moral self-regulation and and it and it was quite effective so legalism works so

to speak if people already know that something is bad but it doesn't really affect their behavior and if it's a very

short-term temporary way of dealing with with an emergency and it got worse I

mean in the sense of more legalistic shortly after uh the very the start of the campaign I

mean if I had been caught the same way a few months later I would have been sent to jail and no no excuses you know um so

it became even even but then who now it's you drive in Beijing there's very very few alcohol checks you still have

them occasionally but hardly any and yet there's hard there's hardly any drunk drumming anymore and of course there's

other ways of dealing with it too there's a practice now where um if you do drink alcohol and you're driving

there's a service where you phone and and they and then they come a person comes on a bicycle and which is you can

fold put it in in the trunk of the car and they they would drive the car for you so that that's that was a very um uh

effective way also of of of dealing with his problems so on the one hand you have it changes from legal regulation to

moral self-regulation on the other hand you have also practical ways of dealing with it it seems to us that the you know

Legalism in Practice

the harsh loss actually more or less kind of serve as the precursor

to the moral culture that you want to set in the country but again it's not it's not like

the harsh wouldn't work if people don't know deep down that there's something wrong with that you know I mean that's

right so the real precursor is some sort of moral belief that what you're doing

is wrong but just doesn't affect Behavior if the laws come into place and have a hammer over your head then then

it would work so I I so just the real precursor is some sort of some sort of view of of uh you know you're doing

something wrong but it's not that wrong and then that's where the legalist means can come in yeah it's like spitting in

Singapore we all know you shouldn't do it right but then people used to spit a lot on the on on the streets but now

it's pretty much no one really does it and no one really gets f for it as much nowadays exactly or littering yeah or

flushing toilets or whatever so far we've talked a lot about legalism but we also see that Confucianism actually

informs a lot of Chinese political philosophy uh this is where am making a

big ask where I'm asking you to help me sum up the rich thousand years of histories of Confucianism but perhaps

could you illuminate how does Confucianism today inform Chinese politics so um as you say I mean confus

The Influence of Confucianism in Chinese Politics

is a very rich and diverse tradition and if we want to um narrow it down to core

kind of claims um I mean I I I think one thing that if you're fion you basically

you you you have the view that the good life involves nourishing Humane and harmonious social relations and it

sounds kind of trivial who disagrees with that well but you do have other views of the good life right it could be a religious life where you're separating

yourself from the community or from the family um but for the confus no I mean it's really nourishing um Humane social

social relations um but the best possible life is one where you serve the

community as a public official U because that's the way that you can do the most

good is is once you have political power and again it sounds well who disagrees with that well lots of people disagree

with it again some religious ideals saying the best life involves separation from uh the community or for example you

know in Plato's Republic the best life involves um seeking truth and it's only the second choice that you would go back

in the cave and serve the community the the community so the confucians say no the best life is serving the community

and to do that you you I ideally you have you're you're committed to constant

self-improvement um and there's a mechanism that allows for public officials to be selected and promoted

according to their Superior ability and virtue so that ideal has huge influence

in the Chinese political system um throughout history but and most famously

it was institutionalized Al by means of the Kuru the um Imperial examin or or

civil examination system but more recently this ideal has been revived in

the period of economic reform in China where public officials are selected according to their um ability and how do

you measure that well through experience and success at lower levels of government however you measure that and

then through virtue meaning don't be corrupt and you show some willingness to serve the community um so this tradition

of political meritocracy has been very strong ly revived over the past few

decades so people say oh in China there's lots of economic reform but no political reform well no political

reform what does that mean thetic system is completely different from what it was for example in the culture Revolution

now there's a very strong institutionalized and complex bureaucratic system which aims to select

and promote public officials with spe ability and virtue again highly imperfect and constant flux but it's

there um and and it's and the ideal that motivates it is this very old confusion

ideal of theocracy but again it's not distinctly confusion either I mean the moest arguably had a similar view um

even the legalist but the legalists cared only about ability not about virtue right I mean the legalist like

for example shangyang um you know before who had great influence on the ruler who

became the first emperor of China chiner hongi you know he said well how do you how you want to appoint uh the

meritocratic how do you do that well by the numbers of severed heads of enemy soldiers it's a very objective way of

measuring success who and they're very skeptical about virtue I think it's all hypocrisy maybe that's where the

legalist and theist had something in common but no the confusion say no we need both ability and virtue and ability

shouldn't just be military success it should also be serving the community in

in in an effective way in a way that promotes people's well-being so that's one way um and also I mean very concrete

ways in which Confucian values affect the political system I mean think of in chuu which is the home ground of

Confucian culture in Shandong Province public officials are promoted according

to how FAL they are which again also has a long tradition in the in in Chinese

history um how do you measure that well they they would literally interview the parents of the public officials who are

being considered for promotion if the father elderly father mother says my son's or my daughter's not very fill it

would affect their their their chances of promotion in a negative way now

that's you know I'm from Ken I mean that would be crazy in Ken to sing but again in a country where there's this

assumption that Philipi is important um and also it's a way of if people cannot

be kind and and and or have a sense of reverence for and care for their own

parents it's very hard for it to extend that that love and care outside the family so it's it's also a way of

assessing the virtue of Poli officials which is directly confusion but also I

mean now to get to be public official again you have to go through all these hoops and the first hoop is to get in to

a good University and to perform well academically how do you do that well you go through the G call the University

examination system and what's on what is the content of the University examination system well it has it has

some learning of the confusion Classics students have to learn from some some confusious or k have to learn some menes

Ms and to learn some sh and they have to not just memorize it but also H have

have a sense of how to interpret those passages so it's a very concrete ways in

which the Confucian tradition has has a lasting influence uh in in the political

system today sometimes it comes from the bottom of not from the government itself so

there's there's the grave sweeping Festival Ching which is a national

holiday now how did that come about well it wasn't the government that decided would be national holiday was it was

literally tens of millions of people would workers would take the day off to go sweep the graves and pay respect to

their ancestors on that particular day and then finally the government just said you know well you know just we're

just going to make it into a national holiday so some of these forces come from come from the bottom up as well um

can you give his public lecture when he was talking about the no shank with the

scholar is SE to be the highest vocation that won strive to that would be the

ideal life so I suppose in China's political life they'll be quite similar

where the best of most virtuous people should strive to

become politicians so there seems to be a contrast with say in America where the

country as a whole it is culture and emulates or seeks to emulate the capitalist where Talon overwhelmingly

concentrates itself in the capitalist sector huh what do you think of that

view I I think that's right but remember China is a very diverse country so the confusion influence is stronger in

Shandon Province and and related parts of China if you go in the South there's

much more entrepreneurial and it's much closer to this idea that the way to achieve success is by is by making money

and again this is very concrete way so the lucky number in most of China especially the south is is the number

eight right because it sounds like the you know B and fat it sounds like making

money on license plates and phones you would want to see lucky number eight I think it's similar in Singapore right if

I'm not mistaken but in Shandon Province the lucky number is seven why because

there's this saying CH bashia so if you are 57 years old and you're in the and

you're in the government you still have a hope of being promoted but if you're 58 you're basically on the way down so

in in my University to have a you an office with a number seven would be more prestigious than one with number eight

licensed placeat in Shandon Province you have people fight to have the number seven also in phone numbers so again

China is very diverse and this kind of idea that the best life is the life of the scholar especially the scholar

official is stronger in the parts of China that are more influenced by the by the Confucian tradition then it brings

Marxism in Chinese Politics

me to my next question the influence of like Marxism in Chinese in in Chinese

politics today I think most western commentators or the Western media has a very crude view so they kind of see the

Communists and they equate communism with suppression with the lack of political rights and they see as a

complete State Control what would be the more nuanced State here so it it depends I mean the Communist tradition also is

very diverse so it's like the Confucian tradition although arguably well arguably quite new and and less diverse

but so you have Marx's own original vision of Communism which was that um

the problem with capitalism is that Capital obviously is owned by capitalists and the massive workers have

to work to make money so work is a means to life rather than life's Prime want um and we should move towards a society

where the workers are not forced to work as a means to life how do you do that well ultimately by developing the uh

economy so that there's Advanced Machinery which does a socially necessary work and then the people of

basic needs are met and then they're free to realize their crit talents how do you do that well you have to go through capitalist process this is

Marx's own view Marx's own theory of History because only through capitalism can you develop the technology and the

ability to use that technology um in an effective way because capitalists need to compete with each other to make

profit and the way to do that um is by having improving technology so as a

byproduct of this capitalism you have increased uh technology better machinery

and eventually we reach a point where according to Marx um capitalism can be overun we can move towards a communist

system where um the the technology is basic is basically owned by the people

and people are and the socially necessary work is done by the machines and then people are cre

to realize their creative talents so that's the idea and now in China Marxism

is making a bit of a comeback because there's this pretty optimistic view about AI that will allow us not now but

decades from now if it's managed in a way that's socially beneficial or regulated in a way that's socially

beneficial it could maybe we could several decades from now have the possibility where Advanced Machinery

that's a socially necessary work the dirty dangerous repetitive work that people wouldn't want to do if they didn't have to and then we all free to

realize cre Talent so this is one reason why Marxism is being revived in China now as well because this Marxist ideal

of Communism seems to be more of a possibility now D shaing had it right we need to go through capitalism develop

productive forces but that's only a means eventually we we need to move on towards a more communist Society so

that's one reason why communism is making come back as well now again it's not the same as the confusion ideal the

confusion ideal to repeat is it's through harmonious and Humane social relation that's how we we realize our

creative Essence which needn't involve creative work but for the Marxist it's really through creative work that we we

realize our creative Essences so how do we reconcile those two I mean in practice they they might conflict right

I mean when I present some of these ideas in M China you know once I had a young woman came up to me and says you

know it's not so abstract I feel this tension I mean on the one hand I want to realize myself through work on the other

hand I I owe obligations to my elderly parents and they come into conflict and TimeWise and energy wise and how do I

manage that so there there's there is a they don't there's no harmonious necessarily harmonious way of dealing

with this issue but both I think both ideals are important and and if you want

to understand the Chinese political system and the kind of ideals and Military I think we need to understand both of those now another kind of more

historical point about Marxism is that why did it um why did it really uh

become the dominant ideology in China and one reason is that for for Marx

again and I think this is pretty much all marxists would agree upon this the ultimate a of Garmin or at least the

most important was to provide for the material wellbeing of people um and and

that idea goes way back I mean that the confucians had this view a long long time ago even menes who's known to be

the most ideal of the confucians he said well first people have to have a stable kind of sometimes hung is transl as

property or basic material needs and then they can be moral because how can you be moral if you're always struggling for Necessities I mean That's a classic

Marxist Point as well first you provide the basic material needs of people and then they can exercise their morality

they can care about other people's well-being and and have obligations to society beyond the family and so on so

so there's this very kind of and and throughout Chinese history the governments have had a strong view of we

need to deal with famine we need to deal with poverty way before Western governments had even considered this

view that one obligation of dealing with with uh of government is to levate Poverty that's a relatively new idea in

the west like three or 400 years old but in China goes way back to the early confusions um that's one reason why

Marxism also I think um took hold in the 20th century in China now of course the

Dark Side too is that you know the the leninist view of of the Marxist

tradition I mean on the one hand um it's that you need a strong central uh organization to rule the country on the

other hand we can rely on Extreme uh measures to purge political opponents

that view also had strong influence especially in Wartime right I mean one of the reasons why you know frankly why

why the Communists won let's say first say in the Civil War they ging down is that they had a a much stronger leninist

organization more effective where what the leader said was transmitted to the bottom and and it worked and sometimes

it was pretty harsh measures of dealing with opponents and in a war time that might be an effective strategy but once

you start ruling a country in times of peace then that kind of approach can

often lead to disasters as happen in in subsequent 19 the full question that

herry with regards to Marxism was that you know there's this view that the state will fade away that when once you

reach uh once you've extracted everything you can once your Machinery is so Advanced the state will fade away

but in China you argue that that's not going to be the case uh that the state is going to playay continue playing a

very strong hand even in the ideal version of itself fly so markx didn't

anticip at several developments that now are obvious to us one is that he was very optimistic about machinery and

technology and he thought Machinery could eventually reach a point where we do the socially necessary work but he

didn't anticipate the possibility that Machinery could become so Advanced that it could have dominate human beings and

even to the point of posing an existential threat to human beings and now with the development of AI I mean it is something that we worry about so

there's a very strong need for a state to regulate AI so that so to ensure that

AI serves human needs and without and to prevent the possibility or at least to minimize the risk that AI deals to the

point where it can POS an existential threat to human where makes us slaves as opposed to technology being the slaves

or let's just slave is an extreme term I mean ideally machinery would serve human

beings rather than the other way around and there's a need for a state to ensure that possibility that's one thing also

issues like climate change again Marx didn't couldn't anticipate or at least he didn't anticipate that technology

would would reach a point where it develops to such a point that it that it could uh destroy the environment and and

create an an an atmosphere whereby um an environment would again pose an exential

threat to human beings in form of for example climate change and global warming so to regulate that too we need

a strong stay obviously Atomic uh you know nuclear weapons I mean that is an essential threat we need a state to

regulate nuclear weapons um today of course we think of pandemics too you know we need a state to to deal with

that so for all those reasons there are these existential threats out there that Marx couldn't anticipate uh there's and

this and marks thought once we have Advanced Machinery and people's basic needs are being taken care we don't need

a state because the main State the main point of state is to exercise coercion especially in the benefit of the ruling

class but if there's no ruling class um then there's no need for a course of State anymore it'll wither away well now

we know even if there's Advanced Machinery and and and social and

material equality between people but there's still going to be a need for a straight A sory a state at least with

the ability to to prevent existential threats from becoming uh serious the

state is really there to kind of provide the guard RS to ensure that you the

means of production isn't actually turn against you I suppose sure yes that that's that's part that's part of but I

mean also not just the provide the the guard Wales but to try to ensure I mean until we reach the state where there is

this kind of higher communist Society where people's basic material needs are met um because of Advanced Machinery but

to try to steer technological development in a way that is beneficial to human beings meaning that the

technology serves the people as opposed to the way around until we reach this state of higher communism there's going

to be a need for a more active state to try to ensure that the technology serves

the people rather than the other way around fast forward to today when we look at someone like presidency and his

policies we see two Keystone policies uh the strong nation which is the Dual

circulation track where he's trying to strengthen the domestic economy of China by strengthening it consumption by

strengthening its domestic consumption and at the same time you have the go for you the common Prosperity Drive that

he's been implementing in his policies from the outside it seems that you know this seems to be a more much more

Marxist government in a sense that is trying to redistribute wealth to the WAN

class much more aggressively but how much of it can we attribute to presidency himself and how much of it do

we actually attribute to the larger policy organ which is the CPC I think there's a tendency uh to think that it's

just one person who decides everything in the Chinese political system I mean

The Myth of The One Man Rule

in 2012 there were three major issues or challenges um for China One is that

corruption was completely out of hand and it was really posing a threat to the political system there was to get into

schools or hospitals to get access Public Services you had to pay bribes it was really infuriating the people that's

one issue two the economic was so rapid that it led to huge gap between rich and

poor and again which led to a lot of um resentment

against the rich and and some some feeling that the system was being unequal uh in terms of people didn't

have any more equal opportunities to compete and and and and to flourish in the way that there was before and three

there was a huge uh Economic Development had this environmentally catastrophic

consequences I mean it was you know in Beijing you where where I lived at the time and it was really terrible the the

pollution was completely out of control and it affected people's everyday lives and those through much of China you know

terrible water quality and so on so these were the three problems that had to be dealt with it didn't matter who

was the number one these issues would have been dealt with uh and that's more or less what happened since 201112

there's been much more on on reducing corruption much mores on reducing uh

income gaps and G emission poor and promoting more equal opportunity for people from impoverished and

disadvantaged areas and and much stronger measures to deal with environmental sustainability so um the

current leader is of course he's the first among equals and the poit bureau

the standing committee was changed in a way because before 201112 there were nine leaders in the standing committee

and each one basically controlled part of the system and had veto power over anything that affected you know their

interest so it was very hard to get things done because there were many you know veto Powers uh in in the political

system so the So eventually has moved towards a system where there were seven people in sing committee with a first

among equals and it was easier to tackle bested interest that blocked necessary change in terms of reducing of

corruption dealing with environment and reducing income or gaps between rich and poor um and and so

again I mean it's all that probably would have happened regardless of who was the

number one you know so I yes I mean we can say that president shei or general

secretary she however you wanted describe him is committed to to Marxist

ideals um and that helps to as part of the explanation for why we have had changes but I wouldn't put too much um

you know weight upon the personal preferences of one leader in the political

system but I would say that uh they've made tremendous progress in tackling the three issues they pointed out even for

myself when I went there in the past year you could tell that for example the widespread electrification of all his

Vehicles the quality of air in all your major Urban C cities have pretty much

improved significantly just within the past 10 years and I think that's something that if you ask someone in

2012 whe that would happen they probably couldn't imagine that that's right the off of the question would be then you

know when you look at the politics of China to many

Outsiders uh Western media for example uh it's very opaque China in a sense

that it has not been able to translate itself to be sufficiently intelligible

to outside public because they've been so focus on communicating inwards maybe to their own country what are some

examples in which China hasn't translated itself well to the outside War it's related partly to the um

political system and even to the anti-corruption campaign again the downside of the anti-corruption campaign

is that it makes public officials more conservative and risk averse so uh to

communicate in a way that's persuasive to people outside of China if all you do is say what's great about China and you

don't and you don't recognize uh that there are problems um and and then it

sounds like empty propaganda and that's not going to be persuasive to people but if

you um so that's why there's a need for a more a form of communication that

shows uh that China of course has lots of good things about it but also some bad things and and let's let's portray

China in a more realistic way in a more humane way that um that that engages wi with with people um but because of this

um conservatism in the political system anytime you know not anytime but often

when journalists or even academics want to portray a a system or on the portray

of a picture of China that is a bit more balanced and realistic well then they

run into problems I mean censorship or or in the case of journalists they get

um they run into trouble with the authorities so this is part of the

source of of the issue but in private people recognize that I mean including in the government but it's um especially

it's not just at the higher levels but at the mid tier levels public officials are often very risk averse and

conservative so just even my own book right okay so part of what I tried to

show um in my recent book The din Shandong I try to show that how much of

China you know how much even among public officials and bureaucrats there's a lot of humanity and humor and and and

I try to portray that in relatively balanced way um and I did get some

permission to do that and to communicate in the book by certain officials but um

because it also portrays things in a way that's not toly positive it has yet to be um accepted in as a publication in

mainland China it has in Hong Kong again which shows that Hong Kong has more academic freedom than than mainly in

China but I mean if even my book and you can probably tell I'm like you know as

positive as you can be among you know people who are not you know strictly in the system or or born and bred in China

if if even my stuff runs into trouble I me can imagine uh others that said I

mean there are indications that things are improving a bit I mean even very recently um you probably know this

phenomenon of Tik Tock refugees it's only happened the past few weeks you know people have fled Tik Tock and and

gone to a shahu which which which is which which is the Chinese app you know

and and and so many foreigners and now because we have uh easy ways of translating online so there so there's

more uh communic ation of the humanity and humor of China including things that

are not going as well as they as they should which portrays China in a more balanced and humane way which actually I

think does much more to promote China's soft power than than what frankly what

officials do when they try to you do when they try to show the good side of China in in without confronting the

problems just other aspect of it which is also the the idea of uh having the

Ming Yun right where they actually have a proper naming conventions I think he

pointed that out that they often don't try to promote a softer image of itself even overseas or they maybe are not too

familiar with the linguistic differences one clear example of that is um in the

China's PR Problems

20008 opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics there was one character that

was chosen to represent Chinese culture and it's a character you know which is

usually translated Harmony and I remember when I was watching it on I think it was NBC in English and the

commentators was saying wow look at this this is this is Chinese Harmony and they were pointing to the soldiers who were

all marching up and down in unison they said this is this is pretty scary to have everybody thinking and acting in

the same way but anybody who knows anything about Chinese and about confusion I mean every intellectual

knows it's saying from the anex of confucious right you know which means that you you

should seek which we can translate which we can translate as diversity and Harmony

rather than pong which we can translate as sness or or uniformity or Conformity

so the Chinese idea of Harmony is that it includes in fact it's a love of

diversity and and the metaphors that are used to express this show this very clearly for example a soup that has only

one ingredient like salt will not taste well you have that many ingredients music that has only one note it's going to be boring to make it beautiful we

have to have many notes um and even in politics this this idea of was used in a

way very explicitly saying that if you're a ruler and you only and you only listen to One political view that's a

recipe for disaster because you'll never find out what goes wrong and be able to correct it you have to have diverse views among political rulers and this

was used as a as a way of showing the idea of of Harmony so just because of

this mistranslation that in English when you think of Harmony especially in a political setting it triggers off all

these alarm Bells it sounds like Conformity or uniformity or sess which is exactly the opposite of this Chinese

idea of Harmony so just at the very you know bottom this is the easiest thing to do is to get the translations right is a

way preventing misund understanding so again the central idea of CH in in

Chinese culture I think we should translate something like diversity and Harmony to prevent

misunderstandings over the years the government has changed its name for different Ministries time and time again

to refresh itself right so I think for example we have this aan champo equivalent in Singapore be which would

have previously been the ministry of communication and information uh as now the ministry of digital development

information because now you have a much more digital Dimension where you transmit information some of the labels

for the translations of the government Ministries are just you know Shen Tru as you know was origin's propaganda and now

I think it's publicity within publicity sounds a bit pajor I mean it's something like communication you know would be a

bit more neutral or or tongjan united front I mean in Wartime united front

that refers to United you know that when they this was in Wartime right the the Communists and the and the guing would

be United to confront the Japanese now this this wartime terminology is not appropriate I mean we need to think of a

different well I think should be changed also in Chinese you know to reflect in New Reality that's not what we're

talking about but it sounds so Sinister you know on the outside when you think of this united front Department um which

which is not really the bulk of what they do even the the party secretary again I mentioned that in the in the

book especially at lower levels of government they don't spend much of most even most of their time on you know

making people follow the party line Mo most of the time especially in universities it's me it's they spend

their time smoothing out human relations and doing the kind of non-academic work which is important so this goes back to

your earlier question in Western universities you don't have party secretaries which of course is good in a

way because it means there's less censorship but it but on the other hand if there's a party secretary who's in

charge of this just call it social problems at the University you know for

example at where I was at shanong University we had a a very serious incident of involving a car accident and

then the party secretary had to comfort the parents I mean that sort of thing is a good thing you know and and if you

have that we can we can call them I mean Harmony secretaries you know if we have that sort of function it wouldn't

necessarily A Bad Thing of course stripped of the political censorship uh role ideally um it might be something to

learn from and it's it's not and it's not just my own imagination at the first time in Chinese history um this huge

increase of psychotherapy who are the therapists often now initially they were party secretaries is because they're

used to dealing with human conflict and trying to harmonize relations in a good way and then they had the same sorts of

skills which allow them to be effective therapist you know it's quite fascinating all this stuff you wrote an

interesting essay about how China will like in 50 years time or in 20150 and in it you pin a vision where meritocracy

Future of Meritocracy and Democracy in China

and democracy could complement each other where people could participate in

politics on a much more wider scale but at the same time you could still get

competent public officials now what would that look like for a for a meritocratic and more democratic China

in the future well it's hard to know so as you know that essay was quite speculative and and involve a certain

amount of humor what would it involve well so the ruling organization now is

about 100 million people maybe in 20 or 30 years time it'll be 120 million people so that's very that's a a a huge

organization which also has a lot of necessarily a lot of internal diversity so there's there's room for having much

more democracy within the ruling organization how that would come about and how that could be institutionalized

in a way that doesn't lead to open conflict and factions is is a very important issue but it can't be

constantly suppressed so I'm almost certain one of the things that and again you get this when you talk to people off

the record I mean in China you know once you have a certain amount of trust with people people you get very open

conversation and I think there's a very strong recognition of the need for um a much more democracy within the ruling

organization so that all party members have some sort of say in the political system in a way that is less kind of

topped down now that could take different forms I mean there could be some sort of sortition whereby people

are selected at random within the r organization because it's already a very good quality check and and then could

have some sort of say uh in policym there might be more electoral mechanisms within the ruling organization um more

mechanisms for deliberation that's one thing what about outside the ruling organization well there's a way there's

it's also important to have some sort of um longlasting legitimacy to for the whole political system to have some sort

of um stamp of legitimacy by um the those who are outside the ruling

organization as well what could that be well I mean it could take different forms I mean it could be implicit it

could be some some form of um um AI that we don't know yet that would allow for

some consultation and and um among among the people at large um it could be a

referendum for that would say look we you give us as a party 30 years of

ruling time long longterm enough to make decisions that affect future generations

and that allows us to train and recruit people for the long term and that we could deal with issues like climate change without have worrying about being

elected every every four or five years um but yet at some point 30 years later

there's some sort of check on the political system also some um and and having much more freedom of speech

inside a large I mean one thing if you talk to intellectuals in China like anybody I I'm gonna make a sweeping

statement here but I'm it's like I'm gonna say largely true almost anybody

under like 50 years old favors more freedom of speech um in China it's

almost the only thing that unites liberals and socialists and confucians and others is strong commitment to

freedom of speech so it's so among those who are outside the plagal system there's more freedom of speech more ways

of of organizing and and and and politically and making their voices known while recognizing that ultimately

it's the ruling organization that makes a fineral decision especially on on big issues I mean that's that's one way of

having um stronger Democratic mechanisms combined with a meritocratic political

system why is your critique of cuteness it's really odd on the face of it um but East Asian cultures that have this

Critique Of Cuteness

Confucian Heritage one thing they have in common is this culture of cuteness

where you have a lot of um cute animals in in in social media um emojis of

course you have that certain extent outside but not nearly to the same extent I mean even as a bureaucrat in

the plagal system like myself when I communicate with other bureaucrats I would always use emojis and happy faces

as a way of communicating my my emotions and when I shared this with a professor who was at a at a leading University in

the US I showed I showed him a little bit in my social media Scrolls just very quickly I said do you have this at University he just SL says no no

definitely not so so there is this this code so the good side of this culture of cess is that it's a way of communicating

your emotions and softening the otherwise hard-edged kind of uh communication I mean the downside of

meritocracy and you you know this very much in Singapore as well is that it it makes it leads to a kind of hyperco

competitive Society where people are often very ambitious and and and afraid

of losing pasu afraid of losing uh kasu right exactly so that's the downside of

this meritocracy right you always want to be ahead of people being ambitious and number one but this culture of cist

is always a kind of rebelling against saying no we don't care we just want to enjoy ourselves and and it's a kind of

we can accuse the language of dosm a kind of um Carefree way of life which is a very Counterpoint almost rebelling

against this hyper competitive ambitious and no not coin it started in in Japan

it's this cute teenage well I should say teenage girls who develop this culture of cuteness that spread rapidly to other

countries with a confusion Heritage in this super meritocratic uh kind of ways

which you have in the educational the PLO system C extend in the economy as well the downside of that is that if you

have people who are public officials who who uses cess as a way of evading

responsibility or making jokes when you should be making hard decisions that's can be recipe for

disaster and I use an example from outside East Asia Boris Johnson I mean to my mind he he was very Charming some

people don't get this I get it I mean if I had to go out you know on a with a politician I would love to go out with

with Boris Johnson very Charming very humorous and cute you know but when it

comes to making decisions he was horrible I mean he would he would evade responsibility and lie and I saw that

flaw in myself when I served as Dean sometimes I tended to you know make make jokes and and try to be cute as a way of

evading responsibility and hard decisions so that's the downside of this culture of cuteness and there was a bit

of self-criticism uh in in in this as well and Singapore If You observe the

political landscape I think we see a similar thing where politicians are using social media more not as a way to

kind of communicate policy stances or difficult things they have to do but more as a way to endear themselves right

so you see kind of them they following on Dan Trends and going on uh on the

official trips they will go and show you around like where where they're going and even in the most recent American

elections I think we see that as well where a lot of the the election kind of

marketing has been run on the aspect of the personality more more than the

policy so the person personality in a sense outshines the policy and that perhaps is a right critique of cuteness

but on the other hand it's not if you want to endear yourself or show that you're human side as a public official

that's okay right so long as it doesn't take too much time away from what you should be doing which is thinking of policies that benefit the people and so

long as it's l a way of evading responsibility and taking hard decisions um that then I don't see anything wrong

with that you have to find the go to me you have to be appropriately cute I guess right right go kingu had that he

he was so charming and and and cute in maybe in private uh besides being

brilliant and creative I wish once or twice I went out for meals with him I

wish that had taken notes and so that I could tell the stories but I just remember being so Charmed by by by him

that's that's that's what people remember him as well person privately but when he was out public he was much more

serious so probably had the golden meme because you have to be you take hard decisions and he didn't certainly didn't

use his cuteness to get in the way of them you're a Canadian yourself and you're also in China so I wanted to ask

you what's the best part about China and Canada you wish more people know about let me start with Canada I mean so for

Canada I think there's two parts that I think are lovely one is Montreal where

Cultural Insights: Canada vs. China

I'm from it's a city which is such a cool and creative City that's also safe

so it really combines the best of this um order and and and Harmony both in the

sense of order and love of diversity and and it's super creative and it's

bilingual I mean it's like is Singapore you know most people speak two languages in Montreal almost everybody's perfectly

bilingual French and English and bilingualism is a special means you can you can imagine yourself through

other people's perspective in a much easier way so there's a lot of evidence that bilingualism actually is is is is a

important way to have more empathy and compassion for the people so so you have that in Montreal the downside mon is

very very cold in the winter so I haven't been back in in the winter in in many years but other than that it's it's

a wonderful place and it's not as well known in East Asia because people tend to go to Toronto

and and Vancouver I I I would strongly um of course I'm biased I'm from there

um but I think that's like the best part of Canada to be frank um the other part

of course is that I'm I'm uh what we call ice hockey I mean Canada we just call it hockey fan um and again hockey

is such a beautiful sport and it's hardly well known it's I mean in Singapore I I I I don't know if there

was a league in this now it's a sport that really combines great and Beauty with power um

and and it's beautiful to watch um and and that's that's that's really I think

the best part of Canada as well if you like sports and which which I do and I

like all sports but again maybe because I'm from Montreal and so on but hockey is to my mind the sport that combines

this this kind of gracefulness this with with with power and it's absolutely beautiful to watch and they're strong as

just on passing and being and deferring to other people and even when you interview hockey players they're always

Mo I mean kind of almost confusion putting themselves down and saying I'm doing all this for the team you know um

it's it's uh and and at the moment the Montreal Canadians hockey team is is perhaps the most exciting young team in

hockey those are the two best parts of K at the moment if I can say that um so

about China well China is a diversity I mean it's such it's a it's a continent not a country and and and even it's not

just the difference between the city and the rural areas which you're completely different worlds but different cities

also have different ethoses and and spirits and you know the people in in Shanghai and Beijing are really very

different and often they don't they dislike each other and and it's very interesting to articulate that I wrote a

book called The Spirit of cities and um where I tried with it along with my co-author called the shal from Jerusalem

to where we try to articulate some of this and so and then a subsequent followup book in Chinese about the spirit of cities manly in Chinese cities

again to understand China you have to it's it's this diversity within China which is not well known outside I mean

even in Shandong Province I differ between ginan and chinda are huge um and

and it's quite fascinating to explore the diversity of China which is not as well known outside of China that's one

uh part of China as well as just the humanity and humor of everyday life you know which is really people think the

plal system and they're so it's true I mean the politicians are so deadly boring and Stern often but it's at the

at everyday life and as well as mid levels of the bureaucracy as I try to show in this latest book there's so much

humanity and humor I I think it's very important to communicate that as well to the rest of the world if there was a

spirit of Hong Kong today what would the spirit of Hong Kong look like so Hong Kong is quite fascinating because um

The Spirit of Hong Kong

it's it's committed to cism and it's in the basic law right I mean it's in a communist country but so there's a

celebration of of of of making money um and which which can often take very ugly

forms and in in Hong Kong there is a huge gap they mention poor and and the public housing half the people live in

public housing is terrible compared to the public housing in Singapore so there the downside of cism is very very clear

but on the other hand you have this kind of social order and you know there's this saying you know that if you go to

if you like drive a Rolls-Royce in the poorest parts of the US you would get rocks thrown your window but in if you

go the poorest parts of Hong Kong and a kind of gold Rolls-Royce people would come and admire it you know there

there's kind of odd kind of well odd I mean there's there's this respect for

for the for wealth which is quite powerful in Hong Kong but I think it's moderated at the day by this kind of

Confucian uh ethos I mean Hong Kong they didn't go through the revolution so of course in the Revolution was this

attempt to destroy confusion which was not successful for but in h there wasn't that so the

everyday family life is very much informed by by confusion ethics and his

commitment to serve the family and serve the community and expand this kind of love and care within the family

Outsiders you have that in Hong Kong to a strong extent so this again this moderates the excesses of capitalism so

if I were to try to articulate the ethos of Hong Kong which I did actually there's a chapter in that book it would

be somewhere along those lines what advice do you usually give to your C is the anable for so my my students are

very diverse you know and one of the so confucious kza he was a teacher of teachers and he had a wonderful model of

Advice for Graduates Entering the Workforce

teaching um where by sometimes he would give contradictory advice to different students depending upon what their needs

and interests are and and what and um so so there's no general advice I mean it

it have to know what who the student is in all his or her glorious individuality

and only then um you know would I be able to engage um with a student again following K's model um but if there's

one General point which is I mean the future is absolutely uncertain but the only thing for certain if we're lucky to

get through it without you know war that destroys all of humanity um is that it's

it's committed a very rapid change both technological and social so when I was

at when I was in university you know we would think well what kind of job do we want there's this kind of assumption once you find a job that's it pretty

much until you retire but now I mean again you know this in Singapore I think Singapore is doing probably better than

any other place in the world at preparing um students for World of constant change and and it's there's

there's a need for constant learning and and be ready to do completely different things throughout the course of your

life actually in that like you taught two lessons you actually uh thought me the right frame to read the Lun to read

the analects which is not to kind of take a general View and try to appreciate the individual context of

each uh is K and his students and each student is different and you basically

you think of it like a plane and you have to have have a bit of background knowledge and he deliberately when he teaches the students he he only says

part of what he thinks is is correct and then he hopes that students will will develop the rest on their own so it's

it's important to have that sort of background knowledge of who the students are what their interests are what they're famous for you know in

subsequent Chinese history and why K is saying this teach to and then what part should be filled in

through constant interpretations and reinterpretations that's why the go call is a little bit it sends the wrong

message because students have to memorize parts of classic text including the the anex luu and they have to

memorize the correct interpretation for you know Kung would be shock but there's no one correct interpretation some are

better than others but the interpretations change over time based upon new knowledge and new challenges

and so on as well as who's doing the interpreting in what context they in um so it's very important to have knowledge

of that to try to make sense and to enjoy the text that probably can we find your work this is the latest book called

Where To Find Prof Bell

A de of Shandon Confessions of a minor bureaucrat at a Chinese University and that's written in a way that tries to

show the humanity and humor as well as trying to draw some implications from from some of my experiences serving as

Dean so this is another one called the China model which is much more academic um and uh which tries to show what it

tries to discuss in a systematic way what political meritocracy is what are its advantages and disadvantages and how

to reduce the gap between ideal and reality and the Chinese setting and then this is another book recent one called just hierarchy co-written with Wong P

who's my colleague at and also wife actually at University of Hong Kong and

so we we try to show that any modern society needs hierarchies uh we know which ones are bad based on race or sex

or class which ones are good and why there's a need to theorize about that and to show lots of examples that's how

we tried to do in in that book so these books are um you know available in the

usual places Amazon and so on was that thank you Prof for coming on oh thank you for for this engagement and and I

look forward to to your own I love your your podcast and I watched the whole one

with uh about Dr go kingu which was wonderful um and I look forward to more

of you of your podcasts and and to learning more thank you I hope you enjoyed the episode with Professor

Daniel Bell if you're watching this on YouTube we would greatly appreciate if you could hit that subscribe button down

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