Confucian Governmentality and Socialist Autocracy in Contemporary China

In October 2022, the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded, extending Xi Jinping's leadership indefinitely, which many view as a one-party dictatorship. Exploring Confucian and socialist principles, this book examines the relationship between the citizens and leaders in the Chinese autocracy. By applying a Foucauldian twist to a range of topics – from discussing the politics of love and pandemic nationalism to analysing Xi’s personality – it challenges the binary of authoritarianism and democracy. Interdisciplinary in nature, it will appeal to scholars and students working in the fields of politics, international relations, culture studies and critical theory. Front Cover Confucian Governmentality and Socialist Autocracy in Contemporary China Copyright information Table of Contents List of Figures and Tables About the Author Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Autocracy and Its People Reconsidering autocracy and democracy Preparing people for belonging to communities Solidarity versus unity Interrogating the role of the people within autocracy Translating democracy in the pluriversal world Methodology: a relational approach Chapter snapshots Advance arguments 1 People’s Hearts as the Regime of Regimes Introduction Applying governmentality in the Chinese context Reconsidering the perspectives of the state and society The perspective of state-and-society in general ‘State-in-society’ and ‘state-as-society’ State-as-society and autocratic governmentality Counter-governmentality The people’s hearts (民心) Counter-governmentality by induction 1. Holding an unreliable attitude toward crops 2. Spreading erratic words that were incompatible with the king’s role 3. Being unforgiving to the losing subjects 4. Failing integrity 5. Committing extravagance and arrogance 6. Executing those who committed misdemeanours heartlessly 7. Being indifferent to the people’s hardship 8. Defecting to rebels 9. Committing self-involvement 10. Setting a bad example to the people Discussion: cultural continuity in postmodern times Conclusion 2 Restoring Normalcy during Involution Introduction Democratic recession and studies of democracy Normative liberalism versus law-like Confucianism People not caring versus people not cared for The mass line versus deliberative democracy The mass line Deliberative democracy Original sin: in lieu of a solution Conclusion 3 Governing Hong Kong by Loving the Nation Introduction Problematizing love as emancipation Confucianism and benevolent love ‘One Country, Two Systems’ as benevolent love ‘One Country, Two Systems’ as a system of belonging contested Conclusion 4 Pandemic Nationalism from Wuhan to across China Introduction Surveying the literature on Chinese pandemic nationalism Wuhan and pandemic nationalism Chinese nationalisms compared and reconsidered Relationally embedded nationalism A metaphoric prescription for nationalism 5 Xi Jinping’s Quest for Acceptance Political ideas not for emancipation Xi Jinping’s emergence from the Cultural Revolution The mass line idea Buddhist thought Confucian thought Xi’s autocratic governmentality Involution and caveat Conclusion 6 Relational Democracy of Confucianism Relations and governability Systemic governability through ‘relations and balances’ Aborted civic nationalism Epistemicide in constitutional democracy Self-restraint as relational democracy Governability as restraining extremism Balance of relationships in relational democracy 7 A Pluriversal Dialogue with Ubuntu Introduction Joining Ubuntu as unlearning A pluriversal approach to relational worlds Confucianism and the rights of nature compared Ubuntu as the cosmological necessity to nurture A common disposition for non-interventionism Conclusion Conclusion: Balancing Dominance and Belonging Appendix: The Diagrammatic Logic of Counter-governmentality References Index Exploring Confucian and socialist principles and using empirical cases, this book examines the relationship between citizens and leaders in Chinese autocracy, challenging the binary of authoritarianism and democracy.