China's Ethical Revolution and Regaining Legitimacy: Reforming The Communist Party Through Its Public Servants 1st Edition Shaoying Zhang

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SH A OY I N G ZH A N G
& DE R E K MC GH E E
CHI NA ’S ET HICAL REVOLU TION
A N D REG A INING LEGITI MACY
Reforming the Communist Party
through Its Public Servants
Politics and Development of Contemporary China
Series Editors
Kevin G. Cai
Renison University College
University of Waterloo, Canada
Pan Guang
Shanghai Center for International Studies and Institute of
European & Asian Studies
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Shanghai, China
Daniel C. Lynch
School of International Relations
University of Southern California, USA
As China’s power grows, the search has begun in earnest for what super-
power status will mean for the People’s Republic of China as a nation as
well as the impact of its new-found influence on the Asia-Pacific region
and the global international order at large. By providing a venue for excit-
ing and ground-breaking titles, the aim of this series is to explore the
domestic and international implications of China’s rise and transforma-
tion through a number of key areas including politics, development and
foreign policy. The series will also give a strong voice to non-western per-
spectives on China’s rise in order to provide a forum that connects and
compares the views of academics from both the east and west reflecting
the truly international nature of the discipline.
More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14541
Shaoying Zhang • Derek McGhee
China’s Ethical
Revolution and
Regaining Legitimacy
Reforming the Communist Party through Its Public
Servants
Shaoying Zhang Derek McGhee
Shanghai University of Political Department of Sociology, Social
Science and Law Policy, Criminology
Shanghai, China University of Southampton
Southampton, United Kingdom
Politics and Development of Contemporary China

ISBN 978-3-319-51495-6 ISBN 978-3-319-51496-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51496-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017933295
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
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publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.
Cover image © Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee / Alamy Stock Photo

Cover design by Samantha Johnson
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to Maggie Wen and to Les Cullis
Acknowledgement
Our friendship began as PhD supervisor and supervisee relationship at the

University of Southampton in 2010. Our academic relationship has blos-
somed into an extremely rewarding writing partnership which has pro-
duced a fantastic PhD thesis (also with the support of second supervisor
Dr. Pathik Pathak); our first book was Social Policies and Ethnic Conflict
in China (Palgrave, 2014) and now our second book is China’s Ethnic
Revolution: Regaining Legitimacy? We already have plans for our third
book on professionalization associated with the “One Belt, One Road”
regional and international aspect of President Xi’s China Dream. We have
also been co-writing journal articles on various related topics, such as pre-
ventive measures, de-radicalization, as well as politics of family reconstruc-
tion in China.
A number of our ideas for the second book emerged during our lengthy
Skype meetings over the last 18 months. These are always enthusiastic and
passionate encounters where our ideas come so quickly it is sometimes
difficult to write them all down. We also meet frequently in China, and
some of our best ideas emerged while canoeing in a lake high (in Lijiang)
in the mountains of Yunnan Province. Ours is a genuine East meets West
academic relationship in which we have become bonded by our fascination
with China’s unfolding national and international strategies, governance
structures and positioning on the world stage. We hope our work, the
fruits of our academic partnership, will continue to act as one of many
possible paradigms for bridging and hybridizing our Eastern and Western
ideas. Our intention is not to establish whose ideas are better, but rather,
what we aim to achieve is the opening up of the possibilities for positive
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
engagement between seemingly contradictory ideas. By so doing, we want

to make an array of binary oppositions as indistinguishable as possible, so
that there will be less divisons in the future.
We thank all of the participants for giving us their time and sharing
their thoughts. Without their participation, this book would not be pos-
sible. We also want to thank Palgrave Macmillan, Dr. Anca Pusca (Editor
of International Relations and Security Studies) and Anne Schult for sup-
porting our second co-authored book. It has always been our privilege to
publish our work with Palgrave. We also want to thank two anonymous
reviewers for their helpful comments. Many colleagues have been helping
us; we wish specially to thank Gill Schofield for her unstinting support
throughout this project. Her help made our long-distance collaboration
a lot easier. We also want to thank Professor Rod Rhodes (University of
Southampton, UK) for forwarding our proposal to the series editorial team
at Palgrave and Professors Yuan Shengyu, Wang Wei and Wang Weimin
from Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, and Professor
Huang Xiaojun and Mr. Pu Hongyan from Yunnan Academy of Social
Sciences for their invaluable comments and support.
We are very grateful for the generous support from Shanghai Young
Eastern Scholar Programme and Shanghai University of Political Science
and Law Plateau Discipline and Innovative Group Programme for their
generous support for Shaoying (without which this book would not
exist). The generous funding schemes of the Shanghai government, such
as those available, support both young and established scholars and greatly
enhance the capacity and competitiveness of Chinese scholarship. Long
may they continue.
Last but not the least, Shaoying wants specially to mention Wu Ying,
Zhang Ruilian and Li Yajie for everything. From the beginning of writing
this book, their companionship, encouragement and listening have been
extremely important and life-changing.
Derek would like to thank Andrew, Ginger, John, Mama and Gabriel
for their unstinting support.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 The China Dream, History, Religion and Modernization 11
3 Comparisons, Paradigms and the Remnant of

Division: Our Approach 45
4 Discourses of Corruption: The Contest Between

Different Authorities 65
5 State of Exception: The Examination of

Anti-Corruption Practices 109
6 The Discourse of Formalism and Bureaucratism:

The Contest of Order Within the Party 135
7 Discourse of Hedonism and Extravagance:

Tension Between the Agency and the Actor 173
8 The Mass Line Education Programme 209
ix
x Contents
9 Technologies of the Self 239
10 Remnant and Hybridization: The Effects of Governing 261
Bibliography 291
Index 305
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
When Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012, he proposed a “great rejuve-

nation of the Chinese nation,” which he called the “China Dream.” Many
argue that the China Dream discourse is an attempt by the Communist
Party to revitalize the glorious period of Chinese traditional civilization,
thus attempting to provide the Party with the instruments to sustain its
legitimacy. As such, the new leadership has launched the anti-corruption
campaign against officials within the Party, which President Xi calls “swat-
ting flies and caging tigers.” High-level politicians, such as Zhou Yongkang
and Guo Boxiong whose status would have given them immunity from
criminal charges in the past, have fallen from grace. Along with the anti-
corruption campaign, President Xi has also introduced the “eight-point
code” which imposes restrictions on officials’ behaviours in order to rein-
troduce and reinforce the appropriate, correct and expected practices of
communist officials. Through this process, it is expected that officials will
be resocialized as ethical public servants. In order to improve the effec-
tiveness of the implementation of the “eight-point code” and for improv-
ing the “working styles” among officials, President Xi Jinping launched
the “Mass Line Education” programme for the purpose of eradicating
the “four undesirable work styles”: formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism
and extravagance. He described these interdependent programmes as
a “purification” process whereby the Party members can make “spicy”
efforts to “sweat” corruption out of their thoughts.
© The Author(s) 2017 1

S. Zhang, D. McGhee, China’s Ethical Revolution and Regaining
Legitimacy, Politics and Development of Contemporary China,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51496-3_1
2 S. ZHANG AND D. MCGHEE
In this book, we examine these various measures in order to determine

the rationality, techniques and effects of President Xi’s initiatives. The
book is based on original fieldwork, in which we interviewed 50 officials
working in provincial government, universities, state-owned companies,
and other public sectors, organizations and departments during 2014–15.
We reflect on their experiences in this context including their witnessing
of colleagues who have been accused of corruption, their own attempts
to learn the Party’s decrees (in the “eight-point code” and the “four
undesirable work styles”) in study sessions, their experiences of what they
perceive as the forced changes to both their working and lifestyle behav-
iours, and the practices of conducting criticism on others and also self-
criticism in various Party meetings (to sweat corruption, etc., out of their
thoughts) in this context. Through the analysis of our data, we show that
these practices result in unpredictable outcomes amongst officials who
present a diversity of orientations to the Party’s attempts to regain legiti-
macy through practices designed to resocialize Party members into ethical
public servants. However, as well as exposing officials’ attitudes to these
practices, we also show that in contrast to the dominant assumption that
legitimation can only be fulfilled by democratization, President Xi aims to
sustain the Party’s legitimacy not by democratizing its political structure,
but by resetting the ethical subjectivity of the Party through these initia-
tives. For all of these reasons, we believe that the aspiration behind this
“ethical revolution” deserves objective academic scrutiny.
In this book, we argue that the epistemological framework of con-
temporary legitimacy studies is based on an array of binary oppositions.
Similarly, argumentation, such as the “domestication of modernity” or
“alternative modernities,” also endorses many oppositions, such as local
versus global, Western versus non-Western and modernity versus tradition.
This approach implies a linear development narrative in which “developing
countries” must “catch up” by learning from the modern and powerful
West. As such, scholars are often immured in the order of colonial moder-
nity by means of compulsive comparison. We advocate moving beyond
this comparative consciousness, as it is conditioned, influenced and shaped
by the “operational infrastructure” of colonial modernity. In this regard,
we advocate employing Agamben’s paradigmatic approach (2005), which
does not necessitate the comparison of predefined examples, but, rather,
calls into question dichotomous oppositions.
Following Agamben, we believe that the relations of difference are
in fact constitutive in the sense that there is an inclusive–exclusive
INTRODUCTION 3
structure within binary systems, wherein there can be inner solidarity

and also contest between binaries. Within this structure, we employ
Agamben’s notion of the remnant that suggests the impossibility of
“the part” and “the all” to coincide with each other thus disrupting
dialectical thought. In this sense, the remnant is a paradigm of dichot-
omous division, or the paradigm is the remnant of the dichotomous
division. Within this structure, we find that if the remnant of the divi-
sion is the negative result of the contest between opposing powers,
then hybridization is the positive end of this contest that combines
the two sides of the division. They are the obverse of modern politics,
which “maintain a secret solidarity with the very powers they sought
to fight.” But, we can only value what is positive or negative based on
one’s central concern. This qualifier on what is positive or negative
refers to the “programmatic aspect.” Beyer (2013) refers to this as the
system constituting itself through its own reflexivity.
Thus, in this book, we explore how the Party is formed inversely by the
other that is the remnant and hybridization, which maps an open interior
whose abstract spacing always already includes the other. In this concep-
tualization, the Party operates solely at the margins of the Party, that is,
at the threshold between the Party and its other. In our case, formalism
and bureaucratism, as produced by the tension between the centre and the
periphery of the Party, are (re)unified to form the Party’s other. Similarly,
hedonism and extravagance, as produced by the tension between “the
privileged” and “the ordinary,” are (re)unified to form the communists’
other. Thus, we are able to shift the ethical problem from the level of the
relations between norm and action to that of form of life in terms of, for
example, how both officials and communists ought to behave.
Following this framework, we show that the anti-corruption movement
is less associated with the rule of law and is more a matter of the Party’s
disciplinary regulations in which an open-ended state of exception has
been introduced for the purpose of identifying and eliminating the legal,
moral, economic and fundamentally political enemies of the Party. Thus,
the operative binary code here refers not to legal or illegal, but moral
or immoral. In this state of exception, the Party’s regulations become
the “living law,” in which the biopolitical body of Party membership has
become the regulations and criterion of its own application. As a result,
those Party members suspected of corruption, that is, who have violated
their oath of ethical service on joining the Party, are rendered as bare
life, through being deprived of their rights, status and privileges. In many
ways, the anti-corruption campaign’s aims could be described as having

essentially moral and amendatory intentions.
However, we show that due to its enforced nature, the “performance
by design” approach adopted under the anti-corruption campaign has not
been, and will not be, as effective as the Party desires it to be. Although
the Party’s discipline inspection system has the authority to compel Party
members to conform to the Party’s political will through fear of expo-
sure and punishment, it does not necessarily have the moral authority or
persuasive power to engender an “inner sense of duty” in them to pur-
sue the moral standards expected of them. This is why the Party’s chief
discipline leader Wang Qishan has introduced three simple but effective
steps: “officials will first not dare to commit corruption (dare not), sec-
ond they will be prevented from committing corruption (cannot), and
the last they will not want to commit corruption (do not want), so that
we can fulfil our China Dreams.” Thus, in our analysis, we combine anti-
corruption practices and practices of austerity measures imposed by the
Party to illustrate that these two levels of government are annexed by a
practice of the self on the self. We argue that the aim of this combination
is to turn the gaze of officials from the abuse of the self (the accumulation
of wealth and power) at the expense of the care of others (the masses),
to in turn facilitate the emergence of an ethical and responsible care of
the self (and others). This is done through the various aspects of what is
called the “Mass Line Education” programme, which contains traces of
what DiMaggio and Powell call the three isomorphic processes: coercive,
mimetic and normative isomorphisms.
Just as in our previous book where we argue that the governmentality
of the Party is often accomplished through the government of the people
(Zhang and McGhee 2014), in this book, we will develop this argument
by demonstrating how the government of the people (the legitimacy of
the Party) is to be achieved through the Party’s government of officials.
We will also explore the common ground between these two levels of
governmentality and Confucius’ thinking on good governance, especially
the techniques which encourage the formation of ethnical subjectivities
amongst officials who should be dedicated to working for the masses (and
not just for themselves).
In summary, in this book, we expose the many ways in which the Party
is still revolutionary, in terms of this most recent revolution dedicated to
mobilizing Party members to become ethical subjects. Thus, in the c ontext
of the Party’s history of the military revolution, Cultural Revolution
INTRODUCTION 5
and Economic Reform (or economic revolution), we argue that under

President Xi Jinping, the Party is launching an ethical revolution within
the Party for the sake of sustaining its legitimacy. This book examines the
various combined components of this ethical revolution, including anti-
corruption, anti-four undesirable working styles and Mass Line Education
programme from the perspective of the 50 current Party officials we inter-
viewed. The book offers an example of how we can move beyond the
either-or approach that often prevents us from understanding the various
singularities of the world. This book will act as a bridge between Chinese
scholars and Western scholars, and will provide a refreshing new perspec-
tive on China’s politics in the English-speaking world. The book is orga-
nized around nine substantive chapters.
Chapter 2, entitled “The China Dream, History, Religion and
Modernization,” will introduce the background of President Xi’s initia-
tives and the discourse of the China Dream. We examine various academic
attempts to explain the discourse of China Dream as one of the causes of
the revival of traditional culture in the era of globalization. We argue that
the discourse on the revival of culture is in actual fact a resistant discourse
to modernization, while the discourse on the “China Model” that uses
“Washington Consensus” as its reference point is based on the conscious-
ness of colonial modernity.
Chapter 3, entitled “Comparisons, Paradigms and the Remnant of
Division: Our Approach,” will present the theoretical framework of our
book, that is, a paradigmatic approach that moves beyond linear compari-
son. Based on this approach, we will present our research questions: How
is it that Chinese officials will be “socialized” into the practices and norms
of extant institutions for the purpose of fulfilling the potential of the China
Dream? In other words, how is the China Dream discourse operational-
ized through Party instruments, namely the communist members. In this
chapter, we will contextualize the discourse and explain its articulation in
three interdependent subdiscursive fields: anti-corruption, anti-four unde-
sirable working styles and the Mass Line Education programme.
Chapter 4, entitled “Discourses of Corruption: The Contest Between
Different Authorities,” will examine participants’ views on the corruption
and anti-corruption crackdown in China. As will be demonstrated, the
configuration of knowledge on corruption is a rather complicated process,
in which officials use legal, moral, economic and political discourses (or a
mixture of them) to depict the enemies of the Party as “corrupt.” We will
examine the various tensions that exist in the relationships between the
public and private, moral and legal, top and bottom, tradition and mod-
ern, which in combination form the discourse on corruption.
Chapter 5, entitled “State of Exception: The Examination of Anti-
Corruption Practices,” will examine how the Party uses coercive pun-
ishment against officials identified as corrupt, so as to create a sense of
uncertainty and fear among other officials, who as a consequence, it is
assumed, will cease or avoid corrupt activities. As we will show, anti-
corruption practices in China become a state of exception in the name
of the moral emergency of the Party, through which the maintenance of
the continuing legitimacy of the Party justifies the necessity of the state
of exception. As a result, those officials suspected of corruption become
remnants who lack any legal rights.
Chapter 6, entitled “The Discourse of Formalism and Bureaucratism:
The Contest of Order Within the Party,” will examine various tensions
within the Party that in combination form the discursive field of formalism
and bureaucratism. In this process, we will critically examine how “desir-
able working styles” and “undesirable working styles” are being articu-
lated. As we explore below, all of these problems are closely associated
with the current Party structure, which we suggest is a virtuecratic-like
political system. Unlike the problem of corruption as explored in Chaps. 4
and 5, with which the authority of the Party is taken as a reference object,
the problem of the “four undesirable working styles” refers to the dys-
functions within the hierarchical order of the Party (which is perceived as
another symptom of the Party’s moral ecology). These problems although
not punishable by law are being tackled by the Party’s disciplinary mecha-
nisms through the introduction of a series of prohibitions.
In this process, the politics of fear and uncertainty that is generated by
the anti-corruption campaign (as we show in Chaps. 4 and 5) is becoming
combined with the problematization of the hierarchical order that is seen
as problems inherent in the processes of policy making (bureaucratism)
and policy implementation (formalism) within the Party. It is believed that
when the authority of the Party is legitimized through anti-corruption,
the hierarchical order within the Party can thus be stabilized. All of this
is done in the name of improving the Party’s moral ecology. In this dis-
cursive field, normative power works on the communist officials by repre-
senting them as both the agents of the Party (that produce the problems
of formalism and bureaucratism through their work) and as individual
subjects (who live hedonistically and extravagantly in their private life as
we will explore in Chap. 7). As a result, the problem of collective morality
INTRODUCTION 7
is fundamentally linked to the problem of individual ethics, that is, the

construction of the integrity of the subject in the name of eradicating cor-
ruption and also “undesirable working styles.” It is this complex system
of power that enables different modes of power (sovereign, disciplinary
and biopolitical) to operate across the Party and among subjects (at vari-
ous levels from the macro to the micro). Thus, the relationship between
sovereignty, morality and ethics is being simultaneously articulated by the
Party through interdependent processes.
Chapter 7, entitled “Discourse of Hedonism and Extravagance:
Tension Between the Agency and the Actor,” will show that the discourse
on hedonism and extravagance is about the tension between the subject’s
agency and the self in the struggle for balance between the restrictions laid
down by the Party and the freedom officials enjoy (or more accurately,
enjoyed). In this struggle, the normative power of the Party “works on”
its members who live hedonistically and extravagantly through reinforcing
“their duty to be.” Thus, as we will show, the new disciplinary measures
adopted by the Party are dedicated to the regulation of officials’ individual
behaviours in order to turn officials’ gaze towards their corrupt self as the
site from whence their ethical self might emerge.
Thus, the discourse of the care of the people (the masses) includes the
care of the self through denying the self. It is expected that by regulat-
ing the everyday behaviours of officials, the ethical subjectivities of offi-
cials can be reformulated and through this collective process, the morality
of the Party can be restored. This process can be described as a means
of restoring the ethical virtue of officials through governing their habits.
In this context, respect for one’s duty thus becomes a sacrificial exercise
(through the abandoning of enjoyable but prohibited practices) on the
self. It is assumed that living ascetically is a sign of an ethical subject and
it is further assumed that ethical subjectivity will lead to virtuous work.
Thus, the austerity measures (such as the eight-point code) are not only
associated with the imposition of a doctrinal principle but are also for
creating a sense of sacrifice among officials, which is deemed essential for
creating a sense of respect for their duty.
In Chap. 8, we will present the The Mass Line Education Programme
as a set of techniques for governing the self. In this chapter, we will briefly
review themes related to the governing of the self with regard to what
we have developed in terms of the anti-corruption campaign and the
anti-undesirable working styles programme in order to link the technol-
ogy of governing others and the technology of governing the self under
the Mass Line Education Programme. That is, we will address the prob-
lem and expectations with regard to governing the self included in the
Mass Line Education Programme in order to explore how officials are
expected to govern themselves and, in turn, are supposed to govern oth-
ers. We will elaborate on how the dissemination of the Party’s precepts,
as techniques of governing, have been institutionalized, thus enabling us
to link this institutionalization of techniques of governing to the tech-
niques of the self. We will demonstrate that in many ways the Mass Line
Education Programme is an attempt to form a series of technologies of
governing the self, which can be interdependently divided into: reflexivity
in the form of memory (gives access to the truth), meditation (carries out
the test) and method (fixes the certainty that will serve as the criterion
for all possible truth). By so doing, we will prepare readers for engaging
with what we develop in the following chapters, with regard to the actual
technologies of the self operating in this context.
Chapter 9, entitled “Technologies of the Self,” following the discus-
sion of the institutionalization of techniques through criticism and self-
criticism study sessions in Chap. 8, will examine in detail how the care
of the self is to be practised within the self through the culture of “self-
cultivation.” The question that drives this chapter is: How is the govern-
ing of the self, or the care of the self, to be achieved within the self? We
show from our participants’ perspectives that learning “the code” (Party
decrees and regulations) is linked with techniques of knowing oneself
through the processes of self-criticism and criticism. We examine our par-
ticipants’ experiences of these complex combinations of techniques associ-
ated with moral guidance, the examination of conscience, memorization
(and remembering) and avowal through compulsory study sessions. We
will show that the process of self-cultivation includes (1) turning one’s
gaze towards the self through remembering; (2) revealing truths through
self-criticism; (3) knowing the self through the criticism and guidance of
others; (4) knowing the self through the politics of shame, sincerity and
honesty; and (5) internalization and reconciliation of the relations to the
self. By so doing, these processes are an attempt by the Party to try and
ensure that its dictates are thoroughly processed and that officials internal-
ize the code in all aspects of their lives.
Chapter 10, entitled “Remnant and Hybridization: The Effects of
Governing,” will show that the compulsory criticism and self-criticism
study sessions were designed for the officials “to bathe the soul,” in order
to perform penance and ultimately to transform the self; however, officials
INTRODUCTION 9
can and do create “multiple sites of resistances” that undermine the hege-
monic control of the Party. For example, sometimes they neither follow
what the Party requires nor refuse to act, but act in an empty form without
meaningful ends. This is also called “using formalism to counter formal-
ism.” The anti-corruption campaign has created a sense of fear among
officials and the eight-point code has attempted to impose an institution-
alized process whereby new identities and interests can be internalized by
officials. However, according to our participants, these processes often
are the cause of a kind of inactivity, rather than facilitating the presumed
ethical subjects. As well as examining the creative resistance to the eth-
ical revolutionary processes explored in this book, we also explore the
hybridizations that can emerge in the context of the apparent incompat-
ibility between Asian and Western philosophical traditions. We examine
how these contradictory practices can also produce various hybridizations
which we explore in this chapter: the linking of science and technology
with national development, termed “techno-nationalism”; and the linking
of neoliberalism and socialism, termed “patriotic professionalism.”
In general, in our book, we present evidence of the reaffirmation of
the Leninist organizational discipline, creation of a modern governmental
bureaucracy and neoliberal marketization, which is also called “late-socialist
neoliberalism.” Thus, we argue that in the process of the combination of
authoritarianism and neoliberalism, a hybrid form of legitimacy has been
produced that is predicated on the Party being successful in introducing
its ethical revolution for the purpose of resocializing the Party; that is
attempting to introduce an ethical revolution in order to resocialize Party
members and through this develop new kinds of subjectivities. These
subjectivities, as we will discuss throughout the book, are associated with
expectations with regard to producing ethical Party members and also
highly capable professionals with a global outlook for the purpose of ful-
filling the China Dream. Thus, we argue that it is through these various
combinations that we can expose the Party’s attempt to balance various
tensions and “solve problems” produced by emergent imbalances.
However, the current ethical revolution, associated with anti-corruption,
anti-four undesirable working styles campaigns and also the “Mass Line
Education” programme, is only a halfway point in the journey towards the
formation of new subjectivities amongst Chinese officials. In view of ful-
filling China’s regional and global dream, that is, the economic and geo-
political stability, and advancement of China in the region and beyond, the
“chilling effect” of the anti-corruption and anti-four undesirable working
styles campaigns is potentially holding China back and thus must be sub-
ject to correction in the near future. Thus, the current anti-corruption and
anti-four undesirable working styles campaigns are components of what
we call an unfinished revolution.
The identification of problems (or unintended consequences) that
have emerged from various campaigns and programmes associated with
the current ethical revolution, further paves the way for President Xi to
reform the Party’s motivation mechanisms in order to introduce further
mechanisms for the improvement of the Party in terms of increasing pro-
fessionalism and efficiency, in order to drive forward the China Dream.
We call this the second half of the ethical revolution, namely, the “profes-
sional revolution.” That is, the China Dream entails a paradoxical revo-
lution, which is half ethical and half professional. Its aim is to produce a
hybrid subjectivity that is both ethical and professional. Having devoted
this book to the first half of President Xi’s revolution, we will examine
the various hybridizations in the second half of President Xi’s professional
revolution in our next book.
Bibliography
Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to
the Romans. Stanford University Press.
Beyer, Peter. 2013. Religions in Global Society. Routledge.
Zhang, S., and D. McGhee. 2014. Social Policies and Ethnic Conflict in China:
Lessons from Xinjiang. Palgrave Macmillan.
CHAPTER 2
The China Dream, History, Religion

and Modernization
When President Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012, he proposed a

“great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” which he called the China
Dream. This discourse has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars
both within and outside China. In many ways, the China Dream discourse
draws upon a wide range of discursive repertoires from China’s history,
especially Confucianism, and as such, has been associated with the revival
of traditional Chinese culture (Perry 2013: 7). Confucianism, which was
perceived during the cultural revolution as an obstacle to modernity,
appears now to be perceived as the source of a better, superior modernity,
or at least as a cure for some of the ills of Western modernity in China
(Dirlik 2002: 27).
In this chapter, we will examine the revival of traditional culture in
China in the context of globalization and how the China Dream can be
perceived as a response to globalization and associated social changes. As
we will demonstrate, the combination of seemingly contradictory dis-
courses, such as traditional Chinese culture together with discourses of
modernization, enables the Party to rebuild a referent object (the ends)
to be achieved and the symbolic resources (the means) to achieve these
ends. Thus, this chapter introduces the overarching theme of the book:
the cluster of discourses and practices under the umbrella of the China
Dream whereby the Party is attempting to reconstruct, resocialize and
remoralize its membership and as a consequence, rejuvenate itself to
© The Author(s) 2017 11

S. Zhang, D. McGhee, China’s Ethical Revolution and Regaining
Legitimacy, Politics and Development of Contemporary China,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51496-3_2
maintain, or regain, its legitimacy. We will examine these discourses (and

relationships between them) in the following chapters. Before that, in this
chapter, we will first review the current literature to demonstrate how the
revival of a traditional culture, once regarded as backward, can become a
viable proposition in the era of globalization. We will also examine the way
in which history, religion, modernity and legitimacy are being formed and
reformed in this particular context.
Revival of History: Tension Between Tradition

and Development
In many ways, the discourse of historical revival is often linked to the

discourse of globalization. Generally, it is believed that the revival of his-
torical–cultural forms is an effect of the globalization of the ideology of
development, that is, developmentalism valorizes “cultural differences,”
according to the logic of ongoing capitalist expansion (Dirlik 2002: 20–21).
Empowered by reconfigurations of global relations and legitimized by the
repudiation of Eurocentrism (21), the re-emergence of traditions or his-
torical–cultural forms is seen as an attempt to reconstruct modernity based
on particular regional models, thus providing a non-Western legitimacy
for particular varieties of modernization (Khiabany 2007: 481–482). In
this process, the discourse of development transports the disciplinary uni-
verse of modernity, as the epistemological figure (Agamben et al. 2009:
17), into a localized form. Thus, the resurgence of culture (which includes
historic-cultures) is a symptom of the inclusive, co-optive open-endedness
of globalization (Dirlik 2002: 17).
Therefore, instead of suppressing historic-cultural “others,” the
discourse of global capitalist modernity (globalization) represents an
important break with previous modernization discourses (20). As Dirlik
elaborates:
The reification of culture serves this end by investing the definition of civili-
zational cultures with those are well placed by the virtue of political power or
global cultural capital to define the cultures of multitudes played physically
in nations or civilizations, who differ quit significantly from one another in
everyday cultural practices, but whose lives are vulnerable to colonization by
the cultural ideals of their leaders, which are shaped more by participations
in metropolitan dialogues on culture than by the understanding of those
whose lives they would shape. (20)
THE CHINA DREAM, HISTORY, RELIGION AND MODERNIZATION 13
This phenomenon is often labelled as “second (condensed) modernity,”

which refers to a world that has moved beyond a system of nation-states
with the penetration of society by diverse globalizing processes (Turner
2010: 313). In the construction of China’s modernization discourse, his-
tory is also being used to make claims in the present (Dirlik 2002: 17).
This revival of culture in China has been especially empowered by China’s
success in the global economy and its willingness to challenge the sta-
tus quo of global power (Fan 2002: 72). Against this background, many
Chinese scholars, inspired by Weber’s protestant ethic, are attempting to
identify the Confucian-derived values that are relevant and correspond
with economic development in China today (Wei-Ming 2008: 63).
However, as many have observed, the discourse of developmentalism is
still a component of the expansionist ideology of the West and has resulted
in colonial wars and cultural anarchy (Wang 2012: 753). That is to say, the
discourse of developmentalism specifies an essential unilinear trajectory
of history, in which different societies can be ranked in a developmental
hierarchy (Lai and Thornton 2015: 2). This discourse neglects the moral
status and agency of others, and echoes the colonial and imperial narra-
tives of superiority, inferiority and benevolence of civilizing and develop-
ing missions (Amoureux 2015: 13). Thus, developmentalism is a strategy
which often cloaks economic and political interests in moral terms (17).
As Agamben also asserts: “The obsession with development is so effec-
tive in our time because it coincides with the biopolitical plan to produce
a people without fracture” (2000: 24). As in the contemporary world, the
capitalistic-democratic plan in the Third World is to eliminate the poor,
“not only because it reproduces inside itself the people of the excluded,
but also turns all the populations of the Third World into naked life” (35).
Moreover, as Foucault and Carrette argue, “European thought finds itself
at a turning point, which is nothing other than the end of imperialism …
Thus, if philosophy of the future exists, it must be born outside of Europe
or equally born in consequence of meetings and impacts between Europe
and non-Europe” (1999: 113).
Behind these arguments, the various discourses of modernity and cul-
ture employ a method of division between modern standards of political
rationality and traditional worldviews, which is merely a proxy for a cultur-
alist opposition (Marshall 2009: 5). In this comparative framework, there
is a humanist comparativist logic with which scholars sought to revalidate
Chinese tradition (Wang 2012: 740). In other words, there is no choice
but to compare (755). It is this comparison that makes social stocks of
knowledge structured at different levels of abstraction and leads to them

being unequally distributed (Keller 2013: 1). However, in contrast, we
argue that the discourse of an “alternative to non-Western modernity” can
be more productively examined by the idea of the rejoining of spiritual-
ity and politics (Chang 2011: 10), rather than just being an alternative
to the Eurocentric modernity model. We will demonstrate that compa-
rable to Pentecostal and charismatic varieties of Christianity, the China
Dream discourse can be more productively viewed as a search for China’s
spirituality through the Party’s ethical revolutionary practices. Thus, the
anti-corruption, anti-four undesirable working-style campaigns and Mass
Line Education Programme are components of the spirituality of politics.
For so doing, we argue that epistemologically, spirituality is not quite the
opposite of secularism or materialism. For example, the aggressive secular-
ism in China that attacked religion and destroyed temples, simultaneously
promised a transcendence of bodily limits and the coming of a social-
ist paradise. The charisma of Chairman Mao seemed hardly secular, but
on the contrary rather close to the traditional discourse of “the Son of
Heaven” (Van der Veer 2009: 1116). Throughout this book, we will make
analogies between Mao and Xi’s revolutions, and in turn, their cultural
and ethical aspirations for China.
Revival of Religion: Tension Between the Modern

and Postmodern
The discourse of religion has taken on different political meanings at dif-

ferent times, and by so doing, some of the “contradictions” in societies
have been overridden by these “timeless,” “unifying” and “historical–cul-
tural” discursive systems (Chang 2011: 123). Thus, in terms of maintain-
ing social order, states have sought out something foundational to hold
them together and to integrate their society (Yang 2008: 165). In the
post-Wesphalian era, many states found that religion remains a rich source
for the construction of modern institutions, not only in vicarious forms,
but also in the forms as measured by standard sociological methods (Young
1984: 69). Religious discourses have been repositioned in fields like bio-
medicine, engineering, military training and mass c ommunications; many
religions have embraced practices and discourses on the internal logic of
what is predominantly secular (Yang 1988: 158).
There are three main arguments regarding the revival of religion (or
culture): some observers speculate that religious resurgence is a societal
response to the ostensible retreat of the state in the face of a globally

ascendant neoliberalism. Others see the resurgence of religion as the wel-
come expression of a civil society rising in the face of an overbearing state.
Others have portrayed the resurgence as a consequence of the destabiliza-
tion of once-secure secular nationalism, which itself was the offspring of
a secularizing Western colonialism (149). But what all these perspectives
have in common is an attempt to retrieve religion from its oblivion in
modern philosophy (Sigurdson 2010: 179). Institutional consolidation
of religion in the West was part and parcel of its increasing differentiation
from other spheres in society, which can result in a separation between
political and religious identities. This is the Westphalian model which facil-
itates the plurality of Christian religion (Yang 1988: 150) under the watch
of the “neutral” secular state.
Moreover, although the differentiation of religion in the Westphalian
model has helped the West to address the relationship between secular (in
political terms “sovereign”) and religion, it contains a permanent ambi-
guity on the choice of religions (Yang 2008: 163). Thus, the established
religion could be replaced by established secularism, but that such secular-
ism, being the reverse image of religion, not only depends on the existence
of religion, but also, as a foundational way of life, it necessarily took on
some of the apparent characteristics of religion (166). Thus, the so-called
secular space is itself a hybrid of religious and other traditions (Foucault
and Carrette 1999: 33). In other words, secularization operates in the
conceptual system of modernity as a signature that refers it back to theol-
ogy, which is a specific performance of Christian faith that opens the world
to man in its worldliness and historicity (Agamben 2011: 4). As Sigurdson
argues,
If religion has been the “other” of modernity, it is perhaps not surprising

that philosophers of very different stripes … have taken up reading religious
texts as a way of trying to find alternatives to a certain version of moder-
nity, especially those who stand in radical traditions such as Marxism or
Psychoanalysis. Even if they prefer to read the theological classics for their
form rather than their content as such, all the same it gives them the oppor-
tunity to achieve a critical distance from current accounts of modernity.
Especially in more radical traditions, as exemplified by Žižek, Agamben,
Badiou and Eagleton, there is a growing dissatisfaction with contemporary
politics and also a growing dissatisfaction with the more traditional liberal
solutions of the distinction between different spheres of life, such as they
have come to be defined by modern secularism. (2010: 184)
In this context, religion first serves as a referent object that keeps a critical
distance from current accounts of modernity. As a “timeless,” “unifying”
and “historic-cultural” discursive system, religion exists in the paradox
of the idea of globalization. As Clarke further argues, the emergence of
robust religious economies in which new regimes of faith are remobilizing
capitalist logics are evidence of the limits of reason and secularism, rule of
law and universality as the basis for the social order (2010: 110). In the
religious revival, there is a significant characteristic that uses the selective
recombination of tradition and modernity to strengthen both individu-
alization and affective community networks (Shim and Han 2010: 238).
This is what we call the hybridization of oppositions, which result in the
combinations of both aspects in new paradoxical forms. We will examine
examples of these throughout this book.
The linear relationship between religion, state and society has, there-
fore, been disturbed; religious citizens have discovered the will and the
way to reshape themselves in the new global macrocosm (Yang 1988:
157). While religion challenges or resists the homogenizing trends of glo-
balization, it is also a globalizing force acting at the local, transnational
and global levels (Ihlamur-Öner 2013: 92). Although religions (especially
non-Christian religions) were once deemed “backward” by the modern-
izing regimes, they are now making obsolete the conventional divisions
associated with ideological constructs (Dirlik 2002: 18). That is, they can
constitute distinct but equally authentic regimes for the government of
conduct (Marshall 2009: 32).
As such, the term resurgence or revival for describing the phenom-
enon of the post-Westphalian era could be misleading. As Marshall argues,
the proponents of neoliberal resistance discourse see religious and spiri-
tual practices merely as local interpretations or resistance to destabilizing
global forces (2009: 29). But if we invoke situations of material crisis in
order to explain the rise of religion, “then we tacitly see these movements
in terms of their functionality: as modes of accumulation, socialization, or
political combat, or as languages that translate the real and help to under-
stand it” (18). As a result, we have to consider religion as performing a
second-order process of adjustment (29). Thus, to reduce regimes of reli-
gious practices, to give an exhaustive explanation of them in functional or
materialist terms may thus be seen as a “battle strategy” (33).
More importantly, in most cases, it is not a question of old reli-
gions becoming refreshed and relevant again, but of new actors taking
advantages of late-modern modes of communications, association and
self-identification to make something new (Yang 1988: 157). Thus, the

discourse of the revival of traditional culture (including religion) in China
in large part is the fact that political elites came closest to breaking with the
Westphalian model (150). It is neither a simple resurgence nor a revival; it
is a combination of a number of late-modern historic-cultural reimagina-
tion and reorganizations (157). The renewed Confucianism in this dis-
cursive field shows both conservative resistance to Western modernity and
creative engagement with modern institutions (Young 1984: 57). More
importantly, as we will discuss in the section titled “The Discourse of the
China Model,” the Chinese case simultaneously demonstrates premodern,
modern and late-modern characteristics, and the Chinese individual must
deal with all of these characteristics simultaneously (Yan 2010: 510).
Thus, as Dirlik argues, we need to revise the modernization discourse
in order to embrace a new global situation and reconceptualize the con-
temporary politics of modernity (2002: 18). More importantly, as will be
illustrated below, the opposition between secular and religious knowledge
produces a new regime of knowledge that is not reducible to any one of
them but is constituted by both of them. Thus, it may be more fruitful to
see the revival of religion as the creation of a play of differences that was
the outcome of various encounters and struggles (Marshall 2009: 37–38).
Viewed in this way, religion, like globalization, is not a thing but a dis-
course, manifesting and disappearing according to its usefulness to the
sociopolitical context (Huang 1995: 54). Religion in this era defines itself
more in terms of what it is not than in terms of what it is through the
prefix “post-secular.”
Therefore, in “the world today,” arguments asserting that religions are
in decline by using paradigms such as secularization, privatization or ratio-
nal choice are an exaggeration (Young 1984: 73). As Naletova argues,
modernization has not inevitably led to secularization; private spirituality
has not been disconnected from religion, which continues to serve public
needs as competent institutions, both spiritually, morally and socially; and
the majority of believers do not critically choose religious ideas but simply
accept traditional religions unquestionably (cited in Young 1984: 74–75).
Historical Discourses and the China Dream

According to Van der Veer, in the past there is a strong sense that
Chinese traditional culture was a feudalistic residue that was perceived
as being a source of weakness in China and thus had to be eradicated
by Marxism (2009: 1114). This marginalization of Chinese traditional

culture has the consequence of the internalization of three world ori-
entations introduced from the modern West: (1) a century of Western
missionary contempt for Chinese “idol worship” and “superstitions,”
(2) a sense of the superiority of science and modern rationality in the
nationalist cause of China’s self-development and (3) social evolution-
ist doctrines that arranged different cultures and religious systems of
the world into a hierarchical progression whose teleological end was
Western-style civilization (Yang 2008: 1–2).
In the next section, we will examine the emergence of the China Dream
discourse and the various historical–cultural discourses that have been co-
opted and reconfigured in this discourse. As we will show, with the China
Dream discourse, the Party first envisioned a prosperous and strong coun-
try by advocating the glorious past of China as an “ideal” (the good old
days); however, they also dramatized past humiliations at the hands of
others (the bad old days). The Party then employed various traditional
cultural resources to mobilize support from people in the name of leading
them to the fulfilment of the China Dream.
History as a Moral Supplement for Modernization

In the past, the denial of Confucianism is a characteristic of the poli-
tics of China’s modernization that depicts various traditional cultures
as backward and as impediments to the development of a modern com-
modity economy. Six aspects of traditional Chinese culture were seen as
being problematic: (1) viewing wealth and commercial activity as morally
dubious; (2) contentment with merely having sufficient food and cloth-
ing, and therefore not being interested in innovation and competition;
(3) egalitarian sentiments that encourage the expropriation of wealth,
striking fear in those who get rich first; (4) small peasant self-sufficiency
that directs surplus income to the sphere of household life and festivi-
ties rather than using it to expand production; (5) a clan consciousness
that favours nepotism and the hiring of incompetent relatives; and (6)
gambling and superstitious belief in deities and ghosts (Xue 1986 cited
in Hairong 2003: 498–499). As a result, many scholars who were influ-
enced by Max Weber assumed that China’s values were unfavourable to
the advancement of capitalism and Western rationalism (Young 1984:
57). This is also why socialism had considerable appeal as a philosophy
of action. According to Hu:
Like Buddhism, another foreign export in China, socialism appealed to both

the intelligent and the ignorant. As a coherent and comprehensive world
view, Marxism seemed irresistible to the intelligent. It’s devastating criti-
cism of capitalism and its dual emphasis on efficiency and equality promised
a modern utopia. (2000: 58)
Ironically, just as discontent with the problems and consequences associ-

ated with the rise of modern systems had motivated Europeans to con-
sider other alternatives, the ongoing changes in Europe provided another
reverse framework of reference for China in the era of globalization (32).
As in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the West, there began
“the reverse process” of “the reconstruction and second coming of the
structures of spirituality” (cited in Horujy 2015: 75–76). As Horujy
argues:
Modern man essentially neglected practices of the self, and therefore it is

only the epochs of the past that could provide the phenomenal base for the
study of constitutive practices of man. As a result, the emerging direction
acquired a specific doubly oriented structure: it had to identify in history
and investigate a certain formation of anthropological practices—with the
further aim to develop, on the basis of these practices, a new nonclassical
anthropology that would enable us to understand the anthropological situ-
ation of the present day … This bi-directionality (toward past epochs and
toward modernity) in virtue of which the ancient practices become a source
of new concepts and ideas capable of solving present-day anthropological
problems. (166)
As a consequence, people often take the “good old days” as a referential

source to solve the problems of the present day (Didi-Huberman 2015:
84). The revival of culture is in fact the partial dissolution of patterns and
their recombination with new elements to create a new form that bears a
strong resemblance to old forms (Beyer 2013 11). It is, however, not “a
return toward the past, retracing our steps, thinking you are going to live
once more in the good old days” (Didi-Huberman 2015: 84). It means
tackling the most urgent problems of today’s world by using the strategy
of reorganizing different discursive sources. As Didi-Huberman argues:
“When you do a dig, you are upsetting the ground of the present. Thus,
politics is what we do with our memory to produce desire, to produce
something of the future, in terms of a possibility in our own practice”
(84–87). There is no true or false about the past nor a certain destiny for
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Title: Kaksitoista kuukautta
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KAKSITOISTA KUUKAUTTA ***
KAKSITOISTA KUUKAUTTA
Kirj.
Ellen Wester
Suomennos
Helsingissä, Emil Vainio, 1908.
Etsin avarasta maailmasta ystävää, joka tahtoisi minua kuulla, kun

kerron miksi tulin tähän suureen kaupunkiin ja kuinka langat elämäni
kankaassa punoutuivat yhteen täällä.
Tammikuu.
Huoneeni ikkunasta näen pitkän kadun.

Kapeana ja tummana jatkuu se kauas äärettömyyteen. Iltasin
säteilee valoa rivissä olevista heikoista kaasuliekeistä pitkältä
eteenpäin, ja lähimmän ristikadun kulmassa olevaa
viheriänharmaata taloa vastaan näen kiirehtiviä haamuja vilahtavan
sivu. — Useimmiten kiiruhtavat ne arvatenkin kotiinsa, lämpöön ja
valoon; toisinaan kävelevät he vitkaan. Minä tuumin silloin lienevätkö
ne kaksi rakastunutta, jotka eivät huomaa pakkasta, vai raukkoja,
joilla ei kotona ole sen lämpimämpää kuin kadullakaan.
Kuukauden olen ollut tässä suuressa kaupungissa. Täytyyhän sitä

jossakin olla. Olen yksin — isä ja äiti ovat menneet tuntemattomaan
maailmaan. Ainoa veljeni on ottanut itselleen vaimon eikä tarvitse
minua lietensä ääressä eikä maailmassa.
En ole nuori — kohta kolmenkymmenen vuotias, enkä ole kaunis.

Minussa ei ole koskaan ollut tarpeeksi tarmoa hommatakseni
itselleni niin kutsuttua elämän päämäärää, joka kyllä olisi tärkeä ja
tarpeellinen itselleni, mutta yhdentekevä kaikille muille. Taloudellinen
asemani on sellainen, ettei minun ole pakko tehdä ansiotyötä. Tulin
suurkaupunkiin nähdäkseni voisiko siellä elää paremmin elämänsä
loppuun. — Minulle oli sanottu, että naisilla siellä olisi niinkutsutuita
harrastuksia.
Asun pienen, hienon mummon luona, jolla on päivänpaisteinen

luonne. Hänellä onkin reseedakukkia ikkunoilla ja vaaleat verhot
Vanhoja mahonkipuisia huonekaluja peittämässä. Vanhanpuoleinen
hän on, hiukan ränstynyt, voidakseen enää muuttua — se johtuu
ijästä mutta hyväsydäminen. Me vietämme hiljaista elämää,
kumpikin hoitaen omia asioitaan.
Hiljaisuuteen olen tottunut — koko elämäni olen viettänyt

pienimmässä, unohtuneimmassa pikkukaupungissa, ja asianhaarat
ovat sen tehneet että nuoruusilo tansseineen, juhlineen ja
perhosleikkeineen pojan ja tytön, nuorukaisen ja neidon kesken, on
jäänyt kauaksi minusta.
Siitä asti kun tänne tulin, on ilma kylmennyt kylmenemistään. Jää

ei muodosta vain hienoja kirjauksia raitiovaunujen ja etehisien
ikkunoihin, vaan vankkoja lehtiä ja oksia korkokuvien tapaan. Minä
kaipaan skoonelaista sumuani, joka hiipii kaikkialle nurkkiin ja
soppiin: tahtoisin kuulla raskaitten pisaroin tippumista tai nähdä niitä
tihein helmeilevin rivein puitten alastomina oksilla.
Tuntuu niin tyhjältä ja ikävältä, eikä ainoastaan tyhjältä rakkaitten

vanhusten jälkeen, jotka ovat lepoon menneet.
Yksinäisyys ja vapaus kodin velvollisuuksista ja toimista on

herättänyt tarpeen, joka ennen on ollut syrjäytetty. Minä vaadin, minä
vaadin itselleni jonkun, jota voisin rakastaa ja joka minua rakastaisi.
Tämä on kaiketi sitä, jota jokapäiväisessä puheessa kutsutaan
naimahaluksi ja joka tehdään pilkanalaiseksi.
»Jumala, anna minulle kärsivällisyyden ihana lahja», rukoilin minä

ensi iltana tänne tultuani, kun seisoin ikkunani ääressä ja katselin
alas kadun sumuisen himmeään äärettömyyteen, ja ajattelin, että
aivan tuon näköisenä oli tulevaisuus edessäni. »Jumala, anna
minulle kärsivällisyyden ihana lahja.»
Helmikuu.
Huoneessani riippuu rokokoopeili, kullatussa, kaareilevassa
kehyksessä, ja peilin alla kullatulla hyllyllä seisoo pieni porsliininen
pari, puuteroittuine irtonaishiuksineen ja rintaröyhelyksineen. Heillä
on sirosti teeskentelevä ryhti — tyttö ottaa povestaan kirjeen ja
ojentaa sitä pojalle ja tämä kumartaa, käsi sydämellään, ja näyttää
vakuuttavan pettämätöntä jumaloimistansa kylliksen ihanuudelle ja
sulolle. Tuo pieni, huolettomasti hymyilevä pari johtaa ajatukset
menneisiin aikoihin jolloin ihmiset — niin kuvittelemille — kulkivat
tanssien elämänsä läpi.
Oliko se kevytmielisyyden vai filosofisen uskalluksen huippu, joka

loi rokokoon hymyilyt ja eriskummaiset koristeet?
Minä haluan heittää luotani kaikki mietiskelyt ja selitysten

etsimiset, tahdon kuin keveästi heittää yltäni talvitamineet: ne
painavat harteita ja käyristävät selän. Niin tekee myöskin mietiskelyn
viitta.
Maailmassa on talvi. Koskahan tulee uusi kevät päivänpaisteineen

lämmittämään nuoria taimia? Tai uusi kesä kultaisille
paratiisiomenoineen, joita ei ole kielletty syömästä?
»Minä uskon Herraamme, mutta hän ei tee enää mitään

ihmetöitä», sanoo emäntäni. Siihen päätelmään on hänen
elämänfilosofiansa kiteytynyt.
Uskon minäkin Herraamme, mutta tahtoisin lisäksi uskoa, että hän

vielä joskus tekisi ihmetyön. Yhden ainoan pienen ihmetyön
ilahuttaakseen köyhää sieluparkaa!
Sinä päivänä en enää mietiskellyt, vaan lähdin etsimään ystäviä ja

sukulaisia.
Toinen ystävättäristäni on naimisissa, on varakas ja onnellinen,
tavallisen onnellisuuskäsitteen mukaan. Hänen miehensä on
virkamies. Ollen toimessaan koko aamupäivän on hän parhaimmissa
tapauksissa kotosalla jonakuna iltana, muulloin vain päivällistä
syödessään — niin, ja öisin ja tietysti sunnuntaisin! Hänellä on
sitäpaitsi pieni tyttö, joka on terve ja reipas. Mitä ihminen enempää
pyytää voi?
Tapaahan sitä näin onnellista perhe-elämää joka päivä ja joka

kadulla.
Mitä varten siis ihmetöitä? Tulee olla tyytyväinen.
Toinen ystävättäreni on naimaton, niinkuin minä. Mutta hänen

täytyy tehdä työtä elatuksensa takia ja olla iloinen, niinkauan kuin
tämä työ tuottaa hänelle jokapäiväisen leivän ja viisikymmenisen
säästöön vuodessa. Ja kun hän ei voi enää työskennellä? Kuinka
sitten käy? En tiedä. En tiedä mihin vanhat naimattomat naiset
joutuvat. Sanomalehdissä näkee heidän kuolonilmoituksiaan, mutta
missä olivat he eläissään. Olen varma siitä, että me kaikki olemme
tunteneet jonkun vanhan, työstä kuluneen naisen, joka niin tyyten on
maailman silmistä kadonnut, että kuolemanilmoitus vaan herättää
ajatuksen: »Kas, vieläkö hän eli?» Ja sitten kadutaan lyhyellä ja
nopeasti haihtuvalla katumuksella, ettei olla mitään hänen
hyväkseen tehty, tuon huonosilmäisen, kumaraisen vanhan naisen.
Etsin siis ystäviä ja sukulaisia.
Alapuolella olevassa huoneustossa soitettiin tottumattomin,

harjoittelevin sormin Punaista sarafaania, tuota vanhaa kulunutta,
äärettömän surumielistä säveltä. Se sopi minulle, joka yksinäisenä ja
hämilläni odottelin oven avautumista.
Herrasväki oli kotona ja minut vietiin saliin. Se oli suuri ja siinä oli
uusia huonekaluja, jotka näyttivät käyttämättömiltä. Kauniin,
valkohapsisen ukon kuva, puettuna vuosisadan alkupuolella
käytettyyn pukuun — tunsin hänet hyvin, olihan hän meidän yhteinen
isoisämme — antoi huonolle arvokkuutta.
Kului kotvanen, ennenkuin kukaan tuli, ja minulla oli hyvää aikaa

ihmetellä, mitä minulla siellä oikeastaan oli tekemistä. Olikohan
tarpeellista, että tunkeuduin perheeseen sentähden, että meillä oli
yhteinen isoisän isä? Nyt olisi heidän pakko teeskennellä minua
kohtaan harrastusta, jota he tietenkään eivät voineet tuntea, ja
vastavuoroksi olisi heillä oikeus kysellä minulta aikeitani, ja
arvostella niitä pois lähdettyäni. Sitten he ehkä katsoisivat
velvollisuudekseen kutsua minut useimmin kotiinsa; tai jolleivät sitä
tekisi, tuntisin minä katkeruutta mielessäni.
Talon rouva tuli, rakastettavana ja armollisena, täsmälleen

parahultasen kylmänä. Ettei hänellä ollut aavistustakaan minusta ja
hommistani, sen soin hänelle anteeksi; vaikkapa hän olikin
naimisissa isäni serkun kanssa.
Hänen miehensä herätti minussa suurempaa harrastusta; häntä

pidetään lahjakkaana ja hän on noussut korkeaan asemaan. Minua
huvitti koettaa keksiä, oliko hän todellakin älykkäämpi kuin useat
muut, vai oliko sattuma tyrkännyt hänet ylöspäin. Mitä ihmiset
sanovat, siitä vähin välitän.
Pidän suurimpana, eittämättömänä oikeutenani, huolimatta siitä,

miten yleinen mielipide arvostelee henkilöitä ja asioita, itse tutkia ja
tuomita, niinkuin parhaaksi näen. Kuitenkin oikeutta noudattamalla ja
jos suinkin mahdollista, pakottamatta käsityskantaani muille. —
Tämä viimeksimainittu on vaikeata.
Maaliskuu.
Olen nyt tottunut elämääni täällä; tunnen joka kukan huoneeni

seinäpaperissa, ja verkkokalvooni on näköala huoneestani painunut
niin, että saatan nähdä sen, kun ummistan silmäni — pitkän, julman
pitkän kadun, joka päättyy usvanharmaaseen etäisyyteen, ja lähinnä
minua poikkikatu ja siinä vanha harmaanvihreä talo oikealla, sama,
jonka ohi kiirehtivät varjot hiipivät iltaisin; ja vasemmalla unohduksiin
jäänyt puutalo, ikkuna päädyssä. Samoin kuin minun ikkunani,
avautuu sekin pieneen ahtaaseen tarhaan päin, jossa valkeat
sireenit kukkivat juhannuksen aikaan, sanoo emäntäni jolla on lupa
käydä siellä.
Minä lueskelen ja mietin ja koetan olla joksikin huviksi niille

muutamille ihmisille, joiden kanssa tulen tekemisiin.
Ensiksi emännälleni ja hänen ystävättärilleen, kolmelle vanhalle

naiselle, jotka ovat vähän kuuroja, vähän kankeita jäseniltään ja
kovin kursailevaisia. Kerran viikossa tulevat he whistiä pelaamaan ja
toisinaan olen minäkin mukana pääasiassa sentähden, jotta en
kangistuisi liian suureen itsekkyyteen ja etten kokonaan unohtaisi
kodin pieniä itsensä uhrautumista kysyviä velvollisuuksia.
Mutta olen myöskin ollut suurilla, uudenaikaisilla päivällisillä

muiden ystävätärteni luona.
Siellä oli naisia silkissä ja hepenissä, herroja kunniamerkeissä, ja

tunnustettu kaunotar, joka piti hovia ja oli seuran keskipisteenä.
Ennen oli minulla tapana uneksia olevani kohteliaiden miesten

kunnioituksen esineenä nyt en sitä enää tee. Pöytäkumppanini
osoittikin aivan selvästi, ettei minulla ollut mitään siinä suhteessa
odotettavissa. Hän puhui niin vähän kuin suinkin ja kiinnitti
huomionsa muuten ahkerasti ruokaan.
Toisella puolella istui nuori lääkäri, joka ei myöskään puhunut

monta sanaa kanssani. Mutta minä pidin hänen ulkomuodostaan,
hänen leveästä kaarevasta otsastaan ja terävistä ilottomista
silmistään. Ja kun hän puhui pöytänaisensa kanssa, oli hänen
kielensä niin hienosti sivistynyttä, lausetapansa niin täsmällistä, että
se ilahutti herkkää korvaani. Herkkää sentähden, että olen enemmän
lukenut kuin kuullut puhuttavan.
Vielä herätti eräs henkilö pöydässä harrastustani: vanha tyttö, joka

aivan hiljattain oli mennyt naimisiin korkean virkamiehen kanssa.
Tämä oli punakka, kömpelö, saamaton ja puheli vaan virka-
asioistaan: vaimo näytti kalpealta, lempeältä ja älykkäältä ja
katseessa oli jotain odotuksen tapaista.
Minua huvittaa nähdä hänet toiste ja silloin tarkata, onko hänen

toivonsa pettynyt vai täyttynyt.
Kotimatkalla tulin jutelleeksi pöytänaapurini, lääkärin kanssa.

Tulimme yhtaikaa portaita alas ja meillä oli sama matka, joten hän ei
voinut olla sanomatta jotakin.
Ilmassa oli kevään aavistus, vaikkakin muureilla, kivillä ja pensailla

kimalteli miljoonittain säteileviä pieniä kuurakristalleja, ja me
kävelimme hitaasti eteenpäin yhdessä, sillä hän asui kumma kyllä
ikkunani alla olevan kadun varrella.
Puhuimme hänen tieteestään ja hän arveli, että yksi ainoa

eittämättömästi toteennäytetty tosiasia voitti kymmenet nerokkaasti
keksityt, mutta todistamattomasti tehdyt hypoteesit. Hänen
mielipiteensä ovat ehkä oikeat, mutta siitä huolimatta uskalsin
mainita Michel Servet'in, jonka nero arvasi yhden elintoiminnan
salaisuuksista. Ehkäpä se johtui turhamaisuudesta, että ilmaisin
hänelle tietoni Servet'istä, mutta siinä tapauksessa sain kyllä
rangaistukseni, kun seuralaiseni antoi asiallisen ja käytännöllisen
vastauksensa:
»Eihän häntä oikeastaan voida lukea lääkäreihin.»
Kuinka tämä kuului kuivalta!
Hetkistä ennen olisi minulla ollut tuhansia sanoja valmiina, nyt en

keksinyt muuta kuin tämän:
»Mutta hän oli älykäs ja onneton.»
»Täytyykö olla onneton, jotta saisi teidän myötätuntonne

osaksensa?» vastasi hän, ja niin olimme portillani.
Kun laskin ikkunaverhoni alas, välähti pääni läpi ajatus, että nyt
tunnen ainakin yhden, jonka jokapäiväinen tie käypi pitkää, pimeätä
katua pitkin.
Huhtikuu.
Muistelen usein etelämpänä olevaa kotiani, joka sijaitsee

ylenevällä merenrannalla.
Kaukana maalla on multa jo ammoin peittänyt keltaisen sannan,
metsää kasvaa sen päällä tai peittyy se saraheinän sinivihreäin
korsien alle. Mutta kumpujen ylenevät ja alenevat piirteet panevat
aavistamaan, että aallot ennen vanhaan ovat täällä vyöryneet.
Näkinkengän kuoret ja kanervan alla löytyvät hienoksi murentunut
santa todistaa, että meri on muodostanut niin matalat harjut kuin
liikkuvat särkätkin ulkona rannikolla sekä veden partaalla olevat
uurteiset kohokkeet, jossa märkien levien alle kätkeytyy eläviä
mereneläviä ja täyttyneitä simpukoita.
Kuvittelen, että tämä on sitä, mitä ylipäänsä nimitetään

kehityskuluksi.
Minä ajattelen ja uneksin aikojen merta. Se lainehtii ja liikkuu

alituiseen: se on kirkas, mutta kumminkin läpinäkymätön, sillä
mikään ihmisellinen silmä ei ole sen syvyyttä mitannut. Mutta niin
kauvan kuin se on aaltoillut, on se kohottanut pinnalle ja mukanaan
pyöritellyt elämän atoomeja, äärettömän pieniä olijoita, joista toisia
nimitetään ihmisiksi. Nousuveden pitkä aalto nostaa heidät
olemassaolon rannalle, ja he pysähtyvät siihen ja edistävät
voimansa ja tahtonsa tomuhiukkasilla sitä rakennustyötä joka aina
on käynnissä.
Silloin tällöin on varmaan löytynyt joku suurempi luja keskuspiste,

jonka ympärille tartuntavoiman lait heidät on koonnut. Toisinaan ovat
he myöskin jääneet siihen, mihin ovat pysähtyneet vaan sentähden,
ettei heissä ole ollut kylliksi tarmoa vyöryä eteenpäin. Siis kiinteät
kummut, rajamerkit suvun historiassa, ovat näin muodostuneet;
niitten santajyvästen mielestä, jotka vasta ovat rannalle
huuhtoutuneet, tuntuvat kumpujen rivit ylitsenäkemättömiltä.
Etäämpänä kasvaa suuria, kuihtuneita puita, elottomia sankareita
ajatusten maailmassa, ja toisia, jotka vain ylimmässä latvassaan
säilyttävät vihertävää oksaa — ajatusta, joka on elänyt halki aikojen,
lähempänä rantaa näkyy kutistuneita, ryhmyisiä runkoja, joiden
kasvua myrskyn vihurit ovat estäneet, ja joiden latvat ovat
kehittyneet yksipuolisesti, niin että ne kaikki viittovat samaan
suuntaan; mutta monilla lähempänä olevilla kummuilla ei idä mitään
muuta, kuin kuivaa rantaolkea ja teräviä korsia.
Kaikilla on kuitenkin samainen alkulähde: pienten santajyvästen

väsymätön työ on luonut ja muodostanut ne kaikki.
Mitä varten ja miksi tätä väsymätöntä työtä vuosituhansien halki?

Taivaaseen asti eivät santajyväset vielä ole päässeet, mutta ne
haluavat varmaankin nousta sinne asti.
Mitä hyödyttää mietiskely? Mitä varten ja miksi? Koskaan en

päässyt pitemmälle.
Ajatuksiltani väsyneenä menin kuukauden viimeisenä päivänä alas

puutarhaan.
Ilma oli lauha ja maa oli niin kostea, että vesi pursui esiin siitä,
mihin jalka vaan tallasi. Pensaitten silmikot paisuivat suurina;
sopessa pilkisteli krookuspäitä esiin, ja nurkassa, minne
etelänaurinko paistoi, kukkivat lumipisarat vihertävän valkeina ja
täyteläisinä.
Olin poiminut niitä ja aijoin jälleen palata sisälle, kun ikkuna

lähelläni avautui ja tervehtivä ääni lausui:
»Hyvää iltaa, neiti, teittepä viisaasti, kun tulitte hengittämään
vähän kevätilmaa ahkeran päivätyönne jälkeen.»
Käännyin; siinä oli nuori lääkäri, naapurini ystävättäreni

päivällisiltä. Hän asui siis tuossa unohtuneessa puutalossa, ja hänen
ikkunansa avautui puutarhaan päin. Yhdellä ainoalla askeleella olisi
hän voinut astua ikkunalaudan ylitse ulos.
Kun hän nyt puhutteli minua, tunsin hämmästyksen ohessa

kiitollisuutta, että hän oli viitsinyt huomata minut. Koko pitkän päivän
olin istunut ikkunani ääressä ommellen ja tuumiskellen ja joku oli siis
huomannut minut, oli arvellut, mitä siinä tein ja ehkäpä mitä
ajattelinkin. En osannut mitään vastata, mutta astuin nopeasti pari
askelta ja laskin lumipisareeni hänen ikkunalaudalleen.
»Ovatko nämä kaikki minulle?» kysyi hän, ja äänessä oli

hämmästynyt sointu. »Tuhannet kiitokset. Saanko tulla ulos
tarkastamaan valtakuntaanne?»
Ja ennenkuin ennätin muuta kuin vilahdukselta katsoa häneen

huoneseensa, oli hän hypännyt ulos ja seisoi vierelläni. Näin vaan,
että kaikkialla oli kirjoja, kaikilla pöydillä ja tuoleilla.
»Kuinka paljon teillä on kirjoja!» sanoin minä.
»Niin», vastasi hän. »Ne ovat nyt kerta kaikkiaan minun

intohimoni!
Mutta se on kallista — olen varmaankin maksanut enemmän, kuin
olisi
pitänyt tyydyttääkseni sitä! Jonakin päivänä saan varmaankin katua!
Intohimoistaan saa aina maksaa!»
Hänen katseensa oli vakava, vaikkakin hän hymyili. Hetkisen
kuluttua jatkoi hän:
»Mitä kiirettä teillä on tänään ollut?»
»Ei mitään», ääntelin minä ja punastuin. — Kuinka olisin voinut

kertoa, että neuloin koruompelua veljenityttären hameeseen? Eikö
se hänestä tuntuisi mitättömältä työltä?
»Ei mitään! — Kuinka naisellinen vastaus», sanoi hän, kohottaen

olkapäitään.
Jos hän vielä olisi kysynyt, niin olisi hän mielellään saanut tietää,
mitä olin ommellut ja mitä sen ohella olin ajatellut, mutta hän alkoikin
puhua puutarhasta, keväästä ja ilmasta ja sitten elämästäni.
»Teillä on varmaankin ikävä?» sanoi hän, mutta silloin minä vain

hymyilin. —
Ikävä! Olinhan elänyt niitten runoilijoitten mukana, joiden teoksia

olin lukenut. Sellaisessa seurassa ei ole ikävätä. — Olin kaipaillut
sielua, joka olisi omani: mutta yksinäisyyttäni ja sydämeni surua
kuvaamaan olivat sanat liian pieniä ja köyhiä.
Hämärä laskeusi harmaana harsona talojen välille, kun erosimme,

ja hän lausui toivomuksenaan, että useimmin kohtaisimme
toisemme. Oliko se vaan lauseparsi? Korviini ei se siltä tuntunut.
Nyt tiedän, kenen lamppu se on, joka palaa niin myöhään illalla.
Katu ei enää ole tyhjä ja autio — mutta pimeys tuolla puolen
valonsäteen on niin musta.
Toukokuu.
Suloinen keväinen kuukausi on takanani; olen saanut puhua ja

olen kuullut eläviä sanoja.
Sen jälkeen, kun tapasimme toisemme puutarhassa, iltana, jolloin

lumipisareet kukkivat, olemme kohdanneet useasti toisemme —
tuskin saatan sanoa, kuinka usein, sillä olen mennyt sinne, kun tiesin
hänen siellä olevan.
Joka päivä en sinne mennyt. Vanhat tarut naisellisuuden

velvoituksista pidättivät minua toisinaan, ja usein esti menoani
epäilys viehättämiskyvystäni. Sellaisina iltoina laskin ikkunaverhot
alas ja sytytin lampun, lukeakseni sanoja, joilla ei ollut mitään
merkitystä minulle. Taikka seisoin kätkössä ikkunani luona
odottamassa, avautuisiko vastapäinen ikkuna ja joku katsoisi, enkö
minä jo tulisi. Aina se ei tapahtunut, mutta kun niin kävi, ilostuin kuin
olisin saanut lahjan, jonka ehkä olin toivonut saavani, mutta jota
minulla ei ollut oikeutta odottaa.
Usein olemme kuitenkin tavanneet ja ennättäneet puhella

monenmoisista, jotta nyt katson häntä ystäväkseni — ja
enemmäksikin.
Hän ajattelee selvästi ja terävästi, mutta kylmästi ja hänellä on

kova kohta sydämessään, skeptisismin aiheuttama jäätynyt paikka,
joka synnyttää kylmyyttä ja epäilyä. — Hän lukee, lukee aina; ei
saadakseen tietää, vaan unohtaakseen, tuntuu minusta toisinaan. —
Mitä voi hänellä olla unohtamista? Nuoruuden hullutuksiako? Ei, hän
tuntuu eläneen yksin, lukujenpa hommissa vaan. Jonakuna päivänä
saan tietää, mikä häntä painostaa; toisinaan tuntuu, kuin pyörisi se
hänen huulillaan. Silloin vaikenee hän pitkiksi ajoiksi ja kävelee
edestakaisin käytävällä, siksi kunnes aijon kysyä, mitä se on — enkä
ymmärrä, miks'en kuitenkaan tee sitä.
Se tekee minut kumminkin vähän levottomaksi, vai lieneekö siihen

syynä kevään kuohuva, kuumentava ilma?
Ostin eilen kokonaisen maljakon kalpeita primuloita. — Voipiko

löytyä parempaa, kuin sellainen kukkaisaarre on? En halua niitä
yksitellen, säästeliäissä ja niukoissa annoksissa, kuin pohjolan
kesäpäiviä. — Ei, en huoli ollenkaan tai sitten tahdon tuhlaavan
yltäkylläisesti yhtaikaa. — Kuihtukoot ne sitten ja jääkööt
korvaamattomiksi.
»Onnellisempaa on, kun voi tyytyä vähempään», vastasi hän, kun

mainitsin jotain tähän suuntaan, laskiessani maljakon hänen
ikkunallensa.
Olin silloin juuri heittänyt luotani kevään levottomuuden ja vastasin

hänelle ylimielisen iloisesti. —
»Niinpä niin, onhan viisaampaa jakaa kultaa annoksittain, kun

kerran varasto on niin pieni; mutta tahdonpa kerran maljakon täyteen
primuloita ne kuihtuvat, sen kyllä tiedän — mutta minä olen ne
omistanut ja jääköön niiden tuoksu elämäni suloisimmaksi
tuoksuksi.»
»On parempi tyytyä vähempään», toisti hän ja katsoi minuun, ei,

vaan ohitseni, kulmat kurtussa ja katse synkkänä.
Sitä katsetta minä en siedä; se nostaa muurin välillemme, se

painaa minut mitättömäksi. Sillä vaikka hetkistä ennen olen tuntenut
olevani lähellä häntä, niin kutistuu sydämeni silloin tuskaisesti sen
edessä, jota en tunne, ja kevätilta muuttuu kylmäksi ja pimeäksi,
siksi kunnes hän jälleen pehmiää ja puhuu.
Mutta kun me sinä iltana erosimme — kun tähdet harvakseen

taivaalla tuikkivat ja kostea maa tuoksui — sanoi hän hiljaa — ilta oli
niin juhlallisen kaunis, että me koko viime hetken olimme puhelleet
hiljaisin äänin:
»Kiitos, että tulette tänne alas; te olette hyvä», ja sitten suuteli hän
kättäni, jota omassaan piteli.
Ja kun pääsin huoneeseeni, täytyi minun hetkisen itkeä, osaksi

ilosta, osaksi säälistä omaa itseäni kohtaan, kun saatoin uskoa, että
hänen suutelonsa tarkoitti muuta kuin hyvän miehen kunnioittavaa
kiitollisuutta naisen ystävällisyydestä.
Primulat tuoksuivat; tähdet tuikkivat ja välkkyivät rauhattomina, uni

ei ollut koskaan tulla.
Kesäkuu
On riemuitsevan ihanaa kesäisessä kuussa, kun sireenit tuoksuvat

ja ilma on lauha ja aurinko viipyy viipymistään eikä halua sammua ja
uinua.
On riemuitsevan ihanaa, kun koko maailma on laskeutunut

usvaisten, loistavien pilvien joukkoon, niin että vain pieni kolkka
maastamme kohoaa siitä esiin — jos vaan löytyy kaksi ihmistä, jotka
pitävät toisistaan niin täysin, etteivät välitä menneisyyden

China's Ethical Revolution and Regaining Legitimacy: Reforming The Communist Party Through Its Public Servants 1st Edition Shaoying Zhang

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China’s Ethical Revolution and

Regaining Legitimacy: Reforming the

Where The Party Rules The Rank And File Of China s

The Fight for China s Future Civil Society vs the

Unending Capitalism How Consumerism Negated China s

Anxious China Inner Revolution and Politics of

Collected works of the Communist Party of Peru Vol 1

The Party Line How The Media Dictates Public Opinion in

Marxim Leninism Maoism Basic Course Communist Party

Language and Social Change in China Undoing Commonness

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Politics and Development of Contemporary China

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Our friendship began as PhD supervisor and supervisee relationship at the

engagement between seemingly contradictory ideas. By so doing, we want

2 The China Dream, History, Religion and Modernization 11

3 Comparisons, Paradigms and the Remnant of

4 Discourses of Corruption: The Contest Between

5 State of Exception: The Examination of

6 The Discourse of Formalism and Bureaucratism:

7 Discourse of Hedonism and Extravagance:

8 The Mass Line Education Programme 209

9 Technologies of the Self 239

10 Remnant and Hybridization: The Effects of Governing 261

When Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012, he proposed a “great rejuve-

© The Author(s) 2017 1

In this book, we examine these various measures in order to determine

structure within binary systems, wherein there can be inner solidarity

ways, the anti-corruption campaign’s aims could be described as having

and Economic Reform (or economic revolution), we argue that under

is fundamentally linked to the problem of individual ethics, that is, the

The China Dream, History, Religion

When President Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012, he proposed a

© The Author(s) 2017 11

maintain, or regain, its legitimacy. We will examine these discourses (and

Revival of History: Tension Between Tradition

In many ways, the discourse of historical revival is often linked to the

This phenomenon is often labelled as “second (condensed) modernity,”

knowledge structured at different levels of abstraction and leads to them

Revival of Religion: Tension Between the Modern

The discourse of religion has taken on different political meanings at dif-

response to the ostensible retreat of the state in the face of a globally

If religion has been the “other” of modernity, it is perhaps not surprising

s­elf-­identification to make something new (Yang 1988: 157). Thus, the

Historical Discourses and the China Dream

by Marxism (2009: 1114). This marginalization of Chinese traditional

History as a Moral Supplement for Modernization

Like Buddhism, another foreign export in China, socialism appealed to both

Ironically, just as discontent with the problems and consequences associ-

Modern man essentially neglected practices of the self, and therefore it is

As a consequence, people often take the “good old days” as a referential

Title: Kaksitoista kuukautta

Author: Ellen Wester

Release date: September 10, 2023 [eBook #71606]

Original publication: Helsinki: Emil Vainio, 1908

Credits: Tuula Temonen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

Helsingissä, Emil Vainio, 1908.

Etsin avarasta maailmasta ystävää, joka tahtoisi minua kuulla, kun

2 The China Dream, History, Religion and Modernization 11

3 Comparisons, Paradigms and the Remnant of

4 Discourses of Corruption: The Contest Between

5 State of Exception: The Examination of

6 The Discourse of Formalism and Bureaucratism:

7 Discourse of Hedonism and Extravagance:

8 The Mass Line Education Programme 209

9 Technologies of the Self 239

10 Remnant and Hybridization: The Effects of Governing 261

self-identification to make something new (Yang 1988: 157). Thus, the