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Generations, Legitimacy, and Political Ideas in China: the End Of

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Generations, Legitimacy, and Political Ideas in China: the End Of GENERATIONS, LEGITIMACY, AND POLITICAL IDEAS IN CHINA The End of Polarization or the End of Ideology? Nora Sausmikat Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between political ideas and life stories, i.e., the influence of biographical learning on political orientation. It focuses on the political discussions among intellectuals and politicians who belong to the birth cohort of the late 1940s and early 1950s, the so called Zhiqing genera- tion, and describes embedded and developed stereotypes of political identity and legitimation. This paper investigates the relationship between political ideas and life stories—the social and historical foundations of some seem- ingly new political ideas with the prefix “neo-” currently being discussed by intellectuals in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The analysis is based on interviews the author conducted in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2001 and the study of writings of intellectuals of the ex-Red Guard and Zhiqing genera- Dr. Phil. Nora Sausmikat is a Research Associate at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Department of Political Science/East Asian Studies, Duisburg, Germany. Email: [email protected]. A draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in Chicago in March 2001 and at the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS) 2 conference in Berlin in August 2001. The author would like to thank all interviewees for their frankness and openness during the interview series. She also greatly respects valuable advice given during the revision process by Lowell Dittmer, Carol Lee Hamrin, David Fraser, Jonathan Unger, Timothy Gluckman, He Baogang, and the anonymous reviewers. Asian Survey , 43:2, pp. 352–384. ISSN: 0004–4687 Ó 2003 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Send Requests for Permission to Reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704–1223. 352 NORA SAUSMIKAT 353 tion.1 I base my conclusion upon my Ph.D. thesis on the autobiographical reflections of members of the Zhiqing generation and on findings I made during a current research project on political reform and democratization in China. In my dissertation I was concerned with the salient issues and major events in the lives of that generation; going a bit further, this paper tries to link this knowledge to current movements among intellectuals. The concept of “generations” seems to be a very useful category to analyze the way people reflect on their national history. Also, in the field of social and political transformation, research into generations is very much in vogue.2 In the field of post-war Estonian or Russian political thought, the biographical perspective on societies seems to find worldwide interest. In the China field, the study of different generations of intellectuals has a long his- tory. Benjamin Schwartz was one of the promoters of the study of intellec- tual and political history. He pointed to the “concrete experience of intellectuals within any given society” and to the “concrete specificities of history”: “In China, the end of the examination system in 1905, the Japanese incursion into China . —to mention certain events at random—are specific historic movements which must figure in any effort to understand the exper- iences and the responses of Chinese intellectuals within the time period with which we are concerned.”3 What Schwartz called the “transitional genera- tion,” with leading figures such as Kang Youwei, Yan Fu, Liang Qichao, et al., is characterized by their assimilation of Western theories and their own versions of Rousseau, the French Revolution, and contemporaneous Russian revolutionary thought. Schwartz began the fruitful inquiry of the study of intellectuals in non-Western societies and their role in periods of political transition. But this term is also a political one and brings with it the danger of ideo- logical generalizations. If national disputes refer to the generation of “person so-and-so,” usually this is an instrument to reflect on a sensitive issue of the 1.The full term reads “zhishi qingnian ,” which means literally “youth with knowledge” refers to the educated youth aged between 14 and 20 who were sent down to the countryside for reeducation during the Cultural Revolution. 2.Donatella Della Porta, “Life Histories in the Analysis of Social Movement Activists,” in Mario Diani and Ron Eyermann, eds., Studying Social Movements (London: Sage, 1992), pp. 168–193; Kathleen Blee, “Becoming a Racist: Women in Contemporary Ku Klux Klan and Neo- Nazi Groups,” Gender and Society 10 (1996), pp. 680–702; Roswitha Breckner et al., Biogra- phies and the Division of Europe: Experience, Action and Change on the ‘Eastern Side’ (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2000); Ingrid Miethe, Silke Roth, eds., Politische Biografien und sozialer Wandel [Political Biographies and Political Change] (Gie en: Psychosozial-Verlag, 2000). 3.Benjamin Schwartz, “The Limits of ‘Tradition Versus Modernity‘: The Case of the Chinese Intellectuals,” in Schwartz, China and Other Matters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972/ 1996, pp. 45–64), p. 55. 354 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 national past. But does one man like German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer represent the ‘68 generation in Germany? 4 Or was the anti-Vietnam cohort in the United States a homogenous group? The answers are undoubt- edly negative. Does the concept of political generations help in understand- ing history, or is the use of the term “generation” merely a discourse strategy tied to political power and legitimacy? In answering these questions, this paper focuses on the ex-Red Guard/ Zhiqing generation. Since the Cultural Revolution (CR) of 1966–76, the term “generation” has become one of the most important aspects of Chinese politics.5 On the one hand, members of this generation formed strong collec- tive bonds during their odyssey from the 1960s to the present. On the other hand, we can observe how members of the so-called Zhiqing or Laosanjie (old three classes) 6 try to differentiate themselves from each other, try to find their own individual place in a politicized community of ex-Cultural Revolu- tion players that became strongly exploited by the government during the 1990s. Some critics see already in the use of the term “generation” a power propaganda effort that tries to mobilize people to cultivate communist ethics and support the neo-conservative power elite that aimed for stabilization after the Tiananmen massacre, as discussed below. 7 Focusing on the political con- cepts and ideas inside the political reform debate presented by some intellec- tuals of this generation, the origin and substance of these ideas will be analyzed before the background of their historical reflections. During the last few years, debates and articles have emerged that try to categorize the differ- ent trends and discussions among intellectuals about political reform. Schol- ars inside and outside China try to grasp the new discourses by establishing categories like the “New Left” ( xin zuopai) or the “New Right” ( xin youpai), neo-conservatism ( xin baoshou zhuyi ), neo-authoritarianism ( xin quanwei zhuyi), neo-(or revived) liberalism ( xin ziyou zhuyi ), cultural traditionalism (Confucianism), and nationalism. Probably one can add more categories. 8 It 4.The dispute in 2000 about the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, and his activities in the late 1960s was meant to discredit the minister by the opposition Christian Democrats because of his involvement in the student left movements of 1968. 5.Michael Yahuda, “Political Generations in China ,” China Quarterly No. 80 (1979), pp. 793–805, here p. 794. 6.Laosanjie translates into “old three school classes” and refers to the high school graduates of the classes 1966–68 who were the main target of the rustication mass movement during the Cultural Revolution. Students were aged between 14 and 20. 7.Zilin Dong in Jiang Wang, Jiehou Huihuang: Zai Monan Zhong Jueqi de Zhiqing, Laosanjie, Gongheguo de Sandairen [The Glory after Derailment: Emergence from the Suffering of the Zhiqing, Laosanjie, and the Third Generation of the People’s Republic of China] (Beijing: Guangmin ribao chubanshe, 1995), pp. 172–181. 8.See for example Werner Meissner, “New Intellectual Currents in the People’s Republic of China,” in David Teather and Herbert Yee, eds., China in Transition (London: Macmillan Press, NORA SAUSMIKAT 355 will be argued that despite the heated discussions about the new “isms,” we can observe many “old” traits among them and we can formulate some com- mon structures in the political debate. We will find attitudes toward legiti- macy of power similar to those we know from the first to the third generation of leaders (the first generation of political leaders is associated with Mao Zedong, the second with Deng Xiaoping and the third with Jiang Zemin; talking about age cohorts, the “Fourth generation of leadership” refers to the “third echelon of leaders” under Jiang Zemin). As in the past, the concept of generation is still used to classify and legiti- mize political ideas and their meaning for Chinese history. Applying Mann- heim’s term “generation” illuminates the discussion as to whether the current, diversified political discussions between some intellectuals of the Red Guard/ Zhiqing generation show an inner linkage among them. I.The Concept of Generation: The Red Guard/Zhiqing Generation The social
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