《神州交流》Chinese Cross Currents

Foreword:
Value Systems Matter

Vol. 2, No. 2, April-June 2005

Less than 30 years ago the word "fortune" was still blasphemous in the People's Republic of China, and was considered one of the symptoms of "capitalist exploitation" and "imperialist domination", the mere utterance of which was cause for castigation. Today, China's President Hu Jintao delivers a speech at the Global Fortune Forum, a get-together for rich people that has taken place three times in China in the past six years. At this year's event, President Hu seemed quite proud to stress that "over 400 firms out of the 'Fortune 500' have invested in China", and on May 17th 850 guests of the Forum were treated to a magnificent banquet at the Temple of Heaven, where lasers projected the ardent characters of "Beijing" and "Fortune" on the main building of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. There are now more than 10 Chinese companies present on the Fortune list and a competing business magazine, Forbes, has been running a China companies top-ranking list since 1999, first as "China's Richest 50" and now as "China's Richest 200" ...

China's economic progress over the past quarter of a century has been staggering, growing annually at 9.5% on average since 1978 when the country first opened up to the outside world. This phenomenal development has seen China become the labour-intensive workshop of the world—since 2002, China is ranked fourth in world exports and sixth in world imports—, the biggest recipient of foreign direct investment, and has paved the way for technological prowess. Symbolic of the "China Rise", these achievements culminated in the manned mission into space of Taikonaut Yang Liwei in October 2003. To put it simply, in just 25 years China has experienced one of the biggest wealth creation burst in human history, and has managed to become a world power that truly "matters".

Along with this "good fortune"—economic development and modernisation—Chinese society has been profoundly transformed. Modernisation has brought about urbanisation, industrialisation, diversification of occupation, individualisation, etc. Culture in all its guises is being affected and values are being transformed. The opening of opportunities has translated into a drive for success and was conducive to strengthened patterns of individualistic behaviours—with their own signs and symbols. The growth in wealth was also followed by a growth in inequalities: between individuals, between cities and rural areas, and between the hinterland and the coastal regions. The Gini index in China now stands at 0.46 (this index is a common way of measuring income disparities in a society; 0 meaning that everyone has the same earnings, 1 that one person appropriates all the income) whereas it was below 0.30 in 1980.

Some Chinese scholars have argued that this vast gain in prosperity was "mask[ing] serious problems that need[ed] to be addressed to avoid a social crisis." (1) The all-out drive for economic growth regardless of the social costs has fuelled the criticisms formulated by one of the three main intellectual currents in China today: the New Left. Nobody has encapsulated more eloquently the dissatisfaction of the New Left than Wang Hui, professor of literature at Qinghua University and chief editor of Dushu: "Today China is caught between the two extremes of misguided socialism and crony capitalism, and suffering from the worst of both systems. We have to find an alternate way. This is the great mission of our generation." (2)

If one cannot really hope for "an equal society"—having in mind its dramatic and erroneous embodiments in the twentieth century—one can at least wish for a fairer society. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao raised the issue in his report on the work of the government to the National People's Congress in March 2005: "The development gaps between urban and rural areas and between different regions and the income gap between some members of society are all too wide". The government has started to address the desperate state of the sannong: the plight of the peasants (nongmin), of agriculture (nongye) and of the rural communities (nongcun). And President Hu Jintao himself seems to have made the goal of building a fairer "moderately prosperous society" (xiaokang shehui) his top priority—a step towards a successful attempt at marrying opulence with frugality?

On which values will such a society be built? If one considers that a value system is not only a set of values and good intentions, which values will then take precedence over the others and for whom is it to decide? Many observers have noted (and worried about) a return of "cultural conservatism" in the past two years, and especially of "political Confucianism": (3) could this revival of Confucianism really underpin the difficult task to find "an alternate way"?

In order to tackle the often conflicting relations between "success and values", ethics is here addressed in its interaction with business (Wang Gungwu and Brent Johnson), law (Roderick O'Brien), politics (Emilie Tran), gender (Kuah-Pearce Khun Eng) and a mix of psychology and people's narrative (Yu An-bang). On its side, the features section has a commentary by Dominique Wolton on the "global" role played by the media in covering the Southeast Asian Tsunami of last December 26th, and another contribution by Richard Balme on the present process of adopting a Constitutional Treaty for Europe.

Although we do believe that the maturing of thoughts is like a river that meanders and winds about, we trust that you will find these articles both timely and nurturing.

(1) Hu Angang, Ding Yuanzhu and Wang Shaoguang, "Social Instability Behind Economic Prosperity," Strategy and Management, No. 3, 2002.
(2) Interview with Wang Hui by Jehangir Pocha, New Perspectives Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 2, Spring 2005.
(3) The key author of this revival is Jiang Qing, see, for an extensive analysis, Ji Zhe, "Confucius, les libéraux et le Parti. Le renouveau du confucianisme politique," La vie des idées, No. 2, May 2005, pp. 9-20.

Eric Sautedé, Chief Editor