Liu, Jerry C. Y. 2013. “Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance”.
In Stephan Chan (Ed.). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London, Zed Books Ltd.
Sino-African Cultural Relations:
Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance
Jerry C Y Liu
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Art Management and Culture Policy
National Taiwan University of Arts
Email: [email protected]
Date: 2012.11.21
As ever, Stephen Chan’s wide sweeping essay on “The Middle Kingdom and Dark Continent:
An Essay on China, Africa and Many Fault-lines” carries so much weight. The language itself
is plain, and the touches seem light. Yet, the lesson we are getting at is almost philosophical,
and its implications to the understanding of Sino-African relations surely pragmatic. In order
to explain the Chinese political, economic and diplomatic behaviours in Africa, crucial
questions are asked throughout the essay, old and new, historical and modern, ideal and real.
To me, the catch really is “Can we talk about a Chinese mode of thinking in its diplomatic
relations or a Chinese way of statecraft in Africa?” If so, how different it is from the
European and US models both at the philosophical and practical levels? Can we find a
consistent cultural or philosophical rationale behind the decision making of China’s Africa
strategy? Or even if the rationale has not been thoroughly consistent, does it still reveal some
discerning features of what Stephen Chan implies as the “Chinese ethos” or Confucian way
of statecraft, whose template differs philosophically and pragmatically from the realist
approach of the West? Or Chinese are in fact simply the same practical and interest-seeking
creatures as the Western agents in Africa?
So, just how distinguished the Chineseness really is in its engagement of African economy
(i.e. from its expanding external trade relations, increasing foreign direct investment,
interest-free loans, alleged buying of access to oil resources, long term investment in
infrastructure such as railroads, universities, hospitals, to that of its risk taking
entrepreneurship in Africa), and in its political leverage in Africa (i.e. from the Three World
Theory, Non-Aligned Movement, the G77, non-interference policy, covert sell of
reactor-grade uranium, to that of installing of peacekeeping force in Africa) as a whole? It is
useful that we go back to the concept and practice of Chinese statecraft in history. To start
with, I think the phrase “culturing Chinese statecraft” reflects the Confucian way well. In
1
Liu, Jerry C. Y. 2013. “Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance”.
In Stephan Chan (Ed.). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London, Zed Books Ltd.
political sciences and real politics, culture is often taken as a marginal factor in explaining
state behaviours. Cultural explanation is usually treated as a last resort. Yet, by “culturing”
Chinese statecraft, we mean to establish the link that there had (has) been a very clear
influence of Confucian ethics and cultural values on the administration and management of
traditional Chinese state bureaucracy, as well as its engagement in foreign affairs.
Governments in China manifest a peculiar characteristic of self-restraint (that was rarely
emphasised in European records). It is fair to say morality and virtue was closely associated
with the legitimacy of state activities within and without China. Such a self-restraining
feature was reflected on Chinese states’ idealistic governing principle, which Confucius
termed weizheng yide, “to rule by virtue”, or renzhi the “rule of benevolence”. By this
Confucius meant that instead of using political interests and criminal punishments as the
standards of governance, the rulers or politicians should “guide people with virtue, and rule
them with rites or courtesies”.1
Through the Han to the Ming-Qing periods, such Confucian ethos had integrated tightly with
Chinese intellectual traditions, Confucian classics and the civil examination system. One only
needs to read a few pages of the Ming-Qing jingshi (which literally means “managing the
world”) literatures to know the powerful influence of culture on Chinese statecraft and
foreign affairs. Let me explain this concept jingshi a bit to help understand the milieu or
scenario of Chinese official’s decision makings. The Chinese concept jingshi differs from the
modern western discourses of statecraft in many ways. First of all, the Chinese concept of
statecraft includes not only state foreign policies and diplomacy, but also policies of interior
affairs for state bureaucracy. For state politicians, foreign affairs are definitely moral
extensions to the domestic rule basing on the principle of benevolence. Secondly, many
scholars explain jingshi solely as the politics, administration and management of bureaucratic
statecraft. Such interpretation indeed covers a very important aspect of the jingshi concept,
however, Chinese statecraft means more than that. It is an integral part of the Confucian value
system, and it carries within it the dual characteristics of classic learning, namely, the
pragmatism and utilitarianism in the “practical statesmanship” on the one hand, and pursuit of
self-realisation through the absolute ethical ends in the “moral statesmanship” on the other.2
During the late Ming and Qing periods, the so-called jingshi learning included the studies of
classical moral philosophy and practical measures, approaches and policies of rule (such as
construction and transportation, taxation, finance, personnel and security issue), and
administration of bureaucracy at the same time.
1
Jerry C. Y. Liu, 2010. “The Logics of Soft Power: Culturing Chinese Statecraft in Modern World History
(1826-1902).” 2010 RCIA International Symposium on Culture and Political Economy: New Perspectives.
Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Sep. 17-19, 2010.
2
Hao Chang, “On the Ching-shih Ideal in Neo-Confucianism,” in Ch’ing-shih Wen-t’i 3.1(1974); 丘為君,
張運宗, “戰後台灣學界對經世問題的探討與反省,” 新史學 7.2 (1996): 181-231, cited page 195; Chang Hao
張灝, “Interpretations on Confucian Jingshi Thoughts after the Song and Ming Periods 宋明以來儒家經世思想
試釋”, Dark Awareness and the Democratic Tradition 幽暗意識與民主傳統, Beijing, Xinxing Publisher, 2006,
73-93, quoted page 73.
2
Liu, Jerry C. Y. 2013. “Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance”.
In Stephan Chan (Ed.). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London, Zed Books Ltd.
Thus, before Prince Henry of the Portuguese began in 1415 to carry out the plan he had so
much at heart, sending two or three ships every year to discover the African coast beyond
Cape Nam,3 the Chinese admiral Zheng He leading a fleet of 300 ships over 20,000 men had
cruised into the Indian Ocean, Arabic Sea and reached the eastern coast of Africa in 1405.
Nonetheless, with a mentality of the conquistador the Portuguese alone took from Angola no
less than 1,389,000 slaves between 1486 and 1641 (yet many of the contemporary occidental
scholars approved these activities). While the Portuguese at the east of Suez deemed
themselves “saviours of the pagans” and “crusaders of the Christ” who engaged in total war,
the Chinese cruises were those of a well-disciplined navy paying friendly visits to foreign
ports. In 1911 a stele that commemorates one of the visits of the Ming navy under Zheng He
was unearthed within the town of Galle. The inscription on the tablet in opposite provides a
perfect illustration of the extension of the Chinese cultural ideal outside its territory. This is
how it reads,4
His Imperial Majesty, Emperor of the Great Ming, has dispatched the Grand Eunuchs
Zheng He… to set forth his utterances before the Buddha (Lord), the World-Honoured
One, as herein follows… Of late we have dispatched missions to announce our Mandate
to foreign nations, and during their journeys over the oceans they have been favoured
with the blessing of Thy beneficent protection… Wherefore according to the Rites we
bestow offerings in recompense, and do now reverently present before the (Lord)
Buddha, the World-Honoured One, oblations of gold and silver, gold-embroidered
jewelled banners of variegated silk, incense-burners and flower-vases, silks of many
colours in lining and exterior, lamps and candles, with other gifts, in order to manifest
the high honour of the (Lord) Buddha. May His light shine upon the donors.
What was restrained within the Ming navy by the influence of the Confucian cultural ethos is
exactly that “conqueror and evangelist” mentality.
And while Machiavelli and his followers in the 18th and 19th centuries were advocating their
realist statecraft (understood as an inventory of ruthless foreign policy tactics and for wealth
and power of the princes), China was holding steadily to its idealistic, or even naïve
self-restraining governing principle, “the rule of virtue” or “the rule of benevolence”. In Lin
Zexu’s Letter of Advice to Queen Victoria, he argued his case in a typical Chinese cultural
logic:5
I have heard that the smoking of Opium is very strictly forbidden by your country; that
is because the harm caused by opium is clearly understood. Since it is not permitted to
3
A General Collection of Voyages and Discoveries, Made by the Portuguese and the Spaniards, during the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, London, Published by W. Richardson, J. Bew, T. Hookham, J. and T. Egerton,
and C. Stalker, 1789, 10.
4
Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971, Vol. IV
Part III, 522-523.
5
Lan Yuchun 藍玉春, Diplomatic History of China 中國外交史, Taipei, Sanmin Publisher, 2007, 58-59.
3
Liu, Jerry C. Y. 2013. “Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance”.
In Stephan Chan (Ed.). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London, Zed Books Ltd.
do harm to your own country, then even less should you let it be passed on to harm of
other countries—how much less to China. Of all that China exports to foreign countries,
there is not a single thing which is not beneficial to people: they are of benefit when
eaten, or of benefit when used, or benefit when resold: all are beneficial. Is there a single
article from China which has done any harm to foreign countries?
Such moral deploring did evoke ferocious Parliamentary debate in Britain. Sidney Herbert
responded to Lin’s moral appeal by arguing that unless “men are blinded by the faction they
cannot shut their eyes to the fact that we are engaged in a war without just cause, that we are
endeavoring to maintain a trade resting upon unsound principles, and to justify proceedings
which are a disagree to the British flag.” Yet other members of the House of Common
mocked at Lin’s naivety that, “[h]e had been naïve enough in his headlong way to proceed
against the whole foreign community in Canton… The Chinese had never so tactless an
official as Lin, who had made the British Cabinet the present of a perfect case.” And the
result was a Parliamentary vote of 271 against 262, which decided to back up the use of
military force against the Qing China.6
What I am suggesting here is not that cultural ideals and values are taken as the sole
motivation behind Chinese activities inside and outside its territory. However, one cannot
overlook the fact that culture did come to play an important role in Chinese statecraft both in
rhetoric and in practice. In Stephen Chan’s essay, the behaviours for the descendants of
Confucius in the Dark Continent are difficult for the West to understand because such
emphases on friendship and brotherhood with unquestioned responsibility of a Great Nation,
and on civilized behaviours with virtuous ethics has not been the tradition of Western realist
overtone in global politics. The guanxi (five sets of binaries and reciprocations: emperor and
subject, husband and wife; father and son; older and younger siblings; and friend with friend)
diplomacy gives the African siblings greater equality, and considerable time and space of
reciprocation. Sense of cultural superiority of an ancient civilization, and a superior culture
order demands not an immediate return of economic profit or political interest, but a benign
recognition of long term loyalty and reciprocation, or a reputation of harmonious celestial
worldview. The moral statesmanship and the self-restraining feature make the Chinese
free-interest loan, non-conditional aids and non-interference principle in Africa a discerning
feature of Confucian statecraft. Such a template again differs philosophically and
pragmatically from the taken-for-granted realist approach of the West.
In his renown book, Joseph Nye called culture, cultural values and foreign policy the sources
of soft power, by which a country may “obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics
6
Although there had also been counter arguments, for instance Toynbee deemed “April 9, 1840 is a day of
disgrace for Britain”; W. E. Gladstone of Tory member, later Prime Minister remarked that the Opium War is
“An evil war of injustice and disgrace for Britain.” And when asked of his comments on the Sino French-British
war, and the burnt of Yuanming Garden Hugo described it as “what a barbaric deed… and a robbery and two
bandits.” Nonetheless, most British historians and officials tend to dismiss the ethical issues, and define the
1840 War as a Sino-British Commercial War. Ibid., 52-54, 60.
4
Liu, Jerry C. Y. 2013. “Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance”.
In Stephan Chan (Ed.). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London, Zed Books Ltd.
because other countries—admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of
prosperity and openness—want to follow it.” When a country’s culture includes universal
values and its policies promote values and interests that others share, it increases the
probability of obtaining its desired outcomes through attraction.7 Here in the Sino-African
case, only that the concept of western “universal values” such as liberty, democracy, and
human rights has been even replaced as the Confucian ones, brotherhood, benevolence,
virtuous rule, guanxi, harmony, loyalty and reciprocation. And such soft power is exercised
by Chinese diplomats and entrepreneurs.
But culture, although it makes impacts on, does not determine political-economic activities
and state diplomacy. Soft power still faces hard realities. The international societies have
pointed to the cynical side of Chinese activities in Africa. The most mentioned ones being
that (a) China is trying to secure its access to African oil with direct economic investment,
increasing trade relations and benign political leverage (the leader of the Third World, and
G77) to African countries; (b) the Chinese non-intervention policy is actually fostering and
harbouring dictatorship in Africa and threatening African democracy; (c) the non-conditional
aids and interest-free loans contradict the long term Western efforts for the promotion of good
governance in Africa; (d) Chinese power plants, industries and constructions often neglect
environmental standards and cause severe ecological damages; (e) Chinese entrepreneurs
insist on Chinese majority ownership, market monopoly, and cheap labours; (f) Chinese
managers refuse to integrate with their workers, and they tend to resort to bullying and guns
out of unmitigated racism; (g) Chinese activities in Africa is a new form of hegemony or
neo-colonialism. And through the Beijing Consensus, Confucian ethos and Confucian
Institutes, China is ideologically reinforcing its Chineseness and a new mode of diplomatic
relations that is known as the Chinese Model in Africa.8 And adding to the list, (h) China’s
brotherly love does not seem to apply to its closest sibling Taiwan in Africa, as both had been
resorting to the so-called dollar-diplomacy to obstruct the establishment of formal diplomatic
relations with African countries. For example, US$ 24 million worth of grants and interest
free loans to Tanzania and a US$ 3.6 million grant to Zambia were among the more notable
features of Chinese Premier Li Peng’s visit to Africa in 2002. 9
How do we treat the inconsistencies, or possible counter rationale or Confucian cultural ethos
of Chinese activities in Africa? Rationalising the contradictory logics of culture in the real
context is an intricate task, as the true motives behind the practices of state economic and
diplomatic policies are difficult to pin down. It is no surprise that, according to New Africa
March 2008, with more than 800,000 Chinese currently working, living and running business
in African, over 800 small and medium businesses involved in manufacturing and bidding for
7
Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, New York: Public Affairs, 2004, 5, 31.
Lee Jehua 李澤華 and Zhao Xian 趙賢, “The Western Condemnations to China’s Activities in Africa and Our
Strategic Advice 西方對中國在非洲活動的指責、影響及我國的對策建議”, The Frontline of Thoughts 思想戰
線, Vol. 35 No. 2, 2009, 121-126.
9
Ian Taylor, “Taiwan’s Foreign Policy and Africa: The Limitations of Dollar Diplomacy”, Journal of
Contemporary China, Vol. 11, No. 30, 2002, 125–140, quote page 134.
8
5
Liu, Jerry C. Y. 2013. “Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance”.
In Stephan Chan (Ed.). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London, Zed Books Ltd.
construction of ports, railways, hospitals, administrative buildings and other facilities, usually
at a very competitive price, and using comparatively advantageous cheaper labour and other
factors of production, China today is taken as a potential competitor or even threat to many
Western observers.
Chart 1: The Logics of Cultural Governance
Y
II: Instrumental
Rationality
B. Power: Institutions,
Bureaucracy, Elite,
Profession, Rules, Policy
Process
C. Interest: Capital,
Properties, Resources,
Profits Calculation,
Individual Will, Free Market
I: Essential
Rationality
S
A. Primordial Identity:
Body, Blood Ties, Skin,
Color, Ethnicity, Land,
Landscape, Space
X
X
D. Public Communication:
Public Participation,
Public Will, Media, Rights,
Social Movement,
Resistance, Network
F. Everyday Life: Ways of
Life, Practice,
Discontinuities, Fragments,
Simplicity, Emotion,
Feelings, Nature
S’
III: Communicative
Rationality
E. Critical Reflection:
Values, Ideals, Morality,
Ethics, Aesthetics, Norm,
Self Reflection
IV: Humanistic
Rationality
Y
Source: Jerry C. Y. Liu 劉俊裕, 2011, “Discourses and Networks of Cultural Governance in Europe: A Critical
Review 歐洲文化治理的脈絡與網絡：一種治理的文化轉向與批判”, Intergrams 11.2: 1-15.
To me, indeed critical reflection of cultural ideals, values, morality, ethics, aesthetics, and
norm (box E, Chart 1) is only one of the many “rational” factors of human behaviours.
Among them, there are also primordial factors such as blood-ties, skin, color and land (box
A); power factor such as institutions, bureaucracy, elite, profession, rules, and policy process
(box B); interest factor like capital, properties, resources, profits calculation, individual will
(box C); public communication factor like public participation, public will, media, rights,
social movement, resistance, network (box D); and everyday life factor such as ways of life,
practice, discontinuities, fragments, simplicity, emotion, feelings, nature (box F). If I may
make an abrupt simplification, in the Western realist tradition, a more instrumental view of
human reason that emphasizes the factor power, goal-achievement, profit or interest
calculation, and/or scientific and logical deduction and induction seems to play an upper hand
6
Liu, Jerry C. Y. 2013. “Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance”.
In Stephan Chan (Ed.). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London, Zed Books Ltd.
when dealing with global political economy. Weber even suggested that one of “the most
important aspect of the process of ‘rationalization’ of action is the substitution for the
unthinking acceptance of ancient custom, of deliberate adaptation to situation in terms of
self-interest.” The danger for the process of (instrumental) rationalization is, as Weber
himself recognized, it could proceed in a direction which is at the expense not only of custom
but also of emotional values and any belief in absolute values. 10 And there is the
dehumanized tendency.
Yet, in the Chinese case, it seems that a more humanistic way of reasoning, which emphasizes
moral-ethical cultural values and Confucian ideals, permeates traditional Chinese statecraft
and governance, and as argued here, in contemporary Sino-African relations. This humanistic
way of thinking puts weights on the spirit of commonness in day-to-day life practices, the
self-generating moral-ethical senses of human beings, and the spontaneous flow of human
emotions. In the context of rational action, the humanistic reason prioritizes not the
calculative, scientific or logical articulation of interest for an individual or a specific group,
but a general and sympathetic understanding of human desires, minds and feelings as a
whole.11
Once again, I am not saying Chinese politicians and entrepreneurs are idealistic and naïve, or
that the Chinese activities in Africa have nothing to do with addressing power,
goal-achievement, and profit or interest calculation. I do agree that the Confucian way of
doing things in 2012 Africa is different from the Confucian way in 1405 (of Zheng He’s
expedition), 1650 (of Kongxi’s emperor Close Door Policy), and 1843 (of the Opium War) as
culture itself may change. And among Chinese actors and agents in Africa today, there are
politicians, diplomats, economists, entrepreneurs, businessmen, scientists, technical engineers,
and labour workers, whose mode of thinking can vary from one age and one individual to
another. Chinese and Western modes cannot simply be divided into two ideal types. Also
many Chinese are simply as pragmatic, profit-seeking and power-hunting as the Western
realists.
So how and to what extend does the philosophical rationale, Chinesesness, or in my term
“cultural logics”, affect, guide or contain Chinese officials and entrepreneurs’ attitudes,
manners and behaviours in Africa? If such cultural values do not actually “determine” the
Chinese officials and entrepreneurs’ conducts in their African strategy, what then is the use of
such bits and bits of cultural differences of the Confucian way? On this, Geertz is certainly
right that one “cannot run symbolic forms through some sort of cultural assay to discover
their harmony content, their stability ratio, or their index of incongruity.” At most, one can
only look and see if the forms in question are in fact coexisting, changing, or interfering with
10
Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation, (translated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott
Parsons), London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, William Hodge and Company Limited, 1947, 112.
11
Jerry C. Y. Liu, 2008, “Does Culture Matter? The Logics and Counter-logics of Culture in State Finance,
Taxation and Tributary Trade Policies during the Ming Times c. 1300-1600”, The Icfai Journal of History and
Culture 2.1: 24-60.
7
Liu, Jerry C. Y. 2013. “Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance”.
In Stephan Chan (Ed.). The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent. London, Zed Books Ltd.
one another in some way or other. However, values or beliefs (although they do not determine)
induce in a person “a certain distinctive set of dispositions (tendencies, capacities,
propensities, skills, habits, liabilities), which lend a chronic character to the flow of his
activity and the quality of his experience.” To us, such logics of culture keep “a persisting
tendency, a chronic inclination to perform certain sorts of acts and experience certain sorts of
feeling in certain sorts of situations.”12
Culture matters. In the form soft or diffused power, culture has returned to the terrain of
international relations. And by bringing in new interpretations of a state’s diplomatic
strategies basing on their embedded cultural norms and values, culture has rediscovered its
place in the state’s international strategy. For me, culture influences the practice of
policymakers by saturating into their way of thinking and by containing them within certain
value systems and cultural milieu, within which a political-economic policy is set into
cultural rather than pure political-economic debates. Such is the way culture interplay with
hard power. In order to appeal to their colleagues and peoples, traditional and modern
Chinese politicians would have to negotiate under an overpowering Confucian cultural milieu.
To put it in another way, not only the Chinese officials often felt the need to justify their
moral grounds for adopting a pragmatic or utilitarian approach, or at least to interpret their
pragmatism in a morally and ethically compatible terms to win over the heart of the people
(domestic or abroad). But quite “naturally” they would select a cultural explanation for their
own economic actions and political decisions. Cultural dictum had permeated most official
documentations. By not doing so, the politicians would expect to lose not only their political
credibility, but also personal integrity. 13
Along the line of traditional Chinese cultural statecraft (the cosmopolitan view of tienhsia,
the Confucian ethos of benevolence, virtuous rule, and the non-aggressive Chinese
internal/external relations), and soft power in Sino-African relations (non-intervention policy,
non-conditional aids and interest-free loans), what I am getting at is can we then think of a
ReOrient14 of international cultural governance? By this I mean that there is a “cultural turn”
or even an emerging “paradigm shift” in global governance, which tends to move the
underlying logic of international governance from that of Machiavellian interest, wealth and
power calculation, to that of “culture”—reasoning of state behaviours in global political
economy through the debates of cultural values, moral-ethical ideals (with the challenge of
brotherhood, benevolence, reciprocation and harmony) and a more balanced mode of human
reason (i.e., a shift of rationality from Quadrant II to that of Quadrant III and IV in Chart 1).15
12
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, USA, Basic Books, 1973, 95-97.
Jerry C. Y. Liu, op. cit. (2008); Jerry C. Y. Liu, 2009, “Cultural Logics for the Regime of Useful Knowledge
during the Ming and Early Qing China”, History of Technology 29: 29-56.
14
Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, California, University of California
Press, 1998.
15
Jerry C. Y. Liu 劉俊裕, 2011, “Discourses and Networks of Cultural Governance in Europe: A Critical
Review 歐洲文化治理的脈絡與網絡：一種治理的文化轉向與批判”, Intergrams 11.2: 1-15.
13
8