When US vice president Joseph Biden visited Beijing in December 2013, he made his argument for human rights in plain terms: “I believe China will be stronger … if it respects universal human rights.” In the same period, a leaked “Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere” reaffirmed that opposing “so-called universal values” and “hostile foreign forces” remained a central tenet of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) ideology. The vast disparity between these two claims is clear – not only in their contrasting views of “universal” rights, but also in their conflicting arguments about what will make China “stronger.”
Robert Weatherley – a lecturer on contemporary Chinese politics at the University of Cambridge and a lawyer in London – has written a timely, succinct book on a theme that he argues has shaped much of China's elite discourse from the late Qing to the present: the connection between Chinese thinking on democracy and human rights on the one hand, and Chinese nationalism on the other. Weatherley's main argument is straightforward: “[A]lmost every time there is a debate in China about democracy and rights, it is closely tied … to the question of how to make China strong” (p. 1). He further contends that the cause of these debates is “usually a perceived threat from foreign imperialism” (p. 1), thereby linking the military menace of imperial powers in prior centuries to the alleged “foreign cultural imperialism” of imposing “Western democracy and rights” (p. 142).
The author questions the view that Western liberal definitions of democracy and human rights are “universal” (p. 16) and rigorously examines Chinese views on their own terms. Weatherley finds that elites have generally seen democracy and human rights through an “instrumentalist” lens, working with two somewhat different concepts – nationalism and self-interest – within his heading of “nationalism.” He argues that “from the very moment the concept of rights entered Chinese political discourse” it was viewed as a means to “nation building and national salvation” (p. 2) and not an end in itself. As a result, it could be sacrificed if those goals necessitated.
Making China Strong is structured chronologically using the conventional periodization of China's turbulent 20th century, with each chapter searching out thematic continuities. Late Qing reformers demonstrated enthusiasm for how “democracy and human rights might assist in the process of national resistance” (p. 24) to imperialist military threat by uniting the population around the common cause of the nation (chapter one). In the early Republic, elites shifted from believing that democratic participation could strengthen the new nation to entreating the Chinese people to “voluntarily give up their rights and freedoms” in order “to help build a strong China” (p. 81; chapter two). Under Chiang Kai-shek, the imposition of an authoritarian regime and the debates that emerged in the face of the Japanese invasion deepen this theme of “withholding democracy and rights” (p. 85) to help China defend itself (chapter three). In the period of Mao Zedong's rule, ideas of “mass participatory democracy” were premised on the selective granting of rights only to “proletarian class allies” (p. 114) who could be trusted to help make China strong (chapter four). In the post-Mao era, the author primarily follows the shift to opposing a new perceived form of Western cultural imperialism, especially after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown (chapter five). The conclusion assesses contemporary discourse on nationalism and human rights in China, contrasting the criticisms of international watchdog organizations with both “the progress China has made” and the “increasingly vociferous” voices in China that claim the CCP is “not doing enough to defend China” (p. 26).
Weatherley's book, written as a general survey spanning more than a century, draws frequently on secondary literature, though the author does provide original analysis of primary materials including a valuable study of China's constitutions under different regimes. The author makes clear distinctions among competing interpretations of amorphous concepts like “democracy” – showing how it was possible for men with worldviews as different as Kang Youwei and Mao Zedong both to embrace the word “democracy” for their respective goals. Despite the protean nature of the ideas under examination, the author persuasively shows that these terms were far from meaningless – and argues that this contestation over their meanings has been a central factor in the emergence of a strong China. Building on the existing body of scholarly literature on these subjects, particularly Stephen C. Angle's Human Rights in Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Marina Svensson's Debating Human Rights in China (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), Weatherley's primary contribution is to emphasize the role of foreign enemies in shaping Chinese human rights discourse from its late Qing origins.
The book does not resolve whether denunciations of “hostile foreign influences” are the real motivation for policies, as Weatherley claims, or rhetorical fireworks designed to protect the regime. This question is particularly important to answer if one seeks to understand the possible institutionalization of “a distinctly Chinese model of democracy and rights” (p. 7) as a CCP strategy for maintaining long-term power. At a time when imprisoned Chinese activists like Liu Xiaobo and Xu Zhiyong have attained global stature – and when the 2014 Fourth Plenum signalled a greater emphasis on “ruling the country according to law” (see Xinhua News Service, Communiqué of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee) – these issues have significant implications both inside and outside of the academy.
Making China Strong is an engaging and concise survey of an important contemporary debate. It is suitable for courses on modern Chinese history, law and comparative political systems, as well as for readers interested in familiarizing themselves with the competing viewpoints in Chinese discourse on democracy and human rights.
