Coalition and Hegemony: Religion's Role in the Progress of Modernization in Reformed China

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) I. INTRODUCTION In past thirty-two years, mainland China has risen from one of poorest countries to second largest economic power in world.1 The sweeping but stable progress of modernization in China may be listed among most important events in human history.2 What are proper cultural factors contributing to this marvel? What is role of religion in this progress? According to Max Weber, Protestant ethic was coincident with rise of capitalism in Europe. Protestantism is obviously irrelevant to situation in China because Protestants are still a very small minority to this day,4 and Calvinistic ethic has little influence there. During 1970s and 80s when the four little dragons in East Asia - Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea - took lead in modernization in Asia, many Neo- Confucian scholars ascribed great success to Confucian morality, which still somewhat influences cultural mores of these countries. China was cradle of Confucianism and, of course, has been traditionally regarded as major enclave of Confucian culture. Nevertheless, Confucianism has been criticized and rejected by mainstream intellectuals as an opponent to modernity since May Fourth Movement in 1919.5 After Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came power in 1949, and especially during Cultural Revolution, Confucianism was treated as one of putrescent cultures that should be thrown away into trash pile of history.6 In past several years, conditions have changed only slightly, but government and some intellectuals are trying to make use of Confucian morality to help rebuild social order. The voices of neo- Confucianism are just beginning to echo from studies of scholars. Are above observations sufficient for us to conclude that religion has been basically absent from modernization of reformed China? How can we properly evaluate role of religion in that country? This Article briefly examines these questions. Part II discusses China's system of elite governance and how it has become more open to religion. Part III examines religion's influence on China's developing culture. Finally, Part IV discusses sources of domestic and foreign resistance to China's changing hegemony. II. RELIGION PLAYS A PART IN THE ELITE COALITION A. The Elitist Governance The Chinese government claims that China is a socialist country, but its version of socialism is fundamentally different from traditional sense in that (1) it totally embraces market economy, which was purported to be one of ledial factors of capitalism; (2) most of state-owned enterprises have been privatized; and (3) disparity in distribution of wealth in China today is among greatest in world.7 According to traditional Marxism, public ownership and distribution of goods in proportion to work are two basic standards of socialism.8 In today's China, state ownership and collective ownership have been transformed in favor of joint-stock ownership.9 Social wealth has become more and more concentrated in holdings of a small percentage of population. In 2008, Gini coefficient was around .469, 10 approaching an alarming level. Thus China no longer has a socialist system, at least in traditional sense. Nor does it have a capitalist system. The major difference between system of China and that of other Western capitalist countries is system of governance. The Chinese people have not voted to select their president directly. This does not mean that there is no democracy at all, or that Chinese government lacks legitimacy. China's special way of governance and government's high efficiency have supported its legitimacy. Some scholars of politics named this system of governance neoauthoritarianism, which was quite popular in 1980s through early 1990s. …