To wrap up the argument of this book, this chapter looks at the way in which the three traditional ‘tools of rulership’ identified in Chapter 2 – namely, language, awesomeness, and profits – are being employed by the PRC to achieve the vision of a hierarchical international order. Needless to say, those tools have uses other than the ones that will be highlighted here. Yet the orientation towards maintenance of order and of China’s central position is an important one that has deep historical roots and has remained visible throughout the history of the PRC. As noted in Chapter 4, before 1949, a weak and divided China beset by foreign invasion and internal strife was in no position to devote resources to support its position in international society. In its early years, the PRC was still relatively weak but did seek to make use of the power that naturally comes from having founded a unified government ruling over the world’s largest country to sustain its status claim on the world stage. In these early endeavours, it was already clear that traditional ways of thinking about the use of power had endured through the transformations of the early 20th century. This remained true throughout the following decades, and has become more apparent than ever under Xi Jinping. The following pages will discuss in turn how each of the three ‘tools of rulership’ continue to be used in ways reminiscent of China’s imperial past, starting with language. Here, two aspects deserve particular attention. First, PRC leaders have dedicated much attention to their country’s overall ability to have its voice heard internationally and control how its foreign relations are depicted. Second is a more specific use of ‘names’ in one of the central pillars of PRC foreign policy since the 1990s, namely, a network of partnerships that is the closest thing China has to a modern ranks and titles system.

Increasing discourse power

The PRC was initially a poor and technologically backward country, so the resource the CCP could use most liberally was its ability to speak to its citizens and to the rest of international society.

Sixty years is a particularly meaningful number in the traditional Chinese calendar, the completion of a cycle and the beginning of a new one. On the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2009, marked by a grand military parade in the centre of Beijing and many festivities, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had indeed a lot to celebrate. It had successfully hosted the Olympic Games and used it as a sort of coming-out party, displaying to the world the fruits of China’s economic miracle. While the West was mired in the deepest recession since the 1930s, China had avoided a complete crash thanks to a massive fiscal stimulus. The G20, where China could play a prominent role, replaced the G8 as the main forum to discuss global economic issues. China was also about to surpass Japan to become the second-largest economy on the planet, an ascent symbolizing the success of its growth strategy and the enormous economic (and military) capabilities that it had acquired. In short, things were mostly going China’s way and a sense that the world’s centre of gravity was shifting eastwards was spreading in the PRC and around the world.

Against this background, an increasingly confident CCP declared that a ‘new situation’ (xin xingshi) had arisen. At the fourth plenum of the 17th CCP Central Committee in mid-2009, this new situation was described thusly:

The China ruled over by General Secretary of the CCP Xi Jinping since 2012 has come a long way from the divisions and weakness of the early 20th century. It is now recognized by all as an up-and-coming superpower capable of rivalling the US and putting its mark on international order. It seems eager to do so, especially in Asia, its immediate surrounding which it often calls its ‘periphery’ (zhoubian). In this chapter and the two following ones, we will examine how the traditional ideal of hierarchical order outlined earlier in this book, in the transformed shape it took during China’s encounter with the modern society of nation states, continues to impact the country’s foreign policy in Asia to this day. We will focus mainly on the contemporary period dominated by the figure of Xi Jinping, but will also trace back some of the features of China’s vision for order today to their origins in earlier periods of the history of the People’s Republic, namely the Maoist period (1949–1978) and the 30 years following the beginning of reform and opening under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping (1979–2008).

There is close to a consensus among analysts on this threefold division of the history of the PRC. This is certainly how Xi Jinping himself wishes to portray his country’s trajectory. He presents himself as the most transformative Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping at least, and promotes his own ‘thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era’ (xin shidai Zhongguo tese shihui zhuyi sixiang) accompanied by a new ‘principal contradiction’ to succeed that of the reform era, in conformity with the CCP’s Marxist ideological framework. Considering the CCP’s determination to shape the narrative of China’s ‘road to rejuvenation’ under its leadership, the official line advanced by the General Secretary and his team carries significant weight.

Many outside observers have in fact adopted similar demarcation lines between the era dominated by Mao Zedong, that launched by Deng Xiaoping and the current one (for example, Amako, 2014; Economy, 2018; Minzner, 2018).

To demonstrate how China’s imperial past still shapes its foreign policy today requires first determining precisely which ideas and practices have carried over and in what form. The previous chapter explored how the aspiration to establish a hierarchical world order coursed through the foundational texts of Chinese political philosophy – and outlined the analytical framework for the rest of this book in the process. This chapter and the next examine how their ideas translated into practice and in what shape they were inherited by Chinese statesmen of the modern era. Here, we conduct a broad overview of Chinese statecraft over the course of the long imperial era, aiming to highlight what elements of the ideal of hierarchical order shone through most frequently and consistently in the imperial court’s dealings with the outside world.

We will emphasize three points in particular. First, Chinese statesmen remained steadfastly attached to the idea that maintaining an all-encompassing hierarchy centred on the Son of Heaven was the only path to order and that his superior moral qualities justified his exalted position. They did not falter even when faced with situations where the empire’s ability to assert its superiority was either in doubt or simply non existent, and where the emperor strayed very far from Confucian virtues. In such cases, they employed various rhetorical techniques to reconcile reality with their ideal of hierarchical order. Second, the role of ritual in maintaining this order went much beyond the reception of tribute and the granting of imperial titles to forge suzerain– vassal relations with other polities, although these were indeed the most common and favoured ritual institutions. A large part of this chapter will be dedicated to an analysis of the broader universe of Chinese techniques of ‘rule through ritual’ (lizhi), and to their purpose and function. Third, it was well understood throughout the imperial era that the power to ‘rectify names’, to awe through military might, and to offer economic benefits to those who followed ritual rules were essential tools for obtaining compliance with the Chinese vision of hierarchical order.

This chapter demonstrates the interplay between domestic and international ideas about birth control and abortion in Republican China (1912–1949). Eugenic discourses linking individual health to national strength and modernity gained currency in the early 1920s. Margaret Sanger’s visit to China in 1922 further fueled elite preoccupation with using contraception to improve the “quality” of the population, while reformers called for an end to social ills, such as abortion, child abandonment, and infanticide. Mirroring the blending of Chinese and foreign eugenic thought, the medical language used to describe birth control merged a primarily traditional Chinese medical discourse with Western and Japanese scientific terminology. Despite their prominence in intellectual circles, many of the high-level arguments for and against birth control had little direct impact on everyday reproductive practices.

Like their predecessors, Communist officials initially placed strict restrictions on birth control and abortion, encouraging high fertility rates. Focusing on the early years of the People’s Republic from 1949 until the Great Leap Forward, this chapter shows that even in this constrained environment, literature on sex and birth control continued to be published, promoting disparate narratives on sexuality and fostering diverse local contraceptive practices. The need to more fully mobilize women’s labor led to a gradual loosening of birth control limitations. Yet, the availability of information about sex, as well as access to birth control, abortions, and sterilizations, differed dramatically according to location, class, and education level.

This chapter clarifies why blunt force regulation is so distinctive. It begins by outlining two underlying logics regulatory enforcement, namely, “rules-based” regulation (which prioritizes effectiveness) and “risk-based” regulation (which prioritizes efficiency). Drawing on case details, it then illustrates how blunt force regulation fits into neither category, offering neither efficient nor effective regulation in the long-term. Instead, it represents an unusual combination of indiscriminate enforcement (which devalues compliances) and arbitrary but inflexible enforcement (which increases regulatory distrust and business uncertainty). This raises the question: Why blunt force regulation?