America’s quarrel is not with Chinese civilisation, but the Chinese Communist Party

Xi Jinping may have provided more ammunition for Washington by hosting a conference on Asian civilisations. But US policymakers are off the mark – they are confusing a threat from the Communist Party with a threat from Chinese culture

Deng Yuwen

Published: 10:15am, 25 May 2019

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Are civilisations destined to clash? Not if you ask Xi Jinping. At the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations in Beijing on May 15, the Chinese President told delegates from 47 countries: “It is stupid to believe that one’s race and civilisation are superior to others, and it is disastrous to wilfully reshape or even replace other civilisations.” It was a veiled rebuke of the United States State Department’s director of policy planning, Kiron Skinner, who recently defined relations with China as “a fight with a really different civilisation”.

Skinner’s speech also drew criticism from US public opinion. If the US is really framing its China policy on the basis of a “clash of civilisations”, the situation between the two countries might become more serious and dangerous than the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union.

In this day and age, it’s extremely politically incorrect to regard state-to-state relations as a clash of civilisations or even races. Nonetheless, for these words to come from the mouth of a US State Department official is not surprising. The question is whether this is her personal opinion, a consensus among US policymakers, or a reflection of US President Donald Trump’s views on China.

There are many who feel a clash between the American and Chinese civilisations is unacceptable and impossible, but I am less optimistic. I think Skinner’s presupposition is likely to inadvertently come true in the near future.

Skinner’s words have been linked to political scientist Samuel Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilisations. In Huntington’s view, conflicts in the post-cold-war world would be cultural, rather than ideological and economic. Although nation-states would remain the most powerful players in world affairs, conflicts between groups from different civilisations would dominate global politics and fault lines between different civilisations would become war zones. Huntington believed that the Christian civilisation could clash with the Islamic and the Confucian civilisations.

In a similar vein, Skinner regards the cold war with the Soviet Union as “a fight within the Western family” and China as “a really different civilisation and a different ideology” posing a more serious threat to the US. From Huntington to Skinner, it should be clear that the clash of civilisations is a common thread in the American academic world.

In his preface to the Chinese edition of The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, Huntington acknowledged that the book had been “criticised in China and elsewhere for possibly making a self-fulfilling prophecy”. Following the cold war, the September 11 attacks and Islamic State militancy seem to confirm Huntington’s theory and indicate an expanding trend.

Xi’s warning to the world: don’t let us become like Game of Thrones

As far as the US and China are concerned, it is unfortunate that Xi is giving the Washington hawks evidence of an imminent clash. Consider the recent conference on Asian civilisations, which, according to the official Chinese media, Xi proposed in 2014. Now, why would Xi propose such a meeting?

Nominally, a dialogue on an equal footing between the different civilisations in Asia would highlight the region’s richness in traditions. But the conference is actually a pretext for selling the values of communist China to Asian countries, teaching Chinese practices and promoting the Chinese development model .

People take part in a commemoration of philosopher Mencius – a luminary of the Confucian tradition – and his mother in Zoucheng, Shandong province. The US has described relations with China as a “fight with a really different civilisation”, but it might have mixed up Communist Party culture and traditional Chinese culture. Photo: Xinhua

Put yourself in Washington’s shoes: when Xi advocates the fostering of an Asian community at a conference on Asian civilisations, could he not be implying Asian countries should reject Western civilisation? Isn’t China trying to export its civilisation to Asia, so Asia becomes China’s Asia?

As China rises as an economic power, the Communist Party has proposed the “Four Self-confidences”, including cultural confidence and confidence in the path of socialism. This is not just a slogan, but also a purposeful promotion plan. You could think of it as promotion of the Communist Party’s development model, or of Chinese values and Chinese civilisation, because a development model will always be supported by values and culture. However, some Western scholars and policymakers seem to separate civilisation from ideology, as if a clash of civilisations has nothing to do with ideology.

To my mind, the two are difficult to separate. Realistically, the ideology of a country is an important part of its culture. A clash of civilisations at present is more likely to involve current ideology than traditional culture or a past civilisation.

President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan attend an Asian culture carnival as part of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations in Beijing on May 15. Photo: Xinhua

If Confucian civilisation can be said to constitute a threat to Western civilisation, it can’t be the doctrine pioneered by Confucius, which developed over thousands of years into a set of cultural traditions. Such a traditional Chinese culture was defeated by the West more than 150 years ago, during the opium wars, and is of no threat to the West today. The threat to Western civilisation is contemporary Chinese culture, which today blends the values and rules of the Communist Party.

Despite Xi’s seeming emphasis on traditional culture in recent years, it is doubtful how much of this revamped Chinese culture can be really Confucian. In fact, to designate Communist Party culture “Confucian civilisation” is to misunderstand both.

The perils of Chinese ambiguity: how it leads to mistrust of China

Although it cannot be denied that Confucian culture is part of the Communist Party’s DNA, it is the party’s history that played the most important part in shaping its culture. This party culture is related to traditional Chinese culture, but more of it is made up of the party’s ideology and mode of operation; today, it also has a distinctly Xi Jinping flavour.

From where Skinner is sitting, US policymakers definitely feel the threat of communist China. Yet, instead of distinguishing between Chinese Communist Party culture and Confucian civilisation, they see this as a threat from Chinese culture. The US is mistakenly equating the Chinese Communist Party with China and misunderstanding a Chinese communist threat as a Chinese threat.

Because of this confusion, the more intense the global competition between the two countries, the higher the risk of a clash in the future. The US would undoubtedly provoke a counter-attack from the Chinese Communist Party in the name of Chinese culture – Xi’s accusation against the US at the recent conference is a warning.

Huntington’s prophecy might just come true, and the possibility of a clash between the American and Chinese civilisations cannot be ruled out.

Deng Yuwen is an independent scholar and researcher at the China Strategic Analysis Centre Inc. This article was translated from Chinese

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