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Reflections | Royal scandals, from the modern Netherlands to ancient China, help make the case for republicanism

Misbehaving monarchs, whose positions of power are inherited not earned, always make headlines

Ancient China’s Gonghe period, when the country was governed without a king, gave its name to the Chinese word for republic

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King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands cut short their holiday to Greece after facing criticism for travelling during the pandemic, on October 21. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 8:45am, 29 Oct 2020Updated: 9:21am, 29 Oct 2020

Royal shenanigans always make headlines, the most recent being King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands cutting short their Greek holiday following criticism for travelling during the Covid-19 pandemic. This incident, however, pales in comparison to recent scandals afflicting other royal families.

Albert II, the former king of Belgium, was essentially strong-armed by the Belgian courts into acknowledging his illegitimate daughter earlier this year, while Emeritus King Juan Carlos I of Spain has lived in self-exile since August over alleged kickbacks from commercial contracts in the Middle East. The antics of the British royal family would be terribly funny if they didn’t cost so much. Closer to home, the crowned heads of several Asian countries have long been thoroughly unconvincing in their roles as upholders and defenders of whatever it is they are supposed to uphold and defend.

The very institution of royalty in the 21st century both amuses and baffles me. I get that they are a connection to the past, but is their continued existence really necessary for a nation’s self-worth and identity? Besides, the pasts of many present-day royal houses aren’t all that ancient or venerable.

The beauty of republicanism is that, in theory at least, the head of state can be removed with greater ease and less hand-wringing. Also, presidents of republics, be they executive or ceremonial, usually enter office through elections or appointments by virtue of exceptional achievements in their fields, be it academia, law, diplomacy, and so on. Hereditary rulers, in contrast, got their jobs simply because they had been planted in the right womb by the right person.

Gongheguo, the modern Chinese word for republic, was actually coined by the Japanese and “re-borrowed” by the Chinese. After King Li of the Zhou dynasty was hounded out of his capital by angry mobs, China entered the Gonghe period (841-828BC), during which the country was governed without a king. Historians are still uncertain if the word gonghe refers to a specific person who served as regent or merely describes the “shared harmony” of that period.