The Spirit Of Chinese Politics

Lucian Pye, one of the most knowledgeable observers of China, unfolds in this book a deep psychological analysis of Chinese political culture. The dynamics of the Cultural Revolution, the behavior of the Red Guards, and the compulsions of Mao Tse-tung are among the important symptoms examined. But Pye goes behind large events, exploring the more enduring aspects of Chinese culture and the stable elements of the national psychology as they have been manifested in traditional, Republican, and Communist periods. He also scans several possible paths of future development. The emphasis is on the roles long played by authority, order, hierarchy, and emotional quietism in Chinese political culture as shaped by the Confucian tradition and the institution of filial piety, and the resulting confusions brought about by the displacements of these traditions in the face of political change and modernization. In this new edition Pye adds a chapter on the basic tension between consensus and conflict in the operation of Chinese politics, illustrating the "spirit" in action, and another discussing the great gap that persists between the worlds of the political leadership and of society at large in post-Tiananmen China.

This book examines the Chinese political tradition over the past two thousand years and argues that the enduring and most important feature of this tradition is autocracy. The author interprets the communist takeover of 1949 not as a revolution but as a continuation of the imperial tradition. The book shows how Mao Zedong revitalised this autocratic tradition along five lines: the use of ideology for political control; concentration of power in the hands of a few; state power over all aspects of life; law as a tool wielded by the ruler, who is himself above the law; and the subjection of the individual to the state. Using a statist approach, the book argues that in China political action of the state has been the single most important factor in determining socio-economic change.

This unique book offers the readers a ring-side seat to watch the drama of Chinese politics as it is experienced by the players themselves. It provides an opportunity for non-Chinese readers to get a feel of the intricacies of contemporary Chinese politics as they are played out in real-life situations. The vivid stories contained in this book offers the students of Chinese politics from the English-speaking world a rare glimpse that is unfiltered by the cultural and ideological assumptions as well as by the conceptual framework developed in Western political science, and how these create systematic biases and blind spots in understanding politics in a very different cultural and historical context. In between the collection of short stories and the author's highlights, this book illustrates key areas of Chinese politics and society: elite politics, political structure and power distribution, political culture and social networks (guanxi), state-society relations, policy and decision making, political participation, contentious politics, political economy of development etc. It provides a succinct description of the Chinese political system, the patterns of politics arising from it, as well as the cultural, social and historical legacies that continue to drive Chinese politics. As such, this book is not only suitable for students of politics but also for Western business people and policy makers trying to understand and navigate the unfamiliar and treacherous waters of the Chinese politics.

This book describes and analyzes how politics among the Chinese leadership has operated and evolved from the period of Mao's court up to the present day. Part I explores politics under Mao and Deng. For this section the five leading western analysts of elite Chinese politics -- Lowell Dittmer, Lucian Pye, Frederick Teiwes, Andrew Nathan, and Tsou Tang -- have contributed major papers that measure the empirical evidence against political science theory, recent Chinese history, and Chinese political culture. Part II explores and analyzes the ongoing changes in Chinese politics during Jiang's tenure, and includes analyzes by almost all the leading English-language scholars in the field.