Unprecedented in human history is the current importance of a Chinese as a global leader. No emperor of the Middle Kingdom ever brokered a detente between Arab powers or made an alliance with Russia to turn the global community against the heritage of the Western Enlightenment. Xi Jinping has accomplished in world affairs what no Chinese leader before him has.
But Xi needs to address questions about the legitimacy of his power. Why should anyone listen to him or accept his dictates?
In Chinese terms, what evidence does Xi have that Heaven (Tian) has chosen him, first, to lead China, and, second, to lead the entire world, the All-Under-Heaven (Tian-xia)?
None.
That is a big problem for him. Unless he can show us evidence of his personal mandate to rule, he is an imposter.
First, Confucius said, “Does Heaven speak? The four seasons pursue their courses and all things are continually being produced, but does Heaven every say anything?” (Analects, Book 17, Chapter 19)
Thus, according to Confucius, no one can ever know directly from Heaven itself who is most qualified to rule the world.
The History Classic twice confirms that Heaven speaks through the people. First: “Heaven hears and sees as the people hear and see; Heaven brightly approves and displays its terrors as the people brightly approve and would put in awe.” (The Counsels of Kao-yao, Part II, B00k III, Chapter IV 8)
Second: “Heaven sees as my people see; Heaven hears as my people hear.” (The Great Declaration, Part V, Book I, Part ii. 7)
Mencius said that only by ratifying a decision of the people did Heaven make Shun the Son of Heaven. When the three-year mourning for Emperor Yao was over, “Shun withdrew from the son of Yao to the south. The princes of the kingdom on coming to court did not go to Yao but to Shun. Litigants went not to the son of Yao but to Shun. Singers sang not the son of Yao but they sang Shun.”
Therefore, Mencius concluded that Heaven gave the throne to Shun to accord with the choice of the people, noting that, if before the princes, the litigants, and the singers had expressed their preference for him, Shun had taken up residence in the palace and applied pressure on the son of Yao, “it would have been an act of usurpation and not the gift of Heaven.”
Mencius then quoted the Great Declaration of the History Classic.
Mencius related that after Shun died, Yu withdrew from the son of Shun and the people followed him, not the son of Shun. Again, the throne passed to one preferred by the people. (Mencius, Book V, Chapters V and VI)
Xi has never been chosen by the Chinese people to rule over them. Therefore, he has not been chosen by Heaven. He is a pretender only.
Second, when the History Classic speaks of “the people” we must presume this means that Heaven gives eyes to see and ears to hear to everyone living in the All-Under-Heaven (Tian-xia).
Thus Americans must have a say in whether or not Xi is a legitimate world ruler. So too must the Europeans, the Japanese, the Africans, Latin Americans, and even the Tibetans. Heaven, as far as we know, listens to them as well as Chinese.
All these people have a right to question Xi’s fitness, Caesar-like, to “bestride the narrow world like a colossus.”
Or, if Heaven does listen only to the Chinese people, we have never heard it openly declare its preference for the thinking of that ethnicity.
The Chinese have long asserted that they constitute the center of humanity, the Chung Quo. But that is only a self-promoting conceit.
The Vietnamese, for example, have never accepted such arrogance, referring to the Chinese emperor as no more than the Huang ti (emperor) of the North. Thus for the Vietnamese over the past 2,000 years, their resistance to Chinese rule was ordained by Heaven.
The jurist Mozi, architect of the Chinese imperial order, wrote only that the most virtuous in the world was chosen to be the Son of Heaven (Book III, Chapter 11). He was not at all clear as to the selection process.
Is Xi such a supremely virtuous man, towering over the rest of us in his capacity to live by the ideals of humaneness and righteousness (renyi)? What is the exact quality and the quantity of his personal virtue (te)?
Who has ever examined Xi for his virtue? The Central Party School?
Now I submit that there are “men” in the United States, Europe, Japan and other countries who exceed Xi in virtue. Pope Francis is one. So too the Grand Ayatollah Sistani. What are we to make of Volodymyr Zelensky, who resisted Russia’s invasion of his country? Did his success come from having earned Heaven’s blessing?
I would any day prefer my friend Jan Peter Balkenende, former prime minister of the Netherlands, to Xi Jinping as a man of virtue.
Why then, under traditional Chinese thinking, should not one of these men be preferred by Heaven to hold authority over the world (Tian-xia)?
Furthermore, if we were to ask who, among all the Chinese people, might have more virtue than Xi, we might well find hundreds, even thousands, who would make the cut. Why isn’t one of them entrusted with the power to govern China? The Chinese people have not spoken on whom they prefer, so Heaven has not been given anyone suitable to receive its appointment.
Next, what form of government best implements the Chinese ideal that Heaven sees as the people see – democracy or one-party dictatorship? Authoritarian one-party rule can be found wanting under ancient Chinese principles of moral jurisprudence.
And how can Heaven ever learn what the Chinese people see and hear, if they are constrained by a social credit system preventing them from speaking freely? If the Chinese people are silenced, whom can Heaven consult as to finding the best leaders for China?
Now, the ancient Chinese found ways to learn of Heaven’s will. In particular, they consulted the Yijing, or the case book explicating the 64 Yin/Yang hexagrams.
In the Confucian tradition, there was a text called The Doctrine of the Mean. Following the Mean, avoiding extremes, approximates Heaven’s decision-making.
Confucius affirmed that “a man of virtue lives in the course of the Mean while a petty, self-centered, man acts contrary to the course of the Mean.” He also insisted that “perfect is the virtue which is according to the Mean.” The man possessing virtue seeks the states of equilibrium and harmony so that all things will be nourished and will flourish.” (Doctrine of the Mean, Chapter 1)
The Taoist classic the Tao Te Jing advocates non-action, avoidance of playing the role of Heaven “to do the killing for the Great Executioner is to chop wood for a master carpenter; you would be lucky indeed if you did not hurt your own hand.” (74)