Encuesta aplicada a los comerciantes de maíz y papa del EP-EMMPA

Obviously, there are many overlaps between the approaches through cultural-historical tradition and through performance legitimacy. Some proponents of performance legitimacy also use historical and cultural components of China to support their arguments (e.g. Zhao, 2009). The moral commitment or responsibility of the government, such as benevolence, is closely related to performance. However, these two approaches have different interpretations about the relationship between responsibility/morality and the performance of the government. It raises an question: should the government’s morality/responsibility include or be a part of its performance? The cultural-historical tradition approach argues that morality/responsibility includes performance (e.g. Tong, 2011), whilst the performance legitimacy approach argues that performance legitimacy includes moral performance (e.g. Zhao, 2009). The above cleavage is owing to the confusion between moral standards and moral performance. The performance approach ignored the ideological factors of morality and the cultural-historical tradition approach neglected the practical aspect of morality.

Moral standards and moral performance are better understood as two inter-related but different things. When it comes to legitimacy, moral standards are about traditional values and thus ideological legitimacy; however, moral performance is more about empirical performance and thus performance legitimacy. How the CCP should act (i.e. moral standards) is not equal to how it actually performs (i.e. moral performance). Moral standards are very ideological. In ancient China, Confucianism had been the official ideology of Chinese dynasties since the Western Han Dynasty. Confucianism, in fact, is a sort of moral philosophy which justifies the rightness of a state or emperor by a set of standards, such as “rule by virtue” and “benevolence” as discussed above. In this sense moral standards provide a normative foundation for regime legitimacy. Unlike moral standards, moral

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performance involves more empirical elements. The regime’s actual moral performance will be reflected in a part of its performance legitimacy. In modern states, there is always a gap between ideal moral standards and actual moral performance, which partly reflects the difference between ideology and social reality.

In China, corruption is actually a governance-based performance failure, whilst declining moral standards are a problem of ideology. In this sense, effective anti-corruption is a way to strengthen government performance and thus performance legitimacy, and the reconstruction of moral standards should be understood as an attempt to enhance ideological legitimacy. In this regard, the CCP focuses on two aspects: moral performance and moral standards. On the one hand, the CCP has made efforts to make various rules and regulations to reduce corruption for its moral performance. On the other hand, it employs ideology to improve the ethical requirements of the party cadres. For example, the CCP’s “Eight Dos and on’ts” and the Socialist Concept of Honour and Disgrace are proposed as an important dimension of ideological construction of the Socialist Core Values System.

In sum, traditional Chinese cultural-historical values play a significant role in affecting political legitimacy in contemporary China. However, political culture is dynamic rather than static. Thus, their impacts on regime legitimacy need to be examined in the framework of contemporary ideological discourses.

3.3.3. Nationalism

In addition to economic growth and social stability emphasized by the performance legitimacy approach, nationalism is also widely considered as a crucial source of legitimacy in China, as mentioned in the Introduction Chapter (Breslin, 2009; Darr, 2011; Fang, 1997; Lam, 2003; Li, 2001b; Lieberthal, 2004:334-335; Lin and Hu, 2003; Ostergaard, 2004; Shambaugh, 2001; Zhao, 1998; Zheng, 2004). For example, Zhao Suisheng (1998:297) argues:

“The leadership of the CCP was claimed because of the CCP’s patriotism in China’s long struggle for national independence and prosperity not because of its Communist ideals. Patriotism rather than communism, thus, became the basis of the CCP’s rule of legitimacy.”

Kenneth Lieberthal also (2004:334-335) argues:

“By 2020, China may become an authoritarian, one-party system that is closely linked to domestic business elites and attempts to keep the lower classes quiescent by promoting ardent nationalism .... The most likely way to maintain social peace in a system that basically serves the interests of the wealthy political and economic elite is to encourage nationalism”.

There is little doubt that nationalism is an important source of legitimacy in China; however, no empirical evidence shows that it is a superior source, as mentioned in the Introduction Chapter. Notably patriotism and nationalism in China are “empirically distinct” (Gries, et al., 2011). The official propaganda adopts the word “patriotism” (i.e. love of the country) rather than “nationalism” to avoid the negative connotations of nationalism.

It is argued that Chinese nationalism has gradually replaced the marginalized communist ideals and thus become the new ideological basis of the CCP (Christensen, 1996;

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Gries and Rosen, 2004; He, 2007; Link, 2008; Metzger and Myers, 1998; Zhao, 1997; Zhao, 1998; Zhong, 1996). For example, Cabestan (2005) argues that

“There was first of all the irruption of a state nationalism which some dubbed ‘nationalism of substitution’ because to a large extent it replaced a communist ideology which had shown its futility and above all its inadequacy in the face of the economic and social realities which the Communist Party was allowing to take root in China.” This view suggests that Chinese nationalism is an ideology. As mentioned in the Introduction Chapter, Chinese nationalism is not an ideology because it is not formed by a set of coherent values. This thesis considers Chinese nationalism as an informal ideology that supplements rather than replaces the CCP’s value system. As Chapter 5 will discuss the CCP’s discourse of national rejuvenation interacts with its (in)stability discourse to suggest that the CCP’s one-party rule is for the greater good of China – restoring China to its rightful position of pre-eminence.

Although the significance of nationalism to China’s political development has been widely recognized, no consensus on its exact political meanings has been reached yet, as the following sections will discuss.