A notion launched by Deng Xiaoping, promoted by Jiang Zemin, and much less emphasized in later years, is now revamped by Xi Jinping through his latest book.
by Hu Zimo
Those who lived in China during the last decades of the 20th century are very familiar with the expression “Socialist spiritual civilization” (社会主义精神文明). Most likely, they also remember Deng Xiaoping’s comment that in the China he built “one hand is tough while the other is soft.” Deng uttered these words at a CCP Standing Committee meeting in January 1996. What he meant was that the greatness of the country requires two hands, or two civilizations, one material and one “spiritual.” His reforms had created a powerful material civilization and a rich country, but the rush to become rich quickly Deng had encouraged had left “spirituality” behind.
Two events confirmed to Deng Xiaoping and to his successor Jiang Zemin that the lack of a strong “spirituality” might have catastrophic results. The first was the Tiananmen student revolt of 1989; the second was the publication by American scholar Samuel Huntington of the article “The Clash of Civilizations” in 1993, followed by the book with the same title in 1996. Nowhere outside the English-speaking world did Huntington find more attentive readers than in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Tiananmen was interpreted as evidence that young Chinese students might be well-off but this would not automatically keep them quiet and obedient to the Party. Lacking an appropriate “spirituality,” they borrowed one from the West (and a good number of them were Christians). From Huntington, rightly or wrongly, the Party took the idea that only powers with a strong “spirituality” such as the U.S. or the Islamic world would be significant players in the clash of civilizations, which the Soviet Union had lost for not having a viable “spiritual” model to propose.
In the 1990s, thus, the CCP was busy with a campaign launched in 1991 with the name of “Spiritual Civilization Offensive.” Chinese remember its posters, but what the “spiritual civilization” Deng and Jiang proposed was never totally clear. Quite obviously, the CCP is an atheistic party. How can it propose a “spirituality”? In large cities, what was sold under the name of “spirituality” was, in fact, secular morality: while pursuing wealth as dictated by Deng, the Chinese should avoid corruption and selfishness and obey the Party.
Elsewhere, however, elements of traditional Chinese spirituality were mobilized. One paradoxical example was the ancient alchemical technique where men made love stopping before ejaculation. While in the Chinese tradition it was a spiritual exercise aimed at enlightenment and immortality, some local CCP leaders mobilized it as a contraceptive at the service of the one-child-per-family campaign. There were intellectuals who claimed that Marxism had always included a “spirituality” and even a “mysticism,” although they were atheistic and totally secular.
The problem was that an atheistic “spirituality” was not very attractive. Those who accepted the official atheism remained busy getting rich. Those who didn’t, continued to look for genuine spirituality in religion.
With Xi Jinping, “Socialist spirituality” originally did not totally go away, but was largely overcome by concepts such as “excellent Chinese tradition,” “political civilization,” and “social harmony.” However, by reading the proceedings of the 2022 20th Congress of the CCP, one has the clear impression that Xi Jinping is facing the same problem Deng had to confront in the years around Tiananmen. China is a military and economic superpower, but its citizens are not motivated by a deep, “spiritual” loyalty to the Party and the government. Xi also understood this is the problem with Russia, whose army is less motivated and may be defeated by its less powerful Ukrainian counterpart.
Since the 20th Congress, Xi has returned often to the concept of “Socialist spiritual civilization” of the Deng and Jiang years, although it had mentioned it even before. Now, his speeches on the subject have been collected in a book that was introduced on January 16 by the “People’s Daily,” under the title “Excerpts from Xi Jinping’s Exposition on the Construction of Socialist Spiritual Civilization” (习近平关于社会主义精神文明建设论述摘编). This is now becoming mandatory study material for CCP cadres and in all Chinese schools.
The problem, again, is that “spirituality” remains the vague Deng-Jian moralistic concept, with Xi’s signature reference to traditional Chinese culture added. According to Xi, “we must never abandon the excellent cultural traditions of the Chinese nation. On the contrary, we must inherit and carry forward them well, because this is the ‘root’ and ‘soul’ of our nation. If we lose this ‘root’ and ‘soul,’ there is no foundation.”
However, the main emphasis is in the “spirituality” Xi believes may be created by exposing the younger generations to the epic history of the CCP. The Party, Xi says, should “focus on telling the stories of the CCP, the revolution, and the heroes, and cultivate the love of the Party, the country, and socialism. Let’s create emotions, let the red gene and the revolutionary fire be passed on from generation to generation!”
CCP’s attempt at “creating emotions” based on Marxist “spirituality” has failed before. There is no reason to believe it will succeed this time.
