The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University

Excerpt from Daniel A. Bell's latest book: "So, yes, I do have a political agenda. I aim to de-demonize China’s political system."

Pekingnology is privileged to publish an excerpt from Daniel A. Bell’s latest book

The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University, recently published by Princeton University Press.

The official Overview:

On January 1, 2017, Daniel A. Bell was appointed dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University—the first foreign dean of a political science faculty in mainland China’s history. In The Dean of Shandong, Bell chronicles his experiences as what he calls “a minor bureaucrat,” offering an inside account of the workings of Chinese academia and what they reveal about China’s political system. It wasn’t all smooth sailing—Bell wryly recounts sporadic bungles and misunderstandings—but Bell’s post as dean provides a unique vantage point on China today.

Bell, neither a Chinese citizen nor a member of the Chinese Communist Party, was appointed as dean because of his scholarly work on Confucianism—but soon found himself coping with a variety of issues having little to do with scholarship or Confucius. These include the importance of hair color and the prevalence of hair-dyeing among university administrators, both male and female; Shandong’s drinking culture, with endless toasts at every shared meal; and some unintended consequences of an intensely competitive academic meritocracy. As dean, he also confronts weightier matters: the role at the university of the Party secretary, the national anticorruption campaign and its effect on academia (Bell asks provocatively, “What’s wrong with corruption?”), and formal and informal modes of censorship. Considering both the revival of Confucianism in China over the last three decades and what he calls “the Communist comeback” since 2008, Bell predicts that China’s political future is likely to be determined by both Confucianism and Communism.

Daniel A. Bell  (貝淡寧 in traditional Chinese and 贝淡宁 in simplified Chinese) is Professor, Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He served as Dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University (Qingdao) from 2017 to 2022.   

His books include The Dean of Shandong (2023),  Just Hierarchy (co-authored with Wang Pei, 2020), The China Model (2015), The Spirit of Cities (co-authored with Avner de-Shalit, 2012), China’s New Confucianism (2008), Beyond Liberal Democracy (2007), and East Meets West (2000), all published by Princeton University Press.   He is also the author of Communitarianism and Its Critics (Oxford University Press, 1993). 

He is founding editor of the Princeton-China series (Princeton University Press) which translates and publishes original and influential academic works from China. His works have been translated in 23 languages. He has been interviewed in English, Chinese, and French. In 2018, he was awarded the Huilin Prize and was honored as a “Cultural Leader” by the World Economic Forum. 

I thank Princeton University Press for granting us the right to publish the excerpt of the book - Zichen

The book can be purchased here.

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Excerpted from the Introduction of THE DEAN OF SHANDONG: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University by Daniel A. Bell. Copyright © 2023 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission.

A Political Agenda?

The reader may be left with lingering doubts about my political agenda. I may not be a Communist Party member, but I’m still a servant of the Chinese state. Does it follow that I won’t criticize that state or that I’ve become an apologist for the political system? Let me try to respond. I do have an agenda and I should come clean about normative commitments. I worry about the demonization of China and especially of its political system. I think much thinking and policy making in Western countries is based on crude stereotypes about China’s political system, such as the view that the CCP exercises total control over intellectual discourse and there is no room for independent thinking. The reality is much more complex, as I hope to show.

I most certainly do not want to deny that increased demonization is related to worrisome developments in Chinese politics over the past decade or so. The CCP—to a certain extent—has become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad. The end of presidential term limits for China’s top leader leaves open the possibility of a return to Maoist-style personal dictatorship. Increased censorship demoralizes academics, journalists, and artists. The mass incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang seems like a gross overreaction to the threat of terrorism and religious extremism. Hong Kong’s National Security Law has seriously eroded the rule of law and freedom of speech in the territory, if not the one country, two systems model as a whole. China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes a mockery of its commitment to respect for territorial boundaries and state sovereignty. When I look at some of the things I wrote in the past, I realize that I was much too naïve in thinking that China would move toward a more humane political system, informed first and foremost by Confucian values and with more tolerance for social and political dissent. That might happen someday in the future, but it looks as though we will have to wait a long time, just as Confucius had to wait five centuries to see his political ideals (partly) realized in the Han Dynasty. Not to mention that the Legalist tradition and its modern Leninist incarnation, with its totalitarian-like aspirations to control every aspect of society by means of fear and harsh punishment, often informs the decisions of political leaders, especially in times of social crisis.

Still, I think the demonization of the CCP needs to be countered. For one thing, the demonization reinforces repressive trends in China and benefits security-obsessed hard-liners in China’s political system.¹⁹ China’s leaders are not about to take serious political risks and promote democratic experimentation when they feel that the whole political establishment of the world’s most powerful country seems united in its fight against them.²⁰ Chinese leaders may be paranoid, but their paranoia is well-founded.²¹ So both sides are locked in a vicious political cycle, with the United States and its Western allies growing more antagonistic and warlike, and China reinforcing its walls and repressing alternative political voices. Second, it’s worth asking if the worrisome political developments in China of the past few years really do threaten the West. China has neither the intention nor the ability to export its political system abroad. And how can China pose a greater existential threat to the United States than the former Soviet Union, which threatened to annihilate the United States in a nuclear war? China hasn’t gone to war with anybody since 1979, and even the most hawkish voices in the Chinese military establishment do not threaten war against the United States.²² The idea that China would seek to go to war against the United States anywhere near its territory is crazy (on the other hand, China is surrounded by U.S. military bases, and it’s not absurd for Chinese policy makers to worry that the United States and its allies might launch a war against China).²³ Still, the “China threat” is used as an excuse by the Pentagon for huge new budgets, even as the United States has ended real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.²⁴

It’s also worth asking why the CCP has so much support at home if it’s as evil as advertised.²⁵ Cynics will say that it’s because the Chinese people are brainwashed by media propaganda and an educational system that praises the government and stifles critical thinking. But that can’t be the whole, or even the main, story. Similar views are held by sophisticated intellectuals in China who have good knowledge of alternative viewpoints, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Chinese students in the United States and the 130 million Chinese tourists who went abroad every year before the pandemic. The main reason for support is that the CCP has presided over the most spectacular economic growth story in global history, with more than eight hundred million people lifted out of poverty. The spread of literacy and university education under the CCP, not to mention extended life expectancy, is an extraordinary achievement. More recent developments have only reinforced growing support for the political system. The anti-corruption drive, however imperfect, has proven hugely popular with ordinary citizens burning with anger at public officials who thrived on bribery and special benefits for themselves. After the initial debacle in Wuhan, the central government largely brought Covid under control. People in China had two years of relative freedom to lead their lives without constraints experienced in the rest of the world, though the highly contagious Omicron variant casts doubt on old methods.²⁶ The anti-pollution measures that led to blue skies in Beijing and other cities make people happier. Again, there are tons of problems, and things can take a turn for the worse in the future, but a more balanced picture of the CCP is necessary to counter demonization of China’s political system.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the ninety-six-million-strong CCP includes tens of millions of farmers, workers, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals who have nothing to do with high-level policy making in Beijing. As one might expect of any large organization, some members of the CCP are good people, some are bad, with most in between. In my own experience, most CCP members are talented, hard-working, and sincerely committed to improving the lives of Chinese citizens. Many of my dearest friends are members of the CCP. As far as I’m concerned, demonization of the CCP is patently absurd. I’m employed as dean at a large Chinese university, and most of the senior scholars and administrators are members of the CCP who work hard for the good of our students and teachers. “Evil” is the last word I’d use to describe my friends and colleagues.

So, yes, I do have a political agenda. I aim to de-demonize China’s political system. I hope that readers can temporarily set aside preconceptions and judgments about “the” Chinese Communist Party. As a minor bureaucrat in the university system where most leaders are members of the CCP, I see a bafflingly complex organization composed mainly of extremely hard-working public officials with a mixture of motives and diverse perspectives, who argue endlessly about how to put out fires and, when time allows, plan for the long-term good. In this book, I embed my experience as a minor bureaucrat in the broader political system and try to draw implications for that system. Admittedly, my sample size is small and university-based but it comes from prolonged exposure. I try to shed light on a world that is both very important and very hard to understand. I do my best to be truthful. I write about what works and what doesn’t. I share my experience in a frank, if not reckless, way, with gentle criticism of others and fierce self-criticism. These stories try to humanize China’s political system: to show how things are experienced at the local level, warts and all.²⁷ I’m a critic of the CCP, but I also see positive things to build on and I do not favor overthrowing the whole system.

Recommendations for The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University

“In The Dean of Shandong, Daniel Bell takes us where few Westerners have gone—into the faculty lounge, teaching rooms, and party meetings of a Chinese university in the era of Xi Jinping. Think Lucky Jim meets Brave New World: Bell’s account of life as a senior Western academic in a Chinese university is by turns humane, disturbing, hilarious—and always eye-opening.”—Rana Mitter, author of Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937–1945

“Daniel Bell is wry, informed, open-minded, and enlightening in his look at Chinese bureaucracy from his years on the inside. Everyone interested in China will find new insights in this terse, funny book.”—James Fallows, author of China Airborne

“A leading interpreter of the Confucian tradition, Daniel Bell takes us into the citadel of contemporary Chinese higher education. Honest and wise, entertaining and witty, he tells the story of an illustrious scholarly life that began in French Canada and Oxford and led to the deanship at Shandong University, one of the most prestigious in China. The personal narrative sparkles, but Bell also analyzes with great clarity and insight the many challenges as well as promises facing China and Chinese intellectuals in the unfolding twenty-first century.”—Anna Sun, author of Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities

“If you think a book about a ‘minor educational bureaucrat’ in provincial China must be dull, think again. This is a sparkling, compulsively readable book about how an Oxford-educated Canadian political scientist became the leading theorist of political Confucianism in China. Bell’s story is charming and filled with self-deprecating humor, but it is also remarkably courageous, given the current climate. It will leave you with a sense that you understand the Chinese and the Chinese system much better than you did before.”—James Hankins, author of Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy

“Bell offers a fascinating glimpse into the workings of a Chinese university as both an insider (a dean) and an outsider (a Canadian). Along the way he treats, with a light hand, the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of contemporary China. This is a book anyone interested in that country will enjoy.”—Shadi Bartsch, author of Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism

“Daniel Bell has rightly earned a reputation as the dean—both literally and figuratively—of Confucian studies. But even more important is his cosmopolitan and communitarian spirit, a compelling worldview that makes him a true bridge between East and West. The wisdom of this book—as with all of Bell’s writing—is both novel and universal.”—Parag Khanna, author of The Future is Asian

Excerpted from the Introduction of THE DEAN OF SHANDONG: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University by Daniel A. Bell. Copyright © 2023 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission.

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The book can be purchased here.

On the Wall Street Journal, an essay adapted from the book is available.