{"id":21902,"date":"2020-07-15T07:40:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T21:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/?p=21902"},"modified":"2022-06-28T12:34:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T02:34:11","slug":"chinas-heart-of-darkness-prince-han-fei-chairman-xi-jinping-prologue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/chinas-heart-of-darkness-prince-han-fei-chairman-xi-jinping-prologue\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Heart of Darkness \u2014 Prince Han Fei & Chairman Xi Jinping (Prologue)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Translatio Imperii Sinici &<\/i>
\na Lesson in New Sinology<\/i><\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Zha Jianying’s ‘China’s Heart of Darkness’ is a five-part study of a political duo \u2014 Han Fei and Xi Jinping \u2014 that binds an autocratic tradition to contemporary political practice. An appreciation of Han Fei and Legalist thought\u00a0is not merely of academic interest, a refined topic for the philologists of traditional Sinology. Rather, as the world learns more about China under Xi Jinping, in tandem with its complex political, intellectual, historical and cultural underpinnings, figures like Han Fei and their ideas rightly have a pressing contemporary relevance.<\/p>\n

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Since 2005, we have advocated\u00a0New Sinology \u5f8c\u6f22\u5b78<\/a>,\u00a0an approach to appreciating and engaging with the Chinese world that gives due recognition to overculture of the dominant Chinese Communist Party and what, through a skein of ideology, its policies, the mass media, the education system and its internal and global propaganda efforts the Party promotes as Official China. It also inducts those engaged with China into the particularities of Translated China, that is the versions of China advocated by the Party authorities through their selective approach to and interpretation of the Chinese world, be it in the contemporary context\u00a0or that of the tradition or the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

While we pay due attention both to Official and Translated China, the main concern of China Heritage<\/em>\u00a0is to introduce readers to some of what we think of as the Other Chinas, that is the multiverse of ideas and possibilities that reflects lived reality while offering a guide to appreciating a past that not only resonates in the present, but that also addresses the future.<\/p>\n

The following essay is presented as a ‘Lesson in New Sinology’<\/a>, one of a series focussed on the kinds of ‘literary-historical-intellectual’ \u6587\u53f2\u54f2 usage and allusions that are used in contemporary politics and culture. It is also a chapter in our series\u00a0Translatio Imperii Sinici<\/em><\/a>\u00a0which is concerned with the ideas, habits, cultural expressions and aspirations of empire that have marked China\u2019s modern history, and which still powerfully influence the Chinese world, and will continue to do so.<\/p>\n

As I observed in ‘Under One Heaven’<\/a>, the introduction to Shared Destiny: China Story Yearbook 2014<\/em>, the era of Xi Jinping is:<\/p>\n

‘… a boon for the New Sinologist: in today\u2019s China, party-state rule is attempting to preserve the core of the cloak-and-dagger Leninist state while its leaders tirelessly repeat Maoist dicta which are amplified by socialist-style neo-liberal policies wedded to cosmetic institutional Confucian conservatism.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jianying Zha is an insightful guide to the world of China’s living past, and its multi-layered present, and I am delighted that we can feature here the work of a writer whom I have admired since first reading the engaging cultural analyses she wrote for\u00a0The Nineties<\/em> Monthly<\/em>\u00a0under the pen name Zha Xiduo \u624e\u897f\u591a, over three decades ago. In a sense, we met under the aegis of Lee Yee \u674e\u6021, the editor of The Nineties<\/em>,\u00a0my first employer (from 1977) and a writer whose work frequently appears in these virtual pages.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Geremie R. Barm\u00e9
\nEditor, China Heritage<\/em>
\n14 July 2020<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Jianying Zha \u67e5\u5efa\u82f1<\/strong> is a Chinese-American writer, journalist and cultural critic who works both in English and in Chinese. Her works include\u00a0Tide Players <\/i><\/a>(2011), China Pop <\/i><\/a>(1995)\u00a0<\/i>and several works of fiction and non-fiction in Chinese, including \u300a\u53e2\u6797\u4e0b\u7684\u51b0\u6cb3\u300b\u3001\u300a\u5230\u7f8e\u570b\u53bb\uff0c\u5230\u7f8e\u570b\u53bb\u300b\u3001\u300a\u7559\u7f8e\u6545\u4e8b\u300b\u3001\u300a\u8aaa\u6771\u9053\u897f\u300band\u300a \u516b\u5341\u5e74\u4ee3\u8a2a\u8ac7\u9304\u300b, an award-winning retrospective of Mainland Chinese culture in the 1980s. Zha’s work has appeared widely in publications in China, Hong Kong and the United States, including in\u00a0The New Yorker, The New York Times, The<\/i> Nineties<\/em> \u300a\u4e5d\u5341\u5e74\u4ee3\u6708\u520a\u300b,\u00a0Reading<\/i>\u00a0\u300a\u8b80\u66f8\u300b, and Wanxiang<\/i>\u00a0\u300a\u842c\u8c61\u300b.\u00a0<\/i>A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in non-fiction, she has been a regular commentator on current events on Chinese television and has worked for many years for the India China Institute in New York. Born and raised in Beijing, educated in China and the US, she lives both in New York City and Beijing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Author’s Note:<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of my writing project on the topic of ‘law and order in China’, this essay was originally conceived as a sequel to ‘Tourist Trap’<\/a>, a tale about the insidious police practice of b\u00e8i l\u01day\u00f3u<\/em> \u88ab\u65c5\u904a.\u00a0Composed partly as a result of my ruminations after having re-read Hanfeizi<\/em> \u97d3\u975e\u5b50, the essay did not conform to the style expected of a typical journalistic profile, it also continued to grow longer as I delved further into the topic. So, when I submitted the first draft to my editor at The New Yorker<\/em> in April 2019, I was not particularly surprised that it was turned down. I realised that, unless I changed the format and significantly shortened the length of my essay, it would be very difficult for such an extended work to find an outlet, at least among magazines produced for general readers in the United States.<\/p>\n

Disheartened, I put the essay aside and turned my attention to another writing project. The following essay would still be languishing in my computer today had I not run into Geremie Barm\u00e9 during his visit to New York City in the winter of 2019. Geremie\u2019s instant enthusiasm upon reading the draft rekindled my own. Based on his response and suggestions, I further expanded the essay and added footnotes \u2014 something I had never done in my past journalistic writing. The second draft was completed in January 2020. Shortly afterwards the ‘viral alarm’ of COVID-19 went off, shrouding the entire world in a dark cloud. It\u2019s not until June that Geremie and I resumed our communication regarding ‘China\u2019s Dark Prince’.<\/p>\n

The final form of the present essay has benefited greatly from Geremie\u2019s thoughtful feedback, rigorous intellectual interrogation and painstaking copyediting. My essay finally found a perfect editor and a perfect publishing platform in China Heritage<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jianying Zha
\nJuly 2020<\/em><\/div>\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

China’s Heart of Darkness<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Jianying Zha \u67e5\u5efa\u82f1<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Contents<\/strong><\/h4>\n