Chinese Complaint Systems

Natural Resistance

Qiang Fang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415811811
• eBook ISBN: 9781135088569
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Complaint systems have existed in China for many years, and in 2004, a debate took place in the People's Republic of China (PRC) over the Letters and Visits System (xinfang zhidu), which was designed to allow people to register complaints with the upper levels of the government. However, both parties generally overlooked several different complaint systems that had preceded the Letters and Visits System during China's history. Indeed, despite the rich heritage of numerous complaint systems throughout China's past, most studies of complaint systems in China have paid little attention to the origins, development, practices, impact, and nature of similar institutions in the longue durée of Chinese history.

Presenting a comprehensive study of complaint systems in Chinese history from early times to the present, this important book fills the gap in existing literature on complaint systems in China. Drawing on primary sources, Qiang Fang analyses the significance of continuities and changes in historical complaint systems for contemporary China, where the state continues to be nominally strong, but actually fragile. Unlike other major theories of popular resistance to the state in China, such as 'everyday resistance', 'rightful resistance' and resistance 'as legal rights', this book develops the theory that behind Chinese complaint systems, there was a mentality of 'natural resistance' that has been deeply embedded in Chinese culture, political philosophy, and folk religion for millennia. Given this history, Fang concludes that it is likely that some form of complaint system will continue to exist, and by helping to mitigate the increasing demands of the Chinese state on the Chinese, will serve to strengthen the state.

An essential contribution understanding the strengths, weaknesses, and various roles of the Letters and Visits System in contemporary China, as well as the systems that have preceded it throughout China's long history, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Chinese history, politics and law.

1 Hot potatoes

From early times to 1898¹

The idea that aggrieved people who fail to get satisfaction from local officials should be able to register their complaints with higher levels of the administration including the highest authority in the land may have appeared as early as the Zhou dynasty (c.1046–256 BCE). In the late Zhou, many important schools of thought began advocating key concepts such as heaven/nature, minben/people as the root, and heaven-human interaction that lay the foundations for natural resistance. These notions were further developed in the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), which seems also to have projected certain complaint institutions such as the Lung Stone (feishi), back into the Zhou. Han Confucians praised those institutions and variations on them appeared in subsequent dynasties such as the Jin (265–420), Northern Wei (386–584), Liang (502–557), and Sui (589–618). The Tang dynasty (618–907), which took both the Zhou and the Han as models and which embraced the Buddhist value of compassion, systematized the complaint systems even as it imposed restraints on natural resistance under the law. The Song dynasty (907–1279), which was inspired by renewed forms of Confucianism, modified the inherited complaint systems in line with its generally lenient policies toward officials and the scholar elite. The Mongol Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), which reunified China after centuries of civil war, went further to accept even illegal skipping complaints as a way to control various power-holders. The Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which was founded by a commoner who paid considerable attention to popular welfare, temporarily ended the practice of sending complaints back down to local officials to be resolved. The Qing (1644–1911), which was more oriented to elite interests, experimented with punishing illegal skipping complainants while also dealing with the merits of the cases they brought to the center’s attention. Administrators may have accepted the institutions simply as safety valves to vent popular discontent and facilitate their control of the people while the people may have resorted to them for their own purposes to check the abuses of local officials. But both states and populace seem to have agreed that they were essential parts of governance, too hot to hold for long yet too valuable to drop entirely.

The origins of natural resistance

The long-lasting crucial notions such as heavenly principles, mandate of heaven, minben, heaven-human interaction, and parental rulers/officials that would justify people’s natural resistance in Chinese history was initiated in the Eastern Zhou dynasty. For example, the concept of heaven, as historian Kung-chuan Hsiao notes, came from an early period when gods and spirits were honored.² In the Eastern Zhou, the Book of Songs had already adopted terms such as “heaven,” “the mandate of heaven,” and “the son of heaven.” In one song, King Wen of the Zhou was said to have mandate from heaven; another song called the king the son of heaven. Heaven was regarded as formidable but loving of the people, an early form of heaven-human interaction.³ The Book of Songs also for the first time used terms such as “parental rulers/officials.” As one song stated: “[Those] virtuous and rulers/officials are people’s parents.”⁴ A later Confucian text, the Book of Documents continued to believe that “heaven’s way (tiandao)” was to punish the evil and bless the good. The Book of Documents also explicitly advocated the concept of minben, parental officials, and heaven’s love of the people. As the book said, “people are the root of the state,” “the son of heaven is both the parent of his people and the king of his state,” and “heaven sees what people see.” According to the Book of Documents, when Jie, the last king of the Xia dynasty (c.2070–1600 BCE) transgressed heaven’s way, people complained to heaven. Heaven then punished the ruler by taking away his mandate to rule.⁵

Many late Zhou schools of thought such as Confucianism, Mohism, and Daoism continued to propagate these notions. Although Confucius “never claimed any positive knowledge of spiritual matters ,”⁶ he still respected heaven and feared the mandate of heaven.⁷ Invoking the Book of Documents, Mencius reaffirmed that heaven “sees what people see.” He also developed the old minben concept by arguing that people were more important than the ruler. In so doing, as Frederick Mote argues, Mencius “not only made the people the ultimate standard for judging government, but made man the standard for Heaven itself.”⁸

Mo Zi advocated “universal love” and promoted the ideas of the will of heaven and heaven-human interaction. He argued that heaven was just and loved the people deeply. Only polities following the will of heaven were legitimate, and any killing of innocent persons would result in heaven’s omen. He specifically stated that heaven would punish rulers who made false judgments on crimes and reward those who ruled justly.⁹ While generally eschewing Confucian moralism, the semi-legendary Daoist patriarch Lao Zi opined that heaven’s favor was “forever on the side of the good man.”¹⁰

Contemporary historical works such as the Commentary of Zuo were also influenced profoundly by such notions as the mandate of heaven and minben/ people as the root. For instance, when King Cheng of Chu commented on the fate of the fugitive Prince Chonger of Jin, he said: “When heaven intends to prosper a man, who can stop him? Violation of the will of heaven will draw serious punishment.”¹¹ In 559 BCE, after the people of the state of Wei expelled their ruler, an official of the state of Jin named Shi Kuang, said that the exiled ruler of Wei had failed to nurture his people as children and to protect them like heaven.¹²

With the creation and influence of the concepts of heaven, the mandate of heaven, and minben/people as the root in this period, rulers would function both as the sons of a just, loving, and awe-inspring heaven and as the parents of their subjects. Due to a fear of the anger, punishment, and removal of their mandate by heaven and the inherent responsibility to look after their “children”—the people, many rulers were inclined to acknowledge people’s natural right to complain. They were accordingly attentive to complainants’ grievances. Complainants suffering from intolerable injustices had a firm faith in heaven’s principles and their parental rulers who they thought had more concern about their grievances than other subjects and local officials. They regarded it as their natural right to complain to their “parents” and to heaven’s sons or representative on earth—the rulers.

The early complaint systems and development of natural resistance

Unlike those concepts underlying natural resistance whose origin and development are relatively clear, the origin of Chinese complaint systems was rather murky because there is no archaeological or written evidence for complaint institutions in the Zhou period.

The first written evidence we have of the idea of a system of registering people’s complaints at court comes from the Former Han dynasty (206 BCE–8 CE), founded by a commoner. In his Shiji (Historical Records), the great historian Sima Qian (135–90 BCE) quoted Han Wendi (r. 180–157 BCE) to the effect that the “ancient sage kings” had established at court a flag for whoever wished to submit good advice (jinshan zhijing) and a piece of wood for whoever wanted to criticize the rulers (feibang zhimu).¹³

Another Former Han-period text, the Zhouli (The Rites of the Zhou), an idealized description of the Zhou system, attributed two institutions for complaints to Yao and Shun, legendary sage rulers whom we now regard as symbols of early clans. The first was a drum erected outside the innermost palace gate under the charge of the Royal Groom (dapu), whose duties also included maintaining the royal throne, delivering the king’s orders, and punishing wayward vassals. Complainants who were unable to gain satisfaction elsewhere were allowed to beat the drum. Whenever he heard the roll of the drum, the royal groom would immediately report the case to the king.¹⁴ The other complaint institution was the Lung or Red Stone, which permitted even humble complainants to voice their grievances.¹⁵ Later scholars attributed the wood, drum and stone to the Zhou dynasty and this view continues to be accepted by some scholars even today.¹⁶ In any case, the idea that the wood, drum, and stone had existed in Zhou times was used to hold some Latter Han-dynasty rulers to account. For example, during the reign of Shundi (r. 125–144 CE) more than eighty people were arrested and were slated to be heavily punished according to the laws against criticism (feibang). Zhang Hao, the Minister of Works (dasikong), reminded the ruler that sage kings such as Yao and Shun had established the drum and the wood to welcome criticism. He warned Shundi that if he violated the liberal spirit behind those practices, no one under heaven (i.e., the known world) would dare to speak out.¹⁷

According to the Song historian Sima Guang, the earliest verified popular means of complaint was “going to the palace gate” (yique, the home and symbol of officials and the ruler).¹⁸ In his view, that was an informal yet commonly practiced form of complaint as early as the Warring States period.¹⁹ In 284 BCE, for example, Chuo Chi, the prime minister of the warring state of Qi accused his corrupt king, named Min, of ignoring the people who were voicing their grievances at the palace gate.²⁰ Another verified means of complaint was a short-lived regional petition canister created by Zhao Guanghan, the head of Yingchuan prefecture, in the Han Yuzhou region ,²¹ though no evidence shows that the petition canister had been used outside Yingchuan.

During the Han dynasty, the most important and widely used method of registering complaints was, as in the Zhou period, complaining to the palace gate.²² In 167 BCE, in the reign of the humane ruler Wendi, a young woman named Ti Ying complained to the palace gate in Chang’an, the capital, when her father, a junior clerk, was about to be mutilated .²³ Her letter not only reached the hands of Wendi and saved her father’s life but also helped persuade the ruler to abolish most punishments of bodily mutilation shortly thereafter.²⁴ In 127 CE, a low-ranking Recorder (zhubo) of Ningyang county, Shandong province, complained to the palace gate about grievances he had against the local magistrate that had been neglected for seven years. His complaint finally reached the ruler Shundi (r. 115–144 CE), although the result, unfortunately, is unknown.²⁵

In the Han, not just officials of all ranks but also commoners could report directly to the rulers. In the Later Han, Xiang Kai, a commoner of Pingyuan county, Shandong province, wrote to Huandi (r. 146–167 CE) criticizing his execution of many innocent and upright officials and the blockage of loyal speech (zhongyan). “Since the beginning of the Han,” Xiang Kai wrote, “we have not seen any reign that blocks criticism, kills upright ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge studies in the modern history of Asia
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Hot potatoes: from early times to 1898
• 2 Halfway revolutions: the late Qing period (1899-1911)
• 3 A golden age: the early republic (1912-1927)
• 4 A mixed picture: the later republic (1928-1949)
• 5 Revolutionary idealism: the early People's Republic (1949-1982)
• 6 Bureaucratic pragmatism: the reform period (after 1982)
• Conclusion
• Epilogue: Chinese complaint systems after 2005
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index