Several reforms were introduced during Wudi's reign of the Han Dynasty between 141 and 87 BC which are completely familiar to modern political watchers. Wudi introduced a merit system for the Chinese civil service which was similar to how Doc Evatt established a professional foreign affairs department in the 1940s. Wudi recruited small numbers of the best people from around the country and then sent them to a special academy. In Australian foreign affairs this led to competing policies of international liberalism and power politics (realpolitick).

The professional Chinese Civil Service also had competing policies, which again, would be no stranger to a modern political system. It was between the modernists and reformists.

China was a scholarly empire which was established early on with the likes of Kong Fuzi (Confucious in the latinised form) and Mengzi (Mencius). Other than a short period of scroll burning under the Qin dynasty philosophies of social organisation and governance were encouraged. This led to the competing philosophies of Confucianism, Legalism and later Daoism.

The modernists during Emperorer Wudi's reign looked back to the Qin dynasty and Legalism. It saw the role of governance as enriching China and consequently argued for interventionist economic policies and military expansion. The reformists were Confucianists who espoused individual liberty (individuals being naturally moral/good as per Mencius) and only interfering socially in respects to the poor.

It was during Wudi's time that the modernists lost influence and the reformists gained the upper hand in government policy. The turning point was a conference on salt and iron with were state monopolies. Which was recorded in Discourses on Salt and Iron.

J.A.G. Roberts writes:

The modernist viewpoint was represented by a government spokesmen who argued that a state-planned economy was of benefit to the population as a whole. Their critics, the reformists, responded by saying that government should be based on principles rather than material considerations.

The debate ranged widely and included criticism of the over-ambitious foreign policy which had prompted government to try to tap new sources of revenue [ie conquered lands].

It is generally agreed that the reformists had the better of the argument and that thereafter Confucian principles played a larger role in determining government policy.

Sounds remarkably modern and liberal. Government policy debated at a conference which covers the wisdom of state based monopolies on production and resources; with the policy outcome being the policy description which won through deliberation, debate and competition.
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments
  • adam . # . 1/1
    There are modern elements but I don't know that it's liberal as such. For one thing it's worth noting that the Han dynasty's constitutional settlement was a synthesis of Legalism and Confucianism sometimes referred to as Imperial Confucianism. One way to view it is the realpolitikal Legalist techniques were required to rule an agrarian empire, but people had no real reason to support the leadership without the public morality offered by the Confucians.

    It's one of the first great political arguments, whether government exists for the benefit of the rulers or the people, and the Confucians won, but it wasn't unqualified. Mencius and Confucius had highly idealised views of eg the way military power stemmed from moral power which sadly don't hold water when you have a barbarian horde on your doorstep.
    • cam . # . 1/1
      I actually didn't write it in the article, but when I was typing it I was thinking that a historian only trained in recording/interpreting modern liberal politics would have an easy task describing that episode of Chinese history in liberal terms (which is what I did).

      I will probably do the same creative misinterpretation when I write an article on Chinese iron production and the market technologies they used (ie early capitalism) to establish what was only over-taken by 18thC European industry.

      'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.