Political Debates In Ancient China

By Author: Elizabeth
Total Articles: 286
Comment this article

Like Greco-Roman sophists, many eloquent individuals made a living from their oratory acumen in pre-imperial China. In the spring and autumn period and the Warring States period, the state of the Zhou dynasty crumbled, and small kingdoms formed. These kingdoms fought each other for political power and territorial control. Kings and lords recruited learned individuals to form advisory boards. These learned men argued with each other on astronomy, government policies, military strategies, and the righteous way of life. Vying for patronage encouraged competition among the literati. The liberal atmosphere in the intellectual field subsequently gave rise to the flourishing of a hundred schools of thought. Based on their scholarly training and philosophical orientations, the literati were later identified with certain schools headed by a few masterminds, such as Daoism under Laozi and Zhuangzi; Confucianism under Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi; Mohism under Mozi; and Legalism under Han Fei and Shang Yang. As Arabella Lyon's piece in this issue illustrates, frequent debates and discussions between these schools allowed the literati ...
... to learn from Juicy Couture Necklaces one another about their worldviews, thoughts, and rhetorical strategies.

After China became reunited in 221 BCE under the Qin, the first Chinese imperial state, the state continued to use debate primarily to solve political issues and to fill government positions. Literati, under the honorary titles of xianliang, fangzheng, and wenxue, were recruited by regional governments to advise the emperor on state affairs. Through court debates, those whose arguments the emperor favored would receive government posts. At least seventeen such court debates were held during the Western Han. In one of these advisory-board debates supervised by Emperor Wu in 134 BCE, Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu argued that only the Confucian school of thought should be studied, and that other schools should be eradicated from Juicy Couture Jewellery the imperial academy (see You and Liu). Persuaded, the emperor established endowed positions for scholars of Confucian classics, who then recruited students to study under their tutelage. The classicists often debated exegetical issues in public and sometimes had to invite the emperor to resolve the dispute. Exegetical questions were never purely academic; in fact, they always overshadowed political decisions. The most noted scholastic debate took place in the Shiquge meeting in 53 BCE, where the classicists tried to resolve disputes surrounding all major Confucian classics.

Because the Western Han laid a cornerstone for the state-sanctioned argumentative tradition in imperial China (221 BCE-1911 CE), argumentative practices in this period warrant a close look. In the rest of this essay, I will examine records of a court debate that took place in 81 BCE, a few years after Emperor Wu's death. Emperor Wu implemented a series of centralized economic measures to support his territorial expansion, particularly to sustain wars with Xiongnu, a confederation of nomadic tribes from Central Asia. For example, the state monopolized salt, iron, and liquor industries; operated nationwide transportation facilities; and ran retail businesses. After the emperor died, the new emperor gathered his officials and more than sixty Confucian literati to reassess these measures. The consultation turned into a lengthy debate, not only on economic issues, but also on topics such as agriculture, border defense, diplomacy, legality, and Confucianism.