The Chinese Communist party celebrated its 90th birthday on July 1. In the days prior to this event, the airwaves were full of historical dramas depicting heroic People’s Liberation Army soldiers and party cadres battling various enemies. There is a new, neo-Maoist faction within the party, led by Bo Xilai, the party chief of the western city of Chongqing, promoting the singing of classic Communist songs such as “The East is Red” in work-places and schools across the country. Henry Kissinger, in China for a book tour, managed to attend a sing-along with some 70,000 other people.

　　7月1日，中國共產(chǎn)黨慶祝了自己的90歲誕辰。在之前的一些日子，電視廣播里鋪天蓋地地播放著各種歷史劇，講述英勇的人民解放軍戰(zhàn)士和黨員干部與各色敵人做斗爭的事跡。中共內(nèi)部出現(xiàn)了一個以重慶市委書記薄熙來為首的新毛派陣營，他們提倡在全國各地工作場所和學校唱紅歌，比如《東方紅》。亨利?基辛格(Henry Kissinger)來中國為自己的新書進行宣傳時，設(shè)法出席了一場有大約7萬人參加的唱紅歌活動。

　　This “red culture” revival has nothing to do with the Communist party’s original ideals of equality and social justice. Rather, it is being promoted by national party leaders as a means of strengthening stability in a country where inequality has shot up in recent years. One song not being promoted is the Marxist “Internationale”, with its call for revolution, lest this suggest the need for an Arab spring in China.

　　“紅色文化”的復(fù)興，與中共初創(chuàng)時“追求平等和社會公正”的理想沒有半點聯(lián)系。相反，由于近年來中國的不平等現(xiàn)象明顯加劇，全國各地的黨政領(lǐng)導如今推廣紅色文化，是把它作為一種增強穩(wěn)定的手段。馬克思主義歌曲《國際歌》沒有得到推廣，這首歌號召群眾起來革命，當局唯恐它會暗示中國也有必要上演一場“阿拉伯之春”。

　　Older Chinese who lived through the Cultural Revolution understand its horrors and how much the new China relies on their generation’s determination never to let something like that happen again. The term-limits and collective decision-making imposed on party leaders are designed to stop another Mao Zedong arising. But because the party has never allowed an honest accounting of Mao’s legacy, younger Chinese can look back on that era today with nostalgia and imagine it as a time of stability and community.

　　經(jīng)歷過文化大革命、歲數(shù)比較大的中國人，深知這場運動的慘烈之處，也明白新中國的未來在很大程度上取決于自己這一代人“決不讓類似事情重演”的決心。中共領(lǐng)導人任期方面的限制，以及集體決策的安排，都是為了避免中國出現(xiàn)又一個毛澤東式的人物。但是，由于中共始終未曾允許對毛澤東的“遺贈”予以坦誠的評價，年輕一輩中國人今天可能會以一種懷舊情緒回望那個年代，以為那是一個以穩(wěn)定和公有為特色的時代。

　　However, an alternative historical narrative is now being formulated alongside the Communist one, with the revival of serious study of classical Chinese philosophy, history and literature. Mao attacked Confucius as a reactionary, but today academics have tried to revive a Confucian approach to international relations. The American scholar Tu Weiming left the Harvard-Yenching Institute in 2009 for a post at Beijing University, promoting Confucianism as a serious ethical system on a par with western philosophy. Chinese dynastic history is again regularly taught in schools and there is renewed interest in traditional Chinese medicine, music and art.

　　然而，伴隨著對中國傳統(tǒng)哲學、歷史和文學的嚴肅研究的復(fù)興，在中共的敘事之外，正在形成另一種歷史的敘事。毛澤東曾抨擊孔子反動，但如今學術(shù)界卻嘗試在國際關(guān)系方面重新運用孔子的思想。2009年，美國學者杜維明離開哈佛燕京學社(Harvard-Yenching Institute)，前往北京大學任教，致力于宣揚儒家思想，視之為一種與西方哲學并駕齊驅(qū)的嚴肅倫理體系。學校里又開始定期講授中國斷代史，人們對于中國傳統(tǒng)醫(yī)學、音樂和藝術(shù)的興趣重新濃厚起來。

　　The government has encouraged this revival of Confucianism to provide a justification for a modern, authoritarian China that does not depend on western theories of history. The latter necessarily see China as an uncompleted project: the Chinese may have developed a strong, bureaucratic state by the Qin unification in 221?BC, but they never evolved a rule of law or democratic accountability. After the fall of the last Chinese dynasty in 1911, many Chinese lost faith in their own institutions and believed they should be replaced by western ones. Only now, with China’s emergence as a power, is there an effort to recover this disrupted tradition. Best-selling authors such as Zhang Wei Wei can argue that China is not a democracy manqué but rather a civilisation founded on principles different from – but as valid as – those of the west.

　　中國不是建立在西方歷史理論的基礎(chǔ)之上，中國政府支持儒家思想的復(fù)興，是為了給施行威權(quán)統(tǒng)治的現(xiàn)代中國提供一個正當?shù)睦碛?。西方歷史理論肯定會把中國視為一項未完成的工程：自公元前221年秦朝統(tǒng)一中國以來，中國人或許已經(jīng)締造了一個強大的官僚國家，但卻從未培養(yǎng)出法治與民主責任。當中國最后一個封建王朝1911年滅亡之后，許多中國人對自己的制度喪失了信心，認為應(yīng)當用西方制度取而代之。只有到了今天，中國作為一個大國重新崛起之后，才有人努力恢復(fù)這種中斷了的傳統(tǒng)。張維為等暢銷書作家可能會辯稱，中國并非一個尚未實現(xiàn)民主的國家，而是一個建立在有別于西方（但與之同樣有效）的原則基礎(chǔ)上的文明國家。

　　Many of the new Confucianists argue that in the Chinese tradition, political power is limited not by formal rules such as constitutions and multiparty elections but by Confucian morality, which required benevolence of emperors who had to act through a highly institutionalised Mandarinate. Ancient China did have a pure power doctrine in the school known as Legalism, elaborated by the philosopher Han Feizi and ruthlessly implemented in the state of Qin that would ultimately unify China. It is perhaps not surprising that Mao favoured Legalism and oversaw its revival. But just as Confucianism replaced Legalism as the dominant state ideology in early China, so too contemporary Confucianists see the present-day party as better grounded in moral terms than it was under Mao.

　　許多新儒家學者認為，在中國傳統(tǒng)中，對政治權(quán)力加以約束，憑借的并非憲法和多黨選舉等正式規(guī)則、而是儒家的倫理道德，這就要求帝王們具備仁愛之心，而他們必須通過一個高度制度化的官僚體系實施統(tǒng)治。中國古代的學校里，確實有一套被稱作“法家”的純正權(quán)力學說，哲學家韓非子對這一學說進行了詳盡闡釋，而秦國則對其進行了冷酷的實踐，并最終統(tǒng)一了中國。毛澤東青睞法家學說，并推動了它的復(fù)興，這或許并不令人意外。但是，正如儒家學說取代法家學說、成為古代中國占據(jù)主宰地位的國家意識形態(tài)一樣，當代儒家學者認為，與毛澤東時代相比，當今的中共在道義方面有著更好的根基。

　　The Communist party is itself of two minds about this Confucian revival. It is eager to find alternative sources of legitimacy for itself in a world where liberal democracy is the default ideology. But a modernised Confucianism is a potential threat because it is, after all, a more genuinely indigenous product than Marxism-Leninism. It is perhaps for this reason that a large statue of Confucius, erected earlier this year in Tiananmen Square, was suddenly dismantled a few months later.

　　中共自身對于這種儒家學說的復(fù)興喜憂參半。在當今世界，自由民主已成為理所當然的意識形態(tài)，因此中共急于給自己找出其它的合法性來源。但與馬列主義相比，儒家思想畢竟是一種真正更為本土化的產(chǎn)物，因此經(jīng)過現(xiàn)代化改造的儒家思想構(gòu)成了一種潛在威脅?；蛟S正是出于這個原因，今年早些時候在天安門廣場豎立起來的孔子雕像，幾個月之后突然又被拆除了。

　　Contemporary China thus has two alternative traditions, a neo-Maoist one and a neo-Confucian one. Both are being promoted as alternatives to democracy. Neo-Maoism is purely retrograde and could easily erode what freedoms the Chinese have won over the past generation. Neo-Confucianism is more complex: it could interpret Confucianism in ways that support liberal democracy; or it could become the basis for a narrow Chinese nationalism. That the Chinese need to find their own way to modernity is incontrovertible. Whether either of these ideas can bear the weight of regime legitimation – or ultimately co-exist with one another – is yet to be seen.

　　當代中國因此具備了兩種可供選擇的文化傳統(tǒng)——新毛派思想和新儒家思想。作為民主思想的替代品，這兩種思想目前在中國都得到了大力弘揚。新毛派思想是一種徹頭徹尾的倒退，有可能輕易葬送中國人上一代人爭取到的種種自由。新儒家則更為復(fù)雜：它既可能按照贊同自由民主的方式解讀儒家學說，也可能成為中國狹隘的民族主義的基石。中國人必須找出自己的現(xiàn)代之路，這是一個不爭的事實。上述兩種思想中，是否有一種能夠承擔提供政權(quán)合法性的重任——抑或兩者最終能否共存，我們將拭目以待。