Beijing Does Not Want To Rule The World | Prof. Daniel Bell

## Preview & Introduction The conversation with Prof. Daniel Bell compels a rethink of how Western observers habitually frame China: not simply as the mirror-opposite of liberal democracies, but as a durable political formation with its own logic, history, and internal experiments. Move beyond the binary of “democracy vs. autocracy,” and what emerges is a state that prizes problem-solving, administrative experience, and a specific cultural vocabulary—harmony, merit, and order—that does not translate neatly into Western categories. The stakes of this misreading are high. Mischaracterizing Beijing as a monolithic, missionary power or as a failed imitation of Western liberalism distorts policy choices, fuels unnecessary confrontation, and obscures the real conditions under which China derives its legitimacy: delivering material security and governing a vast, diverse population. ## Key Western Misconceptions About China 00: 07:49 How China is Governed: A Three-Tiered System A recurring theme in the discussion is how Western political taxonomy flattens a complex reality. The prevailing habit is to label systems as either democratic (one-person, one-vote) or authoritarian, and then group together anything that is not the former under a single pejorative umbrella. That approach misses both variety among non-Western regimes and the internal differences within China itself. Prof. Bell suggests that China is better described as a political meritocracy—an imperfect but meaningful attempt to select and promote officials based on a combination of performance, experience, and perceived virtue. Crucially, China does not operate with a single selection mechanism across all levels of governance. Instead, the country runs three overlapping modes: at the grassroots, electoral mechanisms are often in play; at mid-levels, promotions and evaluations are experimental and metric-driven; at the highest levels, long-term career trajectories and demonstrated competence matter most. This three-tiered view reframes familiar debates: local elections exist and matter, but they are not the primary route to national leadership. Conversely, the lack of mass suffrage for top offices does not imply an absence of checks, contests, or accountability—rather, these appear through bureaucratic competition, performance measurement, and intra-elite deliberation. ## Leadership at the Top: The Politburo & Xi Jinping's Role When attention turns to Beijing’s apex—its Politburo Standing Committee and the central leadership—the conversation emphasizes continuity and collective practice even as it recognizes concentration of power. The idealized route to the top in China involves decades of service across provinces, ministries, and state-linked enterprises; leaders typically accumulate experience in both poor and prosperous regions and demonstrate administrative competence. The intent of that career-path architecture is to produce officials who can take long-term, technically informed decisions that transcend immediate electoral cycles. At the same time, institutional norms have shifted. The removal of presidential term limits in recent years focused attention on personalization and succession risk. Prof. Bell reads that change as a mixed signal: on one hand, it heightens the role of a dominant leader and makes the system seem more dependent on an individual; on the other, it does not entirely eliminate the procedural buffers that would allow the collective leadership to persist if a leader were suddenly unable to serve. The tension between person-centered authority and residual collective structures is a defining feature of contemporary Chinese politics: the system produces leaders and is continually reshaped by them, but it is not reducible to any single personality. ## The Politics Behind China's Economic Miracle China’s dramatic economic rise is not merely an outcome of markets and macroeconomic policy; it is also a political production. For much of the reform era, Chinese mid-level officials were rewarded principally for delivering GDP growth. That incentive structure aligned provincial and local cadres with national goals of rapid poverty reduction and industrial expansion. Over time, however, the costs of singularly prioritizing growth—environmental degradation, inequality, and social dislocation—forced a political reckoning. The result has been a period of experimentation in performance metrics: some localities emphasize sustainability, others focus on innovation or reducing regional poverty. This patchwork of pilot projects and differentiated incentives is itself a form of governance: a large polity can trial diverse approaches simultaneously, observe outcomes, and then scale what appears to work. That capacity to pilot reforms across varied contexts is an underappreciated element of China’s political advantage. Yet, as the conversation notes, that experimentalism has slowed. Centralized campaigns such as anti-corruption drives have both disrupted patronage networks and reinforced the importance of continuity in leadership, feeding into the broader debate about whether the system remains adaptive or is becoming more brittle. ## A Civilizational State: China's Lack of a "Missionary Impulse" One of the most consequential clarifications in the exchange is the claim that China lacks a missionary impulse to export its political model. Unlike some Western powers whose self-understanding has contained a drive to propagate political forms, China’s political tradition—rooted in Confucian and imperial governance—has emphasized internal order, harmony, and the management of a large, heterogeneous empire. Prof. Bell frames Beijing’s posture internationally as pragmatic and problem-focused: secure domestic stability, lift material conditions, and then engage with other powers to address global challenges. The prevailing Chinese self-conception is not theological or proselytizing in the liberal democratic sense. That distinction matters for foreign policy analysis. If China were animated by a civilizing mission to transplant institutions worldwide, one would expect coordinated campaigns to remake political systems. What we see instead are offers of infrastructure, investments, and governance lessons tailored to partner states’ priorities—tools of influence, certainly, but not an ersatz crusade to remake political orders. Misreading this nuance has fed fear-driven narratives that ascribe monolithic ambition where a mix of domestic priorities and geopolitical hedging is closer to the mark. ## The Challenge of Unity & Listening to Public Opinion Governing China is above all a problem of scale and diversity. The state’s legitimacy rests heavily on its capacity to minimize material deprivation and secure order across vast territories and populations with different histories and interests. This imperative explains why “harmony” in Chinese political vocabulary is not conformity but the reconciliation of plurality. The Confucian metaphor of blending diverse ingredients into a richer whole captures an administrative ethos: leaders should solicit diverse counsel, detect and correct mistakes, and strive for durable social integration rather than homogenization. But the system also wrestles with how to hear public opinion. Local elections and grassroots feedback mechanisms exist, and in many areas they function as meaningful channels of accountability. Yet the pathways by which local preferences influence higher-level policy are uneven and mediated by promotional incentives, performance metrics, and elite deliberation. The political challenge is therefore twofold: cultivate mechanisms that surface public grievances and preferences, and design promotion and evaluation systems that reward responsiveness without succumbing to short-termism or capture. The Chinese state’s continuing experiments—some bootstrapped to address pollution, others aimed at poverty alleviation—illustrate a governance orientati

Beijing Does Not Want To Rule The World Why does the West insist on viewing China through a simplistic "democracy vs. autocracy" lens? Is it possible that China's political system is not a failed version of our own, but something fundamentally different—a unique "political meritocracy" with deep historical and cultural roots? To discuss this and more, today I’m talking to Dr. Daniel Bell, a Professor and Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. Professor Bell has written many important works on China, including “The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy”. The political system of China and popular misconceptions about it in the West is what we want to discuss today. Drawing on his decades of experience living and teaching in China, we explore the nuanced reality of its three- tiered political system, where different methods of selecting leaders—from local elections to meritocratic promotion—are applied at different levels. We also break down profound cultural misunderstandings, such as the true meaning of 'harmony' (diversity) versus 'sameness,' why China lacks the 'missionary impulse' to export its political model, and how the core legitimacy of its government rests on delivering material well-being to its people. Links: Daniel Bell's recent books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000AQ2HHS/allbooks Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Goods Store: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 Preview & Introduction 00:01:40 Key Western Misconceptions About China 00: 07:49 How China is Governed: A Three-Tiered System 00:14:20 Leadership at the Top: The Politburo & Xi Jinping's Role 00:21:57 The Politics Behind China's Economic Miracle 00:29:20 A Civilizational State: China's Lack of a "Missionary Impulse" 00:33:19 The Challenge of Unity & Listening to Public Opinion 00:41:07 Why "Totalitarian" is the Wrong Word for China #M3 Whatever language we use, China is a huge state, but one that doesn't have this missionary impulse. Again, maybe it's a Christian tradition, or maybe more recently, you know, democracies have this view that we want to promote our ideals to the rest of the world. China basically has never had this strong missionary impulse. You know, let's first secure order and harmony and minimize material deprivation in our large state. That's going to be the key issue. And then maybe we could think about working with other countries, especially large, powerful countries, to deal with the world's problems. But the idea that China would want to export its political ideals is just pretty foreign to Chinese political traditions. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking to Dr. Daniel Bell, a professor and chair of political theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. Professor Bell has written many important works on China, including The China Model, Political -- 1 of 15 -- Meritocracy, and The Limits of Democracy. The political system of China and popular misconceptions about it in the West are what we want to discuss today. So, Dr. Bell, welcome. #M3 Thank you. I look forward to our discussion. #M2 Me too, because I’ve wanted to discuss the Chinese political system for a while. You’ve written several books about it, not just one, and you’ve been living in China for the better part of almost 30 years, as you told me in our previous short conversation. Can you maybe tell us what the main misconceptions about China are when we think about it from a Western perspective? #M3 Well, I guess one main misconception is that we tend to—"we" meaning Westerners—tend to divide the world between democratic regimes and authoritarian or autocratic regimes. And democracies are those that select leaders by means of one person, one vote, and all the others are autocratic or authoritarian. So we don't make a fundamental distinction between, for example, family-run dictatorships like in North Korea, military dictatorships like in Burma, or family-run monarchies like in Saudi Arabia, or whatever is happening in China. Now, I think China is a fundamentally different political animal, so to speak. It's a hugely complex bureaucratic system, and however imperfect, it does have mechanisms aiming to select and promote public officials with superior ability and virtue. So that's why I use the term "political meritocracy" in Chinese, which goes way back in Chinese history, as a way of characterizing the political system. But it's characterizing an ideal, and there's a huge gap between the ideal and the practice, right? Just like when we think of—well, I'm from Canada, but let's think of the US. It's a democracy, but there's a huge gap between the ideal and the practice. It's similar in China. So I would characterize it as a highly imperfect political meritocracy. But we still need to use this sort of language to differentiate China from other systems that don't use elections to select top leaders. That's one common, I think, misunderstanding. Another one is that when it comes to the dominant ideals of Chinese political culture, the word "harmony" is often bandied about. For example, in the 2008 opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, this character, which is usually translated as "harmony," was displayed as a central part of Chinese culture. But in English, especially in a political context, "harmony" tends to have somewhat sinister connotations because we tend to think of sameness or conformity. But in fact, the Chinese way of thinking about harmony goes way back to this Confucian ideal, where there's a clear differentiation between what we can translate as "diversity in harmony," and sameness or conformity, which is translated as "tong," which in Chinese is tong. -- 2 of 15 -- So there's this—one of the most famous sayings from the Analects of Confucius means that exemplary persons pursue diversity and harmony rather than sameness or conformity, whereas petty persons, these xiaoren, do the opposite. So in Chinese, when you immediately think of harmony, you think, first of all, of difference, diversity, and pluralism. The question is, how can we think of that diversity and difference in a way that allows for some sort of reconciliation, or maybe something even better than the sum of the parts, as an ideal? All the metaphors that are used illustrate that. For example, in the case of soup, they say, well, if you just use salt, then that's tong, that's sameness. But if you want harmony, or he, then you need to have many different ingredients put together, blended in a more beautiful way. Or in music also—actually, in English, when you think of harmony in music, it's the same as in Chinese: we think of different notes put together in a beautiful way. And in politics, it's very explicit in the text. It means that, for example, in a political context, the ruler should listen to the views of diverse advisors, and that's the only way in which you can identify mistakes and allow for progress. It's very, very clear, as opposed to having only one view. So again, some of the problems or misunderstandings are due to mistranslations of these ideals. To go back to this, when I was watching the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, I was watching on NBC, this American television channel, and the announcer was saying, "Wow, look at all these soldiers marching in unison." That's harmony, right? Obviously, that's kind of sarcastic. But no, that's not harmony—that's tong, that's sameness and uniformity. That's the opposite of this ideal of he. So that's part of it. I mean, sometimes there are issues with translations. For example, shen chuan bu used to be translated as "Ministry of Propaganda," which, as you know, in English sounds absurd. It sounds so negative, right? You immediately think of 1984 and George Orwell. Now they've realized, well, we shouldn't do that. Now it's translated as "Publicity Department." Even "publicity" doesn't sound so great. You know, do we really think the government should do publicity? That's why I think if these terms were translated as something like "public engagement" or "communication," then at least it would not immediately send the wrong connotations. So some of the misunderstandings are caused by mistranslations, but some of them are, to go back to my original point, caused by these ways that we think of political systems as divided into only two types. One is democracy, which is politically legitimate, and the other is authoritarian, which is negative and fundamentally illegitimate. I do not think that's a helpful way of thinking about the Chinese political system. #M2 No, it's not a helpful way to think about the world as divided between good and bad, between democracies and autocracies. It's a very, very narrow, simplistic, and ultimately harmful way of dividing the world. You also pointed out that within these different regime types, we actually have— ultimately—about 195 or 200 or so regimes on the global scale. And if we break that down, we have even more variation within them. The interesting thing you did in your book is that you actually -- 3 of 15 -- broke up the Chinese political system into at least three ways in which China is governed simultaneously, depending on the level we're talking about. Could you maybe explain that? Because it's highly fascinating. #M3 Yeah, so when we think of selecting political leaders in the West, we tend to think there's only one mechanism, and that's elections. And it doesn't depend on the size of the country, and it doesn't depend on the level of public administration. So whether it's the tiniest little community or a huge state, you should use one person, one vote as a way of selecting leaders. In retrospect, you know, thinking about it, it's like, why? I mean, it seems so obvious that when it comes, for example, to a local community, the way of selecting leaders—maybe there, people know who the leaders are. They know who's likely to be corrupt. They know who is capable and who's a nice guy. And maybe then it makes sense to use more, let's say, democratic or participatory mechanisms as a way of selecting leaders. But in a huge country like China, you know, where the top-level political leaders need, first of all, experience at lower levels of government to make informed political decisions at the top, they need to take long-term decisions that affect not just the current group of citizens but also future generations on issues like climate change. And they also need to think about foreign policy—how the policies would affect not just us, but others. And then, frankly, they need to have lots of knowledge in economics, environmental science, how people's psychology works, international relations, history, and philosophy in order to make informed decisions at a very high level. So that's why there are different—and in principle, when you think about it, there should be different—ways of selecting leaders depending on the level of government. So there are lots of things wrong with China, but at least in China, they recognize that. So when it comes to the local level, for example, in villages, hundreds of millions of Chinese have used elections as a way of selecting their leaders. I mean, that's highly imperfect sometimes. Sometimes it leads to lots of corruption, or sometimes people vote just according to family ties or family names rather than merit or experience. But overall, there's a much more democratic way of selecting leaders at lower levels of government. At the very highest levels, no matter who's there, you know that they're going to have decades of political experience—being heads of provinces, serving sometimes in state-run enterprises, and having diverse experience in different parts of China: poor parts, rich parts, and so on. So you know that they have experience, and you know that they would have gone through decades of political ho