Huang and Kang’s approach and my own represent two fundamentally distinct perspectives in the study of politics. Whereas Huang and Kang argue that culture serves as the main driving force behind political processes, I maintain that humans are rational beings whose behaviors are shaped by careful calculations of costs and benefits.
As a discipline, we should embrace these differences. The field of state-building benefits from scholars using diverse approaches to examine state development in various regions, rather than adhering solely to the bellicist paradigm that once dominated the field. The cultural and rational choice approaches are not mutually exclusive. For instance, people may make different cost-benefit calculations based on their cultural backgrounds. In my book, I argue that the primary objective of Chinese elites is to maximize their families’ protection at the lowest possible cost. Huang and Kang might attribute this to Chinese culture’s emphasis on familism. However, I view this as a result of China’s social structure, which was dominated by extended families. In other words, if extended families were prevalent in Europe (e.g., if they were not dissolved by the church), Europeans would likely prioritize families in a similar manner, regardless of their European “culture.”
Although culture deserves its place in the social sciences, I argue that it falls short in explaining China’s state development for three reasons. First, culture cannot account for changes. Huang and Kang’s cultural explanation is highly static, suggesting that once Confucianism emerged, it would dictate the development of the Chinese state (and to some extent, the Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese states) for the next two thousand years. This perspective reflects one of the most significant misunderstandings of the Chinese state, often found in traditional Eurocentric portrayals of Asian societies (see a critique of this perspective in Edward Said, Orientalism, 1979). In my book, I demonstrate that China’s state development underwent significant changes. Emperors’ survival rates fluctuated, as did the strength of the Chinese state. The enduring Chinese culture fails to explain these variations.
Second, culture has limited explanatory power when it comes to elite behavior. My book reveals that among nearly 300 Chinese emperors, more than one-quarter were deposed by elites, a percentage similar to the likelihood of modern autocrats being deposed by elite coups (see Milan Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule, 2012). If Confucianism—a culture emphasizing obedience and political hierarchy—shaped elite behavior, how can we account for the unfortunate fate of Chinese rulers who were assassinated, poisoned, or forced to commit suicide as frequently as African presidents? Even Huang and Kang resort to rational choice when explaining individual behavior, arguing that Korean rulers strategically adopted the Chinese civil service examination system to weaken the nobility’s power and bolster the monarch’s control of the bureaucracy.
Finally, cultural explanations often suffer from conceptual ambiguity and risk trapping scholars in tautological reasoning. When culture is not precisely defined, it becomes a vague concept that scholars can use in various ways to suit their arguments. (In Huang and Kang’s book, there is no definition of culture, their core independent variable.) This leads to the dangerous possibility of tautology: East Asia differs from Europe because East Asians are distinct from Europeans; Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese people adopt Chinese practices because they share cultural similarities with the Chinese, whereas Central Asian nomads do not because of their cultural differences. I firmly believe that humans are fundamentally the same, seeking the best opportunities within the constraints they face. The variation in political processes results from the distinct opportunities and constraints presented by the political, economic, and social contexts in which humans are situated.
Although Huang, Kang, and I may hold differing viewpoints regarding the driving forces behind state development, we are united in our aim to move from the traditional Eurocentric paradigm and embrace a fresh perspective inspired by East Asian experiences. It is my hope that our critical dialogue herein will serve as a catalyst for a thriving research trajectory in the years to come.
