Editorial Comments:
The following piece was written by Yu Liang, assistant dean and associate professor at the Institute of Chinese Studies at Fudan University, on August 20th, 2019. It was published on The Observer, one of China’s most influential privately owned media outlets, whose growth has been closely linked to the “Industrial Party” featured in this article. Although the author has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a doctorate in literature, he has become a well-regarded political commentator, with a specific focus on the intersection between digital public spheres, internet discourse, new media, and “social governance.” This particular article introduces the concept of the “Industrial Party” and its relevance to a burgeoning consensus among a rising cohort of educated Chinese who seek to reshape public discourse and political life, which they see as dominated by Western liberalism.
The Industrial Party, explained in much more detail below, is a term originating online that is used in contemporary China to describe a cohort of public commentators who come from industrial or STEM backgrounds and seek to promote their particular interpretation of contemporary life. More than just a simply a group of public intellectuals with shared principles, Yu Liang argues that the Industrial Party represents a novel outgrowth in the consciousness of China’s middle class, a sublimation of Mao-era class politics, the history of the Chinese intellectual vanguard, pressures of the new economy, and China’s unique path to modernization. Yu sees the trend as a spontaneous ideological readjustment among the grassroots, following failures of various socialist experiments in China. The Industrial Party, as a result, exhibits a tireless drive to raise awareness of potential existential crises—an echo of modern Chinese history, deeply entrenched in the nation’s collective memory.
For China Hands, foreign business interests, and those interested in the path forward for the Chinese internet and industry, this article provides a crucial lens into intellectual and public discourse in China about developmentalism, humanism, and the future of the digital public sphere. In America, media kingpins and now tech oligarchs have held increasingly more powerful positions in shaping public discourse, political will, and national priorities. However, it is true that the vast majority of public intellectuals come from the humanistic disciplines. Besides a handful of science-popularizers and niche commentators in fields such as personal finance, AI, entrepreneurship, or health, it is rare to see individuals holding PhDs in STEM fields commenting on issues such as satellite technology, sustainable development, agriculture, or national infrastructure. CEOs hold greater prestige and public attention in this domain than scientists or industrialists. While this could be explained with the argument that, over the previous two decades, America has sought to establish itself as a leader in post-industrial affairs such as global finance, software development, and higher education, the Industrial Party provides a poignant point of comparison between Chinese and American development and public discourse.
In one of Yu Liang’s early examples, he discusses the ability of the Industrial Party to dampen outrage at a high-speed rail accident and redirect positive public opinion back at the dramatic development that this technology has enabled across the country. While this example may appear to outsiders as yet another instance of vertically-instituted consensus, Liang would reply that, as members of a non-political intelligentsia, the Industrial Party’s public footprint actually represents a grassroots outworking of a middle-class consciousness which endorses development as part of a rationally-minded nationalism.
This example also provides a counterargument to those who would say that the Industrial Party represents relations of production that are outmoded for post-industrial, neoliberal, or information-based economies. Not only would it be nice, in America, to have a high-speed rail, it would additionally be a boon to have educated, technical thought-leaders with political clout and a sense of civic responsibility that could orient public discourse around communitarian topics such as infrastructure and uneven development.
Yu ultimately endorses the Industrial Party’s success. He argue that it challenges the entrenchment of capitalistic concepts such as entrepreneurship within China’s middle class and how education reform towards a more liberal arts model draws China down a wrong path. In China, this represents a “Left Wing” perspective, and while this may not map onto a Western political compass, it raises certain paradoxical comparisons with America’s New Right, who sought to champion the worker instead of the small businessman and to criticize the humanities and liberal arts institutions.
Finally, when I read the original piece, certain American public figures came to mind, and I list them here to encourage the reader to begin their own comparisons: CEOs like Jamie Dimon, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel Palantir’s Alex Karp, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, scientists such as Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox, or Neil de Grasse Tyson. How do these figures correspond with the arguments being made below? What do their relative clout and political engagement say about the priorities of American politics, especially in comparison with Chinese? What does this comparison say about the difference in attitude towards industry and the public sphere?
These questions, and the way the following article helps us tease out answers, will be crucial for understanding the development of contemporary China in relation to the rest of the world. The Industrial Party will grow in importance, and it is crucial to understand it.
1.Introduction
The words “industry” and “humanity” seem to have little in common with one another. The former is associated with images of heaviness, force, machinery, and pollution, while the latter points to poetry, elegance, emotion, and cultural heritage, two sets of meaning far removed from one another. However, the term Industrial Party, popularized on the Chinese Internet, has emerged in contrast with the Sentimental Party.
The term Industrial Party has appeared before in socialist history. In the 1920s, the Soviet government used the term to refer to groups of engineers and specialists who were arrested for undermining industrialization. In the 1960s, Khrushchev’s USSR set up a joint-party-committee for the industrial sector, which he referred to specifically as his “Industrial Party”. Both were designations assigned by outside forces. Today’s concept of the Industrial Party has a coherent sense of internal identity. It is not directly derived from the Soviet Union, instead originating from more recent events.
While the Western world continues to face down the dilemma of de-industrialization, developing countries still move forward with the 20th century historical proposition of “industrialization,” raising questions of spiritual and intellectual significance for modern people. The Industrial Party is one of these questions. One direct reason for the emergence of the modern Industrial Party in China today is that there is a highly patriotic element of STEM intellectuals who are dissatisfied that the field of public opinion has been controlled by almost exclusively by humanities-based intellectuals. This group believes that their counterparts in the humanities lack scientific or technical foundations in regard to major issues concerning national and social development. This has created a sense of urgency within the group to express their views publicly. They have therefore taken upon themselves the responsibility of public education, especially in the realm of national science and technology development. Riding on the growing influence of internet in shaping public sentiment in China, they have gained entry into the domain of public discourse, from which they were previously isolated.
The 2011 Ningbo-Wenzhou train accident was a major opportunity for the discourse of the Industrial Party to break into the mainstream of public opinion. At that time, the train accident triggered a tsunami of criticism from public commentators towards high-speed rail construction. Mainstream commentators fiercely criticized the “Great Leap Forward” of high-speed rail and the system of state-owned enterprises across various media platforms, using the rallying call of “Wait for your Soul”. However, the newly established Observer opposed this critical tide, not only producing positive high-speed rail news in response, but also inviting a group of technically-minded authors to discuss and support the development of high-speed rail from the perspectives of scientific and policy planning. The detailed content of some of these articles include analyses of the difference between dedicated passenger rail and passenger/cargo rail, the gap between highway safety index and railroad safety index, and the impact of high-speed rail on regional economic development, among others. It was a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion, which opened a new arena of public discourse.
Around the same time, The Big Goal, a book which has been attributed to the members of the Industrial Party was published, popularizing the terminologies and concepts of this group on the Internet and in circles of public opinion. Since then, the Industrial Party has played a role in supporting mainstream public opinion on many major topics related to science, technology, and industry, including the reaction to the trade war between China and the United States.
The distinctive rhetoric of the Industrial Party has attracted a large number of readers who are drawn to its pragmatic stance amid intense international competition. Ma Qianzu (the pen name of Ren Chonghao), who majored in civil engineering, has become one of the top three most-liked celebrities on the question-and-answer website Zhihu; Yuan Lanfeng, who majored in chemical physics, advocates for China’s scientific and technological development through eloquent and data-rich articles, which are edited and published by The Observer and have gained wide influence; Jia Jinjing, who focuses on macroeconomic policy research, has made a mark on China’s think tank community with his industrial analysis capabilities. Chen Jing, who majored in computer science, has been attracted renewed attention to the field of economics for his successful prediction about economic trends more than a decade ago; Ning Nanshan, who majored in manufacturing engineering, discusses the Western and Chinese industries on by posting on his personal WeChat public number, which continually receives readership above the 100,000 mark; Chen Ping, Lu Feng, and Wen Yi, who emphasize industrial innovation, are not the main focus of China’s think tank community; Chen Ping, Lu Feng, Wen Yi and other non-mainstream economists who emphasize industrial innovation have also attracted enthusiastic attention; and a group of Industrial Party netizens have collaborated to produce the time-travel novel “Lingao Venus”, which describes the process of rebuilding the modern industrial system and has gained a level of influence in the field of online novels; Liu Cixin, the world-renowned science fiction writer, is also regarded as having Industrial Party ideas.
What exactly is the Industrial Party? The pioneering work “Grand Narratives in Historical Turning Points: Political Analysis of the “Industrial Party” Online Ideology” gives a descriptive definition:
“Generally, the Industrial Party believes in the concept of the supremacy of industrialization and its accompanying political, economic and cultural propositions, reorganizes the historical narrative of China’s socialist construction around the frame of industrialization and technological progress, has a clear sense of nationalism, and has formed a large-scale online fan community and subculture. In a broad sense, the “Industrial Party” can also refer to the historical trend of thinking which supports technocratic rule and industrialism, and can also refer to the technical engineers, political parties and political forces in various countries that support and practice industrialization.”
This article believes that the key to understanding the Industrial Party is an appraisal of their “consciousness”. It is a world view, a methodology, and a spiritual symptom, which wanders, like a specter, throughout the various Industrial Party discourses, waiting to be refined.
2.The Subjectivity of Industrial Culture
There is no lack of discussion on the issue of industrialization in China, but the concept of Industrial Party is dominated by the subjective character of the issue of what a “new person” should look like today.[ The original phrase is included within quotation marks, and literally translates as “What kind of new person to be.” This is related to the political/sociological concept of the social evolution of humankind into different “species”, such as Homo Economicus etc., as will become clear later.] We can easily observe that almost any disciplinary discussion involves a discussion of new personalities, such as Western economics emphasizing the so-called “Homo Economicus” and jurisprudence emphasizing the “Legalis Homo,” not to mention the popularity of the idea that literature is the study of man. The STEM disciplines originally had the concept of “Homo Scientificus”, but discussions of industry often have nothing to do with personality.
In the “Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Industrial Culture” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in January 2017, where several statements concerning personality appear: “Promoting the spirit of craftsmanship,” “Cultivating entrepreneurial spirit,” and ” Strengthening the cultivation of industrial workers’ professionalism.”
“Entrepreneurship” emerged in the era of the market economy, but its description was limited to the upper echelons of enterprise, with a focus on wealth and management. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the proletariat became seen as the dominating force behind the country, shaping workers’ sense of ownership and offering a non-elite perspective. This sentiment has weakened after the reform and opening-up.
The Industrial Party is caught between entrepreneurs and workers. Most of the Industrial Party members belong to the middle class of society, but the term “key personnel at the rank-n-file level” is more appropriate than “middle class” to describe their social status.
The Industrial Party offers “key personnel at the rank-and-file level” a progressive way of thinking that links the modern concept of ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ with industrial culture, in response to the historical frustration of Chinese workers over their failure to take center stage in a socialist country. While industrial culture serves as the foundation of the Industrial Party’s advocacy, the new consciousness it has fostered transcends the realm of industry, offering a broader framework for understanding history and the world.
Few members of the group which oppose or define themselves in opposition to the Industrial Party would refer to themselves as the Sentiment Party, but there are many self-referential synonyms for this group in circulation, such as “Little Fresh”, “Little and Certainly Happy” , and even the identity category of “Poet”, which was popularized throughout the 1980s.[ Editor’s Note: These phrases are self-referential identity labels, and fall into the rubric of the Chinese diminutive which uses “Little” as a term of endearment, intimacy, or affection. “Little Fresh,” for instance, or “Poet” for that matter, would be used by commentators who are trying to identify themselves with an explicitly literary and “humanist” worldview. ] Behind the seemingly playful concepts of “Industrial Party/Sentimental Party”, is a history of mankind’s description of its relationship with the world, implicitly revealing two complementary humanistic veins. We can easily observe similar opposing categories in various fields, such as “Realism/Idealism” in politics, “Narrative Tradition/Lyrical Tradition” in literature, and even the struggle between Confucianism and Legalism that started in the Qin and Han dynasties.
The contradiction between the contemporary Industrial Party and the Sentimental Party can be illustrated by a simple news story: a white-collar worker in Shanghai, grown tired of bland city life, wants to escape to a secluded paradise with “no need for any modern facilities, only water, electricity and internet connection”. However, behind water, electricity, and Internet is the entirety of industrial system, difficult to completely conceal but nonetheless eliminated from the symbolic system of sentiments. As one side of the middle-class, the Industrial Party consciousness has to compete with its opposite member – petty-bourgeois consciousness – for the right to speak, elevating itself to a kind of sentiment (e.g., Ma Ping writes that “Industry is the most romantic thing under the sky! “, in order to call for a return to previously obscured values.
Marx offers an architectural metaphor to describe the relationship between the mode of production and ideology, the familiar “base/superstructure” metaphor. The superstructure reflects the economic base, but can often be a mode of false or inverted consciousness which serves to preserve and conceal the inherent contradictions of the mode of production. The most important quality of the Industrial Party method of thinking is its ability to dismantle the partition between superstructure and base, to see a technological base from the perspective of ideological superstructure, embedding technical knowledge and experience, which are based in praxis but difficult to visualize, onto the “cultivation” of thinking.
3.The Expansion of Modern Sentiment
It is very important that the word “sentiment” be clearly stated and understood. Some members of the Industrial Party believe that the ‘sentimental’ culture of nostalgia comes from the agricultural mode of production, but they neglect to realize that this is also the result of the complex operation of modern capitalism, which is embedded in modern life and is far from being an “agrarian social sentiment”.
Modernity is a concept with origins in the West, and therefore so is modern sentiment. The Chinese term “情怀” has no proper English counterpart, and refers to both feeling and ideal meanings. It is an intertwining of emotions, ideals, obsessions, and aestheticized subjectivity, and generally refers to the “Idealist” orientation that the “mind” that transcends the dimensions of material reality. The most important connotation lies in its attachment to socially constructed concepts, as reflected in expressions such as familial loyalty, patriotism and class consciousness.
Industrialization is seen as one of the fundamental features of modernity (13), which cannot be separated from the soil of modern thought. The Enlightenment placed man, not God, at the center of the world, and epistemologically rejected the logic of theological thinking, which was based on deduction from a priori truths, basic phenomena, and the establishment of fact, all of which paved the way for scientific research and industrial production.
In this escape from the religious and feudal order, subjectivity became increasingly oriented around the individual. This led to the construction of the “self” in two directions: the ‘rationalization’ of Weber, Giddens, and others, which emphasized calculation, precision, efficiency, and so on, and the “exploration of the depths of the inner self” of Charles Taylor, who wanted to uncover an inner world by means of monologue, reflection, and so on.
In The Five Faces of Modernity, Matei Calinescu divides two kinds of modernity: bourgeois modernity, associated with rationality, science, efficiency, precision, and utilitarianism, and aesthetic modernity, represented by the Romantics, which aims to criticize bourgeois modernity and is inextricably linked to the notions of subjectivity, hedonism, decadence, rebellion, anarchism, and art for art’s sake (17). The first derives from what Weber called “instrumental rationality,” which obviously includes the personality qualities required by industry; the second refers directly to the contemporary petite bourgeois sensibility. The two seemingly incompatible strains is actually two sides of a coin. Martin Wiener likewise points out that this is a cultural contest between the two faces of the middle class.
Western modernity spread outward in waves through colonial expansion, creating repeated shocks. The tension between industry and sentiment manifested itself first within the Western world, then it gained new expressions in late-developing countries—especially socialist China. In China, we can see a continuous reflection of the dual revolution in different stages: from the Self-Strengthening Movement, which upheld the pragmatic principle of investigating things to attain knowledge (gewu zhizhi), to the New Culture Movement that sought to reform national character, and on to socialist construction and the remolding of the “new man.”
The setbacks of socialist practice and its self-reforms (e.g., China’s reform and opening up) brought new emotional consequences. The industrial base that underpins modern society is generally viewed as a repressive presence in the modern cultural world. Contemporary China’s Industrial Party consciousness, which is still characterized by a revolutionary consciousness that has been imbued with socialist practices, transcends the market rationality that is generally centered on individual interests, and is therefore in danger of being crowded out by the conservative culture of everyday life and consumerism.
At the normative level, possessing industrial thinking ought to be a basic quality of the modern individual. However, at the empirical level, industrial thinking is often rejected by modern sensibilities and remains largely unconscious in most people. It is important to recognize that the rise of “Industrial Party” consciousness has taken place against the backdrop of global deindustrialization and the decline of mainstream liberal discourse in the West.
Editor: Leo Krapp
