明哲保身 Clear-sighted and wise, he keeps himself safe. From the Book of Songs, in a poem about the minister Zhongshan Fu: “Clear and wise, he protects himself.” The Handian dictionary notes that the phrase first meant that a person who understands affairs knows how to protect himself, and was praise. Today it describes protecting one’s own interests by avoiding any conflict over principle, and is criticism.
出头的椽子先烂 The rafter that sticks out rots first.
On March 19, 1998, Zhu Rongji held his first press conference as premier. Asked about being called an “economic czar,” he said: “Whether ahead lies a minefield or a bottomless abyss, I will go forward without hesitation and without looking back, and give my all until my dying day.”
Media later reported a second line: that he had prepared a hundred coffins, one of them for himself. No transcript of this remark has been found, and its source is uncertain.
In 220, the last Han emperor abdicated in favor of Cao Pi, king of Wei. The notes to the Records of the Three Kingdoms preserve the exchange. The emperor’s edict invoked the ancient ideal: “When the Great Way prevailed, the world was shared by all, and the worthy and able were chosen. So Yao did not keep the throne for his own son.”
Cao Pi declined again and again. At last his officials reported: “The mandate of the Han has now come four times, and Your Majesty has firmly declined each time.” They had already asked the court astronomer to choose an auspicious day. Cao Pi answered: “Agreed.” An altar was built at Fanyang, and he ascended it.
On March 11, 2018, the National People’s Congress voted on amendments to the Constitution. After about forty minutes of handing out, filling in, casting and counting ballots, the result was read out at 3:51 pm: 2,958 in favor, 2 against and 3 abstentions.
On November 2, 2019, visiting a neighborhood in Shanghai, Xi Jinping said: “People’s democracy is a kind of whole-process democracy.” (人民民主是一种全过程的民主)
In August 2020, the proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan were opened to public comment online from August 16 to 29. Officials reported more than one million comments.
The Great Plan chapter of the Book of Documents advises a ruler facing a great doubt: “Consult your own heart. Consult the ministers. Consult the common people. Consult the tortoise and the milfoil.” If the ruler, the tortoise, the milfoil, the ministers and the people all agree, “this is called the great accord” (大同). “You will be strong and healthy, and your descendants will prosper.”
The chapter then goes through cases of disagreement. If the ruler, the tortoise and the milfoil agree but the ministers and the people oppose, the outcome is still “auspicious.”
In the Canon of Yao, the first chapter of the Book of Documents, Yao asks the Four Mountains, his chief ministers: “I have been on the throne seventy years. Can you carry out the mandate and take my place?” They answer: “Our virtue is too poor. We would disgrace the throne.” Yao says: “Bring forward the illustrious, and raise up the humble too.”
The assembly then tells him: “There is an unmarried man in a low station, named Shun of Yu.” Yao says: “I will test him.”
集思广益 Gather thoughts and widen benefit. To collect the wisdom of many and take in all useful views.
群策群力 The plans of the many and the strength of the many.
和衷共济 Of one heart, crossing together. To work together to overcome difficulty.
众志成城 The wills of the many form a city wall. From the Discourses of the States: “The hearts of the many form a city wall.”
The people of Zheng gathered in the village schools to discuss the government. Ran Ming asked the minister Zichan: “What if we destroy the village schools?” Zichan answered: “Why? People come there morning and evening to discuss whether the government is good or bad. What they approve of, I carry out. What they dislike, I change. They are my teachers.”
“I have heard of reducing resentment by loyalty and goodness. I have not heard of preventing resentment by a show of power.” Stopping the talk, he said, would be like damming a river. A great break would harm many people. Better to let a little water out and to hear their words as medicine. (Zuo Zhuan)
Huawei’s top management works through committees. Chinese Wikipedia describes this as collective leadership that also avoids “too great a concentration of power.” In 2011, Huawei introduced rotating CEOs. Guo Ping, Hu Houkun and Xu Zhijun took turns as chief executive, six months at a time. In March 2018, the rotating CEOs became rotating chairmen, with the same six-month terms.