In 2015, the former foreign minister Li Zhaoxing explained the language of diplomatic statements. “If the newspaper says that the two leaders held frank talks, it means that they had different views.”
He went on: “What does ‘frankly exchanged views’ mean? It means that different views were also expressed.” (坦诚地交换了意见)
In November 2018, the Ministry of Education issued the Ten Standards of Professional Conduct for University Teachers in the New Era. The standards are to be applied in hiring, appointment and evaluation, with a “one-vote veto” for breaches of teacher ethics, yi piao fou jue.
In the Analects, Confucius says: “The gentleman is in harmony but not the same. The petty man is the same but not in harmony.” (君子和而不同，小人同而不和。)
In his commentary, the Song philosopher Zhu Xi explains the two words. Harmony (和) means having no contrary feelings. Sameness (同) means the wish to flatter and take sides.
On January 31, 2019, the actor Zhai Tianlin posted that he had been offered a postdoctoral post at Peking University. In February, viewers found that he had once asked in a livestream: “What is CNKI?” CNKI is China’s main database of academic papers. His doctoral thesis could not be found there, and checks found long copied passages in a paper he had published.
On February 19, 2019, the Beijing Film Academy revoked his doctorate. After the scandal, he all but disappeared from film and television.
In the center of Tongcheng, in Anhui province, a lane less than two meters wide runs beside the old house of Zhang Ying, a grand secretary under the Kangxi Emperor. The story behind it is widely told. Zhang’s family quarreled with their neighbors, the Wu family, over a wall. They wrote to him in the capital. He answered with a poem:
“A letter from a thousand miles away, only about a wall. Why not let them have three feet? The Great Wall still stands today, but the First Emperor of Qin is gone.” His family moved back three feet. The Wu family was moved and also moved back three feet. The gap became the Six-Foot Lane (六尺巷).
Versions of the story differ in details, including the wording of the poem’s first line.
In the spring of 210, Cao Cao issued an order seeking talent. “If only men of integrity could be used, how could Duke Huan of Qi have become hegemon?” There might be men who “stole from their sisters-in-law and took bribes” and had not yet been discovered. “Help me bring the obscure to light. Raise men only for their talent, and I will use them.” (Records of the Three Kingdoms)
Cao Cao himself had begun his career as a xiaolian, a man recommended as filial and incorrupt.
The Records of the Grand Historian tell the fate of Yan Yi, a minister of agriculture under Emperor Wu of Han. Yan had once told the emperor that a new currency made of white deerskin was a bad idea, and the emperor was displeased. Later, a guest spoke to Yan about the problems with a new order. Yan did not reply, but his lips moved slightly.
The official Zhang Tang charged that Yan, a high minister, had seen that the order was harmful, “did not speak up, but slandered it in his belly” (不入言而腹诽). Yan was sentenced to death. “From then on,” the historian writes, “most ministers and officials flattered and sought to please.”
In 1878, the merchant Hu Xueyan wrote a plaque for his pharmacy, Hu Qing Yu Tang, headed Jie qi, Guard Against Deceit. “In every trade, the word ‘deceit’ has no place. The medicine trade concerns people’s lives, so it must never deceive at all.”
The Discourses of the States tell of King Li of Zhou, who used a shaman to watch for anyone who criticized him and had them killed. “The people of the capital did not dare to speak. On the road, they exchanged glances.” (国人莫敢言，道路以目)
The king told the Duke of Shao that he had stopped the criticism. The duke answered: “Blocking the mouths of the people is more dangerous than blocking a river.” The king did not listen. Three years later, the people drove him into exile.
China’s 2019 Regulations on the Selection and Appointment of Party and Government Leading Cadres set out how leaders are chosen. Article 34 says that before a candidate is discussed and decided, the choice “shall be deliberated” (进行酝酿) among the leading members of the Party committee, the standing committee of the people’s congress, the government and the political consultative conference.
Only after that does the formal meeting vote, “on the basis of full discussion,” by voice, by show of hands or by secret ballot. The word 酝酿 originally means the fermentation of wine.