Recently, Li Hongzhong, Governor of Hubei Province, was condemned by reporters both in speeches and in writings for grabbing a questioning reporter’s pen recorder and made no public apology after the incident. For a moment, he appears to have become a national sinner. This is, in my opinion, somewhat unfair for Li Hongzhong, because this very sort of behavior is not unique of him, but a common political conduct of long standing. For example, in the incident of urban management officers (or Chengguan) exercising violent enforcement in Kunming City Yunnan Province, though several Chengguan were punished afterwards, no sorry was ever said to any victim. Also, a father and his son were forced to commit self-burning in a violent demolition in Huangchun Township, Donghai County, Jiangsu Province; though RMB 900 thousand were then given for compensation, yet still no apology was ever made. However, we can not even blame them too much.

Right during the same period of both National People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) when Li Hongzhong incident happened, an even worse incident took place, yet neither the public nor media paid any attention to it. When a reporter asked Li Zhaoxing, the Speaker of NPC, about the issue of amending China’s Electoral Law, whether this indicates it was unfair before the proportions of population for a people’s representative in urban and rural election is now changed from 4:1 to 1:1. He replied that this was reasonable at that time, and it is also reasonable to correct it now. This sentence pattern sounds so familiar to us. Actually, Li Hongzhong used the same sentence pattern, didn’t he? It is reasonable to grab the reporter’s pen recorder at that time and it is also reasonable to return it to the reporter afterwards. Therefore, no apology is needed.

The only difference is that what Li Honghong grabbed from the reporter is unlike what the Electoral Law robbed from rural citizens. One is a visible material apparatus, while the other is an invisible right. Moreover, the first took only half a day to happen, while the other took several decades. What is deplorable is that our media see more easily material apparatus rather than rights of human beings, pay more attention to things happened in short term yet appear rather numb to long-existing unfair phenomenon. Everyone points an accusing finger at Li Hongzhong, yet few shows much enthusiasm towards the Amendment of the Electoral Law. 

Surely, my criticism here is a bit unfair. Actually, we should attribute all these to the fact that to date our society has never made serious reflections on traditions left by ultra-left line period of Cultural Revolution. So many innocent people were framed up before and during Cultural Revolution. Though most were redressed in the end, few ever stand out to say the word “sorry.” Even those who were redressed are often given warnings that it is correct to redress you now, and it’s also perfectly correct to frame you in the past, so do not mention this anymore. This is exactly a classic form of the sentence pattern so familiar with us today.

When thought over, the behavior of never making apology reflects an extremely wrong cognition, and its typical form is the fanaticism of worshiping a man as a god. If a man is considered a god, then he is always correct and makes no mistakes. Thus, there is no need for him to make any apologies. After the Cultural Revolution, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made certain efforts to correct this distortion of personality cult. Chen Yun, a top leader of the Party, said that Mao Zedong is a man rather than a god, and since he is a man, he made mistakes, and the Cultural Revolution led by him is a serious mistake. However, it’s a pity that the correction failed to exert sufficient influence over the whole society and the tradition of never making apology was not broken.

In China today, people around the country, from top to bottom, in and outside the administration, all seem to be obsessed with great ambition of social ideals. The ruling party promises “being in power for the people.” However, there’s no need to rush. Firstly, we have to learn to apologize. If we feel it hard to open our mouth to apologize, there would be still a long way to go before excellent politics is achieved. Although it is easy to say the word “sorry,” yet we have to be clear about how much it actually means.

Being willing to apologize means sense of responsibility. Apologizing indicates that the person making apology claims that he will take the direct or indirect (leadership) responsibilities of his wrong deeds, and is willing to take corresponding punishment. This sort of leaders or officials are truly worthy of our trust, while those who step forward whenever there are awards and shrink back whenever there are responsibilities can not be expected to provide excellent service to the public.

Being willing to apologize indicates that we admit being common people who would make mistakes sometimes yet are determined to rectify them. The public will not expect their leaders or officials to be gods or perfect men, and they are prepared to forgive temporary mistakes caused by human weakness or limitations. History also tells us the worst mistakes are those though realized yet not rectified ones, while apology is a perfect declaration to correct mistakes.

Some might say that, apology will damage a leader’s reputation and authority, thus posing as an obstacle to his future leadership work. This saying actually can not be more wrong. Through the ages, the ability of making necessary and proper apologies has always been one of the important characters of excellent political leaders. For example, Cao Cao, King Wu of Wei kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period, cut off his hair as cutting off his head to punish himself for letting his panicked horse damage the wheat crops; Zhuge Liang, Chancellor of Shu Han and also a famous Chinese strategist of the Three Kingdoms period, demoted himself three ranks as a punishment because his general Ma Su failed to defend an important strategic place called Jieting.[Page]

In China, even paramount political leaders have the tradition of making apology, or the tradition of taking blames on oneself. For example, the Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty realized in his old age that his excessive dependence on military and punitive expeditions resulted in his people having no means to live, and then issued the famous Repenting Edict of Luntai, in which he said that, “I did some arrogant and unreasonable things since I ascended the throne, bringing lots of sufferings to my people which can not be remedied any more. I apologize to the whole nation from the bottom of my heart. From now on, all official issues hurting the people and imposing burdens to the nation shall all be canceled.” Since Emperor Wu was willing to blame himself and corrected his past mistakes in time, he was commented by a famous Historian Sima Guang as “having made equally severe mistakes as Qin Dynasty yet suffered no similar failures as Qin Dynasty.”

From the above examples we can see that making apologies is more than a daily trifle but an important principle of political culture. The day when Mr. Huang Yanpei, then a senior scholar, asked Mao Zedong how to jump out the Periodic Law of Rise and Fall of dynasties of past ages, Mao said that he had found the answer, that was “democracy.” Today, though democracy develops by certain extent in China, it is still struggling for progress and has not been effectively implemented so far. We might have to turn to China’s traditional political culture for help. Actually, a comparatively complete description of the theory of “rise” and “fall” is from Tso Chuan, a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, in which Zang Wenzhong, General of Kingdom Lu, said that “Yu, founder of legendary Hsia dynasty, and Tang, the first ruler of the Shang dynasty, both always blame themselves and correct their mistakes, that’s how their countries prospered for an instant; Jie, last ruler of the Xia dynasty, and Zhou, last ruler of the Shang dynasty, both blame others for mistakes, that’s how their countries clasped almost in a twinkling.”

Society is such a sophisticated system that numerous factors might affect its transitions. It is quite a surprise to us that Mr. Zang attributed apologizing as the only key factor for a country’s rise and fall. However, it does make sense if we come to think of it. It is known to all that empiricism excels constructivisrn in terms of social evolution. From the perspective of empiricism concept of history, the best method for human being’s development is trial and error, in other words, correcting mistakes if ever made and found. Whether mistakes can be corrected lies in whether we admit our faults. Therefore, under the leadership of a person capable of making necessary and appropriate apology, a society will rise quickly, while with the leadership of a person refusing to make apology, a group will fall apart almost in no time. This has already been well proven by the history of China. [Page]

In fact, complementation of democratic system with apology principle as well as the cultural tradition behind it will make a prosperous society with long-term peace and order. Intelligent voters know that a leader who is willing to make apology and dares to take the blame for mistakes is much more dependable than someone who claims himself as always being correct and making no mistakes.

In Study of Fivewood on April 9th, 2010