Add this to the "too ironic to be true (but it is!)" file (hat tip, CDT):

 China to build harmonious society with wisdom of Taoism

XI’AN,
April 22 (Xinhua) — China’s high-ranking officials have called for
adopting the wisdom of ancient Taoism to build a harmonious society.

    Tao Te Ching, or the Classic of the Way and Virtue, was written by Lao Zi about 2,500 years ago, around the time when Buddha was expounding the Dharma in India and Pythagoras was teaching in Greece.

    "It is not only a precious gem in the
treasure house of Chinese culture but a common spiritual wealth of the
mankind," said China’s senior official Jia Qinglin at a congratulatory
message to the International Forum on Tao Te Ching, which started
Sunday in Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

    The principle of being modest and
peaceful in the book would provide an inspiring reference to China’s
ongoing construction of a harmonious society, said Jia, chairman of the
National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC).

    Tao Te Ching has influenced the
Chinese people generation after generation, as well as people of
different countries, races, nationalities and languages, he added.

    "Today, in the 21st century, the
ancient concepts and views of Tao Te Ching still have important
values," said Liu Yandong, vice chairwoman of the CPPCC National
Committee.

     It seems that the Chinese Communist Party is not only tolerating, but encouraging and sponsoring, a revival of Taoism.  It is not clear to me that Taoism has made as much headway in contemporary China as has Confucianism – although Yu Dan’s newest book is on Chuang Tzu.  Nonetheless, this would not happen unless the Party leadership believed that a return to tradition, even traditions that obviously contradict the modernizing authoritarianism (or authoritarian modernization) of the CCP, as any honest reading of Taoism does, somehow serves Party interests.   So why might the Party think that Taoism can be made to serve the state?

      1.  Perhaps Hu Jintao believes that the general sense of political disengagement, inherent in the notion of wu-wei ("nothing’s own doing"), which can emerge from Taoism, might diffuse the growing number of protests and demonstrations in recent years.  If people simply accept their fate and their place in Way, maybe they will simply passively accept, or at least not actively resist, government policy.

     2.   Maybe Hu and company are banking on a repeat of the Legalist appropriation of Taoism.  Han Fei Tzu rather famously invokes Taoist images and ideas to describe the remote and all-powerful ruler of his authoritarian system.  Does the CCP hope that they can do the same? 

      3.   Maybe the Party is so desperate to junk their old Marxist ideology and bring forward a neo-traditionalist sense of Chinese historical greatness as a basis of authoritarian legitimacy, that they are willing to bring back any and all traditions.  Maybe we will see portraits of Yao and Shun in Tiananmen Square soon.

      4.   Maybe the Party is making a big mistake. By bringing Taoism into the political discourse they are opening the way (Way?) for all sorts of ideas that push against authoritarian power.  How about passage 75 of the Tao Te Ching:

The people are starving,
and it’s only because you leaders feast on taxes
that they’re starving.

The people are impossible to rule,
and its only because you leaders are masters of extenuation
that they’re impossible to rule.

The people take death lightly
and it’s only because you leaders crave life’s lavish pleasures
that they take death lightly,

they who act without concern for life:
it’s a wisdom far beyond treasuring life.

     Do they really want people running around reciting such lines?  Do they really want people embracing the pacifism of Taoism?  That could produce a fundamental critique of the continuing threat of violence across the Taiwan Straits.  There are all sorts of "anti-Party" possibilities here.

     And what would the Leninist Party interpretation be of this line from the Tao Te Ching:

Govern a nation as you would cook a small fish"(60)

     I think it is number 4.  I think they really don’t appreciate the potential in Taoism for searching criticism of centralized power.

UPDATE: A story in today’s Asia Sentinel on the resurgence of Taoism in China is here.