China's pragmatism as a grand national development strategy: Historical legacy and evolution

Abstract

One common argument is that the pragmatic spirit immanent in Chinese political culture helps political leaders to formulate a pragmatic grand national strategy. Traditionally, pragmatic ideology and practice has often provided Chinese leaders with an effective way to ward off social and political deadlock both at home and abroad. For some commentators of Chinese politics, the exploration of a causal relationship between Chinese cultural-ideological legacy and pragmatic national development strategy has become a meaningful topic of debate. Speaking to this debate, this article characterizes China's grand national development strategy under Jiang Zemin's leadership as "neo-pragmatism" and sees the origin of Chinese pragmatic spirit in the country's historical tradition. The argument is that the Chinese cultural-ideological legacy was what gave birth to the so-called pragmatic national strategy that has been manifested within the Chinese way of political and economic reform. A pragmatic national development approach has been accepted by the CCP leaders, broadly coinciding with the assertion of intellectual and public sentiment at the threshold of the twenty-first century.