Topic: The Logic and Practice of Meritocracy in Modern China

Speaker: Youn-mi Jang (Center for Chinese Studies, Dongseo University)

Date & Time: Wednesday, December 7, 2022, 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Venue : 600th Anniversary Hall, 6th floor, Seminar Room 1 (on-site presentation and on-line Zoom video conference)

Purpose: CCECC seeks to understand the logic of political meritocracy in China and how it works in the actual governance structure in preparation for the 2023 International Conference on Social Meritocracy.

     The discussion highlighted the limitations of current Chinese political science discourse and provided insight into the distinctive Chinese socialist ideas promoted by the Xi Jinping regime in its third term. The Chinese Communist Party is currently engaged in "all-round deepening reform" and seeks to establish a comprehensive (all areas of the country), long-term ("two hundred years"), conservative (the great revival of the Chinese nation), and non-confrontational (the balance of power and its role in coordinating it) party-run state governance system. To this end, it is promoting the centralization of power, cultural governance, ideological unity of the ruling elite, and the establishment of a scriptural ideological system. Through Dr. Jang’s lecture, we were able to see how the Meritocracy of Chinese political study abroad, which we had encountered in the form of our discourse, was refracted and utilized in the encounter with the real politics of China.