one of the more interesting figures to haunt the landscape of chinese reforms is the “confucian merchant (儒商)”. there is an online club and international confucian merchants association. according to an article written by dean of the confucian academy and chair of the hong kong confucian merchants association tang enjia (汤恩佳),confucian merchants approach commerce in the spirit of confucious, conducting their affairs in accordance with the five central values of confucianism: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trust (仁、义、礼、智、信). for the confucian merchant the greatest of these is trust (诚信), which shares an uncanny etymology with “credit (信用).”

i have my doubts about the possibility of mercantile confucianism, in part because confucianism strikes me as decidedly feudal and current business practices decidedly capitalist and also in part because the figure of the confucian merchant seems to legitimate all kinds of inequality, much in the same way that romances about tormented, but ultimately good-hearted tycoons justify unequal social relations. but mine could be a cynicism born of reading too many text messages, like the one currently circulating about wang shi (王石), the ceo of shenzhen’s mega-real estate development company vanke 万科. googling “wang shi vanke” brings up all sorts of capitalist self-congratulatory stories in english, including an article in nytimes real estate magazine. googling 万科王石 brings up even more, including his blog.

王石者，广西柳州人氏。其母戎狄也，故性焊。少有异志，及长，经营房产，遂至巨富。石好登山，每登必耗巨资，其行小善必刻石以记之。和谐年间，川中大震，灾民流离失所国人莫不解囊共济之。石出二百，并噣下捐不得过十，有人讽为“王十”，众责之，石辩曰：灾降国乃常事，吾留钱备后用。又曰：济民赈灾，人所自愿，岂能强吾所难。众评曰：身虽临绝顶，心已死苍生！

[mock classical chinese] wang shi, a person from liuzhou, guangxi. his mother was a barbarian, so he had a fierce personality. as a child he was unusual, as an adult, he operated a real estate company, realizing his dream of great wealth. shi liked to mountain climb, and spent a great deal on every climb. even the smallest detail of every expedition was engraved in stone. in the era of harmony, there was an earthquake in sichuan. the people were left destitute and homeless and there wasn’t anyone in the country who didn’t open their purse to send relief. shi only gave two [million], and ordered his subordinates not to give more than ten rmb. some starting sarcastically calling shi “wang ten”. when the people reproached him, shi defended himself: disasters frequently befall the country, this is nothing new, i’m saving my money for a later day. he also said: helping people in disaster zones is voluntary, how can i be forced? the people evaluated him thus: even though his body has reached the highest summit, his heart has already died to the people!

shi has responded to the criticism by promising 100,000,000 rmb to rebuild a sichuan market town. so yes, public humiliation has its uses…

update may 31, 2008: wang shi remains near and dear to many shenzhen hearts. when i mentioned that i had translated this message to a friend, who works in advertising, he immediately said he analyzed the whole wang shi-wenchuan phenomenon.

according to my friend, in order to understand wang shi’s response, you have to understand how the chinese media works. the first time that the earthquake was reported, the chinese press simply mentioned that there had been an earthquake in sichuan. he explained that the chinese press doesn’t proactively report, but instead waits to see how the central (or provincial or municipal) government is or is not going to respond, before it does or does not report. on my friend’s interpretation, wang shi had responded to the first reports, by the time the other reports came out, he didn’t have enough time to actually respond appropriately, leaving himself open to misunderstanding.

another friend pointed out that wang shi did the whole tycoon thing better than anyone else in china. he has charm and charisma, so that makes people want to see him fall. my firend then pointed out that the wenchuan earthquake proved [once again] that the chinese people are good (很善良), but unwise (没有智慧). wang shi, he suggested, wasn’t totally off base when he suggested that there would be need for money next disaster.

in another wang shi event, my new boss has used wang shi as an example of how to be single-minded and focused. vanke doesn’t do anything by upscale housing; a school should only have one pedagogical mission.

so here in shenzhen, we continue to watch wang shi and the development of the ethics of the city’s emergent elite. this returns me to the persistence of confucian merchants. i don’t think that wang shi qualifies as a confucian merchant in the strict sense of the term, specifically as he has self-presented as a kind of hip, smart, and living life to the fullest self-made millionaire. nevertheless, the way he has been positioned vis-a-vis wenzhou suggests that its quite alright to be hip and go mountain climbing, but in times of national disaster, the people might use the confucian merchant to call the elite to heel.