China's Crisis of Political Morality: Diagnosis and Reconstruction

Because of the moral focus of such founding thinkers as Confucius and Mencius and the absence of a strong tradition of the rule of law, China has always placed particular emphasis on public morality. The revolutionary first half of the 20th century culminating in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution however featured moral iconoclasm. When this was abruptly brought to a close by the advent of “reform and opening” in December 1978, which assumed that “practice is the sole criterion of Truth” (also known as the “cat theory”) Chinese society perceived complete pragmatism as a moral void and became afflicted with a “crisis of faith.” Judging from the sustained ferocity of the anti-corruption campaign launched in 2012, this moral crisis has only intensified.