From Current Digest of the Chinese Press, Sept. 6, 2026. Complete text:
EXPERT OPINION
Editors’ Note. – Lawrence L.C. Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received his B.A. in Economics and History from Oberlin College, and his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University. His research interests span Qing dynasty political and social history, social mobility, meritocracy, state–elite relations, and cultural exchange, with a focus on office purchase: i.e., the practice of allowing individuals to pay for appointments to government positions. He is the author of Power for a Price: The Purchase of Government Appointments in Qing China (Harvard University Asia Center, 2022) and has published widely on Qing governance, comparative meritocracy in Asia, and the evolution of Chinese tea arts.
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Q. – Your research on office purchase in the Qing shows that wealth, networks, and institutional structures all shaped access to power. What echoes of these historical patterns do you see in today’s discussions about social mobility and inequality in modern China?
A. – I think in general in today’s world we have an expectation of meritocratic selection at all levels – we conduct interviews for jobs, even entry level or unskilled jobs of all kinds. We select candidates for political or academic positions based on perceived competence. We normally also expect that personal wealth has, at best, an indirect effect on these outcomes, mediated by things such as education and what Bourdieu would call social and cultural capital. My study points out how even in a system perceived as a precursor of our current-day meritocratic society such as late imperial China, something like office purchase was not only possible, but widespread and widely accepted. Of course, in today’s world we do have our parallels: legacy admission in American universities, for example, or the perceived advantages for offspring of well-connected individuals in jobs in certain organizations in China. The same complaints we might hear today of these sorts of privileged access were also present in Qing China – that the people selected were not as qualified, that the process was unfair, etc. Some of it was no doubt true, but at the same time we also see how on average, to no one’s surprise, candidates with higher socioeconomic background tend to be quite well prepared for the jobs they were going to take on. What it does is arrest the downward mobility of the elites, and help them secure continuity in positions of power.
Q. – The shangyu tiaoli project [i.e., official compilation of regulations and legislation from the Qing government] reveals how the Qing state managed a vast bureaucracy. Based on your findings, do you see any continuities in how the Chinese government today balances central authority with local realities?
A. – One curious feature of the Shangyu tiaoli and the documents that collection contains is how precedent-based the Qing government really was. We tend to think of the emperor as this all-powerful, autocratic ruler who could change things on a whim, which theoretically was true. However, in actual practice we see that the government was quite often very much bound by precedents and unwilling to deviate too far from what had been ruled before without some justification for the change. I am exploring this idea in a new book project that aims to look at how rulership and exercises of power took place in the Qing and how we ought to understand the late imperial state.
Q. – You mentioned your new book project. Could you elaborate on the key questions or themes you are exploring, and what new perspectives this project might bring to our understanding of the late imperial state?
A. – I am specifically looking at the intersection of rulership and the civil service, exploring the limits of imperial power as it was exercised through the Qing emperors. While it was true that theoretically the emperor held virtually unlimited and unchecked power in his position, in practice there were actually many ways in which that power was constrained by the civil service. The project is still at a pretty early stage, though, so I am only sketching out a pretty rough idea here.
Q. – Your comparative work on meritocracy in Qing China and Mughal India challenges the idea that merit-based systems are ever purely “fair.” What insights from this research might help us understand current debates in China about education pressure, competition, and what it means to be “meritorious”?
A. – When we talk about meritocracy today, there is an overwhelming focus on the selection power of the gaokao system [annual national entrance exam that determines university admissions]. The testing outcome, and the academic prowess that it measures, is equated with merit. I think that misses the mark by limiting the definition of merit to one type only. As we argued in that paper, merit really needs to be understood in the context of the regime making personnel choices. Things such as loyalty, piety, social connections, etc., may all be part of the calculation of merit. This can be applied to the past as well as the present. In the Ming dynasty, for example, you not only had to be a good Confucian, you had to be the right kind of Confucian. In Mughal India, getting to the top often involved fratricidal intrigue, so being skilled in that area was, by definition, a type of merit. Focusing on credentials and examination success is a useful shorthand for measuring merit, but is also incomplete.
Q. – In your studies of Qing state–elite relations, you examine how elites gained status and how the state regulated that mobility. How might this historical lens help us interpret today’s evolving middle class, new elites, or the role of wealth in shaping social status in China?
A. – An argument I made in my book is that in some ways, allowing office purchase actually may have enhanced social mobility. Earning wealth was probably easier than earning a jinshi [civil service] examination degree. If you can then translate that wealth directly into official status, that was an avenue for advancement that otherwise would have been impossible to accomplish: Someone who made a bunch of money by their 30s was never going to be able to try and sit for examinations, but could have bought official titles and status if they so chose. China had mostly dropped the practice of hereditary nobility since the Tang dynasty (some Manchus enjoyed that privilege, but it was a very small group). In a way, this puts us much closer to the Qing than we otherwise imagined.
Q. – You suggest that allowing wealth to be converted into official status may have enhanced social mobility in the Qing. Do you see any comparable mechanisms in contemporary China where economic success can be translated into social or political status?
A. – When I made this argument first in my doctoral dissertation, it was in response to Ho Ping-ti’s idea that power must be translated via examination into government-authorized credentials to be useful. I think I have shown that in fact there was a much more direct route: to convert money into political access and power. While there may be some convergence of financial and political success in China since the 1990s, I think there isn’t really a directly comparable system at all, not in the sense that you could just legally buy your way into government positions.
Q. – Many of your works show how historical institutions shaped people’s perceptions of fairness and legitimacy. What lessons from the Qing period do you think are most relevant for understanding public expectations and social attitudes in China today?
A. – It’s a testament to the propaganda power of the jinshi system that to this day, we still hold it up as an ideal. The idea that you select the best and brightest for government is a really powerful one, and accompanying that is the promise that through talent and hard work you can achieve socioeconomic advancement. The possibility of social mobility is a great motivating force, and I think as we now see increasing talk of “lying flat,” there may be a recognition that the engine for social mobility is failing, or at least a perception that it is no longer as possible as in the ‘80s or ‘90s – that is not a happy place for a society to be in.
Q. – Why do you think social mobility, as an important motivating force, appears to be weakening today? What do you see as the main factors behind this shift?
A. – This is not exactly a historian’s area, but I think in general the advent of mass communication and logistics means that now more than ever, we are living in a winner-take-all society (Frank and Cook, 1995). With AI, this is probably even going to be more acute going forward: Those who own the means of production in this case reap almost all the benefits, while people who used to aspire to middle-class jobs to propel them up the socio-economic hierarchy are now stuck in menial jobs with little prospects.
Q. – Looking across your research on governance, meritocracy, and cultural exchange, what larger themes or lessons about China’s past do you think are most important for understanding the directions Chinese society and culture are heading today?
A. – There is still a lot of the imperial state bureaucracy’s DNA in today’s Chinese government – 2000+ years of tradition is something that lingers on in ways that are not always obvious but nevertheless persist. As a historian, it’s dangerous to try to draw too many lessons from the past, as it was a very different place and ought not to be taken too literally as a parallel to the present. We can, however, see echoes and may be able to take note of what’s happening around the world today.
Q. – When you refer to “echoes” of the past, what are some observations you might make about parallels to the contemporary world?
A. – Around 2019-2020, quite a few books came out that centered on issues of social mobility, fairness, and meritocracy as currently implemented. I think they are all part of a response to an increasingly polarized society where the post-war arrangements are starting to show strain, partly as a result of technological advances that have only accelerated since the pandemic. While I don’t think we can necessarily offer any direct lessons regarding our present predicament, I do think studying the past can inform what we make of the issues of “how we got here” and “what could happen” in many complex socioeconomic situations.