Research on Abdicating Politics: Wang Mang's Abdication to Han and the Transmission of His Mind-Method

Author: Yang Yongjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Abdication was the primary method of dynastic succession in Chinese history. It was practiced during the legendary era of the You, Shun, and Yu tribal confederations, as well as in the Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties, and Song dynasties after the Qin and Han periods. Abdication was not merely a means of dynastic succession; it should be recognized as a form of politics—a ritualized political tradition unique to China. From the etymological interpretation of "abdication" and "ceding," from the textual analysis of the character "abdication" used to express the concept of dynastic succession in pre-Qin, Qin, Han, and classical texts, from the definition of abdication in relation to other opposing or adjacent concepts such as hereditary succession, usurpation, and ceding the throne, as well as from the analysis of the conceptual of abdication, it can be seen that as the main form of dynastic succession under the imperial autocratic system, abdication was a distinctive and explicit political phenomenon in Chinese history with unique content and form. The practical implementation of abdication in the late Western Han Dynasty was an inevitable outcome of the widespread political notion of "the world not being monopolized by a single family" in the mid-to-late Western Han society. We can trace its ideological roots in the theories of omens and disasters and the Five Elements cycle in the Dong-style Spring and Autumn Commentary, which served as the orthodox ideology of Western Han society. Abdication politics reflected the spirit of benevolent governance and the principle of courtesy in Confucianism. It was also a twisted realization of Confucian ideals such as "the world for all" and "selecting the virtuous and capable" under the imperial autocratic system.