Tocqueville on China

In an earlier post I wrote about Alexis de Tocqueville and his influential book Democracy in America. Democracy in America was published in two volumes: Volume 1 in 1835 and Volume 2 in 1840. The quotes in my previous post about New York were from Chapter V in Volume 1. The subject of this chapter is the importance to democracy of local administration (e.g., townships and municipal bodies) and the dangers to democracy of central administration.

In that same chapter, Tocqueville wrote a footnote about China. Because of my trip to China last fall, I found this footnote interesting. I quote it here in full:

China appears to me to present the most perfect instance of that species of well-being which a completely central administration may furnish to the nations among which it exists. Travellers assure us that the Chinese have peace without happiness, industry without improvement, stability without strength, and public order without public morality. The condition of society is always tolerable, never excellent. I am convinced that, when China is opened to European observation, it will be found to contain the most perfect model of a central administration which exists in the universe.

Tocqueville wrote during the Qing Dynasty. Volume 1 was published seven years before the first Opium War with Britain. (Brief history of China: through Mao and after Mao.)

To read the above passage in context, go here. The text to which the footnote is attached is on p. 77 and the footnote itself is on p. 89.