Sincerity

« previous post | next post »

Two colleagues noticed that the PRC government often rebukes other countries for lacking sincerity, and they asked me if Chinese had a different understanding of sincerity that permitted / encouraged them to do so.  "Sincerity" is so front and center in Chinese negotiations with other nations that one soon comes to realize, if you want smooth relations with the PRC, you must needs demonstrate to the Chinese representatives that you are utterly sincere, i.e., that you are willing to do exactly what they want you to do.  Anything less opens you to the charge of being insincere.

My colleagues asked me if there is something special about the Chinese conception of sincerity, i.e., does it have special Chinese characteristics" (jùyǒu Zhòngguó tèsè 具有中国特色)?  Just as it is an article of faith for the CCP that socialism in China comes with special characteristics (Zhōngguó tèsè shèhuì zhǔyì 中国特色社会主义).

I will say two things about the meaning of "sincere" in China.

First, it has an extraordinarily wide range of definitional translations in Chinese (30 by this count):

—–

zhēnchéng 真誠  ​

  • genuine
  • sincere
  • true
  • melancholy
  • sincere
cècè 惻惻
  • earnest
  • grieved
  • sincere
  • sorrowful
chén
  • faithful
  • sincere
chéng
  • honest
  • sincere
chéngkěn 誠懇
  • expansive
  • hearty
  • sincere
chéngzhì 誠摯
  • cordial
  • sincere
chì
  • bare
  • loyal
  • red
  • scarlet
  • sincere
  • single-hearted
dǎn
  • sincere
  • earnest
  • faithful
  • honest
  • reliable
  • serious
  • sincere
dūn
  • honest
  • kind-hearted
  • sincere
kěn
  • earnest
  • sincere
kěnqiè 懇切
  • earnest
  • sincere
kōng
  • simple-minded
  • sincere
kǔn
  • sincere
pǔshí 樸實
  • guileless
  • honest
  • plain
  • simple
  • sincere
  • genuine
  • unadorned
qián
  • devout
  • pious
  • sincere
qiánchéng 虔誠
  • sincere
rèchéng 熱誠
  • cordial
  • sincere
shíxīn 實心
  • honest
  • sincere
  • solid
shuǎngkuài 塽快
  • agreeable
  • blunt
  • candid
  • cheerful
  • cheery
  • sincere
shuǎngzhí 塽直
  • frank
  • sincere
  • straightforward
xún
  • earnest
  • frank
  • genuine
  • heartfelt
  • honest
  • sincere
yóuzhōng 由衷
  • heartfelt
  • sincere
yuàn
  • sincere
  • willing
zào
  • sincere
  • unfeigned
zhēnshuài 真率
  • sincere
  • straightforward
  • unaffected
zhēnxīn 真心
  • heartfelt
  • sincere
  • whole-hearted
zhēnzhì 真摯
  • cordial
  • sincere
zhìchéng 至誠
  • sincere
  • straightforward

—–

Second, as chéng 誠, the notion of "sincere / sincerity" has a long, deep, solid tradition in Chinese philosophy, especially in late medieval neo-Confucianism.  See "Neo-Confucian Philosophy" in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Han Yu’s (768-824) friend Li Ao (772-841) shared similar views and wrote a highly influential essay on human nature that sounded more of the philosophic themes that would dominate the Song Neo-Confucian revival. While Li’s vision of the self might be a bit too quiescent for the tastes of the more activist Song literati, it still captured the tone of the philosophical revival:

Therefore it is sincerity that the sage takes as his nature, absolutely still and without movement, vast and great, clear and bright, shining on Heaven and Earth. When stimulated he can then penetrate all things in the world. In act or in rest, in speech or silence, he always remains in the ultimate. It is returning to his true nature that the worthy man follows without ceasing. If he follows it without ceasing he is enabled to get back to the source (Barrett 1992: 102).

11. Cheng or sincerity, genuineness and the self-actualization of the moral virtues such that one achieves a morally harmonious life via various forms of xiushen or self-cultivation by means of such praxis as jing mindfulness or attentiveness; this praxis is the “how” of the moral self-cultivation of the five constant virtues.

        cheng is also translated as "self-actualization" (of the heart-mind) and "integrity"
 
I conclude that 21st-century CCP exegetes make of "sincere / sincerity / chéng 誠" what they will, i.e., what they need it to be for political purposes.  There's nothing particular innate about "chéng 誠" that differentiates it from its lexical counterpart, "sincere / sincerity", in English.
 
 
Selected readings
 



11 Comments »

  1. bks said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 10:17 am

    "This, above all: to thine own self be true" (said by Polonius in Hamlet, act 1, scene 3)

  2. GH said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 11:22 am

    I think to me the accusation sounds weird because I don't expect international diplomacy to be guided by "sincerity," but on the contrary to involve a lot of insincere assurances of deep friendship and respect, pro forma posturing, and "polite fictions."

    Could it be that in context, "lack of sincerity" would be better translated into English as "in bad faith"? At least to me, that phrase has connotations that it would make more sense to complain about.

  3. jin defang said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 12:01 pm

    "in bad faith" is as close as I think we'll get but, as Prof. Mair says, despite the sundry translations he's found, sincerity means doing exactly what the CCP wants. Thus Chen Shui-bian was accused of insincerity when he wouldn't accept the CCP's definition of the One China Policy .

  4. Allen W. Thrasher said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 12:41 pm

    Could I jump this over to Japan? A Japanologist friend once told me she didn’t understand the Japanese idea of sincerity. To her when people said someone had been sincere, it was precisely when to her it seemed the were insincere.

  5. Jerry Packard said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 1:12 pm

    “How can there be any ‘sin’ in ‘sincere’?”

    Meredith Willson – ‘The Music Man’

  6. David Morris said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 2:16 pm

    "that you are willing to do exactly what they want you to do"

    I would call that servility, not sincerity.

  7. Julian said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 3:06 pm

    As I settled back on the sofa in my underwear, beer in hand, channelling my inner Finn (or is it Dane?),** I was looking forward to a nice juicy "no word for X" post.
    Imagine my disappointment on getting to the last sentence!
    It seems that the gamut of human nature is similar everywhere after all.
    ** My actual location is almost at the antipodean point of Helsinki, so that probably explains the cultural affinity.

  8. Kris Rhodes said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 3:53 pm

    Seems like 'serious' is closer to what's meant in the mentioned cases of diplomatic chiding, like saying people who won't hop to aren't 'serious people'.

  9. Don Keyser said,

    February 3, 2025 @ 8:51 pm

    Many will be familiar with Dick Solomon's seminal study of Chinese negotiating behavior for RAND, "Chinese Political Negotiating Behavior, 1967-1984" (and later published commercially in 1999 with some revisions, and a foreword by Chas Freeman, under the title "Chinese Negotiating Behavior: Pursuing Interests through 'Old Friends'"). The RAND version may be downloaded at and elsewhere on the Web.

    On July 8, 2019 ChinaFile published "The Other Tiananmen Papers" . Various scholars, journalists and former US Govt officials offer comments on their main
    takeaways from the declassified records of President George W Bush's personal and his administration's actions vis-a-vis Beijing following the June 4, 1989 horror.

    James Green observes "As for the Chinese leaders, one word comes to mind: chutzpah … Meeting with American envoys, Deng [Xiaoping] deployed nearly every mechanism Richard Solomon described in his book "Chinese Negotiating Behavior": setting the agenda, QUESTIONING SINCERITY [my emphasis], invoking friendship, and distorting the record." None of which can be much of a surprise to any American who has sat across a negotiating table from Chinese officials or business executives.

  10. Don Keyser said,

    February 4, 2025 @ 9:55 am

    Apologies. Victor points out that the links I provided did not make it safely through cyberspace. Evidently the Language Log text field does not accommodate clickable hyperlinks. So here is the posting again, this time with the source citation rendered as text rather than hyperlinks. Hope this resolves the issue. Don

    Many will be familiar with Dick Solomon's seminal study of Chinese negotiating behavior for RAND, "Chinese Political Negotiating Behavior, 1967-1984" (and later published commercially in 1999 with some revisions, and a foreword by Chas Freeman, under the title "Chinese Negotiating Behavior: Pursuing Interests through 'Old Friends'"). The RAND version may be downloaded at (https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2006/MR663.pdf) and elsewhere on the Web.

    On July 8, 2019 ChinaFile published "The Other Tiananmen Papers" (https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/other-tiananmen-papers). Various scholars, journalists and former US Govt officials offer comments on their main
    takeaways from the declassified records of President George W Bush's personal and his administration's actions vis-a-vis Beijing following the June 4, 1989 horror.

    James Green observes "As for the Chinese leaders, one word comes to mind: chutzpah … Meeting with American envoys, Deng [Xiaoping] deployed nearly every mechanism Richard Solomon described in his book "Chinese Negotiating Behavior": setting the agenda, QUESTIONING SINCERITY [my emphasis], invoking friendship, and distorting the record." None of which can be much of a surprise to any American who has sat across a negotiating table from Chinese officials or business executives.

  11. AntC said,

    February 5, 2025 @ 8:58 am

    “As a matter of principle, I want to point out that we urge the United States to stop politicising trade and economic issues and using them as tools, and to stop the unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies,” Lin Jian, a [Chinese foreign] ministry spokesperson, told a regular press briefing.
    [source]
    </blockquote]

    [Strange to use this adjective of this personage, but …] I think Trump is being sincere in using trade and economic issues as tools — indeed they're the only tools he understands. We need look no further than the BRI to see CCP using trade and economic issues as tools. Any Western company trying to do business in PRC can tell you about "unreasonable suppression".

    So sincerity all round. Nothing to see here; move along.

RSS feed for comments on this post

Leave a Comment