Iza Ding teaches political science at Northwestern. The Performative State came out in 2022.
The biggest movie at the Chinese box office this August – grossing nearly three times as much as The Odyssey, released the same week – was Once Upon a Time in the Middle East, directed by Wen Muye. Loosely based on a true story, it follows Xu Fu (Shen Teng), a chef from northern China, who takes a job at the Dragon restaurant in a fictionalised Baghdad.
It’s almost impossible to read any work on meritocracy without being reminded that the word was first used in mid-20th-century Britain to portray a dystopian society, a rigid caste system in which a smug elite claimed power on the basis of superior effort and ability. But it was imperial China where meritocratic ideals were first brought to life. The keju, or imperial civil service...
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