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The Main Schools of Confucianism
in Present-Day Mainland China
LI Hongwei*

Since the 1990s, Chinese scholarly thought has become increasingly
diverse and has undergone signiﬁcant reorganization. Confucian thought inparticular has ﬂourished and diversiﬁed. Confucian trends of note are thevalue Confucianism 价值儒学 of Chen Lai 陈来, the democratic Confucianism
民主儒学 of Wu Guang 吴光, the life Confucianism 生活儒学 of Huang Yushun
黄玉顺, and present-day political Confucianism 政治儒学, the most active andpopular of these trends. Though there are other schools of Confucian thought,
this paper will cover only these four schools to keep the analysis simple andprovide a synoptic understanding.

The Value Confucianism of Chen Lai
Value Confucianism aﬃrms the value theory of Confucianism, but not
the commonly discussed social values of Confucianism. The foundation ofChen Lai’s value Confucianism consists of the Confucian concept of value
and its function in the theory. His recent interests and interpretations ofConfucian values, including such values as responsibility, decorum 礼教, andthe kingly way 王道, follow developments in the 1980s from the debate on
modern culture to social-political thought. Here I present a few of his recent
views to illustrate his philosophy.
Philosophical foundations The ontology of value Confucianism posits theexistence of whatever is necessary for there to be benevolence 仁, which
manifests itself in world ethics and interaction ethics. The sources of value
Confucianism are classical benevolence studies 仁学 (stemming from A Studyof Benevolence 仁學, by Tan Sitong 譚嗣同, 1865 1898), the philosophy ofXiong Shili 熊十力 (1885 1968), who called for a revival of Confucianism,* Professor, Hebei University of Technology

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and the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.1
Chen Lai bases his methodology not on monistic universality, but on
pluralistic universality, which explains why values in diﬀerent cultural
regions share some, but not all, universalities.
Value orientation He points out that the core of Confucianism is reasoning
about values, not instrumental rationality. The social value of Confucianism isthe social signiﬁcance of moral reasoning. Confucian reasoning about values
includes the inﬂuences of modernity, the market economy, and industrialization on people’s ethical and moral lives, both in China and abroad. Hence,since Confucianism has its own ultimate concerns, the signiﬁcance ofConfucianism is both national and international.2 The core Confucian valuesof Chinese culture are benevolence, protocol, responsibility, community, andthe kingly way.3
The point of departure for value Confucianism Value Confucianism takes
as its point of departure that Chinese thought and practice should be
Sinicized, that Chinese thought is universal, and that rights do not enjoypriority. Related to this last principle is that responsibility comes before
freedom, that obligations are more important than rights, that community
values matter more than the individual, and that harmony takes precedence
over conﬂict. Here we see a distinct contrast with the Western perspective on
values. Chen Lai made the following judgment about the modern value ofindividual rights and its relation to Chinese culture:

If a central principle of Western political thought regards personal rights
and personal freedom as having ﬁrst priority and if requiring citizens topractice the common good violates personal freedom, Confucianism will
never aﬃrm this attitude of giving priority to rights.
China has never experienced religious persecution, nor has it foughtcolonial powers for national independence, nor have there been conﬂicts
between citizens and the aristocracy in Chinese history. Chinese history,
especially in the Confucian tradition, has never given priority to anindividual’s demands on the state or his personal rights. Confucianism
requires rulers and the government to take responsibility and take care of
1 Du Weiming 杜维明 and Huang Chun-chieh 黃俊傑 have also discussed how theuniverse is interconnected.
2 Chen Lai 2013.
3 Chen Lai 2015.

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the people, especially with regard to their economic and social wellbeing. Confucianism has been the core thinking of Chinese scholar-oﬃcials for thousands of years. As a result, Confucianism has internallycome to regard social responsibility and concern for public aﬀairs as its
ﬁrst priority. Confucianism requires Chinese scholar-oﬃcials to focus on
people’s livelihoods. Hence, “caring for the state while caring for thepeople” 忧国忧民 has become the spiritual tradition and inner concern ofConfucian scholar-oﬃcials.4
Chen Lai also said that concern for the people may be stronger now
because of the special historical conditions that the Chinese suﬀered under in
the nineteenth century and the development that China is experiencing now.
Thus, China today gives ﬁrst priority to the people, not human rights.5
Confucianism places politics on a foundation of virtue. So there is no moral
neutralism in politics, nor can politics be separated from morality. He
believes that the West and the East each have their own universal concepts ofvalue, founded on spiritual aspects and value aspects. Justice, freedom, rights,
and rationality are universal, and at the same time benevolence, protocol,
responsibility, community, and inner peace are also universal. In the Chinese
outlook on values, since ancient times, freedom and democracy have neverranked ﬁrst.6
Here I would like to make some brief comments on Chen Lai’s value
Confucianism. We might notice that between the value systems of the Eastand the West, there is some alignment and also some misalignment. The
concerns of these two value systems might not be on the same level. Since
the issues they raise are diﬀerent, some parts are compatible. If there are
diﬀerent universalities, it is because they arise from diﬀerent issues. But what
if these diﬀerent universalities arise from the same issue, prescribing diﬀerent
solutions for the same question? In this case, what kind of universality are we
dealing with, and what is its modus operandi? Are such universalities
diﬀerent in nature, do they include diﬀerent elements, or are their elements
woven together in diﬀerent ways? An equally important point is to take arealistic view of history into consideration, since history is related to the typeof culture of a people. If the value systems of East and West refer to diﬀerent
levels or diﬀerent domains, we can still discuss their universality, but it would
be better to study them in the same issue domain.

4 Chen Lai 2016.
5 Chen Lai 2016.
6 Chen Lai 2013.

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Features of value Confucianism Chen Lai does not thoroughly separate hisvalue Confucianism from the trend toward greater Chinese and Western
integration. But according to his notion of multiple universalities, Chinese
values enjoy equal status with Western values, and Western modernity is not
the ﬁrst priority of value Confucianism. His value Confucianism supportssocialism with Chinese characteristics.
Questions Chen Lai’s value Confucianism raises several questions. First, hisnotion of multiple universalities is signiﬁcant, but it may also cause methodological problems. In principle, universality is monistic. Arguing for values on
the basis of universality relies not on dialectics, but on logic. I personallyfavor monistic universality; otherwise, there is a high chance of losing
ourselves in cultural relativism. In the last two decades, the notion ofmultiple types of modernity has led to a number of interesting ideas, but such
multiplicities may also lead us astray.
Second, is community an abstract conception? Is it a whole, a group, ora collection? Is a social group composed of individuals? Is it a whole? Or is
it a body of related individuals, there being no absolutely independent individual? In the Chinese worldview, people regard themselves as nodes in asocial network. Some Confucians, especially in the Song and Ming dynasties,
promoted the idea that in benevolence, a man sees himself as being one with
Heaven and Earth. However, this binary relationship with the universe is
diﬀerent from normal relations in a social network. In my view, this holistic
unity with Heaven and Earth recognizes that the individual is connected tothe universe and at the same time independent.7 Since the time of the new
Confucians of the twentieth century until now, the relationship between individual and community has been a topic requiring clariﬁcation.
Third, in asserting that responsibility comes before freedom and obligations before rights, do we not need to clarify the level and domain in which
we make this assumption? For the order and category of values in a specialized market society are diﬀerent from those in a family, a social network, or
the political ﬁeld, because of diﬀerent levels and domains.

The Democratic Confucianism of Wu Guang
Like Chen Lai, Wu Guang also participated in the discussion of new
Confucianism in the 1980s and tried to modernize Confucianism. His thought
is based primarily on Confucianism, but owing to his historical academic
background, he also pays attention to such philosophies as the School of the
Yellow Emperor and Laozi 黄老道学. In addition, he shows great interest in
7 Li Hongwei 2014.

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democratic awareness in Chinese traditional philosophy. In particular, when
he edited The Complete Works of Huang Zongxi 黄宗羲全集, he delighted in
the budding awareness of the people and the promotion of their interests by
Huang Zongxi 黄宗羲 (1610 1695). He holds that democratic Confucianism
is supported both aﬀectively and rationally. His basic positions are as
follows:
The three periods of Confucianism Wu Guang’s overview of Confucianism
is based on the notion of body 体 versus function 用. He states that traditional
Confucianism had its own body and function, namely a body of benevolence
仁 and a function of decorum 礼, and that the new Confucianism will develop
its own body and function. With changes in content come changes in form.
On this basis, he introduced three periods in the development of
Confucianism. The ﬁrst period was classical Confucianism. The second
period extended from Kang Youwei 康有为 (1858 1927) to the new
Confucianism of the twentieth century. The third period is the democratic
Confucianism now taking shape, with a new body and new function.8
According to Wu Guang, the new Confucianism of Kang Youwei and Mou
Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909 1995) was limited to elite discussion among intellectuals and in academic forums. Their thought never exercised a strong spiritual
power capable of guiding society and the public. Most important, they did notseparate themselves from the idealistic theory of mind and human nature 心
性学 of the Song (960 1279) and Ming (1368 1644) dynasties. Their new
Confucianism lacked a new body and function capable of facing life, thepublic, and the contemporary age.9
I see no major problems with Wu Guang’s ﬁrst period of Confucianism.
But the second period he sees as a reactive Confucianism. This view, I think,applies only to Kang Youwei’s Confucianism, not to a fully developed
Confucianism. Not all new Confucianism (for example, Mou Zongsan’sphilosophy) is reactive. New Confucianism is both constructive and systematic. Such construction and creative reconstruction are based on acknowledging basic values and responding to contemporary requirements. I do notthink that new Confucianism is entangled in airy discussions of nature andmind. Indeed, new Confucianism has had to face the public and society. In thetwentieth century it had to respond to challenges from scientism, materialism,
and indiscriminate Westernization and has had to redeﬁne the value ofChinese culture in the face of these challenges. These multiple tasks facing
contemporary Confucianism are primarily intellectual in nature.
8 Wu Guang 2014.
9 Wu Guang 2014.

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Contemporary Confucianism, in my view, needs to develop its roots bycombining Confucius 孔子 (551 479 BCE), Mencius 孟子 (372 289 BCE), thestudy of mind and nature 心性学, and the study of innate knowledge of thegood 良知学 with new Confucianism and a future democratic life for the
Chinese people. So democratic Confucianism is feasible, although myapproach diﬀers somewhat from that of Wu Guang.
The basic idea of democratic Confucianism Wu Guang states that democracy is partially a metaphysical concept and not just a practical institutional
form.10 Because democracy has metaphysical features, we can understand Wu
Guang as regarding democracy as the Way 道, the metaphysical notion ofConfucianism. He tells us that democracy has one way and ﬁve virtues 一道
五德, that democracy has benevolence as body and science and law as function 仁爱为体, 科技法治为用. The way of benevolence consists of the ﬁvevirtues, namely, righteousness 义, decorum 礼, trustworthiness 信, harmony 和,and respect 敬. This new theory of benevolence arose from Confucius’s
notion of benevolence and inherits the revisions of the later classicalConfucian tradition. Yet it also learns from non-Confucian areas of culture,especially Western thought and intellectual resources (such as democracy,
freedom, equality, love, human rights, law, etc.), while it criticizes and rejects
antihumanistic thought and institutions (such as the supremacy of individual
rights, the idea of conquest, and the notion of survival of the ﬁttest). This
moral humanistic philosophy emphasizes morality and cares about themeaning and value of life in seeking to support people’s livelihoods. In
practice, it does not follow the traditional path of sageliness within andkingliness without 内圣外王, that is, being a sage within and exercising theoutward moral authority of a king. Rather, it seeks to unify a new sagelinesswithin and a new kingliness without. It requires every individual to be agentleman with a benevolent and democratic personality, to serve thecommunity, and to build a moral society. It requires setting up communityand national organizations that represent the will of the community, and that
respect democratic and benevolent public morality, civilized decorum, andcontemporary political and judicial institutions, in order to implement democratic and benevolent policies and to use scientiﬁc power to beneﬁt thepeople.11
In Wu Guang’s opinion, many scholars misinterpret democracy as apractical political institution, or even as means of waging political battles.
This is wrong. Rather, democracy has an institutional, spiritual, and concep10 I will detail my views on this issue in other essays.
11 Wu Guang 2014, 2013.

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tual nature, in which the spiritual and conceptual aspects matter more.
Democracy is a reﬂection of the people’s self-awareness and self-determination. Democratic institutions are established with a democratic spirit. So
democracy is a manifestation of the Way, and the contemporary democratic
spirit and traditional spirit of benevolence can be united. How to coordinate
the relation between democracy and benevolence in a democratic, benevolent
society is a focus of public attention. In Wu Guang’s view, the union of
democracy and benevolence is a union of Western and Eastern values. This
manifestation of the Way is both democratic and benevolent.12
Features of democratic benevolence Moral reason orients theory. In thisrespect, Wu Guang’s democratic Confucianism is similar to Chen Lai’s value
Confucianism. However, Wu Guang takes democracy as a body, wherein heparts company with Chen Lai’s value Confucianism. Another feature of thistheory is that it combines a new body and a new function in which Chinese
culture and Western culture come together.
Problems Wu Guang has yet to give clear deﬁnitions of his notions of
benevolence and democracy, and to specify the relations between them. His
theory is richly suggestive, but is still vague about the nature of democracy as
the embodiment of the Way, the signiﬁcance of benevolence as an ontologicalgiven, and the implications of democracy and benevolence as a common
ontological entity, namely, the body of the Way 道体. Hence, his exposition
sometimes lapses into obscurity. For example, Gan Chunsong 干春松 wonders
whether democracy is a metaphysical construct.13 This question must be
answered, and it can be answered thus: Democracy is not merely individuals
voting in an institutional arrangement. In this conceptual framework fordemocracy, the concept comes ﬁrst, the lifestyle second, and the institutionalarrangement third. This is the meaning behind the notion that democracy isthe body of the Way.

The Life Confucianism of Huang Yushun
The life Confucianism of Huang Yushun is an eclectic mixture of a
Confucian emotional theory of ethics 情感伦理学, the theory of Mencius, andthe theory of Xunzi 荀子 (313 238 BCE), and also absorbs concepts from
Western phenomenology. He holds negative attitude toward the
Neo-Confucianism 理学 of the Song and Ming dynasties, which in his view isan abstract and transcendental theory. His aim is to make Confucianism
12 Wu Guang 2014.
13 Wu Guang, Pang Jinyuo, and Gan Chunsong 2014.

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realistic. Although he criticizes other philosophers for their abstract, transcendental thinking, his phenomenology might have similar problems. This is apoint where his life Confucianism needs to be further explained.
The basic ideas of life Confucianism Huang Yushun especially emphasizes
that “Confucianism is a kind of belief 信仰.” “There is no new version ofConfucianism, because after the Hundred Schools of Thought 诸子百家争鸣,
so-called Confucianism was never a school but a belief. This kind of belief
originates from the emotion of actual practical life concerns, the emotional
experience of benevolence 仁爱情感. This kind of emotion has nothing to dowith historical evolution. Thus I would like to say that humans are Confucian
by nature.”14This view of his, which comes from phenomenology, particularly
emphasizes the notion of existence. He states, “What is life is existence.” In
his view, in the preclassical and classical periods of Confucianism, if existence precedes the origin of any particular existent, then what is life is existence, and what is excluded from life is nonexistence. Everything originatesin life and is attributed to life.15
Huang Yushun uses the word “aﬀection” 情爱 to illustrate the origin andfoundation of life existence. He is here referring to the emotional experienceof benevolence, which is diﬀerent from the ontology of emotions of Li
Zehou 李泽厚. The emotional experience of benevolence is the origin of life,
the presentation of life. It is the essence of emotion in the Confucianism of
Confucius and Mencius. This stance contrasts with the view of emotion
found in post-Qin Confucianism in such notions as “Human nature is the rootand emotion the branches” 性本情末, “Human nature is the body and emotion
the function” 性体情用, and “Human nature is good and emotion evil” 性善情恶.16
Point of departure, fundamentals, and features Huang Yushun’s special
areas of expertise are phenomenology and Xunzi. His biggest concern for ourlife is the lack of the emotional experience of benevolence in contemporarysociety.17 This, I think, is the biggest problem facing China since the May
4th Movement (May 4, 1919). In his view, benevolence is based on natural
emotion and is distinct from indiscriminate universal love 博爱. He speaks ofthe equality of everything before benevolence 万物一体之仁, a theory that
14
15
16
17

Huang Yushun 2008b.
Huang Yushun 2008a, 2005a, 2005b.
Huang Yushun 2008b.
Huang Yushun 2008b.

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originated with Mencius, but he does not have a deep understanding of thistheory, and this has aﬀected his theory of emotion. Finally, his life
Confucianism rejects liberalism on the one hand and Confucian fundamentalism on the other.
Value and problems Huang Yushun’s life Confucianism follows an important line of thought in the Confucian tradition and for this reason is of greatvalue. Yet there are also problems with his thought:• His focus lies in the continuity of the Confucian tradition as a whole. He
tries to connect the Confucianism of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi withthe rationalism 理学 of Zhu Xi 朱熹, Cheng Hao 程颢, and Cheng Yi 程颐,
and the idealism 心学 of Lu Jiuyuan 陆九渊 and Wang Yangming 王阳明.
Obviously, there is some self-contradiction, such as no clear distinction oflevels of application. Huang Yushun tries to cover both neo-Confucian
rationalism and idealism, but ends up missing part of each.
• His speculative philosophical discussion is prolix and repetitive. He does
not clarify Heidegger’s concept of existence very well. It appears that his
understanding of Heidegger’s notion of existence is shallow, inaccurate, or
misdirected.
• Huang Yushun’s concept of life is confused. He accepts Husserl’s phenomenology and notion of a lifeworld (Lebenswelt) and raises the Daoist theories of Laozi 老子 and Zhuangzi 庄子 as support for life as a basic given.
However, this contradicts his positing “an ontology of emotions” 情感本体
in Confucianism.
• Huang Yushun lacks suﬃcient understanding of Song and Ming neoConfucianism and Confucian humanism to criticize Song neo-Confucianism. The biggest problem is that although his life Confucianism has ahumanistic point of departure, it fails to connect humanism and anemotional theory of ethics and cannot carve out a logical space for itself in
the area of spiritual humanism. Hence, his theory of benevolence is notsoundly rooted in, have suﬃcient continuity with, or conform adequately tothe logic of, Confucianism.
• Because he emphasizes an ontology of emotion, his Confucianism cannot
eﬃciently absorb basic concepts from Song and Ming neo-Confucianism
and the contemporary Western theory of justice.
The Confucian theories discussed above are centered on the theory of
benevolence 仁学, while the following political Confucianism theories focus
on decorum (protocol in a political context) 礼学 and the classical texts 经学.

Present-Day Political Confucianism
Political Confucianism is the largest area of Confucianism in contempo-

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rary mainland China and boasts of many outstanding scholars. To extensively
cover the ﬁeld, I would need to present a huge amount of material. Becauseof limited space, I will just look at some representative ﬁgures and make a
few brief comments.
Jiang Qing Because the thought of Jiang Qing 蒋庆 has received ample
discussion in the literature, I will not explain his thought in detail here. I will
limit my explanations to features common in political Confucianism andrepresentative of the ﬁeld.
Jiang Qing criticizes contemporary new Confucianism and advocates
political Confucianism. He has a basic understanding of Wang Yangming
idealism 阳明学 and the theory of innate knowledge of the good 良知学, but
he lacks suﬃcient understanding to unify the spirit and humanism of political
Confucianism. So he returns to the thought of Xunzi and Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (179 104 BCE), who asserted that the Way of Heaven 天道 is external
and transcendental to humans. Other scholars of political Confucianism, heargues, do not suﬃciently understand either the spiritual humanism of
Confucianism or the neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties.
He is ﬁrmly committed to extreme conservatism and cultural nationalism.
For instance, he criticizes almost all Western concepts, such as human rights,
democratic values, equality, etc. He insists that the Way of Heaven has thecapacity to govern human societies, but that this requires that the politicalframework to respond to the Way of Heaven.18 He also proposes that
Confucian scholars supervise the state’s public aﬀairs 太学监国. He advocatesthat government be divided into three branches, that scholars engage in politics, and the nation be ruled according to scholarly traditions. He promotes
the spirit of decorum and recommends doing away with judicial litigation 无
讼. Finally, he stresses the traditional kingly way and a distinction between
China and other nations in domestic and international politics.19
Yao Zhongqiu The point of departure for Yao Zhongqiu 姚中秋 is to use
China’s own thought and logic, shaped over its long history, to explain
present-day China. He thinks that after the enlightenments of the twentiethcentury, Chinese thought and the Chinese spirit need to undergo a renewal.
China’s current problem is neither survival nor self-defense, but to create a
Chinese order of world signiﬁcance. This requires Chinese scholars to traceback to the origins of the traditional Chinese order to explore its basic princi-

18 See Li Hongwei 2014, 2015.
19 Jiang Qing 2003, 2011.

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ples.20
Traditional Chinese society was massive in scale and was governed frommultiple centers. Hence, Zhou rites, music, and feudal system were appropriate in the Zhou dynasty, he argues. China’s huge size, which made it
impossible to govern by simply dividing people into citizens and noncitizens,led to multiple levels and centers of public life and also deﬁned diﬀerent
levels of citizen identiﬁcation. For instance, Chinese governance included
individual cultivation, family and clan management, as well as national
governance.21 The primary focus of political Confucianism is politics guided
by scholars trained in the Confucian tradition, but he also sees the extended
family as civil society and the public arena in traditional Chinese society. In
his view, rule 治道 is the administrative management 政道 of government.
Political thought seeks to create norms and a social order in accord with hisclassical conservatism.22
Yao Zhongqiu argues that the debate between Deng Xiaomang 邓晓芒 and
Liu Xiaofeng 刘小枫 on China’s direction and the interpretation of its philosophical tradition was actually a debate about the other in international relations. These two debaters regarded themselves as original thinkers, but they
were merely conveying Western thinking. Their debate led in an ugly fashion
to the end of parroting foreign thought in the twentieth century.23
The value of Yao Zhongqiu’s thought is that he proposes a personalunderstanding of governing a massive society such as China’s and supplements the idea of Qian Mu 钱穆 (1895 1990) that Chinese politics be guided
by scholars trained in the Confucian tradition. His thought is also importantfor his view that Chinese civilization sustains the story of China’s contemporary rise, and that the Chinese way 中国之道 is a viable alternative to that of
the West.
There are three problems with Yao Zhongqiu’s thinking: First, saying thatthe advances of the last thirty years were inherent in Chinese civilization, hedenies that the two enlightenments of the twentieth century had any beneﬁcial
eﬀect on Chinese social values and practices. His explanations fall short ofthose of Deng Zhenglai 邓正来 and some economists. Second, his discussion
barely covers the basic deﬁnitions of and divisions between public power andindividual rights. Both Yao Zhongqiu and Jiang Qing accept Mou Zongsan’s
concept of “the three orthodoxies” 三统 (the three distinct lines of transmission of legitimate social authority, namely, transmission of the Way 道统,
20
21
22
23

Yao Zhongqiu 2014b.
Yao Zhongqiu 2014a.
Ren Feng et al. 2015; Yao Zhongqiu 2015.
Yao Zhongqiu 2014b.

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 8 2017transmission of Confucian knowledge 学统, and transmission of politicalpower 政统) while trying completely to deny it. These diﬀerences within
Confucianism are even larger than the diﬀerences between Confucianism andliberalism. Like Jiang Qing’s seeking to do away with judicial litigation, Yao
Zhongqiu’s thought ignores the diﬀerence between personal cultivation andpublic life. Third, Yao Zhongqiu, from the perspectives of liberalism andsocialism, makes no distinction between ruler and citizen. The universality of
citizenship and the equality of citizens’ rights disappear in his discussion.
Chen Ming According to Chen Ming 陈明, Confucian values are utilitarian.
He says that pursuing truth is the goal of science, and putting knowledge to
use is the ﬁrst principle of culture. Calling a theory the truth is a rhetoricaldevice that tries to make a proposition persuasive, lower its cost, and have ittake root in society. Religion is a perfect example.24
Thought and scholarship should respond to the needs of the living tosurvive. He writes, “If we understand present-day Confucianism in thisframework, we need to adopt the following attitude: Reject a Confucian
fundamentalism that makes core Confucian propositions pure theoretical or
metaphysical, for this isolates Confucianism from the lived world. Also rejecta Confucian liberalism that, by establishing a corpus of knowledge, cuts itself
oﬀ from the main body of the Confucian enterprise. Our belief that the logic
of life comes before culture distinguishes us from Confucian fundamentalists,and our belief that Confucianism best promotes the survival of the Chinese
race distinguishes us from Confucian liberals.”25 “I have always believed thatthe revival of Confucianism depends on its accepting the mission of presentday culture. It cannot and should not set itself up as the ﬁnal arbitrator ofvalues.”26
In Chen Ming’s view, the desire of a people to survive is the basis ofnationalism. Everything else is optional or a matter of expression, even whenit comes to liberalism or socialism.27
His basic thrust is that he wants to make Confucianism into a civil religion.
“Confucianism, as a civil religion, gives Chinese individuals, as members of
the political community, a political and legal identity and a sense of thecommon good. These notions, which have internal connections with ethnic
culture, need to accord with individual historical contexts and living spaces,
and need us to foster and construct them.”28 There are three important points
24
25
26
27
28

Chen Ming 2008.
Chen Ming 2008.
Chen Ming 2008.
Chen Ming 2008.
Chen Ming 2012.

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that we should gather from this passage. First, Confucianism as a civil religion is an expression of politics and legitimacy. Second, Confucianism
includes common values, perceptions, and norms. Third, Confucianism
requires human construction. “There are two functions of civil religion. The
ﬁrst function is to give politics a foundation of values, that is, to regulate andlegitimize politics. In a sense, Dong Zhongshu carried out this project in theHan dynasty by making Confucianism a civil religion and using it to provide
politics with a foundation of values. The second function is to provide acultural understanding in order to strengthen a sense of nationalism.”29
The value of Chen Ming’s thought is his proposals for reconstructing
ethnic culture, but the strong political implications of his program make it lessattractive. His theory has evident weaknesses. He does not judge Confucianvalues and is only concerned about Confucianism’s function. He does notcomment on whether Confucianism is good and cares only about whether it
is useful. For instance, he oﬀers no analysis of diﬀerent traditional schools ofConfucianism, nor does he oﬀer any judgments on the connection between
Confucianism and an individual’s life. His only concern is about the impact
Confucianism may have on national integration. His views have a strong
nationalist component, but ignore the eﬀects of Confucian values on individual survival and its potential impact on the reconstruction of community.

Synopsis of Present-Day Confucianism in Mainland China
The Confucian theories presented above all have some characteristics incommon. First, they all aﬃrm the universality of Confucianism. Second, theyshare a common attitude on putting Confucianism into practice. They all are
dedicated to promoting Confucianism in the private sector, such as establishing academies, encouraging Confucian book clubs, promoting the readingof Confucian classics, etc. Though they share these general characteristics,
the diﬀerences among these Confucian theories are huge.
Here I would like to point out three methodological problems. First, Chen
Lai proposes the “re-Sinicization of the ruling party,” as opposed to various
modes of Westernization. However, the term “re-Sinicization” needs to bereconsidered, since it has associations with evaluations of the two enlightenment movements in the twentieth century. We need a term that is moreobjective and politically neutral. Second, the notion in political Confucianismof “using China to explain China” is biased and unwarranted. China began
modernizing after the world economic system had formed and developed.
China’s modernization—including its initialization (the idea of modernization), launch (the social movement and political and economic reforms), and
29 Chen Ming 2012.

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 8 2017

fruits (joining the World Trade Organization)—were all realized within aprocess of world modernization. So China’s modernization is part of worldmodernization and cannot be considered independent self-development. We
cannot explain China without considering the process of world modernizationand Western cultural impacts. Third, we cannot deploy the idea of “using
China to explain China” to deﬁne the direction of future Chinese development. The best we can do is to use the new-Confucian concept of the integration of Chinese and Western systems in the twentieth century to explain
China’s recent history and the direction of future development.
Political Confucianism in particular focuses on governance and order,
instead of individual claims of human rights and restraints on public power.
This characteristic of some mainland new-Confucian theories may also be ashortcoming. In the late twentieth century—amidst the rise of China anddecline of America, the world economic crisis, European stagnation, andregression in the European Union—assessing eﬃciency and eﬀects became
increasingly popular. This led to such notions as technocracy, philosophocracy (government by Confucian scholars), and democracy as a simple
response to the people’s needs. Such thinking values purpose over motivation
and results over process and easily led to the illusion of great Chinese progress, because it reviewed history from an abstract, bird’s-eye perspective. Yao
Zhongqiu’s description of the Zhou and Song dynasties and some scholars’
aﬃrmation of well-ordered societies in European history also fell into thistrap. In my view, in contrast, political progress requires speciﬁc methods
instead of abstract historical judgments. Simple theses and antitheses easily
lead to errors.
The three patterns in mainland new Confucianism involve a focus on
benevolence (democratic Confucianism), on decorum (political Confucianismwith its emphasis of study of the classics), or on a combination of the two(value Confucianism). I personally insist on assigning diﬀerent roles tothought and culture. In the realm of thought, I recommend reading the great
thinkers of the world, including Western Christian philosophers, and in thearea of culture, I recommend Confucianism. These two realms are at diﬀerent
levels and should not be thought to be on the same level. Confucianism at thecultural and secular level should not reject Christianity or Buddhism. The
future of Chinese society should be built on a healthy base of diﬀerent religions thriving together, with Confucianism being but one religion in a
multireligious society. It is unrealistic and also impossible to ban other philosophical trends and venerate only Confucianism.
Oﬃcial promotion of Confucianism, while not as foundational as Dong
Zhongshu’s promotion of Confucianism in the Han dynasty, suggests viewing
Confucianism as a “civil religion.” Though the term is vague and hard toThe Main Schools of Confucianism in Present-Day Mainland China

75

deﬁne, I am referring to Robert Bellah’s notion of civil religion, not JeanJacques Rousseau’s.30 It involves cultivating the mind and one’s humannature and is a key ingredient in the formation of democracy—a notion thatde Tocqueville would hardily agree with.
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77Book Review
Review of Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, and Experience in the
Early Periodical Press, by Joan Judge. University of California
Press. 2015
Linda GROVE*
Over the last decade the proliferation of databases providing full text
access to Chinese journals and newspapers from the late Qing through 1949
has radically changed the research styleof scholars in the ﬁelds of modern
Chinese history and literature. No
longer do we have to travel to libraries
in China to search out rare copies of
early 20th century journals: now, withthe click of a mouse, we can searchauthors and subjects across hundreds ofjournals, download pdf ﬁles, and begin
to read. There is no question that readyaccess through use of such databases
has allowed scholars to undertake
research projects that would have been
impossible a few years ago—not only opening the door to projects that use
quantitative data to explore changes in ideas and language, but also providing
access to relevant articles that appeared in obscure journals that in an earlier
day would never have been consulted.
Well aware of the beneﬁts of the new research tools, few of us stop to
consider what has been lost. In Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, andExperience in the Early Periodical Press, Joan Judge provides a wonderfulreminder of the beneﬁts of reading the old-fashioned way. She shows us how
much can be gained by looking at articles in the context in which they originally appeared, alongside other articles, letters to the editor, photos andadvertisements. We enjoy with her the very materiality of the experience of* Linda Grove is Emerita Professor of Chinese history and Vice President of Sophia
University.