New Confucianism
Jiang Qing was born October 1, 1953 in Guiyang to a relatively affluent family. As a child, he had a passion for Chinese poetry and classical literature. The political situation at the time drove him to undertake studies of Marxism and human rights theories of the West during his university years. Later on, perplexed by China's political reality, he studied both eastern and western religion. Eventually, he studied New Confucianism, which on the one hand advocates the mind philosophy and self-cultivation, and on the other hand tries to fit Confucian ideologies into the framework of Western liberal democracy. Given his deep appreciation and knowledge of the classics, especially the Gongyang Zhuan commentary, and the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, he was determined to find a solution for China's struggles. He believed that an embrace of Western ideas, especially democratic politics, liberty, and equality, is not suitable for China's development. This brought about his criticism of the New Confucianism, and his plan for China, which involved drawing on its own long-standing metaphysical moral and political values, as well as national identity, all of which are fundamentally different from Western ideologies. He also founded the Yangming Academy (), a Confucian-based educational institution in 1996.