Confucian Culture and Contemporary China - a Compatibility Issue

Abstract

After the fall of Qing dynasty, together with the beaurocratic system that made reform impossible, Confucianist tradition came under scrutiny, with many intellectuals voicing the need to get rid of its harnesses, guilty of keeping China locked in the „feudal” past. The urgent need for modernization referred both to technology and thinking, and was synonymous with Westernization. With the proclamation of the People’s Republic, Confucius was blended with the dregs of the past. The Cultural Revolution saw everything Confucian smashed to pieces, while after Lin Biao’s defection, it was associated with treason itself. After 1976, however, Confucian tradition came to be seen, more and more, as a central part of national identity and in urgent need of re-evaluation. As opposed to other imported ways of thought, Confucianism already had Chinese characteristics. Within my paper, I make a summarization of the efforts at making Confucian culture compatible with the new ways of Chinese thinking.