As China continues to transform itself, many assume that the nation will eventually move beyond communism and adopt a Western-style democracy. But could China develop a unique form of government ...based on its own distinct traditions? Jiang Qing--China's most original, provocative, and controversial Confucian political thinker--says yes. In this book, he sets out a vision for a Confucian constitutional order that offers a compelling alternative to both the status quo in China and to a Western-style liberal democracy.A Confucian Constitutional Orderis the most detailed and systematic work on Confucian constitutionalism to date.
Jiang argues against the democratic view that the consent of the people is the main source of political legitimacy. Instead, he presents a comprehensive way to achieve humane authority based on three sources of political legitimacy, and he derives and defends a proposal for a tricameral legislature that would best represent the Confucian political ideal. He also puts forward proposals for an institution that would curb the power of parliamentarians and for a symbolic monarch who would embody the historical and transgenerational identity of the state. In the latter section of the book, four leading liberal and socialist Chinese critics--Joseph Chan, Chenyang Li, Wang Shaoguang, and Bai Tongdong--critically evaluate Jiang's theories and Jiang gives detailed responses to their views.
A Confucian Constitutional Orderprovides a new standard for evaluating political progress in China and enriches the dialogue of possibilities available to this rapidly evolving nation. This book will fascinate students and scholars of Chinese politics, and is essential reading for anyone concerned about China's political future.
This book unravels China's contemporary Confucian Renaissance, delving into the interplay between universal and nationalist ideas and offering insightful case studies on Confucian metaphysics, ...ethics, and politics.
Chŏng Yagyong (1762-1836), or simply Tasan, is a prolific poet and one of the most brilliant minds in Korean history but remains unknown as a person.This book introduces his life through his own ...autobiographical poems translated into English for the first time.
This special issue presents discussions of the role and meaning of religion for Korean society. Covering wide-ranging time periods, the authors explores with their own cases four major ...characteristics of Korean religion: Creativity, Greater Responsiveness, Adaptability, and Prophethood. Their topical religious traditions include Neo-Confucianism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Korean new religious movements.
How has Confucius, quintessentially and symbolically Chinese, been received throughout Japanese history? The Worship of Confucius in Japan provides the first overview of the richly documented and ...colorful Japanese version of the East Asian ritual to venerate Confucius, known in Japan as the sekiten. The original Chinese political liturgy embodied assumptions about sociopolitical order different from those of Japan. Over more than thirteen centuries, Japanese in power expressed a persistently ambivalent response to the ritual’s challenges and often tended to interpret the ceremony in cultural rather than political terms. Like many rituals, the sekiten self-referentially reinterpreted earlier versions of itself. James McMullen adopts a diachronic and comparative perspective. Focusing on the relationship of the ritual to political authority in the premodern period, McMullen sheds fresh light on Sino–Japanese cultural relations and on the distinctive political, cultural, and social history of Confucianism in Japan. Successive sections of The Worship of Confucius in Japan trace the vicissitudes of the ceremony through two major cycles of adoption, modification, and decline, first in ancient and medieval Japan, then in the late feudal period culminating in its rejection at the Meiji Restoration. An epilogue sketches the history of the ceremony in the altered conditions of post-Restoration Japan and up to the present.
An illuminating account of the steadfast resilience of rural popular culture in post-Mao China
Lin Zhao’en (1517–1598) set out to popularize Confucianism by combining Confucian studies ...with Daoist inner alchemical techniques and Buddhist Chan philosophy into something he called the Three in One Teachings. Despite periods of clandestine activity since its inception, the Three in One cult has undergone a remarkable revival in post-Mao China. Today, in more than a thousand temples by tens of thousands of cult initiates, Lin is worshipped throughout Southeast China and Southeast Asia as Lord of the Three in One. Many of the temples have been restored since the late 1970s, when China began to experience an explosive resurgence of popular culture and religion. In this book, Kenneth Dean draws on a decade of field work to document the reemergence of this cult, which seeks to transmit a universal vision of truth yet retains a strong local appeal through its healing rituals and spirit mediumism. Although the Chinese government still tries to suppress these resurgences in the interest of modernization, the cult’s locally based networks are unstoppable social forces.
Dean explores the organization and transmission of the Three in One’s unique cultural vision, the reception of this vision, and the construction of subjectivity within a vibrant ritual tradition. Outlining such features as inner alchemical meditation, scripture and iconography, ritual practice, and spirit mediumism, he demonstrates the cult’s transformative potential as well as its contemporaneity and dynamism. Rural Chinese popular culture emerges here as resilient, highly complex, and always evolving.
This commentary reviews the arguments made in An et al.’s ‘Towards a Confucian Geopolitics’. Particularly, I consider An et al.’s main claim that a form of strategic and/or ‘hybrid Confucianism’ has ...played a significant role in the construction of contemporary Chinese geopolitics. While I accept aspects of this argument, this commentary also raises further theoretical and empirical issues that are immanent within the work. I draw attention to: (1) concerns relating to the historical narrative constructed by the authors; (2) problematics relating to the recent diversity of contemporary Confucian discourse; and (3) questions relating to the geographies of Confucianism.
The debate over the compatibility of Confucian culture with democracy is an ongoing one. Yet, few books in the existing literature have dealt specifically with the relationship between Confucian ...culture (as opposed to Confucianism or general cultural factors) and democracy. Prior to the end of the Second World War, no Confucian society was democratic, so the debate could only be done in an abstract sense. Only after the war did Japan emerge as a democratic country, and it is not a perfect case of the Confucian culture — for one, its Confucian legacy is diluted; moreover, its postwar transition to democracy was, to a large extent, externally imposed rather than internally generated. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, South Korea and Taiwan joined what Samuel P Huntington termed the “third wave of democratization”. Finally, at least two societies with strong Confucian heritage turned democratic, and unlike Japan, their democratic transition resulted mainly from internal political dynamics. Confucian Culture and Democracy represents a comprehensive effort to examine the linkages between Confucian culture and democracy. Building on the empirical evidence from South Korea and Taiwan, and examining semi-democratic societies with extensive experiences in electoral politics like Singapore and Hong Kong, this book provides readers with an empirical and detailed coverage of democratization and democratic governance in various Confucian societies. Japan — as a country influenced by Confucianism, is also analyzed, together with China — whether China joins the family of democratic states is undoubtedly an important concern for many in the region and beyond.
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