CONFUCIANISM

Confucianism can be characterized as a system of social and ethical

philosophy built on ancient religious foundations to establish the social
values, institutions, and transcendent ideals of traditional Chinese
society. Confucianism should not be considered synonymous with the
personal contribution of Confucius, a native of the kingdom of Lu, who
lived around 551-479BC. The term ‘Confucius’ is a Latinized form of the
Chinese name K’ung-fu-tzu. Most of our knowledge of him comes from
the ‘Analects’ It was written by his disciples and includes many
additions.

The age in which Confucius lived was the Spring and Autumn period of
the Chou dynasty. The Chou dynasty was established on the system of
feudalism: under the central government the empire wad divided into
many feudal states. But Chinese society was rapidly outgrowing the
tribal and feudal conceptions which had hitherto held it together.
As Chou control over the states weakened, the system began to collapse.
The heads of individual states began to compete with other for power,
leading to military confrontations. This period is referred to as ‘The
Period of the Warring States’.

The problems of this transitional period of social and political confusion,

covering the 6th to the 3rd BC gave rise to a ferment of intellectual
activity and controversy. Many thinkers explored the cause of this chaos
and disorder, and expanded upon their ways to solve these problems.
Such men often wandered from state to state, offering their services
where they would be most appreciated. Among the various schools of
thought that emerged in this period of ‘Hundred Schools of Philosophy’
three such rival schools of thought were Moism, Legalism and
Confucianism. Each school had its own understanding of the steps
necessary for ‘straightening the crooked system’ and proposed different
ways to bring this about.

The philosophy of the Moist school directly opposed that of the

Confucians. Moism opted for a utilitarian way to improve people’s
material welfare, to install the social order of justice and to reform the
political structure. They dismissed ritual and music as useless. It
proposed a shamanistic belief in spirits and sought a solution for social
and spiritual problems by making offerings to Heaven (tien) and
carrying out the mandate of heaven (tienming).

The School of Legalism claimed that the only way to save the world was
to govern it by laws and restrain it with a clearly defined criminal code.
Legalists attacked Confucian education and learning as a path to
vulnerability and weakness. The legalist policies proved to be an
efficient way for the government to accumulate wealth and increase the
power of the state. Legalism reached its peak at the end of the Warring
State period and overwhelmed all other schools by helping the first
emperor of the Qin dynasty to unify the whole of China.

Confucius championed a humanistic outlook. His investigation into the

chaos and his solution to the resulting disorder opened the way to the
development of the tradition that was to change political courses in East
Asia.

After the death of Confucius two major schools of Confucian thought

emerged: one was represented by Mencius, the other by Hsü n-tzu (Hsü n
K'uang). The doctrine of the School of Mencius is represented most
clearly in the Doctrine of the Mean and the Book of Mencius, which fully
develops the ideas propounded in the Doctrine of the Mean.

At the heart of Mencius' teaching was the belief that human beings are
born with the knowledge of the good and the ability to do good.
Everyone was born with what Mencius described as the 'four
beginnings': benevolence, righteousness, respect and the capacity to
distinguish right from wrong. However, original human goodness could
become depraved through one's own destructive effort or through
contact with an evil environment. The problem of moral cultivation was
to preserve the goodness that is one's birthright.
These beliefs influenced Mencius' perception of politics. It was the
responsibility of the ruler to ensure the economic well-being of his
subjects, to provide them with education and, in doing so, to rule
through winning their loyalty and confidence rather than through force.
If rulers oppressed the people then they lost the mandate of Heaven,
and the people had the right to remove them.

With the emergence of Neo-Confucianism during the Sung dynasty both

the Doctrine of the Mean and the Book of Mencius came to be ranked,
along with the Analects and the Great Learning, as the Four Book's.
Subsequently, Mencius himself came to be revered as the orthodox
transmitter of the Confucian tradition after Confucius and the Second
Sage next to Confucius.

Though Confucianism came to be advocated, from the 6th century BC, it

was not until the Han dynasty was well established that Confucianism
was adopted as the official or state philosophy. And by that time, it had
incorporated certain elements derived from some of the other schools
of thought and had adjusted to suit the later systems of government and
structure of society.

From the Han period onwards, the imperial state promoted Confucian
values to maintain law, order, and the status quo. In late traditional
China, emperors sought to establish village lectures on Confucian moral
precepts and to give civic awards to filial sons and chaste wives. The
imperial family and other notables sponsored the publication of
morality books that encouraged the practice of Confucian values:
respect for parents, loyalty to government, and keeping to one's place in
society. This side of Confucianism was conservative, and served to
bolster established institutions and long-standing social divisions.

In the political chaos that followed the fall of the Han dynasty,
Confucianism was overshadowed by Taoism and Buddhism, and the
philosophy suffered a temporary setback.
The Taoist tradition survived the political upheaval of the late third
century better than most schools of thought, but in the process the
philosophy of Tao Te Ching and Chuang-tzu was almost lost among
more primitive beliefs. A number of naturalist, religious and
superstitious practices emerged and were associated with Taoism.
Taoism and its writings voiced the natural protests of mystics against a
growing conception of worldly values. The inherent weakness and
subjective nature of human judgment and emotion are stressed
throughout these works, whose message contrasts significantly with the
political and social ideas of the Confucianism. Leadership of this type of
cult could sometimes be linked with popular superstition and could be
utilized for political purposes. Many rebels and usurpers were linked to
Taoism.
Although Buddhist missionaries may have reached China from as early
as 100 BC, it is from the 4th or 5th centuries AD that the religion plays an
active part as an integral element of China’s cultural development. Many
Buddhist tenets came into sharp conflict with the basis of authoritarian
sovereignty, and struck at the roots of the Confucian ideals of social and
political order. To the Buddhist, personality was developed by means of
spiritual or meditative processes, while to the Confucian, personal
improvement was achieved by learning and acquiring higher standards
of conduct.

Neo Confucianism was a syncretic philosophy developed in the Sung

Dynasty, which contained elements of Buddhism, Confucianism, and
Taoism. It provided a system of metaphysics to sanction the old
Confucian order. Dual concepts of rational principle (li) and its material
manifestation (chi) were advanced by scholars. Everything has a
rational principle for its being. There is only one rational universal
principle, although there are many manifestations of it. But the practical
aspects of Confucianism were not lost. Rational principle was the moral
law that must be followed. Scholars declared that this could be achieved
through the investigation of the nature of things and the study of history
and the classics. They continued to stress the cultivation of self and the
management of the family in preparation for service to the state.

Confucius in his philosophy never claimed originality. He claimed to be a

devoted student of antiquity and transmitter of wisdom of the past. He
believed that the prevalent problems of his time could be ‘sorted out’ if
the traditional values were revived. The disorder of his own day, he felt,
could be corrected if men would return to political and social order
created by the founders of the Chou dynasty. He believed that the
promotion of tradition had a great leverage on improving the quality of
social life and was the key of overcoming present problems.

He believed that chaos and disorder developed from the misuse and
abuse of ritual/propriety (li) and music (yue). This could be solved by
establishing a righteous government in which the ruler and his advisors
act in accordance to ancient rites. An efficient way to secure ‘governing
by virtue’ was to perform rituals and play music correctly, which would
enable performers to remain in a state of sincerity and loyalty and to set
up good examples for the common people.
Confucius also believed that the quality and merits of individuals were
greater than the circumstances of his birth and environment. It is
possible for any man, despite his origins to rise to the highest ranks of
society.

Confucianism not only stressed social rituals (li), but also "human-
heartedness" (ren [jen]). Ren, sometimes translated love or kindness, is
not any one virtue, but the source of all virtues. Ren keeps ritual forms
from becoming hollow; it nurtures the inner character of the person,
furthers his/her ethical maturation. In human relations, ren is
manifested in chung, or conscientiousness or loyalty; shu (reciprocity).
Other important Confucian virtues include righteousness, propriety,
integrity (chih), and filial piety. One who possesses all these virtues
became a chün-tzu (perfect gentleman). Apart from these inner virtues,
a gentleman also had to possess wen or ‘culture’ for according to
Confucius beliefs “uprightness uncontrolled by etiquette becomes
rudeness”. This moral code was regarded as a universal one.

Such standards were to be attained by training and discipline. Through

education, an individual can be taught to pursue ends that are truly
moral. These concepts became the underlying ideas of the Confucian
ideological structure.

There was also the Confucian doctrine of Wu Wei (minimizing of action

on other things). Things have their own dynamism; every situation
evolves, and a person has to know how to wait for the favorable
moment. The Chinese style of politics has always been influenced by the
principle of Wu Wei. The same sense of interdependence among
elements of a whole that are in motion is found in the Chinese
preference for ‘action from a distance’. This is related to the theory of
Yin(female, passive, winter) and Yang (male, energetic, summer). The
theory assumes that every phenomenon has two opposite,
complimentary aspects, whose alternate and reciprocal action gives the
world its movement, the Dao or the way.

The essence of the Chinese view of the world was to be found in the
relations between things, not in their individual being. All human
relationships involved a set of defined roles and mutual duties; which
every man was obliged to render to provide stability to society.
Everyone should conform to his/her proper role. Man was defined by
the five relationships or Wu Lun— relationships between emperor and
subject; father and son; brother and brother; husband and wife; friend
and friend. These relationships embodied moral obligations which the
individual was bound to assume, irrespective of station. The five fold
relationship were intended to cover all human relationships and if three
of the five were within the family, that was because the family was
regarded as the microcosm of society and the state as an extension of
the family.

Confucianism was deeply entwined with the state religion in traditional

China. Although it is not wholly identical with the state religion and the
religious practices of the state, there is nevertheless a significant
overlap between the key elements of Confucian doctrine and the
religious ceremonies of the imperial government. Confucius ignored the
distinctions between natural and supernatural, human and divine, said
nothing firm about god and life after death, only Tien and Tao, heaven
and the way. But he encouraged tradition and rituals. On various feast
days of the calendar, Confucian rites were celebrated by the emperor
and his mandarins. They were acts of civil prestige, not true religious
festivals. The time-honoured and traditional rituals embodied, for him,
the ethical core of Chinese society.

Law was concerned with not how to sort out the rights and wrongs of
each case but how to re-establish social harmony. Penalties were more
like social rites than individual punishments. The Chinese penal system
and penal procedures were organized to promote the social good, not
individual rights. The custom oriented, practical nature of the law was
apparent in the fact that no separate court system existed. Civil officials
administered justice as part of their many functions. A great deal of
litigation was settled by village or clan.

Among the social institutions that Confucius promoted, the institution of

clans (tsu) was powerful in Chinese tradition. Clan activities
encompassed the following: compiling and updating genealogies;
maintaining ancestor worship, ancestral halls, ritual land and
graveyards; aiding clan members; educating young clansmen; settling
disputes and defense. Clans maintained rules of behavior (tsung-kuei),
which frequently echoed the moral teachings of Confucianism. Rules
urged sons to be filial to their parents; wives to be dutiful to husbands;
brothers affectionate with each other; to remain in harmony with clan
members and the community. The most serious offenses were un-filial
conduct and adultery, for which the case and punishment would be
handled in front of all the clansmen. Although severe corporal and
capital punishment was illegal, the state seldom interfered with clan
justice.

The family system was both hierarchic and authoritarian. It was the
most significant unit in Chinese society. Each individual’s family was his
chief source of economic sustenance, security, education, social contact
and recreation. Filial piety was the most admired virtue for the
individual’s subordination to the family was all important.
The patriarchal father was the centre of authority. He decided all family
issues, arranged the children’s marriages, disciplined them and could
even sell them. He had complete authority over other members of the
family. Yet for all his authority, he still had to act within the moral code
of Confucianism and be strict yet benevolent, authoritative and
paternalistic. Status consciousness led him to speak respectfully to his
own parents—so that his children would also follow their expected
roles. The authoritarian family pattern provided a basis for social order
in political and domestic life. The district magistrate official name
Mandarin meant “father and mother” to the people.
Through ancestor worship, the family even became the individual’s
main religious focus. Reverence and glorification of one’s ancestors was
not only one’s greatest duty but also one’s greatest honour. The practice
of ancestor worship continues from Shang times.

As a traditional doctrine that came into being in a patriarchal society,

Confucianism held a low opinion of women. The position of any woman
in the family was inferior to that of the newest male infant. The primary
virtues of a woman were to be her filial piety towards parents and
parents in law, assistance to her husband and education of her children.
A virtuous woman was one who had no political ambitions and even no
exceptional abilities. They were not to remarry if they were widowed
and except for dowry, women had no property rights. The custom of
foot binding was a symbol of the woman’s complete submission.

In the political sphere, one of the important political ideas in the

Chinese value system is the Mandate of Heaven Theory. This theory
which had pre-Confucian origins was imposed by Mencius upon
Confucianism, with a pragmatic objective in mind. It explained the
transfer of power from one dynasty to the other. As long as the present
dynasty enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven, it stayed in power. The
mandate of heaven was not irrevocable. Various omen indicated that it
was being withdrawn. They included droughts and floods and famines,
social agitation in the hinterlands, incompetence and corruption in the
government. Geming or ‘discontinuance of the mandate’ was a
traditional Confucian term that symbolised revolts and rebellions.

The leader of the successful rebellion often renewed the mandate of

heaven in his own name, becoming the head of a new dynasty. In this
way, Chinese political tradition, to accommodate popular revolts
incorporated them into the Confucian ideological system so that they
contributed to the long term stability of the established order.
The new dynasty that came to power was said to be justified in the eyes
of heaven owing to the failure of its predecessor to maintain the correct
standards of morality; the old dynasty must therefore forfeit its right to
heaven’s charge or mandate.

Following Confucian and earlier teaching, the Emperor was referred to

as the ‘Son of Heaven’. He was the mediator between heaven and human
society through the authority given him by the mandate of heaven
(tianming). Only by exercising the powers conferred on him by Heaven
correctly could he discharge his functions adequately.

The emperor was the absolute ruler. In his executive capacity he

decided all important state policies, made appointments, conferred
titles, commanded the army, and ratified treaties with foreign powers.
As the supreme legislator he enacted, annulled and amended laws by
decrees and edicts. He was the highest court of appeals, granting
pardons and reprieves as a mark of favour. He was the religious head
too. He offered sacrifices to the heaven, earth, Confucius and other
focuses of reverence.
He was the patron of learning and the intellectual leader of his people.
He ordered the administering of provincial and metropolitan
examinations and conducted the palace exams himself. He decided the
ranking of the first ten successful candidates, and would occasionally
even lecture to the imperial college (Kuo-tzu chien)
The Confucian cult demanded that he be moral, virtuous and attentive
to the needs of his subjects; and it bound him to follow the good
precedents of the past, setting a living example. He was not to go
counter to traditions and social customs, nor was he to ignore the
‘public opinion’ of the literati and the gentry. He was responsible to
heaven for the welfare of his subjects. If he failed, he would be warned
of his imperfections by heaven, through natural calamities. If the
emperor exercised his supreme powers conscientiously and at the same
time honoured these provisions, he could be reasonably sure of his
ministers’ admiration and the support of his subjects and could thereby
justify his exercising of the Mandate of Heaven in his role as the son of
Heaven (Tien-tzu).

Chinese society was highly stratified. One method of social stratification

was to follow the Confucian principle of distinguishing the ruling group
from the ruled on the basis of mental as opposed to menial work; “those
who labour with their minds rule others” Mencius said, “and those who
labour with their physical strength are ruled by others.”

The nobility in the Ching system consisted of three categories: the

imperial clansmen, the titular nobles, and the bannermen.
The imperial clansmen were given land, official residences and an
annual silver and rice allowance. But they were kept isolated: they were
not allowed to communicate with the provincial authorities, and as a
rule were not appointed to the all-important Grand Secretariat or to the
Grand Council.
The titular nobility were divided into 5 classes: duke (kung), marquis
(hou), earl (po), viscount (tzu), and baron(nan). Most of these titles were
accorded civil and military officers who had merited such honour. It did
not function as a class by itself, and as a group had little influence in
society.
The bannermen, the third type of nobility, were also given preferential
treatment by the emperor. To preserve their dignity and special status,
they were forbidden from participation in trade and labour. Offences
committed by them were not tried by the ordinary civil magistrates but
by the Tartar General (Manchu General-in-Chief). Large numbers of the
bannermen were stationed at Peking and its vicinity, while the rest
were assigned garrison duties throughout the country.
Society was traditionally divided into four occupational classes which
reflected the political and moral values of Confucianism. Highest of all
were the scholar administrator (shi); peasants (nung), artisans (kung)
and lastly the merchants (shang). Above these four orders were
government bureaucrats and below were the ‘degraded’ people, who
were denied the rights enjoyed by the common people. These were
actors, prostitutes, soldiers, yamen messengers, vagrants etc.
Land was the main source of economic power. It was generally
possessed by men of the scholar class—those who held degrees and
public offices. The existence of ‘Bureaucratic Feudalism’ is peculiar to
China where there was a combination of knowledge, power and wealth,
all concentrated in the hands of the shen-shih.

The shen-shih—those scholars who had passed the governmental

examinations—played a dominant position in society and enjoyed many
unique privileges. Only they could attend official ceremonies in the
Confucian temples, and usually they led the ancestral rituals that were
performed in clans. They were distinguished from the commoners on
the basis of dress and embellishments. A commoner who offended a
member of the gentry would be punished more severely than one who
insulted another commoner. The gentry were exempt from corvee
labour service, for their station and cultural refinement forbade them to
engage in manual labour. They called their houses ‘scholar
households’(ju-hu) as distinguished from ‘commoner housholds’(min-
hu), so as to make a differentiations in tax payments.

Many of the bureaucrats or shen-shih came from the gentry (shen) class
which was not part of the ruling bureaucracy; they were the
intermediary agent in the country-sides between the local magistrates
and the people. The magistrate relied on them for advice on local affairs.
They financed the construction and repair of public works such as the
bridges and ferries.
A major function of the gentry was the settlement of out of court civil
disputes, as appearances in court were detrimental to one’s reputation.
They supervised public works, helped compile local encyclopedias,
organized or taught in schools, sponsored local academies, founded
hospitals, orphanages and other charitable institutions. In times of
turmoil, they would organise the militia. They gentry considered
themselves guardians of cultural heritage. They took it upon themselves
to disseminate moral principle and they contributed heavily to the
establishment of private academies.

Shen-shih status was conferred upon one largely as a result of winning a

literary degree in the civil service exams. Exams were conducted at the
district, provincial and metropolitan levels. The ability to compose the
‘eight legged’ essay (pa-ku wen) was essential to success in the exams.
Every exam in the civil service exam was based on the Confucian books.

Except for the degraded or ‘declassed’, whose descendants for three

generations were barred from the civil service examinations, the civil
exams were open to all, regardless of family, birth or religion. Individual
merit based on literary excellence, as evidenced by the successful
passing of the examinations, formed the basis of recognition.
But in practice there were various factors that controlled the system.
Some degree of patronage or recommendation was necessary before
admission could be sought. There were also economic restrictions.
Candidates required long hours to master their text, perfect their
literary styles and immerse themselves in all sorts of learning, especially
Confucian. The sons of officials attended special schools which were
reserved for their number, thus boosting their chances. The poor could
not spare their children off the fields long enough to study. The ruling
class used the examinations to perpetuate itself and to consolidate its
power.
The greatest shortcomings of the exam system were its narrow scope
and impractical nature. Literary excellence did not mean good
administrative ability. Conformity to the eight legged essay tended to
stifle free expression and encourage orthodoxy of thought. The system
was based on the classical Confucian tradition, not of contemporary
government work.

Gentry membership could also be bought by means of special quota

allocated each year. Most purchasers were literate men of means who
had failed to win a regular degree or wanted gentry status by short cut
or merchants eager for a place within the conventional channel of social
advancement. Their appointments were usually at the low level.
Peasants ranked the highest among the commoners. They were not a
homogenous class, their condition varied from region to region,
although it is generally held that their condition in the north was better.
They could be further divided into the rich peasants—those who
worked on their own land and were able to hire out a limited number of
wage labourers; the peasants who worked their own lands but were not
able to hire extra wage labourers; poor peasants who worked as wage
labourers. This last group despite constituting the largest proportion of
the rural population, had the least control over land.
Peasants in the late 18th and early 19th century were caught between
paying tributes to the landlords, the scholar official class. Forced or
unpaid labour was a common form of tribute.
Within rural society, the landlords played a dominant role. They
belonged to the gentry class. They rented out their lands, rarely
cultivating it themselves. Even trade had to be conducted under their
supervision.

Artisans were a highly skilled and developed group, placed higher than
the merchants in the Chinese social system. The most important were
those who were linked to porcelain, paper or silk. With the exception of
the textile industry which was in the country, the other craft industries
were in the urban centres. There were artisan guilds which were highly
advanced, having their own banking and insurance system. Each had its
own currency and weights and measures.

Confucian belief relegated commerce to be an ancillary occupation,

behind agriculture. The merchant class included not only wealthy
monopolistic traders but also the small shopkeepers and clerks and
apprentices. The tea, silk and salt merchants were noted for their great
wealth and luxurious living; but by and large commercial activities were
regarded as beneath the dignity of the scholar-gentry, and the pursuit of
profit was frowned upon by correct Confucianists. Such attitudes
inhibited the growth of business and industrial enterprises.
The inferior status accorded to the merchants represented the defensive
reaction of an agricultural society against economic forces that were
threatening its equilibrium. Also merchants were looked upon as
sources of trouble, having contacts with the undesirable foreigners. But
by the 12th and the 13th centuries, the merchants began enjoying a better
status in practice, if not in theory. Chinese society also accommodated
its wealthy merchants by the back door, through the special quotas that
enabled them to buy Confucian degrees.

Another belief of the Chinese, which can be traced to pre-Confucian

times and which was encouraged by Confucian principles was the
theory of Chung Kuo or the Middle Kingdom Theory—that the world
was square, that heaven was round, and that heaven projected its
circular shadow onto the centre of the earth. This area under the
shadow was the kingdom of heaven or the Middle Kingdom where the
Chinese lived. The outer corners were the domain of foreign barbarians
(yi). The peripheral states served as an outer fence to shield China from
barbarian attacks.

Since relations with the barbarians were impossible, China had no

foreign ministry and ‘barbarian affairs’ were handled by local officials,
the latter avoiding direct interaction as much as possible. In fact,
Chinese statements regarding foreign people and foreign tribes are
described in clichés which are framed to evoke suspicion, scorn or
distrust, and which assume that the Chinese are possessed of superior
qualities. This view is not only expressed in Chinese writings; it is
noticeable in the reactions of the metropolitan officials who were
posted to remote regions of the south or west. These officials were
quick to deplore the deep contrast between the sophistication of the city
and the rough manners of the countryside.
But even barbarians could be educated. Once educated, they became
part of Chinese society. The duty to educate barbarians led to the
concept of ‘tributary’ countries

The tributary system rested on the theoretical belief that the empire
was self-sufficient, requiring no products from other peoples, but
willing to part with its own surplus riches to assist less fortunate
mortals. Tributary relations were maintained primarily to manifest the
Confucian concept of propriety—just as every person in a domestic
society had his specific status, so every state in an ‘international society’
had its proper station—and to affirm the hierarchical world order in
which China was assured of a superior status, security and inviolability.
The size, frequency and the route of the tributary mission were fixed by
China—the closer the relationship the larger and more frequent the
mission. Envoys when presented to the king had to perform kowtow—3
kneelings and 9head bowings on the ground.

The attitude that the Chinese had of superiority and self sufficiency and
looking upon foreigners as ‘barbarians’, led the western scholars to coin
the term ‘Sinocentrism’ to describe the way the Chinese perceived
themselves. The theory of Chung Kuo (middle kingdom) is closely
associated with Sinocentrism. Sinocentrism ensured that the Chinese
never felt the desire to interact with outsiders.
All countries that desired relations with China had to accept the
tributary system. In pre 19th century, outsiders had adapted to the ways
of the middle kingdom. Initial contact with the west began in the 16h
century when the Portuguese followed by the Spaniards and the Dutch
first arrived in China. Foreign traders were not welcomed but tolerated
in China as a mark of favour from the emperor for men from afar. They
were quarantined in a few pockets along the coast.
In their interaction with the Jesuits who had come to China for
missionary purposes, the Chinese had found them willing to adapt to
China’s value system. Instead of imposing Christianity as a foreign
religion, an forcing converts to take up foreign names and dress, the
Jesuits tried to ‘sinify’ Christianity. They accepted Chinese terms to
express Christian ideas, related Confucian moral concepts to Christian
teachings, refrained from interfering in Chinese rites honouring
Confucian and one’s ancestors and allowed the converts to perform
kowtow as form of civil obeisance.

The first time that the established patterns were not followed was in
the 19th century when the westerners came to China. Unlike previous
visitors, they had no intention of following Chinese practices. And
although Russia and the western European nations were not formally
included in the system, the Chinese treated their missions as though
tributary missions. The foreign merchants were placed under many
restrictions under the Canton system of trade. They were allowed to
reside only in a particular demarcated area of the island of Macao and
their scope for trade was limited to Canton, which was the only port
opened to the foreigners.
Moderation and balance may help explain triumph of Confucianism. It
was a highly pragmatic philosophy. It took the actions of everyday life
seriously as the arena of moral and spiritual fulfillment
Confucianism benefited greatly from associating itself with the state,
and consequently Confucian elements became embedded in the whole
imperial system. Its basic political conservatism and high ethical
principles gave political authority a stronger foundation than mere
hereditary right and served as a constant stimulus for the improvement
of government.
Another basic reason for its success was its timeliness. A bureaucracy of
the educated was slowly growing up in China in response to political
needs, and this functional group required a philosophy, which Confucius
supplied.

There has been much academic debate on the causes for the collapse of
the Confucian value system. In Western writing, the Chinese traditional
system collapsed primarily on account of its inability to withstand
Western imperialism onslaught. This is a simplistic assumption.

Joseph Needham while describing the Chinese conceptual system as

‘organic materialism’, a system in which the worlds of nature and of
man formed an integrated whole governed by identical laws, also
criticized Confucianism on the grounds of it being too preoccupied with
social relations. This, he believed had an adverse impact on Chinese
society.
China despite its pioneering efforts in the middle ages, now found itself
in the 19th century, backward in its natural sciences and technology
when compared to Western societies. Since success and honour in the
ching system was based so predominantly on scholarship, an attitude
came to prevail in society that all other activities other than learning
were inconsequential. Manual labour and commerce were particularly
repugnant. He believed that this was responsible for lack of innovation.
The growth of Chinese industries was hampered because of the inward
looking values of the Confucian system.

The causes for the collapse of the Confucian system have to be seen in
terms of the twin crisis that China was facing. Until the 1890s, serious-
minded Chinese saw Confucianism, despite its failures to realize its ideal
society, as the source of hope for China and the core of what it meant to
be Chinese. The signs of deterioration in the state and in social
equilibrium began to appear in the beginning of the19th century. By the
early 19th century both the governments and the private traders of the
western nations could no longer tolerate the Chinese system. They
wanted greater freedom of action, and the western governments newly
released from the Napoleonic wars and greatly strengthened by the
industrial revolution would not suffer the tributary treatment. The
tributary system had also weakened. Many of the tributary petty states
found they no longer needed the tributary system and thus stopped
sending tribute to China.
At this time when the commercial, and later political pressure applied
by the West was becoming urgent, the Chinese imperial order was
facing many internal forces of opposition and a serious domestic or
internal crisis.

The first half of the 19th century was a period of monetary crisis.
Supplies of metal for minting dwindled, mostly because the Yunnan
copper production was falling and the government control of mining
was inadequate. Together with the government’s poor management of
financial services and mints, caused a deterioration in the quality of
coins. Bad and false money was in wide circulation. The shift to a bi-
metallic currency also caused problems. The real exchange rate between
the tael and copper cash progressively reduced the value of copper. The
maintenance of a completely artificial rate of exchange worsened the
crisis. While the burden on the peasantry kept on increasing, the taxes
reaching the treasury were far less than what was being received.

The demographic upsurge in the 18th century seems to have produced a

negative impact on China’s economy in the 19th century. Sources suggest
that in the late 18th century, the population doubled from 150 million to
300 million, and by the mid-19th century the figure went up to
430million. There was land shortage, which persisted in spite of
clearances and the extension of new crops. Agricultural production
could not keep pace with the growing population. There was declining
agricultural yield as a result of land shortage.
The fall in ground-rents with the rapid increase in the price of land, the
concentration of land in the hands of a few landowners and the
accompanying transformation of small farmers into agricultural
labourers—all these factors led to permanent tension in the
countryside.

Peasant rebellions began towards the end of the 18 th century. Recurring

floods and natural disasters added to the financial burden of the
peasants. The removal of the law of primogeniture by the Manchus led
to greater fragmentation of the land, reducing overall productivity.
There was large scale migration towards sparsely populated areas,
causing riots and social tensions.There was a breakdown of the
administrative machinery. There was rampant corruption at all levels of
government which ensured that the upkeep of public works like
irrigation projects suffered.

Peasant revolts and rebellion led to the growth of many anti Ching
secret societies. In an autocracy such as the Ching, the only form of
organized resistance apart from open rebellion, were the secret
societies. After the suppression of the anti-Manchu movement on
Taiwan in 1683, Ming loyalists went underground to form or join
societies to continue their fight. Among them were the Heaven and
Earth Society (Tien-ti hui) also known as the Triad Society; the Ko-lao
Brotherhood Association (ko-lao hui) in south China; and the White
Lotus Society (Pai-lien chiao), and its branch the Heavenly Reason Sect
in north China.
More broadly the societies represented several elementary forms of
struggle against the established order. Their members came primarily
from the poor in both town and countryside. They also were movements
against the prevailing social norms. Taoism was very popular among the
secret societies

Distant wars and the difficulties encountered in suppressing the revolts

of the ethnic groups like the Lolos and the Miaos and the muslims,
completed the process of exhausting the treasury in the last few years of
the 18th century. The Ching dynasty though weakened by internal decay,
still kept up the face of a great empire and cherished the notion of the
superiority of the middle kingdom.

It seems that the Chinese never believed that their value system could
ever be challenged. Sinocentrism gave them a sense of complacency and
overconfidence.
But with the collapse of the monarchy and the traditional family
structure, from which much of its strength and support was derived,
Confucianism lost its hold on the nation. In the past, it often had
managed to weather adversities and to emerge with renewed vigor, but
during this period of unprecedented social upheavals it lost its previous
ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

JACQUES GERNET: A HISTORY OF CHINESE CIVILISATION

JOHN FAIRBANK: EAST ASIA

IMMANUEL C.Y. HSU: THE RISE OF MODERN CHINA

JEAN CHESNEAUX: CHINA FROM OPIUM WAR TO 1911

REVOLUTION

MICHAEL LOEWE: IMPERIAL CHINA

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE BUREAU: CHINA PROPER

ROBERT BRUCE (article): THE RETURN TO CONFUCIUS?

XINZHONG YAO: AN INTRODUCTION TO CONFUCIANISM

JUDITH A. BERLING (article): CONFUCIANISM (FOCUS ON ASIAN

STUDIES VOL II)