Confucianism a vital string in China's bow
By Jian Junbo

But some ideas in Confucianism are helpful in maintaining social order and harmony, such as respect for elders and teachers and not harming others. The CCP certainly wants a revival of such values to help it maintain social stability. Many parents, too, would like their children to learn from Confucius' teachings.

However, local governments' respect for Confucius is centered on economic interests. By holding memorial ceremonies, tourists are attracted to a region and local products are promoted. For local officials, there is less culture on their minds than local gross domestic product growth - a sure ticket to promotion. Some intellectuals also make fortunes by "popularizing" Confucian ideas with paid lectures and by publishing books.

All this is embodied in a popular propaganda slogan, "Culture provides the stage for the economy to perform". That is, culture is just a means of fueling economic growth.

In short, in the early 21st century, Confucianism is an assistant to the Chinese god of wealth (and a representative of Chinese diplomacy) but not a tutor for Chinese souls.

Thus, if Confucianism cannot be officially endorsed as a core of Chinese traditional culture but only pragmatically regarded as a pawn to help the economy, it can hardly be promoted worldwide as a pillar of Chinese soft power.

Culture is one of the basic resources of soft power, according to Joseph Nye, who was the first to introduce this concept in 1990 to analyze international affairs. According to this United States politician-scholar, soft power is the ability to obtain what one wants through co-option and attraction, as opposed to hard power, which is the use of coercion and payment. By this definition, culture is not soft power itself, but a very important potential resource of it.

Besides the government's reluctance, there are internal problems that make it hard to modernize Confucianism. Confucianism emerged 2,500 years ago and was enriched throughout the country's dynastic history to become an ideology in justifying and safeguarding the hierarchical structure of political and social systems.

As such, many of its ideas are outdated, such as being loyal to authority, non-violation of the hierarchical order of families and society and anti-individualism. These values are in conflict with modernity and cannot be converted into acceptable concepts to people today.

Modernity? Liberalism? How is loyalty to authority being defined? Obedience? What is being advocated? Anarchy? Or absolute disobedience? Or critical obedience? Confucianism is rather loosely defined here, and while there may be a contrast between Confucianism and liberalism, it is not clear what the author means by "modernity" either, except modern Western liberalism and rational autonomy.

The article links to this website: Confucius Institute Online. It doesn't strike me as a particularly Confucian website, with the prominent place taken by articles and news about mass culture.