Chen Lai, "A Century of Confucianism"

Chen Lai, A Century of Confucianism: Looking Back and Looking Forward

陈来, “百年来儒学发展的回顾与前瞻”, 深圳大学学报（人文社会科学版）[Shenzhen University Journal (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition)], Vol. 31: 3 (May 2014), pp. 42-46.
  
N.B.  This is a partial translation.  The full text is available for purchase as part of the volume Voices from the Chinese Century:  Public Intellectual Debate in Contemporary China, Timothy Cheek, David Ownby, and Joshua A. Fogel, eds., (New York:  Columbia University Press, 2019).

Translated by Craig A. Smith and Jun Deng

Translators' Introduction

Originally published in the social sciences edition of the Shenzhen University Journal in May 2014, this essay, “A Century of Confucianism: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” presents Chen Lai’s 陈来 methodical approach to the twentieth century history of Confucianism, as well as his advocacy for its future development. Dividing this history into periods of challenge and opportunity,
Chen charts the various major changes to the system of thought from the late-Qing dynasty to the end of the twentieth century. Through brief explanations of major historical events from the perspective of Confucianism, including the fall of the imperial system to the reform and opening-up period, as well as the responses by Chinese philosophers ranging from Kang Youwei 康有为 to Xiong Shili 熊十力, Chen charts the religious, educational, cultural, and philosophical developments that have led to contemporary New Confucianism. Paying little heed to Confucianism beyond China, Chen grounds the system of thought in China, the Chinese people, and mainland Chinese nationalism, finding its perseverance throughout Chinese thought despite a century of decay, and identifying the myriad opportunities for Confucianism through the twenty-first century rise of China. This article then offers readers an example of a Confucian-centred modern history to contextualize the movement from the perspective of one of its leading proponents.

A renowned professor at the prestigious Qinghua University, Chen is an extremely influential intellectual in contemporary China, even lecturing Xi Jinping and the Politburo on nationalism and Confucianism in December, 2015. Since earning his Ph.D. from Peking University’s Philosophy Department in 1985, he has written prolifically on Chinese thought and tradition, particularly upon Zhu Xi and Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism. Numerous translations of Chen’s works have already appeared in many languages, and since 2009 English-language readers have access to an entire volume of his writing through Edmund Ryden’s translation of Tradition and Modernity: A Humanist View.

The rise in popularity of Confucianism that has accompanied the new confidence in Chinese traditions and nationalism since the 1980s has greatly benefitted Chen Lai’s career, yet in some ways he remains on the margins of the New Confucianism movement. Despite having considerable influence upon the movement, Chen Lai remains an academic figure. He does not subscribe to the religious New Confucianism of Jiang Qing 蒋庆, nor to the popular folk Confucianism of Yu Dan 于丹, yet his approach inevitably supports and draws upon both.

Beginning in the 1990s, but growing considerably in the early period of the twentieth-first century, Mainland New Confucianism made efforts to formulate a more Chinese path to development, rejecting both liberalism and socialism as foreign ideologies. It is this rejection that differentiates “Mainland” New Confucianism from that found in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere. In the last decade, myriad groups and individuals have been labelled as part of this movement for their adherence to Confucian values or support for educational and intellectual elements of Confucianism, but the movement remains varied and lacking in cohesion. Jiang Qing may be the best known of the intellectuals for his spirited and consistent support of a return to the religious aspects of Confucianism, including ancestral worship and ritual sacrifice, but also extending to the adoption of a Confucian political system for the entire country. Intellectuals who dare to comment on political matters, such as Chen Ming 陈明 have also made waves in China. Chen has argued for the primacy of Confucianism as a civil religion, one that would transcend other systems of religion and thought as a cultural basis for the Chinese people. Chen Lai does not join in such advocacy, but remains supportive of the development of Confucianism and nationalism for China’s future.

Cementing the connection between China’s intellectual future and past is a focus of Chen Lai’s work. However, although primarily interested in the intellectual forms of Confucianism, in this article he also considers the “subconscious” aspects of Confucianism which have survived in the daily lives of the Chinese people. Chen is supportive of the reform and opening up period’s acceleration in the popularity of academic, folk, and cultural Confucianism, a popular movement that Chen is both a product and proponent of. He argues for the reestablishment of all elements of Confucianism, a reconstruction of the philosophical system, and a promotion of the cultural and intellectual elements as the rise of China proceeds hand-in-hand with the revival of Confucianism.
 
Translation
 
In this essay, I examine the development of Confucianism in the twentieth century. The term “development” might give the impression that Confucianism has progressed effortlessly throughout this period, but this examination of the past century reveals a tortuous course through various crises and challenges.
 
I: Challenges and Responses in the Modern Era
 
Chinese Confucianism faced four periods of challenge in the twentieth century. The first was the political and educational reforms in the late Qing and early Republican era. The Qing government announced the “Edict on the Establishment of Schools” 兴学诏书 in 1901 to launch the establishment of new institutions across the country. This was an extremely important initiative, leading to the gradual decline of the old form of Confucianism, a form dominated by a particular type of school that trained scholars to enter the system of imperial civil service examinations. 
 
Officials opened these new schools in great number all across China. This move posed a clear challenge to the civil service examination system before the Qing government decided to end the examinations entirely in 1905. The examination system was of utmost significance to the continued existence of the Confucian scholar. In total there were three important bases for the existence of the thought and culture of Confucian scholars in premodern Chinese society. The first was the state, as the imperial court declared Confucianism to be the official ideology and proclaimed the Confucian classics to be the classics of the state. Confucianism was therefore promoted through imperial rule. The second base was the educational system, particularly the civil service examination system, which stipulated that the Confucian classics be the primary subject of the exams. And the third base for Confucianism was the prevalent social foundations of family and rural governance systems that have existed in China for several thousand years.
 
The strategic reforms of the late-Qing period played an important role in determining the ways in which Confucianism would continue to exist. Despite the abolition of the examinations in 1905, one of the most radical of the early reforms, the Qing government was still resolved to preserve the study and curriculum of the classics in all schools, and also required schools to continue to offer sacrifices to Confucius on his birthday. This, however, also changed with the advent of the 1911 Revolution. Once the Ministry of Education fell under the control of Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 in 1912, the state resolved to do away with sacrifices to Confucius and to discard the study of the classics. Therefore, in the years after the revolution, the system of “honoring Confucius and reading the classics” suffered a fundamental setback.  During this process, Confucian scholars experienced the first significant period of “challenge and response”—that is, their first, fundamental predicament.
 
From the late Qing to the early Republic, although the Confucian scholar already found himself removed from the center of politics and education, the role of Confucian thought and culture continued in the realm of ethics. Not long after this, from 1915 to 1919 the New Culture Movement arose and Confucianism encountered its second challenge. The New Culture Movement raised banners of criticism, reflection, and enlightenment. This was a cultural enlightenment, drawing upon modern Western culture, posing Chinese traditional culture as its binary opposite, and particularly posing Confucian rites and culture as its primary and critical opponent. This seemed reasonable to many at the time, and they raised the slogan “Down with Confucius and sons!” From the late Qing to the 1911 Revolution, Confucianism maintained it ethical influence even while it stepped down from the political stage, but in the years shortly after this it suffered its second crucial reverse. The 1911 Revolution forced Confucianism into a form of exile which extended through the New Culture Movement. The New Culture Movement then inherited the late Qing-early Republican movement to exile Confucianism, and expanded the mission by banishing Confucianism from the realm of ethics.  The New Culture Movement left Confucianism fragmented and drifting.
 
The third major predicament was from the 1949 revolution through the “Cultural Revolution.” I view this period as a whole because the collectivization movement, the organization of the people’s communes, and the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” all changed the system of rural governance and made the collective the foundation of society. The people`s commune system, based on the brigade and the three levels of ownership, thoroughly transformed the old lineage-based village order.