Maps - New Confucians

China's New Confucians are a relatively new intellectual category in mainland China.  The institutional support for traditional Confucianism collapsed with the abolition of the imperial examination system in the early 20th century, and its fate was further sealed when the iconoclasts of the May 4th era identified Confucianism as the main representative of the Chinese "tradition" that was keeping China backward. 

Over the course of the 20th century, Confucianism esssentially followed two paths:  one led to universities, first in China, later in the Chinese diaspora, where a small number of highly intelligent and committed Chinese intellectuals attempted to redefine or rework Confucianism so that it could contribute to the needs of China's modernization; the other led back to China's villages and families, for which Confucianism remained a body of moral and ethical principles.  After the Communist revolution in 1949, both of these paths were essentially shut down in China, although "Confucians" were found in philosophy departments and "respect for elders" remained a virtue to be embraced except in moments of revolutionary fervor.

Today's New Confucians were part of a wave of cultural conservatism that rose first in the 1980s, as a reaction to a broad enthusiasm for all things Western.  Over the course of the 1990s, New Confucians became one of the three main groups of intellectuals in China, with a focus on traditional Chinese culture and civilization, while the New Left sought to renew socialism and Liberals promoted markets and constitutions.  The radical rupture Chinese intellectuals had made with tradition in the 1920s meant that there was much to discover, much to relearn, and much to appreciate.  All traditions are to some extent "invented," as Eric Hobsbawm rightly noted, and this is certainly true in the case of the Chinese New Confucians.

These New Confucians took this "invention" a step further over the past few years when they consciously broke with their counterparts in the Chinese diaspora, and began calling themselves "Mainland New Confucians."  This rupture was caused by the perception that the diaspora New Confucians--previously viewed as mentors--were too tied to the project of modernity.  Impressed by China's rise, the Mainland New Confucians wanted something more expressly Chinese, and they also wanted to revive Confucianism's institutional heritage, either by changing the structure of China's government, or by founding a Confucian religion.  In other words, Mainland New Confucians are self-consciously political, and at the beginning of Xi Jinping's mandate hoped to infuse the China Dream with Confucian flavors.  My impression is that this has not worked out as they had hoped.

New Confucians have received considerable attention in Western scholarship.  In part, this is because of the impact of the diaspora New Confucians, which had a certain influence in the West.  In part, this is because the writings and proposals of the leading mainland New Confucians--such as Jiang Qing and Kang Xiaoguang--are quite brazen in their calls for major changes to Chinese institutions.  Many of the writings of these "conservative dissenters" are already available in English, so I have worked less on them.  

​​Chen Lai

“A Century of Confucianism: Looking Back and Looking Forward”

Chen Ming

"The Road to Confucian Civil Religion"

“Transcend Left and Right, Unite the Three Traditions, Renew the Party-State :  A Confucian Interpretation of the China Dream”

Gan Yang

“’Unifying the Three Traditions’ in the New Era:  The Merging of Three Chinese Traditions”

“Kang Youwei and Institutional Confucianism”

​“The Modernity Critique of the 1980s and the Transformation of the 1990s”

Ge Zhaoguang (Ge is not a New Confucian, but a Liberal, and he attacks New Confucians in these two texts)

"If Horses had Wings:  The Political Demands of Mainland New Confucians in Recent Years"

“Imagining 'All Under Heaven:' the Political, Intellectual and Academic Background of a New Utopia”

​Jiang Qing

“Only Confucians Can Make a Place for Modern Women”​

Zeng Yi

Zeng Yi, et. al., "From Kang Youwei to Deng Xiaoping" (2015)