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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.

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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
Hsün-tzu (Hsün 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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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 organize 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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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Peasant rebellions began towards the end of the 18th 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, 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.

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