Whatever democratic political system evolves in China will bear the heavy imprint of its Confucian past. It is more difficult to judge the longer-term impact of Communism because its duration will have been far more limited. There are, though, important continuities between Confucianism and Communism — for example, in the notion of a special caste of political leadership, Confucian in the one case, Leninist in the other. [645] In North-East Asia — for these purposes, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam — the continuing influence of the Confucian tradition is palpable in the emphasis on education, the structure of the family, the central role of the bureaucracy and the commitment to harmony. [646] Because of the presence of a Communist government, this was, until 1978, perhaps less apparent in China, but there has been a marked revival in Confucian influence since then, a process initiated by the government during the nineties, [647] but which has increasingly acquired a momentum of its own. [648] Reflecting Confucian influence, an editorial in the People’s Daily argued that in order to build a market economy, it was necessary to promote ‘the rule of virtue while developing the rule of law’. [649] In March 2007 the prime minister Wen Jiabao remarked: ‘From Confucius to Sun Yat-sen, the traditional culture of the Chinese nation has numerous precious elements, many positive aspects regarding the nature of the people and democracy. For example, it stresses love and humanity, community, harmony among different viewpoints, and sharing the world in common. ’ [650] Communist Party officials in Henan province are now, amongst other things, assessed on the basis of Confucian values such as filial piety and family responsibility, while secondary school children are once more being taught the Confucian classics [651] and Confucius’s birthday is again being celebrated. [652] On a practical level, the Party is now placing a new kind of emphasis on the importance of the obligations and duties shown by its cadres towards the people they represent. As part of their training, they are given test cases in which they are expected not just to consult their superiors as before, but also, more importantly, to listen to the people. This new attitude has been reflected in the way in which public officials have apologized for their failures in the Sichuan earthquake and milk scandal — in a manner reminiscent of the behaviour of shamed Japanese government and corporate leaders — and resigned. Significantly, the government has chosen to use the name Confucius Institutes for the numerous Chinese cultural and language centres which it has been establishing around the world. With the decline of Marxism, the turn towards Confucius in a country so steeped in its ethical and moral discourse is predictable. [653] It can be argued, in any case, that those parts of Marxism that have had most impact in China were the ones that most chimed with the Confucian tradition — for example, self-criticism (mirroring the Confucian idea that one should direct criticism at oneself before others), the idea that rulers should be morally upright and the invoking of model workers as an example to others; by the same token, those Marxist ideas that failed were those that were most inimical to Confucianism. Even the fact that Chinese political leaders dye their hair black can be traced back to the Mencian proposition that white-haired people should be cared for rather than engaged in heavy work. Most importantly of all, Confucian ideas remain embedded in the fabric of the culture: filial piety is still widely practised and endorsed, including the legal requirement that adult children care for their elderly parents. A favourite theme of Chinese soaps concerns relationships with elderly parents. An obvious and striking characteristic of Chinese restaurants, in contrast to Western ones, is the frequency with which one sees the extended family eating together, a tradition reflected in the ubiquity of the large circular table. [654]

Confucianism should not be seen as a fixed entity, having been through many mutations during its history. Like all philosophies and religions, its longevity has depended in part upon its ability to adapt to changing circumstances and times. [655] The fact that Confucianism is a syncretic tradition has served to enhance its flexibility and adaptability. One of the most outstanding examples was the manner in which the Neo-Confucians of the Song period (AD 960-1279) assimilated Buddhism and Taoism, which were then sweeping China. [656] It would be wrong, moreover, to regard Confucianism as entirely inimical to democratic ideas. For example, Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the 1911 Revolution and the founding father of the Republic of China, said: ‘Our three-min principles [nationalism, citizen rights and the welfare of human beings] originate from Mencius… Mencius is really the ancestor of our democratic ideas.’ [657] The mandate of Heaven, in recognizing the right of the people to rebel if the emperor failed them, was certainly a more democratic idea than its European counterpart, the divine right of kings. [658] The emperor was required to rule in a virtuous and benign way according to the ethical strictures that constituted the guidelines for his conduct, while the hierarchical structure demanded a certain degree of reciprocity, suggesting implied rights as well as duties. [659] The government was expected to grant society considerable independence from the state, and in important respects this was the case — not least in the economic sphere, as the early development of a sophisticated market illustrates. Although civil society remains very weak in China, there is a powerful tradition of min-jian society, or folk culture, composed of age-old Chinese customs and support systems, which to this day still represents an important area of autonomy from government. [660] In sum, Confucianism certainly lends support and succour to an authoritarian system of government, but it is also imbued with democratic and popular elements. [661]

There are a number of ways in which Confucian ideas are likely to inform a democratic China: [662] the nodal role of the state and its bureaucracy; the centrality of the family, and extended networks like clans (which help, for example, to relieve the state of some of the tasks of social welfare); the importance of guanxi (the web of personal relationships which informs Chinese society); the Confucian preference for resolving conflicts by mediation rather than litigation, suggesting that the resort to law and the judicial process will always be far less significant in China (and Japan) than it is in the West; and the significance that is attached to values and morality as the lodestar of people’s behaviour. [663] These age-old belief systems have a profound effect on the way a society operates. China, like Japan and Korea, has a quite different sense of public order and behaviour compared with the norms that prevail in the West, a situation reflected in the much lower levels of crime in these societies. Indeed, these deeper societal traditions have undoubtedly helped China — and other East Asian societies — to cope with the combined vicissitudes of globalization and modernization, in effect acting as shock absorbers. [664]