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THE INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT CHINESE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY ON
CONTEMPORARY CHINA¡¯S POLITICS
Dr Qingxia Xia
Nanjing University (PRC)
1. Introduction
As far as the Chinese politics is concerned, particularly the modern Chinese politics, many
scholars pay much attention to its communist system. However, we should also realize that It
has grown up in the soil of China, It has to be affected by the profound Chinese political
culture. From my point of view, there is evidence that the impact of the ancient Chinese
political philosophy is more placed on the contemporary politics than on the one in the Mao
zedong¡¯s period. ... The second is that the political novels are
prevailing in officialdom this decade, among them are two famous books written by an
official, one is called the Chinese Painting and another is its sequel. From the title, we can
easily notice that what the author described is a typical kind of the Chinese political context. ... So Chinese Communists today,
embraced old Chinese ideas with modern disguise. ... " (June
Teufel Dreyer ,2000) That¡¯s to say, to some extent, the traditional political Chinese ideas are
being putting into practice in the name of communism. In fact, we seldom heard the word of
¡° communism¡± in China today, this word is more used to refer Chinese politics by western
academy. ...
In order for the topic to be better understood, I would like to brief on the Chinese ancient
political philosophy.
In ancient China, the political philosophy began to flourish in the sixth century B. ... ( Zhengyuan Fu,1996) This was a time when the
most important Chinese philosophers produced their creative works. The galaxy of eminent
personages who flourished during this golden era of Chinese intellectual development includes
Confucius, Mencius, Mo Di, Lao Zi, Zhuang Zhou, Xun zi, Sun Wu, Han Fei, and the others. ...
Among some Hundred Contending Schools of philosophy during this era, most Chinese
scholars agreed that only three major schools exerted the significant influence on the Chinas
intellectual development: the Confucianism, the Daoism, the and the Legalism. ... This is especially
significant to Chinese government today, as we have known that Government in China in the
period of planned economy did absolutely contrary to the principle of Dao, government governed
everything in people¡¯s lives, as a result, it damaged their lives.
Confucianism and Legalism, which formed the main Chinese political culture, were based on
their different beliefs in human nature. ...
The significance of legalist doctrine is that the legalists not only formulated the course of
actions to be followed to establish and to maintain a strong ruler and a strong state, but they also
freed Chinese politics from moral and ethical considerations. ... In the other
words, although Confucianism was to become the official state philosophy, it was Han fei, the
most important representative of the Legalism, rather than Confucius that Chinese rulers turned
to for political guidance over the course of the last two millennia. That¡¯s why; political culture
in ancient Chinese society sometimes manifested kindness, and at another time manifested
bloodiness.
3, The Influence Of Ancient Chinese Political Philosophy On Contemporary China¡¯s
Politics
It is not easy to distinguish clearly between the impact of Communism and of traditional value
on contemporary Chinese politics. ...
A, Authoritarian and Human rights
Many western observers think that Chinese government abuse human rights by controlling
freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. I am not sure exactly what
proportion of abuse derived from communist ideology, but their roots can be found in ancient
Chinese philosophy. ... From then on,
dissenters had often been sentenced into jail in Chinese history and the cruelest period
perhaps was the Cultural Revolution.
Today, there has been great changes in China, people can speak freely in any private
occasions but speaking in public is still limited and the Four cardinal Principles of CCP keep
unchallenged, the party believe that unlimited speech may influence the stability of the country. ... In the ancient legal system,
assembly was also a kind of crime. ... One result of this
kind of religious attitude is Chinese political culture is very tolerant ; every religion can exist in
the Chinese society. ... From my point of view,
Chinese government must have had learned the ancient Chinese politics in their dealing with Fa
Lun Gong.
The rudimentary political philosophy Chinese bureaucracy share with Confucianism and
legalism is that the function of government was to control and to direct the public rather than
protect them. ...
Sage¡¯s power is kind of spirit, moral power which influence people¡¯s spirit ,and people are
sincerely convinced of him, just like Confucius was adored as a spirit king(su wang) in ancient
China. ...
The of relationship between party and law in contemporary China is very similar to the
emperor and law in ancient China. ...
C, Three representatives and people as the base of rule
Many western scholars have been aware of subtly that Chinese politics are based on the
traditional Confucian values rather than communist ideology since the opening policy began, but
what exact values the party extracting from the tradition keeps unmentioned, except catching
political meanings by some phenomena such as: Jian zeming has begun sprinkling his speeches
with classical poetry, he urges youths to rediscover Peking opera, and he praises the values of
Confucius. From my point of view, except the authoritarianism and totalitarianism which both
shared by the ancient philosophy and communism has existed in contemporary political culture,
Chinese communist party has been obtaining some positive Confucian values in its politics from
1978. ... Perhaps all the
Chinese people would recite this old saying about the relationship between people and ruler:
ruler likes boat, people like water, water can carry a boat, but it also can destroy it.
Approximate Word count = 4617
Approximate Pages = 18.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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