Panel 9: Confucianism in Chinese Empires and Modern States

Chair: Liang Cai, University of Notre Dame

Panelists

Paul Goldin, University of Pennsylvania, “The Early Textual Basis of the Confucian Doctrine of the ‘Uncrowned King’ (suwang 素王)”

Avery Hsu, University of Notre Dame, “Filial Piety Embodied in Asian American Family Systems”

Xiaoqing Diana Lin, Indiana University Northwest, “Confucian Learning and Contemporary Chinese Nationalism, 1990s–2010s”

Liang Cai, University of Notre Dame, “Confucians’ Criticism on Mutual Responsibility System (lianzuo 連坐)”

Confucianism, whether categorized as a religion, philosophy, or spiritual tradition, has shaped East Asian culture for more than two millennia. This panel brings together three scholars and an undergraduate to explore Confucianism during the formative ages of Chinese empires and in the modern states of China and the USA.

Prof. Liang Cai will explore Confucians in the Western Han dynasty’s criticism on Mutual responsibility system. Mutual responsibility system has been a major principle of legal practice from the Qin-Han dynasties through to the 20th century. This system, aimed at deterring crime through the imposition of severe punishments to instill fear, inadvertently compromised justice. It led to openly punish the lawful, including the families, neighbors, and friends of the offenders. While effective in enforcing surveillance and procuring convict labor, the mutual responsibility system underscored the absolute power of the throne, yet it distorted the relationship between crime and punishment and conflated moral standards. This systemic injustice sparked fervent debates among Confucians in the Western Han China. However, the bureaucratization of legal processes prevented any meaningful reform from happening.

Prof. Goldin will examine the doctrine of the “uncrowned king” (suwang 素王, literally “plain-clothed king”) , which claims that Confucius 孔子 (551-479 BCE) had the necessary virtue to be a Heaven-ordained king, but did not become one. This is part and parcel of the general latterday Confucian anxiety about his failure to attain high office (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi 2001: 274ff.). Usually, the explanation is that, instead of ruling like the sage kings (shengwang 聖王) before him, Confucius compiled and transmitted the text known as Springs and Autumns (Chunqiu 春秋), the annals of his home state of Lu 魯, which served as a blueprint for kings in the future. What the relevant accounts have in common is the conviction that Confucius was a sage, but not a king, whereas previous sage kings were both. He will survey the early textual basis of this idea.

Prof. Lin will explore how Confucianism was used to reconstitute the Chinese national identity from the 1990s to the 2010s. China’s economic reforms in the 1990s and the abandonment of many Communist ideas and values, such as class and class struggle and working-class leadership, led many Chinese intellectuals like Xiao Gongqin to realize that China needed a nationalism more deeply rooted in Chinese traditions to provide a unifying identity in place of Communism.

Meanwhile, China’s opening up to the West, the Tiananmen Massacre of June 4, 1989, and the collapse of the USSR in 1991 prompted scholars of Chinese origin in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the US to anticipate the potential downfall of Communism in China, which would leave an ideological vacuum in Chinese society. There was a convergence of opinion both within China and overseas, that China required a new national identity constituted by cultural traditions. Confucian learning, long disregarded by the Chinese Communist leadership, witnessed a revival through the joint efforts of scholars from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the U.S. This paper seeks to delineate the trajectory of this gradual constitution of Chinese nationalism anchored in Confucian learning, resulting from collaborative efforts by Chinese and overseas Confucian scholars. It also examines the active “codification” and enforcement by mainland scholars such as Chen Lai and Fang Keli, with the cooptation of the Chinese government.

Ms. Avery Hsu will examine the practice of filial piety within Asian American communities. The contemporary United States, a multicultural nation, upholds Western values such as democracy and individuality. This paper delves into the adaptation of Confucian values, particularly filial piety, among Asian Americans. Through a comparative analysis of Asian American and typical Western family structures, Ms. Hsu investigates how Confucian filial piety has been integrated into the American landscape, evident in the rise of multigenerational households, educational agreements within families, elder-focused decision-making, and a strong emphasis on familial obligations.

Additionally, this study considers how these filial practices have evolved in response to societal expectations around professional success, income levels, and gender roles in the Asian American community.