Abstract

Mao Zedong’s China was built on uprooting the country’s traditional feudal system, including traditional schools of thought such as Confucianism that had justified it. Nevertheless, after Mao’s death, China’s leaders gradually integrated Confucian ideas into their governance and increasingly emphasized the value of traditional culture, culminating in Xi Jinping’s explicit integration of Marxism with Chinese tradition with Confucius at its heart. This article explores the nature and motivations of such activities throughout time and argues that using Chinese tradition has helped the Chinese party-state legitimize its rule during periods of drastic socioeconomic changes and challenges.

Introduction

In November 2023, a new Chinese TV series titled “When Marx Met Confucius” (当马克思遇见孔夫子) produced by the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hunan province made headlines both in China and abroad. The series consists of dialogues between the two historical figures who answer questions from an audience of students, the responses to which are analyzed, elaborated on, and connected to Xi Jinping Thought by scholars and party officials. Occasionally, Marx and Confucius converse with other notable figures such as Mao Zedong or Vladimir Lenin (Xi Jinping Is Trying to Fuse the Ideologies of Marx and Confucius, 2023). Despite the rather odd premise, “When Marx Met Confucius” is an extremely lucid and straightforward testament to President Xi Jinping’s understanding of the ideological direction China should take. Xi’s government has long been eager to demonstrate the overlap between Confucianism and China’s official ideologies, such as Marxism-Leninism and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. In this article, I will present a concise historical and contemporary analysis of the ideological role of Confucianism in the People’s Republic. I will show that despite the Party’s revolutionary past and its restraint in excessively embracing Confucianism, the Party has used it along with traditional Chinese culture in general as a conservative counterpart to Marxism as part of regime legitimation, specifically in order to make sense of the profound socioeconomic changes China has experienced in the last decades.

From Mao to Hu—Confucianism’s rocky path in the People’s Republic

“When Marx Met Confucius”—a direct endorsement of Confucius and his philosophy by the CCP—may understandably raise the eyebrows of those who are familiar with the earlier history of the People’s Republic. Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution attacked Confucianism and its traditions as remnants of ‘feudal poison’ and aimed to destroy any influences on society (Ng, 2023, p. 2). During campaigns such as Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius, and the campaign to destroy the Four Olds, Confucius’ works were burned, and Maoists claimed that the philosopher was a reactionary who had resisted historical progress, supported slavery, and denigrated the role of women (Sullivan, 2011, pp. 15–16, 106–107).

Due to their ideological inclinations, it is true that Chinese communists during the Maoist period tended to be anti-Confucian. Nevertheless, it must also be noted that prior to the Cultural Revolution, the communists’ attitude towards Confucius was sometimes ambivalent. Aside from their criticisms, they also referred to “some progressive ideas” within Confucianism and convened Confucius Study Conferences until as late as 1961–1962. The Cultural Revolution’s criticism of Confucius contradicted some of the earlier teachings of Mao himself, such as his acknowledgment of the communists’ need to “sum up our history from Confucius to Sun Yet-sen and take over this valuable legacy.” Still, in 1964, Mao criticized the Party’s dismissal of mainstream Confucianism, arguing that Confucius “understood something of the suffering of the masses” (Gregor & Chang, 1979, p. 1077).

Of course, these views should not be overemphasized as well before the Cultural Revolution, Mao called for the overthrow of “semi-feudal culture” (represented by people such as those who “advocate [the] worship of Confucius [and] the study of the Confucian canon”) (Mao, 1940). In 1953, he argued that Confucius “came close to being a despot and reeked of fascism” (Mao, 1953). All things considered, Mao’s occasional advocacy of inheriting the Confucian tradition, as well as his steep criticisms and later violent campaign against it, both show the continued influence of Confucianism in Maoist China (Gong, 1989, p. 364).

In March 1979, editorials in the CCP’s official newspaper, Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), portrayed the Cultural Revolution as having been unnecessary and damaging to the Party’s unity (Gregor & Chang, 1979, pp. 1091–1092). Not long after, at the dawn of the 1980s, scholarly conferences on Confucianism began to be organized as the official taboo surrounding Confucius broke down. In 1984, the China Confucius Foundation was established, and in 1989, its honorary chairman and one of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s closest aides, Gu Mu, called for the inheriting and reform of China’s traditional culture with “the Confucian school of thought as its main stream” (de Bary, 1995, p. 181).

Following Mao’s death, Confucianism experienced a rebirth in China for several reasons. First, it served to respond to the social, political, and cultural crises of the Cultural Revolution as well as the religious vacuum created during that period (Deng & Smith, 2018, p. 296). Second, Confucianism’s emphasis on social harmony was useful for the regime in downplaying the importance of the extreme class struggles that had taken place during the Cultural Revolution and that were undesirable during a period of economic reform (Kallio, 2011, pp. 54–55). Third, the evaluation of the apparent merits of Confucianism became popular in China and elsewhere in the late 20th century after a “Confucian capitalism theory” was used to explain the “miraculous” economic growth of South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore (forming a part of the wider “Asian values” discourse) (Deng & Smith, 2018, p. 296).

Finally, in the early 1990s, after the collapse of communism in Europe and during its own transition to a market-based economy, China had to look for new sources of regime legitimacy. Writing in 1995, de Bary argued the following: “In this unfavorable climate, with much of the erstwhile Communist world (including the homelands of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin) having repudiated the original doctrine and practice of the Party, Beijing's pragmatic leaders are increasingly disposed to lean on a conservative version of Chinese tradition as the best guarantor of the status quo” (de Bary, 1995, p. 183). Nevertheless, mainstream scholars around that time still emphasized Mao’s claim from 1940 that CCP members must “discard the feudalistic dross and keep the democratic essence” of ancient Chinese culture” (Kallio, 2011, pp. 54–55).

In 1991, China’s next leader Jiang Zemin thus launched the patriotic education campaign, which emphasized China’s historical victimhood at the hands of the West, but also granted renewed importance to Chinese “traditional learning.” With regard to China’s traditional culture, Jiang spoke in the same year that “…we should select the essence and discard the dross therefrom, and carry forward and develop them in line with the spirit of the times in order to make the past serve the present.” This statement again reminds us of Mao’s view on the “feudalistic dross” and the “democratic essence,” both apparently present in Chinese traditional culture (Kallio, 2011, pp. 54–56).

In the 21st century, the CCP has sought to more clearly define the ideas that socialist China should inherit from the country’s traditional culture. An important example of this is former president Hu Jintao’s advocacy for a “harmonious society.” Despite China’s rapid economic growth in the 2000s, its side effects, such as growing inequality, prompted the CCP to acknowledge that “social equity and justice is a basic condition of social harmony.” Even though Party documents concerning the “harmonious society” refrained from invoking Confucius, Hu made no secret of the fact that harmony is central to Confucianism by quoting the philosopher in his speeches on the topic (Kallio, 2011, pp. 61–62). For Hu, “socialist harmony” meant the promotion of honesty, unity, and a closer relationship between the people and the government—echoing Confucian themes (Bell, 2010, p. 23). In addition, Hu’s government made traditional festivals with Confucian influences (such as the Tomb Sweeping Day and the Dragon Boat Festival) into national holidays (Kallio, 2011, p. 60).

Despite their very real overlaps, one may argue that the CCP has used concepts such as Confucianism, traditional studies, Asian values, and socialist harmony perhaps too interchangeably. However, Kallio argues that the Party has blurred the differences between these concepts on purpose. This is done both to serve the interests of the Party, in order not to overemphasize Confucianism, and of the people who perceive traditional culture as living and ever-changing and who do not find it necessary to differentiate between Confucius’ thought and other elements of traditional Chinese culture. One must also consider the view of Republican-era intellectual Liang Qichao, who argued that “Confucian philosophy does not equate with the whole of Chinese culture, but if you take Confucianism away, I am afraid not much else will remain” (Kallio, 2011, pp. 60–65).

Xi Jinping and the “Second Integration”

Already during his first few years in power, Chinese President Xi Jinping repeatedly quoted Confucius in his addresses and visited the grave of the sage in Qufu, Shandong Province (Schuman, 2014). In a 2014 speech, Xi argued that Confucianism was key to “understanding the national characteristics of the Chinese as well as the historical roots of the spiritual world of the present-day Chinese” (Gardels, 2014). In the last few years, Xi has developed the concept of the “second integration,” which explicitly advocates for combining the “basic tenets of Marxism with fine traditional Chinese culture” (Y. Zhang, 2023). According to the CCP’s official journal on socialist theory, the “second integration” must be set on an equal footing with Mao’s “first integration”—the adaptation of Marxism to China’s “concrete realities,” which, the Party claims, helped it to seize state power such as by encircling cities from the countryside (The “Two Integrations”: The Only Path and Strongest Assurance for Our Success, 2023).

However, that journal article would also have us believe that the “second integration” is not Xi’s invention. It argues that it was already Mao who “fully tapped the contemporary value of China’s traditional culture” and “demonstrated a practical mastery” of the best of that culture in order to apply Marxism “from a national perspective” (The “Two Integrations”: The Only Path and Strongest Assurance for Our Success, 2023). Even though the CCP under President Xi has officially referred to the Cultural Revolution as “catastrophic” (State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 2021), it does not seem to want to admit Mao’s bitter criticisms of Chinese traditional thought and instead attempts to show strong historical continuity in the Party’s embrace of it. On the other hand, while the article also highlights Deng Xiaoping’s views on the importance of China’s traditional culture, Jiang Zemin’s and Hu Jintao’s efforts in this area are not mentioned. The article explains that Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era (one of the country’s official ideologies as outlined in the constitution) is based on the “two integrations,” since it draws from both Marxist and traditional Chinese principles in areas such as “people-centered” governance and the relationship between man and nature (The “Two Integrations”: The Only Path and Strongest Assurance for Our Success, 2023).

Xi Jinping’s presidency has also employed Confucianism and Chinese traditional thought in more implicit ways. It has overseen the strong promotion of the so-called “core socialist values” in China, a system that has its roots in the 2000s but was officially consolidated in 2012. These twelve values are claimed to be “the soul of the Chinese nation which will serve as the guide for building socialism with Chinese characteristics” and include prosperity, democracy, civility, and harmony on the “national level”; freedom, equality, justice, and rule of law on the “society level”; and patriotism, dedication, integrity, and friendliness on the “personal level” (Miao, 2020, p. 167). Despite being called so, none of these values can immediately be identified as specifically “socialist,” as numerous non-socialist nations, societies, and individuals could arguably associate with them (Breslin, 2024). President Xi himself has instead strongly associated these values with traditional Chinese culture, highlighting their links to “traditional Chinese virtues” and “what our ancestors have left us” (Xi, 2014). The wider CCP propaganda has also connected these values with Chinese tradition, such as by directly associating “friendliness” with the Confucian concept of benevolence (ren 仁), thus tracing the philosophical roots of such terms back to the ancient classics (Miao, 2020, p. 178).

Xi Jinping’s motivations to embrace Confucianism and traditional Chinese culture in general (arguably more so than any other leader in the history of the CCP) are probably not very different from those of Deng, Jiang, or Hu. Even though the Cultural Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union are now more or less distant chapters in history, the fact remains that Chinese society has gone through immense changes since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. These changes, such as the adoption of a market-based economy and the emergence of economic classes and the inequalities between them, cannot be explained by ideologically pure Marxism-Leninism.

Moreover, even though the CCP has heavily relied on performance legitimacy in recent decades, this way of compensating for the contradictions between societal practice and the declared values poses great risks. The economy is hard to predict on its own and is rendered even more unpredictable due to sudden changes in international relations, of which there have been more than a few in the last few years. The Party, thus, has needed to find new alternatives as the basis for regime legitimation as economic growth inevitably slows (Ng, 2023, p. 144). “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is an ideology vague enough for it to be able to adapt to new challenges in contemporary China, such as a slowing economy and soaring youth unemployment (T. Zhang, 2023). In an era without revolutionary and charismatic leadership, the ideology can then fit within itself a necessary grander narrative of a “moral claim to Chinese culture, civilization, and traditions” (Miao, 2020, p. 164).

Conclusion

In “When Marx Met Confucius,” Mao Zedong’s spirit tells the two thinkers and the audience that he was a “defender of traditional Chinese culture” (Xi Jinping Is Trying to Fuse the Ideologies of Marx and Confucius, 2023). Despite the Cultural Revolution, the CCP not only seems to want to embrace Chinese tradition (with Confucius at its heart) but also to show that it has always done so. Indeed, although only after Mao, the CCP has, over the decades, employed Confucius and traditional Chinese culture in general as conservative reminders of what the Chinese have in common across different generations and economic classes in order to prevent uncomfortable questions about profound societal changes. This strategy started off with vague references to the significance of Confucianism and Chinese “traditional learning” in the late 20th century, but Xi Jinping strives to show direct and explicit connections between Chinese tradition and the values that his party claims to represent. Even though the CCP seems focused on promoting such values at home, it may not necessarily have to constrain itself to China. To mark Sino-Russian relations and the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, a statue of Confucius was unveiled at Kazan Federal University in October of this year in the presence of CCP representatives. The rector of the university delivered quotes by Confucius and argued that “basic Chinese values… are equally understandable both on the banks of the Yangtze and on the banks of the Volga”(Rector Lenar Safin: “Confucius Is a Symbol of Wisdom and Cooperation,” 2024).