ABSTRACT
Confucianism’s relationship with politics began at its inception in the sixth-century BC, when Kongfuxi, a scholar living in the north of China, set out to end the chaos of his day by teaching the way of the ancients. Both as a social system and as a political ideology, Confucianism has been challenged and arguably subverted over the millennia, both by ancient religions such as Legalism, Buddhism, Daoism, Shinto and Shamanism and more recently by the modern ideologies of modernity, including communism, liberalism, democracy, nationalism and capitalism. It has survived by being so useful as a political tool that its rivals have accommodated it, but this has often come at the cost of creating tension between political Confucianism and Confucianism as a personal religion and a social force. At the opening of the twenty-first century, tensions between Confucianism and modernity seemed to be pushing political Confucianism into decline everywhere except in China itself, where it was being promoted by two successive presidents, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Yet even in China, the upward trajectory of political Confucianism has been deflected by the current president, Xi Jinping, leaving its future in doubt.
