The special issue of Comparative Education on ‘The Politics of Education on China’s Periphery’ (issue 60.1, 2024) features an article by Tianlong Yu and Zhenzhou Zhao on ‘Confucianism in Multicultural China’. In this episode of the Asian Education Podcast, Edward Vickers talks to Tianlong about his work with Zhenzhou on this article, and also more generally about the resurgence of popular and official interest in Confucianism in contemporary China.
Ed and Tianlong begin by discussing the meaning of the term ‘Confucianism’. While they note the diversity of interpretations of this school of thought - both in the past and present - they highlight several key features, namely an emphasis on self-cultivation; the importance of social and political order; the observance of propriety in one’s personal relationships (seen as essential to maintaining order); hierarchy; and patriarchy.
They then reflect on the reasons for the revival of interest in Confucianism on the Chinese mainland since a low point for the sage’s reputation in the 1970s, when the Cultural Revolution witnessed a campaign to ‘Criticise Lin Biao and Confucius’. Tianlong argues that renewed popular interest in Confucianism during the 1980s and 1990s can be explained largely as a reaction to the anxieties and disorientation experienced by many ordinary people during a period of rapid social and cultural change. But he distinguishes this popular movement from the attempts by the Communist Party (CCP) to deploy Confucianism in attempts to shore up its authority, especially after the unrest of 1989 and subsequent collapse of the Soviet bloc. The CCP’s embrace of Confucianism has been highly selective, as it has co-opted a highly selective, conservative-authoritarian interpretation of Confucian thought.
It is this version of Confucianism that, under Xi Jinping, has been folded into the notion of ‘outstanding traditional Chinese culture’. As China’s economy has stuttered and the CCP’s ability to invoke performance legitimacy has consequently waned, a conservative, authoritarian and monolithic vision of ‘Chineseness’ has become increasingly central to the regime’s ideological narrative. At the same time, however, the scope for popular debate over Confucianism or for non-state Confucian activism has significantly narrowed.
In their article, Tianlong and Zhenzhou analyse the treatment of Confucian ideas in school textbooks, showing how these promote a largely Han-centric vision of ‘Chineseness’ and portray Confucianism as central to a historical civilising mission directed at non-Han groups around China’s periphery. As other articles in the special issue also argue (e.g. Yan and Vickers 2023; Bulag 2023), textbook narratives assume a teleology of assimilation, with non-Han people’s inevitably drawn to adopt or conform to the ‘superior’ culture of the Han, with Confucianism at its core.
Tianlong and Zhenzhou sought to investigate the reception of such messages by students from ‘minority’ backgrounds - both from non-Han minzu (or ‘minority nationalities’) and from religious communities. Amongst these informants, they found significant resistance to curricular messages. Although the Party sees Confucianism as useful for establishing a moral and cultural hierarchy that legitimises the social and political status quo, young Chinese from 'minority' backgrounds do not seem to find this messaging particularly convincing or persuasive. This suggests that the CCP's embrace of a conservative, authoritarian brand of Confucianism may actually be counterproductive in terms of the Party's own aims.
The research on which this article is based was conducted in around 2016-2017, just as the government was preparing to strengthen central control over the more politically sensitive school subjects (Chinese language, history, morals, politics), and issue new textbooks. The intervening years have also seen a significant intensification of assimilatory pressure on ‘minority’ groups in China - as other articles in this special issue discuss (e.g. Leibold and Dorjee 2023; Yan and Vickers 2023; Bulag 2023; Tobin 2024). The climate in China today makes the task of updating the research for this article difficult if not impossible, but were it feasible to talk to a similar group of students again, it is hard to imagine them delivering a more positive verdict on the CCP’s educational campaign to foster shared consciousness of a monolithic, homogenous ‘Chineseness’.
Tianlong Yu is Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA. His research focuses primarily on issues of identity, voice, representation, access, power and their relationships to schooling. He researches and writes on moral, citizenship, and multicultural education in both American and Chinese contexts.
Suggested readings:
Tianlong Yu & Zhenzhou Zhao (2023) Confucianism in multicultural China: ‘official knowledge’ vs marginalised views, Comparative Education, DOI: 10.1080/03050068.2023.2273641
Uradyn E. Bulag (2023) The wheel of history and minorities’ ‘self-sacrifice’ for the Chinese nation, Comparative Education, DOI: 10.1080/03050068.2023.2271781
