Introduction

the Confucian challenge

pp. 1-17

in: Eske , The Confucian political imagination, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

This chapter describes the revival of Confucianism in contemporary China both at the level of government, and among intellectuals and the common people. For the first time the West is forced to consider Confucianism not as an exotic philosophy that need not concern us but as the ideological supplement to a powerful state that is challenging Western hegemony. But contemporary Westerners have difficulties in understanding the impact of China and its Confucian tradition in the present. The chapter describes the difficulties liberals and left-wing theorists have in understanding China, and outlines the argument that follows.