A statue of confucious in Tiananmen square!

KYli said:

It has only symbolic implications rather than huge impacts. The revival of Confucius is only due to an attempt to repair the damages that are done by the CR. China is today anything but communism. However, Confucius still has not evolved itself to become an influential and modern force that can be compete against other ideologies.

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confucianism represents chinese ways: generousity, filial piety, noble integrity, ethics, humbleness, duty, and righteous characters. anyone familiar with chinese history will know what im talking about, especially the confucian emphasis on being an upright person. it's a chinese philosophy that's guided the entire nation through time, and to bring it to all the golden ages and glory. however it's lost in the recent years, and china was indeed, dangerously close to losing is entire culture in terms of its identity and senses during the plights of the early years. these days, where flowers start to bloom again, it's time, and the job, for the chinese government to restore the classical chinese spirits...to put it back into the core of chinese culture..yet to incorporate modern approaches and values. a government that fails such great missions aint the legitimate representing government of the chinese people. once that's achieved, u'd get the modern tang/song dynasty of today's time. to achieve this, it all starts from putting confucianism and teachings (in 21st century version) back into the people. the corruptions, poor social order, poor ethics, the greed, and all the unethics and uglies of modern chinese people stems from the lack of a sense of chinese cultural philosophy and values. with no ethics, they can care less about others, and they have no senses of responsibilities. reviving these chinese philosophy in the people and characteristics, the chinese people will be great as they used to be, and supposed to be

montyp165 said:

Don't think it would be quite that far, particularly as Buddhist resurgence in China is growing faster than the Christians.

In any event, some form of Chinese Secular Humanism needs to develop to overcome any such religious issues, of which democratic socialism could be a possible element.

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my visions of what the chinese government wants to achieve, may even be just a matter of time, is to incorporate confucianism into academics. i wont be surprised the chinese government envisions a mission to create a modern china that encompasses high social values, morals, integrity, while also strongly emphasizing on science, learning. those are all the characteristics of glories of the classical china like tang and song, where learning is rich. and to achieve that, they'd want to incorporate proper moral teachings in the new generation, so all the future ones will grow up to be fine and useful people to contribute to this society.

im excluding economical and such, for we know, they wanted to develop the entire nation to modernized states, pull everyone out of poverty, develop all the rural areas, go green. guidelines of dr sun yat sen for political can be found for wt they strive to achieve. (democratic, equality)

AssassinsMace said:

I would make a guess that this is part of China trying to change its image. Much like how on the J-10 Demonstration team now has China Air Force painted on it, Tiananmen Square only says communism and this breaks away from China just being about communism.

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yea TS should be revived to being the center of chinese culture, not communism. communism doesnt represent chinese culture
wont even be surprised CCP thinks their name stinks, but it's all a transitional phase

montyp165 said:

Don't think it would be quite that far, particularly as Buddhist resurgence in China is growing faster than the Christians.

In any event, some form of Chinese Secular Humanism needs to develop to overcome any such religious issues, of which democratic socialism could be a possible element.

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Really? I thought it was the other one that was growing the fastest.

Christianity absorbed in its first centuries some of the teachings of Plato (Neo-Platonism), at the end of the Middle-Ages the teachings of Aristotle as transmitted by the Muslims and fugitives from the then-defunct Byzantine Empire.
After fighting a diseased confucianism the time has come to celebrate Confucius. He surely is a better Teacher than either Aristotle or Plato.
This needs to be combined with the development of democracy, a concept whole foreign to Confucius and his time. China cannot import democracy from any country in the world, as the politics in every country that calls itself democratic is to some lesser or greater extent dysfunctional and corrupt.
Btw the British paper The Daily Telegraph published an article a few months ago that said, that discussion of economic policies was more democratic in China than in the west. ( my wife encourages me to preserve such articles, but I haven't saved this one. Sorry. She is much better with computers than I am )

I think the notions of "Communist system" and "Capitalist system", and that it is one or the other, are a product of the 20th century. The notion that history progresses in a certain pattern through a pre-determined sequence of "systems" is a notion that Marxism took from European ideas of its day, and when Socialism (as Marxists would call it) was proclaimed in the Soviet Union, this notion just took over the world. It became dogma both in the East and in the West, among the left and among the right.

In my view states, through history, simply find ways that work under their particular circumstances, except for special periods when "ideology" takes over. Essentially, every society has its own system. Naturally, there is also a tendency of convergence, both because of mutual influence among states and especially because of the competition that almost always exists between them.

As to China, sure it is different from the Soviet Union, but actually, it always had a number of differences, and it always remained "Chinese" in various characteristics. When the reforms from 1978 were implemented, I wouldn't say China became "capitalist" either. China, today is MUCH too cohesive and compact to be called "capitalism". Nothing in the West compares, and no state in the world can mobilize the sort of resources that the Chinese state can. Another thing that is particularly interesting to me is that no other state in the world has shown the capacity to radically reform itself time and again with such relatively little strife, to change direction sharply without braking.

Red Moon said:

Another thing that is particularly interesting to me is that no other state in the world has shown the capacity to radically reform itself time and again with such relatively little strife, to change direction sharply without braking.

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Im a little confused here, perhaps I see things a lot more simply, but wasn't the change of dynastys, throughout China's history filled with strife or the last couple of hundred years when China had to try and re invent herself , for want of a better phrase, full of strife?.

bladerunner said:

Im a little confused here, perhaps I see things a lot more simply, but wasn't the change of dynastys, throughout China's history filled with strife or the last couple of hundred years when China had to try and re invent herself , for want of a better phrase, full of strife?.

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I am speaking about the current state (1949 onwards). True, the cultural revolution involved some strife, but the scale of changes throughout these 60 years, and repeated ones, do not occur in most countries without veritable civil wars.

I don't think this has all that a huge impact. It does signify a few things, but it's things that have been happening for a long time now, and this statue is more like a belated "official endorsement" than a change in policy.

First of all, the statue, judging from the picture, is in front of a building. What is that building? Might not it be more appropriately said that the Confucius statue is placed in front of that building than in Tiananmen Square?

Secondly, China has been moving away from the radicalism of the Cultural Revolution for, what, 30+ years now? Most of the CCP leadership has been changed 2 or 3 times already. However, it seems that many people think the CCP still subscribes to Mao's philosophy, as if in the 30+ years of tremendous changes in China, the CCP had remained static. That is, of course, nonsense.

Finally, I am more inclined to view this as a renewed exploration into China's cultural history in order to meet modern-day challenges. I would not be surprised if the statue of Confucius was just the first of many other famous historical figures in the area of Tiananmen Square.

It is a pleasant surprise to see the statute erected in the famous Tiananmen Square. Confucianism started in China (around 500 BC) and its philosophy (not a religion) spread to the Confucianist societies i.e. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Overseas Chinese. I doubt the CCP will give up its leadership, and Communism will still be around for some time to come, hopefully in a different form. It would be good if China adheres to the Confuscious principles of "Peace & Harmony" while it rises economically & militarily.