There have been numerous periods of great transformation in human history, such as the upsurge of the scientific revolution, changes from war to peace, and the mega movement from agri-cultural to industrial society. Every great change in the social economy brought sharp conflict between new and old ideas as well as their value basis, and was accompanied by various problems regarding ideals, ethics, welfare and ultimate concern.

Late in the last century Neitzche said that "God is dead: It is necessary to rebuild a whole world, a morality, an aesthetics, a belief, a new humankind and to reassess all values." Accordingly, early in this century there was a social change in China symbolized by the slogan "Down with Confucius and His Sons"; the new culture under the title "May 4th", became a milestone for a new China. However, as this century comes to a close, Christianity remains the value basis of the West, though during this time there has been great destruction from war and changes of regime. Confucianism has not been rooted out, but assumes the new form of Modern Confucianism. Can this be proof that the traditional ideas have solid footing, as had been held by the Chinese for so many years?

As a result, the main method for mastering the characteristics and the spirit of this period of change depends principally upon the research on the basis of values. With a view to revealing this basis for Chinese values this chapter will review the modern meaning of Chinese traditional culture.

China has long been among the civilized countries of the world. Its brilliant civilization is signaled by the Great Wall and countless inventions, though Chinese civilization is far more than this. Put in a modern way, Chinese culture cannot be valued by how many modern cities it has or how many nuclear weapons it holds; the value of Chinese civilization expresses itself principally in its morality, i.e. in the cultivation of the human.

Based on non-religious values, Chinese civilization is quite different from that of Western countries, based on religious values. Confucianism as the mainstream of Chinese culture, along with Taoism and Buddhism, has established the framework of Chinese traditional culture and also has built the mentality of the Chinese people. With the consolidation of the doctrine of Confucius and Mencius, Confucianism gave structure to the ideological system of "Modern Confucianism" through the Han Dynasty, especially in the Song and Ming Dynasty. "Benevolence" was its core, and ethics its standard. Adopted and reinforced by various kings and governors during this period, the system was applied in Chinese politics, economy and laws, which strict disciplines formed the indispensable center of Chinese traditional culture. Accordingly classic Confucianism became the theoretical pattern of this culture, whose ultimate concern was how to become a noble man or gentleman, how to cultivate one’s attitude or outlook.

Confucius says: A man with benevolence is the one who loves all men. The way to carry out benevolence is to establish others if one wishes to be established oneself, and to enhance others if one would enhance oneself. Do not do to others what you would not wish done to yourself. The great learning teaches to enhance illustrious virtue, to renovate the people, and to rest in the highest excellence.

The core value of Chinese culture is to achieve a moral ethics and improve one’s spiritual state. Confucius says: though in the morning one hears the right way, he or she may die in the evening with regret. Another thinker, Meng Zi, states: I am skillful in nourishing my vast, flowing passionate nature. For over 2000 years, the value basis of Chinese society was made up of Confucian ideals, due to which China became one of the cultural and economic centers of the ancient world.

To the virtuous ancient Chinese, human interests and desires were of less importance, and hence not worth pursuing. Confucius states it thus: The one with virtue seek rightness, whereas the one without virtue seeks benefit.

Entering the Song and Ming Dynasties there arose Confucian arguments over whether human desires or heavenly principles should be chosen, and such slogans as "Survive on heavenly principles; root out human desire". All these had a negative effect upon the development of China’s economy and science, which finally led to recent underdevelopment in China’s commerce, industry and science.

The traditional Chinese basis for values, with its principles in Confucianism, fell into dire straits in modern times, especially in the late 19th and early 20th century. Having been invaded by Westerners with comparatively strong guns and fire power, along with Western culture and thought, China was forced to open its door after the Opium War. Confucianism, which had been the support of Chinese culture for so many years, faced a crisis and challenge it had not seen for hundreds of years. After being prosperous in the Song and Ming dynasties, Confucianism was on the wane at the end of Ming. From then till the later Qing dynasty, many researchers could work only by copying and consulting from ancient books due to the monopolization of politics, deadlock in culture and such other reasons as the imperial exam system and the literary inquisition carried out by the Qing government. Fang Dong Mei, a modern Confucianism master, noted that "the philosophy of China was lifeless at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. All creative ideas ceased to function, and from then on philosophy has been dead for nearly three centuries." Though this is a bit of an exaggeration, unquestionably Chinese traditional values lost their vitality in recent centuries.

Now in the 20th century, disputes over the destiny of modern Confucianism can be categorized according to three directions: total Westernization, conciliation of Western and Eastern cultures, modern Confucianism. Besides the leading position of Marxism (China-style) during this century, the May 4th leaders and modern Confucianists probed most deeply into the relationship between the traditional Chinese value basis and modernization.

As the Qing dynasty came to an end, Confucianism, which once had functioned as the government ideology and the foundation of values was declared bankrupt. It was May 4th thinkers who made the real criticism of Confucianism. Represented by Chen Du Xiu, Hu si and Lu Xun, outstanding intellectuals emerging during May 4th period mounted a thorough attack on Chinese traditional culture without prior dialogue. They were brought together through the magazine New Youth under the watchword: "Down with Confucius and Sons".

The May 4th New Culture Movement in the early 20th century can be described as a grand and progressive period of thought. Its great historic achievement was to have accomplished what had taken the West several hundred years from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. With a fierce criticism of Chinese feudal culture and the call for "Science and Democracy", these thinkers brought ancient China into modern times, and made it possible to confront the fundamental challenge, namely, modernization.

Secondly, the core subject of the May 4th period, "Science and Democracy", is still of great value these days. Why had China always found itself in difficulty in the process of modernizations. One crucial reason lies in the constant contradiction between the basic factors for modernization, such as "Science and Democracy" and the Chinese tradition, especially Confucianism. This finally led to such miseries as the "Cultural Revolution" which frustrated China’s step into modernization.

Nonetheless, unforeseen circumstances do occur. Those May 4th thinkers would never expect that after almost one century of revolutions and reformations, when the Chinese people are turning their dream of modernization into reality, there would arise a modern Confucianism.

With the purpose of restoring and revitalizing traditional Confucianism as values, modern Confucianism as a new school of thought is profoundly timely owing to its concern to reform Chinese society, especially though modernization. Modern Confucianism has undergone many changes in accord with the difficulties it experienced, especially in the May 4th period. Facing the crisis in Chinese culture and society early this century, Liang Su Ming, a representative of Modern Confucianism, boldly raised the question of how to relate Confucianism’s future with that of China, by combining the "problem of life" and the "problem of China". "Western culture is a culture based only on matter, which cannot set free its own spirit; only the life directed basically by Confucianism can provide people with the real taste of life. . . . Therefore Confucianism is actually the result of human life and one only destiny of world civilization."

During recent decades there has been a basic change in the historical background of Confucianism. Modern Confucianism has been particularly strengthened by the soaring East-Asian economy, backed by Confucianism. The examples of Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and other Asian countries have in common a cultural background basically represented by Confucianism. In conformity with the historic background mentioned above, the new generation of Modern Confucianism pays more attention to the modernization of China. They think that modernization which is world-wide in scope must be diversified and China must have its own style. This is not merely a difference of terms between "modernization" and "Westernization", since the modernization modelled by Western countries has come up against many problems. The combination of traditional and modern society leaves its mark on the Chinese value system, which shapes all aspects of social life as does the blood in a body. That is why it cannot be discarded simply or turned aside violently, which may end in an impractical "Westernization". Hence modern Confucian thinkers hope that Confucianism can become once again a part of the Chinese value system when the traditional system is revised.

At the turning point of the century and the transition to a new millenium great thinkers can be expected to look backward and for-ward. Nothing is more intriguing than fortune-telling for world culture and in this "the revitalization of Confucianism" is a key subject. "The 21st century will be the century in which the revitalization of Chinese culture takes place," projects Ji Xianlin, a renowned Chinese scholar, in his The 20th Century in China and I.

Guy Alitto, a U.S. philosopher, asserts that Chinese Confucianism will be the world culture in the future instead of a Western culture base on material goods and technology. Alitto’s reason is that, despite the appearance that the economy, transportation and mass media unite the world, social cultures are falling apart. Western technical achievements never provided a blueprint for society in the Third World; rather "Westernization" has brought about a corrosion of their inner order and ethics. Most are crime-ridden. Except for some Islamic societies, families and religions have failed to stabilize society. People get more and more confused and frustrated regarding the meaning of life and have lost the ethics which once had been accepted universally.

In contrast, societies effected profoundly by Confucianism (e.g. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Hongkong, Singapore, including the overseas Chinese) have experienced modernization, industrialization, urbanization and business expansion many times faster than most Western countries at comparable points. Eastern societies have never encountered the problems experienced in the West despite a more rapidly developing political democracy.

In a word, the various problems existing in Western societies and their modernization may well force them to adopt Confucianism as their core ethics. This will neither hurt any individual, nor interfere with the development of modernization and the economy.

People can hardly believe that Confucianism, having undergone catastrophe and been regarded by Max Weber as keeping China from developing a capitalist economy, out of steps with the requirements of modernization, ridiculously out-of-date, and totally corrupt, can now be regarded by many researchers as helpful to the modernization of East-Asian countries.

Levenson, once asserted: "So long as China wants to possess science and make use of it, Confucianism must first be discarded and its social rank lowered. Confucius and Sons must be locked up. . . . Confucianism is already only a record in books which can no longer inspire its followers. It has completely fallen apart." However, Confucianism is now in fashion in China and even in the world. All kinds of Confucian books are written and related conventions are held everywhere. This can be attributed partly to East-Asian industrialization and the effect of modern Confucianism, but what the real weight is Confucianism itself, its perduring value and significance.

In fact, before the publication of the books of Max Weber and Levenson, Liang Suming had estimated that "Chinese culture is going to revive in the near future’ (1921). In the "Dialogue between A.J Toynbee and Chi Tian Da Zuo", the historian expresses his viewpoint that it will not be Western or Westernized countries which will reunite the world, but China. Its present prestige is because it promises to fulfill that future task. China’s government has always united its millions of people for the past 2200 years, except for some very short periods. So long as it is united, its suzerainty has been accepted. Even some remote areas have been touched by the traditional culture. Since 221 B.C. China has been the center of half of the world, exerting influence almost all the time. In the last 500 years the world has been united on Western terms. Only China can undertake the task of politically reuniting its half of the world, indeed even the whole world, and of bringing peace.

"As for the Chinese people, several thousand years witness that they rally hundreds of millions of people, not only culturally but politically, and more successfully than any other nations. The wits and skills they possess and their constant experience are the indispensable requirement for the union of today’s world. This is the precise reason why the cooperation of Chinese and East-Asian people will perform a leading role in the absolutely necessary and unavoidable reunion of different peoples."

Considering Confucianism, it is difficult to agree with those who speak of a "revitalization of Confucianism," or of the world of the 21st century turning out to be Confucian in style. I would hope rather that Confucianism would become part of a diversified world culture. For all the reasons above it would be a new endeavor to rebuild the Chinese cultural spirit and its value basis from a modern view point at this turn of the millennia. A developed Western market-oriented economy is based upon individualism, it was an individualistic life-style and ethics that created the Western "civilization disease". Statements from Hobbes’s "Man is wolf to man" to Sartre’s "The other is hell" suggest that Western ethics has deviated far from civilization.

The style of East-Asian modernization, modeled upon Japan, has its essence rather in "teamwork", which actually is a kind of modernization grounded in a combination of Western economy and Confucianism ethics. The miracle of East-Asian civilization indicates that Confucianism could be a "supporting ideology" for developed countries.

A modern cultural spirit and a basis for values featuring Chinese socialist modernization will go beyond both "individualism" and "teamwork". With the connotation of "one’s own free will" and "complete free development of the human" from Marxism. This combines the essence of Eastern and Western cultures, faces directly the greatest error of Chinese culture, namely, its overlooking the individual, and upholds the idea of an individualized modern period whose goal is to set people truly free. The cultural heritage passed down from the ancient Chinese ancestors provides abundant content for this.

One of the exciting developments at the very end of the 20th century is the strong development of China’s economy. This quickens the pace of the development of Chinese culture and ethics by overcoming many cultural conflicts and transforming society. Needless to say, the rules of the market-oriented economy greatly strengthen the people’s desire for money and a utilitarian spirit. This is accompanied by rapacity, drugs, environmental malpractice, spiritual barrenness, etc., all of which generate ethical deviations which become more than mere words to scare people. A.J. Toynbee stated that until now, people’s ethics have always remained on a low level, whereas the level of technical achievement has risen tremendously and at a speed faster than ever experienced heretofore. As a result, the gap between technology and ethics looms large. This is not only disgraceful, but of vital import. As has happened in many periods of human history, certain ethical problems now stand out for ethics in modern China regarding wealth, ideals and even ultimate concern. There now exists for Chinese intellectuals the challenge of serious research on modernization, such as how to rebuild a corresponding value system. Though Confucianism and modern Confucianism are not going to play the leading role in developing this value base, modern Confucianism can render positive service when Chinese culture and values are rebuilt through a creative reformation and transformation which cannot be separated from Chinese traditional culture.