Repositioning Culture in International Relations: Confucianism as Geopolitical Instrument

Confucianism is a culture taken from the name of a thinker, namely Confucius and is considered the basis of Confucian teachings. The basic view of Confucianism is to invite people to live an orderly, peaceful and happy life and placing the rulers as one of the key factors in achieving the ideals of the country. The aim of this study is to identify and evaluate the chronology of Confucianism and its implications for China's geopolitical sustainability. The method used is qualitative with constructivist ideas to create a comprehensive thought allocation on the impact of Confucianism from the perspective of cultural superiority. The results obtained are that, over time, Confucianism has developed into a tool for the Chinese state to carry out geopolitical instruments to achieve geostrategy for the expansion of territorial boundaries. On the one hand, Confucianism can become a superior culture that places the fighting spirit of the people. On the other hand, this flow can become a trigger for war when each region that is to be recruited for China's expansion has a culture and beliefs that are different from their own. Keywords: Confucianism, China, Geopolitics, Geostrategy.

Women’s Voices and Patriarchal Hegemony of the Edo Period in Shinju Tenno Amijima (1720)

The Edo Period (1603-1868), known as the feudal era, lasted for nearly three centuries in Japan. Confucian teachings applied in all sectors of life had a great influence on the expansion of the patriarchal system in Japanese society at this time. Under the strict control of the Tokugawa shogunate government, the implementation of social class stratification was firmly established, including in the hierarchical relationship between men and women. The period of peace that occurred throughout the Edo period had contributed to a conducive situation for the rapid development of Japanese culture. Male artists were very dominant in the development of Japanese culture, and they were centred in big cities during this period. On the other hand, this era had become a dark age for women who did not get the opportunity to speak and create as men did. The female figures of the Edo period were presented in the works of male writers. This study focuses on examining women’s voices in the works of these male writers in the period. After exploring research on this period’s literary works, we found that these studies have various focuses related to the disclosure of women during the period, starting from the representation of women, their relationship with a male and other female characters, to their roles and positions. This research will contribute to discussions on gender, history, and literature, as well as on the way women's voices in this work serve a purpose in supporting the patriarchal hegemony that occurred in the period. We aim to reveal women’s voices in a male writer's play Shinju Tenno Amijima (1720) by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) through a feminist critique approach. To explain women's voice and patriarchal hegemony, we apply the concepts of silence from Olsen (2003) and hegemony from Antonio Gramsci. The results of this study indicate that women’s voices raised in this play are the ones who support men's interests and are subject to patriarchal values. This play consistently displays the exclusion of women's voices of opposition and defiance. This work also shows its existence as a locus for the dominant values emphasized for women in the Edo period.

Rethinking Gender and Female Laity in Late Imperial Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Biographies

This paper explores how lay female believers are depicted in the Chinese monastic Pure Land Buddhist texts and how a particular late-imperial Chinese Buddhist biography collection betrayed the previously existing narrative of female laity. Moreover, I wish to show that there had existed a long-lasting and persistent non-binary narrative of lay women in Chinese Pure Land biographies admiring female agency, in which female Pure Land practitioners are depicted as equally accomplished to male ones. Such a narrative betrays the medieval monastic elitist discourse of seeing women as naturally corrupted. This narrative is best manifested in the late Ming monk master Yunqi Zhuhong’s collection, who celebrated lay female practitioners’ religious achievement as comparable to men. This tradition is discontinued in the Confucian scholar Peng Shaosheng’s collection of lay female Buddhist biographies in the Qing dynasty, however, in which Peng depicts women as submissive and inferior to males. This transition—from using the stories of eminent lay female Buddhists to challenge Confucian teachings to positioning lay females under Confucian disciplines—exhibits Peng Shaosheng’s own invention, rather than a transmission of the inherited formulaic narration of lay female believers, as he claimed.

Analysis of the Scroll “Ba Bridge in the Snow”: The Results of the Creative Journey of Shen Zhou (1427–1509)

Shen Zhou is the founder of the Wumen-Pai movement, which was prominent in southern China in the XV–XVI centuries. Shen Zhou became famous as a poet, painter, and calligrapher. In the article, the late stage of his creative work is investigated by the example of the vertical scroll “Ba bridge in the snow”. The technique of monochrome writing and the composition of the winter landscape are analyzed. The article examines the influence of biographical and social factors, Confucian teachings and Taoist practices on Shen Zhou’s painting. A comprehensive study of the scroll makes it possible to reveal the master’s worldview. The scroll, without any topographical accuracy, depicts an imaginary view of the bridge on the Bashui River. The study of the poetic inscription demonstrates the discrepancy between the poetic rhyme and the rhythm of calligraphic forms. The gradations of ink tone in calligraphy combine it with the color of painting. Shen Zhou transfers the calligraphic technique of working with the wrist and holding the brush to painting. The scroll uses the composition type “one river three banks”, in which the elements mirror each other upside down. The artist creates a dynamic balance of empty and filled spaces. The most valuable quality of Shen Zhou painting is considered by Chinese experts to be its “desalination” (tribute), which implies a balanced mental attitude, sublime clarity of thoughts and heartfelt sincerity of their expression. Behind the simplicity and naturalness of Shen Zhou’s painting are effective energetic practices and a high mastery of hidden stylistic quotations from masterpieces of previous eras. By the end of his life, Shen Zhou realized the utopian ideal of unlimited longevity and, as the analysis of the scroll shows, found humility before the inevitability of death. Shen Zhou’s art has made his name famous for centuries.

Back to the Roots and Create New Prospects, Creating a New Era of Cultural Cooperation between China and South Korea

Back to the roots and creating new prospects refers to the ideological theme of modern New Confucianism. "Back to the roots (f?nb?n)" refers to inheriting the Confucian orthodoxy and promoting the Confucian teachings of inner sagehood; "creating new prospects (k?ix?n)" refers to the creation of a "new outer kingliness (x?n wài wáng)", that is, creating a new teaching of science and democracy. That is, to return to the origin of traditional culture and develop new prospects on the basis of cultural heritage. Civilization exchanges and mutual learning are important driving forces for the advancement of human civilization and the peaceful development of the world. China and South Korea are located next to each other and have historical and cultural ties since antiquity. Back to the roots and create new prospects, promoting deeper cultural exchanges and cooperation between South Korea and China will benefit the two countries and the world.

Integrating the Thought of Mencius and Xunzi and the Problem of Modernizing Chinese Society

How should people today deal with the teachings of Mencius 孟子 and Xunzi 荀子? This is a question of utmost importance in reviving Confucianism. The thought of Mencius and Xunzi has many inherent complexities and contradictions. After all, they have been revised, reconstituted, and reused alongside shifts in lifestyles and social structures; their respective influence also waxed and waned accordingly. Xunzi’s teachings flourished during China’s transition from monarchical feudalism to imperial autocracy, an indication that Xunzi’s thinking has Legalist elements. The rulers in the imperial period adopted “sole veneration of Confucian learning” [du zun rushu 獨尊儒術], so the suspiciously Legalist teachings of Xunzi went into decline while the orthodox Confucian teachings of Mencius were on the rise. At the same time, Xunzi’s thought continued to play an important, perhaps even fundamental, role in hidden ways. This is the political path of being “openly Confucian, covertly Legalist” [yang ru yin fa 陽儒陰法] practiced under autocratic authority. As Chinese society began to modernize, Xunzi’s teachings enjoyed a revival, revealing that some of its strains were compatible with modern Enlightenment ideas. Further, this modern revival of Xunzi occurred on the heels of a Confucian revival. The fact that the two then more or less continued to coexist indicates the need to rethink the two schools of thought in an integrated way. To do this, I take a page from modern value systems and consider the existing distinctions between Mencius’s and Xunzi’s thinking via a “profit and loss analysis.”

Who Wrote the Analects?

This chapter focuses on the Analects, which is a collection of 512 passages arranged in twenty chapters that describe what Confucius said. The chapter talks about the rationalist neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi who selected the Analects as one of the Four Books to read in order to understand Confucian teachings during the Song dynasty. It also mentions the Five Classics of Confucianism that were traditionally ascribed to Confucius in the sense that he wrote some and edited others. The chapter discusses Ban Gu, a Chinese politician and poet who provided the seminal narrative for how it was thought the Analects was compiled. It also pays attention to the poet and politician Liu Zongyuan, who expressed the opinion that disciples of Zengzi compiled the Analects.

On Being Confucians? Confucius, Confucian Traditions, and the Modern Chinese Society

After a century of its retreat from political and social stages in East Asia, Confucianism eventually found its revival together with the economic industrialization in the region. The awakening consciousness of the traditional Confucian values leads to a reconsideration of their implication on a modern society. Certainly China has experienced massive social and cultural transformations during the last century, an era marked with rapid adoption of Western norms and ideas. In the mean time, Chinese cultural heritages have never been totally cut and the Chinese people and the Chinese society today are still considerably shaped by China’s unique past and its traditional cultural identity, especially by the Confucian traditions. Despite the disruptive scholarly debates on the actual relevance of Confucianism and modernization, there are precious elements within the Confucian values which provide the relevance of Confucianism to the future, such as an ethic of responsibility and the understanding of the humanistic meaning of life. This paper endeavors to explore and discuss various aspects of the relationship between the old Confucian traditions and the modern Chinese cultural identity, including Confucianism as a way of life, Chinese understanding of morality and value relationships, and recent Confucian influence on Chinese politics. On the base of this examination, considerations will be given to demonstrate that Confucian teachings did not perished but are still relevant in modern China. A proper appreciation of these values can help to better comprehend Chinese contemporary society and Chinese cultural identity.