Budując wspólnotę: o konfucjańskiej demokracji w Chinach

Abstract

In this article the author points out that analyzing the role of Confucianism in Chinese society, and in particular the role of the Contemporary New Confucianism in relation to the possibility of establishing democracy in the ‘Middle Kingdom’, one should adopt the perspective of the widest possible openness to the values practiced there today. Adaptation of democracy to the circumstances of historical, cultural and political is evident. The values existing in Chinese society – those derived from tradition, and those created in the course of changes in the last century – will hardly shape democratic values. Confucian model of democratization can vary between conservative Confucian model of parliament and extreme political liberalism where “everyone is sovereign, all are subjects”. Democracy – or more precisely “Confucian democracy” – in China will be born with a moral conformity between the human individual and the state that reasonable public trust and turn them into co-government. It was then that the power of a “new contract” will arise new Chinese institutions of democracy, concludes the author.