Strange bedfellows: Legitimacy, the Chinese Communist Party and Confucius

Chinese society has been ideologically confused since the demise of institutional Confucianism at the fall of the last imperial dynasty. The Chinese state’s long search for a viable legitimation scheme in its long march towards modernity seems to be continuing, with the latest episode of this search being labelled by some academics as a Confucian turn by the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). The conception of legitimacy used in the debate, however, is unclear, and the strand of Confucianism being invoked and the way that this is being used are also rarely discussed in the literature.

This thesis devises a normative legitimacy framework drawing on the ideas of Bernard Williams and Jurgen Habermas to examine the legitimacy of the CPC as an original contribution to the debate on the legitimacy of the Chinese state. An analysis of the Chinese elite discourse with reference to Confucianism is conducted to determine the nature of the turn, and forms this thesis’s original contribution to the debate on the Confucian turn and the legitimation efforts of the CPC. It is found that the CPC has legitimation deficits. The strand of Confucianism being invoked is likely to be folk Confucianism, and the Confucian turn is based on a nationalistic drive with Confucius and Confucianism being used as symbols of Chinese identity.

The thesis also conceptualises a Confucian democracy based solely on canonical Confucian texts as a viable alternative to liberalism suitable for the legitimisation of a modern Chinese state. This contributes to the search for an appropriate ideological base for the legitimisation of the Chinese state in its long transition to modernity. So, while the CPC and Confucianism are strange bedfellows in the context of legitimacy, Confucianism and the legitimacy of a modern Chinese state can be natural soulmates.