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in an Age of Universalism
and Globalization?
Gilbert Rozman
fascination rose over a cultural disposition seen as positive for meeting the
challenges of one era, it fell with doubts about any utility in the next. Now
globalization via WTO and democratization in South Korea and Taiwan are
eroding lingering ideals. It is tempting to simply forget about Confucianism
and fix our gaze on the requirements of a different era.
Recent discourse supports such an outlook. After the Asian financial crisis,
defenders of Confucianism are barely visible. In China the state has turned
to great power nationalism rather than Eastern values.4 The interlopers in
Southeast Asia who pretended that "Asian values" are synonymous with
of 2000, and to Hahm Chaibong for stimulating my interest in Korean Confucianism and serving as
discussant for the paper. I also want to thank the Yonsei graduate students who assisted as language
instructors.
2 Countries have taken their turn as the favourite example for advocates of Confucian continuities.
First, Japan's distinct social relations took centre stage; Ronald Dore, ed., Aspects of Social Change in
Modern Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). Next Taiwan was cited as the only "country
where Confucianism is officially worshipped;" Hung-chao Tai, ed., Confucianism and Economic Development:
An Oriental Alternative (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute Press, 1989), p. 4. Singapore then
claimed the mantle of most Confucian. Kishore Mahbubani, Can Asians Think? (Singapore: Times
Editions, 1998). Finally, after growing infatuation with the idea that Eastern civilization is on the rise,
Chinese cultural nationalism claimed to be its new standard-bearer. Yongnian Zheng, Discovering Chinese
Nationalism in China: Modernization, Identity, and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999). South Korea may have the best case of all, as discussed in this paper.
3 In Japan the term nihonjinron the "theory of being Japanese" combines elements of
Confucianism with nativist beliefs. In China the term dongfang wenming"Eastern civilization" embraces
Confucian traditions; even "socialism with Chinese characteristics" is used to convey these traditions.
Yet, in every corner of the region there is agreement on the term for Confucianism with the same
characters - rujiao, jukyo, yugyo.
4 Gilbert Rozman, "China's Quest for a Great Power Identity," Orbis, vol. 3, no. 3, (Summer
1999), pp. 383-402.
11
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by the U.S. in 2001 calls for a unified civilization, casting doubt on divisive
This paper argues that the battle is not over. Before we read its obituary, let
Confucianism was, why it declined, the reasons for its recent rise and fall, an
possibilities for its eventual resurgence. We should do this not in the manner
of boosters who champion the civilizing, moral qualities of Confucianism as a
compatibility of its practices with modernization and globalization and the valu
of its legacy for nations in a time of rising regionalism and changing global
environment. Whether confident from success in a new round of competition
or frustrated from failure, East Asian states singly and as a group are likely
take a fresh look at their traditions. Highlighting the case of South Korea mak
sense: It is the most Confucian country,s and it has seen the most intense deba
over the prospects for Confucianism.'
5 Harumi Befu, "Nationalism and Nihonjinron," in Harumi Befu, ed., Cultural Nationalism in
East Asia: Representation and Identity (Berkeley: Inst. of East Asian Studies, University of California
6 Jun Sang-in, "No (Logical) Place for Asian Values in East Asia's Economic Development
Development and Society, vol. 28, no. 2, (December 1999), pp. 191-204.
7 Chaibong Hahm, "How the East Was Won: Orientalism and the New Confucian Discourse
East Asia," (Seoul: unpublished ms., 2000).
8 Koh Byong-ik, "Confucianism in Contemporary Korea," in Tu Wei-Ming, ed., Confuci
Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mi
Dragons (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 191.
9 The question of Confucianism's viability is being taken most seriously in Korea. While t
literature on Confucianism has faded elsewhere, Korean academics continue to give the subject clos
attention. See for example Hahm Chaibong, Yugyo chabonjuwi minjujuwi (Seoul: Chontong kwa hyond
2000), and the 1998-99 issues of thejournals of Chontong kwa hyondae and Tongasia munhwa wa sasan
12
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and business enterprises, and the macro-level of the state and its guid
thought. Local elites had a vested stake in reinforcing Confucianism.'o
serving society, and the hierarchy seen in bureaucratic authority and seniori
one time in history as if they are not indispensable for survival of the tradit
fall of the premodern order, but in other ways it survived to today. Its colla
was occurring." With the failure of each national system under the n
circumstances after 1840, a natural reaction was to blame Confucianism.
12 Some changes continued. For instance, instead of seeing China as stagnant in the sixteenth to
eighteenth centuries, we would highlight the rise of both sub-elites imitating and competing with the
local gentry and merchant groups embracing Confucian ideals. They broadened the base of Confucian
social behaviour.
13
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but drew the line well short of what is commonplace in the West, making
renewed family solidarity a means to household entrepreneurship and longterm planning to counter anomie and disruptive mobility. Families led the
way in the prosperity of small-scale enterprises and, despite rapid changes,
preservation of social order. Even when large enterprises set the pace for development, family farming or shops became a bulwark of society. Especially South
largely duplicated that taught in the West, youngsters impressed the world
with mastery of the facts. Although self-criticism mounted about insufficient
organizations largely seems familiar, nowhere else have such diligent labour
patterns emerged and worked. Each East Asian state has sought to keep this
foundation even after recognizing that industriousness is not enough for
global competition and the satisfaction of younger generations.
As the successor states in the East Asian region gained confidence from
economic success, they articulated a national identity drawing heavily on
Confucian characteristics, even at times crediting this tradition. The resulting
national loyalties are deep and clearly focused on catching up, that is, more
accepting of sacrifice and state leadership than in the West. Elites do not
seem to be in a rush to forego these emotional ties to the state.
Critics deserve credit for not losing sight of the changes required in
advanced stages of modernization and newfound globalization, warning that
particularism could derail these same countries or lead to misleading ideals
of a different route to a world order."3 After all, defenders of the tradition
13 Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1997), pp. 46-47.
14
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countries of East Asia over one to two thousand years,14 while "de
Confucianization" was a process over the past century. Since the Confucia
tradition became a way of life, analyzing it does not take the form of asking
embedded its practices are. The degree of its presence can be visualized
along a rising and later a descending curve. Comparisons are easier if w
divide practices into: imperial or state, reform, elite, mass, and merchant or
enterprise Confucianism.'5
History reveals a continuous process of social integration, widening circles
exams and freedom to buy and sell property that favour mobility, and through
freedom of movement across ever larger territories. But plans for instan
removal of boundaries may cause disruptions that could be avoided by
gradual changes. They may actually lower levels of social integration or creat
mounting and becoming closely intertwined. Some come from the "glob
14 Patricia Ebrey, JaHyun Kim Haboush, and Martin Collcutt took parallel approaches to th
history of Confucianization in Gilbert Rozman, ed., The East Asian Region: Confucian Heritage and I
Modern Adaptation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). See "The Chinese Family and Spre
of Confucian Values," pp. 45-83, "The Confucianization of Korean Society," pp. 84-110; and "T
Networks in Russia, 1750-1800, and Premodern Periodization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976
17 For comparisons of these three types of social integration at different stages of modernization
see Cyril E. Black, et al., The Modernization of Japan and Russia (New York: The Free Press, 197
andGilbert Rozman, ed., The Modernization of China (NewYork: The Free Press, 1980).
15
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community" centred in the West; domestic forces are playing a growing role
too.'s The most modernized sectors and those whose talents have not been
from both international and domestic sources. See MarionJ. Levy, Jr., Modernization and the Structu
16
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human nature and extending the attitudes and rituals of civilization to the
population as a whole, all three had Confucianized to the extent that "mass
to see periodic markets spread across the countryside, while Japan exceeded
China by 1800 in the intensity of its "merchant Confucianism" centred on
applying the principles of this worldview to commercial houses. Measures of
social integration such as urbanization indicate a long history of East Asian
precocity.21
What works for one stage of history may not be an advantage at another.
to its feudal roots, Korea may have faced the hardest transition. Choson
Korea was the most thoroughly Confucianized.24 Despite the absence of
dogmatic moral certitude,25 full-scale Confucianization brought growing
21 Gilbert Rozman, "Urban Networks and Historical Stages," in Theodore K. Rabb and Robert I.
Rotberg, eds., Industrialization and Urbanization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp.
257-84.
22 John W. Hall's work on the Tokugawa era analyzes the spread of impersonal arrangements, on
which I elaborated in "Social Change," Marius B.Jansen, ed., The Cambridge History ofJapan, Vol. 5: The
Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 499-568.
23 Gilbert Rozman, "East Asian Urbanization in the Nineteenth Century: Comparisons with
Europe," A. Van der Woude, et.al., eds., Urbanization in History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp.
61-73.
24 Tu Wei-Ming, "Confucius and Confucianism," in Walter H. Slote and George A. DeVos, eds.,
Confucianism and the Family (Albany: SUNY, Albany, 1998), p. 30.
25 F. W. Mote, Imperial China 900-1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 959.
17
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social control."26 Greater social engineering from the top and tighter elite
order than in China left less flexibility,2" and Korea was less commercialized
than China and Japan.28 From historical comparisons we may rank Japan,
China and Korea in that order as prepared for the challenges of de-
Confucianization.
From their forced opening until World War I, East Asian states scrambled
and its weaker form in Japan gave way quickly to a modern, centralized stat
courtesy of the family system and the slow changes in rural society. Even in
and universalism worked fastest. China had trouble forging new means
was a formula for social disorder in China and social discontent in Korea.
state, stood in the way. Ironically, nationalist successes in restoring the sta
26 Haejoang Cho, "Male Dominance and Mother Power: The Two Sides of Confucian Patriarc
in Slote and DeVos, eds., Confucianism and the Family, pp. 195-96.
27 Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideo
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 290-92.
28 James B. Palais, ed., Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions (Seattle: University of Washin
18
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after egregious symbols - the ritual role of the emperor, blind marriages,
etc. - were gone.
It proved easier to build a strong state than a vibrant society. New regimes
the outside world. This led to a more benevolent attitude toward Confucian
could serve an authoritarian leadership able to reward local elites with jobs,
government contracts and recognition of their autonomous control. Second,
at this stage the masses were quite removed from initial modernization in
the cities and could be better quieted by reaffirming their traditions than
reversing them. Third, traditional elements supportive of centralization came
in handy. Leaders reasserted links between filial piety and loyalty, emphasized
the responsibility of the state to put the society in order, and capitalized on
suspicions toward intermediate organizations between the state and kinship
groups to question the legitimacy of potential rivals for power.
By the 1930s Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and militaristJapan all combined
modernization of their economies with state mobilization and expansionism.
As a colony of Japan, Korea had no choice but to be part of this strategy.
Nationalist China emulated the organizational forms of administrative
power. Japan relied more on the ie, the corporate household, as a strong
unit of solidarity as well as community integration through the village and
the neighbourhood association. In practice, a form of imperial Confucianism
was given new life, while mass Confucianism found the environment quite
Buddhists.so
The interwar era with its world depression brought little globalization.
Strong states extending nationalism beyond their borders forced regional
19
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those who did not embrace nationalism turned primarily to foreign ideologies
imperial Confucianism to reassert itself and for the state to use mass
Confucianism against an individualism blamed on the West.
Korea the mobilization of the previous era persisted. Given low levels of
development, there was ample room for extending this model, even if its
application invoked extreme levels of mobilization that left no room for
China's patriarchal rural family was largely intact, although the extended
family system had been lost; the rural community was mostly self-reliant,
despite losing mobility as state policies operated against the market; and no
civil society limited the state, with its enduring moral superiority and top
down assertiveness. Denouncing Confucian particularism without replacing
it, socialism achieved very unbalanced modernization and created strong
barriers to globalization.
InJapan and Korea and, differently, Taiwan and Singapore, Confucianism
found new life in the economic and political model chosen for integration
into the Western bloc. This may be surprising because these four areas
experienced the fastest modernization in world history during the decades
of the 1950s to the 1980s. Indeed, it may be in part because of the speed of
the transition that particularistic elements played a large role even as
31 Andrew G. Walder, Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry (Berkeley:
20
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application of rules, transfer of retired personnel to key positions in nongovernment organizations and the private sector, a lack of checks and
1986).
34 Gerald E. Caiden, "Introduction: Drawing Lessons from Korea's Experience," and Mahn Kee
Kim, "The Administrative Culture of Korea: A Comparison with China andJapan," in Gerald E. Caiden
and Bun Woong Kim, A Dragon's Progress: Developmental Administration in Korea (West Hartford, CN:
Kumarian Press, 1991), pp. xiv-xxii and 26-38.
21
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East Asian nations took pride in the traditional roots of their economic
success, yet each had misgivings about its own brand of particularism. Reasons
for doubt largely came from within. The Japanese public chafed under
growing awareness that inequalities were widening, quality of life trailed far
behind the West, and initiative was stifled. They sensed that things were
unfair as corruption scandals exploded. With high modernization levels,
they wanted more universalism. Koreans had similar complaints, plus they
had a pent-up demand for democratization, unleashed but not satisfied wit
the end of military rule. Chinese associated particularism with Communis
party rule and its high level of corruption. The Taiwanese began to search
for a national identity to justify continued separation from China, and
distanced themselves from the Confucianism that was now more accepted
in China but twisted for nationalist ends and missing core public ethics
Even without a single crisis resulting from short-term factors, there wer
inborn limitations to a model for catching up, borrowing, and export-led
growth as the world kept moving ahead.
In 1997 the IMF became the scapegoat, especially in South Korea, for
22
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appeal power from successful neighbours. While the balance of these fou
forces varied, their impact occurred almost simultaneously. They added an
intellectual veneer to the structural reality of Confucian practices, while
obscuring the forces against traditions.
as officials guiding the business sector, but the developmental state is on the
retreat. Instead of turning into a regulatory state in which the brightest and
23
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a diminished role for the state. Clearly China's recent dynamism draws on
the same sort of social relations as Taiwan and Hong Kong, although local
and central governments politicize relations and leave little room for the
moral force of personal cultivation. In each case Confucian capitalism is
institutions.40
much slower, global innovation far quicker, national markets much less
protected, and workers newly emboldened by higher levels of modernization.
too soon to say that the Confucian elements are markedly decreasing. It
may be that political Confucianism associated with the imperial Confucianism
University Press, 1989), pp. 63-105; Kim Byung Kook, "The Politics of Reform in Confucian Korea:
Dilemma, Choice, & Crisis," Segye chiyok yongu nonsol, no. 11 (1997), pp. 87-122.
24
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that could revive reform or elite Confucianism. In the early postwar years
when graduates of Tokyo University, Seoul National University, Taiwan
University and Beijing University were entering state service in droves and
finding great opportunities for upward mobility, there seemed to be a chance
that their idealism would transform official service. There might have been
a new elitism reminiscent of the ideals of Confucian scholar-officials. But at
marginalizing effects of seniority rule and the corrupting effects of state authorit
or through local traditions. One target has been marriage laws that restrict
individual choice. Until it was declared void by the Constitutional Court in
1997 Article 809 of the Civil Code of South Korea prohibited marriages
between people with the same surname and ancestral seat. Since some lineage
42 Hahm Chaibong, "The Family v. the Individual: The Politics of Marriage Law in Korea," (Seoul:
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less urbanized areas, also clings to family traditions due to their beliefs and
their desire to retain power. No less at fault in China is the cynical use of
nationalism by leaders, who first pervert cultural awareness of their own
traditions and those in the West and then bemoan the deterioration of social
ethics.
Confucianism has lost its lustre for much the same reasons across East
Asia. The most powerful are: 1) a rise in nationalism that makes the areas o
the region more competitive with each other rather than seeking a common
global ideology, and rapidly declining birth rates coupled with changing
childrearing practices and the rising status of women; and 4) the Asian
financial crisis and declining non-competitiveness. Of course, the relative
weight of these factors differs by country. Pride has diminished; the reality
of public opinion with little faith in traditions remains.
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likely to turn to time-tested Western models of the rule of law, the separati
43 Kim Byung Kook, "The Politics of Reform in Confucian Korea: Dilemma, Choice and Crisis
pp. 87-122.
44 Marius B. Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1992), p. 68.
45 Lucian W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 55-89.
46 MizoguchiYuzo and Nakajima Mineo, eds.,Jukyo renessansu o kangaeru (Tokyo: Daisukan shoten,
1991); Muramatsu, Ei,Jukyo no doku (Tokyo: PHP kenkyujo, 1992).
27
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thought,47 amidst doubts that the political system is able to overcome groups
Korea to bounce back from the severe economic downturn of 1997-98. China
has yet to reach a watershed, when its rate of growth drops to the world
average. Across a region that mastered the art of latecomer modernization,
social forces are in place to sustain past successes and the potential to facilitate
boundaries.
in favour of openness and trust that should guide reforms in our new era.
One of the common refrains in each East Asian country is that because
traditions are different, the next stage of reforms must not listen much to
the advice of the West. In Korea in 1998, for instance, there was much talk
47 Daniel A. Bell, David Brown, Kanishka Jayasuriya and David Martin Jones, Towards Illiberal
Democracy in Pacific Asia (Oxford: St. Martin's Press, 1995);Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell, eds.,
The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
48 Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues & The Creation of Prosperity (New York: The Free
Press, 1995), pp. 69-82, 127-45, 161-93.
49 Lucian W. Pye, "Civility, Social Capital, and Civil Society: Three Powerful Concepts for
Explaining Asia," Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Spring 1999), pp. 763-82.
50 Lew Seok-choon, "Yugyo chabonjuwi kwa IMF kaeip," Chontong kwa hyondae (Fall 1998), pp.
24-57.
28
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Chinese identity is likely to draw parts of the region together and become
the driving force. It would be more authentic if it came gradually through
the popular will in defence of personal interests rather than being imposed
by the state in defence of vested interests.
Taking at face value statements by national leaders, we would be tempted
to say that Korea leads Taiwan followed byJapan, then Singapore and China,
and finally North Korea in readiness for the trust required by globalization.
It appears that the shock of the IMF has propelled Korea into the most
radical reforms and rhetoric, while the need to distant itself from China is
driving Taiwan. In both countries new leaders have come from the democratic
of their societies. President Kim Dae Jung was long obsessed with
those who have more vested interests in retaining much of the existing
economic model. Even among the many who associate excessive state
centralization and chaebol mismanagement with Confucian traditions, there
are quite a few who differ with Kim on the pace of change, believing that
Korea is not ready for the Anglo-American model even if it is desirable in
the long run. Lacking a firm political base, Kim has compromised with vested
interests in ways that cost him support also from those who favour more
rapid reform.
Likewise in Japan, despite the clamour for far-reaching changes since
1993 and the promise of a series of "big bang" reforms, powerful opponents
make fundamental change unlikely for the present. Restarting the economy
is the first priority, and pump-priming measures keep channelling huge
amounts of government funds into the hands of the beneficiaries of the old
economic order. As in Korea, there is a fear that universalism opens the way
to globalization, which damages national interests and even sovereignty. After
a century of associating modernization reforms with a strong state and
reinforced sovereignty, the preparation for global integration is inadequate.
as well as the distribution of power. For a long time the image of Western
organizations has contrasted with these traditions. It is one of performance-
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an impetus that was accelerated with the economic stagnation from the early
in Japan in a mere three years from 1996 to 1999 through web-page access,
e-mail communications, and a host of other information changes that create
One question is whether the Korean people are abandoning their trust
51 Akio Kunii, "Corporate Culture and the Introduction of Information Technology," Institutefor
International Policy Studies Policy Paper 257E (December 2000).
52 Hahm Chaibong, "The Confucian Tradition and Economic Reform," inJongryn Mo and Chongin Moon, Democracy and the Korean Economy (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1999), pp. 35-54.
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moral aspects of the tradition can endure. But before that can happen the
universalism of elections must be supplemented by a host of other reforms
to achieve fairer government representing all of the people. One test will be
whether, in coming elections, extreme differences in voting by region will
be narrowed.53
by Jon Byong-je.55 Even in the reforms of President Kim Young Sam the
embeddedness of practices associated with Confucianism proved very hard
to overcome, as explained by Kim Byong Kook.56
Along with the state, the chaebol are the primary barrier to universalism in
Korea. Chaebol heads were known for strict Confucian values: generational
order, hierarchy, patriarchy, subordination of women and stress on loyalty.57
financial crisis.
personal social relations, apart from the largest organizations in Korea. The
relentless pace of modernization and new forces of globalization such as
53 Chachi haengfong, no. 1 (1998). The results for
the people in Kwangju voted for Kim DaeJung, while
who nationwide received 41 percent of the vote. By
72.7 percent his opponent.
54 "Mountains and Molehills: Korea's Corruption
2000.
55 Byong-je Jon, "Regionalism and Regional Conflict in Korea," in Kim Kyong-Dong and SuHoon Lee, eds., Asia in the 21st Century: Challenges and Prospects (Seoul: Pannum Book Co., 1990), pp.
182-95.
56 Kim Byong Kook, "The Politics of Reform in Confucian Korea: Dilemmas, Choice, and Crisis,"
pp. 87-122.
57 Eun Mee Kim, BigBusiness, Strong State: Collusion and Conflict in South Korean Development, 1960-
31
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dissatisfaction more than smooth the way to more harmony. The attitudes
that are leading the way in the rise of East Asian regionalism, informal ties
identity,62 we may overlook the growing gap between national identity and a
strongly critical of the way Confucianism has been invoked to date predict
that it has some survival value in the preservation of individual and family
values different from those in the West.6" It remains to be specified what the
survival mechanisms are and how they can operate in a society that accepts
increased universalism and opens itself to increased globalization. Problems
60 Won Bae Kim, "Family, Social Relations, and Asian Capitalism," Journal of International and
Area Studies, vol. 5, no. 1 (December 1998), pp. 65-79.
61 Dajin Peng, "The Changing Nature of East Asia as an Economic Region," Pacific Affairs, vol.
73, no. 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 178-80.
62 Cho Hae-Joang, "Constructing and Deconstructing 'Koreanness.
64 Park Myoung-Kyu and Chang Kyung-Sup, "Sociology between Western Theory and Korean
Reality: Accommodation, Tension and a Search for Alternatives," International Sociology (June 1999),
pp. 148-51.
32
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in competition but should also include the social institutions, domestic and
international, through which people interact. It is there that the real, rather
democratic state and grew more confident of its relations with China and
Russia, writings on Japan became more assertive, adding to anxieties about
both the past and the future of that country. At about the same time, China's
people do not know the truth, Koreans respect Chinese Confucian history
33
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has a long way to go. American society has a much higher degree of
universalism in the recruitment and promotion of individuals according to
performance. Women have more opportunities. Fitting into the group is
less important. Young people can rise quickly or start their own companies
easily. As barriers fall in the new era, East Asian particularism that narrows
scientists are likely to answer "no," since they are preoccupied with the
65 Marco Orru, Nicole Woolsey Biggart, and Gary G. Hamilton, The Economic Organization ofEast
Asian Capitalism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997).
66 Wm. Theodore de Bary and Tu Weiming, eds., Confucianism and Human Rights (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1998).
67 Fang Litian and BiJundu, eds., Ruxue yu Zhongguo wenhua xiandaihua ((Beijing: Zhongguo
renmin daxue chubanshe, 1998).
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only a few who would answer "yes" on the basis of a vision of a Confucian
legacy after much additional de-Confucianization and universalism. They
should be taken seriously for four reasons. 1) East Asian societies have the
foundation to be competitive if they grasp the trend of the times, since their
nations change to embrace new family forms rather than standing in the
importance of the state. If East Asian states can expand democracy whi
focusing on overcoming vested interests and corruption, they may play
more positive role.68 In short, we must test American assumptions about the
superiority of creativity without rote learning, individualism without sustained
family pressure, and civic society without an active state. Now globalizatio
favours the Anglo-American model, but competition among nations as we
as firms and individuals is bound to continue, with East Asian actors fully in
the fray.
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that Japan was a normal country in the first half of the twentieth century
driven to war by the U.S. and intent on liberating Asia from Western
imperialism. If, in their rediscovery of the past,Japanese appeal to traditional
open, but the collapse of its development model has left little energy for
claims of superior values. Struggling to advance unification without it
occurring precipitously, the South seeks balance among the powers, not a
cultural label to widen the divide among them. The search for nationalist
identities is not likely to lead soon to Confucianism.
In the next decades Confucianism may again find broad acceptance in
the region if: 1) globalization is halting, provoking fear of global culture
and a new surge of nationalism; 2) regionalism makes progress, leading to a
search for commonalities to boost its prospects; 3) business organizations
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Another scenario sees Confucianism returning more slowly and with less
rejection of globalization. In a decade or two after each country has adapted
more to the WTO and made more domestic political reform, we may see a
different kind of Confucianism rise to the fore, one more accepting of
international integration, yet still supportive of distinct regional traditions
male chauvinism, seniority over merit, and official fears of civil society.
also supports family mobility strategies, educational ambitions, sacrifice for
battle for reform in East Asian countries will be long and difficult, requiring
more interest groups to stand up to the vested interests with a narrow notion
of the tradition.
The struggle ahead is not new, although the pressure from globalization
far exceeds any previous outside forces. Confucianism in premodern times
played a constructive role in expanding universalism and incorporating
elements of particularism. In the modern era its legacy contributed to a
boost in universalism while sustaining an unusual degree of particularism. It
can still contribute positively, if protectionist forces do not treat universalism
as if it is Americanization, fearing competition.
Modest in its appeals to tradition and nationalism, it would hold the best
chance of becoming a long-term force for local competitiveness and regional
vitality able to find new wind with globalization. Moderated by pressures for
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