Recent years have seen a great deal of interest in the extent to which “Asian values,” or Confucian ideology, either inhibit or advance a country's acceptance of liberal-democratic norms. The research on this question is varied, but generally falls into one of two categories: theoretical or quantitative. The theoretical literature is mostly interested in interpreting the key values of Confucianism and examining how they affect society and politics. This approach assumes that East Asian societies are Confucian, that Confucian values shape cultural attitudes, and that cultural attitudes determine the success or failure of political enterprises. Where the theoretical arguments differ is in how they interpret Confucianism and the cultural impact that it has in East Asia. Samuel Huntington (Reference Huntington1996) and Lucien Pye (Reference Pye2006), for example, contend that the Confucian values of family loyalty, social hierarchies, and social harmony are necessarily inimical to liberal-democratic norms. Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has extolled “Asian values” — a proxy for a particular form of Confucianism — for promoting economic development and political stability, but also for limiting the kind of “excessive” personal liberties exercised in the West (Zakaria Reference Zakaria1994; Lee Reference Lee2000). Political leaders of the People's Republic of China have made similar claims in recent years about the political implications of Confucian values (Fan Reference Fan2007).

Theodore de Bary (Reference de Bary1998), Daniel Bell (Reference Bell2008), and Joseph Chan (Reference Chan, Bauer and Bell1999), on the other hand, counter that the Confucian tradition is flexible and that elements of Confucianism can provide the basis for democratic governance. They argue that a distinction should be made between the political implementation of Confucianism throughout history and what the tradition actually teaches. While they acknowledge that political leaders have manipulated Confucianism for their own narrow purposes in the past, these authors contend that Confucianism teaches the need for open criticism of governing officials and emphasizes the individual and the mutual obligations that bind people together, all of which are arguably incipient democratic values.

The quantitative literature counters that what Confucianism might or might not teach is irrelevant to its applicability to democracy. What matters, instead, is whether adherence to Confucian values at the mass level has any impact on support for democracy. The results of these empirical analyses have been mixed. Using public opinion data, some studies have demonstrated that support for Confucian values feeds anti-democratic sentiment (Nathan and Chen Reference Nathan and Chen2004; Chang, Chu and Tsai Reference Chang, Chu and Tsai2005; Chang and Chu Reference Chang, Chu, Chu, Diamond, Nathan and Shin2008). Other studies are more equivocal, finding that certain Confucian values undermine democratic values, others support it, and still others have no effect (Park and Shin Reference Park and Shin2004; Fetzer and Soper Reference Fetzer and Soper2007).

What is curiously absent from the debate is an analysis of how political elites and democracy activists in actual practice understand the relationship between Confucianism and liberal democracy. This silence is surprising for several reasons. While they appreciate the role that educated elites traditionally played within Confucian societies, theoretical approaches have shown little inclination to examine how contemporary political activists and leaders — presumably the very people that would carry the Confucian tradition — understand Confucianism and how they apply it to their political practice. Previous quantitative studies have similarly failed to gauge how political leaders understand Confucianism because of an assumption that what matters are mass-level attitudes. However, the results of such empirical analyses often depend on the way in which those studies define and operationalize Confucian values. These quantitative approaches to this question might benefit from a more refined appreciation of how people actually interpret the Confucian tradition.

For the purposes of this article, we will define Confucianism as an ethical system that places primary emphasis on family loyalty, social hierarchies, and social harmony. The issue in this study is not whether Confucianism theoretically advances a set of political norms, or if Confucianism at the mass-level predicts support for liberal democracy. Rather, our goal is to examine whether Confucianism, on the ground, has been seen by political activists as an aid or detriment to their efforts. Do the people involved in the democracy and human-rights movements in Taiwan perceive the Confucian tradition as positive, negative, or neutral in the arguments that they make and in the work that they do? In Chinese history, it is a relatively recent phenomenon for the governing elite not at the same time to be the intellectual elite — and also fully educated in the Confucian tradition. In both mainland China and Taiwan, governing officials are no longer necessarily schooled in the Confucian tradition to the same extent that scholar-bureaucrats were in ancient China. Moreover, those who teach and carry on the Confucian tradition, such as high-school Chinese teachers and Chinese history professors, are no longer tied to the ruling class in the way that they would have been in dynastic China. There is, in short, the possibility for the development of a new kind of Confucianism that is not distorted through co-optation by the state. What is less clear, and is the focus of this article, is whether or not this kind of Confucianism has been adopted by democracy activists and used to critique the state and advance democratization and human rights in Taiwan.

In the broader theoretical literature of religion and politics, scholars have identified a “priestly” mode of religion's relationship to the state. In this situation, religion provides ideological justification for the state and the state in turn provides religious leaders with special privileges and official approval (Troeltsch Reference Troeltsch1931; Weber Reference Weber1993; Jelen and Wilcox Reference Jelen, Wilcox, Jelen and Wilcox2002). In ancient China, Confucianism largely fell into this category. What is less clear is how democracy activists understand this tradition today and how, or if, they use it for their own political purposes.

The data for this essay consist of 27 interviews conducted by the first author in Taiwan in May 2008 (see Notes for full list of interviewees). We generally selected these people because they are politically influential, not because they are necessarily experts in Confucianism. Our interviewees range across the political spectrum in Taiwan. Because they were, by and large, active in the democracy movement and opposed the Kuomintang (KMT)'s authoritarian rule, however, a majority of our informants are pan-Green (the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)/pro-independence side of the Taiwanese political divide). We do nonetheless have some interviews with members of the KMT or the larger pan-Blue community (the pro-unification group in Taiwan). To the extent that Confucianism as an ideology matters for politics, it should be demonstrated in the work of political elites on the ground. The interviewees were also selected on the basis of their involvement with one of the following four issues: democratization, Taiwanese aboriginal rights, women's rights, or freedom of speech/press.

We chose these four values because they have been articulated as fundamental human rights through international declarations, treaties, and conventions. The first and most important of these statements, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, affirms in Article 19 that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Article 21 of the same treaty states that “everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives” and that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.” In a similar way, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms that “indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples, while recognizing the right of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as such.” Finally, the United Nation Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women recognizes the “dignity and worth of the human person and … the equal rights of men and women.” While these norms are not without controversy and interpretive debate, they have nonetheless become the basis by which the international community defines individual, gender, group, and political rights.

Taiwan is the best possible place to test the relationship between Confucianism and support for liberal-democratic values. Taiwanese society is culturally Chinese, arguably a prerequisite for a community that is going to be most authentically Confucian. Confucianism has also been historically important on the island at least through the end of Qing rule (Gardella Reference Gardella and Rubinstein2007). At present, Confucianism is taught in the schools, the island contains leading centers of Confucian studies, and Confucianism is a key ideology that continues to shape personal attitudes and values (Jochim Reference Jochim, Clart and Jones2003). Of the four culturally Chinese societies (mainland China, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Hong Kong SAR), Taiwan is the only one that has evolved into a vibrant, multi-party, liberal democracy. Political, women's, and aboriginal rights are well protected both in theory and in practice. The island offers social scientists an unrestricted, transparent research environment. Interviews with Taiwanese political actors can therefore help determine if Confucian values were or are at all important in the work that political elites do. Although Taiwan has any number of unique historical and political features, not the least of which is its history of being colonized by various outside powers, it remains the only culturally Chinese liberal democracy in the world.

As is true in most East Asian countries, Confucianism plays a socio-cultural role in Taiwan analogous to that of a dominant religion in Western states. In many East Asian cultures, Confucianism functions as a de facto religion; in this environment, to study religion and politics is to study the relationship between Confucianism and political practice. The results from Taiwan should thus prove useful to democracy activists in Singapore and the People's Republic of China as well as to human rights advocates in Japan and South Korea.

A long line of political theorists and social scientists has argued that democratic political values are essential to democratization and that such social values must initially be in place for democratization to occur (Almond and Verba Reference Almond and Verba1963; Putnam Reference Putnam1993). In this article, we are not testing whether these claims are empirically correct; rather we are trying to understand which political values democracy and human-rights activists chose as the basis for their political advocacy. Since Taiwan is a Confucian society, one option would have been a democratic reformulation of the Confucian tradition. Historically, many religious traditions have shown themselves flexible enough to accommodate democratization, whether it was the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church that adopted democratic principles after centuries of hostility (Noonan Reference Noonan2005) or contemporary efforts among European Muslims to create a “reform Islam” supportive of democracy and human rights (Tibi Reference Tibi2000). Alternatively, Taiwanese activists might have concluded that Confucianism was irremediably tied to authoritarianism and thus beyond redemption. If so, they would have looked for an alternative set of values to legitimate their democratic aspirations: perhaps Western, Enlightenment ideals.

The article opens with a brief description of the democracy movement in Taiwan, followed by a close examination of the interview results with former and contemporary democratization and human-rights activists on what role they believe Confucianism has played in their activism. Next, we will explain why activists supported or rejected using Confucianism as a foundation for their political mobilization. Finally, we will discuss the implications of our findings for the political role of religion in other parts of the world.

BACKGROUND

Taiwan's history is replete with powerful outsiders controlling and manipulating the island. Over the past several centuries, Taiwan has been taken over by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Manchus, and the Japanese, who ruled the island from 1895 until the end of World War II in 1945. The Republic of China gained control of Taiwan at the war's end, but four years later remnants of the Republic of China army, President Chiang Kai-shek, the political leadership of the KMT, and 1.3 million refugees retreated to Taiwan in defeat at the hands of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party. In 1949, the KMT imposed martial law on the island, and it remained in effect for nearly 40 years. During that time, the government banned opposition parties, restricted press freedom, and prohibited the formation of autonomous civic associations (Copper Reference Copper2003, 29–66; Roy Reference Roy2003, 76–104; Chang and Chu Reference Chang, Chu, Chu, Diamond, Nathan and Shin2008).

Besides trying to dominate the island politically, the KMT attempted to impose cultural uniformity on a population that was linguistically and ethnically diverse. In practice, this meant the imposition of Mandarin Chinese, which a majority of Taiwanese could not speak, as the island's official language and the development of an educational curriculum intended to develop a Chinese consciousness among the native-born Taiwanese population (Lynch Reference Lynch2006, 160). The educational program promoted Chinese history, culture, and language, and either ignored or rejected a Taiwanese consideration of those topics. Crucially for our purposes, the KMT also embarked on a self-conscious effort to include Confucianism in the curriculum. When Mao embarked on his Cultural Revolution that included an outright rejection of the Confucian tradition, Chiang Kai-shek countered with the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement, which introduced students to a conservative, moralistic Confucianism that was clearly intended to promote public support for the regime (Moody Reference Moody1988, 85–90).

Despite its authoritarian practices, the KMT brought to Taiwan ideological principles and constitutional arrangements that contained democratic elements. The party promoted Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People (nationalism, popular sovereignty, and economic justice), but claimed that a period of tutelage was needed until Taiwan was ready for democratic self-rule. The government also held local assembly elections, and while these elections were tightly controlled, Shelley Rigger (Reference Rigger1999) notes they nevertheless had a liberalizing effect. The contests created expectations for fairer future elections, and they served as a catalyst for the opposition to mobilize and challenge the regime over its failure to live up to its own stated principles. Among the key moments in Taiwan's gradual democratization were the lifting of martial law in 1987, the pro-democracy “Month of March” student protests in 1990 (Wright Reference Wright2001; Millan and Fetzer Reference Millan and Fetzer2008), the first reelection of the National Assembly in 1991, the elections for the Legislative Yuan in 1992, the first direct, popular presidential election in 1996, and the election of the opposition, DPP presidential candidate, Chen Shui-bian, in 2000 (Rigger Reference Rigger2001).

DEMOCRATIZATION AND CONFUCIANISM

Scholars have engaged in a rich and varied debate about the compatibility of Confucianism with democracy. On the one hand, virtually all writers recognize that the close identification of Confucianism with the state historically provided a rationale for political elites to manipulate the tradition for their purposes. As Brooke Ackerly (Reference Ackerly2005) has noted: “state Confucianism became the practice of deference to authority by bureaucrats … In this sense Confucianism was institutionalized in authoritarian rule.” Where analysts differ, of course, is whether the historical implementation of Confucianism exhausts what the tradition theoretically offers to democratization. Theodore de Bary (Reference de Bary1998, 154) contends that Confucius “emphasized the benefits of free political discussion and open criticism of those in power,” concepts that would allow for such key democratic practices as freedom of speech and assembly. Speaking specifically of Taiwan, Huang Chün-chieh and Wu Kuang-min suggest that “there is no more fertile soil than Taiwan to facilitate” the democratic potential within Confucianism (Huang and Wu 1994). So how has the Confucian tradition been received and interpreted by democracy activists in Taiwan?

Our interviews with democracy leaders suggest that Confucian values had little or nothing to do with the movement's political goals. Peng Ming-min,Footnote ^21, Footnote ²³ former DPP presidential candidate and democracy activist, put it succinctly when he noted to us: “We in the democracy movement based our ideas on western thinking. I don't personally think that there is a relationship between Confucian thinking or teaching and western democracy. The starting point for the democracy movement in Taiwan was western notions of human rights and freedom of speech.” In the minds of many of the people that we interviewed, Confucianism was associated with the authoritarian practices of the KMT. Chang Po-Ya,Footnote ³ President of Chia-yi City Community University and former Mayor of Chai-yi City, said that “the KMT, in trying to distinguish itself from China, established Confucius' birthday as a national holiday. However, the government was not intending to establish the idea that Confucius supported democracy.” Chang implies that what the KMT was trying to do was to legitimate the regime by foisting on Taiwan a particular interpretation of the Confucian tradition.

The identification of Confucianism with the KMT and the conservative, at times repressive, political status quo poisoned the well for many democracy activists in Taiwan about the compatibility of Confucianism with liberal-democratic norms. As Daniel Lynch (Reference Lynch2006) has noted, Taiwanese democracy activists self-consciously defined themselves in opposition to the KMT and the “Chinese” identity it sought to impose on the island's aboriginal and native-born Taiwanese populations. To the extent that the KMT included Confucianism in this effort to shape the Taiwanese cultural experience, it was natural that leaders within the democracy movement would look elsewhere for ideological support for their efforts. Tim Wu,Footnote ^26, Footnote ²⁸ Director General for the Bureau of Human Resource Development for the Kaohsiung City Government, hinted as much to us when he said: “I wrote a book on democracy because I wanted to clarify for the Taiwanese people what democratic values [are], how they can be implemented, and how they are different from Confucian values.” Looking to western values and away from Confucian ones, in short, was a way for Taiwanese activists to demonstrate their break with the KMT and with mainland China.

After the DPP took power, it reduced the amount of time devoted to Confucianism in the public schools and gave greater consideration to specifically Taiwanese history and culture. Liu Jeng-ming,Footnote ^19, Footnote ²⁰ Principal of the Taipei Municipal Zhong Zheng Senior High School, noted this change in emphasis: “In the past, more than half of the work in history or geography would be on Chinese history, geography, and Confucianism. Now, there is more of an emphasis on Taiwanese history and geography.” This change had two important effects. First, it allowed the DPP self-consciously to distinguish Taiwanese identity from Chinese identity in its educational curriculum, and second, the change implicitly associated Confucianism with the cultural imperialism of the KMT. To democracy activists, in short, Confucianism represented everything that they did not like about the political authoritarianism of the KMT.

To the extent that they acknowledge the importance of Confucian values in Taiwanese society, democracy activists contend that the tradition teaches personal morality that is only tangentially related to democratic principles and practices. Lee Teng-hui,Footnote ¹⁷ former President of the Republic of China, suggested in our interview with him that “Confucianism teaches about the relationships between people — the five lun (倫) [right relationships] — which can be used to explain how to be moral and to grow personally. It teaches people how to live well … but it did not teach us [Taiwanese] how to promote ourselves or to become democratic.” In short, Confucian values might still be relevant for personal relationships, Lee implies, but beyond this cultural role the tradition has little to offer for providing justification for the turn toward democracy.

ABORIGINAL RIGHTS AND CONFUCIANISM

Little or nothing has been written on how Confucianism would theoretically approach the rights of indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, recognition of the rights of groups, particularly those whose cultures have been severely repressed over the past several centuries, has become a key value in the worldwide democracy movement. Indigenous people (known as Yuanzhumin in Mandarin) represent about 2% of Taiwan's population. For centuries, these groups have experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing peoples. They were even exploited by the “native”/bendiren Taiwanese (Gardella Reference Gardella and Rubinstein2007; Stainton Reference Stainton and Rubinstein2007), which might explain their continued loyalty to the mainlander-dominated KMT. Nonetheless, government policies under Chiang's party, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, actively sought to foster the cultural assimilation of aboriginal people. The use of Mandarin in public schools, an educational curriculum steeped in pro-KMT ideology, and the promotion of Chinese culture and history at the expense of any consideration of native cultures helped to speed the disappearance of a number of indigenous languages and promoted discrimination against aborigines (Kung Reference Kung2000).

Over the past 15 years, the government has become much more sympathetic to the political rights of aborigines. In 1996, the Council of Indigenous Peoples was promoted to a ministry-level rank within the Executive Yuan. Beginning in 1998, the curriculum in Taiwan's public schools was changed to give more treatment to the aboriginal case. A minimum of six seats are reserved for aboriginal representatives in the Legislative Yuan, three from lowland aboriginal groups, and three from highland aborigines (Legislative Yuan of the Repubic of China 2009). In 2005, the Legislative Yuan passed the Aboriginal Basic Law which guarantees the autonomy of the nation's indigenous peoples and provides government resources for the development of a self-governing system for aboriginal groups (Hong Reference Hong2005). In promoting the “subsistence and development of inter-ethnic relations based on co-existence,” the Aboriginal Basic Law marked a decisive break from the assimilation policies of the past. Finally, the former DPP government supported efforts by the United Nations to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.Footnote ⁸

According to the interviews we conducted with persons active in the aboriginal rights movement, Confucian values and the Confucian tradition have hindered their efforts. Kung Wen-chi,Footnote ¹⁴ an aboriginal member of the Legislative Yuan from the KMT, boldly stated: “Confucius said that people who were different (racially or ethnically) from the Han Chinese should be taught to become civilized and not to be so barbaric. I think that Confucianism is a kind of Chinese racism. It is a hindrance to the aboriginal movement.” Pasuya Poiconu,Footnote ²² Director of the National Museum of Prehistory and a scholar of Chinese literature, was not quite so pessimistic in his assessment of Confucianism. Instead, he drew a distinction between what the tradition theoretically teaches and its political application in Taiwan: “the philosophy of Confucianism doesn't necessarily impede aboriginal rights; the real issue has been the people who have made use of Confucianism to go against the rights of aborigines. In the past, many politicians just wanted to assimilate the aborigines and they used Confucianism to justify that.” KungFootnote ¹⁴ was even more specific in noting the key role historically played by his own party in this process of assimilation: “The KMT came to Taiwan with a conqueror mentality; they had no idea that there was a minority group already living here. They used the Chinese language and culture to get everyone to assimilate. The indigenous people suffered from the dominant ideology of Confucianism as it was put into practice by the KMT government.”

As with democratization, the persons most active in the aboriginal rights movement perceive the Confucian tradition as contrary to their purposes. And one reason for this animosity is the history of the KMT defending its assimilation policies on Confucian grounds. What seems just as significant, however, is the idea among some aboriginal activists that Confucianism is itself a form of cultural imperialism. Seen in this light, it is natural that aborigines would defend their views largely in “western” rather than Confucian terms. The recent initiatives toward state recognition of indigenous peoples are understood as a decisive break from the Confucian, imperialist past and toward a “western,” pluralistic future.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND CONFUCIANISM

Even as staunch and persuasive a defender of Confucianism as William de Bary (Reference de Bary1998, 156) has questioned whether the Confucian record on the treatment of women provides any opportunity to make a case for western notions of gender rights. While some educational reforms occurred at the end of the 19th century, the number of girls and women in school was minuscule compared to that of boys and men, and it was not until 1912 that Sun Yat-sen ordered a national ban on the crippling practice of foot binding. Despite this liberalizing move, Chiang Kai-shek, who self-consciously adopted the political mantle of Sun Yat-sen, initiated a cultural movement in both China and Taiwan that was conservative, authoritarian, and paternalistic. To the extent that any Chinese movement promoted women's rights at all, it was the Chinese Communist Party, which from an early date advocated some forms of economic independence and political participation for women (Ackerly and Li Reference Ackerly and Wei2008). However, even in the relatively inhospitable environment of Japanese- and then KMT-dominated Taiwan, a few pioneering women such as Hsu Shih-hsien (許世賢) excelled as professional and political leaders (Chi Reference Chi2007). The Taiwanese women's movement was probably most active at the same time that the island was democratizing during the 1980s and 1990s (Wang Reference Wang1999).

Given this background, it is not particularly surprising that the people most active on issues of women's rights in Taiwan uniformly reject the idea that the Confucian tradition, or Confucianism as an ideology, aids their efforts. Fan Yun,Footnote ⁷ Assistant Professor of Sociology at National Taiwan University and Director of the Awakening Foundation, one of Taiwan's leading women's rights organizations, suggested the contrast between women's rights and Confucianism when she said: “family values are still very important in Confucianism, and while the women's rights movement is hardly opposed to family values, the family values of Confucianism are based on a patriarchal order that violates the very idea of gender equality.” Tzou Jiing-wen,Footnote ²⁴ Deputy Editor-in-Chief for the Liberty Times/Ziyou shibao, was even blunter in her assessment: “In terms of the relationship between Confucianism and women's rights, we have to disregard Confucianism completely. I simply don't accept that there is a positive relationship between Confucianism and women's rights.” Finally, Lin Fuxiong,Footnote ^18, Footnote ¹⁰ a nonpartisan Lingzhang from the Zhongzheng district of Taipei, specifically noted the supposed difference between “old” Confucian values and “new” women's-rights norms: “Confucianism is old and not for contemporary society. Today in Taiwan we have gender equality.”

Lin is certainly right that Taiwan now has gender equality, or at least much more gender equality than in the past. The culturally conservative vision of the unreformed KMT offered little in the way of gender rights. Instead, the party promoted traditional gender roles, which were personified in legal codes that gave priority to husbands over wives in custody and property disputes. The democratization movement over the past several decades has dramatically changed the legal and political landscape for Taiwanese women. The government established the Women's Rights Promotion Committee under the Executive Yuan, city governments allocated budgets for women's services, and women's groups successfully lobbied the government to revise the legal code in a more equitable direction. After a nearly decade-long effort, in 2002, the government passed the Gender Equity Labor Law, which laid an important foundation for women's equality (Ko Reference Ko2002). The Democratic Progressive Party has been particularly active in courting voters on gender issues. Under DPP President Chen, the number of women in the cabinet increased to one-fourth of the total members, 30% of the DPP seats in the Legislative Yuan were held by women, and Annette Lu became Taiwan's first female Vice President in 2000. Following the DPP's crushing electoral defeat in 2008, one of Taiwan's major parties nominated a woman for the first time as chairperson, DPP-leader Tsai Ing-wen.

As with democratization and aboriginal rights, the women's rights movement generally sees itself in opposition to the authoritarian and paternalistic legacy of both the KMT and Confucianism.

PRESS FREEDOM AND CONFUCIANISM

The imposition of martial law on Taiwan severely restricted press freedom and limited the protection of basic human rights. By definition, martial law meant that the government could, and often did, curtail press rights, arrest people for publishing articles that were viewed as critical of the government, and impose severe limitations on the most basic political and human rights. In 1968, the journalist Bo Yang, who had escaped to Taiwan from mainland China because of his opposition to Communism, was arrested and eventually sentenced to nine years in prison for his “subversive” translation of the American comic strip Popeye. KMT authorities viewed his Chinese rendition of the strip as a veiled attack on Chiang Kai-shek (Bo Reference Bo, Cohn and Qing1992, xi–xiii). The pro-democracy magazines Formosa (美麗島) and The Eighties (八十年代), in particular, pushed the limits of what the KMT authorities would allow (Li Reference Li2002, 132–134). During the infamous Kaohsiung Incident in 1979, the police closed down Formosa magazine and clashed with demonstrators advocating for human rights on the island. Following the demonstrations and violence, the KMT arrested virtually all well-known opposition leaders, charged them with trying to overthrow the government, tried many of them in a special military court, and sentenced them to terms of 12 years to life. Future Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian was a defense lawyer in the case, while eventual DPP Vice President Annette Lu was sentenced to 12 years in prison (Landler Reference Landler2000; Copper Reference Copper2003, 22–23; Roy Reference Roy2003, 160–174). In 1989, Cheng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), the editor and founder of the weekly Freedom Era (自由時代) burned himself to death to protest continued restrictions on press freedoms (Li Reference Li2002, 142–144; Roy Reference Roy2003, 175–176).

The lifting of martial law in 1987 eventually led to a relaxation on press restrictions, to the point that, for a time, Taiwan had as vibrant and free a press as anywhere in the world. On both press freedom and human rights more generally, Freedom House (2009) rated Taiwan as among the most free nations in Asia. The organization's 2008 report (2009), for example, ranks Taiwan number 1 on civil liberties (on a scale of 1–7, with 1 being the highest) and describes its press as “free.” However, since the inauguration of Ma Ying-jeou in May of 2008 and his subsequent détente with mainland China, some domestic and international observers have complained about new restrictions on press freedom. The international press-advocacy organization Reporters Without Borders sent a letter to President Ma in 2008 expressing its concern that the ruling KMT was undermining media independence (Reporters Without Borders 2008).

As with women's rights, those most directly involved in free-press and human-rights issues in Taiwan perceive no link between their activism and Confucian values. Yang Ging-Huey,Footnote ^27, Footnote ^6, Footnote ¹¹ policy analyst for Amnesty International of Taiwan, specifically contrasts what she perceives to be western, individualistic values with Confucian, collectivist ones: “compared to Confucianism, human rights emphasize individualism more than collectivism. Confucius talked about the duties that feudal subjects had to emperors, and how they had to follow them. Human rights, by contrast, highlight the rights of each individual person.” Kuo Chen-Lung,Footnote ¹⁵ Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the China Times, similarly distinguishes what he thinks is the moral authoritarianism implicit in Confucianism with the aggressive journalistic ethic he sees as part of the western tradition: “in Confucianism the political leader is supposed to be the moral standard for all of us. In that case, it is very hard for him to have room for external criticism. He has to examine himself constantly, but this kind of examination is not the western system that comes from the outside. The independence of journalism, and its role in the system of checks and balances, is not something that comes from Confucianism.” Finally, newspaper editor Tzou Jiing-wenFootnote ²⁴ makes explicit what the others had hinted at: “in terms of freedom of speech and press, we totally disregard Confucian values. If we wish to pursue a better society, we have to get rid of Confucianism so that we can get different opinions and expressions from the people.”

It is quite possible that Yang, Kuo, and Tzou are simply wrong in their interpretation of Confucianism; the tradition can certainly be understood as allowing, even challenging, political leaders and established elites and protecting basic human rights, but this is not the way that those most involved in free-press and human-rights issues understand the tradition. For various reasons, they have concluded that the Confucian tradition of respect for authority and its emphasis on community over personal rights is antithetical to their political objectives.

IMPLICATIONS FOR CONFUCIANISM

Several conclusions follow from our interviews with Taiwanese activists. First, Taiwanese political activists almost uniformly reject the notion that Confucian values were historically important in the democracy movement or that they are valuable in making a case for those values in contemporary politics. For some, the Confucian tradition is simply irrelevant. Yang Ging-HueyFootnote ²⁷ of Amnesty International suggested this irrelevance when she said: “To ask about the relationship between Confucianism and human rights is like asking someone who lived in the feudal era whether they liked the idea of globalization. Or, it would be like asking my deceased grandfather whether it is moral to have human cloning. In neither case would it have been possible to imagine such a thing.” For other activists, the Confucian tradition is actively harmful to their efforts. Former Chia-yi mayor Chang Po-YaFootnote ³ concluded: “You cannot find women's rights in Confucianism. Nobody would try to use Confucianism to promote the idea of women's rights” (see also Chen Man-LiFootnote ⁴ and KaoFootnote ¹³). The same claim of the irrelevance of Confucianism is apparent with the work of mainland Chinese democracy activists. In 2008, more than 2,000 Chinese citizens living in the People's Republic signed the pro-democracy manifesto Charter 08 (Zhang et al. Reference Zhang2008; China Charter 08 Reference Link2009). Our reading of the English translation suggests that the document is based almost exclusively on Western, liberal political thought; the original Chinese text appears similarly devoid of references to Confucianism.Footnote ¹

A second conclusion is that history explains why the democracy movement in Taiwan turned away from the Confucian tradition. Specifically, democratic leaders identified Confucianism with the political authoritarianism and cultural imperialism of the KMT, and that identification proved a poison pill for Confucianism. It is not surprising that our largely DPP interviewees were hostile to the Confucianism of the authoritarian KMT. Daniel Lynch (Reference Lynch2006) argues persuasively that Taiwanese democracy activists embraced liberal global norms and values as a way to contrast themselves self-consciously with what they perceived to be the imposition of a Chinese identity at the hands of the KMT political leadership. The cultural and political imperialism the Taiwanese experienced came not from “the West,” as was so often the case for other Asian societies, but instead from mainland China.

Activists interpreted the state-supported Confucianism of the KMT as little more than cultural imperialism and the exercise of naked political power. The KMT effort to distinguish itself from the People's Republic of China by supporting Confucianism, however, had a reverse effect for many Taiwanese activists. Many such “Tangwai” dissidents rejected the political visions of both the People's Republic of China and the KMT, and turned instead to an open embrace of “western” political values. As Huang and Wu (Reference Huang, Kuang-ming, Harrell and Chün-chieh1994) have argued, for Taiwanese activists Confucianism became a “problem” to be overcome on the road to political liberalization. This situation helps to explain why the DPP, once it took power, sought to excise Confucianism from the curriculum in schools. A Chinese-language teacher responsible for teaching about Confucianism in the high school noted this irony: “China is now promoting the New Confucianism because of its experience during the Cultural Revolution, which was a revolt against Confucianism and traditional Chinese values. In Taiwan, by contrast, there has actually been a reduction in recent years in the amount of time given to teaching Confucian values in the schools.”Footnote ²⁰ Moreover, some of the more extreme elements of the DPP movement have even attacked such admirable figures as Sun Yat-sen, almost certainly because he was “Chinese” rather than “Taiwanese” (Hsu Reference Hsu2004).

A similar logic explains DPP skepticism about the revival of Confucianism in mainland China, which has used state money to fund “Confucius Institutes” and whose political leaders have publicly promoted selective Confucian values (Fan Reference Fan2007; Delury Reference Delury2007; Makeham Reference Makeham2008). Rightly or wrongly, it seems inevitable that Taiwanese democracy activists will interpret this resurgence in the same way that they have come to understand similar efforts by the KMT decades earlier: as an effort to promote Chinese identity, rationalize authoritarian political practices, and justify limits on individual rights. As William de Bary (Reference de Bary1998, 164) has suggested about this Confucian revival, “it can hardly be doubted that Confucianism (or what goes for it) … has become the claimed ideological justification for one-party rule, for openly rejecting peaceful evolution to democracy, and for suppressing demonstrations.” The adoption of Confucian values in Taiwan is once again caught up in larger geopolitical conflicts; in this case Confucianism is perceived as a Trojan horse for the People's Republic of China and its desire to annex the island.

Nonetheless, some political activists and “professional Confucianists” in Taiwan are willing to imagine that a reconstituted, less “fundamentalist” Confucianism could conceivably reinforce liberal-democratic values in the future. Kung Wen-Chi,Footnote ¹⁴ a KMT member of the Legislative Yuan, highlights one Confucian value that is potentially quite helpful in his work for aboriginal rights: “Confucius said that every man should be educated equally, without regard to a person's race. This is the important idea of nondiscrimination.” Wang Tsai-Kuei,Footnote ^25, Footnote ^12, Footnote ¹⁶ who coordinates and teaches in a network of private schools devoted to the Chinese classics, similarly implies that the historical manipulation of Confucianism by authoritarian political leaders should not preclude its viability as a basis for democratic values: “The ancient Chinese did not establish a democratic system, but … if Confucius were alive today, he would support democracy… Confucianism, democracy, and human rights are completely compatible. Confucianism is an even better basis for human rights [than Western thought is].” Finally, Chen Mingyu,Footnote ⁵ a Chinese language teacher at Tapei Municipal Zhong Zheng Senior High School, strongly dismisses the so-called Asian values thesis, particularly as it has been promoted by Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew: “Confucianism has historically been misused by rulers. I completely disagree with Lee Kuan Yew. He is simply wrong to say that democratization and human rights do not fit in with Confucianism.”

Even some Taiwanese associated with the DPP movement acknowledge that a democratic Confucianism is theoretically possible. Cai Renjian,Footnote ^2, Footnote ⁹ former DPP mayor of Hsinchu City and a Tangwai activist, suggests, “If we understand the underlying features of Confucianism and democracy, they don't necessarily conflict with each other. It is not so much that Confucianism has facilitated democracy in Taiwan, but rather that Confucianism and democratic culture have learned to accommodate themselves to each other.” Similarly, democracy and women-rights activist Fan YunFootnote ⁷ hints at a possible rapprochement between Confucianism and gender rights: “It is the same for Confucianism as it is for Christianity. You have to reinterpret the Bible so that it can be understood for today. Perhaps the idea of junzi can be interpreted in a gender-neutral way, so that it is not simply the ‘noble man’ idea.”

CONFUCIANISM AS PRIESTLY RELIGION

Because the historical association between Confucianism and authoritarianism is so strong, it will be difficult for a Confucian ideology to be understood by political activists as supportive of democracy. While this problem afflicts any ideological tradition that aligns itself with the state, it is a particular dilemma for Confucianism, which has almost universally performed a priestly political role in East Asian countries and which therefore lacks any strong counter traditions of opposition to state or political authorities. The process of disassociating Confucianism and the state is made even more difficult when the Communist government of mainland China actively revives the tradition through its support of “Confucius Institutes,” seminars, and conferences. Even if the government's motives are perfectly benign, one can appreciate why democracy activists have interpreted this revival as a crude effort to provide ideological justification for authoritarian political practices and have largely shunned the Confucianism that has emerged from this effort.

The best hope for the future is that Confucianism would emerge without an overt political message and wholly independent of the state. Absent the baggage of a formal political role, Confucian social values could be promoted on the basis of their intrinsic value rather than their political usefulness. Social harmony, filial piety, and a stress on a communal ethos are salient Confucian principles that can and should be used to judge the political practices of democratic and authoritarian regimes, not legitimate them.

All of this suggests that the larger lesson of Taiwan is that any ideology that is closely associated with an authoritarian regime will eventually be rejected by democracy activists. If democratization occurs, moreover, the previous regime's belief system is likely to be marginalized for generations to come. The role of Confucianism in Taiwan is in many ways analogous to that of the Roman Catholic Church in revolutionary Mexico or France (Latreille Reference Latreille1970; Vovelle and Bonin Reference Vovelle and Bonin1988; Camp Reference Camp2007). In each case, democratic or radical reformers self-consciously targeted the primary religious or ideological tradition, which was associated with their authoritarian political opponents and the dominant power structure that was standing in the way of political reform. This association led inevitably to a virulent anti-clerical movement, provisions of which were enshrined in both the French and Mexican constitutions. Alexis de Tocqueville suggested this argument in his analysis of religion and the state more than a century and a half ago: “when a religion contracts an alliance like this, I do not fear to say that it acts as a man would: it sacrifices the future with a view to the present, and in obtaining a power that is not due to it, it risks its legitimate power…. Religion, therefore, cannot share the material force of those who govern without being burdened with a part of the hatreds to which they give rise” (Tocqueville Reference Tocqueville, Mansfield and Winthrop2000, 284).

Taiwanese democracy activists might not have been as overt in their “anti-clericalism” as their French and Mexican counterparts, but only because Confucianism in the late 20th century was not as institutionalized in Taiwan as Roman Catholicism was in 18th-century France and 20th-century Mexico. Nonetheless, the effect was the same: political reformers rejected Confucianism on the grounds that it stood in the way of political progress. As a result, a new kind of nationalism emerged that, in the case of France and Mexico, decoupled national and religious identity, and in the case of Taiwan is trying to do the same with national and Confucian values.

The experience of Confucianism in Taiwan should be an object lesson for any contemporary religious or ideological tradition that actively seeks to perform a so-called “priestly role” and influence the workings of government. It is instructive, for example, to consider the recent histories of Iran and Poland. In both cases, religious leaders played a pivotal and prophetic role in helping to overthrow oppressive regimes. They did so by distancing themselves from the state and demonstrating how political practices violated key religious principles. Once the revolutions had succeeded, however, Muslim and Catholic clerics demanded and won a place at the political table. This victory has proved pyrrhic, however, as political reformers are now calling into question the religious integrity of Islam in Iran and Roman Catholicism in Poland because of a too-close identification of the religion with leaders' anti-democratic political practices (Byrnes Reference Byrnes2001; Siavoshi Reference Siavoshi, Jelen and Wilcox2002). Even the recent rise of a politically aggressive atheism in the United States and the United Kindom can be interpreted as a natural backlash against a too-cozy relationship between a particular brand of conservative Christianity and the American state (Harris Reference Harris2004; Hitchens Reference Hitchens2007).

The trajectory for Confucianism in East Asia is likely to be bifurcated. Democratic states such as Taiwan will largely reject the tradition in any publicly relevant form because of its historical association with politically repressive regimes. Absent the development of a Confucianism that is fully separate from the state, the tradition will become increasingly irrelevant. The authoritarian People's Republic of China and Singapore, on the other hand, will likely try to foster a version of “Konfucianism” that “sanctifies” their non-democratic rule.