her it is followed. This shows that Confucian teachings still have tremendous impact in China. Ideas like harmony, filial piety, and the Golden Mean all are big parts of Chinas culture. From the beginning of this century until 1977, Confucius had been criticized in mainland China and the Chinese peoples living standard had been under the bottom of the world. In contrast to Chinas performance, Japans success in modernization has been mainly due to properly applying the Confucian principles. It is not due to the Chinese people that the ideas of Confucius have been strongly criticized; rather, it is a result of Communism. This is due to Mao Zedongs influence when he took over in 1949 and implemented Communist ideas. While doing this, he attempted to get rid of the Confucian idea. Maos reason, along with other Communist revolutionaries in China, for publicly attacking Confucianism was that it was felt as though the social and political ideas were considered authoritative and class-ridden. By bringing in Communism, it gave the Chinese people no room to improve unless the government allowed for it. Therefore, Communism causes the Chinese people to be class-ridden; the very thing they were trying to get rid of. When people look at China and see that it has not had much progress over the past century, it is evident that they do not look at the true reason behind this fact. The secret of Japanese success is that it practiced the traditional Chinese principles: social positions are determined by merits and learning and the reason for Chinas slow economic development until the economic reform is that it had destroyed this traditional Chinese practice. Confucianism is obviously not the reason for this backwardness; one can look at Japan and the other Asian nations that are backed by a Confucian culture to see evidence of this. Rather, Communism and Mao are holding back or have held back the Chinese. In Communism, the government tells ...
