The Imperial Examination System and Plato's Republic: An Analysis of the Historical Success and Potential Prospects of the Confucianization of Chinese Politics (Part 1)

Li Yousheng

Abstract: From the time Emperor Wu of Han established Confucianism as the official guiding ideology of the state until the end of the Qing Dynasty, a period of two thousand years, this can be seen as a gradual process of Confucianism transforming the state and politics using principles such as benevolence, righteousness, and propriety. From the perspective of Confucianism’s emphasis on the people and its meritocratic politics, Confucianism was very successful: during these two thousand years, the peasant population increased, while the government and the highest decision-making body shrank. Unlike Plato’s ideal state, which was divided into philosopher-kings, warriors, and laborers, Chinese society was divided into three classes: the court, bureaucratic intellectuals, and peasants. If we consider Wang Mang’s reforms as a failed attempt at Confucianization of the state, the maturity of the Song Dynasty’s imperial examination system was a success in the Confucianization of the bureaucratic intellectual class. Following this trend, the next step should have been the institutionalization of the imperial examination system for the court and the emperor, leading to the rule of a Confucian sage-king. However, due to historical limitations, this was not realized. Similar to the Chinese imperial examination system, Plato’s ideal state also used education and selection to choose the supreme ruler, the philosopher-king. This idea was realized in medieval Europe, in the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire, and experienced similar successes and problems as the Confucianization of politics in Chinese history. The East and West differ: in the West, Christianity and secular power coexisted in a balanced competition; Confucian empires contained inescapable secular elements. Both Plato and Confucianism were limited by the perspectives of their original societies, and both East and West took breaking free from the constraints of Christianity and Confucianism as the starting point for modernization. Postmodernism began to highlight the charm and enduring value of the Confucian ideal of the sage-king state.

Keywords: Plato, philosopher-king, imperial examination, Confucianism, sage-king

I. Chinese history can be viewed as a history of the gradual Confucianization of politics.

Liu Hedong divided the history of Confucianism into five periods: original Confucianism, classical Confucianism, Han and Tang classical studies, Neo-Confucianism of the Four Dynasties, and contemporary Confucianism, which summarizes the entire history of China since Yao and Shun. [1] In the four or five thousand years of Chinese civilization, from the perspective of Confucianism, there is a break between the Warring States period and the early Qin and Han dynasties, namely the era of the collapse of ritual and music and the rule of law. After Confucianism gained official dominance during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, it was natural that Chinese politics had an inherent requirement to restore the political model of the Yao, Shun and Zhou Gong era, which is called the process of political Confucianization. It should be said that this political Confucianization in Chinese history has achieved great success, which is related to the vigorous advocacy and practice of Confucian scholars and Confucian officials throughout the ages, and is also the inevitable result of Confucianism holding an official position for two thousand years. From 134 BC, when Emperor Wu of Han exclusively followed Confucianism, to 1911, when the Qing Dynasty fell, there were more than two thousand and forty years. Given that China had already integrated into the world trend before the Xinhai Revolution, and that the implementation of Westernization led to the expansion of government functions and institutions, which contradicted Confucianism, this study uses a general figure of two thousand years, excluding the process of modernization in Chinese society. Both Chinese Confucian political ideals and Plato’s ideal state emphasize education and the selection of virtuous and capable officials; these are cited in this article for comparison.

The Mencius, Book 7, Part 2, states, “The people are the most important, the state is next, and the ruler is the least important.” In modern terms, this means the people are primary, the state is secondary, and the monarch and court at the highest level are the least important. The process by which Chinese history gradually approached the ideal of Confucianism can be measured by this statement from Mencius.

“The people are the most important,” Mencius explained, “Therefore, one who wins the support of the common people becomes the Son of Heaven.” That is, the state is based on the peasantry, which is also the purpose of Confucian politics. Therefore, there is no need for peasants to be Confucianized or to change in any way. The author believes that in the early 1950s, the vast rural areas of China were still at the quasi-primitive society level, and Daoist thought was an idealization and philosophization of the primitive society’s way of life. Therefore, Chinese rural culture is Daoist. As for the genetically encoded primitive society and the artificial secondary society concept, readers can refer to the author’s other articles, which will not be repeated here. [2, 3] Although Confucian officials had the responsibility to educate peasants, Confucianism had little influence on rural areas. Peasants had nothing to do in winter, and Confucian officials did not organize them to pursue material civilization like in the West, nor did they directly organize their leisure activities. During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, who exclusively followed Confucianism, China’s population was about 40 million. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, it had increased tenfold to 400 million. China’s population mainly increased before and after the reign of Emperor Qianlong, which was related to the stability of the political situation and the introduction of corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes from the Americas.

“The state is secondary” means that the state is secondary. The state here is extended to mean the government that does not include peasants, that is, the so-called ruling group. In these two thousand years, the ruling group has not expanded, but has shrunk, which is consistent with Mencius’s saying that “the state is secondary”. First of all, the feudal lords, aristocratic clans and nobles disappeared. During the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, government officials were hereditary feudal lords and nobles. There were still remnants after the Qin and Han dynasties, such as the feudal lords in the early Han and early Ming dynasties. In the Eastern Han and Sui and Tang dynasties, there were aristocratic clans, which were the noble class. It is said that in the Ming and Qing dynasties, 70% to 80% of the grandfathers of government officials at all levels were commoners, which is why there is the saying “the farmer in the morning and the court in the afternoon”. More than 40% of the Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations) in the Ming and Qing dynasties came from commoner families. [4] The disappearance of feudal lords and nobles was not accompanied by an increase in government officials. According to data provided by John King Fairbank, the number of registered officials: Tang Dynasty, 18,000; Song Dynasty, 20,000; Qing Dynasty, 20,000. According to these figures, the number of government officials did not increase due to the disappearance of the feudal lords and nobles, nor did it increase due to population growth. Fairbank said, “Nowhere else has there been an example of so few people ruling so many people for such a long period of time.”[5] Fairbank’s words can serve as evidence of the successful Confucianization of politics in Chinese history. Although Confucianism has undergone changes from the study of classics to the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties over the past two thousand years, it can still be used to summarize the ideology of Chinese government bureaucratic intellectuals. The establishment of the imperial examination system was the key to this, which will be discussed in detail below.

“The emperor is of lesser importance,” meaning that the emperor and his court, the highest decision-making body, are of the least important status. Here, it’s crucial to distinguish the court from the central government; the various ministries are considered part of the government and are already included in Fairbank’s count of registered officials. Over the past two millennia, the emperor’s highest decision-making body has tended to gradually simplify into a smaller circle, as seen in the Ming Dynasty’s abolition of the prime minister and the Qing Dynasty’s establishment of the Grand Council. As for the emperor’s Platonic choice of a philosopher-king, progress was limited. The Qing Dynasty abolished the crown prince system and announced a pre-determined successor after the emperor’s death. This meant that succession was not necessarily by the eldest son, but rather determined through consultation between the emperor and his officials. This is directly related to the Qing emperors’ sons’ reputation for diligence and cultural refinement. This can be seen as a substantial change at the highest level, moving closer to Platonic ideals, albeit a small beginning.

After Confucianism made such significant progress in Chinese politics, it gradually implemented the ideal of governing by non-action. Therefore, when Chen Qiyun quoted the American sinologist Levenson, he said that Levenson divided the history of Chinese Confucianism into three historical periods: talking and doing; talking but not doing; and not talking and not doing. [6] The ideal of Confucianism is to eventually establish a world of great harmony under the rule of a sage king who governs the world by doing nothing: at the beginning, Confucianism had to talk and do nothing; when everything was arranged in order, it was enough to just give a word; when society was like an automatic machine, Confucian figures would naturally govern the world by doing nothing, without talking or doing anything. Levenson said that the second period began in the Song Dynasty, which was the peak of the Neo-Confucianism of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi. Confucianism was singing the high-sounding tune of Neo-Confucianism and the School of Mind. That is to say, even giving a word was the example of Confucius’s “governance is about being upright”, not a specific instruction. The third period began with the introduction of Western philosophy, marked by events such as Matteo Ricci’s missionary work and the Opium War. Consequently, Confucian scholars in the Qing Dynasty, with little else to do, engaged in textual research and compilation—doing what they could. In the context of Confucius’s exemplary politics of “governance is about rectifying,” doing what one can do serves as a model, inspiring others to do the same. It can also be understood that once Confucianism had deeply penetrated everyone’s hearts, it no longer needed to say anything. The Chinese cultural sphere influenced by Confucianism includes China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and Japan. Regarding the Confucian ideal of a harmonious world, China, Korea, and Vietnam implemented communism. Even after Europe, the birthplace of Marxism, abandoned communism, these three Asian countries persisted, their communism containing more elements of the Confucian ideal of a harmonious world. In the tide of modern technology and wealth accumulation, the Four Asian Tigers of the 1960s and 70s—Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong—along with Japan, became the second-largest economy after the United States for a long period despite their small size. This can all be seen as the enormous effect of Confucianism’s “silent and unassuming” approach, as Levenson described it. India and China share Buddhist or similar Hindu traditions, while China also has a Confucian tradition. The presence or absence of this Confucian tradition is largely related to the significant differences in modern Chinese and Indian history. While some in the West attribute the rise of European capitalism to the Puritan tradition, this article’s connection to the commercialization of modern Asia with the influence of Confucian culture is not entirely far-fetched. It is important to emphasize that the lasting effects of this Confucian influence stem from the quality of people, not from Confucian doctrines themselves. Confucian ideals surpass the achievements of modernization in the Four Asian Tigers and Japan; the modernization process in East Asia was essentially a breakthrough from the constraints of Confucianism, such as the abolition of the imperial examination system. The value of Confucian doctrines only began to be recognized in postmodern times.

Consistent with the original social aesthetic order, Confucianism advocates that a gentleman is not a vessel (i.e., not a tool), meaning that Confucianism despises the secular social trends that led to problems such as a vagrant class, periodic turmoil, and foreign invasions. The following discussion examines the similar successes and problems of Plato’s Republic in Western history.

II. The Social Structure of Ancient China and Plato’s Republic

1) The social structure of China after the Qin and Han dynasties: To examine the history of the Confucianization of Chinese politics, we must first understand the social structure of China. Before the Warring States period, there were large tracts of wasteland between the states, and the military power of the states had not yet reached the point of controlling the territory and monopolizing all the land. Farmers had the ability to migrate freely and choose among the states, which was similar to the role of democratic elections in the modern West. After the Warring States period, the military power of the states reached the point of controlling the territory and monopolizing all the land, which is what Marxism considers as Asian farmers becoming slaves of autocratic monarchs. This change in the essential nature of society before and after the Warring States period was not clearly recognized or given enough attention by the Confucian bureaucratic intellectuals afterward. [2, pp. 272-73] The following is the model of Chinese society after the Qin and Han dynasties:

The imperial court and its family represent a quasi-primitive society (Huang-Lao Legalism).

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The bureaucratic and reserve intellectual group constitutes a secondary social unit (Confucianism).

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Village families (citizens) Quasi-primitive society (Taoism)

After dividing human society into genetically encoded primitive society and artificial secondary society, the author found that Chinese civilization began in primitive society and Western civilization began in secondary society. [2] In the above diagram of ancient Chinese society, the three levels are separated and each becomes a world to a large extent. If we were to summarize a philosophy of life from their attitudes and cultural traditions to summarize these three levels, the most accurate words that come to mind are Huang-Lao Legalism, Confucianism, and Taoism. The rulers of the Han Dynasty used the phrase “a mixture of kingship and hegemony” to describe themselves, and added the concepts of “inner legalism and outer kingship” and “inner Huang-Lao and outer Confucianism”. Here, Huang-Lao Legalism is used as a representative, which is not a naked Legalism, but has the lubricant of Huang-Lao power tactics. Of course, this is also the result that the emperor’s court level did not have time to be Confucianized. [2,3] The vast number of peasants lived in quasi-primitive society, while the Taoists, who advocated small countries and few people, adhered to Laozi’s original society beliefs and preferred to avoid the world rather than compromise with the secondary society of the imperial era. As a result, Taoist thought often became the spiritual source of peasant uprisings in history, and the Yellow Turban Rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty became the era when Chinese Taoism began. The degree of isolation between the three levels has not received the attention and research it deserves from the academic community. [3]

Similarly, the rulers, warriors, and laborers in Plato’s Republic each have different types of minds. [7, 8, 9] The difference lies in the fact that Plato’s political ideal is based on a secondary society, while Confucianism and Taoism take the primordial society as their ideal. Plato believed that the oligarchy and democracy of ancient Greece were degenerate forms of his ideal state, while Confucianism viewed real politics as a retreat to a lesser state of prosperity after losing the ideal world of Great Harmony. In other words, neither of them recognized the countless possibilities facing a secondary society of humanity, and both pursued the only ideal society in their minds, thus making them highly comparable.

Li Yinghua compared the similarities and differences between the Confucian sage king and Plato’s philosopher king in detail. [7] In Plato’s ideal state, people are divided into three levels: rulers, warriors, and laborers, which represent the three human qualities of wisdom, courage, and desire, respectively. In order to suppress the desires of the first two levels, rulers and warriors are not allowed to marry or have families, but they can have sex and are not allowed to have private property. By comparing the three levels of Plato’s ideal state with the three levels of ancient Chinese society in the above model diagram, we can see the difference between Eastern and Western cultures. Plato obviously saw the inhuman nature of the second level society, so he eliminated the family, which is an innate human need. In the Confucian view, people who do not have families are not real people. According to the British scholar Buck, medieval European Christianity largely realized Plato’s ideal state, and the pope was Plato’s philosopher king. The pope was elected through lifelong learning and self-cultivation and then through election competition, while priests, monks, and laymen were equivalent to the three levels of rulers, warriors, and laborers in Plato’s ideal state. Priests and monks did not have families or private property, while laymen did. [8, 9] Li Yinghua did not mention that Plato’s ideal state originated in ancient Greece, Christianity originated in Judaism, and Judaism flourished in the agrarian society of Judah. Christianity did not inherit the vibrant and innovative spirit of ancient Greece. In contrast, both Confucianism and Taoism took the primitive society as their ideal and were content with agrarian life. The Confucian ideal in Chinese history did not go beyond the middle class in the above model diagram. The so-called academies that developed after the Song Dynasty can be considered the ideal state of Confucian sage kings and saints, which was smaller in scale compared with Europe under the rule of the Roman Catholic Church.

2) The social structure of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties was closer to Plato’s ideal state: A key difference between Chinese society after the Qin and Han dynasties and Plato’s ideal state was that China was a vast empire with a culture and state structure far superior to its surrounding peoples. Plato’s Greece had a unified culture and beliefs, with numerous city-states but lacking political unity, which was somewhat similar to the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. Medieval Europe was also similar to the ancient Greek world: it had a unified culture and beliefs but lacked political unity, so it is not surprising that the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire, similar to Plato’s ideal state, emerged. Plato’s ideal state was based on the ancient Greek city-states, which were small and coexisted equally with other city-states. Although the Roman Catholic Church dominated European Christianity, its territory was small; the Byzantine Empire’s territory was also never very large. When Machiavelli (1496-1527) wrote “The Prince,” urging monarchs to learn from the ancient Romans’ method of conquering and unifying Italy and the world, he coincidentally began to draw a line under the Christian world under the Roman Catholic Church and the Confucian empire of the Song Dynasty.

The Confucian ideal of the sage-king pursues the aesthetic order of primordial society, which manifests as the art of living in the reality of secondary societies, expressed through ritual music and the self-transcendence of Neo-Confucianism. The harmony within Plato’s ideal state relies on the philosopher-king’s profound understanding and internalization of justice. This justice is external to individuals, hence the regulations on communal ownership of wives, leading to the Christian tradition of non-marriage among priests and monks. Other qualities of life discussed in Plato’s ideal state, including honesty, courage, and temperance, also reflect the demands placed on individuals by secondary societies. This facilitated the urbanization and democratization of Western societies, thus accelerating the process of capitalism; the slow progress of urbanization, democratization, and capitalism in China is inextricably linked to the Confucian moral and aesthetic order and the ideal of Great Harmony.

III. The Failure of the Chinese Imperial Court and State’s Attempts at Confucianization and the Limited Success of the Roman Catholic Church’s Ideal State

Confucius himself devoted his life to promoting Confucianism among the feudal lords, and his teachings provided bureaucratic intellectuals with a worldview and principles for conduct. Confucian politics, which followed the examples of Yao and Shun and modeled itself on Wen and Wu, focused primarily on the imperial court. However, after the failure of Wang Mang’s reforms, it had to shift its focus to reforming the bureaucracy itself.

We can regard Wang Mang’s new policies as an attempt to Confucianize the court and the state. Wang Mang’s attempt to abolish private land ownership and restore the well-field system, as well as his attempt to abolish the slave trade, all contain Confucian thought. Wang Mang was learned and fond of etiquette from a young age. Whether he was successful and a high-ranking official or poor and destitute, he was self-disciplined and generous, and was praised by people. When his son killed a slave, Wang Mang ordered his son to commit suicide. Such behavior is still admirable today. Other measures of Wang Mang’s reform, such as the Five Equalizations and the Six Equalizations, were all aimed at suppressing the powerful and ensuring the lives of ordinary people. Contemporary scholar Qi Liang highly praised Wang Mang’s political attempt, saying, “Wang Mang’s reform was actually a utopian experiment. Its nature was the same as the equalization of land in the later peasant uprisings. It was also based on the idea that all the land under heaven should be cultivated by all people. It can be regarded as the first socialist attempt in Chinese history.”[10] Qi Liang, like this article, linked Confucianism with communism.

Utopian experiments only emerged in modern Europe, and these were mostly localized endeavors by a minority. In contrast, China two thousand years ago saw emperors leading nationwide utopian experiments, highlighting the differences between Eastern and Western societies and histories. The result was the same: experiments that ignored the distinction between primordial and secondary societies, using prehistoric egalitarian societies as models, invariably ended in failure. However, the failure of these experiments does not diminish their social significance; they illuminate the direction for social progress. Both Eastern and Western histories have progressed gradually towards ideals, continuously increasing democracy, equality, and benefits for ordinary people. Similarly, Chinese history is a process of continuously approaching the ideals of Confucianism.

In the early days of Christianity, founded by Jesus, Christians lived a communist lifestyle. It was only through the reforms of figures like Paul that it became a widely spread religion within the Roman Empire. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Christianity became a force for maintaining social order and unity in Europe, and partially took over governmental functions, a region historians refer to as the Christian world—more precisely, a Christian kingdom. On the other hand, secular forces pursuing material civilization, in contrast to Christianity’s emphasis on spiritual civilization, always existed. This meant that Christianity’s exercise of governmental functions could only be temporary and partial, and it did not change the long-standing political structure in the West where secular governments and Christianity maintained a balance of power and checks and balances.

Taking the current Roman Catholic Church as an example, it closely resembles Plato’s ideal state and the Confucian system of sage-kings: education, selection and appointment of the virtuous and capable, and ultimately, the despotism of philosopher-kings or sage-kings. The Roman Catholic Church has historically experienced corruption, as has the Confucian bureaucratic system. The existence of secular politics serves as an external check on the corruption within the Roman Catholic Church, while the secular elements within the Chinese bureaucratic system are precisely what fuel corruption.

The Byzantine Empire, which existed for over a thousand years, bore a striking resemblance to the Chinese Empire from the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. The Byzantine Empire originated from the Roman Empire. After formally adopting Christianity as its official ideology, it abolished the functions of the Roman Council of Elders and Administrators, rendering them merely nominal, and rejected democratic elements of the republic, such as the assembly of citizens, becoming an autocratic empire. The Byzantine Empire existed for 1123 years (330-1453), conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453; while the Chinese Empire, under the rule of Confucianism, existed for 1415 years (136-1279 BC), falling to the Mongol Empire in 1279. Afterwards, Byzantine Orthodoxy and Confucianism continued to exist; Orthodox Greece and Confucian China continued to exist. Both coexisted peacefully with their surroundings, rather than adopting the expansionist policies of the Roman Empire.

The fundamental difference between China and the Byzantine Empire lies in their social structures: China was based on a quasi-primitive society of vast peasant populations, while the Byzantine Empire, inheriting the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome, was based on a secondary society composed of citizens. Consequently, each Chinese dynasty lasted significantly longer than those of the Byzantine Empire, with a typical Chinese dynasty lasting around three hundred years; whereas the Byzantine Empire, spanning 1123 years, had 12 dynasties and 93 emperors, meaning each dynasty averaged less than one hundred years. Furthermore, dynastic changes in China were mostly preceded by prolonged periods of war, while those in the Byzantine Empire were largely driven by military coups and uprisings in the capital. This is because in a secondary society, numerous local forces could readily seize power; whereas in China, with its quasi-primitive society at the grassroots level, it required a considerably longer period to build a political force sufficient to replace the empire.

In short, if we take Western politics as a reference, under the influence of official Confucianism, the Chinese government has evolved in the direction of Plato’s ideal state, which is exactly the opposite of the direction of modern Western democracy, which expands government functions and allows the public to participate widely, but is similar to the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire.

If we consider the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire as products influenced by Plato’s Republic, then Plato’s Republic achieved a similar level of success as the Confucianization of Chinese politics, exhibiting three distinct phases: the first, characterized by both talk and action; the second, by mere talk without action; and the third, by complete silence. The first phase involved Jesus and his apostles living a communist life, and medieval Europe’s partial takeover of governmental functions, mirroring the Byzantine Empire’s era of talk and action. The second phase, marked by the decline of the Byzantine Empire and the gradual withdrawal of European Christianity from governmental functions, was characterized by talk without action. The third phase, characterized by silence and inaction, saw Christianity withdraw from the government-dominated secular discourse following the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Christianity entered the latter phase earlier than Confucianism in China, and both ultimately gave way to the rise of capitalism. Comparable to the vagrant class, periodic turmoil, and foreign invasions in Chinese history, Europe saw the emergence of a bourgeoisie that did not adhere to old rules. From the perspective of Christian philanthropy, the religious wars, which were second only to the two World Wars in cruelty and scale, and the subsequent European wars of aggression against other countries, were comparable to China’s foreign invasions and periodic turmoil: Confucianism and Christianity were equally powerless in the face of these large-scale violent events.

33. The Imperial Examination System and Plato’s Republic: An Analysis of the Historical Success and Possible Prospects of the Confucianization of Chinese Politics (Part 2)