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family affairs, govern the state well and ensure peace for all under Heaven.
Confucianism’s integrity, being determined by ancient China’s theocratic monar-
chical society, was not questioned at all. But after imperial rule ended, the scholars
who were building the modern academic system were not dedicated enough and
paid insufficient attention to the topic of integrity. Of course, the understanding of
Confucianism’s fundamental integrity rarely poses a problem in modern academic
sub-disciplinary research where there are relatively clear areas of specialization. It
is only when our academic research is oriented toward the awareness of social
issues and when it breaks the boundaries of academic disciplines to solve specific
social problems can there be a greater chance of collisions as the different disci-
plines come together.
For example, the ethical and moral view of history held by Confucianism tends
to attribute the rise and fall of dynasties and social disorder to morality. When
reflected in modern academic research, it is easy to attribute the social problems
8
of today to morality too, and subsequently, when proposing solutions from
morality, it is easy to move from ethics research into the field of law and political
science. The debate between Chen Lai (陈来) and Ren Jiantao (任剑涛) on the issue
of public and private morality in 2020 is a typical example of the clash of different
perspectives between ethics and political science (Chen, 2020; Ren, 2020).
Zhang Xuezhi (张学智) also pointed out in 2002 the negative impact of
expectations on the academic research of Confucianism’s integrity: “On China’s
mainland, there is a misconception in 20th century Neo-Confucianism research
that academics are expected to cover the whole world. Neo-Confucians have such
expectations and researchers assume Neo-Confucians will do so.” (Zhang, 2003)
This is perhaps even more relevant to Confucianism research in the context of the
Confucian revival today.

4 Concluding Remarks

In 1965, American sinologist Joseph R. Levenson published Confucian China and
Its Modern Fate, concluding that the Confucian tradition was dead. In the 1980s,
Tu Wei-ming (杜维明) responded to this highly influential assertion in the inter-
national sinology community with the “Three Phases of Confucianism” (e.g., Tu,
1980, 1989). Mr. Tu’s philosophy of restructuring and modernizing the Confucian

8 In fact, although intellectuals of the May Fourth period criticized Confucianism while calling for
the “transformation of nationalism,” they mainly criticized ritualism, and their idea of “trans-
forming nationalism” still followed, to a certain extent, the Confucian way of thinking that
attributed the rise and fall of government and chaos to morality.