The Evolving Belief System of Chinese Culture

Chinese culture together with its belief system is an open system. Because of its openness, its civilization evolves and lasts. That is why China is the only ancient civilization that has been lasting since ancient times. As an open system, none of the three major religions are exclusive. In an extreme evolution view, the three religions can be viewed as three stages of evolution of the Confucianism. Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism can be viewed as three consecutive stages of Confucianism. Confucianism contains Taoism, with the Taoist philosophy of Yin Yang. Chinese Buddhism contains both Taoism and Confucianism.

Laozi, the founder of Taoism, had a dialectic philosophy comparable to that of the German philosopher Hegel. Both of them had the dichotomy notions of Being and Nothing as the core concept of their dialectic philosophies; however, Hegel deducted his ontology from Being while Laozi deducted his ontology from Nothing. Hegel then contributed to the motion of our world as the contradiction and conflict between Being and Nothing. Laozi, on the other hand, had a second layer of his dialectic philosophy. The second layer of Laozi’s dialectic thoughts is based on the concept of Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang are opposite, just as the Being and Nothing are; however, Yin and Yang are harmoniously compensating each other, not like the Being and Nothing that conflict with each other. Laozi contributed the functioning of our universe to the Yin and Yang, not the Being and Nothing as Hegel did.

The divine classic bible of Confucian is the I Ching. I Ching expanded the Yin and Yang to 64 Diagrams. Daoism has a supermundane theology, while Confucianism has a mundane theology. The Sinicized Mahayana Buddhism has a theology both supermundane and mundane. The supermundane part is that the awareness accents a person to a Buddha. The mundane part is that a Buddha becomes a Bodhisattva who decent to the world to rescue other souls. Mencius has a saying: Accent to supermundane when you are poor, decent to mundane when you are capable (《孟子》的《盡心章句上》: 窮則獨善其身，達則兼濟天下), matched well with the theology of the Mahayana Buddhism. Su Shi was the famous Confucian poet of the Song Dynasty. His works typically express thoughts of Confucianism with Taoism and Buddhism heritage. One can hardly separate the three major religions in his works. One example is his poetry 《臨江仙·夜飲東坡醒複醉》. The silent night by the river is a typical Daoism nature attitude, and the intention of accenting to supermundane expressed by the poetry is the hybrid of Confucianism and Buddhism.

By the 20th century, Marxism and Leninism propagated from the West into China. Chinese Marxism contains all Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. This Sinicized Marxism is called Maoism. Neither Marx nor Lenin thought that peasants could be a political power in the capitalist world. In their theory, communist revolution is the mission of the proletariat. The Chinese revolution led by Mao is a peasant’s revolution. Peasants were the political power of the Chinese revolution.   The first thing Mao did in 1949 was to give land, the property, to the peasant. The first thing Mao did is to turn peasants into the bourgeoisie. The Chinese Confucianism civilization is evolving by absorbing western thoughts.

Then there is Capitalism in the ’80s. Chinese Capitalism contains Maoism or contains Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Marxism, and Capitalism. This is Deng's theory. This is called Market Economy with Socialism Character.

Theorists around the world are puzzled about whether China is a Communist country or a Capitalist country. They simply cannot fit Chinese phenomena into their classification of Communism or Capitalism. They even believe that Mao and Deng are opposite to each other. They are all wrong. China is a vivid ancient civilization evolving at full speed into modern times. It absorbs and picks up all the achievements of Human civilization, inclusively.

Socialism with Chinese characters is Chinese civilization evolved so far. It is not Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Marxism, or Capitalism. It contains all the virtual of these isms. Western sociology contains the philosophy of Hegel. Both Karl Marx and Max Weber viewed society as progressing through conflicts of interest. The Socialism of Chinese Characters, on the other hand, employs the Yin and Yang philosophy. Chinese society is functioning not based on the conflict of Being and Nothing, but on the harmony of Yin and Yang. The Socialism of Chinese Characters is not an egalitarian society, but a harmonic society that each individual has equal human dignity.

At the very beginning, about 10,000 years ago, Fuxi(伏羲）invented the Eight Trigrams (八卦）. China began its pure Taoism times. Then it evolves. It evolved into Confucianism, Buddhism, Maoism, into Dengism. There is no such thing as an exclusive belief in absolute truth in Chinese culture. Exclusive belief is a closed system that is incapable of evolution. That’s why other ancient civilizations all died. They died because they cannot evolve.

That’s why China never claims he is the absolute right and ultimate truth. China will evolve into the future. Nothing is an absolute right and ultimate truth for the Chinese. Because China does not believe in absolute right and ultimate truth, Chinese culture breeds not extremists, nor terrorists. China has terrorists who are influenced by outside cultures. As a result, the Chinese have no evangelistic impose. Taoism, Confucian, and Buddhism do not intend to convert others. This is why China will not impose its beliefs and political system onto other countries in international politics.