Taiwan Today

The role of Confucianism in Taiwan’s democratization is an important question, especially in light of claims by some leaders in neighboring states such as Singapore and Malaysia that democracy is unsuited to traditional East Asian culture, as well as mainland China’s use of Confucius Institutes at universities around the world to promote its soft power. In “Confucianism, Democratization, and Human Rights in Taiwan,” Joel S. Fetzer and J. Christopher Soper examine this question through interviews with pro-democracy politicians, analysis of data from public opinion surveys between 1995 and 2009, Confucian content in textbooks before and after democratization, and legislative debates on key laws passed in the process of political liberalization. Fetzer and Soper are professors of political science at U.S.-based Pepperdine University writing for an academic audience, but the study includes valuable points for the general reader interested in political and social developments in Taiwan. For the purposes of the research, the authors define the “rich and complex tradition” of Confucianism as “an ethical system that places primary emphasis on family loyalty, social hierarchies, and social harmony.” They then relate belief in these three core values to support for democratization, women’s rights, freedom of speech and the rights of aborigines. The back jacket summary tells the reader that Confucianism “played little role in Taiwan’s democratization.” This overall conclusion, perhaps of greatest interest to the general reader, is supported by the different sources of data in the study. “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 liberal democracy in contemporary politics,” the authors report. “Specifically, pro-democracy elites identified Confucianism with the political authoritarianism and cultural imperialism of the pre-democratic [Kuomintang].” Their feelings in this regard were borne out in the review of elementary and early-middle-school textbooks on social studies, history and Chinese language and literature prior to and after the lifting of martial law in 1987. In the earlier textbooks, Confucius was linked with contemporary political leaders “in an unbroken line to the greatness of China’s past.” Moreover, the central Confucian concept of “ren,” or benevolence, was connected to “official KMT policy of the day, implementation of Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy, and the welfare of the people.” In the later textbooks, Confucius is seen to promote “the very liberal ideas of treating every person with equal respect, paying attention to each person’s individual personality, and teaching people according to their various abilities regardless of class.” It is curious, however, that no current KMT leaders were interviewed, as all the interviews were conducted in May 2008, just when the KMT was poised to reassume power under President Ma Ying-jeou in the second democratic transition of power in ROC history. It seems likely that party leaders would have had something to say about Confucianism and democracy. In the Legislature, “debate on democratization and human rights demonstrates clearly that western political values, rather than Confucian ones, were paramount. For the most part, Confucianism seemed irrelevant to supporters and opponents of each the four bills [studied].” The laws in question are the Civic Organization Act, 1989, soon after the lifting of martial law and before the Legislative Yuan had become a truly multiparty democratic body in 1992; repeal of the Publishing Act, 1999; Gender Equality in Employment Act, 2002; and Aboriginal Basic Law, 2005. The strongest connection the study found, in the analysis of opinion polls, was that Confucianism did not interfere much with the development of democracy. “One important finding from our analysis is that Confucian norms do not consistently undermine liberal democracy in Taiwan. None of the three Confucian values (i.e., family loyalty, social hierarchies, and social harmony) reduces support for democratization.” The analysis of how Confucian values have affected public support for democratization and human rights over time draws on the 1995 Taiwan subset of the World Values Survey, the Taiwan subsamples of the 2001 and 2006 Asian Barometer and a telephone-based poll the authors commissioned in September 2009. Interestingly, comparative data from the Asian Barometer waves one and two showed that “respondents in authoritarian and democratic states differ in how they appropriate Confucian and democratic values,” even though Confucian values were broadly supported in each country. “Data from interviewees in authoritarian [mainland] China and Singapore were more likely to exhibit a negative correlation between adherence to Confucian norms and support for key democratic values than were responses from residents of democratic South Korea and Taiwan.” In Taiwan, however, the social harmony variable seemed to have undermined support for women’s rights somewhat in 1995 and 2001. The authors conclude that Confucian values remain fairly strong in Taiwan, but appear to be weakening significantly over time. “Mass-level decline in support for these values indicates that more Taiwanese are abandoning the tradition wholesale.” On the 1995 World Values Survey, support for the measures of family loyalty stood at 63.4 percent, climbing to 86.2 percent in 2001 and 88.4 percent in 2006 on the Asian Barometer, but falling to 33 percent in the authors’ 2009 poll. Belief in social hierarchies, likewise, went from 44.8 percent in 1995 to 68.9 percent in 2001, but then down to 29.2 percent and 19 percent in 2006 and 2009, respectively. Support for the value of social harmony, in contrast, appears to be growing, starting at just 15.4 percent in 1995, but jumping to 46.1 percent in 2001, 39.8 percent in 2006 and 52.5 percent in 2009. At the same time, belief in democratic values has been robust throughout the time period studied. For example, in 1995, “83.5 percent of interviewees agreed that democracy is ‘better than any other form of government,’” and 76.1 percent did not agree that a university education is more important for men than for women. In 2001, “71.6 percent opposed having the government decide ‘whether certain ideas should be discussed in society,’” while in 2009, 38 percent said the government should “spend more money and time” on aborigines. In a symbolic example of how Confucian values are being reinterpreted in Taiwan according to contemporary conditions, half of the deacons at the 2013 spring ceremony at the Taipei Confucius Temple were females—and high school girls were enthusiastic applicants for the position. Although Confucianism does not appear to have been an important factor in Taiwan’s transformation into the vibrant, diverse and democratic society that it is today, this ancient system of thought still has a role to play as the country moves ahead.