The Core Values of Chinese Civilization
Drawing on the core values of Western civilization as a comparative lens, this book identifies and refines the corresponding core principles within Chinese civilization. The author distills them into four fundamental tenets: duty before freedom, obedience before rights, community before the individual, and harmony before conflict. Rooted in a deep engagement with guoxue — traditional Chinese Sinology — the work provides a detailed explanation of China’s classical value system, offering readers a structured understanding of how these principles have shaped Chinese thought and society across centuries.
While modern scholars have extensively discussed the concept of guoxue, their efforts have largely focused on compiling and cataloging an extremely rich and diverse body of information. Missing, however, has been a systematic theoretical analysis of the concepts and theories underlying guoxue. This book fills that gap by developing a rigorous theoretical framework in three important respects. First, it analyzes the mindset of guoxue, examining the dominant ideas and values of the historical period in which the term emerged. Particular attention is paid to the connection between guoxue and early social and cultural transformations, distinguishing three key phases of its development. Unlike past scholars who primarily defined guoxue by its range of studied objects, this book emphasizes guoxue as a modern body of research with its own evolving logic.
Second, the book assesses several phases in the modern evolution of guoxue research, tracing its journey from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century — culminating in the later phase of the National Heritage movement. Third, it explores the various main modes of modern guoxue, demonstrating how these modes correspond step by step with the evolutionary phases of guoxue research. By providing both historical depth and theoretical clarity, The Core Values of Chinese Civilization offers an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand the philosophical and cultural foundations of contemporary Chinese civilization.