Confucius Institutes help develop the regime’s ‘soft power’

Epoch Times
By Michael Young

Confucius, an ethicist in China who taught before Christ, established moral principles called “Right Living” based on peace, order, wisdom, humanity, courage, and fidelity. He wrote his beliefs in the collection called “Analects” and remains one of the mo (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Apparently, Confucius was politically rehabilitated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He has twice been revived by the CCP, once as villain and now as hero.

When I was 9 years old and living in China, this old man, who had lived between 551 B.C. and 479 B.C., had made himself the top enemy of the CCP, along with Lin Biao. Lin Biao, who was once Chairman Mao’s right-hand man, died in a mysterious 1971 plane crash as he was fleeing China.

After Lin Biao’s death, Mao launched a political campaign in which everyone in China had to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius in meetings and in writing. We elementary school students had to write papers criticizing the two, following the assessment of the Party.

It was very hard for us to understand why everything Confucius had done and said seemed so evil. Some uneducated farmers imagined that Lin Biao and Confucius were brothers conspiring to overthrow Mao.

I still cannot figure out how Mao made the connection between these two men who lived almost 2,500 years apart. Confucius himself, as wise as he was, may have never imagined that he could still be a threat to the CCP in 1971.

Things have now changed and Confucius has become the CCP’s ambassador to the world.    more …