been described as ‘punishment’, most recently when China ‘punished’
Vietnam in 1979.
While Confucius’s moral teachings may have fallen on deaf ears
during his lifetime, his belief in social order and hierarchy, and his
glorification of the early Zhou dynasty, when the Chinese cultural area
was unified under Heaven, struck a resonant chord in the hearts and
minds of later rulers and their ministers alike. When China was even-
tually united in a single empire by Qin Zi Huangdi in 221 BCE, however,
it was not by an emperor acting upon the advice of a Confucian-
educated elite. Rather, it was through the ruthless application of an
entirely different philosophy of governance, known as Legalism.
The Legalists were convinced that social order could only be
maintained through a totalitarian system of draconian laws admin-
istered by an impersonal bureaucracy. Human beings, they taught,
responded only to punishments and rewards. It was not necessary for
people to be educated to the need for social order; it was enough that
they obey the decrees of their emperor. Nor did the Legalists believe
that all wisdom lay in the past; situations should be examined on their
own terms, and sensible solutions found.
If Legalism was preferred during the Qin dynasty (221–207 BCE),
the succeeding Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) incorporated ele-
ments of Legalism into a dominant Confucian framework. Actually,
Legalists and Confucianists had much in common. Both sought social
order, and both affirmed a strict social hierarchy, with the emperor at
its apex. Both also believed that proper conduct (court ritual and
social etiquette) were essential to reinforce this hierarchical social
order. Where they differed was over whether people could be educated
to the need for such conduct, and so act appropriately out of convic-
tion; or whether they had to be forced to do so through fear of
draconian punishment. The end they held in common; it was essen-
tially the means over which they differed. Chinese government
applied both.
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia