chapter 14
...................................................................................................................................................EAST ASIA AND
THE WEST: THE IMPACT
OF CONFUCIANISM ON
ANGLO-AMERICAN
POLITICAL THEORY
...................................................................................................................................................daniel a. bell
1 Background
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
TheWrst substantial encounter between East Asian and Western political
theory took place in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. Drawing
upon the translations and reports of Jesuit missionaries in China, Enlighten-
ment thinkers such as Voltaire expressed deep admiration for Confucian
moral and political philosophy. Confucian-inspired China was depicted as
the model of rationality and just rule and it was held up as the mirror image
of religious and superstitious European societies. The problem, however,
is that there were strong elements of projection and wishful thinking in
Enlightenment accounts of Confucian philosophy and its social and political
circumstances (Clarke 1997 , 43 ).