"KARL MARX and Confucius may have lived 2,400 years apart, but on Chinese state television they stroll together through an ancient Chinese academy. In a sun-dappled bamboo grove, a group of student painters invite the two philosophers to be their models. As the young people paint, Marx and Confucius chat. They are impressed with China’s high-speed trains, among other things. When the portraits are revealed, the thinkers are surprised. Marx is depicted in a Tang-dynasty robe; Confucius is portrayed in a Western suit and tie. But both are delighted. “I’ve been in China for more than a hundred years,” says Marx (in Mandarin). “Actually, I have been Chinese for a long time.” Confucius chuckles, stroking his beard. Long hair looks a bit strange with the suit, he says, but it make sense to keep changing.

The scene is from “When Marx Met Confucius”, a television series created by the propaganda department in Hunan province and released in October. It is not popular. On Douban, a film website, it has received only 100 or so reviews, most of them negative (eg, “makes me sick”). But for those who can stomach it, the show is a good way to understand Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, the latest branch of the Chinese leader’s philosophy.

Other parts of Mr Xi’s thinking emphasise tighter Communist Party control over such things as diplomacy, defence and the economy. Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, announced in October, attempts to fuse pride in Chinese tradition with loyalty to the party. Its most important tenet is the “two combines”, party-speak for a decades-long process to make Marxism more Chinese. The first combine refers to early efforts to adapt Marxism to China’s “specific reality”. Such ideological flexibility allowed Deng Xiaoping, China’s former leader, to pursue economic reforms in the 1980s. The second combine is Mr Xi’s idea: to sinicise Marxism by melding it with traditional Chinese culture.

The effort represents the culmination of a radical turnaround for the party, which once considered tradition its enemy. During the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, Mao Zedong’s Red Guards destroyed Confucian temples, burnt Confucian texts and desecrated the sage’s tomb. Young people denounced their elders, contradicting Confucianism’s emphasis on filial piety. But after Mao’s death in 1976 the party warmed to Confucius, or at least to a simplified version of his teachings that emphasises deference to authority. Deng allowed public celebrations of the philosopher’s birthday. Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, Deng’s successors, appropriated Confucian ideas. In the early 2000s Chinese scholars debated whether Confucianism might even replace Marxism as China’s guiding ideology."

https://www.economist.com/china/2023/11/02/xi-jinping-is-trying-to-fuse-the-ideologies-of-marx-and-confucius

On Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 1:34:24 AM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:
> "KARL MARX and Confucius may have lived 2,400 years apart, but on Chinese state television they stroll together through an ancient Chinese academy. In a sun-dappled bamboo grove, a group of student painters invite the two philosophers to be their models. As the young people paint, Marx and Confucius chat. They are impressed with China’s high-speed trains, among other things. When the portraits are revealed, the thinkers are surprised. Marx is depicted in a Tang-dynasty robe; Confucius is portrayed in a Western suit and tie. But both are delighted. “I’ve been in China for more than a hundred years,” says Marx (in Mandarin). “Actually, I have been Chinese for a long time.” Confucius chuckles, stroking his beard. Long hair looks a bit strange with the suit, he says, but it make sense to keep changing.
>
> The scene is from “When Marx Met Confucius”, a television series created by the propaganda department in Hunan province and released in October. It is not popular. On Douban, a film website, it has received only 100 or so reviews, most of them negative (eg, “makes me sick”). But for those who can stomach it, the show is a good way to understand Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, the latest branch of the Chinese leader’s philosophy.
>
> Other parts of Mr Xi’s thinking emphasise tighter Communist Party control over such things as diplomacy, defence and the economy. Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, announced in October, attempts to fuse pride in Chinese tradition with loyalty to the party. Its most important tenet is the “two combines”, party-speak for a decades-long process to make Marxism more Chinese. The first combine refers to early efforts to adapt Marxism to China’s “specific reality”. Such ideological flexibility allowed Deng Xiaoping, China’s former leader, to pursue economic reforms in the 1980s. The second combine is Mr Xi’s idea: to sinicise Marxism by melding it with traditional Chinese culture.
>
> The effort represents the culmination of a radical turnaround for the party, which once considered tradition its enemy. During the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, Mao Zedong’s Red Guards destroyed Confucian temples, burnt Confucian texts and desecrated the sage’s tomb. Young people denounced their elders, contradicting Confucianism’s emphasis on filial piety. But after Mao’s death in 1976 the party warmed to Confucius, or at least to a simplified version of his teachings that emphasises deference to authority. Deng allowed public celebrations of the philosopher’s birthday. Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, Deng’s successors, appropriated Confucian ideas. In the early 2000s Chinese scholars debated whether Confucianism might even replace Marxism as China’s guiding ideology."
>
> https://www.economist.com/china/2023/11/02/xi-jinping-is-trying-to-fuse-the-ideologies-of-marx-and-confucius

Actually, the fusion of Maoism, the Chinese version of Marxism, with Confucianism is inevitable. The following from
a book review on "Escape from Predicament" authored by Thomas A. Metzger:

"The final chapter, chapter five, "The Ethos of Interdependence in an Age of Rising Optimism and Westernization",
attempts to show that Confucian values did not completely fade with the ending of the traditional imperial order but
instead were an integral part of the Chinese political psyche and therefore could not be simply thrown off in order to
don a new political ideology(p194). Therefore, although Mao Zedong and the other communist leaders tried
desperately to shed Confucian ideas and bring a completely new form of ideology to China, they were nonetheless
hopelessly mired in the long tradition of Confucian influence on the Chinese political stage. Such is the persistence
of culture.

Metzger's attempt to take an old argument and view it from a new angle is refreshing to say the least. Although certain
areas of the work may be too detailed for the average reader and in other areas it may be too brief for experienced
readers of Confucianism and modern Chinese history, it nonetheless captures the continuities and the persistence of
culture that cannot be overlooked when studying a civilization, especially one as old as China."

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3III50DWTZUZ7/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0231910320