Word: li
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Vision Across the Centuries. Chen Li-fu is not much in the news these days. It is not up to him to win the civil war, block the inflation or get reconstruction going. He has set himself the less immediate but greater task of a chih-k'o, or marriage broker, between two great civilizations-one based on the culture of Confucius, the other on the technology of the West. His activities toward this end take two very different forms: he writes erudite books on social philosophy and he operates a political machine that extends from Chiang Kai-shek...
...American reads much about contemporary China, especially in the left press, he would soon come upon the name of Chen Li-fu, head of what was called the "notorious" CC clique. This Chen was presented as the embodiment of what was wrong with China; he was the villain behind the screen, the devil who wrecked all compromise and blocked all progress...
...this picture is correct, then the U.S. and China will be poles apart for many a bitter, crucial year. Perhaps the best way to examine the picture is to examine Chen Li-fu. Perhaps he seems a villain not because he is one, but for two other reasons: 1) he is the Chinese whom Communists (and their U.S. friends) hate most, and 2) he symbolizes that side of China which is hardest for Americans to understand. What he represents has existed in China for 2,000 years, and will exist for many more. If Americans are going to know China...
There is nothing hopelessly mysterious about the Confucian principles Chen Li-fu wants to refurbish. Essentially, Confucianism teaches that human nature is good,* that harmony among men is the goal of life, that rulers rule by example and exhortations to virtue. However, the Confucian system assumes that government shall rest in the hands of scholars and of gentle and honorable men-the chiin-tzu. The benevolent paternalism of the chiin-tzu ideal (still reflected in China's 36-year Kuomintang "tutelage" and in much of the new Constitution) is not popular government as the West understands it. To many...
...party politics is laced with corruption in China, Chen feels no personal shame. He has never used his public position to enrich himself. U.S. Ambassador Leighton Stuart says: "I defy anyone to prove that Chen Li-fu is corrupt." Nobody ever has. Says Chen: "The real problem is not corruption but the economic crisis springing out of our long period of war, just as the American Civil War gave birth to a period of low public morality. Confucius said, 'Without a full stomach one cannot speak of high principles.' . . ." Chen adds: "When man's natural desires...