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Bureaucratized Confucianism: How Tradition Became a Tool of Control in China

5 1
22.07.2025

What does it mean when a regime speaks the language of ancient virtue but enforces it through curriculum mandates and ideological scorecards? The opening essay of Simulated Sagehood, a five-part series, traces how Confucianism has been reconstructed, not as a living tradition, but as a calibrated instrument of bureaucratic control. 

Through textbook reform, propaganda choreography, and institutional........

© The Diplomat