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¹⁰ Bai, ‘Limited Democracy’, p. 28.

¹¹ In Bai's essay, the distinction between examination model and levelled model is not always clear. In fact, Bai admits that the two models are ‘complementary and can be further combined’. See Bai, ‘Limited Democracy’, p. 29.

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¹⁶ See Analects 2:3.

¹⁷ Bell, ‘Taking Elitism Seriously’, pp. 164–5.

¹⁸ Bell, ‘Taking Elitism Seriously’, p. 154.

¹⁹ Bell, ‘Taking Elitism Seriously’, p. 153 (fn. 8). In fact, Bell cities one more (Analects 12:19), but I do not see its relevance to the so-called ‘Confucian tradition of respect for a ruling elite’.

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²¹ Analects 16:9.

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²³ Such ‘helpless cases’ (i.e., those who refused to be educated) include Zai Wo, Confucius's own student (Analects 17:21).

²⁴ Ames and Rosemont, The Analects of Confucius, p. 243 (n. 125).

²⁵ Mencius 7A13 (modified). Unless noted otherwise, all English translations of the Works of Mencius are adopted from Mencius, trans. by D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin, 1970).

²⁶ On the ‘teachability’ of the people and its Confucian democratic implications, see Fred Dallmayr, ‘Exiting Liberal Democracy: Bell and Confucian Thought’, Philosophy East and West, 59 (2009), 524–30.

²⁷ Mencius 3A4 (quoted from Bai, ‘Limited Democracy’, p. 26).

²⁸ The context is that Mencius was challenging Zhen Xiang (ultimately, his teacher Xu Xing, the Agriculturalist), who was persuadedthat the wise ruler shares the work of tilling the land with his people. Mencius's main point here is not so much about the division of labour between two distinct social classes of people but about the seriousness of the work the ruler (the king in this case) does, which is rarely recognized by ordinary people because it does not appear to ‘produce things’.

²⁹ Bai, ‘Limited Democracy’, p. 26.

³⁰ Mencius 5A1 for Shun and 5A7 for Yi Yin.

³¹ Mencius 6B13.

³² Bai presents Mencius as holding a pejorative view of menial works because they are ‘animals’ activities’. But nowhere in the Works of Mencius does Mencius present menial works as animals’ activities.

³³ Mencius 6A15.

³⁴ In this regard, I fully agree with Justin Tiwald. See his ‘A Right of Rebellion in the Mengzi?’ Dao (2008), pp. 269–82.

³⁵ Mencius 5A5.

³⁶ Bai, ‘Limited Democracy’, p. 27.

³⁷ These Western liberal constitutional mechanisms can be properly ‘Confucianized’. See, for instance, Tom Ginsburg, ‘Confucian Constitutionalism? The Emergence of Constitutional Review in Korea and Taiwan’, Law & Social Inquiry, 27 (2002), 763–99.

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⁴¹ The preferred method was either invitation by the ruler or recommendation by Confucian masters.

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⁴⁴ Chan, ‘Democracy and Meritocracy’, p. 181.

⁴⁵ Chan, ‘Democracy and Meritocracy’, p. 182.

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⁵⁰ By ‘active citizenship’ I do not mean an old-style republican citizenship that puts active political participation above everything else. Even Barber's ‘active citizenship’, which I endorse, is much more moderate than this and quite practicable in a modern pluralist society: ‘Citizens are governors: self-governors, communal governors, masters of their own fates. They need not participate all of the time in all public affairs, but they should participate at least some of the time in at least some public affairs.’ (Barber, Strong Democracy, pp. xxix.)

⁵¹ Fred Dallmayr comments on Daniel Bell's book in this way: ‘As indicated, the book's title is Beyond Liberal Democracy, but one frequently gets the impression that the move is not just beyond “liberal democracy” but beyond democracy tout court, leaving as a remnant only what Bell calls “minimal democracy”.’ (Dallmayr, ‘Exiting Liberal Democracy’, p. 526.)

⁵² In his earlier work East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), Bell supported an empowered civil society and the right to vote without fear of retaliation in Singapore (chap. 4). But in Beyond Liberal Democracy, whose subtitle runs ‘Political Thinking for an East Asian Context’, Bell makes a generalized claim that meritocratic elitism with thin/minimal democracy is suitable in East Asian Confucian societies.

⁵³ Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy, p. 151. In making this argument, Bell offers a ‘Confucian’ justification of why active citizenship is unsuitable in East Asian societies: ‘In East Asian societies with a Confucian heritage, where the good of the family has been regarded as the key to the good life for more than two millennia, there republican tradition is so far removed from people's self-understanding that it is a complete nonstarter. Most people have devoted their time and energy to family and other “local” obligations, with political decision making left to an educated, public-spirited elite.’ Though I agree that Confucian democratic does not necessarily have to be modelled after the republican active citizenship, I do not see any compelling reason why active citizenship must be precluded from the possible Confucian democratic modes of political engagement ‘at least some of the time in at least some public affairs’.

⁵⁴ Bai, ‘Limited Democracy’, p. 26.

⁵⁵ Barber, Strong Democracy, pp. 24–5.

⁵⁶ Mencius 6A7. Also see Mencius 3A1.

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⁵⁸ See Mencius 3A4.

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⁶⁰ It is not surprising that Bell supports both Confucian communitarianism and meritocratic elitism. I suspect that in Bell's ideal regime, what constitutes the common good is unilaterally determined by elite leaders.

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⁶⁴ In no place in the Analects does Confucius define the junzi purely in civic terms. Instead, Confucius always presents the junzi as a moral person primarily (almost solely) concerned with his moral self-cultivation (see Analects 12:4; 14:24; 15:18; 15:21; 15:32; 16:10). In other words, for Confucius, civics had no moral value independent of morals. On Confucius's (and the Confucian) idea of moral self-cultivation, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self Cultivation (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2000).

⁶⁵ Analects 2:21.

⁶⁶ Mencius 4A5 (slightly modified).

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⁶⁹ Tan, ‘From Cannibalism to Empowerment’, p. 58.

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⁷⁴ Mencius 1A7.

⁷⁵ Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy, pp. 44–7.

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⁷⁷ Most famously, Mencius says, ‘Old men without wives (guan), old women without husbands (gua), old people without children (du), young children without fathers (gu) – these four types of people are the most destitute and have no one to turn to for help. Whenever King Wen put benevolent measures into effect, he always gave them first consideration’ (Mencius 1B5). Also see Xunzi 11:12.

⁷⁸ Bell, Daniel A., ‘Confucian Constraints on Property Rights’, in Hahm Chaibong and Daniel A. Bell, eds, Confucianism for the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 218–35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁹ Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy, pp. 55–62. Michael Walzer criticizes Bell's left Confucianism precisely because it fails to be a left doctrine. See Michael Walzer's response to Bell's ‘Reconciling Socialism and Confucianism? Reviving Tradition in China’, Dissent (Winter 2010), 100–1. It might be unfair to say that Bell is not concerned with distributive justice at all because, in ‘Confucian Constraints on Property Rights’, he does find some meaningful resonance between Confucian ethics and Rawls's difference principle. Even here, however, Bell's concern is predominantly with how to justify individual family ownership (as opposed to individual private property ownership), but not so much with distributive justice as such.

⁸⁰ Analects 16:1. It is beyond the scope of this article to investigate the Confucian conception of social justice thoroughly. For an interesting work on this issue, see Erin M. Cline, ‘Two Senses of Justice: Confucianism, Rawls, and Comparative Political Philosophy’, Dao 6 (2007), 361–81.

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⁸² Mencius 1A3.

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⁸⁴ Mencius 1A7.

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⁸⁷ Frankfurt, ‘Equality as a Moral Ideal’, p. 23.

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