In the late second century BC, an imperial university was established which trained people for government service. The Han persuaded the new scholar classthat the doctrines of Confucius could be applied to the new political regime . . . Every man who served the state should make his ideal the Confucian loyalty to the prince, and this prince must be none other than the Emperor himself.? (Fitzgerald 156) From then on, Confucian doctrine was interpreted to support a strong centralized government, and the Confucian scholars became the backbone of the government for the next 2,000 years.
China, with its centralized government, its advanced level of civilization and its long periods of peace and unity was enormously important as a center of the developing civilizations of such countries as Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Tibet. With a centralized aristocratic government and an economy based on agriculture dating as far back as 1766 BC, Chinese culture was far more highly advanced that any other cultures in the eastern regions. As the Chinese empire spread during the Ch'in and Han dynasties to outer reaching areas, its cultural influence followed. As it spread, the Chinese culture was adopted and slowly changed to fit the needs of these developing cultures outside of China's border of direct influence.
During the first and second century AD, Japan had almost no cultural and political development in comparison with China. Japan was an agrarian society and its people lived together in tribes. During the fifth century, the Yamato emperors began to achieve some unification of the clans. Like the early Chinese, the Japanese believed in divine ancestors and accepted the idea of an emperor ruler who was an intermediary between the people and their gods. The Yamoto emperors? authority over the tribes was not absolute, but, because of their religious duties, they were able to stay on the throne and establish some unity during the fifth and sixth centuries.
The attitudes of the children towards the sacrifices they had to make were addressed in the Ba Chin's "Family". ... They regarded Confucianism as an enemy of progress; they felt that filial piety was unsuited to modern life and thought. China was attacked by the British in 1839, and invaded by France, Russia, Germany, and Japan later in the nineteenth century. ...
