Tide Online

In a Tide Online article on Confucius I read this noticeable sentence: "philosophers should accept the moral obligation to be intelligible or silent..."

[Actu] Sur les relations sino-africaines

Un article du "Le Quotidien du Peuple" révèle avec une naïveté rafraîchissante certains aspects des relations entre la Chine et l'Afrique. Ainsi cette question posée d'un haut fonctionnaire zimbabwéen : "Pourquoi la Chine tient-elle toujours à se parer du titre de pays en développement?"

Confucius quoted

An article in Ottawa Citizen (14/12/2005) quotes Confucius: "He who governs by his moral excellence may be compared to the pole-star, which abides in its place, while all the stars bow towards it." (Lunyu II.1)

What noticeable here? Well, it is the first relevant quote of Confucius' sayings I ever read in Western newspapers! Oddly enough, the author doesn't seem to be CBC (Canadian Born Chinese)...

Search for Chinese Academic Literatures

Google Launches Free Search for Chinese Academic Literatures, et le moteur Baidu suit de près. Il y a déjà beaucoup d'outils de recherche dans ce domaine et on ne voit pas tellement ce qu'il y a de nouveau ici.

Zhou Enlai commémoré

Un article en anglais de Xinhua
relate les manifestations spontanées lors de la commémoration du trentième anniversaire de la mort de Zhou Enlai. Ce qui est marquant dans ce court article est l'absence totale de référence à Mao. En grand "vide" qui en dit long sur la démaoisation douce en Chine populaire.

Hu and Wen as "people-caring sage-emperors"

AsiaMedia :: Hu Jintao's 'Theory of the Three Harmonies': both Hu and Wen have presented themselves as 'people-caring sage-emperors' in the mold of Confucius' ideal, humanistic rulers. Indeed, many of Hu and Wen's slogans, including 'putting people first,' 'running the administration for the sake of the people,' and 'seeking harmony in the midst of differences' are pulled right out of the teachings of Confucius and like-minded sages such as Mencius.

This is what I do feel each time I read Hu Jintao's speeches: he reminds me of common Rujia (Confucean) sayings. The rest of this interesting article is not explaining why Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao choose to root their slogans in such an ancient reference. One may consider them to try to hold on what had the deepest influence in Chinese minds. But another standpoint could be to analyse this in what seems to be the most used government policy in China, the balance between openly stated Mencius' ideas and in realty used Xunzi's doctrine. Mencius is the idealist and optimist side of Concucianism, while Xunzi gives the realist and pragmatic rules on how to actually govern a country.

[Wengu] Sunzi on line

I have added the Art of War on my website Wengu.

J'ai été occupé récemment à mettre en ligne le texte de l'Art de la guerre attribué à Sunzi sur Wengu, le site que je développe depuis un bon moment déjà. On y trouve la version originale en caractères chinois traditionnels et les traductions française d'Amiot et anglaise de Giles (avec les notes).