Between humane governance and hegemony: a study on East Asian Confucian discourse on Guan Zhong and related questions

The article studies the image of Guan Zhong, a historical figurehead from the Spring and Autumn period China, in East Asian Confucian discourse on humaneness ( ren 仁, “benevolence”) and related political questions. It traces the development of Confucian discourse on Guan Zhong from its beginnings in the Analects of Confucius and in the thought of his later disciple Mencius, to later discourses on humaneness in Chinese, Joseon Korean and Tokugawa Japanese Confucian thought. In so doing, it establishes a comparative perspective of how Guan Zhong’s humaneness (or inhumanity) was interpreted in socio-political environments of individual East Asian countries, establishing a correlation between their interpretational tendencies and overall intellectual tendencies of local Confucianisms—as, for instance the philosophy of Practical Learning in Joseon Korea and Tokugawa Japan. Concurrently, the article also illuminates the special characteristics of the notion of humaneness which also gained its expression throughout East Asian Confucian ethical evaluations of Guan Zhong’s political achievements.