Thailand, of course, has never been a "Confucian society."  Its culture is shaped by Buddhist and indigenous beliefs and practices.  But yesterday’s coup d’etat in Bangkok, while not inspired by Confucian ideology, can be seen as consistent with Confucian principles: if extra-legal means are necessary to remove a corrupt leader and open the way for a more virtuous politics, then a coup may be justified.

     Here is Mencius:

Emperor Hsuan of Ch’i asked: "Is it true that Emperor T’ang banished the tyrant Chieh, and Emperor Wu overthrew the tyrant Chou?"
"Yes, according to the histories," replied Mencius.
"So is the murder of a sovereign acceptable?"
"A thief of Humanity is called a thief," replied Mencius.  "A thief of Duty is called a felon.  Someone who’s both a thief and a felon is called a commoner.  I’ve heard of the commoner Chou’s punishment, but I’ve never heard of a sovereign’s murder." (33)

    The clear implication here is that a ruler must maintain a certain moral behavior – being neither a thief of Humanity or Duty – in order to keep office.  If he acts badly, if he abuses the powers of his office for personal political or economic gain, then he has lost his right to rule, he is merely a commoner.  In the context of the question asked, Mencius is saying that bad rulers can be overthrown or, in extremis, killed.

    The problem, obviously, is who decides, and how is the decision made, that the ruler is corrupt?   Liberal democrats (of which I would count myself one) worry that this power of decision itself is prone to corruption: better to create institutionalized political processes for the removal of a bad leader than leave the decision to a small group of powerful people who might act on their own interests.  The difficulty of liberal democracy is that a bad leader may be able to game the procedures and remain in office.  Berlusconi in Italy?  Here’s one Italy-Thailand comparison. 

     But there are many, many coups that start out with assertions of "virtue" and descend into corruption and tyranny worse than the regimes they overthrew. 

     At the end of the day, we must be very careful in accepting a Confucian-like tolerance of  extra-legal, coercive means to settle political problems.   We can never be sure of promises of ethical behavior to come.  We must judge the new leaders by their actions.  Will they really serve the interests of society at large – and in this case that would include those social forces that benefited from and supported Thaksin’s government: rural people?  Will they resist the temptation to use their new found power to line their own pockets? 

    Let’s wait and see, then, before we celebrate the demise of the corrupt, whether or not the new leaders of Thailand actually perform their virtue and not just declare it.