As regular readers of this blog know, I have, from time to time, taken the opportunity to link to various stories that show how contemporary China does not really live up to the title "Confucian."  But here is a Xinhua story (hat tip: CDT) that pushes in the other direction:

BEIJING, July 8 (Xinhua) — Most Chinese people are
reluctant to strike up a conversation with strangers and get to know
them, according to a survey conducted by the Horizon Group, a
non-governmental consultancy in Beijing.

    The survey is based on 3,780 samples collected over the last two months of 2006, covering 15 urban and rural areas in China.

      Sounds like people really are focused on maintaining their closest relationships, and that usually means family, just like Confucius wanted them to.  But the category "stranger" here seems a bit broad:

The survey indicates that family and relatives are
still the major social resource for Chinese people. Valuable social
resources outside the family sphere — alumni, colleagues, and other
social circles — are often ignored and wasted.

      Classmates and colleagues are not "strangers" and, as acquaintances, they are due a certain respect, according to Confucius.  His "greatest ambition" was to "to comfort the old, to trust my friends, and to cherish
the
young." In other words, if you are really following Confucius, you would be spending some social time with friends, classmates and colleagues included.

      My suspicions of this whole exercise deepened, however, when I read this about the company that carried out the survey:

The Horizon Group cited the result of an earlier survey
by Stanford University which claimed that nearly 90 percent of the
money one makes during one’s lifetime comes from one’s social network.
"(Chinese people) need to break out from the confines of their family
circle and explore larger circles of society," the Horizon Group says.

 It’s all about the money – a most un-Confucian motive.  Why should we care if people "break out of the confines of their family circle"?   Indeed, we should hope that they do not so "break out" unless they continue to make sure their family obligations are being fulfilled.  If it is just about maximizing income, then Confucianism is lost.  Mencius comes to mind:

If you talk to these emperors about profit, and in their love of profit they stop their armies – their armies will rejoice in peace and delight in profit.   Soon ministers will embrace profit in serving their sovereigns, sons will embrace profit in serving their fathers, younger brothers will embrace profit in serving their elder brothers – and all of them will have abandoned Humanity and Duty.  When these relationships become a matter of profit, the nation is doomed to ruin. (12.4)

     It is hard these days not to talk about profit in China.  Maybe, then, it is less Confucian than this story first intimated.   Remember what Mencius says in the very first passage of his book:

Just talk about Humanity and Duty, and leave it at that.  Don’t talk about profit. (1.1)