Francesco Sisci has a nice piece in The Asia Times last week on Confucianism.  The title, "West confused over Confucianism," does not do it justice, since there is confusion to be found in China as well when it comes to Confucianism.  But there are some good points made.

I especially like this question Sisci poses (riffing off a book title by Benedetto Croce): "Why can't the Chinese say they are not Confucian?"  For most of the twentieth century, many Chinese, especially elite Chinese political leaders, particularly of the Marxist-Maoist variety, tried hard to contend that China could renounce its Confucian past, that the Chinese could not be Confucian.  But, as evidenced by the revival of Confucianism in contemporary China, that didn't work.  Why?  Sisci suggests that "Confucianism" is a symbol for tradition in general and that people are generally uncomfortable giving up on their traditions altogether.  Just as Italians in Croce's time (the subject of his book) had a hard time saying they were not Christian (however un-Christian their world had become), similarly many Chinese people have a hard time denying the continuing presence of "Confucian" ideas and practices in China today.

The confusion comes in specifying precisely what in the vast storehouse of Chinese traditions is "Confucian" and what derives from other aspects of the culture.  Politically, it is common to hear that because of its Confucian past, the PRC lacks cultural resources to support democracy.  It is not at all clear that the Confucianism of Mencius is necessarily antagonistic toward democratic practices. Indeed, Mencius has been held up by East Asian democrats as a precursor and inspiration. While Mencius may not himself have been a democrat in a modern sense, his thought can be consistent with modern democracy.  To my mind, the anti-democratic elements of Chinese tradition are more powerfully associated with Legalism, not Confucianism.  Chinese tradition includes both of these political tendencies but "tradition" cannot be reduced to "Confucianism." 

Sisci also offers us a telling quote:

As a senior official at the Communist Party's central school put it, "One
should just not pit 'Confucianism' against 'modernization', tradition against
reform. These juxtapositions are simply wrong and entail wrong results and
consequences."

I think this is correct, at least in the sense that we should not view Confucianism as fundamentally incomparable with modernization.  The latter requires a certain revision of the former, and those revisions can yield an authentic Confucianism, a set of ideas that are true to certain key principles of the past but molded in a way to shape the sensibilities of contemporary societies.

I must point out, however, a mistake in Sisci's article.  In discussing how Confucianism might be make "useful" in modern East Asian contexts, he suggests that there might be a trade-off between economic growth and democratization.  This sentence is particularly problematic:

China and Singapore have managed to maintain high growth notwithstanding their
lack of democracy, and Taiwan's gross domestic product has decreased since it
became a fully-fledged democracy.

That last phrase about Taiwan is empirically false.  Even if we limit the analysis to 2000, when Chen Shui-bian assumed the presidency and executive power was peacefully transferred by electoral means (a possible measure of the consolidation of democracy), Taiwan's GDP has not decreased.  There have been some years of decrease (most importantly 2001 with the tech shake out and 2009 in the face of global economic recession), but the cumulative GDP growth from 2000-2008 is positive. 

If we change the argument to say that the rate of growth of Taiwan's GDP has declined since 2000, we must then also consider factors other than the country's democratization.  How much of the slower growth is due to democratization and how much of it is due to the naturaly slowing due to economic maturation or the rise of the PRC economy or external economic shocks.  That is, even if Taiwan was not a democracy, other factors would have contributed to slower growth.

I emailed Sisci to ask him about his sources and he responded that he was reporting on the perceptions of PRC officials.  And it may be true that PRC officials think that Taiwan's GDP has declined (or they want Westerners to think that) but, in fact, Taiwan's GDP has continued to grow since it became a full-fledged democracy.

Indeed, if we come back to the question of Confucianism, Taiwan suggests that there is no absolute obstacle in Chinese tradition – Confucian or otherwise – to democracy and modernization.