Abstract

In recent years, comparative scholars and commentators have attempted to find ways to best characterize the opposition between Confucianism and Legalism. For example, it has been argued that Confucianism exemplifies “idealism”, whereas Legalism is a version of “realism” and that their dispute can be construed as a clash between the broader philosophical frameworks of idealism and realism. While casting these opposing political philosophies as such can shed some light on the differences between the two schools of classical Chinese philosophy, these conceptual labels are too broad to capture their fundamental differences, which in my view are their different understandings of political power. To better understand their dynamic relationship, I propose to characterize the debate between Confucianism and Legalism in terms of soft power and hard power. Specifically, I argue that Confucianism is primarily a political philosophy centered on soft power. In contrast, Legalism is for the most part a hard-power oriented statecraft. I further argue that the two political philosophies are not only opposite but also complementary to each other. I have reached my conclusion through carefully examining and comparing Confucianism and Legalism through the lens of contemporary Western theories of power. Both theoretical argumentation and historical evidence show that smart power which grows out of judicious combination of hard power and soft power can achieve the desired effect in political and geopolitical arenas.