The new warring states era: Reviving of Legalism in China

An attempt to explain China from a Confucian perspective and the assumption that China would become more democratic and liberal with its economic prosperity has ostensibly proved to be wrong. Despite China being second in GDP and first in the middle-class number, it is still not democratic and Xi Jinping's autocratic style is at odds with the benevolent ruling method advocated by Confucius. It seems that academic stereotypes that apply historically progressive approaches in China studies and put Confucianism at the center of Chinese political culture need to be revised. To this end, this paper tries to answer two specific questions which are why the historical approach is more appropriate for China study and what kind of governing style China trying to implement under the leadership of Xi Jinping. By shedding light on the most recent scholarly discussion on the methodology among Chinese scholars and examining the influence of the Legalist school of thought on the Chinese administrative culture, this study asserts that rather than the modernization approach, the historical political approach needs to apply to China studies methodologically and China's political culture should not always be studied from the Confucian perspective, but the Legalist school of thought also seriously takes into account. As to the second question, the present article claims that present-day China is on the way to reviving the Han style governing method under the national project "revitalizing the excellent Chinese culture".