Political ethics of Xi Jinping — inheritance and development of the ideas of “Governing the country with kindness” of Confucianity and Marxist ethics

Chen Panli, Postgraduate student at the Department of Philosophy of Language and Communication, Faculty of Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), e-mail: 1499600747@qq.com

Cai Jiafeng, PhD student of School of Foreign Studies, Southeast University, Nanjing, China; Visiting PhD at the Department of Languages, Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, e-mail: 1172357478@qq.com

Modern China is an industrialized, high-tech state. But even at the beginning of the last century it was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The Chinese people made a number of attempts to save the country and revive it, and finally found the path that suited them — the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The guiding ideology of socialism is Marxism, and the Chinese specificity is the traditional thoughts and culture ingrained in the mentality of the nation. The characteristic of the Chinese way is the perfect combination of these two philosophical thoughts. So how do you combine this? This article uses the example of Xi Jinping’s political ethics to analyze its guiding ideology — Confucius’s concept of governing the country with kindness and Marxist ethics. The authors first analyze the specific meaning of Xi Jinping’s political ethics, and then analyze the basis of the philosophical thought of his ethics: The set of political strategies included in the Confucian idea of virtue-based government: political strategies, talent strategies, economic strategies and management strategies; as well as the main characteristics of Marx’s ethics. This proves that building socialism with Chinese characteristics benefits from the high degree of compatibility between Marxism and traditional Chinese philosophical thought. The novelty of this article also lies in the fact that it talks about traditional Chinese Confucianism and Marxist philosophy in one dimension.

Keywords: history of philosophy, Confucianism, governing the country with kindness, Marxism, political ethics, Xi Jinping,China

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