Confucian Self, Liberal Self

The concept of individual rightsRight is fundamental to the notion of constitutional government underlying the tradition of liberal democracyDemocracy in political thought. It also occupies a prominent place in contemporary debates on the normative basis of welfare. In ChinaChina, by contrast, mainstream social and political thought has developed without a notion of individual rightsRight. In his 1979 essay on ‘Power, Rights and Duties in Chinese History’, Professor Wang Gunwu, distinguished historian and Vice Chancellor of the University of Hong KongHong Kong at the time, wrote that “the ancient Chinese knew only of duties but had no notion of rightsRight.”