Originally published on February 14, 2020.
This article introduces Kō Bun’yū’s work and discusses how Buddhism was driven out of the Chinese world while secular Taoism and Confucianism spread, giving rise to the most secularized people in the world.
It further examines China’s rejection of international order and international law, its self-centered claims rooted in Sinocentrism, and the nature of a Chinese civilization that relies not on law but on physical force.

February 14, 2020
In this way, Buddhism was driven out of the Chinese world, secular Taoism spread, and the Chinese, the most secularized people in the world, came into being.
The following is from the work below by Kō Bun’yū, one of the world’s foremost scholars deeply familiar with China.
It is a book that not only the Japanese people but people all over the world must read.
The preceding text is omitted.
In this way, Buddhism was driven out of the Chinese world, secular Taoism spread, and the Chinese, the most secularized people in the world, came into being.
Of course, behind the spread of Taoism in China lay the existence of Confucianism.
That is because Confucianism, too, is an extremely secular teaching.
As symbolized by the words of Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, who said, “Respect the spirits and gods, but keep them at a distance,” the Chinese are interested only in things rather than the heart.
Confucians are the most materialistic group of human beings.
That is why, throughout Chinese history, a culture and civilization of killing one another was born, in which people fought for life and death over finite resources to such an extent that it was said there was “not a single year without war.”
It can also be considered that the spread of such secular and materialistic Confucianism and Taoism formed the background for accepting communism, which is likewise materialism.
On the other hand, with regard to Buddhism, everyone knows that China continues to persecute it even today, including Tibetan Buddhism.
China, Which Can Rely Only on “Physical Force”
From a geopolitical perspective, the “sharing of values” between Japan and Taiwan has a climate born from the culture and civilization unique to the islands and oceans of maritime Asia, and also a sharing of the values of “modernization” and “freedom and democracy.”
If one gathers the claims made by Chinese opinion leaders in recent years, they can mainly be summarized into the following three points.
First, China has already become strong, so China will decide the world.
Second, international order and international law were arbitrarily decided by Westerners, so the Chinese will absolutely not recognize them.
Third, Chinese should be used as the international language instead of English.
These three claims usually come from Sinocentrism, and can only be described as truly self-centered.
The fact that the value system of the modern West became the mainstream thought of the modern and contemporary age and established Western superiority was the result of a long flow of history, and was not something unique only to modern and contemporary Westerners.
There was the Renaissance from ancient Greece, the influence of Islamic science and other elements, and, in addition to the adventurous and enterprising spirit of Westerners after the Age of Discovery, there were also efforts and sacrifices through a series of changes and evolutions, from the scientific revolution to religious, industrial, and civic revolutions.
From an age when there was not even international law to the arrival of a “society governed by law,” the efforts and sacrifices of all nations were also involved.
Recognition by citizens was also indispensable.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe often argues at international conferences, with China’s military expansion in the East China Sea and the South China Sea in mind, that “disputes should be resolved not by force, but based on law.”
Certainly, for the Chinese, who have nothing to rely on except force—and not “attraction,” or soft power, but “physical force”—this must be irritating.