V. G. BUROV Doctor of Philosophy China Keywords: Confucianism, tradition and modernization, modern Chinese ideology The spiritual and ideological life of Chinese society has undergone and continues to undergo major changes in recent decades. The country is undergoing a gradual process of reviving the cult of Confucius and related ethical norms. The strategic course of the Chinese leadership is to build socialism with Chinese characteristics. Naturally, therefore, over the past thirty-odd years, the main focus has been on the development of the economy. However, along with the obvious achievements in the modernization process, serious problems have emerged, including in the social and spiritual spheres. This forced the Chinese leadership to look for ways to solve them. It cannot be said that this was not done before, almost 20 years ago a formula was put forward about two civilizations - material (i.e., economic) and spiritual, and even special offices were created in the center and in the field dealing with the spiritual component of socialism. However, as life has shown, this was clearly not enough. Therefore, there was a need to turn to national spiritual traditions, to Confucianism as a fairly coherent system of ethical principles of relations between people, society and nature, as well as interstate relations, which has developed over the centuries. A GRAIN OF SAND IN THE OCEAN OF EVERYDAY STORMS For many centuries, China had an imperial system, which was then replaced by an authoritarian republican regime. When the Communists came to power, the ruling stratum changed, but authoritarianism remained. In traditional China, ideas were cultivated that proceeded from the unconditional priority of the collective over the individual and denied the latter's right to autonomous existence. The consciousness of the masses was of a social-collectivist nature. A member of Chinese society is used to feeling like a grain of sand in the ocean of everyday storms, so he simply co ... Read more