Happy Chinese New Year.
Confucius, who lived about five hundred years before Christ, basically
believed that moral men make good rulers and that virtue is one of the
most important properties that an official can have. He also believed
that virtue can be attained by following the proper way of behaving, and
thus placed a great deal of stress on proper. Most of what is considered
‘Confucianism’ was actually written down by a disciple named Mencius,
who also believed that all men were basically good. Confucius also
codified the status of the ruler in Chinese political thought; the
Emperor was the Son of Heaven (while Heaven in a Western context is a
place, Heaven in the Chinese context is a divine/natural force) and had
the Mandate of Heaven to rule.