Since the rise of modern Neo-Confucianism

quite a number of Confucian intellectuals like to link Confucianism with liberalism. But strictly speaking

these Confucian intellectuals don't even really have a solid understanding of liberalism. They have always considered liberalism from an ethical and moral point of view

but never considered that liberalism is a purely modern political idea whose core elements are the affirmation of the fundamental natural rights of the individual

and the Constitutionalism that regulates positive law and neutral purely technical judicial procedures to protect this fundamental right. As far as Confucianism is concerned

because of the special emphasis on the social ethical structure in the feudal hierarchical order

the individual in the Confucian tradition has always been understood in terms of ethical relations rather than in terms of the existence of the individual as the subject of action. In the corresponding Confucian moral concept

the individual is actually in a state of self-disintegration that looks quite noble but is actually selfless. It determines that those core elements of liberal political thought do not exist and cannot exist in the Confucian tradition. In this case

it is pointless to compare liberalism with some literal far-fetched aspects of the Confucian text to illustrate the modern meaning of Confucianism. From the liberal point of view

it is individualistic. However

this individualism stems from the essential characteristics of fundamental rights themselves and the ideological perspective that affirms them. Thus

although liberalism carries with itself many fundamentally theoretical problems

some of which are still controversial and intractable

these problems are always not ethical and moral

but political. Therefore

it is impossible to expect to use Confucian ethical and moral models to deal with these problems as modern Confucian intellectuals do.