462. Chinese Culture Helpd American Founding

We all know the historical fact that Chinese tea helped trigger the American Revolution. On December 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Native Americans dumped into the Boston Harbor the tea from Fujian Province of China. The British government took action to protect the interests of the East Indian Company. The event led to the American Revolution.   

Thank to Dr. Dave Wang's research, we have learned that Chinese culture also helped the founding of the United States. During the founding era of the United States, the Founding Fathers “managed to establish a set of ideas and institutions that, over the stretch of time, became the blueprint for political and economic success for the nation-state in the modern world.”^[1]  Dr. Dave Wang's intent is to bring to light to what was the founders’ efforts to adopt some principles of Confucian moral philosophy and made them into the fiber of the new virtue met the requirement of a free and democratic society. 

The founders tried to develop good morals to ensure that the democratic system would function in correct direction. They attempted to use Confucian moral philosophy to safeguard the democratic system, build private virtue, and bring up citizens with good morals to serve the new nation. Through the founders’ efforts, Confucian moral philosophy contributed greatly to the formation of the American virtue.

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[1] Joseph J. Ellis, American Creation: Triumph and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic, Alfred Knoopf, a Division of Random House, New York, 2007, p.3.