Pages: 34-47

It's well known that Confucianism and Taoism were the most influential political teachings that helped China's emperors to rule over the country. Many researchers agree with the idea that this combination greatly influenced Chinese political system. And, at the same time, they agree that these doctrines advocated and legalized absolute, despotic power of Sky's Son and his milieu. But the analysis of principal Confucian and Taoist treatises shows that this point of view is not quite correct. These doctrines contain a lot of democratic elements (for example — Daoism's principle of non¬interference and Confucianism's principle of equality before the law) and thus do not support the idea that the emperor's despotic power was protected.