Editing Secularization (section)

==== China ====

One traditional view of Chinese culture sees the teachings of [[Confucianism]] – influential over many centuries – as basically secular.<ref>
{{cite web
 |url          = http://www.the-american-interest.com/2012/02/15/is-confucianism-a-religion/
 |title        = Is Confucianism a Religion?
 |last1        = Berger
 |first1       = Peter
 |author-link1 = Peter L. Berger
 |date         = 2012-02-15
 |website      = The American Interest
 |issn         = 1556-5777
 |publisher    = The American Interest LLC
 |access-date  = 2016-03-03
 |quote        = There can be no doubt that Confucianism has been a powerful cultural influence throughout East Asia, providing social and political values not only in China, but in Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. [...] [T]here has been the view of Confucianism as nothing but a secular, perhaps even a secularizing morality.
 |url-status      = live
 |archive-url   = https://web.archive.org/web/20150817062142/http://www.the-american-interest.com/2012/02/15/is-confucianism-a-religion/
 |archive-date  = 2015-08-17
}}
</ref>

Chang Pao-min summarises perceived historical consequences of very early secularization in China:

<blockquote>
The early secularization of Chinese society, which must be recognized as a sign of modernity [...] has ironically left China for centuries without a powerful and stable source of morality and law. All this simply means that the pursuit of wealth or power or simply the competition for survival can be and often has been ruthless without any sense of restraint. [...] Along with the early secularization of Chinese society which was equally early, the concomitant demise of feudalism and hereditary aristocracy, another remarkable development, transformed China earlier than any other country into a unitary system politically, with one single power centre. It also rendered Chinese society much more egalitarian than Western Europe and Japan.<ref>
{{cite journal
| last1                 = Chang
| first1                = Pao-min
| date                  = 1999
| title                 = Corruption and Crime in China: Old Problems and New trends
| jstor                   = 23257220 
| journal               = The Journal of East Asian Affairs
| publisher             = Institute for National Security Strategy
| publication-date      = 1999
| volume                = 13
| issue                 = 1, Spring/Summer
| page                  = 223
| issn                  = 1010-1608
}}
quoted in:
{{cite book
| last1 = Bao-Er
| title = China's Child Contracts: A philosophy of child rights in twenty-first century China
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ohtoVh2twaYC
| location = Blaxland, New South Wales
| publisher = The Blue Mountains Legal Research Centre
| date = 2007
| page = 43
| isbn = 9781921300561
| access-date = 2016-03-03
}}
</ref>
</blockquote>

In this arguably secular setting, the [[Chinese Communist Party]] régime of the [[China|People's Republic of China]] (in power on the Chinese mainland from 1949) promoted deliberate secularization.<ref>
See for example:
{{cite book
| last1 = Marsh
| first1 = Christopher
| chapter = Introduction: From Forced Secularization to Desecularization
| title = Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival
| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=-xlLFUegIBQC
| publisher = A&C Black
| date = 2011
| page = 10
| isbn = 9781441112477
| access-date = 2016-03-03
| quote = [...] forced secularization is not so easily achieved, and [...] the lengths to which the Soviet and PRC regimes went was insufficient to completely - or even thoroughly - expunge religion from society. [...] [T]hese regimes were willing to go to great lengths to eliminate religion in the name of science and progress, and the outcome at every stage was uncertain.
}}
</ref>