New Asia's Scholars and the New Confucians: Tang Chun-i, Mou Zongsan, and CUHK's Standing as a Humanities Powerhouse

# New Asia's Scholars and the New Confucians: Tang Chun-i, Mou Zongsan, and CUHK's Standing as a Humanities Powerhouse

This article is a factual reference entry for the 06 (People) section. It does not carry a credibility badge; each claim is supported by academic or secondary sources. It unpacks a commonly repeated but rarely substantiated claim: why is CUHK regarded as one of the great centres of twentieth-century Chinese humanities scholarship? At the heart of the answer lies a cohort of "New Confucian" scholars who gathered at New Asia College. All figures discussed are deceased and are named from the public historical record. For the early history of New Asia, see 10-colleges/new-asia-college.md.

# 1. What is "New Confucianism"?

New Confucianism (also called Modern Confucianism) is one of the most significant intellectual currents in twentieth-century Chinese philosophy. According to the English Wikipedia entry for "New Confucianism"^※, it is a movement dedicated to reinterpreting and revitalising Confucian thought for the modern world—particularly in response to the impact of Western philosophy and science. It rejects wholesale Westernisation on the one hand and rigid traditionalism on the other, seeking instead a path of modernisation that is "rooted in Confucianism while integrating Western learning."

The movement grew out of the intellectual ruptures of the late Qing and early Republican periods. Its foundational generation of spiritual mentors is typically traced back to Xiong Shili. According to Mou Zongsan's Chinese Wikipedia entry^※, when Mou was a student at Peking University, he 「受熊十力影響最大,受其《新唯識論》義理之震撼,並維持幾十年的師生情誼」(was most profoundly influenced by Xiong Shili, shaken by the philosophical force of Xiong's A New Treatise on Consciousness-Only, and maintained a decades-long teacher–student bond with him). Several of New Confucianism's leading representatives would later converge at New Asia College in Hong Kong—and that convergence is precisely the source of CUHK's heft in the humanities.

# 2. New Asia: the Hong Kong base of the New Confucians

Around 1949, a wave of scholars made their way south to Hong Kong. According to the English Wikipedia entry for "New Asia College"^※ and the "Tang Chun-i" entry^※, the group that founded New Asia College was itself the core of the New Confucian movement:

According to sources, this group 「代表了 20 世紀中國哲學中最具原創性與思辨性的學術共同體」(represented one of the most original and intellectually rigorous academic communities in twentieth-century Chinese philosophy). Yet the College's material conditions were punishingly austere: in its earliest days, it operated out of a few cramped rooms on Kweilin Street in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon (for the story of the Kweilin Street campus, see 10-colleges/new-asia-college.md). The density of learning and the spareness of daily life created a stark contrast—and it was in this environment that New Asia College effectively became, through the 1950s and 1960s, the Hong Kong redoubt of the New Confucian movement.

From college to university: In 1963, Chung Chi, New Asia, and United Colleges federated to form The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and New Asia became one of CUHK's constituent colleges. The New Asia scholars entered the university's institutional framework accordingly—Tang Chun-i became CUHK's first Dean of Arts, and Mou Zongsan later chaired the New Asia Philosophy Department. In other words, the intellectual lineage of New Confucianism was channelled directly into CUHK through New Asia.

# 3. Tang Chun-i: the philosophical soul of New Asia

Tang Chun-i (1909–1978) was the philosophical soul of New Asia College. According to the English Wikipedia entry for "Tang Chun-i"^※ and a scholarly profile published by Peking University's news portal^※:

• Tang was born in Yibin, Sichuan, with ancestral roots in Wuhua, Guangdong. He was a Chinese philosopher and one of the principal representatives of New Confucianism.
• He moved to Hong Kong in 1949 and co-founded New Asia College with Ch'ien Mu, Tchang Pi-kai, and others, serving as Dean of Studies.
• When CUHK was established in 1963, he was appointed Chair Professor of Philosophy and was elected the first Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the Chinese University.
• The dual mission of his educational and scholarly work, according to sources, was 「在維護中國傳統價值的同時推動中國的現代化」(to promote China's modernisation while safeguarding traditional Chinese values)—a succinct expression of the New Confucian spirit.

Tang's scholarly project was to construct a philosophical case for the contemporary value of Chinese culture. The PKU profile notes his prolific output: early works such as The Establishment of the Moral Self (1944), The Experience of Life, and Mind, Matter, and Human Life; the mid-career The Spiritual Values of Chinese Culture (1953); and his later magnum opus, the multi-volume Essentials of Chinese Philosophy series (1966–1975, four volumes covering an introduction and studies of human nature, the Way, and teachings), crowned by his final systematic work, Life Existence and the Spiritual Realm (1977). According to sources, in Life Existence and the Spiritual Realm he "constructed an idealist philosophical system of mind that integrates three dimensions and nine realms," establishing a distinctive school within contemporary Chinese philosophy.

To New Asia, Tang was both a founder and its philosophical lodestar. He elevated the college's educational vision from mere cultural preservation to the philosophical defence of Chinese culture's modern relevance, making New Asia not just a place of instruction but a scholarly community engaged in the production of ideas.

# 4. Mou Zongsan: reading Kant as a "Western Confucius"

Mou Zongsan (1909–1995) is one of the most influential philosophers in the New Confucian tradition. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on "Mou Zongsan"^※ and Chinese Wikipedia^※:

• Mou was born in Qixia, Shandong, and graduated from Peking University's Philosophy Department. A student of Xiong Shili, he was deeply rooted in the classical Chinese philosophical tradition and was noted for his ability to synthesise Chinese and Western thought.
• In 1968, he moved to The Chinese University of Hong Kong to chair the Philosophy Department of New Asia College, retiring from CUHK in 1974 and then teaching at the New Asia Institute of Advanced Chinese Studies—making him a crucial conduit of the New Asia intellectual lineage within the CUHK system.
• The IEP records one of his best-known claims: that 康德在許多方面是「西方的孔子」(Kant was, in many ways, a Western Confucius)—a proposition he used to bridge Kantian philosophy and the Confucian learning of mind-and-nature.

Mou's work represents one of the highest achievements of the New Confucian project to reinterpret Confucian doctrine through the rigour of Western philosophy. According to Chinese Wikipedia, his vast oeuvre includes Substance of Mind and Substance of Human Nature, Talent and Profound Philosophy, Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy, Phenomena and Things-in-Themselves, Treatise on the Perfect Good, and Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy, among others, and he single-handedly translated Kant's three Critiques into Chinese. These works, anchored at one end in Song–Ming Neo-Confucianism and at the other in Kantian philosophy, build a vast philosophical system known as "moral metaphysics"—an ambitious attempt to demonstrate that the Chinese learning of mind-and-nature can deliver the "intellectual intuition" that Kant believed impossible. In his later years he received the 1983 Taiwan Executive Yuan Cultural Award and an honorary Doctor of Letters from The University of Hong Kong in 1987.

# 5. The 1958 Manifesto: the New Confucians speak to the world

The New Asia scholars' most iconic collective act in intellectual history is a programmatic document from 1958. According to Chinese Wikipedia's entry on the "Manifesto to the World on Behalf of Chinese Culture"^※ and English Wikipedia^※:

• The full title is A Manifesto to the World on Behalf of Chinese Culture: Our Shared Understanding of Sinological Studies and the Future Prospects of Chinese Culture and World Culture. Drafted by Tang Chun-i, it was repeatedly revised by Carsun Chang (Zhang Junmai), Mou Zongsan, and Xu Fuguan.
• It was published over the four co-signatories' names in the January 1958 issue of Democratic Review; the academic world commonly refers to it as the 「當代新儒家宣言」(New Confucian Manifesto).
• Its origins, according to sources: during a 1957 visit to the United States, Tang discussed with Carsun Chang the 「多有不當」(many inadequacies) in Western scholars' approaches to Chinese culture, and the two resolved to co-author a statement to correct these biases in Western sinology.
• During the drafting process, Xu Fuguan proposed amendments, arguing that the document should tease out those aspects of the Chinese cultural spirit 「可與民主政治相通」(compatible with democratic politics)—a suggestion Tang accepted.

Of the four signatories, Tang Chun-i and Mou Zongsan had the deepest ties to New Asia; Xu Fuguan (1904–1982) was likewise a major New Confucian figure who taught in Hong Kong. According to sources, the manifesto 「標誌着海外新儒學的真正崛起,同時意味着中國儒學的現代轉化進入新的階段」(marked the genuine ascendancy of overseas New Confucianism and signalled a new phase in the modern transformation of Chinese Confucianism), and is regarded as a watershed in modern Confucian thought.

The manifesto's weight: It binds the New Asia scholars—especially Tang and Mou—directly to a document of global intellectual significance. A college that began in cramped Kweilin Street rooms, perpetually scrambling for funds, had at its core the very people who drafted and signed a programmatic statement articulating the contemporary value of Chinese culture to the entire world. This is among the hardest pieces of evidence for CUHK's standing as a humanities "powerhouse."

# 6. Ch'ien Mu: a master historian and his departure

The other pillar of New Asia was the great historian Ch'ien Mu. The public record shows that after the collapse of the Nationalist government in 1949, Ch'ien Mu came to Hong Kong and, together with Tang Chun-i, Tchang Pi-kai, and others, founded the Asia College of Arts and Commerce. In autumn 1950, the institution moved to new premises on Kweilin Street in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, and was formally renamed "New Asia College," with Ch'ien Mu as its first President. His Guoshi dagang (Outline of Chinese History), written during the War of Resistance, was designated a national university textbook by the Ministry of Education of the time and remains his most celebrated work.

Ch'ien Mu's relationship with New Asia and with CUHK was not uniformly smooth. According to public accounts, after CUHK was founded, Ch'ien harboured reservations about aspects of the university's direction, including the erosion of college autonomy under the federal model, and he began to consider withdrawing. In June 1965, he resigned as President of New Asia College, ending sixteen years of institution-building in Hong Kong. (The divergence in educational philosophy between Ch'ien Mu and the first Vice-Chancellor falls under university governance; see 13-governance-and-reform/chien-mu-li-choh-ming-founding-clash.md for details.) After stepping down, he devoted his final years to completing the five-volume Zhu Xi xin xue'an (A New Anthology of Zhu Xi's Learning), leaving another monumental work for the study of Song–Ming Neo-Confucianism.

Although Ch'ien Mu departed in 1965, the decade and more he spent working alongside Tang Chun-i and Mou Zongsan at New Asia had already forged a college into a high ground of Chinese humanities scholarship. The lineage also endured through his students—figures such as Yu Ying-shih, a graduate of New Asia's first class in literature and history, who went on to become an internationally acclaimed historian (see notable-alumni.md).

# 7. Why this established CUHK as a humanities powerhouse

Once the relationship between these scholars and CUHK is properly laid out, the proposition that "CUHK is a powerhouse of Chinese humanities" acquires a tangible basis:

1. The cradle of a movement: The Hong Kong base of New Confucianism—one of the most important intellectual currents in twentieth-century Chinese thought—was New Asia College, which later became part of CUHK.
2. A concentration of masters: Ch'ien Mu, Tang Chun-i, Mou Zongsan, and others, all widely acknowledged master scholars, were colleagues at a single college—a density of academic distinction rarely matched.
3. Entry into the university system: These were not figures who merely lectured at a peripheral college. Through the 1963 federation, they substantively entered CUHK's academic structure: Tang as the first Dean of Arts, Mou later chairing New Asia's Philosophy Department.
4. Intellectual products with global influence: Documents such as A Manifesto to the World on Behalf of Chinese Culture extended the influence of the New Asia scholars beyond the campus and into the history of world thought.

CUHK often describes itself as a place where "the humanities flourish" (人文薈萃). If one seeks the concrete foundation for that phrase, the New Confucian scholars of New Asia are the strongest pillar. They ensured that CUHK was not merely a university "with 'Chinese' in its name" but an institution that genuinely inherited and advanced the lifeline of Chinese humanistic scholarship. This humanistic bedrock, together with Chung Chi's Christian humanist tradition (see 10-colleges/chung-chi-college.md), forms the fundamental character that sets CUHK apart from purely STEM- or business-focused universities.

Related: New Asia College in-depth archive (including the Kweilin Street hardships) · The ideological clash between Ch'ien Mu and the first Vice-Chancellor · Notable alumni (including Yu Ying-shih) · Eminent scholars overview