79
Philosophical Transmission and Contestation: 
The Impact of Qing Confucianism in  
Southern Vietnam
Tho Ngoc NGUYEN* and Phong Thanh NGUYEN**
Abstract
Southern Vietnam was reclaimed by the Vietnamese in the mid-seventeenth century. 
They first brought their folk Buddhism and various popular religions to new land; howev-
er, the bureaucratic system then forced the Chinese Han–Song dynasties’ institutionalized 
and politicalized Confucianism on the population. The arrival of the Chinese from over-
seas since the late seventeenth century marked the introduction of Qing Confucianism 
into Southern Vietnam, shaping the pro-Yangming studies among local literati. Many 
writers claim that Qing Confucianism had no impact on Vietnam. Obviously, however, 
these writers ignored the diversity of Vietnamese Confucianism in the new frontiers in 
the South. Qing Confucianism was truly absorbed into many aspects of life among the 
local gentry, popularizing the so-called pro-Yangming studies.
The article aims to study the transmission, contestation, transformation, and manipulation 
of Qing Confucianism in Southern Vietnam by penetrating deeper into the life, career, 
mentality, merits, and influence of local Confucianists and reviving the legacies of prac-
tical learning in local scholarship. The research discovers that the practical learning of 
Qing Confucianism dominated the way of thinking and acting of local elites, affecting 
ideological, educational, cultural and socio-economic domains of local society. Howev-
er, the domination of the classical Confucian orthodoxy and the lack of state-sponsored 
institutionalization in late feudal periods, as well as the later overwhelming imposition 
of Western civilization under French colonial rule, seriously challenged and downgraded 
the impacts of Qing Confucianism in Vietnam. Therefore, Yangming studies were once 
transmitted but had limited impact on Vietnam.
Keywords: Qing Confucianism, Southern Vietnam, practical learning, Yangming stud-
ies, transmitted and contested
* Tho Ngoc NGUYEN, Associate Professor, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, 
 Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City. 
 Email address: ngoctho@hcmussh.edu.vn
** Phong Thanh NGUYEN, PhD in Chinese literature, lecturer at 
 An Giang University, Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City.
 Email address: ntphong@agu.edu.vn
DOI: 10.4312/as.2020.8.2.79-112
80 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
Prenos filozofije in nasprotovanja: vpliv qingovskega konfucianizma na 
Južni Vietnam
Izvleček
Vietnamci so ozemlje Južnega Vietnama pridobili sredi sedemnajstega stoletja. Na novo-
pridobljeno ozemlje se je sprva širil ljudski budizem in različne ljudske religije, kasneje 
pa je birokratski sistem ljudstvu vsilil še institucionaliziran in spolitiziran kitajski konfu-
cianizem, ki se je izoblikoval med dinastijama Han in Song. Kitajski prišleki so v Južni 
Vietnam od poznega sedemnajstega stoletja naprej prinašali qingovski konfucianizem, 
pri čemer so se med lokalnimi literati izoblikovale t. i. proyangmingove študije. Številni 
pisci trdijo, da qingovski konfucianizem ni vplival na razvoj v Vietnamu, a so očitno 
prezrli raznolikost vietnamskega konfucianizma na novih južnih mejah. Ta je namreč 
vplival na številne vidike življenja lokalnega plemstva, predvsem pa je populariziral t. i. 
proyangmingove študije.
Namen članka je z raziskovanjem življenja, karier, mentalitete, zaslug in vplivov lokal-
nih konfucianistov ter s tem oživljanja dediščine praktičnega učenja v lokalni produkciji 
znanja prikazati prenos, nasprotovanje, transformacijo in manipulacijo qingovskega kon-
fucianizma v Južnem Vietnamu. Študija je pokazala, da je praktično učenje qingovskega 
konfucianizma določalo način mišljenja in delovanje lokalnih elit ter s tem vplivalo na 
ideološka, izobraževalna, kulturna in družbeno-ekonomska področja lokalne družbe. Pri 
tem pa so prevlada klasične konfucijanske ortodoksnosti, pomanjkanje institucionaliza-
cije v poznem fevdalnem obdobju, ki bi jo podpirala država, ter kasnejše uvajanje zahod-
ne civilizacije pod francosko kolonialno vlado postopoma zmanjšali vpliv qingovskega 
konfucianizma, Yangmingove študije pa so tako v Vietnamu imele zgolj omejen vpliv.
Ključne besede: qingovski konfucianizem, Južni Vietnam, praktično učenje, Yangmin-
gove študije, prenos in nasprotovanja
The Conservativeness of Vietnamese Confucianism from an East 
Asian Perspective1
Despite the fact that some Western scholars warn others to be careful when call-
ing Vietnam a Confucian society, Confucianism has been deeply rooted in the 
Vietnamese mindset for almost two thousand years. This is the result of both 
imposition by Chinese rulers during the first millennium AD, and voluntary adop-
tion by the Vietnamese bureaucracy during the second. Confucianism has helped 
1 This research is funded by Vietnam National University–Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) under 
grant number B2019-18b-01. We also appreciate the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Asia Center of 
Harvard University and the National Cheng Kung University of Taiwan for offering us support to 
conduct this research.
81Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
to advance the frontiers of Vietnam and create a reasonable platform “where the 
Vietnamese people gained a national identity which made further Chinese intru-
sion improbable, rare, and finally wholly discontinued” (Fitzgerald 1972, 213).
The Vietnamese in late feudal periods followed both Confucianism and Bud-
dhism (Buttinger 1968, 15), and to some extent the latter surpassed the former. 
According to Dung N. Duong, under specific circumstances, Confucianism and 
Daoism had to “accommodate” themselves to Buddhism (Duong 2004, 300) by 
accepting Buddhist influences on certain Confucian concepts such as filial piety, 
humane-ness, righteousness, etc., while Nguyen Ngoc Huy claimed that Viet-
namese Confucianism has always been challenged by Buddhism (Nguyen 1998, 
93). Unlike the case of China and Korea, traditional Confucian elites in Vietnam 
did not militantly oppose and or attempt to eradicate Buddhist influence, as they 
did not have a strong demand for building a “metaphysical counter-tradition”2 to 
Buddhism (see Woodside 2002, 117, 127, 131).
After several waves of Confucian imposition in Northern Vietnam, the Chinese 
rulers in the fifth century became so surprised that Vietnamese Buddhism was 
as advanced as it was in China (Taylor 1976, 171); therefore, the Chinese rul-
ers sometimes utilized Buddhism to calm down tensions in this colony. Jennifer 
Holmgren confirmed that there was a counterbalanced wave in Vietnam during 
the first six centuries of Chinese rule, where there was more “Vietnamization” 
of local Chinese than Sinicization of indigenous tradition (Holmgren 1980, 61: 
115–19; also cited in Kiernan 2017). A similar claim can be found in Joseph 
Buttinger’s work, where Confucianism failed to Sinicize the local Vietnamese. 
He asserted that “the more they (Vietnamese) absorbed of the skills, customs, and 
ideas of the Chinese, the smaller grew the likelihood of their ever becoming part 
of the Chinese people” (Buttinger 1968, 29). Buttinger pointed to several reasons 
for this, including (1) the long prehistory of the Vietnamese, where the roots of 
local culture probably reached deeply into their pre-Chinese past, and (2) purely 
geographic conditions, whereby the Chinese could not control the Vietnamese 
effectively (ibid.). Trương Tửu, a twentieth-century writer, concluded that “…
Confucianism was a force in Vietnamese society, but it was one that stimulated a 
strong cultural reaction” (Trương 1950, 183).
After several unsuccessful uprisings during the previous centuries, Vietnam re-
gained its independence in 938 AD under Ngô Quyền’s (897–944) leadership. 
The Lý dynasty (1009–1225) was built mainly on Buddhist ideology, while Con-
fucian scholars were simply in charge of the maintenance of the Confucian cult at 
2 This term is adopted from Woodside (2002, 127), meaning an ideological standpoint that can 
function as a counterweight to Buddhism.
82 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
the Court (see Hall 1976, 15). The Trần dynasty (1225–1400) largely shared sim-
ilarities with the Lý, even though in this period Confucian schools were opened 
in important administrative centres and civic examinations were launched fol-
lowing the Chinese model (officially in 1247). Chu Văn An3 and Hồ Quý Ly4 
are two significant Confucian scholars who laid the groundwork for Vietnamese 
Confucianism in this dynasty. Keith Taylor and Oliver Wolters showed that Lý 
and Trần rulers (1010–1400) pursued forms of legitimation (usually from local 
spirit cults and Buddhist beliefs) other than Confucianism (Taylor 1986, 139–76; 
Wolters 1996, 106).
The second period of Chinese rule (1407–1427) during the Ming dynasty left in 
Vietnam a stronger form of Neo-Confucianism modelled on that in China (with a 
system of 126 Confucian schools), which was then adopted by local Vietnamese 
elites such as Phan Phu Tiên (1370–1462), Ngô Sĩ Liên (1400–?), Nguyễn Bỉnh 
Khiêm (1491–1585), Lê Quý Đôn (1726–1784), and so on. The Đại Việt sử ký 
toàn thư (大越史記全書, Complete Historical Annals of Đại Việt) recorded that 
in the seventeenth year of Yongle Reign (1419), the Yongle Emperor of China or-
dered that Confucian texts, The Four Books and The Five Classics (四書五經, Tứ 
Thư Ngũ Kinh) be taken to Đại Việt (or Annam, as it was called by the Chinese) 
for the sake of Sinicizing the local education system. These were later used as 
classical texts for education and civic examinations during the Lê dynasty (1428–
1789). Even though Confucian education was based on the Chinese model, the 
Vietnamese political philosophy was very different from its Chinese counterpart.
The Vietnamese culture was based mainly on Neo-Confucianism, at least since 
the beginning of the Lê dynasty (1428–1789). Many people called the Confu-
cian ideology “cửa Khổng sân Trình” (the gate of Confucius and the yard of two 
Chengs (i.e., Cheng Hao (程顥, Trình Hạo, 1032–1085) and Cheng Yi (程頤 
Trình Di, 1033–1107)). However, Vietnamese Confucians did not engage in 
Neo-Confucian “metaphysical speculation”, as found in the East Asian states, 
and did not participate in the dynamic Confucian debates regionally (see Elman 
et al. 2002, 17). Alexander Woodside called Vietnamese elites “the Methodists 
of the Confucian world” since they had a strong interest in the quality of direct 
3 Chu Văn An (朱文安, 1292–1370) was the first significant Vietnamese scholar who discussed 
the Confucian classics. His famous work, the Tứ Thư Thuyết Ước (四書說約, The Brief Interpre-
tation of Four Books) was composed on the ideological framework of Zhu Xi’s the Sishu Jizhu 
(四書集注, Concise Notes of Four Books).
4 Hồ Quý Ly (胡季犛, 1336–1407?) was a nobleman of the Trần dynasty (1225–1400) who took 
over the throne in 1400 and established the Hồ dynasty (1400–1407) before the Ming invasion and 
rule (1407–1428). He was the author of a number of poems that conveyed important Confucian 
virtues and ideas.
83Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
practical experience without a deep concern with doctrine (Woodside 2002, 127, 
211; Trần 1973; 1975). McHale was more serious when downgrading Vietnamese 
Confucianism as “a poor and fragmented understanding of the teaching” (McHale 
2004, 67). Phan Đại Doãn, a twentieth-century writer, proposed that ancient Vi-
etnamese elites had “simplified” Confucianism from China, and focused only 
on its practical applications (Phan 1998). The Vietnamese feudal states and their 
bureaucrats failed to function as an effective agent of Confucianization.
The Tây Sơn dynasty (1789–1802) and the Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1945) once 
again combined Han Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism by extracting prac-
tical experience from all previous generations to serve their social interests. Al-
exander Woodside concluded that Vietnamese Confucianism reached its height 
in the 1800s by applying Zhou’s Rituals (周禮, Chu Lễ) into its administrative 
work rather than using them for philosophical appropriation and philological 
work (see Woodside 2002, 136). As a result, late feudal Vietnam remained on 
its own trajectory of Confucian application. Đại Nam thực lục (the Annals of 
Đại Nam) states that in the fourth year of the reign of Minh Mạng (1824), Ngô 
Đình Giá, an educational bureaucrat, asked to use Tứ thư Ngũ kinh (四書五經, 
The Four Books and Five Classics), Tính lý đại toàn (性理大全, The Complete 
Collection of Neo-Confucianism), Thông giám cương mục (通鑑綱目, Outlines 
and details of the Comprehensive Mirror), Đại học diễn nghĩa (大學演義, The 
Romance of the Great Learning), Cổ văn uyên giám (古文淵鑑, An Insight into 
the Ancient Essays), and so on as official textbooks in Vietnamese schools (see 
Quốc 2002, 56). In 1823, the work based on Zhu Xi’s lixue (理學, Neo-Confu-
cianism), the Luận ngữ ngu án (論語愚按, Analysis and Comment on Analects 
of Confucius), by Phạm Nguyễn Du (1740–1786) was published. Consequently, 
The Four Books and The Five Classics, as edited and interpreted by Zhu Xi, be-
came the most important texts in Vietnam’s feudal education regime (see further 
Đỗ 2018, 23–5).
Vietnamese Confucian elites emphasized the foundational texts of China’s Zhou 
dynasty even though the state governance and civic examination applied the 
Neo-Confucian mechanism. Such a shortcoming of uniformity did not allow Vi-
etnam to develop a full appropriation of Neo-Confucianism or access to the Con-
fucian universality, as in China, Korea, and Japan (Woodside 2002, 140). As a 
result, the people could not engage in debates with them” in the Neo-Confucian 
world (see further Jamieson 1993).
Indeed, the Vietnamese Confucian elites intentionally shaped a syncretic belief 
system integrating the tenets of Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism and local tra-
ditions to work as the concrete ideological foundation for all levels of Vietnamese 
84 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
society (see Dutton and Werner 2012, 114; Duong 2004, 311). The balance among 
these elements varies in time and location, especially since the Vietnamese start-
ed expanding towards the South in the early seventeenth century.  
Vietnamese “Expanding to the South” and the New Face  
of Southern Confucianism
“Nam tiến” (Expanding to the South) in the seventeenth century enlarged the 
Vietnamese’s living space and enriched their cultural experience. By spreading 
to the South, the Vietnamese expanded their “orthodox” Confucianism geograph-
ically and encountered non-Confucian challenges. As a result, Confucianism in 
Southern Vietnam was modified by the Yangming School brought by the Viet-
namese Chinese scholars. As a matter of fact, Yangming school significantly re-
strained the “orthodox” bureaucratic Confucianism and had to share its influence 
with Buddhism.
“Nam tiến” took place in two steps: from the North to the Central Region, and 
from the Central Region to the South. In 1600, Nguyễn Hoàng (1525–1613), a bu-
reaucrat of the Lê dynasty, escaped to Thuận Hóa Region (present-day Huế area), 
established the Kingdom of Đàng Trong (early Cochinchina) and got in touch 
with the larger world of Southeast Asia, which “enabled him to establish a new 
vision of being Vietnamese distinguished by the relative freedom from the Viet-
namese past and the authority justified by appeals to that past” (Taylor 1993, 64). 
Based on a profound Confucian viewpoint, Ngô Sĩ Liên in Đại Việt sử ký toàn 
thư condemned Nguyễn Hoàng for being an unfilial man by leaving behind his 
ancestors’ shrines, tombs, and his family’s past, and claimed that he was rejecting 
the traditional status of being a “good Vietnamese” (see further ibid.). In return, 
Nguyễn Hoàng and his bureaucrats showed that they were eager to shape a new 
model of “good Vietnamese” by accepting and adopting new resources in the new 
lands. Fitzgerald (1972, 28) found another reason for “Nam tiến”, he claimed that 
the crowded peasants and inadequate lands in the North pushed the Vietnamese 
to explore the new lands in the South. In any case, the formation of Đàng Trong 
(Cochinchina) opened a new vision of being Vietnamese. Thus Confucianism in 
this new land was about to transform.
According to Jeffrey Richey, the Đàng Trong government appreciated and used 
Buddhism more than Đàng Ngoài––the Northern Kingdom (Richey 2013, 68), 
thus downgrading the importance of Confucian values when the Vietnamese 
went further south to the Mekong River Delta (see further Li 1998). “Expand-
ing to the South” was, in fact, a two-way process––on one hand the Vietnamese 
85Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
brought with them Buddhism and “orthodox” Confucianism; on the other hand 
they had to adopt the existing cultures of the lands where they arrived (see also 
Reid 1988, 8).
New settlements continued to expand, the land was cleared southwards, and 
Confucian-styled communal houses were built as a sign of the establishment of 
the imperial institution and confirmation of territorial/cultural sovereignty. The 
communal houses where the tutelary gods, sanctioned heroic gods, generals, and 
soldiers were worshipped functioned as a miniature model of the central imperial 
court. Furthermore, the system of ordinations and couplets presenting the virtues 
of the emperors and heroes at the communal house ensured the existence of im-
perial power and its orthodox civilizing missions in each new village.5 Its purpose 
of unifying the new settlers, transmitting the civilizing missions, imposing sov-
ereignty and carrying out other political functions made the communal houses in 
the South deeply institutionalized and politicalized.
In many parts of the South the concept of loyalty dominated the local Confucian-
ists, thus creating an inherent patriotism in each person. Many Vietnamese offi-
cials and Confucian scholars, such as Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh (1650–1700), Nguyễn 
Cư Trinh (1716–1767), Nguyễn Văn Thoại (1761–1829), Nguyễn Đình Chiểu 
(1822–1888), considered striving to cultivate and protect feudal institutions as the 
sacred responsibility of their lives.
Early Nguyễn rulers such as Gia Long (r. 1802–1820) and Minh Mạng (r. 1820–
1841) were shown to disfavour Buddhism and Daoism. Such a bias affected Con-
fucian scholars in some ways. A few local scholars adopted a Confucian stance 
when criticizing Buddhism and Daoism. For example, Nguyễn Cư Trinh, in Sãi 
vãi (Monks and Nuns), called for monastic consolidation and a greater focus on 
Confucian virtues while stating that Buddhism and Daoism were not of practical 
use. Nguyễn Đình Chiểu in Dương Từ-Hà Mậu (楊慈-何茂)6 led a strong discus-
sion among the Confucian scholars and concluded that the core merits of a good 
man are loyalty, patriotism, and righteousness. However, when facing the local 
ethnocultural diversity, Confucianism failed to function as a single ideology that 
could incorporate and unify all traditions under its “orthodox” canopy.
5 This metaphoric application was modelled after the Chinese Ming’s art of governing. According 
to Watson (1985), Duara (1988), Faure (1999) and others, late imperial Chinese states sanctioned 
the orthodox titles of specific gods (such as Guandi/God of War, Tianhou, etc.) to function as the 
“prolonged” hand of the emperor in each village.
6 The work Dương Từ – Hà Mậu was written by Nguyễn Đình Chiểu in 1854, mainly discussing the 
negative impacts of Buddhism and Catholicism and the need to revitalize Confucianism through 
the debates between two Confucianists, Dương Từ and Hà Mậu. 
86 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
On the other hand, the more the Vietnamese went southwards, the more they 
strayed from the culture of the “central domain”––northern Vietnam. As early as 
the 1620s, there were some Vietnamese fishermen arriving at coastal sand-dunes 
nearby Saigon, from where they dispersed throughout the region of Southern Viet-
nam. They came to live with the local Khmer and turned the Khmer village of Prei 
Nokor into the city of Sài Gòn (Saigon) before the Chinese arrived from overseas 
(in the 1670s–1680s). The Khmers’ Hinduism and Theravada Buddhism, as well 
as the Chinese’s “Three Teachings”, all impacted the Southern Vietnamese, mak-
ing them both similar and dissimilar to the northern population. In truth, the peo-
ple who moved to the South became more independent in their thinking and way 
of life (see Fitzgerald 1972, 19–38, 29). At the beginning of this period, the Vi-
etnamese migrants were largely poor fishermen, poor farmers, runaway soldiers, 
bandits, pirates, and prisoners, who were not well-educated or well-prepared to 
transmit Confucian values. Instead, Buddhism flourished and became a popularly 
opposing force to the “orthodox” cults. It is evident that the Southern Vietnamese 
used Buddhism to deal with the Cham and Khmer communities, while adopting 
Brahmanism (from the Cham) and Theravada Buddhism (from the Khmer) to en-
rich their traditions. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Nguyễn lords 
of Đàng Trong officially set up administrative control over these new lands (1698 
in Sài Gòn), and a number of Neo-Confucianism-educated bureaucrats were ap-
pointed to work there. Văn Thánh miếu, or the Temple of Literature, which func-
tioned as the imperial institution, was built in Biên Hòa in 1715, marking the 
official cultivation of “orthodox” Confucianism in Southern Vietnam.
Despite these Confucian scholars–bureaucrats expending great efforts to cultivate 
and promote the Confucian orthodoxy in the South, they failed to transform the 
local communities. What they introduced and developed in the new lands was a 
series of segmented and practical Confucian elements rather than a systematic in-
stitution. While Northern Vietnam remained tightly engaged with Confucian ideol-
ogy, the Southern Vietnamese had a looser relationship with Confucian orthodoxy 
in order to better handle and nurture their newfound social mobility. Such a trans-
formation made Northern scholars doubt the “Vietnamese-ness” and orthodoxy of 
the new lands. As a matter of fact, the Southern Vietnamese adopted simple forms 
of Confucian values, such as respect for parents and a studious mindset. However, 
Olga Dror discovered that this was not to promote Confucianism as an ideological 
basis for society, but rather the limited application of particular Confucian ideas 
that could be widely accepted among the population (Dror 2018, 228–29). 
The Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1945) promoted connections and exchanges between 
the North and South. Commercial goods produced in the South were moved to 
the North; in return, many Northern Confucianists were appointed to work in 
87Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
the South. However, as we noted above, the Chinese from overseas had brought 
Qing-style Confucianism to the South––probably in the form of Yangming stud-
ies––which did not match the Vietnamese “orthodox” Neo-Confucianism, as pro-
moted by the bureaucrats. The former was diffused among the elites and mer-
chants, while the later was applied in the administrative and educational systems. 
As a result, two schools of Confucianism intertwisted to make a new face of 
Southern society.
Confucianism started to decline right after the French imposed their rule on the 
South during the 1860s. The civic examination was abandoned in the South at 
the end of the nineteenth century, while it did remain in the North until 1914 and 
in the Central region until 1919. In 1924, the French Governor agreed to include 
the study of traditional Vietnamese morality at the primary level; however, as 
Shawn McHale put it, “this was a hybrid moral instruction, combining elements 
of French moral teachings with Vietnamese ones, it could not be called pure-
ly Confucian” (McHale 2004, 74). There was a wave of Confucian renaissance 
during 1920–1940 in Vietnam motivated by a group of French-educated scholars 
such as Phan Bội Châu (1867–1940), Trần Trọng Kim (1883–1953), Phan Khôi 
(1887–1959), Phạm Quỳnh (1892–1945), Ngô Tất Tố (1894–1954), Đào Duy 
Anh (1904–1988), Trương Tửu (1913–1999), etc. (see McHale 2004, 71). How-
ever, it did not help to stop the downgrading of Confucianism nationwide after a 
long period of being ruled by the French.
After 1954, Northern Vietnam pursued socialism while South Vietnam was still 
at war. The administrators in Saigon encouraged moral education, for which 
some Confucian virtues were selected. However, this was, again, not a systematic 
Confucian institution. Instead, they absorbed some practical virtues to serve their 
temporary practical demands, such as filial piety, modesty, humility, and so on. 
For example, Saigon textbooks recounted the story of Lê Văn Khôi, praising his 
filial piety to his adept father, Governor Lê Văn Duyệt (1763–1832) (Dror 2018, 
230–31) rather than narrating the whole historical fact of Lê Văn Khôi’s (?–1834) 
rebellion during the period of 1833–1835.
In short, the early Vietnamese migrants did not bring systematic Confucianism 
but instead Buddhism to set up a new “home” in Southern Vietnam. The Nguyễn 
lords period (1600–1789) and, later, the Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1945), promoted 
the Confucian orthodoxy and used it as a means of territorializing and civilizing 
the new lands. However, this wave of Confucian orthodoxy was challenged by 
the Qing Confucianism introduced by the Chinese from overseas. One interacted 
and restrained the other, but both were absorbed into the mindset of the Southern 
population.
88 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
The Introduction of Qing Confucianism into Southern Vietnam by 
the Chinese from Overseas 
The Hoa (ethnic Chinese) merchants and migrants arrived in Northern and Central 
Vietnam much earlier than in the South. In the North, the Chinese were present 
since the Western Han dynasty started ruling the land. In the Central region, Hoi 
An, a well-known entrepôt, became one of the destinations of Chinese merchants 
and workers from the first half of the seventeenth century on. However, the Chi-
nese mainly migrated to Southern Vietnam at the end of the seventeenth century, 
after the fall of Zheng Chenggong’s (鄭成功, Koxinga, 1624–1662) army in the 
Taiwan Straits. Furthermore, included in this first generation Hoa migration to 
Southern Vietnam were political refugees, but not merchants or free workers.7 In 
1679, Dương Ngạn Địch (楊彥迪, ?–1688)––the Long Môn (龍門) Military Gov-
ernor, with 200 ships and 40,000 men under his possession, fled from the pursuit 
of the new Qing authority that was attempting to attack. After a month there was a 
storm and nearly 50 ships in the Long Môn fleet sank; the around 3,000 remaining 
people had to “drink dewdrops and raindrops” and “eat shoe soles” to survive and 
to find a way to Cochinchina.8 Finally, they settled in the land which is now the 
south of Vietnam (Wheeler 2015, 152).
Dương Ngạn Địch settled in My Tho on the banks of the Mekong River Delta. 
Trần Thượng Xuyên (1626–1720), another general, and his followers established 
Thanh Hà village in Biên Hòa and Minh Hương village in the Sài Gòn-Chợ Lớn 
area (recorded in Đại Nam Thực Lục (大南實錄, Veritable Records of the Great 
South)). During this time, Mạc Cửu from the Leizhou peninsular (Guangdong, 
China) came to build Hà Tiên,9 an estate for Chinese immigrants, and then gave it 
to the Nguyen lords. Under Hà Tiên’s development policy, and due to the fact that 
the Siamese King, Phraya Taksin (1734–1782), attacked Hà Tiên on and off from 
1771–1772, many ethnic Chinese took refuge throughout the lower Mekong Riv-
er Delta. The Nguyễn lords bestowed many privileges on Chinese communities, 
such as free trade and monetization, high-ranking positions at both the state and 
provincial levels, and so on (Borri 1998, 92; Nguyen 2010, 82). In 1669, a Qing 
mandarin named Yu Jin reported to the Chinese Emperor Kangxi that millions 
of Chinese had moved to Southeast Asia, many of whom worked as “traitors” 
or were appointed to some mandarin positions in the Vietnamese court (see Sun 
2014, 327). The younger generations of mixed parentage between the Hoa and 
Vietnamese are called “the Minh Hương”.
7 See further Tsai 1968; Amer 1991; Engelbert 2011; Li 2004; Chí 2010; Barrett 2012.
8 French-given name for South Vietnam during the colonial period, 1858–1945.
9 Transbassac Region, or the lower Mekong River Delta of Vietnam.
89Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
From the eighteenth century onwards, the Hoa migrants arriving in Vietnam and 
Southeast Asia were no longer political refugees but workers and other economic 
immigrants (Cheung 2002, 33). They were treated as potential trading partners in 
many parts of the country. They participated in the state’s mining, coin casting, 
and metal import-export activities (Li 2011). The history of the ethnic Hoa in 
Southern Vietnam is briefly described below.
Late feudal dynasties
(~ –1858)
Colonialism/
Vietnam War
(1858–1975)
Exodus
Post-war 
(1975–early 1980s)
After reform 
1986
(since 1986)
Pro-Integration/
Dual policies
“Divide and rule”, 
marginalization
Re-integration  
and development
Figure 1: Short summary of the history of the ethnic Hoa in Southern Vietnam
With specific historical experiences in hand, the Hoa people, led by their elites, 
learned to “handle and preserve their own interests to ensure their position as Viet-
namese society changed and their economic status eroded” (see Wheeler 2015, 
143). As a matter of fact, the Hoa and the Minh Hương played an important role 
in the economic development of Southern Vietnam, within which the Yangming 
School of Confucianism (or Yangming Studies) has been noted as a significant 
philosophical contribution.
Wang Yangming (王陽明, 1472–1529), an important Neo-Confucian scholar of 
the Chinese Ming dynasty, stood on the core principles of Neo-Confucianism 
to discuss and develop further the philosophical concepts of the self-realization, 
self-reflection, and self-cultivation of each individual with the highest goal of 
attaining the ultimate unity of Heaven and Humanity (Tianren heyi 天人合一).10 
According to Wang Yangming, sincerity of the will comes before the process 
of correcting the original substance of the mind, the so-called gewu 格物 (Chan 
1963, 655), the principle and the heart-and-mind are unified in one, and all myr-
iad things exist in the heart-and-mind of human beings. If one possesses a good 
heart-and-mind, he becomes a person of good liangzhi (良知, intuitive knowl-
edge); consequently, he will be able to self-realize ways to attain Tianren heyi. 
Compared with previous Neo-Confucianists (i.e., Zhu Xi), Wang Yangming em-
phasized practical logic epistemology and its deployment in living reality rather 
10 See Chan 1963, 658; Bary 1981, Xiii; Taylor and Rodney 1990, 5.
90 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
than purely diving within the theoretical ocean. Tang Junyi (唐君毅), a twen-
tieth-century Confucian scholar in Hong Kong, thus called Wang Yangming’s 
main approach to Confucianism “a heuristic language” (see Chen et al. 2014, 76).
The most notable point of Wang Yangming’s philosophy is the unity of knowl-
edge and action (知行合一, tri hành hợp nhất). Accordingly, knowledge is the 
original source of practice, and practice is the actual end of knowledge (Chan 
1963, 656). By appreciating the unity of knowledge and action, Wang Yangming 
focused on the self-realization and self-cultivation of each person. Yangming 
Studies was introduced to both Korea and Japan. In Carter Eckert’s words, Kore-
an capitalism was imported by the Confucian literati in the state. 
They resolved the apparent conflict between Confucian attitudes of dis-
approval regarding the pursuit of individual gain and the profit motive 
inherent in capitalism by claiming that the central purpose of profit was 
to improve the general quality of life and ensure the nation’s independ-
ence. (in Tu, Hejtmanek and Wachman 1992, 9)
In Japan, disciples of Yangming Studies established the Yomeigaku (Yangming 
Studies) of Japanese Confucianism, a rival of the Shushigaku (朱熹學) during the 
seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Furthermore, Yangming Studies laid 
a significant philosophical foundation for the Meiji Revolution in 1868 (Chan 
1963, 658), turning Japan into a world-leading economy. Similarly, the concept 
of the unity of knowledge and action deeply influenced Chinese revolutionaries 
(i.e., Sun Yat-sen, 1866–1925) and New Confucianists (i.e., Xiong Shili, 1885–
1968, Mou Zongsan, 1909–1995, and so on.). The Chinese migrants to Vietnam 
mainly originated from Fujian and Guangdong, where Confucian values absorbed 
and enriched the trading traditions, forming an open-minded, dynamic, pragmatic 
and innovative form of Confucianism among the bureaucrats, elites, merchants, 
and some commoners.
The traditional Vietnamese state did not adopt Yangming Studies (see Elman 
et al. 2002, 15; Tran 2003, 735; McHale 2004, 81). Benjamin Elman and his 
fellows found that the traditional Vietnamese rural elites and commoners were 
satisfied with rice-fields, sumptuary laws about Confucian sacrifice and archaic 
forms of Confucianism (Elman et al. 2002, 17). Chu Thuấn Thủy (朱舜水, 1600–
1682), a late Ming–early Qing elite from Southern China, took refuge in Hội 
An for a while and found it disappointing that most of the local people came to 
him to ask for geomancy and other practical issues but not to discuss theoretical 
ones. He left for Japan where his interests were then fulfilled in the Yomeigaku 
school of Confucianism (Ba Xuyen cited in McHale 2002, 408). In our view, this 
91Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
reasoning set out here makes sense, but there are also more causes to list. The 
Vietnamese Confucianists tried to compose a discourse on Confucianism with a 
nationalist and anti-colonial narrative of resistance to foreign aggression. David 
Kelly once stated that Vietnam, together with Korea, focused more on the ide-
ological constructions of freedom and liberation (Kelly 1998, 3). The Koreans, 
in Alexander Woodside’s research, intentionally differentiated themselves from 
China by emphasizing or prioritizing certain aspects of Confucian values and 
practices. For example, in family life, they further sharpened the family hierar-
chy and orthodox tradition by stressing “more clearly the distinction between 
sons of primary and secondary wives in descent groups” (compared to Chinese 
tradition) (Woodside 1998a, 197). On their side, the Vietnamese elites controlled 
the state-sanctioned writing of history and asserted a major form of oppositional 
boundary maintenance on external communication with China. Last but not least, 
the profound combination of the Three Teachings in Vietnamese Confucian or-
thodoxy did not give much space to change, or accept innovations. Consequently, 
Vietnamese Confucianism remains a special domain as compared with its East 
Asian counterparts.
However, Southern Vietnam enjoyed a more dynamic form of Confucianism, 
mainly shaped by the relaxation of Vietnamese Confucian orthodoxy and the in-
troduction of Yangming Studies by the Hoa elites. The Nguyen lords in the South 
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in particular offered the Chinese 
and Minh Hương elites good treatment if they proved to be loyal to the Vietnam-
ese state (see Riichiro 1974, 140–75). Mạc Cửu (鄚玖, 1655–1735) and his son, 
Mạc Thiên Tứ (鄚天賜, 1718–1780), were appointed as the General Governors 
of Hà Tiên11 who were able to mint coins, build fortresses, lay out markets, and 
conduct an independent foreign policy (see Chen 1960, 15, 41–63; Reid 1988, 
44). In order to “Confucianize” his people, Mạc Thiên Tứ built Chiêu Anh Các 
(招英閣, Elites Attracting Pavilion) in Hà Tiên in 1736 where Confucius was 
worshipped and Confucian ideas were discussed and spread. Notably, Robert Kir-
sop, a member of staff of the East Indies Company, once described the form of 
Đàng Trong (Cochinchina) as similar to that of China, as many Chinese elites and 
merchants were recruited to work in the administrative system (see further Chen 
1960; Fitzgerald 1972, 30). These men really applied a Qing style of Confucian-
ism in their daily work. 
Hà Tiên tells a significant story of pro-Yangming Studies in Southern Vietnam. 
Hà Tiên’s Confucian studies were closely associated with the second General 
11 Hà Tiên (河仙) was once known under different names, such as Can Cao, Cancar, Ponthiamas, and 
Po-Taimat.
92 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
Governor of the polity, Mạc Thiên Tứ. Cao Tự Thanh, a modern Vietnamese 
scholar, went so far as to claim that “a recognizable stratum of Confucian intel-
lectuals could only be found in the Chinese enclave of Hà Tiên” (Cao 1996, 28). 
With the establishment of Chiêu Anh Các, Mạc Thiên Tứ gathered many prom-
inent Confucianists from different regions of Vietnam and Southern China to 
deploy, discuss, and debate issues of Qing Confucianism as well as to compose 
poetry.12 Mạc Thiên Tứ ordered the compilation of the poetic verses of the schol-
ars and carved into stone steles two works, Hà Tiên Thập Vịnh (河仙十詠, Ten 
Songs on the Beauty of Hà Tiên) and Minh Bột Di Ngư (明勃遺漁, The Last Fish-
erman in Minh Bột Region) (see Trịnh Hoài Đức (1765–1825)’s Gia Định Thành 
Thông Chí (嘉定城通志, Gazetteer of Gia Định Citadel)). Similar to many Qing 
Chinese Confucianists at this time, Mạc Thiên Tứ and his colleagues’ poetry sig-
nified the ultimate “Way” of human beings by stressing the self-realization and 
self-cultivation of the heart-and-mind.
From the eighteenth century to the first half of the twentieth, a large number of 
Chinese books from South-Eastern China followed the Chinese merchant boats 
to Southern Vietnam (see Li 2011, 167–82). Initially, the main beneficiaries were 
almost exclusively the Chinese immigrants, gradually expanding to Vietnamese 
Confucianists and commoners. This spread the Qing’s academic ideology and 
Confucianism extensively in the southern region, thus contesting the Vietnam-
ese Confucian orthodoxy. In addition to the Qing Confucian classics, books on 
geomancy, medicine, and pharmacy, religions, Confucian stories, and others 
were also imported and circulated in large numbers. Many Vietnamese envoys 
of the Nguyễn dynasty to China were the Hoa or Minh Hương elites who played 
a significant role in introducing the Yangming School of the Qing dynasty into 
Southern Vietnam. For example, Đại Nam Thực Lục recorded the case of Lý Văn 
Phức (李文馥, 1785–1849), a member of the Minh Hương elite of Fujian origin, 
12 They were Trịnh Liên Sơn, Lê Bá Bình (from the Saigon- Gia Định region), Phan Đại Quảng, 
Nguyễn Nghi, Trần Ngoan, Đặng Minh Bổn, Trần Minh Hạ, Đặng Minh Bản, Tôn Thiên Trân, 
Mạc Triều Đán, Trịnh Liên Sơn (from North Vietnam), Hoàng Long (from Quy Nhơn), Phan 
Thiên Quảng (from Cẩm Giang), as well as dozens of Chinese Confucianists including Zhu Pu 
(Châu Phác 朱璞), Wu Zhihan (Ngô Chi Hàn 吳之翰), Li Renchang (Lý Nhân Trường 李仁長), 
Dan Bingyu (Đơn Bỉnh Ngự 單秉馭), Tang Yuchong (Thang Ngọc Sùng 湯玉崇), Chen Yansi 
(Trần Diễn Tứ 陳演泗), and Wang Chang (Vương Sưởng 王昶) from Guangdong province; Chen 
Yueyuan (Trần Dược Uyên 陳躍淵), Chen Zilan (Trần Tự Lan 陳自蘭), Xu Ta (Từ Tha 徐鉈), 
Lin Weize (Lâm Duy Tắc 林維則), Xu Dengji (Từ Đăng Cơ 徐登基), Lin Qiran (Lâm Kỳ Nhiên 
林其然), Sun Tianrui (Tôn Thiên Thoại 孫天瑞), Huang Jizhen (Hoàng Ký Trân 黃寄珍), Chen 
Xufa (Trần Tự Phát 陳緒發), Fang Ming (Phương Minh 方銘), and Sun Jimao (Tôn Quý Mậu 
孫季茂) from Fujian province; Lu Fengji (Lộ Phùng Cát 路逢吉) and Zhou Jingyang (Châu Cảnh 
Dương 周景揚) from Jiangsu province; Xu Yewen (Từ Diệp Văn 徐葉雯), Chen Weide (Trần Duy 
Đức 陳維德), and Chen Ruifeng (Trần Thoại Phụng 陳瑞鳳) from Jiangxi province, and so on (see 
Chen 1967, 149).
93Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
who was appointed to be an envoy to the Qing court in 1833. On his way back 
home to Vietnam, he stopped in Fujian to pay a visit to the ancestral halls and in 
Guangdong to purchase books on behalf of the Minh Mạng Emperor. We discov-
ered recently that many books published in Foshan (Guangdong) in the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries were widely circulated and used as important 
textbooks among Southern Vietnamese scholars and students.13 For example, the 
Minh tâm bửu giám (明心寶鑑) became a truly popular handbook among Con-
fucianists of many generations in the South, even though it was never used in 
state-sponsored Confucian schools or civic examinations. Minh tâm bửu giám 
combined the Three Teachings within a Confucian framework which strongly 
encouraged self-realization and self-cultivation among individuals. Besides, Tứ 
thư thể chú (四書體注), a Zhu Xi-based interpretative work by the Qing scholar 
Fan Chang (Zi Deng), was beloved for its conciliation and simplification of The 
Four Books in classical Confucianism. Similarly, Tứ thư đại toàn tiết yếu (四書
大全節要), composed in 1414 under the order of the Ming Emperor, Chengzu, 
and reprinted in Foshan during the Qing dynasty, was also commonly found in 
Southern Vietnam.
Our recent research shows that Võ Trường Toản (?–1792), Trịnh Hoài Đức 
(1765–1825), and Nguyễn Thông (1827–1884) were typical Vietnamese Confu-
cian scholars who made Yangming studies part of their philosophical outlooks, 
especially the concept of “knowing speech and cultivating qi” (知言養氣) by 
Mencius and later Wang Yangming (see Ngạc Xuyên 1943). Unfortunately, this 
group of elites was not provided with a concrete environment to facilitate and 
develop such a new wave of Confucianism, since they encountered the imposi-
tion of the Vietnamese Confucian orthodoxy from the North. The disconnection 
13 Popular texts include Tam tự kinh (三字經, Three-Character Classic), Tam Tự kinh chú giải bị 
yếu (三字經註解備要, The Brief Notes of the Three Characters Classic), Tam thiên tự (三千字, 
Three-Thousand-Word Cannon), Minh tâm bửu giám (明心寶鑑, Precious Mirror of the Clear 
Heart), Tứ thư thể chú (四書體注, Ontological Notes of Four Books), Tứ Thư đại toàn tiết yếu 
(四書大全節要, The Brief Interpretation of Encyclopedia of the Four Books), Kinh thi (詩經, 
The Book of Songs), Kinh Xuân thu (春秋經, Spring and Autumn Annals), Ngũ Kinh tiết yếu 
(五經節要, The Brief Interpretation of Five Classics), Ấu học cố sự quỳnh lâm (幼學故事瓊林, 
Book of Collecting Stories for Children’s Learning), Ấu học thái nạp tập (幼學採納集, Book 
of Collecting Knowledges for Children), Trị gia cách ngôn khuyến hiếu ca (治家格言勸孝歌, 
Family Instructions and A Song to Persuade People to be Filial), Tiểu học gia ngôn diễn nghĩa 
(小學家言演義, The Romance of Family Instructions), Nhị thập tứ hiếu (二十四孝, Twenty-four 
Stories about Filial Piety), Gia lễ (家禮, Family Rituals), Ngọc thu lễ bộ (玉秋禮部, Collection of 
Rituals), Vạn bửu toàn thư (萬寶全書, Complete Collection of Confucian Treasures), Tiên thiên 
dịch số (先天易數, Book of Changes), Tân Quốc văn (新國文, New Chinese Textbooks), etc. We 
did an in-depth survey at Thốt Nốt District of Cần Thơ city and got to know that rural elites such as 
Mr. Phạm Tôn Long (?–?) and Mr. Cao Văn Hân (1924–1999) owned many of these texts before 
their descendents donated them to the provincial library of An Giang in 2016.
94 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
between Vietnam and the East Asian Confucian world really limited the conti-
nuity of scholarly exchanges between the local Chinese elites in Vietnam and 
their partners in South China, thus affecting the spread and impact of Yangming 
studies of later periods. The pro-Yangming studies group in Southern Vietnam 
quickly died out when the French took over Saigon and forcibly applied Western 
educational policies. During Western colonialism, the French first put the Chi-
nese community on the periphery, eliminating their intermediary role between 
Vietnam and China. Thus, unlike other colonies in Southeast Asia, where empires 
made full use of Chinese communities for business and relationships with the 
Qing dynasty, the French reduced their influence in Vietnam (Wheeler 2015, 158; 
Hooker 2002, 20; Sun 2014, 333). Many Confucianists left Saigon for the Mekong 
River Delta where they built another Temple of Literature in Vĩnh Long in 1866 
to maintain their studies. A decade later, the French took over the whole Lower 
Mekong River Delta, creating a dead-end for Confucian education in the South. 
Even so, Yangming studies still remained implicitly among the local scholars. 
Many Western-educated elites such as Trương Vĩnh Ký (Petrus Ký 1837–1898), 
Trương Minh Ký (1855–1900), Huỳnh Tịnh Của (Paulus Của, 1830–1908), and 
so on, thanks to their deep understanding of Confucianism, started translating a 
number of Confucian texts into the Romanized script system (chữ Quốc ngữ). 
This strongly accelerated Ming-Qing Confucian studies among the academicians 
and Confucian elites in Southern Vietnam.
During the 1920s–1940s, while many Northern and Central scholars were busy 
with the debates on Vietnamese traditional Confucianism and national identity 
building (as mentioned above), the local elites in the South were quiet since they 
did not find the same interest in archaic forms of Confucianism. Instead, some 
elites in Saigon published a number of books on Wang Yangming’s philosophy. 
Đào Trinh Nhất was often mentioned for his publication entitled Wang Yangming: 
The Promoter of the Theory of Attaining the Supreme Conscience (致良知) and 
the Unity of Knowledge and Action (Vương Dương Minh: người xướng ra học-
thuyết tri lương-tri và tri-hành hợp nhất, unknown publication year), followed by 
Phan Văn Hùm with the work Wang Yangming: Life and Theory (Vương Dương 
Minh: thân thế và học thuyết, reprinted 2016), Ba Xuyên with the article “Critics 
on Phan Văn Hùm’s book of Wang Yangming” (1949), Trần Trọng Kim with the 
book Wang Yangming and the Studies of Supreme Conscience (Vương Dương 
Minh và cái học trí lương tri, 1960), and so on. These scholars were strongly sup-
ported by a few publications and societies such as Sài Gòn Tân Việt (New Viet 
of Saigon) and Hội Khuyến học (Educational Promotion Society), among others. 
Unfortunately, Yangming studies were neglected during the Third Indochina War 
(1954–1975) and then the post-war period. Notably, while Confucianism was 
95Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
overthrown in North Vietnam at this time, two Confucius temples were built in 
the South, one in Châu Đốc (An Giang province) in 1970, and another in Gò Công 
(Tiền Giang province) in 1974.14
In the early twenty-first century, a number of new scholars became interested in 
learning Yangming studies; however, what they are really investigating is New 
Confucianism with a significant contribution of Yangming studies in its core 
philosophical foundation. The Harvard-Yenching Institute plays an important 
role in creating and providing opportunities and academic resources to connect 
contemporary Confucian studies scholars in Vietnam with the world. Recently, 
Trần Nhân Tông Institute was established in Hanoi, which strongly encourages 
the new wave of Confucian studies in Vietnam. 
Multi-Directional Interactions and the Evolution of  
Southern Vietnamese Confucianism
It is reasonable to say that the Yangming school of Confucianism was formed and 
evolved through the debates that occurred among the Neo-Confucianists during 
Ming-Qing periods. In 1313 Zhu Xi interpreted Confucianism as an orthodox ide-
ology, and made it the basis of civil service examinations (see Chan 1963, 654) 
while Wang Yangming emphasized the doctrine of the unity of knowledge and 
action, and “stressed the correspondence and equal importance of knowledge and 
action” (ibid., 656). Both these rival schools of thought have long existed among 
Southern Vietnamese Confucianists.
Since the 1500s, practical learning in the Yangming school of Confucianism di-
rectly generated the rise of a new literature in China and other East Asian states 
that transmitted the possible relationship with economic management concisely 
presented in the formula “order the state and save the world” (經國濟世); there-
fore, the Yangming spirit in economic innovation was acknowledged as a kind of 
“statecraft” (see further Woodside 1998b, 200). In Japan, such statecraft strongly 
energized the emergence of an industrializing Japan after the Meiji Revolution 
in 1868 (see Elman et al. 2002, 8). In Southern Vietnam, the rise of domestic 
market-based production and maritime trading since the early eighteenth cen-
tury was an advantage for the cultivation and development of epistemological 
Yangming studies, but, unluckily, this wave was contested and gradually fad-
ed. Many early Minh Hương and Vietnamese scholars in Saigon-Chợ Lớn were 
14 We discovered another small-scaled Temple of Literature was built in Cao Lãnh city of Đồng Tháp 
province; however, the history of this establishment was not recorded. Furthermore, this temple is 
currently abandoned.
96 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
both Confucianists and merchants. They joined the South Chinese and Southeast 
Asian spectrum of rushang (儒商, Confucian merchants), such as Chu Thuấn 
Thủy (朱舜水, 1600–1682), Mạc Thiên Tứ (鄚天賜, 1718–1780), Trịnh Hoài 
Đức (鄭懷德, 1765–1825), Lý Tường Quang (李祥光, also called Bá hộ Xường, 
1842–1896), Huỳnh Văn Hoa (黃文華, 1845–1901, also called Hứa Bổn Hòa), 
and so on. However, with the exception of Mạc Thiên Tứ, these merchants-Con-
fucian bureaucrats did not hold high-ranking positions; they had to follow the 
imperial rules in facilitating the “orthodox” Vietnamese Confucianism. Further-
more, as Alexander Woodside pointed out, the Vietnamese “practical learning”, 
like that in China in some domains, “was under great pressure to abbreviate space 
in order to reconcile expanding, heterogeneous frontiers with the central metro-
politan domain––whose legitimizing myth belonged to a smaller, less mobile, 
pre-commercial age” (Woodside 1998b, 201). Serving as bureaucrats, these men 
were obliged to follow the mainstream.
Since the French colonists imposed a full Western educational system in Vietnam 
during the second half of the nineteenth century, Confucian studies were severely 
damaged, especially after the fall of civic examinations (1919), when the impe-
rial court lost its power. Discussions on the divide of national studies took place 
with the participation of many Confucian scholars of the early Nguyễn dynas-
ty, such as Nguyễn Trường Tộ (阮長祚, 1830?–1871), Phạm Phú Thứ (范富恕, 
1821–1882), Đặng Huy Trứ (鄧輝著, 1825–1874), Nguyễn Lộ Trạch (阮露澤, 
1853?–1895), and so on. They talked about whether the Vietnamese elites should 
continue with traditional Confucianism or transform themselves to facilitate 
Western education, and whether the Vietnamese should follow the colonial pol-
icies or rise up to assert themselves. Almost all of them shared a commonality: 
they acknowledged the backwardness of Vietnamese Confucianism as well as 
the long-lasting disharmony between knowledge and action, and suggested the 
new motto of “Confucianism as the substance, Western studies as the function” 
(東體西用). Unfortunately, Emperor Tự Đức (1829–1883, reigned 1847–1883) 
declined to implement this innovative initiative.
However, this rejection did not have much of an effect on Southern scholars. 
They, being deeply influenced by Yangming studies, did not pursue engagement 
in civic examinations and bureaucratic appointments. Instead, they followed the 
concept of “self-cultivation as the root” in the Daxue (chapter 1) by focusing on 
self-cultivation and practical participation, especially in the mainstream of local 
economic dynamism. From the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, accord-
ing to Li Tana, Vietnamese commodities were mostly purchased (by international 
merchants) from the South, which clearly reveals that the commodity production 
and commercial activities were mainly based in the southern part of the country 
97Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
(see Li 2010, 96). Trịnh Hoài Đức, a prominent Minh Hương scholar, went on his 
business to Phnom Penh (the present-day Cambodian capital city). Mạc Thiên Tứ 
was known as an outstanding ruler, a Confucian scholar, and a talented trader. He 
organized many maritime trading fleets to sail to Japan, China, and Batavia to do 
business, thus making Hà Tiên a significant trading port in the eighteenth century 
(see Chen 2008; Li 2013). Võ Trường Toản (武長纘) and other pro-Yangming 
Confucianists highly appreciated the Daxue and the theory of knowing speech 
and cultivating “qi” (知言養氣, Tri ngôn dưỡng khí), actively bringing Confu-
cian ideology into the reality of education and the social renaissance. Nguyễn 
Đình Chiểu (阮廷炤, 1822–1888), another southern scholar during the early pe-
riod of French colonialism, built up the character Ông Quán in his notable work 
Lục Vân Tiên in a similar way. Ông Quán, a member of the Confucian elite, did 
not participate in the civic examinations since he was disappointed with the Vi-
etnamese state governance; therefore, he lived as an anchorite and opened a store 
to earn a living. Ông Quán was a typical Southern Confucianist who adopted 
and absorbed both Confucian ideology and the principles of a commodity-based 
economy, and struggled with economic growth and attempted to come up with 
justifications for profit. The local writer Ngạc Xuyên Ca Văn Thỉnh found on a 
stone stele at Vĩnh Long Temple of Literature the fact that the term “practicality 
切實” was repeatedly used in an essay dedicated to the former scholar Nguyễn 
Thông (阮通, 1827–1884).
This innovative idea, of “Confucianism as the substance, Western studies as 
the function”, remained among scholars in the early twentieth century. Kang 
Youwei (1858–1927), Liang Qichao (1873–1929), and later, Sun Yat-sen 
(1866–1925) inspired local elites to get in touch with Western rationalism from 
the traditional Confucian standpoint. In particular, the success of the Japanese 
Meiji Revolution attracted many Vietnamese reformers, many of whom studied 
in Japan in the early twentieth century (see Woodside 1998b, 211). Phan Bội 
Châu (潘佩珠, 1867–1940) and Cường Để (彊㭽, 1882–1951) organized the 
famous Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục Movement in the first decade of the twentieth 
century, sending a number of reformers to Tokyo. These scholars later estab-
lished the Duy Tân Association (維新會) which advocated the study of the Jap-
anese experience (especially the Meiji Revolution). These reformers went so 
far as to plan to replace the current young king Duy Tân (1900–1945, reigned 
1907–1916) with Mr. Cường Để, another member of the royal family who had 
studied in Japan during the Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục period. In Southern Viet-
nam, Gilbert Trần Chánh Chiếu (1868–1919) and his colleages launched the 
Minh Tân Movement (明新運動) and tried to connect with the Duy Tân re-
formers. On the other hand, some local millenarian religions, such as Bửu Sơn 
98 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
Kỳ Hương,15 Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa,16 and Hoahaoism17 in An Giang province, 
Caodaism18 in Tay Ninh, and other popular religious movements (e.g., the Bình 
Xuyên group) were formed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 
Many of these set up close relationships with secret societies in both Vietnam 
and South China (e.g., the Thiên Địa Hội (天地會, Heaven and Earth Society)). 
Unfortunately, the French rulers, with the support of the Japanese Government, 
extinguished these movements in the second decade of the twentieth century. 
As a result, the initiative of transforming the Vietnamese state by applying 
the Japanese experience came to an end. The French government in Vietnam 
recognized the existing risks of progressive Japanese-Chinese philosophical 
thought that were being transmitted into Vietnam, so they tried to control the 
press and publishing industry to avoid the spread of such ideas into the polit-
ical domain. This policy of the French rulers broke the traditional connection 
to East Asian politics and scholarly ideology, giving way for Marxism to enter 
Vietnam.
The pro-Yangming studies group in Southern Vietnam mainly applied some as-
pects of this philosophy into practical life, yet did not go further in realizing it. 
While Confucian scholars in China, Korea, and Japan were busy writing com-
mentaries on Confucian classics, most of the Vietnamese Confucians dedicated 
their intellectual energy to the articulation of their innermost spirituality in poetic 
language (Duong 2004, 293), or to their socio-economic activities. Mạc Thiên 
Tứ’s Chiêu Anh Các in Hà Tiên was not an exception to this. All the Confucian-
ists emphasized composing poems that vividly transmitted their philosophical in-
terest in self-cultivation of the heart-and-mind, but did not engage in developing 
15 Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương is a synthetic religion founded by Đoàn Minh Huyên (1807–1856) in 1849 in 
Châu Đốc, An Giang province. Currently, there are around 15,000 followers in the Mekong River 
Delta (see more Ho Tai 1983, 20–7).
16 Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa is a synthetic religion under a branch of Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương that combines Ma-
hayana Buddhism, Linji zong (臨濟宗), Tiantai zong (天台宗), Confucianism, Taoism, ancestor 
worship, and patriotism. It was founded by Ngô Lợi (1831–1890) in Ba Chúc village, Tịnh Biên 
District, An Giang province. There are now about 80,000 followers in Southern Vietnam (see more 
Ho Tai 1983, 3, 12, 66).
17 Called đạo Hòa Hảo in Vietnamese and 和好教 in Chinese language, Hoahaoism was founded in 
1939 by Huỳnh Phú Sổ (1919–1947) in Hòa Hảo village of An Giang province. Hoahaoism con-
tinued Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương’s philosophy; however, it adjusted the structure by taking Mahayana 
Buddhist philosophy as the foundation and adding ancestor worship (see Ho Tai 1983, 17–19, 
26–7, 125, 170).
18 Called đạo Cao Đài in Vietnamese and 高台教 in Chinese, Caodaism is a synthetic religion with 
five million followers founded by Ngô Văn Chiêu (1878–1932) in Tây Ninh province. Caodaism 
was constructed on the foundation of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, ancestor worship, Ca-
tholicism, and others (see Trần 2006; see more Ho Tai 1983, 77–8, 100; Dutton and Werner 2012, 
429–30.
99Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
logical metaphysics of Confucian concepts or theories. The ending of the twenti-
eth century witnessed many significant transformations in Vietnam (i.e., the Vi-
etnam War 1954–1975, the Economic Collectivism Movement 1975–1986, the 
Reform since 1986), which did not create any space for the revitalization of Con-
fucian studies. It is in the early twenty-first century, when Vietnamese education 
connected to the rest of East Asia and the Western world, that New Confucianism 
found its way to penetrate into Vietnamese scholarship, thanks to the connections 
between Vietnamese academicians and prominent scholars in East Asia and the 
US. As Tu Wei-ming put it, Confucian humanism has been revitalized and re-sig-
nified extraordinarily over the last few decades (Tu 1986, 3–21), and the recent 
introduction of New Confucianism in Vietnam shows positive signs of the schol-
arly incorporation of Vietnam into the world at large. 
Prominent Legacies of Qing Confucianism in Southern Vietnamese 
Tradition
Southern Vietnamese Confucianism possesses a number of prominent features 
in comparison to the classical Confucian tradition (in the North). Previously, 
pre-modern Vietnam was known by global researchers as a shallow and segment-
ed Confucian state with an overwhelming emphasis on practical application and 
less theoretical appropriation; however, scholarship on the features of Southern 
Vietnamese Confucianism has been limited due to the lack of in-depth research 
projects focusing on this issue. Within the framework of this work we initially 
point out the following three prominent features.
(1) Taking spiritualized Confucianism to convey Confucian studies  
(Dĩ giáo bảo học, 以(儒)教保(儒)學) 
The first notable feature of Southern Vietnamese Confucianism is the trend of tak-
ing spiritualized Confucianism to convey Confucian studies. In North and Central 
Vietnam, spiritualized Confucianism existed in parallel with the state-sponsored 
politicalized Confucianism; however, it was in Southern Vietnam that Confucian 
studies of all kinds came together (i.e., “orthodox” Vietnamese Confucianism, 
pro-Yangming studies, and Confucian ideology absorbed in local religious move-
ments), yet none of them became the leading system, and all Confucian flows had 
to “take refuge” under religious domains (i.e., popular religions, newly-emerging 
religious movements). In other words, local religious systems were built or con-
solidated on the ideological foundation of Confucianism as well as of Buddhism 
100 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
and Daoism. For example, the cult of Guandi (關帝, Quan Đế), the Chinese God 
of War (see Duara 1988, 778–95), was introduced from China a long time ago. 
It existed under the form of a singular public cult in North and Central Viet-
nam during feudal dynasties. However, in Southern Vietnam, this Vietnamese 
tradition of Guandi worship has not been as strong as the Guandi cult following 
the footsteps of Chinese immigrants from South-Eastern China. Guandi has been 
proclaimed to be the Martial God who stays in line with Confucius (the Literary 
Sage).19 Guandi has been praised as a symbol of absolute loyalty, bravery, and 
righteousness for he conveys mostly Confucian virtues, even though Daoism and 
Buddhism adopted and resettled his symbolic associations.
Folk religions in Southern Vietnam, especially the endogenous religions that are 
constituted on the basis of combining the ideology of the Three Teachings, still 
occupy an important part of Confucian ideology. While the above-mentioned 
Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương, Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa, and Hoahaoism place a strong emphasis 
on Buddhism, Caodaism stresses Daoism, and the Minh Đức Nho giáo Đại đạo20 
focuses largely on Confucianism. Often in those religions, Confucian morality 
calls for humanitarian cultivation because “if there is no humanitarian cultivation, 
there is no approach to the Heavenly Way”.21 It can be seen that Confucian ideol-
ogy functions as a means to associate the endogenous religions with the reality of 
life and practical situation in the country.
(2) Taking practical learning to restrain virtual learning  
(Dĩ thực chế hư, 以實(學)制(約)虛(學))
The Qing practical learning that followed the Chinese immigrants into South-
ern Vietnam largely satisfied the local elites and commoners, since it, on the 
one hand, highly valued “the universally practical use” (kinh thế chí dụng, 經世
致用), “maximizing resources to gain public welfare” (lợi dụng hậu sinh, 利用
19 During different field-trips to the Mekong River Delta in 2015–2017, we discovered that there 
were around 30 temples of popular gods/goddesses reserving a notable place for the worship of 
Confucius (i.e., Tianhou temple in Bạc Liêu city, Tianhou temple in Giồng Trôm district of Bến 
Tre province). These temples were erected by the local Chinese, while the religious communities 
in these places include both the Vietnamese and the ethnic Chinese.
20 It is a synthetic spiritualized sect of Confucianism founded by Lưu Cường Cáng in 1932 in Ba 
Động, Trà Vinh province. Its philosophy mainly revolves the Confucian concepts of “Minh đức” 
(明德, “to illustrate illustrious virtue”), “Tân dân” (親(新)民, “to renovate the people”), and “Chí 
thiện” (至善, “to rest in the highest excellence”) with a wide range of liturgical combination of 
Buddhism, Daoism, Caodaism, and others.
21 This verse is originally derived from the Taoist scriptures, which have been used by many sects in 
Vietnam to educate believers (欲修仙道，先修人道；人道不修，仙道遠矣).
101Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
厚生), “learning for practical use” (học dĩ trí dụng, 學以致用), “seeking truth 
from facts” (thực sự cầu thị, 實事求是), and “saving the state and supporting the 
people” (cứu quốc tế dân, 救國濟民). On the other hand, it seriously criticized 
the Song-Ming’s Neo-Confucianism which pursued a deep structure of theoret-
ical wisdom yet went beyond reality. They shared a common vision of bringing 
the Confucian ideology closer to the state’s and people’s practical interests. As 
a matter of fact, the Confucian elites and students in Southern Vietnam did not 
show any interest in participating in the civic examinations and working in the 
bureaucratic system.22 Consequently, the Nguyễn emperors had to recruit a large 
number of officers from the North and Central regions to work in the South. They 
brought with them the classical state Confucianism, and the more of these man-
darins that were appointed, the more pressure local practical learning had to cope 
with. The gap between the state-sponsored Confucianism and practical learning 
thus grew larger.
In fact, the study of statecraft (經世之學) used to promote the state’s governing 
capacity might have been largely absorbed by the first emperor of the Nguyễn 
dynasty, Gia Long, during his journey-in-exile in the South at the end of the 
eighteenth century. He came to power in 1802 when he strongly supported the 
dynamism of commodity production and commercial activities in the South. His 
son, Minh Mạng (1820–1941), facilitated similar interests by implementing the 
policies of developing irrigation systems, trade, military innovation, national de-
fence, science-based education, and law. The concept of statecraft was then spread 
to Confucianists, creating an atmosphere of political discussion which strongly 
motivated the idea of reform in Vietnam during the French colonial period.
Practical learning rejects the concept of “Mandate of Heaven”; instead, it advo-
cates Mencius’s “theory of original goodness of human nature”. It is reasonable 
to conclude that the practical learning of this period aimed to encourage saint-
hood, advocate the learning of ancient wisdom, and appreciate the philosophies 
of Confucius and Mencius. This is evident in the working spirit of the Southern 
Vietnamese Confucianists, who loved to discuss only the practical knowledge 
and skills to attain morality and political ideology rather than getting engaged 
in deeper metaphysical generalizations and theoretical debates. It is notable that 
Southern Vietnamese Confucianists were interested in extracting the core ideas of 
the ancient sages but not the interpretation and explanations of Confucian schol-
ars of later generations. As a result, Yangming studies were, in fact, limited due 
22 Even though practical learning was introduced in both Korea and Vietnam, the two states react-
ed and applied in different ways. The Chinese writer Xu Yiling (2018) found that the Koreans 
deployed a Confucianism based on heart-and-mind, while the Vietnamese emphasized practical 
learning.
102 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
their pro-Yangming status in Southern Vietnam. The whole package of studies 
conceptualized and generalized by East Asian scholars of different periods was, 
again, not totally adopted.
Practical learning among Vietnamese Chinese scholars during the early periods 
was somehow more dramatic than that seen among the local Vietnamese elites. 
Yangming studies are said to be one of the core philosophical foundations for the 
opening and the rise of medieval trading ports such as Hội An, Cù lao Phố, Hà 
Tiên, and later, Sài Gòn – Chợ Lớn. Mạc Thiên Tứ, who was supported by many 
Qing Chinese scholars, was energetic with regard to reclaiming lands and open-
ing commercial activities rather than making any real investments in building a 
metaphysical form of Confucian education under his leadership. 
(3) Respecting the Way and ignoring fame and benefit  
(Trọng đạo khinh danh, 重道輕名)
It is reasonable to conclude that the practical learning of Southern Vietnamese 
Confucianists formed the spirit of “disregarding bureaucratic Confucianism and 
imperial examinations of local elites” (see Cao 1996, 42). Instead, the Southern 
literati highly appreciated the capacity for self-cultivation and the individualistic 
merits of each Confucian scholar.
Here we come back to the case of Võ Trường Toản, a local Chinese Confucianist. 
He was well-known throughout the South for his virtues and aspirations as a Con-
fucian scholar. He was not interested in the political domain, even though Em-
peror Gia Long invited him (many times) to work at the court. Phạm Việt Tuyền, 
in his notable work on Southern Vietnamese literature, considered him to be one 
of the two greatest Confucianists of the South, along with Mạc Thiên Tứ, who 
opened schools and set up Confucian institutions to educate many generations of 
Southern Confucian scholars (Pham 1965). Võ Trường Toản’s students followed 
his virtues. For instance, Ngô Tùng Châu (吳從周, 1752–1801) committed sui-
cide by poison but did not surrender and hand over Quy Nhơn citadel to the forc-
es of the Tây Sơn uprising. Phan Thanh Giản (潘清簡, 1796–1867) also killed 
himself when forced to hand over the Mekong River Delta to the French in 1867. 
Several Confucianists of later generations, e.g., Bùi Hữu Nghĩa (1807–1872), 
Nguyễn Đình Chiểu (1822–1888), and Phan Văn Trị (1830–1910), were also said 
to inherit Võ Trường Toản’s virtues. As the French completely controlled the 
Saigon region in 1862, all Confucianists moved to the Mekong River Delta and 
continued their scholarly careers there. Five years later, in 1867, the French forci-
bly took over the delta, so those Confucianists once again moved, this time to the 
103Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
southern part of Central Vietnam. Having no bureaucratic title and no significant 
property in hand, they sacrificed their connections to their homeland and ances-
tral halls in order to keep their Confucian virtues and patriotism.
Many Confucianists participated in anti-French movements in Southern Vietnam. 
For instance, they joined Trương Định’s (1820–1864) revolt in Gò Công, Nguyễn 
Trung Trực’s (1838–1868) in Rạch Giá, Võ Duy Dương’s (1827–1866) in Đồng 
Tháp, Trần Văn Thành’s (?–1873) in An Giang, and so on. Notably, many mem-
bers of the South Chinese elites and secret societies (e.g., the Heaven and Earth 
Society) joined the revolts since they found similar ideas and attitudes among 
local Confucianists. Unfortunately, the revolts were finally suppressed by the 
French, and the leaders and significant Confucianists were killed. However, their 
virtues and devotions were long-lasting in the local traditions, since students of 
later generations continue to learn from them in textbooks, in literary works or in 
artistic performances, and the people who live in their local communities are al-
ways inspired by their spirits when they participate in various memorial activities 
dedicated to these elites.
In sum, in comparison to the Northern Vietnamese Confucianists who pursued 
bureaucratic Confucianism and civic examinations, the local literati in the South 
were more interested in bringing practical learning to life. Having no important 
political positions or bureaucratic titles, their devotions have been dramatically 
recorded in people’s heart-and-mind rather than state-sponsored history. Various 
forms of studies made up the pre-modern Vietnamese society and ideological 
education; therefore, it would be inaccurate to generalize a set of common fea-
tures for Vietnamese Confucianism in all regions. Similarly, it would be wrong 
to claim that Southern Confucianism was “not truly Vietnamese” (as considered 
by some Northern Confucian scholars––see Richey 2013, 68–9). Confucianism 
was transmitted and adopted differently in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Similarly, 
Confucianism was adopted and adapted differently in North/Central and South-
ern Vietnam. Therefore, only a multi-dimensional and multicultural prism can 
function accurately and effectively when looking at Confucianism from different 
backgrounds.
Conclusion
The Confucian contacts between Vietnam and China and the rest of East Asia 
varied in time and space. Due to the importance of the building of oppositional 
“boundary maintenance” by the state rulers and elites against Chinese hegemony, 
the Northern and then the Central Vietnamese adopted Han-Song Confucianism 
104 Tho Ngoc NgUYEN aNd PhoNg ThaNh NgUYEN: PhilosoPhical TraNsmissioN aNd coNTEsTaTioN
from China and maintained the philosophical axis over time, thus becoming “an 
island” of old Confucianism compared with their East Asian counterparts. The 
overwhelming emphasis on the application of knowledge and the disharmony 
between knowledge and action did not allow the classical Vietnamese Confucian 
scholars to transform and develop Confucian scholarship.
Since the late seventeenth century onwards, the Chinese elites from overseas in-
troduced into Southern Vietnam a new facet of Confucianism, Qing Confucian-
ism, and this had remarkable impacts on the ideological foundations of the local 
literati. Consequently, pro-Yangming practical learning was shaped and spread 
locally until the beginning of Western colonialism. Unfortunately, the domina-
tion of “orthodox” classical Confucianism promoted by the bureaucrats, as well 
as the disregard of the state rulers, did not facilitate the circulation and evolution 
of Yangming studies in Vietnam.
In comparison with other non-Chinese East Asian Confucian states, Vietnam 
adopted and used Confucianism in its own way, one that best served the state’s 
practical interests and strategy. Many layers of Confucianism, different in catego-
ries, thus stacked up together, and while one may dominate it cannot completely 
extinguish the others. Vietnamese Confucianism has been formed by various sin-
gle insertions rather than being a systematic structure as a whole, among which 
the moral ideology and ideology of national security are the most prominent fac-
tors. By absorbing pro-Yangming studies, Southern Vietnamese Confucianism 
clearly manifests such a feature, especially the fact that local Confucian scholars 
emphasized self-realization and self-cultivation rather than getting engaged in 
state-sponsored Confucianism and civic examinations.
The statement “Yangming studies have had no impact in Vietnam”, as made by 
certain scholars, is both accurate to some extent and inaccurate in the others. It 
is the truth that Yangming studies did not cultivate a state-level spectrum of in-
fluence, even though they deeply affected the ideological mentality of the local 
gentry and certain aspects of life in the local community in the South. The trans-
mission, spread, contestation, and then decline of Qing Confucianism in Vietnam 
over the last three hundred years can function as a test case with regard to the 
reform-free Confucian orthodoxy in pre-modern Vietnam. 
105Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 2 (2020), pp. 79–112
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