The older Chinese who lived through the Cultural Revolution understand its horrors, and how much the new China is dependent on their generation's determination never to let something like that happen again. The term limits imposed on party leaders and their need for collective decision-making are practices designed to prevent another Mao Zedong from arising. But because the party has never permitted an honest accounting of Mao's real legacy, it is possible for younger Chinese to look back on that era today with nostalgia, and to imagine it as a time of stability and community.

Chinese history did not, of course, begin with the Communist victory in 1949. In a fascinating turn, an older alternative historical narrative is being formulated alongside the Communist one through a revival of the serious study of classical Chinese philosophy, literature and history. Mao attacked Confucius as a reactionary, but today academics such as Zhao Tingyang and Yan Xuetong have tried to revive a Confucian approach to international relations. The American scholar Tu Weiming left his position as director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute in 2009 to take up a post at Beijing University promoting the study of Confucianism as a serious ethical system on a par with western philosophy. Chinese dynastic history is once again being regularly taught in the school system and there is renewed interest in traditional Chinese medicine, music and art.

David Fuller's view The Comments following this article on the FT website are even more interesting. Here is the most relevant one, in my opinion:

Funny, we Chinese don't sit around thinking in terms of "Confucian revivals" or "Neo-Mao" ideologies. Like you in the West, we have bills to pay and our children's futures to worry about so we work hard and do our best. China has been over-intellectualized by the West: Its recent success is simply due to 1.4 billion people given the same economic opportunities it was previously denied under hardline Communist rule. This ideological debate is more a case of the West struggling to accept China's rise. You have indoctrinated yourself into thinking that the only route to success is a liberal democracy coupled with capitalism, any positive news in China is reported with skepticism and anything negative tinged with schadenfreude. We often forget that China is simply reverting to the mean, reclaiming its place as the world's largest economy.