 Communitarian insights about civil society as the sites for moral education can help to remedy the Confucian focus on the family as the only (or main) springboard for moral learning. Confucians have long argued that it is possible and desirable to extend family values outside the family, but the family-centered reality in most East Asian societies with a Confucian heritage suggests that Confucianism may not be sufficient. There has been some work exploring the ’intermediary associations’ in Confucianism (see, e.g., de Bary 1998), but the communitarians debates in the West may offer more insights in this respect. Also, the Confucian emphasis on meritocratic rule by the most talented and virtuous members of the community may encourage excessive political passivity on the part of ordinary citizens. Again, Confucians can look to communitarianism (as well as contemporary debates about deliberative democracy) for insights about values and practices that allow ordinary citizens to make meaningful contributions to the political process, even in political contexts (such as China) without democratic elections to choose top leaders. Democratic education is not, to say the least, a Confucian imperative. In short, communitarian insights can usefully supplement Confucian values in an East Asian context, just as they can supplement liberal values in Western societies. 