Contemporary China is an officially atheistic "communist" society. But do we really understand what communism is supposed to be?

Contrast this to Western social system of Capitalism and "get ahead" individualism wherein each individual primarily serves his or her own interests first, often stepping on (using) others as serves the needs of the individual. The weak fall through the cracks in such a system.

A question of how we understand the self:

This is the question of how we view the human self: 
In the West, the self is viewed as an independent individual 
In China the self is seen as part of a unit (unity) - a social organism where the society itself (or even the entire cosmos) is seen as the larger "Self" of which all individual selves are but interrelated parts (members).

In typical Chinese landscapes the human is often small and imaged as a part of the whole scope of nature in contrast to western art where the human stands out as the main subject of the painting with the landscape as the background.

Is Confucianism a religion? a socio-political philosophy?

Why? Why not?

What about Taoism? What is it? Why?

Consider: in enabling the individual to expand him/herself in relationship to higher forces of reality, enabling the self to identify with something more than just itself, this is not unlike Western religion where to go beyond self-centeredness to God-centeredness is the ideal. Once the self is thus changed, it responds better to, relates better with, other selves.

Confucianism certainly holds this as the goal, so too does Taoism where "other selves" includes all of nature and whatever circumstances are encountered in life.

Taoism and Confucianism complement each other:

• Taoism can be seen as the inner life of the soul/spirit

• Confucianism, as the outer (social) life