I don't think it's peculiar to China: parents towards young children naturally act authoritatively, in part because of the nature of young children. This nature

I don't think it's peculiar to China: parents towards young children naturally act authoritatively, in part because of the nature of young children. This nature somehow perseveres in adulthood, albeit altered: consider for example Asch's experiments[0], or this antique idea of assimilating rulers to shepherds. (I'm using "authoritative" in a neutral sense here, free from its usual negative undertone) Edit: Hm, I was incidentally opening the San Zi Jing[1] a few moments ago. It's a historically important educational Chinese book, and it opens with: "Men at their birth are naturally good." The character used for "good" is "善" (shàn), which contains in part "羊" (yáng), meaning "goat/sheep". [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Character_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Character_Classic