February 19, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 11, 1429

BEIJING, Feb 18: More than two million people have registered as descendants of Confucius, tripling the size of the celebrated Chinese philosopher’s family tree, state media reported on Monday.

The new list, which was last updated in 1930, has rocketed by more than 1.3 million, the Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee (CGCC) said, according to a report in the China Daily.

The updated list, which includes overseas and female relatives for the first time, will be published next year to coincide with the 2,560th anniversary of the thinker’s birth, the report said.

But the actual number of his descendants living across the world could actually be more than three million, the report in the English-language paper added.

“We have more than 1.3 million new entries and have stopped soliciting new ones,” says Kong Dewei, a Confucius descendant, who is directing the update with the Hong Kong-based CGCC, which has 450 branches across the world.

The new descendants have each paid a five yuan fee (70 cents) to register, the report added.

More than 40,000 overseas descendants have been added, including 34,000 in South Korea, after a 54th-generation descendant travelled there at the turn of the 14th century.

The ancient teachings of Confucius, centring on peace and social harmony, have enjoyed a renaissance here in recent years, after being suppressed in Maoist China.—AFP