Confucianism is commonly understood as a philosophical, ethical, and political tradition that centers around virtue. Little attention, however, has been paid to the idea of power in the Confucian context - what it means, how it should be exercised, and how it is to be conceptualized in contemporary philosophical terms. This book provides a comprehensive philosophical analysis of power in the Confucian political tradition from both historical and normative standpoints. It investigates how power was conceptualized from the perspective of virtue politics, generating two competing accounts of power (i.e. political power and moral power), and how the Confucians' struggles with the ruler's political power led them to transform moral power into an active exercise of responsibility that defies a simple causal reasoning. The account of Confucian power as responsibility can explain why ideas that lie at the heart of the Western political tradition, such as the separation of powers, were given far less attention in Confucian political theory while inviting us to rethink meritorious government and active citizenship in the contemporary East Asian context that is increasingly troubled by structural injustice. It shows that the liability and active dimension of Confucian power as responsibility undergirds "responsibility meritocracy" and "Confucian active citizenship," respectively, thus providing a fresh perspective on the debate between democrats and meritocrats.