The West should look east for wisdom of peaceful coexistence

President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Civilization Initiative at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting on March 15.

"We advocate the respect for the diversity of civilizations," Xi said in his keynote address titled "Join Hands on the Path Towards Modernization".

"Countries need to uphold the principles of equality, mutual learning, dialogue and inclusiveness among civilizations, and let cultural exchanges transcend estrangement, mutual learning transcend clashes, and coexistence transcend feelings of superiority."

This is a natural extension of the Global Development Initiative China proposed in 2021, and the Global Security Initiative suggested in 2022, wrote Xie Maosong, a senior researcher at Tsinghua University, while elaborating on the significance of the proposal in a recent article in China Newsweek, adding that the latest proposal can only be fully comprehended in light of the previous two initiatives.

As Xie wrote, for several centuries, the West-imposed hierarchy has led to enormous, structural wealth gap between some developed countries and most of the developing countries.

"The modernization mode some developed countries have tried to impose on some developing countries, ill-adapted to local conditions, has led to severe internal fractures and predicaments," Xie wrote.

That could be explained in light of the inherent logic of capitalism.

As Italian sociologist Giovanni Arrighi observed, the military conquest of non-Western countries goes side by side with the formation of the global market, and in this process, the Western capitalist countries have achieved de facto monopoly on the use of violence, globally and "legitimately."

Xinhua

Xie said that as the only continuing ancient civilization, the Chinese mode of modernization will be conducive to global development while benefiting the Chinese people, in light of the time-honored Chinese principle of jisuo buyu, wushi yuren.

By coincidence, in a recent video series created by Shanghai Daily, expats were asked to express themselves in a Chinese idiom or phrase. Hasani Arnold, a lad from the New York City who had been in China for two years, chose the idiom jisuo buyu, wushi yuren, which could be loosely viewed as a counterpart of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

As a matter of fact, Chinese diplomats and Foreign Ministry spokesmen routinely cite this idiom while setting forth the Chinese views on international affairs.

It would be interesting to know if it ever occurs to a Western diplomat to cite the English counterpart in explaining their foreign policy? For one thing, the Opium Wars and the Iraqi invasion could have been averted.

The expression could be traced to Book 15 of Confucian Analects, where "Tsze-kung asked, 'Is there one word which may serve a rule of practice for all one's life?' The Master said, 'Is not RRECIPROCITY such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

I have chosen to cite from the translation of James Legge (1815-1897), the Scottish missionary and scholar who could appreciate the fine qualities of the Chinese character, and felt the need to understand Chinese culture by translating many volumes of Chinese classics. Today, although an average Chinese citizen might not be able to trace the idiom to Confucius, it has been such a part and parcel of his attitudes and outlooks that he might cite the idiom upfront on many daily life occasions.

We could not have lived in an age in greater need of someone endowed with sympathies and wisdom of Legge.

One such scholar might be David C. Kang, who tried to answer in his work "East Asia Before the West" this inquiry – "That the three major powers in East Asia – and indeed, much of the rest of the system – could peacefully coexist for such an extended span of time, despite having the military and technological capability to wage war on a massive scale, raises the question of why stability was the norm in East Asian international relations."

The twentieth century saw the arrival of the West, which sought to impose its norms, institutions, and ideas on the rest of the world, creating an enormous challenge to the existing worldviews, among which was the Chinese.

As Xi said in his speech: "In today's world, multiple challenges and crises are intertwined. The global economic recovery remains sluggish, the development gap is widening, ecological environment is deteriorating, and the Cold War mentality is lingering. Humanity's modernization process has once again reached a crossroads of history."

The only way to address such issues is through dialogue, mutual learning, and mutual understanding.

As Xi said in his speech: "Countries need to keep an open mind in appreciating the perceptions of values by different civilizations, and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation."