Today, a country’s strength is judged not only by its hard power, which includes material strengths like its economy and military, but also by its soft power, which encompasses the country’s cultural values and systems. In the twentieth century, the United States rose to the status of global superpower and remains the world’s only superpower today. This development is closely tied to its abundance of hard power and well-rounded soft power strategy.
Since the 1980s, China has seen its economy and other material strengths develop rapidly. Now, China is a major economic power. However, China needs to redefine its values so that Chinese culture can flourish and spread throughout the world.
One key value in Chinese culture is harmony. The traditional Chinese concept of harmony is embodied in the classics of the pre-Qin period (200 BC–221 BC), such as The Book of Changes (Yi Jing, 《易经》), The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic (Huangdi Neijing, 《黄帝内经》), and Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing, 《道德经》), as well as Confucian classics like The Analects of Confucius (Lun Yu, 《论语》), The Book of Mencius (Mengzi, 《孟子》), and The Book of Rites (Li Ji, 《礼记》).
The traditional Chinese concept of harmony, along with its ideological system, includes both a worldview and a methodology, such as the Tai Chi philosophy and yin-yang dialectic. It also includes a comprehensive value system that advocates maintaining harmony between man and nature, between man and society, between human beings, and between body and mind. It pursues a harmonious state and realm.
In English, harmony means the achievement of accord or agreement without conflict or fighting. I do not think this precisely reflects the meaning of its Chinese equivalent, hexie (和谐). Hexie means a state in which things coordinate with each other appropriately and are well-balanced. For instance, tones arranged appropriately form beautiful music and appropriate seasonings put in a dish make it delicious. Therefore, the exact English word for hexie should be “appropriate,” which could be understood as “reasonable,” “proper,” or “just right.”
This interpretation of harmony does not deny the occurrence of conflict or fighting. When there is a conflict, the cultural value of harmony implies that the conflict should be resolved in a reasonable and appropriate way. When a fight is necessary, harmony dictates that fighting should also be conducted in a reasonable and appropriate way. Therefore, harmony does not mean agreement without conflict but rather maintaining coordination and balance even though diversity and disagreement exist.
Mainstream Chinese cultural values are very different from those of the West. For instance, mainstream Western values emphasize freedom while Chinese values emphasize harmony. For Chinese, however, harmony encompasses freedom, as harmony is a sufficient condition for freedom.
Mainstream Western cultural values stress democracy and use multiparty competition and parliamentary elections as the standard by which to judge whether a country is democratic. Chinese values stress democracy, too, but in Chinese culture, democracy is rooted in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people and reflected in the way people consider improving their livelihood to be their own responsibility.
Western values also emphasize human rights and equality, while Chinese values emphasize benevolence, righteousness, integrity, inclusiveness, and virtues. Western culture highlights the struggle for success, while Chinese culture underscores self-discipline and social commitment (ziqiang buxi, houde zaiwu, 自强不息，厚德载物). Chinese culture attaches importance to self-cultivation, family bonds, and friendship. All of these Chinese values play an important role in mediating human relations and easing social conflict.
The redefinition of China’s core values system should be guided by the principles of Marxism, including freedom, liberation, and development. It should absorb and further develop the essence of traditional Chinese cultural values while integrating Western values like freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law, justice, and equality.
Whether China, an up-and-coming world superpower, can take the moral high ground and develop an advanced modern values system is vital to the development of its soft power. Hexie, benevolence, righteousness, integrity, inclusiveness, self-improvement, and virtues emphasized in traditional Chinese cultural values will provide powerful tools that can be used to contend with the politics of larger powers and contribute to world peace.
This article was published as part of the Window into China series
Comments(4)
A real joke: "The traditional Chinese concept of harmony is embodied in the classics of the pre-Qin period (200 BC–221 BC), such as The Book of Changes (Yi Jing, 《易经》), The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic (Huangdi Neijing, 《黄帝内经》), and Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing, 《道德经》), as well as Confucian classics like The Analects of Confucius (Lun Yu, 《论语》), The Book of Mencius (Mengzi, 《孟子》), and The Book of Rites (Li Ji, 《礼记》)." Most of these texts have a different definition of "harmony". It is a total misunderstanding of The Analects to dare to tell that Confucius's concept of harmony has the same meaning as all the authors before him. Better to have in mind that the present Chinese political system is based on Marxism Leninism - the first leaders of the Chinese Communist Party - Mao the first among them - have always denounced the traditional Chinese values as the sources of its weakness during XIXth and XXth century. Today Chinese Government and State is based on the concepts developed by Marx and later by Lenin and adapted to China by Mao Zedong and his allies. To try to deny these facts is simply to deny the reality and the essence of the Chinese History and of the Chinese Present and Future. Except if this Chinese author desires to change the present political regime of China. If it is the case, I advice her to quit China quickly.
This article is ridiculous - frankly ridiculous. It is what Voltaire will have designed as "vulgate" or "vulgar". One example: "Mainstream Western cultural values stress democracy and use multiparty competition and parliamentary elections as the standard by which to judge whether a country is democratic. " Oh yes? What means "Mainstream Western cultural values"? I know some of the European philosophers like the French in the XVIIIth century Pascal Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot,etc or the German in the XIXth century Kant, Helgel Marx, Nietzsche, etc or the Austrian Wittgenstein or the German Heidegger or Adorno or the French Sartre or Foucault, etc in the XXth century who will not understand what means the concept of "Mainstream Western cultural values". It is so absurd because most of them like the Chinese thinkers of the late XiXth and during the XXth and the beginning of XXIst centuries have all taken in consideration the concepts and ideas developed in other countries - for the European in China and for the Chinese in Europe. This very primitive nationalism developed by Zhang Lihua has always been during the last four centuries by those who want wars between the so called "civilization". We need to treat these war mongers , these ultra nationalists as Zhang Lihua is , as the ones that we need to fight against their ultra chauvinist ideas.
The traditional Chinese concept of harmony is embodied in the classics, such as The Book of Changes (Yi Jing, 《易经》), The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic (Huangdi Neijing, , 《黄帝内经》), and Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing, 《道德经》), as well as Confucian classics like The Analects of Confucius (Lun Yu, 《论语》), and The Book of Rites (Li Ji, 《礼记》). The key value in these classics is harmony, which encourages people to do things in accordance with cosmic laws (tian dao 天道) and social rules (di dao 地道). For example, The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic figured out the principles for Chinese traditional medicine by examining natural phenomena and natural laws. It advises that one eat, drink, work, and rest according to changes in season and weather, all in an attempt to maintain balance in the viscera and to avoid overeating. The core thought is to emphasize and create harmony with natural laws. Lao Zi’s Tao Te Ching explores the rules of the origin, movement, and changes of the cosmos. Lao Zi stated that natural rules never favor anyone, but they always help people who do things accordingly. The core thought here is also harmony with natural laws. The Book of Changes uses 64 “gua” and stories to illustrate how and why people should do things according to rules in social life—failure to do so results in punishment, disaster, and misfortune. The core thought here is still the maintenance of harmony with natural laws. The Analects of Confucius and The Book of Rites explain the moral standards people should abide by in their family and social life. For example, parents should love their children, children should respect and honor their parents, and friends should learn from—and help each other—and have benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom, and faith in their friendships. Confucius advocates that people should be loving and should be able to distinguish between right and wrong.
Walterasgbenjamin is certainly not familiar with the political views of Chinese leaders and the changes within Chinese politics. His/her understanding of China is still limited to Mao’s era, a viewpoint which could easily lead to misinterpretation of modern China. Mainstream Western values refers to the values commonly acknowledged by most Western people, and includes freedom, democracy, human rights, and rule of law. There are many famous Western thinkers, such as Rousseau, Diderot, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and so on. Today there are many schools of thought in Western countries, like liberalism, conservatism, democratic socialism, Marxism, and Green Pacifism. There are also numerous political parties. However, it is a fact that most Western citizens identify with freedom, democracy, human rights, and rule of law. It is also a fact that it is now common to have a multi-party parliamentary system, and many Westerners regard the establishment of a multi-party parliamentary system as the standard of democracy. These facts can be proved by listening to Western media commentating on developing countries. The traditional Chinese concept of harmony encourages people to act in accordance with natural laws and social rules. It advocates that countries respect, help, and cooperate with one another, and that different cultures and nations coexist peacefully in harmony without uniformity. This kind of thought is very beneficial to world peace. How could this be ultra-chauvinism or ultra-nationalism? It is very difficult to understand why Walterasgbenjamin would see the pro-peace traditional Chinese concept of harmony as ultra-nationalist and even bellicose.
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