Civilisational dialogue
perils and pratfalls
Ye Wenjie (heroine of The Three Body Problem)
Hello everyone!
You haven’t heard from BB for a while, but I’m unrepentant—we took a needed winter break in wonderful Kuranda, Queensland, where wifi coverage doesn’t.
I know the Third Plenum (of the 20th Central Committee) was held this week, and China Policy has been covering it.
But this is Beijing Baseline’s third anniversary. Our original mission is to track how sincerity and rationality hinge on each other in the contemporary PRC. I have been building a head of steam on this, thanks not least to Implicit Motives1, a really nerdy book, technical beyond belief, but helpful in placing the sincerity/rationality coupling high above tribal, etc., myths and prejudices.
But first to cover some useful data points. In this post, we hear from widely-published nationalist law professor Tian Feilong 田飞龙.2
My view, just to be clear, is to accept, for the sake of argument, Professor Tian’s contention that ‘the West can bring neither true human moral autonomy nor international rule of law: hope of salvation must lie elsewhere’.
But that elsewhere is not, unhappily, the People’s Republic of China. More to the point, much of Tian’s fault-finding with the West is projection, largely explicable in terms of ‘implicit motives’—of which more in due course.
Tian Feilong. associate professor, School of Law, Beihang University
Tian Feilong
Transcending clash, dialogue of civilisations is the moral salvation of the West and the world
The world's first International Day for Civilisation Dialogue, 10 June 2024 was set by a resolution adopted at the UNGA’s 78th session 7 June 2024, by consensus and moved by the PRC.
Achieving 'permanent peace' was Immanuel Kant's ultimate philosophical ideal and political aspiration, and indeed the essential pursuit of the UN institutions. Yet since the moral initiative of Kant's Perpetual Peace: a Philosophical Sketch,3 mankind has yet to find a practical system and method for permanent peace, Neither the coordinated order of the great powers in Europe in the 19th century, the League of Nations system engendered in World War I in the 20th century, or the UN institutions born in World War II, have been able to unite all humanity and achieve the peaceful development of all mankind.
Hence the creation of the International Day for Dialogue among Civilisations has a profound background in the times, and significance in exploring new forms of human civilisation.
Arelatively advanced and developed collective way of life, civilisation’s carrier is typically a nation or other ethnic grouping. Civilisation first has a national character; different civilisations in the world are born helped by various peoples’ independent practice and proliferation. It is intrinsically universal as well: a civilisation, provided it is of a certain scale and enduring, can not only resolve internal national differences and struggles, but also find proper ways to live in peace with other nations.
‘Civilisational dialogue’ results from
blending civilisations’ ethnic and universal nature,
adopting a philosophy of equality and diversity of civilisations
adopting a pacifist ethics and liaison mode for solving differences and even struggles between different civilisations and nations.
‘Civilisational dialogue’ embodies an ideal of civilisation ecology and democracy: a civilisation philosophy that truly conforms to the overall interests and existence of human society, and is also the basic philosophical vision and liaison mode of a community with a shared future for mankind.
The opposite of such dialogue is clash of civilisations. In realist terms, this clash seems to have strong explanatory power and influence. Self-centred, Western civilisation is based on pagan consciousness, seeing things in terms of a civilisation/barbarism dichotomy; in the process of modern colonisation and globalisation, it has constructed a Western-centric view of civilisation and institutions.
This West-centric concept is the spiritual foundation of colonialism and the deep cultural psychology of preserving the West’s spiritual and institutional hegemony, but is out of line with the primary interests of mankind as a whole, and is unable to build a genuine community with a shared future for mankind. Monolithic civilisation-centrism, regardless of its self-proclaimed civilisation, can only end up in a circular game of hegemony and subjugation, bringing about a world of general upheaval and confrontation.
In Western civilisation doctrine, Huntington's summary and refinement of the 'clash of civilisations doctrine'4 embodies the essential vision and practical method of Western civilisation, so the West has a fairly developed geopolitical and hegemonic system method. Fukuyama's 'final conclusion of history' proclaims the teleology of Western-centrism and the triumph of history. These 'big theories' about the macro-historical process and moral goals of mankind are not based on facts and logic, but on the basis of subjectivity and paranoia, and are the embodiment of the immaturity of human moral mind.
Under the guidance of such a doctrine, the 'hegemony' of the West is superimposed on the 'brute heart', creating a world that is 'on fire' everywhere. Looking at the war in Ukraine, the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip, the confrontation in China's neighbourhood, the political and social decay wherever the 'colour revolutions' went, and the political polarisation, racial discrimination, power proliferation and moral fragmentation in Western societies all show that the West's self-satisfied 'clash of civilisations' and 'historical conclusion' cannot bring about sustainable world peace or universal security in the Western world.
Transcending the clash of civilisations via civilisation dialogue is the PRC's consistent proposition and logic of action on the way in which the UN system interacts with human civilisation. Dialogue among civilisations has the peace, goodwill and rational orientation of civilisations, and abandons the excessive subjectivity and overriding nature of a single civilisation. The doctrine of dialogue among civilisations, initiated by China, reflects not only China's international outlook on peaceful development, but also the characteristics of Zhonghua5 civilisation.
General Secretary Xi proposed the five characteristics of Zhonghua civilisation on 2 June 2023, at the Symposium on Cultural Inheritance and Development, namely continuity, innovation, unity, inclusiveness and peace. Throughout China's history, it has always been an organic combination of internal solidarity and cohesion with external tolerance and peace. The world that Zhonghua civilisation understands and pursues is not a Western-style hegemonic order, but a harmonious order in which the UN and the UN share the same world. The Zhonghua civilisation has nurtured a community of the Zhonghua nation, and on this basis, it has continuously sought exchanges and mutual learning with different civilisations and nationalities to jointly build a true community with a shared future for mankind.
China on the basis of the community of the Zhonghua nation has been a state for thousands of years, not an empire or a nation-state of the West, but a civilised and unified multi-ethnic country, which is kind to others, harmonious with ethnic groups, and peaceful coexistence with other countries. In the contemporary ideal and practice of a community with a shared future for mankind, General Secretary Xi Jinping has proposed 'three major initiatives', profoundly significant for civilisation and the global order, namely the Global Security Initiative, the Global Development Initiative and the Global Civilisation Initiative: security is the essence of peace and the primary value pursued by all mankind; Development is the method of self-improvement of human civilisation, and it is also the dialectical process of resolving all contradictions and conflicts. Civilisation is the totality of security and development, and it is a form of overall planning and integration.
China's pursuit of national rejuvenation at home and its advocacy of the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) and a community with a shared future for mankind externally are a China that is consistent in civilisation and integrates knowledge and action. The West's view of the PRC’s national rejuvenation as the rise of hegemony, and the BRI it urges as the new Zhonghua imperialism is completely based on its own heart and the belly of others, a misreading and misjudgment of Zhonghua civilisation and humanity’s fundamental interests—an excessive civilisation-centrism and hegemonic order.
In essence a fantasy and projection of 'Western threat doctrine', Western 'China threat doctrine’ is the West's fear of another 'Western power' that they believe is homogeneous. [Harvard professor] Graham Allison's 'Thucydides Trap' and the US resulting intensive and indeed irrational moves in a new Cold War with the PRC are rooted in this fear, at the root of twhich is Western civilisation’s self-centeredness, its moral rejection of dialogue among civilisations on an equal footing.
The PRC-initiated and UN-endorsed 'Dialogue of Civilisations' is hence urgently needed, not only for world peace and a community with a shared future for mankind, but for the moral salvation of Western civilisation. Folk of insight in the West are ever more aware of the moral and institutional significance of Eastern culture and the China path to the West and the world; but the West’s overall process of self-reflection and moral redemption has failed to make a serious breakthrough: ‘West-centric’ moral myths and hegemonic practices still occupy the mainstream.
Launching the UNGA plenum’s draft resolution Fu Cong 傅聪, PRC Permanent Representative, said the PRC’s proposal to set up an International Civilisation Dialogue Day sought to give full play to civilisation dialogue’s great role in ending discrimination and prejudice, enhancing understanding and trust, promoting people-to-people bonds, and strengthening solidarity and cooperation
In the modern world, the greatest achievements of Western civilisation have been
emancipating the 'individual'
activating and rejuvenating this emancipation and the immense productive forces of capital creativity
tremendous value penetration with individual freedom and human rights as the core
thus bringing about the West’s moral and institutional authority over the world.
Yet the West abused this authority, exposing the shortcomings of its civilisation and political egocentrism and hierarchy, and exposing the normative opposition between the West and a community with a shared future for mankind.
The West can bring neither true human moral autonomy nor international rule of law: hope of salvation must lie elsewhere. In the Three-Body Problem series, Mr. Liu Cixin 刘慈欣, celebrated sciuence fiction philosopher, speaks via Ye Wenjie 叶文洁 to express the fundamental question of human moral autonomy,6 so as to seek the moral salvation of the 'Three-Body Man' of extraterrestrial civilisation. A basic irony and prophecy of eternal human peace, this aims to force humanity to mull the moral basis of the existence of the whole and the laws of interaction.
The clash of civilisations and the end of history are certainly not ideal solutions to the permanent human peace. Kant raised this key issue, but despite Western attempts, no solution is be be found in the scope of Western civilisation. The systematic solution from Chinese culture and practice and reverberation for all mankind under the great unprecedented changes
transcending the clash of civilisations via civilisation dialogue
adhering to civilisational diversity and democratising their interactions
adhering to the harmony and unity of nationality and humanity
upholding the core value of peaceful development
maintaining harmonious coexistence of the community of the Zhonghua nation with the community with a shared future for mankind
has aroused strong resonance.
We hope that setting up the International Day for Civilisation Dialogue and its extensive dialogue and practice will bring real hope and direction to the permanent peace of mankind and a new form of human civilisation.
Oliver C. Schultheiss and Joachim C. Brunstein, eds, Implicit Motives, Ox ford University Press, 2010.
Tian Feilong, “Transcending clash, dialogue of civilisations is the moral salvation of the West and the world”, Guanchazhe, 10 June 2024, (田飞龙, “超越文明冲突论，文明对话是对西方与世界的道德救赎”). 观察者 (in Chinese)
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Peace:_A_Philosophical_Sketch
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations
Zhonghua wenming 中华文明 is a modern term for Chinese civilisation, increasingly framed as transcending tribal or ethnic entities, e.g. Han, Tibetan, Uighur, Mongol, et al. Zhonghua is loosely analogous to ‘British’, a post facto political term transcending English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish etc. ethnicities and nationalities.
Thank you Daev for your fascinating writeup. The Zhonghua nation Professor Feilong describes immediately raises a number of philosophical questions. For example, is blending of various civilisations’ ethnic and universal natures (sic) truly possible? Ethnic identification remains a powerful force in the world and endures in Western States and indeed in China where claims of transcending tribal or ethnic entities of Han, Tibetan, Uighur, Mongol and others has not been convincingly demonstrated.
The idea too of people of the world strictly bounded by geographical borders is also challenged whether one looks North to South, South to North, East to West or West to East - as much as political leaders have no political solution to what appears to be an unstoppable movement.
But this does not diminish the exciting possibilities that the Chinese pursuit of Dialogue among Civilisations could bring to Western thinking that seeks oxygen in the vacuum of failed globalism.