An assumption of this paper is that China’s Zhou-Qin transition (roughly 770 B.C.E – 220 B.C.E.) is a modernization, and the pre-Qin Chinese thinkers already addressed issues of modernity. Similar to Western modernity, during this period, what emerged was large, populous, plebeianized, and well-connected states of strangers, and they are de facto sovereign states. Against this background, the issues of how to bind a large state of strangers together, and of how to deal with state-state relations become pressing issues. To address them, early Confucians developed a tian xia model, while the Westerners developed the nation-state model and later, in response to its problems, the cosmopolitan model. 

According to the Confucian model, state identity is culture-based (culture here understood as something particular to a people), and is also based upon a Confucian conception of universal but unequal compassion, which would put the identity with and love of one’s own state above that of other states. Among states, a key distinction is between the civilized (understood as certain universal features that are shared among all civilized states) and the barbaric, and civilized states should form an alliance to protect the civilized way of life against the barbarian threat. 

A general principle of the Confucian world order is that it recognizes the legitimacy of sovereignty, but allows it to be overridden under certain conditions (“humane (ren) responsibility overrides sovereignty”). Obviously, the tian xia model that was developed before the encounter with the West and Western ideas needs to be adjusted to today’s world, and after the necessary adjustments, I will show that the new (updated) tian xia model is different from both the nation-state model and the cosmopolitan model, and can address the issues of state identity and international relations better than the latter two models can. The new tian xia model offers a coherent theory of how China can rise peacefully, and it also recommends a hierarchical world order that is better than and thus should replace the present UN model. It can also address various ethnic issues in contemporary China that are rooted in the adoption of the Western nation-state model by recent Chinese regimes.

About the Speaker

Tongdong Bai is the Dongfang Chair Professor of Philosophy at Fudan University in China, and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. His research interests include Chinese philosophy and political philosophy.  He has two books published in English: China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom (Zed Books, 2012), and Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case (Princeton University Press, 2019).  He is now working on the philosophy of Han Fei Zi (c. 280-233 BCE), a “Legalist” and a harsh critic of Confucians, as well as a real-life princeling who is often compared with Machiavelli and Hobbes. He is also the director of an English-based MA and visiting program in Chinese philosophy at Fudan University that is intended to promote the studies of Chinese philosophy in the world.