China's "royal way" and its contemporary transformation represent the ideal of super-scale governance of harmony wisdom, the order of the world and the community of human destiny from the East, or it may become a solution and alternative vision for western democratic hegemony and its alienation of the international legal order.
Source: China News Service (cns1952)
Author: Tian Feilong
All characters: 2772
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
In the long history of China's civilization, "royal way" and "hegemony" have become fiercely competitive governance philosophies and governance lines. The "royal way" determines that "there is a way under the heavens", while "hegemony" marks "there is no way under the world".
"Never seek hegemony" originates from the tradition of Chinese civilization
The ideal governance of the world lies in the "prosperity of the king", in the recognition of the norms of the "royal way" and the integration of multiple forces. The royal order has thus become the ideal order of "harmony and all nations", which integrates the rational order thinking of peace, symbiosis, security, mutual respect and common development and the spirit of international law.
Although the universal theory of value and the theory of harmonious order contained in the "royal way" have been greatly updated through the tragic modern revolution and radical changes, their moral connotations and practice methods have been greatly updated, but the moral stance and ideal political pursuit are still dominant. The "Belt and Road" initiative and the proposition of a community with a shared future for mankind have the moral and ideal foundation of "royal politics".
"Never seek hegemony" is an important guiding principle of China's contemporary foreign policy and international relations. This repeatedly declared national policy benchmark is not a hypocritical strategic disguise, but a sincere expression and pursuit based on its own civilizational traditions and international view of order. However, "a strong country must be hegemonic" seems to be the normal law of Western international political science, and the competition for hegemony and the recognition of the pursuit of power position constitute the key driving force for the progress of Western history and civilization. The West", which "treats others by itself" and judges the nature and trend of China's state behavior from its subjective historical perspective, can easily deduce the so-called "China threat theory" and even lead to the abyss of the "new Cold War."
The West's imagination, fear and instinctive counter-consciousness of maintaining its own hegemony have created the so-called "Thucydides Trap" between China and the West, especially the United States.
The thinker who put forward the prototype of this "trap" allusion was Thucydides, who wrote the "History of the Peloponnesian War", who correctly judged and summed up the inevitability of the conflict between Sparta and Athens and the basic law of hegemonic competition, as a "general reference" to Western history. The United States itself believes in China's hegemonic intentions and lobbis its allies, quasi-allies, and even middle-ground countries to take the same position and establish a so-called "anti-China united front, which has two core fulcrums, namely, so-called democratic values and a rules-based international order.
From the perspective of the Chinese side, the source of legitimacy in the national liberation and state construction of the entire modern and modern history is "anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism", of which "anti-imperialism" is the external criticism of the revolutionary subject, relying on sovereignty and self-reliance, and the essence is the self-criticism of civilization, while "anti-feudalism" is the self-criticism of the revolutionary subject, and it is necessary to eliminate the "dross" in the history of its own civilization and pursue the protection, purification and creative transformation of self-civilization.
Data map: The Palace Museum in Beijing. Photo by Du Yang, a reporter from China News Service
The United States has become the "jungle overlord" is the biggest weakness of the contemporary international legal order
On June 10, 2021, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China passed the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, article 3 of which clearly stipulates "opposing hegemonism and power politics". In China's view, the embodiment of US hegemonism has its cultural roots and behavioral habits, and even the group "crime" carried out by its "alliance system". These "hegemonic" acts of self-proclaimed and righteous interference in the internal affairs of foreign countries in the name of "democracy" have corrupted the connotation of the virtues that democracy should have, trampled on the natural ecology of the diversity of human civilization, and caused many tragedies in the export of Western democracy and the serious consequences of their "failed countries". Afghanistan is the latest example.
As for the "rules-based international order", it seems to promote the "royal way" of the West and the qualification of justice representatives in international law, but it misses the "hegemonic" logic behind this set of orders and their interpretation and changes. The full rhetorical format should be "an international order based on hegemonic rules." Article 2 of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law explicitly states that it "upholds the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law", which has created two understandings of international law between China and the West: China's "international order based on international law" and the United States' "rules-based international order".
China's acceptance of international law is based on its concept of "king's way" and tianxiaism as the benchmark of civilization, and its interpretation and practice are also regulated and limited by its own civilization, and what it strives to excavate and safeguard is the normative value of international law that truly embodies sovereign equality and peaceful development. The United States, on the other hand, has instrumentalized and politicized international law as a means of seeking and consolidating imperial hegemony, and with its super-hegemonic position, even if the United States violates international law, it will basically not be severely sanctioned, which has caused harm to the moral intemperance and practice of the "hegemonic" concept and behavior of the United States.
Without sanctions, there is no law, the wrongdoing of the United States is not sanctioned, and expecting it to comply with international law can only be moral wishful thinking, and it has been falsified by reality time and time again. International law has "tamed" many countries that have no right to encroach on hegemony, but at least the United States is still a "jungle overlord", which is the biggest weakness of the contemporary international legal order.
Infographic: The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Kidd receives fuel from a refueling tanker.
American-style democracy is alienated into four reasons for "hegemony."
From the PERSPECTIVE OF the United States, "democracy" has become a reason for imperial hegemony, and the "rules-based international order" has become a false declaration of its global governance behavior. Why does American democracy become a hegemonic rule?
First, the reason for the theory of civilization, that is, Western Christian civilization is generally a civilization based on the dichotomy of "civilization/barbarism" and "subject/object", which contains a profound pagan struggle philosophy and the theory of civilization conquest, and democracy is only a symbol of struggle and conquest that its civilization has evolved and synthesized, and "democratic hegemony" has been established.
Second, the reason for historical practice is that the United States has shared and inherited the hegemonic jurisprudence of "national strength must be hegemonic" in Western history, taking hegemonic competition as the norm and law of historical development, and the so-called "strategic competition" of the United States is all-round hegemonic competition, and the United States cannot get rid of the exemplary understanding from the historical context of Western civilization.
Third, the reason for the "founding father", that is, compared with the homeland of Western civilization in Europe and its hegemony and the concept of international law, the "founding fathers" of the United States declared at the beginning of the "Federalist Anthology" in 1787 that American democracy should become a model of human politics, and that it is necessary to explore a new political science and a new form of democracy beyond Europe.
Fourth, the reason for global monopoly capital, that is, the superpower of the US empire comes from the long-term shaping of Western globalized capital, which in turn protects and promotes globalized capital to "attack the city" around the world, the imperial army and imperial capital are always shadowed, and democracy acts as a fig leaf for both. In the process of subverting foreign political power in the name of "democracy" and vigorously carrying out "color revolutions", "democracy" has lost its natural political function and virtue connotation of taking root in local civilization and communicating with local people, but instead causing the process of democratic export to roll in huge profits and refugees to spread wildly.
Data chart: On January 29, 2017, local time, demonstrations were held in many places in Washington to protest the executive order prohibiting the entry of refugees. Photo by Diao Haiyang, a reporter from China News Service
"Long-arm jurisdiction" lacks the authority and legitimacy of international law
This is accompanied by "democratic hegemony" by another, more routine hegemonic alienation of the AMERICAN Empire: sanctions against imperialism. The United States prides itself on "liberal imperialism", but its main practice of international law is not to maintain true "freedom", but to abuse sanctions at the expense of the "unfree" and "inequality" of other countries, so that people gradually equate the US empire with "sanctions".
"extraterritoriality" was an outdated product of colonialism, and China suffered greatly from it, with judicial sovereignty seriously eroded. However, after World War II, the United States revived this backward heritage in the practice of international law, and included it in the scope of the "foreign relations law" of the domestic law department, directly sanctioning foreign countries, foreign enterprises and foreign nationals under domestic law, which is the so-called "long-arm jurisdiction", which is a wrongful act that lacks the authorization and legitimacy of international law. The United States also refers to its international law practice of abusing sanctions as the "rules-based international order", and interprets and utilizes the principles and institutions of international law in a "U.S.-centric" manner, thus becoming the biggest destroyer of the international legal order after World War II, and its "hegemonic" logic and behavior of global governance are clearly revealed.
In short, the "hegemonic competition" between China and the West, especially the United States, has begun, deepening and intensifying day by day, with multiple meanings of civilizational conflict and power competition. The fission of the global governance of the "two systems" is not a lie. The democratic globalization and rules-based international order in the United States are the moral and institutional peak of the Western "geographical discovery order" and the limit of its hegemonic governance.
Practice is the only criterion for testing truth, and the hegemonic alienation of American democracy and the violation of the rules of "long-arm jurisdiction" have exposed the moral weakness and practical contradictions of the overall governance of the West, and the "rich legacy" of the empire is gradually fading. China's "royal way" and its contemporary transformation represent the ideal of super-scale governance of harmony wisdom, world order and community of human destiny from the East, or can become a solution and alternative vision for Western democratic hegemony and its alienation of the international legal order.
Respondent Profiles:
Feilong Tian, Lianshuiren, Jiangsu Province, Associate Professor, School of Advanced Studies/Law, Beihang University, Executive Director of the One Country, Two Systems Legal Research Center, Master Supervisor, Doctor of Laws, Peking University. He was a short-term visiting scholar at the Institute of Federalism at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland (2009.8-2009.9) and leslie Wright Fellow of the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong (2014-2015). His research interests include constitutional law and political theory, comparative law and global governance, and the Basic Law of Hong Kong and Macao. He is also a director of the National Association for the Study of Hong Kong and Macao and a director of the Law Research Association for Cross-Strait Relations. He has translated 12 translations, including Introduction to Federalism and Constitutional Views of the American Revolution. He is the author of 8 monographs, including "The Road to the Rule of Law in Modern China", "Observations on Political Reform in Hong Kong", "The Chinese Way of Political Constitution", and "Hong Kong New Order". Young academic representatives, government advisory experts and public columnists of the domestic "political constitutionalism" genre have established good academic interaction relations with overseas think tanks and authoritative media, and have a high academic and social influence at home and abroad. He was selected into the Liberal Arts Young Talents Program of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Category A, 2019) and the Beijing National Governance Young Talents Program (the fourth batch, 2019).
Original title: "Things Ask | Tian Feilong: How has China's "royal way" ideology become an alternative vision for the alienation of the international legal order? 》
Editor: Zeng Xiaowei
Editor-in-charge: Li Mingyang
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