All under Heaven: The Tianxia System for a Possible World Order

326 Pages·2021·12.803 MB·English

by  Tingyang Zhao, Joseph E. Harroff, Odd Arne Westad

All under Heaven
Great transforMations
Craig Calhoun and Nils Gilman, Series Editors
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Capitalism, by Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen
2. The Human Scaffold: How Not to Design Your Way Out of a Climate Crisis,
by Josh Berson
3. All under Heaven: The Tianxia System for a Possible World Order, by Zhao
Tingyang
All under Heaven
the TiAnxiA systeM for a possible
World order
Zhao Tingyang
Translated by Joseph E. Harroff
with a new foreword
by Odd Arne Westad
University of California press
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2016 by Zhao Tingyang, English edition © 2021 by University of
California Press, by arrangement with Zhao Tingyang c/o CITIC Press
Corporation. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Zhao, Tingyang, author. | Harroff, Joseph E., translator. |
Westad, Odd Arne, writer of foreword.
Title: All under heaven : the Tianxia system for a possible world order /
Zhao Tingyang; translated by Joseph E. Harroff; with a new foreword
by Odd Arne Westad. Other titles: Tian xia de dang dai xing. English |
Great transformations ; 3.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020047088 (print) | LCCN 2020047089 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780520325005 (cloth) | ISBN 9780520325029 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780520974210 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Political science—China—Philosophy. | Cosmology,
Chinese.
Classification: LCC JA84.C6 Z488 2021 (print) | LCC JA84.C6 (ebook) |
DDC 320.01—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047088
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047089
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Contents
Foreword to the Chinese Edition vii
Foreword to the English Edition xiii
New Foreword by Odd Arne Westad xvii
Translator’s Preface xxiii
Introduction. A Redefinition of Tianxia as a Political
Concept: Problems, Conditions, and Methods 1
part i the TiAnxiA ConCeptUal story
1. Politics Starting with the World 39
2. The Three-Tiered World of Tianxia 49
3. Correlating with Tian (peitian 配天) 52
4. Institutional Layout 57
5. No Outside (wuwai 无外) 62
6. Circle of Family and Tianxia 67
7. Tianming 天命 (Heavenly Invoked Order) 76
8. Virtuosic Power and Harmony 91
9. Why Might Good Order Collapse? 103
10. Tianxia as Method 113
part ii the enCoMpassinG TiAnxiA of China
11. A Whirlpool Model 119
12. A Condensed Version of Tianxia 134
13. Why Go Stag Hunting in the Central Plain? 154
14. Existing through Change 179
part iii the fUtUre of TiAnxiA order
15. A World History Yet to Begin 183
16. Kantian Questions and Huntington’s Problem 193
17. Two Types of Exteriority: Naturalist and Constructivist 201
18. Borders and No Outside 210
19. Materializing Conditions for a New Tianxia 221
20. New Tianxia: A Vocabulary 236
Appendix. Jizi’s Lost Democracy: A Continuing
Narration of Tianxia—Toward a Smart Democracy 249
Notes 257
Bibliography of Works Cited 289
Index 297
Foreword to the Chinese Edition
Tianxia (All under Heaven) is a concept with much spiritual vitality. It
involves a spiritually vitalizing relationality among persons and a spiritu-
ally vitalizing relationship between the ways of humanity and the ways
of tian (conventionally translated “Heaven”). As the spirit of tianxia
amounts to tian itself, it is difficult to describe. Thus the ink spilled on
the topic of [what tian is] will be limited. Tianxia, though, is an ideal
concerned with achieving cosmopolitical order. This book attempts to use
a realist method to approach the idealism of tianxia narratively and give
expression to the distance between the ways of tianxia (tianxiazhidao 天
下之道) and the instrumentality of tianxia (tianxiazhiqi 天下之器). The
conceptual capaciousness opened up is the space between ideals and real-
ity, and between the past and the future. Tianxia is also a methodology,
and I attempt to explain how tianxia as a concept can be used to under-
stand the theoretical spaces of history, social institutions, and political
order to the extent of redefining the concept of political order.
Because this concept is so fecund, the problems that tianxia as a politi-
cal concept can open up are manifold. Therefore I needed to discover a
method for getting as close to this concept as possible. The method this
book employs can be referred to as a “synthetic text” approach. Things and
vii
viii foreWord to the Chinese edition
events are originally complete wholes, but when we attempt to compre-
hend things in their microcomplexity, we invariably analyze things into
a plurality of aspects. It is for this reason that fields like political science,
economics, ethics, aesthetics, sociology, history, and so forth all take on a
complete body of one thing and split it into many subfields with aspects
appropriate to their different disciplines. Each discipline raises its own
particular questions about the subject under scrutiny. However, one disci-
pline is not necessarily able to answer all of the questions that it has posed
for itself because the answers to the questions quite possibly belong to the
domain of discourse of other disciplines. Although this might not always
be the case, it in fact often occurs this way.
For example, some political problems require economic solutions, and
some economic problems require political answers; some ethical solutions
are political problems, and some political institutions rely upon ethics;
some reasons for political decisions have to do with history, and some
historical narratives are really theological.1 The so-called synthetic tex-
tual method is an attempt to return to the wholeness of things to allow
for all of the various questions to be asked of each other, and the knowl-
edge domains of all the disciplines to be brought to bear on the expla-
nation. The synthetic textual method is philosophical, and with respect
to its research into tianxia this philosophy returns us to the wholeness
of things. This means that the emergent problems and relevant answers
might be simultaneously historical, political, economic, game theoretic,
or theological. I hope that this method of synthetic textualism is up to the
task of appreciating the fecundity of tianxia as a concept.
The tianxia concept itself involves a profound affective dimension, as
it carries with it the entirety of Chinese history—its traditions, its experi-
ence, and its spirit. With respect to a philosophical account of tianxia,
I am attempting to limit myself to a rational explanation, avoiding as
much as possible the affective narrative and the hitherto prevailing values
entailed therein. It is only with such an aspiration aimed at providing an
unbiased account that there can be an approximation of truly universal
validity. By way of illustration, in the historical construction of the tianxia
concept, the efforts of the Confucian tradition are readily apparent, but
this doesn’t mean that the Confucian construction is the whole story.
One weakness in Confucianism is the difficulty it has with the so-called
foreWord to the Chinese edition ix
“stranger problem.”2 At different times Confucian scholars have attempted
to engage in apologetics regarding this question, but from my viewpoint
their often sentimental argumentation has not been effective in getting at
the real problem.
Here I want to revisit the so-called “no position” or “view from nowhere”
analysis. A “no position” analysis can be defined as taking any value-laden
interpretation, judgment, or narrative and limiting it to a “nonaffective”
existential analysis—and then asking “Can some existent according to its
own mode of existing continue to thrive?” In other words, such a theo-
retical orientation, setting aside affects, emotions, and values as so many
axiological addendums to experience, only considers whether or not the
logic of practice surrounding something is sustainable, and whether it can
be sustained further in the long term. This is a presuppositional problem.
Since existence precedes values, only when something has the capacity
for existence can it hope to achieve a better existence. Just as rational-
ity doesn’t refute affective reasons, affect doesn’t refute rational reasons.
I believe that most persons would maintain that peace is better than war,
but a certain ethical scandal persists despite this fact. Except for speaking
in the interest of a nonsensical political correctness, throughout the ages
not a single ethical philosopher has been able to offer a knockdown ratio-
nal argument, one with necessary and sufficient conditions, for refuting
the thesis that the strong should devour the weak. Therefore, in attempt-
ing to prove that the logic of hegemony rests on a fallacy, one cannot use
ethical theory alone. By appealing to game theory, however, one might be
able to argue that hegemonic logic is incapable of sustaining itself in the
long run because of the game theoretic problem of vengeance and its lead-
ing to the “tragedy of imitation.”
Moreover, in terms of choosing to make use of certain historical mate-
rials, my criterion is based on the following. In the time before the writ-
ten text, we should use the standards provided by archeological evidence;
and after the appearance of texts, what is important is the text setting
an “established mode of thinking” for historical persons as such thinking
comes to have a pervasive influence. For example, regarding the descrip-
tion of tianxia in the Zhou dynasty, of course, the documents produced
during the dynasty itself should be the primary sources, but that does not
mean we should exclude Qin and Han period textual sources. Even if we
x foreWord to the Chinese edition
can ascertain that certain passages regarding the Zhou are actually Qin-
Han apocrypha, because those Qin-Han documents narrating Zhou sto-
ries have already been incorporated into the sedimented imagination of
the people, they have come to have a real function as part of the collective
imaginary.
My earliest research into the tianxia system is collected in the Tianxia
System (2005).3 After its publication it happily received a lot of scholarly
attention, criticism, and debate. But Tianxia System was only an initial
foray into the research field of a tianxia institutional order. A decade
having past between the publication of Tianxia System and this Tianxia
System as a Possible World, important differences have emerged regarding
the questions, problems, arguments, and narratives, but still the basic out-
look has remained consistent. Moreover, Tianxia System was compiled by
translating and editing two English language essays that I had originally
written five years earlier. Because of the limits of expressing such things in
English, a lot of ancient materials difficult to translate into English were
ignored. This present book is in some degree a correction of the aforemen-
tioned deficiencies, but it still has failed to reference a lot of related histor-
ical materials. After all, this book is not the work of an intellectual histo-
rian, so here at the outset I politely ask for forgiveness from the historians.
My ongoing research on the tianxia order has received support from
many friends and readers who have provided helpful criticism and con-
structive ideas. Let me first thank Alain le Pichon who in 2000 sup-
ported me in writing the two English essays on the concept of tianxia.
Also, Qin Yaqing, Tang Yijie, Yue Daiyun, Tong Shijun, Huang Ping, Wang
Mingming, William Callahan, Fred Dallmayr, Luca M. Scarantino, and
Peter J. Katzenstein—all of whom urged me to research the tianxia sys-
tem, offering many important suggestions along the way. I also want to
thank Stephen C. Angle, Regis Debray, Prasenjit Duara, Gan Chunsong,
Zhang Feng, Xu Xin, Wang Yiwei, Gao Shangtao, Zhong Fangyin, Elena
Barabantseva, Anthony Carty, Sundeep Waslekar, Nicole Lapierre,
Liu Qing, Bai Tongdong, Zhou Chicheng, Zhou Lian, Sun Shu, Zhang
Shuguang, Xu Jianxin, and Jiang Xiyuan—who all offered critical com-
mentary that caused me to think deeper about many difficult problems in
the tianxia system of thinking.
I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to several friends