Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

This kind of assertion, however, is extremely crude, and it does no justice to the complexity and subtlety of both Western and Chinese (or “oriental”) traditions. In the case of the alleged Chinese idea about the unity and harmony between heaven and humans, there are actually many interpretations of it in Chinese intellectual history. For example, the Han Confucian Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 developed the idea of the resonance between Heaven and humans (天人感应), but this idea was used either to defend the authority of the emperor or to challenge it by interpreting natural phenomena as signs of the heavenly approval or disapproval of the emperor. Another Confucian reading of the unity between Heaven and humans is really about the idea that, through moral cultivation, one becomes one with Heaven, or heavenly principles such as the eternal Confucian moral principles. This is not about the harmony between human beings and nature.

The Laozi is often taken as being critical of Confucianism. In particular, during the last 150 years, when Confucianism has often been (mis)interpreted as a conspirator of authoritarianism and even despotism, Daoism has often been understood as defending freedom and equality. But if we read the Laozi carefully, we can see that it has as low an opinion of the masses as the early Confucians. Only the few, the Daoist elites, could appreciate the profound Daoist insights, follow the Dao consciously, and “return to infancy.” The masses, in contrast, can only follow the trends that are happening in the human world. If the world is being destroyed because human desires are running wild, there is no hope that the masses will be enlightened enough to do otherwise. Therefore, it is simply naïve from the perspective of the Laozi to hope that everyone is so enlightened that they can control their desires and, as a consequence, can protect the environment. 

When people are reflecting on the political and institutional solutions to environmental problems, they may naturally look at democratic institutions. Climate change is an environmental issue, but in developing countries, the concern with environmental issues is more focused on pollution. Pollution, compared with climate change, is a clear and present danger that is often persistent and localized. A democratic regime can respond, more or less adequately, to a localized, persistent, clear, and present danger better than to other kinds of danger because voters can easily and constantly sense the harm and may form a majority in local politics. But the neglect of the pollution problem can also be caused by governmental corruption, the influence of big businesses, and voters’ concern with the trade-off between development and pollution. A democratic regime, even a liberal democratic one, does not necessarily address these issues well, and thus it does not necessarily respond to pollution well.

Climate change does not pose a clear and always present danger or an immediate threat to most human beings. Its effects tend to be sporadic or long-term, which means that its effects are only occasionally visible in the short term. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere, voters are not even necessarily rational about their short-term material interests, let alone their long-term ones. Voters’ ignorance is not merely caused by poverty and inequality but is a problem inherent in any modern state that is large and populous. This is because in such a state, most people are too busy with their own specialized jobs to be informed about politics, and politics is too complicated for the masses to understand. Moreover, people from poor countries have more immediate problems to worry about, such as food, health care, and visible pollution, and they tend to ignore the issue of climate change as a rich person’s problem and therefore do not push for a change. People from rich countries may pay more attention to long-term and sporadic issues because their immediate and pressing needs are satisfied, but it is not guaranteed that they will care about climate change. 

The contributors to climate change are the many, and those who suffer greatly from it tend to be the few. If they live in the same democratic country, the interest of the many can easily override the interest of the few in national or even local politics. It is true that the effects of climate change have become more present and global, and people are more conscious of environmental issues. Nevertheless, the effects—such as flooding, tornados, the rise of sea levels, and unbearably hot or cold weather—are still often short-lived and localized. Even if more people think that climate change is an important issue, the question is how important is it, and how much more should they do, especially in light of a list of other more universal and present issues? Of course, we can try to nudge voters to become sensitive to the long-term threat, but if inflammatory rhetoric is exposed, it can be used by climate change deniers for their cause. Therefore, as long as the evaluation of the capacities of voters in this section stands, any nudging within a liberal democratic framework is self-defeating at best and destructive at worst.

Confucians may offer good reasons to protect the environment, but how can we actually do so? One answer is for everyone to follow the Confucian way and to embrace the Confucian reasons for caring about the environment. But, first, this can be criticized for being too idealistic—pinning too much hope on the morals of the masses. Second, this hope is also in conflict with the “elitist” aspect of early Confucianism. Mencius, in a way that was different from Confucius’ ambiguity, was very explicit about the equality of all human beings with regard to the potential to become a morally ideal person. But he also insisted that in reality, only the few can fully actualize this potential. This is not to say that Confucians do not think we should try to educate the people, but they believed that given the limitations the masses face in trying to improve on their morals through moral education and cultivation, there should be other means, especially institutional means, rather than merely the educational one that enforce caring for the environment, among other issues in political decision-making.   

The ideal Confucian regime for domestic governance is a hybrid regime that combines democratic elements with meritocratic elements. On the one hand, for Confucians, the legitimacy of a regime comes from its service to the people, and whether people are served or not has to be decided by the people themselves. This is why Confucians can endorse a democratically elected house that represents the will of the people. On the other hand, they also believe that no matter how much effort the government has made, such as offering basic health care and education and ensuring some form of economic equality in the spirit of John Rawls’s difference principle (that is, guaranteeing real equality of opportunity), despite the equal potential of all, in reality, only the few are morally and intellectually capable of making politically sound decisions for everyone because they care about people, which is the key Confucian virtue. If they can be identified and selected, they should be put in another house of the legislature, the house of the “meritocrats.” 

Internationally, I have proposed what I call a Confucian New Tian Xia Model of state identity and international relations. If we apply the aforementioned notion suggested by Mencius of expanding care to the issue of state identity and international relations, a weak form of patriotism can be justified. That is, if there is a tension between the interests of one’s own state and the interests of other states, the former have priority, because there is a hierarchy of Confucian care. But the priority given to the interests of one’s state does not lead to the supremacy of these interests. That is, a Confucian point of view does not justify a person doing whatever it takes to satisfy the interests of their state. Instead, the welfare of other people should also be taken into account, because Confucian care is supposed to be universal. Early Confucians were very keenly aware of the fact that the world is full of conflicts of interests, and a focus of their discussions is learning how to weigh (the Chinese word is quan权) conflicting interests and master the universal principle of humaneness in the complexity of the reality.

In the Confucian New Tian Xia Order, a humane state should still take care of its own interests first. Many developed states and even developing ones such as China are faced with the problem of population decline. In the Confucian order, competition still exists and is instrumental to the flourishing and advancement of the human race and civilizations. Therefore, Confucians recognize a state’s interest in having a large population, but policies that are meant to increase birth rates have mostly failed in such states, and population growth is perhaps one of the biggest contributors to climate change. In short, even for a humane and responsible state, there is a tension between increasing its strength and being responsible for addressing the issue of climate change via population control. However, we must ask, how can this mechanism be prevented from becoming a brain drain or a talent drain in the troubled states? Indeed, even migrants who are not well educated tend to be more motivated and therefore constitute the talent among the people of the failed states. But if the failed states have indeed failed and there is no hope for the people to have a decent life, maybe some kind of “drain” is the only realistic assistance that other states can offer to some of the people. Moreover, in addition to helping these immigrants and their family members and even the state economy through their remittances, the emigration of its talents could alarm the failed state so much as to change its disastrous policies.

The solution that the well-ordered states take in offering a certain number of immigrants a path to citizenship can address the issues of decline of the population and the strength of the state, the sufferings of people living in troubled states, and climate change that would be exacerbated by population growth. As mentioned previously, the weighing of apparently conflicting interests is a key feature of Confucian political philosophy. Although these policies might be good for the host state in the long term, the voters may not necessarily see this, and it is more likely that a Confucian hybrid regime would be able to support these policies. Various ideas included in this solution would limit sovereignty, but they are in line with the Confucian New Tian Xia model of global order. The solution pins the hope on great powers to act, and in addition to hoping that these powers can be humane and benevolent, the solution takes into account the self-interests of these powers as well. Overall, I hope that the Confucian solution is shown to be both realistic and idealistic, and I believe that only such a realistic utopia can lift human beings out of the unsatisfactory reality, such as the reality of climate change.

This essay is an excerpt of a longer paper, written as part of the author's participation in the Georgetown University Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues' U.S.-China Research Group on Cosmopolitanism, that will be published in a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture.

Bai Tongdong is the Dongfang Chair Professor of Philosophy at Fudan University in China.