CHINESE HARMONY AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN

21ST CENTURY

century

www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-01 14:18:02 www.worldharmonyorg.net

BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhuanet)-- Following is an excerpt of a paper by

Francis C. W. Fung, PH. D.
In his paper, Fung said, as the ancient world culture with the longest
uninterrupted historical record, the richness of China's teachings of
harmony as a dominant philosophy is unparalleled.
But, he noted, "China is going through dramatic changes in adjusting
to the conflicts of the new and the old.
"To address the multitude of domestic and international conflicts," he
said, China has promoted the ancient teachings of harmony and has
achieved much in its great efforts of building a Harmonious Society
and Harmonious World.
From the perspective of harmony, Fung examined three major
movements of human civilization: religion, democracy and harmony.
"As the world is in great disharmony with religion conflicts,
international inequity, and the disparity between North and South,"
Fung stressed, "we must look beyond religion and democracy to
harmony."
Then after comparing with religion and democracy, Fung asked, "Will
harmony bring a more moderate future world?" His answer is yes.
Finally Fung stressed that democracy -- American style -- is challenged
by Chinese harmony as the leading global philosophy in the 21st
century, because harmony is a basic human longing.
Fung concluded his paper "Teaching harmony in U.S. is paramount."
Only corrections of language errors, typo changes and editing are
made, but the viewpoints are all Fung's.
From time immemorial humans had to cope with nature, the need of
shelter and the fear of nature's extreme furor. This fear was as natural
as nature itself and a solution was paramount from the outset.
Obvious approaches to addressing this issue were: acceptance of life,
submission to the will of God to placate nature, harmonizing with
nature, and persevering as best as one could. These approaches were
combined, at times, for expediency. As civilization progressed, and
local and global societies became more complex and conflicting issues
prolific, more harmony solutions were needed.
As far as one can ascertain the major world religions practiced today
originated from the mystic East and can be narrowed to Central Asia
along the silk-road including India and the middle East. There seems
to be continuity in development from the earliest religion to the latest.
The following is a short introduction of origin of modern religion as
mankind's effort to harmonize with nature. One might surmise that
organized religions are human's group effort to harmonize with nature
by submitting to the will of God. There are reasons perhaps to accept
the speculation that certain cultures may be more spiritual from a
religious view point, although some cultures have defined spirituality
from a moral value view point.
All religions offer the faithful harmony to nature and God and peace of
mind.
Democracy grew out of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe (1600 to
1789), a movement to resolve the conflicts between the ruler and the
ruled in France and England. Its philosophy was against superstition,
encouraging development of science, and against easy acceptance of
authority. Two leading philosophers of the time were the Frenchman,
Rousseau, and the Englishman, John Lock
The United States of America, formerly a colony of England, defeated
the occupier and declared Independence on 1776 during the Age of
Enlightenment. The early new citizens being immigrants of Europe,
were quick to adopt the ideas of liberty, fraternity and democracy. As a
result, the drafters of the U.S. constitution and Bill of Rights that
guaranteed citizen rights were heavily influenced by Rousseau and
John Lock.
Many elements of the present day U.S. government including theory,
structure and policy were penned by Thomas Jefferson, an original
signer of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The documents
spelled out the rights and duties of the citizen, majority rule and the
separation of powers. These harmonizing concepts were a great
influence on today's governments. The drafting of a constitution for
new governments is today a standard fare.
The leaders of the U.S. government then and still now are mostly
aristocrats or elites of the society. From the very beginning there were
two opposing forces, the powerful at one end and the masses at the
other, which see-saw through out the entire relatively short U.S.
history.
Although American citizens have more freedom of choice in life in
relation to other societies of today, true democracy of equality and
mass representation on important issues remains elusive.
Today the U.S. media is owned by a few big businesses, and is easily
influenced by the government and big business. In foreign policy
especially, media self censorship is prevalent and political correctness
is the name of the game.
Despite freedom of press and freedom of speech, U.S. citizens are not
fully aware of real world opinion towards the U.S.. U.S. foreign policy
is again controlled by minority elite supporting the government. In its
eagerness to export democracy as an ideology supported by the U.S.
military, media and elite, U.S. approaches can be inflexible and
doctrinaire. Often democracy is touted as transparent and peaceful.
Attempts to export the democracy model between government and
citizens in this case have the opposite effect of causing world
disharmony. This is seen in the U.S. unilateral Iraq war that has
exasperated U.S. population and the world. All wars of aggression of
modern times were launched with high sounding goals necessary for
the morale of the invading forces.

Throughout China's long history as an ancient culture, unlike the

Middle East, it did not produce a religion of world importance, and
unlike the West it did not produce a comprehensive home grown
democracy system to resolve conflicts between the ruler and the ruled.
China obviously, however, had notions of religion and democracy, when
Confucius admonished his followers to respect God but keep a
distance, and Mencius advocated good government and put citizens
above the rulers.
Instead, through considerable debate and evolution, China settled on
the philosophies of CHUNG YUN, HE XIE (moderation, harmony) and
hierarchy social structures. Family and social order were promoted by
emphasizing SAN GANG WU CHANG, REN, YI , LI , ZHI, XIN (the three
important relations in the order of: ruler and the ruled, father and
children, husband and wife and five basic societal moral values) and
LUN LI DAO DE (family and moral values).
This system of profuse teaching was drilled into students from Day
One and all through a scholar's life. Youngsters' first standard reading
text was SAN TZE JING (a simple rhyme of Confucius teaching).
The moderation and harmony philosophy reinforced by morals and
values as a social system was very different from the Western
democracy concepts of citizen rights and duties enforced by law and
order. Ancient China did practice laws, but sparsely, when compared to
the comprehensive European laws and the complex and voluminous
U.S. case study system. The strength of U.S. modern culture lies in the
implementation of Government and law practices, and not merely in its
democratic ideology. The ideal of democracy, as harmony between
government, society and citizens, is universally accepted by today
world. It will take time for the developing countries to grow their own
appropriate democratic system in their own soil.
Harmony as seen from ancient Chinese philosophy, included the
practices of acceptance, tolerance, mutual respect, equality and
patience, but not the use of heavy penal correction.
From the previous discussions one may characterize the three major
world approaches of basic societal harmony and order as: Eastern
origin religion order, Western Democracy and law, and Chinese moral
values combined with hierarchy society order. But societal harmony for
the future as global interactions expands, is perhaps best served by an
appropriate balance of the three approaches.
This development will call for more genuine exchange and dialogue
between world cultures. For the past two centuries the cultural flow
has predominantly from West to East. The wisdom of five thousand
years of ancient Chinese culture of harmony and moral values had
provided long term stability and survival, cannot be easily dismissed.
As a start harmony was taught by the sages as the practices of
acceptance, tolerance, mutual respect, equality and patience. The
essence of the implementation process, according to Confucius is
discipline oneself, harmony at home, order in the country before
extending peace to the world.
According to LAOTZE, the universe was created from YING or negative
(dark) energy. From this infinite negative or dark energy all matter
and galaxies were created. This includes the earth and the solar
system. [
The YANG and Ying entwine in the Daoist circle in perfect harmony and
beauty. In a three dimensional world the Daoist circle is a sphere with
the YING enclosing both the YING and YANG on the outside surface.
LAOTZE always emphasized that YING embraces YANG, the soft
ultimately overcomes the hard when harmony is not achieved. His
philosophy renounced war and advocated balance, harmony and
peace.
LAOTZE's philosophy of harmony with heaven and nature was well
accepted by the Chinese. The idea of YING YANG balance also became
the guiding philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine. After the Qin
and Han dynasties the philosophy of HE HE was widely applied. It
penetrated all schools of thoughts and all subsequent historical
periods. It became gradually accepted and agreed upon as the cultural
spirit of the Chinese thought. Throughout two millennia of Chinese
culture, Confucius and his students continued to exert a strong
influence on Chinese thinking. Even when conflict and contradiction of
ideas were unavoidable, the philosophy of harmony and ZHONG YUN
TZE DAO (the Way of the Golden Mean) continued to advise
moderation and avoidance of extreme.
Challenged by Western cultural and military advances during the last
two centuries, China's traditional thinking was shaken to the core.
Today, under reform and opening up, Chinese society is undergoing
profound changes on many fronts. In the shifting social structure,
promulgation of many new laws is taking place to change to more
responsive governance by incorporating U.S. and Western ideas and
experience.
In its search for a model society appropriate to the Chinese nation,
there have been continuing discussions and debates. Faced with
today's global ideology and religious conflicts, unilateralism, and
extreme unequal parity of rich and poor between North and South, the
harmony philosophy is rediscovered in China.
Like fresh air the ancient teachings of LAOTZE and Confucius are
coming back, China is rediscovering itself. The Chinese are again
quoting ancient harmony teachings.
In the recent Chinese media we have begun to see discussion of ideas
such as HE XIE SHE HUI (Harmony society) and HE XIE SHI JIE
(harmony world).
The outward expression of LAOTZE's and Confucius' influence on Far
Eastern culture can easily be seen as a result of HE and LI (harmony
and ceremony).
From time immemorial, advancement in Chinese society was more
through education and civil service examinations. The Chinese
invented the civil service system. Competition by physical strength was
looked down upon. Most competitive sports on the other hand were
invented by the West.
As a whole the East Asian culture is more reserved, less prompt to
challenge nature. Hence, the industrial revolution was more likely to
occur in the West. On today's information highway, material incentives
and western cultural influence massed assaults on Chinese traditional
values and way of life. As a result, teachings of tolerance, acceptance,
patience and human relation hierarchy order are in decline. However,
the historical fact that East Asian culture had the longest uninterrupted
survival testifies to its resilience and adaptability. In its recent soul
searching to rediscover a new China, harmony as a way to solve a
broad range of conflicts is resurfacing.
The strength of U.S. society lies in its stable government and system
of laws. This started from the European Enlightenment movement and
continued for the last 230 years since independence. This is a relative
short period for national development by any standard. Suffice to say
the key reasons are; economic prosperity, absence of major world
wars fought within U.S. territory and acceptance of the form of
government and system of laws by the population in general.
From the perspective of the history of the rise and fall of past empires,
U.S. complacency and resistance to change are clear. Its government
system is unable to keep up with the world economic change and its
system of laws is getting cumbersome. Its government system and
ideology is not the answer-all for the vast differences that exist among
the multitude of developing nations. Each nation is seeking its own
form of harmony between the government and its citizens.
To expand its worldwide influence the U.S. government, media and
American think tanks assert that America is democratic and thus is
transparent. The American viewpoint persists to exert that in this
conflicting world, the U.S. is not capable of using violent force and that
its organized military aggression is not the use of violence. All violence
was and will be started by nations that do not agree with us.
Despite the fact this line of logic does not deceive any person of
reason outside of this country. As long as U.S. citizens love and buy it
out of patriotism, they accept it as good logic and good policy. There is
no argument needed for any serious student of politics to understand
that the U.S. government is transparent only when it wants to be. The
massive U.S. military and its preparation for war are always shrouded
in the utmost secrecy in the name of security. Any declassification is
after-the-fact, of little interest, and easily forgotten by its citizens. The
only people remembered are the victims that suffered terribly by the
devastating wars. That is why the U.S. can launch one war after the
other and continue to have the support of its citizens.
After the Second World War U.S. prestige was at the highest. Today
world opinion towards the U.S. is at its lowest by surveys around the
world. Yet citizens of the U.S. continue to feel that we are the most
peace loving nation in the world thanks to the U.S. government and
media omission and propaganda."
Today conflicts against extremism are prolific in the world. These span
difference between religions, ideologies, cultures, forms of government
or simply distrust. The extremes of the privileged and the under
privileged, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless the
North and the South, the developed and the developing nations have
reached alarming proportions. The philosophy of harmony
encompassing patience, acceptance, tolerance, equality and mutual
support, as presented in the previous section, must be broadly
accepted to prevent major catastrophes breaking out in all corners of
the world. Major nations together with United Nations must stand up
and take the necessary creative actions to minimize these occurrences.
Democracy, as the only tool for conflict resolution, is very limited and
does not comprise a core approach. The complexity of the multi
national conflicts requires comprehensive system engineering studies
of creative harmony solutions. "First, we must abandon unilateralism.
This will allow consorted multinational studies to come up with
indigenous and appropriate solutions to suit the diverse conditions that
exist among nations. The reality of nations as we see in today's world
is in total lack of international democracy and equality.
Democracy grew out of the 17th century Enlightenment movement as
a resolution of the conflicts between the ruler and the ruled. But the
movement as a tradition had inspired many national revolutions. The
notable ones for this discussion were the French revolution, American
independence war and the Chinese 1911 revolution extending to the
1949 revolution led by Mao Zedong. However, three hundred years is
very short for human history. Through out Chinese history every 300
years or so peasants would rise up to overthrow the emperor.
However, the ancient philosophies of harmony and moderation were
always able to restore stability, prosperity and a loosely united empire.

The resilience of the Chinese nation lies in its deep rooted harmony
philosophies coupled with prosperity at the beginning of each
successful dynasty. This typically goes on in every 300 years or so for
two millennium. China, after two hundred years of Western and
Japanese humiliation and invasion, had lost its direction for a while.
Today with relative prosperity returning, demands for harmony as a
way to resolve conflicts in a complex modern society return in force.
This is how China rediscovered itself from the roots of its ancient
culture.
The Chinese feudal society was not an absolute civil order that was
unalterable. The idea that opposing forces are constantly struggling for
balance, lay the foundation for change. If the ruler is not kind and
loving, the ruled can rise up to defy his order. This was always true as
demonstrated by the over thrown of decadent dynasties by peasant
revolutions.
Basic democratic ideals were also formed during that time. This is
what China calls today MIN WEI BEN, people based ideals. The
teaching of MIN WEI BEN means the ruled is more important than the
ruler in good government, or a good government should put its people
above the ruler. This REN BEN (people based) ideal have reined for two
thousand years and is again being revived. The idea of anti corruption
and anti dictatorial government is innate in China as well as in many
other cultures. Simply put as in a Confucius saying, DE REN XIN ZHE
DE TIEN HSIA, SHI REN XIN SHE SHI TIEN HSIA (the ruler who lost
people's hearts lost his empire, the ruler who won people's hearts won
the empire). This is the basis of a society centered on teaching of
moral values and virtue.
Moral and values standard were high. Emphasis was placed on self
correction rather than on penal correction. During the times of
Confucius the society was in harmony. It was said during that time,
lost are found, doors are not closed at night. This was the Chinese
concept of government by moral value, societal order and harmony.
Democracy as a movement for the most part is universally accepted in
the world today. One needs only to look at how many new countries or
changing countries are calling themselves democracies. However, the
U.S. has its own definition. This mostly means that countries agreeing
with the U.S. are democracies. Democracy as a system of government
needs to take hold and grow in the fertile soil of developing countries
and countries evolving from their old cultures. This ideal of anti
corruption and anti dictatorship is changing traditional order by
reform. Harmony advises renunciation of force. In time democracy will
grow and wrought its fruits in the global modern environment.
It is important to point out for those who did not grew up during the
cold war era, the U.S. media divided the world into the free world and
the communist world. This explains why the U.S. government and
media have a tendency to call countries that challenge us as plotting
to take away our freedom. This is highlighted by President Bush's
repeated use of the word freedom in his 2004 and 2006 September
11, 2006 addresses.
Now the idea of freedom is also not an unknown concept. Many
societies have abandoned enslavement and it is against universal laws.
The Chinese abandoned slavery as early as the period of Spring and
Autumn, more than two thousand years ago. The country transitioned
from slave state of Eastern Zhou to FENJIAN (Feudal society) after the
Warring State period. Those violated it when found are put in jails in
all civilized societies.
International equality has yet to be recognized by the U.S.. For many
weak and poor nations in the world, struggling for equal economic and
political equality is a must for their survival. This is a vast subject that
must be discussed in the resolution of conflicts under the broad
concept of a harmonious world.
Democracy in conflict resolution is a well honed management system
engineering study for the U.S. since its independence. The ancient
harmony philosophies had worked well for keeping Eastern Asia stable
for two thousand years. It is being rediscovered by China because of
the prolific of conflicts in the world between the old and new, rich and
poor, powerful and the powerless, due to its own reform and opening
up. It will be logical for China to combine the U.S. experience in
engineering Democracy into its government system and to revitalize
the ancient concept of harmony. It will require exchange and
cooperation between the East and West to harmonize this great
undertaking. Societal needs for East and West are similar; however
there are great differences in approaches and logical thinking. The
concept of time and perspective on history also requires a great deal of
harmonizing. The West and Far East together have the technology and
the ready financial resources to bring the necessary actions together
to make a beginning.
President Hu Jintao of China during his speech at Yale University April
21st, 2006 sounded out the ideas of harmony and harmony world and
invited discussions and cooperation with the U.S.. If the interest is
high, continuing system engineering studies for conflict resolution can
be supported by interested scholars from East and West. A task of this
world magnitude, needless to say, must be inclusive.
The ultimate principle of Chinese ancient principles, as expounded by
LAOTZE in DAO DE JING, is the balance of YING and YANG but
ultimately YING envelopes YANG and is beautifully illustrated in the
Daoist circle sign of life.
In today's conflicting world our model of democracy cannot be forced
on other nations of different culture and at different developing stages.
Democracy works best by softly and patiently winning over the hearts
and minds of people. Countering extremism by extremism is bound to
lead to ultimate destruction of both sides. War does not solve
confrontations, but moderation (negotiation) can resolve conflicts. Soft
power (ideals and economics) eventually will overcome military power.
The best way to resolve conflicts is to bring harmony to the
confronting parties. This can start by understanding the causes of
conflicts through mutual respect, trust, tolerance and acceptance. The
world will progress for all mankind till eternity when harmony is
universally accepted. The world of harmony shall surely come.
Today's China is in disharmony. The current modernizing and opening
and reform has created a degree of regional prosperity. With the
impact of materialism and lower moral values there are conflicts due to
disparity of wealth and privilege and difference of the new and the old.
In the traumatic changes that are required for modernizing there is
extreme thinking in China that forgets the old teachings. To the degree
that there are Chinese who feel loss and passively admit cultural
inadequacy, under the incessant and massive criticism by U.S. media.
Fortunately, the current government, in order to deal with the
multitude of contradictions, come up with the concept of scientific
development for modernization. This began in 2002. By now it is
widely discussed and covered by the media.
However, the major stroke of luck is this scientific development
concept brought China back in touch with the forefathers teaching of
harmony. Harmony as a way of life is in the Chinese genes and is the
essence of Chinese ancient teaching. On the current path China will
transition through the current adjustment and reach a modern society
with Chinese characteristics. This may very well be a socialistic society
with harmony.
Its development remains to be seen. In the process China's harmony
development can only bring harmony to the rest of the world. The
ultimate patience of harmony will work its way. The often used phrase
Socialist Society with Chinese Characteristics is ultimately The Socialist
Society with Chinese Harmony.
(Dr. Fung originally came from Shanghai, China at age 16 by way of
Hong Kong to study at Brown University during the 1950's. He also
attended Johns Hopkins University and University of Notre Dame
culminating in a Ph. D. degree with major in aerospace engineering.
His early career during the 1970's included university teaching,
aerospace industries (Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory) and ten years
at National Institute of Technology (in energy conservation and fire
safety research). During the 1980's he returned to China by the
invitation of Chinese Academic of Science to lecture at the Academy
and Jiao Tong University in the fields of energy conservation. It was
during this period he founded Finance and Technology Associates, a
premier business consulting firm specialized in international technology
transfer and commercialization. Among the U.S. companies he
represented included Cooper Rolls (a joint venture between Cooper
industries and Rolls Royce), Combustion Engineering and MTI.
Dr. Fung taught Multi-national Corporations and Joint Ventures in the
International School of Business of San Francisco State University. By
the recommendation of the SFSU Confucius Institute, he has submitted
two research papers for publication to NABE 2007, Feb conference. The
theme of the conference is "One Nation: Many Languages and Cultures
in a Changing World". The two papers submitted are titled: "Chinese
Harmony and American Democracy in 21st Century" and Chinese
Harmony Culture Old and New, Promise for a Less Confrontational
World?")

Editor: Pan Letian

E-mail Us www.worldharmonyorg.net

About Me
Francis Fung
MY BOOKS ON HARMONY RENAISSANCE, HARMONY DIPLOMACY
AND HARMONY CONSENSUS ARE AVAILABLE FROM
WWW.AMAZON.COM SEARCH FRANCIS C W FUNG