Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

3-2007

Abstract

Lately there has been increasing interest among IR scholars in Chinese thought both as an alternative to Eurocentric IR and because the PRC as an emerging power will soon have the institutional power to promote its view of the world. Rather than look for suitable Chinese parallels to ‘international’, ‘security’ or other mainstream concepts, this paper will examine the concept of ‘Tianxia’ to understand Chinese visions of world order. Tianxia is interesting both because it was key to the governance and self-understanding of three millennia of Chinese empire, and also because discussion of Tianxia is becoming popular again in the 21st century as a Chinese model of world order that is universally valid. Firstly, the paper will examine Zhao Tingyang’s popular discussion of how the all-inclusive Tianxia system would solve the world’s problems through a world institution that embraces difference according to a ‘magnanimous’ social grammar. Then it will examine some of the philosophical and historical problems raised by this reading of Tianxia: its relation to classical Chinese philosophy and modern social theory, particularly how it deals with ‘Otherness’. And finally, it will conclude that Tianxia’s most important impact will not be on the world stage, but in China’s domestic politics. The paper will examine how Tianxia has been redeployed by China’s intellectuals of the state and public intellectuals among the Chinese diaspora in ways that blur the conceptual boundaries between empire and globalism, hierarchy and cosmopolitanism. Yet rather than guide us towards a post-hegemonic IR, Tianxia presents a new hegemony that reproduces China’s hierarchical empire in an updated form.

Discipline

Asian Studies | Political Science

Research Areas

Political Science

Areas of Excellence

Digital transformation

Publication

Proceedings of the 48th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA 2007), Chicago, February 28 - March 3

First Page

175

Last Page

189

City or Country

Chicago

Additional URL

https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/isa/isa07/index.php?PHPSESSID=4olbr857j4m013derv6vf6kf4c&cmd=Prepare+Multi+Search+Search+Full+Text&offset=0&limit=50&multi_search_publication_fulltext_mode=fulltext&multi_search_search_mode=publication&multi_search_schedule_mode=all&pub_track_accept=t&search=&fulltext_search=Chinese+visions+of+world+order%3A+Tianxia%2C+empire+an&search_field=content_idx&submit=Search

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