1.1 The Politics that Started with World Order
Discussing the future involves discussing history, not for the purpose of learning about historical experiences to learn lessons, as is usually stated, but in order to understand the genes of civilization so that what has supported and maximized the evolution of a civilization can be analyzed. Similar to biological genes and the body, the genes of civilization are its innate elements. We cannot make a future out of nothing; we need a basis.
In politics, there are at least two starting points for political genes: the ancient Greek polis that built up the concept of national politics and the ancient Chinese Tianxia system, the all-under-Heaven system that constructed the concept of world politics. Before the advent of politics, humanity had already had a lengthy history whereby various chiefdoms ruled. However, ruling is not the same as politics. It is the order of the mighty, and it falls under natural logic. In other words, it is a natural order in which a group obeys a mighty leader within but submits to the mightier without. It does not form a political system that transcends the natural order, a system that is based on the rational concept of power play and interest distribution. Confucius says that “to be political is to do the right things,”1 which means that politics can only be achieved when people move beyond the irrational rule of might and establish a universal and effective rational order.
Polis is a miracle. To consider the Greek polis as the beginning of European politics is not to reject the fact that polis had an earlier origin. Homer’s epics contain scenes about a political public space, an agora or a plaza. Relics from early Cretan civilization also bear witness to the agora’s early existence. But it seems that only the Greek polis ushered in a mature public sphere in which private and public lives took on their separate and clearly marked properties and functions. The Tianxia system invented in ancient China was an even greater miracle in that sense; it created politics even earlier than the Greek polis. In turn, the Tianxia system invented during the Zhou dynasty (eleventh century bce–256 bce) had an even earlier prototype. As legend has it, the system can be traced back to Yao and Shun (Emperors Yao and Shun) about 4000 years ago or even to Huang Di (Emperor Huang) about 5000 years ago. But it was probably just a spiritual view of the ancient sage kings, or an uninstitutionalized political imagining. According to credible historical records, Tianxia as a mature political system was invented during the Zhou dynasty more than 3000 years ago. These two political stories, respectively starting in the polis and the Tianxia system, have developed along their own “forking paths of time,” as Borges terms it: two different political paths that ran uncrossed until modern times. With their crossing came the conflict. Today, the plots of these two stories are intertwined as globalization fuses the two complementary tales into a possible future.
The Tianxia system in the Zhou dynasty brought forth a political thinking that began with world issues. But the exact time when this unusual world view of politics originated is hard to pinpoint. Ancient documents usually attributed it to the age of sage kings, either the age of Yao, Shun, Yu and Tang about 4000 years ago, or even further back to the age of Huang Di about 5000 years ago. Legend has it that in these earlier times there was already political cooperation among the “ten thousand states of Tianxia” under the son of Heaven.2 This is an unconfirmed legend, and very likely a projection of the Zhou dynasty’s understanding and interpretation of preceding dynasties according to its own political ideals. The age of sage kings was probably still a chiefdom state where tribes possibly had loosely cooperative relations among themselves, with sage kings being the most authoritative leaders. Because there was no mature writing system at that time,3 written laws and official systems could not have appeared. Wang Guowei’s research shows that even in the Xia and Shang dynasties, “the relationship between state lords and the son of Heaven was akin to that between state lords and the covenant leader in later time, not indicative yet of a superior-subordinate relationship between a king and his councilors.”4 Evidence of this is that the earliest existing Chinese political documents, Shangshu (The Book of History), from about 3000 years ago, record that in the early Zhou dynasty the lords were still addressing each other in equal terms as “Lord of a friendly neighboring state.”5 However, Shangshu also documents that the sage kings appeared to have acquired some basic ability to coordinate among multiple chiefdoms, namely “creating compatibility of all states.”6 This included presiding over consultations on important affairs that called for collaboration among states, such as flood control, calendar making, season setting and measurement agreements.7 It is probable that communication and cooperation happened across ethnic groups. Archeological evidence shows that regional cultures in China at that time carried salient signs of mutual influences. However, this was still uninstitutionalized cooperation, probably in the form of ad hoc joint efforts.
Ancient society had a slow and conservative pace of evolution. Hence, any profound revolution in its system would need extraordinary conditions and opportunities. Therefore, the Tianxia system is a puzzling phenomenon that needs explanation. Ancient tribal societies were limited in their scope of activity, and their political constructions were usually restricted. It is hard to imagine what necessitated the construction of such an all-encompassing world politics.
Let us go back to the historical context to explore the reasons for the development of the Tianxia system at this time. During the Shang dynasty, Zhou, semi-agrarian and semi-nomadic,8 was still a small state in the northwestern region. Yin-Shang had its political center on the Central Plains and enjoyed advanced agriculture and metallurgy with a population probably of over a million. So how small was the state of Zhou? According to historians’ estimates, it had a population above 50,000, and 70,000 at most.9 The King of Zhou, known for his virtuousness, was appealing as a leader to some small states. Zhou therefore became a covenant leader. However, the situation after this victory was quite unstable because of the massive number of people who were incorporated from the defeated Shang dynasty, several hostile vassal states closely allied with Shang and some recalcitrant tribes. The people were restless, and rebellions occurred frequently. With various sides needing to be pacified and reassured, the small state of Zhou that ascended to a leadership position had to grapple with an unprecedented political situation that occurred against all the odds: how to allow “the small rules the large” and at the same time “one rules many.”
Relying on its moral appeal, Zhou was able to form alliances with other vassal states to conquer Shang. However, though this moral image could be effective for a short time to allow war mobilization, it was difficult for this alone to sustain long-term support and loyalty from all vassal states because morality could not substitute for the power and interests that all parties desired. Therefore, “the small rules the large” logically eliminated the possibility of applying a hegemony model. The Zhou regime had only one choice left; that is, to come up with a governance model that relied on the appeal of the system rather than military deterrence, replacing military might with the advantages of the system and hegemonic order with the benefits of cooperation.
It is clear that from the very beginning the Zhou dynasty was forced to design a brand-new and complex system. Since Zhou was not able to establish its rule through hegemony, nor was it able to use its own force to sustain for long its leadership position, Zhou had to come up with a universal system of long-term cooperation acceptable to all states in order to maintain its supreme authority over its myriad vassal states. The key challenge was overcoming the externalities of those states: thus it should attempt to turn those external states into internal ones within a shared system, thereby putting an end to uncontrollable externalities. This meant that Zhou had to create a world system that would transcend states in order to realize the internalization of the world, thus utilizing common and cooperative interests to guarantee its own interests. The success of a world system hinges on whether it can offer its member states a shared or cooperative interest that is more attractive than betraying or rejecting the system. In other words, the benefits of joining the system should be larger than those from not joining. Otherwise, no one will recognize and support the system. This is an enormously challenging work of system design, and it calls for great imagination. It is fair to say that the specifical moment in history that Zhou encountered actually raised a profound political question. A world order has become the condition for a st...