Reading K’ang Yu wei’s treatise on his One World Philosophy (Ta t’ung Shu) as a modern-day European (by which I do not mean one’s identification with the geographical situation of one’s home country, but rather with the project of European integration known as the EU), it is easy to feel astonished by the many similarities that seemingly connect these two projects of unifying states. Both were conceived of with the same motivation in mind: Avoiding the evils of war.1 But while K’ang’s remained a theoretical philosophy, the EU has been developed in praxis out of ever closer cooperation and integration, succeeding in establishing a peace of unprecedented length in Europe. The following entry aims at comparing K’ang’s One World with the EU, yet not on a macro-level (after all, it is rather evident that the European Union is only established on a regional scale and does not correspond to K’ang’s third type of alliance, “in which names and boundaries of the states have been abolished”2 ), but rather by looking at the mechanisms of integration proposed in theory by K’ang and realized in praxis by the EU.
I will start by analyzing some of the similarities:
At the beginning of chapter II, K’ang writes that “Wishing to Abolish the Evils of Having [Sovereign] States, it is Necessary to Begin by Disarmament and Doing Away with National Boundaries.”3.
While the motivation for constructing European cooperation after WWII was certainly not to abolish national states but rather to avoid war, it is interesting that the idea of disarmament, or at least of controlling armaments, is also at the core of the European project. This was started in 1950 with the foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community by France, Germany, Italy Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.4 While it is commonly seen as a community to foster economic cooperation, a non-negligible motive behind its creation was the idea that the most important materials needed to produce weapons (coal and steel) could be mutually monitored.
As for the second aspect of doing away with national boundaries, it is one that was equally not completely realized by the EU. Yet the existence of inner-European borders has become virtually insignificant since the Single Market was established in 1993, guaranteeing the “‘four freedoms’ of: movement of goods, services, people and money.”5 Furthermore, this also means K’ang’s visions that in a union “all import and export duties should gradually be equalized”6 and “people of the various states […] may not be restricted or prohibited on account of national differences”7 have effectively been put into practice by the EU.
On the question how unions will be initially constructed, K’ang writes: “Certainly they will begin with small unions. The small type of union will start with the alliance of two or three states whose strength is equal and whose interests are mutual.”8 This was indeed the case of the European community, which began with just 6 member states which had similar living standards, similar political systems and similar political interests, before gradually expanding to today’s number of 28. That the EU recognizes the practical importance of having common standards for successful integration is manifested in the Copenhagen Criteria which each potential member state must fulfill before being able to participate in the Union.9
However, the first differences between K’ang’s vision for unification and the actual European project also become clear when looking at accession and enlargement:
According to K’ang, unions will be expanded as more powerful states start swallowing up smaller ones. He states that “within the next hundred years all the weak and small states will certainly be entirely annihilated.”10 The contrary, however, is the case for the EU, as the community has actually enabled smaller states to prosper economically through cooperation, thus reinforcing their stability especially during the Cold War in opposition to the Communist East. Today, the support and security which the EU provides to smaller states is exemplified by the economic bail-outs weaker states like Greece received during the financial crisis.
When it comes to the internal construction of the union, K’ang asserts that “Founding of a Public Parliament is the First [Step towards] One World.”11 This, however, has not been the case for the EU, which started mainly as an inter-governmental organization. The first elections for a European Parliament only took place in 1979.12 Interestingly, K’ang also thinks that establishing a public government will not be possible at the beginning with “the powers of the individual states being very great.”13 The EU, however, established the predecessor of the Commission (the institution closest to a government) already in 1951, with the High Authority, thus proving that a reverse sequence of integration is possible.12
Lastly, and as mentioned previously, the aim of the European community was never to do away with sovereign states. That means that K’ang’s vision of a third type of alliance, “in which names and boundaries of the states have been abolished”2 and which constitutes the final step towards One World, will never be attained by the EU. However, I argue that the EU does not fit any of the two other types of alliances proposed by K’ang either: It is not “the type in which equals are allied” (by which, as I understand it, K’ang refers to a simple federation), nor is it “the type in which each state carries on its own internal government but the overall administration is united under the overall government” (by which K’ang presumably means a regular federal state such as the US or Germany). Instead, the European Union is a sui generis type, much more closely integrated than a simple federation but not yet constituting a federal state in which members rally under a common constitution and government. Certainly, the EU’s current structure is modelled after the German federal system, but the will to form an actual federal state, at least at the current point in time, is absent, which became very evident when the 2005 project for an EU constitution failed.
Despite these differences, I find it astounding that so many of the details in the mechanisms of integration, which were conceived of only on the basis of theory in K’ang’s utopian vision, are reflected in the modern-day example of the EU. Admittedly, of all international organizations existing today, the EU probably comes closest to what K’ang imagined at the beginning of the 20th century. I hope therefore that this comparison allows to reflect upon the EU’s own utopian character, which has managed to establish a period of peace and prosperity that would have seemed unattainable only 80 years ago.
- cf. K’ang, Yu-wei and Thompson, Laurence G. Ta t’ung Shu: The One-World Philosophy of K’ang Yu-Wei. Reprint. Routledge, 2007, p. 82. [↩]
- K’ang & Thompson 2007, p. 86. [↩] [↩]
- K’ang & Thompson 2007, p. 82. [↩]
- cf. European Union. The history of the European Union. https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/history_en [last accessed 11/13/2019]. [↩]
- Ibid. [↩]
- K’ang & Thompson 2007, p. 93 [↩]
- K’ang & Thompson 2007, p. 96 [↩]
- K’ang & Thompson 2007, p. 87. [↩]
- cf. European Commission. Accession criteria. https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/policy/glossary/terms/accession-criteria_en [last accessed 11/13/2019]. [↩]
- K’ang & Thompson 2007, p. 89. [↩]
- K’ang & Thompson 2007, p. 91. [↩]
- cf. European Union. The history of the European Union. [↩] [↩]
- K’ang & Thompson 2007, p. 92. [↩]