Author: Lina

Yan frequently espouses the peaceful benefits of a cosmopolitanist international world order in his essay “How to Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundation of World Unity.” He defines cosmopolitanism as “one world in which the interest of mankind is coherent and homogeneous.” (8) It is a political theory that promotes the formation of peaceful relations between states, be it based on economic, political or social grounds. In understanding cosmopolitanism within the context of international relations, the democratic peace theory provides an interesting complement to cosmopolitanism theories of cooperation and peace. The democratic peace theory is a tenet of liberal political theory that posits that democracy are highly unlikely to go to war with each other due to their shared values and the domestic consequences for war within a liberal society.

At the center of both the democratic peace theory and Yan’s cosmopolitanism is the idea of shared values preventing conflict between two or more nation-states. Yan, throughout his work, emphasises the need for shared values and interests that promote the betterment of mankind. Many of his beliefs as such are also reflected in the liberal political theory that the democratic peace theory stems from. By creating an international society that is reliant on cooperation and shared values and interests, the need for conflict should, as per both Yan and liberal IR scholars, be non-existent.

However, where this two political theories diverge is on the nature of who should dictate the creation of such shared values. While both are based in the creation and maintenance of democracy, Yan supports the creation of a ruling overseer that will create meritocratic democracy, rather than one based upon popular elections. Liberal political theory, while it does support the creation of international organizations, such as the United Nations, also heavily supports state’s rights to sovereignty and ability to shape their political future. There is an emphasis on the success of liberal democracy in maintaining more successful, peaceful states, but there is no hierarchy within the international order, unlike Yan’s theory. Whereas Yan’s political theories towards peacebuilding are built upon the creation of a tiered international system with the creation of shared values, the democratic peace theory, and by extension, liberalism, rely on the existing shared democratic values as a means of preventing conflict.      

Owen, John M. (Autumn 1994). “Give Democratic Peace a Chance? How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace”. International Security. 19 (2): 87–125.

Yan Xisan, How To Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundation of World Peace, pamphlet, pp 1-41.

Pan-Asianism is most frequently defined as a politiocultural movement to unite the countries of Asia in opposition of western influences. Author Eri Hotta outlines three strands of pan-Asianism in Japan in the 1930s: firstly, it emphasized Asian commonalities in the philosophical context of Asian civilization, particularly in China and India, secondly, they sought to create alliances, more narrowly focused to East Asian, and finally, it established Japan as the “Asian alliance leader” in a fight to save the rest of Asia from the West. While these tenants are not significant deviations from other pan-nationalist movements, pan-Asianism is unique in two ways: the conception of Asia as a geographical and cultural entity and the desire to rid Asia of Western imperialism. Pan-Asianist’s definition of Asia is generally limited to South and East Asia, primarily China, Japan, Korea and India. Japan was amongst the first of the Asian nations to engage with pan-Asianism, which to some extent is resultative of their early interaction with the Western powers. Unlike other Asian countries, Japan was never colonized or under imperial rule by a western country but rather was able to establish diplomatic and economic ties with the United States and Western Europe. This allowed Japan to leverage a position amongst the negotiators at the end of the First World War, and also marked Japan as the most powerful, independent Asian country in the inter-war period.

In contrast to the rise of Japanese pan-Asianism’s rise in the 1930s, pan-Germanism had existed long before the World Wars. It arose in the mid-nineteenth century as the question of German unification shaped central Europe’s geopolitical climate. In essence, pan-Germanism sought to unite all Germanic and German-speaking populations; this included large areas in central Europe, including parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where there were large ethnic German populations. Unlike pan-Asianism, which is based upon a rejection of imperialism and is largely geographical, pan-Germanism is largely ethnolinguistically based. It was through a pan-Germanist, nationalist policy that the German Empire was formed from the German States in the second half of the nineteenth century, despite many non-ethnic Germans being included in the population of the German Empire.

Both of these pan-nationalist movements underwent a radicalization in the inter-war period. In Japan, pan-Asianism became synonymous with a desire for the creation of a Japanese empire in Asia. In Germany and Central Europe, pan-Germanism became closely connected to the ethno-nationalist beliefs of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.  In both states, a sense of ethnic or cultural superiority was felt and both states felt as if they should have greater status or power within the international community. During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Japanese delegation strongly opposed the creation of the League of Nations as they believed that it was merely a continuation of the status quo, in that it promoted Western Europe and the United States above all else. The Japanese delegation, and by extension, Japan as a whole, felt as if Japan was not given the proper respect that it’s position in the international community afforded it. This mentality contributed significantly to the rise of pan-Asianism in the Japanese context of resisting Western imperialism and creating a Japanese empire.  

Pan-Germanism underwent a similar revival in a similar time period. Just as pan-Asianism resurged in Japan as a means to gain power in the region, pan-Germanism provided a reason for German expansion in Europe. The reclamation of ethnic German territories and population formed the backbone of German expansion in Austria and other German-speaking regions. In a similar manner, pan-Asianism was used to justify the Japanese invasion into China in 1937. 1937 proves to be a useful comparison for these two strands of pan-nationalism as in 1937 Japan invaded China in the name of pan-Asian values and in the same year, Nazi Germany began to seriously pursue unification with Austria, resulting in the Anschluss in 1938. Unlike the invasion of China in 1937, the Anschluss was not a direct military conflict, but rather was the result of a popular referendum. To a significant portion of the Austrian population, the Anschluss was the culmination of a long-standing desire to create one German state.

Pan-Germanism, unlike pan-Asianism, had a more universal element to it as it centered on the German language where pan-Asianism was based around a vague sense of geographical location and some degree of shared culture, but not language. However, both of these movements morphed into the basis for empire building in Europe and Asia.  

Works Cited.

Hotta, Eri, Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Redlich, Joseph, “German Austria and Nazi Germany”, Foreign Affairs 15, no. 1 (1936), pp. 180-181.

“The Situation of Germany” The New York Times. 1 July 1866.

In his article “China and the Esperanto Movement”, Gerald Chan raised the issue of language barriers within the United Nations; the Chinese solution to the language issue is to use Esperanto. Chinese Mandarin has long been one of the six official languages of the United Nations, which also include Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Chinese was established as an official language in 1946 during the beginning of the United Nations, as the Chinese state, then controlled by the Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party.

While the inclusion of six official languages may appear on the surface to create linguistic inclusivity, not all the official languages are used equally. English and French are used by the United Nations Secretariat and are used in day-to-day professional exchanges. Chinese is perhaps the least used of the six languages as while it has the largest population of speakers, it is primarily limited to China and Taiwan, which does not hold a seat. The lack of Mandarin used in the United Nations and more globally has at times been viewed by the Chinese as a weakness and is not on par with China’s international status. In other transnational organizations, Chinese delegations have experienced issues due to translation and language issues. However, Chinese is not an easily accessible language – it is challenging for non-native speakers to learn both to speak and to read and is not frequently taught outside of China. As such, a movement has risen within China for Esperanto to be made the official language of the United Nations.

This movement is arguably motivated in two ways, and both provide great benefit to China’s international status. Firstly, making Esperanto the official language of the United Nations would move the language primacy away from Europe and more importantly, the United States. Secondly, promoting Esperanto is in the interest of other developing countries who struggle for influence in the United Nations, and would thus further establish China as a leader for developing countries.

Renowned political scientist Joseph Nye has constructed the concept of “soft power”, which he defined as “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries – admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it.” Soft power has long been favored by the Chinese government in lieu of hard military power, which has been limited since the end of the Cold War to minor flare-ups in the South China Sea. It can be evidenced in China’s significant economic support in the Middle East and Africa primarily, where large sums of Chinese money have been invested in developing countries as a means of diplomacy. If Nye’s theory of soft power is applied to Chinese support of Esperanto, there is a clear benefit for the Chinese as many developing countries suffer from “language hegemony and discrimination” in the United Nations. China’s mere support of adopting Esperanto certainly indicates China’s further commitment to bringing developing countries further into the United Nations. As such, China’s desire to adopt Esperanto as the official language raises questions about if it is out of a genuine belief in Esperanto as a uniting language or rather another way in which China can gain support for its position in the international community and build closer ties.      

Chan, Gerald. “China and the Esperanto Movement.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 15 (1986): 1–18.

Nye, Joseph, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).

The United Nations, Official Languages, <https://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/official-languages/>.

The United Nations, Multilingualism, <https://www.un.org/sg/en/multilingualism/index.shtml>.  

In his work, A Monk Does Not Bow Down Before a King, Hui-yuan, a Chinese Buddhist monk, analyses amongst other questions, the role of change within Buddhism. He poses the question to himself, using Lao Tzu as a foil. Hui-yuan uses Lao Tzu’s understanding of heaven and earth and the nature of kings and princes to contrast his own Buddhist understanding of heaven and earth and the nature of kings and princes.

According to Hui-yuan, Lao Tzu’s understanding is based upon the fact that kings and princes are the embodiment of obedience, which is what gives them the right to command others to obey. Heaven and earth are “the source of the myriad changes”; whereas kings and princes “have the power of moving others [to obey].” (282). He writes: “Therefore the wise men of yore made this the subject of noble discourses, and from this the opinion of the multitude may not change.” (283) The subject mentioned refers to “the embodiment of the Ultimate must of necessity rely depend upon obedience to changes.” (283) Hui-yuan is thus questioning his own philosophy from the Taoist perspective, and more specifically the Buddhist understanding of change and development.

Hui-yuan’s response to his own critique offers an excellent perspective into Buddhist philosophy. Hui-yuan writes that there are only two categories of beings who are given life by “the Great Change”: “the soulful and the soulless”. (283) The soulful are those who have “feeling towards change” The soulless “have no feeling towards change”. (283) Those who have, as Hui-yuan asserts, “no feeling towards change”, their lives will end once they die. This, of course, is in reference to the Buddhist belief of reincarnation and karma. Change is Hui-yuan’s method of illustrating the build-up of karma over one “soulful” being’s time on earth. Hui-yuan also writes “Life is fettered by physical form, and life depends on change.” (283) Hui-yuan demonstrates the necessity of change in life as a means of understanding the variety of sins and actions in everyday life. Each action within a lifetime, as asserted by Hui-yuan, will have an impact on the next as Nirvana is changeless as everything is constantly in flux.

This question and answer is crucial to Hui-yuan’s argument of why a monk does not bow before a king. The understanding of change and karma as a never ending cycle provides the implication of Buddhists being inherently good citizens as they would not threaten their future lives with disobedience in their current lifetime.  As such, Hui-yuan writes, Buddhist monks should not be expected to bow before their king, regardless of his status.

Yan Xishan’s Cosmopolitan Economy

In his pamphlet, How To Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundation of World Peace, Yan Xishan offers a wide variety of solutions to the issues plaguing the international system. Given, however, that its intended purpose was a rebuff of communism, the section on the economy proves especially complex and at times contradictory. Within his “cosmopolitan economy”, Yan provides three main principles that ought to be followed. These three principles simultaneously blend and reject both capitalism and communism in the international economy.

“The first principle is that labor should be coincident with enjoyment. What is meant by this is that the fruit of one’s labor should be wholly given to the laborer for his contribution of labor. It should not be exploited by any method or system.” (p. 18) 

Yan’s first principle of the cosmopolitan economy describes a system in which the laborer is directly rewarded with “the fruit of one’s labor”, rather than allowing the labor to be exploited by the system. Despite Yan’s opposition to the communist economic system, this principle carries a Marxist sentiment in regards to the exploitation of the worker. Marx and Engel, in the opening lines of The Communist Manifesto, describe the historical basis for one class exploiting another. They argue the exploitation of the proletariat can only be remedied by a remaking of the world economic system in which private property is abolished and all are rewarded equally, sharing in the goods of society. While Yan does not exactly reflect this sentiment, his principle shares a number of commonalities with the ideology he is writing in opposition of.

“The second principle is that the laborer should be provided with ample opportunity for offering his labor. The worker should work in order to support his livelihood. If he is not given the opportunity to work, he will have no chance of sustaining his livelihood.” (p. 18) 

Yan’s second principle primarily serves as a critique of the capitalist system, which he describes as “exploitation and the existing monetary defect.” Within the context of the Great Depression, Yan’s critique of a worker having “no chance of sustaining his livelihood” was no doubt a relevant critique of the world capitalist system. An interesting comparison to Yan’s desire to provide work for all workers is President Roosevelt’s New Deal, which similarly sought to create ample work for workers. The New Deal’s “Three R’s”, as they are frequently referred to by historians, sought relief for the poor and unemployed, economic recovery and a reform of the financial system to prevent another such crisis. To some extent, Roosevelt’s New Deal reflects Yan’s sentiment by providing new economic opportunity for workers, in order to bring the unemployed back into the economic system and support a livelihood. So while Yan is critiquing the capitalist system, arguably, there is a capitalist example within the constraints of Yan’s theory that successfully provided “ample opportunity for offering […] labor”.

“The third principle is that we should increase the effectiveness of labor. What is meant by this is that by raising the efficiency of a worker, his standard of living can be raised. […] workers have not been much benefited by the increase in production made possible by scientific development. […] Though wages have been increased, the said increase has been offset by the rise in the price of commodities.” (pp. 18-19)

Yan’s third principle, once again, seems to represent an almost communist sentiment, writing that “the sole party that has benefited is the capitalist class. (the owner of the plant)”.Yan suggests a publicly owned factory in which some amount of the profits made off of the increased productivity of technology will not go to the owner, but be set aside. Of course, the most notable example of publicly owned factories is within communist countries, where there is an abolition of privately owned property and business. Therefore, Yan’s third principle seems to exist in a strange grey area between communism and capitalism as he is still encouraging the productions of goods for a market place, while also encouraging the creation of public factories.

Yan’s cosmopolitan economy principles seem to straddle communism and capitalism, with Yan picking and choosing from aspects of the two economic systems. But above all, Yan’s priority is the worker and his ability to provide for himself. This sentiment seems to me to most closely mirror the communist ideals of the worker and the working class. However, Yan’s work primarily does critique communism in other ways, particularly the political aspects of that ideology, leaving readers with no clear understanding of Yan’s political ideology beyond the creation of an international system based on cosmopolitanism.  

Yan Xisan, How To Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundation of World Peace, pamphlet, pp 1-41.