Yan Xishan’s pamphlet, “How to Prevent Warfare and Establish the Foundations of World Unity” is a fascinating document that discusses the ideology of Cosmopolitanism combined with Chinese concepts of Da-Tong (大同), and Socialist thought. An ideological system that can be succinctly described as Chinese Socialist Cosmopolitanism. [1]
In terms of time, the general intellectual trend was leaning towards Cosmopolitanism during this period. With the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, ideas of global governance and unity were being discussed. However, the place that this pamphlet arose from is surprising.
Despite, Western political and ideological concepts such as Republicanism, Democracy and Welfare introduced through Sun Yat-Sen’s (孫中山) declaration of the Three Peoples Principles in 1905, being well known and popular throughout China. These concepts were mostly constrained in a national context. To embrace, and indeed expound the concept of Cosmopolitanism as Datong was incredibly far-sighted on Yan Shixan’s part.
Several intellectual strains come to mind when considering Yan’s ideas. The first is that of Kantian Cosmopolitanism, especially his work ‘Towards Perpetual Peace’. This is in specific regard to the “Recognition of the equality of man without discrimination of race, colour, belief, country” as highlighted in the pamphlet. Yan invokes, whether with or without intent, Kant’s concept of ‘Cosmopolitan Law’ which suggests a universal law that incorporates states and individuals globally. [2] The concept of Datong has a similar concept to that of Kant’s Cosmopolitanism but instead utilizing a “right” based legalistic approach to Cosmopolitanism, emphasizes an ethical and moral social grounding for it. This points to the motivations for actions promoting global harmony and cooperation being grounded not in the rational thought of individuals forming society, but rather moral cultivation and development.
The second intellectual strain that Yan considers when elucidating his concept of Cosmopolitanism, is that of the Doctrine of the Golden Mean (also known as Aristotelian Virtue Ethics). This idea is derived from Western Philosophical traditions from Ancient Greek Philosophy. [3] Despite this, to view Yan’s understanding of the Golden Mean as one that was simply borrowed from Greek Philosophy would be to assume that similar concepts in Chinese philosophy do not exist. The concept of Zhongyong (中庸) taken from Neo-Confucian Scholars such as Zi Si (子思) is also commonly referred to as the Doctrine of the Mean. Indeed, Aristotle never really expanded his concept of the Golden mean to encapsulate ‘trespasses’ taken by one person against another. [4] His concept was more concerned with individual ethical behaviour with the fundamental basis of his theory being Ethical Egoism. Yan, on the other hand, seems to interpret ‘Unity of Contradiction’ as a Golden Mean between individuals, something that is more evocative of Zi Si’s understanding of the Golden Mean.
Considering the origin of intellectual ideas is incredibly important especially when discussing ideas originating from East Asian sources. Due to the vast majority of our educational upbringing, it is often assumed that the intellectual origins of ideas are taken from notable Western thinkers. Yan Xishan’s ideas on Cosmopolitanism highlights the similarities in intellectual ideas between Western and Eastern thought while allowing us to examine the differences at their core.
[1] Yan, Xishan. How to Prevent Warfare and Establish Foundation of World Unity, pamphlet, pp1-41
[2]Brown, Wallace Brown, Grounding Cosmopolitanism: From Kant to the Idea of Cosmopolitan Constitution, Book, 2009, pp31-54
[3]Hursthouse, Rosalind, Virtue Ethics, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/, 2016
[4] Boi, Peter K., Neo-Confucianism in History, Harvard University Asia Center, 2008