1. Iran’s nuclear issue against the background of the modern history

Iran’s nuclear issue which creates a great sensation recently is actually a rather small part of the big historical picture, that is, the whole modern history. In the past two or three hundred years, weapons which mankind relies on for killing with each other have made rapid “progress,” upgrading from lances, bows and arrows to nuclear weapons. The rapid progress of weapons was driven by an incentive mechanism, that is, whoever owns more advanced weapons will gain advantage in international competitions. This mechanism exists widely in the military, political, economic and culture fields.

Such a judgment could be easily demonstrated. In the international political arena, five permanent members of the U.N.—the U.S., Britain, France, Russian Federation, and China, are five largest nuclear powers, the total of whose GDP account for around 44% of the aggregate of over 200 countries and regions in the world. Special attention should be paid to the U.S. who possesses absolute nuclear advantage. With its GDP taking up 28.5% of that of the world (in 2004), the U.S. could ignore the U.N. and take unilateral actions when it considers necessary to do so. Various factors, ranging from CNN to the Hollywood, all help American culture to gain advantage around the globe.

Therefore, rules of the game which are practically accepted in modern times strongly inspire all countries to develop and possess nuclear weapons. Due to being interactive , weapons may increase fear of the enemies while enhance safety of the owners. As a result, competitions in weapons become even fiercer. Among weapons of different levels, more advanced weapons have higher relative value not only because of their manufacturing costs and techniques but also because they turn all the less advanced weapons into garbage. As the top-level weapon in the world today and with advantages prior to all the other weapons, nuclear weapons own supreme value. In the current world which describes itself as “modern civilization” while actually accepts Jungle Rules (or called Social Darwinism), countries with superior violence are rewarded while those with inferior violence are punished. Naturally, weapon competitions will definitely lead to nuclear weapons because non-nuclear-weapon states will lose the game while nuclear powers will become hegemonies.

No wonder that a large number of non-nuclear-weapon states, especially those without nuclear alliances yet facing threats from hostile nuclear powers, are more motivated to develop and possess nuclear weapons. This trend could not be belittled. Nevertheless, there are two forces opposing this trend. The first force is current nuclear powers. For them, their original comparative advantages will be weakened if more and more states own nuclear weapons. The other force is the whole world. When more countries have nuclear weapons, the probability of the occurrence of nuclear wars will rise, and the earth will become even more dangerous. The interests of nuclear powers are consistent with that of the world on this point. Therefore, in terms of preventing Iran and North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons, we can see that nuclear powers represented by the U.S. are both trying to maintain their nuclear advantages and to slow down the widespread of nuclear weapons around the world.  [Page]

Nevertheless, in comparison with the impulse to develop and own nuclear weapons brought by the practical rules of game in the world, efforts to slow down or prevent the widespread of nuclear weapons are actually kicking against the pricks. If the possession of nuclear weapons means military advantages, political position and economic interests, it’s worthwhile to face risks of temporary international condemn, economic sanctions, political pressures, and even military strikes. Let’s draw a vivid analogy. In a game, the rule is as follows: whoever reaches the finish line will be awarded one million dollar and will become the referee; however, the runners will be fined one hundred dollar when they are running, and the punishment will be implemented by the referee. The result could be easily imagined. India and Pakistan are precedents. Certainly, the U.S. will strengthen its efforts (for instance, increasing the amount of penalty) to repress the hostile countries, such as, Iran and North Korea. However, as long as the U.S. continues to enjoy the benefits of a nuclear power and as long as the rule of Social Darwinism continues to work, all negotiations, admonish, threats, sanctions, and even use of force, will be like several sandbars in a large river, being neither able to change the golden rule that water always flows downhill nor to avoid the possibility of a world with more nuclear powers which will ultimately go to ruin in nuclear wars. It is merely a matter of time.

2. Moral dimension: nuclear weapons and terrorism

Apparently, if we limit our attention to whether Iran or North Korea has nuclear weapons, we will attend to the trivialities and neglect the fundamentals and fail to truly understand the nature of the issue of nuclear weapons.

As the product of weapon technology competitions in modern times, nuclear weapons not only extend or double the lethality of previous weapons but also change people’s moral bottom lines in use of violence. Nowadays, we view terrorism as a typical form of “immoral use of violence.” However, through a rough comparison, we will find much more the basic elements of terrorism，including the use of or threats to use violence, the ability of creating atmosphere of terror and doing harm to innocent civilians, exceeding-conventionality and concealment (Li Shaojun, Definition of the Concept of Terrorism, Origin of Terrorism, Social Sciences Academic Press, 2002)，in nuclear weapons or nuclear strategies,.

Undoubtedly, nuclear weapons are the greatest violence and could not be compared with all the other weapons ranging from men’s fists to all modern weapons in the same units of measurement. Similarly, threats to use nuclear weapons could not be compared with threats to use all the other weapons in the same units of measurement. Due to their vast scale of explosion, nuclear weapons are incapable of distinguishing civilians from soldiers. Therefore, the decision to use nuclear weapons itself means slaughter of civilians. Meanwhile, nuclear weapons undoubtedly could exert such terrifying and frightening impacts that they could be used to threaten a nationality, a state or a region as a whole. The unconventionality and concealment, the state pursued by the development of modern weapons, is exercised to the utmost in nuclear weapons and their carriers. This state is, farther, more precise and more lethal. “Farther” indicates that the distance between the killers and the victims is longer so that it becomes more impossible for the victims to fight back against or even see the killers. Thus, nuclear weapons possess the quality of concealment in attacks. “More precise” supplements “farther” so that “precision” will not be sacrificed for “far distance.” Any improvement of weapons is all “unconventional” Moreover, Nuclear weapons are unmatchable especially in terms of lethality. [Page]

Nuclear weapons exceed terrorism in the following aspects. Firstly, due to the extremely strong lethality of nuclear weapons, human society could neither resolve conflicts in old ways nor attain world peace, according to the logic of the Game Theory that repeated gaming leads to cooperation or German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s assumption, through continuous conflicts (Perpetual Peace, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.  1903, pp. 151~156). Secondly, since the nuclear game is only one sport of a much larger sports game whose rule is that “whoever owns the most advanced weapons wins,” recognition of the legitimacy of nuclear weapons equals to recognition of the legitimacy of the rule of the game. As a result, after reaching the finish line of nuclear weapons, mankind will continue to race towards new goals, such as, space weapons, genetic weapons, etc. This will lead to the emergence of weapons which are more lethal, more terrifying, more concealed, and more capable of exterminating mankind.

Ironically, in today’s international political framework based on nuclear weapons, terrorism is obviously a rat crossing the street while countries with nuclear weapons enjoy “political correctness” and “international legitimacy.” It’s hard to imagine that the international community allows certain state or non-state organizations to enjoy the “rights” of establishing terrorism organizations and does not permit this sort of “rights” to be spread to other countries or organizations, yet allows certain state or non-state organizations to enjoy the “rights” of developing and owning nuclear weapons which far exceeds terrorism, and does not permit this sort of “rights” to be spread to other countries or organizations. In return, we could infer that the possession of nuclear weapons in itself is also a crime if the existence of terrorism is a crime.   

We notice that the U.S. is the only country which once used nuclear weapons and that it often makes nuclear threats. Leaders of the U.S., including presidents, secretaries of state and secretaries of defense, made clear threats of using nuclear weapons for at least six times. In addition, the U.S. once worked out attack plans using atomic bombs as weapons, such as, the Pincher Plan, the Meat Grinder Plan, the “OPLAN 8-52” Plan, the Condor Plan and the Wide Ball Plan. The Soviet Union once drew up nuclear attack plans targeting China. Britain and France also once made threats of using nuclear weapons. In strategic research, nuclear strategy is defined as a neutral war strategy and becomes merely one of the academic affairs; its contents, such as, “massive retaliation,” “assured destruction,” however, all include deprivation of lives of numerous civilians in concept. If we admit that nuclear weapons are morally worse than terrorism, we have to say that the rule of this world is abnormal and reversed as these nuclear threats, attack plans and strategies could exist openly and legally and received no censure from the international community. [Page]
 
The attempt to stop one or two countries from obtaining nuclear weapons is surely one sort of efforts to prevent the world from getting worse. However, it would be today’s most serious nuclear problem if we do not even realize that the nuclear order which we now live in is what truly have the ability of exterminating mankind.

3. Maintenance of advantages or perpetual peace

Although the interests of nuclear powers partially overlaps that of the world in terms of preventing Iran or North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, different goals lead to different means and very different results. If aiming merely to maintain their military advantages over other countries, nuclear powers will only consider how to unilaterally force the other countries to give up nuclear plans rather than whether their own nuclear strategies and policies will help to promote cooperation of the countries concerned and further to promote complete prohibition of nuclear weapons.

Judging from the intrinsic political mechanism, it’s very difficult for the U.S. to work out a nuclear policy which conforms to interests of the world by voting. Thus, state behaviors of the U.S. aim at merely maximization of its national interests. In terms of the nuclear issue, this indicates that the U.S. sets its military advantages above the goal of perpetual world peace and complete prohibition of nuclear weapons. For instance, in spite of the opposition by the overwhelming majority of the First Committee of the U.N., the U.S. withdrew from the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABMT) in 2001 after the fall of the Soviet Union, its Cold War opponent. Although the U.S. signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Congress did not approve this treaty. In addition, the Bush government firstly made it impossible for the treaty to come into effect by stopping submitting this treaty to the Congress for approval, and then prepared to officially withdraw from the treaty and start new nuclear tests. This action actually disintegrated CTBT and ruined the prospect of complete prohibition of nuclear weapons, the dawn of which would have already been seen.

Under such circumstances, various schemes targeting Iran and North Korea by the U.S. and other nuclear powers lack of moral strength. The two targeted countries will doubt that these schemes are merely one of the strategies to repress and weaken them by the U.S. which will not gain wide support from the international community. This is because no countries are willing to reduce armament under the pressure of increased external threats and that all the neutral countries are unwilling to see the U.S. and other nuclear powers enhance their nuclear strength although they do not like Iran and North Korea owning nuclear weapons either. Even if the two targeted countries are forced into submission by pressure from the U.N. or threats of military attacks by the U.S., this result will be merely superficial and short-term, while the cost will be enormous. [Page]

Surely, there are several theories behind these behaviors which proved that behaviors aiming at maintenance and even pursuit of military advantages share the same goal with perpetual peace. The first theory is that the peace under the control of the western world could be maintained if the western world, or their leader, the U.S., is able to maintain their leading position in military technology all the time. This theory has two propositions. One proposition is that the western world is merciful. The other is that the western world is capable of maintaining their leading position in military technology for ever. However, we will find that these two propositions do not hold water at all as long as we take a look at human history of thousands of years. The rise of the western world in recent several hundred years is accompanied by the tragic history of the non-western world. However, this fact was played down intentionally or unintentionally by the mainstream western culture which currently dominates the public opinion. In fact, different civilizations in the world progressed alternately with rises and falls, and none of them have ever stood at the leading position all the time.  

The second theory supporting the pursuit of military advantage is Immanuel Kant’s theory of “Perpetual Peace,” which claims that wars with arms expansion and war preparations of all countries will lead to a universal right system and ultimately realize perpetual peace. This theory filtered into western people’s mind and provided moral foundation for the invention of machine guns by Hiram Maxim and dynamite by Alfred Nobel by claiming that more powerful weapons definitely will terrify the Europeans and lead to world peace. Nevertheless, history has proved that weapons did not stop at machine guns and dynamite and has progressed dramatically, and has long declared that this sort of perpetual peace theory is no more than a theory used by the western world to defend their immoral pursuit of weapons.   

Finally, nuclear weapons emerge, and some western theories believe that the real terror has appeared. Therefore, here comes the theory of “nuclear balance of terror” which claims that peace will be realized because people dread use of nuclear weapons and do not dare to launch wars readily. In fact, this is a very rough lie. Judging from the perspective of two superpowers in the Cold War, nuclear weapons constrained wars between them within a certain period of time, but never prevented the two nuclear powers from using force on other countries. Even between the two superpowers, due to the rule of Social Darwinism, their undercover arms race finally broke the balance so that NATO was able to start the war against Yugoslavian in spite of the strong opposition of Russia. Moreover, nuclear balance of terror was actually disintegrated when nuclear weapons were combined with terrorism. This is because nuclear balance of terror relies on holding the people of a whole national state as hostages and terrorism has nothing to fear since it is a non-state and highly concealed form. Instead of balance, nuclear terrorism will merely lead to more terror.   [Page]

Contrary to the original wish of the western world to maintain advantages and “theories” equaling interests of the western world to that of the world, mankind is now facing a philosophical paradox, that is, in terms of the ultimate result, the more any country or country alliance wants to maintain advantages, the more impossible it is to gain peace, and the less sense of security will people have.

4. Cosmopolitanism claims on the nuclear issue

It can be seen that the real nuclear problem we now face is not the fact that one or two countries want to develop nuclear weapons, but the rule of the game which strongly stimulates a large number of countries to develop nuclear weapons, and the fact that countries which have benefited temporarily from this rule and became the vested interest group want to continue to maintain this rule. As long as this rule continues to exist and be maintained, the impulse to develop nuclear weapons will rise one after another. As a result, we solve one problem only to find another cropping up. Worse still, countries serving as the referee are not bound by the international community. They can withdraw from all the international treaties on prohibition of weapon development at any time on the pretext of national security and develop more terrifying weapons to kill. This sort of rule is a mechanism which will lead to complete extinction of mankind and a systematic error similar to cancer or incurable diseases of the immune system. 

Behind the nuclear rule are the rule of Social Darwinism which is widely accepted throughout the world in modern times and the modern system of national states which makes use of this rule. As an entity of human society which only knows gains and losses and with nationalism as the real basis of its ideology, a national state only knows how to pursue maximization of their own interests. Under the rule of Social Darwinism, countries could use all means of competition and even at the expense of interests of other countries, without any consideration of cosmopolitanism perspectives starting from the interests of the world and moral rules still existing within national states. That’s why it’s impossible to cure this sort of disease. Only when these national states generally suffer heavy strikes by destructive weapons will they make certain self-examination. However, catastrophes have already occurred, with two world wars as two cases in point. We will not be able to propose real solutions to nuclear problems from the perspective of cosmopolitanism until we transcend the entity of national states and the vision of nationalism.

Apparently, the fundamental solution to the current nuclear problem is the abolition of the rule of the game which stimulates the development of nuclear weapons, namely, the rule of Social Darwinism, and the introduction of moral principles caring about the whole world so that violence or threats of violence are only used to repress improper violence and to forcefully supply the world with public goods. This claim probably will be fleered as “asking a tiger for its skin” because we can not imagine that nuclear powers will give up their military advantages automatically. In today’s world, due to the existence of nuclear powers as well as the dominating “theories” which defends their existence, people become inured to the unusual and do not realize that they are in extreme danger. Cosmopolitanism proposals on the nuclear issue aims at subverting “political correctness” and “international legitimacy” of nuclear powers in concept, stressing the absurdity of the international order based on nuclear weapons, and further forming a mainstream international opinion that possession of nuclear weapons and establishment of terrorism organizations are both crimes against humanity. Reaching a consensus on this claim is undoubtedly the first step of mankind towards a nuclear-free world. [Page]

Certainly, cosmopolitanism claims on the nuclear issue are more than a set of abstract principles. We could also propose detailed arrangements in phases. For example, we could make preliminary suggestions on reducing nuclear stimulus, namely, reducing “bonus” of nuclear countries, increasing “penalty” on quasi-nuclear countries, and increasing “benefits” of non-nuclear-weapon countries. Hereinto, “reducing bonus” is the most important. Firstly, it requires weakened advantageous or at least relatively advantageous position of nuclear countries in international politics. For instance, in reforms of the U.N., seats of nuclear countries among permanent members of the U.N. should be decreased, or the increased seats of permanent members should at least require the condition of “being non-nuclear-weapon.” India, for example, should be disqualified in the competition for seats of permanent members of the U.N. Secondly, it requires increased obligations of nuclear countries, including “not using” or “not threatening to use” nuclear weapons, and especially “not using nuclear weapons first” and “not using nuclear weapons on non-nuclear-weapon countries.” The obligation of “not taking the initiative in launching wars against non-nuclear-weapon countries” and “disclosing information on disposition and security state of nuclear weapons to the whole world” should also be included. Thirdly, the international community should set up the “nuclear disarmament funds” by requiring the nuclear weapon countries to pay fees in accordance with the amount or equivalent amount of nuclear weapons they own, which in return could be used in research, propaganda and implementation of nuclear disarmament, etc.

Cosmopolitanism claims could also be used to solve the nuclear problems of Iran and North Korea. That is, promise levels to the two countries should be improved, and abandonment of nuclear plans by the two countries should be associated with nuclear disarmament by nuclear powers. The so-called “improvement of promise levels” requires the concerned nuclear powers, especially the U.S., to promise not to take the initiative in launching any military attacks or making any military threats. The so-called “association with nuclear disarmament” requires all nuclear powers, especially the U.S., to conduct nuclear disarmament actions, such as, destruction of partial nuclear weapons and prohibition of nuclear tests, in exchange for the abandonment of nuclear plans by Iran and North Korea. Arrangements of this sort will improve the moral charisma of nuclear powers concerned, not only wining wide support from the international community but also swaying the minds of and disintegrating the opposing forces within the two countries. Actions to reduce “bonus” of nuclear powers and to increase “benefits” of non-nuclear-weapon countries will relieve the pressure of increasing “penalty” on quasi-nuclear countries at the same time, and be able to avoid using non-peaceful means and the consequent unpredictable disasters, thus being a more feasible solution. [Page]

5. National state treaties and cosmopolitanism centers

So far, the international community has made lots of efforts in reduction and complete prohibition of nuclear weapons. For example, the overwhelming majority of countries have signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). There are also many considerations of complete nuclear disarmament. However, these efforts are not very successful. For instance, CTBT failed to prevent India and Pakistan from testing atomic bombs, did nothing about the withdrawal of signatories, especially the nuclear powers (such as, the U.S.), from the treaty, and had no provisions aiming to promote the gradual destruction of nuclear weapons by the existing nuclear powers. 

The reason lies in that these treaties are based on the international political framework made up of modern national states and they themselves are the so-called “contract of international society.” Under this political framework, each national state could sign or withdraw from treaties freely in accordance with their own judgment of gains and losses. Moral principles widely accepted here are that it’s perfectly justified for each country to start from its own interests and that it’s normal for them not to care about the other countries and the common interests of the world. Theories on national states assume that national states in pursuit of their own interests could reach an agreement which is beneficial to the common interests of the world, including perpetual peace, through negotiations or voting on equal terms as long as the boundary of rights of each country is clearly defined. However, the simple fact is that negotiations or voting on equal terms could not settle all the conflicts. With not only rights structure but also moral consensus,  a society can be able to function effectively. Therefore, the modern history is a history of the failure of the national state system. We have been seeing wars among countries in successive years, the two world wars, the Cold War, and the rapid growth of nuclear weapons.

In reality, society constituted of equal individuals and a world made up of equal national states are merely theoretical abstractions. The formation of society all relies on certain centers, such as, a certain social stratum or an elite group. It’s the same with the world. Even Immanuel Kant, who has excessive faith in the rights system, also pointed out, “a powerful and enlightened people should form a republic,--which by its very nature is inclined to perpetual peace--this would serve as a centre of federal union for other states wishing to join ” thus forming “a covenant of peace” (pp. 134~135). Therefore, if one or several nuclear powers initiated the signature of a Treaty on Complete Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by all countries of the world, a global treaty system centered on this or these nuclear countries will be formed. This treaty then becomes an effective and executable treaty. [Page]

“Powerful” often refers to military strength and the material force behind it. However, it is not a sufficient and necessary condition of “being the centre.” People often have the misconception that only advantages of violence help to gain domination. However, throughout the ages, what we have seen is that people could use violence to “seize power” and “occupy land,” but could never carry out sustainable administration over a society by relying solely on violence. Institutional economics has long noticed that the functioning of a society depends not only on the visible institutions (as well as awards and punishments by powers and materials behind it) but also on the invisible institutions (moral principles). In a sense, the latter are of greater importance. This is because powers could be used to enforce laws but not to make laws, let alone to form constitutional principles. Constitutional principles which the establishment of laws is based on could only originate from the moral consensus formed through long-term accretion of civilizations. For instance, major civilizations in the world, such as, Buddhism civilization, Hinduism Civilization, Christianity civilization, Islam civilization and the Chinese civilization, are all based on cultures transcending utility and violence. That’s why this “centre” must be “morally conscious” at the same time. This indicates that this centre should judge between right and wrong from the common moral principles recognized by human civilizations instead of merely from its own gains and losses, and set the interests of the world above their own rather than dress their own interests up as that of the world. Such a centre is what we call “a cosmopolitanism centre”

So far, in spite of the existence of the U.N., the whole world remains in the state of anarchy. This refers not only to the absence of a global government but also to the absence of a world political structure in which moral principles and rights system are complementary. This sort of complementary political structures has already been realized in most national states. The appearance of cosmopolitanism centres will add powerful moral consciousness into the basis of the international system of national states so that it will become possible for the world to move towards perpetual peace and reach the non-nuclear state. 

6. Could China become a cosmopolitanism center?

In terms of strength, the U.S. is most qualified to become such a cosmopolitanism centre. However, we do not see much hope in the US now because the highest standard of value in the U.S. is “American interests.” Despite of its enormous wealth and garrison throughout the world, the U.S. is no more than a typical national state. On the nuclear issue, the US does not have the cultural consciousness starting from the global interests. That’s why it set its own advantageous position above the perpetual peace of the world. It’s said that the U.S. government has already worked out plans to attack nuclear facilities of Iran with nuclear weapons（Seymour M. Hersh, “The Iran Plans”, New Yorker, April 17th, 2006）. This sort of plans is quite a satire on efforts aiming at non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. [Page]

Among all the nuclear powers, we find that China takes quite a unique stand. Only China persists in promising “non-first use of nuclear weapons,” which indicates “unconditional promise of no use of nuclear weapons on non-nuclear-weapon countries” and “development of nuclear weapons for the sole aim of defense” at the same time, with the goal of “complete prohibition and ultimate destruction of nuclear weapons.” Although quite a few foreigners have many misunderstandings and even perversion of this stand, we have to say that China’s stand on nuclear weapons is closest to claims of cosmopolitanism. This is not accidental.

It is a self-evident fact that China is a social entity with the largest population in the world. According to Mancur Olson’s theory, the closer the population of a group of a society is to that of the whole society, the closer its vision is to that of the society. As China’s population occupies the largest proportion of that of the world, China will suffer the greatest losses once nuclear wars take place and mankind is exterminated. This undoubtedly has becomes a practical reason for China to act as the cosmopolitanism centre of complete prohibition of nuclear weapons.

A more important reason is that China possesses the qualification of “moral consciousness,” that is, China’s profound cultural tradition of cosmopolitanism which originates from the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Confucian classic on international affairs, and Gongyang Studies which elaborates the meaning of the Spring and Autumn Annals (Jiang Qing, An Introduction to the Gongyang Studies, Liaoning Education Press, 1995) and gradually matured and perfected in the following two thousand years. This cultural tradition contains constitutional principles which a cosmopolitanism centre requires. Firstly, a state not only needs to care about its gains and losses but also has to comply with ethics. The Spring and Autumn Annals praised the moral behaviors of countries in wars more than once. For instance, the general Sima Zifan of the Kingdom of Chu persuaded the King of Chu to withdraw the troops because he could not bear the miserable fact that people in the capital of the Kingdom of Song were swapping their children to be eaten as food. This case was recognized by the Spring and Autumn Annals, indicating that the Gongyang School believes that “moral feelings born naturally by mankind” is above national interests (Jiang Qing, p. 241~243).
 
Secondly, Confucianism “classifies among peoples in terms of morality rather than races and accepts the differences of morality rather than that of races” (Jiang Qing, p. 231). Influenced by the Confucian tradition, China has no racism and nationalism traditions but a long history of cosmopolitanism tradition. Arnold Toynbee said that, China has formed cosmopolitanism tradition ever since the Han Dynasty (Choose Life: A Dialogue, International Culture Publishing Corporation, 1985, p. 294~295). Liang Shuming said that, Chinese people value “the world” and “family” while the western people value “country” and “individual;” “China in history has developed as a world rather than as a country ” (Liang Suming’s Self-selected Academic Works, Beijing Normal University Press, 1992, p. 331~332). Li Shenzhi called on modern China to return to cosmopolitanism tradition (Globalization and Chinese Culture, Pacific Journal, 1994 No. 2). [Page]

Thirdly, Confucianism believes that the only way to discard Jungle Rules of the Warring States Periods is that the world is “settled by being united under one sway." As for the question of “who can so unite it,” Mencius replied that, “He who has no pleasure in killing men can so unite it.” This means that the world must be united so as to change the rule of Social Darwinism and the confrontation among national states. This sort of unification, however, could be achieved by relying on cultural principles (he who has no pleasure in killing men) rather than on force (he who has pleasure in killing men). This is because force could only conquer the world temporarily while cultural principles could rule the world sustainably. These cultural principles are what Confucianism calls “kingcraft” and “people all over the world are all brothers,” moral principles caring about the whole world and long-term interests (Jiang Qing, p. 268~295), and what we call “moral consciousness” which society or the world is based on.

Influenced by cosmopolitanism tradition, China has rather successful practices in history. The traditional Chinese political entity is in fact greatly different from empire although it is usually called “empire.” Empire is a political form which depends on plundering other nationalities or countries to sustain its own existence. However, the relationship between China and the other countries was not the case at all. The Tributary System centred on China is more of the symbolic meaning with many cases of giving more and getting less. That’s why I call this sort of state as “post-empire.” Post-empires valuing cultural principles and inclining towards cosmopolitanism have no violent advantages over the surrounding countries or nationalities. According to Liang Shuming, traditional China was “a country with no soldiers” (p. 329). Horses, the most important strategic material in traditional society, teemed in the northern prairie. Military forces of the surrounding (especially northern) minorities were often stronger than that of the Central Plains. Powerful dynasties through the ages usually formed their advantages with the aid of military forces of the surrounding minorities. In terms of culture, letters were valued while arms were belittled. Despite of certain periods of disunion and dynastic changes, the form of post-empire continued for over two thousand years and exceeded the traditional world in many aspects. These historical facts indicate that the unification of the world does not rely on the most terrifying weapons and that a powerful and morally conscious centre has the possibility of realizing the ideal of cosmopolitanism. In addition, China is capable of becoming today’s cosmopolitanism centre because it once reached this height. 

One of China’s drawbacks is that it’s not the country with the greatest military strength. However, this does not keep it from becoming the cosmopolitanism center. With its own identity as a nuclear power, China could influence the other nuclear powers by developing its cosmopolitanism claims on the nuclear issue into concrete suggestions and submitting these suggestions to these nuclear weapon countries. Even if these suggestions are not accepted for the moment, they will form ideology of cosmopolitanism in the world and gradually win consensus of the world.  [Page]

China’s second drawback is that China has not formed a new political form with distinct advantages yet since the disintegration of its traditional political form and is still lacking in experiences of establishing a mature rights system. As a result, China has not set up its own moral image and lacks conceptions of and suggestions on combination of moral principles with rights systems. Therefore, based on a thorough understanding of China’s traditional Confucian political system of elites and modern western constitutional democratic system, China needs to extract the essences of the two systems and explore new political forms which excel the predecessors. With this as a prerequisite, China will be able to summon the world with its moral ideal as a morally conscious force and to make its cosmopolitanism claims and moral principles on the nuclear issue the “moral soul” of the rights system of national states as a cosmopolitanism centre or one of the cosmopolitanism centres.

By then, it won’t be a dream for mankind to end the era of nuclear Darwinism.

                                     
In the Community of “Senlindadi,” Changping District, Beijing
April 14th, 2006