It is time to persuade China to pursue the “rule of virtue”
ONUMA Yasuaki / Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo
March 13, 2018
The most important task for Japan in international politics in 2018 is to stop North Korea’s development of nuclear missiles. But that is by no means the only challenge. An even more important task for Japan from a long-term perspective is to rebuild its relationship with China, which is becoming a superpower. This “superpower” China may well bring tectonic changes to the present U.S. -centered world order.
Based on such an idea, I made the following prediction about China’s growing power as early as in the 1980s in an article entitled “The Historical Meaning of Economic Disputes” (Chuo Koron, September 1986 edition): China would exert heavy pressure on the world by mastering the “Western ways with Chinese characteristics” (as compared to the “Japanese spirit and Western learning” in the process of Japan’s modernization). More than 30 years have elapsed since then. As an academic, I am happy that my prediction was not off the mark. Yet as a citizen I am seriously concerned that a colossus China is now projecting its power and is casting a dark cloud on the international order.
The international order reflects the powers and ideas dominant in the epoch. In the 20th century, the dominant powers and ideas of the world resided in the West. In the 21st century, power will most likely shift to Asia centered on China. But what will happen to ideas and soft power?
Up until the 19th century, China had been a great “civilizational power,” viewed with reverence by peoples of other countries. Today, China has no such magnetism: it blatantly pursues its coercive diplomacy, and its tourists behave in ways that are frowned upon in many parts of the world.
In the meantime, the ideational leadership of the United States has declined sharply under President Trump, who is indifferent to such abstraction and is viewed with contempt by people in many countries. This has buoyed the self-confidence of the Chinese leadership, who has started propagating its “Chinese-style” universal values and interests. The Chinese government justifies the initiative of the “One Belt One Road” and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank by advocating those values and interests, which, according to it, can be shared by the people in the wide areas that come under their coverage.
These may be characterized as the beautiful façade or ideology to cover up China’s coercive diplomacy supported by its military and economic power. However, such duplicity of the ideology and coercive diplomacy had been the case with the policies of the British Empire in the 19th century. It was also the case with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank led by the United States in the 20th century.
The key question is whether a powerful state pursues its policies by means of naked power or in a more refined and acceptable manner. The choice depends not only on the leaders and people of that state. It also depends on the views and policies of the peoples of the countries that keep watching it.
In the 1920s, when Japan, as an emerging power, was about to defy the international order centered on Britain and the United States, Sun Yat-sen, later to become the founding father of the Republic of China, posed the following question to the Japanese people: Do you pursue the rule of might, which meant resorting to military force, or the rule of virtue, which meant influencing people through justice and equity?
There were some proponents of the latter in Japan such as ISHIBASHI Tanzan, a liberal journalist who served as prime minister in the 1950s. However, the Yellow Peril racism in the Western world as embodied in the US Asian Exclusion Act left no room for these internationalists in Japan. The hardliners came to dominate the political and military establishments. Japan pursued the rule of might to defy the international order by force, leading the nation to devastation.
We have much to learn from this history. Even in China under Communist rule, there are people who wish to turn the façade of virtue into reality. We should not just “confront” China militarily. We should appeal to the Chinese people by saying, “In the past, we used to have the deepest respect for you, not because of your military might but because of your great thoughts, arts and culture of civility. We would like you to look back on this, and pursue the rule of virtue, not the rule of might.”
It is vitally important that we continue to make this effort of persuasion patiently and tirelessly. For, at the end of the day, there would be neither security nor prosperity for Japan, if it were pitted against China the superpower as its enemy.
ONUMA Yasuaki is an expert of international law. His publication includes
International Law in a Transcivilizational World (Cambridge UP, 2017).
This article appeared in the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper of January 30, 2018.
Based on such an idea, I made the following prediction about China’s growing power as early as in the 1980s in an article entitled “The Historical Meaning of Economic Disputes” (Chuo Koron, September 1986 edition): China would exert heavy pressure on the world by mastering the “Western ways with Chinese characteristics” (as compared to the “Japanese spirit and Western learning” in the process of Japan’s modernization). More than 30 years have elapsed since then. As an academic, I am happy that my prediction was not off the mark. Yet as a citizen I am seriously concerned that a colossus China is now projecting its power and is casting a dark cloud on the international order.
The international order reflects the powers and ideas dominant in the epoch. In the 20th century, the dominant powers and ideas of the world resided in the West. In the 21st century, power will most likely shift to Asia centered on China. But what will happen to ideas and soft power?
Up until the 19th century, China had been a great “civilizational power,” viewed with reverence by peoples of other countries. Today, China has no such magnetism: it blatantly pursues its coercive diplomacy, and its tourists behave in ways that are frowned upon in many parts of the world.
In the meantime, the ideational leadership of the United States has declined sharply under President Trump, who is indifferent to such abstraction and is viewed with contempt by people in many countries. This has buoyed the self-confidence of the Chinese leadership, who has started propagating its “Chinese-style” universal values and interests. The Chinese government justifies the initiative of the “One Belt One Road” and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank by advocating those values and interests, which, according to it, can be shared by the people in the wide areas that come under their coverage.
These may be characterized as the beautiful façade or ideology to cover up China’s coercive diplomacy supported by its military and economic power. However, such duplicity of the ideology and coercive diplomacy had been the case with the policies of the British Empire in the 19th century. It was also the case with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank led by the United States in the 20th century.
The key question is whether a powerful state pursues its policies by means of naked power or in a more refined and acceptable manner. The choice depends not only on the leaders and people of that state. It also depends on the views and policies of the peoples of the countries that keep watching it.
In the 1920s, when Japan, as an emerging power, was about to defy the international order centered on Britain and the United States, Sun Yat-sen, later to become the founding father of the Republic of China, posed the following question to the Japanese people: Do you pursue the rule of might, which meant resorting to military force, or the rule of virtue, which meant influencing people through justice and equity?
There were some proponents of the latter in Japan such as ISHIBASHI Tanzan, a liberal journalist who served as prime minister in the 1950s. However, the Yellow Peril racism in the Western world as embodied in the US Asian Exclusion Act left no room for these internationalists in Japan. The hardliners came to dominate the political and military establishments. Japan pursued the rule of might to defy the international order by force, leading the nation to devastation.
We have much to learn from this history. Even in China under Communist rule, there are people who wish to turn the façade of virtue into reality. We should not just “confront” China militarily. We should appeal to the Chinese people by saying, “In the past, we used to have the deepest respect for you, not because of your military might but because of your great thoughts, arts and culture of civility. We would like you to look back on this, and pursue the rule of virtue, not the rule of might.”
It is vitally important that we continue to make this effort of persuasion patiently and tirelessly. For, at the end of the day, there would be neither security nor prosperity for Japan, if it were pitted against China the superpower as its enemy.
ONUMA Yasuaki is an expert of international law. His publication includes
International Law in a Transcivilizational World (Cambridge UP, 2017).
This article appeared in the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper of January 30, 2018.
The English-Speaking Union of Japan
中国に「王道」説くべき時代
大沼 保昭 / 東京大学名誉教授
2018年 3月 13日
２０１８年の日本にとって最も重要な国際政治上の課題は北朝鮮の核ミサイル開発を食い止めることにある。だが課題はそれだけではない。超大国化しつつある中国との関係の再構築は、長期的な観点から見たときさらに重要な問題である。超大国・中国は米国中心の世界秩序に巨大な変容をもたらしうるからである。
私は１９８０年代に「経済摩擦の歴史的定位」（中央公論８６年９月号）でこうした認識に基づき、「和魂洋才」ならぬ「中式洋才」をもって強大化した中国が世界に巨大な重圧感を与えるだろうと予測した。それから３０年。予測が外れなかったのは学者としてうれしいことだが、実際に強大化した中国の行動は国際秩序に暗雲を投げかけている。
国際秩序は時代の力と理念を反映する。２０世紀、世界の力と理念は欧米にあった。２１世紀、力は中国を中心とするアジアに移るだろう。だが、理念、ソフトパワーはどうだろう。１９世紀までの中国は、諸国民から畏敬の念をもって見られる文明大国だった。露骨に力の外交を繰り広げ、観光客の所業が世界中でひんしゅくを買う現在の中国にそうした魅力はない。
他方、理念に無関心で諸国から侮蔑の念を抱かれているトランプ大統領の下で理念的指導力が激減した米国との対比で中国の指導部は自信を強め、「中式」の普遍的価値・利益論を掲げ始めている。「一帯一路」もアジアインフラ投資銀行も、それがカバーする広い地域の人々が共有できる価値と利益をうたっている。
それらは中国の鎧（軍事的強圧や経済的圧力）を隠す美しい衣（建前）ではある。しかし、そうした衣と鎧の二重性は、２０世紀の米国主導の国際通貨基金（ＩＭＦ）、世界銀行や、１９世紀の大英帝国の政策にも常に存在したのである。
重要なのは、強国が鎧をむき出しにするか、衣をより美しくしようと努めるかである。そしてその選択は、強国の指導者や国民だけでなく、その国を見守る諸国民の見方や政策にも依存する。
１９２０年代、新興の強国・日本が英米本位の国際秩序に刃向かおうとした時、中国の孫文は日本国民に武に訴える覇道をとるか正義公道で人を感化する王道を歩むかと問うた。日本国内にも石橋湛山などの「王道」派はいたが、欧米の黄禍論や排日移民法はそうした国際協調派の居場所をなくし、対外強硬派が政軍を支配した。日本は結局武力で国際秩序に挑戦する覇道をたどり、国を滅ぼした。
この歴史は示唆的である。共産党政権下の中国にも美しい建前を実現しようという人々はいる。中国に軍事的に「対峙する」だけでなく、中国の人々に「私たちがかつて尊敬してやまなかったのは貴国の優れた思想、芸術、礼節です。強大な軍事力ではありません。それを思い起こし、覇道でなく王道を歩んでください」と根気強く説き続けることはきわめて重要である。
超大国・中国と敵対するとき、日本の安全も繁栄もあり得ないのだから。
（筆者は国際法の専門家であり、International Law in a Transcivilizational World (Cambridge UP, 2017)などの著者。本稿は２０１８年１月３０日読売新聞に掲載された。）
私は１９８０年代に「経済摩擦の歴史的定位」（中央公論８６年９月号）でこうした認識に基づき、「和魂洋才」ならぬ「中式洋才」をもって強大化した中国が世界に巨大な重圧感を与えるだろうと予測した。それから３０年。予測が外れなかったのは学者としてうれしいことだが、実際に強大化した中国の行動は国際秩序に暗雲を投げかけている。
国際秩序は時代の力と理念を反映する。２０世紀、世界の力と理念は欧米にあった。２１世紀、力は中国を中心とするアジアに移るだろう。だが、理念、ソフトパワーはどうだろう。１９世紀までの中国は、諸国民から畏敬の念をもって見られる文明大国だった。露骨に力の外交を繰り広げ、観光客の所業が世界中でひんしゅくを買う現在の中国にそうした魅力はない。
他方、理念に無関心で諸国から侮蔑の念を抱かれているトランプ大統領の下で理念的指導力が激減した米国との対比で中国の指導部は自信を強め、「中式」の普遍的価値・利益論を掲げ始めている。「一帯一路」もアジアインフラ投資銀行も、それがカバーする広い地域の人々が共有できる価値と利益をうたっている。
それらは中国の鎧（軍事的強圧や経済的圧力）を隠す美しい衣（建前）ではある。しかし、そうした衣と鎧の二重性は、２０世紀の米国主導の国際通貨基金（ＩＭＦ）、世界銀行や、１９世紀の大英帝国の政策にも常に存在したのである。
重要なのは、強国が鎧をむき出しにするか、衣をより美しくしようと努めるかである。そしてその選択は、強国の指導者や国民だけでなく、その国を見守る諸国民の見方や政策にも依存する。
１９２０年代、新興の強国・日本が英米本位の国際秩序に刃向かおうとした時、中国の孫文は日本国民に武に訴える覇道をとるか正義公道で人を感化する王道を歩むかと問うた。日本国内にも石橋湛山などの「王道」派はいたが、欧米の黄禍論や排日移民法はそうした国際協調派の居場所をなくし、対外強硬派が政軍を支配した。日本は結局武力で国際秩序に挑戦する覇道をたどり、国を滅ぼした。
この歴史は示唆的である。共産党政権下の中国にも美しい建前を実現しようという人々はいる。中国に軍事的に「対峙する」だけでなく、中国の人々に「私たちがかつて尊敬してやまなかったのは貴国の優れた思想、芸術、礼節です。強大な軍事力ではありません。それを思い起こし、覇道でなく王道を歩んでください」と根気強く説き続けることはきわめて重要である。
超大国・中国と敵対するとき、日本の安全も繁栄もあり得ないのだから。
（筆者は国際法の専門家であり、International Law in a Transcivilizational World (Cambridge UP, 2017)などの著者。本稿は２０１８年１月３０日読売新聞に掲載された。）
一般社団法人 日本英語交流連盟