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Harmony And Humane Governance - Contesting The Social Order In Classical Chinese Thought And 21st Century Global Society, R. Ferguson, Rosita Dellios

R. James Ferguson

When China’s President Hu Jintao articulated his country’s ‘harmonious world’ (hexie shijie) foreign policy perspective at the United Nations’ 60th anniversary in 2005, he spoke of the need ‘to preserve the diversity of civilizations in the spirit of equality and openness, make international relations more democratic and jointly build a harmonious world where all civilizations coexist and accommodate each other.’ This message has retained its salience in subsequent years and represents a particular vision of world order that is viewed as the ‘preferred’ option within current Chinese foreign policy. Where does this vision come from? In investigating the ancestry of …