Learning from China: three lessons for the ignorant West
Diego Gilardoni says after years of ignorance, the Western political and business elite need to understand that some Chinese cultural traits – such as longer-term, holistic thinking – can help open new frontiers and opportunities
There is only one thing more staggering than China’s mind-blowing economic metamorphosis in the past few decades. It is the still widespread ignorance about China among Western political and business elites. We live in a multipolar and complex world, in which China is becoming an indispensable player, but too many still think through a Western-centric and simplistic mental framework that is still rooted in the 20th century and therefore does not meet today’s challenges.
China’s increasing clout on the global stage is met with a combination of fascination, awe, concern and sometimes outright fear, and rare are those who make a serious effort to understand China and try to see the world through its cultural prism. This is a serious mistake, because understanding Chinese culture has become indispensable for anyone interested in making sense of a hyper-complex world where China plays an increasingly crucial role.
Why the world has to study Chinese history, and how China views history
Learning about Chinese cultural values is not just paramount to understanding the reasons behind China’s behaviour; the West could actually learn a great deal from China, whose system of thinking is, at least to some extent, better prepared to tackle the challenges of our “age of complexity”.
Confucius said that real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance
For example, while in the West a short-termist mentality prevails that is the root of both economic and political ills (from the financial crisis of 2008 to the transformation of democracies into inefficient “vetocracies”), Chinese culture is oriented to the longer term. Holding a long-term perspective allows you to have a clearer perspective on things, therefore reducing the risk of rushing into decisions without considering the wider context.
The long-term orientation of China is reinforced by the Daoist principle, according to which the only unchanging law of the universe is constant change. For the Chinese, things will always change and what is bad today could turn out to be good, just as much as a loss could turn out to be a gain in the future. This is why in China it’s always the context that matters.
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