This is the last of a two-part series. Foreigners who are unfamiliar with the Chinese intellectual scene and can’t read the language tend to think all Chinese think alike as dictated by doctrinaires and ideologists appointed by the communist state. This cannot be further from reality. The debates between different schools of thought and among proponents of a particular school in the social sciences and humanities are as vibrant, public and often heated as any in the West. Consider just two fashionable intellectual movements in recent years. One is inspired by Carl Schmitt, the influential German political theorist with a Nazi past; the other draws inspiration from the ancient Chinese concept of Tianxia. Schmitt famously argues that the friend-and-foe distinction is fundamental to politics. By contrast, Tianxia calls for universal acceptance, coexistence and tolerance. While Russian leader Vladimir Putin often talks threateningly of us vs them, or of the Russian world against the West, President Xi Jinping prefers the language of Tianxia . For example, the title of his speech before the United Nations in Geneva on January 18, 2017, was “Work Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind”. In a People’s Daily editorial on December 29, 2017, he called on diplomats to “cherish the motherland as well as Tianxia ”. The ghosts of Stalin and Lenin still haunt Putin’s Russia dream China’s diplomats, often dismissed as “wolf warriors”, have learned to talk of the Chinese values of “amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness” as conducive to establishing a new and more stable international order, especially in Asia. Of course, such talks are not considered news in the Western media while their impassioned rebuttals are widely reported as “proof” of China’s increasing assertiveness and bullying. Before Xi ’s “community of shared destiny”, his predecessor, Hu Jintao, tried to promote the similar notion of a “harmonious world”. Citing the language of Tianxia , both phrases have been used to explain and justify China’s peaceful rise that need not lead to violent confrontation or a showdown with the West, particularly with the United States. It provides a way out of the Western Westphalian notion of nation states; the Hobbesian state of nature of all against all; the supremacy of the West; and the hegemony of the US. In practical terms, on the understanding its core interests are respected, that means China doesn’t care about your system of government, your national religion, your economic system, or your preferred way to modernise and develop (if you are a developing country). Mr Putin, please give peace a chance Contrary to many foreign commentators, China does not challenge liberal democracy and Western capitalism any more than it challenges Islamic theocracy or Christian fundamentalism. It accepts their legitimacy like any other political and economic system. What China refuses to do is to give liberal democracy and Western capitalism privilege over all other systems, or to accept the right of those countries that practise them as being inherently superior and entitled to dictate the rules of the international system. You can call all that cynicism, opportunism or pragmatism. But top Chinese leaders do often talk in the language of Tianxia and it’s worth considering why before you condemn Chinese dictatorship and what not. They may talk peace but secretly plot for world domination. Still, wouldn’t it be good to be able to compare what they say and what they actually do? What then is Tianxia ? Literally, it’s “up above and down below”, but it can also be translated as “heaven and earth” and “all things under heaven”. As an idiom, it means “the world”, not the Chinese world. So it’s rather different from Russkiy Mir , the Russian world. As an influential school within the social science of international relations in China, it may be surprising that it was actually first popularised in the 2000s by a prominent philosopher, Zhao Tingyang, who is also a member of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Unlike another influential indigenous international relations school, which draws inspiration from the far more chaotic and brutal period of pre-unification or pre-Qin periods, namely the Hobbesian-like “Spring and Autumn” and “Warring States” eras, Zhao refers back to their antecedent Zhou dynasty (1046 to 256BC). He is following the oft-repeated declaration of Confucius in the Analects : “I follow the Zhou.” US forces Moscow and Beijing into marriage of convenience As an ideal, we all should live harmoniously under heaven, but we don’t in the world we live in. “Today’s world is full of conflict, hostility and continuing clashes among civilisations,” Zhao wrote. Frightful inequality, poverty, environmental degradation, terrorism, nation against nation, bloc against bloc, sect against sect – they are not the outcomes of evil nations against which good nations are fighting; they are the outcomes of a deeply flawed international system which encourages such behaviour and engenders such outcomes. Yet, wrote Zhao, it is possible to “coexist harmoniously” under Tianxia if powerful nations don’t try to claim the superiority and universality of their values and systems, and try to impose them on others, by force if necessary, or demonise those who resist. Of course, it would be naive to expect the powerful to reform voluntarily; it’s the global system that needs to be overhauled. With the rules changed, the behaviour of states may also change. What does this mean for Chinese foreign policy? Any international system inevitably consists of a minority of powerful states and a majority of less powerful ones. With proper international institutions, and laws and order upheld, great powers like China will learn to exercise benevolence rather than dominance. For example, with Taiwan, it may be considered a subpar state (“one country, two systems”) by which it will enjoy independence in most forms of communal or organised life, such as in its economy, culture and society. It will not, however, have the same legitimacy, privileges and obligations of a full-fledged state. As Xi and other Chinese leaders have said many times, China does not seek to subvert or overthrow the international system and global governance, but to reform them by working to increase the representation and influence of China and other developing countries. This, of course, will lead to confrontations and conflicts with the dominant Western powers, but only through the social, political and economic, rather than the military arenas. It is, at worst, a battle of systems, rather than military might. In terms of foreign (economic) policy, this means a twin strategy of overhauling old international institutions such as the (European Union-dominated) International Monetary Fund and (US-dominated) World Bank, World Trade Organization and World Health Organization; and creating alternative or even rival institutions such as the China Development Bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It’s estimated there are now more than two dozen global institutions created or co-created by China in recent decades. Ukraine is the West’s fight, not China’s Obviously, under such a Tianxia -reformed world, China expects to be a pre-eminent power commensurate with its economic and military clout, and global status. But it promises fairness and benefits – such as those under the Belt and Road Initiative – for smaller nations. All this may be propaganda, or not. Tianxia is not even the only narrative that state leaders use to legitimise their domestic rule and foreign actions, but it is a major source of their self-understanding and self-justification. Therefore, it still points to some significant truths about China and how it sees itself. It is overtly anti-militaristic; in truth, Chinese leaders realise any major war will undermine, if not destroy the nation’s hard-won economic successes. Tianxia therefore serves as a restraint on Chinese nationalism. It is pluralistic, but not liberal-democratic, by accepting or advocating a world of different states and systems – beyond Western domination. Of course, like people, what nations say or do are two different things. Just as the US claims to promote democracy and freedom while pursuing foreign actions and goals that often do anything but promote them, so China is also citing high-sounding principles to cover up self-serving deeds and goals. But people have better versions, or even the best version of themselves that are not usually realised but nevertheless worth striving for. Nations rarely fulfil their ideals and potential, but these nevertheless help define who and what they are.