Do We Really Know China?: An Outsider’S View

By Iris Efthymiou-Egleton

Different cultures and civilizations have different perception of a history context and ideas. The Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, Demosthenes, Aristotle, etc. shaped Western thought, Western logic and built our thought systems. Nowadays we need historical pluralism and to form a cohesive whole, especially in an increasingly multipolar world. It is said that Western people, from a European philosophical perspective, are only capable of addressing alternate philosophies using our own mindset. China historically saw its civilization as self-evident universal and did not feel the need to justify this in European terms.
Despite the difficulties in comparing different cultures and civilizations, this text summarizes the influence between China and the West, Chinas soft power as well as the current situation of China and its way up the global ladder of power.
The concept of Chineseness and the identity with the Sinosphere, a brief presentation of Chinas history, geopolitical influences, and industrial aspects, the foundation of Chinese thought, language and writing system as well as technological achievements, traditional medicine, arts, and cuisine are only some of the topics covered in the next pages. In addition more subjects are analyzed that provide an overview of the current global position of China, the countrys efforts for reform and global influence as well as its future potentials. These subjects dont fall far from discussing various economic and industrial facts like the integration of Chinese and European renewable energy markets, the made in China phenomenon, foreign policy, and the countrys position as a rising aid donor.
After reading this book, it should become obvious that China sees herself as Chung-Kuo; that means the Middle Kingdom, the centre of the universe, and the worlds oldest culture and society. So one could say that this is what they are trying to do so they can make their country again the centre of todays world. But during their rise, which they characterize as peaceful, they need to maintain global balance and escape from potential unpleasant events, for example one could think of an analogy of US-China relations and the Thucydides trap.
Its seems so far that all the odds are with them, their soft power in combination with political strategies, their ability to evolve and follow global trends in addition with a huge internal market brought China to its position today. But will China hold this place? Will the country rise to worlds number one, and in Chinas way to global dominance, are we expected to see any more reforms? It seems that all these are in the hands of the Chinese.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jun 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514499764

Iris Efthymiou-Egleton

Iris Efthymiou Prior to starting a family, Iris had a successful career in public affairs and business consultancy. For the past four years, Iris has focused her attention on the health sector and, in particular, the future of global healthcare including what she believes is the link between ancient ‘holistic’ methods and modern ideas for the delivery of inclusive care often ‘branded ‘ by the prefix ‘Community’. As well as undertaking the comprehensive research necessary for her new series of books, she has completed a ‘Masters’ and numerous other upgrades with major academic institutions including Johns Hopkins University, Harvardx, and the Karolinska Institute. Her work with healthcare professionals has given her an in-depth understanding of current needs and, from that, the insight required to create solutions for a rapidly changing future. These have to take into account the giant impact of innovative technologies and how they will affect ‘human to human’ care, with particular attention being paid to the imminent exponential growth in AI. Iris has the ability to be able communicate complicated ideas in simple, understandable English (‘Globeish’!). This ability derives from her varied International business and consultancy career where her experiences included organising business and academic conferences and being one of the keynote speakers along with numerous well-known public figures. Her combined knowledge base in healthcare, business, and economics make her uniquely qualified to help create and develop innovative solutions to the challenges facing healthcare and its ‘humanity’ in the new technological age. Her ability to ‘speak the same language’ in medical, political, and governmental ecosystems is a tremendous advantage. During this latter period, Iris has also been travelling between Switzerland, UK, Greece, and USA with her Anglo-Swiss businessman husband and their son.

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Copyright © 2016 by Iris Efthymiou-Egleton. 731464

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909851

ISBN:   Softcover     978-1-5144-9974-0

             Hardcover   978-1-5144-9975-7

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Rev. date: 06/21/2016

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Contents

Prologue

Introduction

3 The Concept of Chineseness and the Identity with the Sinosphere

3.1.1 The Song Dynasty

3.1.2 The Lu Family Compound

3.2 China in recent years

3.2.1 Chinese Revolution

3.2.2 Post-Revolution China

3.3 Geopolitical Influences and Industrial Aspects

3.3.1 China’s Changing Demographics in Brief

3.4 Topics of Western Impact on China

4 Foundation of Chinese Thought

4.1 Major Philosophical Schools in Brief

4.2 Chinese Religion

4.2.1 Mencius

5 Language, Writing System, Literature, Print

5.1 Language

5.2 Writing System and Literary Language

5.3 Poetry

5.4 Paper, Print, and Calligraphy

6. Ancient Science and Technology

6.1 Technological Feats in Brief

6.1.1 Mathematics

7 Traditional Medicine

7.1 Brief Analysis of TCM

7.1.1 Elementary Diagnosis Methods

7.1.2 Treatments and Healing

7.1.3 Herbs

7.1.4 Other Methods of Therapy

7.1.5 Expansion and current state of TCM

8 Martial Arts

8.1 Tai Ji Quan

8.2 Kung Fu

9 Cuisine

9.1 Tea

10 Soft Power

10.1 Dance and Music

10.2 Fashion

10.2.1 Clothes

10.2.2 Hairstyles

10.2.3 Jewellery

10.3 Chinese Porcelain and Chinoiserie

11 The Integration of Chinese and European Renewable Energy Markets: The Role of Chinese Foreign Direct Investments

12 Financial/Industrial Aspects and the ‘Made in China’ Phenomenon

12.1 Chinese Currency

13 Rare earth and graphene

14 New-Era Diplomatic Conduct

14.1 United States of America

14.2 European Union

14.3 Australia

14.4 Iran (Middle East)

15 China as a Rising Aid Donor

15.1 Chinese Effect on Africa

16 Discussion—What Does China Want?

References

17 Links

Appendix I

Prologue

Culture, economics, policy, technology are some of the factors that contribute to creating a sustainable societal system; yet, ‘systems’ have different meanings in different global contexts, like art. Different cultures and civilizations have different perceptions of historical context and ideas and we therefore have to think about context and perception when comparing/examining other systems.

I am Greek and my nation’s thinkers created the idea of chaos, order, philosophy, democracy (aristocracy), and this gave rise to multiple strands of thought. Chinese thinking has been fundamentally different. Nevertheless, Chinese people also philosophized about chaos moving to order under the Yellow Emperor, and this led to a single direction in the thought process and the way of living.

Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, Demosthenes, Aristotle, and others shaped Western thought and logic, and built our thought systems. Nowadays, we need historical pluralism to form a cohesive whole, especially in our increasingly multipolar world.

Westerners, coming from a European philosophical perspective, are only capable of addressing alternate philosophies, using their own mindset, rendering the endeavour almost self-defeating. For example, a question could be ‘how to reconcile the emancipatory power of human rights whilst at the same time value their inherently subversive nature in terms of governance in a society where the concept of everyone having the same rights is unknown’. China, a society historically isolated from the West but still recognizable as sophisticated and coherent, has and had no such idea.

Historically, China saw its civilization as self-evidently universal and did not feel the need to justify this in European terms. However, comparisons between such different cultures and civilizations have their own difficulties, partly through ambiguities in the translation of concepts between languages. For example, the word zhen, which is usually translated as ‘truth’, ascribes a universalizing quality absent in the meaning of ‘truth’ in its usage in the West.

Even the name ‘human rights’ is grounded in a double Western abstraction of ‘human’ and ‘right’ which does not clearly translate into all philosophies. To demonstrate an even greater difference in understanding, the word ‘democracy’, which translates into Chinese as minzhu, or ‘people as masters’, is not a concept inherent in Chinese culture or political philosophy. In fact, it is the antithesis of Confucian ideology, which stresses harmony and obedience to a higher power, which may be as mundane as family values and morality.

Needless to say that understanding or delving into the Chinese mind is extremely difficult when coming from a Western philosophical base. But why is this important?

Here is why: our world is changing before our eyes (and has done so throughout history, even if not visible to everyone). So, one could say that the only constant is change, and the rate of change is increasing. Disruption is the new norm, but at the same time, this change provides huge opportunities. So, what can we do about all these changes, possibly causing chaos and definitely disruption? Can key relationships survive through any change?

China’s recent rise is the most important event of our era, and it is and will continue to draw the world’s centre of gravity, from West to East.

I do not know how many surprises China will give us in the near future or if we will only have discontinuities or more of the same. It seems to me that one of the keys of Chinese success and astonishing growth in the last twenty-five years is that the government managed to keep the policies ‘boring’ and the economy ‘exciting’. It is common knowledge that one of the Communist Party’s great achievements is to have brought tangible improvements to the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, but this ran concurrently with rapid economic growth—can it continue without the rapid growth? One way might be to concentrate on emphasising national pride. This may be a powerful connecting element for the unity of the country, using the ideology of success. (Focusing on external threats has always been useful to governments when things at home are not so rosy! It could be that the South China Sea disputes are the beginnings of this policy.) It is important to note that Chinese script for ‘People’s Republic of China’ 中华人民共和国 (Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó) means ‘the country of harmony that belongs to all the people of the flower of the centre’.

Challenges, such as continuing economic development, corruption, environmental issues, democratic freedoms and human rights, technology, aid policies, energy and water supplies, and many more are on the agenda of any discussion. China itself has recognized that it has these and many more at all levels. With so many issues involved, there can be many risks to China’s rise both from within and without. There are many voices that liken them to the kind of situation that, in the past, was likely to lead to war.

On the other hand, we know that modern communications can help the disordered to organize themselves and bring back creative thinking and order, but the danger is that the dynamics of chaos can very easily overtake any small weakness in this process of creation. Heraclitus said, ‘Everything flows,’ and this quote seems to be more modern than ever!

Notwithstanding its modern appearance, China’s model has deep roots in its historical political system. The classic book I Ching (易經, the book of changes) is one of the fundamental texts of the Chinese way of thinking. This idea of change may explain the ease with which the Chinese faced the changes imposed on them by their governments and those they are facing now because of modernisation, among other things.

China is at an inflection point that cannot be ignored. The rest of the world needs an understanding of the forces that continue to shape its economic and political landscape as a priority. The success, or lack thereof, of China’s development will impact not only its own citizens, but also all mankind, as China is widely recognized as one of the main global actors.

It is important to understand how the country is ruled, what are the policy priorities of the leaders, how the Chinese see themselves, and how they see others. Will the Chinese prove that prosperity and modernity is not only for Europeans and Americans?

As understanding requires simplification, in this text I try to deliver a thorough introduction to many of the different aspects of the factors affecting the Chinese approach, including key research articles from specialists in relevant fields in order for the reader to gain a deeper understanding of why China behaves as it does and what its effect on the West may be.

This nation has had revolutions, wars, invasions, collapses, rebirths throughout its 5,000-year history, yet it didn’t disappear or fade into history. What makes you think a mere 25 years is going to be different?

Introduction

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‘Superpower is a term often used to describe a country that has achieved the most influential status in the international affairs owing to its political, economic, military, and other spheres’ (Korobko 2013), and superpower can be measured in terms of military, economic, political, and cultural power (the so-called soft power), as well as the area of its influence. So, is China a superpower and, if not, will it rise to be one; and how much has this country affected the West (and the globe) so far?

Martin Jacques, economist and author of When China Rules the World, states that we can’t understand the rise of China using Western concepts. This is also prominent from the ancient times when, for example, we can find a striking contrast between the terms of epistemologies concerning scientific development with important differences in the following aspects: distinct patterns of research methodology, reasoning and truth seeking, and different understanding in the relationship between man and nature. ‘Epistemologically speaking, under the far-reaching influence of such traditional Chinese doctrines as Taoism and Confucianism, Chinese are more holistic, intuitive, ethic-oriented, and inward when compared with Westerners’ (Ma 2015). So, to take Martin Jacques’ quote further, we could say that we cannot understand China in Western terms, especially now that the country is seeking global solutions, and has evolved from a passive participant to a proactive builder.

China, officially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state located in East Asia. It is the world’s most populous country, with its population exceeding 1.35 billion people. The PRC’s capital city is Beijing. The country consists of twenty-two provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau) covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometre. China is the world’s second largest country by land area or the third or fourth largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. Indisputably, it is a country full of natural beauties from the Zhangjiajie to China’s first national park Jiuzhaigou, from the various turquoise pools to the Lido waterfall. Wherever a traveller looks, China is a marvel.

This country is associated in our minds with tea, giant pandas, lanterns, and dragons that conjure up images of strength, ‘strange’ buildings, clothes, shoes, and so on. No need to say that it is associated in our minds with a very different culture than the Western. However, are these differences so immense, or do they seem so? Have we been, and are we still being, influenced by the Chinese more than we think?

It should be noted that, as demonstrated in the London School of Economics books review, in the period between 800 and 1100, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, i.e. the Silk Road leading from Europe to China ran straight through this region. So, could China revive this era? It seems that China follows an upright stream of expansion and success. However, according to the Economist, this recently halted when in August of 2015 China’s stock market endured its biggest one-day fall since 2007; even the Chinese state media called August 24th ‘Black Monday’. As a result, emerging-market currencies slumped, and commodity prices fell into territory not seen since 1999. The above also affected Western markets, causing Germany’s DAX index to fall to more than 20 per cent below its peak. According to the Economist the pain extended beyond stock markets as currencies from emerging markets such as from South Africa and Malaysia have been trembling and commodities have also been sinking. In addition oil, gold and more have been dropping.

Despite this situation, rich-world markets have regained some of their poise, and despite the many talks to the contrary, the great share of analysts that flagged this recent event as the beginning of the downfall for China and the end of all the talks on China’s global rule, it seems that China is not in crisis.

But to take things from the beginning, China is an extremely large country, and the customs and traditions of its people vary by geography and ethnicity. China’s size can define trends, market, and products on the global market.

Chinese society was throughout history isolated from the West and Western thought but has affected the entire world more than we think. Today, China has the world’s highest savings rates; about 50 per cent of Chinese GDP is saved every year, thus helping the country to accumulate huge amounts of money. Today more than 1 billion people live in China, and represent around fifty-six ethnic minority groups like the Tibetans, the Mongols, the Manchus, the Naxi, and the Hezhen, and of course the largest of them, the Han Chinese, with about 900 million people.

As stated in the China Immigration Policy, Laws and Regulations Handbook (IBP 2015): ‘China’s landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China’s coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.’

China is definitely a country whose culture, political system (mainly hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, i.e. Qin dynasty), and economy goes back to ancient times, and has many differences from Western culture that are prominent in every aspect of their history and life, from the language to the Chinese horoscope. China’s ‘soft power’, a term used to refer to the ability to shape the agenda in world politics, principles, and ideas, includes culture, language, public diplomacy, education, events, ancient feats, and so forth. From the Olympic Games to New Year celebrations all around the world, China’s culture, amongst others, has been affecting the world and western civilization. For example, the Chinese materia medica, based on the traditional Chinese medicine, has and still is shaping healthcare and pharmacology worldwide. As mentioned by the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, China is happy to use its soft power to get what it wants. Of course, this means not having to use its growing military.

Two broad categories that refer to different concepts of culture can be distinguished: a concept as a result of material elements (i.e. art, history, science, architecture, and so on), and a concept as the perception of culture, as an abstract dimension associated with the codes that serve someone in everyday life, such as the values, beliefs, perceptions, and in general, things that members of a culture consider given or facts.

History, philosophy (in close association with Chinese religion), language, and literature are one part of Chinese culture. We learn, amongst others, from the Chinese and their culture to learn from our peers, think about our legacy, be patient and persistent, take meaningful action, and build in consequences to help achieve goals. The cultural order established during the Tang dynasty, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, changed not only philosophy, but also expanded arts, religion, and generally the Chinese way of life. Chinese major scholars, something like Shakespeare of Asia, include Mao Zedong, Xu Zhimo, Wang Wei, Du Fu, and Li Bai. Poetry was important in China’s past as it was something every literate person had to do, and could do. It is said that it was the glue that held society, or literate society, together. So, it is evident that with such rich culture China has also affected the West through art, martial arts, food and tea drinking, fashion and silk, dance and music. Let alone that ‘with a population currently estimated at more than 1.3 billion, China could make a big difference in the global religious landscape during the coming decades’ (Pew Research Center 2015).

Various inventions have also affected the West. It is said that ice cream was invented in China around 2000 BC and the first ice cream was soft milk and rice mixture packed in the snow. More significant inventions include paper and print.

In 2010, forty noteworthy Chinese sites were inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, i.e. the Great Wall of China, Mount Tai (Tai Shan), and the Forbidden City. Twenty-nine of these were inscribed as World Cultural Heritage Sites, while seven were inscribed as World Natural Heritage Sites, and