HARMONY DIPLOMACY: BE MORE A RESPONSIBLE WORLD POWER,

NEITHER AN ENEMY, NOR A PARTNER, NOR A JUDGE

BY FRANCIS C W FUNG, PH.D.
San Francisco, November 19, 2009
INTRODUCTION
This essay is a humble response to PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer broadcast
(November 16, 2009) following President Obama’s town hall meeting in Shanghai. In
answering Lehrer’s question “Will China be a partner or an enemy to America?”, James
Fallows, the seasoned journalist, replied “Probably neither.” All indications point to
China becoming “both an important partner … and a contender in various ways.”
Fallows is the distinguished editor in chief of the Atlantic Monthly and a personal friend.
With due respect and not to steal his thunder, I wish to expound further.

Jim Lehrer’s repeated question to his media panel was “Will China become a partner or
an enemy to America?” This question is riddled with a Cold War overtone and is not at
all appropriate and beneficial to Obama’s practice of harmony intentions. China
consistently insists on the principle of non-interference in other countries’ domestic
affairs. She has practiced her professed independent foreign policy since her founding
and has no intention to become America’s enemy. In support of building a better
consensus for coming cooperation between the greatest developed world power and the
developing world power, I suggest the timely practice reflected by the title “Harmony
Diplomacy: be more a responsible world power, neither an enemy, nor a partner, nor a
judge”

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE OPEN TO THE WORLD

As a student interested in U.S. China relations since my days at Brown University after I
emigrated from Shanghai, I cannot claim I am an expert comparable to James Fallows’
depth of experience. But as a bicultural person living in America for over 50 years and
raising three multicultural children, the PBS news story about Obama’s visit to China
reminded me two pieces of Chinese wisdom. Laotze advised: the more powerful, the
more one needs humility. And, Confucius once said that insensitive lecturing is more a

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sin than a virtue. Obama is in a position to advise China about openness. China, as a
nation, judging by the success of three decades of reform and opening up, fully
appreciates that a progressive nation must be open to the outside. Most of all, openness
needs to be followed by humility and the will to learn. The rise of China as a nation fully
demonstrates the Chinese people’s willingness to learn from the outside. Nevertheless,
we must guard against free public advice, less we trample on others’ dignity.

As a young country, America is well endowed in resources and financial successes. We

are lucky to have attracted so many foreign talents who contributed to building a
prosperous society. But, are we willing to learn from these foreign cultures or their
success experiences, instead of making excuses? Especially from Eastern cultures
that may hold a drastically different philosophy and pursue different development
paths? What happens if a reverse “brain drain” takes place when our economy is in
relative decline during a financial crisis? (For example, see the November 17, 2009
Time magazine article “Obama's Half Brother Mark Obama Ndesandjo Speaks Up in
China.”)

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMERICAN AND CHINESE OPENNESS

Chinese students of her long history understand that the rise of Han and T’ang dynasties
came about because of extensive cultural interaction with the world through flourishing
commerce via the silk route that reached to Europe. They also understand the set backs
of a self-imposed closed society during the later Ching dynasty (1600s – 1900s) because
of the complacent and arrogant attitude that China had nothing to learn from the outside
world. For over three hundred years since 1700, China suffered bitterly for not opening
enough to the outside. However, the more recent Western-imposed containment during
the early years of the founding of the People’s Republic of China was not entirely the
fault of the Chinese government. (Mao Zedong was eager to normalize U.S.–China
relations by launching "ping-pong diplomacy"). Thank goodness, that is all in the past
and China has forged ahead with her reform and opening up initiated by Deng Xiaoping.
The last three decades of China’s success amply testify to her willingness to learn from
the outside. There is no turning back.

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In my honest opinion and observation for today, America has a confident and open
domestic society. But China is more open to the outside, because the nation as a whole is
more willing to learn from the outside. Mere openness to outside news, without the
humility to learn, can result in self-censorship and block acceptance of news about
outside culture and success. This failing has happened to all declining powers in the past.

China’s willingness to learn from the outside during the last three decades is exemplary
for a country of her size. Throughout PBS news' spontaneous interviews of persons on
the street during Obama’s Beijing visit, all knew Obama by name. A simple game of
statistics by interviewing residents of major U.S. and China cities would no doubt show
that more Chinese know Obama by name than Americans know Hu Jintao by name.
There is a general lack of respect and arrogance of the American public towards Chinese
culture. This attitude is nurtured by the U.S. media’s chronic criticism of the Chinese
government. This trend will continue unless the U.S. as a nation demands the
implementation of fair, accurate, and more diverse cultural reporting by the U.S. media,
as signed onto by all major media in the World Media Summit Declaration, Oct. 2009.

Interestingly enough, a similar contrast can be observed in the history of East and West
cultures. Traditionally, the Chinese agrarian society exhibited a tightly controlled family
and imperial structure, with a stern head of the household and emperor. The order of the
society was Confucian with strict moral discipline within. However, the Chinese empire
was never very expansionistic and was satisfied with a tributary system, rather than
imposing its values on its neighbors. On the other hand, Western power was typically
expansionistic and colonized the conquered territories. At the same time, Western culture
traditionally valued democracy and practiced a loose family order. This is in keeping
with American’s wish to police the world; yet the society within is very liberal. This
cultural gap between East and West will take continuing dialogue to bridge and is the
main reason for America’s critical view of China's domestic policy. The world order
today is not very democratic internationally. A new world order is needed for our
multilateral, multicultural world.

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With the current trend continuing, China will become more liberal and will improve its
domestic openness, including the internet for domestic consumption. By all indications,
China will grow more confident about her internal security as the government
implements its “Concept of Scientific Development” and the country becomes more
prosperous and its society more harmonious. This will take time. China will also remain
internationally more outward-looking to learn from the outside than America is. For
China, this is by necessity, as well as by national determination, for a long time to come.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S MEETING IN CHINA, HARMONY DIPLOMACY IN

ACTION.
President Obama is a man of vision. He is a rare U.S. president with a diverse ethnic
background, who has respect for Asian culture. Besides his own experience in South
East Asia, it has recently come to the public that his half brother and sister are both
successfully married to Chinese spouses. His speech and fielding of Chinese youths’
questions showed respect and humility for his Chinese host. I am also a great admirer of
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premeir Wen Jiabao for their humility and dedication to
serve the Chinese nation and for their advocacy for world harmony. I have confidence
that, together, these three dedicated public servants of America and China will steer a
promising course to a U.S. – China strategic partnership for a harmonious future.

To quote the November 16, 2009 Xinhua News, President Obama set an example for
Harmony Diplomacy in action:
Visiting U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday that different countries
should learn from each other to diversify cultures in the world.
"Each country in this interconnecting world has its own culture, its own
history, and its own traditions," Obama said during a dialogue with Chinese
students in the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.
"It is very important for the United States not to assume what is good for us is
automatically good for somebody else," he said when responding to a question
raised by a Shanghai college student about how to promote cultural exchanges
between different countries.

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 Obama said one of the U.S. strengths is the country has a very diverse
culture, and has people coming from all around the world. "There is no one
definition of what America looks like," he added.
He cited his family as an example of diverse cultures, saying the family is
like "the United Nations" as his father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas
of the U.S. Midwest, while his sister was a half-Indonesian married to "a Chinese
person from Canada.

JOINT STATEMENT ISSUED BY OBAMA AND HU JINTAO

According to an Associated Press Novemebr 18, 2009 report:
At a state banquet Tuesday night, the People's Liberation Army band
serenaded Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and much of the
Chinese leadership with American songs including ‘I just Called to Say I Love
You’, ‘We are the World’ and ‘In the Mood’."
The joint statement that Obama and Hu issued was the broadest of its kind in
30 years of formal relations. It contained expressions of cooperation in relations
between their two often-mistrustful militaries, on a human rights dialogue, on
space exploration, and on shoring up Afghanistan and Pakistan — as well as the
big topics of climate change, economic recovery, and defanging North Korea's
and Iran's nuclear programs.
"It's wonderful to have the President Obama here," Lu Hualin, a middle-aged
office administrator in Beijing's business district, said Tuesday. "I didn't watch the
town hall, but it's pretty obvious that the Chinese really like him for the energy,
intellect and charisma he brings to the conversation. I think we'll welcome anyone
who has an agenda to better the world and work toward world peace."
Hu said each country should respect the other's "core interests" — code for
Washington to end arms sales for Taiwan and support for the Dalai Lama's
Tibetan exiled government. The Xinhua News Agency later quoted Hu as saying
Washington should also ban advocates for Muslim ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang, the
western China region where anti-Chinese rioting flared anew this summer.

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THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND HARMONY RENAISSANCE

The unprecedented comprehensive joint statement shows the success of Obama’s

harmony diplomacy in China. America needs China to continue to fund the U.S. deficit.
China needs the U.S. to support her effort to unify the nation, including Tibet and
Xinjiang. In the past, America, in the name of human rights, has interfered in what China
considered as internal affairs by supporting the Dalai Lama and the Xinjiang separatist
movement. On both counts, the Chinese citizens are overwhelmingly behind their
government. Thus, America’s double standard of treating Al-Qaida as a terrorist
movement and Tibet and Xinjiang as a human rights issue will not be credible in the long
run. Thus, too, the continuing human rights dialogue is instrumental and essential in
bridging the cultural and core interest gap between the two world powers.

America’s founding values are freedom and democracy, both inherited from European
Renaissance. The rise of China has necessitated the U.S. media to practice self-
censorship to protect the status quo. In so doing, it stumbles to slow harmony philosophy
from growing in America. Harmony is an ancient cultural common value of the world.
The twelve virtues of harmony are TOLERANCE, ACCEPTANCE, RESPECT,
KINDNESS, FORGIVENESS, HUMILITY, GENTLENESS, PATIENCE,
EQUITY, NONVIOLENCE, GREEN ECOLOGY, AND CONSERVATION. The
last two being actions we now must collectively take urgently to harmonize with nature in
order to avoid catastrophe on earth.

In today’s multilateral world, a Harmony Renaissance is inevitable. Harmony

Renaissance is the renaissance of world civilization. Harmony Renaissance will
unshackle us from racial, ideological, and religious strife. As a young dynamic country,
America should act more like a responsible power to advocate Harmony Renaissance.
Harmony Renaissance is the next wave of creative energy that will lead humankind to the
next level of accomplishment beyond the European Renaissance.

In an interview with Charley Rose on November 17, 2009, Dr. Henry Kissinger, who was
instrumental in normalizing U.S. – China relations, expounded on the coming of a new

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world order. He declared that world order means America and China must work in
consensus, harmony consensus. Harmony Renaissance will herald that brave new world
of peace and prosperity. To build a new world order, it is paramount that U.S. lead in
harmony diplomacy.

Francis C W Fung, Ph.D.,

Director General
World Harmony Organization

Dr. Fung’s Background:

Francis C W Fung, Ph.D., received his education at Brown University, Johns Hopkins University,
and the University of Notre Dame. He is the founder and Director General of the World
Harmony Organization, a U.N. accredited non-profit public benefit NGO. He is also a leading
scholar on Stirling engines. As a prolific and creative thinker, his over 200 essays, papers,
inventions, and five books on Harmony Renaissance, broadly include engineering research,
national energy planning, Stirling engine renaissance, international relations, Harmony Faith, and
Harmony Renaissance. His prophetic statement, “The steam engine initiated the 19th century, the
internal combustion engine powered the 20th century, and the Stirling engine will herald 21st
century Green Harmony”, delivered at the 2nd International Conference on Stirling Engines,
cannot be more true today. Currently, Dr. Fung devotes his entire energy to advocating
worldwide solar Stirling power as green energy alternative to nuclear and fossil power through
his high-level connections developed during his intensive career and promoting Harmony
Renaissance Platform with United Nations. He will continue to travel with his associates to
China, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America to further these causes.