FOREWARD

Unilateralism and cultural conflicts in the beginning of the 21st Century seem to
be unstoppable in view of extremism between conflicting parties and the overwhelming
U.S. media dominance around the globe. Even though the Western media may have all
the good intentions of spreading democracy worldwide, to those who yearn for diversity
of culture and international opinion in the United States, the American domination of
world media and world government policies have been stifling indeed. For fifty years
the author lived as a minority in the U.S., after emigrating from Shanghai, China. During
the last twenty years he feels the weight of U.S. unilateral world opinion through its
constant impact on his family and community. Out of necessity he developed a long term
kinship interest in Chinese ancient culture and current developments even though his
American education and professional career are in engineering, university teaching and
business. The recent rediscovery of ancient Chinese philosophies of balance and
harmony in China cannot be timelier. The U.S. is badly in need of a dose of the gentle,
tolerant and accepting Eastern philosophy that is the essence of Chinese wisdom. This
can be particularly inviting for those who are truly interested in Chinese language, culture
and world harmony. This primer on ancient Chinese harmony teaching can hopefully
bring a glimmer of light to those hopeful that “The World of Harmony Will Surely
Come” .
China during the last one hundred and fifty years, ever since the Opium War, has
been searching for its identity. The present Peoples Republic of China, rising from the
plunder of Western and Japanese Imperialism, is less than sixty years old. It is relatively
young and short in terms of China’ s glorious five thousand years of ancient history. For
2500 years China has benefited from the long tradition handed down from Lao Zi and
Confucius which emphasized its rich cultural value in harmony teachings. It is this
harmony culture that enabled China to survive changes in power, foreign invasions,
internal strife, other struggles throughout its long history. Today, China has rediscovered
its ancient heritage in the teachings of harmony, and, in doing so, China rediscovered
itself. This is not unlike Europe’ s rediscovery of ancient Greek democracy during the
European Renaissance period after the Dark Ages that led to the Enlightenment and the
spirit of America. The U.S. has had over 230 years since its independence to refine its
democratic form of government. America sets itself as a model in promoting democracy
worldwide. In the 21st century China’ s harmony movement may reach out to the world to
challenge U.S. democracy as more peaceful and accepting in a world of diverse cultures.
Ultimately, the greater harmony philosophy can envelop democracy to bring viable
alternatives for resolution of national and international conflicts.
The U.S. must wake up to the fact that the Cold War era is over. America and
China must work together to build a harmony world. World culture exchanges must be
multi-dimensional not flowing only from the West to the East. The U.S. media can play
a major role in how world culture is spread around the world. Today, the common desire
for the people of the world is development and harmony. This will be the beginning of
Eastern cultural influence. China’s belief in world development and harmony gives it the

1
platform to reach out on world stage. For over 50 years, the United States has kept its
moral high ground while relentlessly interfering in Chinese domestic affairs. At least that
is how China perceived it until its recent harmony rediscovery. By rediscovering its
harmony heritage, China is returning to its cultural roots, and in doing so, regains its
moral high ground. This will help to provide a balance to the dominance of world stage
by the U.S. and that is healthy for world harmony. The advancement of harmony will
reduce current world conflicts and confrontations. China is now actively engaging in
discussions on the Harmony World, but unfortunately, the U.S. media has rarely reported
these major events of Harmony Society and Harmony World discussions from China.
The longing for peace, development, equality, justice, acceptance and other common
values is shared by all nations, and is summed up by the Chinese world harmony belief
system. There is a definite need for a World Harmony Organization to stimulate the
exchange of harmony dialogues worldwide. America’ s vast resources and prestige on
world stage can make significant contributions to bring about a world harmony consensus.
This longing has great rallying power. It agrees with wishes of the entire world’ s people,
and agrees with tide of the times. That is why it has most of the world’ s nations and
people’s acceptance and support. Harmony as world belief also reflects China’ s
determination to be a responsible major country in the world community.
China’ s world harmony belief reflects its deep concern about current problems of
world development. Today’ s world discord is due largely to unilateralism, unbalanced
development, different states of development, and new and old cultural differences. The
harmony concept implies diversity; acceptance, tolerance and patience, therefore, each
nation can develop in its own unique cultural climate according to its state of
development. Harmony will grow in the fertile soil of the diversity of the cultures of the
world, spreading and contributing to the world harmony movement. Confucius said:
“Jun Zi He Er Bu Tong, Xiao Ren Tong Er Bu He”(Gentlemen can disagree and still
have harmony; petty persons can agree and do not have harmony). World development
cannot be dominated by one country. In an ancient Chinese saying, “one must allow
one hundred flowers to bloom and one hundred schools of thought to contend.”
Reaching for harmony, human development must be elevated to the highest level of
values to benefit the whole world and all the people. Harmony world will earn the
hearts of all the people in the world. It will become the common language and aspiration.
Harmony ideals belong to the world. All citizens of the world can contribute towards
our mutual global harmony cultural heritage.

2
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Francis C.W. Fung, Ph.D.

Dr. Fung originally came from Shanghai, China at age 16 by way of Hong Kong
to study at Brown University during the 1950’ s. He also attended Johns Hopkins
University and University of Notre Dame culminating in a Ph. D. degree with major in
aerospace engineering. His early career during the 1970’ s included university teaching,
aerospace industries (Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory) and ten years at National Institute
of Technology (in energy conservation and fire safety research). During the 1980’ s he
returned to China by the invitation of Chinese Academic of Science to lecture at the
Academy and Jiao Tong University in the fields of energy conservation. It was during
this period he founded Finance and Technology Associates, a premier business consulting
firm specialized in international technology transfer and commercialization. Among the
U.S. companies he represented included Cooper Rolls (a joint venture between Cooper
industries and Rolls Royce in power turbine technology), Combustion (Nuclear Power)
Engineering and MTI (in energy conservation technology).
Dr. Fung is a highly creative teaching and research oriented professional in
engineering, technology transfer, international business development, Chinese ancient
culture relevant to natural sciences and current events. He has published widely in areas
of aerospace engineering, fire and safety, energy conservation and current events related
to China’ s modernization. Of late he has devoted his time to research and teaching on
international business, Chinese ancient culture, Current China developments on
‘Scientific Development Concept’and ‘Harmony Society and Harmony World’ .
Dr. Fung taught Multi-national Corporations and Joint Ventures in the
International School of Business of San Francisco State University. By the
recommendation of the SFSU Confucius Institute, he has submitted two foreign affairs
papers for publication to NABE 2007, Feb conference. The theme of the conference is
“One Nation: Many Languages and Cultures in a Changing World” . The two papers
submitted are titled: “Chinese Harmony and American Democracy in 21st Century”and
Chinese Harmony Culture Old and New, Promise for a Less Confrontational World?”
Two of his recent world affairs harmony papers titled “Chinese harmony
renaissance-Can world ignore it?”and an abridged version of previous two papers under
the title “Chinese harmony and American democracy in 21st century”were published by
Xinhuanet on Nov. 1 and Nov 2, 2006 and reprinted at the end of this book.

3
 CHINA’
S HARMONY RENAISSANCE,
WHAT THE WORLD MUST KNOW*
BY FRANCIS C. W. FUNG, PH.D.

*This paper in an abridged form under a new title “Chinese harmony: Can world
ignore it?”published by Xinhuanet on No. 2, 2006 is reprinted in full at the end of this
book.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. CHINA’
S HARMONY RENAISSANCE, CAN AMERICA IGNORE IT?
II. CHINA’
S HARMONY RENAISSANCE, HOW IT ALL BEGAN?
III. THE COMING OF THE HARMONY WORLD
IV. CHINESE HARMONY AS SYSTEM ENGINEERING BLUE PRINTS
V. THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY
VI. AUTHOR’
S PUBLICATION LIST

4
 (I)

CHINA’
S HARMONY RENAISSANCE: CAN AMERICA
IGNORE IT?

On Oct. 8, 2006 the Chinese government convened the sixth plenum of the 16th
Chinese People’ s Conference, Central Committee meeting to launch the National
campaign to build a harmonious society. The resulting Harmony Communiqué is a
system engineering blue print to guide China on its path of rejuvenation. It will be an
arduous and long undertaking to build a harmonious socialist society in modern China, no
less challenging to the CPC as the revolutionary “Long March”of Chinese history. Oct.
8, 2006 will be remembered as the most important milestone of China’ s Harmony
Renaissance. By rediscovering harmony culture, China is rediscovering its own rich
ancient cultural harmony traditions. It is of similar in importance to Europe’ s
Renaissance after the rediscovery of ancient Greek culture. China’ s harmony
development will herald a brand new period of vitality and national spirit as the country
enters a new period of sustainable development. By developing its own harmony society,
China becomes the standard bearer of a harmony world.
Harmony, as taught by Chinese ancients, embraces ideas of democracy as a way
of conflict resolution between the ruler and the ruled. China has practiced harmony as a
way of life since Lao Zi and Confucius for at least 2500 years. In contrast, American
Democracy is only 230 years old, developing after Independence, and borrowing from
the traditions of European Enlightenment. As China’ s Harmony Socialism wins gradual
international recognition, it will provide an alternative model to American-style
Democracy as the leading 21st century governance system. To keep its position as the
most influential political and cultural leading country of the world America cannot afford
to overlook the 21st century Chinese Harmony Society and Harmony World development
herald by China’ s Harmony Renaissance. The consequence could be the isolation and
unwitting fall of the greatest military and economic empire of our time through its
inability to keep up with the pace of world harmony consensus. The mightiest American
military power cannot dictate world order any longer, as is exemplified by the Iraqi War,
and the Iran and North Korea nuclear confrontations. The overwhelming desires of
developing countries for common development are closing the curtains on the world of
international power politics. The world will be caught up in the surging tide of common
development and harmony conversion. The Harmony World of unity in diversity of
world cultures and governance systems will surely come.
Harmony will give China a place on the world stage to express its ancient heritage
and the moral high ground to challenge the U.S. leadership in international relations. For
over fifty years America interfered in China’
s domestic affairs in the name of democracy.
Now harmony contains democracy ideals also as conflict resolution government and its
citizens. The table will be turned between the West and China during the 21st century.
Since the Opium War, over 150 years ago, China finally able to raise its head and stand
up against the West. By doing so, China will have the unity and vitality to continue its
sustainable reform and opening up to a new era.

5
 (II)
CHINA’
S HARMONY RENAISSANCE, HOW IT ALL BEGAN?

The Sixth Plenum meeting from October 8 to 11, 2006 was a major Chinese
government national meeting to discuss major policy decisions to launch a national
campaign to build a harmonious society.* In terms of its impact on the future Chinese
society and the future world, policies announced during this meeting will have a longer
lasting effect than China’ s recent policies of reform and opening up. These policies,
initiated under the guidance of Deng Xiao Ping, led to profound benefits for China and
the world, but the nation is ready for the next step in its process of transformation. By
comparison, the October 8, 2006 meeting provided the needed national spirit of harmony
which continues on the success of the Scientific Concept of Development launched
during 2002. This new spirit is built on the essence of ancient Chinese teachings of
harmony which remains unparalleled for its richness in the world.
Due to the rapid expansion of economic and industrial activities, China, over the
past twenty some years, has developed from an egalitarian society to a society of
unbalanced wealth distribution, and from a self-sufficient society to one, like other
developed nations, that depends heavily on outside energy and other material resources.
The Scientific Development Concept was thus conceived by the Chinese leaders in 2002
to provide a blueprint for a long term sustainable development. In time, this blueprint is
expanded to include also all old and new conflicts in China’ s grand modernization.
Harmony being China’ s dominant philosophy for 2500 years it is no surprise, despite the
onslaught of Western culture for the last two hundred years China rediscovered its
ancient heritage. This is not unlike the return of harmony philosophy to the golden Han
dynasty after the Spring and Autumn Warring States period.
In the fertile soil of Chinese harmony garden after Chinese leaders called for
Harmony Society development, ideas of harmony spread like wild fire. Creative ideas of
Harmony Society from government officials, intellectuals, think tanks, academicians and
the general public is currently sweeping through the country. We may once again witness
a major New Harmony movement excelling the ancient teachings of ancient harmony that
has guided China for the last 2500 years. A true period of led hundred flowers bloom
and hundred schools content may be in the making surpassing the Spring and Autumn
period debates in scope and magnitude. This time the Chinese culture may take a leap
into the future World of Harmony.

☯
*
In this paper all news on China current events are directly obtained from
Xinhua and People’ s Daily websites.

6
 (III)
THE COMING OF THE HARMONY WORLD

In today’ s world of extreme disparity among nations, need for international

economic and political change is driven by: the widening gap in stages of development,
the increase of injustice in world order, and the growth of clashes between civilizations.
As seen in the recent unilateral Iraq War, the crisis in Sudan, and the nuclear
confrontation with North Korea and Iran, the world is hastening towards confrontation.
Written in Chinese characters, the term, “crisis”is composed of the opposing
elements, “danger”and “opportunity” . In Chinese harmony belief, the opposition of
YIN and the Yang, or the strong and the gentle are in constant contest. When YIN and
Yang are in balance, harmony is reached, as is illustrated by the Daoist double fish circle
of life. When viewed as a globe the YIN envelops the Yang as the outside shell. Lao Zi’ s
philosophy of renunciation of force is also reflected in forming Chinese words. The word
“martial”in Chinese means “stop the use of weapons” . The word “war”in Chinese
means “imbalance of weaponry” .
When country specific harmony societies grow in their own fertile soil with
distinctive cultural characteristics, World Harmony will surely spread. Each society will
have its own appropriate harmony theory and practices reflecting the wide differences in
states of development, needs and culture. For harmony to take root, basic needs must be
met, and the society must be equitable, social order must work smoothly, cultural values
must have sustaining power, and the mobility of different stratum in society should be
assured. Indices such as Happiness, Harmony, Environment, Rural and Urban must be
customized according to each country’ s will and development.
Great debates are happening today in China over whether Socialism with Chinese
characteristics become Socialism with Chinese harmony. This direct definition was
posted by the author for the first time ever in the media. In the last couple of years China
has extended the philosophy of Harmony to the practice of international relations, from
Harmony Society to Harmony Region and Harmony World. In doing so, China, as one of
the world’ s ancient civilized nations, is expressing to the world its choice and
determination to travel the road of peace and development. Harmony as the core of
Chinese traditional cultural belief, reflects the concepts of appropriate and properly
balanced relationships between man and man, man and nature, man and society and
harmony among nations. In fact Harmony Society and Harmony World are
manifestations of ancient Chinese cultural values as explained in author’ s separate papers.
Western cultures, in contrast to the East, tend to emphasize conflict rather than
harmony, personal, national, and world affairs in terms of good and evil, right and wrong.
God must triumph over the Devil, good over the bad, and the individual struggles to
conquer sin and redeem his soul. Armies fight with the conviction that God is on their
side, and leaders, like George Bush, call upon believers to support them in righteous wars.
The powerful U.S. media, adhering to the same tenants, does not report contrasting views.
Thus, Western nations, most notably the United States today, justify aggression through
their own self righteousness, convincing themselves that they are duty bound to change or
eliminate hostile countries that do not adhere to Western principles. Rather than

7
accepting differences they attempt to destroy differences to achieve uniformity in
international political ideology. In such an atmosphere, international relations become
power politics, with the assumption that new democracies that arise will be fashioned in
the mold of American and Western European systems.
In China today foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy and, at the same
time, serves domestic policy. Hu Jintao, President of China, pointed out, China must
“Closely connect our development with the progress of mankind. Develop our self
through maintaining world peace and at the same time through our own development to
promote world peace” . The Chinese government has officially stated the central ideas of
Harmony China and Harmony World as: China wants to build a harmony society of
“democracy and rule of law, justice and righteousness, trustworthiness and friendliness,
full of vitality, stable and orderly, a society of man and nature in harmony” . A Harmony
World envisioned by China is “adherence to multilateralism, realization of mutual
security, adherence to mutually beneficial cooperation, realization of mutual prosperity,
adherence to the spirit of tolerance and building a Harmony World together” .
President Hu Jintao, on April 22, 2005, when attending the Asian African Summit
meeting, suggested that “promoting friendship among different cultures, equal dialogue,
develop common prosperity and together build a harmony world” . This was the first time
the concept of Harmony World appeared on the modern world stage. Two months later
on July 1st, 2005, President Hu Jintao visited Moscow. Harmony World was written into
the China Russian 21st Century World Order Joint Communiqué” . For the first time
World Harmony was recognized as common policy belief between two major countries.
This marks the new World Harmony concept’ s gradual entrance into the vision of a world
society. Chinese leaders thoughts on World Harmony were quickly deepening, for two
months later, on September 15, 2005, President Hu Jintao gave a speech at the United
Nation General Assembly in which he detailed the deep contents of World Harmony.
Participants of the meeting gave the speech a resounding response, and world media also
gave the speech heightened notice and positive evaluation. It is generally considered
that China as a major responsible country is transmitting to the world its longing for
peaceful world development. The speech also served to relate China’ s message to build
a peaceful, prosperous and Harmony World together with the rest of the world.
Harmonious and cooperative China stands ready to work for sustainable and long lasting
peace and mutual prosperity with the rest of the world.

(IV)
CHINESE HARMONY AS SYSTEM ENGINEERING BLUE
PRINT

China’ s cultural contribution to the world is the harmony philosophy just as

Europe and America are the breeding grounds for democracy. This comparative
evaluation of both cultures is detailed by the author’s paper titled “Chinese Harmony
and American Democracy in 21st Century” . China for most of its 5000 years of recorded
culture was an agricultural society, in contrast to Europeans, most of whom were
descendants from pastoral nomads. As a continuing ancient culture China was firmly

8
rooted to cultivating the land handed down through the generations. This dependency
on agriculture led to an inclination to harmonize with nature rather than to challenge
nature. The order of nature is harmony with YIN and Yang in dynamic balance as taught
by Lao Zi. As a result harmony philosophy grew in the fertile land of this Middle
Kingdom until it was challenged by Western democracy as late as the 1900’ s. Chinese
ancient culture, rich in harmony teaching begun 2500 years ago by Lao Zi and Confucius,
was preserved and handed down with continuing refinement until modern times.
Lao Zi’ s instructions of harmony were rooted in observation of the origin of the
universe and natural science. His philosophy of human activity harmonizing with nature
was all embracing, including the practice of FENG SHUI (living with nature), physical
science, agriculture and Chinese ancient medical practice. Chinese medical practice is
holistic, based on the belief that biological systems must maintain internal balance to be
healthy. The goal of treatment is to restore the balance of opposing forces in this total
system. This led to the belief that human biological systems, society, and nations are
constantly in an influx of ever changing contending forces. Harmony is achieved when
the contending forces come to a balance or mutual acceptance under a certain set of
conditions. All systems are constantly shifting, complex, and seldom just black and white
(or in western terms, good or bad). This concept of harmony is just as fitting in today’ s
complex world and society as it was during the time of Lao Zi.
Confucius’teaching comprises social systems including: man with himself, man
between men, man and society and relations between groups and countries. This includes
harmony between government and its citizens, which means that democracy is part of
harmony system analysis. In keeping with Chinese harmony philosophy, balance is
achieved through self discipline, high moral value, social order rather than strict law and
penal system. The use of physical force is to be avoided, and employed only as a last
resort. Harmony Society discussions in today’ s China under the present leadership are
returning to the old roots of system analysis and ever changing balance of major forces in
a changing world. This is based on the very nature of Chinese peoples’longing for
harmony and the ancient teaching of tolerance, acceptance and equity. Both Lao Zi and
Confucius teachings were comprehensive system engineering analyses of Harmony for
ancient China, and the Communique is a system analysis of Socialism with Chinese
characteristics for today’s China.

(V)
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY

The ultimate principle of Chinese ancient principles, as expounded by LAO ZI in

DAO DE JING, is the balance of YIN and YANG but ultimately YIN envelopes YANG
and is beautifully illustrated in the Daoist circle sign of life. In our three dimensional
world the Daoist circular sign actually is a sphere with the outside covered by a dark shell.
In Section Forty Two of LAO ZI’ s DAO DE JING it states that ” DAO SHENG YI, YI
SHENG ER, ER SHENG SAN, SAN SHENG WAN WU. WAN WU FU YIN ER BAO
YANG, CHONG CHI YI WEI HE.”In Qin Nanji’ s publication “Brief History of the
Universe’ s Origin”(private communication), this sentence is interpreted as Negative

9
(dark) energy created proton, proton created neutron and meson, that in turn created DNA,
together all life and matter were created in the universe. Parts of this interpretation by Qin
Nanji, remain to be tested and discussed for its validity. However it is known
observation today that dark energy represents over eighty percent of the universe and
visible matter is the smaller remaining part. The second sentence in above quoted from
DAO DE JING however, clearly stated that all matters carry YIN but YIN envelops Yang,
and when YIN and Yang is in dynamic balance harmony is produced.
This general theme of YIN over YANG runs through DAO DE JING. To name a
few images from DAO DE JING; soft overcomes the hard like dripping water eventually
bores a hole in the hardest rock, water flows over and immerses that blocks it. Water
representing YIN can both float and sink a boat. Harmony represents soft power to
resolve conflicts as opposed to warfare which represents hard power. In today’ s
conflicting world one model of democracy cannot be forced on other nations of different
cultures and at different developing stages. Democracy works best by softly and
patiently winning over the hearts and minds of people. Countering extremism by
extremism is bound to lead to ultimate destruction of both sides. The best way to resolve
conflicts is to bring harmony to the confronting parties. This can start by understanding
the differences in cultural understandings and causes of conflicts through mutual respect,
trust, tolerance and acceptance. Confucius said “JUN ZI HE ER BU TONG, XIAO
REN TONG ER BU HE”which means that gentlemen place harmony above ideological
differences, and petty people fight for ideology differences. “HAI NA BAI CHUAN,
YOU RONG NAI DA” ( The sea takes in hundreds of rivers, it can be big only if it
contains). World harmony will surely come.

10
 CHINESE HARMONY AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN
21ST CENTURY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT
I. HUMAN CIVILIZATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF HARMONY
II. ANCIENT AND PAST HARMONY DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES
III. BEGINNING OF MAJOR WORLD RELIGIONS
IV. DEMOCRACY AS ENLIGHTENMENT MOVEMENT IN THE WEST
V. HARMONY THE DOMINANT PHILOSOPHY OF ANCIENT CHINA
VI. HARMONY AS TAUGHT BY LAO ZI AND CONFUCIUS
VII. EAST AND WEST CULTURAL TEMPERAMENT DIFFERENCE
VIII. HARMONY AND DEMOCRACY AT THE BEGINNING OF 21ST CENTURY
IX. THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY

11
CHINESE HARMONY AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN
21ST*CENTURY*

BY FRANCIS C. W. FUNG, PH. D.

ABSTRACT*

The motivation to study Chinese language and culture goes far beyond the
economic successes of greater China as a global business language. As the ancient
world culture with the longest uninterrupted historical record, the richness of China’
s
teachings of harmony as a dominant philosophy is unparalleled. China is going through
dramatic changes in adjusting to the conflicts of the new and the old. To address the
multitude of domestic and international conflicts, China has resurrected the ancient
teachings of Confucius, and has rediscovered itself with renewed hope of achieving a
Harmonious Society and Harmonious World.
The teaching of Chinese culture cannot depart from teachings of harmony. It is
the essence of Chinese teachings and heritage to the world. Adherence to the harmony
philosophy has ensured the survival of Chinese culture through the ages, despite past
foreign occupation and the challenge of Western modernity. Confucius harmony is
thought provoking and easily learned. Examples are Li Zhi Yong, He Wei Gui (In
ceremony, harmony is prized) and Jun Zi He Er Bu Tong, Xiao Ren Tong Er Bu He
(Unity in diversity is above uniformity).
From the perspective of harmony, three major movements of human civilization
are religion, democracy and harmony. Today’ s world is in great disharmony with religion
conflicts, international inequity, and the disparity between North and South. To lead us
out of this convulsion we must look beyond religion and democracy to harmony as the
basis of equality, mutual respect, tolerance and acceptance. Harmony envelops
democracy, yet as basic human longing it is not institutionalized. The spread of harmony
has been uniquely peaceful compared to religion and democracy. Will harmony bring a
more moderate future world? American democracy faces the challenge of Chinese
harmony as the leading global philosophy in the 21st century. Teaching harmony in U.S.
is paramount.

* Paper submitted to 2007 National Association for Bilingual Education Meeting, Feb. 7-10, San Jose, CA. One
Nation: Many Languages and Cultures in a Changing World. All rights reserved. Any distribution or publication must
by author’s prior written permission.

12
 (I)
HUMAN CIVILIZATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF
HARMONY DEVELOPMENT

From the perspective of harmony, human civilization is the progress of relationship

conflict resolutions between;
1) Human and nature (birth of religions etc)
2) Human and human (philosophy, religious and moral teachings)
3) Members of a group (family, tribes and nomads morals and codes and standards)
4) Citizens to society at large (philosophy, values teaching and imposition of laws)
5) Rulers and the ruled (hierarchy social structure, elite values and government
propaganda, democracy development)
6) Clashes between religions (such as current clash between Muslim and western
values)
7) Ideology contests (socialism and capitalism, democracy vs. broader harmony)
8) Dependence and Independence development between national blocks (Developed,
undeveloped, developing, poor and rich)
Above is a list indicating by way of illustration, only some of the major
outstanding issues in conflict resolution and achieving harmony. The following in the
interest of leading to a current universal harmony exposition, only major world harmony
development movements will be summarized. They are also past global harmony
movements that have by far the major repercussions on human civilization.

(II)
ANCIENT AND PAST HARMONY APPROACHES

From time immemorial humans had to cope with nature, the need of shelter and
the fear of nature’s extreme furor. This fear was as natural as nature itself and a solution
was paramount from the outset. Obvious approaches to addressing this issue were:
acceptance of life, submission to the will of God to placate nature, harmonizing with
nature, and persevering as best as one could. These approaches were combined, at times,
for expediency. As civilization progressed, and local and global societies became more
complex and conflicting issues prolific, more harmony solutions were needed. To deal
with these prolific issues four Global movements, as far as we can ascertain, have
dominated. These historical developments seem to have originated regionally and spread
worldwide. The historical developments so far; are acceptance of life in primitive
cultures, formation and development of religion, philosophies of harmonies with nature
and society, the propagation of religion and ideology.

13
 (III)
BEGINNING OF MODERN WORLD RELIGIONS

As far as one can ascertain the major world religions practiced today originated
from the mystic East and can be narrowed to Central Asia along the silk-road including
India and the middle East. There seems to be continuity in development from the earliest
religion to the latest. The following is a short introduction of origin of modern religion as
mankind’ s effort to harmonize with nature. One might surmise that organized religions
are human’ s group effort to harmonize with nature by submitting to the will of God.
There are reasons perhaps to accept the speculation that certain cultures may be more
spiritual from a religious view point, although some cultures have defined spirituality
from a moral value view point.
The Christian religion, following the Jewish faith, originated from Middle East,
opened up a long tradition of Western religions including the Catholic Faith and the many
other sects of Christianity. Subsequently, European and the American organized religions
spread Christianity world wide. Buddhism originated in India and propagated to China
beginning in the Han Dynasty (1st century). At the height of China’ s Tang Dynasty (7th
century), the Tang monk, Xuanzang, took a seven year long journey to India and brought
back original Sanskrit scripture, reinvigorating China’ s interest in Buddhism. Incidentally,
today Buddhism has vanished in India but flourished in Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia
by spreading from China. On his return Xuanzang dedicated the rest of his life to
translating the Sanskrit scripture. His translation has become valuable documentation in
recovering parts of lost Buddhism and Indian Culture.
All religions offer the faithful harmony to nature and God and peace of mind. As
distinction, the Jewish Faith prides itself on the Ten Commandments of Moses; the
Christian faith is firmly rooted in the concept of human original sin and of love and
forgiveness from God. On the other hand, Islam preaches strong justice. Buddhists
practice detachment, which seems to suit East Asian beliefs. Though religions could be
all embracing and unifying, each faction feels the threat of the other religions. Religions
soothed fear of nature and death, but in themselves, created a great deal of conflict and
distrust because of human intolerance. This conflict has persisted throughout history.
Many inter-religious wars were fought as exemplified by the ten year Christian crusade to
conquer the Middle East. Today we are at the threshold of another Islamic and Western
culture clash.
The Baha’ i Faith, a late major religion, approximately one hundred and fifty years
old, is now on the scene. It was an off spring from Islam in Persia (modern day Iran), and
grew out of conflict with Islam. This development reminds us of the evolution of
Christianity from the Jewish Faith. The Baha’ i Faith in its short history has spread over
all continents, a feat which took the Christian faith close to two thousand years of well
organized propagation. The attractiveness of the Baha’ i Faith lies in the themes of unity
between all religions, between man and woman and between God, between science and
the spiritual, and in the elimination of extreme poverty. It attempts to unify major
religions by preaching one God and progressive revelation to connect founders of all

14
religions as from one and only one universal God for all mankind. As noble as it may be,
so far the Baha’ i Faith has yet to unite all major religions. The Baha’
i theme of unity of
religion fell short of the broader harmony philosophy as discussed here. Two curious
facts remain in the development of the Baha’ i Faith. First, the Baha’i Faith again
originated from the East as did other major religions. Second, the fear of the threat of
one religion from another religion remained as each faith continued to reject the harmony
philosophy of moderation, tolerance, equality and acceptance.

(IV)
DEMOCRACY AS ENLIGHTENMENT MOVEMENT IN THE
WEST

Democracy grew out of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe (1600 to 1789), a

movement to resolve the conflicts between the ruler and the ruled in France and England.
Its philosophy was against superstition, encouraging development of science, and against
easy acceptance of authority. Two leading philosophers of the time were the Frenchman,
Rousseau, and the Englishman, John Lock. The first was regarded as more radical and
the second was more practical. That may explain why the French movement led to
violent revolution which over threw the French monarchy, and the British democracy
movement went through peaceful constitutional reform.
The United States of America, formerly a colony of England, defeated the
occupier and declared Independence on 1776 during the Age of Enlightenment. The
early new citizens being immigrants of Europe, were quick to adopt the ideas of liberty,
fraternity and democracy. As a result, the drafters of the US constitution and Bill of
Rights that guaranteed citizen rights were heavily influenced by Rousseau and John Lock.
Many elements of the present day US government including theory, structure and policy
were penned by Thomas Jefferson, an original signer of the US Constitution and Bill of
Rights. The documents spelled out the rights and duties of the citizen, majority rule and
the separation of powers. These harmonizing concepts were a great influence on today’ s
governments. The drafting of a constitution for new governments is today a standard fare.
The leaders of the US government then and still now are mostly aristocrats or
elites of the society. From the very beginning there were two opposing forces, the
powerful at one end and the masses at the other, which see-saw through out the entire
relatively short US history. This is exemplified by President McKinley at the turn of the
nineteenth century, who was an out and out capitalist. He was assassinated for his
polices which favored the wealthy classes at the expense of the common man. President
Teddy Roosevelt, nicknamed the “trust buster” , rolled back the business excesses
caused by McKinley’ s policies. The 1930’
s depression years caused suffering among the
masses which led to massive labor unrest. As a result, President F.D. Roosevelt
implemented the New Deal economic policy to redress the mass suffering. Although
American citizens have more freedom of choice in life in relation to other societies of

15
today, true democracy of equality and mass representation on important issues remains
elusive.

Today the US media is owned by a few big businesses, and is easily influenced by
the government and big business. In foreign policy especially, media self censorship is
prevalent and political correctness is the name of the game. As discussed under
international democracy, the powerful US media over shadows world media. Despite
freedom of press and freedom of speech, US citizens are not fully aware of real world
opinion towards the US. US foreign policy is again controlled by minority elite
supporting the government. In its eagerness to export democracy as an ideology
supported by the U.S. military, media and elite, US approaches can be inflexible and
doctrinaire. Often democracy is touted as transparent and peaceful. Attempts to export
the democracy model between government and citizens in this case have the opposite
effect of causing world disharmony. This is seen in the US unilateral Iraq war that has
exasperated US population and the world. All wars of aggression of modern times were
launched with high sounding goals necessary for the morale of the invading forces.

(V)
DOMINANT PHILOSOPHY
OF ANCIENT CHINA

In the following, PIN YIN will be used along with English equivalent explanation
for important Chinese terms so that readers of Chinese can relate to the original Chinese
characters. This is necessary because the need to retain the power and flavor of ancient
Chinese writing. Also PIN YIN has become the supplementary language for Chinese
minorities and foreigners who learn Chinese. The best reference for Chinese history and
ancient Chinese teachings is ZHONG GUO TONG SHI by Fan Wenlan. This is an eight
volume compilation of Chinese history and culture from ancient times to MIN GUO. This
was a major undertaking of its kind. It took the author a lifetime. Most was compiled
between 1940 and 1950, a very difficult period for China. This is a source book for this
paper, but other reference on LAO ZI and Confucius are readily available by Googling
these classic texts on Internet. All quotations of Confucius teachings are from SI SHU
WU JING (the four classics and the five scripture). The four Confucius classics are LUN
YU, ZHONG YONG, DA XUE, MENG ZI.
Throughout China’ s long history as an ancient culture, unlike the Middle East, it
did not produce a religion of world importance, and unlike the West it did not produce a
comprehensive home grown democracy system to resolve conflicts between the ruler and
the ruled. China obviously, however, had notions of religion and democracy, when
Confucius admonished his followers to respect God but keep a distance, and Mencius
advocated good government and put citizens above the rulers. Instead, through
considerable debate and evolution, China settled on the philosophies of ZHONG YONG,
HE XIE (moderation, harmony) and hierarchy social structures. Family and social order
were promoted by emphasizing SAN GANG WU CHANG, REN, YI , LI , ZHI, XIN (the

16
three important relations in the order of: ruler and the ruled, father and children, husband
and wife and five basic societal moral values) and LUN LI DAO DE (family and moral
values). More explanations of these ancient Chinese harmony and related ancient
teachings will be followed in the next section.
This system of profuse teaching was drilled into students from Day One and all
through a scholar’ s life. Youngsters’first standard reading text was SAN ZI JING (a
simple rhyme of Confucius teaching). To be recited by students word for word (my
children still cut their teeth on Chinese characters, and Chinese words with this text
during 1990’ s in Taiwan). The moderation and harmony philosophy reinforced by morals
and values as a social system was very different from the Western democracy concepts of
citizen rights and duties enforced by law and order. Ancient China did practice laws, but
sparsely, when compared to the comprehensive European laws and the complex and
voluminous US case study system. The strength of US modern culture lies in the
implementation of Government and law practices, and not merely in its democratic
ideology. The ideal of democracy, as harmony between government, society and citizens,
is universally accepted by today’ s world. It will take time for the developing countries to
grow their own appropriate democratic system in their own soil. Harmony as seen from
ancient Chinese philosophy, included the practices of acceptance, tolerance, mutual
respect, equality and patience, but not the use of heavy penal correction.
China, as a huge ancient country, was divided into many kingdoms as Europe is
today. It was united two thousand years ago under Qin Shi Huang Di (Qin the first
Emperor). Under the ancient system, as explained above, a loose unity existed in China
for two thousand years, despite repeated invasion by the Xiong Nu, Jing, Mongols and
Manchu. Its resilient culture survived intact until it was severely challenged by the
Western expansionism and industrial revolution at the end of Manchu Dynasty. Today
the challenge to Chinese Culture from the West is in the form of Western Democratic
ideology. Prior to Qin Dynasty, during Warring States period, major philosophies were
fighting it out. This led to BAI HUA QI FANG, BAI JIA ZHENG MING (let hundred
flowers bloom, hundred schools contend). In the end, LAO ZI and Confucius triumphed.
This all happened before the time of Christ.
From the previous discussions one may characterize the three major world
approaches of basic societal harmony and order as: Eastern origin religion order, Western
Democracy and law, and Chinese moral values combined with hierarchy society order. In
reality, in any society the three approaches are combined with various changing
importance in practice. For the complex modern society of today the importance of law
and order is on the rise. In some societies challenged by Western democracy and
materialism, religious fundamentalism is also on the rise in opposition to Western
influence. But societal harmony for the future as global interactions expands, is perhaps
best served by an appropriate balance of the three approaches. This development will
call for more genuine exchange and dialogue between world cultures. For the past two
centuries the cultural flow has predominantly from West to East. The wisdom of five
thousand years of ancient Chinese culture of harmony and moral values had provided
long term stability and survival, cannot be easily dismissed.

17
 (VI)
HARMONY AS TAUGHT BY LAO ZI AND CONFUCIUS

As a start harmony was taught by the sages as the practices of acceptance,

tolerance, mutual respect, equality and patience. This is HAI NA BAI CHUAN, YOU
YONG NAI DA (a society that accepts and contains outside contribution will grow). The
essence of the implementation process, according to Confucius is XIU SHEN QI JIA ZHI
GUO PING TIAN XIA (discipline oneself, harmony at home, order in the country before
extending peace to the world). As we proceed, all following concepts of harmony were
from LAO ZI, Confucius and Confucius’students’teachings. All original quotations will
be quoted here in PINYIN for those who know Chinese characters. In time PINYIN
could be come a complementary Chinese language for non native speakers of Chinese.
LAO ZI teachings are primarily from DAO DE JING or DAO YUEN JING, attributed to
him. There were no records of students of LAO ZI although Confucius supposedly had
sought advice from LAO ZI. A glossary of Chinese Pin Yin terms and Chinese
characters is provided at the end of this book.
According to LAO ZI, the universe was created from YIN or negative (dark)
energy. From this infinite negative or dark energy all matter and galaxies were created.
This includes the earth and the solar system. A brief history of the origin of universe
according to Qin Nanji’ s interpretation of LAO ZI’ S DAO YUEN JING, explains the
relation between LAO ZI and modern quantum physics (to be published). From the YIN
comes the Yang. YIN and YANG for a harmonious society and world normally exist in
balance as beautifully represented in the Daoist circle sign. The YANG and YIN
entwine in the Daoist circle in perfect harmony and beauty. In a three dimensional world
the Daoist circle is a sphere with the YIN enclosing both the YIN and YANG on the
outside surface. LAO ZI always emphasized that YIN embraces YANG, the soft
ultimately overcomes the hard when harmony is not achieved. His philosophy renounced
war and advocated balance, harmony and peace.
As mentioned above LAO ZI preached HE HE (harmony and together) as in HE
HE ER XIAN (two immortals of harmony and togetherness) and TIAN REN HE YI
(heaven and men unity). China throughout history was predominantly an agricultural
society. LAO ZI’ s philosophy of harmony with heaven and nature was well accepted by
the Chinese. The idea of YIN YANG balance also became the guiding philosophy of
traditional Chinese medicine. After the Qin and Han dynasties the philosophy of HE HE
was widely applied. It penetrated all schools of thoughts and all subsequent historical
periods. It became gradually accepted and agreed upon as the cultural spirit of the
Chinese thought. Throughout two millennia of Chinese culture, Confucius and his
students continued to exert a strong influence on Chinese thinking. Even when conflict
and contradiction of ideas were unavoidable, the philosophy of harmony and ZHONG
YONG ZHI DAO (the Way of the Golden Mean) continued to advise moderation and
avoidance of extreme. Challenged by Western cultural and military advances during the

18
last two centuries, China’ s traditional thinking was shaken to the core. Today, under
reform and opening up, Chinese society is undergoing profound changes on many fronts.
In the shifting social structure, promulgation of many new laws is taking place to change
to more responsive governance by incorporating US and Western ideas and experience.
In its search for a model society appropriate to the Chinese nation, there have
been continuing discussions and debates. Faced with today’ s global ideology and
religious conflicts, unilateralism, and extreme unequal parity of rich and poor between
North and South, the harmony philosophy is rediscovered in China. Like fresh air the
ancient teachings of LAO ZI and Confucius are coming back, China is rediscovering
itself. The Chinese are again quoting ancient harmony teachings. We hear phrases such as
LI ZHI YONG, HE WEI GUI (in applying courtesy, harmony is most important), JUN
ZI HE ER BU TONG, XIAO REN TONG ER BU HE (gentlemen can have harmony and
disagree, little people can agree and still does not have harmony). In the recent Chinese
media we have begun to see discussion of ideas such as HE XIE SHE HUI (Harmony
society) and HE XIE SHI JIE (harmony world).

(VII)
EAST AND WEST CULTURAL TEMPERAMENT
DIFFERENCE

The outward expression of LAO ZI’ s and Confucius’influence on Far Eastern

culture can easily be seen as a result of HE and LI (harmony and ceremony). Their
operas are more formalistic such as KUNQU and KABUKI performances. There are
numerous daily life rituals such as tea ceremonies and flower arrangements besides large
scale or formal ceremonies as in many societies. Their gardens are often a blend of
natural and man made. In China, the beauty of Suzhou and Hangzhou gardens earned the
recognition of Paradise on earth. The most acclaimed beautiful scenery is Westlake in
Hangzhou. It is a large landscape with a man made lake improved over centuries by
poets and officials. It is a classic example of a work of art as a blend of nature and man.
Typical examples of Western gardens are strikingly beautiful for their manicured lawns
and plants. Societal order is maintained by simple order and moral values rather than a
comprehensive system of laws. From time immemorial, advancement in Chinese society
was more through education and civil service examinations. The Chinese invented the
civil service system. Competition by physical strength was looked down upon. Most
competitive sports on the other hand were invented by the West.
As a whole the East Asian culture is more reserved, less prompt to challenge
nature. Hence, the industrial revolution was more likely to occur in the West. On today’ s
information highway, material incentives and western cultural influence massed assaults
on Chinese traditional values and way of life. As a result, teachings of tolerance,
acceptance, patience and human relation hierarchy order are in decline. However, the
historical fact that East Asian culture had the longest uninterrupted survival testifies to its

19
resilience and adaptability. In its recent soul searching to rediscover a new China,
harmony as a way to solve a broad range of conflicts is resurfacing.
The strength of US society lies in its stable government and system of laws. This
started from the European Enlightenment movement and continued for the last 230 years
since independence. This is a relative short period for national development by any
standard. The reasons for US stability are many fold. It lies outside the scope of the
present dissertation. Suffice to say the key reasons are; economic prosperity, absence of
major world wars fought within US territory and acceptance of the form of government
and system of laws by the population in general. From the perspective of the history of
the rise and fall of past empires, US complacency and resistance to change are clear. Its
government system is unable to keep up with the world economic change and its system
of laws is getting cumbersome. Its government system and ideology is not the answer-all
for the vast differences that exist among the multitude of developing nations. Each nation
is seeking its own form of harmony between the government and its citizens.
To expand its worldwide influence the US government and pro-government
media assert that America is democratic and thus is transparent. The American viewpoint
persists to exert that in this conflicting world, the US is not capable of using violent force
and that its organized military aggression is not the use of violence. All violence was
and will be started by nations that do not agree with us. Despite the fact this line of logic
does not deceive any person of reason outside of this country. As long as US citizens
love and buy it out of patriotism, they accept it as good logic and good policy. The
massive US military and its preparation for war are always shrouded in the utmost
secrecy in the name of security. Any declassification is after-the-fact, of little interest,
and easily forgotten by its citizens. The only people remembered are the victims that
suffered terribly by the devastating wars. That is why the US can launch one war after the
other and continue to have the support of its citizens. After the Second World War U.S.
prestige was at the highest. Today world opinion towards the US is at its lowest by
surveys around the world. Yet citizens of the US continue to feel that we are the most
peace loving nation in the world thanks to the US government and media omission and
propaganda.
Today conflicts against extremism are prolific in the world. These span difference
between religions, ideologies, cultures, forms of government or simply distrust. The
extremes of the privileged and the under privileged, the rich and the poor, the powerful
and the powerless the North and the South, the developed and the developing nations
have reached alarming proportions. The philosophy of harmony encompassing patience,
acceptance, tolerance, equality and mutual support, as presented in the previous section,
must be broadly accepted to prevent major catastrophes breaking out in all corners of the
world. Major nations together with United Nations must stand up and take the necessary
creative actions to minimize these occurrences.
Domestically the US, after his assassination, praised Martin Luther King and
endorsed his passive civil rights movement to resolve black and white racial conflicts.
This showed a great deal of wisdom by the US government and the public. Yet in
international conflicts US loudly proclaimed preemptive strikes to countries who do not
agree with us. Democracy, as the only tool for conflict resolution, is very limited and

20
does not comprise a core approach. The complexity of the multi national conflicts
requires comprehensive system engineering studies of creative harmony solutions. First,
we must abandon unilateralism. This will allow consorted multinational studies to come
up with indigenous and appropriate solutions to suit the diverse conditions that exist
among nations. The reality of nations as we see in today’ s world is in total lack of
international democracy and equality America a relatively new country with vitality and
endowed with democratic mission has an unique opportunity to lead the world out of the
present diemma.

(VIII)
HARMONY AND DEMOCRACY AT THE BEGINNING OF 21ST
CENTURY

Democracy grew out of the 17th century Enlightenment movement as a resolution

of the conflicts between the ruler and the ruled. But the movement as a tradition had
inspired many national revolutions. The notable ones for this discussion were the French
revolution, American independence war and the Chinese 1911 revolution extending to the
1949 revolution led by Mao Zedong. However, three hundred years is very short for
human history. Through out Chinese history every 300 years or so peasants would rise up
to overthrow the emperor. However, the ancient philosophies of harmony and moderation
were always able to restore stability, prosperity and a loosely united empire. Even after
foreign Mongolian and Manchu invasions stability were restored with the invaders being
converted by Chinese culture. The resilience of the Chinese nation lies in its deep rooted
harmony philosophies coupled with prosperity at the beginning of each successful
dynasty. This typically goes on in every 300 years or so for two millennium. China, after
two hundred years of Western and Japanese humiliation and invasion, had lost its
direction for a while. Today with relative prosperity returning, demands for harmony as
a way to resolve conflicts in a complex modern society return in force. This is how
China rediscovered itself from the roots of its ancient culture. This may proof to be like
the European renaissance after the Dark Age in rediscovering the ancient Greek culture.
The Chinese feudal society was not an absolute civil order that was unalterable.
During WUHAN (the first Han Emperor) period immediately after Qin Shi Huang Di,
Dong Zhongshu the great Confucius scholar, instilled LAO ZI’ S YIN YANG philosophy
into Confucius teaching. The idea that opposing forces are constantly struggling for
balance, lay the foundation for change. JUN BU REN CHEN BU YI (If the ruler is not
kind and loving, the ruled can rise up to defy his order). This was always true as
demonstrated by the over thrown of decadent dynasties by peasant revolutions. Basic
democratic ideals were also formed during that time. This is what China calls today
MIN WEI BEN, people based ideals. The teaching of MIN WEI BEN means CHEN
WEI ZHONG, JUN WEI QING (the ruled is more important than the ruler in good
government, or a good government should put its people above the ruler). This REN BEN
(people based) ideal have reined for two thousand years and is again being revived. The
idea of anti corruption and anti dictatorial government is innate in China as well as in

21
many other cultures. Simply put as in a Confucius saying, DE REN XIN ZHE DE TIAN
XIA, SHI REN XIN ZHE SHI TIAN XIA (the ruler who lost people’ s hearts lost his
empire, the ruler who won people’ s hearts won the empire). This is the basis of a society
centered on teaching of moral values and virtue. It did not heavily rely on a system of
law. In fact in many ways in ancient China moral and values were above law. Law was
only the bottom line. The ideal was a person who committed a crime as a punishment
instead of going directly to jail could just HUA DI WEI LAO (Just draw a circle on the
ground and stand in the middle to think and repent). Moral and values standard were high.
Emphasis was placed on self correction rather than on penal correction. During the times
of Confucius the society was in harmony. It was said during that time, LU BU SHI YI,
YE BU BI HU (lost are found, doors are not closed at night). This was the Chinese
concept of government by moral value, societal order and harmony.
Democracy as a movement for the most part is universally accepted in the world
today. One needs only to look at how many new countries or changing countries are
calling themselves democracies. However, the US has its own definition. This mostly
means that countries agreeing with the US are democracies. Democracy as a system of
government needs to take hold and grow in the fertile soil of developing countries and
countries evolving from their old cultures. This ideal of anti corruption and anti
dictatorship is changing traditional order by reform. Harmony advises renunciation of
force. In time democracy will grow and wrought its fruits in the global modern
environment. In the 1980’ s Soviet planed economy dissolved due mostly to its own non-
competitiveness to the Western market economy. In cold war rhetoric it was called US
capitalism triumphs over communism. Communism thus had a bad name. But the bad
connotation mainly comes from the cold war mentality that communism means
enslavement. It is not the intent of the present paper on harmony to take sides. It is
important to point out for those who did not grew up during the cold war era, the US
media divided the world into the free world and the communist world. This explains why
the US government and media have a tendency to call countries that challenge us as
plotting to take away our freedom. This is highlighted by President Bush’s repeated use
of the word freedom in his 2004 and 2006 September 11, 2006 addresses.
Now the idea of freedom is also not an unknown concept. Many societies have
abandoned enslavement and it is against universal laws. The Chinese abandoned slavery
as early as the period of Spring and Autumn, more than two thousand years ago. The
country transitioned from slave state of Eastern Zhou to FENGJIAN (Feudal society)
after the Warring State period. Those violated it when found are put in jails in all
civilized societies. Credit must be given to Lincoln for his belief of freeing the black
slaves in the US during the time of US civil war. This event has worldwide repercussions
and earned Lincoln great recognitions in the world. At the end of Vietnam War the US
withdrawal caused a great deal of societal soul searching. The good that came out of it
was the nonviolent civil rights marches led by Martin Luther King that won universal
rights for African Americans. Both Lincoln and Martin Luther King are great men who
won freedom and equality for African Americans. International equality has yet to be
recognized by the US. For many weak and poor nations in the world, struggling for equal
economic and political equality is a must for their survival. This is a vast subject that
must be discussed in the resolution of conflicts under the broad concept of a harmonious
world.

22
 The US Neo-conservatives encouraged by the collapse of the Soviet economy,
believe that US democracy is the cure all for all world conflicts. In fact the prevalent
doctrine is that Iraq can be the test case in the Middle East as Eastern Europe was after
the Cold War. The Domino Theory is again trumpeted in unison. Since 911, notably on
September 11, 2006, President Bush elevated the conflict between Islam and US as the
greatest ideological struggle against the extreme Islam terrorists of the 21st Century in a
major speech. This is to counter an extreme minority movement with an extreme reaction
from the militarily most powerful country in the world. The irony is that democracy is
already spreading in the world without the use of force. Democracy by its simplest
essence as a way of conflict resolution is actually deeply embedded in the general
concept of harmony. The use of force is also forgetting the philosophy of harmony that
includes patience, acceptance, tolerance, mutual respect and avoidance of war.
Democracy in conflict resolution is a well honed management system engineering
study for the US since its independence. The ancient harmony philosophies had worked
well for keeping Eastern Asia stable for two thousand years. It is being rediscovered by
China because of the prolific of conflicts in the world between the old and new, rich and
poor, powerful and the powerless, due to its own reform and opening up. In discovering
the old philosophies, China rediscovered itself, just like rediscovering Greek culture after
the Dark Age brought the Renaissance to Europe. It will be logical for China to combine
the US experience in engineering Democracy into its government system and to revitalize
the ancient concept of harmony. It will require exchange and cooperation between the
East and West to harmonize this great undertaking. Societal needs for East and West are
similar; however there are great differences in approaches and logical thinking. The
concept of time and perspective on history also requires a great deal of harmonizing. The
West and Far East together have the technology and the ready financial resources to bring
the necessary actions together to make a beginning.
As President Bush has said often, there is a lot of work to be done. As a start we
can initiate active discussions between proponents of democracy and harmony.
Extensive studies can be initiated to identify the root causes of conflicts in the world.
President Hu Jintao of China during his speech at Yale University April 21st, 2006
sounded out the ideas of harmony and harmony world and invited discussions and
cooperation with the US. If the interest is high, continuing system engineering studies for
conflict resolution can be supported by interested scholars from East and West. A task of
this world magnitude, needless to say, must be inclusive. To repeat a Chinese ancient
saying again, BEI HUA QI FAN, BEI JIA QI MIN (let hundred flowers bloom and
hundred schools of thoughts contend).

(IX)
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY

The ultimate principle of Chinese ancient principles, as expounded by LAO ZI in

DAO DE JING, is the balance of YIN and YANG but ultimately YIN envelopes YANG
and is beautifully illustrated in the Daoist circle sign of life. In our three dimensional
world the Daoist circular sign actually is a sphere with the outside covered by a dark shell.

23
In Section Forty Two of LAO ZI DAO DE JING it states that DAO SHENG YI, YI
SHENG ER, ER SHENG SAN, SAN SHENG WAN WU. WAN WU FU YIN ER BAO
YANG, CHONG QI YI WEI HE. In Qin Nanji’ s publication. “Brief History of the
Universe’ s Origin”(private communication), this sentence is interpreted as Negative
energy created proton, proton created neutron and meson, that in turn created DNA,
together all life and matter were created in the universe. This interpretation by Qin Nanji
remains to be tested and discussed for its validity. It is by no means an accepted scientific
conclusion. The second sentence in above quoted from DAO DE JING however, clearly
stated that all matters carry YIN but YIN envelops Yang, and when filled with QI
harmony is produced. The common interpretation of this is the ultimate Daoist harmony
principle repeated through out DAO DE JING. YIN and YANG when charged with QI,
result in harmony. But ultimately YIN triumphs over YANG by containing Yang. HAI
NA BAI CHUAN, YOU YONG NAI DA (The sea accepts hundreds rivers, it can only be
big if it contains).
This general theme of YIN over YANG runs through DAO DE JING and is
supported by TAI JI QUAN practices (the ultimate Chinese martial arts). To name a few
illustrations from DAO DE JING ; soft overcomes the hard like dripping water eventually
bores a hole in the hardest rock, water flows over and immerses that blocks it, water
extinguishes fire. Water representing YIN can both float and sink a boat. War and
confrontation is to be avoided, moderation eventually overcomes aggression. Harmony
represents soft power to resolve conflicts as opposed to warfare which represents hard
power. In today’ s conflicting world our model of democracy cannot be forced on other
nations of different culture and at different developing stages. Democracy works best by
softly and patiently winning over the hearts and minds of people. Countering extremism
by extremism is bound to lead to ultimate destruction of both sides. War does not solve
confrontations, but moderation (negotiation) can resolve conflicts. Soft power (ideals and
heightened values) eventually will overcome military power. The best way to resolve
conflicts is to bring harmony to the confronting parties. This can start by understanding
the causes of conflicts through mutual respect, trust, tolerance and acceptance. The world
will progress for all mankind till eternity when harmony is universally accepted. The
world of harmony shall surely come. A ten thousand miles journey begins with the first
step. Let us end for now by repeating what was quoted before. JUN ZI HE ER BU
TONG, XIAO REN TONG ER BU HE. For an interpretation different from the
translation in previous section, I will say gentlemen place harmony above ideological
differences. Let us look forward to unity in diversity and all diverse cultures co exist and
flourish.

24
 CHINESE HARMONY CULTURE OLD AND NEW,
PROMISE FOR A LESS CONFRONTATIONAL WORLD?
BY FRANCIS C. W. FUNG, PH. D.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT

I. FROM SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT TO HARMONY

II. FROM HARMONY SOCIETY TO HARMONY WORLD

III. SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS IS SOCIALISM WITH

CHINESE HARMONY

IV. COMMUNIQUE OF THE SIXTH PLENUM OF THE 16TH CENTRAL

COMMITTEE

V. COLLECTION OF EXPERT COMMENTS ON THE COMMUNIQUE

VI. COLLECTION OF MEDIA REVIEWS ON THE COMMUNIQUE

VII. THE 21ST CENTURY CHINESE HARMONY PERSPECTIVE

VIII. WORLD HARMONY, A LESS CONFRONTATIONAL WORLD?

APPENDIX A:
DOMINANT PHILOSOPHY OF ANCIENT CHINA, HARMONY AS TAUGHT BY
LAO ZI AND CONFUCIUS, EAST AND WEST CULTURAL TEMPERAMENT
DIFFERENCE, THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY
APPENDIX B:
FULL TEXT OF THE SIXTH PLENUM OF THE 16TH CENTRAL COMMITTEE
GLOSSARY OF PIN YIN TERMS AND CHINESE CHARACTERS

25
 CHINESE HARMONY CULTURE OLD AND NEW, PROMISE
FOR A LESS CONFRONTATIONAL WORLD? †
By Francis C. W. Fung, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT*

In today’s world of extreme disparity among nations, need for national economic
and political change is driven by: the widening gap in stages of development, the increase
of injustice in world order, and the growth of clashes between civilizations. The world is
hastening towards confrontations such as in the recent unilateral Iraq War, North Korea
and Iran nuclear crisis and the Israel and Lebanon War.
The term crisis (Wei Ji) in Chinese means danger and opportunity. In Chinese
harmony belief, the YIN and the Yang or the strong and the gentle are in constant contest.
When YIN and Yang are in balance harmony is reached as illustrated by the Daoist
double fish circle. When viewed as a globe, the YIN envelops the Yang as the outside
shell. Lao Zi’ s philosophy of renunciation of force is also reflected in forming Chinese
words. The word martial (Wu) in Chinese means stop the use of weapon. The word war
(Zhang) in Chinese means imbalance of weaponry.
When country specific harmony societies grow in their own fertile soil, World
Harmony will surely spread. Each society will have its own appropriate harmony theory
and practices for the wide difference of cultural and state of development. For harmony
to take root the society must be equitable, social order must work smoothly, cultural
values must have sustaining power, and the mobility of different stratum in society
should be assured. Indices such as Happiness, Harmony, Environment, Rural and Urban
must be customized according to each country’ s will and development.
The term Harmony (He She) when broken up into its four radicals is ‘He Kou
Yan Jie’. This can be interpreted today as the rights of subsistence and free speech. Great
debates are happening today in China. Will Socialism with Chinese characteristics
develop into Socialism with harmony?

DESCRIPTION
Chinese harmony for renunciation of force is inherent in Chinese culture. The
word martial (Wu) means stop weapons and war (Zhang) means imbalance in weaponry.
Harmony (He She) in Chinese radicals means the right of subsistence and freedom of
speech. Will Socialism with Chinese characteristics become Chinese socialism with
harmony?

†
Paper submitted to 2007 National Association for Bilingual Education Meeting, Feb. 7-10 San Jose, CA. One Nation:
Many Languages and Cultures in a Changing World. All rights reserved. Any distribution or publication must by
author’s prior written permission.

26
 (I)
FROM SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT TO
HARMONY SOCIETY

From October 8 to 11, 2006 Chinese government convened a national meeting to

discuss major policy decisions to launch a national campaign to build a harmonious
society. By the flurry of prepublications and preplanning announcements this meeting
will be the most significant planning meeting for the 57 year young government. In
terms of its impact on the future Chinese society and the future world, policies announced
during this meeting will have more long lasting effect than China’ s reform and open up
policies. Not that the recent reform and open up policies by Deng Xiaoping did not lead
to profound benefits for China and the world. By comparison, this meeting rides on the
success of the Scientific Concept of Development launched during 2002 and is build on
the essence of Chinese ancient teaching of harmony. In its richness, as discussed in the
latter sections, the Chinese ancient teaching of harmony is unparalleled. In this paper all
news on China current events are directly obtained from Xinhua and People’ s Daily
websites.
Due to the rapid expansion of economic and industrial activities in China during
the last twenty some years China has developed from an egalitarian society to a society of
unbalanced wealth distribution and a self sufficient society to one that depends heavily on
energy and outside material resources like all developed nations. The Scientific
Development Concept was thus conceived by the Chinese leaders to provide a blue print
for a long term sustainable development. In time this blue print is expanded to include
also all old and new conflicts in China’ s grand modernization. Harmony being China’ s
dominant philosophy for 2500 years it is no surprise, despite the onslaught of Western
culture for the last two hundred years China rediscovered its ancient heritage. This is
not unlike the return of harmony philosophy to the golden Han dynasty after the Spring
and Autumn Warring States period. There were thousands of battles fought between
feudal states of the time but finally peace and stability was restored.
In the fertile soil of Chinese harmony garden after Chinese leaders called for
Harmony Society development, ideas of harmony spread like spring bamboo shoots after
the rain. Creative ideas of Harmony Society from government officials, intellectuals,
think tanks, academicians and the general public is currently sweeping through the
country. We may once again witness a major new harmony movement excelling the
ancient teachings of ancient harmony that has guided China for the last 2500 years. A
true period of led hundred flowers bloom and hundred schools content may be in the
making surpassing the Spring and Autumn period debates in scope and magnitude. This
time the Chinese culture may take a leap into the future World of Harmony.
Today’ s China is in disharmony. The current modernizing and opening and reform
has created a degree of regional prosperity. With the impact of materialism and lower
moral values there are conflicts due to disparity of wealth and privilege and difference of
the new and the old. In the traumatic changes that are required for modernizing there is
extreme thinking in China that forgets the old teachings. To the degree that there are

27
Chinese who feel loss and passively admit cultural inadequacy, under the incessant and
massive criticism of by U.S. media. Fortunately, the current government, to deal with
the multitude of contradictions, comes up with the Concept of Scientific Development for
modernization. This began in 2002. By now it is widely discussed and covered by the
media. However, the major stroke of luck is this scientific development concept brought
China back in touch with the forefathers teaching of harmony. Harmony as a way of life
is in the Chinese genes and is the essence of Chinese ancient teaching. On the current
path China will transition through the current adjustment and reach a modern society with
Chinese characteristics. This may very well be a socialistic society with harmony. Its
development remains to be seen. In the process China’ s harmony development can only
bring harmony to the rest of the world. The ultimate patience of harmony will work its
way. The often used phrase Socialist Society with Chinese Characteristics is ultimately
the Socialist Society with Chinese Harmony.

(II)
FROM HARMONY SOCIETY TO HARMONY WORLD

In today’ s world of extreme disparity among nations, need for national economic
and political changes are driven by: the widening gap in stages of development, the
increase of injustice in world order, and the growth of clashes between civilizations. The
world is hastening towards confrontations such as in the recent unilateral Iraq War, North
Korea and Iran nuclear crisis and the Israel and Lebanon War.
The term crisis (Wei Ji) in Chinese means danger and opportunity. In Chinese
harmony belief, the YIN and the Yang, or the strong and the gentle, are in constant
contest. When YIN and Yang are in balance harmony is reached, as illustrated by the
Daoist double fish circle. When viewed as a globe the YIN envelops the Yang as the
outside shell. Lao Zi’s philosophy of renunciation of force is also reflected in forming
Chinese words. The word martial (Wu) in Chinese means stop the use of weapon. The
word war (Zhang) in Chinese means imbalance of weaponry.
When country specific harmony societies grow in their own fertile soil, World
Harmony will surely spread. Each society will have its own appropriate harmony theory
and practices for the wide difference of cultural and state of development. For harmony
to take root the society must be equitable, social order must work smoothly, cultural
values must have sustaining power, and the mobility of different stratum in society
should be assured. Indices such as Happiness, Harmony, Environment, Rural and Urban
must be customized according to each country’ s will and development.
The term Harmony (He She) when breaks up into its four radicals are He Kou
Yan Jie. This can be interpreted today as the rights of subsistence and free speech. Great
debates are happening today in China. Will Socialism with Chinese characteristics
develop become Socialism with Chinese harmony? This direct linkage was first defined
by the author in published media. In the last couple of years China has extended the
philosophy of Harmony to the practice of international relations, from Harmony Society
to Harmony Region and Harmony World. China is expressing to the world the peace and

28
development road chosen by a civilized old country. Harmony is the core of Chinese
traditional cultural believe. This is the concept of appropriate and properly balanced
relationship between man and man, man and nature, man and society and harmony
among nations. In fact Harmony Society and Harmony World are manifestations of
ancient Chinese cultural values as explained in later sections. It is important to point out
that on conflict resolution Western mentality tends to think of good and evil rather than
YIN and Yang in balance. YIN and Yang can be intermingled and in advance or retreat
and still maintain a fluid balance. Western philosophy emphasizes conflict rather than
harmony. God and Devil represents good and bad and God must triumph over Devil.
When in conflict, the U.S. believes that God is always on our side, thus we are duty
bound to change or eliminate hostile countries that do not agree with us. Rather than
accepting differences we must destroy differences to achieve uniformity on international
political ideology. Never mind that we believe in democracy for our own country.
International relations are power politics, international democracy between different
nations is not an acceptable concept ever worthy of discussion by the U. S. media. In fact
it is never mentioned.
In China today foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy and, at the same
time, serves domestic policy. Hu Jintao, President of China, pointed out, China must
“Closely connect our development with the progress of mankind. Develop our self
through maintaining world peace and at the same time through our own development to
promote world peace” . The Chinese government has officially stated the central ideas of
Harmony China and Harmony World as: China wants to build a harmony society of
“democracy and rule of law, justice and righteousness, trustworthiness and friendliness,
full of vitality, stable and orderly, a society of man and nature in harmony” . A Harmony
World envisioned by China is “adherence to multilateralism, realization of mutual
security, adherence to mutually beneficial cooperation, realization of mutual prosperity,
adherence to the spirit of tolerance and building a Harmony World together” .
President Hu Jintao, on April 22, 2005, when attending the Asian African Summit
meeting, suggested that “promoting friendship among different cultures, equal dialogue,
develop common prosperity and together build a harmony world” . This was the first time
the concept of Harmony World appeared on world stage. Two months later on July 1st,
2005, President Hu Jintao visited Moscow. Harmony World was written into China
Russian 21st Century World Order Joint Communique” . For the first time World
Harmony was recognized as common policy belief between two major countries. This
marks the new World Harmony concept’ s gradual entrance into the vision of world
society. At the same time Chinese leaders thoughts on World Harmony are also
deepening. After two more months, on September 15, 2005, President Hu Jintao gave a
speech at the United Nation General Assembly. In that speech he detailed the deep
contents of World Harmony. Participants of the meeting gave the speech a resounding
response. World media also gave the speech heightened notice and esteemed evaluation.
It is generally considered that China as a major responsible country, is transmitting to the
world its longing for peaceful development. The speech also served to relate China’ s
message to build a peaceful, prosperous and Harmony World together with the rest of the
world. Harmonious and cooperative China stands ready to work for sustainable and long
lasting peace and mutual prosperity with the rest of the world.

29
 (III)
SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS IS
SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE HARMONY

China’ s cultural contribution to the world is harmony philosophy just as Europe

and America are the breeding grounds for democracy. This comparative evaluation of
both cultures is detailed by the Author’ s paper titled “Chinese Harmony and American
Democracy in 21st Century” . China for most of its 5000 years recorded culture was an
agricultural society never big in animal herding as most European tribes. As a continuing
ancient culture it was firmly rooted to cultivating the land that was handed down from
generations. This dependency on agriculture led to innate inclination to harmonize with
nature rather than to challenge nature. As a result harmony philosophy grew in the fertile
land of this Middle Kingdom until it was challenged by Western democracy as late as the
1900’ s. Chinese ancient culture was rich in harmony teaching. It began 2500 years and
more, by Lao Zi and Confucius (as presented in Appendix A). It was preserved and
handed down with continuing refinement until modern times.
As discussed in Appendix A, Lao Zi’ s instructions of harmony was rooted in
observation of the origin of the universe and natural science. His philosophy of human
activity harmonizing with nature was all embracing, including the practice of FENG
SHUI (living with nature), physical science, agriculture and Chinese ancient medical
practice. Chinese medical practice is holistic. It is more prevention than cure. When a
person is not feeling well, it is likely that his biological system is out of balance within
himself or with nature. Treatment is to restore the balance of opposing forces in this total
system. This led to the belief that human biological system, society, and nations are
constantly in an influx of ever changing contending forces. Harmony is achieved when
the contending forces come to a balance or mutual acceptance under a certain set of
conditions. All systems are constantly shifting, complex and seldom just black and white.
This concept of harmony is just as fitting in today’ s complex world and society as it was
during the time of Lao Zi.
Confucius teaching includes the whole social system of man with himself, man
between man, man and society and relations between countries. This includes harmony
between government and its citizens, which means democracy is part of harmony system
analysis. In keeping with Chinese harmony philosophy, balance is achieved through self
discipline, high moral value, social order rather than strict law and penal system.
Although in today’ s complex society an added touch of modern law is necessary. The
use of physical force is to be avoided, when employed only as a last resort. Harmony
Society discussions in today’ s China under the present leadership is returning to the old
roots of system analysis and ever changing balance of major forces in a changing world.
It contains the innate nature of Chinese longing for harmony and the ancient teaching of
tolerance, acceptance and equity. Both Lao Zi and Confucius teachings are
comprehensive system engineering analysis of Harmony for ancient China. The
Communique is a system analysis of Socialism with Chinese characteristics for today’ s
China. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is Socialism with Chinese harmony as
defined by the author for the first time in published media.

30
 (IV)
COMMUNIQUE OF THE SIXTH PLENUM OF THE 16TH CPC
CENTRAL COMMITTEE

In modern terms harmony comes to being because of the inevitability of conflicts

and differences that exist in the complex modern world. Harmony is also the guidance for
opposing developmental forces. Harmony balances developmental movement, moderates
differences, put order into chaos and unifying diversity. It is unity in diversity. It is an
arduous and long undertaking to build a harmonious socialist society in modern China.
The difficulties are manifold and extremely challenging as indicated in the Communique.
It is a truly grand system engineering in execution. It is not without reason that some in
Chinese government called the harmony undertaking as the party’ s new Long March. The
world will no doubt take its hat off in commending China when successful. In a capsule
the Communique states, “ By the year 2020, the goals and objectives of building a
harmonious socialist society are: socialist democracy system becomes more democratic,
government by law basically realized, people’ s rights are respected and protected; the
uneven developments of city and countryside are gradually reversed, equitable and
orderly wealth distribution structure in place, all family income generally increased,
people will live a more comfortable life; full employment more sufficient, social security
system for city and country side basically built; all basic services are more complete, the
standards of governance and service are substantially raised; the quality of the whole
nations moral thinking, scientific culture and state of health noticeably raised, good moral
value, harmonious human relation further formed; the whole society’ s creativity
significantly strengthened, an innovative nation basically built; social management
system more perfect, good social order; resources utilization significantly improved,
environmental conditions largely turned around; realizing all around construction to
achieve the goal of well off society for over one billion population, strive for the
harmonious society that every body can contribute what he can and receives what he
needs” .
The following are direct selections from high lights of the Communique:
The plenum fully analyzed the current situation and tasks and discussed the key
issues of building a harmonious socialist society. The plenum unanimously agreed that
social harmony is the intrinsic nature of the socialism with Chinese characteristics and an
important guarantee of the country's prosperity, the nation's rejuvenation and the people's
happiness. The building of a harmonious socialist society is an important strategic task,
which was put forward by the CPC under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism,
Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the "Three
Represents" and with full implementation of the scientific concept of development. The
task was brought forward on the basis of the overall plan of the socialist cause with
Chinese characteristics and the comprehensive construction of a moderately prosperous
society. To build a harmonious socialist society was the intrinsic demand of constructing
a socialist modernized country which is prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized and
harmonious. It also embodied the common aspiration of the whole Party and people of all
ethnic groups.

31
 The plenum believed that currently the Chinese society is harmonious in general.
However, there exist many contradictions and problems, which affect social harmony.
Human society has been developing and progressing amid movements of all kinds of
conflicts. The building of the harmonious socialist society is a consistent process, during
which social conflicts are resolved. We must always remain sober minded, be vigilant in
peace time, thoroughly understand the feature of the country in the current phase of
development, study and analyze the contradictions and problems and their origins in a
scientific way, be more active to face up to the conflicts and solve them, and try utmost
efforts to increase harmonious factors and reduce disharmonious factors to consistently
boost social harmony. The plenum requested all Party members continue to emancipate
the mind, seek truth from facts, keep pace with the times, be realistic, consciously act
according to rules, be based on the current situation while keeping eyes on the future, do
what our strength allows and exert every effort to continuously advance the building of
the harmonious socialist society. The plenum requested all Party members contribute to
the building of the socialist harmonious society, which should be regarded as a long-term
historical task that runs through the whole process of the socialist cause with Chinese
characteristics and a vital realistic task for comprehensively building a moderately
prosperous society.
The plenum stressed that the harmonious socialist society we are going to build is
a harmonious society built and shared by all Chinese people along the road of socialism
with Chinese characteristics and under the leadership of the CPC. We must adhere to the
guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the
important thought of "Three Represents", adhere to the Party's basic line, basic program
and basic experience, adhere to the guidance of scientific concept of development in
overall economic and social development, follow the overall requirement of building a
democratic society under the rule of law, a society based on equity and justice, an honest
and caring society, a society full of vigor and a stable and orderly society in which
humans live in harmony with nature, strive to develop social services, promote social
equity and justice, foster a culture of harmony, improve public administration, enhance
creativity of the society, pursue the road of common prosperity, and push forward
coordinated development of social construction, economic construction, political
construction and cultural construction with the emphasis on solving issues people care
about most and issues that concern their most immediate and most realistic interests.
The plenum puts forward the main objectives and tasks for building a harmonious
socialist society by 2020, which are as follows: the socialist democratic and legal system
is further improved; the fundamental principle of administering the country according to
law is implemented in an all-around way; people's rights and interests enjoy concrete
respect and guarantee; widening of gap between urban and rural development and
development between different regions is gradually reversed; a reasonable and orderly
income distribution pattern takes shape in general; wealth of households increase
universally and people lead more affluent lives; employment rate is relatively high and a
social security system covering both urban and rural residents is established in general;
basic public service system is further improved and the government attains relatively big
improvements in administrative and service levels; the ideological and moral qualities,
scientific and cultural qualities and health qualities of the whole nation are improved

32
markedly and further progress is made in fostering a sound moral atmosphere and
harmonious interpersonal relationship; creativity of the whole society is enhanced
markedly and an innovation-based country is established in general; public administration
system is further improved and social order is in good condition; efficiency of utilization
of resources is enhanced markedly and visible improvement in ecological environment is
achieved; the objective of building a moderately prosperous society of a higher level and
in an all-around way to benefit the Chinese people of more than 1 billion is realized and
striving to attain a situation in which all people do their best according to their abilities,
everyone is provided for and people live together in harmony.
The plenum stressed that the following principles must be followed in building a
harmonious socialist society: adhering to putting people first; adhering to development in
a scientific way; adhering to reform and opening up; adhering to democracy and the rule
of law; adhering to properly handling the relationships between reform, development and
stability; and adhering to participation of the whole society under the leadership of the
Party.
The plenum pointed out that development is the prerequisite of social harmony.
We must adhere to solving problems on the road ahead through promoting development
and make great efforts to develop social productive forces and constantly consolidate the
material base for social harmony. Meanwhile, we must put more attention to developing
social services and push forward economic and social development in a coordinated way.
Social equity and justice is a basic condition of social harmony, while a sound system
provides the fundamental guarantee to social equity and justice. We must accelerate
construction of the system that plays an important role in ensuring social equity and
justice to guarantee people's rights and interests in political, economic, cultural and social
fields and guide our citizens to exercise their rights and fulfill their obligations according
to law. Nurturing a culture of harmony is an important task of building a harmonious
socialist society, while socialist core value system is the essential element of the culture
of harmony. We must adhere to the guiding role of Marxism in ideological fields, firmly
control the development direction of socialist advanced culture, advocate harmony
concepts and nurture the spirit of harmony to further foster common ideals and beliefs for
the whole society and solidify the ideological and moral base for the whole Party and
people of various ethnic groups to work hard in unison. Enhancing public administration
and maintaining social stability is a prerequisite of building a harmonious socialist
society. We must innovate the public administration system, integrate public
administration resources, improve the level of public administration, improve the public
administration pattern that is under the leadership of the Party committee, the government
taking the responsibility with cooperation from other organizations and with participation
of the public. Service should be accompanied with administration and administration
should reflect service. Socialist harmonious society is both a society full of vigor and a
society of unity and harmony. We must stimulate the energy of society to its full,
promote the harmony of relationship between political parties, ethnic groups, religions,
stratums and compatriots at home and abroad, consolidate the great unity of people of
various ethnic groups and consolidate the great unity of Chinese both at home and
abroad.

33
 The plenum made the deployment for building a harmonious socialist society for
present time and future: Construction of social cause should be strengthened through
adhering to coordinated development; new socialist countryside construction should be
earnestly pushed forward; the general strategy of regional development should be
implemented; active employment policies should be carried out; education should be
topped the agenda of development; health care services should be enhanced; development
of cultural cause and cultural industries should be speed up; environmental protection and
pollution control should be strengthened; institutional construction should be enhanced
and social equality and justice should be safeguarded. The system of safeguarding
democratic rights, the legal system and judicial system and mechanism, as well as
systems of public finance, income distribution and social security should be improved.
Harmonious culture should be built. Ethnic foundation for social harmony should be
consolidated. Socialist core value system should be upheld. Socialist concept of honor
and disgrace should be fostered. Active and healthy ideological atmosphere should be
built. A movement of creating harmonious society should be widely launched.

(V)
COLLECTION OF EXPERT COMMENTS ON THE
COMMUNIQUE

In the true spirit of let hundred flowers bloom and hundred schools contend and
HAI NA BAI CHUAN, YOU RONG NAI DA (hundred rivers flow into a sea, it can only
be big if it can contain), the CPC recently held a Symposium to widely solicits advice on
building harmonious society. Following are comments from experts collected from the
XINHUA website on the Communique as translated by the author. The complete text of
the Communique is attached as an Appendix. B.
Building socialistic harmony society is not only strategic thinking but also
innovative theory. Innovative theory once mastered by people will bring conceptual
revolution and it will turn into tremendous physical strength. Innovative concept needs
to be guided. Healthy, uplifting and appropriate society development concept once
formed, can set a firm foundation for the building of a socialistic harmonious society.
Following the developmental implementation and innovative theory, there will be great
change of the Chinese Communist governance concept and the people’ s value concept,
moral concept, family concept and societal developmental concept. Especially under
socialism with Chinese characteristics the new innovative concepts of “human based,
democratic governance, justice and righteous, and harmony culture”are deeply entering
people’ s hearts. This is bringing a great positive face change for the government and the
society. Our society is growing robustly and our people’ s vitality is shinning through.
According to scholars attending the Symposium, the new innovative concepts
have following four directions:

34
PEOPLE BASED CONCEPT: people based is the core of Scientific Development
Concept. It is the highest value criteria for harmonious socialism construction. In
3,10,2004 President pointed out “Adhering to people base is to realize the goal of all
around people development. It is development based on the ultimate benefit of people.
Promote development, incessantly satisfy people’ s increasing demand for material
culture. Protect people’s economic, political and cultural rights. Let the results of
development benefit all people’ . Adhering to people base requires that the party’s and
government’ s theory, paths, directions and policies must all for people and everything
depends on people. Between people and society there must be respect, understanding,
concern and mutual cooperation.
JUSTICE CONCEPT: President Hu Jintao in 2,19,2005 put justice and righteous as one
of the six requirements of harmonious socialist society. Scholars pointed out placing
justice in a more pronounced position is the Parties requirement for setting Party for the
public and implementing policy for the people. This is also the realistic requirement for
building harmonious socialistic society.
HONOR AND SHAME CONCEPT: People’ s view towards honor and shame is the
important content of the moral value judgment. 2,19,2005 President Hu Jintao pointed
out“ A society is harmonious or not, a country can sustain stability or not in an
important way depend on the moral quality of all members of the society. Without good
moral examples, without common ideals it is not possible to realize social harmony.
Scholars collectively think that on March,2006 President Hu Jintao established 8 honor
and 8 shame as the main content of the socialism honor and shame concept. Under the
conditions of socialistic market economy this concept is used as criteria to measure the
right or wrong of behavior, decide on value directions, make moral selections, supplies
basic examples. This is the moral foundation for people based and scientific development
society.
HARMONY CULTURE CONCEPT: Scholars collectively summed up that harmony
culture inherited and propagates Chinese nations HE HE (harmony and together)
culture’s superior tradition. This cultural heritage is harmony society’ s major
characteristic and is harmony society’ s soul and bonding force. For detail teachings of the
essence of Chinese ancient harmony culture please later sections. To build harmonious
society focus on people and people, people and society and people and nature relations;
promote the spirit of harmony, direct people to use harmony philosophy for
understanding, use harmony attitude to treat problems. Use harmony solutions to treat
contradictions and use harmony thinking to guide all behavior. The author is confident
that harmony heritage is the spirit of China. By rediscovering ancient harmony culture,
China is rediscovering itself as explained in Chinese ancient culture teaching sections.
ACTIVATE SOCIETY VITALITY, INCREASE UNITY AND HARMONY:
Scholars believe the move from here on will activate society vitality, promote political
parties, peoples, religions, different stratum and overseas Chinese harmony. The plenum
meeting solidifies the unity of all national minorities and mainland and overseas Chinese.
Innovation is the soul of national advancement and is also an important element of
Harmony Society. The plenum insists on respect for labor, knowledge and talent. To

35
activate the societal vitality is to “promote people’
s creative spirit, realize people are the
creator of history”.

(VI)
COLLECTION OF MEDIA REVIEWS OF THE HARMONY
COMMUNIQUE

Simply put the Harmony Communique summarizes that Socialism with Chinese
characteristics as Socialism with Harmony. This simple conceptualization of Socialism
with Chinese characteristics was first advanced by the author in his research papers
submitted to the NABE 2007 Conference on Oct. 1st, 2006. His submitted papers are
titled: “Chinese Harmony and American Democracy in 21st Century”and “Chinese
Harmony Culture Old and New, Promise for a less Confrontational World?” On the road
to build this Socialism with Chinese characteristics the government with exert all effort to
build a society that “ all society members exercise all their efforts, receive what they
need and live in harmony”and it is a harmonious socialistic society that is based on
“democratic governance, justice and righteous, trustworthiness and friendliness, filled
with vitality, stable and orderly and man and nature in harmony”.
Following are listed media comments immediately following the announcement
of the Harmony Communique translated by the author:
Hong Kong Wen Wei Pao: The new leaders of China having absorbed the essence of
Chinese ancient (harmony) culture linked closely China’s development with human race
development into connected domestic and foreign policies. These reflect the essence of
building an all around well off society, and express the Chinese cultural renaissance
national desire to promote trust and harmony among all nations. These also show that
China is raising high the banner of peace, development and cooperation. China is also
working hard to establish its image for a Harmony World.
Hong Kong Da Kun Pao: It is mentioned for the first time that Socialism with Harmony
belongs to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Besides building “rich and
democratic culture” , harmony is included as a goal of building a modern socialistic
society. Harmony Society is the new leaders’realization of people based government
theory. Domestically to build a harmony society is to maintain a sustainable ever
developing China. To build a Harmony World will set a good international environment
stage for China’s external advance.
Hong Kong Commerce Daily: The plenum is an important milestone of the National
Renaissance. Following the all around launching of building socialistic harmony
society, China’
s development and reform will herald a brand new period and enter a new
world.
Macau Daily: Emphasize building of harmony society is a wise choice by the Chinese
government. China is facing new challenges to solve the balances created by the rapid
economic progress. Whether Chinese government can resolve the conflicts directly

36
affects the advance or retreat and rise or fall of the reform and open up program. The
CPC is leading the nation to build a well off society. By speeding up the modernization
of socialist system, China will have made more significant contribution to the world.

(VII)
ST
THE 21 CENTURY CHINESE HARMONY PERSPECTIVE

The modern Chinese harmony movement began 2002 from the CPC’ s Scientific
Development Concept to build an ever developing, sustainable and stable socialistic
China with prosperity, democracy, vitality, equity and harmony with nature. As
demonstrated in my previous paper “Chinese Harmony and American Democracy in
21st Century” , the philosophy of harmony for over 2500 years is the essence of Chinese
ancient teaching and the spirit of the Chinese soul. For continuity of dissertation,
following Sections from the previous paper are attached in Appendix A: DOMINANT
PHILOSOPHY OF ANCIENT CHINA, HARMONY AS TAUGHT BY LAO ZI AND
CONFUCIUS, THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY, EAST AND WEST
CULTURAL TEMPERAMENT DIFFERENCE and TABLE OF CONTENTS. This
spirit of harmony permeates Chinese thinking, strongly influenced how Chinese behave
and live for most of its glorious two thousand five hundred years of history after Lao Zi.
During the last 150 years under the onslaught of Western Imperialism, materialism and
ideology, China lost touch with its heritage. Today China rediscovered its ancient
harmony heritage. In doing so China rediscovered itself. This is not unlike Europe’ s
rediscovery of ancient Greek democracy. It is not surprising that teachings of Lao Zi and
Confucius have tremendous impact on Asian cultures for two thousand years. Not only
because of the inherent universal order maintaining and satisfaction fulfilling values of
harmony, it also suited the Asian agriculture society of the time. Nomadic conquering
culture was never a main stream culture of China. At times the rise of the Nomadic
cultures of Xiong Nu, Mongolian and Manchu conquered or occupied China, invariably
the invaders were civilized or absorbed by the superior Chinese harmony culture.
One of the most fulfilling pleasures of Chinese traditional life is to visit Hangzhou
and Suzhou lakes and gardens. The sceneries there are considered as paradise on earth.
There is a saying in China “there is heaven above, below there is Suzhou and
Hangzhou” . Western gardens can be spectacular with perfectly trimmed bushes and
lawns. Suzhou and Hangzhou are famous for beautiful gardens with harmonious
blending by nature and man. The famous Westlake in Hangzhou is a large man made
lake and natural scenery maintained in perfect harmonious beauty through out the
centuries by successive poet administrators. It draws the most admirations as a must
visit site for lovers, artists and tourists alike. It was also a favorite poetic retreat for
Chairman Mao during his retiring years. Even in today’ s rapidly changing China, due to
reform and opening up, one is still constantly being reminded of its ancient harmony
heritage in landscapes, architectures, paintings and calligraphy, family tradition, way of
doing things and way of life. The art of Feng Shui in its application is actually an
attempt at harmonizing with nature in ones daily surrounding, be it home, work place or

37
ceremony. Asians are more reticent in work place or classroom because of innate
attempts at some kind of harmony of the situation. Chinese writing or calligraphy as an
art form strives for aesthetic not purely from static symmetry but from dynamic harmony
of many variations. If one studies Chinese calligraphy one immediately discovers that
the art form is unlimited. Often a dynamic harmony for the total composition can be
achieved through style of strokes, different ways to write the same words, the use of
spaces, the length of each vertical lines, the size of different words, the thickness and
strength of the strokes, the way the strokes dances and the arrangement of the words etc,
etc. The artistic licenses are unlimited and creativeness to present dynamic balance
unrestricted. The comparable situations at dynamic harmony in Western culture are the
master creations of symphonic music. However, Chinese traditional calligraphy as an art
form in displaying dynamic harmony is much widely participated and has a much longer
tradition. It is a very important aspect of Chinese traditional life. Chinese ancient music
for the most part however, is man’ s own harmonizing with nature and is an individual
healing process for the body and soul. As such, Chinese music is not intended as an
entertaining art and not in the same category as Western music. Perhaps, a similar
explanation can be made about Western calligraphy. Calligraphy in Western culture is
intended for the most part as design art rather than a way of life and enjoyment.
Fortunately for China, the current generation of leaders, including President Hu
Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are still very much in touch with traditional Chinese
cultures as well as modern scientific and political theories. Most of them still have the
Chinese ancient harmony spirit in their blood. It is hard to imagine any Chinese who are
brought up in a traditional Chinese family on Chinese history and classic novels not be
empowered by this Chinese virtue. Because this harmony spirit is omnipresent in ancient
Chinese culture as detailed in the attached sections in Appendix A. The rediscovering of
Chinese harmony tradition is natural following the formulation of the Scientific Concept
of Development by the Chinese government. As commented by previously cited media
commentary, the Sixth Plenum heralds in the mile stone of beginning of China’ s new
harmony age and the Renaissance of Chinese cultural and scientific awakening. A
nation can only be revitalized when it finds its own cultural roots and with unified
national energy finds its own unique creativity and confidence. The present 57 years
young China after turns and twists and dedicated incessant efforts, find its calling in
building Harmony Society. Socialism with Chinese characteristics will truly be Socialism
with Chinese Harmony. In working on its own national harmony, China will bring
harmony to the world. This undertaking of building a new harmonious China will be an
arduous task befits the CPC’ s Long March tradition. Perhaps only the CPC have the
experience, wisdom, organization, ability and dedication to bring on and lead the Chinese
people in this monumental and timely mission.

Before we have any expectation for a Harmony World resulting from the
dynamics of China’ s new harmony movement let us recap the important themes
developed through out this and author’ s previous papers on harmony. These themes are
important because they empower the Chinese harmony movement and they are from the
unique and innovative perspectives of a bicultural Chinese scientist who worked for 50
years in the U.S. and still very much Chinese at heart.

38
• The three major human cultural movements from the perspective of harmony are
Middle Eastern religions, European democracy and Chinese harmony. Harmony
also contains democracy as conflict resolution between government and its
citizens. Religious conflicts were prominently known to happen through out
human history. More notable ones are the 10 year Christian Crusade to conquer
the Moslem world and today President Bush elevated the conflict between Islam
and the U.S. as the greatest ideological struggle against the extreme Islam
terrorists in the 21st century.
• Lao Zi’ s harmony concepts originated from natural science observations. It also
postulates the existence of invisible energy and the gentle envelops the harsh or
soft overcomes the hard. The dynamic balance of YIN and Yang is in constant
influx. YIN contains part of Yang and Yang contains part of YIN. Harmony
balances developmental movement, moderates differences, put order into chaos
and unifying diversity. It is unity in diversity. As discussed in Appendix A, Lao
Zi’ s instructions of harmony was rooted in observation of the origin of the
universe and natural science. His philosophy of human activity harmonizing with
nature was all embracing, including the practice of FENG SHUI (living with
nature), physical science, agriculture and Chinese ancient medical practice. This
led to the belief that human biological system, society, and nations are constantly
in an influx of ever changing contending forces. Harmony is achieved when the
contending forces come to a balance or mutual acceptance under the total system.
All systems are constantly shifting, complex and seldom just black and white.
This concept of harmony is just as fitting in today’ s complex world and society as
it was during the time of Lao Zi.
• Harmony is more suited for resolution of world conflicts because it renounces the
use of force and assumes unity in diversity. Harmony is being rediscovered by
China and growing with vitality anew. American democracy, law and order
development followed the European enlightenment tradition. Counting from
American independence it has a history of only 230 years. Chinese harmony has
a tradition of 2500 years counting after the period of Spring and Autumn and the
Warring States. Current events indicate harmony is gaining ground over
American democracy.
• Chinese harmony old and new both are comprehensive system engineering
programs with high moral contents to stabilize and bring harmony to the society.
It carries the inherent Chinese wisdom of long historical perspective and
extensive tradition of living under the teachings of Chinese ancient harmony. For
57 years ever since the founding of the new Peoples Republic of China, America
has interfered in China’ s domestic affairs by incessantly harassing China with
American ideologies. With the advent of China’ s new Harmony Age China will
develop its own socialism with Chinese characteristics. Only by doing so China
can finally stand up. Chinese harmony will rise above America democracy as
more appropriate development solution for the diverse cultures of the world. In
the 21st Century leading movements to build World Harmony China will gain the
moral high ground. Judging from current world conflicts, U.S. transfer of
democracy by force only exasperated World Harmony.

39
• China in discovering harmony rediscovered its own roots. As shown in Appendix
A, Confucius teaching includes the whole social system of man with himself, men
between men, men and society and relations between countries. This includes
harmony between government and its citizens, which means democracy is part of
harmony system analysis as explained in Appendix A. In keeping with Chinese
harmony philosophy, democracy is achieved through self discipline, high moral
value, social order rather than strict law and penal system. Rediscovering
harmony heralds the age of new Chinese Renaissance and will impart innovative
spirit and vitality to the Chinese nation.
• In working for its own harmony society China will also bring harmony influence
to the world. The reality of the world is multicultural, with different development
ideologies and each country with different historical perspective and at various
stages of development. The world will be more harmonious when mutual
development and win-win development is emphasized with equity and justice.
Mutual development is accepting diverse development modes. Different world
concepts coexist in harmony is the wave of the future.
• Chinese harmony movement is beneficial to the world. Overseas Chinese as a
bridge for cultural exchange can be positive models. Especially in the U.S. the
dominant U.S. media largely blocks out important positive development in China
because of remnant Cold War mentality. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is
truly Chinese Socialism with Harmony. Perhaps only the CPC have the
experience, wisdom, organization, ability and dedication to bring up and lead the
Chinese people in this monumental and timely mission in the spirit of the Long
March. That remains to be seen.
• In China today foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy and at the same
time serving domestic policy. Hu Jintao, President of China, pointed out, China
must “Closely connect our development with the progress of mankind. Develop
our self through maintaining world peace and at the same time through our own
development to promote world peace” . Chinese government has officially stated
the central ideas of Harmony China and Harmony World as: China wants to build
a harmony society of “democracy and rule of law, justice and righteousness,
trustworthiness and friendliness, full of vitality, stable and orderly, a society of
man and nature in harmony” . A Harmony World envisioned by China is
“adherence to multilateralism, realize mutual security, adherence to mutually
beneficial cooperation, working with the 5 Principles of Coexistence, realize
mutual prosperity, adherence to the spirit of tolerance and building a Harmony
World together” . To put this noble goal into action China must work with
America. Only when the oldest continuing culture of the world teams up with the
most dynamic and young dominant power of the world can world harmony gain
worldwide momentum. This act of mutual acceptance between America and
China alone will signal a major break through for world harmony in the making.

40
 (VIII)
WORLD HARMONY, A LESS CONFRONTATIONAL WORLD?

The world today is in disharmony. Trade and international politics are inequitable,
heavily biased towards the developed countries. Citizens of some poor and developing
countries are leading destitute lives with no foreseeable opportunities to improve. Yet the
common desires for the world are peace and development. Major threats to today’ s world
harmony are: cultural distrust, extremist movements, use of force to expand democracy
ideology. To bring sense to this confrontational world, cold war mentality must be
significantly reduced, power politics must be recognized as counter productive to conflict
resolution. Placing blame rather than direct negotiations to reduce distrust are widely
practiced as national policies. These policies are supported by the most powerful
government and media in the world.

China in developing its own Socialistic Harmony Society can contribute to the
Harmony World. It is China’ s ideal, and it is deeply rooted in China’s culture. To put it
plainly, after all our discussions through out this paper, China’ s venerable wisdom is
harmony and historical prospective. The desire to help build a Harmony World is in
China’ s ancient believes (the concept of SHI JIE DA TONG is an old Confucius concept
also “all men are brothers” ). By working with world harmony it will also help China’ s
own harmony development.
To build harmony in the world we need to adhere to international laws and
regulations to peacefully adjust for equitable benefits. More attention must be paid to
the 5 principle of peaceful coexistence. The reality of the world is multicultural, with
different development ideologies and each country with different historical perspective
and at various stages of development. There is no backward country, only countries at
different stages of development. Between any two countries each has its complementary
advantages for mutual development. The world will be more harmonious when mutual
development and win-win development is emphasized with equity and justice. Mutual
development is accepting diverse development modes. Different development concepts
coexist in harmony is the wave of the future. Again Confucius said, gentlemen can
disagree and have harmony, little people can agree and still do not have harmony (JUN
ZI HE ER BU TONG, XIAO REN TONG ER BU HE). This is the new concept of unity
in diversity. Harmony World will surely come.

41
 APPENDIX A

DOMINANT PHILOSOPHY OF ANCIENT CHINA

In the following, PIN YIN will be used along with English equivalent explanation
for important Chinese terms so that readers of Chinese can relate to the original Chinese
characters. This is necessary because the need to retain the power and flavor of ancient
Chinese writing. Also PIN YIN has become the supplementary language for Chinese
minorities and foreigners who learn Chinese. The best reference for Chinese history and
ancient Chinese teachings is ZHONG GUO TONG SHI by Fan Wenlan. This is an eight
volume compilation of Chinese history and culture from ancient times to MIN GUO. This
was a major undertaking of its kind. It took the author a lifetime. Most was compiled
between 1940 and 1950, a very difficult period for China. This is a source book for this
paper, but other reference on LAO ZI and Confucius are readily available by Googling
these classic texts on Internet. All quotations of Confucius teachings are from SI SHU
WU JING (the four classics and the five scripture). The four Confucius classics are
LUN YU, ZHONG YONG, DA XUE, MENCIUS.
Throughout China’ s long history as an ancient culture, unlike the Middle East, it
did not produce a religion of world importance, and unlike the West it did not produce a
comprehensive home grown democracy system to resolve conflicts between the ruler and
the ruled. China obviously, however, had notions of religion and democracy, when
Confucius admonished his followers to respect God but keep a distance, and Mencius
advocated good government and put citizens above the rulers. Instead, through
considerable debate and evolution, China settled on the philosophies of CHUNG YUN,
HE XIE (moderation, harmony) and hierarchy social structures. Family and social order
were promoted by emphasizing SAN GANG WU CHANG, REN, YI , LI , ZHI, XIN (the
three important relations in the order of: ruler and the ruled, father and children, husband
and wife and five basic societal moral values) and LUN LI DAO DE (family and moral
values). More explanations of these ancient Chinese harmony and related ancient
teachings will be followed in the next section.
This system of profuse teaching was drilled into students from Day One and all
through a scholar’ s life. Youngsters’first standard reading text was SAN ZI JING (a
simple rhyme of Confucius teaching). To be recited by students word for word (my
children still cut their teeth on Chinese characters, and Chinese words with this text
during 1990’ s in Taiwan). The moderation and harmony philosophy reinforced by morals
and values as a social system was very different from the Western democracy concepts of
citizen rights and duties enforced by law and order. Ancient China did practice laws, but
sparsely, when compared to the comprehensive European laws and the complex and
voluminous US case study system. The strength of US modern culture lies in the
implementation of Government and law practices, and not merely in its democratic
ideology. The ideal of democracy, as harmony between government, society and citizens,
is universally accepted by today world. It will take time for the developing countries to
grow their own appropriate democratic system in their own soil. Harmony as seen from

42
ancient Chinese philosophy, included the practices of acceptance, tolerance, mutual
respect, equality and patience, but not the use of heavy penal correction.
China, as a huge ancient country, was divided into many kingdoms as Europe is
today. It was united two thousand years ago under Qin Shi Huang Di (Qin the first
Emperor). Under the ancient system, as explained above, a loose unity existed in China
for two thousand years, despite repeated invasion by the Xiong Nu, Jing, Mongols and
Manchu. Its resilient culture survived intact until it was severely challenged by the
Western expansionism and industrial revolution at the end of Manchu Dynasty. Today
the challenge to Chinese Culture from the West is in the form of Western Democratic
ideology. Prior to Qin Dynasty, during Warring States period, major philosophies were
fighting it out. This led to BAI HUA QI FANG, BAI JIA ZHENG MING (let hundred
flowers bloom, hundred schools contend). In the end, LAO ZI and Confucius triumphed.
This all happened before the time of Christ. Without disrespect to God and nature, the
prolific creation of religion and philosophies in the Middle East, South Asia to Confucius.
From the previous discussions one may characterize the three major world
approaches of basic societal harmony and order as: Eastern origin religion order, Western
Democracy and law, and Chinese moral values combined with hierarchy society order. In
reality, in any society the three approaches are combined with various changing
importance in practice. For the complex modern society of today the importance of law
and order is on the rise. In some societies challenged by Western democracy and
materialism, religious fundamentalism is also on the rise in opposition to Western
influence. But societal harmony for the future as global interactions expands, is perhaps
best served by an appropriate balance of the three approaches. This development will
call for more genuine exchange and dialogue between world cultures. For the past two
centuries the cultural flow has predominantly from West to East. The wisdom of five
thousand years of ancient Chinese culture of harmony and moral values had provided
long term stability and survival, cannot be easily dismissed.

HARMONY AS TAUGHT BY LAO ZI AND CONFUCIUS

As a start harmony was taught by the sages as the practices of acceptance,

tolerance, mutual respect, equality and patience. This is HAI NA BAI CHUAN, YOU
RONG NAI DA (a society that accepts and contains outside contribution will grow. The
essence of the implementation process, according to Confucius is XIU SHEN QI JIA ZI
GUO PING TIAN XIA (discipline oneself, harmony at home, order in the country before
extending peace to the world). As we proceed, all following concepts of harmony were
from LAO ZI, Confucius and Confucius’students’teachings. All original quotations
will be quoted here in PINYIN for those who know Chinese characters. In time PINYIN
could be come a complementary Chinese language for non native speakers of Chinese.
LAO ZI teachings are primarily from DAO DE JING or DAO YUEN JING, attributed to
him. There were no records of students of LAO ZI although Confucius supposedly had
sought advice from LAO ZI.

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 According to LAO ZI, the universe was created from YIN or negative (dark)
energy. From this infinite negative or dark energy all matter and galaxies were created.
This includes the earth and the solar system. A brief history of the origin of universe
according to Qin Nanji’ s interpretation of LAO ZI’ S DAO YUEN JING, explains the
relation between LAO ZI and modern quantum physics (to be published). From the YIN
comes the Yang. YIN and YANG for a harmonious society and world normally exist in
balance as beautifully represented in the Daoist circle sign. The YANG and YIN entwine
in the Daoist circle in perfect harmony and beauty. In a three dimensional world the
Daoist circle is a sphere with the YIN enclosing both the YIN and YANG on the outside
surface. LAO ZI always emphasized that YIN embraces YANG, the soft ultimately
overcomes the hard when harmony is not achieved. His philosophy renounced war and
advocated balance, harmony and peace.
As mentioned above LAO ZI preached HE HE (harmony and togetherness) as in
HE HE ER XIAN (two immortals of harmony and togetherness) and TIAN REN HE YI
(heaven and men unity). China throughout history was predominantly an agricultural
society. LAO ZI’ s philosophy of harmony with heaven and nature was well accepted by
the Chinese. The idea of YIN YANG balance also became the guiding philosophy of
traditional Chinese medicine. After the Qin and Han dynasties the philosophy of HE HE
was widely applied. It penetrated all schools of thoughts and all subsequent historical
periods. It became gradually accepted and agreed upon as the cultural spirit of the
Chinese thought. Throughout two millennia of Chinese culture, Confucius and his
students continued to exert a strong influence on Chinese thinking. Even when conflict
and contradiction of ideas were unavoidable, the philosophy of harmony and ZHONG
YONG ZHI DAO (the Way of the Golden Mean) continued to advise moderation and
avoidance of extreme. Challenged by Western cultural and military advances during the
last two centuries, China’ s traditional thinking was shaken to the core. Today, under
reform and opening up, Chinese society is undergoing profound changes on many fronts.
In the shifting social structure, promulgation of many new laws is taking place to change
to more responsive governance by incorporating US and Western ideas and experience.
In its search for a model society appropriate to the Chinese nation, there have
been continuing discussions and debates. Faced with today’ s global ideology and
religious conflicts, unilateralism, and extreme unequal parity of rich and poor between
North and South, the harmony philosophy is rediscovered in China. Like fresh air the
ancient teachings of LAO ZI and Confucius are coming back, China is rediscovering
itself. The Chinese are again quoting ancient harmony teachings. We hear phrases such
as LI ZHI YONG, HE WEI GUI (in applying courtesy, harmony is most important), JUN
ZI HE ER BU TONG, XIAO REN TONG ER BU HE (gentlemen can have harmony and
disagree, little people can agree and still does not have harmony). In the recent Chinese
media we have begun to see discussion of ideas such as HE XIE SHE HUI (Harmony
society) and HE XIE SHI JIE (harmony world).

44
 EAST AND WEST CULTURAL
TEMPERAMENT DIFFERENCE

The outward expression of LAO ZI’ s and Confucius’influence on Far Eastern

culture can easily be seen as a result of HE and LI (harmony and ceremony). Their
operas are more formalistic such as KUNQU and KABUKI performances. There are
numerous daily life rituals such as tea ceremonies and flower arrangements besides large
scale or formal ceremonies as in many societies. Their gardens are often a blend of
natural and man made. In China, the beauty of Suzhou and Hangzhou gardens earned
the recognition of Paradise on earth. The most acclaimed beautiful scenery is Westlake
in Hangzhou. It is a large landscape with a man made lake improved over centuries by
poets and officials. It is a classic example of a work of art as a blend of nature and man.
Typical examples of Western gardens are strikingly beautiful for their manicured lawns
and plants. Societal order is maintained by simple order and moral values rather than a
comprehensive system of laws. From time immemorial, advancement in Chinese society
was more through education and civil service examinations. The Chinese invented the
civil service system. Competition by physical strength was looked down upon. Most
competitive sports on the other hand were invented by the West.
As a whole the East Asian culture is more reserved, less prompt to challenge
nature. Hence, the industrial revolution was more likely to occur in the West. On today’ s
information highway, material incentives and western cultural influence massed assaults
on Chinese traditional values and way of life. As a result, teachings of tolerance,
acceptance, patience and human relation hierarchy order are in decline. However, the
historical fact that East Asian culture had the longest uninterrupted survival testifies to its
resilience and adaptability. In its recent soul searching to rediscover a new China,
harmony as a way to solve a broad range of conflicts is resurfacing.
The strength of US society lies in its stable government and system of laws. This
started from the European Enlightenment movement and continued for the last 230 years
since independence. This is a relative short period for national development by any
standard. The reasons for US stability are many fold. It lies outside the scope of the
present dissertation. Suffice to say the key reasons are; economic prosperity, absence of
major world wars fought within US territory and acceptance of the form of government
and system of laws by the population in general. From the perspective of the history of
the rise and fall of past empires, US complacency and resistance to change are clear. Its
government system is unable to keep up with the world economic change and its system
of laws is getting cumbersome. Its government system and ideology is not the answer-all
for the vast differences that exist among the multitude of developing nations. Each nation
is seeking its own form of harmony between the government and its citizens.
To expand its worldwide influence the US government, media and American
think tanks assert that America is democratic and thus is transparent. The American
viewpoint persists to exert that in this conflicting world, the US is not capable of using
violent force and that its organized military aggression is not the use of violence. All
violence was and will be started by nations that do not agree with us. Despite the fact this
line of logic does not deceive any person of reason outside of this country. As long as

45
US citizens love and buy it out of patriotism, they accept it as good logic and good policy.
There is no argument needed for any serious student of politics to understand that the US
government is transparent only when it wants to be. The massive US military and its
preparation for war are always shrouded in the utmost secrecy in the name of security.
Any declassification is after-the-fact, of little interest, and easily forgotten by its citizens.
The only people remembered are the victims that suffered terribly by the devastating
wars. That is why the US can launch one war after the other and continue to have the
support of its citizens. After the Second World War U.S. prestige was at the highest.
Today world opinion towards the US is at its lowest by surveys around the world. Yet
citizens of the US continue to feel that we are the most peace loving nation in the world
thanks to the US government and media omission and propaganda.
Today conflicts against extremism are prolific in the world. These span difference
between religions, ideologies, cultures, forms of government or simply distrust. The
extremes of the privileged and the under privileged, the rich and the poor, the powerful
and the powerless the North and the South, the developed and the developing nations
have reached alarming proportions. The philosophy of harmony encompassing patience,
acceptance, tolerance, equality and mutual support, as presented in the previous section,
must be broadly accepted to prevent major catastrophes breaking out in all corners of the
world. Major nations together with United Nations must stand up and take the necessary
creative actions to minimize these occurrences.
Domestically the US, after his assassination, praised Martin Luther King and
endorsed his passive civil rights movement to resolve black and white racial conflicts.
This showed a great deal of wisdom by the US government and the public. Yet in
international conflicts US loudly proclaimed preemptive strikes to countries who do not
agree with us. Democracy, as the only tool for conflict resolution, is very limited and
does not comprise a core approach. The complexity of the multi national conflicts
requires comprehensive system engineering studies of creative harmony solutions. First,
we must abandon unilateralism. This will allow consorted multinational studies to come
up with indigenous and appropriate solutions to suit the diverse conditions that exist
among nations. The reality of nations as we see in today’ s world is in total lack of
international democracy and equality.

THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY

The ultimate principle of Chinese ancient harmony, as expounded by LAO ZI in

DAO DE JING, is the balance of YIN and YANG but ultimately YIN envelopes YANG
and is beautifully illustrated in the Daoist circle sign of life. In our three dimensional
world the Daoist circular sign actually is a sphere with the outside covered by a dark shell
as explained before. In Section Forty Two of LAO ZI DAO DE JING it states that DAO
SHENG YI, YI SHENG ER, ER SHENG SAN, SAN SHENG WAN WU. WAN WU FU
YIN ER BAO YANG, CHONG QI YI WEI HE. In Qin Nanji’ s publication. “ Brief
History of the Universe’ s Origin”, this sentence is interpreted as Negative energy created

46
proton, proton created neutron and meson, that in turn created DNA, together all life and
matter were created in the universe. This interpretation by Qin Nanji remains to be tested
and discussed for its validity. It is by no means an accepted scientific conclusion. The
second sentence in above quoted DAO DE JING however, clearly stated that all matters
carry YIN but YIN carries Yang, and when filled with QI harmony is produced. The
common interpretation of this is the ultimate Daoist harmony principle repeated through
out DAO DE JING. YIN and YANG when charged with QI, result in harmony. But
ultimately YIN triumphs over YANG by containing Yang. HAI NA BAI CHUAN, YU
RONG NAI DA (The sea accepts hundreds rivers, it can only be big if it contains).
This general theme of YIN over YANG runs through DAO DE JING and is
supported by TAI JI QUAN practices (the ultimate martial arts). To name a few
illustrations from DAO DE JING ; soft overcomes the hard like dripping water eventually
bores a hole in the hardest rock, water flows over and immerses that blocks it, water
extinguishes fire. At the beginning the whole universe is in total darkness, war and
confrontation is to be avoided, moderation eventually overcomes aggression. In today’ s
conflicting world our model of democracy cannot be forced on other nations of different
culture and at different developing stages. Democracy works best by softly and patiently
winning over the hearts and minds of people. Countering extremism by extremism is
bound to lead to ultimate destruction of both sides. War does not solve confrontations,
but moderation (negotiation) can resolve conflicts. Soft power (ideals and economics)
eventually will overcome military power. The best way to resolve conflicts is to bring
harmony to the confronting parties. This can start by understanding the causes of
conflicts through mutual respect, trust, tolerance and acceptance. The world will progress
for all mankind till eternity when harmony is universally accepted. The world of harmony
shall surely come. A ten thousand miles journey begins with the first step. Let us end for
now by repeating what was quoted before. JUN ZI HE ER BU TONG, XIAO REN
TONG ER BU HE for an interpretation different from the translation in previous section,
I will say gentlemen place harmony above all other political ideology, let us look forward
to unity in diversity and live in harmony.

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 APPENDIX B

Communique of the Sixth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee

Following is the translation of the full text of the Communique of the Sixth Plenum
of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which was
passed Wednesday in Beijing.
The Sixth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee was held in Beijing from Oct.
8 to 11, 2006.
Present at the plenum were 195 members and 152 alternate members of the CPC
Central Committee. Members of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection and leading officials of relevant departments also
attended the meeting as nonvoting delegates.
The plenum was presided over by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central
Committee. Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered an
important speech at the plenum.
The plenum listened to and discussed the working report delivered by Hu Jintao,
who was entrusted by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and adopted
the "resolutions of the CPC Central Committee on major issues regarding the building of
a harmonious socialist society". Wu Bangguo made an explanatory speech on the draft
resolutions to the plenum.
The plenum fully recognized the work of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central
Committee since the Fifth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee. The plenum
unanimously agreed that the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee has firmly
followed the guidance of the Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the
"Three Represents", thoroughly implemented the guidelines of the 16th CPC National
Congress and the Third, Fourth and Fifth plenums of the 16th CPC Central Committee
and comprehensively implemented the scientific concept of development. The plenum
agreed that the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, uniting and leading the
whole Party and Chinese people of all ethnic groups, firmly focused on development, the
most important task for the Party to govern and construct the country. The plenum agreed
that the Political Bureau exerted efforts to speed up reform and opening up, improve the
nation's capability of scientific and technological innovation and push the adjustment of
economic structures and the transformation of economic growth mode to push for the
relatively rapid and stable economic development. It agreed that new achievements have
been made in the socialist economic, political, cultural and social construction, the Party's
governance capability and advanced nature have been strengthened, and new progress has
been achieved in the socialist cause of Chinese characteristics.
The plenum fully analyzed the current situation and tasks and discussed the key
issues of building a harmonious socialist society. The plenum unanimously agreed that
social harmony is the intrinsic nature of the socialism with Chinese characteristics and an
important guarantee of the country's prosperity, the nation's rejuvenation and the people's
happiness. The building of a harmonious socialist society is an important strategic task,

48
which was put forward by the CPC under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism,
Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the "Three
Represents" and with full implementation of the scientific concept of development. The
task was brought forward on the basis of the overall plan of the socialist cause with
Chinese characteristics and the comprehensive construction of a moderately prosperous
society. To build a harmonious socialist society was the intrinsic demand of constructing
a socialist modernized country which is prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized and
harmonious. It also embodied the common aspiration of the whole Party and people of all
ethnic groups.
The plenum pointed out that social harmony is one of the targets that the CPC will
make unremitting efforts to hit. Since the founding of New China, the CPC has made
arduous efforts to promote social harmony and has made important achievements with
both positive and bitter experiences. Since the Third Plenum of the 11th CPC Central
Committee, the CPC has been firmly committed to the reform and opening up drive and
socialist construction, actively bolstered the comprehensive progress of economic and
social development and made tireless efforts to promote social harmony. Since the 16th
CPC National Congress, with deepening understanding of social harmony, the CPC has
made clear the status of building a harmonious socialist society in the overall plan of the
socialist cause with Chinese characteristics and made a series of decisions and
deployments to strive for new achievements in the building of a harmonious society.
After long-term endeavors, a favorable condition for building a harmonious socialist
society has been formed.
The plenum said the CPC should take opportunities and face challenges in the new
century and lead Chinese people to push forward the great socialist cause with Chinese
characteristics. It said the Party must continue to focus on economic development and put
the building of the harmonious socialist society to a more prominent place.
Value system should be upheld. Socialist concept of honor and disgrace should be
established. Civilized public morality should be fostered. Active and healthy ideological
atmosphere should be The plenum believed that currently the Chinese society is
harmonious in general. However, there exist many contradictions and problems, which
affect social harmony. Human society has been developing and progressing amid
movements of all kinds of conflicts. The building of the harmonious socialist society is a
consistent process, during which social conflicts are resolved. We must always remain
sober minded, be vigilant in peace time, thoroughly understand the feature of the country
in the current phase of development, study and analyze the contradictions and problems
and their origins in a scientific way, be more active to face up to the conflicts and solve
them, and try utmost efforts to increase harmonious factors and reduce disharmonious
factors to consistently boost social harmony. The plenum requested all Party members
continue to emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts, keep pace with the times, be
realistic, consciously act according to rules, be based on the current situation while
keeping eyes on the future, do what our strength allows and exert every effort to
continuously advance the building of the harmonious socialist society. The plenum
requested all Party members contribute to the building of the socialist harmonious
society, which should be regarded as a long-term historical task that runs through the

49
whole process of the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics and a vital realistic task
for comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society.

The plenum stressed that the harmonious socialist society we are going to build is a
harmonious society built and shared by all Chinese people along the road of socialism
with Chinese characteristics and under the leadership of the CPC. We must adhere to the
guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the
important thought of "Three Represents", adhere to the Party's basic line, basic program
and basic experience, adhere to the guidance of scientific concept of development in
overall economic and social development, follow the overall requirement of building a
democratic society under the rule of law, a society based on equity and justice, an honest
and caring society, a society full of vigor and a stable and orderly society in which
humans live in harmony with nature, strive to develop social services, promote social
equity and justice, foster a culture of harmony, improve public administration, enhance
creativity of the society, pursue the road of common prosperity, and push forward
coordinated development of social construction, economic construction, political
construction and cultural construction with the emphasis on solving issues people care
about most and issues that concern their most immediate and most realistic interests.
The plenum puts forward the main objectives and tasks for building a harmonious
socialist society by 2020, which are as follows: the socialist democratic and legal system
is further improved; the fundamental principle of administering the country according to
law is implemented in an all-around way; people's rights and interests enjoy concrete
respect and guarantee; widening of gap between urban and rural development and
development between different regions is gradually reversed; a reasonable and orderly
income distribution pattern takes shape in general; wealth of households increase
universally and people lead more affluent lives; employment rate is relatively high and a
social security system covering both urban and rural residents is established in general;
basic public service system is further improved and the government attains relatively big
improvements in administrative and service levels; the ideological and moral qualities,
scientific and cultural qualities and health qualities of the whole nation are improved
markedly and further progress is made in fostering a sound moral atmosphere and
harmonious interpersonal relationship; creativity of the whole society is enhanced
markedly and an innovation-based country is established in general; public administration
system is further improved and social order is in good condition; efficiency of utilization
of resources is enhanced markedly and visible improvement in ecological environment is
achieved; the objective of building a moderately prosperous society of a higher level and
in an all-around way to benefit the Chinese people of more than 1 billion is realized and
striving to attain a situation in which all people do their best according to their abilities,
everyone is provided for and people live together in harmony.
The plenum stressed that the following principles must be followed in building a
harmonious socialist society: adhering to putting people first; adhering to development in
a scientific way; adhering to reform and opening up; adhering to democracy and the rule
of law; adhering to properly handling the relationships between reform, development and
stability; and adhering to participation of the whole society under the leadership of the
Party.

50
 The plenum pointed out that development is the prerequisite of social harmony. We
must adhere to solving problems on the road ahead through promoting development and
make great efforts to develop social productive forces and constantly consolidate the
material base for social harmony. Meanwhile, we must put more attention to developing
social services and push forward economic and social development in a coordinated way.
Social equity and justice is a basic condition of social harmony, while a sound system
provides the fundamental guarantee to social equity and justice. We must accelerate
construction of the system that plays an important role in ensuring social equity and
justice to guarantee people's rights and interests in political, economic, cultural and social
fields and guide our citizens to exercise their rights and fulfill their obligations according
to law. Nurturing a culture of harmony is an important task of building a harmonious
socialist society, while socialist core value system is the essential element of the culture
of harmony. We must adhere to the guiding role of Marxism in ideological fields, firmly
control the development direction of socialist advanced culture, advocate harmony
concepts and nurture the spirit of harmony to further foster common ideals and beliefs for
the whole society and solidify the ideological and moral base for the whole Party and
people of various ethnic groups to work hard in unison. Enhancing public administration
and maintaining social stability is a prerequisite of building a harmonious socialist
society. We must innovate the public administration system, integrate public
administration resources, improve the level of public administration, improve the public
administration pattern that is under the leadership of the Party committee, the government
taking the responsibility with cooperation from other organizations and with participation
of the public. Service should be accompanied with administration and administration
should reflect service. Socialist harmonious society is both a society full of vigor and a
society of unity and harmony. We must stimulate the energy of society to its full,
promote the harmony of relationship between political parties, ethnic groups, religions,
stratums and compatriots at home and abroad, consolidate the great unity of people of
various ethnic groups and consolidate the great unity of Chinese both at home and
abroad.
The plenum made the deployment for building a harmonious socialist society for
present time and future: Construction of social cause should be strengthened through
adhering to coordinated development; new socialist countryside construction should be
earnestly pushed forward; the general strategy of regional development should be
implemented; active employment policies should be carried out; education should be
topped the agenda of development; health care services should be enhanced; development
of cultural cause and cultural industries should be speed up; environmental protection and
pollution control should be strengthened; institutional construction should be enhanced
and social equality and justice should be safeguarded. The system of safeguarding
democratic rights, the legal system and judicial system and mechanism, as well as
systems of public finance, income distribution and social security should be improved.
Harmonious culture should be built. Ethnic foundation for social harmony should be
consolidated. Socialist core built. A movement of creating harmonious society should be
widely launched.
Social administration should be improved and good public order should be
maintained. Service-oriented government should be established, community construction
should be pushed forward and social organizations should be healthily developed.

51
Interests of various sides should be coordinated in an overall manner. Emergency
response system and overall management of public order should be improved. National
security and national defense work must be strengthened.
Social vigor should be stimulated and social unity and harmony be enhanced.
People's creative spirit should be brought into play and the broadest patriotic united front
be consolidated. The long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macao should
be maintained, the great cause of national reunification should be pushed forward and the
peaceful development road be adhered to.
The plenum stressed that to build a harmonious socialist society, the CPC's role as
the core leadership must be brought into full play. The principles -- the Party is built for
the public and exercises the power for the people -- must be adhered to. CPC's efforts in
improving governance capacity and maintaining advanced nature are the political
guarantee for the construction of a harmonious socialist society. Leadership and cadres at
various levels should improve their capability of leading people to construct a
harmonious socialist society. Party committees at various levels should put the
construction of a harmonious socialist society at a prominent position and make efforts in
judging direction, stipulating policies, pooling strengths and power, fostering favorable
environment and shouldering the leadership accountability for the construction of a
harmonious socialist society. Democratic centralism should be adhered to and improved.
Efforts should be made in improving inner-Party democracy, increasing transparency of
Party affairs, strictly regulating the inner-Party life, strictly enforcing the Party's
discipline, promoting the party's unity. Inner-Party harmony will promote social
harmony. Party committees at various levels should build the scientific leadership and
work system of high-efficiency, clearly classify responsibilities, provide coordinated
instruction, sharpen political sensitivity, strengthen investigation and research into major
issues of social construction for the effectiveness of their policies and properly handling
prominent contradictions and issues that affect social harmony in their localities. The
work should be intensified in the grass-roots, the characteristics of the Party's work
concerning the masses should be earnestly studied, and great effort should be made on
the work concerning the masses. Party committees at various levels should always
maintain flesh-and-blood relations with the masses and train a large number of
professionals who are good at dealing with social issues.
Party committees at various levels should toughen the internal discipline and
strengthen studying of the Party Constitution, laws and disciplines. Party members and
cadres should strengthen ideological and moral cultivation. The anti-corruption
mechanism should be improved and the supervision over the leading cadres and
organizations should be intensified. The fight against corruption and the construction of a
clean and honest Party should be fortified. Sound ethos within the Party should be
introduced to foster healthy ethos among the general public and government officials, so
as to create harmonious relations between the Party and the masses.
The plenum reviewed and passed a resolution on the convening of the 17th National
Congress of the CPC, which is to be held in second half of 2007. The national congress,
to be held at a crucial period of China's economic and social development, will be of vital
importance for the Party to unite and lead all the Chinese people in building a moderately
prosperous society and accelerating the nation's socialist modernization drive.

52
 The plenum called on the whole Party to rally closely around the CPC Central
Committee with comrade Hu Jintao as the General Secretary; to hold high the banner of
Deng Xiaoping Theory and the Important Thought of "Three Represents" and further
implement the scientific concept of development; to blaze new trails, unite and lead all
Chinese people to build a prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized and harmonious
socialist modern nation.

People's Daily Online --- http://english.people.com.cn/

53
 GLOSSSARY OF PIN YIN TERMS AND CHINESE
CHARACTERS

LI ZHI YONG, HE WEI GUI 禮之用，和為貴

JUN ZI HE ER BU TONG, XIAO REN TONG ER BU HE
君子和而不同，小人同而不和

ZHONG GUO TONG SHI 中國通史

SI SHU WU JING 四書五經

LUN YU, ZHONG YONG, DA XUE, MENCIUS 論語，中庸，大學，孟子

SAN GANG WU CHANG, REN, YI, LI, ZHI, XIN 三綱五常。仁、義、禮、智、信

LUN LI DAO DE 論理道德

SAN ZI JING 三字經

ZHONG YONG 中庸

HE XIE 和諧

BAI HUA QI FANG, BAI JIA ZHENG MING 百花齊放，百家争鳴

DAO DE JING 道德經

DAO YUEN JING 道原經

YIN YANG 陰陽

XIU SHEN, QI JIA, ZHI GUO, PING TIAN XIA 修身，齊家，治國，平天下

HE HE ER XIAN 和合二仙

TIAN REN HE YI 天人合一

ZHONG YONG ZHI DAO 中庸之道

HE XIE SHE HUI 和諧社會

HE XIE SHI JIE 和諧世界

KUNQU 昆曲

WUHAN 武漢

JUN BU REN CHEN BU YI 君不仁臣不義

54
MIN WEI BEN 民為本

CHEN WEI ZHONG, JUN WEI QING 臣為重，君為輕

DE REN XIN ZHE DE TIAN XIA, SHI REN XIN ZHE SHI TIAN XIA
得人心者得天下，失人心者失天下

HUA DI WEI LAO 畫地為牢

LU BU SHI YI, YE BU BI HU 路不拾遺，夜不閉戶

FEN JIAN 封建

DAO SHENG YI, YI SHENG ER, ER SHENG SAN, SAN SHENG WAN WU.
WAN WU FU YIN ER BAO YANG, CHONG QI YI WEI HE
道生一、一生二、二生三、三生萬物。萬物負陰而抱陽，沖氣以為和。

FENG SHUI 風水

HAI NA BAI CHUAN, YOU YONG NAI DA 海納百川，有容乃大

TAI JI QUAN 太極拳

MIN GUO 民國

SUZHOU 蘇州

HANGZHOU 杭州

QIN SHI HUANG DI 秦始皇帝

DONG ZHONG SHU 董仲舒

ZHONG GUO TONG SHI 中國通史

LAO ZI 老子

CONFUCIUS 孔夫子

XIONG NU 匈奴

JIN 金

55
 Chinese harmony and American democracy in 21st century Part I
(Published by Xinhuanet)
www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-01 14:18:02

BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhuanet)-- Following is an excerpt of a paper by Francis C. W. Fung, PH. D.

In his paper, Fung said, as the ancient world culture with the longest
uninterrupted historical record, the richness of China's teachings of harmony as a
dominant philosophy is unparalleled.

But, he noted, "China is going through dramatic changes in adjusting to the

conflicts of the new and the old.

"To address the multitude of domestic and international conflicts," he said,

China has promoted the ancient teachings of harmony and has achieved much in
its great efforts of building a Harmonious Society and Harmonious World.

From the perspective of harmony, Fung examined three major movements of

human civilization: religion, democracy and harmony. "As the world is in great
disharmony with religion conflicts, international inequity, and the disparity
between North and South," Fung stressed, "we must look beyond religion and
democracy to harmony."

Then after comparing with religion and democracy, Fung asked, "Will harmony
bring a more moderate future world?" His answer is yes.

Finally Fung stressed that democracy -- American style -- is challenged by

Chinese harmony as the leading global philosophy in the 21st century, because
harmony is a basic human longing.

Fung concluded his paper "Teaching harmony in U.S. is paramount."

Only corrections of language errors, typo changes and editing are made, but
the viewpoints are all Fung's.

From time immemorial humans had to cope with nature, the need of shelter and the
fear of nature's extreme furor. This fear was as natural as nature itself and a solution was
paramount from the outset. Obvious approaches to addressing this issue were: acceptance
of life, submission to the will of God to placate nature, harmonizing with nature, and
persevering as best as one could. These approaches were combined, at times, for
expediency. As civilization progressed, and local and global societies became more
complex and conflicting issues prolific, more harmony solutions were needed.

As far as one can ascertain the major world religions practiced today originated from
the mystic East and can be narrowed to Central Asia along the silk-road including India
and the middle East. There seems to be continuity in development from the earliest

56
religion to the latest. The following is a short introduction of origin of modern religion as
mankind's effort to harmonize with nature. One might surmise that organized religions
are human's group effort to harmonize with nature by submitting to the will of God.
There are reasons perhaps to accept the speculation that certain cultures may be more
spiritual from a religious view point, although some cultures have defined spirituality
from a moral value view point.

All religions offer the faithful harmony to nature and God and peace of mind.

Democracy grew out of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe (1600 to 1789), a

movement to resolve the conflicts between the ruler and the ruled in France and England.
Its philosophy was against superstition, encouraging development of science, and against
easy acceptance of authority. Two leading philosophers of the time were the Frenchman,
Rousseau, and the Englishman, John Lock

The United States of America, formerly a colony of England, defeated the occupier
and declared Independence on 1776 during the Age of Enlightenment. The early new
citizens being immigrants of Europe, were quick to adopt the ideas of liberty, fraternity
and democracy. As a result, the drafters of the U.S. constitution and Bill of Rights that
guaranteed citizen rights were heavily influenced by Rousseau and John Lock.

Many elements of the present day U.S. government including theory, structure and
policy were penned by Thomas Jefferson, an original signer of the U.S. Constitution and
Bill of Rights. The documents spelled out the rights and duties of the citizen, majority
rule and the separation of powers. These harmonizing concepts were a great influence on
today's governments. The drafting of a constitution for new governments is today a
standard fare.

The leaders of the U.S. government then and still now are mostly aristocrats or elites of
the society. From the very beginning there were two opposing forces, the powerful at one
end and the masses at the other, which see-saw through out the entire relatively short U.S.
history.

Although American citizens have more freedom of choice in life in relation to other
societies of today, true democracy of equality and mass representation on important
issues remains elusive.

Today the U.S. media is owned by a few big businesses, and is easily influenced by the
government and big business. In foreign policy especially, media self censorship is
prevalent and political correctness is the name of the game.

Despite freedom of press and freedom of speech, U.S. citizens are not fully aware of
real world opinion towards the U.S.. U.S. foreign policy is again controlled by minority
elite supporting the government. In its eagerness to export democracy as an ideology
supported by the U.S. military, media and elite, U.S. approaches can be inflexible and
doctrinaire. Often democracy is touted as transparent and peaceful.

57
 Attempts to export the democracy model between government and citizens in this case
have the opposite effect of causing world disharmony. This is seen in the U.S. unilateral
Iraq war that has exasperated U.S. population and the world. All wars of aggression of
modern times were launched with high sounding goals necessary for the morale of the
invading forces.

Chinese harmony and American democracy in 21st century Part II

(Published by Xinhuanet)
www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-01 14:18:02

Throughout China's long history as an ancient culture, unlike the Middle East, it did
not produce a religion of world importance, and unlike the West it did not produce a
comprehensive home grown democracy system to resolve conflicts between the ruler and
the ruled. China obviously, however, had notions of religion and democracy, when
Confucius admonished his followers to respect God but keep a distance, and Mencius
advocated good government and put citizens above the rulers.

Instead, through considerable debate and evolution, China settled on the philosophies
of ZHONG YONG, HE XIE (moderation, harmony) and hierarchy social structures.
Family and social order were promoted by emphasizing SAN GANG WU CHANG,
REN, YI , LI , ZHI, XIN (the three important relations in the order of: ruler and the ruled,
father and children, husband and wife and five basic societal moral values) and LUN LI
DAO DE (family and moral values).

This system of profuse teaching was drilled into students from Day One and all
through a scholar's life. Youngsters' first standard reading text was SAN ZI JING (a
simple rhyme of Confucius teaching).

The moderation and harmony philosophy reinforced by morals and values as a social
system was very different from the Western democracy concepts of citizen rights and
duties enforced by law and order. Ancient China did practice laws, but sparsely, when
compared to the comprehensive European laws and the complex and voluminous U.S.
case study system. The strength of U.S. modern culture lies in the implementation of
Government and law practices, and not merely in its democratic ideology. The ideal of
democracy, as harmony between government, society and citizens, is universally
accepted by today world. It will take time for the developing countries to grow their own
appropriate democratic system in their own soil.

Harmony as seen from ancient Chinese philosophy, included the practices of

acceptance, tolerance, mutual respect, equality and patience, but not the use of heavy
penal correction.

From the previous discussions one may characterize the three major world approaches
of basic societal harmony and order as: Eastern origin religion order, Western Democracy

58
and law, and Chinese moral values combined with hierarchy society order. But societal
harmony for the future as global interactions expands, is perhaps best served by an
appropriate balance of the three approaches.

This development will call for more genuine exchange and dialogue between world
cultures. For the past two centuries the cultural flow has predominantly from West to
East. The wisdom of five thousand years of ancient Chinese culture of harmony and
moral values had provided long term stability and survival, cannot be easily dismissed.

As a start harmony was taught by the sages as the practices of acceptance, tolerance,
mutual respect, equality and patience. The essence of the implementation process,
according to Confucius is discipline oneself, harmony at home, order in the country
before extending peace to the world.

According to LAO ZI, the universe was created from YIN or negative (dark) energy.
From this infinite negative or dark energy all matter and galaxies were created. This
includes the earth and the solar system.

The YANG and YIN entwine in the Daoist circle in perfect harmony and beauty. In a
three dimensional world the Daoist circle is a sphere with the YIN enclosing both the
YIN and YANG on the outside surface. LAO ZI always emphasized that YIN embraces
YANG, the soft ultimately overcomes the hard when harmony is not achieved. His
philosophy renounced war and advocated balance, harmony and peace.

LAO ZI's philosophy of harmony with heaven and nature was well accepted by the
Chinese. The idea of YIN YANG balance also became the guiding philosophy of
traditional Chinese medicine. After the Qin and Han dynasties the philosophy of HE HE
was widely applied. It penetrated all schools of thoughts and all subsequent historical
periods. It became gradually accepted and agreed upon as the cultural spirit of the
Chinese thought. Throughout two millennia of Chinese culture, Confucius and his
students continued to exert a strong influence on Chinese thinking. Even when conflict
and contradiction of ideas were unavoidable, the philosophy of harmony and ZHONG
YONG ZHI DAO (the Way of the Golden Mean) continued to advise moderation and
avoidance of extreme.

Challenged by Western cultural and military advances during the last two centuries,
China's traditional thinking was shaken to the core. Today, under reform and opening up,
Chinese society is undergoing profound changes on many fronts. In the shifting social
structure, promulgation of many new laws is taking place to change to more responsive
governance by incorporating U.S. and Western ideas and experience.

In its search for a model society appropriate to the Chinese nation, there have been
continuing discussions and debates. Faced with today's global ideology and religious
conflicts, unilateralism, and extreme unequal parity of rich and poor between North and
South, the harmony philosophy is rediscovered in China.

59
 Like fresh air the ancient teachings of LAO ZI and Confucius are coming back, China
is rediscovering itself. The Chinese are again quoting ancient harmony teachings.

In the recent Chinese media we have begun to see discussion of ideas such as HE XIE
SHE HUI (Harmony society) and HE XIE SHI JIE (harmony world).

The outward _expression of LAO ZI's and Confucius' influence on Far Eastern culture
can easily be seen as a result of HE and LI (harmony and ceremony).

From time immemorial, advancement in Chinese society was more through education
and civil service examinations. The Chinese invented the civil service system.
Competition by physical strength was looked down upon. Most competitive sports on the
other hand were invented by the West.

As a whole the East Asian culture is more reserved, less prompt to challenge nature.
Hence, the industrial revolution was more likely to occur in the West. On today's
information highway, material incentives and western cultural influence massed assaults
on Chinese traditional values and way of life. As a result, teachings of tolerance,
acceptance, patience and human relation hierarchy order are in decline. However, the
historical fact that East Asian culture had the longest uninterrupted survival testifies to its
resilience and adaptability. In its recent soul searching to rediscover a new China,
harmony as a way to solve a broad range of conflicts is resurfacing.

The strength of U.S. society lies in its stable government and system of laws. This
started from the European Enlightenment movement and continued for the last 230 years
since independence. This is a relative short period for national development by any
standard. Suffice to say the key reasons are; economic prosperity, absence of major world
wars fought within U.S. territory and acceptance of the form of government and system
of laws by the population in general.

From the perspective of the history of the rise and fall of past empires, U.S.
complacency and resistance to change are clear. Its government system is unable to keep
up with the world economic change and its system of laws is getting cumbersome. Its
government system and ideology is not the answer-all for the vast differences that exist
among the multitude of developing nations. Each nation is seeking its own form of
harmony between the government and its citizens.

To expand its worldwide influence the U.S. government, media and American think
tanks assert that America is democratic and thus is transparent. The American viewpoint
persists to exert that in this conflicting world, the U.S. is not capable of using violent
force and that its organized military aggression is not the use of violence. All violence
was and will be started by nations that do not agree with us.

Despite the fact this line of logic does not deceive any person of reason outside of this
country. As long as U.S. citizens love and buy it out of patriotism, they accept it as good
logic and good policy. There is no argument needed for any serious student of politics to
understand that the U.S. government is transparent only when it wants to be. The massive

60
U.S. military and its preparation for war are always shrouded in the utmost secrecy in the
name of security. Any declassification is after-the-fact, of little interest, and easily
forgotten by its citizens. The only people remembered are the victims that suffered
terribly by the devastating wars. That is why the U.S. can launch one war after the other
and continue to have the support of its citizens.

After the Second World War U.S. prestige was at the highest. Today world opinion
towards the U.S. is at its lowest by surveys around the world. Yet citizens of the U.S.
continue to feel that we are the most peace loving nation in the world thanks to the U.S.
government and media omission and propaganda."

Today conflicts against extremism are prolific in the world. These span difference
between religions, ideologies, cultures, forms of government or simply distrust. The
extremes of the privileged and the under privileged, the rich and the poor, the powerful
and the powerless the North and the South, the developed and the developing nations
have reached alarming proportions. The philosophy of harmony encompassing patience,
acceptance, tolerance, equality and mutual support, as presented in the previous section,
must be broadly accepted to prevent major catastrophes breaking out in all corners of the
world. Major nations together with United Nations must stand up and take the necessary
creative actions to minimize these occurrences.

Democracy, as the only tool for conflict resolution, is very limited and does not
comprise a core approach. The complexity of the multi national conflicts requires
comprehensive system engineering studies of creative harmony solutions. "First, we must
abandon unilateralism. This will allow consorted multinational studies to come up with
indigenous and appropriate solutions to suit the diverse conditions that exist among
nations. The reality of nations as we see in today's world is in total lack of international
democracy and equality.

Democracy grew out of the 17th century Enlightenment movement as a resolution of

the conflicts between the ruler and the ruled. But the movement as a tradition had
inspired many national revolutions. The notable ones for this discussion were the French
revolution, American independence war and the Chinese 1911 revolution extending to the
1949 revolution led by Mao Zedong. However, three hundred years is very short for
human history. Through out Chinese history every 300 years or so peasants would rise up
to overthrow the emperor. However, the ancient philosophies of harmony and moderation
were always able to restore stability, prosperity and a loosely united empire.

Chinese harmony and American democracy in 21st century-Part III

(Published by Xinhuanet)
www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-01 14:18:02

The resilience of the Chinese nation lies in its deep rooted harmony philosophies
coupled with prosperity at the beginning of each successful dynasty. This typically goes

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on in every 300 years or so for two millennium. China, after two hundred years of
Western and Japanese humiliation and invasion, had lost its direction for a while. Today
with relative prosperity returning, demands for harmony as a way to resolve conflicts in a
complex modern society return in force. This is how China rediscovered itself from the
roots of its ancient culture.

The Chinese feudal society was not an absolute civil order that was unalterable. The
idea that opposing forces are constantly struggling for balance, lay the foundation for
change. If the ruler is not kind and loving, the ruled can rise up to defy his order. This
was always true as demonstrated by the over thrown of decadent dynasties by peasant
revolutions.

Basic democratic ideals were also formed during that time. This is what China calls
today MIN WEI BEN, people based ideals. The teaching of MIN WEI BEN means the
ruled is more important than the ruler in good government, or a good government should
put its people above the ruler. This REN BEN (people based) ideal have reined for two
thousand years and is again being revived. The idea of anti corruption and anti dictatorial
government is innate in China as well as in many other cultures. Simply put as in a
Confucius saying, DE REN XIN ZHE DE, SHI REN XIN SHE SHI TIAN XIA (the ruler
who lost people's hearts lost his empire, the ruler who won people's hearts won the
empire). This is the basis of a society centered on teaching of moral values and virtue.

Moral and values standard were high. Emphasis was placed on self correction rather
than on penal correction. During the times of Confucius the society was in harmony. It
was said during that time, lost are found, doors are not closed at night. This was the
Chinese concept of government by moral value, societal order and harmony.

Democracy as a movement for the most part is universally accepted in the world today.
One needs only to look at how many new countries or changing countries are calling
themselves democracies. However, the U.S. has its own definition. This mostly means
that countries agreeing with the U.S. are democracies. Democracy as a system of
government needs to take hold and grow in the fertile soil of developing countries and
countries evolving from their old cultures. This ideal of anti corruption and anti
dictatorship is changing traditional order by reform. Harmony advises renunciation of
force. In time democracy will grow and wrought its fruits in the global modern
environment.

It is important to point out for those who did not grew up during the cold war era, the
U.S. media divided the world into the free world and the communist world. This explains
why the U.S. government and media have a tendency to call countries that challenge us
as plotting to take away our freedom. This is highlighted by President Bush's repeated use
of the word freedom in his 2004 and 2006 September 11, 2006 addresses.

Now the idea of freedom is also not an unknown concept. Many societies have
abandoned enslavement and it is against universal laws. The Chinese abandoned slavery
as early as the period of Spring and Autumn, more than two thousand years ago. The

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country transitioned from slave state of Eastern Zhou to FENGJIAN (Feudal society)
after the Warring State period. Those violated it when found are put in jails in all
civilized societies.

International equality has yet to be recognized by the U.S.. For many weak and poor
nations in the world, struggling for equal economic and political equality is a must for
their survival. This is a vast subject that must be discussed in the resolution of conflicts
under the broad concept of a harmonious world.

Democracy in conflict resolution is a well honed management system engineering

study for the U.S. since its independence. The ancient harmony philosophies had worked
well for keeping Eastern Asia stable for two thousand years. It is being rediscovered by
China because of the prolific of conflicts in the world between the old and new, rich and
poor, powerful and the powerless, due to its own reform and opening up. It will be logical
for China to combine the U.S. experience in engineering Democracy into its government
system and to revitalize the ancient concept of harmony. It will require exchange and
cooperation between the East and West to harmonize this great undertaking. Societal
needs for East and West are similar; however there are great differences in approaches
and logical thinking. The concept of time and perspective on history also requires a great
deal of harmonizing. The West and Far East together have the technology and the ready
financial resources to bring the necessary actions together to make a beginning.

President Hu Jintao of China during his speech at Yale University April 21st, 2006
sounded out the ideas of harmony and harmony world and invited discussions and
cooperation with the U.S.. If the interest is high, continuing system engineering studies
for conflict resolution can be supported by interested scholars from East and West. A task
of this world magnitude, needless to say, must be inclusive.

The ultimate principle of Chinese ancient principles, as expounded by LAO ZI in DAO

DE JING, is the balance of YIN and YANG but ultimately YIN envelopes YANG and is
beautifully illustrated in the Daoist circle sign of life.

In today's conflicting world our model of democracy cannot be forced on other nations
of different culture and at different developing stages. Democracy works best by softly
and patiently winning over the hearts and minds of people. Countering extremism by
extremism is bound to lead to ultimate destruction of both sides. War does not solve
confrontations, but moderation (negotiation) can resolve conflicts. Soft power (ideals and
economics) eventually will overcome military power. The best way to resolve conflicts is
to bring harmony to the confronting parties. This can start by understanding the causes of
conflicts through mutual respect, trust, tolerance and acceptance. The world will progress
for all mankind till eternity when harmony is universally accepted. The world of harmony
shall surely come.

Today's China is in disharmony. The current modernizing and opening and reform has
created a degree of regional prosperity. With the impact of materialism and lower moral
values there are conflicts due to disparity of wealth and privilege and difference of the

63
new and the old. In the traumatic changes that are required for modernizing there is
extreme thinking in China that forgets the old teachings. To the degree that there are
Chinese who feel loss and passively admit cultural inadequacy, under the incessant and
massive criticism by U.S. media. Fortunately, the current government, in order to deal
with the multitude of contradictions, come up with the concept of scientific development
for modernization. This began in 2002. By now it is widely discussed and covered by the
media.

However, the major stroke of luck is this scientific development concept brought
China back in touch with the forefathers teaching of harmony. Harmony as a way of life
is in the Chinese genes and is the essence of Chinese ancient teaching. On the current
path China will transition through the current adjustment and reach a modern society with
Chinese characteristics. This may very well be a socialistic society with harmony.

Its development remains to be seen. In the process China's harmony development can
only bring harmony to the rest of the world. The ultimate patience of harmony will work
its way. The often used phrase Socialist Society with Chinese Characteristics is
ultimately The Socialist Society with Chinese Harmony.

(Dr. Fung originally came from Shanghai, China at age 16 by way of Hong
Kong to study at Brown University during the 1950's. He also attended Johns
Hopkins University and University of Notre Dame culminating in a Ph. D. degree
with major in aerospace engineering. His early career during the 1970's included
university teaching, aerospace industries (Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory) and
ten years at National Institute of Technology (in energy conservation and fire
safety research). During the 1980's he returned to China by the invitation of
Chinese Academic of Science to lecture at the Academy and Jiao Tong
University in the fields of energy conservation. It was during this period he
founded Finance and Technology Associates, a premier business consulting firm
specialized in international technology transfer and commercialization. Among
the U.S. companies he represented included Cooper Rolls (a joint venture
between Cooper industries and Rolls Royce), Combustion Engineering and MTI.

Dr. Fung taught Multi-national Corporations and Joint Ventures in the

International School of Business of San Francisco State University. By the
recommendation of the SFSU Confucius Institute, he has submitted two research
papers for publication to NABE 2007, Feb conference. The theme of the
conference is "One Nation: Many Languages and Cultures in a Changing World".
The two papers submitted are titled: "Chinese Harmony and American
Democracy in 21st Century" and Chinese Harmony Culture Old and New,
Promise for a Less Confrontational World?")

64
 Chinese Harmony Renaissance:
Can World Ignore It?
www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-02 16:01:01

by Francis C.W. Fung, Ph.D.

BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhuanet)-- Following is an abridged version of two papers by Francis C.W.
Fung, Ph.D. The papers are titled "Chinese Harmony and American Democracy in 21st Century"
and "Chinese Harmony Culture Old and New, Promise for a Less Confrontational World?"

(I) CHINA'S HARMONY RENAISSANCE:

CAN AMERICA IGNORE IT?

On Oct. 8, 2006, at its Central Committee meeting, the Communist Party of China
launched the national campaign to build a harmonious society. The resulting Harmony
Communiqué is a system engineering blue print to guide China on its path of
rejuvenation. It will be an arduous and long undertaking to build a harmonious socialist
society in modern China, no less challenging to the CPC as the revolutionary "Long
March" of Chinese history. Oct. 8, 2006 will be remembered as the most important
milestone of China's Harmony Renaissance. By rediscovering harmony culture, China is
rediscovering its own rich ancient cultural harmony traditions. It is of similar in
importance to Europe's Renaissance after the rediscovery of ancient Greek culture.
China's harmony development will herald a brand new period of vitality and national
spirit as the country enters a new period of sustainable development. By developing its
own harmony society, China becomes the standard bearer of a harmony world.

Harmony, as taught by Chinese ancients, embraces ideas of democracy as a way of

conflict resolution between the ruler and the ruled. China has practiced harmony as a way
of life since LAO ZI and Confucius for at least 2500 years. In contrast, American
Democracy is only 230 years old, developing after Independence, and borrowing from
the traditions of European Enlightenment. As China's Harmony Socialism wins gradual
international recognition, it will provide an alternative model to American-style
Democracy as the leading 21st century governance system. To keep its position as the
most influential political and cultural leading country of the world America cannot afford
to overlook the 21st century Chinese Harmony Society and Harmony World development
herald by China's Harmony Renaissance. The consequence could be the isolation and
unwitting fall of the greatest military and economic empire of our time through its
inability to keep up with the pace of world harmony consensus. The mightiest American
military power cannot dictate world order any longer, as is exemplified by the Iraqi War,
and the Iran and North Korea nuclear confrontations. The overwhelming desires of
developing countries for common development are closing the curtains on the world of
international power politics. The world will be caught up in the surging tide of common
development and harmony conversion. The Harmony World of unity in diversity of
world cultures and governance systems will surely come.

65
 Harmony will give China a place on the world stage to express its ancient heritage and
the moral high ground to challenge the U.S. leadership in international relations. For over
fifty years America interfered in China's domestic affairs in the name of democracy. Now
harmony contains democracy ideals also as conflict resolution government and its
citizens. The table will be turned between the West and China during the 21st century.
Since the Opium War, over 150 years ago, China finally is able to raise its head and stand
up against the West. By doing so, China will have the unity and vitality to continue its
sustainable reform and opening up to a new era.

(II) CHINA'S HARMONY RENAISSANCE,

HOW IT ALL BEGAN?

The Central Committee meeting was a major meeting to discuss major policy decisions
to launch a national campaign to build a harmonious society. [1] In terms of its impact on
the future Chinese society and the future world, policies announced during this meeting
will have a longer lasting effect than China's recent policies of reform and opening up.
These policies, initiated under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping, led to profound benefits
for China and the world, but the nation is ready for the next step in its process of
transformation. By comparison, the Oct. 8 meeting provided the needed national spirit of
harmony which continues on the success of the Scientific Concept of Development. This
new spirit is built on the essence of ancient Chinese teachings of harmony which remains
unparalleled for its richness in the world.

Due to the rapid expansion of economic and industrial activities, China, over the past
twenty some years, has developed from an egalitarian society to a society of unbalanced
wealth distribution, and from a self-sufficient society to one, like other developed
nations, that depends heavily on outside energy and other material resources. The
Scientific Development Concept was thus conceived by the Chinese leaders to provide a
blueprint for a long term sustainable development. In time, this blueprint is expanded to
include also all old and new conflicts in China's grand modernization. Harmony being
China's dominant philosophy for 2500 years it is no surprise, despite the onslaught of
Western culture for the last two hundred years, China rediscovered its ancient heritage.
This is not unlike the return of harmony philosophy to the golden Han dynasty after the
Spring and Autumn Warring States period.

In the fertile soil of Chinese harmony garden after Chinese leaders called for Harmony
Society development, ideas of harmony spread like wild fire. Creative ideas of Harmony
Society from government officials, intellectuals, think tanks, academicians and the
general public is currently sweeping through the country. We may once again witness a
major New Harmony movement excelling the ancient teachings of ancient harmony that
has guided China for the last 2500 years. A true period of let hundred flowers bloom and
hundred schools content may be in the making surpassing the Spring and Autumn period
debates in scope and magnitude. This time the Chinese culture may take a leap into the
future World of Harmony.

66
(III) THE COMING OF THE HARMONY WORLD

In today's world of extreme disparity among nations, need for international economic
and political change is driven by: the widening gap in stages of development, the increase
of injustice in world order, and the growth of clashes between civilizations. As seen in
the recent unilateral Iraq War, the crisis in Sudan, and the nuclear confrontation with
North Korea and Iran, the world is hastening towards confrontation.

Written in Chinese characters, the term, "crisis" is composed of the opposing elements,
"danger" and "opportunity." In Chinese harmony belief, the opposition of YIN and the
Yang, or the strong and the gentle, are in constant contest. When YIN and Yang are in
balance, harmony is reached, as is illustrated by the Daoist double fish circle of life.
When viewed as a globe the YIN envelops the Yang as the outside shell. LAO ZI's
philosophy of renunciation of force is also reflected in forming Chinese words. The word
"martial" in Chinese means "stop the use of weapons." The word "war" in Chinese means
"imbalance of weaponry."

When country specific harmony societies grow in their own fertile soil with distinctive
cultural characteristics, World Harmony will surely spread. Each society will have its
own appropriate harmony theory and practices reflecting the wide differences in states of
development, needs and culture. For harmony to take root, basic needs must be met, and
the society must be equitable, social order must work smoothly, cultural values must have
sustaining power, and the mobility of different stratum in society should be assured.
Indices such as Happiness, Harmony, Environment, Rural and Urban must be customized
according to each country's will and development.

Great debates are happening today in China over whether Socialism with Chinese
characteristics become Socialism with Chinese harmony. In the last couple of years
China has extended the philosophy of Harmony to the practice of international relations,
from Harmony Society to Harmony Region and Harmony World. In doing so, China, as
one of the world's ancient civilized nations, is expressing to the world its choice and
determination to travel the road of peace and development. Harmony as the core of
Chinese traditional cultural belief, reflects the concepts of appropriate and properly
balanced relationships between man and man, man and nature, man and society and
harmony among nations. In fact Harmony Society and Harmony World are
manifestations of ancient Chinese cultural values.

Western cultures, in contrast to the East, tend to emphasize conflict rather than
harmony, personal, national, and world affairs in terms of good and evil, right and wrong.
God must triumph over the Devil, good over the bad, and the individual struggles to
conquer sin and redeem his soul. Armies fight with the conviction that God is on their
side, and leaders, like George Bush, call upon believers to support them in righteous
wars. The powerful U.S. media, adhering to the same tenants, does not report contrasting
views. Thus, Western nations, most notably the United States today, justify aggression
through their own self righteousness, convincing themselves that they are duty bound to
change or eliminate hostile countries that do not adhere to Western principles. Rather

67
than accepting differences they attempt to destroy differences to achieve uniformity in
international political ideology. In such an atmosphere, international relations become
power politics, with the assumption that new democracies that arise will be fashioned in
the mold of American and Western European systems.

In China today foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy and, at the same time,
serves domestic policy. Hu Jintao, President of China, pointed out, China must "Closely
connect our development with the progress of mankind. Develop our self through
maintaining world peace and at the same time through our own development to promote
world peace." The Chinese government has officially stated the central ideas of Harmony
China and Harmony World as: China wants to build a harmony society of "democracy
and rule of law, justice and righteousness, trustworthiness and friendliness, full of
vitality, stable and orderly, a society of man and nature in harmony." A Harmony World
envisioned by China is "adherence to multilateralism, realization of mutual security,
adherence to mutually beneficial cooperation, realization of mutual prosperity, adherence
to the spirit of tolerance and building a Harmony World together."

President Hu Jintao, on April 22, 2005, when attending the Asian African Summit
meeting, suggested that "promoting friendship among different cultures, equal dialogue,
develop common prosperity and together build a harmony world." This was the first time
the concept of Harmony World appeared on the world stage. Two months later on July 1,
2005, President Hu Jintao visited Moscow. Harmony World was written into the China-
Russia world order joint communiqué. For the first time World Harmony was recognized
as common policy belief between two major countries. This marks the new World
Harmony concept's gradual entrance into the vision of a world society. Chinese leaders
thoughts on World Harmony were quickly deepening, for two months later, on September
15, 2005, President Hu Jintao gave a speech at the United Nation General Assembly in
which he detailed the deep contents of World Harmony. Participants of the meeting gave
the speech a resounding response, and world media also gave the speech heightened
notice and positive evaluation. It is generally considered that China as a major
responsible country is transmitting to the world its longing for peaceful world
development. The speech also served to relate China's message to build a peaceful,
prosperous and Harmony World together with the rest of the world. Harmonious and
cooperative China stands ready to work for sustainable and long lasting peace and mutual
prosperity with the rest of the world.

(IV) CHINESE HARMONY AS SYSTEM

ENGINEERING BLUE PRINT

China's cultural contribution to the world is the harmony philosophy just as Europe and
America are the breeding grounds for democracy. China for most of its 5000 years of
recorded culture was an agricultural society, in contrast to Europeans, most of whom
were descendants from pastoral nomads. As a continuing ancient culture China was
firmly rooted to cultivating the land handed down through the generations. This
dependency on agriculture led to an inclination to harmonize with nature rather than to
challenge nature. The order of nature is harmony with YIN and Yang in dynamic balance

68
as taught by LAO ZI. As a result harmony philosophy grew in the fertile land of this
Middle Kingdom until it was challenged by Western democracy as late as the 1900's.
Chinese ancient culture, rich in harmony teaching begun 2500 years ago by LAO ZI and
Confucius, was preserved and handed down with continuing refinement until modern
times.

LAO ZI's instructions of harmony were rooted in observation of the origin of the
universe and natural science. His philosophy of human activity harmonizing with nature
was all embracing, including the practice of FENG SHUI (living with nature), physical
science, agriculture and Chinese ancient medical practice. Chinese medical practice is
holistic, based on the belief that biological systems must maintain internal balance to be
healthy. The goal of treatment is to restore the balance of opposing forces in this total
system. This led to the belief that human biological systems, society, and nations are
constantly in an influx of ever changing contending forces. Harmony is achieved when
the contending forces come to a balance or mutual acceptance under a certain set of
conditions. All systems are constantly shifting, complex, and seldom just black and white
(or in western terms, good or bad). This concept of harmony is just as fitting in today's
complex world and society as it was during the time of LAO ZI.

Confucius' teaching comprises social systems including: man with himself, man
between men, man and society and relations between groups and countries. This includes
harmony between government and its citizens, which means that democracy is part of
harmony system analysis. In keeping with Chinese harmony philosophy, balance is
achieved through self discipline, high moral value, social order rather than strict law and
penal system. The use of physical force is to be avoided, and employed only as a last
resort. Harmony Society discussions in today's China under the present leadership are
returning to the old roots of system analysis and ever changing balance of major forces in
a changing world. This is based on the very nature of Chinese peoples' longing for
harmony and the ancient teaching of tolerance, acceptance and equity. Both LAO ZI and
Confucius teachings were comprehensive system engineering analyses of Harmony for
ancient China, and the Communique is a system analysis of Socialism with Chinese
characteristics for today's China.

(V) THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY

The ultimate principle of Chinese ancient principles, as expounded by LAO ZI in DAO

DE JING, is the balance of YIN and YANG but ultimately YIN envelopes YANG and is
beautifully illustrated in the Daoist circle sign of life. However it is known observation
today that dark energy represents over eighty percent of the universe and visible matter is
the smaller remaining part.

This general theme of YIN over YANG runs through DAO DE JING. To name a few
images from DAO DE JING; soft overcomes the hard like dripping water eventually
bores a hole in the hardest rock, water flows over and immerses that blocks it. Water
representing YIN can both float and sink a boat. Harmony represents soft power to
resolve conflicts as opposed to warfare which represents hard power. In today's

69
conflicting world one model of democracy cannot be forced on other nations of different
cultures and at different developing stages. Democracy works best by softly and patiently
winning over the hearts and minds of people. Countering extremism by extremism is
bound to lead to ultimate destruction of both sides. The best way to resolve conflicts is to
bring harmony to the confronting parties. This can start by understanding the differences
in cultural understandings and causes of conflicts through mutual respect, trust, tolerance
and acceptance. Confucius said "JUN ZI HE ER BU TONG, XIAO REN TONG ER BU
HE" which means that gentlemen place harmony above ideological differences, and petty
people fight for ideology differences. "HAI NA BAI CHUAN, YOU YONG NAI DA"
(The sea takes in hundreds of rivers, it can be big only if it contains). World harmony will
surely come.

Editor: Pan Letian

Francis C.W. Fung, Ph.D.

PUBLICATIONS—PARTIAL LIST

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, Physics of Fluids, June, 1962, Sponsored by
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Force, 1965, NASA funded research.
“Vanishing Plate in a Blasius Flow”, Proceedings of IUTAM, Unsteady Boundary Layer
Conference, 1971, US Air Force sponsored research.
“Corridor Fires, Energy and Radiation Models”
, National Bureau of Standards
Technical Note, Washington, D.C., 1973
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Apartment Building” , National Bureau of Standards Interagency Report 77-277,
Washington, D.C., June, 1973
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Walls”
, National Bureau of Standards Interagency Report 77-1260, May, 1977
“A Plan to Achieve National Energy Independence”
, Energy User News, November 26,
1979
“A National Strategy for District Heating, invited paper for Department of Energy, 1980,
coauthored with Louis H. Denis of Aerophysics Company.

70
“Demonstration Project for Iccomizer Heat Recovery” , 1981, a $150,000 research grant
from Brookhaven National Laboratory, Department of Energy submitted as manager of
Energy Department, Aeorphysics Company.
“The Promising Future of Stirling Engines in China” , International Conference on
Stirling Engines, June 21-24, 1984, Shanghai, China. Sponsored by the Chinese
Society of Marine Engineering and Chinese Society of Engineering Thermophysics.
“China’
s New Scientific Development Concept—A scientific Analysis”
, 2004.
“Business Plan for Executive MBA Training in China” , April 2004, Joint proposal with
California State University Sacramento and John Del Favero.
“How to Develop Innovative Thinking in the Business World.” 2006 lectures
developed as Founder of Global Interactive Network Exchange Inc(GINEI)
“Chinese harmony and American democracy in 21st century” , Part I, Part II and Part III
excerpts, Xinhuanet Opinion, www.chinaview.cn Nov. 1st,2006.
“Chinese harmony renaissance: Can world ignore it”
, Xinhuanet Overseas Opinion,
www.chinaview.cn Nov. 2nd, 2006.
“Chinese harmony culture old and new, Promise for a less confrontational world?”and
“Chinese harmony and American democracy in 21st century”submitted to NABE 2007
conference “One nation: many languages and cultures in a changing world” .
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China’
s contribution to world civilization”
, Foreign affairs paper under editorial review.

71