East and West: Understanding the Rise of China by Y.J. Choi Innumerable articles and books have been written about East Asia and China since this part of the world has been catapulted into the center of the global economic scene. Unfortunately, most, if not all of them, are wide of the mark in terms of understanding the geographic and philosophical fundamentals of Eastern civilizations undergirding the rise of the East. The relative decline of the West appears to be inevitable as the ascendance of the East prompts a shift of the center of gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Accordingly, we need to understand the East (and the West, for that matter) by freeing ourselves from the centuries-old habit of West-centrism. Neither in the West nor in the East do we find a paper written with a balanced approach regarding the two civilizations. Because of this, and thanks to his vast experience in both East and West, Ambassador Y.J. Choi was prompted to explain this epochal change by comparing the two civilizations on equal footing. His text constitutes the very first book attempting an objective, neutral and balanced comparison of ancient Eastern and European/Mediterranean civilizations, including their influence on and implications for contemporary events.

EAST AND WEST

UNDERSTANDING THE RISE OF CHINABy Y. J. Choi

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Y. J. Choi
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-6542-3

Contents

Preface.......................................................................................1Chapter 1 Context: Maritime West vs. Continental East.........................................13Chapter 2 Man and Nature: Western God vs. Eastern Tao.........................................53Chapter 3 Mind and Body: Western Spirit vs. Eastern Man.......................................107Chapter 4 Man and Man: Western Law vs. Eastern Ethics.........................................165Chapter 5 Role Model: Western Hero vs. Eastern Junzi..........................................223Chapter 6 Culture: Western Religion vs. Eastern Education.....................................271Chapter 7 Civilization: Vasco Da Gama vs. Cheng Ho............................................311Chapter 8 Industrial Revolution: Western Paradigm and Eastern Fundamental.....................355Chapter 9 Political Economy: Western Invisible Hand and Eastern Wuwei.........................399Chapter 10 The Twenty-First Century: Paradigm Shift and Global Governance.....................451Author's Note on References...................................................................491Index.........................................................................................551

Chapter One

Context: Maritime West vs. Continental East

"Europe and China ... as the most cultivated and distant peoples stretch out their arms to each other, those in between may gradually be brought to a better way of life." Leibniz "The sailor relies upon himself amid the fluctuations of the waves, and eye and heart must be always open.... We see the nations freed from the fear of Nature and its slavish bondage." Hegel

Mare Nostrum vs. Central Plain

How and why have human beings developed different civilizations? If Easterners and Westerners were in fact peoples with inherently different biological capacities, we would be able to assign the problem to evolution alone. This was the solution adopted by many important Western thinkers of the Enlightenment, from Hume to Kant and Hegel. But if, on the other hand, we are members of the same species—Homo sapiens—with the same mental capacities, as Western genetics has now surely proven, then cultural differences must have originated from man's varying interactions with his environment. These interactions between Man and Nature ultimately gave rise to distinct civilizations.

Environmental Distinction between West and East

How do the environments of East and West differ? Western civilization began and developed around the sea, whereas Eastern civilization—denoting, in this book, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam—developed in a heartland. There was little connection between the two, due to their separation by the highest mountain chain in the world, the Himalayas. Kept apart by this "roof of the world," the West developed its culture partly as a result of lively interactions with the Middle East and India, which were inaccessible to the East.

In comparing the two cultures, it will be useful to consider their respective geographies. Let us imagine a map of world civilizations from two to three thousand years ago. I suggest this period because this was when the civilizations of East and West first acquired their distinctive characters. Such a map would show only two cultural regions at either end of the Eurasian continent: the Western part comprised southern Europe, the Middle East, and India, as well as northern Africa; while the Eastern part embraced China, Korea, Japan, and southern Mongolia. East and West were linked by a single trade route, hardly visible on the map—the Silk Road.

Indeed, the separation of these two regions at the two ends of the Eurasian continent gave rise to the long-lasting distinctness of their respective cultures. It was only during the past two to three centuries that the West's respect for the East evaporated, in favor of a Eurocentric world vision, following its conquest of the entire known world in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, some early modern philosophers admired Eastern civilization and expressed hope for the future of mankind.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) clearly expressed this optimism: "I consider it a singular plan of the fates that human cultivation and refinement should today be concentrated, as it were, in the two extremes of our continent, in Europe and in China, which adorns the Orient as Europe does the opposite edge of the earth. Perhaps Supreme Providence has ordained such an arrangement, so that, as the most cultivated and distant peoples stretch out their arms to each other, those in between may gradually be brought to a better way of life."

What were the seeds of these two civilizations? How did they begin, and how did they grow to maturity? Our imaginary map as illustrated in Figure 1-1 would show that by the third century bc, Europe, the Middle East, and India interacted via trade, invasions, and war. Despite cultural and linguistic differences, these civilizations knew much of each other. Of East Asia, however, they knew virtually nothing beyond its existence. The reverse was also true: the East knew little of the West except for the vague idea that it existed.

If we focus on Europe, we find that it was formed around the Mediterranean Sea. On the other hand, the East remained alone, firmly rooted on the East Asian continent without interaction with Europe, the Middle East, or even India. We may therefore conclude that the sea constituted the West's central location, and that it represented primarily an opportunity; whereas for the East, it represented an obstacle. One may even go so far as to say that the Mediterranean gave birth to the West, after which the Renaissance—its rebirth—led the West to the Atlantic, and eventually to the Pacific.

The Eastern world remained isolated by the Himalayas to the west, the unnavigable Pacific to the east, deserts and tundra to the north, and jungles to the south. But what distinguishes East Asia from other agricultural regions is that the space circumscribed by these obstacles was large enough to produce a complete and sophisticated civilization. The West, on the other hand, with its easy access to the sea, was able to expand beyond its immediate physical borders. In light of these respective environments, we can figuratively refer to the Western world as "expansive" and to the Eastern world as "circumscribed."

To illustrate: for the Romans, the center of the world was the Mediterranean or Mare Nostrum ("our sea"), whereas for the Chinese, the center of the world was deep in the heartland, Chungwon or Central Plain. Rome fought the three Punic Wars against Carthage (First, 264–241 BC; Second, 218–202 BC; Third, 149–146 BC) to assert its dominance of the Mediterranean—maritime supremacy meant overall control of the Mediterranean world. The Central Plain played the same geopolitical role in the East, from the first emperor of China in the third century bc to Mao Zedong in the twentieth century ad: whoever occupied the Central Plain had command of the Eastern world.

Western Water vs. Eastern Land in Mythology

The environmental differences between these...