Food for thought from China: Is the very nature of Western civilization at the heart of the global financial crisis, the Iraq War, and the failure of Western culture to take hold in much of the world? According to Zhang Wei, the writer of this article from China’s state-controlled Global Geographic Times, the Occident had better learn to adopt what is good from other cultures, particularly China’s – otherwise the West’s ‘me-first-ism’ could bring disaster upon humanity.
For the Global Geographic Times, Zhang Wei writes in part:
“Western culture has its strong points, but also its weaknesses – perhaps its greatest weakness being a tendency toward haughtiness. It lacks the Chinese idea of a ‘harmonious middle way.’ Some Westerners believe that human history will eventually fall completely into a Western pattern and that in the future, the West will unquestionably lead the world. The truth is that any religion, theory, or ideology – including democracy and market capitalism – once it’s pushed to the extreme and regarded as fundamental to all else, triggers an irrational response by its followers. The outcome of this is never good, and is often crushing defeat.”
“That is the position the West confronts today, with the plight of the Iraq War, the failure of the ‘color revolutions’ and the financial tsunami. How can world history possibly end up following the Western model? Developing countries that choose to imitate the West have seen almost all their attempts fail. The world’s peoples continue to explore and test alternatives to development, and humanity’s exploration of the political future is far from exhausted.”
“With the development of globalization, the problems associated with global governance are increasing by the day – from counter-terrorism to global warming, from environmental management to eradicating poverty, from preventing epidemic disease to reforming the global financial system. Only if each and every country values peace above all, cooperates fully with its neighbors and makes up for its own deficiencies by learning from the strengths of the others will we be able to confront these challenges.”
By Zhang Wei [???]
Translated By Mark Klingman
May 10, 2009
People’s Republic of China – Global Geographic Times – Original Article (Chinese)
Western culture has its strong points, but also its weaknesses – perhaps its greatest weakness being its tendency toward haughtiness. It lacks the Chinese idea of a “harmonious middle way.” Some Westerners believe that human history will eventually fall completely into a Western pattern and that in the future, the West will unquestionably lead the world. The truth is that any religion, theory, or ideology – including democracy and market capitalism – once it’s pushed to the extreme and regarded as fundamental to all else, triggers an irrational response by its followers. The outcome of this is never good, and is often crushing defeat.
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