Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise

One of Japan’s leading daily newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun, carried an interview on December 12, 2012 with Dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Modern International Relations Yan Xuetong. In the course of that interview, Yan made a number of interesting observations. First, he made clear that he regarded Sino—American ‘conflict and rivalry’ as ‘inevitable’. Second, he suggested that the United States and China should ‘drop’ the idea of ‘mutual trust’, and that they should instead seek ‘cooperation without mutual trust’. Yan also seemed certain that China need not lose out to the United States in a competition for the world’s hearts-and-minds. Arguing that China’s ‘political morality’ is at a higher level than that of the West, Yan argued that the ancient Chinese emphasis on ‘fairness’ trumps ‘equality’; similarly, ‘civility’ surpasses ‘freedom’; and also, ‘justice’ is better than ‘democracy’.