Joseph H. Chung (정희수), Ph.D., Professor of Economics at Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM)

(지난 호에 이어)

 In Asia, individuals are to serve the collective entity; in the West, the collective entity is to serve the individuals.

 In Asia, the collective entity may give to itself the right of deciding the priority of public policies.

 In the West, in a true democracy, the individual has the right to select the priority policy such as the individual freedom of speech.

 In Asia, the public entity may pick the solution of hunger as the priority right. This is so called "social right" or "collective right". In this context, the individual human right may be implemented later.

 The experience of South Korea is a good example of the sequencing of rights. Under the military dictatorship and the conservative governments, in the name of economic development (social right), the individual right of freedom of speech was cruelly violated. Now, under the liberal government, the situation of individual right is much improved.

 I think that a similar sequencing of human rights has taken place in the West. Even in the United State and in many other parts of the world under the domination of the West, the implementation of individual human rights took a long time before its realization.

1.3 Man-man Relations

 In Asian system of thought, there is no real ideology related to man-man relations.

 If there is one, it is the Confucian Hyo-In relations As for Buddhism, what counts is the compassion for all living beings including humans. Daoism mentions even less about such relations.

 It is in the West that man-man relation is most developed and refined.  It is the Commandment of Love ordered by Jesus (Matthew 22. 37-39). The great virtue a man can have is the love of neighbour; the shortest way to salvation is the love of neighbours. This is perhaps the greatest contribution of Christianity to mankind.

 The love of neighbours is the source of inspiration for human decency, social justice, the respect for the human right and true democracy.

1.4 Man-Universe Relations

 In the West, the man-universe relation is also one of the key concerns of Christianity. The universe is governed by the "good" and the "bad". Now, the relation good-bad is in eternal conflict and dichotomous.

 The universe goes forward by destroying the bad and preserving the good. Thus, in Christianity, the ideology of man-man relation is very strong and dogmatic. It is the duty of man to join the battle for the victory of the good over the bad. In this way, the humanity goes forward toward a better world. In short, man must intervene in the life of the universe.

 There is another important side in Christianity. It has something to do with man's exploitation of the nature. The Bible says that man is authorized by God to look after the nature (Genesis 1.28). In fact, man has been so faithful to this part of the Bible that the nature is suffering from over exploitation by man.

 In Asia, the heart of Buddhism is the love for the preservation of all kinds of living beings. Thus, in Asia, the preservation of the nature is highly valued.

 In Asia, Daoism says that the universe is governed by "Chi"(energy) (氣) There is the positive chi (Yang) (陽) and the negative chi (Eum)(陰). The positive chi and the negative chi do not fight; they co-exist in harmony. Therefore, man does not need to intervene in the life of the universe; the universe is doing fine without human intervention. Here is the Asian doctrine of non-intervention in the life of the universe.

 To sum up, in the West, man is encouraged to intervene in the fight for the victory of the good over the bad on the one hand and, on the other, he is allowed to dominate the nature.

 In contrast, in Asia, non-intervention of man in the affairs of the universe is valued; the preservation of the nature is encouraged.

1.5 Man-History Relations

 In the West, there are two views on history. One is the deterministic view and the other, non-deterministic view. The deterministic view is represented by the Christian doctrine, the Hegelian doctrine and the Marxist doctrine. The non-deterministic view is represented by the Toynbee doctrine.

 The Christian doctrine says that there is an end of history of mankind, as there was a beginning. The history ends when the whole world will be evangelized.

 The Hegelian doctrine pretends that the history should march toward the world of greater freedom.

 Now according to the Marxist doctrine, history moves by stage toward the communist society.

 In the Toynbee doctrine, history of a society evolves through the challenge-response-change sequence with no fixed direction.

 At each critical period in the history, enlightened intellectuals challenge the established structure of the society; the conservative elite groups meet the challenge; the enlightened and the conservatives fight and may come up with a consensus for a change; the change occurs without any pre-fixed direction.

 It must be pointed out that, in each of these doctrines, man intervenes in the evolution process of history. In other words, in the West, man is the master of the history.

 In Asia, Daoism tells us that the history is governed by "Chi". There is the positive chi (Yang) and there is negative chi (Eum). These two opposite "chis" coexist in harmony. There is no need for man to intervene. The history will go its own way.

 One of the keywords of Daoism is "wu wei" meaning "act by not acting". What these keywords are trying to tell us is that man should let the universe and the history to go their own ways.

2. Impact of Values on the Choice of Politico-Economic Regime

.  What has impacted the most the Chinese political and economic regime is surely the pragmatism which has allowed China to combine socialism with Confucianism.

 The government provides stable and secure living environment and descent welfare for the people. In return, the people respect the authority of the government and obey the government decisions.

 The head of the state is the father of the people who are the members of the big family called the nation. The government-people relation here is the Hyo-In relation.

 Buddhism has a role to play here. Under the influence of Buddhism, the people do not ask much and contend with little. This could contribute to the stability of the society

 Furthermore, the pragmatism allows China to adopt a hybrid economic system combining planned economy and free market system without major difficulties.

 It must be noted that, in China, the choice of political or economic system seems to be not an ideological choice but pragmatic selection. This seems to show how China is ideologically neutral in the choice of a regime. (다음 호에 계속)

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