Chinese Values vs. Liberalism: What Ideology Will Shape the International Normative Order?

The liberal hegemony of the United States is fading and faces the growing challenges from other ideologies including those from China. The question is which Chinese political values will guide China’s policies in shaping the future international normative order. There are three political values compete with each other in China, Marxism, economic pragmatism, and Chinese traditional values. The Chinese government tries to combine Marxism with Chinese traditional values. Such effort, however, may find its difficulties in achieving the assigned targets. Although the US liberalism is losing influence, it is still the most influential global ideology and will not be abandoned overnight. China may find that it is possible to shape the international order by combining some Chinese traditional values with selected liberalist values, such as benevolence, righteousness and rites with equality, democracy and freedom, respectively. The combination can produce a set of modern values of wangdao (humane authority), such as fairness, justice, and civility. The new norms under the guidance of these values could be acceptable to most countries because of their universality, and will bring about a more peaceful international order than what we have today.