Journeys beyond the West: World Orders and a 7th century Buddhist Monk

Abstract

Novice Lee ('Frank') seeks world peace and thinks he has found it in the Liberal world order. He informs the Learned One, head of the monastery. Through their discussions, Frank discovers that the Liberal world order, despite its promises, offers neither 'democracy' nor 'peace'. Turning to the Confucian world order of 'all-under-heaven' (tianxia), they find it similarly top-down and one-way. Finally, Frank and the Learned One, now joined by their brother monks and sister nuns, consider the life of the 7th century monk, Xuanzang. He inspires Frank to imagine a 'worldly world order' where humility and learning drive one's engagements with others, rather than what we have today: hegemony and imperialism.

Why is there no Non-Western International Relations Theory? Ten years on

“…In marked contrast to the West, scholars from the Global South, and their collaborators and likeminded scholars from the West, have become increasingly vocal in highlighting the persisting parochialism of the mainstream IR scholarship (Some examples, far from exhaustive, would include: Acharya, 2011Acharya, , 2014Acharya and Buzan, 2007Agathangelou and Ling, 2009Behera 2010;Bilgin, 2008Bilgin, , 2013Chowdhry and Nair, 2004;Ling, 2002Ling, , 2010Neuman, 1998;Shilliam 2010;Smith, 2006;Tickner, 2003;Tickner and Waever, 2009;Tickner and Blaney, 2012;Thomas and Wilkin, 2004). The election of Amitav Acharya in 2014 as the first non-Western President of the ISA hopefully made some breakthrough for their cause.…”

Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds

“…The time for Global IR has come. I invite you to discuss and debate the project of Global IR and help move our discipline to a new frontier which leaves behind arrogance and exclusion and “where humility and learning drive one's engagements with others” (Ling :225). Together, we must ensure that the Global IR project does not suffer the fate of the Fort William College in British India, but becomes a vibrant, innovative, and inclusive enterprise that reflects the voices, experiences, interests, and identities of all of humankind.…”

China’s Pledge to Civilise “All Under Heaven”

“…For instance, Babones (2020) suggests tianxia as a useful alternative to hegemony and empire by proposing a “more spiritual form of international society coordinated, but not dominated or ruled, by a single, central state.” Drawing on the work of Zhao Tingyang, he further suggests tianxia as a model of regional international societies, such as one in South America centred on Brazil and another in Euro-Asia and the BRI countries centred on China (Babones, 2020: 131, 140). Similarly, Ling (2010: 225), by reviewing the many meanings of tianxia and holding it up against both the liberal world order and a possible Confucian world order, discerns the contours of a ‘“worldly world order’ where humility and learning drive one’s engagement with others, rather than what we have today: hegemony and imperialism.” She has developed these ideas further into a model of “wordlist” international relations, based on a post-Westphalian and essentially non-Western approach towards sustainable and democratic governance. In this model, Daoist dialectics is seen as a balanced perspective on the forces that drive world politics as well as a path towards a more inclusive and less coercive world centred on compassion and care (Ling, 2014).…”