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Preparations for the 10th Nishan Forum on World Civilisations are underway in eastern China.

Nishan in Shandong Province is the birthplace of Chinese philosopher Confucius, whose thought has deeply influenced Chinese culture.

Confucianism is thought to be one of the origins of China’s Hehe culture, which means harmony and cooperation. The Ubuntu philosophy in southern Africa also advocates similar ideas. Some scholars agree that dialogues, exchanges and seeking harmony without uniformity among different civilisations are key to addressing the common challenges of the world.

According to philosophers, not only harmony, but equality and unity are major aspects in both Hehe and Ubuntu culture. To help us explore these two concepts and more, China Africa Talk (CAT) engages Professor Xiang Shuchen, (XS) Professor of Philosophy at Xidian University in China on this subject.

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CAT: Professor Xiang, what is the Hehe culture, how has it evolved and what does it mean?

XS: The Hehe is just harmony. What we mean by harmony is that it’s a creative and dynamic order that puts different things into relationships. Because once in relationship, these things now complement and strengthen each other.

For example, when you put tomato and basil together while you’re cooking, the taste is better than simply the tomato or basil on its own. So this understanding of how things work together is a creative insight into what complement each other. This is the essence of harmony. From a philosophical point of view, the ancient Chinese, the very basic metaphysics basis of this idea of harmony is that the ancient Chinese philosophers looked at nature and saw that it’s the ability to embrace differences that leads to things flourishing. And your own nature is wonderful because this is coherence among diversity, and that’s the essence of harmony.

CAT: I understand Zhejiang province is believed to be the birthplace of Hehe culture?

XS: It’s a very ancient idea. You can see it early on in the beginning of written Chinese philosophy. It’s a deep rooted idea in the heart of the Chinese world. You can think of harmony or Hehe on both the kind of metaphysical, but it also has socio-political implications. So you can think of it on a socio-political level, on which we can talk about bringing different people into a harmonious relationship.

So one of the famous articulations of this view is Confucius who said that in the person of virtue, great sort of cultivation, they harmonise, but they do not make themselves identical with others, with the opinions of others or actions of others. Whereas the person of less virtue, less cultivation makes themselves identical; they just copy other people, but they do not harmonise.

From that, you can see what is involved in socio-political dimension of harmony. There is meant to be difference, but then there’s meant to be coherence among the differences.

CAT: How’s Hehe reflected in China’s foreign policy? For example, the five principles of peaceful coexistence, multilateralism among others?

XS: Underlying the five principles of Chinese foreign policy, an important theme is this idea of mutual flourishing; this is the idea of harmony. What is reflected in the foreign policy is the idea that if we work together and complement each other’s strength, we will create greater value. If you put things into relationships, you will always create greater value.

What is needed is insightful understanding of how things will work together and how you can complement each other. So that central idea of harmony is reflected in the foreign policy idea.

Another aspect of Chinese foreign policy is mutual respect and non-interference. That also reflects the Hehe idea, that working with someone or something you can both agree on will lead to greater value than simply saying that you disagree and then you want to punish someone for the behaviour that you perceive to be bad. If you want to change somebody’s behaviour, the best way to approach that is to actually work on something that you can complement each other on. And then that may lead to real added value, real progress in terms of value amelioration.

CAT: At a time when the world is facing multiple challenges, in reference to some geopolitical tensions and trade frictions, how can the ideas of Hehe and Ubuntu be applied in pursuing the greater good for humanity?

XS: The individual only exists through the whole. This is very part of this kind of harmony idea as well. You are always internally related to your world. And that’s different from this individualistic idea that you’re only externally related. So for example, when I just sit next to you on a bus, through being internally related, I can only exist when you exist. I can only possibly flourish when everybody is flourishing.

The whole world is a big pool. The water comes around to you at some point. I think that sounds like a bunch of ideas, sounds similar to the kind of ideas underlying harmony, this relational understanding of persons of personhood that you exist. Essentially, you can only exist when others also flourish.

If you have this idea as a world view, how does it lead to greater good of geopolitical level? I think that, first of all, you realise that we are all deeply, internally related to each other.

If somebody is suffering, that will ultimately lead to our own suffering. And I think you also have to realise that with harmony, order can never be eternally imposed, but really, it’s a result of creativity inside a mutual understanding. So when you cooperate and try to understand other people that leads to better relationships. And then that creates more enriching relationships, greater value, mutual value for everybody, and therefore collective flourishing.

We have to realise that we’re all interconnected, world interconnected in this existential level, not in external sense that I trade with you or something, but it’s on an existential level. My own existence is connected to other people.

Only when we’re able to be more positively connected to other people through creating better relationships can we create the best possible human international ordering. Chinese social anthropologist Fei Xiaotong said harmony means each appreciating its own beauty, each appreciating the beauty of others.

When everybody shares each other’s beauty as everybody can see things from everybody else’s point of view. There will be grand union. In Chinese language, grand union of world under heaven. So the great order has to be a result of nobody ever getting rid of your own particularity. You appreciate your own beauty, but then also appreciate somebody else’s beauty. This requires an insight into what somebody else is thinking. When everybody is able to do that, it creates order that is sustainable and mutually beneficial for all parties involved.

CAT: Here we have people from different backgrounds, countries and races. We work in teams and I guess everybody’s practicing Hehe and Ubuntu somehow — not something that you can touch. Even when you look at Chinese dining, for example, the sharing of food, the hot pot. That’s another demonstration of Ubuntu there.

XS: You mentioned hot pot, in Chinese dining, thy have the lazy Susan; the spinning table. When you spin the table, you have to keep in mind if somebody else is still eating, they may want to get the food. Before you spin, you have to consider everybody else on the table and you take other people’s kind of interest into view and that’s harmony in practice. It’s based on this understanding of how human beings most excessively socialise with each other.

CAT: Equality and unity are major aspects in both Hehe and Ubuntu culture? In what ways are they contributing to a China-Africa community with a shared future?

XS: China and Africa are different. They have their similarities and differences but they complement each other’s strength. There are things that Africa needs, there are things that China needs. It’s, teamwork; you can work together and cooperate in a respectful manner that leads to greater prosperity for both parties. Through this cooperation, you can challenge the neo-colonial world orders and a new liberal world order, because the world view of this harmony rules is different to the traditional structure of international relations.

CAT: Any more words from you Professor Shuchen?

XS: From the harmony perspective, you want to create an order in which the diversity of the world leads to more enriched order, because the idea of harmony, like if you look at the sayings about harmony in the Chinese text, they’ll say, if things are the same, they die. It’s only when you put differences together that there is possibly life because that is the nature of life.

The only time in which a biological organism is the same as itself is when it is dead. When you’re alive, you’re constantly breathing in the air, exchanging with your environment. So when you’re able to exchange with the environment you have the possibility of life. If you think about that in terms of international order, there’s far more enriched order that can come out of this horizontal mutual responsiveness to each other, as opposed to top down desire force. This stratified hierarchy; is not from the Chinese harmony point of view, it’s not a rich system. It’s impoverished in some ways.

To be continued . . .