Rising China and India need path to sustainable development
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Human wellbeing requires the following types of need be satisfied:
1) Freedom from poverty, hunger and disease, enough food and safe shelter.
2) Freedom from war and conflict.
3) Harmony of mind and spirit: people feel safe and cherished.
Different civilizations understand and deal with these needs in different ways. The West emphasized the first item on the list – material advancement – and their lifestyle has been widely imitated as the foundation of "modern civilization." But the West was less successful in dealing with non-material needs. Their civilization was marred by cut-throat competition, colonialism, proselytizing missionaries, conquest, enslavement and wars (the two great world wars had their origins in the West).
We must admit that the two great civilizations of China and India failed to deliver material wellbeing. Surveying their histories, we find that whenever there was a large-scale famine or plague, they simply watched helplessly as thousands died of disease and hunger. But they did accumulate rich experience in building spirituality and harmony between human beings.
The West advocates a life style based on individuals, while traditional Chinese culture focuses on human relations and ethics. Key concepts from traditional Chinese civilization are "filial piety", "loyalty", "gratitude", "righteousness", "courtesy" and "karma", all connected with harmony in human relations. India preferred "Brahma", "Atman", "Dharma", "Maya" and "Mokosa", which focused on the harmony of the human spirit. Neither China nor India focused on material life as they thought there were more important things, which helps account for their poverty and weakness in modern times. But now they have woken up and began to eliminate hunger and disease, to develop their economies and to improve the material life of their citizens. But people's desires are easily stimulated and their desire for comforts boundless. If consumerism continues to develop, humanity will destroy itself. So when China and India have reached a degree of material modernization, they should consider how to use their own traditions to make up for the limitations of modern civilization. Wise men like India's Buddha and Gandhi, China's Confucius and Lao-tzu, clearly recognized the danger of endlessly stimulating people's desires and their warnings still make sense today.
Present day civilization needs to solve the problem of sustainable development, allowing poverty to be eliminated without storing up disaster for later generations. It should be able to guarantee sustainable development of China, India and other developing countries while devising a lifestyle suited to the future of world. It needs to combine the advanced technologies (which are energy-saving, resource-saving and environment-friendly) of developed countries with ancient Asian culture (which emphasizes harmony with nature). We need to change our ways of measuring success. Per capita GDP is not the only index; the concept of a "happiness index" as adopted by the Kingdom of Bhutan, or Lao-tzu's idea of "contentment" and Gandhi's "self-sufficiency" are equally important. The Indian saying "We produce to live, not to consume" is an example of oriental wisdom. India's designs of a car that costs US$2,000 and a computer that costs US$100 are creative adaptations. Chinese and Indian civilizations used to learn from each other and the Buddhism contributed greatly to Chinese spiritual life. Both need to combine Western civilization with their own complementary value systems to create the basis of a new civilization.
The author is a professor at the School of International Studies, Peking University.
(The article was translated by Zhou Jing)
