Criticism And Transcendence: The Traditional Notion Of Harmony In Confucianism And The China's Peaceful Development

The China's peaceful development, a brand-new approach to the realization of modernization, on the one hand, refers to the self-reliant construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the era of peace and development and the situation of economic globalization, in adherence to the policy of the reform and opening to the outside world, in a peaceful manner and at a higher speed; on the other hand, it refers to the basic realization of modernization during the period from the end of the 1970s to the middle of this century, achieving an aim equivalent to that of moderately developed countries. The unity of development approach and aim is known as peaceful development policy, which aims to develop China through the peaceful environment of the world, and promote the world peace through its development.The paper is broken down into four parts, focusing on the exploration of why China chooses the peaceful development approach, how Marxism can be employed to guide the approach, as well as the research on the cultural foundation of construction of the peaceful development. Finally, the paper centers on the exploration of the approach with Chinese characteristics.Part 1, Peaceful development: strategic choice of modern China's development. It is pointed out that China constantly adheres to the peaceful development strategies in history, which are based on its general conditions, serving as a strategic choice for the realization of the socialist modernization, rational choice for the inherence and enhancement of the Chinese historical and cultural tradition, and an indispensable choice for the adaptation to the world development trend.Part II. Notion of harmony in Confucianism: cultural foundation of peaceful development. It is illustrated that humanity is the inner incentive for the choice of peaceful development, the motto of"peace is cherished", valued aim, and Great Harmony, the ultimate objectivePart III. Transcendence and criticism: socialist peace thought. It is stated that the notion of harmony in Confucianism must be transcended, transforming from the"discord as well as concord"to the"seeking common ground while maintaining differences", from the"cherished harmony"to the"peaceful co-existence", from the"harmony in pursuit of co-growth"to the"co-development". It also explores Chinese communists'transcendence of the notion of harmony in Confucianism, as well as their socialist peace thoughts, which involve Mao Zedong's and Deng Xiaoping's thoughts of peaceful development, and Hu Jingtao's inherence and development of Deng Xiaoping'thought.Part IV. Exploration and development: Construction of peaceful development approach with Chinese characteristics. At first, it reviews the exploration of peaceful development approach with Chinese characteristics, the formation and development of the approach, analyzing the basic principles on the construction of the approach, namely, developing what is positive and discard what is negative in terms of traditional Chinese culture, adhering to peaceful development approach with Chinese characteristics, centering on economic construction, implementing the all-around opening-to-the-outside-word policy, establishing friendly relationships with all other countries in the world with the national interests first and in accordance with the Five Peaceful Co-existence Principles, pursuing self-reliant and peaceful diplomatic policies, never in quest of hegemony. Finally, it is proposed how the peaceful development approach with Chinese characteristics should be constructed, advocating that the construction of socialist harmonious society underlies peaceful development approach, with the construction of harmony institutions as the core of the latter, and the construction of harmonious areas as the primary objective. The ultimate purpose is the construction of the harmonious world.