The Implications of the Chinese Concepts of Tianxia and “Community of Shared Future for Mankind” for Global Citizenship Education

• In Event: Global Perspectives on Education and Culture: Digital Strategies, Social Media, and Tianxia in Shaping Future Citizens

Proposal

A growing sense of global precarity (Silova, 2020) has given rise to increasing emphasis on education for global competence and global citizenship (OECD, 2018; UNESCO, 2024; Andreotti, 2023; Stein, 2023). All nations and peoples have experiences and understandings that can contribute to our conceptualization of education for global competence and global citizenship.

The traditional Chinese cosmopolitan ideal of tianxia presents a powerful framework with relevance to conceptualizing “world-ness” (Zhao, 2006). In a broad philosophical and cultural sense, the Confucian notion of tianxia implies a worldview where the ideal state is one of global unity and peace, where the boundaries between different regions or states are seen as fluid and secondary to the overarching principle of harmony and order. It reflects a vision of an interconnected and interdependent world, where the actions of one part affect the whole. Other concepts such as tianrenheyi (the harmony between nature, humanity and heaven) have the potential to contribute greatly to our conceptions of how we need to be living in the world. Furthermore, according to the Confucian classic Book of Higher Learning (da xue), the pursuit of world peace (ping tianxia) was the fourth and highest level of morality for an educated person, with the other three being cultivating oneself, unifying the family and governing the nation.

The modern period in China has been marked with tensions and conflicts in China’s relationship with the world as well as some periods of “catch-up” mentality characterized by an eagerness to learn from the West and follow the footsteps of industrialized countries as a latecomer. Entering the 21st century, China’s rise has transformed its role from a “follower” to a “leader” on the world stage. Scholars have argued that the Confucian idea of tianxia has been revived in Xi Jinping’s concept of “community of shared future for mankind” (renlei mingyun gongtongti) which has been called the new Tianxia Zhuyi—or the new philosophy of Oneness Under Heaven. The concept of “community of shared future for mankind” emphasizes common interests, peace and harmony across the different countries of the globe instead of irreconcilable conflicts between civilizations and cultures. This concept underpins China’s foreign policy and engagement with the world through the Belt and Road Initiative which involves over 100 countries and is based on the principles of “reciprocity”, “sharing” and “mutual help” (Liu, 2017). According to the stated goals of the Belt and Road Initiative, China is not to serve as the “savior” of the world or form alliances to fight against opponents, but to take a proactive role in promoting common wealth and mutual benefits among the participant countries and eventually enhancing the general welfare of all humanity (Liu, 2017).

In this theoretical paper, we draw on Chinese academic and philosophical literature on the topic of tianxia as well as contemporary scholarship on “humanity’s common destiny” and consider the ways in which they can contribute to our existing frameworks for global competence and global citizenship (Tichnor-Wagner et al., 2019; Andreotti, 2021; OECD, 2018; UNESCO, 2024).

There are various rationales for the need for education for global competence and global citizenship. One set of reasons is related to the sense of increasing global crises. There are looming environmental catastrophes including global warming, natural resource depletion, pollution, ecological collapse, mass species extinction and loss of biodiversity-- including a decline in ocean populations (Silova, 2021). In January 2023, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN Security Council, Amina J. Mohammed, stated that the world is currently facing the highest number of violent conflicts since the Second World War with 2 billion people — a quarter of humanity — living in places affected by conflict (United Nations Security Council, 2023). Worldwide we are also facing increasing human migration including forced migration due to conflict and natural disaster. The International Organization of Migration (IOM) estimates that a total of 281 million people were living in a country other than their countries of birth in 2020 which was 128 million more than in 1990 and over three times the estimated number in 1970 (McAuliffe & Oucho, 2024). Climate- and weather-related disasters and earthquakes in many parts of the world in 2022 and 2023 have also lead to mass migrations including in Pakistan, the Philippines, China, India, Bangladesh, Brazil and Colombia, and Türkiye (McAuliffe & Oucho, 2024).

Stein et al. (2023) call for educational approaches that prepare students to meet the effects of unsustainability in a “VUCA” (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world. The pedagogical models they propose have students questioning our modern/colonial habits of being and considering ways that we can disrupt these and “enable more justice-oriented coordinated responses to current and coming challenges” (Stein et al., 2023, p. 987).

The UNESCO (2024) statement on Global Citizenship Education notes that “Economically, environmentally, socially and politically, we are linked to other people on the planet as never before. With the transformations that the world has gone through in the past decades – expansion of digital technology, international travel and migration, economic crises, conflicts, and environmental degradation – how we work, teach and learn has to change, too.”

In this paper, we consider the implications of the Chinese approaches to global mindedness for contemporary school curricula in China and around the world. Based on our findings, we consider the extent to which Chinese ideals of global mindedness can contribute to the theorizing of global citizenship education and also the extent to which they are already reflected within the definitions of global competence and global citizenship education adopted by international organizations that have been influencing educational development around the world (OECD, 2018; UNESCO, 2024). We offer suggestions for how to broaden current definitions of global citizenship education so as to more fully incorporate the spirit of global oneness inherent in traditional Chinese thought.

Authors

• Donghui Zhang, Renmin University of China

• Tanja Carmel Sargent, Rutgers University Graduate School of Education