UPDATED CHINESE HARMONY POWER VS AMERICAN SOFT POWER

UPDATED CHINESE HARMONY POWER VS AMERICAN SOFT POWER BY FRANCIS C W FUNG, PH.D. America as an empire with a short history of 300 years is not a civilization state. It did not produce influential world philosophers instead it inherited science and democratic tradition from Europe. It became the only hegemony power after Second World War by military superiority. As a result American soft power is all about maintaining hegemony and world ideological dominance by military power. By contrast China is a civilization state with 5000 years of uninterrupted philosophical tradition. Its philosophers flourished during the Spring and Autumn period at about 2500 years ago. During that golden period, Chinese philosophy flourished in the atmosphere of “let hundreds of school content and hundreds of flowers bloom”. To this day, Confucian philosophy plays a major role in most Asian nations. American soft power trying to force our value system such as one man one vote to the rest of the world led to disastrous results in Iraq and Afghanistan. These countries with democracy but weak government collapsed and created the world terrorist movements that tormented the world today. By contrast the Confucian tradition of hard work and affinity to learning has empowered the Asian nations such as China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan to become world economic powers. Confucian philosophy of “Harmony Power” also teaches harmony as a way of life, world unity, mutual development and community of common destiny. This is exemplified by President Xi Jinping’s promotion of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (One Belt One Road) for world connectivity and prosperity. I have written many essays on Harmony Renaissance, Harmony Diplomacy and Harmony Virtues (see my blogsite worldharmonyforum.blogspot.com ). The future trend of the world is for peace and development and multipolar world not American hegemony. It is inevitable that “Harmony Power” will triumph over American hegemony soft power. Francis C W Fung,Ph.D. Director General World Harmony Organization San Francisco, CA