There is a belief promoted by some in China and by some in the West that ideas on individual liberty and human rights are incompatible with Chinese...
There is a belief promoted by some in China and by some in the West that ideas on individual liberty and human rights are incompatible with Chinese culture. Frank Calzon, the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, took on this belief at the Bush Institute’s May 26 conference on human freedom. “Either we believe in universal rights, or we don’t,” he said. “I don’t think that we should buy for a minute the idea that certain human beings are not as upset about their kids being beaten up… about the very basic lack of freedoms that we discuss here.” Today, Chinese scholar Liu Junning explains in The Wall Street Journal that not only are Western ideas on liberty compatible with Chinese culture, but China has a deep intellectual history supporting individual rights. Liu writes that “what we now call Western–style liberalism has featured in China’s own culture for millennia.” It appears in the writings of many prominent Chinese philosophers, including Taoism founder Laozi (6th century B.C.), Confucian disciple Mencius (4th century B.C.), and the pioneering neo–Confucian thinker Huang Zongxi (17th century A.D.). Those who see in Beijing a new model for economic growth – one where the government makes better, more stable macro decision than a free–market system can – are misguided. Liu notes that China has done best economically when it has allowed individuals a greater degree of freedom in pursuing economic gain. “To say that the narrative of liberty vs. power is uniquely ‘Western’ is to turn a blind eye to the struggles of those who have gone before us,” Liu writes. “Individual rights are not a Western development any more than paper and gunpowder are inventions that are uniquely Chinese.” China is a rising economic power in the world, but its growth stems from the same source that such things come from in the West: human creativity. Unleashing that requires respect for the universal human desire to be free. To read Liu’s op–ed, click here.
