This is an important awareness that will escape scholars, policymakers and publics in the West who are not aware of the implications of the term to Chinese-speakers. Likewise, some Chinese-speakers might be less hostile to American thinkers if they did not think they were purporting their own immorality as a virtue. ba-style Given the contours of the Chinese debate about hegemony that has been outlined here, the intended outcome of such a project to escape from the problematic imagination of self-other relations of Western notions and practice of hegemony appears far from reach. As Callahan has argued, the concept that Zhao Tianxia advocates as a new and better imagination of world order works through conversion of difference, turning other into self (Callahan, 2008; see also Nordin, 2012b; under review). He therefore concludes that than guide us toward a post-hegemonic “rather world order, Tianxia presents a new hegemony where imperial hierarchical China’s governance is updated for the twenty-first (Callahan, 2008: 749). I have also century” described elsewhere how both Yan and Zhao imagine time and space, sameness and difference, self and other in a way that positions others as in just the way “behind” that Wang Yiwei and others have criticized thought or IR for doing “Western” (Nordin, under review). Both accounts operate on the conversion of into “the bad” of other into self. Both are explicitly imagining such conversion as led by “the good”, China, or the Chinese elites who properly understand how to be a “humane authority” of For this reason, Linsay Cunningham-Cross and Callahan have suggested Tianxia. that idea of a new world order directed by the moral leadership of the Chinese Yan’s political elite may have been more astutely grasped, not by the term “humane but precisely by the (Cunningham-Cross and Callahan, 2011: authority” “kingly way” 349). In this manner, these Chinese alternatives to Western/American hegemony replicate the difficulties they identify as a problem. They reproduce an “Western” imagination of a hegemonic world system it is just that this time it has China rather – than the US at its helm.
This is an important awareness that will escape scholars, policymakers and publics in the West who are not aware of the implications of the term to Chinese-speakers. Likewise, some Chinese-speakers might be less hostile to American thinkers if they did not think they were purporting their own ba-style immorality as a virtue. Given the contours of the Chinese debate about hegemony that has been outlined here, the intended outcome of such a project to escape from the problematic imagination of self-other relations of Western notions and practice of hegemony appears far from reach. As Callahan has argued, the Tianxia concept that Zhao advocates as a new and better imagination of world order works through conversion of difference, turning other into self (Callahan, 2008; see also Nordin, 2012b; under review). He therefore concludes that “rather than guide us toward a post-hegemonic world order, Tianxia presents a new hegemony where imperial China’s hierarchical governance is updated for the twenty-first century” (Callahan, 2008: 749). I have also described elsewhere how both Yan and Zhao imagine time and space, sameness and difference, self and other in a way that positions others as “behind” in just the way that Wang Yiwei and others have criticized “Western” thought or IR for doing (Nordin, under review). Both accounts operate on the conversion of “the bad” into “the good”, of other into self. Both are explicitly imagining such conversion as led by China, or the Chinese elites who properly understand how to be a “humane authority” of Tianxia. For this reason, Linsay Cunningham-Cross and Callahan have suggested that Yan’s idea of a new world order directed by the moral leadership of the Chinese political elite may have been more astutely grasped, not by the term “humane authority” but precisely by the “kingly way” (Cunningham-Cross and Callahan, 2011: 349). In this manner, these Chinese alternatives to Western/American hegemony replicate the difficulties they identify as a “Western” problem. They reproduce an imagination of a hegemonic world system – it is just that this time it has China rather than the US at its helm.
Hegemony_in_Chinese_submitted_22.03.2014.docx