Introduction

This presentation starts from the recognition that we are now living in a global risk society threatening the very survival of humanity, but nevertheless incapable of envisioning an epoch-making new response to this civilizational challenge. To be sure, there have been a great number of conferences and negotiations led by international organizations, scientific experts, economists, and policy makers to discuss about the catastrophic consequences of climate change, for instance, and formulate solutions or recommendations which are technically feasible and politically acceptable. But these all have taken a top-down approach initiated by political leaders and experts within the framework of modernity and, consequently, their focus has been on science and technology and international cooperation among nation states. However, global risks we face seem to pose challenges more serious and fundamental than assumed here. It may be necessary to break away from the limit of modernity and explore a new framework of civilization. In particular, we need to reconstruct the traditions of cosmopolitan inspiration which are still valid and meaningful in order to explore the possibility of the normative framework of cosmopolitan worldview which offers ordinary men good reason and sensitivity and motivation as well to join the action to prevent such risks. This paper wants to explore such possibility in a preliminary fashion from the perspective of Chinese philosophy.   

Let me first draw attention to Ulrich Beck’s lecture delivered in Nagoya on November 6, 2010, in which he criticized the long-standing Eurocentric assumptions underlying modern social theories – from classical to contemporary versions – while making an emphatic argument about the need for a cosmopolitan turn in the present. Addressed to the Japanese intellectual audience, his message was well-calculated, clear-cut, and assertive, but it was met with a rather cool response that was ambivalent at best, most likely due to the fact that his speech was premised on the necessity of a cosmopolitan social science (Beck, 2010:4). This tendency is not unique in Japan; it can also be easily found in China, where politics and public opinion seem to have been increasingly shaped by nationalistic drives in the status quo. Nonetheless, apart from this, his speech deserves careful attention. I am particularly interested in his recognition of East Asia’s capability to deconstruct the Eurocentric conception of modernity and reconstruct genuine pluralities in historical trajectories from modernity to second modern transformation.. In his 2010 British Journal of Sociology paper he summed up his position as “an approach which takes the varieties of modernity and their global interdependencies as a starting point for theoretical reflection and empirical research” (Beck and Grande, 2010:412). He then identified the East Asian pathway as “an active, compressed modernization driven by a developmental state” which can be contrasted to “the Western path or model as the project of an unintended, temporally stretched and (more or less) successful modernization of modern societies” (Beck and Grande, 2010:416). What is more, in his Nagoya speech, Beck further explored the possible role of East Asia in “correct[ing] and redefin[ing] the self-understanding of European modernity” by looking at “Europe from a non-European perspective; that is, with Asian eyes” (Beck, 2 010, 16). Cosmopolitan nuances of self-reflection could not have been better formulated.

With this spirit in mind, I would like to draw more sympathetic attention to Beck’s Nagoya speech by examining the Chinese conceptual framework of Tianxia (天下) deeply underlying the philosophical tradition of politics from the ancient time. As Zhao (2007) argued, this concept “has been the most important key word for any possible apprehension of Chinese conception of world, society, institution and polity.” If properly reconstructed, this concept can be seen as breaking away from the limit of the state- or nation-centered predisposition of modernity and offer rich imaginations for a cosmopolitan worldview and ecological civilization. In particular, a Chinese philosopher who taught at Jilin University until 2004 when passed away, Professor Gao Qinghai, will be discussed to highlight his concept of ‘Leidecunzai’ (類的存在) which can be interpreted as cosmopolitan actor. To my knowledge, he did not use the term ‘cosmopolitan.’ However, the way in which he formulated this concept comes close to cosmopolitan subject as a necessary component of cosmopolitan social theory. The combination of modernity and nation state as we find in the Western experience cannot be taken for granted and may need to be replaced by what Beck calls “methodological cosmopolitanism.” The aim of this paper is to explore this conceptual transformation from the Chinese perspective of Tianxia and cosmopolitan subject.

Why Cosmopolitan?

As stated above, the global risks we face today can no longer be adequately handled within the frame of nation state. Instead, it requires a cosmopolitan approach. Yet an adequate conceptual framework is lacking. The institutions of modernity “do not constitute a sufficient basis for managing or controlling the global risks and crises created by the global victory of industrial capitalism.” The cosmopolitan imperative arises mainly “because of global risks: nuclear risks, ecological risks, technological risks, economic risks created by insufficiently regulated financial markets” (Beck and Grande, 2010: 418). In this context, Beck’s critique of methodological nationalism and his defense of cosmopolitan sociology can be reinterpreted as follows: 1) The global world has been deeply transformed in the direction of immensely amplifying transnational interconnections; 2) As a consequence, everyday life tends to be penetrated more and more by the impacts of transnational interactions on multiple levels; 3) Risks and dangers which were rather delimited in space and time in the past have become globalized, threatening the very survival of humanity as a whole; 4) Nevertheless, social-scientific understanding in general and the institutional framework of risk management in particular is still narrowly preoccupied by a nation state-centered approach by which alone an efficient regulation of global risks is not possible; 5) Therefore, it is imperative for human survival to move on from old-fashioned methodological nationalism to a cosmopolitan alternative. We may then ask: where does such cosmopolitan energy come from? Here Beck assumes, at least implicitly, a selective affinity between second modernity and cosmopolitan tradition in Europe. Beck has never paid serious attention to tradition as such, but it is clear that he wants to revitalize or reinvent the Western cosmopolitan tradition as a normative condition for second modern transformation.

This reading is revealing in many respects. First and foremost, Beck’s theory of second modernity is, in fact, predicated upon a selective affinity between the imperative to regulate the increasing global risks as consequences of radicalizing modernity and reinventing cosmopolitan tradition. Beck’s theory of second modernity cannot work well if it is not supported by normative tradition of cosmopolitanism because in this case, mobilizing energy will be lacking.

Second, second modernity presupposes the rapid accumulation and expansion of global (local) risks and dangers jeopardizing human security and the increasing necessity of regulating and preventing such risks through new institutions and innovative cooperation. What is vital for second modernity is to show how these two processes are evolving; in particular, how a new second-modern response – that is, a more effective, flexible, and inclusive way of regulating global risks – develops with greater support not only from the elite but also from ordinary people. Revitalizing normative tradition is indispensable for the bottom-up approach.

Third, as we become aware of the importance of the relationship between modernity and tradition, we now come to see the crucial point where East Asia profoundly differs from the West. To put it simply, in the West, modernity has been propelled by its own enlightenment tradition, whereas in East Asia, modernity has been cut off from its own tradition by and large. As Beck writes, in the case of the West, modernization started from the beginning as an ‘active’ (not reactive), ‘internal’ (not external), and ‘self-induced’ (not forced) program of transformation energized by European enlightenment traditions. Modernity has been continually stretched out (not compressed, as in East Asia) by an internal logic of modernity (Beck and Grande, 2010: 416). In contrast, however, tradition was seen as a barrier to modernization in East Asia. Shocked at the advancement of Western military and economic power, East Asian countries became preoccupied catching up to the West as quickly as possible, largely in terms of economic growth. For this reason, unlike Western countries, they were unable to pursue an indigenous model of development with a normative vision from their own traditions. This is why an East Asian sensitivity to second modernity looks quite different from that of the West.

Tradition has never been completely lost, however – on the contrary, tradition has been very much alive. For instance, Confucian values are visible in everyday life in Korea and China. Certain interpretations have been instrumentally utilized to strengthen authoritarian power in politics, factory, and the family. What has disappeared almost completely is the role of tradition in providing the normative vision of development which needs public debate and justification. Against this historical background, and with the success in modernization today, it is natural for East Asia to try to get back to their own tradition in order to explore if valid normative resources are still available, because if so, it may be possible to launch a qualitatively new concept which we may call a second modern transformation.

Tianxia as Cosmopolitan worldview

The question that arises here is as follows. Before we take the framework of nation state as a self-evident reference, what kind of imaged of the world can we have and where these can be traced back? In principle, the world can be seen from the angle of politics, religion, and ecology. Thus, we can think of political world, religious world, and ecological world, each of which can nurture its own view of civilization, like the political world civilization, the religious civilization and the ecological civilization. In the West as well as the East, the idea of the political world civilization has been deeply associated with the ideology of world empires of various kinds. The idea of the religious civilization has often been expressed into a universal church community of believers cutting across the regions, gender, and ethnicities. In this case, the world is understood as created and governed by the will of God which monopolizes the ultimate sources of legitimacy and justice, sharply distinguished from the secular world of human being, as exemplified by Christianity and Judaism in the West. The Chinese view of the political world is somewhat different. Integrated into the ideological system of empire, it also involves the aspect of religious civilization in that it presupposes the heaven and its rule, not as the transcendental source of legitimacy like Absolute Being that exists by itself separated from humanity, but as linked to and understood within public sphere. The typical model of the religious world civilization as we can find in the West is foreign to China. Yet China has developed her own long-standing imaginations of the world which is broader and higher than empire but not as transcendental as the Christian civilization. It may offer vantage point in dual senses. We can think of the world while being liberated from the modern preoccupation with nation state. We can also think of the world broader than the international relation among nation states without relying on the authority of transcendental religion. In the age of post-metaphysics which incidentally accompanies the decline of the role of nation state, China may find itself in the position to grasp and further develop cosmopolitan imagination in its fundamental sense which has remained underdeveloped along the Western pathways of modernity since all modern political and institutional developments were largely shaped within the framework of nation state

Indeed, the case in point of decisive significance is the concept of Tianxia (天下) which literally means ‘everything under the heaven,’ as a core imagination underlying the long history of the Chinese philosophy. According to Zhao Tingyang, the concept of Tianxia (天下) involves three equally important constitutive parts: world, people, and institution. Following this, I shall first see what world means and how it is composed. I shall then move to the concept of people to assess Gao Qinghai’s reflection on cosmopolitan subject.

It may be useful and practical to take the perspective of global risk society and examine the meaning of the world from this perspective to see how it differs from the paradigm of nation state. To begin with, as a conceptual pillar of Tianxia, the world can be understood as the space far larger than nation state, in which nation state has been actually located. In this sense, the world is to be understood as a prior condition for the emergence of nation state. The problem is only that China has articulated this concept of the world philosophically and politically whereas it remained rather underdeveloped in the West. Thus, Zhao argues:  

“We have reasons to say, at least in Chinese argument, that western philosophy has no world-view as the view from the world though it has the view of the world as an ideology of a state. Further, western philosophy has not a full concept of the world though it has its scientific concept of the world. A full concept of the world must be an all-in concept that comprehensively enjoys all possible meanings of the world, the physical, the psychological and the institutional meanings of the world. The key word all-under-heaven implies a philosophy of the world, in which the world is always understood as an institutional or a humanized one. And it argues that all-under-heaven must be the general condition and greatest context for understanding any political affairs and problem of a state or international relations.”

 “In the western framework of politics, the greatest political entity is found to be the “state” which confines the western understanding of political theory in the point of view of the state. Consequently the western imaginations of the integrality of the world are but internationalism, united nation or globalization, nothing going beyond the framework of nation/states. And such projects have essential difficulties to reach the oneness of the world for their limitation of the perspectives of nation/states. The world will be a failed world if it could not be seen from a world-view for the world itself. It is evident that seeing the world from the world is not the same as seeing the world from part of it.”

So defined, the Tianxia conception of the world gave rise to two pathways of government: one is called benevolent as Wang-dao, another is hegemonic as Ba-dao. Characteristic of the former is the commitment to and implementation of global justice while the hegemonic rule by superpower is characteristic of the latter. Here we find the normative framework of global governance well supported by the Chinese tradition of enlightened Confucianism. “All kinds of western empires, including the Roman, Britain and America, could be categorized as the empire in terms of hegemony according to Chinese understanding” (Zhao).

“In the Chinese trinalism, the heaven, the earth and human are supposed the equally necessary perspectives of understanding everything, but the law of heaven (the general Way, Tao of Tian) is thought to be the final justification of everything on the reason that the heaven is the absolute condition for all kinds of beings and the origin of all possible changes so that every kind of things or creatures has to rectify or adjust itself to meet the natural changes of the heaven in order to survive and develop well. This transcendental argument for the priority of the heaven results as the naturalism principle of “the mapping between the heaven and human”(天人合一) which could be reckoned as a key reason for the Chinese political imagination of all-under-heaven. All-under-heaven must have its institution because the heaven has its laws and orders. The world is there and it is the existence greater than a state, therefore the world must have its institution higher and greater than a state, otherwise the international society will be the chaos.”

Having said so, aH

it is equally important that the Tianxia conception of the world is characterized by a triangle relationship between heaven, earth, and human. It includes not only the relationship among men, states, and empires, but also the relationship between human and nature whether it be the heaven or earth. As in Greek cosmology, Chinese philosophy assumed the order of the nature as the Tao which maintains itself as the cosmos. Consequently, human life was not presupposed to be separated from, but assumed to be incorporated into the nature, that is, the ecological world of interdependencies. Thus, it provides rich imagination and sensitivity about how to live and communicate with non-human entities. Such cosmopolitan worldview implies the possibility of talking about not only the right of the people and the state but also the right of the earth as well as the right of the heaven. This worldviews goes beyond the anthropocentric conception of the world which we can find in the tradition of Christianity.

What matters here is the deep cultural logic of shaping human inspiration and solidarity as well as the worldviews as the pacemaker of human evolution. What we need is a genuine model of cosmo-politics which transcends national borders, race, and cultural differences. A good example may be found in the concept ttianxia gongsheng (天下共生). Roughly translated as “symbiotic cosmo-politics”, this concept is a combination of tianxia, meaning “the world” and stemming from Confucianism, and gongsheng, meaning “symbiosis” and stemming from Taoism and Buddhism. This concept may be more capable of grasping the full senses of cosmopolitan inspirations than the conventional usage of the term in the West. Tianxia gongsheng excellently demonstrates the ecological interdependence of every entity in this world along with the relations between human beings, between nation states, and between humanity and nature (Zhao, 2006).

Tianxia and Global Risk Society

  We have seen in a preliminary fashion how Tianxia as a Chinese vision of cosmopolitan worldview is composed of as a ground concept of civilization and differs from the Western paradigm of modernity deeply associated with nation state. The presentation above is nothing more than a brief sketch. Yet we need to bring Ulrich Beck here again, particularly his theory of global risk society to explore the potential significance of Tianxia for his theory. The case in point is the idea of cosmopolitan community of global risks that Beck has emphasized in recent writings. In his public lecture delivered in Seoul on July 8, 2014, he examined the transformation of the world towards cosmopolitan sympathy and solidarity via the experience of global disasters. He drew particular attention to hurricane Katrina swept over the coast of Louisiana, USA on August 29, 2005. He suggested three conceptual lenses to apply to this study.

First, the anticipation of global catastrophe violates sacred (unwritten) norms of human existence and civilisation; second, thereby it causes an anthropological shock, and, third, a social catharsis. This is how new normative horizons as frames of perception and action emerge.

He assumes the existence of sacred norms of human civilization, that is, the normative culture respecting human dignity and life. He then argues that the anthropological shock of catastrophe creates a ‘cosmopolitan moment’. In this moment of catharsis the mind-walls of institutionally constructed side effects are breaking down and we can empirically study the cultural fact of how cosmopolitan horizons are emerging and being globalized. Here we can raise a question how the norms of human survival and justice can be addressed to the people who live far away and have no voice of their own in decision-making, which affects their conditions of life dramatically?

Three factors are mutually related: 1) the deterioration of the conditions of the world and environment, that is, Tianxia in the direction of catastrophe; 2) the very primary, primordial cultural disposition and sensitivity to a imagined community that Beck calls a cosmopolitan community of global risks; and 3) the transformation of people to actively share the normative horizon as Beck describes. The first topic above is beyond the scope of this paper. The paper by Prof. Park Young-Do will perhaps be addressed to this issue within the frame of Tianxiaweigong (天下爲公) as a response to ecological catastrophe. In what follows, I shall touch upon the second topic briefly and deal with the third topic in the next section of this paper.

Concerning the idea of cosmopolitan community of global risks it can be said that the cultural disposition embodied in the conception of Tianxia, if properly reconstructed and activated, may better support the idea of cosmopolitan community of global risks than in the cases in which collective mentality remain deeply divided by nations, races, and ethnicities. In addition, the conception of Tianxia promotes the interest in human protection from environmental disaster and demands global governance for this task. Moreover, not only human protection but also environmental protection and, hence, not only globally oriented social justice but also environmental justice received focal attention along the line of Tianxia conception of worldview, because here the earth and the heaven are as equally important as human being as mutually interrelated parts of the whole. Seen in this way, when we talk about cosmopolitan community of global risks, the analytic focus should not be largely confined to the inequalities of people in terms of risks production and distribution, as we find in Beck’s argument, but should be extended further to include properly the other dimensions of the conception of Tianxia.

So, finally, Beck’s question is: “what is the ‘cosmopolitan turn’ all about? How can we reinvent sociology for the 21^st century? At the heart of the cosmopolitan turn of sociology is the challenge of how global risks and cosmopolitan situations enter into the changing of meanings in the basic concepts of sociology. We may gain some insights by linking the Chinese Tianxia conception of worldview and Beck’s concept of global risk society. 

The Cosmopolitan Subject

The changing patterns of movement in cosmological universe were a topic of great interests for ancient scholars. This was particularly so in China. The Chinese classics, Yi-Jing (易經), represents the best essence of the Chinese view on such changes and their meanings. The Chinese view may look similar to dialectic in the sense that the movement of ying (陰) and yang (陽) as two tendencies are presupposed. But, in fact, it differs from dialectic because the Chinese view understands change not in terms of antagonistic opposition but reciprocal interaction and balance. What about the role of the people which is as indispensable for Tianxia as the world like the earth? The typical interpretation is to focus on people as the basis of rule, or as embodiment of popular heart or general will. The status of people within the Chinese concept of worldview was acknowledged by Xun-Zi (筍子: 313BC-238BC) frequently quoted: “Enjoying all-under-heaven does not mean to receive the lands from people who are forced to give, but to satisfy all people with a good way of governance” Mencius （孟子, 372BC-289BC）argued that people were of greater weight than the government for the reason that the king would lose his reign when he lost his people’ support, and he lost his people’ support because he was against the people’s hearts. Emphasis here is on the importance of the support from people, not the absolute rule over the people.

Apart from this political-philosophical reasoning which traces back the legitimacy of rule to popular will, it is important how human beings can be and have been transformed to play their role in the age of cosmopolitan change. This requires the intersection between Beck and China with a particular reference to cosmopolitan actor. When he dealt with climate change in 2013 Potsdam workshop, Beck (2013:1) introduced a very stimulating observation by making a decisive shift of focus from a fearsome apocalyptic perspective to a perspective of ‘emancipatory catastrophism.’

“We are faced with questions too big to fail and too big to answer. Most discussions on climate change are blocked, they are caught by catastrophism circulating in the horizon of the problem: what is climate change bad for? From a sociological point of view, because climate change is a threat to humanity, we can and should turn the question upside down and ask: what is climate change good for? The amazing thing is, if you firmly believe that climate change is a fundamental threat to all of humanity, then it might bring a transformative, cosmopolitan turn into our contemporary life and the world might be changed to the better. This is what I call ‘emancipatory catastrophism’.”

Two points can be examined in this connection. First, Beck brings the idea of hope to the threatening reality of global risk society in line with critical theory. Beck insists that “climate change is the embodiment of the mistakes of a whole epoch of industrial capitalism, and climate risks pursue their acknowledgement and correction with all the violence of the possibility of annihilation.” He further claims that “the second modernity of world risk society breaks with the models of the reproduction of social and political order, setting in motion a whole range of new cosmopolitan dynamics, trajectories and regimes of transformation” (Beck, 2013: 3). He then touches upon the tradition of critical theory: “The main source of climate pessimism, underlying the present dominance of apocalyptic imaginaries, lies in a generalized incapacity to rethink fundamental questions of social and political order. […] In this sense there is a certain affinity between theory of risk society and Ernst Bloch’s principal of hope. Because global risk implies the message that it is high time for us to act! That is the paradox of encouragement we derive from global risks.” (Beck, 2013:6)

Second, Beck began to deal with the problem of actor or agency touching upon the normative driving force of action explicitly. In this regard, from the action-theoretical point of view, social change may be better understood as interplays of push and pull factors. Both factors can be seen as operating at the objective-structural and the cultural–discursive dimensions. An important point is that push factors alone are not enough. Pull factors are of equal significance since only these factors can provide forward-looking energy and meaning. If push factors are a blind force working behind individuals, pull factors, in contrast, invite them to proceed to an alternative development. Cosmopolitan transformation can work well only when these two factors are combined to produce synergy.

Along the lines of three lenses suggested by Beck, one can formulate an empirical proposition to find prominent actors in support of cosmopolitan change. Simply put, “the more keenly future threats are recognized, the stronger the movement to overcome such threats by a new solidarity becomes” (Han, 2013). Though this empirical proposition is fascinating and can be tested, it is also important to inquire whether or not, and, if so, to what extent, the overall – cognitive, moral, and aesthetic – capacity of the people to act as cosmopolitan citizens increases. This may refer to the changing landscape of citizens’ moral judgment, cognitive knowledge, and aesthetic sensitivity in history. This refers to the extent to which citizens can act to pursue common good or public interest without being narrowly confined with self-centered egoism or materialistic interests. Citizens may act with a cosmopolitan solidarity if they share a common sense of the problem. Thus, Beck claims: “This is my point: in the cosmopolitan turn the common sense of problem, the historical rationality is constituted and transformed by global risk.”

Starting from this, I want to pay special attention to Gao Qinghai who developed the concept of Leidecunzai (類的 存在) which I will translate as ‘cosmopolitan subject.’ In an essay, “My Way to Academic Learning,” Gao stated that he had begun to teach at a University from 1952. Soon after the main task he set before himself was to “transform the overall conceptual framework of philosophy,” with the view that this task was “not simply about philosophy but crucially important for the future of China.” He stated that “the goal has never been changed” once it was determined. According to him, “critique is the soul of philosophy.” As he observes, many people do not enjoy critique, but he argues that “critique expresses the true value of philosophy.” He strongly opposes to philosophers becoming conformist satisfied with the status quo, with the conviction that this track “will lose the true vitality of philosophy as creativity and transcendence.” That is why, according to his observation, “many philosophers suffer from pains and difficulties in real life but gain recognition and appreciation from their successors. This is my understanding of the essence of doing philosophy.” Indeed, these statements exactly refer to his real life characterized by his never-ending dedication to the mission of philosophy, but practically cut off from power circles and their support.

The conceptual innovation by Gao was aimed at comprehending the major characteristics and stages of development of the self-creating and self-becoming human capacity in history. He noted that he had accelerated his inquiries during the 1990’s and finally reached the stage where he became able to conceptualize human beings as Leidecunzai, that is, cosmopolitan subject. This term refers to the self-creating and self-sustaining capacity of human beings. This conceptual innovation entails “a Janus-faced double characteristic of human life.” On the one hand, human beings share with other animals “the natural life of instincts,” that is, “the life as species.” On the other hand, however, human beings are unique in the sense that they transcend this natural (biological) bondage with the ability of producing a “self-creating and self-becoming life,” which he calls cosmopolitan subject. The term “Lei” (類) refers to human actors in a conscious reciprocal interaction with Tianxia. Thus, this human being as cosmopolitan actor is assumed to be equipped with the ability to produce and sustain their life in a self-conscious way.

One reason why the term  類的 存在 can be translated into cosmopolitan subject is that Gao Qinghai developed a clear-cut concept of individual and individualization with an explicit recognition of its reflexive and inclusive ability. According to him, “individuals can become an independent and sovereign subject … only when they can internalize the world-historical activities, thereby absorbing and appropriating the characteristics of human being. Seen in this way, the lack of personal independence in the past is due to the narrowness, one-dimensionality and fixity of dependent relationship. By way of blocking and limiting, this dependency keeps individuals from absorbing and appropriating the human ability to act as a whole. Therefore, the key question at hand is how to transform the nature-like, one-dimensional dependency into a social and universal one and to expand the closed relationship of communication based on the given region to the communication among men in the world histories. The essence of the problem lies in the transformation of nature-like dependence into a new relationship with cosmopolitan orientation (p.12).  

Understood in this way, a cosmopolitan subject is neither a collective nor a macro-historical subject nor an isolated individual as monad but refers to an individualized individual radically open to its interconnectedness to the world and natural environments as well. Gao Qinghia argues that individuals differ from monads preoccupied with closed self-interests and biological needs. “Men are inborn to become a natural unit of life and each life is a monad. However, individuals transcend a biological and monadic existence because they can become individuals only by way of being related with others. Individuals can attain a sovereign subjectivity and a self-reliant capacity only when they internalize the global conditions of human being. Individuals can, therefore, be formed only within the historical and social relationships. A truly equal relationship among men can be realized only when each individuals become a self-reliant subject with an independent and sovereign personality. For this possibility, the [communicative] barriers among men must be demolished and a communicative relationship among men must be established.”

Note how he moves further toward globalization. “We, as individuals, become more and more independent these days. At the same time, however, the market, trade, production, consumption, information, science and technology, computer networks, etc. are pushing us into a new relationship. Whether we are conscious of it or not, or whether we want it or not, the globalization of the market has broken down the boundaries of nations and regions, linking our life to global conditions, thereby opening up a reciprocal relationship of pain and destiny. I argue, therefore, that essential for globalization is the fact that human beings finally become self-conscious of their characteristics as Leidecunzai. Needless to say, there still are many contradictions and clashes today – these can’t be avoided any time – but a “global consciousness” or “cosmopolitan consciousness” are not only expanding significantly but become a mainstream tendency today. This can be seen in the realms of politics and culture as well as the economy. In the past, the coercive means or even wars were, in fact, often used to solve social contradictions and conflicts. Today, however, instead of these methods that lose the people’s support increasingly, other methods such as dialogue, negotiation, cooperation, contract, etc. have become the basic principle of conflict resolution. Here we see the clear-cut examples of changes. This stream of popular mind has been so fundamentally changed today that no one can block it. Human beings as monadic existence have attained a higher stage of development through self-negation and finally become self-conscious of their cosmopolitan nature and ability.”

Concluding Remarks

An open task set before us is critical reconstruction of certain streams of tradition which are still full of normative implications and cognitive knowledge. This is exactly what Beck has in mind when he wants to radicalize cosmopolitan tradition by putting emphasis on coexistence with ‘radical others.’ According to Beck, the European cosmopolitan tradition can be traced back as far as the ancient Greeks, and it is still alive. Yet, a nation-centered framework, or what he calls ‘methodological nationalism’, became powerful as modernization unfolded with the advent of nation-state, bureaucracy, army, national citizenship, and so on. Consequently, cosmopolitan tradition has fallen short of institutionalization. This condition makes it difficult for us to adjust to the changing reality of increasing trans-national interconnections and develop a cosmopolitan framework of governance over global risks. Therefore, one of the goals he has pursued is to reconstruct cosmopolitan tradition which can serve as a critical yardstick against methodological nationalism.

The Tianxia conception of the worldview and the concept of Leidecunzai as cosmopolitan actor articulated by Gao Qinghai deserves special attention from Beck and his research team to enrich and advance the comparative study of global risk society with cosmopolitan orientation. Methodological cosmopolitanism as suggested by Beck represents a reciprocal way of understanding in which one sees the counterpart (radical others), not from one’s own familiar eyes, but from the eyes of the counterpart in a methodologically consistent way, so that we can fully appreciate diversities and multiplicities involved. This cosmopolitan capability has been well integrated into the concept of Leidecunzai, as a significant academic achievement of Gao Qinghai. What remains to be done is how to reconceptualize his thoughts and ideas as a cosmopolitan theory in a more rigorous and systematic way, and how to formulate empirical propositions to test his theory to find cosmopolitan actors in reality.