IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/chnrpt/v49y2013i2p251-263.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Global Ethics in the Thought of Laozi: Constructing China’s Soft Power

Author

Listed:
  • Song Tianyang

Abstract

The thought of Laozi is of paramount importance in Chinese traditional culture. It is significant for us to discover some meaningful factors in Laozi’s ideological systems in order to expand and strengthen China’s soft power. Coincidently, there exists something in common between the thought of Laozi and ethics in Western political philosophy. The comparison of these ethical views of different value systems would help in better understanding the advantages of Chinese traditional culture in the process of China’s soft power construction. This essay tries to summarise some common factors between the thought of Laozi and Western global ethics that can contribute to the construction of China’s soft power. This could in turn offer an approach to establishing a ‘Chinese school’ in international political theories as well as contribute to global ethics architecture. This essay has been divided into three sections. The first discusses global ethics in Western political philosophy while the second investigates global ethics in Laozi’s ideological system and then makes a contrast between Laozi’s global ethics and those in Western political philosophy. In the final section, some fundamental principles in China’s soft power construction will be explored.

Suggested Citation

  • Song Tianyang, 2013. "Global Ethics in the Thought of Laozi: Constructing China’s Soft Power," China Report, , vol. 49(2), pages 251-263, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:chnrpt:v:49:y:2013:i:2:p:251-263
    DOI: 10.1177/0009445513491527
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0009445513491527
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0009445513491527?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:chnrpt:v:49:y:2013:i:2:p:251-263. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.