From Nothingness to Great Sympathy: Chinese Non-Interventionism from Buddhist Perspectives

Abstract

The Chinese government and people’s disregard for failing governance in other countries is in contrast with its portrayal of good governance as a triumph of the Chinese Communist Party. In cases where this theory– practice contradiction affects neither policy-makers nor their constituencies, something deeper than functional hypocrisy must be behind the apparent desensitization. To understand the government’s seeming apathy toward failed states, this study draws lessons from the history of Buddhist thought, and the notion of suffering as the nature of “this world” as opposed to that of “the afterworld.” China can find ways to lessen the contradictions in its non-interventionism through a dialectical relationship between the transcendental cosmology/ontology that favors inaction, and the transcendental epistemology that favors self-strengthening, as required by the particular situation.