A pathway to peace through ancient wisdom

0:02 misunderstanding tension War as a path to peace is being explored in an increasingly complex world how can ancient wisdom help navigate through the intricacies of modern day challenges what Universal values can be shared worldwide Jeffrey sax professor at Columbia University shares his insights on how ancient Confucian wisdom contributes to peace [Music] hello and welcome to chinat talk I'm Jeffrey saaks University professor at Columbia University and president of the United Nations sustainable development

0:49 Solutions Network and I'm delighted to have the chance to share some ideas of how we can use Ancient wisdom confucious is thoughts and the wisdom of other great sages to help us address our current challenges in the world and we Face many challenges we Face the common challenges of global climate change and uh destruction of biodiversity uh we Face challenges of poverty in a world of wealth but especially we Face the challenge of peaceful coexistence how to live together on this crowded planet of 8 billion people and

1:35 193 member states of the United Nations and a lot of conflict and misunderstanding and I believe that by looking at the wisdom of the ancient sages drawing upon that wisdom we can help make the world a safer place and thereby direct our real energies and attention and resources to solving the major problems of sustainable development meaning ending poverty as China has done but ending it all over the world social justice environmental sustainability and peaceful cooperation now I as an economist who works all over the world uh and as uh

2:22 somebody who uh devotes a tremendous amount of my time to the United Nations because I believe uh that all nations come together at the United Nations and should operate under the UN Charter have spent a lot of time analyzing why we have all of these tensions and I view the situation uh in the following way now the world has changed a great deal in recent years and this is one of the reasons why there is a lot of global tension for two centuries the Western countries governed the world or they thought they did the European Imperial Powers dominated much of Africa and Asia

3:09 after 1800 and the United States dominated much of the world economic and political scene after 1945 at the end of the second world war between 1945 and 1991 there was a competition between the United States and and the Soviet Union called the Cold War but when the Soviet Union aimed for reform and then later separated into 15 states in 1991 rather than the United States saying now we can have peace with Russia and the other uh successor States the

3:55 United States said now we dominate the world uh so the US came to view itself as what we call the world's hegemon or the world's dominant power and this was a kind of arrogance that did not draw on the ancient sages who believed in harmony who believed in peace who believed in reciprocity it was a kind of arrogance of power the United States said we now are the most powerful country in the world world we are unchallenged we can do what we want oh it's been a a bad result and arrogance often leads to bad results

4:41 because the United States launched many wars of Choice by War of choice I mean a war didn't result from self-defense or from any necessity but rather was a choice based on arrogance and we had wars in Afghanistan in Iraq in Syria in Libya and in Ukraine that have been very costly and that all reflect the kind of arrogance that is so dangerous in the world today now if we go back to the ancient sages and go to confucius's wisdom when Confucius was asked by his

5:28 students what one word would you use Master to describe how we should behave his answer is reciprocity or he said do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you and this is a starting principle for Global Peace and it is on that basis of mutuality reciprocity mutual respect that we can find the path to peace in our world 70 years ago China unveiled five principles for peaceful coexistence uh and these are uh mutual

6:16 respect of the other countries nonaggression non interference in the internal affairs of other countries equality of benefit so we look for win-win situations and peaceful coexistence now these principles which have a a deep basis in confucius's wisdom of Harmony in diversity these are principles that can serve us well in the 21st century the principles that China has laid out for peaceful coexistence the core idea of confucius's

7:02 thought and advice to the rulers of his day and the advice that he left to us for the following 2500 years in the analex and in the other collected wisdom of confucious and his thought is that we should base ourselves on proper behavior on our virtues on our benevolence to others on our respect for others and on the core idea of reciprocity do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you and then we can have a peaceful world this kind of deep wisdom of the ancient sages can

7:48 be found in civilizations across the world my favorite philosopher in the western history is Aristotle the great Greek philosopher and he taught the importance of character and virtues both as individuals and as Citizens in relating to other citizens and as leaders that are uh helping to govern their societies so like confucious he emphasized the importance of good character and good virtues and we can find these virtue ethics in the great Traditions all over the world

8:33 since we are so interconnected we need to draw upon the ancient wisdom not only of our own civilizations but of the other civilizations as well so that we can come to realize that we share core human values China's wonderful Global civilizations initiative that President Xi Jinping launched in 2020 3 enables the world to study to understand uh and then to use this great wisdom across the world's civilizations to find the path to peace to Harmony to sustainable development to well-being for all people

9:19 on the planet this is my hope this is my work this is my joy in dealing with the great Chinese Scholars academics of confusion thought and wonderful practitioners of public policy by bringing the world together along the lines of this great ancient wisdom we can lead a prosperous healthy and peaceful world uh we can help lead to those outcomes for the 21st century [Music]