How Do Chinese Think?

In an increasingly interconnected world, understanding diverse cultural and civilizational perspectives has become imperative. This book explores the central question—”How do Chinese think?”—by synthesizing viewpoints from both within China and abroad, complemented by analyses from foreign experts with extensive experience in China. Co-authored by Professor Elena Avramidou, a frequent visiting scholar, and Professor Fernando Reyes Matta, a former diplomat and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies on China at Universidad Andrés Bello (UNAB), the work bridges disciplinary insights to reveal how China’s traditional wisdom and innovative dynamism redefine “modernization” and “the future.” This publication aims to foster knowledge exchange and strategic collaboration, offering readers a critical resource for understanding Chinese thought patterns and advancing cross-civilizational dialogue grounded in shared knowledge.

Content
Introductory Words 1
Issa Kort Garriga
Introduction 3
Basics of the Book: How Do Chinese Think?
Elena Avramidou, Fernando Reyes Matta
Preface 9
How Do Chinese Think?
Elena Avramidou, Fernando Reyes Matta
How Should China (and the World) Think? 19
A Confucian Proposal to Save the World (and China)
Tongdong Bai
What Does It Mean to Be or to Become Chinese? 37
Daniel A. Bell How
Riding the Change 53
How the Philosophy of the Yijing Shaped the Chinese Way of Thinking
JeeLoo Liu
Spiral Flowing (huanliu环流) 73
Thinking With Uncertainty
Robin R. Wang
The Irreducible Human Agency in the Liezi 89
Thinking of What Chinese Think Through
Shudong Chen
Ecumenism in Light of Harmonism 105
Keping Wang
Zhang Xianglong 133
“Image” and “Concept” Thinking
Roger T. Ames
Death and Sleep 151
The Way of Thinking Behind Chinese Characters
Churan Chen
Disengagement 171
Unrelated to the Objective World in Chinese and East Asian Art
Lao Zhu
The Invention of the “Barbarian”and Ethnic Identity 189
in Early Greece and China
Yang Huang
How Do Chinese Think? 221
The Contribution of the Greek Thought
Elena Avramidou
Chinese in the 21st Century 251
Between Tradition and Digital Innovation
Fernando Reyes Matta
List of the Writers 275
(In Alphabetical Order)

Elena Avramidou
UNESCO Chair on Threats to Cultural Heritage and Cultural Heritage-Related Activities, Professor of Ionian University.

Fernando Reyes Matta
Diplomat and International Relations Researcher, Director of Center for International Studies on China, University Andrés Bello, Chile. Former Ambassador of Chile to China and New Zealand.

As global interaction progresses, through almost instant communication between continents, there is a growing urgency to develop a serious and responsible approach to understanding among different cultures and civilizations. This occurs when questions such as the one posed in this book emerge: How do Chinese think? Answers are available in different sources. Several attempts have already been made in the West. But it is quite another matter to find the answers provided by different Chinese voices, both from inside China and abroad. This is what this book offers, supplemented by the analyses conducted by foreign experts with long-standing experience in China.

The whole is thus greater than the sum of its parts. This is the value of the work done by Professor Elena Avramidou, a frequent visiting scholar at our university, and Professor Fernando Reyes Matta, a former diplomat and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies on China at Universidad Andrés Bello.

The history of UNAB dates back only three decades. Perhaps this is why our work focuses especially on the 21st century and its challenges. In this day and age we need to rethink many aspects of international coexistence, propelled by the great and rapid advances brought about by science and technology. Our vocation is to give our teaching and research work the seal of internationalization. We believe that our students must emerge not only with a wealth of knowledge, but also with global awareness and the necessary tools to address realities and transform the world in the future. And this is why, recognizing China as a key power in the decades ahead, we need to understand the mode and roots of its thinking. There is an intermingling of China’s ancient traditions and the innovative strength that gives new meaning to the words “modernization” and “future”. And understanding this reality is essential.

As never before, universities in the 21st century need to interact on an intellectual level by sharing and debating ideas and their understanding of contemporary life. We understand our social role not only as providing an education aimed at academic excellence, but also as contributing to the debate of ideas and the promoting of dialogue and reflection. This is why we believe in the necessity of publishing this book; we are aware that its content will make a valuable contribution to the understanding of those who, in different ways, are part of our network of contacts, have shared objectives, and desire to offer a vision of the future to humanity. We want to continue contributing to globalization as a setting for academic opportunities, but particularly for strategic encounters from all around the world, converging on that which makes us equal: knowledge.

Issa Kort Garriga
Vice-Rector of International Affairs, University of Andrés Bello, Chile

Introduction
Basics of the Book: How Do Chinese Think?

In the 21st century, the global community faces many challenges: climate change, pollution, poverty, food security, and world peace. The solutions to these problems requires the collaboration of all countries; and this collaboration, in turn, needs dialogue. Thus, it is necessary to promote an open and constructive dialogue in order to overcome what divides us and to think and act collectively. The power of dialogue helps to build a more sustainable and inclusive world. However, for that it is essential to know each other better; to know how our interlocutor thinks.

The question of how Chinese think comes up, therefore, naturally and spontaneously. Indeed, it emerges with urgent priority if we assume the inevitability of the rise of the 21st century. China, the other par excellence for the West but also a country of millennia-long accumulation of wisdom and profound reflections on the meanings of the concepts of humanity, nature, and harmony, has once again a role of influence in contemporary history after a period of humiliation, wars, and hardships. Leaving behind what is defined as the “century of humiliation”, China has become the second largest economy in the world and emerges as global leader in AI.

The West would make a serious analytical mistake if it tried to understand today’s China only by taking into account its surprising and accelerated development in the last forty years. It is true that the articulation of the Marxist theory with the practices of the capitalist market is disconcerting for many. It is a historical novelty. However, the Chinese have overcome this tension by defining this process as “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. The term defines a fusion of Marxism with currents of thought inspired by Confucius and other ancient sages, namely some of the pillars of Chinese philosophy. It is also through their eyes that, nowadays, Chinese seek interactions with other peoples and cultures while their economic development leads them to a planetary presence. Each Chinese person bears the indelible stamp of their traditional culture.

One of the authors contributing to the Book, Keping Wang, points out that the Chinese notion of tianxia corresponds, to a great extent, to the Hellenic idea of oikoumene . The literal meaning of tianxia is “all under Heaven”. Conceived under the Zhou dynasty, approximately 3,000 years ago, this concept was decisive in creating a system of harmonization and coexistence in what was known as “the world”. The key was to resolve how, under feelings of mutual respect and respect for the rites, the “one rules the many”. Contemporary Chinese philosopher Zhao Tingyang points out: “Just as with the Greek cluster of concepts such as justice, the public realm, democracy, and so on, which have for so long been a dominant and persistent political problem, the Zhou dynasty similarly sets forth a cluster of terms such as tianxia , virtuosic rule (dezhi 德治), harmonious alliances (xiehe 协和), the people’s shared aspirations (minxin 民心 ), and so on, as a necessary vocabulary for approaching the political.”

Therefore, we are facing the challenge of understanding those philosophical determinants under which China constituted its ethos; and, by extension, understanding the meanings of their language, contexts, and symbolic background. Some of the authors of the book wrote about the uniqueness of the Chinese language. Zhang Xianglong, a renowned scholar quoted in this book by Roger Ames, argues that Chinese language is something special; it is an alive and vibrant language that connects us with a world of more than three thousand years of history. Moreover, it is a language linked to poetry, calligraphy, and painting. On one hand it spurs emotions with its poetic rhythm, density and imagery, and on the other hand it provokes admiration and wonder with the characters on bamboo slips that date back more than twenty-three centuries. Chinese characters go beyond the interpretation of their meaning; they are not only graphic forms or phonetic sounds but also enablers of images. Does it say anything about how old the language is or its expressive power? Probably both, but mainly it says more about the latter, as only with this special power of language can the old be used in the present in order to delineate the future.

For over a decade, China has been promoting the concept of “community of common destiny for mankind” in the United Nations and other international forums. According to contemporary Chinese philosophers and political theorists, this notion did not emerge spontaneously. It is the result of a long process of maturation and reflection connected with the leading position of China on the global stage; a position that compels Chinese leaders to develop a theory and practice of international relations for the new era. Thus, three currents of thought are identified as the source of inspiration for the idea of a “community of common destiny”: the ancient Chinese philosophy on the relationships between unity and diversity, order and disorder, humanity and nature; the Marxist concept of community; and contemporary Western theories on international relations. With this concept China refers to a community in which all countries and nations enjoy equality and share the same destiny; a world characterized by interdependence, inclusiveness, and harmonious coexistence. However, the community with a shared future for mankind is also connected with the concept of tianxia , which expresses the Chinese worldview of “all under heaven” that is of an all-inclusive world based on the idea of harmony and collaboration among countries and nations.

The Chinese proposal appears in the context of major epochal changes: we are moving from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age, with profound transformations in how we live together at a local, national, and global level. It is changing our world with major transformations in areas such as the life of individuals and the environment, the relationship between citizenship and power, the determinants of productivity and development, the education of the new generation and the need to develop new skills. At the same time the answers to the essential questions of “who am I?”, “what is my truth?”, “where am I going?” require the integration of thoughts with diverse origins. The return to the ancient philosophies which a number of scholars and academic institutions are in some ways promoting in the search for answers to the dilemmas of the present is to be considered. Indeed, they are in pursuit of how ancient wisdom can change our lives.

Observing the trends in world geopolitics, there are many who speak of the inevitable presence of the Thucydides trap. Recalling the Greek historian, they point out that the competition between the USA and China is similar to the one between Sparta and Athens in the Peloponnesian War: China would be a historical analogy of Athens, the rising power in the Hellenic world, confronting Sparta, namely the United States, the dominant power. However, against the theories that attempt to explain how a hegemonic power is built in history, there is another way that draws from the ancient wisdom. It is perhaps even more realistic and efficient, capable of answering a crucial question: how will Confucius and Socrates understand each other in the 21st century?

Why resurrect those wise old men to see how to give a certain direction to contemporary geopolitics? First of all, because they are sources of thought in East and West. For centuries, they existed in parallel. They originated core philosophical concepts: in China, the becoming, ren ( 仁), and rituals ( 礼); in Greece, the being, Agathon, and search for truth. Besides, in both parts of the world they promoted the moral education of people and the rule of sages. Now, the time has come for both great sources of thought (along with others equally important) to articulate in order to configure the great matrix of thought; the one from which we can draw inspiration for shaping the future and a better life in the world.

Within this framework, the book “How Do Chinese Think?” aims to contribute to the advancement of our understanding of the distant Other – those who are essential to grasping the inevitable multiculturalism of the 21st century. The purpose of the essays in this volume is to explore the ancient foundations that underpin the currents of thought which, having developed in parallel throughout history, are now called upon to form a unified whole -like the image of yin and yang . In this Chinese symbol, each part is clearly defined; each presence has its own territory of symbols and contours. At the same time, they are intertwined in a balanced and interdependent relationship that shapes a greater whole. For this synthesis to occur, it is essential to understand what each part is and what its role is.

Elena Avramidou, Fernando Reyes Matta

Preface
How Do Chinese Think?
How do Chinese think? The question, which is also the title of this volume, suggests that we implicitly accept that the Chinese think differently than “us”. However, how is this “us/ we/ourselves” conceived and defined in contrast to the Chinese? It indicates, obviously, something familiar (culture, traditions, thinking, religion), which serves as a measure when we compare “ourselves” with the Chinese and differentiate “us” from them. However, geography, race, ethnic origin, language, political and religious beliefs seem insufficient to define this “we”, since it stretches over the continents, leaving out the Chinese world. Yet the dichotomy between self and Other is not new. If we look back to the past, we will find the distinction between Greeks and barbarians, Jews and gentiles (goyim), Roman citizens and non-citizens as well as Chinese and yi ( 夷).

To what do we ascribe, therefore, the diversity of Chinese thought? Do we ascribe it to the absence of a confessional faith and a metaphysical system? Or do we connect it with the absence of the concept of being (and the verb “to be”) as it emerged in Greece and deeply marked the course of Western philosophy? This absence, in correlation with a tendency towards becoming and the dynamic nature of the self, has marked the development of Chinese thought to such an extent that Ames & Rosemont Jr. suggested that human beings might becalled human becomings.

Is the diversity of Chinese thought caused by the relational way of understanding the world, i.e., the construction of the self through the relationships with other people? In other words, individuals are not defined by their distinctive features as self-existent entities independently of any other being. On the contrary, their identities are constituted by their interpersonal relationships; that is, through interactions with other people. Does the diversity of Chinese thought result from the centrality of the family and filial piety (xiao 孝) in both the hierarchically structured human relations and the formation and functions of the state? Is it related to the ancient tianxia ( 天下) concept of Chinese ecumenism or to the modern Zhongguo ? Is China’s diversity due to geography? Is it due to the fact that it remained for a long time an agricultural society, cut off from the sea, without its people having the experience of travelling by sea as it happened in Greece? Or is it due to its political, social, and economic system, Chinese pragmatism, and Confucian humanism?

Finally, is China’s diversity related to the uniqueness of its language? According to neuroscientists, language is traditionally associated with the left hemisphere of the brain, the verbal side of it, which controls logic, analysis, math, scientific skills, reasoning, speaking, writing, reading, and abstract thinking. However, Chinese as a tonal language is also connected to the right hemisphere of the brain, the non-verbal side of it, which controls intuition, imagination, creativity, artistic and music skills, emotions, visual information, and spatial ability.

All these elements undoubtedly contribute to the formation of the Chinese identity; the one which made a brilliant civilization flourish in the past and now has enabled the emergence of China on the global stage. It has created a powerful modern state with spectacular economic, technological, and military development, as well as its influence in world politics. Yet, there are so many other elements that in some way partake in the complex picture that is China.

We asked the question, How do Chinese think? to well-known Chinese and foreign philosophers, historians, historians of art, and linguists. The answers we received contribute to a better understanding of China and the Chinese way of thinking, though the question is open to other answers as well. Some of the essays have been written on the occasion of the publication of this volume and some are excerpts from published or upcoming works. What unites all of them is that they explore from different disciplines, how Chinese think. Therefore, each of them is complemented by the others, thus providing an overview of what Chinese way of thinking means. Yet, the question of how Chinese think remains open because the “Chineseness” is a theme open to different perspectives and new approaches, since it is determined by various forces and is in continuous construction and negotiation.
Tongdong Bai, Professor of Philosophy at Fudan University, asks the question, “How Should China (and the World) Think?’’ and answers by suggesting that a Confucian hybrid regime, which combines democratic elements with meritocratic ones, and a new tianxia order for global governance could save the world (and China). However, he affirms that this kind of regime is an ideal, and at present, there are no governments close to it. To arrive at that conclusion, he examines the history of China over the last 150 years, paying special attention to the radical antitraditional movements, which generated a rupture between Chinese tradition and how contemporary Chinese think, and raised the question of political modernity for early Confucians.

Daniel Bell, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, explores the question “What Does It Mean to Be or to Become Chinese?’’ through his personal experience; namely, that of a foreigner living integrated into Chinese social and academic life. As he needs to have a more complete picture, he explores the idea of Chineseness from three different perspectives —descriptive, historical, and normative — through reading the essays of eight leading scholars. In conclusion, he realizes that we need to explore many more perspectives on Chineseness drawing insights from different fields and, finally, pulling together the different perspectives into a more complete picture.

JeeLoo Liu, Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fullerton, explores how the philosophy of the Yijing shaped the Chinese way of thinking. The central moral is that there are changes beyond human control, and hence one must learn to adapt to the change. Given that the basic element of the universe is taken to be qi, not atoms, or matter in general, as in the Western tradition, the spatial and temporal stability of matter is not observed in the movement of qi. Hence, the Yijing teaches that nothing is fixed forever: neither the good nor the bad. It makes Chinese take caution when they are in a favorable situation but also makes them feel hopeful when they are in a difficult situation. This is also one reason why Chinese are patient and moderate.

Robin Wang, Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, argues that the spiral flowing (huanliu 环流) thinking model not only allows us to make sense of the world and explain its origin, but also provides a guide for how to act within it. It emphasizes coherence through interaction and the emergence of what is new and unpredictable. It also reveals the continuity between natural events and human life. The huanliu demonstrates the ambiguity and complexity in life and nature; nevertheless, it attempts to make sense of this complex reality through the generative spiraling movement and passage that arise from it. The ultimate aspiration is to search for order, pattern, and harmony through uncertainty, ambiguity, and chaos.

Shudong Chen, Professor of Humanities at Kansas, departs from the preposition that the process of thinking is always culturally conditioned. Therefore, when we think of “how do Chinese think?” we would probably ask ourselves, what do Chinese often think of, with, for, and particularly through? The irreducible human agency is what Chinese think everything through as peoples. In the Liezi, there are crucial hidden messages that emphasize the irreducible agency of humanity in ways contradictory to the book’s ostentatious reputation as a Daoist classic. Chen argues that these messages suggest the overlooked aspect of the Liezi of being simultaneously a book of philosophical optimism, practical advice, and moral implications, which characterize how Chinese think.

Keping Wang, Senior Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Beijing International Studies University, discusses the notion of tianxia (all under heaven), which corresponds to the Hellenic idea of Oikoumene , and bears the cardinal aspects of ecumenism. However, what is the key drive to facilitate and boost ecumenism? It was considered to be the sense of compassion in Confucianism (Toynbee 1976), but a double check leads to the assumption that harmonism serves as the key drive of ecumenism instead. Herein, harmonism is related to at least four modes of harmony due to its hidden link with interbenefiting rationale, pragmatic reason, utilitarian demand, and teleological pursuit altogether. Therefore, harmony is perceived as essential to what made ecumenical policies possible in the past, and still makes them possible today.

Roger T. Ames, Humanities Chair Professor at Peking University, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a Berggruen Fellow, focuses on one of contemporary China’s comparative philosophers, Zhang Xianglong, in order to illustrate the importance of the ontology-zoetology distinction, based on the contrast between Greek ontology and Confucian cosmology. Thus, he examines Zhang’s distinction between “concept thinking or conceptualizing thinking” (gainiansiwei 概念思维 or gainianhuasiwei 概念化思维), which goes back to ancient Greece, and “image thinking” (xiangsiwei 象思维) that draws upon the philosophy of the Book of Changes . The cosmic and human change is described in the complementarity of images of symbiotic bipolar opposites such as yin -yang ; on the contrary, the concept is associated with the fixed, determinate, and abstract.

Churan Chen, Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, explores the relationship between the Chinese way of thinking and the Chinese language, going back to Bagua (“ 八卦”, the eight divinatory trigrams employed in the Book of Changes 易经), a system of graphic symbols that went beyond divination. Each Chinese character more or less contains the thinking and understanding of the ancient Chinese on the outside world, as well as what happened inside their body. She takes, therefore, the more abstract concept of death, which lies at the intersection of the visible and the invisible, the knowable and the unknowable, and inquires into what the Chinese think, and how they embody their views on death into their written language.

Lao Zhu, Professor of History of Art at Peking University and Shanghai International Studies University, focuses on a kind of art of “Word-Writing” (e.g. the Lascaux cave) that is distinguished from “representational art” drawn from ancient Greek philosophical ideas, and features a type of “drawings” of lines and dots in addition to mimetic images and patterns as signs and symbols in art history. He approaches it from the perspective of Chinese traditional art of shufa ( 书法) (highlights spontaneity/freedom of expressing moods or feelings) and xieyi ( 写意 ) painting (independent from the visible world and reallife events). This kind of art in China and East Asia becomes a pure expression of humanity in an abstract sense, not as images circumscribed by specific time frame and space. It also marks the disengagement in Art, which neither concerns the content of art (no tangible association with the Object) nor pays attention to the question of what art is.

Yang Huang, Professor of Ancient History at Fudan University, intends to trace the early development of the dichotomy between self and Other in early China and Greece, to examine its role in shaping the self-perceptions of the “Chinese” and the “Greeks,” and the outlooks of their respective societies. This dichotomy is based in China neither in blood ties nor language (as in Greece), but in the proper rites that were believed to be of civilized people. It also defines the dichotomy of center vs. periphery, which became a fundamental component of Chinese geopolitical theories concerning “All Under Heaven” (tianxia ). Finally, it portrays the different nature of the Chinese and Greek societies and their cultures and, as Huang argues, the reasons why they evolved into two different political communities.

Elena Avramidou, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Executive Director of the Hellenic Sinology Center, and Member of the Steering Committee of UNESCO Chair, Ionian University, seeks possible contribution of Greek thought to how Chinese think. To that end, she identifies four historical moments in which the encounter between the two ancient civilizations took place: Zhang Qian’s travels to the West, the arrival of Nestorians, and later of Jesuits in China, and the studies and journeys of Chinese scholars abroad in the 20th century. Therefore, a question is raised: in which way and to what extent did the Greeks influenced on the Chinese through the aforementioned encounters and, thus, contributed to shaping the modern Chinese thought and identity? Among others, examples of the Greek-Chinese encounter are taken from the Serindian Art, the translation of Euclidian geometry in Chinese, and the Greek theoretical concepts introduced in China “clothed” by the Japanese.

Fernando Reyes Matta, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies on China, Andrés Bello University, trying to answer the question “How do Chinese think?”, gives an overview of the Chinese history from antiquity to the present days and from the four great inventions to AI. He examines China’s profound transformation in the last four decades and the challenges that the country faces between tradition and digital innovation as well as the increased tensions with the United States. In his opinion, the Chinese people’s enormous mental flexibility, imagination, and ability to learn from the past have enabled them to elaborate a proposal for international reorganization through the concept of tianxia , and increase the growth and technological independence of the country through projects such as Made in China 2025.

Elena Avramidou, Fernando Reyes Matta