The Law of Peoples as inclusive international justice
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Author | Zhichao Tong |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088216687783 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088216687783
Journal of International Political Theory
2017, Vol. 13(2) 181 –195
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088216687783
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The Law of Peoples as
inclusive international justice
Zhichao Tong
University of Toronto, Canada
Abstract
In this essay, I argue for the “inclusive” advantage of John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples
through a critical engagement with the political development of modern China. I start
by introducing some recent developments in contemporary Chinese political theory,
showing why it is now theoretically difficult to imagine that China can be incorporated
into a liberal international order as a liberal society. In the main body of the essay, I
conduct a comparative study of Joseph Chan’s Confucian perfectionism, a Confucian-
inspired political theory embedded in Chinese cultural tradition and constructed for
modern China, and the Law of Peoples. The purpose is to reveal (a) that there has
already existed a school of Chinese political thought that will incorporate China into
the Law of Peoples as a decent Confucian-inspired society and (b) that such a society
will accept its global responsibility designated by the duty of assistance yet reject a
global difference principle in the global original position. I conclude by suggesting how
this potential “inclusiveness” of the Law of Peoples may help to remove some of new
disturbance to the ideal of a just and stably peaceful world.
Keywords
China, comparative political theory, Confucianism, international justice, Rawls
In this article, I present John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples as an inclusive theory of inter-
national justice. Through a comparative study of the Law of Peoples and Joseph Chan’s
Confucian perfectionism, I argue there could be a decent Confucian-inspired society that
will both honor and actively contribute to the Law of Peoples.
The choice of Joseph Chan, a Confucian-inspired political theorist, and his political
philosophy, Confucian perfectionism, is intentional since it is related to the rise of China
Corresponding author:
Zhichao Tong, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall, Room 3018,
100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada.
Email: zhichao.tong@mail.utoronto.ca
687783IPT0010.1177/1755088216687783Journal of International Political TheoryTong
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