Multileveled World Order in the Making: the Fusion of Westphalian and Tianxia Orders??

The growing power of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) suggests that the importance of Chinese perception on international political philosophy becomes increasingly relevant. Growing power leads to greater prospects to shape world order according to its understanding. Traditional Chinese perception of relations of states was defined by Laozi, Mozi, Confucius, Mencius, and especially Xunzi and Hanfeizi. The perceptions of the aforementioned philosophers have an impact on contemporary Chinese international relations experts and philosophers: Yan Xuetong, Zhao Tingyang and others. They see possibilities to transfer traditional Chinese world order elements into the foreign policy of the PRC. This means that Westphalian international order, which dominated the world since the 17th century, is challenged with the alternative – hierarchical – Tianxia (“all under heaven”) order. The purpose of this study is to position Westphalian and Tianxia orders in current trends of the international system, arguing that the fusion of both orders becomes inevitable. The expected conclusion of the paper is that the multileveled order system is in the making because of globalization, global challenges, and the emerging polycentric system. The Westphalian order based on principles of sovereignty, non-intervention, and legal equality of states is becoming less expressed in the functional interactions of states but remains rhetorically appealing. The top (global) level of the emerging multileveled order starts to resemble hierarchical Tianxia order underlining moral authority and becomes more expressed in functional interactions in the international community. The lower (regional) level is expected to have multiple hierarchic orders defined by the interests and values of the most influential powers in different regions. The coexistence of orders leads to their fusion. The comparative analysis of two orders and the positioning of them in the contemporary international environment should allow identifying the fusion of two orders. The study is built on the works of Fei-Ling Wang (2017), Bai Wang (2017), John J. Mearsheimer (2019), Yan Xuetong (2011), David A. Lake (2009) and others.