The Law of Peoples as inclusive international justice

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.