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Great Unity

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Great Unity
Chinese name
Chinese大同
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyindàtóng
Bopomofoㄉㄚˋㄊㄨㄥˊ
Wade–Gilesta4t'ung2
Tongyong Pinyindàtóng
Wu
Romanizationda去 don平
Hakka
Romanizationtai55 tung11
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingdaai6 tung4
Southern Min
Hokkien POJtāi-tông
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabetĐại đồng
Hán-Nôm大同
Korean name
Hangul대동
Hanja大同
Transcriptions
Revised Romanizationdaedong
McCune–Reischauertaedong
Japanese name
Kanji大同
Kanaだいどう
Transcriptions
Revised Hepburndaidō

The Great Unity (Chinese: 大同; pinyin: dàtóng), also translated as Grand Union,[1] Great Equality or Universal Harmony,[2] or Great Harmony,[3][4] is a Chinese vision of the ideal world originating in ancient Chinese philosophy, which was based on the idealized image of the values of "eminent men of the three dynasties" (Xia, Shang, Zhou) as understood by the Confucian tradition.[1] In this ideal societal model, everyone and everything was at peace and lived in harmony and mutual-support, and its advocates believed in the need to restore such a model of society. Although it is found in classical Chinese philosophy as a model based on the idealized past, modern intellectuals adapted the concept beginning with Kang Youwei (1858 – 1927), often combining it with utopian ideas.[5]

History

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Confucius said: “When the Great Way prevailed, it was shared by the whole world. (天下為公) The men of worth and ability were chosen; trust was spoken and harmony cultivated. Therefore people did not cherish only their own parents, nor nurture only their own children. The aged were able to complete their years, the strong had employment, the young were able to grow, and the widowed, the orphaned, the solitary, the childless, the disabled, and the sick were all provided for. Men had their proper roles, women their proper homes. Goods were disliked if they lay wasted upon the ground, yet it was not necessary that they be stored for one’s own use; strength was disliked if it were not exerted, yet it was not necessary that it be exerted for oneself alone. Hence schemes were shut away and did not arise; theft, robbery, and disorder did not occur. Therefore outer doors were left open and not closed. This was called the ‘Great Unity’ (Datong).” — Confucius, Book of Rites (Liji), “Liyun”[6]

The notion of the "Great Unity" appeared in the "Lǐyùn" (禮運) chapter of the Book of Rites, one of the Confucian Chinese classics.[7][8] According to it, the society in Great Unity was ruled by the public, where the people elected men of virtue and ability to administer, and valued trust and amity. People did not only love their own parents and children, but others as well. People also secured the living of the elderly until their ends, let the adults be of use to the society, and helped the young grow. Those who were widowed, orphaned, childless, handicapped and diseased were all taken care of. Men took their responsibilities and women had their homes. People disliked seeing resources being wasted but did not seek to possess them; they wanted to exert their strength but did not do it for their own benefit. Therefore, selfish thoughts were dismissed, people refrained from stealing and robbery, and the outer doors remained open.[9]

The concept was used by Kang Youwei in his visionary utopian treatise, The Book of Great Unity (Chinese: 大同書).[10] He also described "moderate prosperity" as the stage before the Great Unity.[11] Kang's disciple Tan Sitong equated the Chinese Great Unity ideal with Edward Bellamy's socialist utopia in Looking Backward.[12] Early Chinese socialist Jiang Kanghu used datong as the translation for "socialism".[13]

The Great Unity is also often mentioned in the writings of Sun Yat-sen and is included in his lyrics of the National Anthem of the Republic of China, currently in official use in Taiwan.[14]

This ideology can be reflected in the following examples, each from a national anthem of the Republic of China:

One of the early forerunners of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was the Great Unity Party (大同黨), which was formed by student activist Yao Zuobin and supported by the Communist International (Comintern).[citation needed] For the student activists, the term "Great Unity" (alternatively translated as "Great Equality") was equated with the idea of "equality of people in a socialist world".[2] One of the early translations for "communism" into Chinese was datong zhuyi (datong-ism), which links itself to the ancient Chinese concept of "great harmony" of "all under heaven", without specifying the means to accomplish those ideals.[15] Early CCP leader Guo Moruo was also initially drawn to communism as he interpreted Confucius' writings on datong to be equivalent to the communist critique of private ownership, and believed that Karl Marx's promise of a cosmopolitan paradise was the same as the Confucian dream of datong.[4] Guo also wrote a short story in 1925 entitled "Marx enters a Confucian temple" where a hypothetical Karl Marx and Confucius converse and conclude that Marxism is the same ideal as datong.[3] Mao Zedong continued along with these ideas throughout his revolutionary career. He emphasized the importance given to datong in Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary program, theorizing that China's liberation from colonialism would be the only way for it to participate in an international movement "for world datong".[3]

The concept was invoked in prominent occasions several times by Mao Zedong, including in his address On the People's Democratic Dictatorship in 1949, as the Communist Party prepared to assume control throughout mainland China.[16] Mao said the CCP would create "conditions where classes, state power and political parties will die out very naturally" and that "China can develop steadily, under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party, from an agricultural into an industrial country, and from a new-democratic into a socialist and communist society, [and then] can abolish classes and realize Great Unity".[11][failed verification]

Religion And Great Unity

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The "World Harmony (datong) Launch Ceremony", themed "Religious Harmony and World Peace", was solemnly held at the Guanyin Temple in Pingzhen District, Taoyuan City.[17]

Philosophical context

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The concept of "Great Unity" originates from early Chinese philosophical debates on how to unify a society marked by division and conflict, particularly during the Warring States period. In the Book of Rites, the "Lǐyùn" (禮運) chapter presents datong as an ideal social and political order in which "the world is shared by all" (天下为公).[citation needed]

Scholars have noted that the idea of datong is closely related to the broader concept of tong (同), often translated as "unity" or "togetherness." However, recent interpretations suggest that tong more precisely refers to the process by which differences are brought into alignment or coordination, rather than eliminated.[18]

See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 The Book of Rites: Li Yun (Chinese and English, James Legge's 1885 translation) - Chinese Text Project
  2. 1 2 Ishikawa, Yoshihiro; Fogel, Joshua A. (2013). The Formation of the Chinese Communist Party. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 129–134. ISBN 978-0-231-15808-4.
  3. 1 2 3 Boer, Roland (2021). Socialism with Chinese characteristics: a guide for foreigners. Singapore: Springer. pp. 150–151. ISBN 978-981-16-1622-8.
  4. 1 2 Chen, Xiaoming (2007). From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese path to Communism. SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 71–74, 82. ISBN 978-0-7914-7986-5.
  5. ↑ Wang, Ralph (September 12, 2017). "Great Unity". Kid Spirit. Vol. 10, no. 1. Archived from the original on March 12, 2021.
  6. ↑ 孔子. "禮運". 禮記 (in Chinese).
  7. ↑ Pearce 2001, 169.
  8. ↑ Cheng 2009, 19.
  9. ↑ Book of Rites, Li Yun chapter, paragraph 1.
  10. ↑ Chen, Albert H. Y. (2014), "The Concept of "Datong" in Chinese Philosophy as an Expression of the Idea of the Common Good", in Solomon, David; Lo, P.C. (eds.), The Common Good: Chinese and American Perspectives, Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol. 23, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 85–102, doi:10.1007/978-94-007-7272-4_5, ISBN 978-94-007-7271-7, SSRN 1957955
  11. 1 2 "Glossary". China Open Source Observatory. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved May 18, 2026.
  12. ↑ Liu, Lydia He (1999). Translingual practice: literature, national culture, and translated modernity - China, 1900 - 1937. Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Pr. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-8047-2535-4.
  13. ↑ Jonese, Diane M. (1993). A Comparative Study of the Social Visions of M. K. Gandhi and Mao Zedong. University of Wisconsin--Madison. p. 8.
  14. ↑ Guy, Nancy (2002). ""Republic of China National Anthem" on Taiwan: One Anthem, One Performance, Multiple Realities". Ethnomusicology. 46 (1): 96–119. doi:10.2307/852809. JSTOR 852809.
  15. ↑ Nolan, Peter (2015). Understanding China: The Silk Road and the Communist Manifesto (1st illustrated ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 77. ISBN 9781317373001.
  16. ↑ Dessein, Bart (January 30, 2017). "Yearning for the Lost Paradise: The "Great Unity" (datong) and Its Philosophical Interpretations". Asian Studies. 5 (1): 83–102. doi:10.4312/as.2017.5.1.83-102. hdl:1854/LU-8507559.
  17. ↑ 世界大同啟動典禮 妙元二公主木桂梅宣告「世界大同紫薇聖人基金會」正式啟動
  18. ↑ Fan, He; 何繁 (2020). "HOW TO UNITE A SOCIETY WITH DIVISIONS AND DIFFERENCES: Two Visions of Tong 同in Early Chinese Political Thought". Monumenta Serica. 68 (2): 315–337. doi:10.1080/02549948.2020.1831208. ISSN 0254-9948. JSTOR 27345486.

Bibliography

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  • Cheng, Chung-ying (2009). "On harmony as transformation: Paradigms from the Yijing". Philosophy of the Yi: Unity and dialectics. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781444334111.
  • Pearce, Scott (2001). "Form and matter: Archaizing reform in sixth-century China". Culture and power in the reconstitution of the Chinese realm, 200-600. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674005235.
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