Against the backdrop of thecurrent tensionbetween China and the United States, Wang Gungwus contribution to mutual understanding between East and West is more essential now than ever.

Wang Gungwu is among the most prominent China scholars in modern times. Born 90 years ago, on 9 October 1930, into a Chinese family living in Surabaya, Indonesia, Wang grew up in Malaysia, was educated in Singapore and the United Kingdom, and had an illustrious academic career in Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. One can imagine how such diverse cultural experiences influenced him as a person and scholar.

His great intellectual contribution is to the conceptualisation of the sophisticated relationship between China and the world. His work hasearned himthe title_Junzi_: Confucian gentleman, or scholar-gentleman. Drawing on his rich life experience, his deep understanding for different cultures and civilisations, his intellectual imagination and his passion for harmony between China and the world, Wang has brought closer together two distinct and, at times, seemingly irreconcilable worlds.

Anoverarching themein Wangs work is the concept of Chineseness. Wang delved into the changing nature of Chineseness from both a domestic and international perspective.

As a civilisation state, China has undergone continuous and dramatic change. Foremost a historian, Wang has studied Chinas three rises: the QinHan, TangSong and MingQing. Each rise brought significant changes to many aspects of dynastic politics. Wangs interest then turned to the evolution of Chineseness in Chinas modern history. After the intrusion of Western powers, the country underwent rapid and radical, even paradigmatic, changes. Throughout Wangs career, debate has raged among Chinese and Western intellectuals on modernisation and Westernisation, which many regarded as synonymous.

While Wang acknowledged the significant shifts introduced by the West, he emphasised that, in the context of a rise in nationalism and a revival of Confucianism, China remains China. Modernisation has not turned China into a Western-type power as many may have anticipated. Wang shows that Confucianism has endured through history, regardless of era, regime or crisis. The May Fourth Movement and the rise of Communism also could not dispel Confucianism.

On the international level, Wang wedded Chineseness to the context of_Tianxia_(all under heaven). More than 50 years ago, Wang first attracted international attention with an essay on Ming relations with Southeast Asia in_The Chinese World Order: Traditional Chinas Foreign Relations_, edited by John Fairbank.It laid out the normative underpinnings and practices of the imperial tribute system, with_Tianxia_being its organising principle.

For Wang, central to all the issues related to Chinas behaviour on the international stage today is whether it intends to impose a modern tribute system on the world. China is neither the creator of a new world order, nor is it an upholder of the existing American-led order. Instead, Wang argues that a fundamental aspect of Chineseness is the belief that everything changes; the only thing that remains unchanging is the notion of change itself.

From this perspective, the current system is destined to change. Thecurrent international orderis not_the_international order, but rather a product of the values and interests of the Second World Wars victors. China accepts those elements of the world order that align with its own interests, but not the system as unchanging. Todays rules, norms and institutions are neither universal nor permanent and China is neither a revisionist nor a status quo power.

This does not mean China is fated for the so-called Thucydides Trap or that a military confrontation between an established and a rising power is likely. Speaking from a perspective of Chineseness, Wang argues that accommodation is possible and a civilisational clash is not inevitable. First, Chinas history suggests that it is a different kind of actor from other imperial powers; its aspirations are distinct from those of the United States. Chinas phase of expansion ended long ago and it has not demonstrated a will for regional or global dominance through spreading its political system or rule over other sovereign nations. Second, and more fundamentally, Chineseness itself does point to an inherent respect for humanity and human dignity and the accommodation of cultural diversity.

Any danger that China poses is not in a revival of the Middle Kingdom and a hierarchical tribute system, but rather that it could emulate imperial Japans behaviour, or that of the United States. If China comes to mimic or share their conceptions, then a clash is indeed conceivable. The source of the problem would be not Chineseness but the opposite: un-Chineseness.

Against the backdrop of thecurrent tensionbetween China and the United States, Wang Gungwus contribution to mutual understanding between East and West is more essential now than ever.

Zheng Yongnian is Director of the Advanced Institute for Global and Contemporary China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Shenzhen.

This essay is part of an EAF series,Asian Voices,celebrating the contribution of great Asian intellectuals and thinkers to the understanding of the region. This essay is the second of two published today on the occasion of Emeritus Professor Wang Gungwus ninetieth birthday.