China-SA philosophies benefit modernisation

Ubuntu mirrors the Chinese way of seeing things

- ZHANG ZHIPENG

ON NOVEMBER 22, the governments of China and South Africa jointly launched the Initiative on Cooperation Supporting Modernisation in Africa, aiming to support African countries in independently exploring a modernisation path suited to their own national conditions.

Notably, the Initiative regards cultural resources such as the philosophy of Ubuntu as spiritual nourishment for the modernisation drive of the Global South.

This is not the first time that the Ubuntu philosophy has been hailed as a vital source for promoting communication and mutual understanding in Sino-African exchanges.

In fact, both sides have repeatedly emphasised the similarities between the core tenets of Ubuntu and Chinese philosophical traditions. Yet, some Western critics tend to interpret this as a geopolitical move that leverages culture to build connections between China and Africa as well as to challenge “universal values” of the West.

This analysis, while common, misses the deeper story. By viewing the Sino-African civilisational engagement through assuming in the very first place the Western philosophical lens, it overlooks a profound resonance between Chinese and African philosophies that predates modern - or Western - geopolitics by millennia.

This resonance is not a political, modern tactic in disguise; it is a genuine, ancient echo rooted in a shared conception of reality.

To understand this, we first need to grasp the essence of Western thought. Ever since Plato, Western philosophy, which is the very foundation of how the West conceptualises nearly everything, has largely been built on a dualism - a separation between a perfect, unseen world of ideas (the “suprasensible” world) to aspire to and the flawed, physical reality (the “sensible” world) we live in.