北京的赵汀阳（音译）是一个哲学家，以其几年前所写的一部关于天下的书而闻名遐迩，他表示“天下”这个概念是以古代一位圣君——周公的愿景为基础的。周公认识到，对于周国这个小国来说，要想统治其他番邦，就不能诉诸武力，而必须转而求之于自己在道德和政治上的表率作用。“天下” 如果用赵翻译成的现代术语来说，就是一种普遍和谐的乌托邦式的愿景，他承认200-300年内是实现不了的， 因为现在人人都选择一种全球政府的体系。
Mr Zhao, a courteous, gentle and rather otherworldly scholar, is no tub-thumping Chinese nationalist. There is now no need, he says, as there was in the Duke of Zhou’s day, for one predominant state. He is not advocating a world order led by China, but a system of equality. Nor is there to be compulsion. Tianxia is a voluntary choice. It is also, self-evidently, a distant dream rather than a manifesto for practical politics.
赵是一位彬彬有礼、温文尔雅和颇为超凡脱俗的学者，而不是一个慷慨激昂的中国民族主义者。他说，就像周公时期一样，当今的国家也没有必要追求主导地位。他所主张的并不是一个中国所主导的世界秩序，而是一个平等的制度， “天下”是自愿的选择，没有强迫。对于权术政治来说，这只是一个遥远的梦想，而不是一个宣言，这当然是不言而喻的。
It has, however, made an impression. Some even see its influence in the ideal adopted by China’s Communist Party leader, Hu Jintao, whom Mr Zhao has never met, of a “harmonious society”. In popular culture, tianxia loomed large in “Hero”, an epic martial-arts film by Zhang Yimou, one of China’s best-known directors, set at the time of the Qin unification and released in 2002. Some also heard tianxia echoes in the slogan for the 2008 Beijing Olympics: “One world, one dream”.
然而“天下”这个概念也让人眼前一亮，一些人甚至在中共领导人胡锦涛（赵与他从未谋面）所倡导的“和谐社会”理想中，察觉到它的影子。在流行文化中，“天下”的概念在张艺谋（中国最著名的导演之一）史诗般的武侠片——《英雄》中赫然耸现。该片以秦统一中国时期为背景，曾经在2002年上映。一些人也在2008年北京奥运会的广告语——“同一个世界，同一个梦想”中听出了“天下”的回声。
Though Mr Zhao was not proposing an indigenous blueprint for a China-led new world order to supplant the one led by America, the misconception that he was explains some of his appeal within China. One of the most popular books on sale in China at the moment is on “The rise of a ‘civilisational state’”, by Zhang Weiwei. Mr Zhang argues that China is unique as “the world’s only amalgam of an ancient civilisation and a huge modern state”, and is “increasingly returning to its own roots for inspiration, and producing its own norms and standards.”
虽然赵并未就由中国取代美国领导世界新秩序问题提出中国自己的蓝图，但是人们却误解他有提出这个蓝图，这令他在国内颇受欢迎。张维为的新书《一个文明型国家的崛起》目前进入中国最畅销书榜单。张认为，中国作为“世界仅有的古代文明与庞大的现代国家的融合之物”是很不寻常的，它正越来越多地回到根基寻求灵感，创造它自己的准则和规范。”
In another new book (this one in English), “Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power”, Yan Xuetong, a scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing, concludes that “it is not possible to create a Chinese school of international-relations theory.” But he does think pre-Qin thought can “develop and enrich international-relations theory”. A British commentator once dubbed Mr Yan a “neo-comm”, analogous to an American neocon—ie, an assertive Chinese nationalist intent on facing down American hegemony. But Daniel Bell, also of Tsinghua, one of the book’s editors, argues this misrepresents Mr Yan’s views by overlooking the emphasis he, like the pre-Qin philosophers, puts on the importance of morality in politics, and in establishing China as a “superpower modelled on humane authority”.
在另一本新书——《古代中国思想，现代中国力量》中（这一本是用英文写的），北京清华大学学者阎学通断言，“创立一个国际关系理论的中国学派是不可能的”，但他认为先秦思想能够“发展和丰富国际关系理论”。一名英国评论家曾经把阎称为一个“新共产主义者”，即一个决心挫败美国霸权主义的坚定的中国民族主义者——有点儿类似于美国的新保守主义者。但是该书的编者之一丹尼尔•贝尔（也来自清华）却主张，阎的观点由于人们忽视了他所强调的重点而受到了误解，他像先秦的哲学家一样，论述了在政治活动和使中国成为一个“以人治为本的超级大国”的过程中道德的重要性。
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