China-Xi’s Classical Quotes/International Cooperation

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Chinese President Xi Jinping in July 2014 invoked ancient Chinese literature to stress the concept of righteousness over interests in international cooperation in a speech at Seoul National University of the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Xi often uses vivid and enlightening quotes from classical Chinese works. In this speech on China-ROK friendship, the president stressed that in the era of rapid economic globalization, all countries must abandon the outdated zero-sum mentality and persist toward mutual benefits with win-win results and common development.

“‘A state should not take pecuniary gain as a benefit, but righteousness as its benefit.’ In international cooperation, we must attach more importance to righteousness than to interests. The Chinese nation has always advocated that ‘A person of virtue takes righteousness as a fundamental principle of life,’ emphasizing that ‘Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are meaningless to me,” he said.

The line “A state should not take pecuniary gain as a benefit, but righteousness as its benefit” was quoted from “The Great Learning” of “The Book of Rites”, one of the authoritative books of Confucianism. These works of Chinese philosophy and political thinking have been extremely influential both in classical and modern Chinese thought.

The remaining two lines are quotes from the “Analects of Confucius”, which Xi invoked in his call for cooperative development, highlighting his view that in politics, all sides should uphold fairness and justice and adhere to treating each other equally, and in economy, countries should ensure the wellbeing of both themselves and others.

The remarks are included in the second season of video series “Classics Quoted by Xi Jinping” produced by China Media Group. Ahead of President Xi’s upcoming trip to Johannesburg for the 15th BRICS Summit and state visit to South Africa, the program started to be broadcast in 62 mainstream media outlets in 38 countries in Africa from Sunday.

The series, featuring Xi’s quotes from ancient Chinese stories and classics in his speeches and articles, vividly demonstrates Xi’s extensive and profound cultural attainment and his deep concern about the people and his deep love of the nation. It also extracts and interprets the broad and profound traditional Chinese culture that contains the connotation of the new era and the values of globalization.