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Nothing new under heaven 天下之事，古已有之 What philosophers thought when China was theworld and how it can help China now 昔日中国一统天下之时，哲学家们的所思所想，及其对今日中国的裨益 WHEN Henry Kissinger was paying his pioneering visits to China in the early 1970s, the countrywas in the grip of a campaign to criticise both Lin Biao, a recently dead and disgracedCommunist leader, and Confucius. As was later remarked, it was as if the American press werevilifying Richard Nixon and Aristotle. But Chinas own pastthe 5,000 years of history of whichits leaders often like to remind foreign interlocutorsis a constant presence in its domesticpolitics and its view of the world. 当亨利?基辛格在1970年代初开启访华的破冰之旅的时候，这个国家尚沉浸在批林批孔运动之中。就像后来评论所指出的那样，这种情况就好像美国报刊在诽谤尼克松和亚里士多德。但是中国自己的历史其领导人在谈话中总是喜欢向外国人提及的 5000年历史在中国国内政治和中国对世界的看法中，一直发挥着恒久不衰的影响。 Yet Chinas recent rise has taken place in a world organised along principles devised elsewhere,by foreign parvenus. Many Chinese chafe at the common Western notion that multipartydemocracy is the form of government towards which all other systems evolve. But somescholars also resent another European invention: the nation-state, the basis of moderndiplomacy. For years they have struggled to develop a distinctively Chinese theory ofinternational relations. This is almost a matter of national pride, even chauvinism: As a rapidlyrising major power, it is unacceptable that China does not have its own theory, wrote QiuYanping, a senior Communist Party man, in an article in 2009. | 
