ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Mencius’s theory of All-under-Heaven (tianxia) and its implications for the current discussion of global justice. When it first appeared, during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring State period, numerous states in mainland China were competing for the Central Plains. Mencius’s theory, however, was neither a theory of powerful domination close to realism nor a theory of coexistence close to the Westphalian system. For Mencius, a just global order builds on the practice of benevolent governance, and regardless of size or power, any state which insists on benevolent governance deserves not only self-preservation, but also the opportunity to unify the whole “world” peacefully. Sharing some structural similarities with Rawls’s famous theory, Mencius’s thought reveals how an ideal global order could value benevolence rather than liberal democracy as the primary goodness and contributes non-Western resources and possibilities to the current discussion on global justice.
