Chapter IX Great Unification of Mankind Has Become Possible


Section III  Rehearsal of the Greatly Unified Society

Human world is very complicated, and many problems have been perplexing us. At present, the most serious problem that people have realized should be war. Besides, there are many problems such as crime, environment, resource and poverty. It is impossible to solve these problems with strength of one nation, so people long have desired to harmonize and unify global actions. Many international organizations were founded as time required. For example, the United Nations is the most representative international organization. As an international organization, the UN has been dedicated to harmonizing stands of the nations and unify global actions, and have made great contribution to this purpose.

Meanwhile, world economy is heading towards integration, commercial trade has long broken through boundaries of nations, no market of any country is independent, every of them is part of global market and is merged in the world. To unify world market and harmonize world trade, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was set up, and many regional trade organizations also appeared as time required. Integration of the world is independent from man's will in some aspects, and it is breaking through restriction of nations.

The series of global actions of international organizations and the fact that world economy is heading towards globalization all share certain features with the greatly unified society. Although actions of international organizations are not direct pursuits of the greatly unified society, nor the trend of globalization is result of people’s pursuit of great unification, these actions and the trend are actually some trials of operation modes of the greatly unified society, and have tested technical conditions of governance of the greatly unified society to a certain degree. So we may deem such actions and trend with certain features of the greatly unified society as rehearsal of the future greatly unified society.

We call the actions and tend as “rehearsal” because they share certain obvious features with the greatly unified society. By research and analysis of these actions and trend, we can better understand features and objective development trend of present human society, as well as influence of present technical conditions to future global governance, so that to understand possibility of realization of the greatly unified society more objectively.

I. International Organizations and the Greatly Unified Society

After the World War II, many international organizations spring up like mushrooms, the most influential regional international organizations should to be NATO led by America and Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) led by the Soviet Union, which were also two confronting military groups in fact. Besides, influential comprehensive regional international organizations also include the European Union, Association of South East Asian Nations, League of Arab States, Commonwealth of Independent States, etc. There are also some special regional organizations that are very influential also, such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The most influential international organizations should be the UN and World Trade Organization (WTO) that is called economic UN. Besides, some special organizations are very influential also, such as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Health Organization (WHO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Meanwhile, many non-governmental international organizations, such as the International Union of Students, International Youth Fellowship and Greenpeace International, are trying to play their roles.

There are various international organizations that are countless. These organizations are all founded upon requirements of various groups and governments of the nations. Analysis of tenet and purpose of these organizations shows that some regional international organizations were founded to raise collective competitiveness of member countries, some are to raise military competitiveness, some are to raise political competitiveness, and some are to raise economic and resource competitiveness. The so-called competitiveness is confrontation ability in fact. So tenet of regional international organizations is inconsistent or even goes against with target of the greatly unified society that seeks to protect basic interest of the whole mankind through uniform global action.

Tenet and purpose of global international organizations which are generally founded upon common demands of the countries are different from regional international organizations. These demands are generally about common interests of the whole mankind. Organizations like the United Nations are founded because of people’s deep understanding of disaster and pain brought by wars. Tenet and purpose, as well as work direction after foundation of global international organizations are fairly consistent with target of the greatly unified society for the whole mankind. No matter how effective the work of global international organizations is, work direction is actually quite consistent with work direction of the greatly unified society in the future. What’s more, technical measures adopted by international organizations in work will also be quite consistent with technical measures to be adopted by world regime of the greatly unified society. So, by observing development of work of present international organizations, we can get certain general pictures of the greatly unified society in the future.

Take environmental problem as an example, environmental protection is a common issue faced the whole mankind. Serious environment pollution and forest and grassland devastation, as well as a series of negative environmental effects are making people more and more worried. Such problems will continue to be global focus, as well as major work content  in the greatly unified society, to which world regime must pay great efforts.

The United Nations that is also dedicated to harmonize global actions started to pay attention to the problem as early as in 1960s, and had convened meetings for this purpose many times and had approved a series of environmental protection resolutions and conventions. Because of the series of actions adopted by the United Nations, the environmental protection target of “saving the Earth” has been deeply rooted in people’s heart worldwide.

Population problem is also an important question faced by mankind. Because of development of medical treatment and technology, and very backward birth concept and birth control measures, world population grows rapidly, what’s more, the growth is accelerating and called “population explosion”. Population issue will continue to be an important social problem in the greatly unified society, and even more important in the greatly unified society than in national society, because development of science and technology will be strictly restricted in the greatly unified society, we will not be able to get more foods and resources through development of science and technology, if population is not controlled, whole mankind may have to endure hunger. The United Nations set up Population Commission as early as in 1947, had reminded the world to pay attention to population problem many times on various meetings, and even convened several special meetings on population problem and approved a series of resolutions and action programs.

The United Nations has been making great efforts to solve poverty problem and terrorism problem, protect human rights, and control drugs, has convened several global meetings, and has been doing a series of work energetically. All these problems will not be solved in a short period, so the greatly unified society will continue to make great efforts to solve these problems that concern interest of the whole mankind.

The United Nations is an international organization with the widest representation in human history, as well as an international organization that could best represent interests and able to protect basic interest of the whole mankind. In over 60 years since foundation of the United Nations, it has indeed made great contribution to overall benefits of the whole mankind. By analyzing work method and features of the United Nations, we will find that to pass a resolution that is favorable to the whole mankind, the United Nations always negotiates multi-laterally with the nations, then convenes voting meeting after repeated debates and obtaining general agreements of large countries. Voting meeting is actually routing approval procedure. The process of convening voting meeting is very simple, and there is not any technical problem. With agreements of the nations, over 100 members in the world could immediately hold a meeting at any designated place.

UN Millennium Summit held in headquarters of the United Nations in New York during Sep. 6-8, 2000 was a typical example. State heads or government heads of over 150 nations attended the summit. Vehicles in fleets of state heads or government heads were over 1,000, and New York police mobilized 8,000 policemen.

From Sep. 14-16, 2005, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, state heads of over 160 nations gathered at New York headquarters of the United Nations again. This was the UN summit of the largest scale since foundation of the United Nations. Reporters for interview of the summit were over 3,000. Summit of such large scale represents real globality.

This summit was very fluent both in aspects of agenda implementation and security assurance. But approval for relevant files before the summit was very difficult. The most important file for the summit was Outcome Document Draft. To prepare this document, the United Nations specially set up a core team consisted of 32 nations including America, China and Russia. But after months of work, the core team still couldn’t reach consensus. The Outcome Document Draft was narrowly passed on the day before the summit. The approved document had been shortened from previous hundreds of pages to 35 pages, and some important topics, such as disarmament, development, definition of terrorism and denuclearization, were all excluded.

These truly global summits, such as UN Millennium Summit and summit held to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, could be successfully convened, and agendas were successfully finished, the prerequisite is convenient traffic and communication at present. Such summits are impossible to be held under technical conditions 100 years ago. The United Nations had certainly made a lot of harmonization and liaison work before the summits.

In fact, benefiting from convenient traffic and communication, the United Nations has very efficient implementation of global actions, including peace keeping and disaster relief, the action could be immediately adopted after the nations reach consensus. Peace keeping force could rush to target area rapidly, and disaster relief materials could be organized and transported to target area quickly also. What are really troublesome and time consuming are harmonization and negotiation before decision is made.

By analyzing and comparing global international organization like the United Nations and world regime of the greatly unified society, we will find following similarities and differences in their decision making:

1. Before any decision making, the United Nations will always make great efforts to harmonize standpoints of nations. The harmonization will be a quite long process, so it is very difficult to make decision, particular decision about serious problem. The decision can’t be made, if one or two key nations disagree with the decision, or otherwise, the decision can’t be implemented even if it is made.

World regime of the greatly unified society will need to harmonize standpoints of different regions also, because different regions will have different situations and regional benefits. But world regime will be the only regime then, with certain compulsory administration rights endowed by laws of the greatly unified society, world regime will make decision if the regime thinks it necessary, and there will not be much delayed decision, so opinion collection will be quick.

The United Nations shares a similarity with the greatly unified society in the process of convening conference and voting--the process of convening global conference and voting is very quick after the nations reach consensus, because we enjoy convenient traffic and communication conditions, as well as other hardware technical conditions for political governance.

2. Decision making process of the United Nations involves various factors of power politics. Many decisions will not be passed if one country disagrees. There are 192 member nations in the United Nations at present. I believe that America could influence many other members on some important issues, so America could make the United Nations give up many decisions.

In the greatly unified society, different regions will be truly equal. If the rights or voting weights do have some difference, that will be difference corresponding with different populations of the regions, or difference corresponding with economical and cultural situations of the regions, and such difference will be very limited. Not any region will be possible to influence the world regime then.

3. A nation’s influence in the United Nations is decided by its military strength to a great degree. A large military country could often influence decision of the United Nations to a large extent, which is actually expression of power politics. In the greatly unified society, no region will have independent army, because allowing the region to have independent army means indulgence of division. Army will be directly controlled by the world regime in the greatly unified society, so it will be impossible for the regions to influence decision making of world regime by military measures.

4. Among all works of the United Nations, war issue and disarmament issue have always been the most important problems that are dealt with often, also the problems with most disagreements, as well as problems that are most difficult to be dealt with and could never be handled properly. Every decision on these problems will be very difficult to be made, and will often ends up with nothing definite. While in the greatly unified society, there will be no problems of army or armament, problem of army led by world regime and set up according to laws in the greatly unified society will be a very secondary part of daily work of world regime and will need little time to deal with. The army is to cope with crimes and small scale wars caused by separatists.

5. Decisions of the United Nations are often issued in the forms of declaration, statement, convention, treaty, agreement and protocol, which shows that decisions of the international organization will only be implemented on wish of the nations. While decisions of world regime in the greatly unified society will certainly be issued in the forms of order, decision, requirement and instruction, because the world regime has the rights to do so. So the implementation will be much more thorough in the greatly unified society.

6. In national society, every nation has independent sovereignty, so the nation could implement or refuse to implement decision of the United Nations as an international organization. Generally speaking, the United Nations has no method to restrict nations compulsorily, except by war or global sanction, but to adopt these measures will require consensus of large countries, which is very difficult. What’s more, it is often large country that disobeys decision of the United Nations, if war is lunched against such country, it will definitely become world war.

While implementation of decision made by world region of the greatly unified society will be guaranteed by power of the regime, the regions must implement, if any region dare to refuse to implement, leaders of the region will be held accountable administratively, even replaced, or held legally accountable, so leaders will not take the risk in general. Even if implementation in some area is not thorough, the problem will be easily dealt with, and no serious destructive result will be caused.

II. Globalization and the Greatly Unified Society

Globalization is an important feature of the society of our times, and this has been wildly recognized. Convenient traffic, cheap and real-time communication, rich and direct medias shortened distance between people, and the whole mankind seem to be living in a small village.

Concept of globalization in broad sense should include all aspects, including politics, economy, military affairs, culture and technology. No matter whether you have heard of the word globalization, and whether you have felt fruits of globalization personally, examples of globalization are everywhere around you.

Take Beijing, the capital city of the old civilization with a history of 5,000 years as an example. Foreigners that haven’t been there could never image that both appearance and connotation of the city have departed from “old civilization”. Of course, the Forbidden City is still of red wall and yellow tile, appearances of the Temple of Heaven, Beihai Park and Summer Palace are still appearances of buildings of Ming and Qing dynasties, but they are just several small parts specially reserved as historic interests of the big city, while other areas of Beijing are stuffed with western billboards, almost everyone knows McDonald, KFC and Pizza Hut, German Benz and BMW, Japanese Toyota and Honda, American Lincoln and Buick, and Korean Hyundai and KIA branded cars run on the roads, people drink Coca Cola and UBC coffee, wear clothes of French and Italian brands, hold cell phones of Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola, and watch American hit movies and Koran icon operas broadcasting in Changhong and Haier televisions. These show that various living modes and cultures are penetrating mutually and fusing together.

Globalization trend of cultural and living modes is not restricted to cities like Beijing, but has penetrated to every medium and small cities, as well as remote villages and pastoral areas.

With popularization of radiogram and television, and direct and convenient traffic and communication measures, common people could also sense the great change and their fusion with the world, everyone is fusing in global culture consciously or unconsciously, and the trend is more obvious in much developed nations.

Let’s analyze aspects of globalization in depth, and have a look at military globalization first. The Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are two largest military leagues in the world. This is also a kind of expression of military globalization, which is only restricted to some region or group. In fact, it is a kind of military confrontation group, and it is more accurate to be called international military separation and confrontation rather than globalization in military aspect.

Globalization features of comprehensive international organizations in aspect of politics, such as the European Union, League of Arab States, Association of South East Asian Nations and Commonwealth of Independent States, are similar to military globalization elaborated above. Such globalization is also restricted to some region or group, and functions a role in political confrontation with united strength, so it is actually international political separation and confrontation.

People are more familiar with globalization of economy and technology, which is globalization in narrow sense, and true globalization to its name.

The main expression of economic globalization is market globalization. When we are shopping in marketplace, we will find ourselves in a global product ocean. Except at special counters, not any kind of product will be all produced in a single country. Products from different areas always gather at one counter.

During the first round of negotiation in Geneva in 1947, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff had 23 members only, after that, its members had been increasing. To unify world trade, the temporary institution—General Agreement on Trade and Tariff was reconstructed into a standing body—the World Trade Organization in 1995. It is just the irresistible globalization trend of world economy that hastened the appearance of the World Trade Organization. As of present, members of the World Trade Organization has increased to 150.

Economic globalization is also expressed in global production. French Pierre Cardin entrusts a large part of production to Ningbo of China, 70% parts of Lenovo computer come from Taiwan, spare parts of Airbus and Boeing planes come from worldwide, Chinese air manufacturing enterprises contribute 5% production to Airbus A350, and Boeing plane is jointly produced by 340 enterprises in 23 nations that include America.

Another expression of economic globalization is globalized investment in enterprise. Airbus, BMW, GM, Siemens and Ericsson are not wholly owned companies any more, their investments have become globalized long ago, with shareholders distributed worldwide. Such multinational companies couldn’t be restrictly by nations simply, if they must be connected with nations, then that will be where these enterprises are headquartered, where they pay taxes, or where their production bases are located.

Economic globalization is also expressed as globalized investment target of enterprise. Investment target of a multinational company is also multinational. The company will build its production factory in the area near market, of low production cost and fairly good investment environment.

Technical globalization developed with economic globalization. A new technology, a new product and a new product model all will soon spread to the whole globe. In aspect of global technology trade, in middle 1960s, average annual global technology trade turnover was USD 2.5 billion only, in middle 1980s, the number reached USD 50 billion, and USD 200 billion in middle 1990s, doubled every 5 years averagely, far higher than growth of world economy.

Technical globalization also includes globalization of higher education. As the center to cultivate scientific and technical talents, institution of higher education is basic strength for a nation to keep competitive advantage. In past over 30 years, students study abroad grow at an annual speed of 3.9%. Today, 38% students awarded doctoral degrees in the UK are foreign students, and this proportion is 30% in America. 10% of college students in the UK are foreign students, and this proportion in 8% in America. What’s more, college teachers are being globalized also. In American institutions of higher education, 20% newly retained professors were born in foreign countries, while in major institutions of higher education in China, most of newly retained professors have master’s degree awarded abroad.

By careful analysis, we will find out that globalization is the result of fundamental change of communication measures of mankind. Today’s highly developed traffic, communication and media measures make globalization possible. What’s more, just because of existence of these measures, people are developing towards globalization consciously or unconsciously.

While economic globalization develops, it needs new globalization contents for perfection and supplement. For example, economic globalization is also expressed in financial globalization, US dollar has almost become universal currency of the world, and Euro is trying to challenge US dollar. Banking globalization makes settlement between different banks in two or several countries separated thousands of miles away possible. So globalized economic activities are more convenient, globalized transaction measures are more perfect, and such convenient and perfect measures have further promoted development of globalization.

In fact, financial globalization is changing people’s living style. With a credit card, we can go around the world, and needn’t worry about boarding, so travel lovers become more, they have not only brought travel income to the places, but have also brought different thoughts, living styles and spirits, making world culture more globalized.

Cultural globalization is also result of development of modern technical means, but degree of cultural globalization is incomparable with economic and technological globalization, because every nation will try to protect its original culture from external influence, for example, an extreme Islamic nation will not allow bikini girl to take part in beauty contest, likewise, western nations like America and France will not require women on street to wear veil.

In fact, modern technical measures are fully capable to promote wider globalization at multi-level and various fields, while in the process of globalization, nation often becomes barrier for globalization.

The process of economic globalization is generally beneficial to nations, particularly developed countries and countries with technical innovation ability, they are the largest beneficiaries in the process of globalization, while some underdeveloped countries are very passive in globalization process, but when closing is worse than opening up, they start to immerge in world economy unconsciously. Because of above reasons, there are no obstacles set by nations in the process of economic globalization, so it could easily be realized.

Cultural globalization is different. Government of open-minded country will rarely restrict modern medias, so cultural globalization could be realized there, while some countries strictly restrict use of modern medias and communication measures, and cultural globalization is difficult to be realized there. I’ve been to South Korea once, in hotel in Pyongyang, the television had only two governmental channels, which always played serious political programs, so cultural globalization certainly can’t be realized in such environment.

While trans-regional and trans-group political and military globalization in the real sense are far more impossible to be realized in national society. Politics and military affairs are the essential contents of national regime, and also the last line of defense of national regime. In fact, if political and military globalization are realized, basic features of the greatly unified society are ready in general, and social morphology then shouldn’t be called national society.

By analyzing globalization at present and researching reasons for globalization, we can find a point that is very stunning—globalization process is not driven forcibly by some government, but people’s spontaneous action under modern technical conditions, this spontaneous action reflects people’s conscious or unconscious strong desire for globalization and represents people’s aspiration. Governments have inhibited the process of globalization, without such inhibition, contents of globalization will be richer, and degree be deeper.

We can allege that if there is slight promotion, globalization will be wider, deeper and more comprehensive. When such globalization extends to politics, military affairs, culture and every aspect of society, the greatly unified society is realized then, because the greatly unified society itself is a kind of wide, profound and comprehensive globalization.

To sum up, no matter it is the action of international organization to unify the world, or spontaneous globalization trend, an operation mode similar to the greatly unified society is being formed. All these are not prepared for the greatly unified society, but they are prelude of the greatly unified society, and become a rehearsal of the greatly unified society objectively. By analyzing results of this rehearsal, we can get following conclusions:

1. International organizations’ series of actions to unify the world and the work modes are test of unified governance in the world with modern communication measures, and have improved that hard technical conditions for global governance of the greatly unified society have been mature. 

2. Actions to unify the world reflect people’s common desire. Such desire was firstly expressed as that a group of politics with conscience initiated and founded international organizations to harmonize world affairs so that the world will be protected from wars and for common interests of mankind. Although these international organizations can’t influence national society, and their functions are quite limited, they have always been making great efforts to unify the world, and working hard for common interest of the whole mankind. Many works in which these international organizations are devoted to will be continued by the greatly unified society. What’s more, work of these international organizations have also provided experience and references to the great unification.

3. Globalization trend is the world’s spontaneous trend, which is irresistible when modern communication conditions have developed to a certain degree. This trend has also reflected people’s common desire for great unification, which is joint expectation of people and certainty in history as well.

By above analysis, we can definitely judge that possibility for the great unification of mankind is very clear. Technical conditions are mature, with experience of previous rehearsal and common desire of people, as well as unparalleled just of saving mankind from extinction, what large resistance can’t be overcome?!