1

HARMONY ECONOMY FOR HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

BY FRANCIS C W FUNG, PH.D.
A grand view of worlds economy reveals that no countrys economic development is in perfect state,
despite the egocentric claims of certain developed country. There existed only relative degrees of
success at times and dramatic failures that had disastrous effects to certain nations population whether
the country is developed or undeveloped. The reasons for failures to meet population needs are many
but can be categorized as follows: inadequacy of political system, lack of understanding of economic
models, inept political leadership, lack of essential technology, economy closed or partially closed
because of political prejudice and finally absence of a comprehensive national harmony philosophy. The
need for comprehensive national harmony philosophy came to our attention by the fact that among
many ancient cultures only the Chinese culture continued 5000 years with relative prosperity and
without interruption. The Confucian Chinese society, with a market economy balanced by harmony
philosophy and humane authority governance was a shining example of relative economic prosperity
without irreversible natural destruction and manmade disaster for the longest period of human history.
In modern days, we can survey the performance failures of individual national economies according to
the above mentioned inadequacies and fault lines and come up with the following examples. First let us
look at America, the most developed nation with self-proclaimed perfect liberal economic system. The
2008 economic crises began in the U.S. due to under regulated speculation of packaged toxic mortgage
investment products aided by the collusion of financial rating agencies. This is the combined error of an
extreme liberal democracy system and the lack of political leadership that led to excessive speculation.
The devastating financial collapse of America quickly spread its cancerous effect worldwide and caused
disastrous sufferings to the world, developed or undeveloped alike. Next, take the example of Russia,
the second major power of the developed world during the cold war era. After it exhausted its national
wealth in an armament race with the U.S. against all axioms of harmony philosophy, Russias economy
collapsed. Under Gobachev and Yeltsin, Russia bought the Western liberal democracy governance
system wholesale with the full political support from the West. This experiment of drastic political
change without time honored harmonizing with actual national conditions totally disintegrated the
Soviet Empire. To this day, twenty years later, Putin is still trying hard to reverse the damages caused by
the inept importation of a foreign governance system without full understanding. For a counter
example to Russia one is referred to another article by the present author titled How China harmonizes
socialism with Chinese characteristics
The other major reason for economic under performance is a closed society. Throughout history
successful nations are always open to the outside world and are keen to learn from best experiences
and technology from others. One of the most successful Chinese dynasties was the Tang Dynasty,
which was open to the West through the ancient Silk Road and sent Tang Zeng to India to bring back
Buddhism scripture to China. During Ming Dynasty Zheng He commanded the biggest sea going fleet in
history sailed by way of the marine silk route to South Asia and Africa seven times for trade and
goodwill. The successful industrial revolution was full of learning examples of America learning from
Europe, China was left behind because of closed policy during the Ching Dynasty. A closed society is
2

bound to be left behind and suffer stagnation. A classic example of a modern nation suffering economic
bankruptcy is the isolation of North Korea by U.S. embargo and sanction. History tells us we must learn
from each other to make progress. As true an axiom as this is, there are nations today that profess to be
the most open but in truth because for political prejudices are closed to Eastern cultures. To be truly
open we must learn from all whether we agree politically or not. Chinas current reform and opening up
has ushered in the most profound economic progress in human history. Her level of GDP growth in 30
years took Europe three hundred years to accomplish. This is because she has learned from
Japan,Singapore, Europe and America and disregards political differences. Due to political differences,
America has blocked all successful experience from China.
Continuing our survey of underperforming economies there are large numbers of oil rich countries that
are rich and economically under developed. This is because over reliance on natural resources led to
under employment and retarded essential manufacturing technology. This dysfunction in economy also
applies to nations too dependent on export natural resources export. Thus, they suffer from lack of
manufacturing and under employment. By becoming the worlds factory, China, following the examples
of Japan and Korea, learned essential manufacturing technology from Japan, Europe and America. Now
China has built the technology infrastructure to reach for the next innovation level to become a
modernized nation thus further develop its economy.
Above by no means exhausted reasons for economic under performance but merely illustrates how
major disabling factors can affect countries economic performance. Having surveyed some negative
contributing economic factors now let us look at the following success economic performance examples.
United States because of its large land mass and endowment of rich resources plus competitive
commercial enterprises is the reigning major world economic power. Its liberal democracy system
encouraged individualism, entrepreneurism and business competitiveness. During the Second World
War, Europe was immersed in a devastating war while the U.S. manufacturing ramp up to meet the
needs of war was undisturbed. It thus became the worlds manufacturing center. It became the biggest
export empire the world ever known, exceeding the golden days of Chinese silk, and porcelain and tea
exports. Having learned and caught up with Europe in technology, America launched the new solid state
technology industry in the Silicone Valley in California Industry. With the creation of a venture capital
industry, Silicone Valley leap -frogged ahead and became leader of solid state manufacturing and later
the computer industry. The 20
th
Century is now known as the American century.
However because of U.S. past success and won the so called Cold War it continued to look disdainly at
the failed Russian command technology approach with over focused state investment on heavy
industry. The Russian state investment in the economy was now dreaded by America and became a rule
for the U.S. government not to become involved in needed infrastructure investment. This is a
shortsighted over- look of a balanced harmony economy to develop both the private and state
industries. Thus the U.S. today is behind China in needed infrastructure modernization. The Chinese
government learning from both the U.S. and Russia keep a balance between State and private industries
in its model of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The truth is that both state and private industries
have their own advantages. The private industry is more dynamic and lively while the state industry
3

allows the government to invest in long term, large projects that private industries shy away from
because of their high risk. The fast train world domination by China in a relative short ten years is an
outstanding example of the advantage of harmony economies that learn from all good experiences and
balance the economy by actual conditions in the nation. China has learned from Russia, Japan, Europe
and America regardless of politics and optimized a system called socialism with Chinese characteristics.
This is what I call a harmony economy that combines all good experience into a unique experience
particularly suited for the need of a nation with unique development conditions and stage of
development. This may be the reason why China may one day catch up with the U.S. and become
finally an equal to America. China still has a lot to learn from the world especially from the great
America.
China is still a developing country facing some very daunting challenges or growing pains such as
economic inequity, rapid urbanization, and environmental degradation. All these issues are being
looked at by the Chinese government. That is why Xi Jinping, the Chinese president is calling for the
China Dream to rejuvenate the nation by promising a better life for all Chinese citizens. Besides
implementing new economic policies such as easier resident registration for migrant workers, better
land compensation and health service for the farmers, balancing consumption with investment for
growth, better urbanization for sustainable development. All these are essential balances a successful
harmony economy for healthy and sustainable development must go through as new reforms. It needs
to be comprehensive and will not be easy to implement. President XI also recognized that in order to
accomplish above harmony economy China must reach deep into its ancient cultural values, especially
Confucian teaching of harmony philosophy. A nation without its roots is a Nation without its soul, as
stated by President Xi. He recommends that the Chinese must harmonize the old and new to build a
lasting civilization that can contribute to the world. He has already taken the lead by incorporating
ancient Chinese values into Chinese socialist core value in a poem for public education and thesis topics
for higher education. The Chinese ancient cultural values combined with socialist core values are:
WEALTH, DEMOCRACY, CULTURE, HARMONY, FREEDOM, EQUALITY, JUSTICE, RULE OF LAW,
PATRIOTISM, PROFESSIONALISM, TRUSTWORTHINESS, FRIENDLINESS. These combined values clearly
show Chinas sincerity in learning and harmonize the best of East and West values that are universal.
As the author is writing this article on Harmony economy for healthy and sustainable national
development coincidently U.N. and China jointly launched the first International City Day for
sustainable development at Beijing on the same day, Oct, 31
st
, 2014. The U.N. secretary of General used
the occasion to call for world citizens to unite and marched towards sustainable development. He
added by announcing To commemorate the first World City Day, United Nations, China and the world
will unite together to discuss green and sustainable city growth policies. The title of the conference is
China City future development international forum. Hopefully there will be many new technologies
such as 3D urban farming, clean water recovery, renewable energy, landfill management and waste
disposal from this better city better harmony conference. I humbly dedicate my essay on harmony
economy to this occasion.

4


Francis C W Fung,Ph.D.
Director General
World Harmony Organization
San Francisco, CA