1　Background

“Globalization” has remained a sustained focus since the 1980s. Bruce Mazlish once noted that just as Thomas Carlyle defined his times with “machinery” in his “Signs of the Times” published one and a half century ago, scholars can but define the times with “globalization” (qtd. in Yin and He 2014). Mazlish proceeded to term historians’ research on globalization after World War II as the “new global history” (qtd. in Liu and Wang 2019). However, COVID-19, which began to sprawl at the end of 2019 and quickly became another global “pandemic” after the 1918 flu pandemic, is almost redirecting the new-century human society with an astonishingly large number of countries and populations covered. Many countries have to close their borders, restrict traffic, and adapt their political, economic, and foreign policies. It seems as if the human society were returning to its primitive times of isolation from growing global interconnection. Echoing this retrogression are the unprecedented doubts and challenges towards globalization. Extreme nationalism, populism, and fundamentalism that advocated returning to tradition, native land, and locality and went to such extremes as to deny globalism were rampant for a time. In response to the current of antiglobalization, the Chinese President Xi Jinping (2021a) stressed at the Informal Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting recently that what should be done now is to remove walls rather than build them, to develop rather than isolate, to integrate rather than disintegrate, and to guide economic globalization towards a higher level of openness, inclusiveness, balance, and mutual benefit. This proposition not only is positive in driving economic globalization, but also applies to globalization in the broader sense to include politics, economy, and value. Therefore, it requires us to understand globalization beyond its conventional sense and to respond appropriately to the ethical challenges posed by the pandemic reality and post-pandemic scenarios, and to make necessary exploration concerning the relational ethics of globalization.

2　Globalization and the Post-Pandemic World

While “globalization” as a special term was not widely used in the media until the 1980s, the value ideal contained in it indicates that it is a communication activity that continues to expand with human production, and an evolution from plurality towards pluralistic integration, from particularity towards universality, from estrangement and opposition towards inclusiveness and mutual learning in politics, technology, culture, and other respects. This requires us to understand globalization not merely from theoretical construction but also from the perspectives of time, space, and time-space relationship.

From the perspective of time, globalization can be understood in the narrower and broader senses. The former, also known as “short” globalization, refers to the internationalization and global village movement that originated in the 1970s-80s and grew rapidly in the 21st century. The latter, also known as “long” globalization, is a cross-region and cross- system process that has coexisted with human civilization, in which different regions, tribes, nations, and countries with different natural environments, languages and communications, religious beliefs, and social customs gradually connect, influence, and penetrate one another. From the perspective of space, globalization covers multiple dimensions of space. It is actually a combination of time and space: It is an activity and process, as well as a concept and value. Held and McGrew (2005) defined globalization in terms the extent of space-time communication and relative organizational change. They suggested that globalization is the expansion of the scope of influence, the acceleration and deepening of the influence of the model of cross- continental mobility and social interaction. It represents the changes in the human organizational structure connecting remote communities, and extends the tentacles of the power system of all regions and continents in the world.

To distinguish between globalization in the narrower and broader senses, it is necessary for us to characterize the term “globalization.” Early researchers tended to understand globalization as the deepening interconnection of economic activities among individual countries in a global context. To Daly (1999), globalization is the integration of national economies into the international economy through free trade, free capital flows, and less or

fully unrestricted migration of labor. This, however, is obviously insufficient to cover globalization and its profound influence. In the Oxford English Dictionary, globalization is defined as “the action, process, or fact of making global,” and “the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale” (Oxford English Dictionary 2020). Giddens (2001) broadened the connotation of globalization as globalization of politics, technology, culture, and economy, labeling globalization as “our current way of life.”

Regarding how to understand the internal connection of globalization in different periods of time and on different dimensions, an often quoted paradigm is the division between “old” and “new” globalization eras (Cui and Zhang 2002). Keohane and Nye (1977) interpreted the connotational change of globalization from the perspective of increased interdependence and proposed the paradigms of “thin globalization” and “thick globalization.” They argued that globalization involves a transition from “thin” towards “thick.” An example of “thin” globalization is the silk road in history, which bridged the economies and cultures between Europe and Asia with trade activities in the areas along the line. “Thick” globalization is the process by which economic integration, technology transfer, idea popularization, and cultural diversification become a universal aspect penetrating the world and in which globalism becomes increasingly thick, more intensive and the process of globalization becomes more rapid (Keohane and Nye 2000,

104-19). Given that the connotation of globalization points to the process

in which global connection increases, global consciousness begins to dominate international relationships, global values are accepted by different cultures, and global organizations play a guiding role, the definition of globalization can be summarized as follows: (1) Globalization is a process by which individuals, organizations, nations, and countries break through existing material and spiritual isolation or shackles, and become connected or integrated by cross-national, cross-regional, and cross-continental means, from one dimension to multiple dimensions, from shallow to deep, and from material to ideas; (2) Globalization is a way of production and life. Its way of production in material and spiritual terms is the result of cooperation between different regions and countries. The way of life in areas covered by globalization changes in response to the cross-influence of different values;

(3) Globalization is an ideology that redirects people’s ideas or values from sticking to the isolated nationalism to embracing a pluralistic cosmopolitanism; (4) Globalization is an ideal state that advocates global vision, addresses issues concerning the global responsibility of nation-states and the global consequences of transnational businesses, and resolves to consolidate the human community with a shared future through interaction and cooperation.

The COVID-19 pandemic, since its outset at the end of 2019, has brought unprecedented challenges to globalization. Some people even attempted to take the pandemic as the dividing line between the “pre-pandemic” and “post- pandemic” eras. To date, as the variations of the virus and the expansion of the transmission chain weaken the efficacy of vaccination, the world is still shrouded in the threat of the virus. However, compared with the early years of development, the international community is likely to stand at a turning point from the pre-pandemic to the post-pandemic era.

When talking about ethical issues in the post-pandemic world, the first thing to consider is whether fundamental changes will take place in the world in comparison with the pre-pandemic era and whether these changes will be universal. In face of the most widespread global pandemic in the 21st century, many authors have reflected on its potential influence on world development. Yuval Noah Harari, the author of A Brief History of Humankind, claimed in 2020 that the storm will eventually pass, but the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come. Other people are more worried that the pandemic will bring about a world “less open, prosperous and free” or even the “end of globalization” (qtd. in Yao 2020b, 583). Whatever the case, COVID-19 can serve as a landmark event in humankind’s history of globalization. The “wall building” will increase some people’s doubts, worries, and misunderstandings about globalization and add weight to their anti-globalization emotions. In this sense, examining these phenomena through an ethical lens will help better understand the ethics of globalization

in the pandemic and post-pandemic world.

3　Ethical Issues in the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic World

The voice of anti-globalization did not start from the outbreak of the

coronavirus. In fact, globalization has been accompanied by the noises of antiglobalization throughout its history, especially in the past two decades. Some Western scholars and politicians have often used major international events as evidence for the end of globalization. For example, the 9/11 attack in 2001, the financial crisis in 2008, the proposed Grexit in 2012, the Brexit in 2016, Trump’s “retreats” in 2016, the China-US trade dispute have all been taken as the signs of what they call the end of globalization. Although most of the so-called ends have been proved to be just alarmist talks, their constant popularity, in one way or another, implies that globalization seems to be facing a problem that is insurmountable by itself. Before the pandemic, globalization problems fell into two categories: problems arising out of the nature of globalization and those arising out of the consequence of globalization.

In terms of its nature, as the tide of globalization originated from European and American countries, people often equate globalization to “Westernization.” For example, Robertson (1995) defined globalization as “the compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole” on the one hand, and claimed that globalization is a term used to describe the process by which the Western modernity concept spreads worldwide on the other hand. Wherever there is an obstacle in the Western-dominated globalization, people could argue that “the retrogression of globalization is not only caused by negative impacts, nor can it be recovered by a simple rerouting. As a movement, the globalization led by the United States and Western countries has come to an end. Some people even asserted that as an era, globalization has concluded. The world is about to enter a new post-globalization era” (Li 2017). In terms of its consequence, globalization as a double-edged sword, while promoting world prosperity and global integration, has produced many negative consequences, which have not only led to the disparity and polarization between rich and poor, but also aggravated the inequality of economic, political, and cultural exchanges among countries in different regions (Singer 2017). Furthermore, although globalization offers a good platform for responding to global challenges, the fundamental structure of the world has not changed, nor has the global problems been reduced. Instead, energy and ecological problems are worsening due to the high production and consumption associated with

globalization. Transnational crimes, terrorism, refugee emigration, intellectual property infringements, and cyber hackers continue to sprawl due to the lack of international cooperation or insufficient global supervision. Meanwhile, though globalization narrows the gap between universality and particularity, the contest between global regulations and local features, between cultural diversity and value unity increases rather decreases. A new international justice system or cooperative mechanism has yet to be fully established while the existing system intensifies disparity and opposition. All these have shaken the native standard systems of the modern-world nation-states and intensified the conflict between globalization and antiglobalization. These conflicts, coupled with the fast-changing international politics, has led to the rise of extreme conservatism and the prevalence of antiglobalization inside Western countries.

Instead of relieving existing contradictions, the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified existing problems and added many new controversies. In face of the spread of the global pandemic and the attendant contradictions, it is necessary to re-examine the political, economic, social, technical, linguistic, and cultural problems emerging in the process of globalization from the perspective of value.

Global poverty coexisted with global inequality before the pandemic and the importance of global inequality was overshadowed by the moral urgency of global poverty. The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought global inequality to the fore. British researcher David Morley (2021) described how different power over—and access to—virtual reality between rich and poor Western families amplified the preexisting forms of inequality during the pandemic. He suggested that the coronavirus disclosed the fragility of the many deep-rooted hypotheses on which contemporary metropolitan life is based. The shortage of medical conditions (e.g., ICU beds, oxygen supply, number of respirators in some countries) during the pandemic has already led to unequal medical treatment, as reflected in the age, wealth, status, and regional differences. Chinese researcher Sun Liping (2021) quoted the observation of Professor Zhang Yujiao from MD Anderson Cancer Center: An immunity gap is taking shape due to the huge difference in vaccine scabies rates in individual countries and between them. Once developed countries open their borders after herd immunity, the world will be enormously

impacted. Those countries with an immunity gap may find themselves in a passive situation. The recent runaway of the pandemic is a very realistic example. Immunity gaps are very likely to affect the normal economic and social conditions of a country and even to change the future world landscape.

In view of its probability to force some nation-states back to isolation and confrontation, WorldPost’s editor-in-chief Nathan Gardels commented that the spread of COVID-19 revealed the degree of interdependence and the lack of global organizations, which were far from enough to address the various connections. He called for building new platforms to “cope with a connected world” (qtd. in Yao 2020b, 583). There raises a question: Why, in a world connected by globalization, are nation-states becoming isolated instead of united? Underlying the debate between nationalists and globalists over the particularity and universality of moral norms and value beliefs are the exclusive identity of their own nations or states and the escalation from personal egoism to national egoism. In terms of identity value, the should- be transparent cooperation among states and groups has changed into estrangement and non-cooperation (Fukuyama 2018). Increased divergence or opposition will undoubtedly endanger the overall interest of humankind, especially when concerning such global problems as COVID-19, in which the optimal interest cannot be achieved unless countries cooperate with one another. Nevertheless, these problems do not constitute substantial reasons for denying globalization. In fact, these antiglobalization discourses have to be made in a globalization context. Being reviewed from a relational perspective, they are a global phenomenon themselves. The advent and popularization of digital and information technology make it impossible for humankind to return to the world before Industrial Revolution and even Age of Exploration simply by virtue of policy changes. When mentioning the current China- US competition, Xiang Biao and Wu Qi (2020) have argued strongly that globalization will not be weakened. Instead, it will signify that attention should be paid to problems with a more sensitive globalization vision.

Finally, human’s ability to cope with pains in face of the lingering

pandemic should be taken into consideration. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, nearly 200 million people have been affected worldwide. More than 4.2 million have died from the virus. During the outbreak in China, the special psychological hotlines received numerous calls every day. But these hotlines can only serve as a temporary comfort. After the pandemic, how to make people face up to the past irreparable pain and cure themselves psychologically is an unavoidable problem for the ethics of globalization in the post-pandemic world. Servigne and Stevens (2020) focused their discussion of the complex practicality and geography of what they called “collapsology” on the increasing instability of the globalization system and presented a critical description of the weaknesses of hyperglobalization. Zhao Tingyang (2020) also discussed how to face sufferings. To him, the modern system can produce material happiness, but cannot produce the happiness as the highest good, let alone resist sufferings. As sufferings fall beyond the ability of the subject, they become an absolute metaphysical problem. In the pre-modern society, peoples in the world primarily relied on religions to resist sufferings. In the modern society with booming technology and declining religious belief, how should people resist sufferings? The alternatives proposed by scholars in the past, such as “morality for religion” by Liang Shuming and “aesthetics for religion” by Cai Yuanpei, did not generate much effect. Some Western scholars tried to use nationalism to replace religion. For example, Benedict Anderson understood a nation as a “kinship” or “religion.” He believed that contribution to the nation could relieve the pain of life’s meaninglessness and sublimate personal life. However, as its subsequent development revealed, overly radical nationalism is not only unable to relieve pains, but brings more due to its antiglobalization moves. In the post-pandemic world, towards this common topic worldwide, it is particularly important to learn how to face up to sufferings and translate the resistance to and consolation for sufferings into the value doctrines of the ethics of globalization. Whether from the perspective of global inequality or the self-interests of individual nation- states, only by working out a “strong relationship” supported by the ethics of globalization and deepening national interaction, global cooperation, and value convergence, can nations and states make existence and development possible and enhance the overall and long-term interests of the whole human community.

4　Re-understanding the Relational Ethics in the

Process of Globalization

From the viewpoint of “long globalization,” each vibrant civilization has its particular process of “globalization” that is closely related to the consciousness, concept, and value of the outside world as the “other.” These numerous processes eventually combine into humankind’s “globalization” as a whole and become a magnificent historical process affecting every corner of the earth. As a relational field encompassing the world, “long globalization” cannot be an erasable segment of history. China has always been a witness, a participant, and a driver for the long globalization. The evolution of China’s world outlook can be seen as an epitome of the relational ethics of globalization. Therefore, when trying to find the essence of humankind’s relationship on the historical, realistic, and methodological dimensions, it will be easier and better to understand how globalization in the post- pandemic world will strengthen—rather than weaken—the relational ethics of humankind.