Using a comparative approach to international relations theory, this article examines
how ancient ideas are being recycled to describe world order in the 21st century. In
particular, it provides a thick description of three models of utopia in global
politics — Great Harmony and Harmony with difference from China, and
Empire from Hardt and Negri. Using an unexplored set of Chinese-language texts, the
article first excavates how Communist Party intellectuals in China have been writing
about the ancient Confucian ideal of Great Harmony as a way of promoting the
People’s Republic of China’s role as a Great Power in the 21st
century. Second, it uses Hardt and Negri’s deterritorialized concept of
Empire to criticize Great Harmony discourse as a transcendent and state-centric
model of world order. Hardt and Negri’s notion of immanent utopia is
elaborated in the third section using another set of Chinese texts that describe the
flexible methodology of ‘Harmony-with-difference’. The article
concludes that Harmony-with-difference provides a practical logic for achieving
Hardt and Negri’s immanent utopia. The article contributes two things to
international relations theory — (1) using Chineselanguage texts, it
broadens the reach of comparative international relations theory and (2) it uses the
concept of Empire to challenge Chinese concepts of harmony, while using Chinese
theory to elaborate on Hardt and Negri’s utopia. In this way, the article
shows how key texts have productively recycled the classical concepts of utopia,
empire, and harmony as a way of remembering the future for the 21st century.
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