A group of prominent Chinese liberals, Confucians, socialists, and Christians recently met in Oxford to endorsed a set of values meant to guide China’s future development. It includes familiar values as fairness and justice, but it also endorses a famous line from the Analects of Confucius about the importance of “harmony”.

That word – harmony – can be misleading in English because it hints at uniformity. In Chinese, it implies both peaceful order and respect for diversity. Every Chinese intellectual knows the Confucian saying that exemplary persons should value harmony but not uniformity.

In fact, the contrast between harmony and uniformity comes from an even earlier text that justified harmony on the grounds the ruler can only improve his policies if his advisors advocate diverse viewpoints. Diversity was also justified on aesthetic grounds: a diverse world is more pleasing to the senses. Diversity here means valuing difference, not simply toleration. But conflict arising out of differences should be dealt with peacefully. Harmony, in short, is the idea that social relations characterized by peaceful order and respect for diversity are essential.