KIM Seok-hyeon.   first upoaded: 2020-12-31.   last updated: 2020-12-31. 

1. Introduction

Coronavirus, commonly assumed to originate from Wuhan of China, has been affecting and is supposed to be affecting the world so profoundly that the acronyms A.C. and B.C. seem to gain alternative meanings respectively as 'after coronavirus' and before coronavirus'. As demonstrated by this quip, the coronavirus pandemic affects the world not just health and economy in consequence, but is likely to stretch its influence far away to politics and culture. As a result, a huge span of debates and speculations on impacts of the coronavirus pandemic have been undergoing. A strand of concerns is the resurgence of the dichotomic views about the East and the West based on the assessment that East Asian countries have done better in disease control than European or North American countries. The assessment per se should be further sorted out of course but is commonly accepted as an obvious fact. Surely the underlying causes, interpretations, or value judgments will undergo thorough debates. This article is intended as a stepstone in anticipation of further productive debates.

East Asia's disease control is characterized as tracing and testing those who may have contacted an infected person and quarantining the affected. This approach was so outstanding in South Korea that a BBC news headlined an article on Korea's successful disease control with 'trace, test, and treat'.^[1] This approach is surely effective in containing the spread of the disease but there are concerns on the privacy of the infected person whose past trajectory is revealed at least to the authority of disease control. So some European governments that have attempted to introduce such measures faced huge oppositions from the privacy advocating side. For example, in France, amidst debates on the issue, a lawyer Pradel,criticizing the surveillance measures for their intrusion on individual liberty, claimed that “two countries [South Korea and Taiwan] are not models in terms of respect for individual freedoms” but rather the “worst" in her article of the magazine Les Echos.^[2] This kind of negative stance is too strong to be generalized but many western people seem to share her worry. Zizek, a famous left-leaning philosopher, expressed his worry of the emergence of "a new barbarism with a human face – ruthless survivalist measure senforced with regret and even sympathy, but legitimised by expert opinions”.^[3]

While we face such negative value judgments on East Asian surveillance measures on the one hand, on the other hand, we hear a lot of laments from the western countries that they did not or could not implement such measures as successfully as East Asian countries. Indeed, these laments of the West may have led to western media's rush on East Asian countries and their in-depth reporting of East Asia's underlying capabilities. South Korea has been put under such a sudden spotlight. South Korea, which did not block the inflow of people from China, faced a dramatic rise and fall of the number of the infected rather in a short time span of a few weeks. On the contrary many western countries failed to control disease and met almost helplessly a huge size of infections and consequent deaths. South Korea's relative success was attributed to its capability to trace and identify disease sources and contacts as many as possible in a short time. And also South Korea's rapid development, wide deployment, and efficient application of testing were also given high credits because many western countries were not ready or even incapable for such measures. The Reuters, international news agency, delivered a very detailed account ofKorea's implementation of a series of proper measures while contrasting the US's incapabilities to do so. South Korea's huge capacity to produce and even export testing kits became a world-wide prominence given the circumstances that many western countries are not able to meet their own demands on their own supply.^[4]

South Korea has drawn overwhelming attention. But other Asian countries performed well. Taiwan has contained the coronavirus epidemic even better than South Korea. Taiwan has an order of hundreds of infected cases and less than ten death cases as of June 23, while South Korea had more than ten thousand cases and an order of hundreds of death cases. China, which seemed devastated at the outbreak, has turned out to cope better with the disease than many western countries. At the same time, China recorded less than one hundred thousand cases and less than ten thousand death cases. China's cases of infection is the 21st among countries in descending order with many western countries above China.^[5]

Outperformance of some East Asian countries over Western countries cannot help but draw attention and stimulate further questioning. Particularly the devastating outcome of the pandemic makes it hard for the differences between the two sides to be just due to luck. For humans as learning creatures, such a serious event should be researched to be used as an opportunity for lessons for the future. Of course, in spite of the huge impact of the pandemic, it is not easy to discover or understand scientific causes of the difference since we cannot apply controlled experiments. And the pre-existing sentiments or prejudices may make it difficult to understand the differences on a neutral ground. So we cannot help but dwell on the contrast. This interpretation may not be either scientifically robust or objective. But even mis- or ill-understandings, if they are open to critique or correction, can contribute to the improvement of our understanding. And the urgency in the situation may make the shortcomings in the early stage of understandings rather forgivable. Of course knowing all the difficulties of the task, wants to shed some light on the issue of the differences between the East and the West. This venture is not to induce any superiority or inferiority but to contribute to the world by deepening a mutual understanding. The author will begin with historical accounts of the East and the West in the next section, which will help our perspective to be far-reaching, and will come back to contemporary issues in the following sections.

2. Historical origins of the notion of the East and the West

It is the European tradition that imposes territorial concepts to the directions, west and east. In Europe emerged a geographical notion of two or three continents; Europe and Asia or Europe, Asia, and Africa. Contrarily, the scholars of the Middle East in the eleventh century regarded 'the lands of Islam', then stretching from the Middle East, across North Africa, to Spain, as the center of the world. In the Middle Eastern notion, the Chritian empire of Byzantium, the northern land, and Countries beyond Persian to the east, were somewhat inferior entities and all other people residing in the northern and in the southern area, white or black, were regarded as barbarians.^[6] China had their own centrism too. The Chinese thought that the world is divided between the Hua at the cultural center and Yi at the border for inferior or barbaric people.^[7] Both China and the Middle East did not have much interest in Europe before the nineteenth century though the Middle East surely had more encounters with Europe than China because of the geographic adjacency of the Middle East to Europe. Contrarily, Europe was always conscious of Asia. Indeed in the myth, Europa, the etymology of Europe, was an abducted woman by Zeus from Phoenicia (now Lebanon) to Crete. During the ninth to the fifth century, B.C., when Greek colonized the area around the Mediterranian ocean, Asia and Libya (meaning Africa) became common terms. For the first time, around 500 B.C., the European notion of the two divisions of the world was established: Europe and Asia (Libya as part of Asia). To Greeks, the notion of the two continents looked natural as such Europe and Asia, western and eastern, or Greek and Persia and Hecataeus of Miletus took this position. But Herodotus, of the next generation, took the tripartite division of Europe, Asia, and Africa without a serious justification, which became widespread.^[8] In the seventh century, the Christian_Jewish idea of Noah's three sons, Japheth, Shem and Ham, resulted in the humanized notion of the tripartite division of the world. Europe was regarded as the land of Japheth, of the Gentiles, the Greeks, and the Christians and was to prosper. Asia was regarded as the land of the Semitic, the Chosen people and Christ himself and so glorious as a land of prophets but condemned to an inferiority as the land of the adherents of the older laws. Africa, as the land of the unhappy descendants of Ham, cursed by Noah to be servants of Japheth and Shem.^[9]

The mystification of the tripartite division may have been the origin of Europ's dichotomous view of the world: the East and the West. But the notion of Europe got strengthened over the history, particularly Europe's confrontation with the Middle East. And the identity of 'Europe' formed during the fight against Islam's expansion over Europe in the seventh and eighth century.^[10] Because of the difference in religion between both sides, Christianity or Christandom is ingrained into the identity of Europe. Though Christendom was an abstract concept at the beginning, the pontificate of Gregory VII designated a geographical or territorial meaning to Christendom, which served as a ground for the first Crusade (1096-1099) under the leadership of the pope Urban II (1088-99) and consequent ones till the thirteenth century.^[11] However, for the fourteenth and the fifteenth century, that is, the late middle ages, the enthusiasm of Crusades and the leadership of the popes faded out. Europe was cut off from Asia and pressured to pull back by Ottoman Turks, which then emerged as the superpower of the Middle East, and Europe became as a unity in terms of economic relations, rather than Christian ideals.^[12]

Since the sixteenth century, Europe faced a huge scale of change within itself and from the outside. While Christian authorities give way to national or secular governments within Europe, thanks to the discoveries of the American continent and of the sailing courses, Europe's influence over the world increases fast. As the Ottoman Turks retreated from Europe after their failed attacks of Vienna in 1683, Europe proceeded eastward. Enlightenment philosophers in the eighteenth century invented a term 'civilization' and tended to regard Europe as such a case and almost the only case,^[13]setting aside the East, including the Middle East (as Neer East) and China (as FarEast). When Napoleon's army campaigned to Egypt and Syria around the turn of the nineteenth century and Britain forced China into accepting the trade terms as a result of opium wars in the 1840s and 1850s, the Near East and the Far East respectively lost its pride as a civilization. And so the notions of the West and the East, which are based on the European geographic perspective, were accepted along with superiority and inferiority connotation respectively.

Slave trade and colonization that accompanied Europe's expansion were justified by the idelogies or prejudices such as racism and social Darwinism, which was to a certain degree accepted by the East too. Rationalist or modernist theories tended to come along with the West and East dichotomy. Karl Marx happened to express his favor of colonialism to backwardness of the East though he changed his position toward anti-colonialism later on.^[14] Max Weber attributed Calvinist Protestantism to the emergence of rational capitalism of Europe, while he tried to understand the underdevelopment of such capitalism in the East (China, India, or the Middle East) in terms of lack of such a rational philosophy or worldview. Though Weber was very modest in his stance for such a hypothesis acknowledging his shortage in knowledge of the East^[15] and he did not foreshadow Asia with deterministic pessimism,^[16] his thesis used to be drawn on to link economic backwardness to cultural determinism.^[17]

The second world war, at the middle of the twentieth century, seems to have brought a tectonic change to the world. Colonialism was given up and most colonized territories or nations were liberalized. The US opened the era of pax Americana. The existence of the communist block around Russia (then the Soviet Union) served the frontier US allies as an opportunity of economic prosperity under the patronage of the US. Particularly, in East Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan became beneficiaries. Later on, as a means to check the Soviet Union, diplomatic ties of China with the US began in the 1970s and China was allowed to export to the US market.^[18] The Emergence of Asian countries in terms of economic prosperity brought about Asian Value theory as an upside-down of the traditional cultural determinism. An extreme version of Asian value is spelled out by late Lee Kwan Yew. He served as the prime minister of Singapore for long-time and governed Singapore in a patriarchal sense according to this belief that Asian Value centered on Confucian hierarchical order is more effective in shaping the development of a society than Western liberalism does. On the other hand, late KIM Dae-jung, a long-time leader in democratic movement and once president of South Korea, criticized Lee Kwan Yew, saying that Confucianism is not opposite to Western liberalism but sharing its features of humanism and democracy.^[19] The debate between these two Asian leaders may have not yet tilted to one side yet. Rather the debate itself may hint at a healthy tension in East Asia, which may also have some positive implications on the Western society too. In the next section, the author wants to elucidate some characteristics of the Asian society in contrast with the Western Society, which may be helpful making better society not only for the East but also for the West.

3. Differences between East Asian and Western society

It is always controversial to tell one group from the other in terms of inherent differences and some alleged verifications of group differences happened to be due to careless investigation neglecting factors such as circumstantial or environmental differences as seen in group IQ research. And, since there is no group that does not change, identified differences may not be robust enough to bear the test of time. China that Marx Weber observed to his time may not be the same as China of now. Thus it is hard to assert that there are inherent' characteristics of a society.

However, it is also hard to say that inter-group differences that we notice are only due to biased perceptions. And we'd better acknowledge and understand the differences in inter-group or intercultural encounters than assume none or ignore them in order to minimize unnecessary frictions. So even if our conceived inter-group differences may be likely to be falsified or modified, as far as we tell differences only to understand each other and we are flexible enough to make corrections on any of our misunderstandings, it is a plausible or even recommended approach to at least hypothesize certain distinctions and to draw mutually useful implications from them.

As far as the author is informed from his survey of literature, academic approaches to investigate characteristics of groups or societies seem to have been stranded into three fields, though somewhat overlapped with each other: modernization theories, comparative philosophy and cross-cultural psychology.

First, let's begin with modernization studies. Modernization theories have been developed to understand industrialization in a broad sociopolitical context. Afore-mentioned Marx and Weber are two representative figures in modernization theories.^[20]

As for Marx, as far as his view is perceived as economic determinism that sees the causal direction from material status to socio-political characteristics, the inter-society differences are always changeable and so may not have to be given much attention. For Marx's modernization theory does not tell much about inter-society differences other than economic differences. So significant modernization theories regarding inter-society differences are those that see the causal direction from sociopolitical or cultural differences to those of industrialization or economic development. Weber took this direction. Weber tried to investigate inter-cultural factors in modernization. Though there had been certain considerations of cultural aspects of modernization since the eighteenth century of enlightenment, Weber initiated a serious venture in formulating the linkage between culture and modernization. As well known, his proposition is that Calvinist Protestantism served as the basis of rational capitalism. According to him, Calvinian Protestantism encouraged people to dedicate their life to their vocation or calling for salvation while Catholicism or Lutheranism asked people to be just the 'vessels' of God. So Calvinist Protestantism set itself as a rationalized religion, which helped the emergence of modern bourgeois capitalism, in contrast with the mystified religion such as Catholicism or Lutheranism. On the other hand, though Confucianism is to some degree rational, the rationality of Confucianism is rather limited to patrimonial bureaucracy and the people were left to the magical world-view.^[21] Though Marx suggested the hypothesis of the converge of cultures, that is, that advanced industrialized societies show the future of less developed societies, and Daniel Bell and many other modernists took that direction in simplification, cultural or religious differences have remained as important factors in understanding the development of the society. Samuel Huntington's emphasis on cultural differences in civilizations made a huge impact on people's view on geopolitics particularly amidst the clashes between the west or Christian civilization and the middle east, or Islamic civilization. According to Inglehart and Baker (2000),^[22] who compared cultures of countries based on empirical surveys, economic development tends to make traditional cultures converge toward somewhat similarly secular ones but the path is not linear or deterministic and meanings of life that are yet embedded in culture or religion are still influential.
 
Secondly, comparative philosophy is a discipline that compares mostly western and eastern philosophies. Eastern philosophies chosen for study seem to be those of China and India.^[23] The discipline seems to have emerged from the studies and translations of classical/philosophical texts of eastern and western scholars in mutual correspondence in the twentieth century. However, such exchanges already happened during the enlightenment period thanks to the Jesuits. Comparative philosophy as a formalized discipline put the two different philosophical traditions under scrutiny based on philosophical criteria and investigate their similarities and differences. So depending on criteria and interpretations, similarities and differences suggested one time or by one scholar seem to be disputed another time or by another. So rather than settling down on consensus, a continuation of argumentations and counter-argumentations seem to characterize the discipline, which may be of course nothing new in any academic field and a sign of health in a discipline. Though any argument is subject to a counter-argument, there seem to be less disputed or more excusable ones too at least conditionally as starting hypotheses. Under the criteria of methodology, epistemology, and ethics which are criteria as well as subfields of philosophy, eastern philosophy, particularly Chinese philosophy seems to differ from western philosophy as follows respectively. Chinese philosophy is methodologically discursive, epistemologically holistic, and ethically familial or relational, while western one is argumentative, analytic, and individualistic. And these characteristics of each philosophical tradition seem to be consistent to each other too. Chinese philosophy sees the world or humans as a whole one and regards parts, in need of consideration, as complementary with each other for eventual harmony. This may be an overly simplified thinking with all the subtle variations or even contrarian views overlooked. But such distinctions may serve as ideal types, waiting for further investigations. Many people, if not all, may have support for it to a certain degree from personal experiences or perceptions, or may think of it at least as useful for further development of thinking (including critique). So this philosophical distinction may not be totally harmful and may be somewhat useful if we keep in mind the possibility or danger of stereotyping.

Third. Cross-cultural psychology, though not totally exclusive from aforementioned modernization theories or comparative philosophy, based on the assumption that psychology of a person depends on cultural context, have established many psychological experiments to prove that. The size or scope of cultural groups can vary from ethnic tribal to civilization categories. So the East and the West can be also a category of cultural groups though the caveat is that as the unit of cultural groups becomes large, there might be more within-culture diversities. It is commonly said that Hofstede's patternization of countries(1980) along with cultural dimensions seminated cross-cultural psychology. Hofstede distinguished four cultural dimensions: (1) power distance (pecking order) (2) uncertainty avoidance (3) individualism-collectivism (4) masculinity-femininity. And he collected sentiment or attitude data of the IBM workers across dozens of countries and located their countries according to those dimensions.^[24] One of his approaches was to locate countries (of the employees) on two dimensional space by power distance and individualism-collectivism. According to his research, at the lower left quadrant meaning individualism and small power distance are located most western countries such as the US, UK, Germany. At the diagonal opposite quadrant meaning collectivism and large power distance are located most 'third world countries' such as East Asian countries. At the lower right quadrant meaning individualism and large power distance are located Western Latin countries such as France and Belgium.

Among Hofstede' dimensions, individual-collectivism has been most popularly adopted in consequent studies particularly in comparison of East Asians and European Americans. Hofstede's definition of individualism is: “ a focus on rights above duties, a concern for oneself and immediate family, an emphasis on personal autonomy and self-fulfillment, and the basing of one;s identity on one's personal accomplishments.” Indeed this kind of the contrast of individualism and collectivism or any other similar contrast has been familiar in western tradition of thoughts. Listed are Durkeim's contrast of mechanic society with organic one, Weber's contrast of individualistic Protestantism from collective Catholicism, Tonnies' contrast of Gesellschaft with Gemeinschaft, and so on.^[25] And since the process of the western civilization was believed to be the change in value from collectivism to individualism, the dichotomy of individualism and collectivism has also been an indispensable concept to understand modernization. Here lies a puzzle in understanding East Asia because East Asia is commonly believed to be a collective society while it has achieved a high level of industrialization, an important aspect of modernization. Efforts to solve such a puzzle have helped to deepen our understanding of East Asia and also to examine the West in a new light contrasting it with with East Asia, which will be discussed in the next section.

4. Rethinkng of the East and the West

When the dominance of the West became obvious in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was an imperative issue to East Asians in a defensive or even defeatist position how to cope with or to overcome it. But when after around a century East Asia achieved a certain progress in economic development, some East Asians took triumphant stances over the West. Meanwhile, western scholars have deepened their understanding of East Asia and have progressed over a simple dichotomy of the East and the West. And a certain group of western scholars suggested adopting eastern values into western society to remedy some downsides of the West. Though attitudes and thoughts about the East in relation with the West have changed over more than a century, those are still rather present in a wide spectrum rather than having converged to a simple conclusion. So the various attitudes or understandings of East Asia are still worth to review in historical perspective.

Until the dominance of the West became obvious in the mid-nineteenth century became obvious, East Asia had been rather peaceful or at least stable under pax sinica. The opium war forced China into a sudden disillusion that China was far behind the West in technology, particularly in military technology. China began to see the West in awe and, in order to defend its sovereignty then under threat, had to do any action such as the self-strengthening movement for military modernization. The western shock rippled through Japan. Japan's shogunate was forced to accept the US's demand for trade with the US in 1854, soon yielded to Meiji Restoration in 1867, and had to dissolve on its own in 1871. Korea or then Joseon similarly had to open trade with the US in 1871 and soon with Japan 1876. While China and Joseon were fixated to their traditional regime each and so unwilling or hesitant to adopt western notions of a state, Japan rather easily accepted a constitutional monarchy with parliament in 1890, first in Asia and soon taught itself imperialistic ambition and measures of the West. Joseon became a victim of Japanese imperialistic expansion, lost its sovereignty in 1910, remained as a Japanese colony till 1945. As soon as liberated from Japan, Korea was split into North and South Korea governed respectively by the Soviet Union and the US till 1948 and faced the Korean war for 1950-1953, which was an internationalized civil war and also the first ideological war between the two blocks, communist and liberalist. In 1911, the Republic of China was established but was soon entrenched into years-long civil war between the ruling national party or Kuomintang and the Communist Party and later also into the war with Japan for 1937-1945. A twist in Asia's modernization was that Japan took the role of the West in imperialism and so Japan was regarded as an alias of the West in both good and bad senses. But eventually at the second world war Japan yielded to the US, then and now western super power, and had to restructure or modernize itself at the order of the US military government till 1952. As for China, the Commninist party defeated and expelled the national party into Taiwan in 1949. During the Korean war, South Korea and Japan each made a military alliance with the US and allowed the presence of the US military forces in their territory respectively. While China under the ruling of the communist party had an alliance with the Soviet Union or Russia, Taiwan under the Nationalist party did so with the US. As soon as China opened an ambassador relationship with the US in 1979, and China began to pursue economic reforms toward a more western type, China took off on its fast economic growth pathway under the backup of the US. For more than a century since the mid of the nineteenth century, the West left a huge impact on East Asia. East Asia admitted the superiority of the West and struggled to adopt certain aspects of the West; of course, the degree and scope of the adoption may vary country by country. And so we can say that for more than one century, it is East Asia that tried to discover and learn the West as much as possible, though there always has been negative or even antagonistic sentiments against the West.

It was in the second half of the twentieth century that Japan and Asian four tigers became exemplary competitive economies and began to be conscious of their merits or strengths. Particularly Japan became one of the most outstanding countries and caught up with the US with only a small gap then projected to vanish in a matter of time. Singapore, as a very successful new country which began with almost nothing, set up its own developmental model and exerted itself as a non-Western model. Lee Kwan Yew openly ascribed Singapore's success to Confucian tradition or culture, propping Asian values, while blaming the Western liberalistic culture for the deterioration of the West. Though Malaysia being not as successful as Singapore, Mahathir, twice-elected prime minister, also showed a similar pride for or ideology of Asian value. Since Singapore and Malaysia did not isolate from the Western technology but rather wanted it in eagerness, their stance on culture was to some degree a revival of the previous century-old conservative or selective approaches to the Western culture.^[26] Those are: self-strengthening movement of China that focused on the military modernization but ignored western politics or philosophies; 'Japanese spirit and Western technology' and 'Eastern way and Western technology', respectively as a modernization catch phrase of Japan and Joseon (or Korea). Though East Asian countries not only adopted the Western technology but also western political system, there have been certain tendencies to characterize themselves distinctive from the West in culture and philosophy. But it is also objectionable to give much credit to such tendencies in understanding East Asian Culture. For such approaches were sometimes just excuses or ideologies for national solidarity or even authoritarianism. And furthermore, some countries such as Taiwan and South Korea regarded western liberalism as the political goal or standard of modernization. Taiwan and South Korea are regarded to be very successful not only in economic development but also in political modernization in western standards. Even South Korea's democratic movement leader and also oncepresident, KIM Daejung not only criticized LEE Kwan Yew's exclusion of liberalism from Asian tradition but also argued the common goal of Confucianism and Wstern liberalism toward democracy and enlightenment.

Indeed over a long time span, many scholars, both western and eastern, made efforts to interpret Asian culture, particularly Confucian tradition as Enlightenment philosophy, not as an ideology of despotic ruling. And some western scholars went further to assert that Confucian tradition can be a source of philosophy or ethics that can serve as complementary for western system. The author can identify three kinds of strands of thoughts that try to find out commonalities between the West and East or to draw implications from better understanding of both. From literature review, the author was able to identify three strands of thoughts such as economics of developmental state model, sinology, and communitarianism.

First, economics of developmental state. Since Chalmers Johnson, inspired from the Japanese economy, proposed the idea of 'developmental state ' characterized in the active role of the state or government bureaucracy in the 1980s,^[27] economics of developmental state has become a popular sub-discipline or a view in developmental economics.^[28] Such attention has not suddenly popped up but rather has revisited the years-old contention in economic philosophy regarding the role of government in the economy. The position that emphasizes the role of government is commonly dated back to Alexander Hamilton, the treasury secretary of George Washington administration, the first president of the US, who wanted to promote US industries by protective tariffs, rejecting the idea of free trade. Friedrich List imported such an interventionist and protectionist idea into Germany to promote 'infant' industries of Germany which were less competitive than those of Britain in the early nineteenth century. Japan took Germany's protectionism to catch up with the western economies. Taiwan and South Korea, once colonies of Japan, also adopted Japan's economic model and later on, China kept the similar line of government intervention with Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan.^[29] South Korea and Taiwan are very strong cases for developmental state but other Asian economies including China share its aspects more or less. While neoliberalism defeated Keynesian interventionist paradigm in the 1980s in advanced economies, economics of developmental state has drawn attention from developing economies. And economists and policy makers who have concerns on the active role of government supported the economics of developmental state and suggested it as an alternative to Washington Consensus that is based on neoliberal policy arrangements and alleged to entail low growth and widening inequality.^[30] Though the tension between the two sides has remained, but since the global financial crisis in 2008-9 hit hard western economies, western economies leaned toward more nationalistic interests than international ones. A dramatic case was the UK's referendum and consequent decision to withdraw from the EU in 2016. Trump's win of the 2016 presidential election resulted in the US's tough stance against China. The US, complaining that Chinese statism brought about unfair trades and investments, have raised the so-called trade war between the two countries.^[31] The breach between the two has been even further broadened during the covid-19 crisis and the US took even drastic measures of cutting the technological ties between the two by prohibiting the usage of the US's semiconductor technologies by the Chinese firms.

Second, sinology has been a scholarship tradition in Europe since the sixteenth century when Jesuits made a visit to China and some Jesuits would live there for life. Jesuits brought in Europe's art pieces and astronomical instruments or knowledge into China and on the other hand, brought back Chinese classic literature including four classic textbooks and artefacts such as porcelain into Europe. They also introduced Chinese institutions such as bureaucracy and entrance exams for bureaucracy. Chinese ruling was regarded as a model of enlightened despotism by Enlightenment philosophers and intellectuals of Europe who were under despotic monarchs. French Enlightenment philosophers, Voltarire and Quenays, and so on, argued to adopt certain Chinese institutions such as entrance examinations for bureaucrats. Adam Smith's moral philosophy was affected too by sinology through Quensays. Germany'spolymath Leibniz, a well known sinophile, suggested a binary arithmetic system hinted from 'The book of Changes' and, likewise, he thought that the world would benefit from the synthesis of Chinese and European traditions. However, such an enthusiasm for China faded out after the French revolution. For since then European people were concerned with the republic system, not any more with the monarchy. And while Europe industrialized rapidly, China was regressive and indeed lacked energy of reform.^[32] Europe expanded overseas in the sense of imperialism or colonialism and eventually China fell to knees under European forces. Chinese intellectuals in shock began blaming Chinese traditions and longed to modernize China in the model of Europe. And it was also around these days when Marx Weber hypothesized that Confucianism would be a actor to explain why rational capitalism did not emerge in China.

Since the People's Republic of China was established in the mainland, overseas, Chinese Confucians studied western philosophies in the West and expanded their issues to broader concerns such as modernization. Though in the 1950s and 1960s, attitudes toward Confucianism regarding modernization were mostly negative, the 1980s saw a new wave of positive evaluation of Confucianism emerged: 'Post-confucianism'. This period is exactly when East Asian economies such as Japan and the Asian four tigers showed remarkable success. Countering Weber's hypothesis, post-Confucianists argued that Confucianism itself provides fertile ground for the ethics of modernization, not an obstacle to modernization. Berger contends that Asian modernization was helped by 'vulgar Confucianism' that he meant as “a positive attitude to the affairs of the world, a sustained lifestyle of discipline and self cultivation, respect for authority, frugality,an overriding concern for stable family life ” which are familiar in Confucian culture^[33]. Confucian reformists interpreted Confucianism to fit modern society and cleared a way for Confucian humanism. But there lie dangers too. Those of Asian value supporters Lee Kwan Yew and Mahathir used Confucianism to justify the authoritarian ruling and denigrate the West as a failure of liberalism. This triumphant interpretation of Confucianism may be an upside-down orientalism or 'reversed orientalism' that antagonizes the Western other.^[34] And on the other hand, there also remain liberal's critiques of Confucianism: hierarchical, male-centric, collective and so on. This criticism, which used to draw on the failure of traditional Asian countries in modernization, still is a source of social sentiments against Confucianism. It is the pluralistic situation per se where Confucianism is interpreted in a wide spectrum from too negative antagonism to too triumphant protagonism that there is an open possibility to have a balanced stance between tradition and modernization; between the western and the eastern.

Third, communitarianism. Though communitarian ideas are long-dated, modern-time discourses on communitarianism began as reactions to Rawles' liberal view of justice presented in his book A Theory of Justice(1971). Drawing on Aristotle and Hegel, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor and Michael Walzer disputed Rawls' liberal proposition of justice and led modern communitarian discourses. But it was the East Asian cultural models that served as actual examples of communitarian society that have achieved economic well-being comparable to the West and have settled down on political systems featuring western liberal institutions, though different from western liberalism. Communitarians criticize liberalism by asserting that western liberalism is based on atomistic individualism and so negligent on social good or relationships. On the other hand, East Asia with Confucian heritage is believed to present an alternative view that the self is defined in social relationships.^[35] Robert Putnam, Benjamin Barber, Amatai Etzioni, and David Mathews, western communitarian thinkers, suggest a reduced emphasis on lawmaking and to develop community norms of civil reciprocity and consensus building, which is congruent with Confucianism.^[36] Though communitarianism inspired by Confucianism in East Asia might be taken advantage of to justify patriarchal  or authoritarian political practises in opposition to liberal values as in the aforementioned cases of Lee Kwan Yew and Mahathir, given the democratic polity established in East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, communitarianism with Confucian features may deserve serious attention for more discourses.

5. Conclusion

The coronavirus affects the world not simply in its scale of harm to the public health and economy but also in its capability of probing into each society. Since it is hard to see anything shielded by the coronavirus, each society lies under a full scope of scrutiny. We are observing a range of social reactions or interactions: the capabilities of each government to fill the gaps between the existing measures to meet the epidemic and their actual workings, economic arrangements for the hurt, people's reaction to the measures or orders as well as the epidemic itself, people's adaptation to the changed surroundings or new opportunities, and so on. Since the scope of observations are too vast to be captured into a set of simplified conclusions and the epidemic and reactions to it are still on-going, it may be too hasty to draw even interim lessons yet. Surely, the task to understand the pandemic and its repercussions will take indefinite time afterward. Nevertheless, a human being has to take actions to move forward even with insufficient knowledge and information or with even erroneous assumptions or hypotheses. Since we are amidst the pandemic and are struggling to minimize its negative effects, any presumptive or half-baked ideas will be worth note. Though as we get over the pandemic and overhaul our system, we will reach better ideas for a more robust society, interim ideas will be also of use as initiatives. So the author just will put on the table not as conclusive but as contributive or tentative ideas or suggestions based on the above discussions.

First, the author takes the stance for certain differences between the East and the West at least in the ideal type of each and suppose that the difference between the two have led to the different results in coping with the pandemic. Risking oversimplification, the author may suggest that the East is more communitarian or collective while the West is more individualistic. And the war-like status incurred by the pandemic has given the edge to the communitarian or collective East. Since the coronavirus attacks almost the whole society, the best strategy to fend it off is for the society as a whole to make concerted and coordinated actions against it. Voluntary distancing let alone forced one and wearing masks are most effective when done altogether. The more people are willing to bear inconveniences and negative economic consequences due to distancing or masking, then it is more effective to curb infections and to eventually minimizing economic losses. The collective nature of the epidemic singled out the strength or advantage of communitarianism or collectivism which is supposed to be more commonly found in the East. People may have negative perceptions on communitarianism or collectivism since the modern society is built on liberalism or individualism. However, society is not simply a sum of individuals and to keep individuals safe, the whole society should be safe a priori. This is hardly a new finding but rather highly valued as altruism not just in the East but also in the West, which has been just overlooked but rediscovered by the pandemic.

Second, liberalism has also shed a fresh light on its role in the cope with the pandemic. We have observed authoritarian enforcements to prevail on individuals without concerns for people, even though effective in the measures in the prevention of the virus. China and some Eastern European countries showed such a bias. The lockdown in the city of Wuhan in China was exercised to its extreme, totally isolating the city from the outside. unimaginable. Anyone locked in the city is not only harshly restricted from the outside but also restricted in their moving inside the city. Someone who is sick and needs the service of hospitals outside was not simply excused. Even before the lockdown, doctors who discovered and reported the pandemic to the government were punished for spreading alleged rumours. Such oppressions on speeches surely worked against the prevention of the epidemic and resulted in such a harsh lockdown. If China respected the early warnings on the epidemic, the situation may have been much different not only in China but also in the world.

If China would be the case for an extreme version of collectivism which left huge negative scars on the world, Taiwan and South Korea may be the case for communitarianism or collectivism coming along with individuals or liberal values. Though Taiwan and South Korea also put certain measures of restriction on the behaviors and movements of the people and traced the pathways of the infected people to identify a potential pool of the people further infected by contacts, those measures were rather a compromise between liberal rights of individuals and public health and consequently helped to keep as many individuals as possible safe from the epidemic. Because of the balance, Taiwan and South Korea are able to contain the epidemic while making people enjoy their routines as much as possible, including their economy too. The approach of Taiwan and South Korea is contrasted with that of many western countries. Amidst the rapid spread of the coronavirus, the US and many European countries had to put much harsher lockdowns than Taiwan and South Korea. Though it may be true that in general the western countries may be more liberal than the eastern ones, the failure to cope with the pandemic cornered the western countries into unavoidable blocking of individual rights, which made them far less liberal than Taiwan and South Korean.

Third, communitarian values inherent in liberalism should be rediscovered. It is not acceptable to depict liberalism simply as egoism. Liberalism puts a high priority on an individual's will but only on the condition that his or her will does not harm others. As much as one appreciates his or her will, he or she should do others'. So liberalism cannot dispense with the concept of community or society. But once a liberal society was established after the collapse of the old monarchy, liberalism diverged on the views on government: social liberalism and individualistic or laissez-faire liberalism. The latter values individualistic freedom over government while the former regards government as a collective will for social cohesion and safety. Herein lie confrontations regarding disease control of coronavirus. Some societies tend to allow the government more discretionary power to draw the best control of the disease, while other countries regard government's preventive efforts as over-patronization of individuals. If the government traces the contacts of the affected people,requires mask-wearing in public, and quarantines affected people, it is unavoidable for people to yield their own freedom and privacy to a certain degree. But such preventive measures surely help the overall safety of the whole people and so do not violate liberalism. For liberalism is supposed not to harm others' "life, health, liberty, or possessions" as in Locke's quotation. So communitarian value is not opposed to liberalism but inherent in liberalism. In this sense, firm stances in preventive measures per se do not oppose liberalism. East Asian countries may rather easily draw strong consensus on preventive measures due to their traditional collective or communitarian values but some western countries such as Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and Italy took similar stances (Italy took the stance after the fatal losses in the first wave). Any society that values the original ethos of liberalism may be able to form consensus for more preventive measures. Just societies of laissez-faire liberalism tend to be reluctant to take proactive preventive measures.

Laissez-faire liberalism surely has its strength, but has not been always proper and so has been corrected by a certain degree of social intervention. Laissez-faire liberal economies in the nineteenth century that exploited workers including children were regulated by the introduction of labor laws. Monopolies that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century also were regulated by the introduction of antitrust laws. The 1930's depression was solved by the Keynesian government which is willing to exercise the expansionary budget. After the second war emerged the concept of a welfare state where misfortunes of people such as unemployment were recognized as social problems. It is from the 1980s to 2000s when Laissez-faire liberalism, then called neoliberalism, was too triumphant. only crashing into the 2008-9 financial crisis and inviting Keynesian interventions. Now as much as the coronavirus is devastating to society, social or communitarian values get redeemed. Individuals can get free from the coronavirus only when the society, not only an individual country but the whole world, does so. This is a huge threat but also an opportunity. The whole world used to have come together to devise and reach solutions. Once the coronavirus is overcome, the world will not only recover the previous status quo but move upward over a new horizon.

(*) This article is published in intelligence korea, Summer and Winter, 2020. The Korean version is at intelligencekor.kr/periodical/article.html?bno=16.

Notes

[1] BBC, March 20, 2020, “Special Report: How Korea trounced U.S. in race to test people for coronavirus”, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898.

[2] The source is Korea Webzine, April 21, 2020, “Gov't rebuts French lawyer critical of Korea's COVID-19 response”, The English translation is from this source. The webzine is an official news portal sponsored by Korea's ministry of culture, sports, and tourism; phrases in [ ] are by the author of this article, www.korea.net/NewsFocus/Society/view?articleId=184727.

[3] The source is The Guardian, April 21, 2020, “Coronavirus: who will be winners and losers in new world order? Are state responses to the virus shifting the balance of power between China and the west?” by Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor, wwww.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/coronavirus-who-will-be-winners-and-losers-in-new-world-order.

[4] The Reuter (March 19, 2020) thoroughly reviewed how South Korea's government and the relevant companies introduced testing equipments in a short period. “Special Report: How Korea trounced U.S. in race to test people for coronavirus”, www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testing-specialrep/special-report-how-korea-trounced-u-s-in-race-to-test-people-for-coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW.

[5] The website 'Worldometers' provides the world-wide coronavirus infection information which is much cited. www.worldometers.info/coronavirus.

[6] The reference about the Islamic world-view introduced in the text is: Bernard Lewis (2001), The Muslim Discovery of Europe, W.W. Norton and Company: London and New York”, p. 75.

[7] The reference about the Islamic world-view introduced in the text is: Nicola Di Cosmo, (2002), Ancient China and its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History, Cambridge University Press, p. 93. According to Di Cosmo, the notion of China as center with others at its boundary formed during the Zhou Dynasty which precedes the era of Spring and Fall.

[8] The reference about the Greek world-view introduced in the text is: Denys Hay,1968, Europe: the Emergence of an Idea, Edinburgh University Press, with the first edition in 1957”. pp. 2-3.

[9] The reference about the Judeo Christian world-view introduced in the text is: Denys Hay, op. cit., p. 14-15. According to Hay, the phrase of the Bible's Genesis, "God shall enlarge Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant." (Canaans are descendants of the Ham), was inherited to the Judeo Christian notion of tripatriate continent.

[10] In the seventh century after the death of Mahomet in 632, the Arabs expanded into the mediterranean coasts as such Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa and then in the eighth century, the Arabs confronted Constantinople, conquered Spain and proceeded into Southern France. This expansion of the Arabs stimulated a territorial and religious identity of Europe. When the Frakish king Charles Martel defeated the Arabs at Tour in 732, he called the composite army of Romano-Gallics and barbarians 'Europeans'('Europeenses'). This is based on from Hay (1968), op. cit., pp. 24-25.

[11] Hay, op. cit., p. 29.

[12] Hay, op. cit., p. 72.

[13] Wolff (1994) attributes the eighteenth century neologism 'civilization' to the Enlightenment philosophers' consciousness of Western Europe as the intellectual center and of the other area, including Eastern Europe, as the land of backwardness. Larry Wolff (1994), Inventing Eastern Europe: the Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford University Press, pp. 4, 12-13,

[14] According to Anderson (2010), who reviewed the works of Marx and Engels on ethnicity, colonialism, non-western societies, around the period of writing the Communist Manifesto (1848) or that of writing the 1853 articles on India and China, then Marx paid his attention to the power of capitalism or colonialism in destructing the backwardness of the old society. But later on particularly during 1857-59, Marx disillusioned himself from capitalism's positive effect and changed to a multilinear theory of historic development from the former single linear progress modeled after Europe that fits his previous Eurocentric stance: Kevin B. Anderson (2010), Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies, University of Chicago Press, pp. 34-36,

[15] Weber admitted, in his famous book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that he studied China as a non-specialist and the translated material for his reading was limited. Max Weber (1958), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons (in the 1930 edition) and forwarded by R. H. Tawney, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 28.

[16] Schmidt (2011) asserts that Weber was rather more optimistic in the modernization of Confucian society drawing on its rationalism than in that of the Hindu or Catholic society and Weber pursued a holistic analysis of modernization with culture being just as a factor. Volker H. Schmidt, “Max Weber in Light of East Asian Development”, Max Weber Studies, January 2011, 11(1):13, 13-34.

[17] According to Zurndorfer (2018), John K. Fairbank, who founded modern Chinese Studies in the US, influenced by his contemporary Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons who translated and introduced Max Weber into the US, associated the backwardness of China with Confucian static culture and seeded the cultural deterministic interpretation of Confucianism. Harriet T. Zurndorfer (2011), “Confusing Capitalism with Confucianism: Culture as Impediment And/Or Stimulus to Chinese Economic Development”, entry date as of 2018/05/21, at Researchgate. www.researchgate.net/publication/325270473_Confusing_Capitalism_with_Confucianism_Culture_as_Impediment_AndOr_Stimulus_to_Chinese_Economic_Development.

[18] The US granted China the MFN (most favored nations)status in 1980 which though had to be renewed annually because China was then a non-market economy and the PNTR (permanent normal trade relations) status in 2000 which did not have to be renewed annually. China became a member of the WTO in 2001 and established itself as a regular entity in the world trade. Wong asserts that the trade relations between the US and China developed amidst the cold war for a purpose of the isolation of the Soviet Union to a certain degree. Source: Dong Wang (2010), “China's Trade Relations with the United States in Perspective&rdquo, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, Volume: 39 issue: 3, page(s): 165-210.

[19] The debate between LEE Kwan Yew and KIM Daejung happened to be made in the journal, Foreign Affairs. The journal published an article based on its interview with LEE Kwan Yew, where LEE Kwan Yew asserted his view based on the sort of upside-down orientalism. The source: Fareed Zakaria (1994), “A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew”, Foreign Affairs. March/April 1994. In reaction to LEE Kwan-Yew's view, KIM Dae-jung, then a well-known leader for democratic movement of South Korea, wrote an article for the journal that criticized LEE Kwan Yew's view. The source: Kim Dae Jung (1994), “Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Asia's Anti-Democratic Values” Foreign Affairs, November/December 1994.

[20] Inglehart and Baker (2000) briefly sketch two opposing schools of modernization with Marx and Weber each as a respective protagonist. Ronald Inglehart and Wayne Baker (2000), “Modernization, Cultural Change and Persistence of Traditional Values”, 2000, American Sociological Review, 65(1):19-51, February.

[21] Kolchi Shinohara (1986) “Adjustment and Tension in Max Weber's Interpretation of Confucianism,” Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 15 : No. 15 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol15/iss15/4.

[22] Inglehart and Baker, op. cit.

[23] The author's introduction of comparative philosophy draws much on the entry 'Comparative Philosophy: Chinese and Western' of the web-based online publication, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, written by David Wong. First published Tue., Jul 31, 2001; substantive revision Tue., Aug 4, 2020. Available at: plato.stanford.edu/entries/comparphil-chiwes

[24] This brief review of Hofstede (1980) is from Berry et al. (2002), pp. 64-5. The citation is: John W. Berry, Ype H. Poortings, Marshall H. Segall, Pierre R. Dasen (2002), Cross-Cultural Psychology: Research and Applications, Cambridge University Press. The citation of Hofstede is: Geert Hofstede (1980), Culture's consequences: International differences in work related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

[25] Based on Oyserman, Coon, and Kemmelmeier (2002): Daphna Oyserman, Heather M. Coon, and Markus Kemmelmeier, (2002), “Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-Analyses”, Psychological Bulletin, 2002, Vol. 128, No. 1, 3–72.

[26] Lee Kwan Yew and Mahathir's anti-liberal and anti-western positions are well documented by Jana S. RoŠker (2016): “Modern Confucianism and the Concept of “Asian Values””, Asian Studies, IV (XX), 1 (2016), pp. 153–164.

[27] Chalmers Johnson's own account of developmental state theory is well captured in Johnson (1999). Source: Chalmers Johnson (1999), “The Developmental State: Odyssey of a Concept”, in Meredith Woo-Cumings (1999), ed., The Developmental State, Cornell University Press.

[28] Wade (2018) documents that by the 1980s there were wide interests on East Asian Development from economists and policy institutions. Source: Robert H. Wade, (2018), “Escaping the periphery: The East Asian 'mystery' solved”, WIDER Working Paper 2018/101, The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, prepared for 'Asian Transformations: An Inquiry into the Development of Nations'.

[29] Fallows (1995/1994) documents well the economic development of East Asia under the light of two contrasting economic views: each supporting laissez-faire and government intervention in his book Looking at the Sun: the Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System particularly for old debates such as Hamilton and List in Chapter 4 “The idea of Economic Success and for Asian development histories” and in Chapter 8 “Contenders”.

[30] Wade (1996) presents a brief of the declining Keynesianism and rising Washington Consensus in the 1980s and Wade (2018, op. cit.) evaluates that East Asian Development Model may be scored poorly in the view of Washington Consensus. Source: Wade, Robert. 1996. “Japan, the World Bank, and the art of paradigm maintenance: The East Asian miracle in political perspective” New Left Review, 1. 217–50.

[31] Reihan Salam, President of the Manhattan Institute, shows a very negative stance toward the trade policies of the US with China, pointing that US favors on trade terms with China have helped Chinese ruling classes get rich and powerful. Source: Reihan Salam, (2018), “ Normalizing Trade Relations With China Was a Mistake”, The Atlantic, JUNE 8, 2018, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/06/normalizing-trade-relations-with-china-was-a-mistake/562403/

[32] The documentation of Europe's sinophiles, Voltaire, Leibniz, Quesnay is mainly from David E. Mungello (2013). Mungello documents in detail the ebbs and flows of sinology in Europe, in Chapter 4. “European Acceptance of Chinese Culture and Confucianism” and Chapter 5. “European Rejection of Chinese Culture and Confucianism”. Quesnay was called “Confucius of Europe”, Mugello documents (location 2661, Amazon Kindle version). Quesnay was called “Confucius of Europe”, Mugello documents (location 2661, Amazon Kindle version). Similarly Davis (1983) documents ebbs and flows of sinology in Europe. Particularly, as for the influence of sinologits on Adam Smith, Davis documents that Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy may have been influenced by a condensed version of the translation of the Book of Mencius by French sinologist Jean Baptiste DuHalde, citing Lewis A. Maverick (1946). Citing also Maverick (ibid), Davis also documents that laissez faire economics which opposes government's protection of commerce and industry may have been made by Adam Smith, influenced by Quesnay who modeled his economics after China's agricultural economy. Sources are as follows. D. E. Mungello (2013), The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800 (Critical Issues in World and International History) 4th Edition, Kindle Edition, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Walter W. Davis (1983), “China , the Confucian Ideal, and the European Age of Enlightenment”, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1983), pp. 523-548. Lewis A. Maverick (1946), China a Model for Europe, San Antonio, Texas: Paul Anderson Company, 25.

[33] Jochim (1992) presents academic attitudes toward Confucianism in the twentieth century, including Berger (1988). Sources: Christian Jochim (1992), ” Confucius and Capitalism: Views of Confucianism in Works on Confucian Ethics and Economic Development”, Journal of Chinese Religions, (1992): 135-171.; (2) Berger, Peter (1988). "An East Asian Development Model?" in In Search of an East Asian Development Model, ed. P. Berger and M. H. Hsiao. New Brunswick, N.J.:Transaction Books, 1988, pp. 3-11.

[34] RoŠker (2016, op. cit.) argues that Asian values are an idealized social construct of the Asian Society that do not have be necessarily founded on Confucianism and tend to be be used to promote illiberal polity of some Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, and China, and so to be 'reversed orientalism'.

[35] The author's introduction of communitarianism in relation with East Asia draws much on the entry of 'communitarianism' from the web-based online publication, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, written by Daniel Bell, first published Thu Oct 4, 2001; substantive revision Fri May 15, 2020. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/communitarianism.

[36] H. George Frederickson (1999), “Confucius and the Moral Basis of Bureaucracy”, Administration & Society, Vol. 33 No. 4, January 2002, 610-628.