Confucian Ethics of Xin (Trust) and Practical Idealism (Part II): Reforming World Politics through a Transnational Public Inquiry into COVID-19 Origins and Global Biosecurity

Jing-Bao Nie^*

• Bioethics Centre, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Confucius' Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn) possess critical and constructive moral power for making a better world today. The first of the two contributions to the Frontiers trust project has expounded how Confucian ethics of xin (trust, trustworthiness) and practical idealism theoretically envision a moral world order beyond dominant Western realist international relations. This second article explicates how Confucian ethics can practically reform the harsh realities of international politics. Among many other things, the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the urgent necessity of establishing far more robust transglobal biogovernance in response to increasing human-made and natural biothreats, which demands adequate trust among people across nations and cultures. Unfortunately, an "information war" erupted on a global scale regarding the origins of COVID-19 at the height of the pandemic, and the heated controversy continues. Through the Confucian ethical lenses, the dispute reflects a comprehensive crisis of transnational trust, driven by the increasing dominance of power politics and the advance of de facto Cold War II between China and the US, each with its allies worldwide. To move forward constructively, Confucian ethics mandates, morally and socio-politically, an unprecedented Janus-like international public inquiry into tracing COVID-19 origins and enhancing global biosecurity and health security, which constitute a major human rights concern of our times. Classical Confucianism, along with other moral traditions worldwide that share the spirit of practical idealism, can reshape global power politics by upholding basic human values and improving intercultural and international trust.