11 October 2025
Global Values in the New East Asian Context: A Comparative Analysis
The forthcoming volume National Values in Vietnam and the World: New Contexts, Challenges and Opportunities (2025, edited by Nguyen Tai Dong and Christoph Stückelberger, explores Vietnam's national values through a lens of globalisation, drawing from a 2023 international conference in Hanoi. It emphasises blending traditional elements like Confucianism, Buddhism, and folk beliefs with socialist principles to address modern challenges such as technological polarisation and cultural shifts.
This analysis compares these Vietnamese values with China's Core Socialist Values, a set of 12 principles formalised in 2012 during the 18th CPC National Congress, which respond to social changes under socialism with Chinese characteristics. The comparison highlights similarities rooted in shared East Asian philosophical traditions and socialist ideologies, alongside differences shaped by historical, political, and cultural contexts.
Key Vietnamese National Values (as extracted from the Volume)
Drawing from the book's themes of historical continuity and adaptation:
- Benevolence and Virtues: Emphasis on compassion, righteousness, and ethical living, influenced by Confucianism (e.g., harmony in relationships) and Buddhism (e.g., compassion toward all beings).
- Community Solidarity and Folk Beliefs: Worship of nature, ancestors, and fertility, promoting collective well-being in a multi-ethnic society.
- Socialist-Oriented Market Economy: Blending Doi-Moi reforms with rule-of-law ethics, focusing on sustainable development, ethnic minority rights, and global integration.
- Adaptability to Globalisation: Values evolve to counter polarisation, with education as a tool for cultural preservation amid economic transitions.
These values are presented as dynamic, responding to Vietnam's post-colonial history and diverse ethnic fabric.
Key Chinese Core Socialist Values
Formalised as a response to social crises, these 12 values are grouped into national, social, and individual levels:
- National Level: Prosperity (fùqiáng), Democracy (mínzhǔ), Civility (wénmíng), Harmony (héxié).
- Social Level: Freedom (zìyóu), Equality (píngděng), Justice (gōngzhèng), Rule of Law (fǎzhì).
- Individual Level: Patriotism (àiguó), Dedication (jìngyè), Integrity (chéngxìn), Friendship (yǒushàn).
Influenced by Confucianism (e.g., harmony, integrity), they integrate with Xi Jinping Thought, promoting patriotism and tech-driven socialism.
Similarities
Both systems share East Asian roots and socialist frameworks:
- Confucian and Buddhist Influences: Harmony (héxié in China; solidarity in Vietnam) and benevolence/compassion promote social cohesion. Both emphasise ethical governance and community over individualism.
- Socialist Adaptation: Prosperity and equality align with market-oriented socialism—Vietnam's Doi-Moi mirrors China's Reform and Opening, focusing on the rule of law and sustainable development.
- Global Response: Both address polarisation through values education, blending tradition with modernity to strengthen national identity amid globalisation.
- Education Role: Values are integrated into curricula to foster ethical leadership, with Vietnam's multi-year dialogue echoing China's value promotion campaigns.
Differences
Historical and political contexts create divergences:
- Scope and Formalisation: China's values are a rigid, state-endorsed set of 12, emphasising patriotism and centralised harmony under CPC leadership. Vietnamese culture is more fluid, incorporating folk beliefs and multi-ethnic diversity, with less emphasis on overt patriotism and more on cultural adaptation.
- Philosophical Emphasis: Vietnam highlights benevolence tied to virtues and nature worship, reflecting indigenous animism alongside imported ideologies. China prioritises integrity, dedication, and the rule of law, aligning with Confucian hierarchy and modern legalism.
- Globalisation Approach: The volume portrays Vietnam's values as dialogic and inclusive for ethnic minorities and environmental ethics. China's focus on freedom and justice supports "harmonious world" diplomacy but is more inward-looking, tied to the China Dream.
- In Education and Ethics: Vietnam uses values for intercultural curricula amid transitions; China embeds them in moral education to counter Western influences, with stronger tech integration.
Overall Analysis of the compared values between Chinese vs. Vietnamese in modern times
In ethics, both promote collective good over individualism, but Vietnam's approach is more pluralistic, accommodating diverse influences, while China's is unified under state ideology.
For education, the volume's focus on adaptive curricula could learn from China's structured value dissemination, potentially enhancing Vietnam's global competitiveness.
In globalisation, similarities in socialist resilience offer mutual lessons, but differences highlight Vietnam's emphasis on cultural preservation vs. China's on assertive patriotism.
This comparison underscores how shared Asian roots evolve distinctly under different cultural contexts and sub-cultural contexts, as in the case of Chinese vs. Vietnamese concepts of national values.
Other Asian contexts which adopt another political regime, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, will have different concepts of national values as my research will unveil in my next posts.
(Sources: various sources combined with AI assistance)
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