Governance of Biodiversity Conservation in China And Taiwan

used in large ponds, then there will be more fish and turtles than they can eat; if

hatchets and axes are permitted in the forests on the hills only in the proper seasons,

then there will be more timber than they can use. When the people have more grain,

more fish and turtles than they can eat, and more timber than they can use, then in

the support of their parents when alive and in the mourning of them when dead, they

will be able to have no regrets over anything left undone. For the people not to have

any regrets over anything left undone, whether in the support of their parents when

alive or in the mourning of them when dead is the first step along the Kingly way.’^5

Customarily Taoism is regarded as complementary to Confucianism. As de
Bary et al. note, they ‘run ... side by side like two powerful streams through
all later Chinese thought and literature, appealing simultaneously to two sides
of the Chinese character’.^6 Instead of Confucianism’s emphasis on the burden
of social responsibility, Taoism fancies the flight of the human spirit and the
transcendent beauty of nature. Two selections from Lao Tzu’s classic Tao Te
Chingcapture this orientation to the environment:

‘The highest good is like water. Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does

not strive. It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao. In dwelling, be close

to the land. In meditation, go deep in the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and

kind.^7 Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe

it can be done. The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change

it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it.’^8

Both statements imply a natural order, to which humans should submit.
Instead of dominating nature, humans need to passively accept it and be
guided by its mysteries. Taoism, then, appears to carry few of the connotations
of anthropocentric thought.
Legalism was more explicitly political than either Confucianism or Taoism.
It became the authoritarian, governing theory of the dynastic Chinese state.
As such, it emphasized the development of capacity in the state through
military power and agricultural wealth. Han Fei Tzu, a leading Legalist
theorist, said:

‘When one’s strength is great, others come to pay court; when one’s strength is

weak, one must pay court to others. Therefore the enlightened ruler devotes his

efforts toward acquiring strength.’^9

Lord Shang is reported to have remarked: ‘Indeed, having a large territory
and not cultivating it is like having no territory; having a numerous population
but not employing it is like having no population’.^10 In Legalism then, humans
were to dominate nature to make themselves secure in a powerful state.
In sum, elite orientations toward nature in the traditional Chinese order were
mostly anthropocentric. With the exception of Taoism, other species and the
ecosystem existed for the purpose of human exploitation.

20 Governance of biodiversity conservation in China and Taiwan