In the 2030s of the 21st century, as Putin and Xi Jinping successively step down, nuclear intimidation will pass, the Chinese Communist Party will fall from power, and Confucian culture will be revived. China and the United States will become peaceful brothers, and a dawn of universal peace will appear in the world. Eastern Confucian culture and Buddhist culture are cultures of peace and will lead the future course of world civilization.

Confucius taught, “What you do not wish for yourself, do not impose on others,” and Mozi’s principle of “universal love and non-aggression” is even more suited to the cultural needs of the new century.

Catholicism and Christianity are expansionist cultures and cannot lead the world into peace. Historically, centuries of wars never ceased: the Crusades of the 12th–13th centuries lasted nearly 200 years; the Hundred Years’ War between England and France in the 14th–15th centuries; the Thirty Years’ War in Europe in the 17th century; and the Seven Years’ War between Britain and France in the 18th century. In the 19th century, even within Christian America, the North and South went to war. From 1861 to 1865, three years of brutal fighting ended in total destruction—killing, looting, and burning—leaving more dead than the total number of Americans killed in World War I and World War II combined. In World War I, the United States lost about 100,000 people; in World War II, about 400,000; yet in three years of civil war, 650,000 died, ending with the assassination of President Lincoln. The two world wars of the 20th century also largely took place within Catholic and Christian civilizations. In 2000, the United States again launched the mistaken war of invading Iraq. Today, the confrontation between the United States and Russia in the Ukraine war is likewise occurring under the same God—between Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy.

China, for over two thousand years, experienced no religious wars. Dynastic changes all honored Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, which coexisted peacefully. The East saw no major wars and remained relatively moderate. Warfare occurred mainly in the West, and under the same God. In the 16th century, when Matteo Ricci brought Catholicism to Ming China, the emperor accepted the coexistence of God and Confucius in the same hall.

In the 18th century, Confucius was introduced to Europe. The French thinker Voltaire said, “The East has produced a sage; in morality, Europeans should be his disciples.”

Arnold Toynbee also said, “If the future world is to be unified, Confucius must come forward; Christianity cannot accomplish this task.” Toynbee further stated, “The 19th century was the century of the British, the 20th century was the century of the Americans, and the 21st century will be the century of the Chinese.”

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln said, “Confucius also belongs to America.”

At the U.S. Supreme Court building completed in 1935, three stone statues are carved on the east façade: Moses, Confucius, and Solon.

The American thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Confucius is the Washington of philosophy.”

In 1987, when U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz visited China, he made a special trip to Shandong to pay homage to Confucius, saying, “The teachings of Confucius are forever a source of wisdom for humanity.”

In 2012, Hu Jintao once erected a nine-ton statue of Confucius in Tiananmen Square, but after three months it was ordered removed by the “supreme elder” Jiang Zemin. Hu Jintao was the first leader to raise the banner of Confucius.

Five years later, after Xi Jinping steps down, China will inevitably transition toward leaders who revere Confucius. They will guide the world into an Eastern cultural current, and the world will accept Confucius, laying the foundation for future peace and unity.

Confucius’s principle of “What you do not wish for yourself, do not impose on others,” combined with Mozi’s “universal love and non-aggression,” constitutes universal love. Compared with Confucius’s graded love based on closeness, this has even greater universal value. Confucius plus Mozi, with 2,500 years of moral authority and virtue, carry even greater appeal. In 2016, China launched the Mozi satellite. Mozi left 53 extant writings; beyond philosophy, they also contain scientific and technological value.

The United States should transform the “Confucius Institutes” abandoned by Xi Jinping into “New Confucius Institutes” or “Confucius Societies.” These new Confucius Institutes or Confucius Societies should spread across the world, including China.

Confucius will lead world peace. The 21st century belongs to Confucius as a century of peace. If the United States seizes Confucius early and places him in American hands—holding Christ in the left hand and Confucius in the right, with Confucius and Christ as brothers—then the 21st century will still belong to America, and the world will continue to be led by the United States.