Introduction

The idea of global citizenship is not a new invention but can be traced back to ancient Greek and Chinese philosophy. When the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope was asked where he was from, he answered, “I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolitēs).”Footnote 1 In ancient China, Laozi uses “heaven and earth (tian di, Ch. 5Footnote 2)” or “beneath the heaven (tian xia, Ch. 2)” to symbolise the world, and in this way groups us all together (including non-humans) as one. Zhuangzi makes this idea even more concrete when he speaks of liu he (2.10Footnote 3) or liu ji (6.5) to refer to the world bound by six points, the heaven, the earth and the four directions, North, South, East and West. Both Diogenes and Daoists are happy to look beyond national borders.

The reason that this idea has become popular again relates to globalisation. Due to increasing economic interdependence and global mobility, there is a growing realisation that certain issues facing our world require global awareness and effort; for example, tensions caused by geopolitical conflict (e.g. the Russian invasion of Ukraine) and challenges related to sustainable development (e.g. air and water pollution). Efforts to address these pressing global issues have taken the form of “global targets” such as the Sustainable Development Goals initiated by the United Nations, and the Paris Agreement aimed at limiting global warming in the global context (see Hoffmann, 2022; UNESCO, 2014; United Nations, 2015). Global responsibilities associated with sustainable development well exemplify the need for a global community with a shared future and a common global identity beyond that based on national citizenship.

Underlying these efforts is a concept of “global citizenship” (GC) that looks beyond state membership to promote global awareness and participation, and to extend interests and responsibilities to a broader global community (Schattle, 2021). Yet the current research amply demonstrates that it is difficult to give “global citizenship” an agreed-upon definition (Peterson & Warwick, 2015). Indeed, it has proved to be an extremely multifaceted topic which can be viewed from a broad range of perspectives, including political, social and economic, moral, cultural, environmental and even spiritual perspectives (Haigh, 2014; Oxley & Morris, 2013). To promote the concept of GC, “global citizenship education” (GCE) aimed at cultivating global citizens challenges traditional civics and citizenship education grounded in the context of a geopolitical nation. However, critics argue that culturally and ideologically, GCE is dominated by Western paradigms (Dreamson, 2018; Tan, 2021a & 2022; Wu et al., 2018; see more details in the following section). Thus, to ensure values, knowledge and pedagogy are inclusive, just and sustainable, non-Western traditions should also be consulted. As Andreotti (2011) claims, “the complexity of global citizenship education cannot be captured by any single approach” (p. 381).

This paper seeks to contribute to reducing this research gap by analysing GC and GCE from the Chinese philosophical perspective of Daoism. After a brief introduction to GC and GCE, the paper turns to a philosophical exegesis of the early Daoist classic works the Dao De Jing and especially the Zhuangzi, paying particular attention to the concepts of hua (change), zi ran (spontaneity) and wu wei (non-coerciveness). These will then be utilised to develop an account of ‘spontaneous’ GC. By bringing a Daoist perspective to GC, however, my intention is not to play down or replace other philosophies or traditions, but to approach the same phenomena through a different lens and (hopefully) to expand the scope of scholarly perspective. Although GC and GCE will undoubtedly remain contested and problematic, it is hoped that these contributions will reveal unremarked problems and uncover new solutions.

Global citizenship (GC) and global citizenship education (GCE)

This section outlines a general account of GC and the importance of listening to distant voices when addressing GCE—like that of Zhuangzi. GC is a distinct idea within and beyond the subject of citizenship (Banks, 2008; Schattle, 2021). Diogenes’ idea that someone can be a citizen of the world, although intrinsically appealing, is not without its problems. On the one hand, “citizenship” is a political concept that refers to a membership legally guaranteed by a nation-state. On the other hand, GC has no global state to stand behind it; as such, a strict GC is impossible (Bates, 2012; Tarozzi & Torres, 2016, p. 14). However, GC goes beyond legal status and into the realm of ethics and education (Tarozzi & Torres, 2016, p. 14). GC, as it is promoted by UNESCO (2015) is largely grounded in an ethical, rather than legal or political basis:

Global citizenship refers to a sense of belonging to a broader community and common humanity. It emphasises political, economic, social and cultural interdependency and interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global. (p.14)

The emphasis is on our collective responsibility as humans in a global community rather than one’s legal membership in a nation-state. This global conception of citizenship goes well beyond traditional citizenship focused on civil, political and social rights (Marshall, 1964, cited in Banks, 2008). It incorporates multiple aspects, such as global responsibilities, human rights, social justice, civic participation, cultural sensitivity, spiritual wellbeing and sustainability within and beyond human society (Bosio & Schattle, 2021; Oxley & Morris, 2013; Veugelers & Bosio, 2021).

Moreover and nevertheless, there is still much to be gained by addressing global concerns via existing institutions, be they governmental or non-governmental. Dower (2000) posits that individuals who self-identify as global citizens are morally committed to effecting global change. To achieve this, they often work within existing institutions (e.g. NGOs) to create opportunities to meet global responsibilities, such as protecting human rights, promoting peace, reducing poverty, and caring for the environment (Dower, 2000). This approach has been found to be an effective means of addressing these responsibilities. For example, the established local, regional and global institutions (e.g. NGOs, UNESCO) play an important role in founding a global democratic space to address transnational, political, economic, ethical and environmental affairs. We can understand this space as a kind of informal or even figurative global forum in which the issues of the “global state” can be addressed. This global public space can be used to uphold global democracy, fight against jingoistic nationalism, question authority, hold the powerful to account and critically include distant voices (Giroux & Bosio, 2021). Above all, this democratic space can be used by local and global activists to influence policymaking through active civic participation. For example, if a particular government was unwilling to sign on to the Paris Climate Agreement, local activists might put pressure on this government through public protest and the like. Such an example shows both the role of individual citizens (in pressuring the government) and the government itself (in committing to the Agreement). This demonstrates how a workable space can be found to accommodate the otherwise-paradoxical notion of a citizen of a non-existent state. Even in the absence of a formal global state, people can still address their global responsibilities via the existing governmental and non-governmental bodies.

An important way of promoting GC is GCE. This has been actively implemented by UNESCO, global NGOs as well as national and local governments. GCE, according to UNESCO (2015), “aims to be transformative, building the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that learners need to be able to contribute to a more inclusive, just and peaceful world” (p. 15). It overlaps with education on human rights, peace building, sustainable development and international understanding. However, the knowledge and values transmitted by GCE are often slanted towards a Western neoliberal framework due to the imbalanced global powers among the (so-called) developed and developing, the North and South (Andreotti & Souza, 2008; Andreotti, 2011 & 2015; Dreamson, 2018; Kim, 2019). This may even discourage people in non-Western societies from paying attention to non-Western cultures. For instance, Kim (2019) documents the case of social study textbooks and curricula in South Korea that privilege North American and Western culture such that, “the histories of indigenous cultures in non-Western places, and/or small countries in South America, Southwest Asia, and Africa were often excluded or devalued” (p. 184).

Moreover, empirical research has shown that the dominant neoliberal discourse of GCE is problematic and infeasible in some local contexts (e.g. Rubin, 2016; Skårås et al., 2020; Yemini, 2018). Underrepresented traditions beyond the dominant Western perspective hold potential alternatives and should certainly be consulted and included in any account of GCE (Andreotti & Souza, 2008; Andreotti, 2011; Pashby, 2011, 2015). A lot of current research strives to reduce this research gap; for instance, in ethical GCE (e.g. Bosio & Schattle, 2021), decolonialisation (e.g. Andreotti, 2011, 2015; Wang & Hoffman, 2016; cf. Connell, 2018), critical discussion of neoliberalism (e.g. Pais & Costa, 2020; Yemini, 2021), cultural diversity and multiculturalism (e.g. Banks, 2008, 2015; Dreamson, 2018; Pashby, 2015; Tarozzi & Torres, 2016; Tarozzi, 2017) and so on.

In particular, there are a growing number of works that have successfully applied Chinese ideas to GC and GCE. For example, the Chinese worldview of tian xia is applied to GCE in terms of cosmopolitanism, the common good and the public sphere by Ivanhoe (2014) and Shen (2021). Tan (2021b) establishes a Confucian way of human interdependence and brotherhood regarding GCE and education for sustainable development. She also draws on Daoist concepts to suggest a Daoist approach to social justice education (Tan, 2021a) and GCE (Tan, 2023). In Barton and Ho (2022), Confucian concepts are also applied to social and civic curricula to promote justice and harmony. In Wang (2013), both Confucian self-cultivation and Daoist personhood are discussed for their implications for peace education. Such research easily demonstrates how Asian philosophy can import fresh and relevant ideas into Western educational paradigms (Hayhoe, 2015). Indeed, the Oriental-Occidental engagement throughout human history, as documented by Smith (2008), indicates how different cultures can have respective limits and merits, and, furthermore, how people with different civilisational experiences can bring these unique backgrounds to the discussion table. This present essay hopes to contribute to this end, as mentioned in the introduction. In the following section, I will look to the Daoist concepts of hua (change), zi ran (spontaneity) and wu wei (non-coerciveness) to suggest a spontaneous approach to GC development.

Zhuangzi’s concept of hua

This section will focus on the concept of hua in Daoism, particularly in the Zhuangzi, to work towards an account of spontaneous and non-coercive action that will then subsequently be applied to GC and GCE in the following section.

The Chinese character hua

Hua essentially refers to different types of change, including the physical transformation from solid to liquid, revolution and evolution. The Chinese character hua 化, even in simplified form, still maintains its basic shape and structure from the ancient oracle bone scrip 

figure a

(see Shizuka, 2010, p. 27). It comprises two people, one on the left standing upright, the other on the right upside down. Together, hua stands for two similar but opposite people, two periods of a changing continuity in a circle, or the interplay of the opposites in one. According to the Japanese sinologist Shirakawa Shizuka (2010, p. 27) the person standing up symbolises life, while the one upside down represents a dead person.

One can, indeed, see the cyclic nature of change in Daoism quite clearly in their understanding of life and death. In Chapter 50 of the Dao De Jing, beings “come out” with life and “return in” with death (Ch. 50). In the words of Ames and Hall (2003), they transform “in the circle of life and death”, like in the circle of yin and yang, and never stop changing (cf. Sterckx, 2020). In the Zhuangzi, human life is the accumulation of qi; we live when qi comes together; we die when qi scatters (22.2). For the proponents of the Daoist worldview, life and death are equal states of the same essence qi, or the same qi at different periods of the constant evolution, which is as reasonable as the changes of the four seasons. Thus, on the death of his wife, Zhuangzi sang instead of mourning as he recognised his wife’s natural transformation, from formless qi to human life and back to formless qi through death, her qi never really disappears from the world (one may even say that death is a “return home”). In this way, the Daoist understanding and use of hua, change and transformation, begins to emerge.

Zhuangzi’s hua: the transformation of things

Change or transformation, hua, is at the heart of Daoist ontology—all things change and are changing. Thus, in Chapter 42 of the Dao De Jing, dao is said to be the source of one, this one leads to two or difference, two develops into three or diversity, and three gives rise to the myriad things; the myriad things carry yin energy and embrace yang energy, and the interaction of these energies maintains the world in harmony. According to Daoism, everything in the world is an outcome of transformation and a precursor to further change, accommodating the yin and yang—the differences and opposites—to maintain harmony.

Turning to the Zhuangzi, the repeated use of hua in the inner chapters—over 20 times—indicates the significance of transformation in Zhuangzi’s philosophy. A more concrete understanding of Zhuangzi’s philosophy of change can be extracted from two classic stories: the story of fish Kun’s transformation into bird Peng and the story of Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream.

In the Northern Ocean there is a fish, by the name of Kun, which is many thousand liFootnote 4 in size. This fish metamorphosesFootnote 5 [hua] into a bird by the name of Peng, whose back is many thousand li in breadth. When the bird rouses itself and flies, its wings obscure the sky like clouds. When this bird moves itself in the sea, it is preparing to start for the Southern Ocean, the Celestial Lake. (Ch. 1, Fung trans. p. 25)

Once upon a time, Chuang Chou [Zhuangzi] dreamed that he was a butterfly, a butterfly flying about, enjoying itself. It did not know that it was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he awoke and veritably was Chuang Chou again. We do not know whether it was Chuang Chou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or whether it was the butterfly dreaming that it was Chuang Chou. Between Chuang Chou and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is a case of what is called the transformation of things [wu hua]. (Ch. 2, Fung trans. p. 54)

These passages are good examples of Zhuangzi’s use of metaphors and symbols to depict abstract concepts of dao. Just as in the Dao De Jing water functions as a symbol for nameless dao (e.g. Ch. 42), ocean, river and lake are symbols for indescribable dao in the Zhuangzi. For instance, Zhuangzi says humans should forget each other within dao just as fish forget each other in the rivers and lakes (6.10). In the passages above both the ocean and the dream are symbols of daoFootnote 6 and within dao all things are not absolutely distinct but transformable (Fu, 2012b, p. 4). The fish is able to become a bird in the ocean of dao. A joyful butterfly in the startled Zhuangzi and Zhuangzi in a joyful butterfly are transformable in the dream of dao. As Fung (1989, p. 54) remarks, Zhuangzi uses such stories to show that the differences among things are not absolute but transformable. This illustrates Zhuangzi’s key concept of change hua—as all things are in a state of constant flux, we should align ourselves with this continuous transformation in accordance with our own nature and social evolution (Guo Xiang,Footnote 7 in Fung, 1989; Sterckx, 2020).

Hua as spontaneity and non-coerciveness

Although change thoroughly permeates the world in Daoism, not all change is in accordance with the natural flow. The sort of change that Zhuangzi advocates is spontaneous change, or non-coercive change. These crucial topics are the focus of the present subsection, beginning with spontaneous change, zi ran. The word zi ran consists of two Chinese characters, zi meaning self and ran referring to being in a certain state or condition. It has been rendered as “self so” (Fu, 2012a; Hansen, 2017) or “being spontaneous” (Ames & Hall, 2003; Fung, 1989). In the Dao De Jing, dao emulates zi ran (Ch. 25). Thus, all things engendered by dao follow the principle of spontaneity. The way the big bird Peng flies depends on its own (big) nature and environment (see Fung’s and Guo’s commentary in Fung, 1989); if it was the opposite (small), it would fly as easily as the cicada.

Zhuangzi also uses bu de yi (4.5, 4.8, 4.9, 6.3Footnote 8) to refer to what is supposed to take place spontaneously. In Zhuangzi’s words, all things should follow the natural course without any artificial force; changes take place when the conditions are ready. As such, all things adjust their manifestations according to their external circumstances while preserving the inner harmony of dao (4.10). For example, as it says in the Zhuangzi (4.10), when the son of the Prince of Wei acts like a child, his tutor should adapt to this external condition, which depends on the student’s particular characteristics, and act as if he too is a child. With this adaptation and concession, the tutor teaches and transforms (jiao hua) the student’s performance naturally, in a way that respects the student’s natural disposition. This approach might be comparable to the UNESCO (2018, 2019) initiative of “take it local”—to identify the locally rooted concepts that echo core ideas of GCE and make full use of the local materials. Indeed, Zhuangzi’s model of adaptation not only suggests the utilisation of individual and local materials, but also that teachers adjust their approach to ensure the local students’ understanding.

Moreover, Zhuangzi urges that the outward adaptation should neither interrupt the inner dao, nor the inner dao should manifest itself too much to the outer circumstance (4.10). Regarding the former, the tutor (always mindful of insulting his social superior, the prince) will not compromise his pedagogical principles by yielding to the unruly boy; regarding the latter, the tutor aims to change the student naturally and unobtrusively, without any vanity or desire for reputation. After all, dao is no longer dao after being over-revealed (2.10). This might be applied this to the spontaneous development of GC. When the impetus to apply GC is too overwhelming, it may backfire. This will be picked up by examining local case studies in the next section.

Being spontaneous can be understood in contrast to artificial and coercive actions. This notion can be gleaned from the story of Hun dun (“Primitivity”) in the Zhuangzi:

The ruler of the Southern Sea is called Change [Shu]; the ruler of the Northern Sea is called Uncertainty [Hu], and the ruler of the Centre is called Primitivity [Hun dun]. Change and Uncertainty often met on the territory of Primitivity, and being always well treated by him, determined to repay his kindness. They said: “All men have seven holes for seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing. Primitivity alone has none of these. Let us try to bore some for him.” So every day they bored one hole; but on the seventh day Primitivity died. (Ch. 7, Fung trans. p. 113)

The story of Hun dun’s death displays the danger of not following the hua principle. On the one hand, Hun dun died because of the outer interruption made by Shu and Hu; these are coercive changes for Hun dun. On the other hand, Hun dun may have revealed too much of its virtue which unwittingly encouraged Shu and Hu to make seven holes on its body in gratitude, thus bringing about its downfall. Accordingly, Zhuangzi discourages the “overperformance” by Hun dun and the “overresponse” of Shu and Hu that it occasioned. This story highlights the importance of maintaining a spontaneous state and avoiding the unwanted repercussions that arise from artificially increasing what dao has given us in life (5.8).

However, being spontaneous and non-coercive can be easily misunderstood as doing nothing. Thus, another example of coercive action is overtraining a slow horse beyond its ability or undertraining a fast horse below its ability (Guo, cited in Fung, 1989). As such, spontaneity and non-coerciveness is not simply a refusal to train the horse. The appropriate course of action is to act when the circumstances are ready and avoid acting when they are not. If a horse will not be receptive to training then not training is spontaneous action, if a horse is apt to benefit from training, then not training would be coercive action. When the situation changes (e.g. the natures of the horses), the actions also change (e.g. training strategies). What counts as “action” or “inaction” depends on the different circumstances. In this way, Shu and Hu, as discussed above, must have made the mistake of showing thankfulness to Hun dun’s kindness by changing it without regarding its particular nature. Given Hun dun’s self-sufficiency and independence, a proper way of being grateful would be to do nothing to its body.

In the following section, I will apply the idea of non-coercive action to GC and GCE. In particular, this paradigm will be applied to issues concerning when GC should be encouraged and when it should not. The basic idea is relatively easy to see in the abstract: if an individual or society is ready for a certain change, but the government or school fails to facilitate it, this would be coercive non-action (like undertraining a fast horse); conversely, trying to force a change when the circumstance is not ripe is also coercive (like overtraining a slow horse). As Laozi says, governing a big country is like cooking a little fish (Ch. 60). If you flip it over too much, you damage the fish, but if you don’t flip it at the right time, you will also ruin your meal.

The spontaneous development of GC

This section is divided into two subsections. First, I try to show the value of applying Zhuangzi’s concept of spontaneity at the local level in increasingly diverse contexts; I present a number of case studies that illustrate the utility of Zhuangzi’s dynamic approach. The second subsection makes some suggestions about non-coercive ways to promote GC.

Diversity and spontaneity

Global citizenship, although a global concept, is ultimately applied at a local level, subject to particular local circumstances. In line with Zhuangzi’s idea of spontaneous change, when fostering people’s feeling of belonging to a global community in a local context (e.g. a region, a nation, a city or a school), one needs to consider the particular local circumstances these people are situated in. In what follows, I try to highlight the importance of this, seemingly obvious, principle by looking at three examples. These examples do not merely show the difficulty of accommodating “the local” but highlight how much diversity still persists even at the individual level. Accordingly, one ought to be spontaneous at all times—or so I argue.

Firstly, consider the variety of ways different students identify with the global community within an international school in Japan. Spero (2022) reports how some students feel a strong sense of belonging to the global community due to their international experiences, social interactions or simply because they speak English. By contrast, some only weakly identify themselves as global citizens, while others are only interested in the instrumental function of global experiences to make them more competitive in the global job market. Spero’s research reveals a divergent range of ways individuals identify themselves as “being global” in terms of different personal identification, imagination, aspirations or desires, actions and feelings of belonging to a broader community. When thinking about the construction of GC identity, one should reflect carefully on how these particular conditions impact the individuals in question; for the formation of GC is strongly ground on individuals’ local life experience and to spontaneously promote it requires careful reflection on the students’ various circumstances—like the Prince of Wei’s son or the fast or slow horse.

A second example comes from Yemini’s (2018) research on the mismatch between the global and the local in a primary school in London. In this “super-diverse” school, 85% of the pupils are other-than-English speakers and about 40% are Muslim. She finds that GCE was forced on all students along with local British values. Even parents consider GCE as a complementary tool to assimilate the children to British society. However, as Yemini notes, such a wooden approach fails to adapt to the diversity of the students:

…teachers seem to promote ‘exposure to the outside world’ for their students, limiting their experiences to the desired type of exposure, while completely undermining the experiences, practices, and beliefs that students bring from home (based on the traditions of different countries). Thus, the school promotes GCE as a universal value transmitted by teachers to students—but not vice versa. (p.282)

The approach being criticised here does make an effort to value cultural diversity, but it does so in a shallow way. This is very different from a spontaneous response. Daoist pedagogy is a spontaneous transformation that depends on each student’s particular life experience. Recall the tutor and the son of the Prince of Wei once again: just as the tutor adapts to the prince when the latter acts like a child, so schoolteachers should adapt themselves to their students. As Bosio and Schattle (2021) put it in regard to ethical GCE, the knowledge of GC “is not static; rather, fluid and fostered through lively interactions among students and teachers. The term ethical focuses attention on all aspects of the learning/teaching environment as well as all aspects of the student experience”. In light of Yemini’s research, it becomes apparent how the British school failed to respond to its students’ cultural diversity. Although students were able to bring international and global elements into classrooms, these elements were actually marginalised and “British-ized” because the school was operating within a British paradigm of “global”. Ironically, then, it was the very attempt to globalise that led to this forced cultural assimilation to the local British values. Students are made more British and less global because of a failure to appreciate non-British values brought in by students in a meaningful way. This is assimilation, not spontaneous change. It is also a principal concern of scholars in favour of decolonising GCE as mentioned in the previous section on GC and GCE.

The third and final example looks to the range of responses of various cultural groups in modern Israeli society. Goren et al. (2019) explore the differing responses of three social groups. Firstly, there are marginalised Palestinian Arabs who are willing to adopt GC as a way to feel more belonging to a global community; secondly, there are the already well-resourced secular Jewish people who regard GCE as an opportunity to positively promote their global future and; thirdly, there are the religious Jews whose concerns about assimilation (or secularisation) and the possible threats towards their national identity and religious values push them to reject GCE. In light of Daoism, not offering knowledge, values and skills of GC to the Palestinian Arabs and the secular Jews goes against spontaneous change and is coercive. On the other hand, overpromoting GCE to religious Jews—whether by means of “overperformance” of GCE or “overresponse” to their concerns—is coercive and may backfire and have a negative impact. For instance, it may lead to jingoistic nationalism or impede the ability of individuals (or local groups) to properly integrate their new identity; an “outside” force compromises the “inner” nature (see Buchanan et al., 2018).

What the preceding three examples show is that different people—whether individuals, schools or cultural groups—have different understandings, cultural contexts and concerns when it comes to GC. The first example illustrates the varieties of ways that students in Japan identify as global citizens; the second illustrates the need to carefully factor in cultural background in a British primary school; and the third demonstrates the competing concerns of different parties in Israel. Identity construction, to speak generally, is not instant and static, but multifaceted, evolving and dynamic (Eisenstad, 2015; Hermans & Bartels, 2020; Bagnall, 2015). One cannot hope to apply universal principles of GC without considering the uniqueness of individual, cultural and local contexts. And one way to accommodate this is to act spontaneously. Zhuangzi’s philosophy gives meaningful expression to what is at stake here and how we can address it.

The non-coercive action subject to the local contexts

After addressing the significance and relevance of Zhuangzi’s spontaneity to GCE in an increasingly diverse world, this subsection will focus on the complementary idea of non-coerciveness. It begins by highlighting some cases where inaction is the appropriate course of action (that is, cases where direct intervention might lead to coercive action); and then turns to the inverse case, where an absence of action proves to be a coercive action.

As mentioned before, governing a big country is like cooking a little fish: if you don’t want to damage the fish, don’t repeatedly flip it. Sometimes the best way to “act” is to stop and withdraw, and not participate (Pais & Costa, 2020; Žižek et al., 2006). Coercive education for GC will not make an individual naturally feel belonging to the global community when the global world has little effect on his or her life. Research by Skårås and colleagues (2020) shows the unreadiness to develop GC in South Sudan. They find that some knowledge and values promoted by UNESCO are not fit to the local situation. For example, critical thinking and civic participation are not applicable to the collective-oriented local values, nor is it realistic to strive for global awareness and competency when people in South Sudan are still burdened by civil war. Even though the outside global world tries to include South Sudan, nevertheless Western and even African categories are not substantially connected to the local people’s everyday life. Due to the complex historical, political and educational circumstances in South Sudan, it is infeasible to cultivate a sense of GC. The situation in Sudan echoes Rubin’s (2016) research on citizenship education in post-conflict Guatemala.

To enhance the effectiveness of GCE, it is crucial to consider the local conditions—so much is apparent. But in the context of South Sudan and post-conflict Guatemala, there is something to be said for the value of non-action. Though I do not wish to imply that all attempts to implement GCE are harmful in these cases, it should be clear that there can be virtue in inaction. One might recall the cautionary tale of Hun dun or the overtrained slow horse in this context. In these cases, inaction is an advisable form of “action”. Or to put it less paradoxically: we should strive to avoid coercive actions.

On the other hand, non-coerciveness can refer to action; it may be coercive to fail to act. Again, as Laozi says, if you fail to flip over the fish when one side of it is well cooked, you will also ruin your meal. To give a parallel example to the ones above, when cultural and socio-economic circumstances are ready, the absence of appropriate support will also disrupt the spontaneous development of GC, and this could be construed as a case of coercive inaction. For instance, it is well-known that China is economically connected to the global community after Deng Xiaoping opened the Chinese market and started economic reform in 1978. Meanwhile, Deng’s educational reform, entitled “Education must face modernisation, the world and the future”, still holds sway today. These reforms led to an influx of global mobility, with more foreigners coming into China, and more Chinese going overseas often to study or resettle. Moreover, as one of the Confucian heritage societies in East Asia (Hayhoe, 2015; Tu, 2000) China and its people have been deeply influenced by Confucius’ tian xia worldview (Ivanhoe, 2014; Shen, 2021; Tan, 2021b, pp. 4–9). This cultural background easily lends itself to a transnational outlook. To be specific, in Confucianism, good personal cultivation is said to lead to a harmonious family, a well-ordered state and peace in the whole world (ping tian xia).Footnote 9 In this way, global unity is an outgrowth of individual cultivation, familial harmony and national governance. Individual responsibilities are extended from one person to multiple familial relationships, broader societies and the entire world (Barton & Ho, 2022; Li, 2014; Tan, 2021b; Tu, 2000). Thus, Chinese society seems particularly apt for GCE, like the fast horse ready for training. As Hong’s research reveals, there is certainly a demand for GCE among teachers and students in China (Hong, 2022).

Nevertheless, Chinese schools lack top-down institutional and administrative support needed to promote heterogeneity in identity construction (Hong, 2020). A lack of institutional engagement and support from local communities impedes Chinese youths from gaining global competency in civic awareness, democratic participation, and tolerance for heterogeneous identities—all of which are significant values for GC. China, it could be argued, is in a good position to encourage GC because of its economic and cultural circumstances. Accordingly, the absence of this encouragement might constitute a case of coercive inaction (like an undertrained fast horse). A contrasting situation can be found from APCEIU’s (2020) four case studies in Asia. In one example, they discuss the principal of a secondary school in Seoul who has developed a strong sense of GCE in light of support from the government. This flows down to affect the whole school including teacher training and curriculum design. Here it is evident how leadership can have a significant effect on the rest of the school and how it can be stimulated by governmental support.

In summary, the development of GC should ideally take place non-coercively—whether through action or inaction. If the Sudanese are not ready to become global citizens, it is futile to force them to do so through education; but in the case of China, it is “coercive” for the government to fail to support this development. Here again the value of Zhuangzi’s spontaneous change to GC is evident.

Conclusion

This paper argues for a “spontaneous” cultivation of GC. I have developed an account of Zhuangzi’s philosophy of hua, spontaneous change and non-coerciveness, in accordance with one’s particular circumstance. In particular, I have utilised Zhuangzi’s concept of spontaneous change to develop some suggestions regarding how (and when) to foster one’s GC identity. It is hoped that my suggestions go with the grain of existing research in this area, and that they also add something unique by being grounded in a Daoist perspective. Such an approach is promising for at least two reasons. First, it responds meaningfully to the dynamism and complexity of the modern globalised world; and, second, it looks beyond the traditional voices that have tended to dominate the discourse. Beyond the particular issue of spontaneous identities, I am keen to demonstrate how fruitful Daoism can be for GC and GCE in general. Although Zhuangzi’s philosophy may be a distant voice, he is more than capable of speaking to all humans.

There is a common Chinese saying, 强扭的瓜不甜, which might be translated as “hastily picked melons are not sweet.” The basic idea is that one should respect the nature and the context of all things, whether melons, birds, humans or societies and take action when they are ripe. Looking to the future, it is imperative to consider how local perspectives can be integrated and applied into GC programmes in a spontaneous way. When addressing GCE in terms of “critical pedagogy”, Giroux and Bosio (2021) observes that “we cannot separate what educators do from the economic and political conditions that shape their work”; the reason being that these structural conditions shape the immediate context of educators, and therefore, influence their capabilities and the ways they “produce curricula, collaborate with parents, conduct research, and work with communities” (p. 5). Therefore, a careful understanding of when, what and how to apply GC values, knowledge and skills within the local conditions is prerequisite.