I was commissioned to write a piece the other day on China's economic development -- and the concept that we are living in a Chinese century in which China will be increasingly economically and culturally dominant.

In light of that, I'm become curious about utilitarianism, and specifically animal welfare issues, in China.

On the utilitarianism front: is it widely known/discussed in China? My instinct would be no. Does that matter? Is China an important battleground for us in the war of ideas (so to speak) over the coming decades?

On animal welfare, the situation is pretty dire. China, indeed Asia in general, seems to be lagging about a century behind the west on this issue. A quick Google tells me the native animal rights organisation in China was only founded in 2004 and it seems to spend much of its time on the notorious "dog and cat meat issue", and other dog and cat related stuff ("mass killings") but zero mention of factory farming.

I guess the overarching issue here is, to what extent should we be engaging outside developed/western nations? (That's not to assume all Felicifians are from such countries, but I know many are). Does it represent perhaps "low hanging fruit" where some well-chosen interventions could make an enormous influence? Or is it all in the "too hard basket" because few of us have the capacity to intervene effectively outside our own cultural/linguistic event horizon?

Good questions.

A number of the most horrific videos of animal suffering on YouTube come from China (and Japan).

I recently came across an allegation that some people in China roast dogs alive to improve the flavor. I haven't found a Snopes article on the subject and can't tell if the claim true, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it were true. From one article:

The practice of cooking dogs while it is alive is being reported once in a while from China. Last year, Green Prophet published a story on stray dogs being cooked alive in Eastern China. The post had photos of a small homeless puppy being lured toward a woman who was shown in the next photo to be holding the dog by its neck in tongs and cooking it over fire.

A post in the Data Lounge noted that this kind of cooking, which obviously is extremely cruel, dates back to Thousands of years in Chinese history – a kind of culinary tradition. Eastern Chinese city of Kengkou is particularly infamous for this as the photos of the story making the news were taken from there.

Peter Singer has a nice editorial, "Moral Progress and Animal Welfare, that mentions China and the importance of Western pressure for welfare improvements: "The best hope for further progress, it seems, lies in animal welfare becoming, like human rights, an international issue that affects countries’ reputations."

As far as veg outreach in China, Vegan Outreach has an article discussing why they focus leafleting on North America. On the other hand, some of the groups funding online veg ads are targeting China, Indian, Latin America, etc. because cost per click is so low in those countries (maybe ~5-10 times cheaper than in the US). In fact, I will most likely be funding developing-country Facebook ads through my donations to Vegan Outreach this year.

spindoctor, I have a vegan friend (she lives in Madrid) who is very interested in China, and we have spoken for a lot of hours about how to promote veganism in China.

There are a few animal advocates, but they are mainly interested in dogs and cats. There is a vegan group in Beijing now: http://www.vegansocialclub.com/

China has a lot of potencial due to its economic growth, so I think it would great to promote moral consideration for animals now. I think a good initiative would be a website in Chinese language, and pay for Facebook ads.

There are Chinese Buddhists who eat vegan food (and also avoid spices). Other than that, I'm not sure of any point of contact between traditional Chinese belief systems and any type of consequentialism. There is something to keep in mind: much of China is stil very poor, and when people are so poor that they are barely staying alive, they aren't concerned about the morality of eating meat (this applies across countries). I would avoid phrases like "a century behind."

I read the Analects of Confucius a long time ago, and to me it seemed like a string of sayings that completely lacked a philosophical basis. There would be statements saying that you should respect elders, and you are supposed to accept that at face value. Confucius did have a version of the golden rule, so maybe that is a basis for connecting Eastern and Western philosophical ideas. Asian cultures also have much greater emphasis on cooperation and teamwork than you find in the West, but I'm not sure how that would fit into a new ethical system in China.

spindoctor, will you share a link to your article on this thread once it's done? I'm sure it will be a nice piece of spindoctor-ing.