Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastrophic: the extermination and displacement of aboriginal populations, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. China took a different historical path. What can we in the West learn about our understanding of racial identity and racism from the Chinese approach to pluralism informed by Chinese philosophy? How does a ‘metaphysics of harmony’ lead to international relationships of mutual exchange rather than domination, as Shuchen Xiang argues in her book “Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea”?