The Changing Wisdom from the Book of Changes: From Seeing Crisis as Opportunity to Seeing Crisis Become Disaster or Transforming Crisis into Opportunity?

Abstract: Since 2020, coronavirus has been testing the crisis leadership of global leaders. To the same coronavirus, the crisis leadership and results of China and the U.S. are totally different. To explore the fundamental differences between China and U.S. crisis leadership, this paper compared the crisis leadership wisdom in the Chinese classic, the Book of Changes, and the Western crisis leadership model of Wooten and James (2008) as well as the different practices of the two nations during the pandemic. The results of the comparison from theory to practice showed the whole process of how China turned a crisis into an opportunity for peaceful development, and how the U.S. turned a crisis into a disaster. In terms of how a crisis has happened, how to solve a crisis, and the two different results of a new beginning or a war after a crisis, the Book of Changes has already provided serious warnings and detailed answers for crisis leaders.