Yan Song: Reconstruction of Community: A Historical Materialist Examination of Chinese-style Modernization
The Western-path to modernization dissolved the communal modes of human life and constructed "false communities" based on "the association of one class against another." In contrast, the Chinese-path modernization, as a new path to modernization, has reshaped the communal modes of human life, an orientation primarily manifested in Xi Jinping’s thought on community. Xi Jinping’s thought on community was bred within the practical process of Chinese-path modernization. Because Chinese-path modernization takes Marx’s thought on modernity as its theoretical source, it is a path fundamentally different from Western-path modernization. Consequently, the Xi Jinping thought on community formed on this basis can guide us in resolving the series of modernity problems brought about by the dissolution of community under the Western modernization path. Currently, academic research on Xi Jinping’s thought on community mostly concentrates on exploring his expressions regarding specific types of community; there is little research on his thought on community from a holistic perspective, nor an exploration of the internal logical connections between the "four categories" of community discourse systems discussed by Xi. Providing a systematic interpretation of Xi Jinping’s thought on community based on the Chinese-path modernization can, on the one hand, highlight the comparative advantages of the Chinese-path modernization over the Western-path; on the other hand, it can reveal the internal relationships between Xi’s "four categories of community" political discourse and clarify the promoting role that Xi Jinping’s thought on community plays for the Chinese-path modernization.
I. The Dissolution of Community: The Historical Genesis of Western-path Modernization
Community embodies the purposive needs of how humanity seeks survival from nature and "how humanity can best live together." However, the Western-path to modernization shaped a dualistic model of civil society and the political state, leading to the demise of traditional communities and the falsity of new communal forms. On the one hand, the characteristic of civil society—"personal independence founded on objective dependence"—led to the alienation of the individual from the community, turning humans into atomized individuals and stripping away the vehicles for security and belonging. On the other hand, the capitalist political state community is fundamentally designed to safeguard the capitalist mode of production and maintain bourgeois rule; thus, it is merely an artificially manufactured form of "false community."
(1) Western-path Modernization Dissolved Human Community Forms
"Community is always a good thing" because it can provide humans with "a warm and comfortable place" while enabling people to "rely on one another." Yet, the mode of existence in civil society constructed by Western-path modernization led to the separation of man from community, transforming humanity into one atomized individual after another and dissolving the communal way of life.
Viewed from the formation of civil society, the institutions of civil society emerged during the establishment of the capitalist mode of production. Bourgeois political revolutions broke the shackles of traditional modes of production, created immense productive forces, and brought humans into a modern social lifestyle, achieving individual liberty and political liberation. The modern social lifestyle created by the capitalist system—divided between the political state and civil society—on the one hand, reduces man to a citizen of the state, a legal person; on the other, it reduces man to a member of civil society, an egoistic, independent individual. "The former is life in the political community, in which he considers himself a communal being; the latter is life in civil society, in which he acts as a private individual, regards other men as means, degrades himself into a means, and becomes a plaything of alien powers." Consequently, people live two distinct and opposing lives in the political state and civil society. At the level of political state power, they obtain formal freedom and equality established by the bourgeoisie through legal forms; at the level of civil society production, they obtain the unfreedom and inequality of being employed by, exploited by, and oppressed by capitalists. The prerequisite for a worker to be employable is that under the capitalist mode of production, they have lost all means of production and become atomized individuals who are "free" to be hired.
From the perspective of the structural characteristics of civil society, the civil society inaugurated by the capitalist mode of production promoted the modern transformation of society. To satisfy the needs of the civil society mode of production, social relations dominated by liberalism and individualism were constructed, forming a social structure centered on the atomized individual. That is, "compared with civil society, the basic characteristic of traditional society lies in the fact that its constituent units are communities rather than independent individuals. Therefore, the way communities were combined constituted the basic way people related to each other in pre-civil society, formed their basic way of life, and restricted the basic structure of society." Although civil society also has communities, they are interest-based communities tied by profit—temporary forms of professional and economic communities. There is an essential difference between this type of community and the communities of traditional society, as the former is composed of atomized individuals who have detached from traditional communities and lost all means of production. These atomized individuals become wage laborers in civil society who live by selling their labor power, markedly different from the centralized, single-centered, and stable characteristics of traditional communities. Thus, the establishment of civil society directly led to the decline and dissolution of traditional communities. Simultaneously, to maintain the capitalist mode of production, the bourgeoisie shaped the capitalist political state community.
(2) The "False Community" Constructed by Western-path Modernization
Through the method of political economy, Marx revealed that the capitalist state community is a form of "false community" [1]. It has not changed the essence of the atomized individual but instead ensures the rationality and legitimacy of the atomized individual’s existence through political institutions. At the same time, this "false community" uses institutional forms to support the abstract rule and factual exploitation of "commodity fetishism" and "capital fetishism."
The establishment of the capitalist political state community endowed the working class with the status of social citizens, formally stipulating their enjoyment of all public services provided by the community and the benefits of public policy. Away from the state community, a citizen cannot be an object of political and legal protection and thus loses their status as a citizen. To a certain extent, the state community provides people with a sense of belonging and eliminates anxieties regarding childbirth or unemployment through state welfare policies. For the ruled class, the state is nominally a guarantor of interests, but in reality, it is a completely illusory community. The introduction of state welfare policies and social security systems is merely to ensure the smooth operation of the capitalist system and to dissolve the resistance of the working class. Thus Marx asserted: for the ruled class, the capitalist political state "is not only a completely illusory community, but a new fetter as well." Furthermore, "the thinkers of the ruling class, more or less consciously, theoretically transform them into something independent and self-existent... putting them forward as norms of life to oppose the individuals of the oppressed class, partly as a gloss or consciousness of their own rule, partly as the moral means of this rule," further deepening the illusory color of the capitalist political state and deluding the consciousness of the proletariat to make them submit to bourgeois rule.
The "false community" form of the capitalist political state is also reflected in its use of an institutional logic to support the specific capitalist "commodity fetishism" and "capital fetishism." Under the capitalist mode of production, the commodity form and the value-relation of the products of labor within which it appears are "nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things... So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men's hands. This I call Fetishism." The "illusion" of false freedom and equality constructed by "fetishism" further obscures the false nature of the capitalist political state community. "Fetishism" directly leads to the capitalist reality of reification [2]. Reification is an attribute in which the relationship between people is inverted into a relationship between things, manifesting as an illusion where human relations are replaced by relations between things. Marx pointed out: "The commodity form... reflects the social relation of the producers to the sum total of labor as a social relation between objects, a relation which exists apart from the producers." That is, under the capitalist system, human relations are represented by the relations of things, reflecting the reification process of human relations. The reification process demonstrates not only that humans are ruled by "concrete things" like commodities, but also reveals the essence of this rule—humans are ruled by "abstract things" equipped with a yardstick of measurement. "Abstract things" reify the relationship between people into a relationship between things and, through reified relations, transform everyone into the same kind of subject—a reified subject that can be measured. These "abstract things" are money and capital. The marriage of commodities, money, and capital controls the capitalist political state community and makes the latter serve the realization of the former.
(3) The Practical Hazards of the Western-path Modernization Dissolving Community
The modern society inaugurated by Western-path modernization has completely broken traditional, stable communal lifestyles. Capitalists move freely across the globe searching for cheaper labor and investment opportunities, while the working class moves globally searching for any work to earn a living. A world of rapid flux has dismantled the community, causing all individuals to lose the sense of security and belonging they once possessed within it.
From the perspective of the capitalist state, Marx and Engels explicitly stated: "The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors,' and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous 'cash payment.'" Consequently, traditional community models built upon "feudalistic and patriarchal" relations of production inevitably perished. Viewed from the general development of productive forces, this demise is a form of progress for human history, but it failed to establish a community capable of carrying the human need for belonging and security. Instead, it turned everyone from all walks of life—"liberated" from the production relations of traditional communities—into wage laborers. It even disintegrated the initial form of relationship in human communicative practice—the family community—turning the sentimental family relation into a "mere money relation." The refined division of labor and the promotion of machinery under the capitalist mode of production turn every wage laborer into an atomized individual performing mechanized labor. Intense labor and the plundering of surplus value rob every wage laborer of the time, energy, and resources to pursue a beautiful spiritual life; the wage laborer necessarily becomes one meaningless husk after another. The more the workers in capitalist countries produce, the poorer their lives become and the more destitute their spirits. Although the invention and application of new technologies have, to some extent, confirmed the existence of man as a subject, the dominant position of capital in people’s production and life has not changed accordingly. Therefore, the social class structure divided between the bourgeoisie and the working class remains unshakable, and this social structure prevents the free and comprehensive development of the respective personalities of both the bourgeoisie and the working class.
From the perspective of the world-historical process, capitalism is a systemic form dominated by the logic of capital, with the growth of material wealth as its sole purpose, and which advocates for universalized, procedural, and operational institutions to guarantee the realization of this objective. Driven by this aim, the bourgeoisie—through military conquest, economic invasion, and other means—has forced other non-capitalist nations, directly or indirectly, to submit to or accept bourgeois rule, becoming members of the capitalist world system. As Marx and Engels stated: "The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns... it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West." Traditional ethnic communities and the relatively closed state-forms built upon them were completely shattered, resulting in a situation where "independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff." Thus, world history gradually took shape. However, this "unity" did not imply the establishment of a community of nations characterized by egalitarian relations; rather, the countries and nations of the world, brought into increasingly close contact under the drive of capital, gradually became objects of rule and enslavement by developed capitalist countries. The bourgeoisie "creates a world after its own image," yet this world is not a "true community" [3] characterized by genuine fairness and equality, but a world-form in which developed capitalist countries exploit and enslave other nations. The bourgeoisie’s attempts to pull other backward countries into the capitalist camp are conducted under the guise of helping the people of such nations escape ignorance and backwardness to truly enjoy democracy and freedom; in substance, this is merely to better control the governments and peoples of these countries, facilitating access to sources of raw materials, cheap labor, and markets for dumping products.
II. The Reshaping of Community: The Core Essentials of Chinese-path Modernization
The new political discourse system of community opened up by the path of Chinese-path modernization is a collection of community ideas proposed by the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core during the exploration of the Chinese-path modernization. This conceptual construction of community is a refutation and reconstruction aimed at the Western-style path of modernization, which dissolves community and produces a series of massive harms. This creative thought specifically includes: constructing the theory of a community with a shared future; forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation; proposing the idea of a life community; and building a community of social governance. These "four constructs" of the Chinese-style community are the core concepts of Xi Jinping's thoughts on community and constitute the fourfold meaning of community within the path of Chinese-path modernization.
(1) Establishing Norms for Modern State Intercourse through the "State-State" Community
The deep practice of Western-style modernization has led to contemporary global problems such as the resurgence of terrorism, frequent outbreaks of international conflict, sluggish world economic growth, continuous ecological destruction, and a widening gap between rich and poor. These issues urgently require reform and guidance from global governance theory and practice. Based on the theory and practice of Chinese-path modernization, China has proposed the strategy of a community with a shared future for humanity, demonstrating that a rising China, as a responsible major power, is injecting fresh blood into the concept of global governance. The report to the 19th National Congress of the CPC summarized the connotation of a "community with a shared future for humanity" as "building an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity"; the report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC reiterated that "China has always been committed to its foreign policy goals of upholding world peace and promoting common development, and it is dedicated to promoting a community with a shared future for humanity." The concept of a community with a shared future for humanity fully reflects the CPC's perspective on the overall situation, humanity, and development. It is a comprehensive expression of the concepts of peace, development, cooperation, and win-win results proposed by our country, creating basic norms for modern interstate interaction. It aims to maintain China's national interests while showing reasonable concern for the interests of other countries during international exchanges, promoting the common progress of interacting nations while seeking its own development, and leading the world's countries to jointly respond to and solve the series of problems currently facing humanity.
The cyberspace constructed based on modern development is characterized by digitalization, virtuality, and globality, which has led to frequent phenomena such as the digital information divide, violations of information sovereignty, and cybercrime. It has increasingly become a new field of contention among diverse stakeholders, including sovereign states, governments, and commercial institutions. To this end, Xi Jinping explicitly proposed: "Countries should strengthen communication, expand consensus, and deepen cooperation to jointly build a community with a shared future in cyberspace." The community with a shared future in cyberspace is an effective manifestation of the idea of a community with a shared future for humanity within the digital realm, helping to lead all countries to work together to address and resolve the issues arising in cyberspace. Specifically, from the perspective of the subjects of construction, sovereign states, governments, and commercial institutions should become the primary subjects, serving to regulate and guide various actors such as netizens, social organizations, and groups to actively participate in cyberspace governance. From the perspective of construction methods, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of global network infrastructure, create platforms for online cultural exchange and sharing, promote the innovative development of the network economy, and build an internet governance system to guarantee network security. From the perspective of construction goals, it aims to promote interconnection, mutual learning, common prosperity, orderly development, and fairness and justice among nations, thereby making the concept of a community with a shared future in cyberspace a governance model and norm for state actors in the digital realm, promoting the sharing, co-governance, and shared prosperity of cyberspace.
(2) Constructing Modern National Identity Relations through the "Nation-State" Community
China is a political state characterized by the integration and symbiosis of multiple ethnic groups, each with its own cultural characteristics. In the process of modernization, if each ethnic group fights for itself, the unity of the Chinese nation will cease to exist, and the historical process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will surely be aborted. Xi Jinping explicitly stated: "We must hold high the banner of great unity among all ethnic groups, and firmly establish a sense of the state, a sense of citizenship, and a sense of community for the Chinese nation [4] among all ethnic groups, uniting and relying on the masses of all ethnic groups to the greatest extent possible." Only when every ethnic group can unite on the basis of identifying with the "community for the Chinese nation" can they jointly respond to the various challenges in the development of modernization. Furthermore, "to strengthen the great unity of the Chinese nation, the long-term and fundamental task is to enhance cultural identity." This cultural identity refers not only to the inheritance and promotion of one's own ethnic culture but also to the holistic identification with and promotion of the culture of the Chinese nation as a unified whole. Fei Xiaotong [5] believed: "In the pattern of unity in diversity, the 56 ethnic groups are the base level, and the Chinese nation is the high level." The identification with the community for the Chinese nation should be a higher-order identification than the respective ethnic identities of the 56 groups; the latter identification cannot take violating or opposing the former as a prerequisite. To achieve the holistic consciousness and identity of the community for the Chinese nation, we must first properly handle the problems of unbalanced and inadequate material and spiritual development in the process of each ethnic group's development—that is, "to resolve ethnic issues, we must solve both material and spiritual problems." Forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation is the key to solving spiritual-level problems of ethnic unity and progress, while practicing the idea of the community for the Chinese nation is the key to solving material-level problems of common ethnic development.
Xi Jinping's thought on the "community for the Chinese nation" is not only applicable to handling ethnic relations within China but also provides a paradigm for handling modern ethnic relations globally. In today's world, there are many multi-ethnic states. The nation/ethnic group (minzu) is the basic unit of state formation. The languages, cultures, customs, and racial characteristics of the various ethnic groups living within a state are not identical, but the prerequisite for national unity and solidarity is the identification of all ethnic groups with the state entity. In this sense, we view the "nation-state" as a form of community. Internal strife and instability in many countries stem from conflict and opposition between their constituent ethnic groups; such conflict is driven on one hand by religious and cultural factors, and on the other by the problem of material interest distribution by state power apparatuses. At the same time, in order to form a unified world market dominated by themselves, developed Western capitalist countries use the ideology of their "early-arrival modernity" and powerful global media forces to dissolve the sense of identity that various ethnic groups have toward their national unity, making them submit to a homogeneous culture that serves the capitalist mode of production. Forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation means forging a strong sense of national identity. Only the establishment of this consciousness can maintain the stability of the "nation-state" community, enabling all ethnic groups within the state to live in harmony and devote themselves to the cause of national prosperity and stability; it also maintains the independence of the "nation-state" community, making it a trench of resistance against cultural homogeneity and a solid fortress for confirming one's own national community identity.
(3) Leading Modern Social Governance Solutions through the "Individual-Society" Community
The theory of the "community of social governance" was first proposed at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee and has become an important part of the Chinese-style political discourse system through the test of governance practice. The creation of this theory marks a breakthrough in theoretical progress and discourse innovation in our country's social governance discourse system, fully reflecting the downward shift of the center of gravity of national governance and the transformation of governance methods. The proposal of this theory "is essentially a systemic arrangement serving the state's governance of society, and is also a key step in China's promotion of the modernization of the national governance system." It realizes the transformation of the state and the Party from a dominant model to a diversified model in governing society: the state moves from "explicit" presence to "implicit" presence, and the individual citizen moves from "passive" obedience to "active" participation. This transformation represents new thinking and measures by the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core regarding the grassroots social governance system in the New Era. Fundamentally, it aims to resolve the series of contradictions emerging during the drastic transformation of our society in the New Era, thereby satisfying the people's pursuit of a better life.
The proposal and practice of the community of social governance provide the masses with the opportunity to create a public life space they are satisfied with, but it does not mean a "vacuum" of state power in grassroots governance. Rather, it forms a "governance structure of 'one core and many elements' featuring the leadership of the Party committee, government responsibility, social coordination, and public participation." The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC explicitly stated: "We will strengthen the forces for coordinated prevention and control, foster a social atmosphere of acting heroically for a just cause, and build a community of social governance in which everyone is responsible, everyone does their part, and everyone enjoys the benefits." Therefore, the true connotation of a community of social governance is that in the process of social governance, "everyone is responsible, everyone does their part, and everyone enjoys the benefits." Among these: "everyone is responsible" emphasizes social obligations, namely that citizens, Party and government departments, social organizations, and community groups have the duty and responsibility to maintain social order, harmony, and stability; "everyone does their part" [6] emphasizes social power, namely that citizens, Party and government departments, social organizations, and community groups, as masters of society, should play their subjective roles and actively participate in the social governance process; "everyone enjoys the benefits" emphasizes the purpose of governance, namely that the fruits of social development should be shared by all members of society, and the Party and government must effectively ensure that the people universally enjoy public rights and public resources. In short, the community of social governance is a theoretical result of the Party Central Committee responding to the needs of the grassroots masses, improving its own capacity for self-governance, and stimulating the overall vitality of society in the New Era.
(4) Forging Modern Ecological Civilization through the "Human-Nature" Community
The relationship between humanity and nature has gone through a historical process from fearing nature to transforming nature. In traditional society, due to low productive forces, humans understood life with a "purely animal consciousness," viewing nature as a high-level "living entity," fearing nature, and forming a relationship of total dependence on it. In modern society, with the development of productive forces, humans began to view nature through technical and instrumental rationality, resulting in a shift in the vision of life—viewing themselves as a high-level life form transcending nature. When this anthropocentric thought is applied to the human-nature relationship, humans begin to conquer nature recklessly. The tension and conflict between humanity and nature have intensified under the capitalist mode of production. To realize the massive accumulation of the means of production, a modern society dominated by the logic of capital inevitably adopts various means to extract all value from natural entities, excessively exploiting natural resources, leading to tension and opposition between humanity, nature, and the various other life forms it produces, resulting in global ecological crises. Engels pointed out: "Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us." The sudden global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 highlighted the tension between humanity and nature and nature's fierce revenge on mankind. Constructing a "life community of humanity and nature" [7] means eliminating the hostility between humanity and nature, realizing reconciliation between the two, and jointly managing the home on which humanity depends for survival based on the concept of ecological civilization.
"The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature." Humanity and nature constitute a unity; the human being is an "organism" that exists within the natural environment and maintains a practical relationship with it, while nature is the "inorganic body" of the human being, providing the essential material basis for human survival. Humans and other species of living organisms are all products of nature; various species exist in a relationship of symbiosis and coexistence. There is no hierarchical division whereby one species is more noble than another, nor can one species be used to negate another. The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC explicitly pointed out: "Chinese-path modernization is the modernization of harmony between humanity and nature. Humanity and nature form a life community; the endless extraction from or even destruction of nature will inevitably meet with nature's retribution." The "life community of humanity and nature" starts precisely from a perspective of life, emphasizing the coexistence and co-prosperity of the oneness of life between humans, nature, and the other living species generated therein. It responds to the era-defining question of "how to get along and in what manner to get along" between humans, nature, and other species. In handling the relationship between humanity and nature, it adheres to holistic and systemic thinking, thereby providing a fundamental orientation and practical program for the harmonious coexistence of humans, nature, and other living species.
III. The Axiological Significance of Reconstructing Community through Chinese-Path Modernization
Chinese-path modernization has reconstructed the theoretical system and practical discourse of community. Theoretically, it critiques the dissolution of community by Western-style modernization and circumvents the various problems of modernity caused by such dissolution. Institutionally, it constructs a communal way of life, satisfying people's urgent need for the vanishing sense of security and belonging. Practically, it promotes the construction of harmonious symbiotic relationships between humanity and nature, individuals and society, ethnic groups and the state, as well as between nations. It also provides a correct path and directional guide for the development of community in other countries moving toward modernization, thereby interpreting the communal dimension and value pursuit of a new form of human civilization.
(1) The Theoretical Significance of Reconstructing Community through Chinese-Path Modernization
Xi Jinping emphasized: "Our modernization is the modernization of a huge population, the modernization of common prosperity for all, the modernization of material and cultural-ethical advancement, the modernization of harmony between humanity and nature, and the modernization of peaceful development." This sufficiently summarizes the theoretical characteristics and distinctive features of our country's modernization, serves as a summary and overview of the theoretical connotations of Chinese-path modernization. Xi Jinping's thought on community is embedded within the theoretical logic of Chinese-path modernization: precisely because our modernization is the modernization of a "huge population," we must build a community for social governance to realize the harmonious coexistence and development of such a large-scale population; precisely because our modernization is the modernization of "common prosperity for all" and "coordination between material and cultural-ethical civilizations," we must forge a strong sense of "community for the Chinese nation" [8] to achieve the goal that "not one of the 56 ethnic groups is left behind" on the road to common prosperity; precisely because our modernization is the modernization of "harmony between humanity and nature," we must create a "life community of humanity and nature" to meet the needs of sustainable human development; and precisely because our modernization is the modernization of "peaceful development," we must construct a "community with a shared future for humanity" and a "community with a shared future in cyberspace" to maintain lasting peace and development among nations.
Xi Jinping's thought on community, formed under this theoretical logic, possesses an internal systematicity: it is unified both in the practice-based process centered on the people and under the future goal of moving toward a "true community." It is a practical discourse continuously verified during the theoretical construction of Chinese-path modernization, and a new community paradigm continuously opened during the practical process of the path of Chinese-path modernization. Marx believed: "Only in community [with others has each] individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible." The "four major frameworks" of Xi Jinping's thought on community are reshaping a communal lifestyle for the Chinese people and other late-developing countries, thereby exploring a path toward truly free and comprehensive development. Although the "four major frameworks" were formed in the process of handling different relationships, the four constitute a logically tight, synergistic, and integrated body of thought, unified within the theoretical connotation and practical process of the path of Chinese-path modernization. In short, one of the comparative advantages of the path of Chinese-path modernization is reflected in its confrontation with the modern world where community is dissolved under the dominance of capital logic and the resulting problems of modernity; it reshapes a new community paradigm for human life and effectively interprets the communal dimension and pursuit of a new form of human civilization.
(2) The Institutional Significance of Reconstructing Community through Chinese-Path Modernization
The path of Chinese-path modernization is a road of catching up with Western developed countries at the economic level, but the two have fundamental differences in their ultimate purposes. The Western path of modernization adopted a serial economic development model, which formed sequential stages of development from "primitive accumulation to industrialization to informatization," in which the "primitive accumulation" that laid its developmental foundation originated from the process of plunder and aggression carried out by the bourgeoisie through bloody and violent means. Therefore, Marx said: "Capital comes [into the world] dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." Under the dominance of capital logic, the ultimate goal of every stage of development following the capitalist system is to achieve greater capital appreciation and better extraction of surplus value. The path of Chinese-path modernization is a parallel development path; it did not go through the evil "primitive accumulation" stage that capitalist countries necessarily experienced. Instead, it created a brand-new form of human civilization. This civilizational form changed the pattern of Western-style modernization that tore the social whole into one atomized individual after another; taking socialist civilization as its essential attribute, it created the community form of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Chinese-path modernization possesses a distinct socialist nature and is inevitably a path toward a "true community." Marx explicitly pointed out that the future communist society is a "true community": "In the real community the individuals obtain their freedom in and through their association." The path of Chinese-path modernization is based on the socialist system, and its value orientation is necessarily toward communism. Taking communism as the goal of institutional construction provides the internal drive and theoretical support to fundamentally transcend Western-style modernity, effectively discarding and transcending the institutional and practical patterns of "illusory communities." This modernization path inevitably carries the value-purpose of building a "true community." The "four major frameworks" of Xi Jinping's thought on community were formed during the construction and development of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The construction process of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics both fully absorbs the achievements of Western modernization and strives to avoid its developmental drawbacks, exploring an effective model that transcends the Western-style modernization path built upon the capitalist system. In short, Xi Jinping's thought on community and its practice, bred within the path of Chinese-path modernization, effectively circumvent the drawbacks of the various modernity problems caused by the dissolution of community in the Western modernization process, demonstrating the significant advantages of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
(3) The Practical Significance of Reconstructing Community through Chinese-Path Modernization
Chinese-path modernization is built upon reflection on the dissolution of community by capitalism and the series of practical harms it produces. It has emerged in the historical process of the Chinese Communist Party leading the Chinese people to explore "what kind of socialism to build" and "how to build socialism." The practice of Chinese-path modernization is not only intended to achieve "high-quality development" at the economic level; it also includes "developing whole-process people's democracy" at the political level; "enriching the people's spiritual world" at the cultural level; "achieving common prosperity for all" at the social level; "promoting harmony between humanity and nature" at the ecological level; and "promoting the building of a community with a shared future for humanity and creating a new form of human civilization" at the diplomatic level.
The practical development of Chinese-path modernization in the above dimensions embeds the realization methods of Xi Jinping's thought on community: First, to achieve "high-quality development" of the economy, we must not only continue to expand opening-up and seize the opportunities of globalization but also adhere to a development model of independence and innovation-driven growth to enhance the resilience of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. This requires us: on one hand, to commit to the construction and maintenance of a "community with a shared future for humanity"; on the other hand, to continuously construct a "community for social governance" and a "community for the Chinese nation," providing a stable and harmonious social and ethnic interaction environment for the innovation and creativity of the masses; and on yet another hand, to solidify the "community with a shared future in cyberspace" to better utilize information and network technologies to enhance our own creativity. Secondly, to "develop whole-process people's democracy," "enrich the people's spiritual world," and "achieve common prosperity for all," we must also build a "community for social governance" and a "community for the Chinese nation." The construction of these two communities emphasizes the simultaneous development of material and cultural-ethical civilizations. Against the backdrop of the general improvement in the people's material standard of living, increasing the input into spiritual and cultural products and enhancing the people's spiritual realm and cultural cultivation will enable them to consciously and better participate in social and state governance, and allow every ethnic group to enjoy the various fruits of the development of the socialist cause. Thirdly, to "promote harmony between humanity and nature," we must forge a "life community of humanity and nature," creating a healthy, green, and sustainable living environment for the masses. Under the guidance of the life community, we should actively engage in practices of environmental protection, ecological restoration, and sustainable resource utilization, allowing other countries to see China’s efforts and results in protecting the ecological environment and natural resources, thereby providing an example for other nations in handling the relationship between humanity and nature.
The community theory formed in the process of Chinese-path modernization conforms to the practical logic of Chinese-path modernization. History and practice have already proven that Chinese-path modernization is a correct and successful path. "The Party has led the people in successfully charting the path of Chinese-path modernization, creating a new form of human civilization, expanding the channels for developing countries to achieve modernization, and providing a brand-new choice for those countries and nations in the world that wish to accelerate their development while maintaining their independence." As a practical achievement of Chinese-path modernization, Xi Jinping's thought on community inevitably possesses the characteristics of practical rationality and scientific rigor, and can realize itself through the continuous advancement of the path of Chinese-path modernization. On this basis, we maintain: first, this theoretical system is not in a "completed" state, but is an "ongoing" paradigm that continuously improves itself alongside practice; second, this theoretical system also provides a choice of path for those late-developing countries exploring modernization—a path that allows them to modernize while avoiding the dissolution of community and the series of practical problems generated by Western-style modernization; third, the community theory and practical system constructed by the path of Chinese-path modernization is by no means a historical regression to traditional communal social forms. Because it is built upon the developmental process of Chinese-path modernization, it is a modern social community system that both fully reflects the efficacy of the "common good" of traditional communities and possesses the characteristics of Chinese-path modernization.