Luo Wendong: Grasping the Essential Features of Modern Chinese Civilization from the Perspective of History
Viewed from its essential characteristics and developmental trends, the modern civilization of the Chinese nation constitutes a sublation [1] and transcendence of both traditional Chinese civilization and modern Western civilization. The modern civilization of the Chinese nation is a socialist civilization created collectively by the people of all ethnic groups under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It is a civilization characterized by the dialectical interaction between material and spiritual spheres and the harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature. It is a civilization that promotes common prosperity for all people and realizes the free and well-rounded development of individuals. It is a civilization that maintains world peace and common development while building a community with a shared future for humanity.
"How can the waters of the canal be so clear? Because there is a source of living water flowing in." [2] Civilization is both an ideal goal pursued diligently by humanity and a product of historical development. The modern civilization of the Chinese nation that we are currently building was not only created through the great practice of Chinese-path modernization but was also established on the basis of over 180 years of arduous exploration since the beginning of China's modern history, and indeed upon the civilizational accumulation of the Chinese nation spanning over five millennia. Only by comprehensively and deeply understanding the history of Chinese civilization and profoundly grasping its prominent characteristics—namely its continuity, innovativeness, unity, inclusivity, and peaceful nature—can we truly understand the historical necessity, cultural connotations, and unique advantages of the Chinese path and better develop the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
China is globally recognized as one of the birthplaces of ancient humanity and one of the four great ancient civilizations, possessing a million-year history of human presence, a ten-thousand-year history of culture, and over five thousand years of civilizational history. The industrious, brave, and wise Chinese nation created a profound and extensive Chinese culture and a magnificent Chinese civilization, remaining at the forefront of the world for a considerable historical period. Ancient China's achievements in scientific and technological civilization, legal systems, and the "classics, history, philosophy, and literature" [3] all reached the pinnacle of global cultural development at the time, making enormous contributions to the progress of human civilization. In particular, the transmission to the West of China's four great inventions—papermaking, gunpowder, printing, and the compass—as well as Confucian academic thought, accelerated modern Western social transformations such as the European Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
The German philosopher Leibniz believed that "China is a great country which equals the cultivated Europe in area and far surpasses it in population and state administration." The French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire held the Chinese system, which integrated politics and morality, as well as Confucian rationality and humanistic concern, in high esteem. He believed that while European monarchs and merchants discovered only wealth in the East, "philosophers discovered there a new moral and physical world," and that Europeans "should admire, feel ashamed, and above all, imitate" China. Furthermore, a vast number of China's outstanding cultural achievements have been included in UNESCO's World Heritage List, Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the Memory of the World Register. This fully reflects the eternal charm and world significance of Chinese civilization, which transcends time, space, and national borders. These excellent cultural achievements have not only inspired the confidence and pride of the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation in their ancestral culture but have also won the recognition and respect of people worldwide for Chinese civilization.
From the day of its founding, the CPC has held high the banner of Marxism, taking national independence and people's liberation as its mission. In the great struggles of leading the revolution, construction, and reform, the Party has combined the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific realities and with China's fine traditional culture, striving to promote the transformation of Chinese civilization from the traditional to the modern.
During the Period of the New Democratic Revolution [4], the Party proposed "to change a China ruled by old culture and hence ignorant and backward into a China ruled by new culture and hence civilized and progressive." The Party led the people in overthrowing the "three big mountains" [5] of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism, opening a new era in Chinese history and creating the political prerequisites and social conditions for the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Party led the people of all ethnic groups in conducting socialist revolution and construction, sweeping away the poverty and ignorance left behind by the old China. The Party proposed the principles of "making the past serve the present and foreign things serve China" and "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend." It vigorously developed socialist culture and promoted the "Four Modernizations" of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology, providing the institutional guarantee and material foundation for building the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
The Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee made the historic decision to implement reform and opening up. It proposed that while building a high degree of material civilization, we must also build a high degree of socialist spiritual civilization and develop socialist political civilization. It advocated "boldly absorbing and drawing on all the achievements of civilization created by human society" and successfully initiated and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics. This provided the institutional guarantee full of new vitality and the material conditions for rapid development in building the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Party has coordinated the promotion of the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and the Four Comprehensives, advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. This has provided a more complete institutional guarantee, a more solid material foundation, and a more proactive spiritual force for the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
Before humanity has achieved complete freedom and liberation, the era of civilization has always been characterized by contradictions and even confrontations—such as class antagonism, exploitation, oppression, and wars of aggression—and by the struggle between civilization and barbarism, progress and backwardness. The freedom and equality advocated by capitalism possess historical progressive significance, yet capitalism has never overcome or eliminated its barbaric nature of "the law of the jungle" and aggressive expansion. Only Marxism has shown the proletariat of the whole world the way out of enslavement; only communism can attain a high level of civilization. At that time, with the high development of social productive forces and the thorough transformation of the relations of production, human civilization will finally "in the social aspect, lift humanity above the rest of the animal world."
Viewed from its essential characteristics and developmental trends, the modern civilization of the Chinese nation constitutes a sublation and transcendence of both traditional Chinese civilization and modern Western civilization. The modern civilization of the Chinese nation is a socialist civilization created collectively by the people of all ethnic groups under the leadership of the CPC. It is a civilization characterized by the dialectical interaction between material and spiritual spheres and the harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature. It is a civilization that promotes common prosperity for all people and realizes the free and well-rounded development of individuals. It is a civilization that maintains world peace and common development while building a community with a shared future for humanity.
This new form of civilization solves many difficult problems in the development of human society and presents a new vista distinct from the Western model of civilization. It follows the universal laws of the development of human civilization while possessing distinct characteristics and contemporary value based on China's own national conditions. It embodies the advanced nature of scientific socialism and provides a Chinese solution for humanity's exploration of better social systems. It represents the direction of development for human civilization and possesses broad prospects for growth and a bright future.