Shen Xiangping: The Civilizational Logic and Philosophical Reflections of Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind
The world is currently undergoing changes unseen in a century at an accelerated pace. Multiple risks and challenges are intertwined, ushering in a new period of turbulence and transformation. "Human society has once again reached a historical crossroads where it must decide which path to take," and "humanity is once again faced with a choice between peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, and win-win cooperation or zero-sum games." The choice made by the Chinese people is to build a community with a shared future for humanity. This choice is not a makeshift measure for dealing with international crises, but a long-term civilizational strategy based on a profound understanding of the essence and laws of development of human civilization. We recognize deeply that human beings are civilizational beings, history is the carrier of civilization, and civilization is the essential core of historical meaning. The choice regarding the fate of humanity concerns not only the survival and development of human civilization, but is also a self-examination and self-justification of human civilization itself. Beneath the changes in the world, the times, and history lies a transformation of civilizational forms. The condition that "human society has once again reached a historical crossroads" points to the existential predicament where "human civilization stands at a crossroads of its own making." Therefore, building a community with a shared future for humanity possesses a profound civilizational logic. To understand the essence and laws of development of human civilization, to base ourselves on the current state of civilization while looking toward its future, to always stand on the right side of history and the side of human progress, to use the progress of human civilization to stimulate the historical initiative of various contemporary civilizations, and to let the essence of all civilizations benefit humanity—these are the necessary requirements for building a community with a shared future for humanity and the only correct choice for the world today.
I. The Urgent Need for a New Civilizational Form for Humanity Today
In its broadest sense, civilization is the holistic creation of humanity through subjective practice in transforming nature, constructing society, and shaping the spiritual world. It is the sum of material, institutional, and spiritual achievements, representing the progressive state of human society. Ever since "humans and apes bid each other farewell" [1], human beings have constantly generated their essential defining characteristics as humans through the practice of production and life. They gradually formed culture as a life pattern and habitus, which eventually sedimented historically into diverse civilizational forms. Examined etymologically, whether in the East or the West, the term "civilization" has possessed dual spiritual genes since its inception: a "boundary consciousness" that distinguishes the self from the other, and a "value aspiration" for self-transcendence. Thus, civilization is not merely the identification of certain established attributes (such as agrarian civilization or industrial civilization), but is a cultural imagination and construction with reflective qualities, embodying "a unique order and sentiment" (such as "civilization under heaven" [2]). In other words, civilization always contains transcendental ideals; it is essentially a historical process of generation that continuously injects "ought" values of self-understanding into "is" existence. This self-understanding is rooted in the worldview and systems of meaning formed under specific historical conditions, while changes in historical conditions are dialectically reflected back into people's paradigms for understanding civilization through practice. Every civilization contains its own view of civilization, which is determined by the social existence of that civilization and reacts back upon the civilizational entity through symbolic systems and institutional designs, together constituting a dynamic civilizational form. In this sense, civilization is always a fluid network of meaning. It is both a field of continuous dialogue and contestation between different worldviews (including views of civilization) and is often directly expressed as the worldviews themselves in the midst of controversy and dialogue. In today's world, by looking through the complex discourse on civilization and conducting a critical examination of the current state of human civilization, we inevitably realize that humanity urgently needs to make a choice about which way civilization should go and form a new civilizational form. The core orientation of this choice is precisely the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.
Initially, humans were scattered across the globe in tribal ways of life, forming diverse cultural genes and accumulating heterogeneous types of civilization. Over a long process of development, these "star-scattered" [3] cultures and civilizations gradually integrated into dominant regional civilizations, each creating brilliant achievements within relatively closed units of time and space. Taking the opening of new maritime routes in the 15th and 16th centuries as a historical turning point, practical interactions between various civilizational units continued to deepen, eventually catalyzing the transformation from history into "world history" as identified by Marx. The "world-historical existence of individuals—that is, the existence of individuals which is directly linked with world history" has increasingly become a basic experience, most evident today. In the contemporary lifeworld, we can intuitively perceive this unprecedented and continually strengthening condition of existence: members of different nations, states, and civilizations enjoy the same fast food, watch the same movies, use the same software, conduct various "reconciliations" [4], comment on the same events, and jointly form global hotspots of attention. They weave an increasingly tight network of meaning in a way that transcends traditional civilizational boundaries, co-constructing and sharing "one world." Based on the dual revolution of the digitalization of production methods and the virtualization of communication methods, humanity has for the first time realized a triple-layered existence involving physical space, actual society, and digital space. Some Western scholars understand "society" as "civilization" and use civilization as the unit of historical research, primarily focusing on historical studies of the pre-globalization era. This potentially locks the understanding of civilization into "a certain group of humans" and fails to foresee the state of civilizational existence catalyzed by digital intelligent technology—the "human-machine-object" ternary fusion of the Intelligent Internet of Everything, which has reconstructed the holistic foundation of civilization. Despite various so-called "deglobalization" phenomena, the general trend of the global civilizational network becoming more deeply interconnected remains unchanged. Today, world history and the development of human society have irreversibly taken on globalized characteristics, which is the objective reality upon which a community with a shared future for humanity is built.
However, these globalized characteristics of human society have reflexively highlighted the holistic crisis facing humanity. In the most general sense, the authentic logic of human civilizational development consists of an ongoing optimization of the triple relationship—between man and nature, man and man, and man and self—based on the guarantee of survival and aimed at a better life, through the technical adjustment of nature, institutional arrangements of social relations, and the construction of meaning in the spiritual world. But when modern civilization reached the peak of material accumulation under the domination of the logic of capital and the expansion of instrumental rationality, it encountered a systemic crisis. For example, in the economic sphere, there is a polarization between rich and poor and a depletion of developmental momentum; traditional development models are unsustainable, and while the technological revolution reconstructs the system of productive forces, it makes the global economy even more unbalanced. In the political sphere, geopolitical conflicts have become normalized, non-traditional security risks have increased sharply, global governance systems have proven ineffective, and the power structure of the international community has undergone revolutionary changes, resulting in a systemic rupture of order. In the social sphere, trends toward social stratification and stagnation are serious, and technological changes represented by artificial intelligence bring dramatic shifts in employment structures and social-ethical challenges. In the cultural sphere, conflicts of values and civilizational contestation have intensified, while consumerism and virtual spaces exacerbate spiritual desertification, leaving humanity in danger of losing common cultural coordinates. In the ecological sphere, resources are being depleted, the environment is deteriorating, and the climate change situation is dire, posing a direct threat to human survival. In particular, the contemporary world suffers from "the heavy toll of hegemonism, power politics, and zero-sum games, where the strong bully the weak and engage in plunder through trickery or force. The peace deficit, development deficit, security deficit, and governance deficit are worsening, and human society faces unprecedented challenges." These crises and challenges can all be traced back to a fundamental distortion of the triple relationship—among which the alienation of the relationship between man and man constitutes the pivotal contradiction. Narrow relations between man and nature, and between man and self, are determined by narrow relations between man and man. In the context of globalization, this narrow relationship is most sharply expressed in inter-civilizational relations: the self-centeredness of traditional civilizations based on national and state boundaries forms a profound paradox with the global governance rationality required by a risk society. In a "quantum-entangled" civilizational ecosystem, various actual civilizations increasingly have no "externalities" in the strict sense. Facing a holistic human crisis, no nation, state, or civilization can turn the tide or remain untainted alone; instead, "global solidarity" (global gòng jì) is required. Therefore, humanity must form certain universal norms from the height of civilization as a whole and reconstruct inter-civilizational relations, enabling actual civilizations to act in coordination and ensure the continued survival and better development of human civilization through rational choice. The community with a shared future for humanity is precisely the institutionalized and conceptual expression of this "global solidarity."
Objectively speaking, actual civilizations inherently belong to the holistic human civilization. The "boundary consciousness" that emerges from distinguishing oneself from the "other" shows that civilization always constructs a "we" in the process of distinguishing itself from various "thems." But this "boundary" itself has different levels. From the most macroscopic cosmic scale, the entire human civilizational body is but a community located in the Solar System on the Orion Arm of the Milky Way; so far, its scope is limited to the Earth and a few other celestial bodies such as the Moon and Mars. Civilizations emerging in different parts of the Earth are all components of human civilization, belonging to the many sub-civilizations within this grand set. Many thinkers believe that different cultures and civilizations share a "common denominator" or "cultural constants." Vico was the first to point out that although nations were unaware of each other at their origins, they constituted a common world and possessed a common "mental dictionary" before interacting; his "New Science" was dedicated to studying the "common nature of the nations." This also corroborates the ancient wisdom of Xunzi [5]: "People seek the same things but follow different paths; they have the same desires but different understandings." If the "we" that expressed civilizational "boundary consciousness" in the past was primarily defined in relation to other [human] civilizations, then today we need to consciously internalize different civilizations into the largest "we" at the level of humanity—regardless of whether the "them" refers to nature, so-called deities, extraterrestrial intelligence, or the super-artificial intelligence soon to emerge. One of the core goals of a community with a shared future for humanity is to promote "humanity" as a common identity that transcends the boundaries of nations, states, and civilizations.
In fact, any linguistic expression or conceptual use contains an inherent impulse toward universalization, and this is especially true of civilizational discourse. Historically, all civilizational bodies have possessed a cognitive inertia of elevating local experiences into universal laws—a so-called "immortal fantasy." This civilizational centrism reached its zenith in the Western narrative of modernity. Etymological research shows that the Western concept of "civilization" has always formed a discursive symbiosis with "barbarism," and its modern transformation coincided exactly with colonial expansion. By constructing a civilizational hierarchy, spatial differences were converted into a temporal sequence ranging from savagery to civilization. According to research, by the early 19th century at the latest, classifications such as "the savage state," "the barbarous state," "the half-civilized state," and "the civilized state" had entered Western textbooks, becoming deep-seated common knowledge and eventually solidifying into the colonial epistemology of Western society. This is the primary basis for post-colonial theorists to question "civilization" as a rhetorical device of empire. For a long time, the word "civilization" was singular in the West; that is, the West long defaulted to the idea that there was only one form of civilization—Western civilization—and non-Western societies were tested and ranked according to Western standards, which were "rooted in race, national ties, and religious beliefs." It was not until roughly the 19th century that the West accepted the plurality of civilization at the grammatical level. Once plural civilizations were recognized, the human (global) society composed of multiple civilizational units highlighted the relationship between civilizations. Thus, as a reflective concept, civilization was not only opposed to the savage or semi-civilized "other," but also encountered the problem of the relationship between the civilizational self and the civilizational other. Accompanied by the advancement of world history and the development of globalization is a continuously structuring power. In handling relations with the civilizational "other," the West remains deeply mired in the legacy of colonial epistemology: its adherence to the theory of civilizational conflict and civilizational superiority can be seen as contemporary variants of "Civilizational Darwinism," containing a logic of disciplining the other. It is worth emphasizing that a view of civilization is itself an important manifestation of civilization, and how one views and handles relations between different civilizations is the core content of that view. This Western-centric view of civilization is precisely one of the core obstacles that a community with a shared future for humanity seeks to dismantle.
The Western view of civilization contains within it a "universal civilization"...
(universal civilization) claim. Not only is this claim not the answer to where human civilization is heading, but its transcendence is precisely a vital objective for humanity’s rational choice today. In its development, Western civilization formed a unique Messiah complex—a mindset of being the civilization's savior deeply rooted in the European cognitive structure. This manifests as an epistemological arrogance toward its own civilizational paradigm: the firm belief that "Europe created the economic, political, and cultural conditions capable of releasing humanity's extraordinary creativity, allowing civilization to develop to its highest form and providing solutions to the most complex problems of human society... it is a beacon guiding humanity" and the "pillar supporting global civilization." Undoubtedly, this belief in a universal civilization is the very foundation of the Western "End of History" thesis. Bowden pointed out piercingly that the so-called universal civilization of the West is not an inevitable path, but a carefully orchestrated history—the expansion of an "Empire of Civilization." He noted that "such expansion is not so much based on universal values and lifestyles as it is driven by a series of Western values, utopias, and institutions." In fact, since the so-called Age of Discovery, the West has consistently packaged its imperial conduct in the discourse of progress, with most of its international policies reduced to tools for the globalization of Western institutions. Braudel pointed out that industrial civilization—a primary argument for Western universal civilization—is "only one feature of the whole Western civilization," and moreover, it is "in the process of synthesizing into a common civilization capable of accommodating the world as a whole"; the world's acceptance of it does not equate to the acceptance of Western civilization in its entirety. However, Western universalism dogmatically maintains that its civilization is the highest, most progressive, and most excellent for humanity, asserting or even forcing people worldwide to believe in it. Observing reality, it is not difficult to see that the Eurocentric epistemological hegemony upon which this narrow view of "universal civilization" and its practices are based is precisely the main root of today’s holistic crisis of humanity. It is also the key resistance that must be overcome in the process of building a community with a shared future for humanity.
Capital undoubtedly possesses a "great civilizing influence" [6]; Western capitalism first inaugurated industrial civilization and, with it, initiated world history for the first time. However, "capitalist civilization is built on the foundation of the capitalist system of exploitation; it cannot overcome or eliminate the barbaric nature inherent within that civilization." The development of modern Western civilization has always been intertwined with colonial violence, capital exploitation, value hegemony, and the clash of civilizations. As history has progressed to the 21st century, the internal flaws of civilizational development models—including Western economic, political, and value models—have increasingly evolved into uncontrollable crises. To extend Western civilization to the world through universalism is, in effect, to turn this crisis into a crisis for all of humanity. If the Western view of universal civilization, along with the Western civilization from which it was born, belongs to human civilization as a whole, then today it must return to its proper position of rationality after reflecting on its crisis of legitimacy. Today, amidst the changes unseen in a century [7], national rejuvenation movements arising from anti-colonial movements have become prominent once again. The involution [8], insecurity, and sense of loss in global society have made all countries urgently look forward to building a better world. This provides the opportunity and impetus for us to transcend Western civilizational forms and dismantle the discourse hegemony of Western universal civilization; it also serves as the important background for the proposal of a community with a shared future for humanity. Elias’s famous work The Civilizing Process concludes with the profound sentiment: "Civilization is not yet finished. It is still in the process of becoming." Today, we can say that human civilization faces an urgent choice regarding its direction, requiring the formation of a new civilizational form and its global discourse—the community with a shared future for humanity is precisely the global practice based on this new civilizational form.
II. The Philosophical Foundation for the Transformation of Human Civilizational Forms
In the deep structure of civilizational forms, the view of civilization is most intrinsically manifested as a philosophical outlook. It fundamentally and profoundly influences people’s understanding of civilization, their views on the relationships between different civilizations, and their predictions regarding where human civilization is headed. True philosophy is the essence of the spirit of the age and the living soul of civilization; making the correct choice at the crossroads of human civilizational development requires a conscious philosophical foundation. Only by penetrating the surface structure of empirical facts and constructing a cognitive framework with historical depth at the philosophical level can one break through "civilizational prejudice" and arrive at a truthful understanding of the essence and future of human civilization. Reflections on the contemporary civilizational predicament can only grasp the core issues when they reach the level of philosophy. In the practice of advancing the progress of human civilization, the dialectical grasp of a series of major relationships—self and other, inheritance and innovation, plurality and the public, and especially human civilization versus actual civilizations—all depends on philosophical wisdom. At this historical juncture of changing civilizational forms, we urgently need to employ "historical telescopes" and the power of philosophical abstraction to construct a new theory of civilization based on the facts of human civilization. This theory of civilization is essentially a revolution in civilizational cognition—the civilizational predicament encountered by humanity in the 21st century stems precisely from a poverty of historical cognition. Discerning "historical correctness" is the prerequisite for ensuring the "progress of human civilization." A philosophy based on historical thinking—highlighting humanity's sense of meaning, sense of position, and especially its ontological consciousness—is the meta-theoretical tool for analyzing the transformation of human civilizational forms: systemic changes involving the core values, institutional systems, and practical paradigms of the overall evolution of human civilization. The current common historical fate of humanity calls for a completely new narrative of human civilization. Fundamentally, it calls for a philosophy that serves as the essence of the spirit of the age and possesses the attributes of a world philosophy—one that serves as the living soul of all human civilization and provides philosophical support for a community with a shared future for humanity.
In 1828, the French thinker François Guizot posed what Bowden later refined into the paradigmatic "Guizot's Question": "Can humanity gradually form a history of universal significance concerning its own civilization and fate?" When Guizot answered in the affirmative—stating, "For my part, I am convinced that there exists in reality a universal human destiny, a transmission of the aggregate of civilization, and consequently a universal history of civilization for the whole world yet to be written"—he and those holding similar views failed, as Bowden pointed out, to break through the inherent Eurocentric cognitive limitations of the 19th century. They instinctively believed that world history was Western history. This intellectual impasse confirms Jaspers’ insight: "Whoever occupies himself with history finds himself unconsciously completing those universal intuitions (Anschauung) which lead the historical whole toward unity. These intuitions may remain uncriticized, even unqueried, because they are not realized. In the historical mode of thinking, they often quite naturally become the prerequisites." The predicament of modernity in historical research lies precisely in the long-standing failure of people to truly arrive at "historical correctness" to transcend narrow instincts and transform this "unconscious" "intuition" into a rigorous and systematic philosophical methodology.
As early as the Enlightenment, when modern Western civilization was in its infancy, Montesquieu enthusiastically discovered and strove to respect human diversity. He realized that "Western civilization itself is also a historical individual and is not mandatory for other nations." However, as Voegelin pointed out, "he had neither the inner freedom to acknowledge this fact, nor the intellectual power to construct a philosophy of history that could handle this problem." In fact, the problem criticized by Voegelin is common in the history of modern Western thought. Hegel, following Montesquieu, on the one hand, was the first to "logically" incorporate all major world civilizations into the course of world history, granting each a "rational" position and taking freedom as the goal of this journey. To a large extent, he completed the work of using "intellectual power" to construct a philosophy of history to handle civilizational diversity. On the other hand, however, his fundamental flaw was that his philosophy of history was metaphysical, speculative, dogmatic, and Eurocentric. His "inner freedom" was limited to achieving the self by acknowledging the other. The development from the freedom of one person to the freedom of all was set as a process of dialectical Aufhebung moving from the East to the West, finally realized in the Germanic peoples. Hegel can be said to be the philosophical founder of both Eurocentrism and the "End of History"—passive forces that need to be transcended today—reflecting the arrogance of Europe during its period of ascent. However, the two World Wars somewhat awakened the Western intellectual circles from their dreams, and speculative philosophies of history concerning civilization took on a pessimistic tendency. The subsequent rise of critical or analytical philosophy of history focused on the critical reflection of historical cognition, highlighting subjective understanding, while postmodern philosophy of history turned toward the literary narrative of language. While these reflections promoted the diversification of historical cognition, they also encountered the predicament of relativism. Today, as Paul Ricoeur identified: "We [the West—Ed.] are in a dark period, we are in a period of the decline of dogmatism, we are at the beginning of a true dialogue. All philosophies of history reside within one range of civilization; this is why we cannot yet imagine the coexistence of these diversities, for we do not have a philosophy of history that can solve the problem of coexistence." This theoretical dilemma stands in stark contrast to the real needs of human civilization. Standing at the direction of progress for human civilization, we need not only a long-term "macro-view of history" but must also truly transcend Eurocentrism, transcend the boundaries of the nation-state, and transcend the oppositions between metaphysics and empiricism, and absolutism and relativism, based on a historical understanding of the shared destiny of humanity.
In truth, the philosophy of history awaited by Voegelin and Ricoeur—one that offers essential inspiration for the current transformation of human civilizational forms—has already appeared. However, the thinker who contributed this philosophical reflection might not have identified his own thought as belonging to the "philosophy of history." A very important reason why the philosophy of history they anticipated failed to emerge in the West for so long is that these philosophies of history failed to consciously develop along the philosophical path opened by this thinker. This thinker was Karl Marx. In his early years, Marx vehemently criticized the narrowness of contemporary philosophy, emphasizing that "true philosophy" appears in the world "with a cosmopolitan stance," and predicted: "A time must come... when philosophy is no longer a particular system in relation to other particular systems, but becomes philosophy in general in the face of the world, becomes the philosophy of the contemporary world." Although Marx's philosophical thought continued to develop, this coloring and attribute of world philosophy never changed. In The German Ideology, the work marking the formation of the materialist conception of history, Marx and Engels clearly announced: "We know only a single science, the science of history" (Wissenschaft der Geschichte). In Marx's view, history is a prismatic category divided into natural history and human history, both constraining each other; what he emphasized for in-depth study was human history. The science of history, as a holistic science, provided the prerequisite principles and methods for studying human history. The materialist conception of history is precisely the concrete application of the science of history within human history; it is the "science of real individuals and their historical development" and the core content of the science of history. The science of history and the materialist conception of history emerged through the critique of German speculative philosophy, including the speculative philosophy of history. Speculative philosophy of history is a metaphysics consistent with the nature of false German ideology; it boldly imagines and "reveals" the so-called essence and laws of history within the speculative mind—from Kant to Hegel, this was the case. Therefore, Marx strongly resented people turning his "historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of the marche générale imposed by fate upon every people," considering that "the greatest advantage of such an historico-philosophic theory is that it is supra-historical." Marx's rejection of this kind of philosophy of history precisely reflected his consciousness in moving beyond Western (West European) centrism and his demand for a truly universal philosophy (rather than a "supra-historical" one). Unlike the supra-historical speculative philosophy of history, Marx's science of history and materialist conception of history are empirical and positive sciences based on human practice. From the perspective of the history of thought, this is philosophical reflection truly based on actual history, possessing the attributes of a world philosophy. It is also the best answer to Guizot's Question and the historical-philosophical expectations of Voegelin and Ricoeur, providing the most appropriate methodological guidance for the coexistence of human civilizational diversity today and even for achieving a "truly universal civilization."
First, Marx's philosophical reflections on history actually clarify the prerequisites and foothold for the coexistence of human civilizational diversity. What Marx emphasized...
"The first premise of all human history" is "the existence of living human individuals," which is likewise the premise of all human civilization. However, it must be noted that in the original German, "individual" appears in the plural form (Individuen); thus, the accurate translation should be "individuals" [诸个体]. "The existence of living individuals" as the premise of all human history and civilization implies that human beings are inherently "co-existent" [共在], and that human existence is co-existence. This is precisely the anthropological foundation for the co-existence of civilizational diversity. Eric Voegelin suggested that Western thinkers lack an inner freedom to acknowledge the particularity of Western civilization, and Paul Ricœur noted that Western philosophies of history are confined within a single civilizational scope, making it difficult to imagine the coexistence of diversity. From Marx's perspective, this is precisely rooted in the inevitable cognitive imprisonment resulting from taking "'civil' society" [9] as one's standing point. Marx’s standing point, by contrast, lies in "human society or socialized humanity." It is precisely based on this grand vision and principled method of totality (human society) and totalization (socialized humanity) that the transcendence of nations and states became a prominent characteristic of Marx's philosophy. From a civilizational perspective, along with the universalization of world intercourse [10], "from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature." The "general philosophy facing the world," as the living soul of all human civilization, is just such a "world literature," and the community with a shared future for humanity can be described as the contemporary practical form of this "world literature."
Second, Marx emphasized practice [实践] as the foundation of history and civilization. Unlike speculative (and essentially idealistic) philosophies of history, Marx's science of history is practical (and primarily materialistic); "human society or socialized humanity" is a state highly structured by the active practice of people. To draw a clear line against the "trans-historical" speculative metaphysics of his time, Marx intentionally emphasized the empirical and positive nature of his science of history. More fundamentally, he understood history as the practical activity of real human beings. In the vision of Marx and Engels, "civilization is a matter of practice." This practice includes both material production and its intercourse, as well as mental production and its intercourse; it marks civilization through productive forces while also understanding civilization as a comprehensive "social quality." More importantly, Marx's philosophical theory is always based on the standpoint of changing the world through practice, treating both existing reality and theory with a "double-edged" approach. It forges true scientificity through thorough criticality; it is a "revolutionary science" that is "produced by the historical movement and participates in it with full consciousness," truly achieving a dual transcendence of both metaphysics and empiricism. At the same time, it contains a profound practical hermeneutics: people create history through practice, and they also understand and interpret history within practice, further changing the world through that understanding and interpretation. "All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice." This historical narrative, framed by historical understanding and the construction of meaning, also resolves the contradiction between absolutism and relativism to the greatest extent. Today's community with a shared future for humanity is not an abstract conceptual construction, but is rooted in the actual movement of the practice of human civilization.
Third, Marx took the realization of civilizational practice at a "principled height" [有原则高度] as his core pursuit. Marx innovatively proposed the ideological proposition of "achieving practice at a principled height," which not only pointed toward a world-historical or all-humanity perspective but also emphasized the realization of a "revolution at a human height." Ultimately, Marx grounded this "human height" in the free and well-rounded development of individuals [11], taking "human society or socialized humanity" as the standing point. Looking at Marx’s discourse as a whole, his "history" focuses on highlighting the historicity of human existence. In an increasingly totalized history and practice, human beings consciously solve the "riddle of history"—centered on the contradictions between man and nature and between man and man—eventually obtaining human liberation. His science of history, in the final analysis, rests upon the "science of real human beings and their historical development." The starting point of history as understood by Marx consists of living individuals; through the practice of material production and social intercourse, these individuals drive the continuous evolution of history. The goal of history is the free and well-rounded development of the individual. Although this goal is hidden within historical development and the civilizational process, it constitutes its deep driving force and fundamental meaning. Today, the ultimate goal of building a community with a shared future for humanity is to create the conditions for the free and well-rounded development of the individual.
Fourth, Marx regarded the transformation of the forms of human civilization as a process of unifying the transformation of the mode of production with the realization of the goal of human liberation. In Marx's view, the dialectical movement of productive forces and relations of production is the fundamental driving force of historical development and civilizational evolution, while the construction of a "true community"—that is, an "association of free individuals"—to achieve human liberation is the highest goal. Whether in the most macro-level evolution of civilizational forms—such as the three-stage development from "relations of personal dependence" to "personal independence based on objective dependence" [12] and finally to "free individuality"—or in the key choices involving the overall direction of civilization within the historical process, the basis for "historical correctness" lies in the intrinsic unity of the liberation of productive forces, the transformation of social relations, and human development. Following this, Marx conducted the most scientific and thorough critique of capitalist civilization by revealing the civilizational predicament of alienated labor and the civilizational paradox of the logic of capital, and appealed to the actual movement of communism. From the practical logic of the transformation of human civilizational forms, the purpose lies in defending and preserving all the achievements of human civilization to create the socio-historical conditions for the free and well-rounded development of man: "In order that they may not be deprived of the result attained, and forfeit the fruits of civilization, they are obliged, from the moment when their mode of commerce no longer corresponds to the productive forces acquired, to change all their traditional social forms." The community with a shared future for humanity is the contemporary embryonic form of the "true community" called for by Marx; its true realization depends on a global transformation of the mode of production and a world-wide restructuring of social relations.
If it can be said that the early Marx focused on revealing the universal laws in social history and civilization, his later explorations of the "Eastern Road" and his research into historical anthropology paid greater attention to the diversity of social and civilizational forms based on the vision of "human society or socialized humanity." However, due to the limitations of his time, Marx did not have the opportunity to encounter the full historical conditions that would make philosophy "become the philosophy of the contemporary world." His "true positive [science]" and "descriptions of reality" were indeed, as he admitted himself, largely based on the historical experience of "Western European capitalism." Nevertheless, the human perspective, basic principles, and ideological methods he opened up possess immortal significance. In both logic and fact, they transcend speculative philosophy of history, critical or analytical philosophy of history, and postmodern philosophy of history, becoming the "only" "science of history" that allows us to understand at a philosophical height what constitutes "historical correctness." Marx's philosophical reflections provide the theoretical guidance and philosophical foundation for resolving the current predicament of human civilization and correctly answering the question of where human civilization is headed.
III. Guiding the Transformation of Contemporary Forms of Human Civilization
Over five thousand years of self-development, Chinese civilization has continuously responded to challenges and opened new chapters, possessing a strong cultural subjectivity and vigorous vitality. In modern times, China encountered "changes unseen in three thousand years" [13]: the country was humiliated, the people suffered, and civilization was covered in dust. The crisis of civilizational survival was intertwined with the process of modernization, giving the Chinese people a special sensitivity and unique theoretical consciousness regarding the direction of civilizational development. Even during the difficult period of national salvation, advanced intellectuals upholding a "state-of-the-world concern" [天下情怀] remained committed both to seeking a path for the continuation and rejuvenation of Chinese civilization and to reflecting on the collective fate of human civilization. In 1918, Li Dazhao [14] spoke passionately: "The disease of Chinese civilization has reached its highest degree of fever; the fate of the Chinese nation has reached a point of precariousness near death," yet "we firmly believe our nation can be reborn, and can make a second great contribution to world civilization" to "save the world from its crisis." Since the day of its founding, the Communist Party of China has established Marxism as its guiding ideology, consciously applying the materialist conception of history to provide a historical answer to the evolution of civilizational forms from the height of the laws governing the development of human society. Its original aspiration and founding mission include not only the dual dimensions of "seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation," but also the civilizational responsibility of "seeking progress for humanity and the Great Harmony [15] for the world." This theoretical consciousness permeates the entire practice of the Chinese revolution, construction, and reform, systematically constituting the "Chinese solution" for exploring new forms of human civilization.
As humanity enters the 21st century, the paradigm of modernity dominated by Western civilization has fallen into an unprecedented systemic crisis. In this context, the vast majority of countries and political parties have either fallen into value confusion or remained stuck in technical responses. However, the Communist Party of China adheres to the "Two Combinations" [16], and with a high degree of historical initiative, accurately grasps and distills the "Questions of the World." It systematically reveals the "changes of the world, changes of the times, and changes of history," ultimately subsuming various narrative subjects—such as "the world," "humanity," "history," "human society," "the international community," "human development," and "the development of human society"—under the unifying conceptual interpretation of "human civilization." It emphasizes that "changes" are occurring with unprecedented intensity and that the situation is extremely grave, believing they are "unfolding in an unprecedented manner" and that humanity "stands at a crossroads of history," facing a choice of which way to go. Based on the judgment that "the future of humanity depends on the choices of the people of all countries," it has issued a practical call to "actively be doers rather than bystanders, and work together to hold the future and destiny of humanity in our own hands." More importantly, the Communist Party of China has led the Chinese people to treat the strategic overall situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the world's changes unseen in a century as an integrated civilizational coordinate system. Through the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan, and by using Chinese-path modernization to create a new form of human civilization, it has made a choice that unifies theory and practice regarding the question of where human civilization is headed.
First, civilizational harmony and symbiotic coexistence [和合共生] is the fundamental way forward. The theory of the new form of human civilization clearly holds that, faced with the common challenge of where to go, "the only way out for humanity is to assist each other in unity and live in harmony and symbiosis." It explicitly advocates for "civilizational harmony and symbiotic coexistence." This first acknowledges the objective fact of the existence of civilizational diversity. Mencius's ancient insight that "the inequality of things is the nature of things" [物之不齐，物之情也] has been modernized and sublimated: "Differences in national history, culture, and social systems have existed since ancient times; they are intrinsic attributes of human civilization. Without diversity, there would be no human civilization." This pattern of difference is also like the law of civilizational self-organization revealed by Mozi—"The rulers take them as policy, and the commoners take them as custom" [上以为政，下以为俗]—it is both an inevitable choice of political wisdom and the natural result of the evolution of customs. Second, it takes the protection of the differentiated development of various civilizations as an important goal. The new form of human civilization not only advocates "harmony with difference" [不同而和] but also pursues "harmony without uniformity" [和而不同], emphasizing "understanding the understanding of value connotations by different civilizations with a broad mind, and respecting the exploration of different countries' people into their own developmental paths." Finally, this diversity pursued as an objective is not a spontaneous or passive diversity, but contains a certain transcendence of original differences, seeking consensus within difference to reach a more ideal state of diversity—namely, the ideal state where "all things grow together without harming one another, and diverse paths run parallel without colliding" [万物并育而不相害，道并行而不相悖]. In this sense, human civilization is not a simple sum of existing civilizations, but a human civilization that is continuously optimized through harmony and symbiosis, presenting an inclusiveness where "nothing is external to the world" [天下无外] and a practical character of "the world belongs to the public" [天下为公]. What makes "civilizational harmony and symbiotic coexistence" possible is not the various "paths" in "the paths run parallel without colliding," but the "Great Path of the World" [天下之大道]—namely, public justice [公道]—that allows these "paths" to run parallel. This Great Path or Public Justice is the authentic way for civilizations to get along. Building a community with a shared future for humanity is precisely about practicing this way of civilizational interaction, clarifying its civilizational background of harmony and symbiosis, and allowing diverse civilizations to achieve coordinated development.
Second, civilizational exchange and mutual learning is the basic method. The theory of the new form of human civilization reveals that...
The law that "civilizations exchange because of diversity, learn from each other because of exchange, and develop because of mutual learning" provides a core methodology for resolving the era-defining question of where human civilization is headed: "persist in the equality, mutual learning, dialogue, and inclusiveness of civilizations; let exchange transcend estrangement, mutual learning transcend conflict, and inclusiveness transcend superiority." First, the equality of civilizations is the prerequisite for exchange and mutual learning. Within the horizon of the new form of human civilization, different civilizations are not divided into high or low, superior or inferior; they differ only in style and type, and are all equal in value. This also means that no perfect civilization exists in the world, and it is impossible for any existing civilization to universalize itself to directly derive an ideal human civilization. Second, inclusiveness of civilizations is the driving force for exchange and mutual learning. In dealing with different civilizations, we need a mind broader than the sky. The history of humanity, the history of Chinese civilization, and the practice of the new form of human civilization all demonstrate that "openness and inclusiveness have always been the source of vitality for the development of civilization," and "as long as the spirit of inclusiveness is maintained, there is no such thing as a 'clash of civilizations' [17], and harmony among civilizations can be achieved." Third, dialogue between civilizations is the key to exchange and mutual learning. The exchange and mutual learning of civilizations aims to replace confrontation with dialogue, "seeking wisdom and drawing nourishment from different civilizations to provide spiritual support and soul-felt solace for people, and joining hands to solve the various challenges faced by humanity." From a philosophical perspective, various civilizations have, in fact, formed a relationship of functional complementarity within the field of globalization. Liang Shuming [18] once pointed out that Western, Chinese, and Indian civilizations respectively emphasized solving the contradictions between humans and things, humans and humans, and humans and themselves. While this formulation may not be strictly accurate, it vividly illustrates that every civilization has its own strengths. Through mutual learning, civilizations can offset their weaknesses with others' strengths, acquire more holistic wisdom, and achieve the optimization of the civilizational system. Building a community with a shared future for humanity is precisely about encouraging all countries to enhance understanding, build consensus, and inspire one another through civilizational exchange, achieving mutual benefit and win-win results in the process of jointly addressing global challenges.
Third, it takes upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground in civilization as its endogenous driving force. The theory of the new form of human civilization explicitly opposes the theory of civilizational rupture, resists historical nihilism, and reveals and emphasizes the dialectical law that "only by upholding the fundamentals can we avoid losing our way or making subversive mistakes, and only by breaking new ground can we grasp and lead the era." On the one hand, this not only promotes the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture based on the prominent continuity and originality of Chinese civilization to achieve an organic link between the traditional and the modern, but also proposes the "Second Combination" [19]—a major innovative theory of ideological liberation. By combining the basic tenets of Marxism with fine traditional Chinese culture, a new, organically unified cultural lifeform is created. This itself is a paradigm of mutual learning among civilizations and achieves the self-renewal of Chinese civilization. On the other hand, the theory elevates "upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground" to a universal logic of civilizational evolution, calling on all countries to "jointly advocate the importance of civilizational inheritance and innovation, fully tap the contemporary value of the history and culture of all countries, and promote the creative transformation and innovative development of the fine traditional cultures of all nations in the process of modernization." "Although Zhou was an ancient state, its mission is renewal" (zhou sui jiu bang, qi ming wei xin) [20]. The new form of human civilization accurately grasps the universal phenomenon of "returning to the root to open the new" (fan ben kai xin) in civilizational development and elevates it into an important method for human civilizational progress, placing special emphasis on the inheritance and innovation of classical civilizations. Human classical civilizations made foundational contributions to the evolution of human civilization; they are the font of human wisdom, continuously nourishing and inspiring subsequent generations, and containing important revelations regarding where human civilization is headed. For instance, Chinese-path modernization is deeply rooted in fine traditional Chinese culture; it is the "ancient state with a new mission" for the Chinese nation. From the perspective of today's choices and progress for human civilization, all classical civilizations should become the shared wealth of humanity. If past eras of "returning to the root" primarily opened up the "new" for a single nation or civilization, then today there is a greater need to consciously stand on the progress of all human civilization, "return" to the "roots" of various civilizations, and "open" a "new" for all of humanity. This is precisely the "ancient state with a new mission" for humanity today based on civilizational choice. Building a community with a shared future for humanity requires all countries to actively promote civilizational innovation while adhering to their civilizational foundations and inheriting their civilizational essence, providing momentum for the continuous development of the community.
Fourth, it takes the common values of all humanity as its core norm. The essence of civilization lies in the establishment and evolution of value systems, and the process of civilizational progress is essentially a reflection of the continuous condensation and sublimation of human value pursuits. An important reason for and manifestation of the current predicament of human civilization is both the lack of value consensus and the existence of the hegemony of Western "universal values." The key to escaping this predicament lies in finding and adhering to the great way (dadao), the way of justice, and the way of harmony (he-he zhi dao) that transcends Western "universal values." General Secretary Xi Jinping explicitly pointed out: "'When the Great Way prevails, the world is shared by all' [21]. Peace, development, equity, justice, democracy, and freedom are the common values of all humanity." These common values construct a three-level human value system. First are the foundational values based on common human attributes—the inherent, "commonly desired" and "commonly sought" value aspirations of different nations and civilizations as members of humanity. These values are like mineral veins buried deep underground, requiring continuous de-shrouding and clarification through civilizational dialogue and philosophical reflection. Second are the bottom-line values for maintaining civilizational coexistence. In the contemporary context where humanity faces holistic existential crises, different civilizations must jointly abide by the rules of coexistence and ethical bottom lines. This has become a categorical imperative that transcends actual cultural and civilizational differences. Finally, there are the constructive values that are continuously generated through historical evolution. These consensus-based value norms, gradually formed through equal civilizational dialogue and practical testing, both carry traditional wisdom and are open to the future, possessing distinct publicity and practicality. Human civilization as a whole undergoes an evolutionary process from "thin" to "thick," and its value dimensions are continuously enriched and expanded along with the depth of civilizational interaction. The common values of all humanity proposed by China both inherit the purposes of the UN Charter and transcend the metaphysical essence of Western "universal values." By emphasizing the practice-oriented nature of values and the diversity of their realization paths, they are the value expression of contemporary human civilization and embody the thickness that human civilization ought to have. Building a community with a shared future for humanity means following these common values to solidify the value foundation of global governance, allowing all countries to join hands under the guidance of common values to build a better world.
Fifth, it takes the building of a community with a shared future for humanity as its final destination. Jointly building a community with a shared future for humanity is a total answer—profoundly simple yet encompassing the "Great Way"—to the question of "what is wrong with the world and what should we do," based on "Great History" [22] reflections on "where we came from, where we are now, and where we are going." "A community with a shared future for humanity" is first an objective description, expressing the actual state (shiran) of the integrated development of human society. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "In this world, the degree of interconnection and interdependence among countries has deepened to an unprecedented extent. Humanity lives in the same global village, in the same space-time where history and reality intersect, increasingly becoming a community with a shared future where we are all part of each other." Secondly, as a concept rooted in Marxist theory and the Chinese civilizational ideal of "Great Harmony" (datong), "a community with a shared future for humanity" is also an ideal state that needs to be actively constructed. General Secretary Xi Jinping has proposed action plans for jointly building a community with a shared future for humanity across international relations, security patterns, economic development, civilizational exchange, and ecological construction, calling on the people of all countries to "build an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity." Undeniably, building a community with a shared future for humanity contains the common norms of human civilization—a community with a shared future is also a community of human civilizations. Its fundamental characteristic lies in "commonality" (gong); it is a "community" of "shared consultation" and "shared construction" for "win-win sharing," highlighting the publicity of "the world is shared by all" and the equality between subjects. This holistic perception of humanity's "shared destiny" transcends the narrow horizons of the nation-state, "country first" mentalities, and Western-centrism, providing a brand-new model for the harmonious coexistence of human civilizations based on the laws of civilizational development. Furthermore, China has proposed and implemented the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI), the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), the Global Governance Initiative, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), transforming civilizational consensus into concrete actions and promoting the reform of the global governance system. This provides a tangible, ongoing path toward the harmonious coexistence of human civilizations. The new form of human civilization focuses on new paths, new patterns, and revolutionary changes in civilizational forms during the modernization process; it is the civilizational foundation and value core for building a community with a shared future for humanity. Building a community with a shared future for humanity is the specific manifestation and practical destination of the new form of human civilization in the global field. The two are unified in the historical process of promoting human civilizational progress and achieving the common well-being of humanity.
Existing civilizations are equal, but they not only differ in historical experience due to objective reasons, but also possess differences in whether their characteristics and strengths fit current needs and are "timely." Therefore, in specific historical stages, the progress of human civilization must rely not only on the joint efforts of all nations and civilizations but also, indeed, on one or several "world-historical nations" being proactive, contributing wisdom, advancing agendas, coordinating actions, and providing demonstrations and leadership. As the practical carrier of the new form of human civilization, Chinese-path modernization transforms the dilemma of "human civilization standing at a crossroads" into a series of modernization questions: "Polarization or common prosperity? Materialism alone or coordinated material and spiritual-cultural development? Draining the pond to catch the fish [23] or harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature? Zero-sum games or win-win cooperation? Blindly copying other countries' models or independent development based on one's own national conditions? What kind of modernization do we actually need? How can we achieve modernization?" The answer provided by Chinese-path modernization is: highlight the people-centered nature of the direction of modernization, explore the diversity of modernization paths, maintain the sustainability of the modernization process, enhance the accessibility of modernization achievements, and ensure the firmness of modernization leadership. It takes its massive population, common prosperity for all, the coordination of material and spiritual-cultural civilizations, harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, and following the path of peaceful development as both its distinctive features and its practical requirements. Chinese-path modernization "is based on our own national conditions while drawing on the experience of other countries; it inherits historical culture while integrating modern civilization; it benefits the Chinese people while promoting the common development of the world. It is the broad road for building a strong country and national rejuvenation, and the only path for China to seek human progress and Great Harmony in the world." With the successful practice of 1.4 billion people, Chinese-path modernization has rewritten the inherent perception that "modernization = Westernization" in a way that demonstrates "concrete universality." It presents a new blueprint different from the Western modernization model, providing a brand-new choice for developing countries to move toward modernization independently, offering a vivid demonstration for the correct choice of where human civilization is headed, and providing practical experience and civilizational samples for building a community with a shared future for humanity.
The new form of human civilization created by China runs through the overall logic of harmonious coexistence (he-he gong-sheng). Through the methodology of exchange and mutual learning, the driving mechanism of upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground, the normative system of common values, the ideal goal of a community with a shared future, and the practical demonstration of Chinese-path modernization, it constructs a brand-new model of civilizational evolution. It systematically and scientifically answers the question of where human civilization is headed. Compared to the Western civilizational form—which long occupied a dominant position and is the main cause of the current predicament of human civilization—the theory and practice of the new form of human civilization have achieved a shift from a capital-centered to a people-centered development philosophy; an integration of civilizational structures from systemic imbalance to coordinated development; a reshaping of civilizational foundations from rupture to inheritance and innovation; a reconstruction of civilizational relations from confrontation and competition to win-win cooperation; and a sublimation of civilizational missions from expansion and plunder to harmonious coexistence. It marks new historical coordinates for the development of human civilization in the 21st century and represents the direction of human civilizational progress—this is precisely the civilizational logic and foundation for building a community with a shared future for humanity.
The reason China has been able to create a new form of human civilization and make the correct choice when human civilization is at a crossroads is, fundamentally, because it is guided by the scientific theory of Marxism and can always stand on the right side of history. At the same time, the theory of the new form of human civilization has greatly enriched and developed Marxist philosophy under new historical conditions, especially in truly solving the difficult problem of the coexistence of civilizational diversity. In today's world, the most core and urgent issue needing to be addressed to answer the question of where human civilization is headed and to build a community with a shared future for humanity is the problem of "diversity in coexistence." This is an issue in the history of philosophy...
The ancient problem of "the One" and "the Many" has re-emerged within the contemporary civilizational context. Guided by historical materialism, the new form of human civilization integrates Marxist philosophy with the wisdom of fine traditional Chinese culture, breaking the binary oppositional mode of thinking found in traditional metaphysics. By incorporating dialectical thinking into the very concept of civilization, it optimizes the civilizational system on the basis of acknowledging differences, proposing and demonstrating the practice of "harmonious co-existence among civilizations" (文明和合共生) [24] as the only correct path. On one hand, as previously mentioned, the harmonious co-existence of civilizations—along with the common values of all humanity and a community with a shared future for humanity under its logical governance—inherently contains the Great Way (大道, dadao) [25] and justice (公道, gongdao) on the scale of human civilization; it thus possesses the significance of a public, universal norm for all existing civilizations. On the other hand, its primary significance lies precisely in liberating rather than suppressing the subjectivity of various civilizations: it opposes the hegemonic logic of universalizing a specific civilization (such as Western civilization) and is committed to constructing a space of communication where all civilizational traditions can be present as equals and fully demonstrate their creativity. With a vision of "holding the whole world in mind" (胸怀天下) [26], and based on the fact of civilizational diversity, it rejects universalism and seeks "publicness" (公共性), both sublated relativism and transcending absolutism. The theory of the new form of human civilization has found the optimal path for benign interaction between existing civilizations and the optimized development of human civilization as a whole, while also opening a broad vista for the development of contemporary Chinese Marxism and 21st-century Marxism.
Conclusion
In the present era, the tide of economic globalization is unstoppable, and the technological revolution marked by the Internet and artificial intelligence is changing with each passing day. Humanity has never been so interconnected as a single entity, providing unprecedented realistic conditions for resolving the civilizational tension between "the ancient and the modern, the Chinese and the Western" (古今中西) [27]. The future of "such an era" predicted by Marx has arrived. It is precisely in the process of insisting on combining the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific realities and fine traditional Chinese culture that Marxism in China has undergone continuous Sinicization and modernization, consolidating its de-Western-centric position and gaining a more vigorous cultural life from Chinese civilization. Today, it has not only made itself the essence of the times for Chinese culture and the Chinese spirit but also persists in holding the whole world in mind. By combining the specific realities of various countries and the entire spiritual wealth of humanity, drawing on the strengths of all and integrating them for innovation, it is increasingly manifesting the grand atmosphere of a "general philosophy facing the world," that is, a "philosophy of the contemporary world." The "world history" initiated and dominated by the West in modern times is moving toward a world history jointly created by all of humanity; human philosophy has begun to slowly walk out of the West, revealing the light of a true world philosophy. The practical form of this philosophical transformation is centrally reflected in China's shift from a Western-centric narrative to a true common narrative for humanity. On the basis of innovating and developing Marx's meta-theoretical critique of civilizational forms, China has created and developed a new form of human civilization. Creating and advancing Chinese-path modernization, upholding and promoting the common values of all humanity, and promoting the building of a community with a shared future for humanity—these are all essentially practices that stand on the side of human civilizational progress and are based on the principled height of human civilization. Conversely, only by rising to the height of human civilization can we accurately grasp the essence and pith of all these theories and actions; only by rising to the height of contemporary Chinese Marxism and 21st-century Marxism can we truly know the world-historical significance they hold in leading the progress of human civilization.
Philosophical reflection based on the height of human civilization requires both transcending regional thinking patterns and testing its universality through actual practice. Indeed, "what a nation does as a nation, it does for human society." However, in today's era of urgent choices regarding where human civilization should go, existing civilizations must possess a more conscious initiative, proactivity, and creativity: they must be rooted in their own civilizational traditions and political structures while simultaneously adopting an open posture to integrate the essence of other civilizations. In doing so, a "world philosophy" that bears the imprint of the national spirit yet relatively transcends it can grow, or national wisdom can be wholeheartedly contributed to such a world philosophy. Only in this way can world philosophy, as the secular wisdom of humanity, integrate the wisdom of different civilizations and ultimately form a public wisdom of all humanity—or "Great Unity wisdom" (大同智慧) [28]—allowing different civilizations to truly coexist in harmony and enabling the sustainable development of all human civilization. In this process, possessing a Marxist philosophy combined with fine traditional Chinese culture is our great advantage. Contemporary Chinese Marxism must more consciously shoulder the responsibility of laying the philosophical foundations for human civilizational progress, provide more profound theoretical support for building a community with a shared future for humanity, and drive human civilization toward a better future.