Wang Xuebin: Three Dimensions for Understanding Xi Jinping's Thinking on Culture
Cultural confidence is rooted in excellent traditional Chinese culture, possessing incomparable thickness; it takes the long trajectory of China’s history as its axis, possessing unprecedented breadth; it uses a civilization unbroken for over five thousand years as its carrier, possessing a unique height; it takes the continuous theoretical innovation of the Chinese Communists over the past century as its soul, possessing a precious depth; and it relies on the actual production and daily lives of the countless Chinese people, possessing a genuine warmth. The unification of these “five dimensions”—thickness, breadth, height, depth, and warmth—makes cultural confidence a more fundamental, broader, and deeper confidence, and the most basic, profound, and lasting force.
Publicity, ideological, and cultural work [1] concerns the future and destiny of the Party, the long-term stability of the state, and the cohesion and centripetal force of the nation; it is a work of extreme importance. Closely following the new situation and new tasks, General Secretary Xi Jinping recently issued important instructions regarding publicity, ideological, and cultural work. Specifically, these instructions clarified the primary political tasks that must be completed in this field, focused on the new cultural mission to be undertaken at a new historical starting point, pointed out three basic principles to be followed in future cultural construction, and summarized the relevant implementation requirements of the “Seven Focuses” [2]. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping’s understanding of the laws governing the construction of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics in the New Era has continued to deepen. He has proposed a series of major viewpoints, assertions, and deployments, forming a scientific ideological and theoretical system with a clear theme, systematic completeness, rigorous logic, and profound meaning. This marks the theoretical summation of the practical experience of the Party leading cultural construction in the New Era, enriches and develops Marxist cultural theory, constitutes the “Culture Chapter” of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and forms Xi Jinping Culture Thought.
Summarizing past achievements and experiences, and deeply studying the text and spirit of the recent National Conference on Publicity, Ideological, and Cultural Work, we see that Xi Jinping Culture Thought is broad, profound, and rich in connotation, exhibiting three major characteristics: the integration of original theoretical achievements, the systematic consolidation of strategic deployments, and the expansion of an open framework.
Achieving the Integration of Numerous Original Cultural Theories in the New Era
Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, faced with a global situation that urgently requires the construction of international discourse power and a dialogue between great civilizations, a national situation based on demonstrating cultural confidence and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and a Party situation focused on the increasingly complex and diverse nature of ideological work, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has—with a strong sense of problem-awareness and transformative courage—pioneered a series of original theories concerning cultural construction. This was fully reflected in the recent conference, where major theoretical propositions such as cultural confidence, building a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leadership, socialist core values, promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture [3], and mutual learning among civilizations were all mentioned and emphasized. So-called “integration” does not mean merely listing various ideas; rather, it involves the succession and resetting of the levels and status of these ideas relative to one another. One of the most obvious changes in this conference was the elevation of cultural confidence into the basic principles to be followed for cultural construction—namely, “strengthening cultural confidence.”
Through more than 40 years of exploration and accumulation, the Communist Party of China has now refined the crucial original theory of cultural confidence, and it has trended toward depth and maturity through the great cultural practices of the decade of the New Era. Cultural confidence is rooted in excellent traditional Chinese culture, possessing incomparable thickness; it takes China’s long history as its axis, possessing unprecedented breadth; it uses a civilization unbroken for over five thousand years as its carrier, possessing a unique height; it takes the continuous theoretical innovation of the Chinese Communists over the past century as its soul, possessing a precious depth; and it relies on the actual production and daily lives of the countless Chinese people, possessing a genuine warmth. With the “five dimensions” in one, cultural confidence is the more fundamental, broader, and deeper confidence. One could say the theory of cultural confidence is an upgraded version that continues the theory of cultural self-awareness [4] and answers numerous questions of cultural construction in the New Era. The title of the cultural section of the Report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC is “Advancing Cultural Confidence and Self-Strengthening.” Based on the grand goal of building a modern Chinese civilization, cultural confidence has been endowed with higher significance: as a basic principle or methodology, it serves as the intrinsic drive and requirement to stimulate and guide the construction of spiritual civilization [5], urging the construction of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics to move toward cultural transformation and civilizational renewal.
Attaining Systematic Consolidation of Cultural Deployments in the New Era
So-called “consolidation” does not merely mean that specific deployments are analyzed and placed in their proper positions, but rather that a more integrated effect is achieved through deep-level allocation and collaboration. The word “Culture” was added to the title of this National Conference. Unlike the previous national conferences on publicity and ideological work in 2013 and 2018, the adjustment and perfection of the conference name signifies the completion of the consolidation of three major fields of work. This is an inherent part of the formation of Xi Jinping Culture Thought and is more conducive to the coordination and implementation of relevant deployments in the future. Xi Jinping Culture Thought contains both innovations and breakthroughs in cultural theoretical viewpoints and deployment requirements for the layout of cultural work. It clarifies the "substance" and masters the "application" (mingti dayong, tiyong guantong) [6], defining the roadmap and task book for cultural construction in the New Era.
“Substance” (ti) refers to the ontology or source, while “application” (yong) refers to practice and method. Overall, it means guiding practice with theory and enriching theory through practice. “Substance and application” (ti-yong) is a concept originating from indigenous Chinese thought that has been continuously developed. In the “Enriching the Nation” (Fu guo) chapter of Xunzi, the phrasing “all things share the same universe but have different substances; they have no inherent appropriateness but have applications for humans” [7] appeared, proving that the counterposition of ti and yong was already in common use during the pre-Qin period. The requirements of the “Three Basic Principles” and the “Seven Focuses” are typical manifestations of this. First, strengthening cultural confidence, upholding openness and inclusiveness, and upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground belong to the principles in the sense of guiding theory or methodology. “Openness and inclusiveness” means that our construction of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics must broaden its horizons, relying on a vast “capacity for containment” and a powerful “power of digestion” to learn from and borrow all outstanding civilizational achievements of human society with an open mind. We must draw upon excellent ideological and cultural resources from the “sum of human knowledge” to innovate and develop the Party’s cultural theory, forming a grand pattern of inclusiveness and drawing on the strengths of all. “Upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground” necessarily requires that we must never abandon the soul-vein of Marxism, nor the root-vein of excellent traditional Chinese culture. Adhering to this soul and root is the basis and prerequisite for theoretical innovation, and is the purpose and bottom line of publicity, ideological, and cultural work.
Second, the “Seven Focuses” concentrate on the specific deployments of current and future cultural construction. “Focusing on strengthening the Party's leadership over publicity, ideological, and cultural work” is the overall requirement; “focusing on building a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leadership” has risen to the level of a fundamental institutional guarantee; “focusing on cultivating and practicing socialist core values” reflects the Party’s intrinsic ideals, values, and spiritual pursuits; “focusing on improving the communication, guidance, influence, and credibility of news and public opinion” is an important task of the Party and a major matter for governing the country and ensuring national stability; “focusing on continuing the Chinese cultural lineage and promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture” is the policy and method for achieving cultural inheritance and development and building a modern Chinese civilization; “focusing on promoting the prosperous development of cultural undertakings and cultural industries” is the specific path to becoming a cultural powerhouse as scheduled; and “focusing on strengthening international communication capacity building and promoting mutual learning among civilizations” is the basic guarantee for enhancing international discourse power and conducting healthy civilizational dialogue. These seven aspects each perform their duties while being internally and externally linked, which is the very characteristic of systematic consolidation.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that in several recent important Party documents, classical Chinese concepts and phrasing have been frequently used to explain Party theory. This was most evident in the speech at the Symposium on Cultural Inheritance and Development, particularly in the summary of the “prominent characteristics of Chinese civilization”—involving many important elements such as social ideals, governance ideas, the tradition of Great Unity (da yitong) [8], feelings of home and country, spiritual pursuits, economic ethics, ecological concepts, philosophical thoughts, thinking methods, and the way of social interaction. These perhaps indicate that the CPC Central Committee is consciously attempting to lead the construction of an independent Chinese knowledge system, thereby achieving integration between indigenous concepts and Party discourse.
Demonstrating the Open Expansion of Cultural Positions in the New Era
So-called “expansion” means that the existing ideological and theoretical system possesses a capacity to absorb wisdom from all sides, and it also indicates that this system is always in a state of “work in progress” and development; many issues concerning major aspects and fields still require continuous expansion and interpretation. As the National Conference on Publicity, Ideological, and Cultural Work pointed out, Xi Jinping Culture Thought is a continuously unfolding, open ideological system that will surely be enriched and developed as practice deepens. This reminds us that future research and interpretation of Xi Jinping Culture Thought must possess at least three perspectives. The first is a retrospective perspective, starting from General Secretary Xi Jinping’s local governance practices to trace where this open ideological system came from; the second is a forward-looking perspective, starting from the new situations, tasks, and even new problems and challenges faced by the Party and the state in the cultural field to predict how this open ideological system will develop; the third is a global perspective, starting from important concepts and texts such as a community with a shared future for humanity and the Global Civilization Initiative to analyze how this open ideological system makes a global contribution.
Tracing the past and looking to the future, the formation of Xi Jinping Culture Thought is both a culmination and a new achievement of the Party’s cultural practice and theoretical innovation in the New Era; it also holds extremely important significance in the history of the development of Marxist cultural theory and the history of the CPC’s cultural theory. This further means that, marking this as a milestone, the Party’s cultural construction has entered a new realm and stage. Many deep-level issues deserve our continued diligent exploration, such as the core connotation, specific categories, and future direction of Xi Jinping Culture Thought, as well as its internal logical connection with the theoretical thoughts already proposed in the other six fields of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Only by upholding a broader academic and theoretical vision and writing more "tapestry-like articles" on this heavy and profound “Culture Chapter” can we provide a strong ideological guarantee, powerful spiritual strength, and favorable cultural conditions for building a socialist modernized country in all respects and advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts.