On April 30, the 100th anniversary of the May 4th Movement was held in the Great Hall of the People.(Xinhua News Agency)
Civilization is sustainable.In recent years, China's senior management has proposed four self -confidence on the phenomenon of Western thoughts and worshiping the West blindly since the 1980s, namely road self -confidence, theoretical self -confidence, institutional self -confidence, and cultural self -confidence.Among these four self -confidence, the last self -confidence culture and self -confidence are undoubtedly the most fundamental and important.It is very simple. Without cultural self -confidence, other self -confidence cannot be mentioned by the agenda; it can even be said that the root of the other three confidence lies in culture.The root cause of China can find its own path, its own theory, and its own system is culture.
Indeed, in the process of modernization in China, you need to learn from the West, because West walking in front of China, there are many good experiences to learn from; but learning the West does not turn China into the West, but makes yourself better.If there is any China in the West, what you want to learn and how to do China in the West, then it is wrong.Although China and the West belong to human society and enjoy common value, that is, universal value, it does not mean that China can use Western ways to achieve these universal values.Even in the West, different countries use their own different ways to achieve these values.
Since the Second World War, there have been too many developing countries to achieve the east of the West. As a result, not only can it not achieve these values, but it has caused their society to be poverty and backward, and even anarchy.And those countries and regions that have learned the West but have not simply copied the experience of moving to Western countries have achieved great success.In this regard, there are many lessons and lessons in the Western academic community.technical problem.
From the perspective of experience, this problem is very clear.China studying from the West or foreign countries has been a matter of late Qing, because before China believes that it is the most advanced and civilized.After being defeated by the Western powers, especially after being defeated by Chinese students in Japan, China has only embarked on a foreign country.However, every experience shows that failed to be a foreign teachist is inevitable; all the chances of success will be great if they can learn according to the needs of Chinese reality or can Chinese experience.
This experience has been the case from Sun Yat -sen to today.Here are only political studies, because politics is the core issue.From the beginning, Sun Yat -sen realized that China could not have been copied to move the Western system. Therefore, he and his colleagues created a five -power constitution, that is, the three powers of the West (that is, the legislative, administrative and judicial) and the Chinese tradition (That is, the test rights and supervision rights) are combined.But even so, the Western Parliament system that he tried to introduce was quickly failed.After that, he began to advocate and turned to Su Russia.After Sun Yat -sen, both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party learned from the Soviet Union.But different learning methods have led to different results.
Change hostile western concept
The leader of the Communist Party Mao Zedong can be said to be the most hateful and opposed to the original faculty.During the revolution, he established his leadership status through opposition to move Western experience.He tried his best to oppose the dogmatism represented by Wang Ming, that is, opposed to the native version of Marxism, and only achieved the victory of the Chinese revolution through the Sinicization of Marxism.After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union was the original Marx Leninism, trying to impose its own version of the system to other communist countries.
Similarly, Mao Zedong plays the role of opposition to the original faculty.When the Soviet Union carried out large -scale centralized power, Mao Zedong went against him and implemented a large -scale decentralized movement.Therefore, although the Soviet Union and China have implemented the so -called planned economy, the operation of the two economies is completely different.Back to history, this also makes the Republic of the Soviet Union have different fate in the future.
Deng Xiaoping's success is also this path.In the communist camp, Deng Xiaoping first changed the traditional thinking and ideology of hostile to the West and regarding the West system as the enemy, and resolutely opened to the West to learn from the West.Deng Xiaoping and the CCP leaders have never taken photos to move the Western system, although China has been deeply integrated into the Western system in many aspects.This also makes the development of all aspects of China include the autonomy, theory, and system.
All experiences show that success depends on innovation, that is, innovation with its own culture.In other words, it is impossible to move foreign experience, and it is not possible to adhere to tradition.From this perspective, today people advocate that cultural self -confidence cannot be retro, let alone the return of vulgar culture.But unfortunately, under the appearance of civilized revival and cultural self -confidence, high -quality traditions have not returned, and those inferior traditions have quickly spread, becoming the practice of some people, such as blind children's reading class, female Duban, and Tang costumesThe dispute with Hanfu and so on.And these were cleaned up in the Mao Zedong era, and many of them were the revolutionary goals of the May 4th New Culture Movement.
What's more serious is that some retro did not really return to China; on the contrary, the so -called retro is also the result of moving to the West or being colonized by Western thoughts.The battle between Tang and Hanfu is an example.For some people, Hanfu can represent China than Tang suit.But the question is, can Hanfu represent China?In Chinese culture, before the contact with the West in modern times, Han is not a nation, but only represents a culture.In today's words, in the Han Dynasty, China was already a multi -ethnic integration.The concept of racial meaning does not exist in China and imported from the West in modern times.At that time, many historians opposed the use of this concept, but were accepted by scholars with a large number of western thoughts.Obviously, this ethnic concept containing racism still has a huge negative impact on China today.
As the only civilization that has not been interrupted, China's tradition can naturally not be described by the feudal autocracy since the May Fourth New Culture Movement.Chinese civilization has many good basic system traditions, such as the economic structure of the third -layer capital (the state -owned capital on the top level, the private capital of the bottom layer, and the middle level of the government and the private cooperation) and the internal three -power division of labor (decision -making power, execution rights, andSupervisor).For more than two thousand years, the emperor came and went, but these basic systems survived.The more it should be clearly stated that the survival and development of these systems are mostly achieved through internal revolution.
Qin Shihuang was the first political revolution in Chinese history, eliminating feudal feudal in Europe and Japan, and establishing a unified political system.Therefore, the Japanese -American writer Fukuyama said that the Qin Dynasty was the first modern state in history.This is exactly because Europe has only a bureaucratic system like China in modern times.It should be pointed out that the establishment of the Western modern bureaucracy is deeply influenced by the traditional Chinese civilian system.After China's secular culture (mainly religious morality), after the Mongolians opened the Eurasian channel, they began to spread to the West, which had a huge impact on Western Enlightenment.The Chinese civilian system was introduced to the United Kingdom through the East India Company of the United Kingdom, and later it also affected the American system.
In the Song Dynasty, China carried out the second political revolution, that is, the formal establishment of the imperial examination system based on the results of objective examinations.In the 18th century, French enlightenment thinker Montesquiek criticized China that China did not have nobles like Europe, which led to political dictatorship.But this is a big misunderstanding.China's Han and Tang dynasties are all dominated by large families. The large family after the Tang Dynasty led to the gatekeeper system and the division of the country.The Tang Dynasty had realized this problem, and began to reform.The recommendation system since Han has implemented the examination system, but it is not thorough.The introduction of the competitive imperial examination system of the Song Dynasty was the second political revolution.It completely eliminates the political family.Although the imperial power is monopoly, the regime (execution or phase power) is open to the whole society.China does not exist like India's sexual system, and all social classes can enter the regime through the imperial examination system.
Here is a question of what is democratic.Historian Qian Mu once believed that China had Chinese -style democracy and was criticized by many people at the time.But Qian Mu's statement makes sense, but it should be clearer.In the West, democracy is the rule of the political family most of the time.Many countries are still ruled by the political family to this day. Competition between several large families or in turn between them is called democracy.However, the concept of a political family does not appear in the Western democratic script.
The same is true of Japan in Asia. From the Meiji Restoration to this day, Japan's family politics has never stopped.What does the political family rule mean?Obviously, it means that the political process is controlled by these families, and it is difficult for most people to participate.The right to voting on the surface does not mean that they enjoy the substantial significance.
Traditional Chinese Excellent System
Therefore, from a quantitative perspective, because China does not have family rule, the number of people can participate in the political process will be far more than the West.
The excellent system of Chinese tradition is far more than that.As far as the basic system is concerned, in addition to the three -layer capital system and internal three powers, at least the following important systems should be included:
First, the separation of politics and religion is to respect ghosts and gods.Chinese culture recognizes religious life, but it is believed that religion is a personal life and cannot be used to affect politics and use it to govern.In the West, early politics and religion are not distinguished.The separation of politics and religion is a long process of bloody violence.In the vast world of Muslims, it is still implemented by the one -time system of political and religion.
Second, the separation of politics and business, namely Shi, farmers, industry, and business.Business or money cannot be directly transformed into political power.Although merchants cannot participate in the management of the regime by themselves, the descendants of the merchants are allowed and encouraged to participate in the imperial examinations and enter the regime.Merchants can often buy some less important government positions.
Third, there is no class, and everyone has the right to receive education.On the one hand, Chinese culture recognizes social facts in fact, but at the same time emphasizes equality or approaching equality through institutional design.The imperial examination system is based on teaching and no class.For people's understanding, China does not have a classification method based on race, skin tone, religion, etc., but only divides people into civilization and barbaric. The difference between the two only decides whether to accept whether it is acceptededucate.
4. Economic management and development as the inherent responsibility of the government.Before modern times, the views of government and economic relations in China and the West were roughly consistent. However, in modern times, Western capitalism has risen, capital has become the leading factor of society, and the economic development of society has become the patent of capital.Today, in the West, if someone advocates government intervention in the economy, it will be considered abnormal.This is also the biggest problem that the West encountered today: the government knows that there is a problem with the economy, but there is no right to intervene.
In Chinese civilization, managing the economy and development of the economy has always been regarded as the inherent responsibility of the government.Since World War II, in Asia, only Japan and Si Long (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong) have evaded the middle income trap.After these economies, mainland China and Vietnam also rose rapidly.These countries belong to the Confucian civilization circle, and they all enjoy the economic philosophy of the government's responsibility for the development of the economy.
It should also be emphasized that all these excellent systems have become excellent because they can keep pace with the times and constantly update themselves. Not only do they meet the needs of the new era, they must also lead the new era.And update is the self -revolution of the system.
From this point of view, in today's advocating cultural self -confidence, a new new cultural movement is urgently needed.This movement is neither retro nor Westernization, nor does it refuse to modernize.It should be civilized, progressive, advanced, and even revolutionary.If cultural self -confidence has evolved into retro, excludes other advanced culture, and rejected the sharing value required for human society, it will only lead the state's closedness and backwardness.Closing will be backward, and beating behind.This is the historical lessons of China in the past, and it will also be today's historical lessons.
The author is the director of the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore
The article only represents personal point of view
