In the early 1990s, the Japanese -American scholar Fukuyama published its so -called historical end conclusion that Western freedom democracy was the best and the last political system in the world.On the one hand, it is because it meets the needs of Western mainstream ideology, and on the other hand, because of the collapse of the Soviet Union's Eastern European communism, this theoretical name is noisy and widely circulated.
However, the good times did not last long. It didn't take long for Western freedom and democracy to start a huge crisis, and profoundly affected the free international order as the extension of the internal order of the West.Today, the internal and external crises in the West are intertwined with each other and worsening each other. People cannot see how the internal and external crisis can ease the solution. Where is the way out?
At the same time, it is not a long time that China has achieved a rapid and sustainable rise, which not only gave birth to the birth of a new internal system, but also began to move towards the center of the world stage.Following an increasingly important role.The history of the world is not only ended by Fushan's Western freedom and democracy; on the contrary, China's rise has opened up a new world history.
It has been 70 years since the founding of New China in 1949.This is not easy to go through three major stages.Before 1949, from Sun Yat -sen to Chiang Kai -shek to Mao Zedong, several generations of people found the problem of revolution and the country after hard groping.The situation of weak civil strife and external bullies.When Mao Zedong announced that the Chinese people stood up in Tiananmen in 1949, the construction of New China had just begun.
At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, diplomacy was basically isolated by the developed West, and China had to choose to survive diplomacy.First, we implemented one -sided policy and standing with the Soviet Union at the time.However, after the evil with the Soviet Union, China moved towards the third -world developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latinarian, breaking the western congestion and blockade.Survival diplomacy is extremely hard, but China has won real independent diplomacy.This has formed a stark contrast to many other developing countries. China has not rely on relying on any country. Each step is independent. This has created a good external environment for internal economic development and system construction.
Exploration of institutional construction after the founding of the People's Republic of China
It should be said that in the 30 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, it has made a lot of exploration of system construction, providing useful experience for the development and construction after reform and opening up.Even some failed explorations have produced some positive results since then.It is undeniable that the political system of China's basic countries was established in the Mao Zedong era. These system structures have not changed much until this day.After Mao Zedong, China is known as the era of reform. As the name suggests, reform is to improve improvement and improvement, instead of revolutionary and overwhelming.
After the reform and opening up, China entered the second stage, the era of Deng Xiaoping.The generation of Deng Xiaoping effectively solved the problem of economic development.In just 40 years, China has written the biggest miracle in the history of world economy, and has promoted a poor country to the world's second largest economy and the largest trading country.High -income economy.However, the greater miracle is to promote nearly 800 million people out of poverty.Historically, any society has a way to get rich, but it is not that any society can find effective ways to get rid of poverty.In terms of poverty alleviation, China can be said to be unique.
It is also important that China's economic miracle is achieved under high open state.If the Mao Zedong era realized an independent China, then in the Deng Xiaoping era, this independent country was highly integrated into the world system.This integration is not what many Westerners call Western alms today, but the initiative of China.China does not have the back of the Soviet Union, and starts to set up another stove. Instead, he chose to join the world system with the west as the core.
It is precisely because of the active choice that China has seized the opportunities brought by globalization and achieved rapid rise.Many other countries have failed to effectively seize this opportunity and even lose this opportunity, which is related to their choices.It is also because of actively joining that China can still maintain its independence after joining this system.The mutual dependence of the world system does not hinder China's independent diplomacy and internal affairs.
Although China's economic miracle is called by people, the achievements of China cannot be measured by various economic indicators.Whether it is the glory of Chinese traditions or the experience of the rise of western countries in modern times, whether it is the rise of the country or the rejuvenation of the nation, the main sign is the establishment of a whole new system and its emergence.The external influence, that is, the rise of the external system is only an extension of the rise of the internal system.
If there is a total economic volume, but there is no internal system construction, this rise is not reliable and unsustainable.The modern history of China fully illustrates this truth.For example, in 1820, China's economic aggregate still accounted for 30%of the world's total economy, but it was defeated by Britain during the Opium War in 1840.
The system is a decisive factor.Can't see China's institutional advantages, it is difficult to explain the achievements that have been achieved, it is also difficult to guarantee the achievements that have been achieved, and it is more difficult to achieve future sustainable development.But it is the key institutional factors that many people have been unable to understand.
Since modern times, most people (even the Chinese itself) have been summarizing a few simple words after the Qin Shihuang unified China for more than 2,000 years after the unification of Qin Shihuang: feudal, backward, ignorance and decay.After the reform and opening up, people regarded the system established after 1949 as backward, and they need to be rejected or even abolished by reform.In recent years, many arguments on the Chinese model have just reflected this way of thinking.
At the same time, since May 4th, many people have been looking forward to a good system that will fall from the sky.They are superstitious about the Western system and always take the West as the sky. Thinking that the Western system is transplanted, China can easily rise and strong.Many people have simply attributed to the results of China to learn the West since the achievements of reform and opening up, and they simply ignore the institutional innovation made by China itself in an open state.
No one will doubt the importance of learning the West. Contemporary China is a large -learning country, but if simply copying the Western system, failure is inevitable.This has long been confirmed by history.After World War II, many developing countries simply chose the Western system to mechanically transplant the Western system into their own country.Although theoretically, constitutional government, multi -party system, free media, etc. are not lacking, nothing happens at the actual level, not only does it not promote the changes in local socio -economic changes, but it effectively hinders the development of socio -economic.The practice from the late Qing Dynasty to China itself also fully illustrates this.
At the practical level, China's institutional change and these superstitions of the West have no organic connection.After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China can be said to enter the third stage, that is, a period of independent system construction and improvement.If people still lack confidence in China's own system before the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, not only do not dare to face the advantages of their own system, but believe that their own system must be changed.With cooperation and strengthening each other, people comprehensively evaluate the pros and cons of the Chinese system, and have made comprehensive reforms, which has created a whole system of institutional system that people see today.
In terms of basic economic systems, China has formed a mixed economic system.Specifically, it is the three -layer capital structure, that is, the top state -owned capital at the top, the private capital with a large number of small and medium -sized enterprises as the main body, state -owned capital and large private capital interactionlayer.This economic system can play two role in the government and the market at the same time.Various economic elements and mutual trust competition and cooperation have created the success of China's economy.At the same time, there is a situation of check -in for balance between them.Because once the three -layer capital is unbalanced, whether it is the prevalence of nationalism or the prevalence of marketingism in the market, there will be major problems in the economy. Therefore, people must continue to find a equilibrium point between the third -level capital.
In this process, the government plays an indispensable role.In Chinese philosophy, the development and management economy has been one of the most important responsibilities of the government since ancient times.The government assumes important responsibilities such as providing large -scale infrastructure construction, cope with the economic crisis, providing public services, and a standard market; and private capital provides more innovation and vitality.In the past few decades, China has constructed the miracle of the history of the world economy, and has avoided the Asian financial crisis (1997) and the World Financial crisis (2008), which is inseparable from this economic system.
In the political field, the western three -power separation system provides unlimited space for the party's competition, creating a situation where the incomparable government is today.On the contrary, since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has taken system construction as the core, and has integrated the basic system and traditional system factors since the founding of the People's Republic of China, forming a system of division of labor under the party's leading politics, that is, decision -making power, execution rights,And the right to supervise.
Traditionally, the cooperation system of Sanquan division of labor has been from Han to late Qing Dynasty. It has existed for more than 2,000 years, and has not been affected by the rise and fall of the dynasty.Today, through innovation and transformation, the three -right system has been established, which has laid the foundation for the construction of a stable, efficient and clean governance system.
However, it should be understood that whether it is the three -layer capital system or the three -right division of labor cooperation system, although they have constituted China's most fundamental institutional system, there is still a lot of room for reform and improvement.In the field of economic systems, many questions still have to be answered: Where is the boundary between the three -layer capital?If the boundary is constantly adjusted as needed?How does the country maintain neutrality and treat different types of capital equally in all aspects?How to establish the rule of law to make these three -layer capital equal in front of the market?For state -owned capital, more questions need to be answered, including its nature, functions and operation methods.
In the field of political system, you also need to answer many major questions: Where is the boundary between the three rights?How to open up decision -making power so that it has higher democracy and science at the same time?How to improve the efficiency of execution (administrative)?How to ensure a certain degree of autonomy of execution rights from various political interference?How to determine the authority of supervision rights?How to ensure the effectiveness of supervision to ensure a clean government?How to prevent the abuse of supervision right and ensure that the execution rights can do something?These are the content of future political reform.
Experience of China's institutional evolution
According to experience, in any society and economic form, the social form determines the form of social forms, and the social form determines the political form.The three -layer capital form shaped today's social structure of China. It itself is both an economic order and a social order.At the same time, China's political process is open. Capital and social forms at different levels can enter this open political process, participate in the political process, and orderly dominate and affect the country's process.
Although some people are still confident and doubtful about the Chinese system, and the Chinese disintegration theory in the West is still prevalent, if people are realistic enough, they should not underestimate the vitality of the Chinese system and its possible external influence.The experience of China's system evolution has at least three aspects.For China, the significance lies in finding its own model. This is a model from the construction of a century revolution and war (1840-1949) and 70 years of construction exploration (1949-2019).If some people think that this model will disappear, they will be disappointed.
Secondly, Chinese experience has reference significance for many developing countries.Chinese leadership also publicly stated that although China will never output its own model, Chinese experience can provide another system choice for countries that must strive for their own political independence and economic and social development.Because of this, the competition between China and the West (especially the United States) is increasingly manifested as competition between systems, and competition in other aspects is often just different aspects of institutional competition.
For developing countries, China's experience shows that institutional construction cannot abandon its own civilization, but it needs to be open and creatively transform its own civilization.Anyone who is civilized is sustainable.Only by finding an institutional form suitable for their own civilization and culture can people build a set of effective and sustainable institutional systems.It is important to learn the experience of other countries with an open mind, but the goal of learning is not to turn yourself into another country, but to make yourself better and more like yourself.This is universal truth, China is successful, and other countries will succeed.
Third, for a disorderly West, China's institutional exploration is not meaningful.In essence, the crisis facing the West today comes from the high degree of imbalance between politics, economic and social power.The past success of the West came from the balance between the three.Today, the Western economic structure has changed, which directly creates changes in the social structure, and the political structure cannot adapt to the new social structure.For the West, if you want to ease and relieve the current crisis, you need to re -realize the balance between the three.How to achieve this new balance?
The three -story capital system and cooperation system that has been emerging in China and is still evolving.The external checks and balances in the middle, so as to achieve dual equilibrium and its stable development on this basis, is also a contribution to the improvement of the entire human economic and political system.
In other words, a new system created by China after 70 years of creative exploration is precisely the need for today's era.
(The author is a professor at the National University of Singapore and East Asia)
The article only represents personal point of view
