CCP centenary: why applying Western thinking to China can be misleading and useless

2021-07-01T18:37:31.337Z

Kaimen jianshan, opening the door and looking at the mountain: this is the literal translation of one of the chengyu, four-character sentences typical of the Chinese language, suggestive metaphors that summarize far more complex and articulated concepts. More loosely translated, or decrypted, the idiom means "go straight to the point". It is the path that the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party born in Shanghai on 1 July 1921 and whose centenary is celebrated today, has been following for several decades, not only since 2013 with the coming to power of Xi Jinping and the her announcement of the Chinese dream. Kaimen jianshan also refers to an ancient legend, that of the Chinese farmer Yugong who decides to move the mountain,a story that is already found in the Taoist writings and then taken up by Mao in the modern era and widely spread in the 60s during the Cultural Revolution under the banner of propaganda. It tells of the Chinese farmer Yugong that having a mountain in front of the door of his house he decides to move it slowly with a pickaxe. The villagers take him for mad but at his death the children continue the work and then the children of the children until the god of the mountains, moved by so much will, decides to make the mountain disappear. Yugong yishan another four-character phrase inspired by the story therefore means "nothing is impossible, wanting is power". Irreducible determination is a constant trait of Chinese culture and is also readable in the impactful statements, oriented by propaganda,delivered from the stands of Tian Anmen by President Xi Jinping during the celebrations. "No foreign force can enslave us ever again" said the President of the People's Republic, "the Chinese people will not allow us to be bullied, forced and enslaved, whoever tries to do so will break their heads against the Great Wall of Steel built with the blood and flesh of one billion and four hundred million Chinese, ”said Xi wearing the same gray uniform as Chairman Mao whose image reigns supreme on the square. Grandiose affirmations desired by the nomenclature on this very special occasion and which, although planned to be highly demagogic, do not rest on emptiness, but are nourished by an ancient and therefore metabolized culture, whether it is Taoist or Confucian philosophy,of strategic treatises on the art of war or of literary poems witnessing the vastness of an empire. Accredited by the power over the centuries of the imperial dynasties, a system of thought above all, the Confucian one, was easily imposed and adapted to the pyramidal structure of communist society and for its sense of the common good, of the collectivity that prevails over the individual, revealed fundamental for resolving the epidemic even today, in the socialism with Chinese characteristics of the new era of Xi Jinping. So despite a thousand difficulties and social contradictions that are outlined within the country, China continues to be projected forward, aware of itself and its objectives, first of all that of wanting to return, whatever the cost, to the center. of the world as it has been for over twenty-one centuries.And it's not even about the so clear-cut authoritarian force of its current leader Xi Jinping, whose exaltation of the CCP's early life, the Maoist ones, is becoming increasingly clear: in the battle against COVID 19 he cited Mao's revolution several times. , or emphasized the Party's Marxist roots. Nor are these just the goals achieved in recent decades, including those recently announced the absolute elimination of poverty (an objective not yet fully achieved) or the conquest of space, or the technological development that allows the country to move at great speed. . It is rather the desire to move mountains, not only because of the iron rules imposed by the leadership of the Party but also because of that sense of collectivity that prevails over the individual,that national pride that, galvanized by the results achieved, now seems irreducible. And so when the West speaks of democracy, when it wants to apply the roots of its thought to another world with another history and with another culture, it is a misleading and perhaps even useless action, an enterprise without chance of success, a senseless battle, as if it were a feather beating on iron.