Beijing, 3 Mar (ZXS) -- How to crack the myth of modernization?

Author: Wang Yiwei is the deputy dean of the Xi Jinping Institute of Socialist Thought with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Chinese Minmin University, a researcher at the Contemporary Political Party Research Platform, and a professor at the School of International Relations

2023 marks the 3th anniversary of the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind. Ten years ago, on March 23, President Xi Jinping pointed out in his speech at the Moscow Institute of International Relations: "Human beings live in the same global village, in the same time and space where history and reality converge, and have increasingly become a community of destiny between you and me and me." ”

This year is also the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, the 2nd anniversary of the Global Development Initiative and the 1st anniversary of the Global Security Initiative. At the recent high-level dialogue between the Communist Party of China and world political parties, China put forward a new global civilization initiative, focusing on promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and promoting the progress of human civilization.

A series of concepts, initiatives and actions have broken the myth of Western modernization and injected new momentum into the process of human modernization and the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.

The myth of modernization

The concept of "modernization" derives from "modernity" and is a product of religious revolution in the West. Looking back at history, in the 14th century, the Italian Renaissance held high the banner of humanism and liberated man from theocracy, and the Reformation liberated man from the shackles of the Catholic Church, laying the foundation for the budding development of early capitalism, the accumulation of primitive wealth and the bourgeois revolution. Through the Industrial Revolution, overseas colonization, commercial expansion, and political and social change, Western modernization entered the fast lane.

On the evening of December 2022, 12, citizens watched a light show in Beijing's Shougang Park to welcome 31. From industrial heritage to new landmarks in the city, Shougang Park represents and epitomizes China's industrialized development. Photo by Sheng Jiapeng

Western countries took the lead in realizing modernization, and from this many views believe that Western modern civilization represents the ultimate form of human civilization, and other countries can only achieve modernization and civilization progress by effectively imitating and following the path of Westernization. In their view, the past civilizations such as Babylon and Egypt have disappeared, although they were brilliant, while the existing civilizations are uncivilized or semi-civilized.

This view of equating Westernization with modernization is a conceptual confusion and essentially "Western-centrism." In fact, through the global expansion of capital, Western countries have gained a dominant position in the global economy, politics, culture and other fields, and have used their discourse advantages to equate modernization with Westernization. After World War II, the United States slightly revised this set of theories, dividing the world into developed countries, developing countries, and underdeveloped countries, and used development economics to give developing countries the illusion of following developed countries, in an attempt to make them give up overthrowing the irrational international political and economic order.

In 1989, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama put forward the "End of History Conclusion", which took liberal democracy represented by Western market economy and democratic politics as the direction of historical development and final destination. In recent years, the United States and the West have begun to build the so-called "democracy and autocracy" binary opposition and the "new cold war" framework to further consolidate "Western-centrism".

Customers line up in front of the Silicon Valley Bank headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The bank was closed by financial regulators on March 3 due to insolvency. Photo by Liu Guanguan

The internal logic of Western modernization is a logic of "division", the essence of which is to implement global expansion in the name of civilization. Professor Qiang Shigong of Peking University pointed out in an article entitled "The Nature of Globalization" that Europeans in the Age of Exploration expanded and promoted their civilization to the world through missionary, commercial, violent and other means, and achieved the supremacy of universalism; After the Cold War, the United States made every effort to create a "globalized" ideology, hoping to promote its way of life around the world, and then take advantage of the post-Cold War unipolar world to create a "world empire" led by the United States.

Judging from the development process of world modernization, Western modernization does not apply to all countries. Many countries regard the experience of the West as a "model", transplant and copy it, and completely westernize, but rarely can really achieve modernization: some fall into the "middle-income trap" and fall into long-term economic stagnation, and some have to rely on other countries in terms of politics and security despite modernization, such as South Korea and Chile.

Creating "Mr. Naka"

Today, China embarks on the road of modernization and has achieved achievements that have attracted worldwide attention, which cannot be separated from learning from and borrowing from the West. But this borrowing is not simply a denial of the past, let alone copying and copying at the expense of "westernization". Since modern times, the Communist Party of China has creatively integrated the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific realities and with China's excellent traditional culture, and embarked on a development path suited to its own national conditions. Chinese-style modernization, using "Mr. Ma" to activate "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai", and then creating "Mr. Zhong", changed the so-called "Western modernization is civilization, without Western modernization is backwardness" thinking pattern, to a certain extent redefined modernization.

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China concentrated on explaining the five important characteristics of Chinese-style modernization, namely, the huge population scale, the common prosperity of all the people, the harmony of material civilization and spiritual civilization, the harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and the path of peaceful development, setting a more comprehensive standard for the modernization of human society.

The West traces modernization as industrialization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization triggered by the scientific and technological revolution marked by the relationship between man and nature, and denies the possibility of modernization of the Chinese civilization and the Indian and Islamic civilizations that emphasize the relationship between man and man.

Farmers inspect the growth of reclaimed rice seedlings at the fully automatic intelligent factory seedling breeding base in Xinguangshan County, Henan Province. Document No. 2023 of the Central Committee in <> focuses on comprehensively promoting the key work of rural revitalization. Photo by Xie Wanbai

Chinese-style modernization broke this narrative of reverse effect, bid farewell to the "one-way person" caused by Western modernization, encouraged the confidence of ancient civilizations to achieve modernization, and abandoned the shortcomings of Western modernization with civilization rejuvenation, and put forward the civilizational significance of the path of all-round human development, human-nature harmony and peaceful development.

In addition to modernizing itself, China also hopes to share with the world its development experience, understanding of modernization, and the responsibilities of political parties in it. Faced with a series of questions about world modernization, China's answer can be summarized as "five views".

First, the new development concept, such as supporting and helping developing countries to achieve industrialization and modernization, promoting the high-quality development of the "Belt and Road", cultivating new drivers of global development, and building a global development community, echoes the global development initiative proposed in 2021.

Second, the new security concept, such as bridging differences through dialogue, resolving disputes through cooperation, opposing hegemonism and power politics, creating a fair and just security pattern, and jointly building a shared security pattern, corresponds to the global security initiative proposed in 2022, and China's recent reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran is also a concrete embodiment of this security concept.

The third is a new concept of cooperation, jointly enlarging the "cake" of human social modernization, cooperation, openness, inclusiveness and the implementation of true multilateralism, rather than gangs, exclusion and "rules-based international order".

The fourth is a new ecological view, emphasizing carbon neutrality and harmonious coexistence between man and nature, rather than anthropocentrism.

The final foothold is a new concept of civilization, transcending civilizational barriers with civilizational exchanges, transcending civilizational conflicts with mutual learning among civilizations, and transcending civilizational superiority with civilizational coexistence, and putting forward a global civilization initiative.

The stands of the Estadio de Schamps in Auxerre, France, feature signs celebrating the Chinese New Year. Photo by Li Yang

The Chinese-style modernization path breaks the hegemony of Western modernization discourse, creates a precedent for ancient civilizations to take the road of modernization in line with their own national conditions, encourages the modernization confidence of ancient civilizations, restores the diversity of world modernization, and provides a new choice for countries and nations in the world that want to accelerate development while maintaining their independence.

A global community of civilizations

In today's world, risks and challenges are increasing and global uncertainties continue to rise, bringing difficulties to peace and development. Today, when the future and destiny of all countries are closely linked, the more turbulent the world is and the more it is at a crossroads, the more it is necessary to strengthen consensus and pragmatic cooperation.

Whether it is a global development community, a global security community, a global ecological community, or a community of life on earth, they are all specific aspects under the overall framework of building a community with a shared future for mankind, demonstrating China's consistent mission of "seeking progress for mankind and seeking common cause for the world".

Today, China proposes a new global civilization initiative, builds a global civilization dialogue and cooperation network, builds a global civilization partner, and takes the global civilization community as the ultimate foothold.

The 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit was held in Beijing, and little girls played in front of the flower bed with the theme of "Win-win Cooperation" in Xidan, Beijing. Photo by Zhang Xinglong

The first prerequisite is respect for the diversity of world civilization itself. Civilization is plural, not singular; Traditional culture is nourishing, not fettling. The development and modernization of any country must be based on its own national conditions, and the greatest national condition is the cultural foundation, which is the DNA that cannot be changed.

World civilization itself has diversity, in modern times, the West has defined its own civilization as "universal", which can be described as a kind of destruction of civilization diversity, and today the world needs to return to true diversity.

Second, let civilization become civilization and each country become its own. The community should be an independent and equal relationship, and if it is only a relationship of dependence, it cannot be called a community. For example, the sovereign equality of European countries has established the European Union through voluntary sovereign transfers, but the lack of equality between countries in the alliance system led by the United States has lost the meaning of community. Of course, the European Community is also a homogeneous community, lacking inclusiveness towards Turkey and generating negative externalities. Today, the vast number of developing countries, especially countries with ancient civilizations, should find self-confidence in civilization and promote the creative transformation and innovative development of their excellent traditional cultures in the process of modernization, rather than simply imitating or even relying on other countries.

Space rabbit image. The image is the IP image of China's lunar exploration space, and the Chinese and English are "Rabbit Star" and "To Star". Photo by Hou Yu

Finally, exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. Civilization is never dead and fixed, but living, dynamic, and constantly evolving with the times. The history of human civilization can be said to be a history of civilizational exchanges, mutual learning, tolerance and coexistence. In Chinese history, from the implementation of Hufu riding by King Wuling of Zhao Wuling of the Warring States, the reform of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, the flourishing of Zen Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty, to the Sinicization of Marxism in modern times, and then to today's Chinese-style modernization, they are all new creations formed in the mutual learning of civilizations. In human history, a Western scholar once said that the most fascinating time for human adventures may be when Greek civilization, Indian civilization and Chinese civilization meet: Greek philosophy emphasizes the relationship between man and nature, Indian philosophy emphasizes the relationship between man and God, and Chinese philosophy emphasizes the relationship between man and man. These civilizational exchanges have never been self-talk behind closed doors, not retro restoration, nor template flipping, but continuous innovation, including innovation in technology, system, society and even civilization itself: new every day, new every day. Today's ecological civilization and digital civilization are significantly different from the traditional agricultural civilization and industrial civilization in the past, which is a new form of civilization after innovation.

In short, we must understand the global civilization community and Chinese-style modernization from the perspective of the new form of human civilization. The global civilization community "advocates attaching importance to the inheritance and innovation of civilization, fully tapping the epochal value of the history and culture of each country, and promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of the excellent traditional culture of all countries in the process of modernization". Chinese-style modernization is people-centered modernization, which transcends Western humanism and modernity, realizes the perfect unity of people's nature and human nature, inherits history and culture, and integrates modern civilization.

The purpose of strengthening international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation and exploring the construction of a global network of dialogue and cooperation among civilizations is not only to demonstrate civilization self-confidence, mutual respect and appreciation, but also to create new forms of civilization in the course of exchanges, solve various complex and acute problems facing mankind, and find a way out to cope with the great changes unprecedented in a century. (End)

About the author:

Wang Yiwei is the deputy dean of the Xi Jinping Institute of Socialist Thought with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Chinese Minmin University, a researcher at the Contemporary Political Party Platform, a doctoral supervisor at the School of International Relations, and a "Jean Monnet" Chair Professor of the European Union. A leading talent in philosophy and social sciences of the national "2015,2016 people plan", a cultural master of the Central Propaganda Department and a "four batch" talents, he was a diplomat of the Chinese Mission to the European Union. His recent books "The World's Question, China's Answer: A Community with a Shared Future for Mankind" (a key reading published by the Central Propaganda Department), "From Capitalization to Drawing: The Theory and Practice of the Belt and Road", "How to Kiss the People: The Way of China's Public Diplomacy in the New Era", the monograph "The Belt and Road: Opportunities and Challenges" and "The World is Connected: The Logic of the "Belt and Road" won the <> and <> China Good Books, and "China Connect the World" won the Chinese Government Publishing Award. He delivered keynote speeches on "Community with a Shared Future for Mankind" and "The Belt and Road" at UNESCO Headquarters and at the side event of the United Nations General Assembly.