Zhang Guogang: What path can the Eastern and Western civilizations take to get closer?
China News Service, Beijing, December 20 Title: Zhang Guogang: What path can the civilization of the East and the West take to get closer?
Author Qiu Yining
In the Chinese world order, "West" has a special meaning. From the simple geographical reference to the aggravation of its cultural connotation, from the developed commercial exchanges of the ancient Silk Road to the gradual learning of the West and the East in modern times, the development of Chinese civilization has always been accompanied by the exchange and mutual learning of Eastern and Western civilizations, during which there are initiatives and compelled. Today, however, some argue that Chinese civilization is incompatible with Western civilization, or even in the same water and fire, and that China's rise is seen as a signal of "hegemonism." Looking at the historical context, how should we respond to the doctrine of "clash of civilizations"? What path can the Eastern and Western civilizations take to get closer? Zhang Guogang, a professor at the School of Humanities of Tsinghua University, was interviewed by China News Agency's "East and West Question" to make an in-depth interpretation of this.
In November 2021, a symphony concert called "Between East and West" was held at the David Kirk Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, USA, and nearly ten musical works allowed audiences to experience the charm of the fusion of Eastern and Western art. Photo by Liao Pan, a reporter from China News Service
China News Service: Looking at the trajectory of human development, is there an inevitable connection between the emergence of different civilizations? How did early Civilizations of the East meet?
Zhang Guogang: The ancestors of modern mankind went out of Africa in three stages of capable people and craftsmen, and entered Asia and Europe. By the Paleolithic Age, 250,000 years ago, humans entered the Homo sapiens stage, differentiating into groups of different skin colors and body types, and gradually parting ways culturally. From 12,000 to 10,000 BC, as the earth's climate warmed, the agricultural revolution promoted the birth of ancient human civilization. Homologous human beings have the same intellectual principles, so the material civilizations created by human beings in various places have both fundamental and macroscopic similarities, and also show regional and different aspects in terms of technology, nature, and materials.
From 1000 BC to 2000 BC, the ancient civilizations of The East and west of Eurasia had a large-scale exchange driven by the migration of nomadic peoples. The earliest interaction between Eastern and Western civilizations originated in ancient Indo-Europeans, one of whom invaded the Two Rivers Valley, one of which invaded India to the southeast, and the other of which migrated to northern China through Central Asia. The Great Migration brought shocks and new changes, and civilizations exchanged, absorbed, and integrated with each other, growing up in the alternation of war and peace.
In May 2018, the Italian "Idea" Modern Dance Company performed the dance poetry series "Distance Formula" in Beijing, which perfectly combined tai chi with Western modern dance, and obtained the perfect effect of the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures in the fierce collision. China News Service reporter Song Jihe photographed
China News Service: The history of the exchange between Chinese and Western civilizations is also the process of mutual understanding between the two sides.
Zhang Guogang: The exchanges and interactions between human civilizations began in the Mangyuan era, and due to natural conditions, their scale and form were greatly limited. After entering a civilized society, especially after the birth of a country, the exchanges and interactions of civilizations are more affected by multiple factors such as political power and economy and society. In the process, China's understanding of the "West" has also undergone gradual changes.
In different historical periods, China's enthusiasm and path for foreign exchanges are also different. The exchange between traditional Chinese and Western civilizations can be roughly divided into three major stages.
Before the 15th century, the first period can be called the classical period. During this period, China has long been ahead of neighboring countries in the economic and scientific fields, and has always been in a relatively active and strong position in cultural exchanges between China and the West. Since the beginning of the Two Han Dynasties, the east and west have opened up direct contact channels, and material and cultural exchanges have followed.
The three centuries between 1500 and 1800 can be counted as the second period, the historical period of the late Ming and pre-Qing dynasties. The opening of new shipping routes has expanded the content of Sino-Western exchanges to the religious, scientific, technological, artistic, ideological, political and other levels, and the content has become more complete. During this period, China and the West were on a politically reciprocal position, and the eastward transmission of Western culture and the western transmission of Chinese culture maintained a reciprocal pattern.
From the time of the Opium War to 1949, it can be counted as the third period, that is, in the modern period, China was in a passive and weak position.
China News Service: You once proposed in your book that Chinese and Western civilizations are truly two heterogeneous civilizations. Do civilizations have differences and commonalities?
Zhang Guogang: In the ancient Roman era, the sea and land passages around the Mediterranean Sea were all smooth; the Western European continent and even South Asia and North Africa have had close exchanges since ancient times. Only distant China, because of the barrier of mountains and deserts, is in a relatively independent geographical area and has developed a unique Chinese civilization. For the Western world, the east that is truly heterogeneous to the "other" is China, east of the Tianshan Mountains. All the civilizational entities west of the Tianshan Mountains have some kind of common historical, religious, linguistic, and war-related ties, which together reflect the uniqueness of Chinese civilization. But differences do not mean that there are no commonalities.
Zhang Guogang's "General History of Sino-Western Cultural Relations" and "The Frontier of Civilization" and other works. China News Service reporter Bian Zhengfeng photographed
In fact, the common characteristic of all civilizations is to solve the problem of relations between man and nature, man and God, man and society, and man and man. Simply put, the interests of the world are both conflicting and linked, so governance is needed. In the process of governance, the West emphasizes individual rights, autonomy and freedom; China pays more attention to group interests and collective concepts, and restricts individual rights. Different governance tendencies are the result of the role of long-term historical traditions, China and the West have chosen different paths in the arrangement and combination of the elements of human civilization, and the priorities will be different, but the ultimate goal is to solve the problem of human survival and development, continuously improve the quality of life, and make people's relationship with nature and society more harmonious.
China News Service: You have mentioned more than once that there is a "Yin Shuyan theory" interpretation of the process of mutual learning among civilizations, how does this self-demand-oriented mutual influence play a role in the history of exchanges between Chinese and Western civilizations?
Zhang Guogang: "Yin Shuyan said" refers to selective interpretation or "misreading", which abounds in history. A certain civilization absorbs and draws on foreign civilizations, and then creatively transforms them, enriches the connotation of local civilization, and pushes local civilization to a new stage of development.
For foreign civilizations, the process of selecting and borrowing some of these elements by local civilizations highlights the possibility of different directions contained in this foreign civilization, which is also the discovery and prompting of its civilization elements that transcend the value of time and space.
Demand is an important aspect of influencing cultural exchange. As far as Buddhism is concerned, the story of Shakyamuni's bunsen has been reinforced in China with the content of "filial piety", and the five dynasties of the late Tang Dynasty, Chinese Buddhists have compiled the story of "twenty-four filial pieties"; Indian Zen has developed into Buddhist Zen Buddhism in China. The meta-drama "The Orphan of Zhao" was adapted by Voltaire into "Orphan of China", and the moral demands to be expressed were in line with the needs of European society and were consistent with the demands expressed in Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments" of the same era. The chronicles of ancient China began with Fuxi, from which European Enlightenment thinkers found favorable evidence to challenge Catholic authority, which they adopted and played.
The same goes for commodities. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the West had a demand for Chinese porcelain, and porcelain and its production technology were transmitted to the West, where they were digested and produced to produce porcelain of higher quality than China. The compass was invented in China, but Westerners transformed the compass into a nautical compass; by the Qing Dynasty, China had introduced the compass.
There is mobility between civilizations, and there is a need for exchanges between the receivers. After the different experiences of various civilizations are interpreted, they usually add their own practical needs, which is a kind of reference and transformation, which plays a role in localization and instrumentalization. Today's "Yin Shuyan Said" is to give you a warning, that copying the Western experience one hundred percent is not feasible, and it needs to be transformed to be used by me, used for me, and applied for me.
China News Service: Today, the earth has become a village, how can civilizations achieve mutual recognition and communion through exchanges and mutual learning? The so-called "unity of the world", do you think, if there is a common value in the world today, what is it?
In March 2021, the original dance poetry drama "Datong under Heaven" premiered at the Shanxi Grand Theatre. Photo by China News Service reporter Wei Liang
Zhang Guogang: Since the West took the lead in entering industrialization, in recent hundreds of years, Western civilization has shown strong characteristics. But the fact that most of the world's developing countries are still struggling with poverty and backwardness shows that Western civilization cannot fully solve the development problems facing humanity.
Different civilizations have their own characteristics, coexist and complement each other; the world cannot be unified with one civilization. Realistically, outside of Western civilization, there needs to be a civilization with a characteristic that breaks the asymmetry that has been in place for some time. Whether from a historical or practical point of view, Chinese civilization can help achieve balance. The development of human civilization needs more ideas and more inclusiveness.
China has helped 1.4 billion people to achieve comprehensive poverty alleviation and modernization, which is a major achievement of human civilization. China's dream of becoming a great power has never been to seek hegemonism, but to solve the problem of world balance and help mankind achieve common prosperity.
To respect each other's civilizational characteristics, we must change our ideological concepts: the world is changing, and we should not be complacent and self-righteous. Second, reform: the West needs to solve ideological disputes, populism and other issues, while China needs to further improve the rule of law, marketization, internationalization and modernization of national governance capabilities. The concepts of freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law are also expressed in china's core socialist values. Complementing each other and balancing each other is the significance of exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. (End)
Respondent Profiles:
Zhang Guogang is the Dean of Humanities of Tsinghua University, a doctoral supervisor, and a Jiang Scholar Distinguished Professor of the Ministry of Education. As a Humboldt scholar in Germany, a researcher at the University of Hamburg and a professor at the University of Trier, he has been engaged in the study of the history of European sinology and the history of cultural exchanges between China and the West for more than ten years in Europe. He has successively served as a member of the Steering Committee for History Teaching of the Ministry of Education, the president of the China Tang History Society, and the vice president of the China Society for the History of Sino-Foreign Relations. Recently, he has written "General History of Sino-Western Cultural Relations", "Hu Tianhan Moon Reflects the Western Ocean: Three Thousand Years of The Silk Road", "The Rise and Fall of the Homeland", "The Frontier of Civilization: From Ancient times to Modern Times" and so on.