✪ Yao Yang | National Institute of Development Studies, Peking University
The integration of Western thought and practice with Chinese reality and tradition is a typical feature of China's historical process since the 20th century. The conundrum facing contemporary Chinese scholars is how to raise this process to a theoretical level, absorb and digest Western ideas within the framework of Chinese culture, and create a new Chinese civilization.
This article argues that the revolution of the 20th century was an inevitable stage of China's modernization. The revolution broke with the old social structure, expanded the scope of interpersonal communication and political participation, and provided the conditions for industrialization, and in this regard, history gave the Chinese Communist Party the opportunity to transform China. Later, through reform and opening up, the Communist Party of China returned to the philosophical tradition of pragmatism, achieved great social and economic changes, and also realized its own "Sinicization": the Communist Party of China is no longer a political party in the Western sense that only represents part of the interests, but through the process of democratic centralization, it has become the aggregate mechanism for the interests of the whole nation.
The author points out that one of the major challenges facing the Chinese Communist Party at present is the tension between practice and theory. Constructing a political philosophy with "Chinese characteristics" based on Confucianism is a viable solution. We should fully understand the excellent elements of pragmatism, the balance between the individual and the order, the meritocracy, and the rule of virtue in the Chinese tradition, and connect with Marxism and other excellent elements of Western culture to finally form a unified political and philosophical theory. Taking Marxist philosophy as the guide and Confucian politics as the body to reconstruct the party's theoretical system is the only way for the party to complete the sinification of China, and it is also a key step for Chinese civilization to absorb Western civilization.
This article was originally published in the cover column "A Hundred Years of Party Founding and Theoretical Innovation" in the 3rd issue of Culture in 2021, originally titled "The Sinicization of Marxism and the Construction of Modern Chinese Civilization", which only represents the author's own views and is for the consideration of all the kings.
Yao Yang | The sinification of Marxism and the reconstruction of modern Chinese civilization 00:0047:10 did not add to the topic
(This audio was recorded by reader Xiang Li Enthusiastically)
▍ New Chinese civilization
In the past two thousand years, China has experienced two foreign cultural shocks, one for the introduction of Buddhism and the other for the introduction of Western culture. The impact of Buddhism on Chinese culture was limited, but it took more than a thousand years to complete the absorption of Buddhism: Zen Buddhism, with its highly Chinese characteristics, became the mainstream Buddhist sect in China, and Rigaku transformed traditional Confucianism by absorbing buddhist personal enlightenment. In contrast, the impact of Western culture on Chinese culture is all-round, covering technology, production organization, political system, culture and philosophy. China has been in the midst of this shock since 1840. This shock was so violent and deeply rooted in people's hearts that to this day, the idea that Western civilization is the "end of history" is still the "common sense" of many Chinese. However, what we should do more is not to turn Chinese culture into a part of Western culture, but to absorb some of the values in Western culture and turn them into a part of Chinese culture, as we have done with Buddhism in history.
The impact of Western culture on China began with the First Opium War, when China was forced to open its doors to the Western powers. In the Second Opium War, the British and French allies invaded Beijing and burned down the Yuanmingyuan, and the Qing court began to awaken, and the foreign affairs movement came into being. The fiasco of the Qing army in the Sino-Japanese War made people of insight realize that only "mastering the art of mastery" could not save China, and institutional change was the only way. But the changes that followed did not save the Qing government, and the nascent republican government was unable to maintain a long-term republican form of government. The october revolution brought Marxism-Leninism to China and new hope to China. In the midst of the May Fourth Movement, the Communist Party of China came into being. The purpose of the Party is to realize Marx's ideas in China, to break the old social structure, and to build a new society without class distinctions. The invasion of foreign enemies forced the Party to cooperate with all walks of life and first complete the task of salvation. After the founding of New China in 1949, the Party began to carry out a comprehensive socialist transformation of Chinese society, which largely laid the foundation for China's economic take-off after 1978.
Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the party has abandoned the dogma of Soviet-style socialism and regarded the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as the party's general goal. At the philosophical level, it returns to the Chinese pragmatism tradition and takes practice as the only criterion for testing truth; at the practical level, adopts a moderate and gradual reform strategy to complete the transformation from a planned economy to a market-mixed economy; at the political level, it continues the chinese tradition of meritocracy and establishes a selection system for cadres, and the selection and appointment of talents has become one of the prominent symbols of the contemporary Chinese political system.
The Chinese Communist Party is a product of the gradual development of the West wind and the East, but the secret of the Success of the Chinese Communist Party is to integrate Western thought and practice with Chinese reality and tradition. The challenge facing contemporary Chinese scholars is how to raise this process to the level of theory, absorb and digest Western ideas within the framework of Chinese culture, and create a new Chinese civilization. As with the buddhist shock, the hallmark of whether Chinese civilization can successfully digest the impact of Western culture is that if it does not deliberately delve deeper, Chinese no longer notice the existence of Western culture. This goal may take generations to achieve, but starting today, it is very necessary. 2021 is a year of succession: it is not only the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, but also the first year of China's progress towards the second centenary goal of building a socialist modern power and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by the 100th anniversary of the founding of New China. It is the unshirkable duty of contemporary Chinese intellectuals to sum up the party's successful experience in the past century and create new theories with a view to forming a new theoretical prototype of Chinese civilization by the time the People's Republic is founded 100 years ago.
▍ The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Revolution under the Second Culture Shock
The impact of Western culture on China is far greater than that of Buddhism. India, the home country of Buddhism, does not have a more advanced civilization than China, and Western civilization has an overwhelming advantage over Chinese civilization in terms of technology, economy and society, as well as ideological level. When it was forced to open its doors in 1840, although China's economy ranked first in the world and its per capita income was not much lower than that of the West, it was supported by agricultural civilization, and China's politics, economy and culture still remained at the level of ancient society. At that time, the West had experienced the baptism of the Enlightenment, opened the journey of modernization, entered the stage of industrial civilization, and achieved an exponential leap in productivity. In the face of the strong impact of the West, China's modernization process is doomed to not be smooth. In turbulent times, Chinese society needed a strong leadership force, but the Qing government, Beiyang warlords, and the Kuomintang could not undertake the task of building a modern state and promoting modernization in China. It was not until after the October Revolution in Russia that a group of intellectuals with Peking University as the main front began to seriously introduce and study Marxism, and finally established the Communist Party of China in 1921. At the beginning of its founding, the Communist Party of China positioned itself as a Marxist political party. One of the tasks set for the Party by the Party is the abolition of the classes and the imposition of the dictatorship of the proletariat until then; the Party unites with the Third International, and the Party's cause is part of the world proletarian revolution. It is worth noting that although the Party Congress put forward the task of transforming China and set standards and time limits for this task, that is, "until the class distinction in society is abolished", it does not touch on where China should go after the abolition of the class distinction in society.
After the founding of New China, the Communist Party of China began to comprehensively practice the program established by the party and launched wave after wave of social transformation movements throughout the country. The land reform has fulfilled Sun Yat-sen's long-cherished wish that "the tiller has his own land"; the socialist transformation of industry and commerce in the city has eliminated the private ownership of industrial production; the women's liberation movement has enabled the vast number of women to go out of their homes and enhanced their political, social and economic status; the literacy movement and the popularization of education have greatly improved the level of human capital of the people, especially the people at the bottom, and increased the vertical mobility of society; the patriotic health campaign has curbed the infectious diseases that plague the people, and the low-cost, wide-coverage medical and health system has improved the health level of the people. Infant mortality has been significantly reduced. Today, most Chinese people do not feel these achievements and regard them as a matter of course, but a horizontal comparison will show that there are very few developing countries (regions) that can do as well as China.
Take, for example, India, which is very similar to China in many ways. The populations of the two countries are comparable, both are large populations; both countries have a long and brilliant civilization; the recent history is also very similar, New China was founded in 1949, India became independent in 1947; in the decades after the founding of the country, both countries embarked on an independent development path, and both adopted an industrial policy of import substitution. By 1978, however, the two countries' achievements were vastly different. India was still a poor country at this time, and China, though poorer, surpassed India in other respects – the adult literacy rate was 25 per cent higher than india', life expectancy was 12 years higher than India's, and the infant mortality rate was 50 per cent lower than india's. The only thing China is doing worse than India is its higher-school enrollment rate, which did not surpass India's number of university students until 2002. But on the one hand, this is a sequelae of the Cultural Revolution, and on the other hand, it is also because of the difference in the educational development strategies of the two countries: China attaches great importance to providing basic education for the general public, and India attaches more importance to elite education. While both countries are actively promoting industrialization, China's performance is much higher than India's: China is 23% higher than India in terms of manufacturing as a share of GDP; and in terms of manufacturing employment, China is 4.3% higher than India. All this has laid a solid foundation for China's economy to take off after the reform and opening up. Today, China's manufacturing value added accounts for more than a quarter of the world's total, more than the United States and Japan combined; without the accumulation before the reform and opening up, this achievement is unimaginable.
How to evaluate the Chinese revolution in the 20th century? How to evaluate the role of the Chinese Communist Party in it? First of all, it needs to be affirmed that the Chinese revolution in the 20th century is an inevitable stage of China's modernization. Some conservative liberal scholars argue that China's missed opportunity for a constitutional monarchy at the end of the Qing Dynasty was responsible for the centuries of social upheaval in China. This view, if not an error in understanding, is merely wishful thinking about historical romantic reverie. In fact, since Qianlong, the individual lives of Qing emperors have been inferior to those of a generation. But the imperial system of more than two thousand years and the rule of the Qing Dynasty for nearly three hundred years will not easily give way to a republic, and revolution is inevitable. This is a common phenomenon in the process of the countries of Eurasia from ancient to modern societies. The most important differences between modern and ancient societies are industrialization, the flattening of social structures, political openness, interpersonal and social relations that transcend kinship and geography, and the rationalization of the ideological level. The revolution broke down the old social structure, expanded the scope of interpersonal communication, and expanded political participation, thus providing the conditions for industrialization. Without a revolution, China's modernization process would have been more difficult. In contrast, countries that did not undergo revolutions (such as those on the Indian subcontinent) took longer to dissolve the institutional legacies of ancient societies, and their economic and social development was therefore much slower.
History has given the Chinese Communist Party the opportunity to transform China. The party itself is the product of the gradual development of the west wind and the east, and the social transformation carried out by the party after the founding of New China is also the result of practicing a branch (Marxism) in Western culture. In terms of the introduction and implementation of Western ideas, there is no organization in modern China that can compete with the Chinese Communist Party. But this is not complete Westernization, but a selective assimilation of Western civilization. Of course, the party will also make such mistakes in the social transformation carried out after the founding of New China. Some of the after-effects of the error can last a long time, the most important of which is the denial of traditional Chinese culture. In the revolutionary period, this denial was necessary, because the old system existed on the basis of traditional culture, especially the political culture within it. However, after entering the construction period, what the party needs more is the theory of long-term peace and stability and the practice of promoting economic construction.
▍ Sinicization of the Communist Party of China
In the eyes of future historians, Deng Xiaoping's greatest achievement may be to lead the Chinese Communist Party back to China. This is first and foremost reflected in the repositioning of the "class struggle". The Resolution on Several Historical Issues Concerning the Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China, issued in June 1981, conscientiously summed up the Party's experience and lessons in the previous three decades. In 1982, the Twelfth National Congress of the Communist Party of China redefined the main contradiction in Chinese society: "After the abolition of the exploiting class as a class, most of the contradictions existing in our society do not have the character of class struggle, and class struggle is no longer the main contradiction. Due to domestic factors and international influences, the class struggle still exists for a long time within a certain range and may intensify under certain conditions. The main contradiction in our society is the contradiction between the growing material and cultural needs of the people and backward social production. Other contradictions should be resolved at the same time as this principal contradiction is resolved. It is necessary to strictly distinguish and correctly handle the contradictions between the enemy and ourselves and between the people, which are two types of contradictions of different natures. ”
The Party's tasks have also undergone major changes: "The general task of the Communist Party of China at the present stage is: to unite the people of all nationalities throughout the country, to rely on themselves, to struggle hard, to gradually modernize industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology, and to build our country into a highly civilized and highly democratic socialist country." The focus of the CPC's work is to lead the people of all nationalities throughout the country in socialist modernization and economic construction. We must vigorously develop the social productive forces and gradually improve the socialist relations of production in accordance with the actual level and development requirements of the productive forces. On the basis of the development of production and the growth of social wealth, we should gradually improve the material and cultural living standards of the people in urban and rural areas. ”
The class struggle is no longer the main contradiction, the task of social transformation has been accomplished, and dogmatic Marxist theory cannot be relied upon to guide the Party's practice in the future. Deng Xiaoping led the party from social transformation to economic construction, guided by China's pragmatic philosophical tradition. The great debate on the standard of truth, which began in May 1978, was aimed at "two whatevers" at the time; in hindsight, this was a new starting point for the Chinese Communist Party to break away from dogma and move toward pragmatism. Marx grew up in the German tradition of speculative philosophy, but consciously transcended speculative philosophy, especially in the writing of Capital, where he used a great deal of empirical methods. But for Chinese, his theories are still too abstract, especially his theories about ultimate truth, which are difficult to take root in China, a land that advocates the present life. Deng Xiaoping's reform practice proceeded from a simple understanding: "Poverty is not socialism." Deng Xiaoping realized that the dogmatic implementation of Marxism had left China behind its neighbors, and that the introduction of a market economy was the only way for China's socialist self-renewal.
The next question is how to practice. Deng Xiaoping's "cat theory" is opportune: as long as the purpose is desirable, the means to be used are secondary. In the 1980s and 1990s, almost all reforms were aimed at solving the most pressing problems of the time. Rural reform was initiated by peasants and grass-roots cadres to solve the problem of food and clothing, and soon evolved from "package production to group" to "package production to household". The reform ultimately reassured leaders because it solved China's food supply problem almost overnight.
Encouraged by the rural reform, the fiscal relations between the localities and the central government have also begun to implement the financial contract system of "eating in separate stoves", which has greatly enhanced the enthusiasm of the localities and laid the foundation for the reform of the "tax-sharing system" that began to be implemented in 1994. Gradual reform became the most important feature of China's reforms, which was even more evident in the urban reforms that began in the autumn of 1984. At the heart of urban reform is the transition from planned prices to market prices, through a "two-track price system": planned output still uses planned prices, and unplanned output uses market prices. With the deepening of reform, the scope of market pricing has gradually expanded. In the eyes of orthodox economists, this phenomenon of "one thing, two prices" will not work, because it will give rise to the black market and the resale of planned products. The black market and the "upside down" did appear, but the two-track price system was generally successful, allowing China to avoid hyperinflation. Moreover, an unexpected result is that the market rail under the dual-track price system has created a living space for township enterprises and greatly stimulated the process of rural industrialization in China. In the 1990s, marked by the merger of exchange rates in 1994, the dual-track price system completed its historical mission, the price reform was completed, and a new round of reform revolved around state-owned enterprises. Like rural reform, it is a bottom-up reform driven by the pressure that state-owned enterprises put on local government finances. Shunde in Guangdong and Zhucheng in Shandong province took the lead in starting the reform of state-owned enterprises, both because state-owned enterprises had lost money year after year and local finances were overwhelmed. In 1995, the central government issued the policy of "grasping the big and letting go of the small", and the reform of state-owned enterprises was rolled out throughout the country.
All of these practices precede party theory; official ideology always retrospectively recognizes practices that have proven to be successful. As a recognition of rural reform, the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in October 1987 put forward the theory of "the primary stage of socialism". The Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee held in October 1993 responded to Deng Xiaoping's Southern Speech and made it clear that the goal of China's economic structural reform is to establish a socialist market economic system. Compared with the theory of the "primary stage of socialism", the theory of "socialist market economy" is not only an acknowledgement of existing reforms, but also plays a guiding role in subsequent reforms. Reforms in the 1990s accelerated China's move toward a mixed-ownership economy. The results of the reforms were reflected in the 1999 Constitutional Amendment, and the individual economy and the private economy were identified as an important part of the socialist market economy. At the Sixteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in 2002, the theory of "three represents" was written into the party constitution, which put forward that the Cpc represented "the requirements for the development of China's advanced productive forces, the direction of progress of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the People in China." After the reforms of the 1990s, China's society and economy underwent tremendous changes, and the "three represents" theory was a response to these changes. Under the banner of the "three represents," the party opened its doors to people at all levels. The Chinese Communist Party is no longer a party that represents only partial interests in the Western sense, but provides a place for the expression of various interests; through the process of democratic centralization within the party, the party itself has become a total mechanism for adding up various interests.
▍ The world significance of Chinese civilization
At present, one of the major challenges facing the Communist Party of China is the tension between the Party's practice and the Party's theory. At the theoretical level, sinicization has just begun. It is very difficult for the party's theory to return to Chinese tradition, after all, anti-tradition was the dominant ideology of the Chinese revolution in the 20th century. However, standing at the node of the centenary of the founding of the party and the starting point of the final sprint stage of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it is time to take chinese tradition seriously at the theoretical level. This requires us to fully understand the excellent elements of the Chinese tradition and to connect with Marxism and other excellent elements of Western culture, and ultimately form a unified political and philosophical theory. The author believes that the excellent political and philosophical components of the Chinese tradition include pragmatism, the balance between individualism and order, meritocracy, and rule by virtue.
(1) Pragmatism
The first characteristic of Chinese civilization and Chinese is pragmatism. When the main body of Chinese civilization originated in the Yellow River Basin, this area was much more humid and warm than it is now, belonging to a subtropical climate, rich in water and grass, and numerous plants and animals. Our ancestors therefore developed an optimistic and worldly attitude toward life, and began to praise life on earth very early, so the Book of Poetry has such a beautiful love verse as "Guan Guan Ju Dove, in the River Continent; Lady Guan, Gentleman is Good". Nature favored our ancestors, so our ancestors had no fear of God, only a vision of life on earth. Because they do not believe in God, Chinese do not believe in eternal truth—this is the first priority of pragmatism. Many of the great conflicts in the Western world were caused by the belief that the truths in one's possession were more worth pursuing than those of others, whether it was the Crusades, the Thirty Years' War, or the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, all of which originated from differences of faith. Pragmatism will dissolve this conflict, and there has never been a war in Chinese history because of faith.
In peacetime, pragmatism rejects dogma and opens the door to institutional and technological innovation. Practice is the only criterion for testing truth, and practice creates the world, which is a prerequisite for the implementation of reform and opening up. In line with this, pragmatism rejects the means as an end, but proceeds from the end, and as long as the end is desirable, the means to be used are secondary. Mapped to the level of reality, this means that the system should serve people and society for the purpose, and the system itself cannot become the ultimate goal of the belief and pursuit of the whole society. This is quite different from the West's pursuit of liberal democracy as the ultimate goal. For a pragmatist, the criterion for evaluating the desirableness of a polity is whether it can achieve the goal of legitimacy, not its form. Liberal democracy can achieve some legitimate goals, but not all of them, and should therefore not be the "end of history."
(ii) The equilibrium between individualism and order
Today's general perception is that Chinese culture is a collectivist culture. This is contrary to the views of revolutionaries and thinkers in the late Qing dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. Sun Yat-sen believed that Chinese society is like a bag of potatoes, and each potato is independent of each other and collides with each other. Liang Shuming believes that Chinese society is based on small groups of blood and geography, while Western society forms civil society because of religious fellowship. The views of these sages are more realistic than those prevailing today. Because there is no religion, China's grassroots society has always been based on blood and geography. Buddhism briefly broke this pattern in individual places, but with the sinicization of Buddhism, blood and geography still dominated China's grassroots society. Between the family and the government, there are few other social groups in Chinese society. At the grassroots level, the individualism that dominates Chinese society is the family unit, and the maintenance of moral norms must be based on blood and geographical relations. Beyond blood and geopolitical ties, Chinese society must rely on the government to maintain order. From this point of view, China's strong government is exactly what grassroots family individualism requires, and China's collectivism is actually a manifestation of the common people's obedience to authority in exchange for order.
This is very different from the West, especially the United Kingdom. In England, before the crown was dominant, the courts of religion and customary law had become the dominant force in grass-roots society, an intermediary organization between the individual and the monarchy, playing a role in organizing and managing society and opposing the monarchy. Chinese society lacks such intermediate organizations, and large-scale social mobilization and organization need to be directly operated by the government. As a result, establishing an accountable government in China is more difficult than in the West. But China's individualistic + strong government governance model also has its own advantages: on the one hand, Chinese advocate individual efforts and success, which makes it easier for Chinese to accept liberal principles such as personal values and also to produce entrepreneurs; on the other hand, once needed, society is easy to obey the government's dispatch, and it is easy to form social synergy in times of crisis, which helps to successfully resolve the crisis. The number of billionaires in China has surpassed that of the United States to become the world's first, and China's response to the epidemic is more successful than that of the West, as evidenced by this.
(3) Meritocracy
One consequence of Chinese-style individualism is meritocracy. Unlike the Western monotheism of human nature, Confucianism believes that human nature is diverse, fluid, and malleable. Life is different, but with the exception of the most intelligent and the most stupid, the achievements of others depend on the efforts of the individual. For Confucianism, there is no abstract equality, because what kind of talents and achievements a person ultimately has is the result of individual effort, and abstract equality ignores the role of effort. Confucianism only recognizes the equality of relations, and in terms of social distribution, advocates that returns are proportional to effort, which is similar to Aristotle's proportional equality. The impact of this view of human nature on Chinese society is profound and lasting. At the individual level, it manifests itself in the admiration of individual achievements; at the political level, it manifests itself in political meritocracy, which requires officials to have a level of morality and competence commensurate with their public positions, and the higher the position, the higher the demands. From the inspection and examination system of the Western Han Dynasty, to the imperial examination system formed by the Tang and Song Dynasties, and then to today's cadre selection system, political meritocracy has always run through it.
Any merit of a nation must also be its weakness. Meritocracy is no exception. Its most serious shortcomings are two: one is the lack of care for the innate differences of individuals and the family and social environment, and the role of individual and social contingent factors is ignored when rewarding individual achievements; the other is to weaken the consciousness of social groups and strengthen the exclusion of individualism from the consciousness of social community. At home, strong governments can partially compensate for these weaknesses; overseas, these weaknesses have created the image of the Chinese as "self-conscious," "unconcerned about politics," and "unable to integrate into local society."
However, meritocracy can be an antidote to contemporary Western populism. Liberal democracy in the West was not a simple democracy, but a republican system that mixed monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. However, after World War I, and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, democracy began to dominate and evolved into today's populism. In response to the impact of post-war democratization and the civil rights movement, Western intellectuals theoretically provided a basis for further democratization and equalization, fueling these changes. However, at both the theoretical and practical levels, pure democracy cannot achieve rational political decision-making. For any society, in the long run, abandoning the political hierarchy and the principle of meritocracy has disastrous consequences. China's political system may not be fully replicated in other countries, but the political meritocracy behind it is something that other countries can learn from. Compared with improving democracy, reintroducing meritocracy and perfecting the republican system is the way out to deal with Western populism.
(4) Rule by virtue
One of the previous criticisms of Chinese politics is that China only has "rule by man" and no "rule of law." This criticism has a great rational component, but it is therefore a complete denial of the rule of man, which is too arbitrary. There is no complete rule of law in the world, so there is always room for human governance. The question is not whether to rule by man, but by what kind of man to rule. China's political history tells us that the rule of virtue is the fundamental principle guiding the rule of man. For Confucians, the highest goal of state governance is "benevolence." "Benevolent, loving." Benevolent government is to serve the people of the world. To achieve "benevolence", the ruler himself must first have a high degree of virtue, not only to be able to abstain from self-denial, but also to judge what "benevolence" is. Unlike contemporary Western democracies, which emphasize the accountability of government officials, Chinese politics emphasizes the responsibility of government officials. Accountability is a passive constraint imposed on officials, and the responsibility is to require officials to actively serve the people. The former thus weakens the moral requirements for officials, while the latter requires officials to have a high moral standard and ability. Neither can go to extremes: if the former is too extreme, there will be a president like Trump; the latter, too much emphasis on the agency of officials, will lead to officials violating the rights of the people. In modern society, based on the rule of law and requiring officials with rule of virtue, it should be the best combination.
▍Construct a political philosophy of socialism with Chinese characteristics
Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the party has accelerated the process of sinicizing Marxism and initially formed the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Socialism is the most remarkable achievement left by the west wind and the east in China, and it is a proof that China has absorbed the excellent culture of the West. However, how to define "Chinese characteristics" is still a problem to be solved. The previous section shows that Chinese culture has characteristics of world significance. These qualities should become elements that constitute "Chinese characteristics". The question is how to combine these qualities to form a political philosophy. Today's world civilization is a continuation of the Axial Age. In that exciting era, Chinese civilization shined and left endless ideological resources for future generations. To construct China's own political philosophy, it is necessary to find resources from that era. In terms of the potential of political philosophy, Confucianism is undoubtedly the doctrine that has stood the test of time. Constructing a political philosophy with "Chinese characteristics" from the perspective of Confucianism is the most feasible solution.
Consistent with the Chinese tradition of pragmatism, the Confucian understanding of human nature comes from empirical observations of people, rather than from theoretical construction, as Hobbes and Locke did. Human nature is a collection of universal characteristics of man. However, this universal characteristic is a collection of individual characteristics, and the characteristics of the individual depend on a person's innate material, acquired environment and personal effort. Modern psychology also tells us that individuals have large differences at the physiological level, and these differences are the result of the accumulation of innate and acquired factors. Therefore, there is not much point in talking about universal humanity. The humanity that each person ends up forming is different, and this is very important for the political process.
The smallest unit of political participation is the individual, which involves many factors such as the individual's virtue, knowledge, judgment and execution. Because of their different individual achievements, not everyone should be involved in all political processes. The political hierarchy is inevitable, and different hierarchies require different personal virtues and abilities. The higher the hierarchy, the more complex the decisions involved, and therefore require higher virtues and abilities. For this reason, the selection of officials should not be left to the people to decide, but needed a central agency to complete. As a selection body, the officials of the central institutions themselves must also have high moral character and ability, and it is for this reason that the central institutions also provide the country with general policies. However, the powers of the central body must be bound by an elected sovereign body, whose appointments and general policies must be implemented with the consent of the sovereign body. There are two reasons for this: first, the highest ideal of Confucian politics is benevolence, and if the decision-making of the central organs is conducive to the implementation of benevolence, it will not be afraid to be put over to the sovereign organs for deliberation; second, the central organs will leave the decisions to the sovereign organs for deliberation, which can eliminate the public's suspicion of whether the central organs are sincere in implementing benevolent government. Here, the sovereignty of the sovereign body is passive, and it does not offer legislative and personnel appointments, which is different from the sovereignty of liberal democracy. In line with liberal democracy, administrative bodies (governments) are created under sovereign institutions. In addition, in order to prevent abuse of power or decision-making errors by the central authorities, a deliberative body needs to be established to supervise the conduct of the central authorities.
The goal of state governance is to strike a balance between the various political subjects, to provide order for society and to achieve specific social goals. Liberal democracies leave social goals to the majority of voters, which is not necessarily the best option for society, because desirable social goals are not necessarily in the hands of the majority of voters. At the heart of this Confucian political architecture is traditional Chinese political meritocracy, but it also incorporates Western factors of democracy and checks and balances on power. Such a republican system would facilitate the implementation of desirable social goals and would also prevent the arbitrariness of any power. It has many things in common with liberalism, the most important of which is the same protection of fundamental individual freedoms. However, it rejects abstract equality and accepts only equality under the principle of proportionality. The resulting Confucian liberalism not only inherits the core values of liberalism, but also reflects reality more truly than liberalism, so it is more likely to be implemented in reality.
The contemporary Chinese political system is highly overlapping with the Confucian political structure described above: the Communist Party of China is the central organ, the National People's Congress is the sovereign organ, the State Council is the administrative organ (government), and the Chinese Political Consultative Conference is the deliberative body. The sinicization of the party at the theoretical level must begin with the absorption of Confucian political philosophy. Marxism itself is the product of the transformation of primitive capitalism in the West, and after its introduction to China, it became a weapon for the party to defeat the old system and all its subordinate forces, and also provided a theoretical basis for the party to transform Chinese society.
However, the original form of Marxism is not suitable as the ideological guidance for the party to complete the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and what we must do is to develop Marxism in the 21st century in the process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In addition, Marxism is a product of Western civilization, and if the Chinese nation wants to occupy a place in world civilization, it must show its original culture to the world. How to construct the party's new theory on the premise of maintaining the essence of Marxism is the most important task of the party on the occasion of its centennial anniversary. One possible orientation is to distinguish between Marxist philosophy and Marxist practice, inheriting the former and discarding the latter. The core of Marxist philosophy is dialectical materialism and historical materialism, which have similarities with Chinese pragmatism and Confucian moderate thought. The basis of Marxist practice is Marxist political economy, the core of which is the theory of exploitation based on the labor theory of value. In the early days of capitalism, production was relatively simple, and the distinction between capital and labor was relatively clear; but under today's globalized pattern of production and exchange, capital and labor have long formed a situation in which you have me and I have you, and distribution according to factors has proved to be a more effective social distribution mechanism. China's practice also shows that the establishment of a market mechanism distributed according to factors is the secret of the success of reform and opening up. Taking Marxist philosophy as the guide and Confucian politics as the body to reconstruct the party's theoretical system is the only way for the party to complete its return to China, and it is also a key step for Chinese civilization to absorb Western civilization.
This article was originally published in the cover column "Centenary of the Founding of the Party and Theoretical Innovation" in the 3rd issue of "Culture Vertical and Horizontal", originally titled "Sinicization of Marxism and the Construction of Modern Chinese Civilization", the space is limited, the content has been edited and deleted, welcome to share individually, the media reprint please contact this public number.