Why can't we still win a Nobel Prize?, Zheng Yongnian: Our Poverty Alleviation and Poverty Alleviation of Over 800 Million People | China | Population

The Chinese people have won the largest poverty alleviation battle in human history, historically solving the problem of absolute poverty and achieving the poverty reduction goal of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule, significantly reducing the world's poverty population. However, to date, no local Chinese economist has won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

"Why can't we still win a Nobel Prize despite our poverty alleviation efforts of over 800 million people?" In fact, Zheng Yongnian also raised this question to Lin Yifu. As the Honorary Dean of the Institute of Political Economy at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, this expert on China issues and the President and Lecture Professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, stated in Shanghai on the 22nd that there have been many leadership practices in modern China, especially the "0 to 1" practice. "However, we should theoretically review whether scholars have original theories from 0 to 1."

Professor Zheng Yongnian's Seminar in Shanghai

That is to say, the original practice from 0 to 1 has not yet been reflected in the theoretical innovation from 0 to 1. Zheng Yongnian bluntly stated that since modern times, Chinese intellectuals have learned from the West, and from social sciences to natural sciences, they have basically come from the West, rather than based on Chinese practice. Faced with scholars from various regions of the Shanghai Forum on Political and Economic Research in China, he also reflected on himself, saying, "I am studying humanities and have always felt ashamed. What new contributions do our large civilization and country make to the current world social sciences?" He believes that applying Western theories is not attractive because it is still "applied technology".

The Jiefang Daily Shangguan News reporter learned that Professor Zheng Yongnian expressed similar views at the previous Shanghai Forum on China's Political and Economic Research held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He reviewed the viewpoints of various schools of Western political economy, pointed out the problems and challenges faced by these schools in analyzing China's political and economic reality, and emphasized the importance of "Chinese experience" in analyzing political economy issues, as well as the necessity of constructing a "Chinese school" of political economy.

Professor Guo Zhonghua from the School of Government Management at Nanjing University gave a speech

"Our modernization is not the modernization of less than 100 million people in European countries, nor the modernization of 400 million people in the United States, but the modernization of 1.4 billion people." Given the theme of "National Modernization in a Comparative Perspective" at this forum, Zheng Yongnian compared the modernization of a huge population, the modernization of common prosperity for all people, the modernization of coordinated material and spiritual civilization, the modernization of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and the modernization of pursuing peaceful development. In his comparative vision, Chinese path to modernization has both the common characteristics of modernization in all countries and the Chinese characteristics based on their own national conditions.

Regarding Chinese original practices, Zheng Yongnian believes that China has achieved two "sustainability" simultaneously over the past 40 years: sustainable economic growth and sustainable social stability. However, in reality, sustainable social stability and sustainable economic growth often have a contradictory nature. For example, in the United States and Western countries, there has been a phenomenon of "wealth but inequality", where economic and technological development has become increasingly advanced, and social classes have become more divided or even torn apart. He said that China is achieving the third "sustainability", which is sustainable institutional support.

Speech by Professor Zhang Mingjun from the School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University

In Zheng Yongnian's eyes, modernization carries temporal and spatial issues, emphasizing diversity first. We have realized that there are European style modernization, American style modernization, and Japanese style modernization... Different civilizations not only have different understandings of modernization, but also different contents and methods. Secondly, a country's modernization can only succeed when it is in line with its own civilization, culture, and national conditions, otherwise it will fail. "The same is true from experience. Those failed modernizations are copied." Again, Chinese path to modernization will not impose its own modernization model on other countries, as the United States or some Western countries do. "We hope people in different countries find their own way of development." Finally, in the process of Chinese path to modernization, we still advocate civilization dialogue, mutual learning and mutual learning.

Zheng Yongnian also refuted some extreme views in the West that distorted the "the Belt and Road" as "colonization". In the community with a shared future for mankind, taking poverty reduction as an example, the World Bank predicts that by 2030, the the Belt and Road international cooperation initiated by China will lift 7.6 million people in relevant countries out of extreme poverty and 32 million people out of moderate poverty.