Zheng Changzhong: Creating New Forms of Human Civilization and Building a Community with a Shared Future for Humanity Civilization | China | Human Civilization
Content Summary
Since the emergence of human society, human civilization has developed along the dimensions of time and space, and has shown diversity and differences in civilization. With the deepening of the Industrial Revolution, the traditional modern civilization centered on capital and based on industrialization has swept the world, greatly enhancing social productivity and connecting all humanity. However, with the development of society and the progress of civilization, the shortcomings of this form of civilization have become increasingly prominent, and it will inevitably be surpassed by a new form of human civilization centered on the people and characterized by a community with a shared future for mankind. Chinese path to modernization fully embodies the people centered values and solves the major problems in the process of building human modern civilization. The Global Civilization Initiative, with the "Four Common Advocacies" as its core content, outlines a new landscape of global civilization development under the background of building a community with a shared future for mankind.
keyword
Chinese path to modernization, new form of human civilization, global civilization initiative, community with a shared future for mankind
The author is a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University and the director of the Center for Political Party Building and National Development Research
The article was originally published in the 8th issue of Contemporary World in 2023, with brief annotations
This article's dubbing is automatically synthesized by the computer and is only for auxiliary reading purposes
At present, the world is in an unprecedented great change, and human society is standing at a crossroads of where to go. In this historical context, building a community with a shared future for mankind is the fundamental requirement for humanity to create a better future, and creating a new type of civilization centered on the people is an inevitable trend in the development of human civilization. This means that the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind and the new form of human civilization advocated and actively practiced by the CPC are not only civilization achievements and solutions formed according to its own development logic, but also civilization samples and practice paths that conform to the laws of human development and have important implications for world development.
The evolution of human civilization and social development
After the emergence of human society, the practice of production and communication promoted the development of human rationality, and further improved the ability and form of production and communication. The sum of rational products formed by human practice can be called civilization. As a community with public power as its core, the emergence of the state means that humanity can manage on a larger scale and to a greater extent, so as to better integrate the elements of civilization and promote the leap of civilization development from the generation of specific elements to the overall form. With the evolution of civilization, its internal structure constantly divides and develops into modules including material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization, and ecological civilization, as well as a subject structure dominated by the state and society.
Marxism believes that in the process of human social development, productive forces play a decisive role, and the contradiction between productive forces and production relations is the driving force for the development of human civilization and social progress. It is precisely under this logic that human society and civilization continue to progress and develop. With the emergence of class, human society gradually entered the class society stage from the primitive society stage. Human civilization unfolds in both time and space dimensions and presents corresponding characteristics.
The Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Traditional Technology is on display in Canada.
From a temporal perspective, with the development of productive forces, human society has gone through primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, and developed towards socialist society and communist society. At the same time, after entering a civilized society, the form of human civilization has gone through two different stages: ancient civilization and modern civilization, and will develop towards a higher form of civilization. From a spatial perspective, in the ancient civilization stage, productivity was relatively backward, and humans were unable to communicate quickly on a large scale or globally. Therefore, major ancient civilizations around the world often exhibited regional and relatively independent development characteristics. After entering modern times, cultural exchanges began to evolve rapidly globally. Nevertheless, the basic characteristics of civilization formed in ancient times, as genes of civilization, still have a significant impact on the later development of various civilizations.
Under the joint influence of the above logic, the development of human civilization presents the following two characteristics: first, different civilizations have their own characteristics, and the development of civilizations worldwide is diverse; Secondly, based on differences in development conditions, there are differences in the development stages of different civilizations.
Human social development and the community with a shared future for mankind
The objective existence of different natural conditions, as well as historical, social and other factors, results in significant differences in the development of civilization in different regions. Some regions have faster civilization development, while others have slower civilization development. In ancient times, due to inconvenient communication, this characteristic of civilization development was more reflected in static differences under relatively isolated conditions between regions. After entering modern society, due to the development of productivity and innovation in transportation and other means, this difference has become a potential gap in the development of civilization, creating conditions for advanced civilization to continuously influence relatively backward areas and objectively becoming an inherent driving force for globalization.
With the outbreak of the Industrial Revolution, modern civilization based on industrial production first emerged in Western Europe. At the same time, capital has gradually become a decisive factor in production relations and its role in economic development is becoming increasingly significant. Driven by the power of capital, in order to obtain higher profits, the first developed capitalist countries utilize the comparative advantages of machine production formed after industrialization, making their produced goods lower in cost and price than other regions, thus quickly opening up the global market and forming excess profits. Modern civilization was born under the joint promotion of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism, and spread globally to obtain excess profits, making the modernization wave resonate with the globalization wave.
As Marx and Engels pointed out in the Communist Manifesto, "The productive forces created by the bourgeoisie in its less than a hundred years of class rule are greater and greater than the total productive forces created by all previous generations."; The need to continuously expand product sales drives the bourgeoisie to travel around the world. It must settle down everywhere, develop everywhere, and establish connections everywhere; The bourgeoisie, by expanding the world market, has made the production and consumption of all countries worldwide; The bourgeoisie, due to the rapid improvement of all means of production and the extremely convenient transportation, has brought all ethnic groups, even the most barbaric, into civilization.
In a certain sense, the modern civilization form centered on capital and based on industrialization has indeed greatly improved the productivity of human society in its development process, and has also brought all humanity into the process of modern civilization development, connecting humanity for the first time. However, the human circle formed in the process of promoting modern civilization through capitalist production methods is not a community of shared destiny, but rather full of inequality and slavery. This situation is not only reflected within a country, but also between countries. In this process, the cultural inheritance and development paths of different ethnic groups and countries have not been fairly and fully respected. Countries that are relatively underdeveloped in modernization are required to transform according to the needs of developed countries. As Marx and Engels pointed out in the Communist Manifesto, "In one sentence, it creates a world for itself according to its own appearance.".
With the development of human society, the arrival of the digital technology revolution, and the deepening of globalization, especially as the world enters a major change that has not been seen in a century, whether it is the need for civilization development or the challenges facing humanity itself, we have to face the issue of "what is going on in the world, what should we do" in this era. The traditional modern civilization centered on capital and based on industrialization, whether in terms of productivity or production relations, has reached a time of abandonment and transcendence.
This is a footage taken at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center of Shenzhou 16 astronaut Jing Haipeng conducting extravehicular operations.
In the era of globalization, human beings live in the same global village, in the same time and space where history and reality intersect, and increasingly become a community of shared destiny with each other.Only in this way can different civilizations in the world be universally respected and there will be no more bullying of the weak; Only in this way can countries around the world work together to solve the common problems faced by humanity, without building their own development on the basis of damaging the interests of other countries or humanity as a whole; Only in this way can world development truly achieve diversity and unity, without falling into a zero sum game.
Chinese path to modernization and the New Form of Human Civilization
As the only civilization that entered the stage of civilization earlier and has never interrupted its own civilization development process, the Chinese nation has created brilliant achievements in ancient times and made tremendous contributions to the development of human civilization. After the Opium War, under the impact of modernization, traditional Chinese civilization suffered a huge impact and national strength also declined. After the exploration of countless people with lofty ideals, the Chinese people have realized that only by promoting the transformation of civilization and building modern civilization can the Chinese nation be revitalized. The Chinese people have chosen the CPC as the core of leadership and embarked on the right path to explore Chinese path to modernization.
Under the strong leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people have completed the task of the new democratic revolution, overthrew the "three mountains", and cleared away obstacles and laid a foundation for starting the modernization drive. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, it chose to promote modernization through socialist means and completed the basic tasks of socialist modernization through the planned economic system. In 1978, in order to obtain the internal driving force for sustainable development in modernization construction, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made the decision of reform and opening up. On the basis of fully summarizing the experience and lessons of socialist modernization after the founding of New China, the CPC has successfully created socialism with Chinese characteristics by answering the major theoretical question of "what is socialism and how to build socialism" based on the national conditions. Chinese path to modernization has embarked on a sustained and stable development process.
On July 22, 2023, Xian Rongsheng, the village chief of the Universiade Village at the 31st Summer Universiade in Chengdu, and Eric Senchao, Secretary General and CEO of the International Federation of Sports Federations, showcased the exchanged gifts.
The political and institutional environment for China's modernization construction is constantly being optimized. The 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China made a major decision to establish a socialist market economy system, followed by a series of institutional reforms and policy adjustments, providing an institutional foundation for the sustainable development of modernization construction. The 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China established the rule of law as the basic strategy for the Party to lead the people in governing the country, providing a matching order guarantee for the construction of a socialist market economy. The 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China established the important thought of "Three Represents" as the guiding ideology of the Party, marking a new stage of innovation and development in Party building. The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China made a comprehensive deployment to achieve the grand goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, objectively responding to the need for the development of social subjectivity under the joint promotion of the market economy and the flourishing network society at that time, and significantly promoting the development of modern society in China.
This means that before the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China had already completed the task of generating specific elements of modern civilization, but at the same time, there was a phenomenon of insufficient functional development of various elements and insufficient internal connections between them. In other words, as a new form of human civilization, the modern civilization of the Chinese nation has completed the stage of generating specific elements and needs to enter a new stage of overall development. Therefore, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that the overall layout of building socialism with Chinese characteristics is the "Five in One". The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made a decision to comprehensively deepen reform. The Fourth Plenary Session and Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee respectively made decisions to comprehensively promote the rule of law and the strict governance of the Party. The results of the comprehensive deepening reform were finalized from both institutional and organizational dimensions, effectively ensuring the coordinated promotion of the "Four Comprehensives" strategic layout.
The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China made strategic arrangements for building a socialist modernized strong country in all respects. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China approved the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Adhering to and Improving the System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and Advancing the Modernization of the National Governance System and Governance Capacity. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made a strategic judgment that socialist modernization construction has entered a new stage of development.The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China deeply explained Chinese path to modernization, pointed out that creating a new form of human civilization is one of the essential requirements of Chinese path to modernization, and announced that from now on, the central task of the CPC is to comprehensively promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese path to modernization.
The development of new forms of human civilization and the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind
Under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people promoted the transformation of Chinese civilization with Chinese path to modernization and constructed the modern civilization of the Chinese nation as a new form of human civilization, which not only laid a civilized foundation for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, but also solved several problems faced by the construction of modern human civilization. One is to adhere to the principle of putting the people at the center and to surpass the modernization path centered on capital. By taking the road of Chinese path to modernization, China has built a well-off society in an all-round way, solved the problem of absolute poverty historically, created a miracle, and is moving towards the common prosperity of all people and the coordinated development of material and spiritual civilization. The second is to achieve an organic combination of adhering to independence and catching up with the times, overcoming the dilemma of many underdeveloped countries losing autonomy due to modernization. The third is to adhere to the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and to overcome the modernization development dilemma that used to cost the ecological environment. The fourth is to adhere to the path of peaceful development and abandon the evil path of launching wars and external plunder that is necessary to achieve modernization.
We must uphold the principle of independence and explore the diversity of modernization paths; We need to establish a sense of integrity and innovation, and maintain the sustainability of the modernization process; We must promote the spirit of self-reliance and talent, and enhance the universality of modernization achievements; We must maintain a proactive attitude and ensure the firmness of modern leadership.
These principles reflect the basic spirit of Chinese path to modernization in the process of creating the modern civilization of the Chinese nation, a new form of human civilization. In other words, the new form of human civilization created by Chinese path to modernization is not only of special significance to China, but also of universal contribution to the development of global civilization.
The Global Civilization Initiative, with the "Four Common Advocacies" as its core content, outlines the development of global civilization in the context of a community with a shared future for mankind."The CPC is willing to continue to work with political parties and political organizations in various countries to carry out exchanges of experience in governing the party and the country, work together on the road to modernization, and make great strides on the road to building a community with a shared future for mankind".
Conclusion
The development of human civilization to modern times, with capital as the center and industrialization as the means, has indeed greatly improved productivity and connected all humanity, but it has obvious shortcomings and shortcomings. The new type of modern civilization centered on the people and characterized by a community with a shared future for mankind is increasingly becoming a new direction for the development of civilization. Under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people have created a new form of human civilization by building the modern civilization of the Chinese nation through Chinese path to modernization, which not only solves the problems in the process of building modern civilization, but also provides practical examples and Chinese programs for the forward development of human civilization. Currently, humanity has entered the digital age, and digital technology will become an important factor in promoting productivity development, and will also more closely connect humanity. Faced with the challenges that the development of digital technology may bring to human society, it is even more urgent to build a community with a shared future for mankind centered around the people of the world.
Platform Editor | Tian He
Director of the External Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Comprehensive International Political Core Journal
It is an authoritative carrier for promoting the theory and practice of China's diplomacy as a major country with Chinese characteristics, especially the innovative achievements of the Party's foreign work; It is a gathering place for professional intelligence to deeply study and analyze the world situation, international pattern, political development and changes of political parties, and the laws of change; It is an important window for the international community to understand the foreign policies and practices of a major country with Chinese characteristics. This journal has been selected for the Chinese Social Science Citation Index of Nanjing University and the Overview of Chinese Core Journals of Peking University. The English version of the journal has been selected for the first CSSCI Foreign Language Journal Catalogue.
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