Chinese Civilization and the Civilizational Universality of the Communist Party of China and Chinese Socialism

Xie Maosong

The Civilizational Universality of China through History[19]

The Universal Signif icance of the Chinese Revolution

Mao Zedong’s “Serve the People” [為人民服務(wù)]begins by proclaiming:“Our Communist Party and the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies led by our Party are battalions of the revolution.These battalions of ours are wholly dedicated to the liberation of the people and work entirely in the people’s interests.” Mao moved on to discuss,full of emotion,the duty of the Communists to save the Chinese people and the sacred meaning of dying for them.50Mao Tse-tung,“Serve the People,” inSelected Works of Mao Tse-tung Vol.III (Peking:Foreign Languages Press,1965),177—178.

Like theAnalectstwo thousand f ive hundred years ago,“Serve the People” is a mundane yet sacred daily discourse,which best illustrates the universality of the Chinese revolution.As part of the modern world revolution,the Chinese revolution has the universal signif icance of revolution,that is,the universal signif icance of world revolution.In addition,with the thousands of years of Chinese civilization and the characteristics of China’s modern history,the Chinese revolution has the revolutionary qualities that make modern China what it is today.

The Universal Signif icance of Chinese Socialism

After leading the Chinese revolution to victory,the CPC established the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese socialist system.The Chinese socialist system has the universal significance of socialism,that is,the universal significance of world socialism.Additionally,its socialist qualities manifest Chinese time-honored civilization and the characteristics of China’s modern history.

The only purpose of capital is to pursue profit.The essence of capitalism is to take capital as the center and consider the interests of a small number of people.Capitalism can be great for a while but not for long.The path of Chinese socialism that China has chosen and embarked upon is highly compatible with the principle of the Chinese civilization“becoming great and continuing long.”51This derives from the statement that,“To be able to continue long shows the virtue of the wise and able man;to be able to become great is the heritage he will acquire” (Book of Changes,“Appended Remarks I” [系辭上]).

During the three thousand years of Chinese civilization since the Western Zhou dynasty,China has created three major social systems:the f irst was the Western Zhou enfeoff ment system;the second was the system of prefectures and counties beginning from the Qin and Han (206 BCE—220 CE) dynasties;and the third is socialism with Chinese characteristics established by the CPC.In this sense,the designation of Shenzhen by the Chinese central government as a pioneering demonstration zone of socialism with Chinese characteristics in 2019 is of indicative significance,demonstrating unprecedented confidence in the Chinese system.

The Originary Universality of China’s Originary Civilization

The universality possessed by the Chinese revolution and Chinese socialism fundamentally derives from the universality of Chinese civilization as the underlying structure of both.Archaeologist Kwang-chih Chang 張光直 (1931—2001) divided world civilization into originary and secondary civilizations,with China being the only continuous,uninterrupted originary civilization in the history of world civilization,and Western civilization being a secondary civilization that has been interrupted again and again.52Kwang-chih Chang 張光直,“Continuity and Interruption:A Draft of a New Theory of the Origin of Civilization”[連續(xù)與破裂：一個文明起源新說的草稿],inChina’s Bronze Age II [中國青銅時代（二集）](Beijing:SDX Joint Publishing Company,1990),131—142.Western civilization fails to show the universality it has claimed since modern times,but rather is among the exceptions.China’s continuous,uninterrupted originary civilization seems more universal,and this universality is an originary one with the greatest inclusiveness and inclusion.

Chinese civilization has provided the world with the most complete model of civilizational development.Francis Fukuyama,a Japanese—American scholar,suggests that China had invented bureaucracy that was only available in modern times in the West as early as two thousand years ago during the Qin dynasty.53Francis Fukuyama,Political Order and Political Decay:From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy (2014).Translated by Mao Junjie 毛俊杰 as [政治秩序與政治衰敗：從工業(yè)革命到民主全球化](Guilin:Guangxi Normal University Press,2015),355.China’s centralized unification has also continued from the Qin and Han dynasties down to the present.Europe,on the other hand,has not seen a unif ied European empire since the collapse of the Roman Empire,and the current European Union is trying to reunite European countries,but it is full of internal divisions and meets with many diffi culties;its future is hard to predict.

The universality of China’s continuous,uninterrupted originary civilization reinforces the universality of the Chinese revolution and Chinese socialism.It can also be said that the universality of the Chinese revolution and Chinese socialism is inherent in and naturally evolves and grows out of the originary universality of Chinese civilization.China has been what it is throughout the ages because it has had an integrated,continuous civilizational universality from the ancient to the present,thus Chinese civilization,Chinese revolution,and Chinese socialism form an inherent triple universality.The Chinese revolution and Chinese socialism led by the CPC are also the most essential manifestation of “a great century-old Party renewing its mandate.”

Approaching the Dynamic Changes of Universality Based on the Doctrine of ‘One Principle with Diverse Manifestations’ and the Principles of ‘Opportune Moment,Position,and Centrality’[20]

The universality of revolution including the Chinese revolution is the universality in the sense of the Song—Ming Neo-Confucian doctrine of “one principle with diverse manifestations” (liyi fenshu理一分殊).54Wang Maohong 王懋竑,“Chronicle of Master Zhu” [朱子年譜],vol.1,inChronicle of Zhu Xi [朱熹年譜],ed.He Zhongli 何忠禮 (Beijing:Zhonghua Book Company,1998),15.When Deng Xiaoping met with foreign Communist delegations in 1983,he said that,

[I]f the Communists in a particular country want to make a successful revolution,the fundamental lesson is that they must f ind their own road in light of the conditions in that country.

The Communists in any country should decide for themselves what road to take for revolution,because people in other countries are not familiar with the circumstances there.If foreigners presume to give orders,they will make mistakes.55“We Are Building a Socialist Society with Both High Material Standards and High Cultural and Ethical Standards,”accessed November 15,2021,https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1983/149.htm.

From the perspective of world history and the history of world revolutions,“The victory of the October Revolution was a product of Lenin’s integration of the principles of Marxism with Russian revolutionary practice.”56Ibid.Why was China able to achieve victory in its revolution?“Because the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong,by independent thinking and integrating the universal principles of Marxism—Leninism with specif ic Chinese conditions,found the revolutionary road,forms and methods suited to China.”57Ibid.The Chinese revolution came in two stages:the new-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution.

Both Russia and China integrated Marxism with their own realities to achieve revolutionary victory.The experience of the victorious revolutions in Russia and China shows that revolutions in other countries also need to integrate Marxism with their own realities,as revealed in the Song—Ming Neo-Confucian doctrine of “one principle with diverse manifestations.”

After Buddhism entered China,the sign of its eventual acceptance and absorption by China was the completion of its adaption to the Chinese context.The core value of Confucianism emphasizes that those who wish to be established themselves,seek also to establish others.This is precisely the civilizational impetus inherent in the development of Mahayana Buddhism in China,which advocates delivering all living creatures including oneself and others from suffering.Chinese Mahayana Buddhism emphasized the development of convenient means according to diff erent natural capacities.Enlightenment is required to become a Buddhist,but there is more than one way to do so;there are different convenient means for different natural capacities,so one should not cling to or be bound by them.Buddhist enlightenment is principled,but the convenient means of Buddhism are highly f lexible.

Similar to Buddhism,aft er entering China,socialism went through a process of being adapted to the Chinese context.Chinese socialism maintains a unity of principle and a high degree of f lexibility,which makes it easy to understand its socialism with a market economy.This also enables us to understand the theory of socialism being a stage of communism and the theory of socialism at the primary stage,which is deeply related to the dynamic thinking and core principles of theBook of Changesconcerningshi時 (opportune moment),wei位(position),andzhong中 (centrality,appropriateness).

The atomic mode of thinking in ancient Greece was static,as it always tried to f ind the smallest,unchanging substantial constituents.In contrast,each of the 64 hexagrams of theBook of Changesconsists of six horizontal lines,and any change in the six lines can change the hexagram into another.The “opportune moment” has a fundamental significance in theBook of Changesand in Chinese civilization.This helps us understand in a deeper way the f lexibility and political wisdom of Deng Xiaoping in def ining the primary stage of socialism.The primary stage indicates that it may be followed by intermediate and advanced stages,but when exactly that will happen,or even whether there must be intermediate and advanced stages,as Chan Buddhism emphasizes,cannot be completely understood by the word itself,but rather has a high degree of dynamic f lexibility.This is also true of the reform process in the 1980s,when Deng Xiaoping proposed,

Our principle is to be bold,take a conf ident step and then look around carefully before taking another.Our policy is f irm,and we are not going to change it.What is important is that we should review our experience at regular intervals,because reform involves the vital interests of the people,and every step we take will affect hundreds of millions of them.We shall see in a few years whether the reform is successful.

In the middle of the reform process,“We are bound to make mistakes,and problems are bound to arise.The crucial thing is to review what we have done and correct every wrong step promptly.”58“Reform Is China’s Second Revolution,” accessed November 15,2021,https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1985/189.htm.

In modern times,China developed Chinese socialism by learning from and embracing world socialism.The relationship between world socialism and Chinese socialism is like the relationship between the principle and its diverse manifestations in Song—Ming Neo-Confucianism.By the same token,the relationship between Chinese socialism today and other countries that may learn from Chinese socialism now and in the future is also the relationship between the principle and its diverse manifestations.Just as China could not copy the experience of other countries back then,other countries learning Chinese socialism should not copy China’s experience,but should transform and innovate according to the characteristics of their own civilization and history.

The Trifold Civilizational Meaning of the CPC:Being a Civilizational Party,Shaping a New Civilization,and Becoming a New Civilization[21]

The slogans “Long live the People’s Republic of China” and “Long live the great solidarity of the people of the world” at the Tiananmen Gate in Beijing are intrinsically related to the spirit of “governing the state and safeguarding peace under Heaven” discussed in the “Great Learning” chapter of theBook of Rites.On the one hand,the CPC upholds its independent and sovereign national spirit,while on the other hand,it inherits traditional Chinese culture’s idea of “regarding all under Heaven as one family” proposed in the “Evolution of Ritual” chapter of theBook of Rites.This allows the CPC to extend its concept of common prosperity and common development to the win-win sharing under globalization,and will eventually surpass the Western “hegemonic” thinking of the past f ive centuries under which the winner takes all.

As the CPC is working toward its second centenary goal of building a great modern socialist country,Chinese civilization is moving toward full rejuvenation,and China therefore envisages a new civilization for the future.In order to deeply understand the civilizational signif icance of the CPC,it is necessary to break away from simply understanding the CPC in terms of political parties,especially Western political parties (otherwise there will be various contradictory restrictions),and to imagine the CPC in terms of civilization.The CPC is a new civilizational party and will shape and become a new civilization itself.We should be aware of the growth of Chinese civilization,which is the trifold civilizational meaning of the CPC that continues to deepen and extend.

China led the world for a long time in the era of agricultural civilization,but fell behind,was attacked and caught up in the era of industrial civilization.The latest digital civilization after industrial civilization has a high degree of compatibility with China’s agricultural civilization.Western industrial civilization is so destructive to nature that contradictions,resistances,and conf licts were bound to occur in the process of Chinese civilization learning from it.But digital civilization is diff erent.For the f irst time,China is on the same starting point as the West in the latest development of digital technology (especially 5G).

The interconnectivity mindset of digital civilization is highly compatible with the mindset of Chinese agricultural civilization.Chinese civilization was once an agricultural civilization with a naturally holistic and circular way of thinking based on the principle of“correspondence of Heaven and human beings,”59This is derived from the statement that,“This means the correspondence of human beings and Heaven and Earth.”Yao Chunpeng 姚春鵬,ed.,“Xie ke” [邪客]of “Ling shu” [靈樞],inInner Canons of the Yellow Emperor [黃帝內(nèi)經(jīng)](Beijing:Zhonghua Book Company,2010),1347.which was once considered backward in the era of industrial civilization but in the era of digital civilization will reignite inherent vitality like never before.The most direct aspect of the principle of “correspondence of Heaven and human beings” is the close integration of human beings with the soil,the land,and “l(fā)ocal customs and practices” corresponding to the Earth contain civilizational meaning.

Digitalization is also highly compatible with the grand unif ication of Chinese civilization,and digital technology will make such grand unif ication more complete.In the era of digital civilization,it is possible for China to lead the world again and thus “return to the China of history.” This also implies the imagination for a new civilization in the future,for the next 500 years or even a thousand years.

The new Chinese civilization,in which the CPC has fused agricultural,industrial,digital,and ecological civilizations into one,will use the thinking of a large agricultural civilization combined with the thinking of a digital civilization to develop commerce and industry and a digital economy,and will rebuild the inseparable symbiosis between humans and land,which also includes people’s sense of history in concrete space and time.All this involves the loft y ambition of a new civilization,and it is here that the future signif icance of the Xiong’an New Area lies as a great plan for the millennium in the history of civilization.

General Secretary Xi Jinping has reminded the CPC membership that,“Cybersecurity and information technology is a matter of great importance for the Party’s long-term governance,for the country’s long-term peace and security,for economic and social development and for the wellbeing of the people.If we fail to adapt to the internet,we will not be in power for long.”60Xi Jinping,“Enhance China’s Cyber Capabilities” [努力把我國建設(shè)成為網(wǎng)絡(luò)強(qiáng)國],inXi Jinping on Enhancing China’s Cyber Capabilities [習(xí)近平關(guān)于網(wǎng)絡(luò)強(qiáng)國論述摘編],eds.Institute of Party History and Literature of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (Beijing:Central Party Literature Publishing House,2021),31.This demonstrates the CPC’s foresight for the future,that is,it has come to see the future of digital civilization.In addition,it also represents the historical civilizational consciousness of the Chinese Communists to create a new civilization.From Mao Zedong,the core of the first generation of the CPC,to the Chinese Communists of today’s New Era,the CPC has always been able to foresee the future,which comes from the fact that the Chinese Communists have always stayed true to their original aspirations,which has also unfolded in the concrete history of the Party over the past century.What all this boils down to is,“A great century-old Party renewing its mandate.”

Conclusion [22]

To understand the CPC and Chinese socialism,only by grasping the originary civilizational universality,the most fundamental characteristic of Chinese uninterrupted originary civilization,can we break through West-centrism and thoroughly and comprehensively interpret the all-inclusive feature of the CPC and Chinese socialism from the perspective of world civilization as a whole.In addition,only by so doing can we grasp the dynamic and growing nature of today’s Chinese civilization and understand that the “ceaseless production and reproduction” (Book of Changes,“Appended Remarks II”) of Chinese civilization and its ability to “become great and continue long” are one and the same.Originary civilizational universality,as the most fundamental characteristic of Chinese civilization,is the fundamental structure of all the above discussion,of understanding the Chinese path and China’s relationship with the world,and of the Chinese proposition of a human community with a shared future.