Chapter 3 From Street Teen to 28-Year-Old Theorist

Pan Yue was born in a revolutionary family in 1961.His ancestors were from a family in the south of the Yangtze River, and he was a scholarly disciple.His father, Pan Tian, ​​and his mother joined the revolution when they were young and engaged in underground work in Nanjing during the Japanese puppet period.During the War of Liberation, Pan Tian participated in the formation of the Railway Corps.After liberation, Pan Tian made great military exploits in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. After returning to China, he led the railway corps to participate in the construction of China's railways.Before retiring, Pan Tian was the deputy chief engineer and deputy chief of staff of the China Railway Corps.Pan Yue's mother is a well-known figure in the medical field.But the prominent status of his parents did not make Pan Yue's childhood life bright.The temperament of intellectuals and numerous overseas connections made it difficult for Pan's parents to be persecuted during the "Cultural Revolution".Pan Yue, who was seven or eight years old at the time, became a de facto "revolutionary orphan".

In 1976, 16-year-old Pan Yue joined the army and worked in the army's medical department.It stands to reason that his prominent revolutionary family background will undoubtedly help him develop in the army, but the overly active cells in his body made him choose to leave the army and abandon the doctor after 6 years. Go to the "Economic Daily" as a reporter. In July 1983, Pan Yue organized the "China Environment News".Pan Yue, who was 23 years old at the time, did not realize that he had an indissoluble bond with environmental issues. In 1984, he presided over the water quality investigation of the Luanluan Project, traveled thousands of miles, and completed a lengthy investigation report of tens of thousands of words, which led to the investigation and rectification of hundreds of enterprises along the Luanluan Project within a limited time limit.

After 1985, Pan Yue presided over the investigation of the current situation of the environment in Yunnan Province. He traveled all over most of Yunnan Province and completed an investigation report of nearly 10,000 characters. The sensational effect, according to local people, was like "triggering an earthquake near the Yunnan Provincial Government Building." . In 1986, Pan Yue was transferred to the director of the Research Office of the National Air Traffic Control Bureau, presided over the investigation and publicity of the current situation of China's air traffic control, inspected military and civilian airports in more than ten provinces, and the research report attracted high-level attention.

In 1988, Pan Yue served as the deputy editor-in-chief of China's "Technical Supervision News", and the next year as the deputy editor-in-chief of "China Youth Daily".In the face of China's troubled times, the 28-year-old Pan Yue began to observe and reflect on the changes in China from the perspective of the overall situation. Since then, the young Pan Yue has become the protagonist of the theoretical pages of various newspapers at that time. In December 1990, a high-level academic seminar on "Chinese Traditional Culture and Socialist Modernization Consciousness" was hosted by Pan Yue.Relevant leaders from the Central Committee and the State Council attended the meeting, and more than 50 scholars from all over the country attended the discussion. The academic achievements of this seminar have attracted great attention at home and abroad.Various overseas media, such as the "Far Eastern Economic Review" and "Washington Post" in the United States, commented and speculated on this meeting at length, and asserted that Pan Yue and others "proposed neoconservatism for the first time", and some articles believed that China's socialist modernization proposed by this meeting The point of view that must be combined with traditional Chinese culture reflects a certain change in the thinking of Chinese intellectuals in the new era, especially the reflection on radicalism (see "Return to the Value System of Chinese Culture" in "World Weekly" on October 20, 1996 Development Strategies—Evaluating Pan Yue's "New Thoughts" on China's Modernization").

The well-known scholar Xiao Gongqin summarized "neo-conservatism" as the following position: "use transitional, modern-oriented authority, use traditional value intermediaries to guide social internal changes, and gradually introduce Western democratic systems through the success of internal changes, so that Make Chinese society continuously achieve a modern advancement.” Therefore, even if neo-conservatism did not attract people’s attention in China like the “cultural boom” and “new authoritarianism” in 1986, it did not form a craze, nor did it receive the highest praise. However, the result is that the concept of neo-conservatism has become the mainstream trend of thought among Chinese people at the end of the 20th century—it is hoped that China’s changes will be gradual rather than sudden.

During his tenure as deputy editor-in-chief of China Youth Daily, the seminars hosted by Pan Yue also included: "The Development Trend of China's Township Enterprises" large-scale seminar (July 1990), more than ten departments participated, which attracted wide attention from the academic circle; Universities, Renmin University of China and other institutions launched large-scale research and discussions, which aroused great repercussions among students. The "Western Thought on Campus" seminar (December 1990) triggered a series of related ideological discussions among college students.

In 1991, a group of young Chinese officials and scholars jointly drafted a strategic document titled "China's Practical Responses and Strategic Choices after the Soviet Union's Upheaval" in the face of the upheaval in the Soviet Union and the East.This research report advocates that the Communist Party of China completes the "transformation from a revolutionary party to a ruling party." The nationalist worldview of "China is the only homeland of the Chinese people", the academic achievements were directly reported to the central government, and aroused huge repercussions overseas.Over the next few years, this article has been repeatedly published by major overseas media. Its host was first identified by overseas media as Chen Yuan, and later found out that it was Pan Yue, then deputy editor-in-chief of "China Youth Daily".And this document was the result of a seminar hosted by Pan Yue in September 1991.