2009 is the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China.How to understand China's development in the past century and a half, especially the economic miracle of reform and opening up in the past 30 years, is a topic of general concern. In the 1990s, Professor Fukuyama of Harvard University's book "The End of History" sparked a big discussion, and that discussion is still going on in China today.One interpretation of the "Chinese miracle" is that it is the result of believing in big government doctrine and "Chinese characteristics". Because the government enjoys exclusive coercive power and uses coercive power to allocate resources, it is possible to efficiently "concentrate power to do big things" Another interpretation is just the opposite: these achievements are not so much the result of the allocation of resources by coercive force, which is a miracle of "Chinese characteristics", but rather the result of the free market and universal humanity overcoming power control, and the result of globalization forces. Concrete performance.That is to say, China's achievements in the past 30 years have proved that free choice and marketization will bring prosperity, and this conclusion has nothing to do with race, skin color, or cultural tradition: the more the individual's right to free choice is liberated, the more power is opposed to the right. The sooner the fetters are ended, the more the economic welfare of the common people increases.

According to Professor Fukuyama, the evolution of the institutional system of human society finally ends with "freedom and democracy plus market economy". Therefore, although social and individual lives will continue to bump up, and climactic comedies and tragedies will still overlap, the long-term pursuit of human "big system" - a large political and economic system structure - That's all for now, because there's no better match. Whether Fukuyama's theory is right or wrong can be left to everyone to think and judge for themselves.But for many scholars and amateurs in China, what may be unacceptable at first is that Fukuyama puts all societies—regardless of race, political and cultural background—into one place, as if there are no whites, yellows, or blacks. It's like a distinction!Although Marxism, which is regarded as the "Bible" by our society, also comes from the West, in the eyes of many people, it seems that China has always been different, and Western things are not suitable for China, and any theory that does not distinguish "Chinese characteristics" immediately It should be labeled "blind copying".

What works in other countries will not work in China; what works in China will not work in other countries.really?Does China's 30 years of reform and opening up support or subvert Fukuyama's thinking framework; does it prove or falsify his conclusion of the end of history?China's long history is really separated from the world's history, so that China's development cannot be generalized with other countries? In my view, except for some relatively brief periods, China has always been part of the human process.From ancient times, Chinese culture was founded in the pre-Qin period 2,500 years ago. In the heyday of thought and culture, Confucius (551-478 BC), Mozi (468-376 BC), Mencius (372 BC) Years - 289 years ago) and other masters.

Western culture originated in ancient Greece, and its foundation period was almost at the same time. Representatives include Socrates (469 BC-399 BC), Plato (428 BC-348 BC), Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), etc. The Buddhist cultural system originated in India around 400 BC.The core of Indian culture, the caste system, was also developed 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. Why did the major cultural systems we are familiar with today almost all develop during that period?Is it a completely unrelated coincidence?Or is there some kind of necessary connection?Is that inevitable connection that human society has moved from nomadism to agriculture, cultivating food in a fixed place, and raising carnivorous animals indoors?

Another clue of cultural development - religion, China and other countries are also quite synchronized.Around the Gregorian era, Buddhism was introduced into China during the Han Dynasty, and gradually integrated into Chinese society, bringing the order of the postnatal world to the Chinese.Christianity emerged during the same period and permeated European society.This shows that, on the one hand, China opened up to the outside world earlier than previously said, and on the other hand, foreign cultures can also take root in Chinese society, after all, human nature is the same. Islam is another major religion in the world, which originated in the seventh century AD.On the surface, this is six centuries later than Christianity entered Europe and Buddhism entered China. However, in the period of ancient agricultural society, or before the commercial revolution in the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, social change and development were slow.According to the famous British economic historian Anderson?According to Madison's estimate, it took 1880 years for the world's per capita GDP to double from the first year of AD to around 1880.However, in just 120 years, from 1880 to 2000, the global per capita GDP increased by nearly 5 times.In other words, the increase in per capita income achieved in the past 120 years is five times the increase achieved by humans in the nearly two thousand years before 1880.According to this understanding, the entry of Buddhism into China, the rise of Christianity in the West, and the emergence of Islam, although objectively separated by hundreds of years, can be roughly regarded as the same period in terms of the speed of human progress.

In the early 15th century, China in the Ming Dynasty launched a large-scale voyage, and soon after, Italy, Portugal, and Spain also joined in actively promoting maritime adventures, so that the American continent was discovered in 1492.Therefore, in terms of navigation, China not only did not deviate from the world trend, but also led human beings in these attempts, but later retreated in navigation. In terms of business development, China is even more closely synchronized with the world.We know that the discovery of the American continent by Columbus in 1492 was a landmark moment in the commercial revolution in the West, and the commercial revolution progressed rapidly in the following centuries.At about the same time, from around 1500 to 1800, China was also experiencing a commercial revolution, which was recognized as the most prosperous period of modern Chinese business, or the most prosperous period before this round of economic rise.

Why were many important cultural, religious, and economic processes in China in the past so synchronized with other countries in the world?Is it a coincidence every time?If it's not a coincidence, doesn't it mean that China is not different in big things, and "Chinese characteristics" are not as special as we say in history? In modern times, China was more in sync with the world.We can look at it from three aspects. The first is the time to join the Industrial Revolution. Around 1780, the Industrial Revolution first appeared in the United Kingdom, and later spread to a few countries such as the United States and France. Western European and Eastern European countries such as Germany and Italy began to catch up with the United Kingdom and the United States in the middle of the 19th century. Latin America, Asia, and African countries were almost there. For a period of time, it imitated British and American industrial technology. The Westernization Movement in China that started in the 1860s was almost at the same time as the Meiji Restoration in Japan. Its core was to introduce Western technology. Of course, it was more perfect than Britain and the United States in terms of time, but it was synchronized with most other countries in the world.For example, the telegraph was successfully invented between 1837 and 1844. In the 1860s, wired telegraphs were popularized in various countries, and a transnational telegraph network was built. In 1871, the telegraph entered China.The world's first train road was built in England in 1825, and the first railway was built in Shanghai, China 50 years later.Automobiles entered China in 1901, shortly after they appeared in the West.The telephone was invented in the United States in 1876, and soon entered China after it was put into practical use.

In the past, we blamed the Qing government and China for not inventing various technologies. Of course, these are reasonable in themselves, because China is a big country in the world after all. However, from the perspective of following the world trend, China is not behind and is similar to other countries. The second is the development of financial markets.After the Opium War, modern corporate systems such as limited liability companies, stock market transactions, and modern finance entered China in the 1860s. These corporate systems and financial technologies were about 400 years older than Western European countries. The same is true for other countries.China's first joint stock company, China Merchants Steamship, was listed and traded in 1872, marking the beginning of the Chinese stock market.How far behind is it compared with other countries?Swiss stock market was established in 1850, Spain in 1860, Hungary in 1864, Turkey in 1866, Australia in 1871, Czech Republic in 1871, Argentina in 1872, New Zealand in 1872, Canada in 1874, Brazil in 1877, India in 1877, Norway in 1881 , South Africa 1887, Egypt 1890, Hong Kong 1890, Chile 1892, Greece 1892, Mexico 1894, Singapore 1911.Of course, this is insufficient compared to the top, and more than the bottom.

The third is government-run enterprises and the nationalization movement.China's Westernization Movement is based on national resources, and has gone through "government-supervised and business-run" to "government-business cooperation" and then to purely "government-run". There is a big difference, and they all want to rely on the country's financial resources to catch up with the British and American industrial technology. In 1918, the Soviet Union launched the nationalization movement, which fully nationalized industry and commerce, and took land into public ownership. Beginning in the 1930s, the Soviet economy grew rapidly.In contrast, the financial crisis broke out in the United States in 1929, triggering the economic crisis in the 1930s in the Western private economy countries.The rapid growth of the state-owned economy in the Soviet Union contrasted so sharply with the crisis of the private economy in the West that countries all over the world followed the example of nationalization and government-run enterprises.China first carried out nationalization on a small scale in the 1930s, and carried out comprehensive nationalization nationwide in the 1950s.Eastern European countries were nationalized after World War II.Many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have followed and imitated.Even the privately owned Western European countries nationalized some industries. The United Kingdom successively nationalized coal power, broadcasting, railways, steel, oil and gas, public transportation and other industries in the 1930s and later; , oil and gas, and automobile manufacturing enterprises were nationalized.Therefore, China's nationalization and related expansion of government power is not an isolated action of China, but a part of the world socialist movement.

Of course, China's nationalization movement was in sync with the world, and the subsequent market-oriented reforms were also in sync with the world.China's economic situation began to deteriorate in the late 1950s. During the Cultural Revolution, the economy was further pushed to the bottom, so that after the Cultural Revolution, it was no longer feasible to not end the planned economy. Therefore, there was the reform and opening up launched in 1978.Although other countries did not have the extreme experience of China's Cultural Revolution, state-owned enterprises and government-controlled economies also brought them severe financial crises. Therefore, from the early 1980s, from the United Kingdom to France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Latin American countries, and Eastern Europe Countries, Asian countries, African countries, and the whole world are forced to carry out privatization and market-oriented reforms.

What does all this tell us?It shows that China and other countries were basically synchronized in ancient times, and synchronized in modern times. China has always been a part of the world process!The reason is that Chinese people have the same human nature as other people in the world, the human nature of pursuing a better life and personal freedom.Therefore, we can discuss Professor Fukuyama's conclusions, but we should not use "Chinese characteristics" to demand that China be excluded from the prediction of the future direction of human society. In just 20 years from 1978 to 1998, China's per capita GDP more than doubled. Of course, there was no such experience in Chinese history, and it was a miracle.However, if we see that the world's per capita GDP only doubled from the first year of AD to 1880, but it more than tripled from 1880 to 1978; times, this is equivalent to saying that the development opportunities brought by the industrial revolution to China were left after 1978.In this way, we can know the main reason for the rapid development during the 30 years of reform and opening up. First of all, we have seen that the "reform and opening up" that began in 1978 includes two contents. "Reform" mainly refers to the restoration of the individual's right to free choice and the restoration of the common people's rights relative to the monopoly of government resources and government regulation. Deciding what to do and what not to do, how to do it, how much to sell the finished product, where to sell it, at what price, how to distribute the income obtained, how to reinvest the remaining money, etc., in a word, it is for the individual to freedom. "Opening up" is essentially expanding freedom. It is to allow Chinese and foreigners to enter and exit the country more freely, to invest and to trade, to allow personal economic freedom to extend across national boundaries, and to broaden the geographical boundaries of freedom.Therefore, both "reform" and "opening up" revolve around "freedom" and are about letting go of constraints. Simply letting go of the common people's hands and feet, and releasing people's nature to survive and live a better life, this is the main theme of China's new policies in all aspects in the past 30 years, and it is precisely because of this main theme of the "release freedom" policy that it is waiting at the door of China Decades of globalization forces can also enter China, allowing Chinese society to finally enjoy the benefits of two centuries of industrial revolution and global trade order.It is certainly a miracle that simply unleashing freedom can bring economic prosperity and raise living standards so quickly, but it is a miracle of "freedom", not a miracle of "big government". Logically and temporally, if "big governmentism" was the cause of China's economic miracle, wouldn't China in the 1960s and 1970s be more likely to experience economic take-off?The reality is that it was the economic disasters caused by "big government" in the 1960s and 1970s that provided the political basis for the free market reforms that began in 1978.And, the more economic freedom is restored after that, the more the economy grows. Therefore, the achievements of reform and opening up have verified the principle of "freedom promotes development", and China's experience has not deviated from the laws proved by the practice of other countries.The systems that are suitable for other countries are also suitable for China. There is no distinction between East and West in human nature, and there is no distinction between Chinese and foreigners. To sort out China's affairs, we must avoid only using China's past routines, and we must not use "Chinese characteristics" as an excuse to avoid substantive issues.It is difficult to understand China's experience and provide a constructive perspective for China's long-term sustainable development if it is separated from world civilization and the experience of human society. This book collects some media interviews of the author in the past few years. The content covers many topics, but basically they all revolve around China.Even when we talk about the world and other countries, we ultimately want to talk about China's past, present and future, because I always believe that if we only use China's past to understand China's present and future, it will only be one-sided or even misplaced. conclusion.Only by referring to the experience of other countries in the same period or in the early stage can we understand China more thoroughly and predict our future. Over the years, many media friends have given me the opportunity to express my views to the public, and I would like to express my gratitude here, especially Cen Ke, Li Liming, Guo Yukuan, Zhou Nianyang, Zhao Lingmin, Liu Lingyun, Xiao Shu, He Xuefeng and others; Other author friends of the articles recorded in the book, including Liu Lang, Guo Zhe, Tang Yong, Li Xiang, Ye Xiaojing, Zhong Jiayong, Xu Kai, Wei Zhe, Zhou Cheng, Chen Zhu, Shi Beibei, Gu Chongqing, Zhou Huilan, Cao Lida, Li Jingrui , Hao Xiliang, Xiao Qiang, Ye Tan, Zhu Zhouliang, Xu Linling, Xie Wensi, Wang Lifen, etc. Without their interviews, this book would not have appeared.Cen Ke is responsible for collecting and organizing the articles in this book, and his contribution goes without saying.I hope that what is discussed in the book can bring inspiration and thinking to readers who are concerned about China's social development.