Chapter 13 3. A new perspective

"Civilized country" provides us with a brand-new perspective for analyzing China and the world. "Civilized country" means that China is a special type of country.China is more like a huge symphony orchestra composed of hundreds of musicians, while most countries in the world are more like a trumpeter, violinist or a chamber orchestra.The number of people is different, the musical instruments are different, the repertoire is different, the inheritance is different, and the command is naturally different, so the governance method of China is also different.China's main way of governing the country can only be derived from its own culture and history.

Under the guidance of the Chinese model, the four major characteristics of China's "civilized country" - population, geography, tradition, and culture have become the biggest advantages of our rise: we have the world's most abundant human resources and the world's largest potential market, We have geographical advantages unmatched by other countries. We have our own long-standing historical heritage and independent ideological system. We have inexhaustible and inexhaustible cultural resources.But if we abandon the Chinese model for the Western one, as some hope, our greatest strength as a "civilized state" may quickly become our greatest weakness: "sum of a hundred nations" becomes " Differences among a hundred countries”, the politics emphasizing harmony has become the politics emphasizing confrontation.The population of our "Hundred Kingdoms" will become a hotbed of chaos and turmoil in China, and our "Hundred Kingdoms" territory will become a fertile soil torn apart; our "Hundred Kingdoms" tradition will become an excuse for countless disputes and confrontations; The culture of "the harmony of nations" will become the source of large-scale conflicts between different cultural groups.The dream of the rise of the Chinese nation will be completely ruined.

Due to the characteristics of a "civilized country", we must not apply Western concepts when governing our own country. We can only adopt the doctrine of borrowing and choose from the perspective of the Chinese. Never lose yourself or your own advantages at any time.For example, the mainstream view in the West believes that a market economy must be a society based on land privatization, but the Chinese have too much land and land is scarce, and improper handling of the land issue will lead to economic and social crises.China's land system today combines public land ownership and individual land use rights. Practice has proved that this is a great innovation and a core competitiveness of the Chinese model.Without this unique land system, how could China have built world-class infrastructure in such a short period of time?How is it possible to carry out such a large-scale urban transformation?How can it be possible to make the Chinese people's housing ownership rate rank among the best in the world?Of course, this system has its own problems and needs to be constantly improved, but the overall prospects are so promising that it would be foolish to abandon it.

In both broad and narrow senses, China and the West can communicate, learn and learn from each other in many ways.China has been doing this for decades and has benefited a lot.But in a deep sense, what is truly national cannot be changed, and it cannot be changed, because it is something that has been formed under special historical conditions for a long time, it is the carrier of a national spirit, and it is the reason why a nation constitutes a nation. the key to.If someone insists on changing, it will end in failure in the end. The political tradition of a nation must evolve gradually along its own internal logic.The price of political romanticism is extremely high, and may even ruin the great future of a nation.In fact, even the United Kingdom, which has a history much shorter than that of China, has insisted on the gradual evolution of its own political tradition for hundreds of years, and has never accepted the French democratic model sweeping Europe.In my opinion, let alone China, even the European Union, whose population is only one-third of China's, cannot be governed according to the political model of a European "democracy", that is to say, it cannot implement a multi-party system and the people directly elect the head of the European Union.If the EU does this, the EU will be reduced to a symbolic political institution that does nothing, losing the authority and ability to integrate different interests in Europe, and at worst will lead to the disintegration of the entire EU, even though Europe is still the birthplace of Western democratic systems.

The greatest wisdom of a "civilized country" is "seeking common ground".This kind of wisdom is first reflected in our words: we add "three points of water" to anything related to water, such as rivers, rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans; The radical of the word "gold", such as silver, copper, iron, tin.For everything that is different, we try to find something in common between them.The biggest feature of Western culture is "seeking differences". Every thing needs to create a word to express it. Therefore, reading Western newspapers and periodicals generally requires 20,000 words, while reading Chinese newspapers and periodicals requires mastering two to three thousand words. You can, but these two or three thousand words can form a kaleidoscopic combination, making Chinese one of the most expressive languages ​​in the world. The governance of a "civilized country" is also the same.If we follow the idea of ​​"seeking common ground" in Chinese culture to deal with the various contradictions China faces, the effect will be better, and the country will have hope, whether it is conflicts between regions, between enterprises, between the government and the people, or between labor and capital. As long as the focus is on seeking the common interests of all parties, the effect will be better, because the Chinese have a cultural gene of "seeking common ground".Conversely, if one abandons one's own traditions and adopts the Western "seeking differences" model, it may cause conflicts, chaos and turmoil, and even civil war.The turmoil and wars that the "democratization" promoted by the West has brought to many countries illustrates this point.

The "civilized state" can also prompt us to rethink many of the ideas we take for granted today.For example, use GDP per capita to compare the development levels of different countries.In fact, as heterogeneous countries, such a reductionist comparison is unreliable.How does a very large symphony orchestra of hundreds of players compare to a trumpeter, a violinist or a chamber orchestra?If we insist on comparison, I am afraid that we must first make a standard in terms of quality and quantity.In terms of nominal per capita GDP, Switzerland is much higher than China, but China has at least a thousand industries that Switzerland does not have.No matter how good the Swiss violinist is, he cannot produce the shock that the Chinese symphony orchestra brings.If we must compare the two, I am afraid that a more appropriate way is to invite the violinist in the Chinese symphony orchestra to compare it with the Swiss violinist.For example, comparing Suzhou with a population of 8 million to Switzerland with a population of 7 million will make the comparison more meaningful and make people feel better.After all, even the weightlifting competition does not allow heavyweight and lightweight to exchange positions, not to mention the comparison between countries that is 10,000 times more complicated than the weightlifting competition?

China is really too big, and our economic space, social space, political space, cultural space, and geographical space are too different from most countries.As mentioned earlier, China's population is more than four times that of the United States. In theory, it should also be reasonable to have four times as many problems in China as the United States.In fact, the United States has no less problems than China. One example is that the total number of prison inmates in the United States exceeds that of China, even though the population of the United States is less than a quarter of that of China.China's developed sector is very comparable to the United States. The above-mentioned Shanghai surpassing New York is such a comparison. The comparison of the net assets of households in China and the United States also falls into this category.

For another example, some people use statistics on the number of people traveling abroad to reflect changes in living standards. In 2009, the number of Chinese outbound tourists was 60 million, which is already a remarkable achievement, but China is a "civilized country", and one country is equal to "the sum of a hundred countries", and the distance and cost of your inter-provincial travel exceed that of small and medium-sized National travel across borders.If you go from Austria to Hungary through Slovakia and then to the Czech Republic, it is roughly equivalent to going from Shanghai to Nanjing, with Suzhou and Wuxi in between.If you want to use the number of people traveling abroad to reflect changes in living standards, you must at least include the number of people taking planes and high-speed trains in China to make a more accurate judgment.South Korea had 30 million outbound tourists in 2009. However, South Korea has a small land area and goes abroad as soon as it gets on the plane, so it is more frequent to go abroad.On the surface, the number of Chinese outbound tourists is only twice that of South Korea, but in fact, the number of people in China with the ability to go abroad is many times that of South Korea.

Similarly, when you look at Western countries no longer as individual countries, but as components of another civilization, you gain a broader sense of history, culture, and reality, and thus become more Accurately grasping the inherent strengths and weaknesses of this civilization, better understanding how to deal with it, and can greatly increase one's own national self-confidence.You can compare the different historical characteristics of the evolution of Western civilization and Chinese civilization, and compare the paths and costs of the rise of Western countries and the rise of China.For example, you will find that the rise of Western civilization is not only a process of industrialization, urbanization, globalization, and democratization, but also a process of slavery, colonialism, genocide, fascism, the outbreak of world wars, and violence The process of being weak and greedily absorbing money from all over the world.You will find that among the countries that believe in Western political civilization, there are not only Nordic countries like Finland with relatively low corruption, but also Greece with serious corruption and Italy with strong underworld forces, and a large number of "democracies" in the third world that have fallen into famine and war .You can also find the long-term trend of the ebb and flow of Chinese and Western civilizations: we were ahead of the West for thousands of years, but since the 17th century we have lagged behind the West, and now we are catching up and surpassing the West in many ways.

Chinese civilization is the only uninterrupted civilization in the world. Chinese civilization seems to be able to absorb most of the content of Western civilization to enrich itself, but never give up on itself, just like Indian Buddhism has become Chinese Buddhism, and Marxism has also been sinicized same.China has seen an unprecedented wave of English learning and an unprecedented wave of studying abroad, and it has also become the developing country that has attracted the most foreign investment in the world.The newspaper with the largest circulation in China is "Reference News", which mainly translates overseas news reviews. 20% of China's annual publications are translated works.McDonald's has faced protests around the world, but has been encouraged in China.The Hollywood movie "Avatar" is widely loved by Chinese people.But the goal of the Chinese people seems to have been very clear. I want to learn all good things, and then strive to innovate and surpass on the basis of learning. Although these efforts may not always be successful, this effort will never be interrupted.In a sense, we can even say: the reform and opening up of the past 30 years is to push the entire Chinese civilization into international competition, to see if the Chinese civilization can hold its own.It turns out that Chinese civilization has not only stood firm and withstood the test, but many elements of our civilization have been quickly activated.Through learning from each other's strengths and being inclusive, we have made China the fastest-growing and most dynamic country in the world, and it has begun to profoundly affect the future direction of the entire world.