Originally published in the first issue of China Youth magazine in 2024Grasp the characteristics of Chinese civilization and continue to write a chapter of modern civilizationText-Xia Chuntao.
Not long ago, on December 22, 2023, the United Nations passed a resolution to designate the Spring Festival as a United Nations holiday. This vividly demonstrates the influence of Chinese civilization from one side.
As a Chinese, I often feel a sense of pride and awe, and one of the reasons for this is that our ancestors created a brilliant culture, and the Chinese civilization is vast and profound. So, how to understand the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization? **The general secretary made a scientific explanation of this, pointing out that there are many important elements of the excellent traditional Chinese culture, which together shape the five outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization. This provides a theoretical basis for us to profoundly grasp the law of development of Chinese civilization and build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
The Chinese civilization has outstanding continuity. It is the only great civilization in the world that has continued and developed in the form of a nation. This fully proves that the Chinese civilization has the cultural subjectivity and vigorous vitality of self-development, responding to challenges, and creating new prospects. The continuity of the Chinese civilization fundamentally determines that the Chinese nation will inevitably follow its own path. If we do not understand China from the perspective of its long historical continuity, it is impossible to understand ancient China, nor modern China, let alone the future China.
The Chinese civilization is characterized by outstanding innovation. It is a new civilization. The Chinese nation has always been constantly creating its own material, spiritual, and political civilization in this spirit, and has stood tall in the world as the most prosperous and powerful civilization in a long historical period. The innovative nature of the Chinese civilization fundamentally determines the Chinese nation's enterprising spirit of upholding the right and not keeping the old and respecting the past and not going back to the past, and determines the Chinese nation's fearless character of not being afraid of new challenges and having the courage to accept new things.
The Chinese civilization has outstanding unity. Its essence is unity and unity in diversity. Unity and unity are blessings, turbulence is a curse, and they are valuable lessons that the Chinese have paid for with blood. The unity of the Chinese civilization fundamentally determines that the Chinese nation is an organic whole, the common belief that the territory cannot be divided, the country cannot be chaotic, the nation cannot be dispersed, and the civilization cannot be broken, and that national unity will always be the core of China's core interests.
Chinese civilization is outstandingly inclusive. There is never a single culture as a substitute for multiculturalism. Chinese cultural identity transcends region, bloodline, religious beliefs, etc. The more inclusive it is, the more it will be recognized and maintained, and the more it will continue. The inclusiveness of Chinese civilization fundamentally determines the historical orientation of the Chinese nation's exchanges, exchanges and blending, the harmonious pattern of the coexistence of various religious beliefs in China, and the open-mindedness of Chinese culture to the eclecticism of world civilizations.
The Chinese civilization is characterized by outstanding peace. Peace, harmony and harmony are the concepts that have been inherited by Chinese civilization for more than 5,000 years. The peaceful nature of the Chinese civilization fundamentally determines that China has always been committed to safeguarding world peace and promoting common development, that China will continue to pursue exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and not engage in cultural hegemony, that China will not impose its own values and political system on others, and that it will never engage in a small circle of "the same party and the same party".
The Communist Party of China (CPC) has always represented the direction of progress of China's advanced culture. For more than 100 years, it has always attached great importance to cultural construction, and in the glorious course of leading revolution, construction and reform, and in the great practice of creating a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, it has successively devoted itself to the construction of revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture, and has strived to explore and continuously expand the development path of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics. "The sunrise river flowers are red, and the spring river is as green as blue. "Embarking on a new journey of comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese-style modernization, the whole party and the people of the whole country will unite more closely around the Chinese people with comrades as the core, unite as one, unite as one, and strengthen cultural self-confidence, we will be able to shoulder the new cultural mission well, build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation, write a new chapter in cultural construction, and create new brilliance.
Xia Chuntao is the director and researcher of the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Chinese Academy of History).Click on the image belowBuy China Youth Issue 1, 2024
Producer: Pi JunFinal review: Chen MinReviewer: Liu Xiao, Liu BowenEdit:Wang LeizhengYang Yingkai (intern).