Ideology to help China through social, economic challenges: analysts
China attaches great importance to the past weekend's first World Congress on Marxism in Beijing in solving its growing social and economic problems during the transition period, and the event offered a chance for China to spread Marxist ideology, observers said on Sunday.
As the biggest academic conference on Marxism held in China, the congress, "Marxism and the Development of the Human Race," attracted more than 400 Marxist scholars from 20 countries.
The discussions center on China's development path, theories and systems, together with the worldwide influence exerted by Marxism to promote human development, the Guangming Daily reported on Sunday.
Observers said that the congress helped address China's concerns during a critical transition.
"China faces an increasing number of problems in the midst of its economic slowdown and deepening reform, such as corruption and the growing income gap, which require the country to use Marxism to explain and solve them," Xin Xiangyang, a research fellow on Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
The congress also provided an opportunity for Western countries to learn from China, as China's adherence to Marxism for decades has made huge headway in both social and economic development, while the Western world has not fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis, Xin said.
Observers said that since President Xi Jinping stressed the importance of Marxist ideology, there has been a resurgence of the ideology as the theoretical foundation of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in China.
President Xi said in January that Marxist philosophy provides CPC members with the right approach to problem-solving, as China continues its path of reform and development.
He stressed several times "sinicization" and modernization of Marxism in his speeches since 2013.
Roderick MacFarquhar, a Harvard University professor, said at the conference that the "Chinese dream" proposed by President Xi is the creative development of Marxism by Chinese Marxists, which will make great contributions and exert a positive impact on human development.
However, China still faces challenges in adopting Marxism.
China has not reached a level of "common prosperity" as stated in Marxist thought. Corruption still exists, while Marxism has called for clean government, Wang Zhanyang, director of the Political Science Department at the Central Institute of Socialism, told the Global Times.
Peking University, sponsor of the congress, has attached increasing importance to Marxism.
It held a foundation-laying ceremony in May for a building named after German philosopher Karl Marx, to celebrate his 197th birth anniversary.
