(W.E.Talk·Understanding the Chinese path to modernization) Zhang Xiping: Why do we regard the Chinese path to modernization as a new model for human advancement?

by Zhang Xiping, professor from Beijing Foreign Studies University, distinguished professor at Beijing Language and Culture University

(CNS)-- British historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee constructed a theory on the history of civilization forms in his famous book A Study of History by breaking through the historical view of Western-centrism. He took civilization as the unit for historical study and conducted equal research about the diversified civilizations in the world, exploring the rule and law for evolution of world civilization. 

Diversity is a basic form of the existence of civilization. 

Toynbee held that the production and evolution of human civilization is pluralist. He claimed that there are 26 civilizations in the world in the human history for more than 6,000 years, including the civilization of Christianity in the West, civilization of Orthodox Eastern Church (it can be divided into Byzantine civilization and Russian civilization), Iranian civilization, Arabic civilization (it can be called the Islamic civilization in combination with the Iranian civilization), ancient Chinese civilization, ancient Greek civilization and ancient Indian civilization.

Toynbee’s theory of diversified civilization is the transcendence of Western-centrism. His argument that the diversity of civilizations constitutes the basic form of historical development is approved by most scholars. The 53rd United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in 1998, determining that there are different civilizations in the world. The year of 2001 was defined as the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. The resolution proposed to launch dialogues and exchanges among different civilizations to maintain the pluralism of culture. The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity adopted by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2001, raising the diversity of culture to the level of the common legacy of all humanity and thinking it is an essential condition for guaranteeing the survival of human beings. These two important documents have not only reflected the real state and development trend of world civilization at present, but also expressed the earnest aspirations of all peoples across the world for maintaining and developing their own civilizations. In other words, it has laid a solid foundation for correctly handling relations between different civilizations.

Mutual learning is the driving force for the development of civilizations 

The emergence and development of the European civilization is realized in the long-term exchanges with the eastern civilization. Sumerian culture was once the tutor of the Greek civilization. Christianity stemmed from the east, and it was integrated with the Greek civilization and became the background color of the western civilization after being introduced to Europe. China's four great inventions exerted a great influence on the west. British philosopher Francis Bacon once commented that none kingdoms, religions or figures could ever produce greater strength and influence in the human cause than these three inventions—printing, gunpowder, and compass. As what Karl Marx said, “printing, gunpowder, and compass—these were three great inventions heralding the advent of the bourgeois society.” 

In the 18th century, after Jesuits coming to China introduced the latter’s civilization to Europe, there was the "Chinese vogue" lasting for nearly 100 years in Europe. Confucianism became an important thought source for the Enlightenment. Voltaire, a standard-bearer of the Enlightenment, had a strong China complex. He once said that “You should look to the east first when trying to understand this world in the capacity as a philosopher. The east is the cradle of all arts and gives everything the west has now.” 

There was a bitter lesson in the history of humanity about how to treat different civilizations. After the Age of Exploration, western colonists robbed, destroyed and even wiped out the African civilization, Indian civilization, American Indian civilization and Incan civilization. According to the statistics recorded in the book Portuguese Seaborne Empire written by Boxer, a total of 150,000 people were captured and purchased as slaves from Africa by Portuguese only in 50 years from 1450 to 1500. Westerners tilled this world with knives and fire. The great exploration was a great discovery of the world by humanity, and also a plunder to other civilizations by the western civilization. In this process, western capitals were a historic disaster to the diversity of human civilization though they became “an unconscious tool of history”. This is a case of historical antinomy.

If we say this caused the extinction of some civilizations, the global national independence movement in the early years of the 20th century indicated non-western countries began to step onto the stage of world history. The situation that the western civilization was dominant in the world was gradually broken by the development and progress achieved by the countries of non-western civilization. The relations between the two have once again come under the spotlight as a world problem, which include the relations between western civilization and Islamic civilization/Latin American civilization/civilizations of Asian countries. Among them, its relation with Chinese civilization has become a core issue day by day.