Modern China's cultural transformation – problems and prospects

Abstract

Modern China's cultural transformation has been a long, torturous, and complex process that even now has yet to come to a conclusion. Previous publications on China's intellectual and cultural history have touched on this issue to some extent, but there have been few wide‐ranging, focused, and systematic studies. This article is based on the author's systematic research into this question and argues that the Chinese people, burdened with the weight of a long history and with deeply ingrained cultural traditions, must negotiate the complexities and uncertainties of the present as they adapt to a new era and build a new culture. Questions of culture manifest themselves in many different ways: in distinctions between Eastern and Western culture and between “Chinese” and “barbarian”, in the different resources and possibilities inherent in ancient and modern culture, in the fate of China's ethnic minorities, and in the relationship between material and spiritual “civilization”. In addition, social conditions can pose almost insurmountable problems in the process of cultural transformation. These problems can only be solved when the whole nation is engaged in the practice of study and struggle, and the cultures of the world become more intimately linked through communication and the flow of ideas. Even then, solutions will not be quick in coming and the process of cultural change is necessarily gradual in nature. The transformation of China's culture in recent times and the modernization of the country as a whole are fundamentally concurrent processes that show a marked tendency towards globalization and individualism. Thus, externally, China must adhere to the idea of greater cultural openness while, internally, we must support the liberation of the people, and foster a positive creative spirit to the fullest potential.

Keywords:

• cultural transformation
• traditional culture
• modern culture
• globalization
• individualism

Notes

1. In China, some researchers believe that the process of transformation from traditional to modern culture began during the Ming‐Qing transition. See also Hou Wailu, ed., Zhongguo sixiang tongshi [A General History of Chinese Thought], vol. 5, Zhongguo zaoqi qimeng sixiang shi [History of Chinese Early Enlightenment Thought] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1956); and Xiao Jiefu and Xu Sumin, Qingming qimeng xueshu liubian [The Later Enlightenment in the Ming and the Qing] (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 1995).

2. Zhang Xi, “Tan yi shuotie” [A Discussion of the Term “Yi”], “Yapian zhanzheng” [The Opium War] in Zhongguo jindaishi ziliao congkan [Collected Materials from Modern Chinese History] ed. Association of Chinese Historians, vol. 5. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1957), 337.

3. See also Xu Dixin and Wu Chengming, eds., Zhongguo zibenzhuyi fazhan shi [A History of Capitalist Development in China], vol. 2 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1990), 1051.

4. A celebrated pioneer in establishing businesses in modern China was the industrialist Zhang Jian. However, his enterprises declined following his death, and his son Zhang Xiaoruo, who inherited the businesses, died in the prime of life. Zhang Jian's good friend Liu Yuan once said that the tragedy of the Zhang family enterprises was their inability to cast off the influence of the old clan system. Geng Yunzhi, ed., “Liu Yuan zhi Hu Shi de xin” [Letter from Liu Yuan to Hu Shi], in Hu Shi yigao ji micang shuxin [The Posthumous Collected Writings and Letters of Hu Shi], vol. 39 (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 1997), 571–73.

5. Elementary Education Department of the Ministry of Education, ed., “Quanguo putong jiaoyu tongji” [National Education Statistics], 1933, 21.

6. Ibid., 34.

7. Geng Yunzhi, “Zhongguo xin wenhua de yuanliu jiqi quxiang” [The Origins and Development of China's New Culture], Lishi yanjiu [Historical Research], no. 2 (1994): 127–32.

8. Geng Yunzhi, “Shijiehua yu gexingzhuyi – xiandaihua de liange zhongyao qushi” [Globalization and Individualism – Two Important Trends in Modernization], in Geng Yunzhi wenji [Collected Works of Geng Yunzhi] (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2004), 160–71.