China Q&A | What are the core values cherished by the Chinese people?
Western interpretations and China's reality
Different countries, political parties, or groups of people often prioritize their values differently. Then what are the most important values for the Chinese people to pursue?
It's often said that Western interpretations of Chinese culture and values can be misconstrued. How should we accurately depict the culture and values of contemporary China?
The Chinese people have gained a stronger self-confidence in their culture. More and more elements of Chinese culture are found in the most fashionable part of life in the market economy.
When the business people from the company of a Chinese brand attended New York Fashion Week in February 2018, they wore T-shirts embroidered with the four Chinese characters "中国李宁" (Li-Ning China) on the chest. It was this simple design of Chinese characters that went viral when many of the post-95 millennials relayed its post. Many of the youth of this age group might not have known Li Ning, who had won many championships in world gymnastics competitions. They simply found this design quite cool.
As it turned out, this design of the "Li-Ning China" brand enabled Li-Ning Company, which specialized in sportswear, to increase its sales to ten billion RMB for the first time after many years of oblivion, and push its share price to triple. We can see from this case that the design of the Chinese characters "中国" on the chest fully evoked the pride and sense of identity in the Chinese people.
This case is not an exception. When Huawei, a high-tech company, aimed to pick a brand name for its new generation system, it went off the beaten track to choose the unfamiliar word Hongmeng (meaning the primordial state of time and space) from the Chinese Classic Chuang Tze as the name for its operating system. The company also named its laboratory Xuanwu (a deity of a combination of the tortoise and the snake in ancient legends).
The Chinese people's confidence in their culture is also reflected in architectural designs. At the beginning of the 21st century, iconic buildings at the national level were more reliant on novel Western design ideas, typically the "Bird's Nest" (the main stadium of the Beijing Olympics), the "Dome" (the National Grand Theater), and the "Big Pants" (China Central Television (CCTV), all of which were novel creations inspired by Western design concepts. However, designers of the new generation are pushing for originality, and instead of simply getting closer to the West, they are incorporating more Chinese elements, which in turn enhances the international impact of their works. In 2012, the Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded to Wang Shu, a Chinese architect.
These stories about Chinese elements are still rather superficial. People might prefer to hear stories related to values. What are the most important values for the Chinese people to pursue?
Values are an intertwining system of rich content. Some of the values are the common pursuit of humanity, such as prosperity, democracy, peace, safety, fairness, justice and freedom. However, the goals of these values may not be realized in all countries at once.
For two rival countries on the verge of conflict, the pursuit of peace might be paramount for one, yet spell disaster for the other. It's often the case that different countries, political parties, or groups of people might prioritize their values differently. Even in the same country, political party, or group of people, they might face different challenges in different phases of their development and they will have different priorities over their pursuits of values accordingly.
The colonial people's struggle for national independence and freedom as well as their use of force to overthrow colonial rule is generally regarded as just and righteous. At this point, it would be hypocritical for someone to advise them to love peace, to ignore the oppression of the imperial powers for the time being, and to focus on the pursuit of prosperity and wealth.
When a country puts poverty alleviation, the right to subsistence, and the right to development at the forefront of human rights, it would be unrealistic for wealthier and long-developed countries to reprimand it for not placing other allegedly higher-level human rights above the right to subsistence and development.
Human rights and freedom are the top concerns in Western discourse. In recent years, there has been significant criticism from Western perspectives regarding China's policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, with allegations that China has infringed upon the human rights of the Uyghur population and the liberties of Hong Kong. The question remains: what is the reality?
Most of the people who make a big deal out of these topics in the Western media do not know the real situation there and tend to base their opinions on their own desires. And it seems to them that the more vehemently an opinion is expressed, the more "politically correct" and "values-based" it will appear to be.
China's handling of riotous situations in Xinjiang is essentially a matter of combating terrorism, deterring violence, and preventing secession. Any country would take measures to quell riots under similar situations.
I wonder if you've watched the 50-minute-or-so English documentary Fighting Terrorism in Xinjiang which was aired on CGTN in 2019? The program disclosed for the first time the original videos of many terrorist cases with an abundance of real images. Inexplicably, the Western media chose to remain "collectively silent" on the truth disclosed in this documentary, neither showing any concern nor reporting on it.
Western public opinion often overlooks the positive developments in Xinjiang. There are 24,000 mosques in Xinjiang, an average of one mosque for every 530 Muslims. Since 2014, two million Uyghurs have been lifted out of poverty. Xinjiang's stability and development have drawn both domestic and international tourists, with up to 250 million visits in 2019 alone.
This is the truth of Xinjiang today, the true stories about its human rights.
International perspectives suggest that the adoption of the national security law in Hong Kong has altered the original design of "one country, two systems," hence impinging on the freedom previously enjoyed in Hong Kong. What do you make of this allegation?
This issue is straightforward in its logic.
In 2019, Hong Kong experienced a "storm of legislative amendments," which included an overt call for Hong Kong independence, requests for foreign intervention against the Chinese government, and even an assault on the Central Government's Liaison Office in Hong Kong. Such actions cannot be considered as part of the freedoms to which Hong Kong is entitled.
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China and the implementation of "one country, two systems" does not mean that Hong Kong is free from the administration of the Central Government. The National People's Congress (NPC), per its own responsibilities, has made relevant laws for the very purpose of plugging the loopholes in national security in Hong Kong and fully realizing the original meaning of "one country, two systems." If we have to speak from the perspective of human rights, this is precisely the human rights story of maintaining Hong Kong's stability and security.
The maintaining of national unity and solidarity holds the utmost value for the Chinese people. In the West, these concepts may simply serve as strategies, akin to tactics used by sports teams or military units to overcome an adversary. However, in the narratives of Chinese values, unity and solidarity are foundational, setting the stage for achieving other values pursuits.
The views don't necessarily reflect those of DeepChina.
The interviewee is Chen Jin, Former committee member of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the Central Committee of CPC.
Editor/ Liu Xian
Translator/ Wu Yongqiang
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Coordinator/ Ren Qiang
Reviewer/ Liu Li
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