Human beings are social animals, and this has been true throughout the whole course of evolution. After productive forces developed and civilization emerged, people gathered together in settlements, forming villages, then tribes, nations, and states. The overwhelming majority of people like living together with their own companions.
How do people identify their own companions? You might say it is because of physical traits—for example, Chinese people all have black eyes, black hair, and yellow skin. But if you pay attention, no matter where or when in the world, Chinese people are not necessarily as close to Japanese and Koreans, who look similar to them, as they are to Europeans and Americans with blond hair and blue eyes. You might think it is bloodline, but Chinese people who grew up abroad from childhood do not necessarily identify themselves as Chinese, and some even feel ashamed of having Chinese ancestry! Yet foreigners who have lived in China for a long time, such as the Jews in Shanghai, may fully identify themselves as part of the Chinese people.
So what exactly is it that makes human beings identify one another as companions? It is culture, including language, writing, religious belief, customs, festivals, history, and so on. The more similarities there are in these areas, the stronger people’s sense of identity becomes. For example, among Chinese people today, the relationship among those with the surnames Liu, Guan, and Zhang is often closer than with people of other surnames. The reason can be traced back to Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei swearing brotherhood unto death in the Peach Garden during the Three Kingdoms period. For an individual, culture is his root; for a country, culture is its cohesive force. It determines whether that country can enjoy long-term stability and peace. Only when the citizens have a strong sense of identification with the country is it possible for them to consciously safeguard its stability and unity. Therefore, to judge whether a country is strong, you cannot merely look at how much gold is in its treasury, how many troops it has, or how advanced its weapons are. More importantly, you must look at whether that country’s culture gives its citizens a sense of identification with it.
For example, the Mongol Yuan dynasty in our country and the Roman Empire in the West once had vast territories and were powerful for a time. But they basically relied on strong military force to maintain their rule. Once that military force weakened somewhat, they quickly broke apart and vanished like smoke and ashes, becoming dust in history. On the other hand, China has basically remained unified after thousands of years of natural disasters, human calamities, conquest, and war, and this is not unrelated to the relatively strong sense of identification the various peoples of China have had with the country. This is not to say that having such identification makes everything automatically fine, but the strong identification the various peoples of China have had with the country has been extremely important in this regard. We can see that, except for special periods of dynastic transition, for the vast majority of history China did not need to rely on overwhelming military force to maintain national unity.
Since the beginning of its civilization, China has been a multi-ethnic country. Before modern times, the language, writing, architecture, agriculture, handicrafts, education, medical care, and other aspects represented by the Han people had long been ahead of the world. Some minority peoples voluntarily studied and used Han culture (a typical example being the reforms of Tuoba Hong, Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei of the Xianbei people), and gradually merged into the Han people, becoming part of them. Leaving aside whether this ethnic fusion was good or bad, from the facts we can see that conquest through culture was far more effective than conquest through any military or economic power. There were also some minority peoples who stubbornly held fast to their own cultural customs and refused to be assimilated by Han culture. Toward these minorities, rulers of successive dynasties generally adopted the principle of “using both appeasement and suppression.” While maintaining strong military pressure, they mainly emphasized appeasement, allowing them to retain a certain territory and preserve their language, customs, beliefs, and way of life, appointing people of their own ethnic group as their immediate rulers, and implementing something similar to today’s system of ethnic autonomy. After basically peaceful coexistence over thousands of years and long-term economic and cultural exchange, these minority peoples also came to be willing to recognize that their own ethnic groups were likewise part of the country called China (although this was not voluntary at all times).
Therefore, a powerful country must possess a powerful culture, and through cultural inheritance preserve its citizens’ identification with the state. Only then can a country enjoy long-term stability and stand forever in the world. If we pay a little attention, we will find that countries such as the United States and Japan are all doing their utmost to preserve and develop their own unique cultures. However, this is precisely the important problem China now faces. There has never been such a situation in Chinese history. Under the goal of “everything for money,” whether it is the state, the ruling party, or the citizens, all have become eager for quick success and short-sighted. Although some achievements have been made economically, China’s excellent traditional culture has declined drastically. More and more of our new generation are growing up watching Japanese manga, American blockbusters, and Korean TV dramas, eating McDonald’s and drinking cola, and taking pride in speaking English or Japanese and in going abroad. Seventy years ago, Japan tried to annex China, yet the poor, weak, and utterly disunited China of that time was still able to resist with the strength of the whole nation. Several decades later, if Japan had a chance to make a comeback, would Chinese people—already conquered by Japanese culture—still resist?
[ Last edited by MYS on 2007-1-2 at 01:49 PM
How do people identify their own companions? You might say it is because of physical traits—for example, Chinese people all have black eyes, black hair, and yellow skin. But if you pay attention, no matter where or when in the world, Chinese people are not necessarily as close to Japanese and Koreans, who look similar to them, as they are to Europeans and Americans with blond hair and blue eyes. You might think it is bloodline, but Chinese people who grew up abroad from childhood do not necessarily identify themselves as Chinese, and some even feel ashamed of having Chinese ancestry! Yet foreigners who have lived in China for a long time, such as the Jews in Shanghai, may fully identify themselves as part of the Chinese people.
So what exactly is it that makes human beings identify one another as companions? It is culture, including language, writing, religious belief, customs, festivals, history, and so on. The more similarities there are in these areas, the stronger people’s sense of identity becomes. For example, among Chinese people today, the relationship among those with the surnames Liu, Guan, and Zhang is often closer than with people of other surnames. The reason can be traced back to Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei swearing brotherhood unto death in the Peach Garden during the Three Kingdoms period. For an individual, culture is his root; for a country, culture is its cohesive force. It determines whether that country can enjoy long-term stability and peace. Only when the citizens have a strong sense of identification with the country is it possible for them to consciously safeguard its stability and unity. Therefore, to judge whether a country is strong, you cannot merely look at how much gold is in its treasury, how many troops it has, or how advanced its weapons are. More importantly, you must look at whether that country’s culture gives its citizens a sense of identification with it.
For example, the Mongol Yuan dynasty in our country and the Roman Empire in the West once had vast territories and were powerful for a time. But they basically relied on strong military force to maintain their rule. Once that military force weakened somewhat, they quickly broke apart and vanished like smoke and ashes, becoming dust in history. On the other hand, China has basically remained unified after thousands of years of natural disasters, human calamities, conquest, and war, and this is not unrelated to the relatively strong sense of identification the various peoples of China have had with the country. This is not to say that having such identification makes everything automatically fine, but the strong identification the various peoples of China have had with the country has been extremely important in this regard. We can see that, except for special periods of dynastic transition, for the vast majority of history China did not need to rely on overwhelming military force to maintain national unity.
Since the beginning of its civilization, China has been a multi-ethnic country. Before modern times, the language, writing, architecture, agriculture, handicrafts, education, medical care, and other aspects represented by the Han people had long been ahead of the world. Some minority peoples voluntarily studied and used Han culture (a typical example being the reforms of Tuoba Hong, Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei of the Xianbei people), and gradually merged into the Han people, becoming part of them. Leaving aside whether this ethnic fusion was good or bad, from the facts we can see that conquest through culture was far more effective than conquest through any military or economic power. There were also some minority peoples who stubbornly held fast to their own cultural customs and refused to be assimilated by Han culture. Toward these minorities, rulers of successive dynasties generally adopted the principle of “using both appeasement and suppression.” While maintaining strong military pressure, they mainly emphasized appeasement, allowing them to retain a certain territory and preserve their language, customs, beliefs, and way of life, appointing people of their own ethnic group as their immediate rulers, and implementing something similar to today’s system of ethnic autonomy. After basically peaceful coexistence over thousands of years and long-term economic and cultural exchange, these minority peoples also came to be willing to recognize that their own ethnic groups were likewise part of the country called China (although this was not voluntary at all times).
Therefore, a powerful country must possess a powerful culture, and through cultural inheritance preserve its citizens’ identification with the state. Only then can a country enjoy long-term stability and stand forever in the world. If we pay a little attention, we will find that countries such as the United States and Japan are all doing their utmost to preserve and develop their own unique cultures. However, this is precisely the important problem China now faces. There has never been such a situation in Chinese history. Under the goal of “everything for money,” whether it is the state, the ruling party, or the citizens, all have become eager for quick success and short-sighted. Although some achievements have been made economically, China’s excellent traditional culture has declined drastically. More and more of our new generation are growing up watching Japanese manga, American blockbusters, and Korean TV dramas, eating McDonald’s and drinking cola, and taking pride in speaking English or Japanese and in going abroad. Seventy years ago, Japan tried to annex China, yet the poor, weak, and utterly disunited China of that time was still able to resist with the strength of the whole nation. Several decades later, if Japan had a chance to make a comeback, would Chinese people—already conquered by Japanese culture—still resist?
[ Last edited by MYS on 2007-1-2 at 01:49 PM
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