Since the 18th CPC National Congress, general secretary Xi Jinping has make a series of statement regarding the inheritance and the development of the outstanding traditional Chinese culture; come up with new ideas and judgement and illustrated the importance, historical origin, ideological essence and features of the outstanding traditional Chinese culture, all of which alleviate the understanding of the traditional Chinese culture to an unprecedented level. It offers a fundamental guidance and a leading value to inherit and develop the outstanding traditional Chinese culture, which has received promising response from the party and the society.
Chinese government needs to probe into the ideology, humanistic spirit and ethical standard of the traditional Chinese culture whose inheritance and innovation must be combined with the requirement of this era to show it’s permanent charm and the attractiveness of the current era.
In multiple occasion, Xi Jinping emphasized that the outstanding traditional Chinese culture is the “root” and “soul” of the Chinese nation as well as the “spiritual life” for the Chinese nation. In the history, Chinese nation, no matter in a favorable or in adversity, has been having correct understandings of itself and maintaining a habit of self-reflection due to the exposition to the outstanding traditional Chinese culture. The most important part is ideology, humanistic spirit and moral standard, offering a strong spiritual support and internal forces for the Chinese nation to thrive and prosper.
In the mindset of Chinese, the political ideology is to see people as the center and enable them to lead a safe, rich and happy life; the ideology for governance was that leaders should have high moral standards and step on the right direction; the mindset for a party to hold power was to do the practical thing and a sense of responsibility that everyone is responsible of the nation’s rise and fall. In the humanistic spirit of the Chinese civilization, there’s the spirit to progress, like constantly striving to become stronger and giving major tasks to people with high moral standard; there’s the spirit to be ambitious, like the principle to cultivate one's morality, manage family affairs well, run a country in harmony and make the world peaceful; there’s the belief of education, like using culture to improve people’s morality and there’s the principle to deal with things in the world, like to find common ground while shelving off differences, all of which are a part of rich moral and ideological resource to nurture and practice core socialist value. As early as the 17th century, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German classic philosopher, wrote in the book “Novissima Sinica historiam nostri temporis illustrata” a sentence meaning that “we used to believe that no nationality in the world has more complete morality or more advanced ways to deal with things in the world, but now we are awoke by China in the east!”
All of these outstanding ideas, concepts, humanistic spirits and moral standards are a part of cultural tradition and ideological system formed in thousands of years of the history of Chinese nation and a representation of rationality, wisdom and experience, both of which would enrich and nourish the cultural tradition and ethical spirit, so we should inherit and promote these spirits.
We need to make decisions while take the situation of the country and the nationality into consideration; to learn other’s merits as well as to preserve the positive part of our culture and eliminate the negative ones.
General secretary Xi Jinping said that “we need to scientifically analyze our traditional culture, so as to inherit and promote beneficial parts as well as to resist and overcome negative part. We need to preserve the best and get rid of the worst, instead of going to extremes like to accept all or abandon all.”
The reason why the outstanding traditional Chinese culture has been developing for thousands of years without ceasing lies in it’s cultural awareness to reflect itself, which meas to have a right attitude towards the traditional Chinese culture. While inheriting and promoting the outstanding traditional Chinese culture, we need to have a clear understanding that traditional culture related thoughts were created under certain historical condition, so they have certain limitation due to the social system back then. As a result, there can be outdated and negative values accustomed to beliefs in the past, for example, “the emperor guides officials, father guides son and husband guides wife.” Those beliefs go against the advocated core socialist value of “democracy, harmony, freedom, equality and justice”.
So, we need to transform the value of the traditional Chinese culture based on the value of innovation and development, so it will connect well with modern culture. To realize the aim of cultural inheritance, the right attitude towards history and culture, especially moral standards left by ancestors, is to treat them differently; to inherit the positive part; to adapt them to today’s use and to find new ideas from the outdated content.
We need to combine the promotion of the outstanding traditional Chinese culture with the development of the current culture, so as to realize the creative transformation and the innovative development of the outstanding traditional Chinese culture.
General secretary Xi Jinping stressed that “we need to integrate and combine the promotion of the outstanding traditional Chinese culture and the development of the current culture. Inheritance and development are intermingled with each other.”
The outstanding traditional Chinese culture is an important component of the socialist culture with Chinese characteristics as well as an achievement of more than 5000 years of Chinese civilization. Creative transformation and innovative development are in line with “using past knowledge in the current era and finding new in the old” and “maintaining the positive essence and getting rid of the negative part”, both of which are our fundamental ways to treat the outstanding traditional Chinese culture, marking a new level of the CPC’s understanding of the rules of cultural development and seen as a scientific guidance of treating the “maintaining” and the “changing” of cultural tradition under a new circumstance.
Innovative development means that in the modern construction of a country with Chinese characteristics, we need to follow new requirements and methods; to absorb achievements of man’s outstanding ideas and culture; to push forward the outstanding traditional Chinese culture to enable it to be in line with the culture in the current era and to serve task of this era to use culture to educate people. Creative transformation means we need to follow the requirement of a new era to transform the outdated form and the content still with value to give it new content of this era and modern representation, so as to stimulate it’s vitality. The inheritance and the innovation of the traditional culture need to follow the standard of practice and the base of solving practical social and economic problems of the current era. As a result, we need to follow the principles of inheriting and promoting the positive part; getting rid of the negative part, transforming innovation and seeing the inheritance as base and innovation as the priority.
knowing the history is indispensable for creating a future, just like inheritance is indispensable for innovation. The outstanding traditional Chinese culture is a spiritual gene for the Chinese nation, so saying good-bye to our tradition equals to cutting our spiritual lifeline. Profound and amazing outstanding traditional Chinese culture is our firm base to stand on our feet in the world culture. As a result, we need to find and interpret more positive part of outstanding traditional Chinese culture, so as to enable the most basic cultural gene to be more adaptable to the culture in the contemporary era and to be more coordinate with the modern society. Chinese need to promote cultural spirits perpetuating time, across countries, with lasting charm and be filled with the contemporary era; to inherit and to develop the outstanding traditional culture in the processes of transformation, promotion and selection; to push forward the modernization of Chinese culture and to create new glory of the Chinese culture in a new era, which is the historical mission given by the era and our people.