What the West killed was not the "Yun 10", but China's opportunity and hope to become a world-class industrial power

Shi Zhiweng

yesterday at 11:08

This is the recollection of Comrade Chen Yongping:

The chief seemed to be emotional, and told us about the "Tenth Movement": "The Tenth Movement" was approved to launch in August 1970 under Chairman Mao's personal proposal. The development started at Dachang Airport after it was launched. At that time, the troops stationed in Dachang provided a lot of support and convenience in logistical support, so the relationship between the two companies got along very well. At that time, the "Yunshi" started only two years later than the European Airbus, and made its first flight in Dachang on September 26, 1980. Subsequently, "Yun-ten" completed various scientific research and test flights. And it has flown 7 times to Lhasa Gonggar Airport in Tibet, which is the most difficult place to take off and land. The chief discussed with Ma Fengshan, the chief designer of "Yun 10", that if "Yun 10" is successful, it will be very easy to develop large-scale military transportation in the future. At that time, the Naval Air Force did not have an AWACS. Ma Fengshan told the chief that "Yun-10" had already completed the program design and wind tunnel experiments for refitting the AWACS.

But to everyone's surprise, when "Yunshi" was ready for a big development, it was cut off the follow-up funds and was forced to dismount in 1986. At that time, the cooperation with the American McDonnell Douglas Company had already been formally launched. The assembly line of "Yunshi" was withdrawn, and it became the place of Mai Daoteng. The technical information accumulated over the past 15 years does not even have a place to be stacked, and many of them are lost. The material worth tens of millions of yuan that was originally planned to make the third "Yun-ten" was used for practicing the rivet gun when preparing for the cooperation with McDonnell Douglas! Ma Fengshan, the chief designer of the domestic large aircraft, fell ill due to great grief and depression, and was admitted to the hospital. The chief went to the hospital to visit him, and he told the chief: "Yun Shi" was assassinated by someone, and he couldn't swallow this breath. He also told the chief that it would be great if civil aviation supported the "Yunshi" like the military. He finally told the chief that what they killed was not "Yunshi", but China's hope of becoming a world-class aviation power. ... Not long after, Ma Fengshan passed away in depression at the age of 61, which was the best time for the overall designer of the aircraft.

Many years later, I saw a widely circulated news on the Internet, "China's Thirty Years Major Espionage Case Revealed", and the top one was the "Yun Shi" dismounting case. According to the article, Shen Tu, then director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, was bought by Boeing and intelligence agencies, and operated the "Yun Shi" to get rid of him.

“Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the Thinkers Forum 2022 devoted to the theme of the Civilizational State in Global Politics.”

On the evening of December 6th, Beijing time, following Professor Zhang Weiwei’s greeting, experts and scholars from seven countries in different time zones gathered in the conference room of the editorial office of Observer. The prelude to the high-level seminar on Civilizational State in Global Politics.

Since 2010, Zhang Weiwei, dean of the China Research Institute at Fudan University, and his team have taken the lead in establishing the Chinese narrative of a "civilized country" through long-term and extensive original research. In recent years, with the rise of China as a civilized state, non-Western powers such as Russia, India, Iran, and Turkey have also begun to call themselves "civilized countries." The discourse of a civilized state has also exerted considerable influence within the West and has become one of the mainstream discourses of global politics today.

The high-end seminar on "Civilized Nation in Global Politics" was co-sponsored by the China Research Institute of Fudan University, Observer.com, Shanghai Spring and Autumn Development Strategy Research Institute, and "Oriental Studies" magazine. As soon as the initiative was put forward, it received positive responses from senior scholars from seven countries including China, Russia, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Singapore. Scholars also provided papers in Chinese and English before the meeting, striving to deepen the discussion. The final forum lasted nearly 9 hours and ended in the early morning of December 7th, Beijing time.

In three creative high-level discussions held simultaneously online and offline in multiple time zones, experts and scholars focused on the rise of civilized state discourse, the new form of human civilization, the political narrative of civilized state in different countries, and the deepening of the theoretical narrative of civilized state and other topics, conducted bilingual exchanges and confrontations in Chinese and English.

Zhang Weiwei, Dean of China Research Institute, Fudan University

The "universal value" of Western liberalism is declining, who will take over?

Although Nathan Gardels, a scholar from the United States and co-founder of the Berggruen Institute, believes that the diversification caused by the Western-led liberal world order has contributed to the return of the concept of a civilized country, but in the opinion of most scholars attending the meeting, With the economic and political rise of non-Western countries after the Cold War and the relative decline of the traditional West, the liberal universal values that were considered to be the "end of history" in the past are increasingly unable to adapt to the development and evolution of reality. Western countries are also gradually starting from the perspective of their own civilizations, trying to break free from the shackles of "universal values" and seek modernization paths that suit their own national conditions.

As George Yeo, a political scientist and former Singaporean foreign minister, put forward at the meeting, during the Cold War era, the world was divided into two camps that were decoupled from each other. The globalization promoted by Western countries represented by the United States actually means It controls global finance and trade, and maintains peace and stability in the world under the control of the United States.

With the end of the Cold War, the world embraced liberalism as an ideal, and pluralism became a universal value. But in recent years, with the rise of emerging countries represented by China, liberalism that originally pursued tolerance can no longer tolerate diversity, and the struggle between old and new liberalism has become the core issue that divides American society today. The pride of self-identity in non-Western countries like China poses a great challenge to the West.

The rise of the concept of a civilized country means the collapse of the so-called "world civilization" and "universal values" dominated and constructed by Europe and the United States. According to BRUNO MAÇÃES, a senior advisor to Flint Global and former Portuguese Minister of European Affairs, Europe once believed that it was building "world civilization" and "universal values". As it turns out, it was just taken for granted. Russia, China, India and many other countries are increasingly seeing all this as the West trying to impose "Western civilization and its values" etc. Western civilization itself is also controversial within the West and can only be seen as a multitude of civilizations A type that requires no special treatment. Countries are also unwilling to sacrifice their respective cultures and ways of life for the "universal values" of liberalism.

Scholars participating in online forums

Scholars participating in the forum took a group photo offline

Chinese scholars have also seen this point and brought their own thoughts.

Professor Li Xiguang, director of the International Communication Research Center of Tsinghua University, believes that during the three hundred years of Western colonial enslavement, Western modernity was built on the civilization hierarchy. In the process of colonization of non-Western countries, Western imperialism and colonizers have been trying to "liberate" non-Western countries from their native historical and cultural traditions. Since the beginning of modern times, the United States and the West have been saying that only when China fully accepts Western thought paradigms and their values, "is it qualified to become a member of modern human society."

However, Western modernization theory cannot explain the chaotic situation in the world today. The western modernity narrative will only create more hatred and distrust among human beings, we need to move beyond the western modernity narrative. Non-Western intellectuals need to go beyond the narrow and outdated Western discourse of modernity, create new knowledge with independent thoughts, ideas, theories and concepts, and propose real problems and real solutions to real problems that concern more than 90% of the population of this planet .

Around the topic of Western liberalism theory, the guests and scholars at the scene also carried out in-depth exchanges and discussions. Wu Xinwen, a professor at the China Research Institute of Fudan University, believes that the root of the current social division in the United States and other Western countries may come from the conflict between old and new liberalism. When neoliberalism cannot solve the problems facing the Western world, Western society may return to classical liberalism to find Answer. And facing the future, we should go beyond the ideology of liberalism, save "freedom" from liberalism, and let the concept of freedom be reborn from the new ideology.

Jiang Shigong, Director of the Department of Social Sciences and Professor of Law School of Peking University

Jiang Shigong, director of the Department of Social Sciences of Peking University and professor of law school, agrees. In his view, the current global chorus of "civilization renaissance" more or less implicitly criticizes the liberal capitalist order, and these different and even contradictory civilizational discourses are united under this banner.

Liberalism is challenged not only because of its theoretical limitations, but more importantly, liberalism has evolved into an attempt to construct a liberal world empire politically, so that criticism of "world empire" inevitably becomes a criticism of "freedom." doctrine" critique. Liberal theory must therefore be liberated from the political construction of world empire if it is to be revived.

The fact that "civilized country" can become the mainstream discourse of international politics, according to Professor Zhang Weiwei, dean of the China Research Institute of Fudan University, lies behind three basic facts:

(1) China has risen rapidly with a Chinese model that the West does not recognize, with a high degree of institutional and cultural confidence, which has changed the world pattern and shocked the entire world.

(2) Other non-Western powers with unique civilizational traditions are also rising in unprecedented ways.

(3) The Western world and the Western model have fallen into an unprecedented crisis, and the world has quickly entered the post-Western era and post-American era. This "great change unseen in a century" calls for de-Westernization, de-Americanization, and de-Western discourse hegemony. In other words, in this new era, many countries and interest groups need new theories and new discourses, and the discourse of “civilized countries” partially meets or responds to this need.

How did China become a "civilized country"?

The extent to which the definition and description of a civilized country comes from the country's traditional culture, religion, history, and way of life, including the impact of the modernization process on a civilized country, is a focus of discussion in this seminar.

Wen Yang, a researcher at the China Research Institute of Fudan University, first pointed out that it is almost impossible to start with the consensus on basic concepts when discussing civilization issues. To clarify this concept, the studies of Toynbee, Braudel, and Spengler can still bring some inspiration. On this basis, it may be easier to reach a consensus when discussing civilized countries.

Wen Yang, a researcher at the China Institute of Fudan University

This kind of debate on basic concepts may just show that "civilized countries" are not static. In this regard, Professor Zhang Weiwei gave his own understanding. In his opinion, the concept of "civilized country" has undergone a series of changes, starting with Lucian Pye's pejorative view that "civilization-country "It is impossible to become a modern country. Martin Jacques neutralized the concept of "civilization-country" and believed that China would never become a Western country. Today we discuss China as a civilized country, which means China The first is a very large modern country, and the qualities of China's ancient civilization make it unique. As a civilized country, China's "four supers and one combination", each of which is a combination of ancient and modern.

Scholars have also sparked heated discussions on how to view China as a civilized country. Among them, Alexander Lukin, academic director of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has the most vehement views.

In Lu Jin’s view, there is no lack of traditional interruptions and changes in Chinese history—foreign race conquest, Chinese culture itself changed when assimilating foreign races, Confucianism no longer as the dominant political ideology in contemporary mainland China, young people are not After mastering classical Chinese, believing in traditional values, and the disappearance of classical architecture, etc., it can be concluded that Chinese civilization cannot be considered "unified and continuous". He believes that today's China is not a "civilization pretending to be a country", but a A modern state that "pretends to be civilized" for various political and ideological reasons.

Alexander Lukin, Academic Director of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences

Regarding Lu Jin's views, Chinese scholars participating in the discussion put forward different opinions. Wu Xinwen believes that in order to challenge the continuity of Chinese civilization, Professor Lu Jin deliberately enlarged the gap between traditional China and modern China. Qiu Wenping, a guest researcher at the China Research Institute of Fudan University and director of the Teaching and Research Office of the Institute of Religion at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that Professor Lu Jin’s views are based on a specious understanding of many Chinese concepts. Russian scholars have experienced abandonment at the national level. The theory of Marxism returns to the status quo of religion and history, so it avoids the influence of Marxism on China, and cannot understand the internalization of Confucian culture in the hearts of the people, and China, which combines ancient culture with modern culture, can propose a "community of shared future for mankind". "Such a future-oriented civilized initiative.

The continuity of Chinese civilization and the shaping of Confucian culture to China, a civilized country, have also become topics of intensive discussion among scholars.

Yang Rongwen believes that the reason why Chinese civilization is extraordinary is that the Confucian culture it pursues regards the country as a big family and endows this kind of idealized morality, which makes the Chinese nation united again and again in history. Form a solid and indivisible civilization. Among other civilizations, only religion can play a similar role, transcending countries and time and space to build unity, consensus and unity.

Wen Yang added that China is willing to define itself as a "civilized country" rather than a "nation-state" because today's China is a successfully rising modern country, and such a country can re-examine its long and uninterrupted Civilization, rediscovering a rich historical heritage and interpreting its own history.

Martin Jacques, a guest researcher at the China Research Institute at Fudan University and a former senior researcher at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, also holds a similar view. He believes that civilized countries exist in China in the most complete form. Apart from China, India, Russia , Turkey is also related to the concept of civilized state. Although they are different from China - India has been occupied and divided for a long time; Turkey's civilization is discontinuous and only one of the centers of Islam; Russia's emphasis on its "civilized state" attributes is more to emphasize its own specificity, especially the difference from the Western world.

Martin Jacques, Invited Researcher, China Institute, Fudan University, Former Senior Researcher, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, UK

While China is gaining more and more confidence and recognition as a civilized country or civilized country, the apparent continuity is a huge source of its strength. There is a highly orderly and coherent relationship between the state, society, family, and individuals, and its core is a very close symbiotic relationship between civilization and the state. The state is regarded as the expression of people's beliefs and the guardian of civilization. . In a highly creative way, the Chinese civilization uses the concept of a civilized country to promote the transformation of the country into the future and maintain social stability, which is an extraordinary pioneering work in human history.

The reason why China has become a civilized country is not only due to the Confucian tradition, but also cannot ignore the reconstruction of Chinese civilization by Marxism, which has experienced the modern revolution and the practice of the Communist Party of China.

In this regard, Professor Qiu Wenping added: Who said that socialist civilization and Marxism are not new types of civilization? If we understand Marxism, it is actually a brand-new form of civilization with the ideal of liberating all mankind. However, Western scholars often avoid this point. An extension of the traditional concept of grand unification, combined with Marx to form a new concept of civilization.

Gao Jian, director of the Center for British Studies at Shanghai International Studies University and secretary-general of the Songyun Forum of the Shanghai International Strategic Issues Research Association, also raised the same question: How can the spiritual principles of traditional Chinese culture be combined with the basic principles of modern civilization? How does the Chinese-style modernization path combine with the major historical proposition of the new form of human civilization?

Throughout the history of mankind, if the spiritual principles of a civilization are unique and powerful, and it has a profound reflection on modern civilization and a sense of transcendence, it will surely become a universal and leading civilization Spirit.

Therefore, we should not only talk about the uniqueness of China's modernization path, but also bravely discuss the significance of universality based on the uniqueness of the Chinese-style modernization path. This universality is definitely not based on Western principles, nor does it mean to impose the Chinese development model on other nations, but emphasizes the spirit of the principle of seeking truth from facts on the Chinese-style modernization road.

In this sense, we cannot forget the possibility of a new form of human future beyond the modern capitalist civilization guided and revealed by Marxism.

If China can well respond to the cultural principles that transcend modern industrial capital civilization from practice and theory, China's modernization path must be different from that of the West, and it must have cultural reference significance for non-Western developing countries. We are not imposing cultural forms on other civilizations, but we can tell other civilizations that we can take a modernization path based on our own national conditions.

Professor Jiang Shigong also endowed China with more far-reaching significance as a civilized country in the sense of a modern country. He pointed out that the revival of Chinese civilization is not an anti-liberal modernity, but an exploration of the Chinese road to modernity. This is the "Chinese-style modernization" proposed by China today. Only from this perspective can we understand why Professor Zhang Weiwei emphasizes the distinction between "civilization-state" and "civilizational state". His understanding of China is the latter concept, emphasizing China's role in Establish a modern country (state) on the basis of absorbing the beneficial elements of traditional Chinese civilization, instead of trying to expand the territory of the current country to the place covered by civilization in history, as in other civilization revival discourses.

In this sense, the rise of China has universal significance in world history, that is, only the rise of China can avoid the tragedy of civilizational conflicts after the decline of world empires, and bring the history of globalization to peaceful dialogue and shared prosperity among different civilizations. new era.

The participating scholars had a heated discussion

The rise of the "civilized country" group, where are the differences?

As the influence of the concept of "civilized state" has gradually increased, it has become one of the mainstream narratives of global politics today. In addition to China, a number of influential and unique "non-Western" countries with historical, cultural, and religious characteristics are also actively exploring their own "civilized state" development path as a theory for their own development and against the concept of Western-style nation-states tool.

In this regard, Martin Jacques believes that the term civilized country is being widely used, especially those countries that have not established a nation-state system because of their colonial history. They emphasize their own civilization traditions and the history of the pre-colonial era, and This is different from Western colonists. As they grow stronger, so does this tendency. There are three reasons for this trend: the decline and crisis of Western countries, the growing influence of mainland China, and the limitations and inadequacies of the nation-state model.

For quite a long time after the establishment of the nation-state system in Westphalia in 1648, nation-states were the exclusive domain of the West, while at the same time, Western colonists were trying to deprive non-Western countries of their history and traditions. Even after the national liberation and independence movements from the colonial system in the last century, these countries have not gained real respect and equality, and the hierarchy of white people at the top is still deeply entrenched. But this hierarchy is facing increasing challenges, and China is the leader and driver of this change.

Starting from India's national conditions, BRUNO MAÇÃES explained the reason why India advocates the concept of "civilized country". He believes that Modi, by affirming India's civilizational attributes, prevents Western forces from attempting to measure India's success with a set of foreign standards.

Contemporary India is a "wounded civilization", and the nation-state is an invention of the West, so it is naturally vulnerable to Western influence. Civilization is the alternative to the West. In India, Western liberal philosophy used to be highly valued. During the independence movement against the colonists, Indians also chose to use liberal discourse against the colonists.

Now, Modi is persuading voters to reject an Anglicized elite power structure, accusing Western political thought of hypocrisy. Western civilization is more like an operating system. It does not embody rich traditions and customs, nor does it pursue religious teachings and visions. Western values cannot defend a way of life. Non-Western countries cannot preserve their traditional way of life in a liberal society. If Turkey, China, and Russia import a whole set of Western values and rules, their societies will soon become copies of the West and lose their cultural independence. Loss would be seen as a necessary price of entry into modern society.

But now, people are increasingly doubting whether it is really necessary to obtain all the benefits of modern society by imitating Western countries. For India, cultural assimilation means political dependence, so that every controversial issue in Indian society must be finally decided by Western political and intellectual authorities. For defenders of civilized nations, the pursuit of universal values is over, and people prefer to speak out directly for themselves and their society.

Hindol Sengupta, Indian Historian and Contributing Editor, Fortune India

Hindol Sengupta, an Indian historian and special editor of "Fortune India" magazine, interpreted India's use of the concept of "civilized country" from a more "pragmatic" perspective:

After more than 30 years of development, India has become the fifth largest economy in the world today, surpassing the old colonial ruler Britain, and is expected to become the third largest economy at the beginning of this century. The most important question today is, on what basis should it achieve this "greatness"? What can it bring to this world?

In his view, India today realizes that these are fundamental questions of identity, both on an individual and a collective level. These questions cannot be answered with borrowed ideas - India cannot say that all it has to offer the world is a "South Asian version of a successful Western democratic ideal". India seeks to deliver more than a successful iteration or model - it wants to deliver a unique source.

The current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes that India's statehood comes from civilization - he defines India's successful experience as a by-product of its civilization roots, democracy from Janapadas (1500-600 BC) or the ancient Indian republic Not the Athens model. And by tracing back and mining history to promote their rights in the Indian Ocean, mining the commercial value of yoga in the commodity economy, promoting ancient Indian mathematics, and ancient legends of heroes to increase the pride and cohesion of the Indian nation.

Aiming at the differences between these concepts and goals of China's "civilized country", Jiang Shigong believes that in recent years, there has been a trend of "civilization renaissance" in the world. For example, Putin is resorting to Russian civilization, Turkey is also using the civilizational discourse of pan-Turkism, and even the European Union is constantly resorting to European civilization traditions to strengthen European integration. All kinds of "civilization" discourses that are being revived in various countries in the world today actually imply the revival of these ancient "regional civilized empires". The world empire has achieved the end of history internally, and is in the conflict of civilizations externally. Today we are discussing the revival of civilization, which means that the world empire has encountered challenges.

If we look at the decline of world empires, postmodernism, conservatives, and civilizational narratives together constitute a critique of world empires. Although these revived traditional civilizations have formed temporary allies against the world empire of liberal capitalism, there are not small differences among them.

epilogue

This high-end symposium spanning multiple time zones and gathering scholars from seven countries finally lasted for nearly 9 hours. When Beijing time came to 12 am the next day, the discussions among the participating scholars were still going on. The exploration of civilization is a review of self-identity, and the discussion of civilized countries is the exploration of future development. With the rise of civilized countries represented by China, we believe that the discourse monopoly of the West will eventually be broken, and the theoretical discussion of civilized countries will no longer be a defensive construction, but will become a new positive one. Paradigm summary.

Other exciting content of the seminar will be released on Observer.com one after another, so stay tuned.

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About the underlying logic of real-world operations

Zhai Dongsheng, Deputy Dean of the School of International Relations, Renmin University of China

12-12-2022

Yesterday I was invited to participate in a seminar on the outlook of Sino-US economic relations. The speeches at the conference were very exciting, but at the end, there was an episode. In the interaction before the end, I commented on a few sentences, one of which was "The underlying logic of this world is actually violence, and politics can only be found on the basis of violence, and only in the rules, order, and boundaries of rights provided by politics." There are economic activities; the market is not a self-made existence, the market itself is a public product provided by the government.” The leader of the meeting organizer is a gentle and modest female economist. Referring to my sentence in a polite and frank manner, she admitted that she might find it difficult to accept this point of view. She believed that the market is spontaneously generated, the economy is not determined by politics and violence, and economic activities have their own inevitable laws of existence; The economy does have an impact, but more of a temporary disruption. In fact, a similar debate happened in a professional WeChat group about sanctions and economic warfare where I was the group leader. Most people who study political science, international relations, strategy or history can agree with my point of view. Economists' first reaction was, "This is terrible."

Such differences in concepts not only reflect the differences in the attributes of the disciplines among us, but also show the differences in the underlying logic of the basic schools of thought or worldviews. This kind of disagreement can be described as an eternal theme in the history of thought. We have seen the ideological struggle related to it in the debate on "On Salt and Iron" in the Han Dynasty, and in the debate between Hobbes and Locke on the "state of nature" It has been seen in the game between mercantilism and liberal economic policies in modern world economic history, in the "criticizing the law and criticizing Confucianism" movement in China in the 1970s, and in the realism and idealism of international relations theory. It has been seen in the dispute over doctrines, and in the future history of human thought, this debate will continue to be refurbished in different scenarios and with different looks. However, as Comrade Mao Zedong said in his later years, "The accomplished and accomplished politicians of all dynasties are legalists, and they all advocate the rule of law, favoring the present over the past; while Confucianism is full of benevolence, righteousness and morality, favoring the past over the present, Turn back the wheel of history.” Economic liberals, idealists in politics and international relations, and Confucians in the Chinese ideological tradition, the world and vision they describe are more in line with the aesthetics of most people or the morality in daily life sense, but it does not conform to history, nor can it explain reality, let alone predict the future.

My own ideological tendency is realistic rather than idealistic. In the coordinate system of Chinese intellectual history, I am closer to Legalism than Confucianism in ancient China. Below, I will use a few small questions and answers to explain the underlying logic of my academic thinking, which can also be regarded as a reply to those friends with liberal/Confucian/idealist thinking tendencies.

The first question, how did government and order arise? Regarding anarchy, Hobbes and Locke have completely different cognitions. The state of nature that Locke refers to is actually a village with public order and good customs, not anarchy in the true sense. In the history of mankind, the anarchy between groups of different languages, cultures, races and religions is closer to Hobbes' cognition. When order collapses and resources are scarce and the people are struggling to live, the binding force of morality and ethics disappears. The troubled times without kingly law that the ancient Chinese said is Hobbesian anarchy. In a Hobbesian state of anarchy, where all are enemies of all, there will be some people who are more powerful than others and use violence more recklessly, monopolizing the resources for survival. It is true that survival resources can be obtained by robbing on the move, but a more stable and reliable method is to evolve from bandits to occupy mountains and become kings, and collect a relatively fixed percentage of taxes from residents in the jurisdiction under the banner of protecting the environment and the people or similar. As a result, the relationship between this violent group and the residents it rules has changed from a zero-sum game relationship between the predator and the plundered to a symbiotic relationship with a partner color: without the protection of this violent group, the residents’ money Both body and body become trophies and commodities of other violent groups. Different violent groups compete for spheres of influence, cooperate vertically and horizontally with each other, constantly compete, attack and merge, and finally form a balance in a certain area. The big monopolies of violence call themselves kings, the biggest call themselves emperors. In this process, who can most effectively obtain as many soldiers and military resources as possible from within their own jurisdiction, and who can transform these semi-forced mobilized young people into organized combat forces in the most clever way, and who You can gain a greater chance of winning in this cruel game, and eventually change from a bandit to a king and become an emperor.

Therefore, unless it is absolutely necessary, it is a stupid, short-sighted and suicidal approach to exhaust the water and fish the people in one's own jurisdiction. Not only that, violent groups also need to hire professionals, such as wizards, to use divine will to cloak their own rule with a cloak of legitimacy, or use Confucian scholars to fabricate some moral etiquette, or the theory of "induction between heaven and man", "the end of five elements", and "prophecy". " to justify its rule. It is no coincidence that some scholars in the field of ancient intellectual history believe that the origin of Confucianism is the ancient shamans and the origin of Taoism is the historian. The idiom "Successful king and defeated bandit" describes the fact of dynastic change rather than just people's cynical emotions. Of course, there is always a price for fooling people, and the biggest price is that you will fool your own people. The rulers of the country are very aware of how their political power came about, so almost without exception they are legalists, and some hypocrites will put on Confucianism or even Buddhism and Taoism to reduce the cost of governance and governance. risk. But after several generations of power, fewer and fewer people in the ruling group understand the above-mentioned ins and outs, and the princes and grandchildren who grew up in the deep palace, if they were born in elementary school, they are based on theory rather than history. Lord, it is easy to become an overconfident fool. Once a more powerful violent group appears, this group of "legitimate" rulers who are good at literature and art and full of economics will usually write about the pain of subjugation and leave some famous stories through the ages after being reduced to prison. Of course, there will also be some rulers who fled to the fringes to linger on their last days. As the ruling space becomes narrow, it will not take long for their behavior patterns to become bandits again like "throwing their ancestors".

The second question, how did the market arise? Liberals believe that the place where people trade with each other is the market, and there is a market when there is division of labor and transactions. But in practice, where there is no government monopoly on violence, the spontaneous trading order of the market is difficult to maintain, and it is difficult to distinguish between merchants and horse bandits or pirates. This is the true state of the Silk Road or the anarchy of the Age of Discovery. To maintain market order, one government must come out to monopolize violence, or rely on agreements between several governments. Not only that, the more complex the high-end market, the more critical the role of the government. In the first chapter of my book "Money, Power and People", I discussed this way: "The popularization of education and medical care can make economic activities obtain healthy and capable laborers and entrepreneurs; The behavior of market order, such as anti-monopoly, anti-fraud, and anti-counterfeiting, can improve the efficiency and quality of economic activities; further, if infrastructure investment can be subsidized and its external performance is internalized by government actions, then The progress of infrastructure will greatly enhance the competitiveness of related industries; further, through legal authorization and punishment of dishonesty, a credit system can be established and improved, which can reduce transaction costs and capital costs, making transactions and investments easier to achieve; through Suppressing the protective tendencies of local governments and various industry forces can establish a unified national market, through international treaties and trade negotiations, the country's superior goods can enter other countries' markets, and official efforts to unify and expand internal and external markets can make the country's Expand production capacity in core industries to gain economies of scale and competitiveness; if you want to achieve faster technological progress, in addition to subsidizing technology research and development, you must also provide reasonable and necessary protection for intellectual property rights. Therefore, special courts and law enforcement are required The team, these public goods are all to make up for the externalities contained in technological research and development and innovation; the social security system and wealth redistribution system can shape a social structure dominated by the middle class, and its function is not only to expand the domestic The overall demand of the market, and reduce the political and security risks of the whole society; the promotion of new business models and new technology routes, the reason why the threshold is high is that traditional models and traditional technologies have been running in and symbiosis with society for many years. Tearing and reconstructing this traditional operating system will bring pain, obstruction and resistance to some groups, so the government must provide them with the necessary suppression, inducement and compensation, so that social technological progress and governance changes can be realized.

In short, there is a structural correspondence between the various public products provided by the government of a country and the scale expansion and complexity of the country’s economic activities; the larger and stronger the government, the more adequate the supply of public products, and the more economic activities will be. The more complex, the more advanced. "

The third question: Can this theory explain history and reality? Can it improve the accuracy of predicting the future? The answer is, of course. Whether it is the rise and fall of dynasties in Chinese history or the iteration of hegemony in world history, they all conform to the core logic of "gaining power by violence and letting the government shape the market." No matter how good the production and business of the Han people were, and no matter how prosperous the economy and culture were, once they lost the protection of the Great Wall and the superiority of the imperial military power, in the face of the mobile advantages of the nomads, all the prosperity would quickly disappear, leaving only the hastily clothed people traveling south. and helpless. After the Five Husbands, the south of the Yangtze River was always more prosperous and richer than the north, but most of the divisions ended with the north conquering the south, because violence shaped politics.

Did the rise of modern Europe depend on trade and good governance? Obviously not, they relied on the naked and bloody colonial violence, and relied on the advantages of war mobility and military financing potential brought by navigation. Is the great industrialization and continuous development of science and technology pioneered by Protestant countries the result of European entrepreneurship or Protestant ethics? No, it is caused by the cycle of violence and profiteering formed by "colonization-market-war" , which Professor Wen Yi has explained convincingly in his new book.

Modern scientific exploration has the same origin as colonial adventure and conquest, and science still retains traces of its own violent origin in its discourse. For example, scientists like to describe scientific discovery as "conquering" an unknown field. Technology is often related to commercial investment for profit, because technical know-how can be kept privately or protected by patents, and investment in technology research and development can be rewarded; but the science at the source of technology, its breakthroughs usually have more color of public products , so historically, the discovery of many scientific principles has been funded by governments for war and security purposes, not for profit. A pacifist country can accumulate technology, but it is difficult to make major scientific breakthroughs. In an era of pacifism, there can be technological progress, but it is difficult to have major scientific breakthroughs. The principle lies in this.

People who believe in liberalism and idealism like to cite the case of European integration after World War II to prove that economy can be separated from politics and politics can be separated from the logic of violence. Unfortunately, Americans, especially Republicans in the United States, find it difficult to agree. Twenty years ago, when Europeans opposed the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, they told their European allies: The reason why you Europeans can do this long-term peacefully and gracefully The great test of seventy years is because we use nuclear military power to prop up a sky without wind and rain for you. Behind your peaceful years, we are carrying forward with heavy burdens.

A theoretical point of view is difficult to prove, but it is easy to be falsified, because you only need to cite a counterexample to falsify a theoretical proposition, at least to realize the depreciation of its theory and limit its applicable scenarios. So far, I have not seen a case that can really falsify the core proposition of this article. If so, friends who believe in liberalism are welcome to remind me.

The last question: Why are there more liberals trained in economics, journalism, linguistics, philosophy and other disciplines than other disciplines?

In my opinion, the main reason is that in the training of their subject talents, the curriculum sets more emphasis on instrumental training such as writing and mathematics, and neglects training in history and intellectual history. Many students majoring in economics do not study economic history. They focus a lot of energy on learning and practicing mathematical tools. Many PhDs in economics trained by American universities are undergraduates in science and engineering. After switching to economics or finance, it only took more than a year to read some literature and take a few courses, and then make a quantitative model and get a thesis for a doctorate. Economists trained on such a growth path have a deeper understanding of the world than graduates who have studied social sciences or history for six years.

What kind of students will this group of people enter the university classroom and teach in the first ten years of their careers? This is the reason why some of the Chinese-American economists who were active in the Chinese-language media seem shallow and dull, and they can only sell some neo-liberal ideas. In fact, it is not only these Chinese scholars who have become monks, I found that some white scholars who have become popular in the American economics circle, such as the famous Professor Daron Acemoglu, are actually cutting and manipulating various data to demonstrate Liberal clichés that are superficial and even seriously wrong.

At the World Bank's spring annual meeting in 2015, I challenged his views twice in his speeches, and then read his book "Why Countries Fail" carefully, and found that this person is really hard to live up to his reputation. Students with a background in journalism and language and literature have a lot of training in rhetoric and writing in their courses, but they have little research on what happened in this world and why it is like this. Like the victims of American economics education, they emphasize the tools of expression and despise the content of expression. In the words of the ancients, it is "literature is better than quality" rather than "gentleness". As a result, many scholars trained by these majors have a pedantic taste of "public knowledge" when they open their mouths. The reason lies in their lack of understanding of history and the working mechanism of the real world.

So, can scholars who engage in history be free from the hypnosis of idealism and liberalism? Not necessarily. Among historians, according to my observation, there will also be some liberals, mainly Chinese history, because they are greatly influenced by Confucianism. Relatively speaking, world history is not so easy to produce liberals, because they know better than Chinese history scholars what happened to the world in the past five hundred years.

Going back to the major changes we are in today and Sino-US relations, the reason why the US Republican Party wants to engage in anti-globalization, and the reason why the Biden administration is determined to decouple from China in terms of technology is that they are changing from neo-liberalism. Gradually waking up from the delusional dream of the United States, today's American elites are willing to sacrifice economic interests in exchange for security and political interests, and the security considerations of economic policy are overwhelmed by efficiency considerations. But what is interesting is that too many people in China are still immersed in the dream of liberalism and idealism, hoping that the Americans will change their minds.

At a dinner I organized last month, a famous economics professor complained to me that the world has become so messed up because of you people who engage in international relations. I replied to him that the cooperation and prosperity shaped by your economics major is like a bubble in the stock market. People who revel in the bubble every once in a while will feel that this bull market is different from the one in history, but in the end the market It will return to the fundamentals; our politics and international relations major studies the underlying logic of the historical operation behind these bubbles, but whether or not we speak out and point out the truth, the market will still return to their fundamentals.

This round of neo-liberalism has emerged in the United States since 1980, and has been gradually abandoned in the United States since 2008, not because others pointed out its mistakes, but because it has hollowed out American entities through outsourcing and capitalization in practice. The economy has undermined social fairness and unity with the polarization of the rich and the poor, challenged the traditional values of religion and culture with political correctness, and abolished the US military advantage with the theory of trade/democratic peace. We just pointed out the emperor's new clothes.

I have spent all day today writing this article not to convert my liberal friends. I know that the world view is essentially an aesthetic, and the aesthetics of adults are extremely difficult to change.

I took the time to write this article in the hope that when young people in China form their worldviews, they can notice the major differences between different schools of thought, and they can pay attention to the not-so-pleasant underlying logic provided by realists. Just like what was sung in the popular song "Descendants of the Dragon" more than 20 years ago, I hope "Dragon, Dragon, keep your eyes open, keep your eyes open forever and ever . "

Jack Chao
1 hour ago (edited)
一般人並不了解美國為什麼對「通漲」這麼恐