There is no longer any mystery about China’s desire to assert global leadership and disseminate its vision of the world widely, particularly by comparison with the Western model of development. But what is this alternative it intends to advance in opposition to the still dominant Western model? As Beijing sees it, the process of modernization based on capitalism has resulted in “imperialism and exploitation, tensions between peoples and the general spread of violence.” It has led to cutting people off from nature, to the cult of hedonism and to primacy being granted to individual desires. Contrary to that, the Chinese-style conception of “modernization” aims to enable “the entire people to be prosperous, to restore harmony between man and nature, and promote peaceful development.”
This is definitely a vision likely to be attractive to a number of countries that are not persuaded by the American way oflife and that lack a vision of a desirable future!
This article, written after the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, seen to follow the new line laid down by Xi Jinping, aims to explain what “Chinese Socialist modernization” intends to offer as an alternative to the dominant US model. What are the values that emerge from its centuries-long history and how are they to be drawn on as ways of reinforcing China’s influence or appealing to the countries that currently see no future for themselves? The author, well-versed in the deep reasoning that informs present-day China and in its conception of modernity, offers valuable insight into the values it intends to promote and its ability to exemplify them.
