Prosperity: Dream and Glory of the Chinese People

A Brilliant Ancient Culture

National rejuvenation has been the Chinese people’s greatest dream since the Opium War. This dream has been the desire of many generations of the Chinese people because it embodies the overall interests of the Chinese people.

China has a long history and a brilliant culture that the world has marveled at. It was a powerful country in the Xia and Shang periods. Oracle Bone Script was created out of the need of governance and it was the basis for the Chinese writing system which is alive and well in the information age of today. China was unified under the First Emperor of Qin; there were periods in the Han (“the Reign of Emperors Wen and Jing” and“the Golden Era of Emperors Wu and Xuan”), Tang (“the Reign of Zhenguan” and “the Golden Era of Kaiyuan”), and Qing (“the Golden Era of Kangxi and Qianlong”) dynasties where it was very powerful.

In the early years of the Western Han dynasty, seeing the huge damage wreaked by wars and natural disasters, Emperor Wen (180 to 157 BC) and Emperor Jing (157 to 141 BC)lowered people’s tax burden repeatedly to let them recover from these disasters. After a series of tax cuts, Emperor Wen levied the agricultural tax at a rate of 1/30, making his reign a period with the lowest tax in feudal China. These two emperors encouraged agricultural production to increase tax revenues,and silkworm culture was much practiced. They also rewarded people who could increase their output. They went to the fields and tilled the land with the farmers every spring to set an example. They had previously state-owned resources such as mountains, forests, and rivers open to the people and greatly increased the production of agricultural products and of salt and iron, both having an important bearing on the economy and livelihoods. They implemented energy-saving policies to contain wastefulness. Imperial expenses such as those on palaces,gardens, carriages and clothing did not increase during Emperor Wen’s reign. Emperor Jing issued an edict proclaiming local officials shall not use brocade or other luxuries as tributes to the court. He also forbade government officials to buy gold and jewelry; violators were punished as thieves. A period of stability and prosperity followed. The rule of Wen and Jing is a golden period when the economy was healthy and the society was peaceful. Han historian Ban Gu wrote that in capital Chang’an,the national treasury was so full that money seemed uncountable and many of the strings used to bring the coins together were rotten away, and that the granaries always had new grains on top of old ones.

The Tang dynasty is another golden period in Chinese history. The Reign of Zhenguan and the Golden Era of Kaiyuan are notable examples. Because Sui Emperor Yangdi was drunk with ambition and frequently went to war, the country was in a state of destitution in the early Tang dynasty. Tang Emperor Taizong often used Yangdi as an example of how not to rule the country. He was a good student of history and learned to correct the mistakes of the Sui dynasty. He chose wise administrators and took their advice humbly. He encouraged agricultural production, cut down government expenditures, and improved on education and the civil examination system. He stabilized the society, respected the customs of the minority groups,and secured the frontier. Emperor Taizong’s reign is named Zhenguan and lasted from 627 to 649.

Kaiyuan is one of the reign names of Tang Emperor Xuanzong (685-762). The era lasted from 713 to 741. In the early years of his rule, Xuanzong reformed the government,developed the economy, promoted culture and education,expanded diplomacy, and stabilized the society. This is the true golden era for the Tang dynasty as well as for feudal China. We may have a glimpse of the glory of the Tang dynasty from poems written at the time, such as Past Remembrance by Du Fu which describes the wealth of the country and the happy life of the people.

In the Song dynasty, the level of social and economic development was raised tremendously; many achievements were made in terms of agriculture and urbanization. Commercial activities and handicrafts expanded exponentially, and a new merchant class emerged. The people enjoyed high standard of living; architecture, the culinary art, the tea ceremony, and other forms of culture or entertainment were developed to amuse the populace. China was one of the largest, most productive and advanced countries in the world at the time. With the advent of the earliest form of paper money – jiaozi – in the tenth century, China was the first country to use paper money.

China was the most powerful country in the world for the next several centuries. It was the biggest trading country between the 16th and the 18th centuries. Total import from Great Britain was not enough to offset the value of a single export item to Great Britain – tea. Of the ten cities with a population of 500,000 in the world at the time, six were Chinese. At the end of the Ming dynasty, Matteo Ricci wrote in his Notes on China,“Many products are produced here; sugar is finer here than in Europe and fabrics more exquisite…People dress beautifully and stylishly; they are happy, polite, and speak in a refined way.”

China has made important contribution in the field of technology over the millennia. Its technological inventions were many, and its production methods in agriculture, textile,metallurgy, and handicraft were the most advanced in the world,producing a huge impact on its neighbors. British sinologist Joseph Needham said that China had the most advanced and developed culture in the pre-modern world.

Ancient China actively developed contact with the outside world and was able to exert influence over its neighbors. Zhang Qian went to the Western Regions twice as ambassador during the Han dynasty. He opened China’s door to Central, Western,and Southern Asia and Europe and facilitated cultural exchanges with these places. Various forms of silk products were exported to Central Asia and Europe, bringing in enormous wealth and cultural contact. Chinese culture spread to neighboring countries during the Sui and Tang periods. Japan dispatched ambassadors to China many times to learn the Chinese culture, language,fashion, architecture, and philosophy. This has a profound influence on Japan and we can still see this influence today.

A Waking Lion

During the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, as the various capitalist societies of Western Europe became industrialized, China was still an agrarian society. The Golden Era of Emperors Kangxi and Qianlong was but the last glory of China’s feudal history. The capitalist expansion was such that China could no longer sit quietly in one corner of the world; its market was forced open. After the Opium War of 1840, China became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. From 1842 when the Treaty of Nanking was signed to 1949 when the People’s Republic was established, 1,182 unequal treaties and agreements were signed with world powers. China, this ancient empire whose rulers claimed they had the mandate of heaven, was reduced to ceding territory and repaying exorbitant debts to survive. Great suffering befell the Chinese people.

Yuanmingyuan, or the Old Summer Palace, was destroyed first in 1860 by the Second Opium War and in 1900 by the troops of the Eight-Nation Alliance. Victor Hugo described the palace as “a lunar building”, “a dream with marble.” Robert McKee, British army chaplain, wrote guiltlessly in his diary,“No pair of eyes could ever witness again this artistic talent and style of another era. None of it was left, not a single building. There is not a trace of the palace.” The palace ruins recorded the atrocities of the invaders and a humiliating episode of Chinese history.

To save the country from the crisis and untold sufferings,the Chinese people were engaged in a heroic fight against aggression and oppression. They launched reform, overthrew the monarchy and established the republic, beginning a new chapter of history.

Western gunboats blew the imperial pipe dream to smithereens. China’s intellectuals wanted to take a realistic look at the Western world and find a way to build a strong country. Hunan jinshi scholar (person who passed the imperial examination) Wei Yuan suggested using Western technology to fight the West. Under the slogan of “taking the Chinese learning as the basis while applying the Western learning”,important administrators of the Qing dynasty such as Zhang Zhidong and Li Hongzhang started a Westernization Movement. They developed military and civilian enterprises, established a navy, founded Western-style schools, and sent students abroad to study. They helped advance China’s industrialization and modernization process.

The defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War increased the national crisis but raised the consciousness of the Chinese people. After a rethink of the Westernization Movement,intellectuals such as Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong, and Yan Fu proposed that Western thought and social systems had to be learned in addition to Western technology. They studied how reforms were carried out in the West, organized academic societies and debates, and started newspapers. They spread Western political science theories and ushered in the Hundred Days’ Reform. At the urging of the reformers, Qing Emperor Guangxu promulgated a series of reform policies from June 11 to September 21, 1898, with the aim of learning the science and culture of the West, reforming the political and education system, and developing agriculture, commerce, and industries. But the reform met with failure because of the objection of Empress Dowager Cixi and her supporters. It was clear that as long as the feudal government existed, learning Western technology and political system would never be enough to rebuild China into a strong country.

The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 removed the feudal political system that had lasted 2,000 years and established a bourgeois republic. Revolutionaries such as Sun Yat-sen wanted to create a government by and for the people and started to build the foundation of democracy. But the revolution did not bring in a “new dawn” nor did democracy materialize. This is because the Xinhai Revolution did not tap into the well of revolutionary zest buried deep within the Chinese people and therefore could not transform them into masters of their own destiny or their own country. After the Xinhai Revolution, China was divided by warlords and foreign occupiers and the Chinese people continued to suffer.

There were many people in the past hundred years who dreamed the dream of transforming China from a semi-colonial and divided country into a strong nation which could defend itself and offer its citizens social welfare. But the dream never materialized. Attempts at political reform such as constitutional monarchy, a return to imperial rule, parliamentary system, multi-party system, and presidential system all met with failure.

The mission of national independence and liberation fell naturally on the shoulder of the CPC and the Chinese people under its leadership. Marx, who emphasized the importance of production, said that a high degree of productivity is necessary because without it there would only be poverty, and that if the people had to struggle for the bare necessities of life under poverty, all the corruption and errors which had been gotten rid of would return. The CPC has bravely shouldered the sacred mission of national independence and liberation and the Chinese people have stood up. In building a socialist society, the CPC has led the Chinese people to the glorious path of national strength and prosperity. Moreover, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee has ushered in the new era of Reform and Opening Up.

Since that time, Chinese society and economy have developed rapidly. National GDP has risen from RMB 364.5 billion in 1978 to RMB 63,646.3 billion in 2014, the first time the GDP broke the 60 trillion mark. In terms of US dollars, China was the second country after the US to break the 10 trillion mark. Rapid growth has brought national strength and global competitiveness. The standard of living has greatly improved. The World Bank has declared that China has joined the ranks of middle and upper income countries. Over the past 60 years China has used 7% of the world’s land to feed 22% of the world’s population. The standard of living and other facets of society have all undergone tremendous changes.

National Rejuvenation

The great rejuvenation is the Chinese people’s dream and expectation. After 170 years of struggle since the Opium War,the goal has never been brighter and closer at hand, and the Chinese people have never been more confident.

The Chinese Dream means that we will make China prosperous and strong, rejuvenate the nation, and bring happiness to the Chinese people. To dream is to have a future,and we must walk on the right path and take concrete action to achieve this dream.

Our future is determined by the direction we choose and our destiny is determined by the path we are on. We will firmly take the socialist path with Chinese characteristics. We will not take the old path of a rigid closed-door policy, nor an erroneous path by abandoning socialism. We have made great strides in socialism. Even the greatest eras of the past could not feed and clothe one billion people. We can only achieve the Chinese Dream if we persist in our path, develop our economy and gradually realize common prosperity. This path was not easy to come by since we created it out of trial and error after 40 years of Reform and Opening Up, a century of humiliation following the Opium War of 1840, and 5,000 years of history. The path is rich in historical implications and hard-learned lessons.

On November 29, 2012, President Xi Jinping went to the National Museum for the exhibition “Road to Rejuvenation”along with other senior officials and made a speech. He declared, “We all have a dream or ideal to pursue. Everyone is talking about the Chinese Dream right now. In my opinion,achieving the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has been the greatest dream of the Chinese people since the advent of modern times. This dream embodies the long-cherished hope of several generations of the Chinese people, gives expression to the overall interests of the Chinese nation and the Chinese people, and represents the shared aspiration of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation. History has taught us that our individual destiny is tied to that of our country, of our nation. Only when the country prospers can we hope to prosper. National rejuvenation is an honorable and difficult task; it needs the effort of the Chinese people, generation after generation. We’ll succeed if we put in real work; empty talk will get us nowhere.”

We’ll succeed if we put in real work; empty talk will get us nowhere. Real work begets success while empty talk assures failure. Everyone has to stay on his post and do his share of duty to realize the Chinese Dream. Why has China developed so fast?Because the Chinese people put in the effort to do real work.