On the Cultural Road of the Chinese Path to Modernization—The Logic of Constructing National Identity through Cultural Identity from the Perspective of National Cultural Structure
The Chinese path to modernization has put forward an important proposition for the construction of the contemporary state,involving the cultural identity-based nature of the state that distinguishes China from the West.Despite the general consensus on China's 5,000-year-old civilization,the mechanisms and paths through which profound cultural traditions influence or constrain state-building have not been clearly revealed.Western scholars,grounded in Western nation-state theory,have recognized the uniqueness of the Chinese cultural identity system based on the"Tianxia system."However,in their understanding of China's transformation from the"Tianxia system"to a nation-state in modern times,they have fallen into the"West-centric"thinking paradigm,failing to explain the particularity of the Chinese path to modernization path as a country with cultural identity.The theory of national cultural structure demonstrates that in the Chinese state structure of a cultural identity country,the national cultural agenda and the national political agenda are intertwined due to the natural connection between cultural identity and national identity formed through long-term historical processes.This results in a"path lock"from cultural identity to national identity in state-building.The difference between Chinese and Western paths to modernization is reflected in the initial conditions of national modernization:(1)The country's territory presents characteristics of a flexible national border with overlapping cultural and political maps,and the value ethics between"Huaxia"and surrounding ethnic groups based on the"Tianxia system"primarily manifest as a cultural adjustment process rather than hard border isolation and armed conflict.(2)The moral system and political system overlap,leading to cultural governance features where the state maintains the"legitimacy"of state power through ideology.(3)The tradition of"family-nation isomorphism"forms the value core of the populace's culture,with the moral thought of filial piety and kindness overlapping with political patriotism,resulting in a cultural psychology characterized by the unity of moral loyalty and political identity towards the nation.In modern times,the globalization process originating from Western capitalism forced China,a cultural community rooted in historical and cultural traditions,into the"constraining framework"of a modern nation-state.This greatly weakened China's traditional bond of constructing national identity through cultural identity,leading to a chain reaction from a traditional culture crisis to a national identity crisis,shaking the stability of the state structure with deep and wide-ranging impacts.By examining the differences between Western national identity countries and China as a cultural identity country and elaborating on the logic of state construction and the dilemma of transformation in China over a long historical period,this paper deeply reveals the state attributes and morphological characteristics of a country with cultural identity.It then expounds on the path of national construction with Chinese characteristics in the context of globalization,coordinating ethnic identity and religious identity through cultural identity.The differences in the initial cultural conditions during the beginning of mordernization between China and the West is conductive to clarifying the special connotation and fundamental characteristics of the Chinese path to modernization,which differs from that of the West,and to more deeply understanding the profound connotation of"promoting the Chinese path to modernization as the biggest politics"and constructing the unique theoretical logic of the Chinese path to modernization.
Cultural identityNational identityCultural transformationNational cultural structureChinese path to modernization
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