Xu Zhangrun, "China's Moment"

Xu Zhangrun, “China’s Moment in World History:  A “Chinese Consciousness” Created by the “China Problem”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Introduction
 
Xu Zhangrun (b. 1962) in a Professor of Jurisprudence and Constitutional Law at Tsinghua University.  He is best known outside of China for having published, in August of 2018, a scathing online denunciation of political conditions in Xi Jinping’s China entitled “Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes” 我们当下的恐惧与期待(heroically translated by Geremie Barmé).  Xu’s cri de coeur was widely covered in the New York Times and other Western news outlets, and at the time, it was reported that Xu was in Japan, and/or that he had cancer, either of which might have explained his reckless courage.  However, his essay remains available on the Unirule website 天则经济研究所, where Xu is a fellow, and he has continued to post frequent additions to his WeChat Discover Moments series on important legal thought and thinkers throughout world history (the most recent, as of this writing, is number 937, posted on October 22, 2018, discusses the Harvard legal philosopher Duncan Kennedy).
 
“Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes” is only the most recent of a series of essays in which Xu has voiced his concerns over the direction China has taken under Xi Jinping.  In its introduction to a republication of “Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes,” the Hong Kong-based Initium Media 端传媒 website mentions “Reaffirming the Great Concept of the Republic” 重申共和国这一伟大理念, “Rethinking the Foundation of Nation-Building in China” 重思中国立国之基, “Protecting ‘Reform and Opening’” 保卫’改革开放’, and “Words of Warning to a Prosperous Age:  China at a Critical Point” 盛世危言: 中国在临界点上, all published since 2013, addressing similar themes in somewhat less incendiary language.
 
The essay—in fact, a conference paper—translated below sounds some of the same themes, but in a more scholarly fashion.  The title of the conference was “China’s Moment in World History,” one of many scholarly events prompted by China’s rise and the excitement this rise has generated, particularly among Mainland New Confucians and China’s New Left, who celebrate different versions of the “China” that has accomplished this miracle.  In a deft rhetorical move, Xu argues that any proposition concerning “China’s moment in world history” must examine “the world,” and “history,” as well as “China,” if it is to have any meaning.  What follows is a lengthy, erudite, and difficult reflection on China’s past, present, and future place in the world.
 
Xu’s main argument is that world history has indeed entered a transitional phase, and China’s (or the Pacific’s) moment may well be at hand.  However, if China assumes its “moment,” it will not be as the hoary Middle Kingdom redeploying its ancient and glorious civilization, but rather as a China that has been the “model student” of the West for some time.  In addition, China still has work to do, particularly in terms of establishing a legitimate, functional, “excellent” political form, before it can really offer itself as a “model” for the 21st century world.  From Xu’s point of view as a jurist, China needs above all a constitution capable of constraining “state rationality.”  If this constitution reflects “Chinese characteristics” or “Chinese wisdom,” so much the better.  Xu, like his friend and colleague Gao Quanxi 高全喜 (b. 1962) (and many others) is a “conservative liberal” who emphasizes the links between culture, history, and institutions, and is open to a sensible application of Confucianism to China’s “moment in world history.”  What he can’t abide are empty slogans celebrating illusions.

Xu structures much of his argument around the “China problem,” the rapid fall from power of the traditional Chinese state in the 19th century and the threat this posed to Chinese civilization, and the “Chinese consciousness” the problem engendered—the anxiety and “worrying” that Gloria Davies has analyzed so brilliantly, if in a somewhat different context.[2]  One of Xu’s goal is to remind his fellow Chinese that if China’s rise is a “world historical fact,” facts are shaped by consciousness, by anxieties, hopes, and dreams.  The “China problem” may or may not be solved as an ever richer and more powerful China marches forward into the 21st century.  The “Chinese consciousness” will remain.
 
Xu’s conclusions may be less important than his arguments, which are wide-ranging and thoughtful, if at times repetitive and circuitous.  To some degree, the difficulty of Xu’s text reflects the “liberal dilemma” in today’s China, the fact that universal “Western” values are under attack from both Mainland New Confucians and the New Left.  Like other liberal thinkers (including essays like this one by Xu Jilin on our website), Xu has to find a way to integrate Confucianism—or at least some parts of Chinese tradition—into his vision of a constitutional future.  At the same time, Xu’s argument serves as a reminder to Wang Hui and others on China’s left that if one can indeed understand “universal” Western values as the “particular” values of a dominant civilization, the domination was real, and profoundly influenced the “China moment.”  
 
A word about the translation.  I was feeling pretty good about my Chinese language abilities when I sat down to work on this piece.  It was a lesson in humility.  Xu combines a classical vocabulary with long, complex, utterly unclassical sentences and the frequent use of pithy, slangy expressions to add humor or punch.  He also draws on several bodies of scholarship, Chinese and foreign, to address complex topics at a high level of abstraction.  The style can seem pretentious, but Xu, in person, is anything but pretentious (I spent a delightful afternoon with him in his Tsinghua office this spring), so I persevered.  I think I got most of it more or less right, without doing damage to Xu’s message, but there may well be hidden levels of meaning—to say nothing of minor (or major) misreadings—that escaped me.  For this reason, I am taking the unusual step of making my working draft available to readers.  Passages in yellow are those that I found particularly challenging.  Feel free to share comments or corrections at ownby.david@gmail.com.          
 
Translation
 
 “China’s moment in world history” is the main topic of the first “Annual Conference on Knowing and Thinking,” organized by the Advanced Studies Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of Beihang University 北航人文与社会科学高等研究院.  The theme is vast, troubling, and with many implications.  Clearly, the main emphasis in the topic is on “China’s moment,” and “world history” is in the background, but the background may well be more intriguing.  The two are of course linked, illustrating the juxtaposition of various ideas concerning contemporary China and notions of culture and history, as well as the politics of the era, based in turn on these ideas.  In other words, “China’s moment,” whether it has already come, might be coming, or is to come at some future point, is a particular moment and a key chapter in the progress of world history, as well as a signal moment in the advancement of the civilization of mankind.  Perhaps, in the minds of some who are arguing for China’s moment, it means that it will usher in the arrival of a new type of civilization.  For the past three hundred years or so, Western civilization has claimed the right to guide the history of the world and to craft its narrative, to the point that “world history” has come to mean “the history of the West.” Bringing forth “China’s moment” at the present juncture could well mean—at least in the minds of those who chose the theme—that we are approaching a “watershed” in the fate of civilization, a development that might leave some people anxious.  
           
It is true that past historical moments, like the British moment or the American moment, have deeply influenced the movement of world history, leaving their marks on and controlling the direction of world civilization, including the economic situation and even world psychology.  These ages seem to have originated in the imaginations of pioneering theorists such as Hobbes and Locke, and to have profited from a “Machiavellian moment” in world history to join hands and create a century of trans-Atlantic domination.
 
Things like this come together with their own inescapable logic, and cannot be avoided or changed.  It is clear that choosing this theme in the context of this larger background reveals latent tensions in the idea of “China’s moment,” theoretical tensions, intellectual tensions, even moral tensions.  At the same time, exploration of the theme may well open up a space of theoretical imagination, moral improvement and political possibility.  I explored this theme in some depth in terms of intellectual background and historical context in my essay on “Historical Consciousness in an Age of Transition.”[3]  Here I will use that essay as background, and attempt to put together a case study of the present theme, looking especially at cultural and political meanings and the many tensions between them, as well as the moral and political visions that should be at the forefront, as explained in the five sections below.
 
1.  Images of Civilization and the Struggle over Time
 
All historical turning points become transitional periods, which bring historical consciousness and historical reasoning to the surface in a way that forces itself into people’s thoughts.  At the present moment, historical consciousness and historical reasoning are the consciousness and spirit of a particular age, as well as a cultural and civilizational consciousness, and above all, a political consciousness.  The idea of “China’s moment in world history” is just such a portrait of a historical-cultural consciousness and the political consciousness of a particular period, or to put it more accurately, a reflection of its hopes and fears.  At the same time, the theme reflects anxieties on the part of those who selected it, civilizational concerns of which they might not be aware or might not want to admit.  When I said above that China’s moment “has already come, might be coming, or is to come at some future point,” I was referring to historical possibilities, but of the many historical possibilities, only one will prove to be true, which means that anxiety, yearning, and restlessness are all understandable reactions.  This is a scene that has played out again and again on the stage of world history, on the eve of important moments.
 
Why is it, finally, that the question of China’s moment is transformed into anxiety, yearning, restlessness, and worry?  What is the source of the anxiety?  Where is it leading? Reflecting carefully on these questions will help to make clear the meaning and intentions behind the notion of “China’s moment in world history.”  Above I mentioned the anxiety emerging from the “uncertainty of the future,” but in the long run things will run their course even if the future remains uncertain. Why is the Chinese psyche anxious at this particular moment?  To explain this will not require a crystal ball, but rather taking the pulse of the immediate future.  The text that follows will be a detailed discussion of the question, but what we can state clearly here is that the question exists both as a possible “China moment” evolving in real time, and also as a vision that is thrust upon us by a theoretical imagination.  And all of this relates to concerns about the understanding and interpretation of world history, and about trends in Chinese civilization and the contemporary process of China’s transformation. 
 
To put it another way, in the course of the vast historical transformation of modern civilization over the past 500 years, and the evolution of modern China over the past century and a half, what has structured the consciousness surrounding this question have been the anxieties concerning whether China’s rise and civilizational revival can smoothly unfold in the near future.  And it is for this reason, in fact, that the theme of “China’s moment in world history” is one shaped by a “Chinese consciousness,” created by the “China problem.”  I will address this in greater detail in part three, and here only wish to note that, at a deeper level, this historical consciousness is part of a political consciousness.  Just as the Italian historian Croce pointed out in his “History and Politics,” moral and political life requires history and culture.  History and culture serve to preserve the past—and the present—of the society of mankind.  History and culture allow mankind to project the goals emerging from real life consciousness, provide mankind with what is needed in the choice of a path to follow, and in this way prepare mankind to achieve future goals.  This is why we must “promote and enrich our devotion to history and culture, carefully guard against its tarnishing, and severely condemn those who suppress, distort and corrupt it, protecting its noble moral and political character.”[4]  For this reason, all of the “anxiety, yearning, and worry,” as explained below, is, in the final analysis, concern about Chinese civilization’s capacity to produce an excellent form of government.  In other words, if historical consciousness is political consciousness, then historical rationality is also political rationality.  As is clear that from the perspective of recent world history, it is precisely the emergence of an “excellent political form” that has profoundly altered the human order and transformed notions of legitimacy, a legitimacy that decides whether or not a civilization can become part of world history—at least if we acknowledge that world history is in fact the history of the civilization that occupies the dominant position.  Hence, historical rationality has found a path to make itself useful, historical progress has found soldiers willing to fight for it, and the historical spirit employs political movements, including special forms of war, that unfold before the eyes of the world.  This is world history, the motor and true meaning of world history. 
 
In addition, from this point of view, “world history” expresses an intentionality in time and space, as well as a civilizational intentionality, revealing how civilization shapes time and how particular civilizations compete over time.  In this sense, a monopolistic interpretation of time constitutes the power to lead history and grants discursive rights over civilization, and even a certain amount of control.  Therefore, an interpretation of time is a concept of the history of civilization and a concept of the world. It is a kind of image of civilization, based on notions of time and space, realized in the world context.  As a universal expression of the idea of humanity and the world system, "world history" is a reflection of the concept that a universal world history exists, and at the same time conveys a certain unspoken discursive power of mainstream civilization over this universal world historical concept.  When Vico vowed to write a history that would explore the decline of all nations from their initial rise to development and prosperity, an "ideal eternal history of mankind,"[5] his intent was to carry out a comprehensive self-examination of the place of the history of the Mediterranean world in world civilization, seeking especially the internal links explaining the function of Mediterranean civilization.  For him, the goal was to grasp the wisdom and temperament of world civilization and world history.  In this way, at the same time that “world history” constructs a universal history of the world, it clearly establishes centers and margins, leaders and led, mainstream and tributaries, and heartlessly casts aside those who do not fit in.  Distinctions between what is civilized and what is primitive, or natural, or even between mankind and gods and animals, are all inscribed within this vision, with no discussion necessary.  This is the reason that the Sinocentric notion of tianxia 天下[6] insists that the Chinese people possess the basic nature of a world people and in a certain sense have long embraced the idea of world history.
 
Therefore, it is self-evident that, in the view of the universal world that originated in Western historicism in the nineteenth century, many civilizational systems, including Chinese civilization, remained outside of "world history."  In other words, the glorious civilization of classical China was nothing but a prelude to world history.  If we say that the Chinese “tianxia” was a limitless, universal ethnical concept, and the Indian “world” was truly boundless in a mathematical sense, then for a very long time, “world history” was in fact the “Western world,” especially as we have entered the modern era.  This view of civilization is a highly self-referential [literally “autistic” 我向中心主义] value system, and respects a rigidly differentiated civilizational hierarchy.  In sorting through its family history and that of the rest of the world, it early on decided that those outside of the “family” were “the other,” and obscured or distorted their images.[7]   They were set aside because they had taken a different path and had different notions of time and space.  For just this reason, the fact that “world history” serves as the basic backdrop for “China’s moment” means not only that China entered the global system and universal history on the terms of this system and its hierarchy, but also that China’s desire to reinvent these terms requires a dialectical negation.  Since so-called “world history” had become the starting place for any narrative, then transcendence through acceptance was preferable to transcendence through negation.  History has always been the evolution of civilizational trends through time, a self-conscious human spiritual phenomenon formed out of a series of outcomes accumulating through time.
 
Moreover, and for the same reason, in his essay for this conference, Professor Gao Quanxi begins with the statement that “China only entered world history in 1840 with the Opium War,” which reflects my argument above.[8]  As we know, for a long time, this kind of unilinear view of history as progress, instead of a multi-linear plural view, in which the history of mankind consists of a continuous effort to dissolve the marginal “other” in the march to establish universal civilization, has become the habitual narrative.  This narrative and its ramifications have long been on everyone’s lips, believed by many Western and even modern Chinese scholars, so that its influence spread to become the dominant theory.  In fact, as I argued above, these are classical arbitrary pronouncements of a self-referential Western historicism, originating in a modern version of Roman-Christian world historical view.  The modern West was the first to enter “modernity,” which it explained by way of reference to the “nation-state” and the “democratic state,” which it called the way of life of the “modern order.”  It subsequently pulled the entire world into this historical process, so it was only natural to accept these arguments.  In recent history, this theory was not only the view of world history championed by Prussian scholars such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Weber and Meinecke, it came to be universally shared in English-speaking and romance-language civilizations.[9]  In 1784, when Kant was 60 years old, he opined in his “Idea for a Universal World History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View” that, setting aside Greek history, the history of most other peoples had not become real history, so that “the histories of all peoples that lived outside of this only begin from the moment that they enter in.”[10]  For example, the history of the Jewish people  began only with the Greek translation of the Bible under Ptolemy, “and all other peoples were the same.”  Perhaps Kant is referring here only to Western “peoples,” but it is clear that “Eastern” peoples have been also excluded from world history.  In addition, received wisdom in today’s Sinosphere has accepted this view of world history as the general basis for its own way of thinking, which is less a genuine acceptance of the Roman-Christian view of world history and more a simple reflection of the evolution of civilization in recent history. 
 
So how do we finally judge and interpret this evolution?  We can ask the question the following way:  How does the history of a particular civilization come to be defined as world history? Or, once it has “entered” world history, how does it bring about change in history’s direction?  It’s like when Alexandre Kojève[11] made a secret visit to China and, on his return to France, made the surprising announcement that “the spirit of world history is currently working in China.”[12]  After all, any judgment is a specific observation of a certain civilization or a certain type of civilization.  For that reason, its historical universality needs to be tested as well, so that the test of the definition and the judgement is also a process of validating the test, a process which might enable us to arrive at a multivalent, pluralistic understanding of universalism.
 
2.  The Most Commanding Concept and the Most Convincing Explanation
 
In this context, a common argument is that, whether it is the modern Roman-Christian world historical view or the world historical view from some other quadrant, the definition of “world history” is always decided by the position and perspective of a particular civilization.  This civilization’s understanding, appreciation, and acceptance of other civilizations, particularly those of a different nature, takes as a necessary condition the universal nature of the dominant civilization.  Global vision and concern for all mankind are in fact the practical results of this epistemology and the unexpected extension of its moral meaning.  In other words, the independent maturation of separate civilizations is not sufficient to construct world history.  Instead, the independent maturation of a particular civilization, regardless of its scale or its duration, and even if it can be depicted as “advanced” or “developed” through the manipulations of historical reductionism, cannot be called a world civilization or enter into world historical territory as long as this civilization does not attempt to understand, examine, and integrate other civilizations, and particularly civilizations of different natures, and through such efforts create the imagine of “all mankind.”  In this sense, Greek history is merely Greek history, and not until “Greece” expanded to become the “West”—in the same way “America” expanded to become “England” and the “West”—did history become world history.  As a counter example, the de-sinicization and abandonment of the use of Chinese characters by North and South Korea, Vietnam, and Japan in modern times, demonstrates precisely the marginalization of China in the advance of world history.  In other words, whatever we might mean by “world history,” in fact it is a phenomenon of the modern world.
 
On this question, the most commanding notion (or the most convincing explanation) that determines whether a civilization possesses this vision and this capacity to assess and compare other civilizations, is that which reveals its universal significance on the basis of a universal conception of the nature of civilization.  Only after having arrived at this point do this civilization and its view of history begin to lead the current of world history and the universal existence of the spirit of the age.  In other words, this civilization’s imagery of time and space, its expression of civilization and spirit, become what is called world history.  In this sense, and only in this sense, the modern Western universal view of world history is unlike the historical consciousness found in the “Spring and Autumn Gongyang Classic 公羊传,[13]” or in Zheng Qiao’s 鄭樵 (1104-1162) Comprehensive Records 通志,[14]  which, while full of arrogance and prejudice, also reveal a unidimensional depth with potentially universal implications.  This is another understanding of building a world historical spirit out of “diversity,” and, in fact, many anti-colonialist and structuralist historical viewpoints have made their new arguments on this basis.[15]  Yet one must still admit that, in fact, the strong point of the concept of universal world history that I have presented here is that it basically reveals the genuine development of world history, and depicts a world system where we see the universal nature of the linkages between and among civilizations.
 
This is what they are, these civilizations that trace their own paths even as they are pushed forward and created by the wave of the modern West and its guiding civilizational and cultural consciousness.  As a part of this universal conceptual system, “modern China,” even as it understood, evaluated, and absorbed the interconnected universal system under construction, also refashioned anew its own civilizational propensities, thus gradually building links between “China and the world,” and illustrating China’s entry into this “world history,” which meant her entry into the wave of modern civilization and its universal interconnectedness.  In other words, only when Chinese civilization consciously realized the aggression of heterogeneous civilization and its own cultural sovereignty, and, drawing on this as a source of inspiration, came to a sense of clarity concerning the meaning of "modern China," only then did China began to enter "world history," which is the "1840" moment mentioned by Professor Gao Quanxi.  Thus in some sense, the “Chinese moment” also started at this point.  If we maintain the current momentum of development and finally carry out the transformation toward an excellent political system, a mature "modern China" will finally stand proud on the world stage.  When that happens, it will be like when historians revised previous work and moved the beginning of constitutional rule to 1215 [the date of the writing of the Magna Carta], or when they displaced the frontier of the “modern” Machiavellian moment to the late 15th century.  From the perspective of history, what we call “China’s moment” only began with the loss of the Opium War!  Clearly, this relates to the narrative of the emergence of "modern China", based on historical consciousness and civilizational consciousness, and the starting point of a historical moment they triggered.  But this is not the “China moment” that is the focus of this conference.
 
Then what is the focus of the “China moment” in this conference?  As I argued above, when the Sinosphere trumpets the notion of “China’s moment in world history,” this is not merely an acceptance of world history, but is instead a sign of a cultural conviction that Chinese civilization itself is an important component of world history, all of which means that it is time to rethink the meaning of world history. This rethinking must conceive its own vision, providing the most commanding ideas and the most persuasive interpretations, providing justifications why this particular historical view of civilization and the civilizational body behind the view [i.e., China], should become the universal history directing the movement of the world and the spirit of the age.  If this is accomplished, then the moniker “China’s moment in world history” will mean that contemporary China’s civilization either has already provided or in the future can hope to provide the most commanding ideas and the most persuasive interpretations for the meaning of “world history.” Perhaps, in response, terms like great powers, empires, “world leaders,” the “top two” or G2 will come to the fore, providing the intellectual content and imagery for the new age, as well as the footnotes it will need to draft the new narrative.
 
If we insist that China’s moment has “already happened” and is “factual,” than I think most people will not agree.  Professor Gao has pointed out that as a newly arisen great power, China’s “arrival is immature and unreliable.”[16]  For this reason, the subject of our conference has the feeling of an empty proposition or even a kind of “fantasy.”  After all, “Modern China” is still in the process of becoming, and whether the next chapter is narrated with the language of the “four bonds” and the “four constants” [i.e., Confucianism] or that of wealth and power, the economic, political and cultural construction of the country in democratic and civilizational terms has yet to reach its final stage, and this is particularly true in terms of politics.  Indeed, on questions like that of political construction, Chinese civilization is still at the stage of absorbing and digesting modern Western civilization, and on questions like global history or the world system we are still caught in the sunset glow of the concepts and spirit of the modern West.  Where is China’s “morning glow”?  Reflections growing out of the idea of “China’s moment” should focus on this.  What is worse, modern China’s transformation has occurred in a context of “ancient versus modern” and “Chinese versus Western,” an age at the genesis of what we call world history.  This has determined that the nature of world history cannot be the simple progress of modernity.  Any country that enters into the age, or the process, must validate its own modern institutions and spiritual contents, signaling the impossibility of reversing course.  In particular, the political construction of constitutional democracy and the modern polity of a people's republic have lagged in today’s China, illustrating that China has not yet completed its “modern transformation” and the dream of “China’s moment” is indeed still only a distant vision.
 
Given this, why are we talking about “China’s moment?”
 
If we want to build on “what is promising,” what are the possibilities and the realities before us?  Will these be based on deep historical feelings, political and cultural responsibilities and moral ideals, including historical sensibilities and cultural insights, or will it instead be a familiar story of “fengshui ebbs and flows, maybe I’ll get lucky next year!”  Which means China’s moment might be composed of the usual suspects like Confucian fengshui, or a Confucian state, or perhaps representative democracy or a family-state[17] organized around a constitutional republic.  This requires discussion, and opinions will surely vary.  Everyone is anxious about this, some happy and some sad, and it is also to some extent a question of language and terminology.  But in any event, what is true is that China’s mood today on these questions is closely linked to the “China problem,” which stimulates once again the “Chinese consciousness,” perhaps bringing it into clearer focus after its century-long existence.
 
3.  A Chinese Consciousness Created by the China Problem
 
Here, the outline of the idea of China’s moment begins to come into focus.  From the outset, it has been part of a “Chinese consciousness” based on the “China problem,” an anxiety and yearning concerning her position and fate in the world, even as China develops, a burgeoning self-confidence concerning her political maturity and civilizational position in a globalized world.  Can we do this?  Should we do this?  In other words, at the present moment, China’s transition, underway for more than half a century, is arriving at the moment of truth, and entering a stage where the transition will draw to a close.  “Modern China” has entered the world arena, and with this, China’s moment in world history will soon arrive.  By “moment,” we mean a civilizational scene in the movement of history, in which the leading player is none other than China and Chinese civilization, singing loud and strong and leading the chorus.  Here we can see that the “Chinese moment in world history” is first an aspirational concept, and only second a descriptive concept.  But the extent to which this description can accurately apply to the civilization and the political body in question, especially in terms of controlling trends and power, is the real test of the proposition’s intellectual capacity and political wisdom.  Only if the description has some truth, and is developed in a subtle and skillful way, will the aspiration start to be real, and only then can the heart’s original yearning be realized.  
 
Over the past four or five hundred years we have entered the global era, and have experienced the pain of transformation with the emergence of representative cases like the “English problem,” the “German problem,” and the “Russian problem,” and we have also had civilizational eras like the “British moment” and the “American moment.”  The French revolution, with is revolutionary arrogance and long-term impact, was also a transformational moment that has been widely debated.  The drama of the transformation of the Arab-Islamic world, currently underway, is also a cause for worry.  Against this great backdrop, China’s modern transformation over the past century, with all its twists and turns, might simply be called the “China problem.”  In fact, in the context of world history, the “China problem” is already a controversial issue, and will remain at the center of debate.  Like other controversial issues, the China problem aims to tell the story of how ancient, glorious China carried out its modern transformation, and the core issues can be reduced to four basic projects:  building the country, building a constitution, establishing a faith [i.e., teaching or religion], and building a people.  Where we are on these four projects basically tells us where we are in the accomplishment of China’s transformation, and supplies as well the basic image of “modern China” in the context of the “China problem.”  In my own work, I have sorted out this grand process into four more specific indicators. These are "developing the social economy, constructing a nation-state, producing an excellent government, and re-establishing a meaningful order."[18]  In this context, the “China problem” might be reduced to that of the “four bonds” and the “four constants,” and “modern China” might be the ultimate solution. The evolution of “modern China” is a comprehensive process of economic nation-building, political nation-building, and cultural nation-building, which relates to China’s existence as a whole—its life, norms, and meaning.  And the point is a total transformation, a complete renewal.  Only in this way can we have a “modern China,” meaning an economic, political and cultural community in a modern context.  These are all part of a whole, and make up modern Chinese culture.
 
At a deeper level, from the perspective of state rationality, modern China must necessarily be a “wealthy, powerful, democratic, and civilized country,” all of which is related to the great questions of nation-building from the perspectives of economics, politics, and civilization, and which renders the question of the “contents” discussed above all the more concrete.  In other words, from the perspective of state rationality, the answers to the questions “Why do we want a country?” “What constitutes a country?” and “What should a country be for?” are, respectively, to create “wealth and power,” “democracy”, and “civilization,” which corresponds to the great undertaking of building the country, erecting the constitution and the national faith, and building a citizenry—the basic projects of national economic, political, and civilizational construction.  This will result in the creation of the vast civilized body made up of “economic China,” “political China” and “cultural China.”  All of these constitute the basic motivation, goal, and institutional and cultural content of “modern China.”
 
We know that in this context, whether the concrete goals pursued are those of the “four bonds” or the “four constants,” or those of “wealth and power, democracy and civilization,” such claims not only constitute a genuine description of the “China problem,” but also reveal in a true sense what the ideal “modern China” looks like in the eyes of the person offering the description.  “Modern China” may well not develop from such visions and ideals, but it is undoubtedly true that this is the “matrix” in which China has found itself for some time, rich with possibilities but also full of frustrations. Even more important is that, whether we observe this process from the point of view of “China’s moment in world history,” or from any other well-meaning perspective, China is now moving toward the picture contained in that image.  Reality creates its own theory, while thought guides reality, sometimes to the point of creating its own reality, actualizing itself in the process.  My friends, the great conceptual framework constructed over the past century by the mutual interaction of the thought world and the life world is precisely what we call “Chinese consciousness.”
 
“Chinese consciousness” is the conceptual state of the “China problem.”  Over the past century, all of the intellectual interrogations, thought responses, moral investigations and political plans concerning the “China problem,” all of the past and present anxiety in terms of intellectual history, institutional exploration and legal and political planning, all of the “prescriptions” offered to cure all of the “maladies,” be they Chinese medicine or Western medicine or some dialectical combination of the two—it all started here, in fact everything is here.  Whether it’s anti-traditional criticism of “old China,” a defense of Confucian civilization that conveys, with tragic sensibility, the deep meaning and truth value of traditional culture, or rather high-spirited praise of the evolution of the rational historical subject or perhaps even the romance of revolution, all of these are inextricably linked to the popular mood and customs, to culture and tradition, to the economy and the market, to political institutions and legal rights, to philosophy and religion, and have collectively formed the “Chinese consciousness” of the “China problem.”  If we say that the great powers’ invasion of China more than a century ago, and the “China consciousness” engendered by this crisis, in the words of Hegel, “triggered the disappearance of a living world,”[19] this would mean first of all, and paradoxically, that the spirit of self-reflection and intellectual salvation born of this desperate moment, in fact awakened “modern China.”  In this sense, when today we talk about “China’s moment in world history,” we are perhaps merely adding a new nuance to this thicket of concepts.  Yet what is reflected more clearly is the cool pride and prudent self-confidence of today’s China, the rational joy and spiritual delight that this great trek of nearly two hundred years is nearing conclusion. 
 
This might lead us to a comparison with the notion of “Russian consciousness.”[20]  In fact, our use of “Chinese consciousness” may have already led the reader to think of this spiritual phenomenon observed in our neighbor.  Beginning in the 16th or 17th century, and continuing down to the present day, the psyche of the Russian people (motivated by the “Russia problem”) has gradually evolved to produce its own “Russian consciousness.”  This concept not only has navigated difficult moments in its identity and transition, including questions of values, civilization, and aesthetics.  In addition, it has sought to diagnose the “malady” of Russian civilization in comparison to other states that possess “wealth and power” and to identify the appropriate remedy, addressing questions of value systems, state form, political structure, intellectual principles, aesthetic sentiments, etc.  In this process, the dream of “Moscow as the third Rome,” and the narrative of Great Slavism and “Eurasia,” and particularly the debate between the Slavic faction and the Western faction, all revealed the thinking of the “Russian consciousness” on matters of historical determinism and cultural value, as well as the political storms emanating from these debates. 
 
Like “Chinese consciousness,” the notion of “Russian consciousness” is grounded in Russian realities, and was a gesture to a yearned-for Russia, a desire to speed the transition from what is to what should be.  Why the imagined future is this one and not another has to do with understandings and judgements of the ought-to-be world.  The history of the soul of a nation is always changing and maturing, forged by the constant exchanges between what is and what should be.  In a broader sense, and setting aside “lucky hits” or cases that “unexpectedly” entered modernity—the case of England, which, as the first modernizer, had no particular “English consciousness”—other late-developers like Germany, Russia, Japan, Turkey, Egypt and China, as well as the Arab-Islamic world in the Middle East and other East Asian countries have all had their own version of this “consciousness.”  Even the United States struggled with the question of its place in the world over a relatively long period of time and in complicated ways, especially in relation to its mother country and to Europe.  In each of these cases, the “consciousness” accompanied the maturation of the nation, and built the particularities of the resulting national spirits, nurturing the peoples of the world as they traversed their own periods of hardship. 
 
For this reason, the current idea of “China’s moment in the world” should be seen as part of the ideology of “modern China” that has accumulated and matured down to the present moment, inheriting and enriching the perspectives already contained in the “Chinese consciousness.” This suggests that the “China problem” has been a constant, one that will disappear automatically once the transition is completed, but “Chinese consciousness” is a deeply layered spiritual phenomenon that subsumes within the general notion of “modern China” such themes as the “four bonds and the four constants,” “wealth and power, democracy and freedom,” and attempts, in the context of world history and the globalized system, to transform “modern China” into a desirable view of world history.  Perhaps, in the minds of those who have brought forth the idea of “China’s moment in world history” this will herald the arrival of a newly glorious era in the history of mankind.
 
4.  The Family-State and Tianxia:  Model student or Civilized Empire? Or, the World Order in the Age of China
 
At this point, to advance in our analysis of the subject, we need to broaden the context of the discussion.  Over the past five hundred years, civilizational trends in the world system have gone through the three phases of “Mediterranean civilization,” “Atlantic civilization,” and are now poised at the brink of “Pacific civilization.”  The Mediterranean civilization originating in the 16th century set the theoretical stage for this wave of modern civilization, and the intellectual accomplishments of the “early modern period” fueled the spectacular growth in Western power over the following three centuries.  At the same time that it spread its influence and institutions throughout the globe, creating a true world history, it also promoted a “wave of modernization” on a global scale.  This was a world-shaking event.  Out of this developed, from the 19th century onward, the Trans-Atlantic civilization, led principally by England, which evolved into the huge British empire with its centers and peripheries.   The century-old American rule is the inheritor of the original Atlantic civilization, merely adding a new chapter to its scale, strength, and meaning.  In the last few decades, against the backdrop of the rise of East and Southeast Asia in the mid- and late 20th century, symbolized by the revival of China's civilization, the world seems to have entered the age of the "Pacific civilization."  The direct cause and major signal of this have been “China’s rise” and “Europe’s decline.”  Especially at the current moment, the world order seems to be a global system centered on a sort of "China-United States’ joint governance."  As China and the US watch one another from opposite sides of the Pacific, the shape of a new world order seems to be coming into focus.  This new order adds elements of regional and civilizational significance from the “modern China” experience to the existing framework based the leadership of the English-speaking countries.
 
It is precisely because these are different civilizations that, even when they share a common set of ideas necessary to sustain the global order, hidden tensions producing suspicion and competition inevitably lie just below the surface. Thus the so-called "common governance" is more like a temporary compromise, and the so-called world order is only a tentative agreement.  Generally speaking, the axis of Atlantic civilization is constituted of England and the United States, and all Atlantic countries are a part, either as followers or as resistors.  Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan all sought to transcend Atlantic civilization through resistance, and all failed, which, rather than weakening the Anglo-American alliance, stimulated and strengthened it, so that the English-speaking world has outshined all others, its genius extending for more than two centuries, comparable to the span of the ancient Roman empire or that of the Qin-Han unification.  In contrast, not only does the current Pacific civilization have only one foot in the "common governance" carried out by two heterogeneous civilizations, but the structure is also unequal.  In other words, “modern China” is still in the process of growth and maturation, and whether we are talking about the legitimacy of China’s political economy or the relative weakness of China’s economic and technological power, the truth is that the Sino-American “common governance” is an unequal triangle, so that this order is fated to be unstable.  As a still developing great country, China is currently creating its capacity to shape the world order, and the world order of the near future has yet to take shape, and is neither fair nor impartial.  Past history has long shown that "co-governance" is always unstable and temporary, which means that suspicion and competition are inevitable.  In a certain sense, it may be said that "common governance" is just a transitional stage toward a new order.  For example, when the Americans and the Soviets built their regional “co-governments” [i.e., Cold War blocs], these turned out to be merely transitional.  What was special about this case is that there was competition, and even fierce competition, but it did not result in large-scale conflict, which meant that the “common governance” or “divided rule” could be maintained.  Indeed, the difference between two heterogeneous civilizations is not only expressed in civilizational terms, but also in sharp conflicts of real political ideology (supposing that one of the ideologies is unchanging and adequate to maintain political legitimacy).  Hence the deep internal tensions of the co-governing system are inevitable, which makes adjustments to the system seem impossible.
 
It should be stressed that the revival of Chinese civilization means that the tradition of its own civilization has been restored after a century of harsh criticism and creative reinterpretation, or in other words, that it is an example of the conscious development of Chinese civilization and a self-revival. At the same time, China’s rise has also been conditional on the selective incorporation of Atlantic civilization and of the deeper Mediterranean civilization, through the vast changes in the world historical spirit and the flows of world history over the past five hundred years, by which I mean chiefly a set of concepts and institutions regarding national economic, political, and cultural construction, all based on Mediterranean civilization.  Hence we must understand that the self-conscious revival of China’s civilization and rise to great power status, accomplished through adopting and adapting outside institutions, means that China has only now completed its apprenticeship, illustrating only that she has been a “model student.”  China’s state-sponsored economic growth and authoritarian imposition of order seem to have copied the Soviet and German experiences, which has led to worries about the sustainability of such policies.  In sum, as a counterexample to the “failed country”—the greatest fear at the core of the “China problem”—the rise of East Asia has been not only the result of the self-preservation and growth of ancient civilizations, but also the result of accepting this learning process from Mediterranean civilization.  This has been a long and painful journey, a new life earned through the humiliation of being beaten and cursed.  In the process of nation-building and self-revival, a political philosophy grounded in “humiliation” creates complex civilizational phenomena and political, social, and psychological reactions.  Hence, although the above-mentioned ideological conflicts and the misunderstandings between heterogeneous civilizations are inevitable, the shocks can be minimized.[21]  Thereupon the responsibility to maintain co-governance and constant peace falls to the other side, and we ask that the West observe the revival of Chinese civilization with serenity, that it accept and acknowledge the maturation of China’s politics, as well as the development of the roles of “cultural China” and “political China” as those of a normal country in the world system.[22]
 
From another perspective, at this moment in the race, when Mediterranean civilization passes the baton to another modern civilization, if the “China moment” means only that the powerful “traditional China” has returned to replace today’s problematic “modern China,” then all China will have done it to continue the same race.  If today’s “modern China” were approaching maturity, particularly political maturity, and creating a lasting political legitimacy, this would mean that the “China problem” had been solved, which is perhaps true to a certain extent.  But if we announce that “China’s moment” is here, and make a big fuss about it, then whether in terms of self-expectation, or in terms of the moment’s value in the system of world history, it seems somewhat premature.  At a deeper level, in the formulation of the idea of “China’s moment in world history,” China’s wealth and power, democracy and civilization must have developed to a certain point, while at present these cannot yet serve as a model for others, particularly in terms of ideas or institutions.  Here, we have hardly innovated at all, even if China’s accomplishments have already affected the progress of world history and the direction of civilizational trends.  Consequently, if we see in China’s comprehensive revival the end of this wave of modern civilization, then this moment naturally is “China’s moment.”  If this is how we want to define the “handing over of the baton,” then we should celebrate it.  Maybe this is why Professor Qiu Feng has announced that “China’s moment in world history has already begun.”[23] 
 
In other words, the wave of modern civilization which, beginning in the Mediterranean, has profoundly changed the face of the world over the past five hundred years, seems not only to have experienced a certain decline in Old Europe, but its energies have dissipated in the New World as well.  The development of East Asian civilization over the past half century seems to be both a reversal and a revival of this civilization, adding to it through creative appropriation, thus putting an end to this nearly 500-year-old civilization.  England took the place of Spain and Holland, the United States took the place of its mother country, and in so doing, brought to conclusion to each leg of the relay race, in the process creating their own “moments.”  If what we mean by “China’s moment in world history” is really only this, then in terms of this meaning, I agree with Professor Qiu Feng’s basic pronouncement, in other words that after a century and a half of bitter struggle, China is shedding its student status, and becoming a world leader.  China has arrived at the center of the world stage and the center of world history, and in the first half of this new century, the most important world issue will be the rise of China as a world power and the major adjustments to be made as a result.  And considering that since the beginning of world history 500 years ago, all the great countries were European, this round of adjustment may be the most difficult, the shock to the existing world order most profound.
 
Chinese civilization is long, deep, and complex, which makes this process of succession an inevitable process of dialogue and communication between civilizations. It should also be a creative process of demonstrating goodwill, adding new meaning and energy, pushing the civilization to new heights and bringing to a close this particular wave of civilization.  Perhaps everyone will once again talk about the “end of history” as this summit approaches.  But the problem is that using [Confucian] concepts like “the inner cultivation of the power of virtue”[24] is insufficient to answer the question of whether China will ultimately be able to contribute new ideas or new energy.  When we look at all the existing “China models,” there are no persuasive, concrete models, either in terms of institutional practice, or civilizational or cultural significance.  And the institutional or cultural features put forward by outside China-watchers seem even further off the mark.[25]  What kind of new ideas and new energy could the resolution of the “China problem” provide, not only in terms of wealth and power, but against the backdrop of world history and civilization?  This is the key to knowing whether the dream of the “China moment” can come true.  The inner meanings and outward extensions of this process constitute the essence of the mature "modern China" that "Chinese consciousness" depicts and yearns for.
 
In the final analysis, whether it’s “Chinese consciousness” or “Russian consciousness,” or the “German project” or the “American dream,” all grew out of the same set of questions and desires.  Obviously there is no perfect answer to the question of whether or not this is “China’s moment.”  In other words, what has China contributed to world history through its impressive nation-building and its cultural transformation, in the context of the “change from ancient to modern?” What new ideas or energy can China add to a modern civilization which has already been developing for five hundred years in the context of the “change from Western to Chinese,” that will move world civilization forward, sharing the benefits of Chinese civilization?  In all of this, the key is the age of convergence of both “ancient and modern,” and “Eastern and Western.”  Otherwise, even if China’s economy is quite developed, and the civilization looks imposing because of the scale of the country, China remains at best only a model student of Mediterranean and Atlantic civilizations, and even as a proper undergraduate, what “China moment” is there to talk about? 
 
Professor Qiu Feng has observed with feeling that China must assume its historical responsibility; this is China’s destiny.  I agree with this.  In other words, given the heft and significance of the Chinese nation, the Chinese state, and Chinese civilization, then truly, either you’re the guy that’s “beaten” or “cursed” or you take up the “responsibility to lead the world.”  There’s no choice and no escaping it.  The trials and travails of the century following the Opium Wars were an exception in Chinese history.  Even today, when we’re “number two,” people still have a hard time believing it.  But this is destiny.  Smaller countries and civilizations, if they are managed well and blessed with resources, can be self-sufficient, and thus avoid this fate.  But a civilization like that of China’s, and modern China as a participant in (or creator of) the world system, is destined to play its role, whether she wants to or not.  And this is why, as Professor Xu Jilin has argued, that now is the time for China to be reborn as a “civilizational empire.”  In his paper for this conference, Professor Xu talked about “the new tianxia” and “civilizational empire.”  In my view, Professor Xu’s essay suggests a change in in his scholarship and perhaps changes in his views.  He says, “The rise of China as a civilizational empire may well be the event that will have the greatest impact on the twenty-first century.”[26]  As an ancient "civilizational empire," China was marginalized by the global capitalist-great power system beginning in the 19th century, and had to start its own nation-building process.  Yet “as a country with abundant population, territory, and resources, as well as an ancient tradition, there remained, within China’s civilization, a primitive urge to recreate the empire.”  China would never have chosen to exist as a marginalized country, and instead “had an imperial mission from the outset.”  True, at a certain level of meaning, today’s world is one where the “nation-state” and “empires” co-exist, and from the nineteenth century onward, China’s problem was not only to complete its mission of the construction of a nation-state, but also to integrate the world into its national experience, and accomplish the great enterprise of completing the “family state,” under the gaze of the world and in the context of the globalized world system.  In other words, given China’s vast size and extreme diversity, one way to build a “pluralistic unitary” nation was to adopt the “imperial form,” which is what Professor Xu Jilin has called “civilizational China.”
 
In this sense, it was “diversity” that obliged China to incorporate different civilizations through the imperial form.  By “different civilizations,” I do not mean the Tibetans or the Uighurs, who are part of the community of the Chinese nation, sub-groups who possess a fairly mature political civilization.  Instead, I am talking about Mediterranean and Atlantic civilizations, which, after absorption and digestion, become ingredients useful to the construction of Chinese civilization.  In fact, Tibetan and Uighur civilizations, as secondary groups and as ethnic lifestyles, have long been organic parts of the greater Chinese civilization, coexisting in the same way as did Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism in traditional China.  Many elements from Mediterranean and Atlantic civilizations, such as democracy and law, have also been absorbed into various aspects of modern Chinese civilization, testimony to the absorptive capacity of Chinese civilization.  From another perspective, to keep China from falling apart, it has also been necessary to construct a “unitary body.”  The result of that was nothing less than “the family-state-tianxia” complex, not the “nation-state,” not “empire,” not “tianxia.”  The term “civilizational empire” is aggressive and easily leads to misunderstanding, and the more familiar term “family-state-tianxia” expresses the meaning more clearly, and has a more humane and inclusive spirit.  In terms of the wealth of its meaning and its possible extensions, “family-state-tianxia” is a great concept bequeathed to us by tradition, a great pattern that combines individuality, universal feelings, and compassionate humanity into one.  All of the political, cultural and moral meanings of “nation-state,” “empire” and “universal” are contained in “family-state-tianxia.”
 
The founding of “modern China” involved both the process of the dissolution of the empire (Qing), and the recreation of another empire (“family-state-tianxia” is better here than “civilizational China”), both the project of nation-building (the “Republic of China” or the “People’s Republic of China”), and, urged on by the reconstruction of the empire,  the restructuring or re-narration of the meaning of nation-building, ultimately leading to the creation of a universal “family-state-tianxia” community.  Thus, in what looks like a paradox, the process creating “modern China” as a state employed the nation-state to sustain tianxia, and employed the empire, or “civilizational China,” or “family-state-tianxia” to bear the weight of the nation-state.  The difficulty, complexity and length of the process came not only from trying to recreate British, American or Russian examples, but also from the fact that if things went wrong, leading to the dissolution of “China,” then neither the nation-state or the family-state-tianxia would hold up.  Perhaps, deducing from the best possible outcome, it is precisely this seemingly contradictory aspect, in which each takes the other as a constitutive element, that ironically came to be a complete process of nation-building.
 
In addition, if we say that the United States is in fact an empire, and that the picture of China as a civilizational empire is merely a replica of the American empire, then setting aside the question of whether America is truly an empire or rather a “hidden empire” in a metaphorical sense, arguing that “China was born to be an empire” is straightforward.  Thus becoming an American-style “hidden empire” and on that basis establishing a “world order of the Chinese age” is really an ideal model, or at least something that can be debated.  In terms of political relations between countries, the “unity” in “pluralistic unity” is found in the sharing of the “world order of the Chinese age,” just as today we are all a part of the “world order of the American age,” and as we were once part of the “world order of the British age,” etc.   Unlike the Greek sages who focused on city-states, their counterparts in ancient China took tianxia as their frame of reference, and reflected on the governance of that world.  This is why the axial civilizations have been internalized in today’s China.  Even if you belong to today’s system of strong states, and participate in that world, the problem of “empire” remains unavoidable.  To a certain degree, China has always been a civilizational community masquerading as a country, and at the same time a precocious secular state in the form of a civilizational community.  Combining the two gives us precisely “family-state-tianxia.”
 
Yet, on precisely this point, continuing with Professor Xu’s argument, “the base of today’s China remains a strange mixture of universal capitalist utilitarian rationality and Oriental authoritarianism,” even if it ranks second in the world in terms of GDP, and the discourse of global civilization remains in the hands of the West, while Western political institutions continue to manifest their vitality.  So where are “China’s moment” and the “civilizational empire”?[27] If the future vision of a “family-state-tianxia” nothing more than a pious wish? 
 
5.  Universalism and the World Citizen Constitutional Order
 
Over the course of the past hundred years, “modern China” has gone through three waves of “reform and opening,” including the “Self-Strengthening movement,”[28] and has attempted both the “first Republic” and the “second Republic.”  At the present moment we are in a winding-up period, a period when we are doing our utmost to complete the remaining tasks.  Among these, the most central is that of constructing the political order of Chinese civilization, grounding a desirable political regime in a solid political legitimacy.[29]  In so doing, in accord with the consensus formed with like-minded colleagues in the academy, we might enter the glorious age of the “third Republic.”[30]  For this reason, proposing the theme of “China’s moment in world history,” points toward the historical consciousness that China's transformation, underway for two hundred years, is approaching its final stage, and is also a product of a world system with a deep sense of history and a global view of history.  At the same time, the theme brings with it all the more a political anxiety created by a realistic understanding of civilization.
 
In the final analysis, the “China problem” is not yet resolved, which means that the focus of “Chinese consciousness” remains on this question, and prognostications will come later.  In seeking a solution, what is urgent is to bring about political transformation and build a superior political regime within the framework of Chinese civilization, meaning that China “works politically.”  Having a politics that works is the greatest wisdom of a mature civilization, as well as the basis for the human order.  Only if national politics works can international politics work, and the same is true for the global order.  Therefore, to put it another way, the urgent task of China’s national construction today is to build an excellent political system, to establish and entrust the construction of the state to an excellent political system.  This is the key to long-lasting peace, and the lack of this excellent political system is the focus of concern in today’s China, compared to which problems in the South China Sea or with the Senkaku Islands[31] are mere details.  In the absence of this excellent political system characterizing “modern China” and bearing the weight of state rationality, modern China remains unfinished.  From another angle, the work required to construct an excellent political system is essentially the organic process of refining and shaping the rationality of modern China, and at the same time, it is also a national construction effort that aims to flesh out and institutionalize state rationality, a kind of self-institutionalizing and self-arming of state rationality.  And all of these are linked together, and may well pass through the “four bonds” and the “four constants.”  In this way, China will be in a secure position in the context of Hobsbawm’s “dual revolutions”[32] on which the modern order is based.  Here, an internal dialectical path is for an excellent political regime to bear the weight of state rationality, that is, to discipline the state’s rationality and will to power and ensure that the state is and will always be a public utility.  Only when the state and state rationality are entrusted to an excellent political regime will we gain great moral dignity.  “Modern China” needs this kind of moral dignity, and relies on this kind of moral dignity.
 
Finally, in ideal terms, “modern China” is the confluence of national ideals and citizen ideals, and should offer a peaceful republican home for all citizens, a family-state-tianxia community, so that the work of national construction is also a process of political construction whose goal is to fulfill national ideals and implement citizenship. This is also the basic meaning of Hobsbawm’s “dual revolution” [i.e, technological and political].  An excellent political regime is the core of this political building process, the pillar required for building a “democratic country.”  This is what China’s century-long transition has been searching for, and now finds itself at the center of this confluence, in which the differences between the current real political system and the far-reaching political ideals promote the convergence of the utility of political institutions and political principles.  On this subject, building an excellent political regime is also the final coronation ceremony for “modern China.”  We should bear in mind that China is still engaged in the reform process, a wrapping-up stage prior to the conclusion, which means that China remains half old and half new.  For this reason, using citizen rationality to salvage state rationality and using an excellent political regime to bear the weight of state rationality constitutes a desirable way to explore the excellent political regime against the backdrop of Chinese social and cultural history, and a necessary choice for maintaining political legitimacy in view of current reality and historical conditions. This will ensure that the political and legal space called "China" can become the political and social foundation for the peaceful cohabitation of hundreds of millions of citizens.  In the absence of this excellent political regime, the revolutionary process, underway for more than a century, to build “modern China” will all have been for naught.  If we abandon our efforts to establish this excellent political order, then there will be little to say about China’s tradition, and less to say about the establishment of “political China” and “cultural China.”  Moreover, in the final analysis, without the institutional support of an excellent political order, the ideals we cherish for the political community will lack the foundation necessary to their realization, and the possibility of building our cherished objective disappears.
 
If we succeed on this front, we can expand the domain to inter-state politics. From the perspective of the "liberal nationalist republican jurisprudence" that I love to talk about, universal concepts as viewed from the perspective of Chinese civilization, as well as the world citizen constitutional order, can both serve as outlines for the “China moment,” and may be indispensable dimensions of its legitimacy.  In the absence of this dimension, China cannot lead the world historical spirit and world historical trends.  I share Professor Qiu Feng’s feeling, and often sigh that the very evocation of the notion of “world history” implies a struggle for the leadership of mankind, because the transformation of “time” into “historical time,” just like the absorption of “history” into “world history,” is a subjective creation, not an “objective reality.”  For this reason, how a civilization tells the story of time reveals its particular energy and meaning.  Hegel said that rationality is the master of the world, which means that world history is a rational process.  He also said that despite its great diversity, world history is the process of spiritual development and realization, and the development of the "concept of freedom" constitutes the main current of history. Indeed, we might add that the way in which we tell the story of time is how we tell the story of freedom’s becoming mankind’s spiritual pursuit in modern times, and especially the history of its free movement among the nations of the world and its millions of people.  Thus universal concepts and the world citizen constitutional order, and their political construction, constitute the great questions that the next generations of Chinese scholars, scholars who feel their responsibility, must resolve.  “China’s moment in world history” is perhaps more than this, but the core meaning is here.
 
Notes
 
[1] Xu Zhangrun 许章润, “世界历史的中国时刻:  一个基于’中国问题’的’中国意识,’” paper presented at a conference on the same theme on December 15, 2012, inspired perhaps by the Time magazine cover of September 2009 (see http://content.time.com/time/covers/asia/0,16641,20090928,00.html ).  A transcription of the oral presentations is available in 开放时代 [Open Times], 2013.2, and online at http://www.opentimes.cn/Abstract/1858.html .  Xu makes reference to a conference volume, but I have been unable to determine if this was published or not.  In any event, Xu later published a book-length treatment (683 pages) of the subject:  国家理性与优良政体：关于’中国问题’的‘中国意识’ [The Reason of State and the Good Polity] (Hong Kong:  City University of Hong Kong Press, 2017).
 
[2] See Gloria Davies, Worrying about China:  The Language of Critical Inquiry. (Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 2009).
 
[3] See Xu Zhangrun, “Historical Consciousness in an Age of Transition:  On Historical Legal Studies and their Development in China, with Comparative Reference to the Case of Modern German History 转型时段的历史意识：关于历史法学及其中国情形的发生论说明，并以德国近代历史作为比较个案,” originally published in 清华大学学报 (Tsinghua University Journal) 2013.2, and later republished in Xu Zhangrun, 汉语法学论纲 (Outline of Chinese Legal Studies) (Nanning:  Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2014).
 
[4] Bernadetto Croce, History:  Its Theory and Practice.  Xu cites the Chinese translation.
 
[5] See Giambattista Vico, The New Science. Xu cites the Chinese translation.
 
[6] Translator’s note:  Tianxia means literally “all-under-heaven” and refers to China’s traditional notion of universalism, prior to the arrival of the West.  For an extended discussion of the concept, see Xu Jilin, “The New Tianxia:  Rebuilding China's Internal and External Order,” available on our website at https://www.readingthechinadream.com/xu-jilin-the-new-tianxia.html .  China’s rise has stimulated a major discussion in China of the utility of the idea of tianxia as an alternative to Western notions of international relations.  See for example William A. Callahan, “Chinese Visions of the World Order:  Post-Hegemonic or New Hegemony,” International Studies Review 10.4 (2008):  749-761, among many others.
 
[7] Taking the writings of the recently-deceased British historian Eric Hobsbawm as an example, the periodization of the 20th century he uses in his The Age of Extremes, i.e., the “age of catastrophe,” the “golden age,” and the “age of crisis,” is based wholly on Western experience.  The latter two "ages" do not fit for China and most East Asian countries.
 
[8] See Gao Quanxi’s contribution to the conference volume, entitled “Have we Entered China’s Moment? 我们何以进入中国时刻？”
 
[9] For a brief overview of Sinophone views of Western concepts of world history, see Chen Heng 陈恒and Hong Qingming 洪庆明, “Origins and Changes in Western concepts of  ‘World History’  西方‘世界历史’观念的源流与变迁,” 学术研究 (Academic Research) 2011.4:  102-109.
 
[10] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Historical Reason.  Xu cites a Chinese translation.
 
[11] Translator’s note:  Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968) was a Russo-French philosopher and statesman.
 
[12] See Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to Hegel.  Xu cites the Chinese translation.
 
[13] Translator’s note:  The Gongyangzhuan is a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals 春秋传, a Zhou-period work classically attributed to Confucius, in which Confucius can be seen as a visionary reformer.  Over the course of Chinas long history, the Gongyangzhuan has been used by Confucians such as Kang Youwei—and by today’s Mainland New Confucians--as an intellectual source for the advocacy of profound political changes which will emerge organically from the Confucian tradition.  Xu’s mention of this text is a pointed reference to New Confucian discourse in today’s China.
 
[14] Translator’s note:  A Song dynasty encyclopedia, published in 1161, which claimed to provide information about the known world.
 
[15] For example, the English historian Geoffrey Barraclough once pointed out, “How, in today’s world, can we be content with a view of history that devotes 90% of its attention to 25% of the world?”   See his Main Trends in History.  Xu cites the Chinese translation.
 
[16] Gao Quanxi, op. cit.
 
[17] Translator’s note:  The “family-state” 家国 refers to the traditional Confucian state, often interpreted according to familial metaphors.  For an extended discussion, see Xu Jilin, “After the ‘Great Disembedding:’ Family-State, Tianxia and Self,” available online at https://www.readingthechinadream.com/xu-jilin-great-disembedding.html .
​
[18] See my essay, “An Excellent Political Regime Should Bear the Weight of State Rationality 以优良政体承载国家理性,” in 社会科学论坛 (Social Science Forum) 2012.5: 102ff.  My forthcoming “Modern China:  Nationalist Country and Democratic Country 现代中国：民族国家与民主国家,” continues the discussion.
 
[19] Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy.  Xu cites the Chinese translation.
 
[20] On the “Russian consciousness,” see Ma Yinmao, “俄罗斯理念：需要澄清的几个问题” (Questions concerning the idea of Russia), 浙江学刊》2007年第5期; Zu Chunming, “‘俄罗斯意识’的建构特征——再看斯拉夫派与西方派的争论” (Special characteristics of the ‘Russian consciousness:’ Revisiting the debate between Slavists vs Westerners) 《开放时代》2012年第10期; and Bai Xiaohong 白晓红, 俄国斯拉夫主义 (Russian Slavism). (Beijing:  Shangwu yinshuguan, 2006).
 
[21] See my essay “辛丑条约：羞辱与感觉羞辱” (The Boxer Protocol:  Shame and Feeling Ashamed) 《读书》2013年第 3 期, as well as Ashis Nandy, “On Humiliation:  Cultural Psychology and Limits to the Politics of Insult,” cited in Chinese translation.
 
[22] One example might be the recent shift in American foreign policy from “pivot” to “rebalance.”
 
[23] Having said this, Professor Qiu Feng laments that “The Chinese elite lacks a morally appealing blueprint, whether they admit it or not.”  In the absence of a “blueprint,” one cannot help but wonder why we’re talking about the “China moment.”  Qiu commits a failure of logic here.  See his essay in the conference volume, entitled “世界历史的中国时刻” (China’s Moment in World History).  Translator’s note:  Yao Zhongqiu 姚中秋 (b. 1966), who often publishes under the pen-name Qiu Feng 秋风, is professor at the Advanced Institute of Confucian Studies at Shandong University in Ji’nan, and a leading scholar among Mainland New Confucians. 
 
[24] Professor Qiu Feng uses rhetoric like “transformation through culture and virtue,” and “cultivating culture and morality to bring peace to the world” when asked for concrete political solutions or approaches to political practice.  These are wildly impractical and unfocused.  If Confucian civilization is an important part of the revival of Chinese civilization and integral to the process of building “modern China,” then Confucian civilization must put forth a set of universal concepts and plans, illustrating the power of Confucian arguments in the world marketplace of ideas.  Otherwise, in my humble opinion, they are headed for a dead end.  This is true for Liberals and cultural conservatives as well as New Confucians; we all should practice the virtue of self-restraint, and demonstrate goodwill and magnanimity, even as we make our strongest arguments concerning culture and civilization in the marketplace of ideas.  As for official ideology—if today’s China still has a systematic ideology to speak of—in my opinion no one would dare enter it into free competition on the marketplace of ideas, so this is another matter altogether.
 
[25] Aside from the “Beijing Consensus,” another example is John Naisbitt, the American famous for his work on “trends,” who in 2009 published his China’s Megatrends:  Eight Pillars for a New Society, in which he praised the “China model,” and particularly China’s very own “vertical democracy.”  Xu cites the Chinese translation.
 
[26]  Xu Jilin 许纪霖： “新天下主义：中国如何作为文明帝国出现在世界,”(The New Tianxia:  How China Can Join the World as a New Civilizational Empire), in the conference volume.  A revised version of Xu’s essay is available on our website at https://www.readingthechinadream.com/xu-jilin-the-new-tianxia.html .
 
[27] In his essay for this conference, Professor Gao Quanxi points out that “Although today’s China is an independent, sovereign country, it nonetheless lacks the support of internal legitimacy, and internal governance has yet to build a solid constitutional rule.  At base China is a one-party state, where politics and economics are under Party control.  This makes it difficult to evolve toward a liberal order or toward a legitimate form of sovereignty, and in fact produces doubts concerning the legitimacy of the regime…How can a politically handicapped nation talk about cultural politics?  How can a country that lacks core institutions of modern politics such as constitutionalism, democracy, and rule of law dare to talk about universal modernity and cultural agency?”
 
[28] Translator’s note:  The Self-Strengthening Movement 洋务运动, beginning in the 1860s, was China’s first attempt at institutional reform following the arrival of West.
 
[29] See the second part of my essay, “An Excellent Political Regime Should Bear the Weight of State Rationality,” in 社会科学论坛 (Social Science Forum) 2012.5, entitled “Three ‘Reform and Openings’ and Six Revolutions.”
 
[30] Translator’s note:  This is a major theme in the work of liberal scholars like Gao Quanxi, who argues that China needs to mark the ultimate end of its long revolutionary period with a new constitutional era and a “third republic.”  See Gao Quanxi, Zhang Wei, and Tian Feilong, The Road to the Rule of Law in China (Berlin:  Springer, 2015).
 
[31] Translator’s note:  The Senkaku islands (Diaoyutai 钓鱼台in Chinese) are located in the East China Sea, and are claimed by China, Japan and Taiwan.
 
[32] See Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848.  Xu cites the Chinese translation.