中国平安 是王沪宁在指导国策的制定
李洪德 2022年10月26日
https://blog.creaders.net/user_blog_diary_release.php?action=3&page=1
看见文章《王沪宁为未来豪赌 但不会赢》和美国政治圈的神秘大仙 N.S.Lyons 的文章 The triumph and terror of wang huning《王沪宁的胜利与恐惧》,说,王沪宁是中共最顶尖的意识形态理论家,习近平每个标志性的政治概念都是他提出来的,包括“中国梦”、反腐运动、“一带一路”倡议、战狼外交,甚至“习近平思想”。原来是社会学家王沪宁在指导中国国策的制定,放心了,静等美国被美国自己人和它们一起努力,玩完。美国政客胁迫欧洲政客,把欧洲玩完,为世界人民除害
中国政治局常委王沪宁,在30多年前的1987年,就写了《比较政治分析》,认为:“所有的社会科学研究都是比较的,只是各人的分析理论不一,比较向度相异。” 并预见说:“历史告诉我们,人类正处在政治时代,政治活动和政治关系日益决定着人类各政治共同体和人类全体的发展。” “政治研究的科学化,政治研究的充分发展,已经成为人类各政治共同体发展的一个必要前提,已经成为人类共同进步的一个共同前提。”
在30多年前的1991年,基于80年代对美国的6个月访问,王沪宁写了《美国反对美国》,剖析了美国社会结构中的种种致命弊端,因此,中国不能走美国的自由民主之路。
回顾中国内政外交的理性做法,只帮助建设社会基础设施,发展经济,不干涉其内政,在世界各国欢迎。西方人的支援,夹杂贩卖自己迷信的、祸害自己国家和世界的民主政治和普世价值,总想如何推翻人家的合法政府,人们避之如瘟疫。再看看美国政治圈的神秘大仙老神 N.S.Lyons的评论,王沪宁这个中共最顶尖的意识形态理论家,是不是很合格。
2007年2月27日,美国经济学家,纽约大学经济学教授,威廉•伊斯特利 (William Easterly)出版书籍The white man's burden: why the west's efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good《白人的负担:为什么西方帮助其他人的努力造成了如此多的坏处和如此少的好处》,是他对西方针对世界穷人的经济政策的控诉。他认为我们西方需要面对自己无能的历史并得出正确的结论,尤其是在我们移植西方制度的能力问题已经成为我们面临的最紧迫的问题之一。
威廉•伊斯特利教授在书中写道,为什么世界银行的数十亿美元、美国国际开发署的赠款和国际货币基金组织的“减贫与增长基金”提供贷款的大部分都消失了?因为,这些计划的设计主要是为了反映捐赠者的兴趣以及他们对接受者最有利的看法。由于用于捐助的现金是由负责援助的官僚们管理的,他们对援助的结果不负责任,因而,没有责任心。自上而下的目标设定和规划心态排除了实际需要的信息以及项目失败的反馈。大多数贫穷国家的政府都很糟糕,其中援助资金被吸走到瑞士银行账户,腐败官员破坏了初级市场的运作,增加了经商成本并阻碍了私营企业的发展。
在2002年,威廉•伊斯特利教授出版The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in The tropical《难以捉摸的增长追求:经济学家在热带的冒险与不幸》一书,指出,自二战结束以来,经济学家一直试图弄清楚热带地区的贫困国家如何才能达到接近欧洲和北美国家的生活水平,尝试提供外国援助作为补救措施。但是,帮助贫穷国家改善其经济福祉的尝试失败了。因为,问题不在于经济学的失败,而在于未能将经济学原理应用于实际援助政策与工作。他断言,西方组织在减轻全球贫困方面完全无效,为此,他立即被当时的雇主世界银行解雇。
显然,王沪宁提出的“一带一路”倡议,帮助它国建设发展基础设施,提供发展经济的基本条件,并亲自组织力量实施,确保成功。这符合威廉•伊斯特利教授所说的将经济学原理应用于实际援助政策与工作。一带一路是唯一可持续发展的援助方法。因为,不仅仅是贫穷国家,即使是许多发达国家,也没有能力自己完成基础设施建设。
有报道,截至2023年6月底,已经有150多个国家、30多个国际组织签署了共建“一带一路”合作文件。通过一带一路链接全球国家,能促进不同政体国家之间的经济、文化和人民的联系和融合,促进世界和平繁荣。
2022年10月28日,文章《外媒:民调显示发展中国家民众对华好感度上升去》说,英国剑桥大学民主未来中心最近进行的一项民调显示,发展中国家目前有62%的人对中国有好感,61%的人对美国有好感。这些数据融合了30个全球调查项目,涵盖97%的世界人口。生活在全球136个非西方式民主国家的63亿人口中,有70%的人对中国持正面看法,认为自由主义国家的民主制度存在缺陷。在大部分人对西方式民主制度感到不满的国家当中,有四分之三国家的大多数民众对中国持有正面看法。
报道称,中国赢得发展中国家的支持背后也有经济原因。中国在2013年提出了“一带一路”倡议,已经同147个国家和32个国际组织签署200余份合作文件,用来建设能源基础设施和交通运输项目。在获得“一带一路”倡议支持的国家的民众当中,有近三分之二的人对中国持正面看法。
显然,王沪宁的一带一路倡议,是正确的,因为,符合经济学规律,符合大多数国家和人民的利益。
再看看新冠疫情导致得物价飞涨,是因为物资短缺吗?不是,那是为什么呢?又是西方人用好的初衷,制造坏的结果。
西方自由世界鼓吹的市场原教旨主义,或新自由主义(Neoliberalism)的政治与经济哲学,强调自由市场的自我调控机制,反对国家对经济的干预和对商业行为和财产权的管制,这符合英国经济学家亚当斯密提出的看不见的手 - 让自由市场自我调控的的主张,通过人们满足私欲的经济活动,促进经济发展,取的社会利益。然而,新自由主义哲学的实际社会效果,却是在支持贪婪之徒合法掠夺。
看看2022年10月27日的报道,《欧洲部分现货天然气一度跌至负值!能源危机解决了》。显然,天然气价格飞涨,不是资源短缺,是贪婪之徒合法掠夺的结果。现在,天然气价格跌了,可是,欧洲人还是必须用原来的高价使用已经采购的天然气,因为,他们的民猪政客,已经用他们钱,为他们事先付款了,已经亲手把钱装入他人的口袋。
看看2022年10月25日文章,《全美鸡肉行业被他们垄断!你以为是通胀,其实是在被吸血》,美国最大的鸡肉生产商泰森食品公司将向华盛顿州支付1050万美元以解决一项诉讼,泰森食品公司与其主要竞争对手合作,长期操纵价格并操纵合同,抬高从鸡块到鸡胸肉到大力水手鸡肉三明治的价格。
在看看现在满天飞的经济学名词儿,“抄底”“买空”,起伏不定的价格 - 货币,大宗商品,等等;巨额流动的国际热钱,都是以掠夺实体经济为代价贪婪谋私,实体经济制造业的利润越来越薄,只能倒闭,人类社会失去生存的根基。
2010年3月20日, 美联社文章 Food aid helped destroy Haiti's ability to feed itself, ex-President Clinton says《前总统克林顿说,粮食援助破坏了海地的自给能力》说,数十年的廉价进口——尤其是来自美国的大米——在各种危机中加上大量援助,破坏了当地农业,使海地等贫困国家无法养活自己。今天,海地几乎所有的生计都依赖外部世界。根据 2005 年的数据,该国51%的食物是进口的,其中80%的大米都是进口的。专注于解决海地问题的世界领导人首次承认,放松贸易壁垒只会加剧海地和其他地方的饥饿。
美国前总统比尔·克林顿(现任联合国海地特使)本月公开道歉,因为他支持破坏海地大米生产的政策。克林顿在 1990 年代中期鼓励这个贫困国家大幅降低进口美国大米的关税。“这可能对我们阿肯色州的一些农民有好处,这是一个错误。”“不是其他人,而是我的所作所为,我每天都不得不忍受在海地生产水稻作物来养活那里人的能力丧失的后果。”
联合国人道主义事务负责人约翰·霍姆斯告诉美联社:“食品援助和廉价进口产品的结合……导致海地农业缺乏投资,这种情况必须扭转。”“这是一个全球现象,但海地是一个典型的例子。我认为这是我们应该开始的地方。”
2021年9月18日,上万海地人聚集美墨边境,美国又现难民危机 - RFI
2021年9月21日,海地难民花一个月穿越11国抵美一天内被美飞机送回起点
2021年9月21日,美国大规模驱逐海地难民:每天安排多趟飞机遣送
2021年9月21日,美洲/美国- 移民周揭示海地难民的悲惨遭遇 - Agenzia Fides
2021年9月25日,“美国梦”叕碎:拜登不顾海地难民死活,1.5万人被野蛮驱逐
2021年9月25日,联合国专家谴责美国集体驱逐海地移民和难民 - UN News
这就是西方自由世界盲目鼓吹市场原教旨主义,或新自由主义(Neoliberalism)的政治与经济哲学的必然恶果。看看联合国人道主义事务负责人约翰·霍姆斯所说:食品援助和廉价进口产品的结合,导致海地农业缺乏投资,这是一个全球现象。
事实正如威廉·伊斯特利教授所说,自二战结束以来,经济学家一直试图弄清楚热带地区的贫困国家如何才能达到接近欧洲和北美国家的生活水平,尝试提供外国援助作为补救措施。但是,帮助贫穷国家改善其经济福祉的尝试失败了。因为,问题不在于经济学的失败,而在于未能将经济学原理应用于实际援助政策与工作。
2022年10月26日,文章《德媒:“西方是最好的”已过时,现在的口号是“向东看”》说,德国最著名的驻非洲记者法比安·佩尔奇在德国“中国平台”网站10月21日发表文章《中国在非洲的速度十分惊人》说,中国模式在卢旺达和埃塞俄比亚等国极受欢迎,因为西方模式没能带来它所承诺的繁荣。
40年来,法比安·佩尔奇见证了中国在非洲大陆存在的持续增加。他认为所谓中国“新殖民主义”的偏见是错误的,在“非洲争夺战”中,中国人比欧洲人更有远见。
令我感到惊讶的是,一些偏僻村庄的孩子突然不再称我为“白人”,而是用“中国,中国”来回应我。自世纪之交以来,越来越多的中国人来到非洲:企业家、商人、移民。因此,我产生了一种感觉:白人已经完结自己的使命,并且正被中国人取代。
殖民主义这个词并不适用于中国在非洲的存在。殖民国家占领、征服殖民地并将其据为己有,将政治权力掌握在自己手中。当地人没有话语权,他们只是被剥削的对象。然而,中国并没有干涉合作国的内政。我们不能说中国采取的是殖民战略。
中国早就超过欧洲和北美的贸易伙伴。与中国人不同,欧洲人对非洲仍有顾虑,仍然认为在非洲投资存在重大风险。中国20年来的参与比西方60年来的发展援助创造了更多的经济价值。
中国在非洲建设大型项目,例如大坝、机场、港口、移动通信网络、管道、医院等,非洲人民会看到这些并心怀感恩。此外,中国模式在卢旺达和埃塞俄比亚等国极受欢迎,因为西方模式没能带来它所承诺的繁荣。“西方是最好的”已经成为过去时,现在许多地方的口号是:向东看!
文章最后说,一名在赞比亚的中国企业家,发明了一种从残渣堆中提炼铜渣的技术,并通过这种方式创造了1000个就业岗位。他资助当地建起一所学校,还捐赠了电脑。在我看来,他是那种不是仅仅为了索取,而是也为了给予而来到非洲的中国人。作为来到非洲的中国企业家,他是一个很好的例子,打破了一切偏见。
我认为,这一切源自西方文明的兽性基因,致使他们认错为对,行错为好。
西方人杜撰的政治设计和意识形态没都是基于杀戮和掠夺的黑暗世纪,一切都与黑暗世纪时不能享受的东西相反,自由民主,价值,自由和人权,都是如此而来。他们提出的自由世界,每个人都自由自在,无拘无束,真美好。其初衷也是好的,只是产生的结果是坏的。
看看北美,看看欧洲,西方人自傲的自由世界,都被自由玩耍的它们自己玩完了,经济衰退,越来越乱,人们没有安全感,无法生存。因为,不是所有具有人类面孔的人,都具有人类的本性,有的人素质低下,是兽性。鼓吹自由世界的实际效果,是支持坏人合法胡为,危害好人。制造经济危机,挑起代理人战争,把世界玩完。
西方文明的危害在于其欺骗性,剧毒无比,只要沾上一丁点儿,就会被胁迫兽性发作。其驯化的所谓砖枷,都是兽性思维的智障,所谓的智库,都是发酵剧毒思想的坛子,驱动自由世界玩弄智障民主的智障政客们胡闹,害人害己。
在中国,许多接受过西方教育的人,尤其是政、经学者,也极力推崇玩西方的智障游戏,祸国殃民。甚至西医,也不符合人类生命。
无论是人类社会,还是人类生命,都过于复杂,是受潜在模式和确定性规律控制的混沌系统,必须以整体论来对待。中国能够快速控制疫情,源自中医道家哲学的正确指导。
中国的道家哲学以整体辩证观看世界,认为宇宙是由无数对立统一体构成的对立统一体。组成这些对立统一体的双方,既排斥,又吸引,互为存在的基础,处于自动平衡状态,分别用阴和阳代表对立的双方。
古老道家哲学的整体辩证观完美符合自然科学揭示的现实世界,没有虚假的幻想。
在客观世界,无论是构成万物的原子的原子核与核外电子,太阳系的恒星与行星,还是宇宙的不同星系,都是既排斥又吸引的对立统一体,处于自动平衡状态。
在主观世界,矛盾的双方也是既互相排斥又互相吸引的对立统一状态,互为存在的基础,一方消失,另一方也不能存在,双方的强弱地位互相转换,处于动态平衡状态。
古老道家哲学的整体辩证观完美符合客观现实世界,因此,能够正确地指导人们处理人与自然、人与社会、人与人,人与心灵和人类自身的复杂问题。
中医是以的道家哲学的原理和术语发展而来,视人体为对立统一的有机整体。千年前,中医就发现心理因素对疾病发展的决定性的影响,认为疾病的治疗是三分在治,七分在养。认为,人体是各器官紧密联系的有机整体,疾病的产生是因为身体的某些部位失衡所致。一个平衡良好的人体能有效地应对疾病,所以,中医以恢复身体的阴、阳平衡作为预防和治疗疾病的手段。
复方用药是中医的独特治病方法,就是针对综合症的不同症状,选用不同的药物,合为一剂使用。现代西医研究,复方用药能产生协同增效作用,参与复合的药物种类越多,治疗作用越强,副作用越低。这个发现间接证明了古老中医复方用药的科学性。
1980 年代,德国政府组织了约 300 多项植物药物临床研究,发表报告Phytomedicine Research in Germany说,植物药具有与化学药物完全等效的治疗效果,同时,具有没有副作用的优势。草药及其提取物制剂的作用机制,在许多方面与合成药物或单一物质的作用机制不同,可以表述为多价作用,或者是增效作用。文章特别提到,在德国,临床上,自然药物与合成药物同等对待使用,纳入政府的医疗保险。
许多现代研究,也证明了复方药物产生“多价作用”,和“增效作用”的存在。
2013 年 11 月 14 日,路易斯安那州、斯坦利斯科特癌症中心的学者发表文章Simultaneous Inhibition of Cell-Cycle, Proliferation, Survival, Metastatic Pathways and Induction of Apoptosis in Breast Cancer Cells by a Phytochemical Super-Cocktail: Genes That Underpin Its Mode of Action《通过植物化学超级鸡尾酒同时抑制乳腺癌细胞的细胞周期、增殖、存活、转移途径和诱导细胞凋亡:支持其作用方式的基因》说,姜黄、大豆、茶、葡萄、西兰花、大蒜、番茄、迷迭香、欧芹和姜,单独应用,它们对癌症无效。但是,一旦合用,在实验室条件下,抑制了80%以上的乳腺癌细胞的生长,并最终引发了导致细胞死亡的过程。
2019年9月30日,文章Fruit fly trial unlocks clues for 'polypill' to beat aging《三联常用药物组合使果蝇寿命延长48%》报道,英国伦敦大学的研究人员发现,锂、曲美替尼和雷帕霉素,单独使用,可分别延长果蝇平均寿命11%,将任意两个合用,可以延长果蝇寿命30%,如果将三者联合,果蝇寿命的延长,高达48%。
2003年11月12日,文章《美公司测试称中国专家研制的中药制剂可抗艾滋病病毒》说,田圣勋毕业于河南中医学院,1990年开始作为援非中国医疗队成员在赞比亚卡布韦工作,随后在赞比亚首都卢萨卡开办一家中医诊所.用中医药治疗艾滋病。美国马里兰州生物模拟公司的测试结果表明,田圣勋开发的两种纯中药制剂具有抗艾滋病病毒活性,同时无明显毒副作用。
2021年1月30日,文章Mechanism and material basis of Lianhua Qingwen capsule for improving clinical cure rate of COVID-19: a study based on network pharmacology and molecular docking technology报告,莲花清瘟共有160种生物活性组分,通过57个靶蛋白,35个信号通路和Toll样受体信号通路治愈新冠患者。
这些事实提示我们,最佳药物来自复方用药产生协同增效作用,参与复合的药物种类越多,疗效越强,副作用越低。
中医复方用药产生协同增效作用的机理,揭穿了用单一成分双盲临床实验药物好坏的致命荒谬,因而,我说西医医学是伪科学。
看看德国人的理性,再看看中医的诞生地中国,感觉悲哀。被西医驯化的精神病大仙,还有许多没有学过任何医学的智障们,一直在喋喋不休,极力扼杀中医和中药。
任何疾病都是多方位损伤和不断发展的综合症。虽然,新冠病毒是单一诱因致人染病,然而,其损伤却是多方面和持续恶化的,因而,按西医查病因开发对症药的方式是不可能的。必须遵循中医复方用药,同时提供大量的药物成份,就像散弹枪的弹丸,盲射,能同时击中多靶点,治愈多方面损伤。
西医以哲学机械还原论作为医学指导。
有说,机械还原论发起人是法国哲学家、数学家和科学家笛卡尔,解析几何的奠基者,他认为,如果一件事物过于复杂,难以解决,可以将它分解成一些足够小的问题,分别加以分析,然后再将它们组合在一起,就能获得对复杂事物的完整、准确的认识。也就是说,难以理解的复杂系统、事务、现象,可以拆解为最基本的简单组成部分来理解和描述。
据此哲学指导,西医视人体为无生命构件的简单机械组合,以无限细分人体为微观独立单元来研究疾病的产生和发展,如,蛋白质,基因,甚至核糖核酸;以寻求杀戮致病原和基因修补作为疾病预防和治疗的手段。无视人体是对立统一的有机整体,无视心理因素对疾病的产生和发展决定性影响。
由于西医是基于严谨的科学实验,有理有据。因此,令人信服。此外,2003年,人类基因组计划完成,人们确信,从此,人类可以如同拨动时针一样根除疾病。根据基因技术,西医甚至能够用试管制造生命,对农作物进行改造,提高食物的品质和产量。还有用用双盲临床实验,确保药物的安全可靠,更是令人五体投地般折服。因而,人们对西医医学的迷信,如同瘾君子痴迷海洛因,无法自拔。迷恋西医,确信只有西医才是可以信赖的医学。
我不否认西医医学的巨大贡献,然而,在药物研发和利用方面,西医驯化太多的人处于精神病状态,行为失常,邪恶不自知。
西医治病力求用精准阻击步枪,看似正确无比,极其科学理性。然而,由于无法制造精准弹丸。因此,其实际效果,却是荒谬绝伦。
1955年,西医发现没药物的安慰剂,能取得50 - 60%的临床治愈,这接近中医的三分治七分养。西医发现,许多西药的疗效低于安慰剂,还副作用杀人。规定双盲临床实验证明药物的有效性,结果,自那时以来,西医一直在批发西医精神病大仙,用双盲临床试验,用单一成分实验,踢开复方应用有效的药物。
现代西医心理作用研究 证明了三分治七分养的正确性。
2008年1月8日,文章 Report: Stress Causes Everything《心理压力引起一切疾病》介绍了一项跨越心理学、医学、神经科学和遗传学学科的研究,说,坦率地讲,心理压力对你有害,它可以杀死你。研究表明,心理压力会导致从牙龈到心脏的各种疾病恶化,并且会使您更容易患上从普通感冒到癌症的各种疾病。
1930年代,Hans Selye 提供了心理压力与健康之间联系的第一条线索,他是第一位将“压力”一词(当时只是一个工程术语)应用于生物体的科学家。
皮质醇被认为是心理压力与疾病联系的罪魁祸首之一,尽管它在帮助我们应对威胁方面发挥着必要的作用。当动物察觉到危险时,系统就会启动信号的连锁反应,从肾脏上方的肾上腺释放各种激素——最显着的是肾上腺素、去甲肾上腺素和皮质醇。
这些激素可提高心率,增加呼吸,并增加血液中葡萄糖(细胞燃料)的可用性,从而实现著名的“战斗还是逃跑”反应。因为这些反应需要大量的能量,皮质醇同时通知其他昂贵的物理过程 — 包括消化、繁殖、身体生长和免疫系统的某些方面 — 关闭或减慢。
当威胁过去,身体的压力恒温器会相应调整:皮质醇水平恢复到基线(需要 40-60 分钟),肠道恢复消化食物,性器官重新启动,并且免疫系统恢复抵抗感染。
但是,当威胁过去,压力没有减轻时,问题就会出现 — 或者由于各种原因,大脑会不断地感知压力,即使它实际上并不存在。
压力始于大脑对危险的感知,并且似乎持续的压力实际上可以通过改变大脑结构(例如控制对威胁的感知和反应的那些结构)来使大脑偏向于感知更多危险。长时间接触皮质醇,会抑制新神经元的生长,并可能导致杏仁核的生长增加,杏仁核是大脑中控制恐惧和其他情绪反应的部分。
最终结果是提高了对环境威胁的期望和关注。压力荷尔蒙还会抑制海马体部分神经元的生长,海马体是形成新记忆所必需的大脑区域。通过这种方式,压力会导致记忆障碍。
一些研究人员认为,这些大脑变化是压力和抑郁之间联系的核心,这是压力对健康造成的最具破坏性的后果之一,是 创伤应激障碍 (PTSD)。
对于新冠病的治疗,西方的医生拒绝中医药,用双盲临床实验证实的科学药物治疗,导致大量患者死亡和后遗症,中国的医生采用中西医结合,用不科学的复方药物治疗,减少了死亡和后遗症。
如果,没有西医驯化的精神病大仙的胡闹,这个不科学,那个没经过验证,威吓人们不敢用易得的自然药物自救,全球650万新冠逝者的90%还活着。
西方明智的学者和政治家,早已看清,西方文明的那些玩意儿,有致命问题。
自由民主这玩意儿,就是一个政治赌场,社会垃圾合法纠结为党,在国会在国会互相为敌,竞争执政党席位,然后,分享国家的行政职位,享受豪华的工资,豪华的福利,豪华的政治特权。
2014年5月,文章Luxury EU junkets for MEPs cost taxpayer over euro 5m a year《欧洲议会议员的豪华旅行每年花费纳税人的钱超过500万欧元》报道,“欧洲议会成员每年花费超过500万欧元用于所谓的“实况调查”旅行,前往世界上一些最豪华的目的地,仅在过去两年中,就有160次旅行。”“欧洲议会议员在仆人和翻译的陪同下,前往数十个豪华目的地,包括巴巴多斯、印度、印度尼西亚、毛里求斯、萨摩亚、特立尼达和印度洋的塞舌尔群岛共和国。”平均费用为每人13,379欧元。
理性的德国人愤而采取行动;2019年1月文章 EU on the brink: German eurosceptics threaten 'DEXIT' unless EU parliament is ABOLISHED《欧盟濒临崩溃:德国欧洲制度怀疑论者威胁“退欧”,除非废除欧盟议会》说,欧洲议会有751名议员、44,000名官员和11,000名员工,每年花费超过80亿欧元;其中4,000名官员的年收入超过29万欧元,超过了德国总理安格拉·默克尔的薪水。德国的右翼替代方案(AfD)承诺提出“退出”,除非欧盟能够在2019年至2024年之间的立法期间实施“基本改革”。
2020年4月12日,彭博社主编John Micklethwait博士和《经济学人》的政治编辑Adrian Wooldridge博士,在彭博社网站,联名发表文章,The virus should wake up the west《病毒应唤醒西方》,无奈失望地叹息:“政府的工作就是保护其公民。然而,新冠状病毒大流行表明,欧洲和美国的主要政府机构已无法胜任工作。”
“自霍布斯(Hobbes)时代以来,世界已经全面发展。当他写《利维坦》时,是中国而不是欧洲是卓越的行政管理的中心。中国是世界上最强大的国家,拥有世界上最大的城市(北京有超过一百万的居民),世界上最强大的海军和世界上最先进的公务员制度,其成员都是学者文官,这些文官是从庞大的帝国中经过严格科举考试选拔的 。”
“欧洲是封建家族之间争斗血拼的战场”,“事实上,是欧洲人为争夺统治权而进行的斗争推动了西方政府的进步:欧洲君主攫取技术创新,特别是新船和武器,以提高生存的机会。中国人发明火药,是用来燃放烟花。欧洲人确用它把对方(然后是中国人)从水中吹了出来。”
“现在,西方政府的优势值得怀疑:简单地问问自己,今天,在纽约和伦敦,在新加坡和首尔,您是否会有安全感?亚洲正在赶上西方,并且一些较小的国家已经赶超了西方,这在很大程度上是因为在过去的几十年中,尤其是儒家亚洲一直认真对待政府,而西方却允许它僵化。”
“在意识形态争论的背后,西方政府的主要问题其实很简单:它已经过时了。”“许多主要的政府机构已经被扭曲变形,过时了。”
弗朗西斯·福山 Francis Fukuyama,日裔美籍学者。哈佛大学政治学博士,曾师从塞缪尔·亨廷顿。1992年,鉴于柏林墙的推倒,社会主义阵营的自我玩完,他写了The end of history and the last man《历史之终结与最后一人》,让他一举成名。该书认为自由民主制和西方自由市场资本主义及其生活方式在世界范围内的传播,可能标志着人类社会文化演变的终点,并成为最后的政府形式。
然而,22年后,鉴于美国政府的驴和象两个牲畜党派恶性互斗,瘫痪政府运作,无法进行有效的社会治理,2014年10月10日,还是同一个弗朗西斯·福山,在美国外交事务杂志发表文章America in Decay, The Sources of Political Dysfunction《美国衰落,政治失调的根源》,说,美国衰落,没有出路,只有死路一条。
1992年,为了回应自己学生的致命错误言论,政治科学家塞缪尔·亨廷顿,立刻在美国企业研究所发表演讲《文明的冲突》。1996年,出版书籍 The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order《文明的冲突与世界秩序的重塑》,指出:“在新兴的种族冲突和文明冲突中,西方信仰的西方文化的普遍性遭受三个问题:它是虚假的,它是不道德的,它是危险的。
他认为,西方价值观和政治制度普遍性的信仰过于天真,继续坚持民主化作为普遍规范,将激起其他文明的反对。他认为西方不愿意接受这一事实,是因为它们已经建立了国际制度,已经写进了法律,并以联合国宪章的形式固定。
9年后,2001年9月11日,纽约世贸中心双塔被恐怖袭击,就是美国推销民主政治,激起伊斯兰文明的激烈反击。证明了缪尔·亨廷顿文明冲突论的先见之明。
英国人的祖先,是自由民主政治制度的发起者之一。他们的后人,对民主这玩意儿,不但,不以为然,而且,还极其蔑视。
2019年7月29日,YouTube视频:接下来的40年会发生什么?英国SingularityNET公司的创始人兼首席执行官,汉森机器人技术有限公司首席科学顾问,Ben Goertzel博士,极力推崇中国人务实,社会治理高效。还特意说:“中国是由工程师管理,美国是由律师管理,英国是由傻瓜管理。”China is run by engineers, whereas the US is run by lawyers, the UK is run by morons。这里是视频链接: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkZGYjXSIvc
因为,民主是人渣的游戏,所以,民主国家的人渣政客,一旦当选,就自以为是世界领袖,立刻拎起意识形态(自由、人权)这根瞎子拐杖,在国会,在国际,寻找目标进行攻击。
自由民主选举社会垃圾胡闹,神圣的国会,被智障们用来拉帮结派,互相争斗,谋取私利的赌场。自由民主,就是帮助低素质的人把国家机器当作拐杖来玩耍,危害人类生存。
2019年,文章 Chrystia Freeland: Liberal democracies are being "hijacked by angry populist politicians《克里斯蒂亚·弗里兰德:自由民主制被愤怒的民粹政客劫持》写到;加拿大现任金融大臣和副总理克里斯蒂亚·弗里兰德说 “疑虑正在自由民主国家内部蔓延……;自由民主社会正在被极化,被分裂为敌对的–甚至交战的–彼此无法交流的部落,社会被愤怒的民粹政客劫持。” 弗里兰德说,这个问题存在于“不愉快的自由民主国家”中,“其中的细节也许是独特的,但是,基本故事情节相同。”
2019年,加拿大商业委员会首席执行官戈尔迪·海德撰文The political pendulum has swung too far to one extreme《政治的钟摆已经被甩到一个极端》:现在,我们对批评的欲望已经超过了对创造的渴望,政客们已经不能行使其政治权威。我们程序设置的障碍,使得少数人可以制止大多数加拿大人认可的倡议。重要的项目,计划和政策被延迟,直到支持者放弃继续推进的努力。
错误的政治设计和意识形态,摧毁美国的根基
2018年,哈佛肯尼迪政府学院的美国政治学家格雷厄姆·艾利森教授在Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap一书中,介绍了华盛顿地铁银线项目,1968年开始筹划,2000年启动,2009年开工,2014年一期竣工。时隔46年,只完成了34个站点的5个。教授叹息,不知连接杜勒斯机场的第二阶段何时完成。
教授还介绍了另一个项目,即肯尼迪学院和哈佛商学院之间横跨查尔斯河的小桥,2012 年,马萨诸塞州政府决定翻新该桥,预计两年完成。但是,追加预算三次,直到 2017 年才完成。与此鲜明对比,教授介绍了中国北京的一座更大的桥 - 三元桥,43小时完成翻修。教授表示,现在中国以小时计完成的项目,超过美国以年计完成的项目。
可怕的是,在北美,这种故意拖延施工,强迫追加预算的玩法,已经不限于公共项目;已经被用到个人住宅项目的施工中。我的美国朋友告诉我,当地政府规定,家庭后院必须建栅栏,他家两边的邻居,在建栅栏时,都被施工队无理玩耍,不得不三次增加补充预算,到完工时,整个花费几乎达到了买房价格的一半。在加拿大,也有类似报道。
美国政客积极鼓励制造业回归美国,仅仅是白日梦。当年,特朗普赞誉富士康到美国建厂是世界第八大奇迹。但是,时至今日,承诺的100亿投资,仅仅投了一部分。有报道,富士康位于威斯康星州的创新中心以及办公楼长期处于闲置状态,没有任何办公的迹象。因用工成本过高,不得不黯然流产,成了世界工厂界的一个笑话。
客机制造公司波音,已经被玩完
2019年4月22日,文章《绝不乘坐787!内部员工自曝工厂管理混乱,波音紧急出面灭火》说,“737MAX事故调查正在进行中,但越来越多曝光出来信息显示,737MAX出现质量问题并非偶然因素,很可能跟波音公司长期以来管理混乱有关系;现在又有新的问题被曝光,另一款主要商业机型787系列的生产车间管理混乱,这让波音公司的声誉再遭重创。”
“4月20日,据观察者网,美国《纽约时报》在头版头条刊登了一则爆炸性新闻:波音公司在南卡罗来纳州北查尔斯顿的787梦想客机的总装工厂存在严重的生产和监管问题,已经威胁到飞机安全。”
“在报道中,十多名现任和前任波音员工表示,为了追求生产速度,波音公司故意忽略产品的生产质量,在生产过程中出现的质量问题,上层管理部门置若罔闻,其中一位名叫克雷顿的技术工人表示,他经常发现驾驶舱重要位置有不明的危险碎片,他甚至表示:“我绝不会考虑去乘坐这些飞机”。”
“另外还有一名为波音工作了30年的质量经理披露,所有从北查尔斯顿生产线出厂的波音客机,他从来不敢保证有一架是安全的,他还提到曾经多次发现飞机的飞控系统布线上有金属废屑,尽管他一再要求清除,但却被拒绝,还被降职处理;FAA的一名专家也表示,在已经通过质检的波音客机上发现过金属废屑,一旦造成短路,后果不堪设想。”
“纽约时报的报道中还提到了多处波音787客机可能存在的质量问题和设计安全问题,但对于这篇报道,波音公司一如既往的立刻予以否认,宣称报道只是把过去的谎言和旧闻集中了一下,而波音商业项目负责人麦卡利斯特反驳称,北查尔斯顿工厂是波音有史以来最注重质量的工厂,而波音发现人坚称,波音公司从来都是将安全和质量摆在生产速度之上。”
“最近一段时间以来,波音公司产品连续曝光质量问题,从737MAX坠机,到与FAA勾结在安全认证上做手脚,再到生产的卫星设计15年服役仅3年就解体,现在787梦想客机也被曝“梦碎”,这已经不能用商业竞争对手的宣传攻势来解释了,根本原因就是波音自身存在问题。”
搜索这些报道,是想让大家看清,世界上没有理想的治理方法。源自欧洲的自由民主政治,正帮助素质低下者,把人类人性的黑暗面,发挥到极致。
这里,需要特别指出,我特意搜索了John Micklethwait博士 和 Adrian Wooldridge博士的教育背景,他们俩都在英国牛津大学的历史专业学习过。是后天获得的历史知识,赋予他们人性化的思维,摆脱了西方智障的思维和行为。
还有,上面提到的汉森机器人技术有限公司首席科学顾问Ben Goertzel博士的太太是中国人,因此,对中国很了解。
据此,我推断,对于那些没有学习过历史知识的西方政客,很难改变他们对中国政府的敌对心态。
王沪宁留任常委意味着什么?狗屁专家解读
www.creaders.net | 2022-10-23
2022年10月23日,中共宣布新一届政治局常委,王沪宁继续留任,引发关注。图为2018年3月5日王沪宁在北京人民大会堂两会上。(WANG ZHAO/AFP via Getty Images)
周三(10月23日),中共新一届政治局常委名单出炉。影响中共意识形态的王沪宁留任常委,备受外界关注。专家认为,这表明中共的意识形态倾向将会继续,甚至会更进一步。
中共周日公布的新一届常委名单包括习近平、李强、赵乐际、王沪宁、蔡奇、丁薛祥、李希。习近平、赵乐际和王沪宁留任常委,而其他4人则是新提拔上来的。
路透社报道,南洋理工大学助理教授Dylan Loh说,“王沪宁现身(常委)对我来说意味着,党和习的意识形态倾向将继续,甚至会加深。”
卡内基中国(Carnegie China)主任韩磊(Paul Haenle)在推特上谈到新一届常委对中国的治理和政策制定意味着什么时说,这些常委将首先专注于帮助习近平完成他的政治和意识形态议程。
主管意识形态的王沪宁被视为中共的“大脑”,和极左思潮的源泉。他领导中央政策研究室(一个党的智囊团)多年,王沪宁的背景使他成为中共最高领导人罕见的国家政策顾问、首席演讲撰稿人和首席理论家的结合体。
《纽约时报》说,王沪宁留任政治局常委标志着中共强硬政策的延续,以及意识型态将在习近平的下一个五年任期发挥持久作用。
在习近平执政期间,王沪宁在政策制定方面扮演了核心角色。他曾在控制广大社会部门的委员会中担任领导职务,包括宣传、教育、网络安全和法律改革。
美国《钯金杂志》(Palladium Magazine)去年10月刊出一篇关于王沪宁的文章,介绍了“王沪宁思想”。文章说,王沪宁是中共七常委之一,也是中共最顶尖的意识形态理论家。习近平每个标志性的政治概念都是他提出来的,包括“中国梦”、反腐运动、“一带一路”倡议、战狼外交,甚至“习近平思想”。
文章还说,如果仔细观察习近平在重要行程或重要会议上的任何照片,人们很可能会在背景中发现王沪宁,他从来没有离开领导人太远。王沪宁同样是习近平的前任——江泽民“三个代表”以及胡锦涛“和谐社会”的幕后推手。
针对本周日公布的中共新一届常委,韩磊在推特上说,“展望未来,我预计我们将继续看到中国(中共)在捍卫它所认为的核心利益方面采取更加武断的行动。‘安全’是习近平工作报告的一个主要主题,也是中国(中共)面临的巨大风险/威胁,有必要保持斗争精神。”
“我们可以预计习近平会继续——也许甚至加强——我们在过去10年中看到的武断姿态。”韩磊说。
《纽时》说,王沪宁的崛起与习近平不断扩大的强硬议程同步,那就是对西方思想和影响力的日益怀疑以及对互联网自由的限制等。
在上世纪80年代,王沪宁帮助推行一种被称为“新威权主义”的理论,即像中国这样的贫穷大国在推动市场改革的同时,需要强人统治来维持秩序。这一思想后来成为“中国模式”的基础,习近平如今将这种国家控制的资本主义制度极力吹捧为中国的标志性成就之一。
而在最近,王沪宁围绕习近平乃天命所系的理念帮助塑造党的措辞。《纽时》援引新西兰汉学家白杰明(Geremie R. Barmé)的话说,这些构想“帮助并怂恿习近平认为,他有理由继续掌权”,“他促成了习近平在未来二三十年对党的统治”。
美国知名广播节目主持人休?休伊特(Hugh Hewitt)去年12月在《华盛顿邮报》上刊登专栏文章说,王沪宁虽然鲜为人知,但他在负责制定中国未来的政策,而且他对最高领导人习近平有超常的影响力。王沪宁几乎可以肯定是世界上最危险的人。
澳洲前总理、亚洲协会政策院院长陆克文(Kevin Rudd)二十大召开前夕在《华尔街日报》上发文说,习近平如今已经变成了一个意识形态原教旨主义者,他把共产党推向列宁主义的左翼,把经济推向马克思主义的左翼,把中国的外交和安全政策推向民族主义的右翼。在整个过程中,习近平在意识形态方面的转变也是对后来政策变化的最好预测。陆克文说,意识形态是主要问题。习近平认为私营部门是对共产党权力的长期挑战。
王沪宁为未来豪赌 但不会赢
www.creaders.net | 2022-10-25
美国政治圈的神秘学者N. S. Lyons(简称里昂)近日撰文说,习近平出人意料地让王沪宁继续连任,是因为他们在打赌未来十年世界的走向。
2022年10月23日,王沪宁与新一届中国共产党政治局常委和中外记者一起参加新闻活动。
里昂表示,中国共产党的新政治局常委名单揭晓基本上是中国的政治超级碗,每五年举行一次,每次都伴随着更多的党内清洗。
很多媒体报道二十大上都集中在,习近平如何赢得全面胜利,消除他所有的派别对手,并建立他对中国的完全控制,还有作为习近平完全统治地位的一个浓缩象征,在宣布人事之前将前任领导人胡锦涛毫不客气地从座位上架起来,请出大会堂。
但他二十大上主要的一件事,就是王沪宁——控制中共意识形态的幕后策划者的走势。
里昂说,这几个月来,许多有经验的中国观察家都表示,王沪宁要卸任、退休,他已经失去了影响力,而习近平也希望王沪宁离开,以任命一个新的、更年轻的人;王沪宁标志性的“共同富裕”理念已经失信并被排挤等等。
但到中共二十大新常委露面后,外界才发现,许多预想会获得升迁的官员都落榜了,但王沪宁却还在,他的“共同富裕”理念也跟着回来了。
王沪宁是中共七常委之一,也是中共最顶尖的意识形态理论家。习近平每个标志性的政治概念都是他提出来的,包括“中国梦”、反腐运动、“一带一路”倡议、战狼外交,甚至“习近平思想”。
里昂表示,在王沪宁继续留在中共最高领导机构之后,了解王沪宁的思想将对外界了解今天中国的方向至关重要。
“这一点不仅因王沪宁通过了政治(清洗)存活而得以加强,还有通过习近平在党代会上发表的讲话(或者可以说是王沪宁的工作报告)得到了强调,其中充满了王沪宁的个人色彩,例如经常鼓吹将马克思主义的所谓‘真理’与中国传统文化相结合,为中国文明创造一个新的思想基础。”他写道。
里昂表示,更广泛地说,习近平的讲话说出了一个对全世界都很重要的事实——习近平和王沪宁眼中的当今世界存在的威胁,与西方眼中的威胁完全不同。
“对他们来说,‘自由国际秩序’不是秩序或繁荣的来源,而是关系到生存。他们非常不希望中国变得像西方一样。”里昂说,“现在,他们愿意不惜一切代价,甚至牺牲持续的经济增长,努力将中国和他们的(中共)政权与这种影响的力量隔离开来,确保其(眼中所谓的)安全。”
“这是一个可能不会得到回报的赌注,但他们死心塌地地要打这个赌——它将决定未来十年的世界走向。”他补充说。
里昂解释说,为何这个赌注不会赢。“因为在今天的世界上,美国化的新自由主义的影响伴随着每一桶进口石油、每一个流行的数据字节,以及可能每一个呼吸的空气分子……甚至中国人珍视的血液都不可能是安全的!”(意思是不受影响)
里昂于2021年10月在“钯金杂志”(Palladium Magazine)发表了一篇研究王沪宁的长篇文章,该文在美国政界流传,因此受到关注。外界只知道,他是人在华盛顿特区的学者,但不知道其真实姓名。他的文章发表在Substack内容平台上。
因为领导人的主要助手与领导人一样重要,而且往往这些助手会在事件发生前,数月或数年就制定路线。
根据里昂的观察,如果仔细观察习近平在重要行程或重要会议上的任何照片,人们很可能会在背景中发现王沪宁,他从来没有离开领导人太远。王沪宁同样是习近平的前任——江泽民“三个代表”以及胡锦涛“和谐社会”的幕后推手。
王沪宁在1989年从美国访问半年回国后,逐渐成为抵制全球自由主义的主要人物。
他赞同“美国精神终结”的论断,并希望创造新的中共核心价值观,抵抗西方自由主义。
里昂说,王沪宁现在似乎已经说服了习近平,他们别无选择,只能采取严厉的行动来阻止西式经济和文化自由资本主义。
于是习近平在2021年1月发动了“共同富裕”运动。
不过,自始自终,里昂都认为,王沪宁的思想运动终会破产。他表示,历史上所谓的“灵魂工程师”大多都失败了,相比之下,王沪宁设计和创造的所谓新社会价值观赌注的成功概率几乎为零。
The Triumph and Terror of Wang Huning
GOVERNANCE FUTURISM
N. S. LYONS OCTOBER 11, 2021 ARTICLES
Official White House Photo/Wang Huning observes as Chinese President Hu Jintao speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama, Toronto
One day in August 2021, Zhao Wei disappeared. For one of China’s best-known actresses to physically vanish from public view would have been enough to cause a stir on its own. But Zhao’s disappearing act was far more thorough: overnight, she was erased from the internet. Her Weibo social media page, with its 86 million followers, went offline, as did fan sites dedicated to her. Searches for her many films and television shows returned no results on streaming sites. Zhao’s name was scrubbed from the credits of projects she had appeared in or directed, replaced with a blank space. Online discussions uttering her name were censored. Suddenly, little trace remained that the 45-year-old celebrity had ever existed.
She wasn’t alone. Other Chinese entertainers also began to vanish as Chinese government regulators announced a “heightened crackdown” intended to dispense with “vulgar internet celebrities” promoting lascivious lifestyles and to “resolve the problem of chaos” created by online fandom culture. Those imitating the effeminate or androgynous aesthetics of Korean boyband stars—colorfully referred to as “xiao xian rou,” or “little fresh meat”—were next to go, with the government vowing to “resolutely put an end to sissy men” appearing on the screens of China’s impressionable youth.
Zhao and her unfortunate compatriots in the entertainment industry were caught up in something far larger than themselves: a sudden wave of new government policies that are currently upending Chinese life in what state media has characterized as a “profound transformation” of the country. Officially referred to as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “Common Prosperity” campaign, this transformation is proceeding along two parallel lines: a vast regulatory crackdown roiling the private sector economy and a broader moralistic effort to reengineer Chinese culture from the top down.
But why is this “profound transformation” happening? And why now? Most analysis has focused on one man: Xi and his seemingly endless personal obsession with political control. The overlooked answer, however, is that this is indeed the culmination of decades of thinking and planning by a very powerful man—but that man is not Xi Jinping.
The Grey Eminence
Wang Huning much prefers the shadows to the limelight. An insomniac and workaholic, former friends and colleagues describe the bespectacled, soft-spoken political theorist as introverted and obsessively discreet. It took former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin’s repeated entreaties to convince the brilliant then-young academic—who spoke wistfully of following the traditional path of a Confucian scholar, aloof from politics—to give up academia in the early 1990s and join the Chinese Communist Party regime instead. When he finally did so, Wang cut off nearly all contact with his former connections, stopped publishing and speaking publicly, and implemented a strict policy of never speaking to foreigners at all. Behind this veil of carefully cultivated opacity, it’s unsurprising that so few people in the West know of Wang, let alone know him personally.
Yet Wang Huning is arguably the single most influential “public intellectual” alive today.
A member of the CCP’s seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, he is China’s top ideological theorist, quietly credited as being the “ideas man” behind each of Xi’s signature political concepts, including the “China Dream,” the anti-corruption campaign, the Belt and Road Initiative, a more assertive foreign policy, and even “Xi Jinping Thought.” Scrutinize any photograph of Xi on an important trip or at a key meeting and one is likely to spot Wang there in the background, never far from the leader’s side.
Wang has thus earned comparisons to famous figures of Chinese history like Zhuge Liang and Han Fei (historians dub the latter “China’s Machiavelli”) who similarly served behind the throne as powerful strategic advisers and consiglieres—a position referred to in Chinese literature as dishi: “Emperor’s Teacher.” Such a figure is just as readily recognizable in the West as an éminence grise (“grey eminence”), in the tradition of Tremblay, Talleyrand, Metternich, Kissinger, or Vladimir Putin adviser Vladislav Surkov.
But what is singularly remarkable about Wang is that he’s managed to serve in this role of court philosopher to not just one, but all three of China’s previous top leaders, including as the pen behind Jiang Zemin’s signature “Three Represents” policy and Hu Jintao’s “Harmonious Society.”
In the brutally cutthroat world of CCP factional politics, this is an unprecedented feat. Wang was recruited into the party by Jiang’s “Shanghai Gang,” a rival faction that Xi worked to ruthlessly purge after coming to power in 2012; many prominent members, like former security chief Zhou Yongkang and former vice security minister Sun Lijun, have ended up in prison. Meanwhile, Hu Jintao’s Communist Youth League Faction has also been heavily marginalized as Xi’s faction has consolidated control. Yet Wang Huning remains. More than any other, it is this fact that reveals the depth of his impeccable political cunning.
And the fingerprints of China’s Grey Eminence on the Common Prosperity campaign are unmistakable. While it’s hard to be certain what Wang really believes today inside his black box, he was once an immensely prolific author, publishing nearly 20 books along with numerous essays. And the obvious continuity between the thought in those works and what’s happening in China today says something fascinating about how Beijing has come to perceive the world through the eyes of Wang Huning.
Cultural Competence
While other Chinese teenagers spent the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) “sent down to the countryside” to dig ditches and work on farms, Wang Huning studied French at an elite foreign-language training school near his hometown of Shanghai, spending his days reading banned foreign literary classics secured for him by his teachers. Born in 1955 to a revolutionary family from Shandong, he was a sickly, bookish youth; this, along with his family’s connections, seems to have secured him a pass from hard labor.
When China’s shuttered universities reopened in 1978, following the commencement of “reform and opening” by Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping, Wang was among the first to take the restored national university entrance exam, competing with millions for a chance to return to higher learning. He passed so spectacularly that Shanghai’s Fudan University, one of China’s top institutions, admitted him into its prestigious international politics master’s program despite having never completed a bachelor’s degree.
The thesis work he completed at Fudan, which would become his first book, traced the development of the Western concept of national sovereignty from antiquity to the present day—including from Gilgamesh through Socrates, Aristotle, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Hegel, and Marx—and contrasted it with Chinese conceptions of the idea. The work would become the foundation for many of his future theories of the nation-state and international relations.
But Wang was also beginning to pick up the strands of what would become another core thread of his life’s work: the necessary centrality of culture, tradition, and value structures to political stability.
Wang elaborated on these ideas in a 1988 essay, “The Structure of China’s Changing Political Culture,” which would become one of his most cited works. In it, he argued that the CCP must urgently consider how society’s “software” (culture, values, attitudes) shapes political destiny as much as its “hardware” (economics, systems, institutions). While seemingly a straightforward idea, this was notably a daring break from the materialism of orthodox Marxism.
Examining China in the midst of Deng’s rapid opening to the world, Wang perceived a country “in a state of transformation” from “an economy of production to an economy of consumption,” while evolving “from a spiritually oriented culture to a materially oriented culture,” and “from a collectivist culture to an individualistic culture.”
Meanwhile, he believed that the modernization of “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” was effectively leaving China without any real cultural direction at all. “There are no core values in China’s most recent structure,” he warned. This could serve only to dissolve societal and political cohesion.
That, he said, was untenable. Warning that “the components of the political culture shaped by the Cultural Revolution came to be divorced from the source that gave birth to this culture, as well as from social demands, social values, and social relations”—and thus “the results of the adoption of Marxism were not always positive”—he argued that, “Since 1949, we have criticized the core values of the classical and modern structures, but have not paid enough attention to shaping our own core values.” Therefore: “we must create core values.” Ideally, he concluded, “We must combine the flexibility of [China’s] traditional values with the modern spirit [both Western and Marxist].”
But at this point, like many during those heady years of reform and opening, he remained hopeful that liberalism could play a positive role in China, writing that his recommendations could allow “the components of the modern structure that embody the spirit of modern democracy and humanism [to] find the support they need to take root and grow.”
That would soon change.
A Dark Vision
Also in 1988, Wang—having risen with unprecedented speed to become Fudan’s youngest full professor at age 30—won a coveted scholarship (facilitated by the American Political Science Association) to spend six months in the United States as a visiting scholar. Profoundly curious about America, Wang took full advantage, wandering about the country like a sort of latter-day Chinese Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting more than 30 cities and nearly 20 universities.
What he found deeply disturbed him, permanently shifting his view of the West and the consequences of its ideas.
Wang recorded his observations in a memoir that would become his most famous work: the 1991 book America Against America. In it, he marvels at homeless encampments in the streets of Washington DC, out-of-control drug crime in poor black neighborhoods in New York and San Francisco, and corporations that seemed to have fused themselves to and taken over responsibilities of government. Eventually, he concludes that America faces an “unstoppable undercurrent of crisis” produced by its societal contradictions, including between rich and poor, white and black, democratic and oligarchic power, egalitarianism and class privilege, individual rights and collective responsibilities, cultural traditions and the solvent of liquid modernity.
But while Americans can, he says, perceive that they are faced with “intricate social and cultural problems,” they “tend to think of them as scientific and technological problems” to be solved separately. This gets them nowhere, he argues, because their problems are in fact all inextricably interlinked and have the same root cause: a radical, nihilistic individualism at the heart of modern American liberalism.
“The real cell of society in the United States is the individual,” he finds. This is so because the cell most foundational (per Aristotle) to society, “the family, has disintegrated.” Meanwhile, in the American system, “everything has a dual nature, and the glamour of high commodification abounds. Human flesh, sex, knowledge, politics, power, and law can all become the target of commodification.” This “commodification, in many ways, corrupts society and leads to a number of serious social problems.” In the end, “the American economic system has created human loneliness” as its foremost product, along with spectacular inequality. As a result, “nihilism has become the American way, which is a fatal shock to cultural development and the American spirit.”
Moreover, he says that the “American spirit is facing serious challenges” from new ideational competitors. Reflecting on the universities he visited and quoting approvingly from Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, he notes a growing tension between Enlightenment liberal rationalism and a “younger generation [that] is ignorant of traditional Western values” and actively rejects its cultural inheritance. “If the value system collapses,” he wonders, “how can the social system be sustained?”
Ultimately, he argues, when faced with critical social issues like drug addiction, America’s atomized, deracinated, and dispirited society has found itself with “an insurmountable problem” because it no longer has any coherent conceptual grounds from which to mount any resistance.
Once idealistic about America, at the start of 1989 the young Wang returned to China and, promoted to Dean of Fudan’s International Politics Department, became a leading opponent of liberalization.
He began to argue that China had to resist global liberal influence and become a culturally unified and self-confident nation governed by a strong, centralized party-state. He would develop these ideas into what has become known as China’s “Neo-Authoritarian” movement—though Wang never used the term, identifying himself with China’s “Neo-Conservatives.” This reflected his desire to blend Marxist socialism with traditional Chinese Confucian values and Legalist political thought, maximalist Western ideas of state sovereignty and power, and nationalism in order to synthesize a new basis for long-term stability and growth immune to Western liberalism.
“He was most concerned with the question of how to manage China,” one former Fudan student recalls. “He was suggesting that a strong, centralized state is necessary to hold this society together. He spent every night in his office and didn’t do anything else.”
Wang’s timing couldn’t have been more auspicious. Only months after his return, China’s own emerging contradictions exploded into view in the form of student protests in Tiananmen Square. After PLA tanks crushed the dreams of liberal democracy sprouting in China, CCP leadership began searching desperately for a new political model on which to secure the regime. They soon turned to Wang Huning.
When Wang won national acclaim by leading a university debate team to victory in an international competition in Singapore in 1993, he caught the attention of Jiang Zemin, who had become party leader after Tiananmen. Wang, having defeated National Taiwan University by arguing that human nature is inherently evil, foreshadowed that, “While Western modern civilization can bring material prosperity, it doesn’t necessarily lead to improvement in character.” Jiang plucked him from the university and, at the age of 40, he was granted a leadership position in the CCP’s secretive Central Policy Research Office, putting him on an inside track into the highest echelons of power.
Wang Huning’s Nightmare
From the smug point of view of millions who now inhabit the Chinese internet, Wang’s dark vision of American dissolution was nothing less than prophetic. When they look to the U.S., they no longer see a beacon of liberal democracy standing as an admired symbol of a better future. That was the impression of those who created the famous “Goddess of Democracy,” with her paper-m?ché torch held aloft before the Gate of Heavenly Peace.
Instead, they see Wang’s America: deindustrialization, rural decay, over-financialization, out of control asset prices, and the emergence of a self-perpetuating rentier elite; powerful tech monopolies able to crush any upstart competitors operating effectively beyond the scope of government; immense economic inequality, chronic unemployment, addiction, homelessness, and crime; cultural chaos, historical nihilism, family breakdown, and plunging fertility rates; societal despair, spiritual malaise, social isolation, and skyrocketing rates of mental health issues; a loss of national unity and purpose in the face of decadence and barely concealed self-loathing; vast internal divisions, racial tensions, riots, political violence, and a country that increasingly seems close to coming apart.
As a tumultuous 2020 roiled American politics, Chinese people began turning to Wang’s America Against America for answers. And when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021, the book flew off the shelves. Out-of-print copies began selling for as much as $2,500 on Chinese e-commerce sites.
But Wang is unlikely to be savoring the acclaim, because his worst fear has become reality: the “unstoppable undercurrent of crisis” he identified in America seems to have successfully jumped the Pacific. Despite all his and Xi’s success in draconian suppression of political liberalism, many of the same problems Wang observed in America have nonetheless emerged to ravage China over the last decade as the country progressively embraced a more neoliberal capitalist economic model.
“Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” has rapidly transformed China into one of the most economically unequal societies on earth. It now boasts a Gini Coefficient of, officially, around 0.47, worse than the U.S.’s 0.41. The wealthiest 1% of the population now holds around 31% of the country’s wealth (not far behind the 35% in the U.S.). But most people in China remain relatively poor: some 600 million still subsist on a monthly income of less than 1,000 yuan ($155) a month.
Meanwhile, Chinese tech giants have established monopoly positions even more robust than their U.S. counterparts, often with market shares nearing 90%. Corporate employment frequently features an exhausting “996” (9am to 9pm, 6 days a week) schedule. Others labor among struggling legions trapped by up-front debts in the vast system of modern-day indentured servitude that is the Chinese “gig economy.” Up to 400 million Chinese are forecast to enjoy the liberation of such “self-employment” by 2036, according to Alibaba.
The job market for China’s ever-expanding pool of university graduates is so competitive that “graduation equals unemployment” is a societal meme (the two words share a common Chinese character). And as young people have flocked to urban metropoles to search for employment, rural regions have been drained and left to decay, while centuries of communal extended family life have been upended in a generation, leaving the elderly to rely on the state for marginal care. In the cities, young people have been priced out of the property market by a red-hot asset bubble.
Meanwhile, contrary to trite Western assumptions of an inherently communal Chinese culture, the sense of atomization and low social trust in China has become so acute that it’s led to periodic bouts of anguished societal soul-searching after oddly regular instances in which injured individuals have been left to die on the street by passers-by habitually distrustful of being scammed.
Feeling alone and unable to get ahead in a ruthlessly consumerist society, Chinese youth increasingly describe existing in a state of nihilistic despair encapsulated by the online slang term neijuan (“involution”), which describes a “turning inward” by individuals and society due to a prevalent sense of being stuck in a draining rat race where everyone inevitably loses. This despair has manifested itself in a movement known as tangping, or “lying flat,” in which people attempt to escape that rat race by doing the absolute bare minimum amount of work required to live, becoming modern ascetics.
In this environment, China’s fertility rate has collapsed to 1.3 children per woman as of 2020—below Japan and above only South Korea as the lowest in the world—plunging its economic future into crisis. Ending family size limits and government attempts to persuade families to have more children have been met with incredulity and ridicule by Chinese young people as being “totally out of touch” with economic and social reality. “Do they not yet know that most young people are exhausted just supporting themselves?” asked one typically viral post on social media. It’s true that, given China’s cut-throat education system, raising even one child costs a huge sum: estimates range between $30,000 (about seven times the annual salary of the average citizen) and $115,000, depending on location.
But even those Chinese youth who could afford to have kids have found they enjoy a new lifestyle: the coveted DINK (“Double Income, No Kids”) life, in which well-educated young couples (married or not) spend all that extra cash on themselves. As one thoroughly liberated 27-year-old man with a vasectomy once explained to The New York Times: “For our generation, children aren’t a necessity…Now we can live without any burdens. So why not invest our spiritual and economic resources on our own lives?”
So while Americans have today given up the old dream of liberalizing China, they should maybe look a little closer. It’s true that China never remotely liberalized—if you consider liberalism to be all about democratic elections, a free press, and respect for human rights. But many political thinkers would argue there is more to a comprehensive definition of modern liberalism than that. Instead, they would identify liberalism’s essential telos as being the liberation of the individual from all limiting ties of place, tradition, religion, associations, and relationships, along with all the material limits of nature, in pursuit of the radical autonomy of the modern “consumer.”
From this perspective, China has been thoroughly liberalized, and the picture of what’s happening to Chinese society begins to look far more like Wang’s nightmare of a liberal culture consumed by nihilistic individualism and commodification.
The Grand Experiment
It is in this context that Wang Huning appears to have won a long-running debate within the Chinese system about what’s now required for the People’s Republic of China to endure. The era of tolerance for unfettered economic and cultural liberalism in China is over.
According to a leaked account by one of his old friends, Xi has found himself, like Wang, “repulsed by the all-encompassing commercialization of Chinese society, with its attendant nouveaux riches, official corruption, loss of values, dignity, and self-respect, and such ‘moral evils’ as drugs and prostitution.” Wang has now seemingly convinced Xi that they have no choice but to take drastic action to head off existential threats to social order being generated by Western-style economic and cultural liberal-capitalism—threats nearly identical to those that scourge the U.S.
This intervention has taken the form of the Common Prosperity campaign, with Xi declaring in January that “We absolutely must not allow the gap between rich and poor to get wider,” and warning that “achieving common prosperity is not only an economic issue, but also a major political issue related to the party’s governing foundations.”
This is why anti-monopoly investigations have hit China’s top technology firms with billions of dollars in fines and forced restructurings and strict new data rules have curtailed China’s internet and social media companies. It’s why record-breaking IPOs have been put on hold and corporations ordered to improve labor conditions, with “996” overtime requirements made illegal and pay raised for gig workers. It’s why the government killed off the private tutoring sector overnight and capped property rental price increases. It’s why the government has announced “excessively high incomes” are to be “adjusted.”
And it’s why celebrities like Zhao Wei have been disappearing, why Chinese minors have been banned from playing the “spiritual opium” of video games for more than three hours per week, why LGBT groups have been scrubbed from the internet, and why abortion restrictions have been significantly tightened. As one nationalist article promoted across state media explained, if the liberal West’s “tittytainment strategy” is allowed to succeed in causing China’s “young generation lose their toughness and virility then we will fall…just like the Soviet Union did.” The purpose of Xi’s “profound transformation” is to ensure that “the cultural market will no longer be a paradise for sissy stars, and news and public opinion will no longer be in a position of worshipping Western culture.”
In the end, the campaign represents Wang Huning’s triumph and his terror. It’s thirty years of his thought on culture made manifest in policy.
On one hand, it is worth viewing honestly the level of economic, technological, cultural, and political upheaval the West is currently experiencing and considering whether he may have accurately diagnosed a common undercurrent spreading through our globalized world. On the other, the odds that his gambit to engineer new societal values can succeed seems doubtful, considering the many failures of history’s other would-be “engineers of the soul.”
The best simple proxy to measure this effort in coming years is likely to be demographics. For reasons not entirely clear, many countries around the world now face the same challenge: fertility rates that have fallen below the replacement rate as they’ve developed into advanced economies. This has occurred across a diverse array of political systems, and shows little sign of moderating. Besides immigration, a wide range of policies have now been tried in attempts to raise birth rates, from increased public funding of childcare services to “pro-natal” tax credits for families with children. None have been consistently successful, sparking anguished debate in some quarters on whether losing the will to survive and reproduce is simply a fundamental factor of modernity. But if any country can succeed in reversing this trend, no matter the brute-force effort required, it is likely to be China.
Either way, our world is witnessing a grand experiment that’s now underway: China and the West, facing very similar societal problems, have now, thanks to Wang Huning, embarked on radically different approaches to addressing them. And with China increasingly challenging the United States for a position of global geopolitical and ideological leadership, the conclusion of this experiment could very well shape the global future of governance for the century ahead.
N.S. Lyons is an analyst and writer living and working in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Upheaval.