The concept of “modernization” emerged in the post-Second World War social sciences, particularly within Western discussions of “political development.” From this perspective, China’s search for modernization can be traced back to the Self-Strengthening Movement in the late Qing period.
Subsequent efforts by different political forces likewise sought to address the fundamental question of how China could achieve national strength, independence, and social progress. Yet, viewed from the broader trajectory of China’s modern history, the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 marked a decisive turning point.
It not only transformed the country’s political order, but also shifted China’s modernization from a largely reactive response to external pressure toward a sustained project of national reconstruction and development.
To understand Chinese modernization, therefore, one must first understand the historical role of the Communist Party of China. Through a highly organized political structure, the CPC mobilized and organized society, linking national independence, state-building, economic development, and the liberation and well-being of the people. In this process, it gradually developed a distinctive path of modernization centered on the people. This historical trajectory also resonates with Mao Zedong’s vision in “On New Democracy” of a “new China” and an “advanced civilization” founded upon new political, economic, and social institutions.
The “new” represents the transformation and renewal of historical traditions under modern conditions. Chinese modernization did not emerge in a cultural vacuum. It developed through a long process in which Marxism encountered, interacted with, and was transformed by China’s historical civilization. In this sense, the modernization of China is not merely a process of institutional change or economic development. It is also a process through which an ancient civilization has sought to renew itself under modern conditions.
This is why the key to understanding Chinese modernization lies in understanding the relationship between the Communist Party of China and Chinese civilization. The CPC is, first and foremost, a Marxist political party. At the same time, it is deeply embedded in the historical and cultural traditions of China. These two dimensions are not necessarily contradictory. Rather, they have interacted to shape the political character and historical practice of the Party. Marxism provided the CPC with a distinctive political outlook and revolutionary orientation, while Chinese civilization provided a historical and cultural environment in which Marxism could take root and develop.
The CPC was therefore not an ideological force transplanted onto Chinese society from outside. Marxism, after entering China, underwent a profound process of localization and transformation. It encountered a civilization with a long tradition of state-building, political organization, moral education, public responsibility, and concern for the people. The resulting synthesis created conditions under which Marxist political ideas could acquire new institutional and cultural forms.
This historical process is particularly important for understanding what contemporary Chinese political discourse calls the “second integration”: the integration of the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s fine traditional culture. The significance of this proposition lies not simply in identifying similarities between Marxism and traditional Chinese thought. More fundamentally, it points to the interaction between two political civilizations and to the ways in which historical traditions can be transformed through modern political practice.
From this perspective, historical political science provides a useful methodological approach. Institutions do not emerge in isolation from history, nor do political organizations exist independently of cultural traditions. To understand China’s political development, it is necessary to examine the interaction among institutions, political organizations, ideas, and long-term historical structures. Such an approach makes it possible to understand Chinese modernization not simply as an imitation of Western modernization, but as a distinctive historical process shaped by the encounter between Marxism and Chinese civilization.
One of the most enduring features of Chinese political civilization is the idea of Great Unity, or datong. This concept refers not only to territorial unity, but also to institutional integration, cultural cohesion, and a shared political identity. Since the formation of early Chinese states, the maintenance of political unity has been a central concern of Chinese history. The development of centralized state institutions gave China an unusually strong capacity for political organization and integration over long periods of history.
The nineteenth century, however, brought an unprecedented crisis. China faced military defeat, foreign intervention, internal disorder, and the erosion of its traditional political institutions. The problem was no longer simply how to preserve an existing political order, but how to reconstruct a unified state under radically changed historical circumstances.
The fall of the imperial system after the 1911 Revolution created a political vacuum. China experimented with constitutional government and republican institutions, but these efforts failed to produce a stable national political order. Political fragmentation and warlordism followed. Sun Yat-sen and others attempted to use political parties as instruments of national reconstruction, but factionalism within the Nationalist Party ultimately limited its ability to provide a durable basis for political integration.
The rise of the Communist Party of China represented a different solution to the problem of state organization. Through a highly disciplined and centralized organizational structure, the Party mobilized diverse social forces and ultimately rebuilt a unified political order. In this process, the historical tradition of national unity acquired a new institutional foundation.
This transformation is significant because the political foundation of the new order differed fundamentally from that of the imperial system. Under the traditional monarchy, political authority was ultimately embedded in dynastic rule. In the modern political order established after 1949, political authority was organized around a modern party-state structure. The institutional bearer of national unity was no longer a ruling dynasty, but a highly organized political party operating within a modern state system.
The distinctive political character of the CPC is therefore central to understanding this transformation. Marx and Engels famously argued in The Communist Manifesto that communists do not pursue interests separate from those of the working class and ultimately seek the emancipation of humanity. In China, this principle became connected with the broader political objective of serving the people and transforming society.
A political organization that defines itself through a public mission, rather than through the pursuit of a private or dynastic interest, requires a high degree of organization if it is to translate its political objectives into sustained governing capacity. Lenin’s principle of democratic centralism provided an important organizational foundation for Marxist parties. The CPC incorporated this principle into its own institutional development and subsequently adapted it to China’s political and historical circumstances.
Democratic centralism also became an important principle of China’s state institutions. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China stipulates that state institutions operate according to the principle of democratic centralism. In practice, this principle seeks to combine broad participation and consultation with unified decision-making and implementation. One of its most familiar political expressions is the principle of “from the masses, to the masses.”
This principle points to a distinctive understanding of the political process. Modern states must aggregate diverse interests and social demands, transform them into public policy, implement those policies, and then evaluate and adjust them through practice. The Chinese political system has sought to accomplish this through an extensive organizational network connecting the Party, the state, and society.
Another important feature of China’s historical political civilization is the tradition of selecting capable people for public office. From the rise of the scholar-official class in the pre-Qin period through the development of Confucian statecraft during the imperial era, political governance became closely connected with education, knowledge, moral cultivation, and the recruitment of officials.
The emergence of the scholar-official system represented an important historical feature of Chinese political civilization: the relative integration of political authority and cultural authority. Rather than relying primarily on hereditary aristocracy, military power, or private wealth, the traditional Chinese state increasingly relied upon educated officials selected through institutionalized mechanisms. This created a distinctive political culture in which governing competence and moral responsibility were closely associated with public office.
Modern China did not simply reproduce this tradition. Instead, elements of the traditional ideal of selecting capable public servants were transformed within a Marxist political and organizational framework. The contemporary cadre system emerged partly from the organizational traditions of Marxist parties, but it also developed within China’s own historical environment.
This transformation can be seen particularly clearly in the concept of party spirit. In the Marxist tradition, party spirit emphasizes political commitment, organizational discipline, and collective responsibility. At the same time, its development in China has interacted with older cultural ideas concerning moral cultivation, public responsibility, and the obligation of those who govern to serve society. In this sense, the modern political cadre differs fundamentally from the traditional scholar-official, but the two are connected by a longer historical concern with the selection, education, and cultivation of governing elites.
The modern system of selecting and promoting officials also differs from traditional meritocratic practices in an important respect. Traditional meritocracy ultimately operated within a monarchical political order and served dynastic rule. Modern cadre selection, by contrast, is embedded in a political system whose stated legitimacy is grounded in the interests and participation of the people. Marxism therefore changed the normative foundation of the traditional ideal of selecting capable rulers, while organizational institutions strengthened its capacity for systematic implementation.
If the tradition of Great Unity concerns the organization and integrity of the state, the tradition of minben, or “people as the foundation,” concerns the relationship between political authority and society.
Concern for the people is one of the most enduring themes in Chinese political thought. From the ancient idea that “the people are the foundation of the state” to the later Confucian proposition that the people should be regarded as fundamental to political rule, Chinese political civilization developed a strong tradition of emphasizing the responsibilities of rulers toward the population.
Yet traditional minben thought also had a fundamental limitation. The people were recognized as important, but they remained largely objects of political governance. They were to be protected, cared for, and treated as the foundation of political order, but they were not yet conceived as autonomous political subjects in the modern sense.
One of the most important transformations brought about by modern Chinese political development was therefore the change in the political status of the people. Marxist historical materialism emphasizes that the people are the makers of history. When this proposition encountered the Chinese tradition of minben, it provided the basis for a new understanding of the political role of the people.
The Communist Party’s mass line became one of the principal mechanisms through which this transformation took place. Its basic principle—“from the masses, to the masses”—requires political organizations to engage with society, understand the needs and experiences of ordinary people, transform dispersed social demands into policies, and then return those policies to society for implementation and evaluation.
The mass line is therefore more than a method of political communication. It represents a particular conception of the political process. Social demands are gathered and organized; policies are formulated; implementation generates new experiences; and these experiences are then used to revise subsequent decisions. In this sense, the mass line has functioned both as a method of political leadership and, increasingly, as a mechanism of governance.
Since the reform and opening-up period, a variety of experiments in grassroots consultation and participation have emerged across China. Practices such as the democratic consultation meetings developed in Wenling, Zhejiang, illustrate attempts to institutionalize public participation in local decision-making. These experiments differ in form and scope, but they share an emphasis on connecting public participation with concrete processes of governance.
It is within this longer historical trajectory that the contemporary concept of “whole-process people’s democracy” can be understood. Democracy is not limited to elections or a single moment of political choice. It also involves agenda-setting, consultation, decision-making, implementation, supervision, and feedback. The emphasis on the political process is therefore particularly important.
The mass line provides one institutional and political mechanism linking traditional minben thought with modern people’s democracy. Traditional minben emphasized that the government should serve the people and regard their welfare as fundamental. Modern people’s democracy goes further by emphasizing the political agency of the people and their participation in the processes through which public decisions are made and implemented.
Seen from this perspective, Chinese modernization cannot be adequately explained through a simple opposition between “tradition” and “modernity.” Modern China represents both a break with the old political order and a continuation of important historical traditions. The transformation of the centralized state, the evolution of the tradition of selecting capable officials, and the transformation of minben thought into a modern conception of popular political participation all demonstrate how historical continuity and institutional innovation can coexist.
This helps explain why China can be understood as both an ancient and a modern country. Its civilization is ancient, but its contemporary political and institutional forms are modern. The modernization process has not required the complete abandonment of historical traditions. Instead, some elements of those traditions have been reinterpreted and incorporated into new institutional forms.
The significance of the “second integration” lies precisely in this process. The integration of Marxism with China’s fine traditional culture does not mean mechanically combining two pre-existing systems of thought. Rather, it involves transforming both the interpretation of tradition and the application of Marxism through concrete historical practice.
Chinese civilization provides Marxism with a rich reservoir of concepts, institutions, and political experiences. Marxism, in turn, provides a new theoretical framework through which elements of traditional civilization can be reinterpreted and placed within a modern political context. The result is neither a simple return to tradition nor a straightforward transplantation of Western institutional models.
Historical political science is valuable here because it allows this process to be examined over a longer time horizon. Political institutions are shaped by historical experience, and political organizations operate within cultural environments that precede them. Understanding Chinese modernization therefore requires attention not only to formal institutions, but also to the historical structures, political practices, and cultural traditions that influence how those institutions operate.
From the perspective of political theory, Chinese modernization also raises a broader question: must modernity necessarily take a single institutional form? China’s historical experience suggests otherwise. A country with a long tradition of political unity and civilizational continuity can enter modernity while retaining and transforming elements of its historical political culture.
Traditional China was, in many respects, a civilization-state sustained by institutions of administration, education, and cultural integration. Contemporary China has developed a modern state system under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. There is both rupture and continuity between these two historical forms. The transformation of the old order did not erase the historical foundations of Chinese political civilization; rather, some of those foundations were reconfigured within a new institutional framework.
Chinese modernization should therefore be understood not simply as economic development, technological progress, or social transformation. It is also a process of political and civilizational transformation. It has inherited historical ideas concerning national unity, the selection of capable public officials, concern for the people, and public responsibility, while simultaneously redefining these ideas through Marxist theory and modern political institutions.
The resulting political civilization is neither a simple revival of the past nor a mechanical imitation of Western modernity. It is the product of a long historical interaction between Marxism and Chinese civilization. In this interaction, an ancient civilization has acquired new institutional forms, while Marxism has developed a distinctive Chinese expression through political practice.
This is perhaps the deeper significance of Chinese modernization. It demonstrates that modernization need not necessarily mean the disappearance of historical civilization. A civilization can enter modernity while transforming, rather than simply abandoning, its historical inheritance. The Chinese experience thus provides an important case for understanding the diversity of modernization and the possibility that different civilizations may generate different institutional and political forms in the course of becoming modern.
Source: cssn, cgtn, chinadaily, xinhua, guancha
