Senior Phoenix Satellite TV commentator Shi Qiping published an article today proposing a viewpoint, believing that China has consecutively missed three major opportunities and has now recovered them one by one. As the saying goes in the I Ching, "Adversity leads to prosperity," and China's national fortune is about to begin to prosper and will continue for a long time.
Shi Qiping first stated that reviewing history, over the course of 3000 years, China had long been at the forefront of the world, even taking the lead for 2800 years. However, modern China's fortune took a sharp downturn, especially from 1840 to 1949 when it fell into the lowest point. Shi Qiping analyzed that this was mainly due to the consecutive loss of three key opportunities.
Firstly, starting from the 16th century, the era of the ocean arrived, and the West rose with nine maritime powers through this opportunity. They used colonialism, imperialism, and hegemonism to push once-leading China to the lowest point in historical development. China missed the opportunity to go to sea and expand its international influence.
Secondly, since the Sui and Tang dynasties, the thousand-year-old imperial examination system, which focused on the Four Books and Five Classics, severely constrained China's originally leading technological potential in the world. When the West launched the Industrial Revolution, China, due to the limitations of this system, was far surpassed.
Thirdly, China missed the modern capitalist market economy and once fell into the误区of a universal ownership planned economy, suppressing the originally strongest ethnic enthusiasm in the world, causing resource misallocation and weakening its own development momentum.
Shi Qiping pointed out that the叠加of these three factors led to a continuous downward trend in China's fortune over the past hundred years, not only being looked down upon by the international community but also losing confidence in its own development prospects, thinking that China's weakness and Western strength were inevitable. But as the I Ching Tai卦 says: "Adversity leads to prosperity." In 1905, the Qing dynasty abolished the imperial examinations and introduced new-style schools to teach mathematics, physics, and chemistry; the May Fourth New Culture Movement in 1919 made China re-recognize and embrace science, and during the Republic of China period, many great masters emerged. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, although it went through a planned economy phase, Deng Xiaoping promoted reform and opening-up in 1979, reintroducing the market economy and unleashing the enthusiasm of the nation. In 2010, China's GDP surpassed Japan and began to catch up with the United States; although it missed the first two industrial revolutions, it caught the tail of the third one, and now it is at the global forefront in the fourth industrial revolution, likely leading the development trend. Especially in the global AI field, China's scientific and technological strength is increasingly prominent, and the once-suppressed, always world-leading scientific genes are gradually activated.
Shi Qiping believes that supported by a strong manufacturing industry, China is actively returning to the ocean. With its own strength, China will replace the previous nine maritime powers and regain its former glory as the world's first maritime power.
He pointed out that the loss of the three major opportunities caused China's national fortune to fall into a low point, and now that these opportunities have been recovered one by one, it is an inevitable trend for China's national fortune to迎来a turning point. Many Westerners are surprised, puzzled, and even dissatisfied, envious, and hostile to contemporary China's development. But the laws and logic of historical development will not change because of their will.
Shi Qiping particularly mentioned that from the end of last year to this year, China achieved numerous breakthroughs in science and technology, military, culture, and other fields, shocking the international community. In fact, China's national fortune becoming prosperous is not a sudden phenomenon; its transition from weakness to strength is the inevitable result of historical development, and this trend is likely to continue for a long time.
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1828843850137673/
Disclaimer: This article represents the author's personal views.