The modern history of China began with the Opium War (1840-1842), but China hardly underwent its real process of mo-dernization until the reformation begun in the late 1970s. Why did China take so long to undertake a real process of modernization? The main reason was that the Chinese was suffering from a profound malaise, indeed from nihilism. This characterized the modern period in China as a history of devaluation of traditional Chinese civilization and values.

Before the Opium War, a prominent feature of Chinese civili-zation was its relative isolation for thousands of years from the outside world. Because of such isolation, feudal China had been left far behind, but the Chinese did not feel this. Until contact with modern Europeans, the Chinese believed their civilization to be superior to all others. They referred to their country as the Middle Kingdom because they thought of themselves as living at the center of the world.

In the Opium War, Western civilization intruded into China. Unfortunately, the result of this conflict between civilizations was totally unexpected by the Chinese for Chinese civilization had no prescription for dealing with Western civilization, which proved stronger. As Chinese civilization was no longer sustained there appears a nihilist tendency devaluing Chinese traditional values.

In modern history, both the negation of the Chinese tradition and the Westernization of Chinese culture went through three steps, namely, the Westernization Movement in the latter half of the 19th century, the Reform Movement of 1898 and the May 4th Movement of 1919.

After the Opium War, many China intellectual recognized that Western civilization had an advantage over Chinese civili-zation, so they called for learning from the West in order some day to defeat it. Following the model of Lin Zexu who advocated: "Pay the Western foreigner back in his own coin," such intellectuals as Zen Cuofan, Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang, etc., launched the Westernization Movement to introduce techniques of Western capitalist production. Their intent was to modernize in order to pre-serve the rule of the Qing government. They built shipyards, textile mills and so on; especially they developed the Northern Navy, whose total tonnage ranked first in Asia and eighth in the world. On the surface the Qing seemed to be developing rapidly in the area of technology and manufacturing, which is to say that it seemed to have begun its modernization. But in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Northern Navy of the Qing dynasty was defeated. The loss of this war was considered to be the failure of the West-ernization Movement as a way of modernizing China, for the Nor-thern Navy was the comprehensive embodiment of that Movement.

The fact that the grand Middle Kingdom was defeated by a so-called little "uncivilized" country awakened more Chinese. Many people felt this to be really galling and humiliating. But after drawing a lesson from this bitter experience, the Chinese began to realize that Western civilization included not only material civili-zation, but also political and economic systems, and that the latter were even more important. As a result, such intellectuals as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Tan Sitong initiated the Reform Move-ment of 1898. They wanted to modernize China by copying the Western political and economic systems which had been learned by the Japanese before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.

For example, to reform the old government organization, to better staff and simplify administration, to abolish the ancient Chinese examination system, to build new Western-style schools, to permit people to freely set up newspapers and societies, to establish General Bureaus of Railways, Mines, Agriculture, In-dustry and Business, etc. They even recommended an English man, Timothy Richard, as an adviser of Emperor Guangxu. Finally, however, this was bitterly strangled by conservative feudal forces because the Empress Dowager Cixi felt that the movement threatened her power, and some staff wanted to retain their stature.

The failure of the Reform Movement produced many more repercussions than that of the Westernization Movement. Many of the advanced intellectuals of China came to find that the moderni-zation of China could not succeed only by advancing the material civilization and reforming the political ad economic systems with-out introducing the modern Western ideas and the beliefs which underlay the Western civilization. This led finally to the May 4th movement of 1919, whose central point was "Down with Con-fucianism." But as "Down with the Confucianism" meant es-sentially "Down with China’s Own World," the Movement des-troyed the soul and the spiritual universe of the Chinese. As a result, it did not succeed in integrating the essence of Chinese civilization with the program of modernization.

Why did the three great movements of modern Chinese history not achieve their goal of modernizing China? The principal reason was that the leaders of the movements fell into a nihilism regarding Chinese civilization. The Westernization Movement was to modernize China by learning Western science and technology. The Reform Movement was to modernize China by imitating the Western political an economical systems. Both these reflect a deeper level of nihilism regarding Chinese civilization. Because of this they all chose Western patterns as the prescription for dealing with the problems of Chinese modernization, and failed to integrate this into the dominant trends of Chinese civilization by which China was China.

In fact, in the late Ming and the early Qing Dynasties, a Confucian transformation was led by three great Confucians: Wang Chuanshan, Huang Zongxi and Gu Yanwu. They found that though the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming Dynasties had been prosperous, these dynasties were subjugated by two foreign nations respectively, the Yuan and Qing dynasties. They noted that the Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties laid particular stress on the "Inner Sage" or self-cultivation, but lost sight of establishing the "Outer King". Thus, they wanted to transform Confucianism from the "Inner Sage" to the "Outer King" model.

But this way was not pursued consistently. Up to the Qianjia period of the Qing dynasty textual criticism was absent, so the approach of transformating Confucianism was cut. Neither the Westernization nor the Reform Movement led to a transformation. All agreed the problem to be that of the "Outer King," which was approached in two manners: for Gu, Huang and Wang it was through Chinese national traditions; for Zen, Zuo and Li’s Wester-nization Movement and Kang and Liang’s Reform Movement it was though Western Learning. Therefore, both approaches were fundamentally minority movements, rather than movements of Chinese national life.

It was natural that such movements without a Chinese character and native cultural soil should fail. The same can be said of the May 4th Movement.

In the modernizing process of China, national nihilism and national conservatism had always been in conflict with each other. Although national nihilism was the main reason why the great attempts failed to modernize China, this does not mean that na-tional conservatism could modernize China. History proved this as well. After the founding of the Republic of China, the nation ex-perienced the autocratic monarchy of Yuan Shikai and the resto-rationist activities of Zhang Xun. Many intellectuals formed groups of royalists and conservatists, such as Kang Youwei, Lian Qichao, Liu Shipei and Zhang Taiyan, most of whom were quite intelligent. Why did so many Chinese intellectuals support the mo-narchy, restore the dethroned monarch, and protect national con-servatism and the Confucian Religion after the founding of the Republic?

The dominant reason was that the Chinese cherished a deep affection for Chinese cultural traditions. Democratic constitutionalism was not Chinese, nor were the accepted political and eco-nomic systems. The ultimate symbol of Chinese culture was the au-tocratic monarchy, so they sustained and protected this. Moveover, Western religion had intruded into China too; this paganism aroused Chinese resistance and generated the movement for Con-fucian religion.

When conservative intellectuals opposed Western democracy with a traditional Chinese monarchy, what underlay this action was affection for the Chinese tradition. The royalists, the national conservatives and the protectors of Confucianist religion embodied the Chinese intellectuals’ last revolt against Western culture. They were defeated thoroughly because they were out of step with the whole era and could not respond to the challenges China then confronted.

Besides, the Boxer Movement (Yihetuan Movement) was not willing to learn from the West, but wanted to opposed it: emo-tionally they were against the West and unwilling to learn from it. They opposed strong warships and guns with their bodies, but suffered a serious and moving failure. As a stand for the nation, the Boxer Movement was the last popular resistance against Western culture. They did not learn rationally from the West as inte-llectuals, but directly opposed the intrusion of Western culture at the price of their lives. With the failures of the intellectual movement of the royalists and of the folk movement of the Boxers, due to the collapse of national dignity China began to worship with blind faith all things foreign.

Looking at the modernizing process of China from a distance, one can see that the Westernization and Reform Movements set the Western spear against China’s own shield. The May 4th Movement did the same, attacking Chinese traditions with Western culture. This so injured Chinese national life that it could not stand. There-fore, the Chinese were forced to take another path. Seeking a new way which would "both satisfy the anti-Western passions, and echo the rational need for learning from the West" they chose the fashionable Marxist-Leninism. Marx’s thought was essentially against the Western culture of capitalism, though conceived in the West. Marxism met simultaneously the psychological need for learning rationally from the West and for passionate opposition to the West. So the Chinese began to accept the "West" that opposes the West and Marxism came to dominate China for many years. Unfortunately, in emphasizing the anti-West aspect of Marxism, Marxist China ignored the national economy and people’s live-lihood, which for a long time led to a backwardness.

Now, China is being carried to a new stage of modernization, but whether this can both overcome nihilism regarding Chinese civilization and avoid national conservatism remains an unsolved problem. To overcome national nihilism is not to quit learning from the West, for national nihilism is not entirely bad. The lesson to be drawn from history is to avoid learning from the West in a scattered manner. We should learn form the West not only its science and technology, its political and economic systems, but also its ideals and beliefs. Only by learning comprehensively rather than one-sidedly from the West can we learn some of the essence of Western civilization.

Similarly, to avoid national conservatism is not the same as abandoning the entire Chinese culture. The problem is to distin-guish between the essence and the dross of Chinese civilization. Only by integrating the cream of our national civilization with that of the Western civilization will the old ideal of modernizing China come true.

But what is the essence of Chinese civilization? What is in accord with the spirit of the times is the quintessence of civili-zation. According to this standard, for example, the following world appear to be the cream which we should carry forward in the modernization process of China.

The appreciation of the people as the foundation of the country: China has not undergone a bourgeois revolution as did the West. Nevertheless, while failing to form a tradition of democracy, China classically has taken the people as the foundation of the country. Mencius says, "the people is the most important, the country is the second most important, the king of the least impor-tance." This can be developed into a modern democratic outlook.

The idea of humanity: In the whole world Confucianism was the first to stress the value of humanity. This appreciation of humanity is one thousand years earlier than the humanism of the West.

The reform of thought: China has a conservative tradition, but also has a sense of reformation. In the Book of Change or I Ching there are many ideas of change. It says directs one "to abolish the outmoded and to innovate," "the exhausted gives rise to change," etc. In the history of China there were many cases of reform which as examples can serve the modernization of China.

Consciousness of the moral dimension of the person: The Chinese tradition lacks a sense of practical free individuality, but it emphasizes the moral independence of the person and recognizes that everyone has his own independent moral will. Confucius says, "the supreme commander of the army can be taken away by force, but the will of any ordinary man cannot be taken away." Such an idea of personal value can play a positive role in the process of modernization.

The appreciation of subjectivity: Chines idealism is fundamentally mistaken, but with reason it stresses subjective activity. Provided that this can be integrated critically, it will contribute to the modernization of China.

We believe that so long as the cream of Western civilization can be integrated and at the same time conservatism regarding national civilization can be integrated and at the same time con-servatism regarding national civilization can be avoided, the mo-dernization of China will be realized completely.