Main Social-Political Thought Trends in China Since the Reform and Opening up: Stages and their Essence
April 2022
Author Prof. Guo Zhonghua is from the School of Governance, Nanjing University
Source: Journal of Political Science Research
Abstract: Social thought trends are the reflection of social reality in the field of thought. Since the reform and opening up, China’s social thoughts have gone through three stages of evolution, presenting three theoretical spectra: the first is the “single” theoretical spectrum in the 1980s, the second is the “opposition” theoretical spectrum from the 1990s to around 2010, and the third is the “diffused” theoretical spectrum from 2010 to the present (2022).
These development stages reflect the essence of China’s social development since the reform and opening up, that is, the transformation from “relatively single” to “relatively plural” and then to “highly plural” social structure. Each social thought reflects the interests of a specific group and aims to influence the choice of path or policy. “Development” and “leading” are the 2 basic ways to deal with such diverse social-political thoughts, that is, to dissolve the existence basis of social thoughts with promoting healthy “development” and we should “lead” the development of diverse social thoughts with socialist mainstream values.
Social thoughts are the basic variables that affect political development. Behind major historical events such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe’s socialist camp at the end of the 20th century and the “Arab Spring” at the beginning of the 21st century, there are always shadows of social thoughts. The impact of social thoughts on China is also very obvious: before and after the May Fourth Movement, China saw the so-called “ideological war” situation, and various social thoughts tried to point out the direction for China’s development; in the early days of reform and opening up, social thoughts led to “spiritual pollution” and “bourgeois liberalization” in the 1980s, which profoundly negatively affected China’s political stability; after entering the 1990s, neoliberalism, constitutional democracy, universal values and other thoughts tried to lead China to the Western development path. After the 2010 nowadays, social thoughts are undergoing an overall transformation, and a large number of unprecedented social thoughts have entered the spotlight and attracted a large number of followers.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that “in today’s era, social thoughts and value orientations are becoming increasingly active, mainstream and non-mainstream coexist, advanced and backward are intertwined, and social thoughts are turbulent”①, which poses new challenges to how to consolidate the guiding role of Marxism in the field of ideology. Understanding the development, evolution and inherent nature of Chinese social thought since the reform and opening up is an important means to meet this challenge.
“Social thoughts” and “political thoughts” have roughly the same meaning: political thoughts are mainly about content, while social thoughts are mainly about social impact. ②
In general, to become a social thought, the following four criteria must be met. First, ideological nature. Social thoughts must take a specific theoretical position as a starting point and an analysis of prominent real-life issues as a basis, and form a systematic theory through the combination of theoretical positions and real-life issues. Second, social nature. Social thoughts must have broad public support. If an idea only stays within the intellectual community and does not form a social impact, it is an expression of academic views rather than a social thought. Third, political nature. That is, social thoughts aim to influence the choice of political development path or major public decisions. This goal has a certain degree of circuitousness, that is, the influence path from intellectual elites to ordinary people and then to political elites. Fourth, non-mainstream nature. Social thoughts usually come and go quickly, and are not as stable and coherent as ideologies, especially not supported by the ruling class like mainstream ideologies are supported.
From the founding of New China to before the reform and opening up, various major political movements have been experienced, and social thoughts have had little foothold. However, since the launch of reform and opening up, along with the rapid diversification of Chinese society, social thoughts have flourished. Therefore, in terms of time period selection, the time range discussed in this article is limited to the period from the launch of reform and opening up to 2020. This period can be roughly divided into three stages with 1990 and 2010 as the boundary: the “germination and mutation” stage in the 1980s, the “differentiation and contention” stage from the 1990s to around 2010, and the “adjustment and transformation” stage from 2010 to the present. ③ Next, the theoretical spectrum of these three stages will be analyzed respectively, and the inherent essence behind the stage changes will be summarized.
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