deconstructing modernization - wen tiejun

8/2/2019 Deconstructing Modernization - Wen Tiejun

1/17

Chitiese Sociology and Anthropology, vol. 39, no. 4, Summer 2007, pp. 10-25. 2007 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.ISSN 0 00 9^ 62 5 / 2007 $9.50 + 0.00.DOl 10.2753/CSA0009-4625390401

W E N TIEJUN

Deconstructing ModernizationAbstract: This article is a reflection on and deconstruction of modern-ization based on extensive research. While analyzing the concept ofmodernization, the article also explores the path, approach, and objec-tive of mo dernization in China . Through the exam ination ofthe histori-cal development of Western European countries, the author points outthat mo dernization in the West was in fact a process of capital formationand expansion by way of colonization. Under the current internationalpolitical and economic circumstances, this path of development cannotbe replicated. By exam ining the reality of developing countries, the au-thor discovers that the "modernization " path of development representedby a high national incom e and a fast rate of urbanization cannot solvethe widespread problem ofthe three big disparities " (between incomes,urban and rural areas, and regions). The author points out that the vul-gar (cufangshi) economic growth caused by the capitalization of re-sources is not the only objective we strive to achieve. Modern ization inChina should instead ground itself in the basic situation of a countrywith a large population and a severe shortage of resources, and it shouldadopt a scientific approach in striving to realize "the five overall con-siderations" (tongchou).


2/17

SUMMER 2007 11

I am not a scholar of the study or the library, but a traveling researchworker whose research mainly yields perceptual knowledge {ganxingrenshi). It may be true that such knowledge lacks theoretical dep th, so itmay be difficult to translate it into policy recommendations, and evenmore difficult to raise it to the level of so-called theory; at least, to do sowould require the accumulation of large amounts of research. The rea-son we cannot stop at the phenomenal level of perceptual knowledge,however, is that, in contrast with those who hastily propose panaceasadopted indiscriminately from theories in books, we find it necessary toundertake serious reflection based on extensive research.Refiection is actually a rather painful process. Especially when, afteryears of research and practice, we find we must rethink the establishedand widely accepted concepts in the existing literature. This process iseven more difficult than when we learned those concepts in the firstplace. I, for exam ple, was also a radical advocate of the market reformsin the 1980s. At that time, radical marketists like me insisted that pastproblem s lay mainly in the system 's flaws, that economic growth wouldbe promoted as long as marketization reforms could be carried outquickly, and that China's problems could be easily solved and modern-ization easily achieved as long as new distributable wealth could be pro-duced. By the 1990s, however, these problems no longer looked so simple.This article is a result of my reflections on and deconstruction ofmodernization based on research I have conducted over the years. I mustpoint out that the term "deconstruction" is not a simplistic negation.Here I want to indicate that, when we use the concept of modernization,we must first make sure we understand how this concept took shape andwhat it actually means in relation to the history and current situation ofChina.Historical ObservationColonization and the Modernization of Western CountriesContrary to explanations proffered by certain theories and ideologies


3/17

12 CHINESE SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

in Europe and provided an appropriate environment for the primitiveaccum ulation of capital. On the other hand, the appropriation of abun-dant resources in the colonies allowed Westem countries to rapidlycomplete the primitive accumulation of capital by converting this ap-propriated wealth into capital. The West's modernization, therefore,was actually a process of capital formation and expansion achieved byway of colonization.

Let us first exam ine the demographic transformation. In Latin Am eri-can academia, it is commonly understood that there were about a hun-dred million indigenous people living in North America over threehundred years ago . When the European co lonists arrived, they found thenative inhabitants of North America unsuitable for slave labor. Sincethese tribes were in essence a nation living in harmony with nature, theirsubsistence philosophy for thousands of years had been to take onlywhat they needed from nature, to hunt only those animals they neededto eat. This nation, therefore, was sustainable. Capitalist industrializa-tion, however, required primitive accumulation, so it inevitably cameinto conflict with the sustainable philosophy of these indigenous people.When the Europeans arrived in the New World and forced the natives towork, the latter naturally fought for freedom and "sustainable liveli-hood," a concept that m odem people are only now beginning to appreci-ate, although the Native Americans had known it all along. When theyrefused to work in the colo nists ' mines, according to capitalist logic thismeant that they were lazy and had to be controlled by force, and as aresult, much of the native population died in revolt. Today, Native Ameri-cans can hardly be said to constitute a nation. According to statisticsprovided by the first Bush administration, only 420,000 Native Ameri-cans lived in the United States in 1992. The colonists badly needed la-bor power for the extraction of resources, so they had to transfer laborpower from colonial Africa to North and South America. During thisprocess, the native population of North and South America combinedfell by a hundred million, and ofa hundred million people captured in

Africa, a third were killed in the act of capture and another third died inthe course of transfer; only about one third made it to the Am ericas.


4/17

SUMMER 2007 13

its population moved out. As a result, Europeans occupied four othercontinents, tensions between population and resources were thoroughlyamel io ra ted , and Europe ' s resource env i ronment becameunprecedentedly comfortable and flexible.Another thing that is well known and yet easily forgotten is: Whatwould Europe's population be today if we included the descendents ofall the people transferred to colonies in Africa, Austra lia, and the Ameri-cas? The total would be about one billion. If we also included the off-spring of marriages between Europeans and indigenous people of thecolonized lands, the number would exceed the current population ofChina. If all these people had remained part of the same capitalist Eu-rope that advocated the full development of individuality and the maxi-mization of individual interests, the tensions between resources andpopulation would probably have resulted in conflicts more devastatingthan the two world wars combined, and modernization would have re-mained a distant dream.This colonization process, therefore, w as really the result of a primi-tive accumulation of capital at the expense of tens of m illions of indig-enous Am erican and African lives, as well as large-scale environmentaldestruction. Of course this process went hand in hand with a set of expe-riences in the formation and expansion of capital, and the theory derivedfrom these experiences is the social science ofthe "modernization" thatwe take for granted today.In fact, the European models of socialism and the welfare state that

many are talking about today are also related to this background. Europe'sestablishment of colonies in the other four continents and the expansionof industrial capital brought about the need for the development of so-cialized mass production, the massive migration of populations, and ashortage in the supply of labor (especially at a time when there was asyet no mechanized mass production). This gave laborers the leeway tonegotiate in a labor market where supply fell short of demand, and soonthere emerged the workers' movement, socialist parties, and eventuallythe proposal of state welfare policies, welfare socialism, and welfarestates. The history of the workers' movement at that time could also be


5/17


Let us suppose that the three hundred years of colonization were neces-sary for the West's modemization, and that, objectively, this was alsothe empirical process of which "modernization" consisted in the West-ern discursive environment. Then, when we discuss development inChina, we cannot simply transplant this discourse w ithout carefully con-sidering how it was formed. We must ask: Is this "modemization" ascientific concept?

Erom the perspective of methodology, modern social science cannotbe called scientific because social science cannot be tested. Strictly speak-ing, only results that can be duplicated by others under given conditionsand through given techniques can be called "scientific."If we adopt "modernization" as a scientific concept, then we mustregard the West's three hundred years of colonization as a process thatcan be tested. Can this process be duplicated by other countries? If not,how can this concept be directly adopted by developing countries thatare trying to catch up with those industrialized countries?Reexamining the history of Westem countries' modernization, andconsidering the essence of m odemization and whether it is scientific ornot, we discover that we must rethink some widely accepted and estab-lished ideas and that we cannot simply adopt this discourse as our guid-ing ideology. The "modernization" that has been discussed in so manybooks and conferences, and the empirical process of which it consisted,cannot, in fact, be duplicated.Looking back from today's vantage point, there were indeed severalpioneers among Asian countries that attempted to modernize accordingto the Westem model. Japan, for example, was the first to propose "shed-ding Asia and joining E urope" {tuo ya ru ou), but when it tried to retracetheWestern steps of colonial expansion, theWestern states fiercely taughtit a lesson. The Japanese may have felt wronged because of this; theystill have not admitted their guilt, and they feel uneasy and indignant:"How come you Westemers were able to achieve m odemization throughcolonization and we may not? W hat you did in the Americas and Africawas much crueller. All we did was occupy Korea, Taiwan, NortheasternChina, and Mongolia. We have almost no resources in our own land, so


6/17

SUMM ER 2007 15

Even if we wanted to retrace the West's steps of colonial expansion,therefore, we lack the necessary conditions. Moreover, Japan alreadytried this and failed, so what should China do?At the turn of the century, China already ranks high among worldprecedents in the output of major industrial products. It ranks first in theproduction of iron, steel, color TVs, coal, textiles, and cement, and inmany industries it ranks second. This high ranking is possible becauseChina enjoys a vast domestic m arket. Also , the formation and expansionof industries in China them selves form a process about which questionsneed to be asked.Wherever you go, no matter whether it is in Asia, Africa, LatinAmerica, or the developed countries, you hear people talking about the"China threat." Why is that? It is because China's demand is too great.In 2003, China's economy grew 9.4 percent and accounted for 10 per-cent of the total oil, 24.9 percent of the total iron and steel, and 50 per-cent of the cement consumed in the world that year. In the case of ironand steel, for example, China's purchase of iron ore accounted for overhalf of the iron ore exported from Australia. Ch ina's huge demand helpedincrease Australia's gross domestic product (GDP) as well as the ex-change rate for the Australian dollar. If this trend continues, a consider-able portion ofthe world's energy resources and raw material will soonbe supplied to China. Would the world allow this to happen?We should have already leamed our lesson in this respect. Erom 1995to 1996, for example, China imported thirty million tons of wheat foreighteen months in a row, resulting in an approximately 100 percentincrease in international wheat prices. This led many developing coun-tries to complain: "Now you Chinese have money so you can importeverything, but we ca n't afford that. Do we deserve to go hungry?"China, under the spell of marketist ideology, pays no heed to suchwamings, but all other countries see problems in the way China doesthings. There are many theories about China's impending collapse andaccounts of the "Ch ina threat." The former hold that China lacks suffi-cient resources to sustain its current model of growth and cannot con-tinue consuming the world's resources like this forever, whereas the


7/17


econom ic-political order, so the rise of China in the twenty-first centurywill lead to conflicts that pose a challenge to the human race. In myopinion, however, Ch ina's so-called rapid growth poses a challenge firstand foremost to China itself.Realistic ObservationModernization in Developing Coun triesIn order to comprehensively deconstruct modernization and explore itslessons vis-a-vis China 's past and present, we should examine the expe-riences of modernization in developing countries.In the past few years I have had the opportunity to visit a few devel-oping countries under the auspices of intemational nongovernmentalorgan izations.' These experiences were completely different from thoseI had when I visited Europe and the United States in the late 1980s andearly 1990s. I discovered that we Chinese were facing problems thatmany developing countries had already experienced and thought about.Communicating with intellectuals from developing countries wouldtherefore yield completely different ideas. Especially in South Asia,Southeast Asia, and South A merica, I discovered that the problems theythought about were almost totally beyond our field of vision. In fact,many ofthe goals that China planned to achieve have probably alreadybeen achieved in these countries.Eor example, by 2020, China is proposing to construct a society inwhich everyone is comfortably well-off (xiaokang shehui), the goal be-ing to triple the current per capita GDP of US$1,000. China's currenturbanization level is about 36 percent. According to estimates by theNational Development and Reform Commission, the urbanization levelby 2020 will be about 55 percent. Apparently, the "three rural issues"will be settled if the above per capita income and urbanization objec-tives are achieved. However, by carefully examining the development

processes of some developing countries, we find that these objectiveshave already been achieved there. But have the problems been solved at


8/17

SUMME R 2007 17

marketization. Prior to the financial crisis, its per capita GD P w as closeto US$6 ,000 and the urbanization level was almost 80 percent. In otherwords, Mexico long ago achieved the expected objectives that China isnow setting for itself. However, with such a degree of privatization, lib-eralization, democratization, and marketization, M exican society is stillvery much polarized with huge disparities between urban and rural ar-eas. The problems in rural areas are still very complicated and at timesconflicts can be very intense.^ In fact, destitution in rural areas and im-poverishment among peasants are not solved by privatization,marketization, liberalization, and globalization, nor do they disappearnaturally with increases in GDP or the achievement of urbanization.Take Brazil as another example. The size of the country is slightlysmaller than that of China, but the population is just over 100 million.There are not so many deserts and mountains. A Chinese person whoflies over Brazil will be very envious of the vast green underneath. Bra-zil also boasts a very high level of economic development with a na-tional per capita income of US$7,000 and an urbanization level as highas 82 percent. However, the nationwide "landless workers' movement"(MST) and various intense social conflicts still exist there.Millions of people in Mexico live in the slums. In Brazil, there arealso large areas of slums in major urban areas and a great number ofmarginalized people live there. Prostitution, gam bling, and drug use ninrampant in the slums and there is a severe problem with gang con trol. Itis very difficult for the government to exercise regular govem ance .

India is also facing a very serious poverty problem in its northernareas. It is the kind of poverty that is almost too horrible to look at.Large numbers of peasants are without land and thatched sheds are ev-erywh ere to be seen. Being utterly destitute, the impoverished peasantsoften launch un imaginably violent revolts. In the judgment of the Indianintelligence departm ent, a guerrilla corridor has been formed from Nepalto Bhutan and from northwestern India to Sri Lanka, with armed peas-ants controlling extensive rural areas.Similar examples are too numerous to list. From Thailand to the Phil-ippines, from Mexico to Brazil, all these developing countries enjoy


9/17

IH CHINESE SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

phenom ena still exist now that these developing countries have alreadyachieved what we are striving for in economic term s? Why is it that theyhave progressed so far in systemic reform and have achieved better eco-nomic statistics than the ones we publicize, yet the three major catego-ries of social disparity that are our focus have still not been fundam entallyresolved there? Is it in fact not the case that social conflicts in thesecountries are now even more complicated and intense?W hat Kind of Modernization Do We Want?When I consider the actual experiences of the past in the West, I nolonger discuss the problems using well-worn concepts. Instead, I con-template the choice for China based on the objective state of affairs. Atall those seminars and conferences that are held one after another, thespeakers just eamestly and tirelessly present their opinions. However,after numerous rounds of discussion, there is still no definite under-standing ofthe fundamental problem we currently face. Sometimes, thecommon doubts that people have arouse very charged emotions in me.Eor exam ple, some ask, "Is China really competent enough to achievethe objective of tripling its per capita G D P?" In my opinion, w e shouldhave enough confidence. Tripling GDP is not the problem. We mighteven quadruple or quintuple it. The precondition is that China shouldnot open its currency market or capital market. Why is that?First, we should note that the most important foundation for the issu-ance of currency is a stable political regime. Since the world gold stan-dard was abandoned in 1944, econom ic growth has played an im portant,but not absolute, role in the issuance of currency. What is really abso-lute, or the only irreplaceable source of currency credit, is the powerfulpolitical credit ofth e govem ment. Therefore, we can say that the singlemost important foundation for the issuance of currency is a powerfulpolitical regime.We can demon strate this using the examples ofthe United States andthe Soviet Union. If it had not established global hegemony through itsmilitary power which is several times greater than that of other coun-


10/17

SUMM ER 2007 19

reform started off before other reforms and the powerful political re-gime no longer existed. The absence of a powerful political regime ledto an absence of the currency credit that was based on it. As a result,there was a drastic depreciation in the ruble and the wealth ofth e coun-try and the general public also shrank considerably.Relatively speaking, China is the one country with the most stablepolitical regime at present. No matter how much currency the countryissues, credit comes from the government. Although the rate ofnonperforming assets is pretty high among state-owned banks, the gen-eral public still makes deposits and no one ever doubts that these depos-its will not depreciate. The reason for this is that the degree of credit ofstate-owned banks is not based on the rate of capital sufficiency in ac-cordance with the regulations ofth e Basel Accords. It is dependen t uponan enormous centralized government. In other words, China is a countrywith a unitary system and therefore China is not only powerful in itspolitical regime, but also continues to deepen its self-reform. If such astable and increasingly improving political regime can basically guar-antee the stability of the country, then we should not be overanxious toopen up the currency market. That way the govemment can print andissue currency that will increase the investment into GDP.Why is it, then, that I suggest not opening up the capital market? Inmy opinion, the capital market is mainly a tool that produces addedvalue through "capitalizing" resources and assets. The simple examplebelow will suffice to explain this point:

In the past, China had a public housing distribution system. At thattime homes were resources for living consumption instead of assets.Later in 1998, the govem ment implem ented reforms in the housing sys-tem and the public had no choice but to purchase housing. Homes thusbecame assets for the owners, not consumption resources that wouldhave been obtained through distribution as in the past. If the real estateconstm ction and operation enterprises go public, that means further capi-talization of the real estate assets. If people want to purchase a home,they first of al 1 need to acquire currency. For a home price of RMB100,000(RMBl = US$0.12 at the time of writing), the govemment needs to


11/17

20 CHINESE SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPO LOGY

although homes were actually consumed by the public, they were notreflected in the increase in GDP, whereas now the GDP doubles againand again whenever homes move from the distribution to the purchas-ing system, and again when they are converted into capital and enter thestock market.

This is why I have never doubted China's ability to have tripled itsGD P in the past and triple it again by 20 20. What is more, in a coun trylike China, most of its prairies, forests, water, soil, and minerals arestill natural resources. As long as these resources can enter the trans-action market and become capitalized in the capital market, the GDPwill be sure to skyrocket. An elevenfold increase will be possible, letalone tripling.Therefore, the question is not whether the GDP can continue to double.The question is whether this is what we really want.W hat do we w ant, in the end? When the GD P doubles ten times, wewill have tens of trillions of renminbi and confront the virtual economyof the developed countries with our own virtual economy. China will beable to participate in the new round of competition against major coun-tries with virtual capital. But is this what we really want?If it is, then we should continue along this path, following mainstreamdevelopment as at present. Can we go far along this path? Of course wecan. But what are some of the conditions involved? These include therapid development of science and technology so that sunshine can beturned into energy, seawater turned into raw m aterial, and the resourcesofthe earth and outer space infinitely developed. If we assume that suchWestern-oriented modernization can be realized, this means an infiniteexpansion of human capacities and an infinite appropriation of resources.Some peop le feel that this path of development will not lead us any-where and that we should, at least in our lifetime, consider the sustain-able development of human beings, resources, and society. We need toreflect on the fact that China is a country where the population keepsexpanding and resources are seriously lacking.

Let us suppose that China is able to achieve the objective of US $3,000per capita GDP by 2020, with 55 percent of the population living in


12/17

SUMME R 2007 21

people and land in the vast coun tryside will not be significantly changed.On the other hand, however, urbanization will inevitably require acqui-sition of more cultivated land. Based on the current urbanization rate,the area of cultivated land decreases by an average of 10 million mu(667,000 ha) every year. By 2020 there will be a decrease of m ore than200 million mw (13 million ha) of cultivated land, so instead of improv-ing, people-land relations in the countryside will be even worse.If we accept this reality of development, we will find out that, eventhough we hope to realize integrated and coordinated urban-rural devel-opm ent, the current pattern o fth e modern econom ic system in the citiesis still not appropriate for the rural areas with their highly tense people-land relations and highly dispersed small-scale peasant economy. Themodem legal system that legal scholars advocate may also be inappro-priate for a rural society based on a small-scale peasant economy. Thesmall-scale peasant economy is highly dispersed and nonspecialized, soit would be difficult to achieve so-called modernization with a super-structure built on such an economic foundation.Look ing into 2020 with the long-term objective as it is at present, wewill find that, when our population reaches more than 1.5 billion, therewill still be a system with an urban-rural dual structure and a large num-ber of people will still live in the countryside. The complete system ofmodernized governance that people identify with now will not be fullyapplicable to the rural areas. As for government, governance based onthe so-called modern legal system still may not occur. So long as theurban-rural dual structure exists, the gap in income and living standardbetween urban and rural residents will also exist. What about the gapsbetween the poor and the rich and am ong different regions? Those, I amafraid, will also continue to exist. This will probably be the situationthat we will face.Deeper and further reflection will lead us to discover that the exist-ence o fth e urban-rural dual structure in China and the even distributionof land per farming head in the current farmland system are the veryreasons why there are no large-scale slums like those in the major citiesof other developing countries. If peasants really leave the countryside


13/17

22 CHINESE SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPO LOGY

years, however, mobile employment remains unchanged and very fewmigrant workers have settled down in the cities. If we want to expeditethe urbanization rate and encourage these people to settle down, weshould at least first take a look at how much of the urbanization levelrealized in other developing countries actually occurs in and applies tothe slums. Is this over-urbanization really something we want? We as-pire to realizing benevolent social governance and providing these peoplewith social welfare, but China still lacks the financial resources for thisin the foreseeable future.

In view of various complicated and entangled situations, we mustfurther reflect whether the direction based on the established discourseof modernization is really the objective we want to achieve.A Major Change in Strategy and a Scientific Approach toDevelopmentAs we all know, the major objective we hoped to achieve in the past wascalled the "four m odernizations," namely m odernization in industry, ag-riculture, national defense, and science and technology. Proposed andset at the beginning of the reform and opening-up policy, realization ofthis objective was set for 2000. But 2000 passed by without much con-cern about whether modernization was actually achieved.If we pay closer attention, however, we will notice that there havebeen changes in the way the phrase is used. From 1998 to 1999, the stateleaders changed their manner of presentation from that of twenty yearsbefore. "Agricultural modernization" was then least likely to be realizedin China's current situation, so therefore the proposal became an "at-tempt to realize agricultural modernization first in well-developed coastalareas." The Chinese language is interestingpeople may interpret sucha change in the proposal in different ways: (1) only developed areas mayrealize modernization in the future and other areas can be left alone forthe time being; (2) even developed coastal areas cannot realize m odern-ization without much-needed effort; and (3) modernization may be real-ized across the country, but with developed coastal areas taking the lead.


14/17

SUMMER 2007 23

proposed. T his can be interpreted in this way: due to conditions now, itis hard to realize this integrated development between urban and ruralareas. In addition, what deserves our particular attention in view of theincreasingly serious three conflicts in China is that the document stressedthat the major objective to be achieved by 2020 was "the construction ofa society in which everyone is comfortably well-off." Thus, the proposalof the "four modernizations" not realized was actually significantlyamended using a realistic approach.During the Third Plenary Session ofthe Sixteenth CCP Central Com -mittee in 2003, the central government further stressed the "integratedapproach to development" (zonghe fazhan guan). This can be under-stood to m ean that "GDP will not be the only criterion" in the future. Atthe same time, the central govemment also stressed the importance ofrealizing the "five integrated developments," namely urban-rural, region-region, economic-social, human-nature, and domestic-international.The outlook from the central government also underwent majorchanges during the first years of the new century. At the turn of thecentury, the central govemment specifically stressed that the guidingprinciple of the tenth five-year plan was "people-centeredness" (yi renwel ben). During the Third Plenary Session ofthe Sixteenth CCP Cen-tral Committee, "people-centeredness" was once again stressed as thepremise ofthe scientific approach to development. By December 2004,the central govemment specifically organized a workshop for senior lead-ers on the transformation of strategic thought from "integrated develop-ment" to "scientific approaches to development." Not only was"people-centeredness" stressed again as a major guiding principle inthe "scientific approach to development," but also the conceptof "sustainability" was introduced. Therefore, the new trend became"people-centeredness," integrated and coordinated development, and sus-tainable development.During the National People's Congress in March 2004, Premier WenJiabao fully expounded the main contents of the significant strategicchange in his govemment work report. From the Sixteenth NationalCongress of the CCP in 2002 to the Third Plenary Session of the Six-


15/17


proach to development put forward at the Third Plenary Session of theSixteenth C CP Central Committee. The "new industrialization path" and"circular economy" emphasized in the 2004 govemment work reportindicate that the central govemm ent is wary of vulgar econom ic g rowth:unreasonable consumption must be curtailed, unrestricted consumptionmust be avoided, and laissez-faire attitudes in the blind expansion ofindustrial capital should be stopped. In the govem ment work report, theeconomic growth target for 2004 is set at 7 percent and other economicindexes for 2004 are also drastically lowered. For exam ple, import-exportgrowth in 2003 was 37 percent and the ratio for 2004 is set at 8 percent.Many people do not understand this: Why should we set the index so lowat a stage of high growth? The fundamental reason for this is that thecentral government has realized that this vulgar growth is not sustainable.We highly praise the guiding principles of "peop le-cente redness" andsustainable development put forward by the central government. Whatwe would like to have are an effective economy and a circular economyinstead of the blind advocacy of consumerism. Our refiections on theissues in modemization also tally with the policy considerations ofthecentral govemment. Therefore, my deconstruction of modemization isnot simply the personal perspective of an ordinary researcher, but alsoshould be related to a series of discussions on policies.Epilogue

Reflection as a Stepping StoneThe deconstruction of modemization that I explore in this article is theresult of my own reflections over the past years. It contains my recon-siderations of many problems we face today based on my observation ofthe world from a wider perspective, based especially on my study toursand comparative study of developing countries. No doubt these thoughtsmay seem unilateral and simplistic. I am aware that my research is notthorough enough, but I will continue such research during my lifetimeand deepen my own knowledge and perception. W hat I am doing here is


16/17

SUMMER 2007 25

It is my opinion that, as members of the generation growing up to-gether with the country, we should provide a stepping stone for youngergenerations so that their progress can be steady and sure. What can weprovide as stepping stones? We can provide our reflection, deconstruction,and serious rethinking of the established discourse. Young people ab-sorb much knowledge from books and universities, but they may lackthe necessary spirit of reflection. O nce they have accumulated a certainamount of experience, what they perceive may be different from whatthey learned in books. Such being the case, why do w e not present theseyoung people with the results of our own experience and reflection? Inthis way, they can go ahead and begin their discussions before it is toolate and too difficult to make changes.Notes

1. Visiting these places always inspires me to do some serious retlection anddiscussion. Many of these discussions have been published in magazines such asZiiongguo gaige (China reformj. Fo r exam ple, my reflections on M exico w ere pub-lished as "Xianchang muji Moxige mengmian jun" (An eye-witness report onMexico's masked army), China Reform 9 (2003); my retlections on India w ere pub-lished as "Wu di ze fan" (Revolt due to landlessness), Cliina Reform 2 (2004), and"D ang Zheng ze luan " (Chao s due to party struggle), Gaige neican (internal publica-tion ofth e China Institute for Reform and Dev elopm ent); and in "Mengjiala zhu shi"(Notes on Banglad esh) I attempted to interpret the phenom ena I had observed therein 2003 .

2. In 1994 there was a peasant uprising in the Mexican state ot Chiapas, and ithas carried on for ten years now. It was an armed uprising launched by indigenouspeop le in the m ountain s, and now they are gradually developing forms ofloc al self-governance.


17/17

deconstructing modernization - wen tiejun

Documents