Minben Thought in Ancient China

People-oriented thinking is an important ideological resource in the treasure trove of China's outstanding traditional culture. It originated in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the saying "the people are the foundation of the state, and the foundation is solid and the state is peaceful" highlights the primitive democratic color of political life in this era.

In the feudal society of China after the Qin and Han dynasties, although the idea of the people is still an important official consciousness, the political ecology of China's feudal society for more than 2,000 years

has in fact been a merciless mockery of the idea of the people. Although the ruling class recognizes the relationship between itself and the people as a boat and water, and hopes that the people can live and work in peace and contentment and realize the political goal of "the foundation is solid and the state is peaceful", this wish cannot be realized at all under the impact of the feudal economic base and superstructure premised on the exploitation of the classes, and the people-oriented thinking gradually evolved into a phrase of "lip service" in the political life of the feudal society over the long term. The idea of the people-oriented thought in the long-term feudal society political life also gradually evolved into a "mouth favor but not the actual" political empty words.

While there were no conditions for the realization of the people-centered ideology in feudal society, it still played a certain positive role in the development of Chinese history, especially in the traditional Chinese thought and culture, where it has a very important position. It not only fed a large number of thinkers, literati and politicians who cared about the people's plight, but also played a positive role in the transformation of Chinese society from traditional to modern. In modern China, it has been injected with new theoretical contents by the progressive people, grafted with the Western "democracy", and become an important ideological weapon to promote the progress of Chinese society. We have reason to believe that the idea of "putting the people first" will really take on new splendor in socialist China.

The idea of "people-oriented" is a precious historical heritage that has a long history in Chinese traditional culture. Its origin can be traced back to the beginning of the formation of the early state, and its connotation has been enriched and changed with the development of history. In modern times, the idea of the people's principle has been transformed from an official ideology of the feudal ruling class for ruling the country and securing the state to an important ideological weapon of the bourgeoisie's democratic revolution, and the Chinese ****anziation party, in particular, critically inherited the historical legacy and endowed it with brand-new theoretical contents. Today, it is undoubtedly of great significance for the construction of the political culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics to sort out the cultural connotation of the people-oriented ideology in ancient China and the historical lineage of its development and evolution.

There are many references to "people" in pre-Qin literature. Although scholars still have different understandings of the status of the "people" in the early days, there is one thing that is the same, that is, the "people" in the pre-Qin era was the ruled class of the city-state state, and the main laborers of the society at that time. The saying "The people are the foundation of the state, the foundation is solid and the state is peaceful" can be found in the pseudo "The Song of the Five Sons" (古文尚书-五子之歌). Although we can't tell whether the anonymous original text of "Song of the Five Sons" contains the phrase "the people are the foundation of the state, the foundation of the state is peaceful", but according to reliable pre-Qin documents, we can think that the idea of the people's foundation had already been seen in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.

Jia Yi's "New Book" and Dong Zhongshu's "Spring and Autumn Annals" interpreted the word "people" as "blind", "close" and "ignorant", meaning without culture. ", meaning uneducated and ignorant, this exegesis containing contemptuous meaning can not be said to be completely unfounded, but it is doubtful whether it is the "people" so that the word sound to take the meaning of the reason. Because in the pre-Qin literature, we can see for the "people" of another narrative. Shangshu - Pan Geng: "I and Dugong, respectfully recorded the people's life, with permanent land in the new Eup." In the same book, the Oath of Tai: "Heaven sees what the people see, and heaven hears what the people hear." Zuozhuan (6th year of Huan Gong): "The people, the Lord of God is also, so the holy king first into the people and then committed to God." It can be seen in the pre-Qin era, in the minds of the ruling class, "people" is very respected. Of course, this does not mean that the "people" could be elevated to the ranks of the ruling class.

In the primitive society before the state came into being, everyone, including clan and tribal leaders, was a member of the clan and tribe, and their status was equal. After entering the civilized society, there is a state, there are classes, and there is also a monarch, nobles, commoners and slaves, but the ancient tradition of the clan system did not die out quickly. Although members of clans and tribes in general have become "people" governed by monarchs and nobles, the dignity and honor of their predecessors remain in their memories. It is this ancient tradition of the clan system that has become the source of the idea of "the people are the foundation of the state" in civilized societies.

Another meaning of "the people are the foundation of the state" is that it recognizes that the people are the main creators of the material wealth of the society and the state; without them, there is no way to talk about the livelihood of the state. The state language - the language of the Zhou said, after the reign of King Xuan of Zhou, do not register a thousand acres, Guo Wengong said: "No. The important thing of the people in the agriculture, God, the people of the country. The most important thing for the people is agriculture. The common millet of God is born, the sugar cane of the people is born, the provision of affairs is made, harmony and concord are established, and the accumulation of wealth is begun." The Son of Heaven led his ministers and the common people to the fields to show the importance of agricultural production and labor with the people, "If this is the case, then we can please the gods and be at peace with the people."

A notable manifestation of the concept of "the people are the foundation of the state" in early states is that the tradition of primitive democracy still plays an important role in the political life of city-states. Zhou Li - autumn official - small Sikou "job text:" the government of the dynasty, so that the people and ask. One is to inquire about the national crisis, two is to inquire about the national relocation, three is to inquire about the establishment of the king." Wang Guowei in the "Yin Zhou system theory" pointed out: "the Shangshu" said the intention of the rule, but only said the common people. The following nine articles of the Letters Patent of Kang, the Zhou's way of the world XU in." According to the State Language of the Zhou, King Li was tyrannical and called for a proclamation saying, "The people are not fit for life!" When King Li killed the people who had complaints, Duke Zao said, "Preventing the people's mouths is better than preventing a river. When a river is full of water and collapses, many people will be hurt, and so will the people." King Li did not listen and finally caused the people to riot and drove him away. This example shows that the people, when they cannot bear the cruel oppression of their rulers, will be like the flood that breaks through the dike and brings the rulers to their doom.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the royal family was in decline and the vassals were fighting for supremacy. There were frequent struggles for power and wealth between the offices and ministers of various countries, as well as between the ministers and each other. In these struggles, the back and forth of the people played an important role. In the third year of Zhaogong Zhuozhuan, it was said that Tian Huanzi of Qi lent grain to the people, lending it in big buckets and taking it in in small buckets, and the people were so grateful that they "returned to it like running water", and the power of Qi finally fell into the hands of the Chen Clan (i.e., the Tian Clan). Jin's office was corrupt, "the common people were in a state of luxury and the palaces were in a state of extravagance, and the people were looking at each other and the women were overflowing with blessings. The people were as likely to run away as they were to run away from a bandit. When the people heard of the Duke's order, they were like running away from the enemy", and the power of Jin was also held by the six ministers. Duke Zhaodong of Lu was expelled from his country by the Jisun clan. Zhao Jianzi asked Shimo why "the ruler of the Ji Clan was obeyed by the people, and the vassals were with him, and the ruler died outside the state, and no one was guilty of the crime. Shimo said, "The ruler of Lu has been following his mistakes for a long time, and the Ji clan has been repairing its diligence for a long time, so the people have forgotten their ruler. Even though he died outside, who would have been honored by him? The gods of the earth and grain have no permanent service, and the ruler and ministers have no permanent position, as has been the case since ancient times." (Zuo Zhuan, Zhaogong 30) When the ruler of a country fails to fulfill his duties and ignores the people, he will inevitably be abandoned by the people. That is why Mencius said, "The people are the most important thing, the gods of earth and grain come second, and the ruler is the least important thing." In fact, the relationship between the people, the altars of earth and grain, and the ruler, as mentioned by Mencius, is the political and cultural concept of "the people are the foundation of the state" during the formation of the early state. The relationship between "the people", "the gods of earth and grain" and "the ruler" was a political and cultural concept in the formation of the early state, which had become a historical relic in the Warring States period. "

After the Qin and Han Dynasties, the feudal society for more than 2,000 years did not exclude the idea of the people as the basis of the official consciousness. Not only did some Confucian thinkers and political theorists often preach the idea of people-based thinking, but also many emperors openly acknowledged the concept of "the people are the foundation of the state, the foundation is solid and the state is peaceful". This is because the feudal rulers who were a little bit wiser were well aware of the important position and role of the people in the economic and political life of the country, and thus they had to dress themselves up as the protectors of the people. If they openly denied the idea of the people, they would be tantamount to abandoning their own people and destroying the legitimacy of their rule. The Confucian Analects of Confucius - The Five Measures, which falsely recorded Confucius' words and deeds, said, "The ruler is the boat, and the people are the water. The water so carries the boat and also so overturns it." History actually does so. Although the authoritarian imperial power could take whatever it wanted from the people, brutally exploiting and oppressing them, once the people rose up in revolt, any magnificent dynasty could be dismantled in an instant. The number and scale of peasant wars in China's history was a warning to many feudal rulers. This point was most y realized by Emperor Tang Taizong. He once said to the minister: "for the way of the king, must first save the people, if the loss of the people to serve its body, as if cutting the shares to bite the stomach, the belly is full and body death." He also said: "Lovely non-ruler, fearful non-people. The son of heaven, if there is a way, people push to the Lord, if there is no way, people abandon and do not use, honestly can be feared." (The Essentials of Zhenguan - The Way of the Ruler, the Body of Government) The feudal rulers regarded the people as the foundation of the state, likened the relationship between themselves and the people to that between a boat and water, and hoped that the people could live in peace and work in contentment, and that the ruling class and the ruled class could get along with each other harmoniously, which was not a kind of hypocritical moralizing, but based on the expectation of the political need for the feudal state's long-lasting peace and stability. However, the economic base and superstructure of feudalism were premised on class exploitation, and the natural contradiction between the people-centered ideology and this exploitative system determined that the people-centered ideology was bound to be subject to all kinds of limitations due to the "dichotomy" and ultimately turned into a kind of political empty talk that could not be realized at all. The political ecology of Chinese feudal society for more than 2,000 years is in fact a merciless mockery and trampling on the people-oriented thinking.

Agriculture was the most important production sector in ancient China. The small peasant economy, which was characterized by the combination of agriculture and cottage industry, was the broad foundation of the feudal mode of production, with the family as the unit of production. The core of the people-centered ideology of feudal society could be said to be the protection of the broad foundation of the small peasant economy. Before the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, land belonged to the ****same people who were bound by blood or geographic ties, and peasant families were required to "change their land for a new home" on a regular basis, so there was no question of peasants losing their land at that time. However, with the growth of private ownership, this system of homogeneous land ownership, characterized by the "well-field system", gradually collapsed. The process of land privatization was accelerated by the changes in the laws of the Warring States period. Although the small landholding system of the peasantry was widely developed, because of its inherent weaknesses, it could not withstand the ravages of natural and man-made disasters, and soon after the Qin and Han dynasties, the situation of "the rich having fields and strata, the poor having no land to stand on" appeared. The farmers who lost their land either became the labor force of the landlords and tycoons or fled to the desert and became vagabonds. The reduction in the number of farmers not only makes the feudal state to collect taxes and corvée source is drying up, and large-scale waves of migrants often lead to serious social crises, threatening the rule of the feudal state. Therefore, successive dynasties had to find ways to maintain the small peasant economy and reduce the loss of peasant households on the national register, thus advising farming and mulberrying became an important economic function of the feudal state. Gong Sui, the governor of Bohai in the Western Han Dynasty, "advised the people to do farming and mulberrying, so that the mouth of a tree planted elm, a hundred of scallions, 50 onions, a border of leeks, the family of two female swine, five chickens"; Guiyang, the governor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zichang "taught the people to plant mulberry and hemp? The genus, persuade to raise silkworms and weaving, the people get the benefit of Yan", is a typical local officials advise the lesson of agriculture and mulberry ("Han Book" and "After Han Book" "Methodist Biography"). For peasants with little or no land, the feudal state also implemented policies and measures such as "granting land", "fake land", "assigning land" and "immigrating to the real border", and allocated state-owned land to them for cultivation. After large-scale peasant revolts and wars, a large amount of unowned wasteland often appeared, which created favorable conditions for the feudal state to adjust land relations. During the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, in order to solve the serious social problem of "the land has no profit, the people have no money, or fight for mu to die, or because of the hunger to abandon their jobs" (Wei Shu - Gao Zu Ji), he ordered the implementation of the system of equalization of land. From the Northern Wei Dynasty through the Northern Qi Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty to the Sui and Tang dynasties, the equalization of land system has basically been inherited, only the standard of granting land and the implementation of the situation has changed. After the Anshi Rebellion, due to the further development of private land ownership, the feudal state had no more land to distribute, and the equalization system was finally abolished. The decades of war and turmoil in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties led to the emergence of a large number of barren fields throughout the country again. After the Kangxi Emperor ordered the ban on Manchu princes and nobles enclosure, encourage farmers to reclaim the land, "always allowed for the industry". At the same time and the implementation of the "renamed fields", the Ming dynasty feudal lords scattered around the fields to the original tenant farmers farming, "into the name of the people", so that the number of farmers can be greatly increased.

The main reasons for the bankruptcy and exile of the peasants were the frequent natural disasters, the heavy feudal taxes and corvée duties, and the annexation of land by the landlords. After the unification of the six states by Qin Shi Huang, he ignored the people's urgent need for rest and recuperation after the war, and "revitalized the work of the internal, external barbarians, collected half of the tax, and sent out the garrison of the left side of the coccyx," resulting in the "men's efforts to cultivate insufficient food and wages, the women's spinning insufficient clothing," and even the "sorrows of the sea. The result was that "men's labor was not enough for cultivation and women's spinning was not enough for clothing", so that "the sea was full of sorrows and discontent, and the coasts of the country were routed" ("The Book of the Han"). Jia Yi in the "over Qin theory", the history of Qin's death, pointed out that "the way of pastoralism, the service in the security only". At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, Huang Lao's doctrine of "doing nothing" was advocated, and the light levies and penalties were reduced, resulting in the restoration and development of the dilapidated socio-economic system. Since the Han Dynasty until the Qing Dynasty, there have been many changes in the system of taxation and levies, but it can be seen that an important difference between the so-called "prosperous times" and "chaotic times" is that when the feudal state's taxation and levies are slightly restrained, the majority of the peasants will have a relatively stable and relaxed environment for engaging in One important difference between the "troubled times" and the "chaotic times" is that when the feudal state was a little more moderate, the peasants had a more stable and relaxed environment in which to engage in production, and the whole family was able to make a living. Generally speaking, the peasants could barely tolerate the taxes and levies within the system. But the feudal ruling class was not satisfied with the exploitation within the system. Some unethical rulers and corrupt officials often disregarded the peasants' life and death and imposed exorbitant taxes and levies outside the customized system, thus driving the peasants to the abyss of bankruptcy and death. Sui Dynasty was first established, the lesser service, farmers in the number of registered households increased, but after the reign of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, poor and extravagant, and many times on the Goryeo military, farmers burden of unprecedented increase in service, so that many areas of the plow crop out of time, the fields more than the barren, "the world died in the service and the family hurt in the wealth" ("Sui Book - Food and Warehousing Zhi"). The beginning of the Qing dynasty to rectify the service, the Kangxi edict, "the breeding of people will never be added to the tax", the Yongzheng implementation of the "amortization of the Ding into the mu", since the end of the Ming Dynasty has been devastated by the recovery of the small peasant economy and the development of a certain positive role. But due to corruption, the burden of farmers is still very heavy. In order to curb the illegal exploitation of peasants by officials, Yongzheng implemented the system of issuing "Lianyin" to officials. However, under the feudal system, raising the salary could not stop the corruption of the officials. Many of the officials, after receiving the "pension", continued to impose "arbitrary levies" on the peasants to enrich their own pockets.

Opposing the annexation of land by the landlords and the powerful to the peasants was an important part of the people-oriented thinking in feudal society. But this does not mean that the scholars who held this view were against the feudal system of exploitation. It was in fact only a reflection of the existence of contradictions between the overall and local interests of the feudal ruling class. Chao Qiu said that the merchants and landowners "had the sufferings of the peasants and the gains of the Qianbao, and because of their wealth, they had to communicate with the princes and lords, and their power exceeded that of the officials, so as to make profits for each other", and that "this is the reason why the merchants have annexed the peasants, and this is the reason why the peasants have gone into exile". Dong Zhongshu advocated "limiting the people's name field to tantalize the insufficiency", accusing the landlords and magnates of "Zhuan Chuanze's benefit, managing the richness of the mountains and forests, and desultorily exceeding the system of over-luxuriousness in order to be high, and there are some people in the Eup who have the respect of the ruler, and there are some people who have the wealth of the princes and lords in the Li, and the people will not be trapped?" (Han Shu - Food and Wine Zhi) They are from the feudal state as a whole and the long-term interests of the landlords against the annexation of peasants. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, some scholars advocated the restoration of the well-field system and the "limitation of the husband's field to break off the annexation" (Zhong Changtong: "Changyin: Loss and Gain"). But even this idea of "restricting fields" could not be realized at all. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the feudal state once promulgated a program to limit the number of fields owned by vassal kings, marquises, and mandarins, but the program was shelved due to the opposition of the powerful nobles in the imperial court. The evolution and political practice of Minben Thought in modern China

Minben Thought was not able to realize the purpose of preserving the small-peasant economy under the condition of "dichotomy" in feudal society, but it had a certain positive effect on the development of China's history. The proposition that "the people are the foundation of the state" has been injected with new theoretical content in modern China, and has become an important ideological weapon to promote social progress.

The traditional idea of "the people as the basis of the state" is based on the premise of recognizing the supremacy of the authority of the authoritarian monarch. This inherent contradiction is the fundamental crux of its inability to realize its political philosophy. However, since the idea of "the people are the basis of the state" has become the political creed of the elite scholars of all times, it has not only nurtured a group of thinkers, writers and politicians who cared about the people's plight, but also with the decline and decay of the feudal system, it is bound to prompt some of them to make use of the idea of the people's basis to oppose the supremacy of the emperor's rule of authoritarianism. As early as in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Huang Zongxi in the "Mingyi to visit the record" in the fierce attack on feudal monarchs "butchering the world's liver and brain, separated from the world's children, in order to win my one person's industry," "but for the world's great harm, the king is just carry on!" He also criticized the monarchy under the authoritarian system of bureaucrats so "have to talk about the pastoral art of governance", just because "the four sides of the labor disturbances, people's livelihood of the emaciation, enough to endanger my king also". Huang Zongxi's criticism of the feudal authoritarian system, has touched on the key points of the traditional people-oriented thinking, revealing the breath of modern democratic enlightenment. Liang Qichao once talked about the profound influence of Mingyi yiwangju on the youth of his generation.

After the Opium War, the modern socio-political doctrines of the West were introduced into China, which played a catalytic role in the evolution of the traditional people-oriented thinking towards modernization. The bourgeois reformers, who advocated constitutional monarchy, skillfully invoked the traditional idea of the people's rights as the theoretical basis for the change of law when they propagated the idea of "civil rights" of the Western bourgeoisie. Kang Youwei, in his memorial to the Guangxu Emperor, quoted the relevant records of the Hongfan, the Mencius, and the Zhouli to prove that he advocated "the king and the people are the same", which was in line with the ancient teaching that "the first king ruled the world with the people ****". Although this analogy is far-fetched and even absurd, it is clearly different from the traditional people-oriented thinking that compares the ruler and the people to the relationship between a boat and water. Yan Fu and Tan Sitong went even further on this issue. In Pai Han, Yan Fu saw the relationship between the monarch and his subjects as a necessity for the social division of labor in the early stages of history: "The monarch and the subjects and the punishment and the military are all due to the defense of the people." "The people are also the true lords of the world"; "The monarchs since Qin have been the so-called great thieves of the country." Tan Sitong said in "The Study of Benevolence": "At the beginning of the people's life, there was no such thing as a ruler or a minister, but all the people were the same. The people can not rule each other, but also do not have time to rule, so *** lifted a people as a king. ...... Fu said *** lifted, then because there are people and then there is the king, the end of the king also, the people of this also. ...... Fu said *** lifted, then and must be *** abolished." Think that the king and ministers are set up because of the need to "defend the people", the people are "the world's God", "the end of the king, the people of this also", the people can raise the king, can also abolish the king. These views have a strong modern democratic color, can be said to be a breakthrough in the traditional people-oriented thinking within the meaning of a major step forward.

The bourgeois reformists recognized the people as the "God" of the country, but advocated a constitutional monarchy and opposed democracy*** and this is obviously a contradiction in theory. Their explanation for this is that China's national quality is too poor, from authoritarianism to **** and need to go through the stage of constitutionalism. Kang Youwei said: "want to change the law quickly to save the peril, not first get the holy lord dangyang not for the work; want to set a good law and keep the long term, not changed to constitutional civil rights not for the rule." ("Kang Youwei political collection" volume 1) Liang Qichao declared: "* * * and the national psychology, must not be long accustomed to authoritarianism of the people can be one or two decades of years and good to become", "Today, the Chinese people have not been able to * * * and the qualifications of the nationals" ("Drinking Ice Room Collected Writings") (Book Two). This exposes the incompleteness and hypocrisy of their advocacy of civil rights.

Before and after the Xinhai Revolution, the bourgeois revolutionaries and the reformists engaged in a heated debate over the question of whether to have a democratic **** and or a constitutional monarchy. Sun Yat-sen clearly pointed out that "China has been a despotic government for thousands of years, which is not acceptable to the equal and free citizens"; "We must have a revolution by the common people and build a national government, which is not only the purpose of our revolution, but also indispensable for our revolution! This is not only the aim of our revolution, but also indispensable for our revolution." He pointed out that the reformists, in slandering the Chinese nationals as not being qualified to practise **** and such fallacies, "are treating themselves as inferior even to the natives of Honolulu and the negro slaves of South America" (The Complete Works of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Vol. I). However, due to the inherent weakness of the Chinese bourgeoisie, the revolutionary camp's ideological understanding of how to assert civil rights was rather confused. For example, Zhang Taiyan, seeing that the representative democracy of the Western bourgeoisie was easily controlled by a few politicians and the rich, went so far as to say, "It is better to make the people divided into nobles and commoners than to have a king who holds the power on the top, and the scale of the country is contoured, so that the harshness of investigation is not carried out everywhere, and the people can be relieved of their deaths." (The Argument of Representation or Not). （

The bourgeois reformists and revolutionaries had different ideas about how to realize "civil rights," but they had one thing in common: they didn't understand that the masses were the real creators of history, and they didn't believe that the masses had the ability to be masters of their own house. It was only after the introduction of Marxism into China that the Chinese ****producers solved this problem by combining theory and practice. Li Dazhao, in the early days of the founding of the Party, wrote an article entitled "Civilianism", which said: "'Civilianism' is a translation of democracy, which is translated as 'people-oriented', and there is a translation of 'democracy'. Democracy', ...... pure 'civilianism' is to break down all privileged classes politically, economically, and socially; to make the people as a whole, all of whom work for the benefit of the social state; not to use the political organs to rule over the people, and the political organs to rule over the people. political organs to rule over the person; the political organs are only instruments for the management of affairs belonging to and carried out by all the people for all the people." Mao Zedong, in his Report on the Examination of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, glorified the rise of the peasant revolutionary movement with great enthusiasm, "Its momentum is like a stormy wind and rain, so swift and violent that no matter what great force will be able to suppress it. They will break through all the nets that bind them and run swiftly toward liberation." In a series of treatises such as The Constitutionalism of New Democracy and On Coalition Government, Mao emphasized many times that "China's affairs must be decided by the majority of the people of China" and that "all the speeches and actions of the ****-producers must be in the best interests of the broadest masses of the people and supported by the broadest masses of the people as the highest standard. the broadest masses of the people as the highest standard". Mao Zedong also pointed out that "the goodness or badness, the size of the role of the policies of all Chinese political parties and their practice as manifested among the Chinese people depends, in the final analysis, on whether or not it is helpful to the development of the productive forces of the Chinese people and the size of its helpfulness, and on whether or not it is a fetter to the productive forces or an emancipator of the productive forces."

The history of ideological and cultural evolution shows that all the valuable ideological and cultural heritage created by human society will be discarded in the process of inheritance rather than disappearing completely. The Chinese ****production party is a party that represents the fundamental interests of the broadest number of people in China. The construction of a socialist culture with Chinese characteristics requires us to be guided by Marxist theory, to critically inherit the people-oriented ideas of the ancient and modern times, and to draw on the lessons of history in ruling the country. The idea of "putting the people first" will truly shine in its historical splendor in socialist China.