---Speech at the Moganshan Conference on "Recognizing and Responding to the Hundred Years of Great Changes".

[Introduction] Xu Jing'an worked successively at the Central Institute of Marxism-Leninism, the Central Policy Research Office, the State Planning Commission, the State Council's Office of Physical Reform, and the National Reform Commission. In 1985, he became the deputy director of China's Institute of Economic System Reform, and was transferred to Shenzhen in 1987 as the director of the Physical Reform Commission and the deputy director of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Xu Jing'an (1962-), Chinese-American mathematician, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming dynasty

What is to be "changed" in a century of great change?

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "the world is in a situation of great change that has not been seen in a century". The first thing to do is to explain what the "situation" is in the past century, why it has changed, and in what direction it has changed. Some people interpret, first, the world economy appears "east rise and west fall" phenomenon, the second is the United States Trump caused by the international pattern of tension and turbulence, the third is the danger of the collapse of the world order, the fourth is the fourth industrial revolution in the ascendant.

In my view, this is all a phenomenon of world change, and it is not at all a question of a certain country, a certain region, a certain conflict, a certain crisis or a certain change of order; world change should be a change of times, that is, the end of the old era and the beginning of a new era.

Today's world is the era of global modernization. With material wealth as the goal, GDP as the yardstick, free trade as the means, and the United States as the model, the world order has been established. Now there is the seemingly incomprehensible phenomenon that Trump, as the leader of global modernization, the biggest beneficiary of world free trade, and the manipulator of the world order, the United States, is the first to jump out against global modernization, against world free trade, and against the world order.

The U.S. is engaged in a trade war, sanctioning China, Russia, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Canada, Mexico, and Iran, and plans to deprive Thailand, Indonesia, and India of their "tax exemptions" under the pretext of "reviewing the eligibility of the Generalized System of Preferences". These countries include 25 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. has withdrawn from 11 international organizations, including the Paris Agreement, the INF Treaty, the Iranian Nuclear Agreement, UNESCO, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Global Compact on Migration. Trump has also threatened to withdraw from the WTO.

The United States obtains good and inexpensive commodities through free trade, and the United States utilizes the privilege of the dollar as the world's currency to dump its national debt on the world, which is used to support the development of high-tech and military industries, as well as to maintain domestic expenditures and world hegemony. But there are advantages and disadvantages. The United States has trade deficits with 102 countries totaling $800 billion. The Federal Reserve's national debt stands at $21 trillion. in the third quarter of 2017 the U.S. net national savings rate - the sum of business, household, and government sector savings - was only 2.1 % of national income, equal to just the average of the three decades before the end of the 20th century 6.3 %. At the same time, U.S. manufacturing has hollowed out and unemployment has risen. The U.S. President, who has always been above the national interest as a national policy, has come out with a businessman born Trump, and that has been manifested to the fullest extent, with no fear, and a big fight to eliminate the trade deficit, the implementation of tariff barriers, and extremely harsh conditions to force the other side to fully open up the market, accept U.S. exports of goods, services, or to move their businesses to the United States. The Federal Reserve has also attracted capital flows to the United States by raising interest rates, leading to a shortage of funds in many countries and triggering panic. Trump is all about establishing a new order in the midst of disrupting the world, so to speak.

The UK is fighting over leaving the EU, and Germany wants to leave NATO. Japan and South Korea went from fighting a trade war to South Korea withdrawing from the Agreement on the Protection of Military Intelligence. Spain and Greece face national bankruptcy. The total number of insolvent countries globally has reached 28, with six new additions being Argentina, Gabon, Indonesia, Madagascar, Moldova and Nauru. It's a bad time for poor countries and a bad time for rich countries. What is wrong with the world?

This is where global modernization has gone wrong. With a total global population of 7.5 billion, and with the vast majority of people not having reached the basic level of modernization, the use of the earth's resources has exceeded the earth's carrying capacity of 251 TP3 T. The United States accounts for 51 TP3 T of the world's population and consumes 301 TP3 T of the world's resources. It would take 20 Earths for the world to live like the Americans.

Daniel. In his book Capitalism's Cultural Contradictions, Bell says: "When resources are abundant and gross inequalities are taken for granted as normal or just, such consumption can be sustained. But when all in society come together to demand more and take it for granted, while at the same time being constrained by resources, then we will face a tension between political demands and economic limits." The so-called global modernization is based on the wealth of a few and the poverty of the majority, and modern civilization collapses when it is in the face of a global desire to modernize.

The fundamental reason why the road to global modernization is impassable is that the value goal, the value scale and the value standard are the pursuit of wealth maximization under the condition of limited resources. 2025, the world population will reach 8 billion, and in 2050, it will reach 9.8 billion, and now one Earth is not enough, but in the future, when 8 billion or 9.8 billion people are on a par with the developed countries and want to live like the people of the developed countries, how many Earths will it take to increase the number of Earths? Mahatma Gandhi said it all: "The resources of the earth can satisfy the basic needs of every human being, but it cannot satisfy the greed of every human being".

        How did modern civilization begin?

We need to recall how the world today embarked on the path of global modernization. The secret of the rapid economic development and successful modernization of the West lies in the fact that an indulgent ideology, an indulgent economic policy and an indulgent institutional model have been applied to the materialistic desires of human beings.

The Italian Renaissance movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was a movement of intellectual liberation that freed man's materialistic desires from the bondage of God. Medieval religious theology held that man is born sinful, and that man must endure hardship and suffering before he can enter heaven and enjoy happiness after death. Therefore, man had to restrain all desires in real life and strive for happiness in the afterlife. Man lives not for himself, but for God, for God. In the late Middle Ages in Europe, a new capitalist mode of production began to take shape. Thinkers and literati, representing the interests and demands of the emerging bourgeoisie, started a new cultural movement in the field of thought and culture. They raised the banner of "human being" and called for respecting human value, human dignity and human happiness, opposing divinity with humanity, replacing happiness in the afterlife with happiness in the present world, and replacing asceticism with hedonism. Petrarch, the famous poet and thinker of the Italian Renaissance, who was called the "father of humanism", said, "Mortals must first care for mortal things", and "I myself am a mortal, and I ask only for the happiness of mortals! ". (1) Another humanist thinker, Montaigne, was even more direct when he declared, "All the opinions of the world are here: happiness is our aim, though in different ways."(2) He called upon mankind not to listen to precepts and heresies that would repress their happiness. He says, "Truly, man is truly the most unfortunate of creatures. Because of his natural condition, he is already almost incapable of pure and complete pleasure, yet he still endeavors to invent doctrines and precepts to limit and curtail the minuscule amount of pleasure he is capable of enjoying. ...... The human intellect has misused its talents by using them to diminish and nullify the amount and sweetness of the pleasures we are naturally supposed to enjoy." (3)

The Renaissance movement sounded the clarion call for the "liberation of man", and the European Enlightenment movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries developed the "emancipation of man" to a deeper level. The thinkers of this period advocated the view that it is human nature to seek pleasure and avoid suffering, and to pursue happiness. As Hobbes, the seventeenth-century British utilitarian ethical thinker, put it, life is in constant motion, and life is a constant pursuit, a constant seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain, a constant quest for enjoyment and happiness. Life is a race to pursue personal happiness. (4) The pursuit of happiness in this world is the ultimate goal and the highest principle of life. In addition to the pursuit of happiness, there is nothing else to pursue, and Westerners no longer need to be concerned about the prohibition of God or the happiness of the next life. Hedonism has crept into the deep consciousness of Westerners and become the main body of Western culture.

So how can man be happy? It is to satisfy the desires of the human senses. Voltaire, the eighteenth-century French "great thinker", believed that the satisfaction of the physical organs is the root or driving force of man's pursuit of happiness. Neither religion nor law should disparage or defame this instinct of nature, or hinder man's desire to pursue a happy life. (5) Another pioneer of the French Enlightenment, Julien. Aufray. La Mettrie said, "The senses never deceive us," and that most people "find all kinds of interests, all kinds of physical pleasures in this world," and that "if one looks for happiness in one's own thoughts, it is in the absence of happiness that one finds happiness. ...... that is to look for happiness where there is none." (6) Attaching importance to material things and neglecting the spirit; emphasizing feelings and belittling thoughts; esteeming the pleasure of the flesh and the stimulation of the senses; and taking the enjoyment of things and the possession of things as the value of life are the materialism advocated by the Westerners.

In a commodity economy, money is the general equivalent. With money, one can buy everything and enjoy everything, from physical needs to sensual fulfillment. Money is the only way to be happy, and making money is the first priority in life. Money is a means to achieve the purpose of life, which gradually evolves into a sign of success in life, and money becomes the purpose of life. Money is the God of man's heart, the bank is the church, and man worships at the feet of money. Engels said, "There is not a single thing in the world that does not exist for the sake of money, and even they themselves are no exception, for they live for money, and in addition to getting rich quickly, they know of no other happiness, and in addition to the loss of money, they know of no other pain." (7) The money worship that everything is for money and money is everything has become the code of behavior for Westerners.

The pursuit of pleasure, the enjoyment of life, the fulfillment of desires, the making of money first-, this is the choice of the individual, the freedom of the individual, the right of the individual, which God, the state, and others cannot take away. Because it is the requirement of human nature to put the fulfillment of one's own desires in the first place. Eighteenth-century French Enlightenment brilliant thinker, philosopher Rousseau that in all the desire of self-love is the fundamental first desire, is "the origin of all desire", "it is the original, internal, before all other desires desire". (8) Halbach says: "Man is essentially a man who loves himself, who wishes to preserve himself, who seeks to make his own existence happy; so that interest or the desire for happiness is the sole motive for all his actions." (9) Egoism is the nature of man, individualism is his right, and this behavior of man is not only beneficial to the individual, but also in the public interest of society. The British economist and ethicist Adam . Smith famously said, "Every man counts only his own interests. On this occasion, as on many others, he is guided by an invisible hand, and endeavors to attain an end which he does not mean to attain." (10) Adam. Smith draws the analogy that the food and drink we need every day do not come from the bounty of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, but from their self-interested intentions. This means that people are subjectively for themselves and objectively for the benefit of others. It is only natural that individualism and egoism should flourish in the West.

Man's need to enjoy himself happily and to satisfy his materialistic desires depends on the increase of material wealth and the development of the social economy. Western societies have created an increasingly flexible market economy system that mobilizes resources quickly and efficiently, coordinates the division of labor among different individuals and classes, and guarantees the exchange of different needs. Western societies, from the people to the corporations to the legislators to the presidents, have made it a priority to safeguard economic prosperity because only the material abundance brought about by economic prosperity can satisfy the enjoyment of the senses. Economic growth becomes the highest principle. Policies, guidelines, morals, laws, as well as internal affairs, diplomacy, politics, and the military were all subordinated to this supreme principle. The economic crisis in the United States in the 1930s gave rise to Keynesianism, which abandoned economic liberalism and introduced state intervention. Keynes advocated deficit finance, the issuance of national debt, and the building of infrastructure to create demand and spur economic recovery. Keynes made an analogy that the government paying people to dig ditches and paying people to fill them is also good for the economy; the government creates demand by paying wages and procuring tools. Accordingly, Keynes argued that while thrift and saving are virtues, they are not good for society, and while consumption and extravagance are morally bad, they are good for society. Government debt and profligate wastefulness expand employment and sustain economic prosperity; as for private wastefulness, such as the building of lavish homes by the rich during their lives or the overhauling of their graves after their deaths, it has the same effect (11)

Until then, Americans had made it their motto to run their homes and businesses that "it is better to go to bed with an empty stomach than to borrow money to buy dinner". Keynesianism led Americans to completely abandon the Protestant ethic and create installment payments, mortgages and credit cards under the slogan of "enjoy first, pay later." The indulgence of Americans and Westerners was supported by policies and institutional guarantees. It became fashionable to chase fashion and luxury consumption. It was stimulating demand and good for economic growth. What is good for the economy is good, good, and the prevailing Western economism is recognized by all sides of society. In order to safeguard the development of their own economies, they do not hesitate to use military force, control and plunder the resources of other countries, and even invade abroad. The two world wars that took place in the twentieth century, as well as conflicts large and small, up to the two Gulf wars orchestrated by the United States, all had economic motives behind them. "It is one of the great errors of modern times to give absolute priority to the economy, which is part of the whole, and to make other human activities, such as culture, education, technology, politics, etc., subordinate to, and in the service of, the economy." (12)

Science and technology are sought after. High-tech has brought about unparalleled advanced military means and a wide range of new civilian products, which have become a source of huge profits and satisfied people's desire to get rich. High-tech conquers nature, develops nature, creates abundant material products, and satisfies the desire of human senses. Westerners attach importance to science and technology, worship science and technology, superstitious science and technology triggered by technocracy more and more deviated from the direction of humanistic concern and value, will be human beings close to the edge of destruction. American futurist Toffler wrote in The Third Wave, "It is no exaggeration to say that there has never been any civilization that has been able to create such means that can destroy not only a city, but also the entire planet." The world's nuclear weapons could blow up the planet 10 times over, and the average person could part with more than three tons of explosives to annihilate himself. British biologists assert that a future genetic weapon could destroy all of humanity with just 20 grams. Technocracy has made mankind revel in every victory of technology, yet it has been negligent and even reckless about the huge impact on human beings and the natural environment caused by technological progress. The pollution of the environment caused by petrochemical energy and the poisoning of mankind by chemical products have caused a global ecological crisis. Genetic bio-engineering will take mankind to heaven or hell, the prospect is unpredictable, the cult has announced that the cloning of babies croaked to the ground. Technocracy has created an over-expansion of human greed and desire, believing that science and technology will be like a magician who will constantly produce everything that human beings need, so that they will be more frantic in exploiting and exploiting nature without worrying about the serious consequences, and that all the evils can be solved by science and technology. Too much faith in the power of science and technology, while abandoning the constraints of human behavior and ethical changes, makes the situation of human beings more and more dangerous, and plunges them into an even greater crisis that may erupt. Technocracy makes human beings more and more keen on the enjoyment of things and despise the pursuit of spirituality; more and more obsessed with the techno-material world and neglecting human care; more and more small-minded and lacking in great wisdom. No effort has been spared to invest in science and technology, and scientific and technological advances have been made day by day. Modern science has been able to detect stars as far away as 10 billion light-years, and has been able to penetrate as far as the neutrons and protons that make up the nucleus of the atom, but how much progress has been made in the understanding of human beings themselves?

As early as ancient times, the Greeks inscribed the motto "Know thyself" in the Temple of Delphi, and Socrates first made man the object of his study. Since then, more than 2,500 years have passed, and a series of basic questions about man, such as what he really needs and how he can be happy, are still in a state of confusion, oblivious to such big questions as the future and destiny of mankind. As Rousseau said: "The most useful and incomplete of all kinds of human knowledge is the knowledge of 'man'". The humanities, which could not bring money and wealth, were pushed to the margins of the cultural world. Humanism initiated the "emancipation of man" and the discovery of human values, thus ushering in Western industrial civilization, which transformed man from a slave of God into a slave of things, and humanism into materialism.

Hedonism, materialism, money-worshipping, individualism, egoism, economism, and scientism have come together to become a torrent that drives economic development. After such sophisticated ideological packaging and theoretical armament, Westerners are no longer bound by God, God, nor by their inner morality, and getting rich quickly and enjoying themselves to the full have become the dominant outlook on life, values, and happiness of Westerners over the past several hundred years. It was during these 300 years that the West achieved industrialization and modernization, and created more and more productive forces than all the productive forces created in all past generations.

The success of Western industrial civilization lies in inducing and releasing human energy to pursue material things, and it is this that has plunged Western industrial civilization into crisis. The reason for its success is the root cause of the crisis. Western industrial civilization has caused an overall deterioration in the relationship between man and nature, man and man, and man and self.

According to the nineteenth-century German philosopher Schopenhauer, desire is the essence of man, and desire is self-interested, "Each man wants everything for himself, to possess everything, or at least to control everything, and whatever resists him he wants to destroy." From desire, man "does not merely affirm his own existence, but denies or abolishes the existence of others when it is in his way." (13) Although Carlyle says that man is a beast, Carlyle does not want man to be a beast, whereas Schopenhauer believes that man is a beast, though due to the fact that man's desires are often unfulfilled, man is a pack of suffering beasts.

Questioning and reflecting on modern civilization

On April 7, 1968, the Club of Rome was quietly founded by a large number of scholars, with the aim of issuing a serious warning against the blind self-righteousness of modern material civilization, and in March 1972 published its first study, "The Limits to Growth", which examined the dynamic relationship between five parameters: world population, industrial growth, environmental pollution, food production, and resource consumption, and came to the shocking The world came to the shocking conclusion that economic growth would end by the year 2100! Humanity cannot continue to develop in the way it is now; it must stop economic and technological growth from now on and put the global system on a path to a balanced society with zero growth. The report says: "Limiting growth is difficult but not impossible, the pathway for proceeding is clear, and the necessary steps, while new to human society, are well within human reach." The report pins its hopes on humanity's focus on a long-term goal, "Without such a goal, and with responsibility for it, short-term concerns can give rise to exponential growth to the point of propelling this world system toward planetary boundaries and eventual collapse. With this goal and responsibility, humanity will be ready from now on to begin a controlled transition from growth to global equilibrium."

This cautionary tale has sent huge waves through the Western world, triggering heated debates between pessimists and optimists about the future of the world. Although the report may not be correct in its predictions about the future of the world, it conveys a message to the world that must be heeded: that the limited resources of the Earth will put an end to the course of Western civilization and that mankind, for the sake of its own destiny, must stop its unlimited plundering of resources.

In 1974, the Club of Rome issued its second report, "Mankind at the Turning Point", which pointed out the need to steer the world system onto the path of organic growth through global coordination and cooperation, and to that end introduced the new concept of "global ethics", which requires human values and behaviours:

(1) Every citizen should have a sense of world consciousness and realize that he or she is a member of the world community as a whole;

(2) Developing technologies that use fewer resources and extend product life, rather than aiming to maximize productivity;

(3) It is important to develop a sense of living in harmony with nature, rather than an attitude towards nature based on subjugation;

(4) Human beings should not only consider the needs of their own generation, but also have a sense of historical responsibility to think of future generations and not to "fish at the expense of others".

Between the lines of each report, the pioneers have poured out their deep concern for the future of humankind, earnestly appealing to the conscience and wisdom of humankind, full of love for humankind and for the Earth, which nourishes humankind.

Humanity is beginning to awaken. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972. Commissioned by the Secretary General of the Conference and led by American economist Barbara Rendezvous and microbiologist Rene Rendezvous. Rendezvous and microbiologist René Dubose drafted the report "Only One Earth". The authors warned that "the two worlds in which man lives - the biosphere he inherited and the technosphere he created - are out of balance and in potentially profound contradiction," stating: "In this space, there is only one Earth which alone feeds the whole system of life, and the whole system of the Earth is energized by an immense energy which is supplied to the human being by means of the most sophisticated regulation. Although the Earth is unpredictable and unpredictable, it nourishes, energizes and enriches everything to the fullest extent. Doesn't this Earth deserve our love? Should not all the talents, courage and generosity of humankind be poured into it in order to save it from degradation and destruction? Do we not realize that only in this way can humanity itself continue to survive?" The Conference adopted the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which became the first milestone in humanity's journey towards the preservation of the Earth.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21. The Conference was attended by the delegations of more than 170 United Nations Member States and 102 Heads of State and Government and representatives of international organizations, and the sustainable development strategy put forward at the Conference was accepted by the Heads of State and Government and the delegates at the Conference, who signed the "Earth Pledge", which is expressed in seven languages, namely. I pledge to do my utmost to make the Earth a safe and comfortable home for present and future generations." This is the second milestone in humanity's efforts to protect the Earth.

After 240 years of glorious development of industrial civilization, by the last decade of the twentieth century mankind began to recognize its potential crisis: the massive consumption of natural resources by mankind has brought many resources close to the brink of exhaustion; the massive growth of the population has brought the population close to the critical point of the earth's environmental capacity; the massive discharge of industrial and domestic wastes has exceeded the self-purifying capacity of nature, destroying the balance of natural ecosystems; the massive destruction of biological habitats has caused the rate, variety and number of species extinctions in this century to greatly exceed the rate, variety and number of extinctions in the natural evolutionary process ...... (14) These problems have transcended regional and national boundaries and have become a global dilemma faced by mankind collectively, calling for global cooperation, joint efforts. Edgar Moran, in Earth. Edgar Moran, in his book Earth. The Motherland, Edgar Moran says: "The realization of a common destiny for the people of the Earth may be the most critical event at the end of this millennium, for we are bound to the Earth by ties that bind us to it, and we are bound to it in times of trouble and in times of trouble. We must take care of the Earth or we will die."

Ten years later, on 26 August 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, adopted a declaration recognizing that the goals set at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro had not been achieved. The declaration stated: "The global environment continues to deteriorate. Biodiversity is disappearing, fish stocks are dwindling, desertification is eating up more and more fertile land, the adverse impacts of climate change are already evident, natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more severe, developing countries are becoming increasingly vulnerable, and air, water and marine pollution continue to claim millions of innocent lives. ...... ". At this session, participants squabbled over their respective interests. Public opinion has commented that the massive Earth Summit is almost synonymous with chaos, or a concentrated manifestation of international bureaucracy. "According to the head of Friends of the Earth, "We shouldn't have held such a shameful summit." The international aid organization Oxfam also claimed that "most of the world's leaders lacked the courage and determination to reach a comprehensive agreement that would effectively address the problems of poverty and environmental degradation."

Why are the leaders of countries that have made solemn commitments to "sustained development" so disappointed and dissatisfied? Leaders of all countries defend the interests of their own countries, and it is their primary duty to ensure the sustained growth of their own economies; they cannot jeopardize their own "sustained growth" for the sake of the "sustained development" of mankind. The huge gap between the rich and the poor in the North and the South makes coordinated action even more difficult.

For the developing countries, their most urgent task is to get rid of poverty. To that end, they had to give priority to economic development and had to adopt outdated technologies transferred from the West, which inevitably exacerbated the depletion of resources and the destruction of the environment and made it impossible to increase inputs for the improvement of the ecological environment because of a lack of financial resources. Developing countries recognize the common destiny faced by the people of the earth who share a spaceship, but they cannot help but acknowledge the reality that "not all inhabitants occupy the same place in this spaceship; less than one-fifth of the population occupies the first class cabin, where consumers 80% the available resources; and the remaining four-fifths of the travelers are in the lower class, where one-third of them are were hungry and three-quarters lacked water and shelter. Each person in first class has 25 times the impact on environmental resources as everyone else ......" (15) It is patently unfair to demand that the poor, who struggle to make ends meet, share responsibility for the environment with the rich.

Developed countries are also facing the pressure of "sustained growth", which will increase the number of unemployed people and lower the standard of living; reduce fiscal revenues and increase fiscal deficits; and fail to fulfill their promises and lose the support of voters. In short, without sustained growth, the interests of the people in their own countries will be jeopardized, and they will lose their own political future, so what the oath to the earth ah, the commitment to mankind ah, the responsibility for environmental protection ah, the obligation to poor countries ah can be pushed or pushed, can be delayed, can be delayed, can be relied on or relied on. The rich countries also put their own "sustained growth" above the "sustained development" of mankind.

This is not surprising, never put the interests of their own country on the United States, today tore off all the trappings, completely put the interests of other countries, the interests of allies, the interests of the world in the face of big fights, this is because of the internal affairs of the need to live through the day. Trump came to power in the face of serious US deficits by winning votes not by raising taxes but by cutting them, and his policies, for one thing, are to cut spending. Shifting the burden to allies and abandoning international obligations to withdraw from the group. The second is to increase revenue. Adopting high tariffs to protect his companies and revitalize the real economy. To this end, he has gone back on his word, done whatever it takes, and defied all odds, bucking the world trend of free trade. The United States, as the leader of global modernization, has taken the lead in countering global modernization, proving once again that the contemporary world situation is no longer sustainable!

China Becomes an Advocate Toward a New Era

China's reform and opening up is to integrate into the trend of global modernization. Deng Xiaoping led China to move from a closed country to an open world, from a planned economy to a market economy. At the core of this great historical transition was a change in philosophy, from politics to development. Socialism should develop the productive forces, poverty is not socialism, Deng Xiaoping as a pivot point, prying the whole of China. Development is the hard truth, cohesion of the party, won the hearts of the people, so that the country poor people poor China after 40 years of hard work, become the world's second largest economy.

Our country is a beneficiary of global modernization, but it is also a victim. Under the domination of development first, governments at all levels have lowered the cost of labor, environment, and resources in a race to build an investor's paradise, and have adopted a labor, environment, and resource-intensive approach to growth, which has resulted in an unscientific development with low consumption, high consumption, and a hostile environment. The distribution of the fruits of development is tilted toward economic construction, and the investment rate tends to be high; tilted toward the government itself, and the administrative expenditure increases; do not pay attention to people's livelihood, and the public welfare is in short supply. China in the vast majority of people have not yet reached the basic level of modernization, the environment is broken, the rich and the poor to widen the haze alone to make the people have to stop production and classes, so China are modernized?

China needs a new turn. The nineteenth report of the Communist Party of China (CPC) proposes a move towards a new era. A new era implies a shift in core concepts and value goals.

From the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1921 to the establishment of the new China in 1949, it has gone through 38 years, and the concept and goal is to fight the landlords and divide the land to establish the new China, which is the era of revolution; from the founding of the country in 1949 to the reform in 1978, it has gone through 30 years, and the concept and goal is to take the class struggle as the program and implement the continued revolution under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the era of political marshalship; from the 1978 Reform to the 19th Party Congress held in 2018, experienced 40 years, the concept and goal is to focus on economic construction, which is the era of development first.  

So, what are the new concepts and goals of the new era proposed by the 19th National Congress?

Report of the 19th National Congress: "The Party's original heart and mission is to seek happiness for the people." General Secretary Xi said: "Seek happiness for the people as the standard for testing the effectiveness of reform". This is the new era, new concepts and new goals proposed in the 19th National Congress report, shifting from development first to happiness first. This is not about not wanting development, but about solving the problem of development for whom and for whom?

The ultimate goal of human beings is happiness; wealth is not a goal, but merely provides the basis and conditions for happiness. By replacing wealth with happiness as the goal, human beings can be diverted from the torrent of material pursuits, that is, they can not only pursue happiness at the material level, but also pursue happiness at the emotional and spiritual levels, and realize different happy lives in different geographical areas, among different groups of people, in different occupations, with different personalities, different hobbies and different interests.

  Humanity needs a revolution of ideas to explore the path of human happiness. For China, which has a large population and a shortage of resources, it is especially important to explore China's road to happiness. This is of world significance. China's road to happiness can serve as a model and example for the vast majority of developing countries.

The Party's original intention is to seek happiness for the people, and the true meaning of socialism is to enable the people to lead a good life. Creating a happy China and taking the road to happiness in China is the right thing to do.

Happiness in China should cover the economic, social, political, cultural and ecological fields in terms of breadth, and in terms of depth, it should penetrate into the material, emotional and spiritual dimensions of human beings.

Towards a new era, the task is much more complex, arduous and great.

The primary concern is to safeguard and improve people's livelihoods

In the face of the United States' trade blockade, military siege and political confrontation, the focus of China's countermeasures is not on diplomacy but on internal affairs. It is important to realize that the real threat to China is not external, but internal. The U.S. color revolutions are all about taking advantage of internal turmoil. When the Chinese people are happy, the United States has nothing to take advantage of. China's road to happiness, become the world's role model, is the real improvement of China's international status, the real rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The direct consequences of the United States trade blockade are the relocation of foreign capital, the decline in exports, the closure of enterprises and the unemployment of workers, and the possibility of triggering unrest due to the inadequacy of social security, in particular the lack of unemployment benefits for non-resident migrant workers. This is the immediate problem that must be solved. For the unemployed groups, vocational training has been introduced, and temporary relief has been provided for those who have difficulties in making ends meet.

In the long run, it is necessary to change the main reliance on exports and investment to drive the economy, for domestic demand to drive, especially consumption. China has 1.39 billion people, more than the combined population of the United States, Europe and Japan of 1.187 billion, which is a huge market. But China's residential consumption rate fell from 47.8% in 1978 to 38.8% in 2018.With the data of residential consumption rate in 2015, the United States 68%, the United Kingdom 65%, Germany 54%, Japan 57%, South Korea 49%, India 58%, Brazil 64%, China China's consumption rate is not only lower than that of developed countries, but also much lower than that of India and Brazil.

The reason for the low consumption rate of the population is that in the initial distribution, the proportion of the GDP accounted for by the labor remuneration of the residents of China, after reaching a peak of 56.5% in 1983, has continued to decline, and rebounded to 51.8% in 2017.However, a serious problem is the excessive income disparity, and according to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's Gini coefficient in 2016 reached 0.47.The United Nations has about more than 190 countries, and of the 150 countries with complete statistics, the Gini coefficient exceeds 0.49 in 10, and the top 10, besides China, are countries in Africa and Latin America. If the Gini coefficient is calculated according to property, China reaches 0.73, with the top 1% households possessing more than one-third of the country's property, and the bottom 25% households owning a total of only about 1% of property. The rich and the poor have different pulling effects on the economy. A few high-income earners do not increase their normal consumption, and their consumption of luxury goods is often imported from abroad, and China's consumption of luxury goods imports is the second highest in the world. The middle class has a large pull on the economy, but is small in number. The vast majority of low-income groups lack the ability to pay.

First, accounting for 59.63% of farmers, migrant workers, non-domiciled residents, access to social security is small, bringing the low rate of consumption of the population, resulting in a serious lack of impetus to pull the economy and decline.

Secondly, polarization has brought about various social problems and frequent conflicts between the Government and the people and between different groups.

Thirdly, there is a proliferation of reputations questioning the reforms and dissatisfaction with the Government, which affects the party's ruling base.

Fourthly, social injustice has brought about a decline in the moral standard of society.

Fifthly, acts that harm the environment and damage the ecology are not effectively curbed.

Our country has a socialist market economy, which, while developing the economy and improving efficiency, is bound to promote the survival of the fittest and polarization. Socialism should utilize the visible hand to establish, through financial distribution, an equal public welfare system that covers the entire population and is tilted in favour of the disadvantaged groups and poor areas. However, China's current distribution system is precisely the implementation of the inverse adjustment, urban and rural areas to the city tilt, household registration and non-household registration to the household registration tilt, high education and low education to high education tilt, in short, the more protection the more protection, the more the more the need to protect the less protection. Social security is unfair and unreasonable, contrary to the principles of socialism and inconsistent with the original intent of seeking happiness for the people.

In 2018, the national general public budget revenue of 18.3 trillion yuan, the national governmental fund budget revenue of 7.5 trillion yuan, the national social insurance fund revenue of 7.2 trillion yuan, the state-owned enterprises' surrendered profits of 0.28 trillion yuan, the balance of the central treasury bonds of 15 trillion yuan, and the local debts of more than 20 trillion yuan [excluding the local hidden debts] totaled 68.28 trillion yuan, which accounted for the GDP of 90 trillion yuan in 2018 of 75.8%. with more than two-thirds of the national income in the hands of the government, it is well placed to establish an equalized social security and welfare system that covers the entire population.

We have to jump out of the cognitive misconception that investment and construction can drive development and that inputs for people's livelihoods are burdensome burdens. Gradually reduce the gap between urban and rural areas and between households and non-households in terms of social security and public welfare, and alleviate the pressure on their education, medical care and housing, which will release a huge purchasing power and form a broad domestic market. Their consumption needs are food, clothing, housing, utilities, transportation, still need to worry about overcapacity? Still afraid of the U.S. blockade? In this sense, the U.S. blockade forced us from relying on exports to expand domestic demand. As a populous country, China can only rely mainly on the increase in the level of consumption of the population to bring about sustained growth.

How to create a happy China

Many people believe that happiness is a subjective feeling of human beings that cannot be measured, let alone made a goal. Happiness is a pleasant feeling resulting from the satisfaction of important human needs, and is a unification of the objectivity of needs and the subjectivity of feelings. Although people's needs are different from person to person and vary greatly, through the generalization and study of the needs that generate happiness, we can find a common level, which is the sense of satisfaction from the material level, the sense of pleasure from the emotional level, and the sense of value from the spiritual level. Due to individual cognitive differences and value choices, the same state of existence will produce different feelings, but this does not negate the necessity and possibility of making efforts to satisfy human happiness needs. Happiness needs can be quantified and measured, which is the objective indicators of happiness evaluation system, can be referred to as the degree of happiness. The feelings and experiences arising from the fulfillment of happiness needs are measured by means of a scale, which is the subjective happiness assessment, and can be referred to as happiness. The weighting of happiness and happiness is the happiness index, which becomes a measurement tool for evaluating happiness.

  Formulation of the Objective Indicator Evaluation System of Happy China, which breaks down the six basic characteristics of China's overall well-being, namely economic prosperity, low material consumption, environmental cleanliness, political democracy, social harmony and spiritual happiness, into statistical indicators for evaluation. The Evaluation System of Subjective Indicators of Happiness in China is formulated, in which random samples are surveyed in terms of satisfaction with living conditions, satisfaction with public services, satisfaction with social governance, satisfaction with ecological environment, satisfaction with interpersonal relationships, satisfaction with marriage and family, satisfaction with the state of the self, and satisfaction with China's future, with the respondents scoring the results.

 The degree of happiness counted by the Objective Indicator Evaluation System for a Happy China and the happiness reflected in the Subjective Indicator Evaluation System for a Happy China are weighted to form China's Happiness Index, against which governments at all levels are assessed.

Happiness China is a reshaping of value concepts. The value objectives, value scales and value standards of a happy China have shifted from the pursuit of wealth maximization under conditions of limited resources to the maximization of happiness under conditions of limited resources.

For the Government, the philosophy of governance should shift from aiming at development to aiming at happiness. This is not to refrain from development, but the way of development and the distribution of the fruits should be based on the principle of people's happiness, which is scientific development. When the people are happy, society will be harmonious, and people-oriented development will be realized. Therefore, building a happy China is the concretization, targeting and institutionalization of people-centred, harmonious society and scientific development, reflecting the Party's founding purpose of seeking happiness for the people and the true meaning of building socialism, which is to let the people lead a happy life.

For the people, the goal of life should be changed from earning money first to happiness first, which is not to stop earning money, but to make the people know how to earn money and how to spend it to be happy. Happiness comes not only from the material level, but also from the emotional and spiritual levels. With the pursuit of happiness as the goal of life, we should advocate the moral concept of treating oneself, others and nature well, so as to improve the social and popular customs.

Happiness is something that can become a belief, generating self-awareness of self-discipline and zealous pursuit. Today, the majority of Chinese people have no faith, so they dare to do anything and fear nothing for money. To rebuild faith is an important task in the construction of China's spiritual civilization.

Today, there are five main faiths in the world: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism and Communism. The first three are religious beliefs, with the ultimate goal of happiness in the hereafter. The last two, one is a moral faith and the other is a social faith, aiming at the pursuit of happiness in this world.

The so-called faith is the ultimate pursuit and reverence of the human heart. Christian faith is the fear of God by going to heaven. Buddhist faith is to enter the Western world of bliss and to fear the afterlife. Confucianism believes in honoring one's ancestors and revering one's parents. For the majority of people who do not believe in God, the afterlife, or their ancestors, what can they believe in? That is to pursue happiness in life and fear life.

Happiness in life is the ultimate goal, to live a pleasant and happy life, a life that is worthwhile and meaningful. This is not for God, for the afterlife, for parents, but to take responsibility for one's own life, which is only once and very short for everyone.

Having established this belief, one develops a correct attitude towards money, which is the material basis of a happy life and a means to happiness, not an end in itself. For the sake of happiness, do not earn money against your conscience or spend it at the expense of your health. Similarly, power and reputation will bring happiness only if they are used for the benefit of society, and seeking personal gain will cause misfortune. Therefore, happiness can be the sixth great faith of mankind today.

Happiness in China is a reengineering of the social system. Building a happy China horizontally involves all fields, including the economy, society, politics, culture and ecology, and vertically relates to all levels of government, society and the public; it is a system-wide, society-wide remodeling project in China.

The construction of a happy China has changed the goal of evaluation and the subject of evaluation, replacing GDP with a happiness index synthesized from a sense of well-being and a degree of happiness that reflects the people's happiness, which is used to assess the government's performance, and the government proposes corrective measures every year, with the participation of the people and the deliberation of the National People's Congress. The introduction of democratized political reforms starting from the people's happiness, and the promotion of comprehensive economic, social, political and cultural reforms and construction, will fundamentally improve governmental behavior, and provide a powerful impetus for the transformation of the economic growth mode, the improvement of governmental public decision-making, and the improvement of the social governance structure.

Building a happy China also involves improving social behavior. To create happy communities, the happiness of residents has become the starting and ending point of community work. To create a happy enterprise, shareholder satisfaction, employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction become the corporate governance guidelines. To create happy schools, the fundamental purpose of education is to lay the foundation for a happy life for students. Developing various social and self-governing organizations, relying on social forces and the people's own strengths to improve public services and enhance happiness.

To build a happy China, it is also necessary to improve family and personal behaviors and to promote the construction of happy families and happy lives. The government and society create the environment for people's happiness; whether people are happy or not ultimately depends on themselves. We have to change everything that can be changed, and we must face what cannot be changed. The key to happiness is in everyone's hands.

Happy China will lead the world

The pursuit of "human happiness" ushered in modern civilization. However, the misinterpretation of "mortal happiness" as sensual enjoyment and the mainstreaming of materialism, economism and hedonism have led the world to the end of global modernization. In 2004, I wrote on the title page of Your Choice and China's Future: "What is pleasure and what is happiness are the choices of each individual that determine the fate of the individual, the future of the nation, and the future of mankind". For this reason, I wrote the Manifesto for Happiness in the 21st Century, which suggests that the sources of happiness are: the material, emotional, and spiritual dimensions, and encourages people to pursue material happiness while emphasizing the pursuit of emotional and spiritual happiness. The pathway to happiness is: love for oneself, love for others, and love for all, inspiring people to love themselves as well as to love others and love for all.

It is of world significance for China, with its large population and shortage of resources, to take China's road to happiness, achieve a new turnaround, move towards a new era and create a new civilization. China's road to happiness can provide a model and example for the vast majority of developing countries. The United States, which accounts for 5% of the world's population and consumes 30% of the world's resources, is by no means the world's model and future.

If China is to improve its international status and stand among the nations of the world, while economic and military strength are important, the main thing is culture, at the core of which are values that are acceptable to the world's human beings, which they can learn from and which they can believe in. We are a socialist country, but we should not be rigid dogmatists. We cannot export socialism to the world, but we can provide the world with examples and demonstrations of people's happiness. The essence of socialism is to create a society where people are happy, otherwise how can we fulfill the great mission of the Communists to liberate all mankind. To create a happy China, this is to adhere to socialism and creatively develop Marxism. This is the real theoretical confidence, road confidence and cultural confidence, and this is the real great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

In the face of a century of great changes in the turbulent world, the most important thing for China is to make the Chinese people happy.

marginal notes

(1) Quoted in Feng Junke, "Western Theory of Happiness", p. 130, Jilin People's Publishing House, December 1992, 1st ed.

(2) Quoted in Feng Junke, The Western Theory of Happiness, p. 135, Jilin People's Publishing House, December 1992, 1st ed.

(3) Quoted in Feng Junke, The Western Theory of Happiness, p. 136, Jilin People's Publishing House, December 1992, 1st ed.

(4) Quoted in Feng Junke, Western Theory of Happiness, p. 166, Jilin People's Publishing House, December 1992, 1st ed.

(5) Quoted in Feng Junke, "Western Theory of Happiness", p. 214, Jilin People's Publishing House, December 1992, 1st ed.

(6) Quoted in Feng Junke, "Western Theory of Happiness," pp. 220, 221, Jilin People's Publishing House, December 1992, 1st ed.

(7) Quoted in Earth Emergency, p. 361, Contemporary World Press, October 1998, 1st edition.

(8) Selected Masterpieces of Western Ethics, vol. 2, p. 120, Commercial Press, September 1987, 1st ed.

(9) Selected Masterpieces of Western Ethics, vol. 2, p. 75, Commercial Press, 1st edition, September 1987

(10) Adam Smith. Smith, "The Nature and Causes of National Wealth", p. 27, The Commercial Press, 1979.

(11) Quoted in Hao Yongping and Feng Pengzhi, Earth Emergency, p. 313, Contemporary World Publishing House, October 1998, 1st edition.

(12) A. A. Toynbee and Daisaku Ikeda, "Prospects for the Twenty-first Century", p. 111, published by International Cultural Publishing Company, November 1985, 1st edition.

(13) Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, pp. 455, 449, cited in Yuan Guiren, ed., Philosophical Understanding of Man, p. 344, Henan People's Publishing House, January 1994, 1st ed.

(14) Wang Jin, "We Have Only One Earth", p. 3, China Youth Publishing House, January 1999, 1st edition.

(15) Quoted in Zheng Yisheng and Qian Yuhong, "Deep Worries," p. 44, China Today Publishing House, Oct. 1998, 1st ed.