The contemporary society in China is very peculiar. On one hand, China has the biggest rate of economic growth in the world today. The Chinese people’s living standards have been considerably improved, with the average monthly salary equal to the annual income 30 years ago (compared to purchasing power). The Chinese have enjoyed 30 years’ all-time peace and growth since the first Opium War in 1840 (The past 173 years can be divided into 6 periods of 30 years each, and since the policy of reform and opening up, China has enjoyed a unique 30-year period of peace and growth). Such prosperous period has never been seen before in Chinese history, and has been regarded as China’s miracle in the world.

On the other hand, things have changed for the worse. As the political situation is very unstable, to maintain stability is the first task of the authority. There are a variety of social conflicts and increasing violence. For example, members of Urban Management Department and hawkers chased to kill each other, the patient killed the doctor, and the citizen killed the government official. Although today marks 40 years since the start of the Cultural Revolution, there are still several people who insist on “struggle” sessions, holding placards saying “overthrow XXX”. The death penalty in most countries in the world has been abolished whereas the annual number of executions in China has been on the increase. Some criminals may have suffered injustice, yet they still have been put to executions. The United Nation appeals to go against the death penalty, while most Chinese people are in support of the executions and some of them even call for resuming the lingering death to scare law breakers. Pedestrians quarreled with each other and one of them even fiercely lifted the infant of the other person involved over his head and dropped the baby in the pram to the road. The Cultural Revolution has ruined public morality for thousands of years——cruelty instead of kindness, struggle instead of courtliness. The morality as a social bond has no longer been in existence.

Nowadays, the extreme practices of the Cultural Revolution have been ceased, yet new moral values and solid foundation of unbiased judgment have failed to be established so far. Due to the political needs, lying is a general practice, which brings more troubles in the reconstruction of morality. Attributed to the lack of essential values, vulgar trend of thought has crept into our society. This is so-called money-oriented commonplace. What it benefits a lot is that it may cause the sharp increase of economics, on the other hand, our society may also lose its orientation of development and individual values may become distorted.

In the past hundred years, the values of Chinese have changed a lot.

Traditional Confucianism was the dominant value system in Qing Dynasty before it was shocked by the Opium War. China had to learn to model out foreign rifles and bombs. Thus at that time there was widespread public debate over traditional Chinese values aided with modern Western management and technology.[Page] Marx's theory was introduced into China at the very beginning of the last century.

By 1949, Marx’s values have become the unified value system in China. The Chinese people struggled for the realization of communism, forming a consistent faith in Chinese society. It survived the three-year famine, in which more than 30,000,000 people starved to death, and in persistent class struggle as a great test, which hurt hundreds of millions of people and no one was distracted, as well as that the individual standard of judgment was rarely influenced. However, the communist belief has no roots, with the impact of Cultural Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union, more and more people no longer believe in communism.

Due to the opening policy and the exchange of a large amount of elites, western values have rushed into the contemporary society. The personal privacy which was ignored in the past, for example, now has become the focus of many contradictions. China has entered the age of the big clash of values.

Although Chinese people have gradually accepted diversified values after reformation, it is still hard for them to get rid of obsolescence. Take constitutional amendment for example, we have no longer adhered to public ownership (with acknowledgement of private enterprises as an essential segment in national economy and of the need to protect private property) and dictatorship of the proletariat, and have come to accept useful modern values like human rights, legality and constitutionalism. However, Marxist doctrines like exploitation, labor theory of value and class struggle are still convincing and attracting lots of sympathizers, especially in such circumstance where the social rich and poor differentiation becomes increasingly serious. With the “class struggle” as weapons, they pose a giant threat to society.

Early in last century, the doctrines of surplus value, exploitation theory and class struggle were once recognized by one third of population around the world, thus presenting the socialism camp including overall public ownership and planned economy. However, almost a hundred years’ practice proved that wiping out the exploitative public ownership was worse than keeping the private ownership. Therefore, the majority of countries practicing public ownership successively started reforming, gave up this set of principle and walked on the path to class harmony and common prosperity. China which has undergone such catastrophe as the Great Cultural Revolution should be supposed to have a more profound understanding and to discard this set of principle with more determination. Unfortunately, we missed the opportunities and still stick to it, which handicapped the process of Chinese society embracing new concepts. Thus, united values failed to be formed in Chinese society and there even existed no united standard for people to judge right from wrong.

Although history is made by a collection of coincidences, the general trend of historical changes should be clearer after the development of more than one hundred years. Freedom and equality, democracy and legality, human rights and constitutionalism are the general trend of history evolution. Like what Sun Yat-sen said a hundred years ago, the global trend moves forward with great strength and vigor. Those who go along with it will thrive and those who resist it will perish.[Page]

In consideration of rulers’ long-term stability, we should take the initiative to figure out the right direction, keep up with the pace of the trend and avoid being left behind the history again.