中国文化海外观

Chinese Traditional Culture——The Overseas Perspectives

中国拥有令西方人钦佩的古代文明,西方人把中国与西方对“帝国”的不同概念相混淆,这在一定程度上使他们对中国文明产生了敬畏,甚至畏惧,但事实上中国向来不具有侵略性。明清期间,西方社会的发展与中国文明的相对滞后使中国文化在外国人心中的地位逐渐下降。中国人从“五四运动”到20世纪80年代对自身文化与文明进行了批判。过去20年来,中国经济的腾飞吸引了世人的目光,但值得中国注意的是,实现国家富强必须与发展民族文化并重。

China＇s ancient civilization has been admired by most westerners. However, westerners confused the different concepts between Chinese ＂Empire＂ and the ＂Empire＂ in western sense. This makes them have awe, even fear of Chinese civilization to a certain degree. As a matter of fact, nonetheless, China has never been a country of agressiveness. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the development of the western society and the relative lag of Chinese civilization caused gradual drop of the position of Chinese culture in the mind of foreigners. Chinese people had been criticizing its own culture and civilization from the May Fourth Movement to 1980s. During the past two decades, China has drawn close attention from the world due to its economic liftoff. What needs to pay attention to is that it is necessary for China to focus on both realization of building a wealthy, powerful country and developing its national culture on the equal basis.