国之忧患与地缘政治意识

The Crisis of the Nation and Geopolitical Awareness

地理学这门学科在我国教育体制的现行学科分类中属于理科(自然科学),但地理学在诞生之时就具有政治性质,与国家的生存忧患紧密相关。随着中国的世界性崛起,我国的人文和社会科学学者越来越需要面对风云变幻的世界地缘政治局势,"地缘政治"这个语词也随之成为学界和传媒中的时髦用语。可是,政治地理学作为地缘政治意识的基础,在我国的教育建制中迄今仍然处于身份不明的位置。从政治史的角度讲,如果我国学界没有自己的世界历史地理学,那么,我们的地缘政治意识难免平泛和空洞。

Geography,which has been regarded as a natural science according to the current subject categories in our education system,was actually born political in nature,closely tied up with the existential crisis of the nation.As China rises in the world,it becomes more and more urgent for scholars in humanities and social sciences to cope with changeable geopolitical situation worldwide,along with which the term"geopolitics"has become popular among the academics and the media.However,in fact,that political geography should be the very foundation of geopolitical awareness remains unidentified in our education system.From the prospect of political history,our geopolitical awareness is bound to be vague and empty unless we establish our own world historical geography.