Work-Style Rectification Overwhelms Enlightenment: The Collision Between the May Fourth Spirit and "Party Culture"

Abstract

As China enters the twenty-first century and we look back at the slogans China raised during the May Fourth New Culture Movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, we find that whether "science" and "democracy," or liberalism, or the emancipation of the personality, or human rights and humanitarianism—all remain as foci of attention today. The May Fourth movement as a movement for enlightenment may be seen as an ideological preparation for China's advance toward modernization, and the first step required in practice was political change. Whether revolution or reform, the objective was always to bring about constitutional democracy. Despite close to forty years of detours, we have finally admitted that the market economy is a stage of development that cannot be skipped. But we still do not admit that constitutional democracy is similarly a stage that cannot be skipped. And so, as China steps into the new millennium, it is still limping along and must make up for this missed lesson.