Changes in Xiayi in the New Era - Essays on a Trip to Dian and Sichuan Part 5

Changes in Xiayi in the New Era - Essays on a Trip to Dian and Sichuan Part 5 (Author: Wen Yang) In recent years, under the arrangement of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and the China News Service, I have visited China...

(Author: Wen Yang)

In recent years, under the arrangement of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and the China News Service, I have visited many places in China. After traveling to Tibet, Gansu and Xinjiang, this year I traveled to western Yunnan and western Sichuan. After several trips, I had some on-the-spot observations of China's western frontier.

The western frontier is self-evidently vast in territory, magnificent in scenery, and beautiful in scenery. What fascinates me in particular is the traditional culture of the ethnic minorities in the west, as well as the complex historical and cultural relationships between the ethnic minorities and the Han people, and between the border areas and the Central Plains.

Historically, this relationship has a clear main line, which is called "changing Yi from Xia", that is, the Han culture in the Central Plains is "Xia", and the non-Han culture in the southeast and northwest are all "Yi". In the history of Chinese civilization for thousands of years, Xia culture has always been the mainstream culture, while Yi culture is a marginal culture. The most important thing is that it has always been Xia culture that changed and integrated Yi culture.

The Xia culture started from a small area in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and gradually expanded. Within a thousand years from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Western Han Dynasty, it had expanded to most of the territory of today's China. By the Qing Dynasty, it reached its peak and became a super-large country covering more than 10 million square kilometers and including dozens of ethnic groups. No matter how many wars, population migrations, territorial changes, and the rise and fall of dynasties, the grand process of Xia becoming Yi has not been reversed. Even during the troubled times, Xia culture and the Han nation expanded more violently.

As early as the time of Mencius, there was an assertion that "I have heard of those who used Xia to transform the barbarians, but I have not heard of those who descended from the trees and entered the deep valley."

The cultural advantage that is as unquestionable and unchallengeable as a tree over a deep valley is even enough to offset the political and military advantages that the Yi people gained through war. History testifies that every Yi nation that conquered the Central Plains and became the ruler of China was eventually culturally conquered by Xia culture and became a new descendant of Xia culture.

The Xia culture's super ability to assimilate and "transform" has meant that the Han nation has never had to rely on blood to distinguish itself from other ethnic groups, and there has never been a racial war based on the concept of blood in history. War in Chinese history occurred frequently on the borders of "Differentiation between Yi and Xia" and "Defense between Yi and Xia". Once the cultural "transformation of Yi from Xia into Yi" was successfully realized, everyone would become a "Chinese nation" and there would be no distinction between them.

The Jewish nation has different historical destinies around the world, but the fate in China is the most special. It merged into the Han nation like falling into a melting pot and disappeared without a trace.

The "Xia transformed the barbarians" that lasted for nearly three thousand years finally encountered a real challenge after the 18th century. The Western barbarians from Europe and the United States were not only more powerful in terms of force, but also spiritually and culturally. From the spread of Western learning to the east and then to the spread of Western power to the east, after the Opium War in the mid-19th century, the "transformation of barbarians from Xia to Xia" finally reversed into "transformation of barbarians into Xia". The teachers who had been proud of the world for three thousand years and never condescended finally turned into students who were open-minded and eager to learn. Although "total Westernization" was not used as a slogan, it became a collective action of the entire nation.

History has entered the 21st century century, after rebirth from the ashes, China once again emerged as a world power, and a new situation quietly emerged: when the Chinese people changed from the best teachers in the world to the best students in the world, when the Han nation also became the most proficient in modernization, science and technology, and As one of the ethnic groups with a market economy, when the Xia culture successfully transformed into modern culture and gained new vitality in the process of the transformation of the barbarians into the Xia, the relationship between the Xia and barbarians in Chinese history between the Han nation and the surrounding ethnic minorities also began to undergo new changes.

Now, for the ethnic minorities in border areas who have not yet completed the modernization transformation and have not yet entered the scientific society and market economy society, the Xia culture of the Han nation once again has an unquestionable and unchallengeable advantage. Today's Han people represent new concepts, new ideas, new knowledge, and new technologies that are in line with the world. They represent the magical power of economic growth and social development. They represent the support and common development of advanced societies for backward societies.

This is the Xia-Yi change in the new era, that is, after the traditional Xia culture has experienced the transformation of the world's advanced culture, it once again uses the advantages of advanced culture to "transform the Xia-Yi" into the surrounding barbarians.

From the northwest to the southwest, engineering projects of the “Western Development” can be seen everywhere, and their scale is unprecedented in history. After the Wenchuan Earthquake, under the arrangement of the central government, development efforts were further intensified. The developed coastal provinces provided counterpart assistance to the western region, and the story of one step into modern times and "one night spanning a thousand years" was repeated everywhere.

This is also a new epic. The thousands-year-old historical relationship between Zhuxia and Zhuyi is a new chapter within the new national system and in the new historical period.