According to the statistics released by National Bureau of Statistics at the beginning of 2016, GDP per capita in China exceeds 8000 US dollars in 2015, indicating that China has fallen in the category of middle-income countries. However, along with the realization of this goal, there are also great changes occurring in the social and economic structure in China. For instance, over the past two decades, the economic growth in China has been mostly stimulated by investment, especially investment in real estate and infrastructure. However, since foreign demand is decreasing and China is greatly in debt now, this growth pattern is in urgent need of modification, and the transition to a more sustainable pattern of growth stimulated by consumption and innovation is extremely necessary. The innovation of Internet technology has fostered numerous growth areas of consumption, one after another, rapidly changing people’s life; it has also intensified the already fierce clashes between different thoughts and ideas, making public management more and more difficult. Besides, there have been frequent and strong fluctuations in the financial system. In order to stabilize it, the central government has to spend thousands of billions of money; but the function of the financial sector to support the development of real economy is weakening, which reflects the urgency of financial reforms in China and the severe shortage of experts and professionals in high-end service industry. China is now facing various challenges similar to the ones mentioned above. There are a lot of heated discussions at home and abroad as to whether China can avoid being stuck in “Middle Income Trap” and succeed in heading forward and becoming one of the developed countries in the world when faced with such numerous big challenges.

At this crucial crossroads of reform and choice, President Xi Jinping made an important speech with profound implications on May, 17th at a symposium on philosophy and the social sciences. In his speech, by referring to allusions and history, he pointed out in a convincing manner the urgency and importance of developing philosophy and social sciences under the new circumstance. He observed, “A country without advanced development of the natural sciences could not possibly be a leading nation, and neither can a country without booming achievements in philosophy and the social sciences.” He also made the following remarks: “China undergoes the most extensive and sophisticated social reform in its history. The most spectacular and unique practices and innovations in human history are in progress in China. Such unprecedented practices will generate enormous power and broad space for developing theory and boosting prosperity in academia. This is an era that needs theory and gives rise to theory, this is an era that needs thoughts and gives rise to thoughts.” What an enlightening speech!

President Xi stressed that when China is striving to fulfill its goal, Marxism is still very important and remains the guiding theory in the field of philosophy and social sciences. He said, “An important task for philosophy and social sciences in China is to continue pushing for the sinoliazation, modernization and popularization of Marxism, continue developing a Marxism that fits into the 21st century and contemporary China.” Later on, Xi elaborated several aspects in detail, from which we can draw a lot of implications.

First, Xi said, “Classical Marxist writers are insightful and knowledgeable, and the theoretical system of Marxism is far-reaching and profound, concerning issues such as history, economics, politics, culture, society, ecology, technology, military, and Party construction, etc. in various fields such as nature, human society and human thinking. Without great efforts and diligence, it is almost impossible to understand the essence of the theory or to fully master it.” In today’s society, every discipline is highly professionalized and has its own technical terms and research methods, blocking the communication between different disciplines. That is why the interaction between different disciplines becomes more and more difficult. Nonetheless, the prominent problems in the society are all cross-disciplinary, especially issues concerned with human beings, who are the subjects of research in philosophy and social sciences. Therefore, if we want to draw effective conclusions to deal with those prominent problems in a feasible way, we must break such preset disciplinary boundaries and master knowledge thoroughly in every discipline.

Second, Xi observed, “Guided by the theory of Marxism, the research of philosophy and social sciences should first find out the answer to the question: for whom the research is done? This question is a fundamental principle for the research of philosophy and social sciences. Chinese philosophy and social science researchers must be very clear about whom they write books and establish theories for and whether they do so in the interest of the minority or in the interest of the majority.” Over the past two decades, China’s philosophy and social science research, especially the popular applied science such as economics, finance, business and law, etc., has developed and become more in line with the international practice. To follow this tendency, many domestic universities have strived to achieve the goal of publishing articles in international top-rank journals. There is no denying that the international top-rank journals are better than the domestic counterparts in terms of academic norm and professionality. By building academic communication through the international top-rank journals, Chinese researchers can become more rigorous and professional when doing research. However, with the goal of merely publishing articles in international journals, many social science researchers would do research on issues concerning the developed countries like the U.S., because such research is more in line with the “mainstream of the international world” and its results appear more “international”. In this way, the goal of research is not to service the society, but to cater to certain “icons” in the international academia. This tendency has directly resulted in the situation that, even though China’s economy and society is undergoing great changes and a lot of prominent problems keep emerging in China, high-quality research on these Chinese problems is extremely inadequate. When an important policy is issued, there is a lot less accurate and reliable scientific evidence and support to be put into use in China than in the U.S. Moreover, many research outcomes in social sciences have nothing to do with China’s ultimate goal, that is, to make the economy flourish and make the people wealthy. As Xi pointed out, “there are no absolute pure philosophy and social sciences.” This may be the essential difference between social sciences and other forms of science and engineering. We must endeavor to learn the knowledge and research methods accumulated by the western scholars, since they are the invaluable treasures of human beings; we need to analyze and solve the problems in an internationalized, acknowledged and standardized way, since this is the spirit of science that Chinese social science researchers ought to learn and embrace. Moreover, we also need to focus our research on the important practical problems that are related to our country and our people, and this is the most important thing I learn from the third point made by President Xi.

Third, President Xi pointed out, “One distinct characteristics of Marxism is to remain problem-based. Problems are the starting point of innovation and the power to beef up innovation. Only when we listen and respond to the calls of the era and make ourselves highly involved in investigating and unraveling the important and urgent problems in China can we fully understand the history, find out the law of development, and promote the theoretical innovation. Therefore, the use of Marxism as the core guide means that we should do research to investigate both theoretical and practical problems facing the Communist Party, problems that are important to China’s development, and we should also draw conclusions on how to tackle those problems correctly and effectively.”

Tongji University is prestigious in the field of engineering and architecture, both at home and abroad. Furthermore, Tongji people are also famous for being practical. Countless buildings, bridges, roads in China are jointly built by our graduates. They are literally “constructing” the material culture of China. Now, the new situation in contemporary China calls for new contributions of Tongji people — to give advice for China’s blueprint of becoming a developed country, and to help “construct” China’s spiritual culture at the time of reforms. According to Xi, “China’s philosophy and social sciences should be centered at what the Chinese government is doing.” In fulfilling this task, Tongji people in fact have incomparable advantage. In the second half of 2014, President Xi proposed “the Belt and Road Initiative”, which is an active response of the central government to deal with the profound changes occurring in the world and to plan China’s development at the domestic and international level. Guided by the principle of cooperation and mutual development, such an initiative is proposed to enhance connectivity and understanding between China and countries along the Belt and the Road. The establishment of the Belt and the Road will not, however, be an easy task. One kilometer forward along the Belt and the Road areas will involve communication in different languages, interaction between different political groups and different cultures, conflicts between different law systems and business cultures. These difficulties are bound to exist and Tongji people will encounter these difficulties and problems sooner or later, but they are the great opportunities as well.

From the history of the prestigious universities worldwide, be it Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, or Heidelberg, we can find that the rise of these universities are in line with the rise of the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Similarly, when Great Brain is no longer “the empire on which the sun never sets”, its universities do not dominate either. It is natural that the destiny of a university is closely linked to the destiny of a whole country. It is extremely difficult for any country in the world to rise to the top. If a university or a master at a university can face and tackle the toughest problem in a rising and powerful country, they will definitely be respected. To address this issue related to China’s philosophy and social sciences, President Xi has given his pertinent, precise, and accurate criticism. “The development of China’s philosophy and social sciences is still immature. There are a large number of publications, but they are not of high quality. There are professionals and experts, but there are not enough masters. Hence the function of philosophy and social sciences is still not performed adequately.” Besides, Xi also mentioned, “China is a country making great efforts to promote philosophy and social sciences, surpassing many countries in the world with its strengths and advantages in the scale of research teams, number of publications, amount of government funding, etc. However, the present academic propositions, academic thinking, academic ideas, academic standards, and academic discourse in China are not in accordance with China’s overall strength and its international standing. There is still room for further improvement.”

China’s economy and society has reached a phase of development where food and clothing is not a problem for most Chinese people. People’s need of material wealth is not as desperate as before, but the pursuit of spiritual wealth, realization of self-value, and search for a meaningful life becomes more and more important to them. To meet such demand, President Xi has clearly pointed out the goal, that is, “we should base our work on national conditions, draw on achievements from foreign countries and history, understand the contemporary circumstance, care for human beings, and focus on the future; we should construct philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics and showcase Chinese characteristics, Chinese style, and Chinese magnificence in various aspects such as guiding theory, disciplinary system, academic system, discourse system, etc.”

There is still a long way to go for China to develop its philosophy and social sciences and incorporate them with Chinese characteristics, so now it is a great opportunity for Tongji University to develop its philosophy and social sciences. We should take advantage of our strong disciplines of engineering, pay direct attention to the great obstacles that hinder China’s transition and upgrading, focus on the problems of politics, economics, laws, humanities that arise in the process of promoting some important policies like “the Belt and Road Initiative”, so as to facilitate China’s economic and social transition and development.

Note: The author is a professor and PhD supervisor in the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University. This article first appeared in Tongji News on June, 10th, 2016.