彰显“文化自信” 浦东30年提供了怎样的实践范例？ - 2020-12-04

Pudong’s development and opening up in the past 30 years has been accompanied by leap-forward development in its culture. The idea of east-west connected development has dominated Shanghai’s cultural construction. The systematic advancement of Pudong’s cultural construction has become an important achievement of Shanghai’s cultural construction in the 40 years of reform and opening up.
In his speech at the 30th Anniversary Celebration of Pudong’s Development and Opening up, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that efforts should be made to make Pudong a pioneer of reform and opening-up at a higher level and a vanguard in fully building a modern socialist country. Pudong should also strive to become an example that highlights the Chinese people’s confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics, so as to better show Chinese philosophy, spirit and path to the world.
The confidence in culture is basic, broad and deep. In its cultural development in the past 30 years, Pudong has been continuously exploring the way to promote prosperity of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics. It has fully implemented core socialist values, developed Pudong spirit with reform and opening up as its soul, created advanced socialist culture in line with the times, and providing a perfect example for the scientific development of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics.
Cement core socialist values to provide spiritual momentum for deepening reform and opening up
The core of culture lies in values, as well as the cognitive system, aesthetic system and value system that adapt to the development of the modern world. How to establish a value system suitable for Pudong’s development path at the cultural level is what Pudong’s cultural construction is all about.
In the 30 years of development and opening up, Pudong has always taken core socialist values as the strongest “soft power” for development, and continuously promoted thorough, earnest and concrete implementation of these values, which have taken root in people’s heart internally, been practiced in their deeds externally, and vividly manifested in all aspects of the five-sphere integrated plan.
As a “window” and pilot area for China’s contemporary reform and opening up, Pudong has bravely removed various restrictive factors and integrated core values into various comprehensive reform systems in politics, economy and people’s livelihood. It has pressed ahead to reduce examination and approval items, optimize administrative procedures, promote transformation of government functions, practice rule of law in more efficient, transparent administrative services, and safeguard social justice. It has improved the socialist market system, optimized the opening up pattern, enhanced trade facilitation, and ensured freedom and equality of various market players in a sound business environment. In terms of improving people’s livelihood, Pudong has ensured equal access to basic public cultural services, built a sound livelihood security system, and continuously met people’s spiritual and cultural needs for a better life to improve life quality with high-quality development.
Core socialist values do not come from nowhere, but have a profound social and historical foundation. Born from people’s daily practice, and used to guide people’s deeds, they have unconsciously become the source of people’s confidence in culture in daily practice, providing strong faith and spiritual momentum for Pudong to start its second entrepreneurship and become a benchmark for national reform and opening up, innovation and development.
Explore the scientific laws of urban cultural construction in the process of socialist modernization from forced integration to active leading
Since the reform and opening up, Shanghai’s urban cultural construction has gone through different development stages as its understanding of the laws of cultural development goes deeper. As the goal has changed from building an international cultural exchange center, a cultural metropolis, to building a socialist international cultural metropolis, it reflects that cultural construction has played an increasingly important role in Shanghai’s five-sphere integrated development, and fully manifests that Shanghai’s urban cultural development echoes the construction of a socialist cultural power. In the past 30 years, the function of Pudong’s cultural construction has experienced tremendous changes from the forced involvement at the beginning of development and opening up to playing an important role in the construction of an international cultural metropolis. It is likely to play a leading role in the future. These changes fully demonstrate the great achievements made in Pudong’s cultural development in the past 30 years.
Reviewing the development of Shanghai’s urban culture in modern times until the beginning of development and opening up, we can easily find that Pudong’s cultural construction had always been marginal or even ignored in the overall layout of Shanghai’s cultural construction due to various objective restrictions. Pudong’s development and opening up kicked off leap-forward development of its culture in the past 30 years. The idea of east-west connected development has dominated Shanghai’s cultural construction, and the systematic advancement of Pudong’s cultural construction has become an important achievement of Shanghai’s cultural construction in the 40 years of reform and opening up.
In the past 30 years, Pudong has made remarkable achievements in allocating major cultural facilities, improving grassroots public cultural facilities, deepening reform of the cultural system, developing cultural and creative industries, and conducting foreign cultural exchanges in cultural construction. It has not only perfectly integrated its cultural construction into Shanghai’s overall cultural development pattern, but also played even benchmarking and leading roles in some aspects. Meanwhile, Pudong’s cultural form has undergone significant changes in the 30 years of development, transforming from taking rural culture as the mainstay and urban culture as the supplement at the initial stage of development and opening up to taking high level of urbanization as the mainstay and rural culture as the supplement. The original relatively backward cultural landscape has been fundamentally changed, realizing modern transformation from rural culture to urban culture.
Continuously meet people’s spiritual and cultural needs and enrich the connotation of people’s urban cultural construction
The common development and prosperity of material civilization and spiritual civilization are the basic feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Pudong’s development and opening up is not only to explore infinite possibilities of socialist economic development, but also to pursue a modern civilization concept that is in line with the development path of socialism with Chinese characteristics after having a highly developed economy and material abundance, and to build a more scientific and healthier lifestyle.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the cities are owned by people and clearly put forward the important idea that “the cities are built by the people and are for the people”. In 30 years of cultural practice, Pudong has always taken meeting people’s growing spiritual and cultural needs as its main goal, and implemented the idea of people-centered cultural development. Rather than an abstract concept, the people-centered idea is reflected in specific cultural work and implemented by each group and individual. Providing supply targeted at diverse cultural needs of Pudong residents is the best practice of the idea.
First, Pudong has improved public cultural facilities and spaces, including major functional cultural facilities, grass-roots cultural facilities in subdistricts and towns, large-scale residential communities, and neighborhoods and villages, as well as various new cultural spaces that have emerged in recent years, providing solid physical carriers to safeguard people’s cultural rights and interests.
Second, Pudong has established a rational, efficient cultural product supply system, actively improved targeted supply of public cultural services, and gradually developed from one-way cultural delivery to a four-level public cultural service system featuring “online services, targeted supplies, decentralized resources and networked services”, and covering all subdistricts, towns, neighborhoods, and villages.
Third, Pudong has built various effective platforms, such as small social organizations, masses cultural teams, grassroots cultural discussion system, etc., to vigorously promote the self-governance of grass roots, stimulate their enthusiasm to participate in cultural construction and creation, and realize self-supply of cultural products and services.
Inherit and innovate excellent cultural traditions, and promote balanced and complementary development of urban and rural cultures
In the 30 years of development and opening up, Pudong has undergone an extraordinary urbanization process, achieving a huge leap from agriculturalization to post-industrialization in a short period of time, and forming an opening up pattern that has become highly internationalized from a relatively closed one. In this process, Pudong has inherited and accumulated various cultural forms in the cultural development, and obtained many types of excellent cultural resources. Jiangnan culture, Shanghai-style culture and red culture have showed rich contents, forming their own distinctive cultural characteristics, and highlighting unique regional cultural identities. In particular, the advanced socialist culture formed during the 30 years of development and opening up has become the spiritual gene of Pudong culture.
Pudong’s contemporary culture is based on creative transformation and innovative development of various cultural resources. Modern civilization is used to activate the vitality of traditional culture, creating a development pattern that keeps up with the times, and building modern civilization with Pudong characteristics through the integration and complementation of urban and rural cultures. The complementary development of urban and rural areas is a topic of our time in contemporary China. The cultural development path developed by Pudong in the 30 years of development and opening up for highly urbanized and internationalized regions offers important references to mutual promotion and integrated development of urban and rural cultures. The rapid development of urban areas can provide a strong material foundation for the revival of rural culture, while the sound development of rural areas can offer abundant cultural resources for over-materialization in urban areas. As a highly developed frontier in opening up, Pudong hasn’t abandoned its rural context in the process of rapid urbanization. Instead, it has used the economic foundation provided by urbanization to effectively explore and innovate the rural context, achieving harmony and common prosperity in urban and rural development, and providing inspirations for other similar regions in the country.
Author: Zheng Chongxuan, Director and Researcher of the Public Culture Research Office of the Institute of Literature, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences