By Li Hongmei People's Daily Online

Aside from influence of the oft-stated Confucianism and other ancient wisdoms, the national characteristics of the contemporary Chinese can also trace its root to a typical survival culture, one of side effects of Cold War, which had fully embodied the natural principle of the weak being the prey of the strong, through the cut-throat race between two world blocs respectively led by the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.

In the white-hot combat unfolded by the two contrasting ideological systems, China had been caught in an awkward dilemma. In theory, China was undoubtedly classified as part of the soviet bloc, siding with Soviet Union and posing hostility to the Western powers. But in actuality, China then had to survive the twin menaces, one from the confronting West, the other from its bullying Big Brother, Soviet Union, who had all along viewed China as its potential rival and had little faith in its Communist ally.

China had been literally cast in a conspicuous supporting role in the bipolar superpower confrontation lasting for decades since the end of WWII. In retrospect, the so-called Cold War was more of an ideological war than a war fighting for world hegemony. Or put it more exactly, Soviet's hostility toward China might stem from its appetite to subdue China, while its tension with the U.S. was mainly confined to ideological sphere.

The U.S.-led Western powers were then bent on shaking and toppling the 'authoritarian Communist' world with Soviet as its bellwether. To fight back, Soviet Union launched an all-round propaganda war against the political foe from seeking unity in thinking and action inside the bloc to verbally vilifying and lashing out at capitalism system and imperialist ambition, the hallmarks believed to be borne by the West.

China, falling under the Soviet influence, had no alternative but follow suit, which dealt an insidious blow to China's volatile social fabrics coercing the nation to the edge of the basic survival rights. Playing safe and remaining the fittest to survive were the worldly-wise choice to a weak nation. The Chinese are by no means a born xenophobic lot, as long presumed by outsiders. And they then appeared to be so simply for a safe survival, since they had been more than once kicked around by powers and mocked by both history and reality.

That also explained why the Chinese are invariably singled out for not getting ahead to assume responsibility if ever crisis hit. If one had a close study of the Chinese modern history, he would have a more comprehensive understanding of the Chinese people's 'coward's and sluggard's way of thinking' scathingly criticized even by the cynics like the famous writer Lu Xun, who pointedly disclosed the ugly side of the Chinese national characteristics as long ago as 1920s and labeled it as the 'psych of onlookers', standing away and idle, looking on others' defeat, suffering and even bloodshed while shunning self-involvement.

Since the end of 18th century through to the entire 19 century till 1949, when New China was founded, China had been bedeviled by constant civil wars and skirmishes up to more than 200 times, excluding foreign intrusions. The divided nation and its people struggling for survival in gun smoke and well below the poverty line had little intention to cultivate a more refined culture but secure the bottom line for sustenance. In so far as human nature was stretched and squeezed, people's basic judgment of right or wrong was accordingly twisted and compassion was then despised.

When the wheel of history moved into 1950s, and thanks to the painstaking efforts made by the Marxist pioneers in ushering in a new China, the disaster-plagued nation looked up and people's spiritual outlook also turned out brand-new. The entire 1950s in China witnessed a promising nation with an unprecedentedly sound social mood and a selfless and helpful people. To this day, the generation who luckily experienced the great decade in the Chinese history has still relished the nostalgic musings over the 'good old days.'

However, the infant socialism civilization was mercilessly nipped in bud by Cultural Revolution that erupted in late 1960s. Chinese culture had since entered into a severe winter and the decade-long havoc not merely rooted out the classic wisdom but extinguished the last glow of warm humanity. China again slipped back to the disastrous decadence until the late 1970s, when the policy of reform and opening up finally pushed China back on track. Even though the 1980s is now described with contempt by some scholars to be a period of time for money-worship, accompanied by unbridled indulgence of human desires and passions, the entire nation, for all the trouble it had been through, was generally upbeat with the increasingly visible economic growth and, of course, the bulging purse.

But China's readiness to reach out to the outside world was hit a slap in the face exactly in the late 1980s by the foiled subversion of some Western powers in an attempt to dislocate and stem China, as a rising Communist nation was taken as a thorn in their flesh. To defend itself from waking up in the strong hold of the Western powers, China had to pick up Cold War weapon, fighting and dispelling the Western influence, which definitely wrought yet another havoc to China's national culture, which had just gained the momentum to develop in a relatively agreeable situation.

The disintegration of former Soviet Union in 1991 indeed signaled the end of Cold War. But to China, its legacy lingers on and the Cold War aftermath on the Chinese mentality is always there, though it may be hidden from view. After all, the wound healed, but easily reopen and still hurts in bad weather. Outsiders view the Chinese nation as irritable even at the slight provocation, and Chinese culture as immature breeding a generation of so-called 'angry youth' pouring scorn on anything foreign to their taste. Actually, it is no more than a defensive means, as the country has thus far been edging its way ahead in the labyrinth of disordered world structures since the end of Cold War, and might get lost in the confusion.

In the post-Cold War era, however, especially when a new world structure featuring multi-polarization is taking shape, and China is playing a more assertive role on the global stage, the mentality dragged down by the past is evidently outdated. 'Forgetting about the past is a betrayal,' as a used-to-be popular saying goes, revealing the time and situation. Today, it may still act as the reminder of what China has been through, but the Chinese youth now should tend more to believe 'forgetting is also a release and a pleasure.'

On the road to fulfill the dream of revitalizing China, the Chinese people need to broaden the horizon to embrace the diverse cultures, Western civilization included; and enrich its own by absorbing fine traditions of the shared human heritage and dismissing the outdated legacies, all in the belief that the world will readily accept a 'rising China' at the command of justice and wisdom one day, and China is going that way.