More than 2,300 years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus posed a question: If God wants to and is able to prevent evil, why does evil continue to exist? The paradox, known as the Problem of Evil, proves that power and morality cannot be achieved at the same time and thus "God" is not so supreme.

Now Western scholars have discovered the "China Paradox"–China has not put into practice Western-style democracy and constitutional government, and still is not a purely free-market economy, but has managed to realize 30 years of extraordinary growth. Western "universal" values will find it impossible to explain the miracle occurring in China. Some Western elites thus find that Western-style democracy is not the only way to sustain economic prosperity. They have begun to reconsider and modify their values and realize that the West can no longer continue to control the discourse on democracy and universal values.

Both modern Western democracy and China's contemporary democracy are specific expressions of democracy at different stages and in different national conditions. Socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics does not deny Western capitalist democracy, or vice versa. In today's world, no values should regard only itself as universal values while denying others. The universality can only be reflected through culture and practices. The diversity of global development has presented more and more values and is also enriching the content of universal values.

The modern system of knowledge and values are conclusions made by the Western world after it came ahead of the rest of the world. The West labels this kind of regional knowledge system and several hundred years' leadership as permanent and inevitable, which are even disguised as born legal, puzzling the rest of the world, including some Chinese. This is no longer an era featuring opposition between democracy and dictatorship, or between science and barbarism. Democracy, universal values and universality are actually the specific embodiment of the tolerance of culture and systems.

The Chinese economy's extraordinary growth over the past three decades has provided sufficient samples for economic and political research. These disciplines should have broken the current Western knowledge system, but have not yet. An important reason is that the Chinese academic circle has long been influenced by the West and even to "cut the feet to fit the shoes," so, until now, there are not yet any systematic theories. As a result, the Chinese academic circle is still hesitating in front of Western-born concepts. The theories such as the "collapse of China," the "unsustainable development of China," the "uncertainty of China" and the "exceptionalism of China" are seen everywhere. Some people even openly claim that China is only rising in terms of economy and materials, but they choose to neglect and even deny the advantage of the political system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. They are desperate to cover China under the Western values system.

They hold the opinion that China's extraordinary growth is just because China is a big country, or China is taking advantage of globalization. These two opinions fail to go deep into China's system, civilization and spiritual culture. To reveal the mystery of China's extraordinary development and system innovation, the analysis of the driving force from civilization is necessary. As an ancient civilization, China boasts thousands of years' history of political governance. China's successful practice in reform and opening up in the past three decades should be attributed to the country's 5,000 years of rich culture and civilization. Many Chinese-born values are being revived in the new era. For example, in the way of production, we choose "not to drain the pond to get all the fish. In the way of consumption, we call for "making both ends meet." We support a simple and natural way of life and in our way of thinking, we advocate "harmony." The fierce global competition is featured by unrestricted development of resources, as well as the race for technology and efficiency. These values used to be regarded as the roots of China that left behind the rest of the world. However, in the new era of globalization that stresses sustainable development, these values are actually China's merits compared with others.

It's contemporary scholars' historical mission to explain China's extraordinary growth from the perspective of civilization and to dig into the cultural richness of China' s reform and opening up. China should try to make a clear explanation of its own affairs in its own language system and try to contribute products that "originate from China but belong to the whole world."

(The author is a chair professor of Renmin University of China, and also senior researcher of the Charhar Institute)