中华复兴走唐代路线乃是世界的福音
来源：全球主义者
两个世纪以来，从德黑兰到东京，从孟买到上海，亚洲人一直是世界历史的旁观者，对西方商业、思想和力量浪潮毫无防备。马凯硕（Kishore Mahbubani）在新书《新亚洲半球（The New Asian Hemisphere）》中写道，亚洲，特别是中国，如今回归它在西方崛起之前占领长达18个世纪的舞台中心。
中国找回过去并与过去重新联系的新努力可能令中国和世界都振奋起来。它将带来国际文化化学巨变。
当变成一个富裕而成功的文明社会，中国的表现会怎样呢？要想一瞥那时的情形，我们只需要回归历史，看看中国在此前的中华文明高峰期的表现。
看看历史
六十年的共产主义统治并没有改变中国的灵魂，它是由几千年历史发展而来的。中华文化丰富而奇异。
许多中国历史学家会认为中国最伟大的朝代是唐朝。唐朝是中国历史上的“黄金时代”之一。中国帝国达到空前的经济和文化高度，作出众多重要发明，领土翻了一番，而且巩固了它对亚洲大陆的政治影响力。
唐朝统治者欢迎外国思想，让首都长安成为世界上最多元化的城市。来自印度、波斯、阿拉伯、叙利亚、朝鲜和日本的商人、传教士和使节挤满了长安街道，外国语言变成日常生活的普通组成部分。
社会流动性
在中国治下的和平时期（Pax Sinica），那个时代最重要的商路丝绸之路进入黄金时期，波斯人和索格代亚纳商人从东西交流中获益。
在唐代统治的最初几十年，特别是在唐太宗治下，中国驯服从北到西北的游牧邻居，确保远达叙利亚和罗马的陆上商路的和平与安全。
政府服务标准化
公元7世纪是重要的社会变革时期，出现了官员考核体系。新的社会精英逐渐取代老贵族，而且招纳南方贤士也促进了6世纪开始的文化融合。在710至755年唐朝的巅峰时期，中国远远超出同时代的其他文明社会。事实上，它的发展程度无与伦比。
中华文明若能沿着唐代路线复兴，那将是世界的福音。复兴的中华文明将是开放的、国际性的，而不是封闭孤立的。事实上，自信的中华文明甚至比西方不可靠的社会更开放，更具国际性。
国际性社会
中国已经出色地向民众引入西方文化的精粹。在欧洲和美国，许多乐团和歌剧院苦苦挣扎，但在中国，大约有3000万人在学钢琴，由1000万人在学小提琴，呈现出相反的轨迹。
根据中国音乐家协会（Chinese Musicians Association）的数据，高等音乐学校的入学考试如今每年吸引近20万学生，而在八十年代，每年只能吸引几千人。
音乐的表达
曼克顿音乐学院校长西洛塔（Robert Sirota）表示，“坦白讲，我认为在某种真正的意义上，古典音乐的未来取决于中国未来20年的发展。”他继续说，“他们代表着数量庞大的新听众以及古典音乐表演者，我们迄今为止不曾有过那么多的古典音乐表演者。”“可能二十到四十年后，你会发现上海和北京真正成为受尊重的世界艺术音乐中心。”
（原标题：中国的多元化遗产；此文摘录自马凯硕（Kishore Mahbubani）所著的《新亚洲半球（The New Asian Hemisphere）》）
英文原文地址：http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=6897
英文原文：
China Returns to Its Global Roots
By Kishore Mahbubani | Monday, April 21, 2008
For two centuries, Asians — from Tehran to Tokyo, from Mumbai to Shanghai — have been bystanders in world history, reacting defenselessly to the surges of Western commerce, thought and power. As Kishore Mahbubani explains in his new book, "The New Asian Hemisphere," Asia — particularly China — is now returning to the center stage it occupied for 18 centuries before the rise of the West.
China’s nascent efforts to rediscover its past and reconnect with it are likely to be exciting for both China and the world. It will bring about a massive change in international cultural chemistry.
To get a glimpse of what China will behave like when it becomes a rich and successful civilization, we need only to look back and see how China behaved during previous peaks of Chinese civilization.
Looking to history
Six decades of communist rule have not changed the Chinese soul, which has developed over thousands of years of history. There is a rich and wondrous well of Chinese culture.
Many Chinese historians will agree that the greatestChinese dynasty was the Tang Dynasty. The period of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) is one of the “golden eras” in the history of China. The Chinese empire achieved unprecedented economic and cultural heights, made a number of important inventions, doubled in territory, and consolidated its political influence across the continent of Asia.
The Tang rulers welcomed foreign ideas, making Chang’an — the Tang capital — the most diverse city in the world. Merchants, clerics and envoys from India, Persia, Arabia, Syria, Korea and Japan thronged the streets of Chang’an, and foreign tongues were a common part of daily life.
Social mobility
Under this period of Pax Sinica, the most important ancient trade route of that time, the Silk Route, reached its golden age, when Persian and Sogdian traders benefited from the exchange between West and East.
In the beginning decades of Tang dynastic rule, especially under the leadership of Emperor Taizong (627-650), China subdued its nomadic neighbors from the north and northwest, securing peace and safety on overland trade routes reaching as far as Syria and Rome.
Standardized civil service
The 7th century was a time of momentous social change — the official examination system enabled educated men without family connections to serve as government officials.
This new social elite gradually replaced the old aristocracy, and the recruitment of gentlemen from the south contributed to the cultural amalgamation that had already begun in the sixth century. When the Tang Dynasty was at its peak during the period 710 to 755, China was far ahead of any other contemporary civilization. Indeed, none even came close to matching its level of development.
A rejuvenation of Chinese civilization along the lines of the Tang Dynasty would be a blessing for the world. This revived Chinese civilization would be open and cosmopolitan, not closed and insular. Indeed, a confident Chinese civilization may prove even more open and cosmopolitan than the insecure societies of the West.
Cosmopolitan society
Already, China is doing a remarkable job of introducing the highlights of Western culture to its population. While many orchestras and opera houses are struggling in Europe and the United States, China, with an estimated 30 million piano students and ten million violin students, is on an opposite trajectory.
Tests to enter the top conservatories now attract nearly 200,000 students a year, compared with a few thousand annually in the 1980s, according to the Chinese Musicians Association.
Musical expression
“I honestly think that in some real sense the future of classical music depends on developments in China in the next 20 years,” said Robert Sirota, the president of the Manhattan School of Music. “They represent a vast new audience as well as a classical music-performing population that is much larger than anything we’ve had so far,” he continued.
“You’re looking at a time when, maybe 20 to 40 years from now, Shanghai and Beijing are really going to be considered centers of world art music.”