USA vs. China Ways (7.2)

Why do the Chinese Intellectuals Play a Key Role in the Chinese Society?

China, long back into history, has believed the society should be ruled by intellectuals — people who have received fine educations, and a government should be made of intellectuals.

The Western society used to be ruled by aristocrats and priests but China had neither. Instead China has intellectuals. The Chinese believes the intellectuals have knowledge and can judge things by reason with a cool head.

Since the start of modern age (for China it started around the mid 19th century when China started to engage with the Western countries), the Chinese has played more pivotal roles in moving the country forward. Why? because the Chines intellectuals are the bridge to link the Est and West and they were the first to learn the advanced developments from the West, and then introduce them to China.

Across China’s history, there are two major driving forces of change in society: one is the low status, poor and rebelling peasants. When life became too hard to live, they were forced to make changes often via violence.

The second driving force is intellectuals, who often push for evolutions in terms of government structures, social systems, education, culture, and economy. They want to make changes along a relative mild and reasonable…