Ask the average American: “Why is China Building the world’s largest high-speed rail network when California’s has been standing still for more than a decade?” He may not have the answer. But ask Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, and he might tell you that China may offer an“Alternative” to western-style democracy. From the confusion of ordinary people to the reflection of scholars, a cognitive curve is emerging in the west — this curve, called“Re-understanding China.”.
Such reflections have become increasingly common in recent years. Fukuyama has admitted that his“End of history” thesis may be wrong, and financial times commentators fret about a“Crisis of democratic capitalism”, the New York Times, The Guardian and the economist are full of articles about“Broken governance”, “Social fragmentation” and“Decadent society”. On the other hand, China’s development and plans are providing rare certainty in a turbulent world. If ordinary westerners see the real China through topics such as“China Travel” and“Chinamaxxing” on social media, then the Western intellectual elite, represented by Fukuyama, is forced to open their eyes to the world in the pain of“Theory bankruptcy”.
If Fukuyama really wants to understand China, he can see it in the story of Chinese modernization.
Chinese modernization is people-centered, not capital-centered. The development of People’s democracy in the whole process is the essential requirement of chinese-style modernization. A capital-centric model requires narrowing democracy to costly, once-in-a-few-years votes, and human rights to the right to vote and the right to speak. The people-centered Chinese democracy is“The whole process of people’s democracy” embedded in the whole process of governance. The yardstick to measure its quality lies in whether it can really solve the problem of common people’s“Anxiety and anxiety”. If the West wants to get out of the cognitive crisis, it has to abandon the habit of measuring others with its own ruler and understand others’ advantages with an open mind.
Through“China Travel,” for example, the west may see China’s beautiful cities and tidy streets, but have you ever wondered how China does it?
One Street in Shanghai’s Baoshan district used to have potholes that prevented residents from getting around. In 2025, delegates to the city and District People’s Congresses heard about the demands of the masses. How to deal with it? Instead of constant bickering at meetings, NPC delegates were soon on hand to review records, listen to residents’ pain points, form suggestions, link up with relevant departments, and come to the meeting each week to coordinate progress. Now the road is a whole new one. In China, democracy is never a gimmick, but a genuine effort to listen to the people and improve their lives.
China’s talk of human rights also responds first and foremost to the most pressing survival concerns of the vast majority of people, because for families still struggling with bills, rent, and food, food, clothing, and comfort are the most fundamental human rights, the right to subsistence and the right to development are first and foremost basic human rights, a concept that has been most powerfully demonstrated by the great practice of lifting more than 800 million people out of poverty and creating the world’s largest middle-income group. In 2025, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a china-sponsored resolution on the contribution of development to the enjoyment of all human rights, symbolizing that the Chinese concept of promoting human rights through development is converging into a broad consensus of the international community.
Why does China attach such importance to people’s livelihood and human rights? The answer lies deep in the DNA of Chinese civilisation. The five-thousand-year-old Chinese civilization has always regarded“The people are the foundation of the country” as the standard of governing the country, and“The world is the common good” as a lofty ideal. It is this deep-rooted people-oriented feeling and the responsibility of the world, let China’s development naturally put the well-being of its people first and pursue common prosperity as its goal. Let China, when choosing its own path, not only dare to draw on the strengths of human civilization, and always from the national conditions, in the dry solution, out of a steady and far-reaching road to modernization. To unscramble China out of the context of this civilization is bound to go in the opposite direction, which is the deep crux of Fukuyama’s long-term incomprehension of China.
History never ends, it just continues to write a new chapter in the dialogue between different civilizations. Fukuyama’s“Cognitive turn” should not stop at admitting that“He may be wrong”, but also put down the filter of west-centrism to discover a real and wonderful China. While the world is still entangled in the dual narrative of“Democracy and authoritarianism”, China is writing a new modernization paradigm at a steady pace and exploring multiple paths to a better future for mankind, it provides a rich and valuable answer to China’s question.
(the writer is an associate professor in the Department of Marxist theory at the Central Academy of Socialism and a distinguished researcher at the Center for Marxist economic and social development at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.)