The Development Characteristics of the Chinese Path to Modernization from the Comparative Perspective of Chinese and Western Modernization

Based on the three-dimensional comparative framework of “driving mechanism−value orientation−practical path”, this paper reveals the paradigm division of Chinese and Western modernization. Western modernization takes capital proliferation as the core driving force, and has realized the accumulation by dispossession through colonial expansion and financial hegemony. Its development presents the characteristics of individualism, spatial plunder and ecological overdraft; Chinese style modernization takes the needs of the people as the internal driving force through the construction of the new national system and the common prosperity mechanism. This has opened up the practical path of sustainable development, and thus formed a new shared civilization featuring Party leadership, deep integration of urban and rural areas and the harmonious coexistence of civilization. Chinese style modernization has resolved the “North’s Paradox” at the institutional level, surpassed the binary opposition of “efficiency−fairness” at the value level, and provided a non-dependent modernization path choice for developing countries.