Contents and Summaries No.4 December, 2020

Reinterpretation of Western Civilization

HOU Jianxin

What is western civilization? Began with the bitter experience of Opium War in modern period, we know western civilization from its appearance to its essence. We once thought the foundation of their strength was powerful military force, which was later extended to their political institution and further to the Constitutional Reform and Modernization in 1898. However, despite the importance of matters and institutions, the establishment of European civilization was in fact the accumulation of ideas and the formation of social consensus. Therefore, I put forward the concept of "meta-rules" in European civilization study for the first time. In this article, Meta-rules are defined as the primary, initial and critical rules of a particular civilization. They are the "rules" that determine rules, which are widely recognized and clearly defined by society and become the basic principles of social life. The meta-rules of European civilization are similar to "embryos". They have a highly stable connotation, so that they infiltrate the legal and political institution aspects, lay the foundations of western civilization, and make the West the West. External manifestations vary with time and space, and sometimes they even seem beyond recognition. However, with a careful observation, we will find that western civilization retains its unique original characteristics just like every other civilization. To focus and analyze these meta-rules is undoubtedly the key point to our exploration of the essence of a particular civilization.

The British Traditional Concept of Not Setting up a Standing Army and Army Discharge in the Late 17thCentury

XU Erbin and WANG Yizhu

Britain had not established a standing army since the Middle Ages. Due to the need   of the war, the new model army was established during the Cromwell period. But by the end of the Augsburg Alliance War, huge military spending had overwhelmed the Britain's finances. Fearing that the king would use the standing army to imposean authoritarian system, British society followed the traditional concept of not setting up a standing army. In the1698 parliamentary elections, the opposition to the maintenance of the standing army gained an advantage. The parliament made an Act to discharge the army within England and Wales except 7,000 persons. The Kingdom thereupon began the grand discharge to shrink the scale of its army from 87,000 to 7,000. The grand discharge had an important impact in the military, social and political fields. It was a divergence of the military policy orientation between Britain and the European countries, which triggered a wave of unemployment and crime in Britain, and made the Parliament's mastery of the highest power of the country into concrete political practice.

Creation and Development of the Direction of the New Monetary and Financial History

XU Bin

To overcome the deficiency in existing research of financial history, Barry Eichengreen in 2011 introduced the concept of new monetary and financial history, and guided a new direction for this area. The monetary and financial history, as a kind of research approach, analyzes historical financial events by a method bridging the gap between macro and micro factors, and can cover the research of financial history from ancient to modern age. The concept and approach has had a significant influence to study in monetary, banking and financial crises history in less thana decade, and has been accepted by academic circle.

The Living Expenses System of the Early Members of CPC

YANG Yang

After the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1921, the living expenses system of party members played an important role in the quick building of the “organization of professional revolutionaries” which was proposed by Lenin. At first, Ma Lin, the representative of the Communist International, offered to pay the party members, which led to two different viewpoints, reflecting the differences in the CPC’s perception of “revolutionary professionalization” and acceptance the leadership of the Communist International Organization. After the establishment of the living expenses system for party member, the scope of implementation had been expanded, but the standard of distribution had always been relatively low. The living expenses system also causes problems such as the tendency to hire labor force and the excessive dependence of party members on Party organizations and the reduced ability of local organizations to raise funds independently. In response to the above-mentioned problems, the CPC had made further adjustments to the living expenses system, which played a positive role in overcoming the difficulties of party members’ lives, promoting the formation of professional revolutionary groups, and safeguarding the survival and development of party organizations.

The Prevention and Control Mechanism of Infectious Diseases in the Border Region of Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia

WANG Fei and WANG Yunchun

During the anti-Japanese War, the border region of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia faced the severe situation of infectious disease epidemic. The CPC Central Committee and the border region government responded positively and took active actions, such as strengthened the construction of leading institutions for epidemic prevention; established epidemic prevention mechanisms for fever diagnosis, epidemic reporting, isolation of disease sources and investigation of epidemic causes; increased the construction of hospitals; trained medical and health attached importance to traditional Chinese medicine and develop medicines. All these measures made personnel; important progress in the prevention and control of infectious diseases in the border region. People's health awareness had been significantly improved; incidence and mortality rates of infectious diseases had been generally decreased; severe infectious diseases had been largely controlled. The prevention and control of infectious diseases in the border region had made great contributions to the victory of the War of Resistance against Japan.

The Peasants’ Living Conditions in Northern Henan in the Early 20thCentury

JING Yuanyuan

In the early 20th century, although northern Henan became relatively developed, the peasants' living conditions were not necessarily improved in general. Their ways of making livings were traditional, like cultivating land, engaging in handicraft, becoming small retailer, doing hard work and so on. Land was still the main pillar of farmers' survival. In the 1920s and 1930s, the number of peasants leaving their villages for a living increased, and the number of vagrants increased. Peasants had very little household property, ordinary peasants seldom have savings, and the purchasing power of them is low enough to survive; many peasants were heavily in debt. In addition, the peasants’ living conditions of clothing, food, housing and medical care hadn't been changed. The new type of food, clothing only appeared in a few wealthy families.

The Path and Logic of the Christianization of Early Byzantine Legislations: Based on the Ecloga (Εκλογὴ τῶν νόμων)

LI Jirong and XU Jialing

When “Edict of Milan” was promulgated in 313, Christianity became the legitimate religion of the Roman Empire, which further accelerated the process of Christianization of the Empire, especially the weakening of paganism and the continuous integration of Christian principles in legislations. Until 740, the promulgation of Ecloga (Εκλογὴ τῶν νόμων) marked the birth of the first officially Christian code in the Byzantine Empire. From the analysis of the integration of   Christian principles into this code, we find that the generative logic of early Byzantine legal Christianization was closely related to the social environment of the “Late Antiquity” of the empire: on the one hand, the urgent need of the emperor to deify the imperial power closely coincided with the Divine Right of Kings’ idea in the Christianity; on the other hand, the need for the soothing effect of the Christian faith in the reality of social turbulence, led to the emperor’s legislative approach to a stable position and prosperity of the Empire.

Modern Insurance Consciousness in Traditional Charitable Organization: The Hundred-year Rise and Fall of Lingnan Changsheng Association and the Current Research Status

GU Chunjun

Changsheng Association, an important civil society organizations in the region of Lingnan, was originated in the late Qing Dynasty and was prevailed in the Republic of China. Its purpose was to help people get buried. It was financed by membership dues, donations, ancestral property and investment returns. It had formed three types of organization by blood, geography, and industry. It was closed in organizational structure, management operations and soon; it also had the nature of charity and insurance. It not only reflected the development of Chinese local philanthropy, but also opened the business of modern insurance. Lingnan Changsheng Association was the development of traditional associations, also influenced by western insurance thoughts, which embodied the modern values of Lingnan people in the tide of commodity economy. For the scattered data and scarce literature, the current research on Changsheng Association is still in its infancy.

The Economic Development and Influence of Jewish Yishuv in 1882-1948

CHEN Tianshe and CHANG Xiaodong

The Yishuv’s economy, which presided by Jewish, developed rapidly in the Palestinian region from 1882 to 1948. The influx of Jewish immigrants created conditions for the economy of Yishuv; the Yishuv’s economy benefited from the support of external funds; the purpose of establishing a Jewish state provided the spiritual impetus for the economic development of Yishuv. Additionally, the British Mandate had also been a driving force to promote the Yishuv’s economy   development. The economic development of Yishuv had improved the living conditions of the Jews, but had greatly damaged the interests of the Arabs. Before the founding of the State of Israel, Yishuv assumed the historical responsibility of the survival, development and growth of Palestinian Jews, laid the groundwork for the economic development of the State of Israel, and created the situation of weak Palestine and strong Israel today.