Author: Tina

Human cultural exchange is the necessity of historical development. Because every nation and society in the world do not exist in isolation from each other, they are interrelated and influenced each other from ancient times to the present. The same is true of culture. Since the emergence of culture, there have been exchanges between different cultures. The culture of every nation and society has the phenomenon of mutual exchange and absorption. And with the evolution of history, the communication area is wider and wider, the communication is closer and closer, and the mutual influence is greater and greater. Therefore, cultural exchange is one of the main driving forces to promote cultural development and progress. Cultural exchanges between China and the West are no exception. Cultural exchanges between China and the West have a long history. It can be traced back to China's contact with Zhang Qian, Gan Ying and Daqin (Roman Empire) in the Han Dynasty. Nestorianism, another branch of Christianity, was introduced to China in the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, and China's four great inventions were introduced to Europe through Arabs in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, which provided a material and technical basis for the West to enter the capitalist era. The Travels of Marco Polo, written by Italian Kyle Polo in Yuan Dynasty, introduced China to Europeans for the first time, which attracted the attention of the West to Chinese civilization. The discovery of the new sea route not only promoted the political and economic relations between the East and the West, but also led to the direct communication between Chinese and Western cultures in modern times. In recent hundreds of years, there have been two climaxes in cultural exchanges between China and the West. The first time happened from the end of 16 to the middle of 18, that is, from the middle of Ming Dynasty to the early years of Qing Dynasty, Catholic missionaries came to the east and brought a strong "west wind" to ancient China. At the same time, China's Confucianism was introduced into Europe, which had a far-reaching impact on the emergence and development of the Enlightenment. The climax of the second cultural exchange took place in the middle of19th century. Since modern times, western powers have forcibly entered China in the form of blood and fire, and western ideology and culture have moved eastward again, mainly through China intellectuals. Faced with the broken mountains and rivers, the advanced intellectuals in China learned from their mistakes and looked for a good prescription to help the world. They study abroad in large numbers, consciously learn western culture, and at the same time vigorously spread China culture to the west. After the founding of New China, due to the confrontation between the two camps and the western blockade of socialist China, the cultural exchange between China and the West was once interrupted. With the end of the cold war and the incomparable convenience of transportation and communication brought by the new scientific and technological revolution, mankind has entered the era of "global village" with further interdependence, and the wave of economic globalization has swept almost every once unknown corner of the world, making it impossible to be closed and self-sufficient; At the same time, China implemented the policy of reform and opening up to meet the challenge of globalization. The internal factors of active opening up, the external pressure of globalization and the boost of scientific and technological revolution have prompted contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West to enter a new era and present new characteristics.

With regard to the new features of contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West, Wang Keying of the School of Humanities of Tianjin University of Technology pointed out in the article "Comparative Study on Cultural Exchanges and Conflicts between China and the West in Modern Times" that compared with modern cultural exchanges between China and the West, there are five differences in contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West, namely, different ways, different mentality, different scope and degree, different contents and different results. [1] (p28 ~ 32) The author basically agrees with his summary. This paper attempts to analyze the new characteristics of contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West from seven aspects: the background of the times, the subject of communication, the media, the content, the depth and the breadth.

1. Contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West are carried out in the new era background.

Contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West have entered a new era of globalization. Internationally, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, economic globalization entered a new stage. In China, after 15 years of hard negotiations, in 200 1 year, with the conclusion of the Doha Conference, China joined the World Trade Organization and began to keep pace with the world economy. Judging from the history of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, there have been four large-scale integrations of China culture and foreign culture since ancient times: the first was the introduction of Buddhist culture in the Han and Tang Dynasties, the second was the introduction of western culture brought by western Jesuit missionaries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the third was the introduction of Marxism and western culture with democracy and science as the main contents in the May 4th Movement, and the fourth was the continuous expansion of western scientific culture since the reform and opening up, which entered a new stage of cultural integration between China and the West. [2](P 178) Some scholars believe that this era is the "historical end" of the cold war between socialism and capitalism (Fukuyama), and it is the era in which western systems and ideologies dominate the world; Some scholars believe that this era is an era of "clash of civilizations" from the perspective of the development and evolution of human civilization (Huntington); Some scholars believe that the new way of life and thinking brought by globalization and the new international cultural pattern created by it can be summarized as two contradictory processes: on the one hand, cultural diversity and differences are assimilated and tend to weaken and disappear; On the other hand, it is cultural exchange, complementarity and integration, and the emergence of new diversity. [3](P75) Therefore, while China's economy is striving to adapt to the globalization of the world economy, China's culture, on the one hand, has maintained its openness, exchanges and mutual learning to all countries in the world, on the other hand, it has strived to maintain and expand its unique personality. In other words, while the global economy is seeking integration, the global culture is striving to maintain, develop or diversify. [3](P322) Therefore, contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West have entered a new era of economic globalization, multi-polarization of political structure and multi-cultural development, which is carried out under the background of this new era.

Second, contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West are undertaken by new subjects.

The subject of China in contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West is China, who is "this person" rather than "that person". Judging from the history of cultural exchanges between China and the West, China's main body has also undergone several changes, such as broad-mindedness in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the active introduction and arrogance of "Western learning" in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and the modern isolation, poverty and weakness, and loss of subjectivity. Before the reform and opening up, he knew nothing about the whole western world, was fearless, and remained silent about the debate about "society-capital". Since the reform and opening up, China has entered a period of highly developed productive forces, all-round opening to the outside world and a hundred schools of thought contend, which has created a brand-new China topic for contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West. The so-called "new subject" is mainly manifested in the following aspects: First, the subject of contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West is independent. Since the reform and opening up, China's comprehensive national strength has been greatly enhanced and its international prestige has been continuously improved. Wash away the humiliation of the modern century and the ignorance that was closed before. As an independent subject of cultural exchange, the people of China are playing an increasingly important role in the world cultural arena. Second, the cultural and educational level of the subjects of contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West has been continuously improved, and their awareness of cultural integration has been enhanced. Since the reform and opening up, the "English fever" and "studying abroad fever" have continued to heat up, which strongly proves that China people's desire to learn foreign cultures and their initiative in cultural exchanges have been greatly enhanced. It can be seen that the cultural exchange strength of China people is increasing day by day, and there is great hope for China culture to go global. Third, the mentality of the subjects of contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West is becoming more and more peaceful and rational. Contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West are conducted in a peaceful and gradual way, and the entry of western culture is gradual, selective and moderate. [1] (P5) Therefore, China people can keep a healthy and peaceful mind and rationally understand the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese and Western cultures.

Third, the application of new media in contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West.

Cultural communication media is an important tool and means of cultural communication. In the contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West, with the development of science and technology, the quality of cultural media has been greatly improved. Judging from the history of cultural exchanges between China and the West, the media of cultural exchanges have experienced changes from ethnic migration, war to missionaries, from commerce, letters, book, film and television translation to satellite TV and the Internet. Generally speaking, the speed is from slow to fast, the amplitude is from small to large, and the degree is from shallow to deep. Judging from the current situation, the main media of global communication are still mass media such as radio, television and newspapers, but at the same time, media with transnational communication functions, such as international telephone, fax, computer, e-mail on the Internet, databases and other means and tools for information collection, processing and dissemination, are also playing an increasingly important role. [4](P 1 13) Some scholars believe that from the perspective of media communication, it has gone through three stages: newspaper, radio and television, and now the "fourth media"-the Internet is playing an increasingly important role in our lives. [5] Some scholars believe that the Internet has brought human history into the era of global communication and mass media society. At present, the mass media is widely involved in all fields of society at an alarming rate and has a strong interaction with it. [6](P268) In the process of globalization, the Internet has a great momentum to rank among the traditional media and become a brand-new way and medium for cultural exchanges between China and the West. According to statistics, as of June 2005, the number of Internet users in China exceeded 654.38 billion. The development of cultural exchange on the Internet, on the one hand, destroys the geographical boundaries between China and the West, ethnic barriers, the disappearance of distance, the synchronization of time and space, and the information of cultural exchange between China and the West can be spread, accepted and interacted quickly and instantly. On the other hand, the Internet integrates other different media, such as radio, movies and television. It provides the greatest possibility for China, the West and even the whole world to enjoy cultural information resources. At present, the Internet, as one of the most convenient new media for cultural exchanges between China and the West, is playing an increasingly important role.

Fourth, contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West present new contents.

Under the background of globalization, inspired by China's comprehensive opening-up policy, and based on the highly developed global communication, transportation and network, contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West present different characteristics and contents. Mainly manifested in: first, the reference and innovation of political mechanism, which is manifested in the ice-breaking journey of cultural exchanges between China and the West in the direction of system and mechanism cooperation, marked by the cooperation between China and the West in combating corruption and promoting honesty. In June, 2002, 165438+ 10, the United Nations Development Programme and the Ministry of Supervision of China signed the cooperation project of "Supervision and Construction of Clean Government in China", which was assisted by the United Nations Development Programme and implemented by the Ministry of Supervision of China, aiming at summing up the experience of China's clean government construction, learning from the beneficial practices of foreign countries in combating corruption and promoting clean government, and exploring effective countermeasures to promote the government's clean government. [2](P 188) Second, the transnational operation of economic activities. Multinational companies from western countries entered China in the 1980s of 19. In about 10 years, China has replaced the United States as the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, by the end of 2004, there were 490,000 foreign-invested enterprises approved by China, and the accumulated foreign capital was 545 billion yuan. Multinational corporations have injected new contents into contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West, and have exerted certain influence and infiltration on people's material life, and then on people's ideology and values. Third, cultural exchanges between China and the West in cultural and artistic activities. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Culture, China has signed intergovernmental cultural cooperation agreements with 145 countries. Significant progress has been made in multilateral and regional cultural cooperation, and large-scale international cultural exchange activities such as "French Cultural Visit to the United States", "Berlin Asia-Pacific Week" and "China-China Cultural Year" have been successfully held. At the same time, China's mass culture, with the masses as the main consumer, entertainment as the main function, modern mass media as the means of communication and market orientation, has risen. Fourthly, the cultural exchange between China and the West in daily life is manifested in the diversified variation of more and more foreign words in the language, the development of the Internet, the popularity of foreign fast food and the vigorous development of transnational marriage.

Verb (abbreviation for verb) is unprecedented in depth and breadth.

Wang Keying believes that the scope of contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West and the degree of social participation have greatly expanded. With the deepening of China's reform and opening up and the increasingly frequent exchanges between China and the West, China has participated in and felt the cultural exchanges and conflicts between China and the West from top to bottom, whether in material culture or in system or spiritual culture. It can even be said that this cultural exchange has become a way of work or life, or a landscape to some extent. [1] (p 31) Indeed, if the ancient cultural exchange between China and the West is an epic grand narrative, it is a feat that can only be accomplished by the government mobilizing a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources; If the modern cultural exchange between China and the West is "Xie Wang Tang Qianyan", it is something that emperors, upper-level bureaucrats and senior intellectuals can contact; Then, the contemporary cultural exchange between China and the West has become a common thing of "flying into the homes of ordinary people" and has been integrated into our daily life. In depth, contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West have penetrated into the core part of culture, namely ideology and values. Under the influence of long-term "ultra-left" thinking and traditional way of thinking, because of ideological differences, especially sensitive issues such as "surname society" and "surname capital", academic circles are speechless, scholars are hesitant, and even have an instinctive escape. In recent years, with the further expansion of opening to the outside world and the active ideological and cultural research, the content of cultural exchange between China and the West is infiltrating into the field of political system and management mechanism, and the political cooperation between China and the West in anti-corruption and theoretical thinking on western democratic political civilization have taken an extremely important first step. Broadly speaking, people's food, clothing, housing and transportation are inextricably linked with the products of multinational companies, except in extremely remote and poor places in China. The popularity of English is getting higher and higher, and foreign fast food is very popular. Studying abroad, cross-border marriage and cross-border travel are becoming more and more common and civilian, and all kinds of cultural products from the West can be easily contacted in shopping malls, cinemas, television and the Internet. It can be seen that the urban people in China have been integrated into the cultural exchanges between China and the West, both in material life and cultural life.

Six, contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West are still dominated by China's "absorption" of western culture.

Cultural exchanges between China and the West have a long history and rich contents. Both Chinese and western cultures have contributed to the development of human civilization. However, due to various historical reasons, cultural exchanges between China and the West have been forcibly interrupted many times. It is already a struggle for Chinese and western cultures to meet again. Things are different and strangers are unfamiliar. Especially in modern times, China's agricultural culture, which has been closed for nearly 200 years, met with a vibrant and rising western industrial culture, which was a natural failure. Then came the Westernization Movement, the Reform Movement of 1898, the Revolution of 1911, and the New Culture Movement, all of which were learning and absorbing advanced western culture from material, system, values and psychology. So there was a desperate resistance to China's traditional culture, and various retro thoughts kept surging, forming a lot of "ancient and modern Chinese and western" cultural debates. After the founding of New China, due to the western blockade, China was forced to close its doors for nearly 30 years. Under the background of contemporary globalization, China is opening to the outside world. This round is that China is facing the western knowledge economy and information civilization with underdeveloped industrial civilization, which naturally shows that the weak culture faces the strong culture. Although samuel huntington predicted that "the era of Western domination of the world is coming to an end ... the decline of the West and the rise of other power centers are promoting the process of global localization and non-Westernization," on the whole, the West will remain the most powerful civilization in the first few decades of 2 1 century, and may continue to be in the actual leading position in scientific and technological talents, scientific research and development capabilities, military and civilian technological innovation, etc. " [7](P87) On the one hand, according to the objective law of cultural exchange, a strong culture with high potential energy will inevitably flow to a weak culture with low potential energy, and a strong western culture will inevitably be exported to China on a large scale; On the other hand, in order to make up for the huge economic gap between China and western developed countries in the past 30 years and narrow the gap in other aspects as soon as possible, we should also take absorbing, learning and drawing lessons from the advanced western culture suitable for China's national conditions as the main task of opening to the outside world. As Tang said, the current cultural development in China seems to be in the stage of digesting foreign cultures from the stage of conflict between two cultures to the stage of local culture. The development of China's culture will step out of the dispute between China and the West, and enter a period of comprehensive and in-depth absorption and integration of Western culture. [8](P6) Gan Yang believes that contemporary China should learn the essence of the West and Western learning on a large scale [9](P40). Therefore, for a long time, China was in the stage of absorbing, learning and drawing lessons from excellent western cultural factors.

Seven, the "China cultural deficit" in contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West.

"Deficit" is an international trade term, which means that a country imports more goods than exports; On the contrary, it is called "surplus". The "deficit" in cultural exchange generally refers to the phenomenon that the number of cultural elements introduced by a country in cultural exchange with other countries is greater than the number of cultural elements exported, and the influence of foreign culture on its own country is greater than that of its own culture on foreign countries. Generally speaking, there are two reasons for the "deficit" in cultural exchanges. First, since the capitalist industrial civilization occupied the mainstream position of world culture, the speed of world cultural exchange has been greatly accelerated by means of modern communication, but the cultures flowing in various communication channels are mainly western industrialized countries. Western culture "broke away from the specific social context that produced it and became a' floating symbol', directly entering other different cultural contexts and merging into a huge global cultural network". Countries and nations that are economically disadvantaged are always at a disadvantage in cultural exchanges. Second, the western developed countries block the cultural information products of developing countries in their own cultural and information markets, which leads to the fact that the information from developing countries cannot enter the developed countries in the same amount. Worldwide, the information market of developing countries is completely open to developed countries, while developed countries only introduce cultural information products that they think are necessary into their own markets. In this way, the gap between China and China has formed a "deficit" in cultural exchange. [1 1](P5~8) In the contemporary cultural exchange between China and the West, the reason for the "China cultural deficit" is that China's efforts to introduce western culture are greater than its own cultural output. China's cultural deficit is mainly manifested in the import and export of cultural products and the size of cultural positions. The latest statistics show that the "trade deficit" in the import and export of cultural products in China's cultural market is obvious. At the 9th Beijing International Book Fair, the ratio of domestic publishing houses exporting and importing copyrights was about 1:8. At the 54th Book Fair, among the exhibition area of more than 200,000 square meters, domestic books only accounted for 786 square meters, less than 0.4%; Of the 340,000 books on display, only 46 10 are in China, accounting for only 1.37%. Most of the 82 letters of intent signed at the 4th China Shanghai International Performing Arts Expo are "imported" projects. [12] Because the cultural production in western developed countries has already entered the stage of large-scale industrial production, western cultural products from abroad quickly took the initiative in quantity and influence, and gradually increased their communication efforts and improved their communication level. China's cultural communication market has much more information and communication influence than China's traditional culture. Even on the internet, which has just become popular in China, most of the running information comes from developed countries and regions. Domestic Chinese information can't meet the basic needs of domestic users, so people have to turn to foreign websites to find information. Developed countries have seized the opportunity in the new round of media competition and cultural exchange competition. [1 1](P7~8) "China's cultural deficit" exists objectively. On the one hand, we should realize that at this stage, the wolf has come, and the China culture has entered the stage of "dancing with the wolf". It is normal for China to learn from the western stage, so there is no need to make a fuss. On the other hand, we should also be vigilant. In the cultural exchange between China and the West, we should try our best to narrow the gap, catch up, protect the national tradition and the characteristics of China as much as possible, and not get lost in the mixed fish and dragons.

To sum up, contemporary cultural exchanges between China and the West are facing the new background of globalization, with high-quality and rational subjects and brand-new media, showing a brand-new look and landscape, unprecedented depth and breadth. Facing the new situation, we should keep a clear head and realize that in the era of globalization, opportunities and challenges coexist in cultural exchanges between China and the West, and difficulties and hopes coexist. We should not only see the prosperity of China's cultural development brought by absorbing western progressive cultural factors, but also see the shadow of western cultural hegemony behind the prosperity; We should not only see the achievements of China's cultural communication and radiation, but also see the difficulty of China's "going out" and his depression and aphasia in some aspects. In the contemporary cultural exchange between China and the West, how to resist the invasion of decadent culture while introducing excellent western culture, how to spread China's national culture to the whole world with the help of high-tech media technology, how to expand the influence of national culture in the world, and how to ensure cultural security are important issues worthy of our consideration. Therefore, the suggestions are as follows: First, we should further improve our understanding of the significance of cultural exchanges between China and the West, integrate outstanding western cultural factors into the construction of advanced culture in China, and improve our Party's ability to build advanced culture. Second, strengthen the training of Chinese and western compound talents, organize the selection of Chinese and western talents in a timely manner, and organize competitions every year. Mainly combine English and western culture with Chinese and China traditional culture (Sinology) to a certain depth. Third, build a new culture that adapts to "going out", realize the modernization of traditional culture, revive ancient culture and popularize advanced culture. Only in this way can we ensure that we can learn from each other's strong points in the cultural exchanges between China and the West and ensure the survival, development and sustained prosperity of China culture.