The contemporary concepts of civilization and culture (respectively wenming and wenhua in standard Chinese) promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping draw on a combination of ancient and modern Chinese wisdom. Both concepts have been creatively synthesized with Chinese Marxism.
It’s helpful to know that civilization and culture in standard Chinese share a direct linguistic association, as both are compounds of wen, and thus for the average Chinese speaker the relationship between the two concepts is more immediate than in other languages, including English.
In English, culture and civilization are highly debated terms, both having much to do with economic and social advancement and with the unique psychical structures of a nation. In Chinese, the terms generally have a more positive and less controversial relationship with each other, one
