In recent decades, Western historians have long abandoned the outdated view of the "Dark Middle Ages". American scholars Judith M. Bennett and C. Warren Hollister's "European Medieval History" is a classic book on European medieval studies, which is used as a textbook for hundreds of colleges and universities in the United States. The two scholars pointed out that the Middle Ages was not a dark, sleepy, and terrifying era. From the middle of the Middle Ages, wealth was gathered, education was revitalized, cities developed, and many elements of modern civilization began to emerge. For example, the university was a medieval invention, and today universities are educational institutions all over the world. In the long Middle Ages, Europe developed from a poor and extremely unstable agricultural society to a strong and unique civilized society, which had a profound impact on the formation of the contemporary world. Since Li Zehou teaches at a university in the United States, how can he be ignorant of these research results? He is completely out of touch with Western academia.
In this interview, Li Zehou also talked about the "four-step" approach to China's development: economic development, individual freedom, social justice, and political democracy. He believes: "Many people say that political democracy must be established first, and then economic development will be discussed later. I feel that developing the economy first is the right way, and there are examples from many countries in the world. I still hope that through the development number list of China's economic strength, The political system has to be reformed.” In fact, this is also the mainstream view of Western China policy and Western China research circles in the past 30 years - let China join the WTO, join globalization, the economy will take off, and a huge middle class will be born. The middle class naturally supports democracy, and it will definitely promote China democratize. However, after China demonstrated its successful rise with the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the rapid economic development not only failed to bring personal freedom, social justice and political democracy.
But instead accelerated the totalitarian trend of the CCP regime. China's middle class has not become the backbone of support for democracy, but has become the "social foundation" of support for the CCP's tyranny. Their interests are closely tied to the CCP system, and they have been allocated the leftovers of the deformed capitalist capitalist economy. , they eat their brains full of fat, and then live in peace and quiet, turning a blind eye to the injustices of society, and even sneering at the abstract concepts of democracy and freedom. Li Zehou's "four-step walk" is a big joke today. The most ridiculous part of this interview is Li Zehou's flattery of Qin Shi Huang: "I have a very high opinion of Qin Shi Huang. I think there are two people who have made great contributions to Chinese culture, one is Confucius and the other is Qin Shi Huang. "Qin Shi Huang is the enemy of Confucius, and he affirms Confucius and Qin Shi Huang at the same time, doesn't he feel any sense of disobedience.