Experts: Jiangnan Humanistic Economy Empowers High-quality Development

On October 19th, the 5th Yangtze River Delta Jiangnan Culture Forum and the 2nd Jiangnan Culture and New Urban Construction Forum were held in Shanghai. In the parallel forum, experts and scholars from three provinces and one municipality (Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province, Anhui Province, and Shanghai Municipality, respectively) in the Yangtze River Delta focused on topics including the interactive development, humanistic economy, creation and transformation of Jiangnan culture in the new era. They enthusiastically shared their insights, discussing the inheritance and innovation of Jiangnan culture to empower high-quality development and enable a better life.

Prof. Dai Angang from the Department of History of Fudan University presided over the parallel forum themed "Jiangnan Humanistic Economy and the High-Quality Development in Yangtze River Delta".

Prof. Zhuang Ruojiang from the School of Humanities of Jiangnan University believed that the Shanghai-style culture has inherited many excellent elements of the Jiangnan culture, based on which it absorbed the latter’s essence and discarded its dregs to form its own characteristics, effectively incorporating the local society’s more utilitarian and secular values. This very heritage can provide significant cultural support for high-quality integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.

Lu Jianguo, former Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of Fengxian District People's Congress and current Chairman of the Fengxian District Federation of Literature, said that local “Meritocratic Culture” is an important phenomenon of the Jiangnan culture, and Fengxian should promote cultural empowerment to push its urban construction by virtue of its cultural resources. By reinventing its Meritocratic Culture, Fengxian can create a new-era Jiangnan cultural IP in a innovative way, starting a new path of cultural development, and breaking a whole variety of boundaries to formulate a new vision and a new way of development.

Bi Xuling, Director of the Folklore and Intangible Heritage Research Office of the Institute of Literature of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, explained the spatiotemporal lineage of intangible cultural heritage resources in the Yangtze River Delta. All along an extensive historical timeline, various places in the Yangtze River Delta have undergone cultural integration, resulting in a high degree of similarity in the types of intangible cultural heritage across the three provinces and one municipality (Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province, Anhui Province, and Shanghai Municipality, respectively). The exploration, research, and construction of intangible cultural heritage hold great value for revitalizing the traditional culture of the Yangtze River Delta region, and even the whole country of China as a matter of fact.

Li Yajuan, Associate Professor of the Teaching and Research Department of the China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong, observed that the enduring local spirit of “openness and innovation” has profoundly influenced the sustained development of the outward-oriented economy in the Yangzi River Delta. Nowadays, as a representative region of China's outward-oriented economy, the Yangtze River Dealt, infused with the spirit of “openness and innovation” embedded in the Jiangnan culture, will play an even greater role in expanding the high-quality opening up of China, and will become a vital spiritual momentum to promote high-quality development with high-level openness and to expand the development space for China’s modernization with distinctive Chinese features.

Li Rong, Deputy Dean of the School of Humanities and Communication of Zhejiang Industry and Commerce University, shared her views on how digital humanities can empower Jiangnan culture, how the humanistic economy can lay out a new track, and how to carry out the high-quality development of the industrial digitalization of Jiangnan culture from the perspectives of new dimensions, new ties, and new explorations.

Prof. Zhu Tiejun from the Office of International Exchange and Cooperation of Anhui University of Engineering outlined the historical evolution and contemporary transformation of Jiangnan culture. He also presented a vision for the future of Jiangnan culture, which, hopefully, will contribute to the high-quality and sustainable development of the integrated Yangtze River Delta, in its own, cultural way.