述而不作 Book 7 of the Analects opens with Confucius saying: shu er bu zuo, xin er hao gu. “I transmit and do not create. I trust and love the ancients.” He compared himself to Old Peng, a figure whose identity scholars still dispute.
The Song philosopher Zhu Xi explained that Confucius passed on the old ways of the former kings and never created anything of his own. Even so, Zhu Xi wrote, the merit of this transmission was double that of creation.
In 1951, Mao Zedong wrote an inscription of eight characters for the new Chinese Opera Research Institute: 百花齐放，推陈出新. “Let a hundred flowers bloom. Weed through the old to bring forth the new.” It was read out when the institute was founded on April 3, 1951.
In 1964, Mao set out a second formula of eight characters: 古为今用，洋为中用. “Make the past serve the present. Make the foreign serve China.” The Handian dictionary explains tui chen chu xin as removing the dross of the old and creating the essence of the new.
In the search for a malaria drug, Tu Youyou’s team at first failed to extract an active substance from qinghao, sweet wormwood. Chinese medicine usually boils its herbs, and the heat destroyed the active ingredient.
Tu found a different method in the Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies by Ge Hong, a writer of the fourth century: “Take a handful of qinghao, soak it in two sheng of water, wring out the juice and drink it all.”
The plant was soaked, not boiled. Tu’s team then extracted it with ether, which boils at a low temperature, and from that extract obtained artemisinin. (Video in Chinese, with English subtitles.)
Besides the invention patent, Chinese patent law protects the shiyong xinxing, the utility model. The Patent Law defines it as a new technical solution for the shape or structure of a product, or both, that is “suitable for practical use.”
A utility model is granted after a preliminary examination only and is protected for ten years. In 2023, according to China News Service, China granted 921,000 invention patents and 2.09 million utility model patents.
On September 1, 1982, at the opening of the 12th Party Congress, Deng Xiaoping spoke of the task to “combine the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete reality of our country, take our own road and build socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
The idea had an earlier form. In October 1938, in his report On the New Stage to the Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee, Mao Zedong first spoke of the Sinicization of Marxism. Chinese Wikipedia describes it as combining Marxist theory with China’s conditions, its cultural traditions and its history.
At the China Internet Conference in 2010, Zhou Hongyi, founder of the software company Qihoo 360, spoke of wei chuangxin, micro-innovation. Chinese Wikipedia dates the first use of the term to this speech. For his 360 team, he explained, borrowing an existing business model in a practical way, improving a product’s functions and making its interface more attractive all counted as micro-innovation.
“When I speak of micro-innovation, I stress the ‘micro,'” Zhou later told Tencent’s technology site. A small point that moves users “is a big thing for the user. That is micro-innovation.”
In 1790, the Sanqing troupe of Yangzhou came to Beijing to perform for the Qianlong emperor’s 80th birthday. It sang mainly in the erhuang style of the Anhui troupes. Other Anhui troupes followed. Together with Sanqing, the Sixi, Chuntai and Hechun troupes became known as the Four Great Anhui Troupes. (Video in Chinese, with English subtitles.)
Many actors of Qinqiang and Kunqu opera moved into the Anhui troupes. In the Daoguang era, actors from Hubei brought the xipi tune to Beijing. There xipi and erhuang merged, took on the sound of Beijing speech and gradually became Peking opera.
On July 20, 1919, Hu Shi published an essay in the Weekly Review titled “Study More Problems, Talk Less of ‘Isms.'” “The great danger of public opinion now,” he wrote, “is that it leans toward theories on paper.” The essay set off what became known as the debate on problems and isms.
In the chapter Against Fate, Mozi says that every doctrine must pass three tests: its root, its source and its use. The root is in the deeds of the ancient sage kings. The source is what the common people have seen and heard.
The use is the last test. Put the doctrine into practice as law and government, Mozi says, and “see whether it benefits the state and the common people.”
From January 18 to February 21, 1992, Deng Xiaoping toured Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Guangzhou and Shanghai. He no longer held any office. One line from the tour was fazhan cai shi ying daoli. “Only development is the hard truth.” Another line asked for “more real work and less empty talk.”