r/ChineseHistory • u/MassiveHotel9523 • 7d ago
Wang Huning Diary Archive #1
About this archive
This is an ongoing English translation project of Wang Huning's diaries.
Wang Huning is a Chinese political scientist and politician who has served on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) since 2017. He has been the Chairman of the CPPCC National Committee since 2023. Previously, he served as the First Secretary of the CPC Central Committee's Secretariat and Chairman of the Central Guidance Commission on Building Spiritual Civilization from 2017 to 2022, and headed the Central Policy Research Office as director from 2002 to 2020.
Political Life was written during Wang's years as a political science scholar at Fudan University and published by Shanghai People's Publishing House in 1995. The diary covers his personal life, political theory and research, books and films, and his reflections on Chinese society, the wider world, and contemporary social problems.
Where possible, the translation preserves the tone, register, and structure of the original rather than recasting it into more idiomatic or contemporary English. The translation was produced without the assistance of AI.
The purpose is to make the original Chinese material more accessible to readers who cannot read Chinese.
The original Chinese texts are available at 政治的人生
The Preface
For many years, I have developed a habit—or rather, have had to develop such a habit—of quietly thinking through the experiences of the day when the night is deep and all is still.
多年来养成一种习惯，或者说不得不养成这样的习惯，就是在夜深人静的时候，静静地思考一天来的经历。
During the day, most of my time is spent in an extraordinary state of busyness, leaving me no time to think. When I do have time to think, most of it is devoted to serious and dry academic thinking, highly professional to an almost excessive degree. But as for life itself, I have no time to think about it. When night falls, everything returns to stillness. Looking at the flickering streetlights outside the window, I can quietly think about myself and the world, and about those things that do not even make the list in my administrative work and academic research. From these, I can find something meaningful and enjoy, in a small way, the pleasure of thought.
白天，大部分时间均在异常的忙乱中度过，没有工夫思考。有工夫思考的时候，大多也用于作严肃而枯燥的学术思维，专业得厉害。而对于人生，却没有时间去思考。夜色下来，一切归于宁静，望着窗外闪烁的路灯，可以静静地思考自己和世界，思考在自己的行政工作和学术研究中排不上号的事情。从中找出有意义的东西，做一点小小的思想享受。
This kind of thinking is beneficial to a person. When one does too much of one's own professional activity, one will, if one does not make adjustments, become one-sided, and one's thinking will gradually become fixed in a particular direction, leaving no room for an open way of thinking. Therefore, amid the strain of intense mental and physical activity, one must discover new spaces for thought.
这种思考，对人是有益的。一个人做多了自己的职业活动，如果不调整，就会变得单一，思想也慢慢定向，没有开放式的思维方式。所以要在紧张的大脑和肢体活动之余，发现思维的新空间。
The reason I have given this book the title A Political Life does not refer to a particular political experience. Rather, it means that, as a scholar of political science, I have spent most of my time pursuing my professional scholarship, to the point that this field of learning has occupied the greater part of my life. This field is so vast that every subject can be examined from a political perspective. I believe that every person living in the contemporary world and in China today cannot but be political.
之所以起名为《政治的人生》，并非指一种政治的经历，而是说，作为一名政治学的学者，我的大部分时间均用来作我的专业学问了，以至这一学问占据了我绝大部分的生命。这个领域是那样的广阔，所有的课题都可被置于政治的角度下透视。我以为每一个生活在当代世界和当今中国的人，是不能不政治的。
The reason I am willing to let these thoughts “settle” and accumulate is not because they possess any particular value, but because they were formed in a state of tranquility both in the outside world and within my own mind. “Ningjing zhiyuan”—tranquility leads to far-reaching vision—is a state of being worth pursuing.
之所以愿意把这些思想“沉淀”积累起来，不是因为它们有特别的价值，而是因为它们是在宁静的外界和宁静的内心状态下形成的。宁静致远，这是一个值得追求的境界。
Shanghai People's Publishing House is interested in publishing a book of this kind, and so I have recorded my nighttime thoughts. Of course, these are only a small part of them.
上海人民出版社有意出版这样的书，所以我就记录下我的夜思。当然，这只是其中一小部分。
At Fudan University, late 1994.
1994 年底于复旦大学
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