National-building theories and their development in China

The theory of state building originates from the theory of state based on the early classical Western vision of the state, which regards state as the object of study and places it at the center of social development. The theory of state in the Middle Ages was expressed in the Christian theological vision of the state, which entered the process of modernization after the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. With the establishment of Western European nation states in the 19th century, the theory of state began to transform into the theory of Western free states. In the late 1940s, against the backdrop of the Cold War confrontation, neo-Marxists developed the theory of state aimed at preserving and unifying the national-cultural ideology to resist the erosion of Western liberal national theory. It is a significant fact that Western scholars who study the functions, capabilities and process of state governance in the theory of state building increasingly identify the limitations of the Western capitalist system and democracy, as well as the problems of political decline and regression, and understand the specificity of Chinese state building and institutional model.