During the Opium War, Lin Zexu, a resistance faction of the landlord class in the Qing Dynasty, translated the captured books of foreigners and copied weapons such as western warships, becoming the first person in China's modern history to open his eyes to see the world. On this basis, Wei Yuan put forward the idea of "learning from foreigners to control foreigners". He proposed to learn from the west, mainly from western ships and guns and military technology. One is to learn their firearms (guns, cannons, bullets, gunpowder), the other is warships, and the third is the art of war. At the same time, he also proposed in the Atlas of the Ocean that China people should build their own guns and warships.
It is the landlord class Westernization School that really practiced Wei Yuan's "learning from foreigners". The Westernization School, represented by Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong and Feng Guifen, founded a number of military and civilian industries, established three navies in Beiyang, Nanyang and Fujian, established new schools, and sent overseas students to study abroad. Although the Westernization Movement finally failed, it became the beginning of China's modernization.
During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, under the influence of "persuading the world", Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the peasant class, combined western Christianity with China Confucianism, gathered scattered peasants and launched the largest peasant revolutionary movement in the history of China. In the later period of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, Hong Rengan wrote "Senior Minister's New Chapter", which advocated learning western scientific and technological knowledge such as astronomy and mathematics, imitating the political system of Britain and the United States, so as to find out the reasons for its prosperity. "Senior Minister's New Chapter" has a distinctive capitalist color, and it is the first plan put forward by advanced China people to develop capitalism in China. However, the author's understanding of the aggressive nature of foreign capitalism is vague, and the idea of Senior Minister's New Chapter has not been put into practice.
With the deepening of foreign capitalist aggression and the emergence and development of Chinese national capitalism, from the 1960s of 19 to the end of 19, China's capitalist thought emerged and developed, and early reformists such as Zheng and Wang Tao appeared. They hope to use western capital to support their own industries, "make a living for China people on the basis of foreigners" and "learn from foreigners to control foreigners". Zheng pointed out in "Dangerous Words in a Prosperous Age" that the key to the prosperity of western countries lies in the development of industry and commerce, that is, "consolidating the foundation of commercial warfare", and "it is better to learn the art of commercial warfare than to learn the art of military warfare". At the same time, it also proposed to implement monarchy in China. However, the early reformists did not form a complete theoretical system and did not put it into practice. The late reformists, represented by Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Yan Fu, pushed this political thought into a complete system. Kang and Liang advocated emulating the Meiji Restoration in Japan, realizing national modernization and establishing bourgeois constitutionalism. Yan Fu is the first advanced thinker who systematically introduced the western bourgeois political theory in China's modern history. He translated Huxley's theory of evolution, and publicized the theory of evolution, such as "natural selection, survival of the fittest", which sounded the alarm of saving the nation from extinction and awakened the consciousness of China people with serious national crisis at that time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, China's national capitalism developed further, and a number of bourgeois thinkers and revolutionaries such as Chen Tianhua and Sun Yat-sen appeared. Among them, Chen Tianhua suggested that in order to effectively fight against aggression, we should learn from the strengths of the West, overcome our own shortcomings, combine learning from the West with anti-aggression, and change the present through revolution, then we can catch up with and surpass the West. Sun Yat-sen greatly appreciated the slogan of "freedom" of the French bourgeoisie in the18th century and the concept of "owned by the people" put forward by Lincoln in the United States, and thought that his nationalism was to strive for "freedom" and realize "owned by the people". He said that the people, the people and the people advocated by American President Lincoln are the nationalism, civil rights and people's livelihood he advocated. Under the guidance of the Three People's Principles, bourgeois democracy was established.
The bourgeois radical democrats, led by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, held high the banner of "democracy" and "science" and started the New Culture Movement. Chen Duxiu suggested that China engage in democracy and science to save the country. Later, he added new contents to democracy and science, introduced a lot of western democratic ideas, scientific knowledge and scientific spirit, and greatly promoted the progress of China society. However, in China, a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, it is not feasible for capitalism to save the country.
During the May 4th Movement, intellectuals changed from radical democrats to Marxists. With the victory of Russian October Revolution, Marxism was introduced into China. Li Dazhao wrote "My Views on Marxism" in May of 19 19, introduced the basic principles of Marxism to the people of China systematically for the first time, and began to use Marxist theory to study and solve the problems of China revolution.
In the practice of China Revolution, the people of China combined Marxist theory with their own reality, and Mao Zedong put forward the theory that "the countryside encircles the city and finally wins the whole country". After a hard struggle, the new-democratic revolution finally won.