Global economic integration has involved both developed and developing countries, including those with opposing ideologies. Ideological opposition, which has seemingly weakened, has actually taken on a more concealed form. The drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s was taken by western countries as a success of their ideological and cultural infiltration. China, a socialist developing country, has always been a key target of their infiltration. After the Cold War, this infiltration has not been weakened; rather it has been enhanced due to China’s opening to the world and the deepening of its reform.

Nowadays, the infiltration of American ideology and values into other countries has become increasingly evident with the expansion of globalization. American mass culture and hedonism as a life-style is spreading all over the world facilitated by high technologies. Ideological safety in socialist countries is facing severe challenges from information networks.

A mode of information transmission is essentially a way to convey an ideology, and the mastering of a mode of information transmission guarantees the power and force to promulgate a certain ideology. With the help of their dominant position in the spreading of information, developed countries have become information superpowers. The internet, which was initiated in and has been dominated by the United States, has become a major platform for western countries, represented by the United States, to market their standards of values, ideologies and social cultures. In this way, two-way communication is turned into a unilateral export of culture. The information superiority retained by the developed countries is greatly shaking the ideologies, value systems, national cultures and belief systems of the developing countries. Meanwhile, the excellent cultures of developing countries are devalued and defamed by various means. The information resources, information industries, information transmission and information safety of the countries with weak means of information transmission are all being controlled by the information superpowers. The original cultures, values and lifestyles of these countries are faced with the danger of transformation and distortion by the countries with a stronger ability to spread information.

Through the process of globalization, taking their existing scientific and technological advantages and by virtue of the internet and mass media, the developed countries spare no efforts in advocating western mainstream cultural values. They stress the monism of western mainstream cultural values from a single point of view, and predict the homogenization of future global culture at the cost of derogating and sacrificing the diversity of other cultures, which will bring serious damage to the cultural traditions and values of non-western countries. Those who uphold a position centered on Western culture are likely to take their own ideologies and values as the only reasonable and justifiable ones, and these will be used by them to measure other cultures and to suppress the development of a diversified culture.

Of course, globalization brings not only challenges but also opportunities to socialist countries. The important thing is to seize the favorable opportunities, actively participate in international competition and integrate into the mainstream of modern culture, after getting a clear understanding of global trend. It is an important task for developing countries, including socialist countries, to figure out how to seize the opportunity, grasp the international trade rules and market mechanisms, reasonably allocate national resources taking advantage of governmental macroeconomic regulation and control, actively participate in the international arena making use of advantages and avoiding weakness, and at the same time ensure national cultural safety. The future strategic pattern of international culture will be accordingly determined.

In a word, with the accelerating globalization, the integration of culture with economy and politics will be increasingly deepened. Seen from a historical point of view, there are four ways for western culture to colonize and hegemonize non-western cultures, namely, military, political, economic and cultural means. Western developed countries promote American “universal values” to non-western developed countries, especially socialist countries, by cultural means or “soft power”, and then gain global cultural and discourse hegemony. But history shows that the general trend of the development of human civilization moves toward the coexistence of multiple cultures and the complementation of Eastern & Western culture through communication and conflict among different cultures. At present, union, cooperation and support between socialist countries is of great significance.

　　Translated by Du Mei

Revised by Gabriele Corsetti