Country and area studies is a unique field in that it examines other countries from the perspective of the researcher’s own country, with the aim of serving their own interests. This approach differs significantly from studies conducted by the countries themselves. In China, major development opportunities have presented themselves in this field after the proposal of the “Belt and Road” initiative.

As the world today is undergoing momentous changes unseen in a century, and the international situation is complex and volatile, gaining a deeper understanding of the world constitutes an objective requirement of the times. Promoting country and area studies is more timely than ever. However, the field has a tendency to prioritize research on commonalities and may even assume that certain formulas, models and laws can be directly applied to research objects such as countries or regions. This approach may be misguided and lead to misconceptions.

First, human society is complex and diverse, and should not be confused with the natural world. Misunderstandings often arise when people underestimate the fact that human emotions, beliefs, willpower and other factors are full of uncertainty. This explains why universality is conditional. Researchers generalize and abstract the practices, experiences, and insights of specific societies into theories. In country and area studies, if these theories are simplistically applied as if they were absolute truths, or if materials are selectively used to prove the correctness of these theories, the objectivity and accuracy of the research will be lost.

It is important to recognize that the histories, societies, cultures, politics, and economies of all countries are subject to change, and this is often far beyond the scope of models and formulas. The research objects of country and area studies are extremely diverse, as countries and citizens in different cultural and historical contexts have different characteristics. Therefore, complicated questions may be over-simplified if scholars rely entirely on common approaches such as modeling, and adopt research methods from natural sciences to seek universal formulas, models and laws that transcend time and space.

Second, what is most important in country and area studies is to start from reality, rather than homogenizing all research objects. Philip C. C. Huang (Huang Zongzhi), a professor emeritus in the Department of History at UCLA, believes that participant observation is used in modern anthropology because we cannot rely solely on macro analysis and data if we want to understand a society entirely different from ours; otherwise, we would unconsciously use those “truths” and “premises” we assume to be self-evident, thus completely misunderstanding the society we aim to understand.

Actual situations in country and area studies are often beyond people’s imaginations and “irreplicable.” We need to overcome cognitive inertia and carefully investigate the situation on the basis of reality. Close contact with different regions and countries as well as complex and diverse populations reveals that “exceptions” are almost always the norm, while situations completely in conformity with the so-called “laws” are rare.

Last, the spirits of science and humanism should both be emphasized in country and area studies. Tremendous achievements have been made in natural sciences in modern times, which have deeply influenced people’s worldview and methodologies. Some claim that effective methods in science can and should be widely adopted in non-scientific areas. They adhere to “scientism,” not only using natural science as a rational tool, but also pushing it to the extreme as a belief.

However, it is difficult to accurately express values, meanings, attitudes, emotions, creativity and other human aspects in the language of mathematics and in the form of data. Relying entirely on the methods of natural sciences to study social phenomena will lead to indifference towards humans themselves and a rigid understanding of social activities. In sum, country and area studies need science rather than scientism; research on commonality is needed, but research on individuality matters even more.

Yu Haikuo is from the international College of Chinese Language and Culture at Chongqing Normal University.