General Secretary Xi Jinping's important thought on advancing the Partys united front work in the new era is an important part of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. A deep understanding of this important thought can be achieved from the following three dimensions. First, from the perspective of generative logic, this important thought is the latest theoretical achievement of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with Xi Jinping at the core, which upholds integrating Marxs theory of united front with Chinas specific realities and fine traditional culture. Second, from the perspective of core content, this important thought profoundly answers major theoretical and practical questions such as why the new era needs a united front, what kind of united front is needed, and how to advance the united front work. Third, from the perspective of value implications, this important thought has opened up a new realm of adapting Marxs theory of united front to the Chinese context and its modernization, promoted the united front work to serve the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, and gathered the spiritual power to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

After 40 years of development, the discipline of ideological and political education has formed an independent knowledge system, which was nurtured within the theoretical framework of Marxism.This independent knowledge system is not only the theoretical sublimation of the practical insights of ideological and political education but also the product of the collective exploration of the academic community of ideological and political education. From a structural point of view, the independent knowledge system of the discipline of ideological and political education consists of four parts: the conceptual, theoretical, principle, and paradigm layers, constituting a complete knowledge system and tracing the evolution of knowledge through its development. In terms of types, comprehensive research, thematic research, historical research, normative research, comparative research and applied research constitute the basic content of the independent knowledge system of the discipline of ideological and political education, reflecting the basic attributes and practical focuses of this knowledge system. The independent knowledge system of the discipline of ideological and political education is an organic and unified whole based on the “truth”derived from the Marxist theory, the “goodness” mainly expressed in civilization value, national value, social value and individual value, and the “beauty” reflected in the internal structure of the knowledge system. It has distinctive theoretical qualities, which lays the knowledge foundation for comprehensively enhancing “leading power of ideological and political education” and promoting its highquality development.

Constructing an independent knowledge system of the discipline of ideological and political education is an inherent requirement for the development of the discipline itself, a requirement of the times for constructing philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics, and a practical requirement for enhancing “leading power of ideology and political education” in building a country with great strength in education. The construction of the independent knowledge system of the discipline of ideological and political education is a process of moving from the inheritance and introduction to the construction and sublimation of knowledge on the basis of reflecting on and transcending Western knowledge, revitalizing traditional educational wisdom, and integrating various resources from ancient and modern times at home and abroad. By taking comparative research as an important methodology, starting from a diachronic vertical perspective, and linking tradition and modernity, this paper examines the uniqueness of ideological and political education in different stages of its development in an allround and multidimensional way, compares the knowledge systems of China and foreign countries from a horizontal perspective, extracts their experiences, and explores the general laws and particularities of the construction of an independent knowledge system of the discipline of ideological and political education. Then, by creating agenda setting and reconstructing new ways of presenting knowledge structure for the independent knowledge system of the descipline of ideological and political education, we can consolidate the foundation of this knowledge system, activate its originality and independence, and extend its vitality .

The construction of an independent knowledge system of the descipline of ideological and political education is a product of the times in which the production of knowledge in ideological and political education tends to mature, the accumulation of knowledge progresses, and the form of knowledge formgradually takes shape. It is rooted in the evolution of subjective and objective conditions. The development and transformation of the Chinese path to modernization, the construction of mainstream ideological dissemination, and the renewal of ideological and political education have shaped a specific problem domain, which has become the “questions raised by our times” that must be answered in the construction of an independent knowledge system of ideological and political education. Today, the speed of knowledge updating is accelerating and the knowledge structure is gradually evolving. To construct an independent knowledge system of the discipline of ideological and political education, we should strive to explain the changes of the times with academic knowledge, reflect the spirit of the times with philosophical knowledge, and cultivate talents of the times with reasonbased knowledge. Facing the next 40 years, in order to explore new growth points of knowledge in the discipline of ideological and political education, we should stand at the strategic height of constructing independent knowledge system of the descipline of ideological and political education, enhancing leading power of ideological and political education of educational powerhouse, accurately grasping the “ability attribute” and “power attribute” of leading power of ideological and political education, and accurately grasping the requirements of the times for the production, dissemination, and integration of knowledge in ideological and political education, and continuously produce important theoretical results to build a reliable, stable, and innovative knowledge base.

In Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, based on the theoretical vision of historical materialism and the reality of the development of the capitalist society at that time, Marx analyzes the inner mechanism of the capitalist society rationally, reveals the two basic orientations of modern society and the world, namely, progressiveness and vulgarity, grasps the creation of exchange value as the core of social modernization, and elaborates the general law of social modernization in terms of modernization of the modes of production, exchange, consumption,the system of human capability and so forth. On this basis, Marx reflects on social modernization from the dimensions of the modern production system, exchange system, and wealth (as the measure of individual value) based on the degree of development of free individuality, and critically analyzes the situation of the individual in modern times. This shows that: on the one hand, compared with the previous texts, the breadth and depth of Marxs exploration of modernization have reached a new height in the Outlines; on the other hand, it is still of contemporary value in understanding the Chinese path to modernization, especially in promoting the return of the means and ends of modernization, and in carrying out the exploration of modernization in the light of Chinas actual situations.

The theory and practice of Party work has become a secondary discipline under the firstlevel discipline of the Chinese Communist Party history and Party building. At present, the academic community still needs to form a consensus on what and how Party work should be studied. Systematically reviewing the classic Marxist works, important Party documents, important discussions of Party leaders on Party work, analyzing more than 300 publications (including work manuals) and more than 5,000 essays, and focusing on Party work as a specific matter, a profession, and a discipline, can help summarize the historical experience of the Party work of the Communist Party of China over the past 100 years, and find out the basic condition and existing foundation of the research on Party work (Party management). As a result, we can more accurately define the concept of Party work, grasp the history of Party work, construct the theoretical system of Party work, establish the research methodology of Party work, and set up the curriculum of Party work, so as to establish the scope and system of the discipline of Party work (Party management).

A crucial pivot in understanding Chinese socialist political economics lies in the organic integration of public ownership with a market economy, and the reform of stateowned enterprises is the most central theoretical component of this pivot. Starting from the three propositions of Marxist enterprise theory, the noncontractual relationship, namely the lack of personalized capital and the absence of labor property rights in traditional stateowned enterprises, has become a key cause of the efficiency dilemma of stateowned enterprises. Therefore, the reconstruction of the twotier laborers contracts returning to the “general enterprise” becomes the crux of Chinas microtomacro marketoriented reforms. After three stages of reform exploration, the focus has shifted from enhancing profit efficiency to improving core competitiveness and functions, further putting forward the practical requirements for deepening reform of special stateowned enterprises that balances both the dual function of “profitpublic” and the dual mechanism of “administrationmarket”. Given the specific features of institutional contracts and market contracts and their heterogeneous functional adaptability, the deepening of the reform necessitates the development of mixedtype laborers contracts. 

The logical connection between the development of new quality productive forces and the transformation of traditional agriculture is a major theoretical proposition that needs to be addressed urgently. The new quality productive forces in agriculture represents the qualitative change in highquality agricultural workers, highefficiency agricultural labor materials, highvalue agricultural labor objects and the optimization of the combination of their factors. This qualitative change process is achieved through three integration methods: accurate factor identification, factor embedding and aggregation, and the differential operation of factors. It is essentially logically consistent with the dynamic evolution process of traditional agricultural transformation. In order to firmly grasp the value of promoting the transformation of traditional agriculture with new quality productive forces as an important focus, it is urgent to deepen the reform of the science and technology system, strengthen the research and development of original innovative technologies, improve the science and technology innovation system, and create a newquality talent cultivation model in the agricultural sector.

As an important part of the path of human modernization, the Chinese path to modernization has had a very important impact on shaping the pattern of world modernization. It is of great significance to continue spreading the Chinese path to modernization to the outside world, improving the external environment for its development, eliminating the Western misunderstanding, and enhancing the world significance of the Chinese path to modernization. At present, through foreign policy and international cooperation, trade cooperation and economic aid, media and information dissemination, cultural and educational exchanges and other channels, the overseas communication of the Chinese path to modernization has broken the monopoly of modernization discourses in the West, provided a new choice for mankind to achieve modernization, promoted the objective understanding of the theory of Chinese modernization overseas, and enhanced the worlds deep recognition of the practice of the Chinese path to modernization. While realizing these achievements, the overseas communication of the Chinese path to modernization also faces challenges such as the ideological bias of Western countries, the inherent dominance of Western modernization narratives that is hard to be shaken, the international expression of Chinese modernization that still needs improvement, and the need to improve the level of agenda setting of Chinese modernization. Therefore, it is necessary to take comprehensive measures to enhance the ability of the Chinese path to modernization to be disseminated overseas, such as consolidating the ideological foundation, highlighting the innovation and diversity of the narrative logic, enhancing the effectiveness of the international expression of the discourse, and improving the effectiveness of the agenda setting of the Chinese path to modernization.

Developing wholeprocess people's democracy is the core category of Chinese political modernization to create a new form of human political advancement. A scientific inspection of the concept and connotation of the “wholeprocess” is not only the logical premise to promote the deepening of the study of wholeprocess peoples democracy, but also the cognitive basis to continuously expand the space for the development of wholeprocess peoples democracy in practice. Based on a threedimensional analytical framework at the micro, meso and macro levels and within the content structure dimension of “normativityempiricism”, this paper shows that the process of procedural regulation and substantive protection of the basic rights of citizens at the micro level, the process of scientific construction and effective operation of political system at the meso level, and the process of value integration and path expansion of new political civilization at the macro level constitute the abundant connotation of the concept of “wholeprocess”, demonstrating that wholeprocess peoples democracy is the broadest, most authentic and most effective form of democracy.

As an inclusive theory of democracy in the West, consensus democracy attempts to surpass competitive majoritarian democracy. It advocates people's moderate shift from selfinterest to the common good in terms of fundamental assumptions, emphasizes the transformation of peoples dominant position from form to substance in political participation, and proposes a transition from being marginal to dominant in political institutional arrangements, which is actually a regression attempt to classical democracy. Although consensus democracy breaks the shackles of pragmatic thinking on the imagination of democracy, which is the result of the negation of the democratic ideal of the rule of people, and constitutes the spiral development of Western theories of democracy, it fails to transcend the limits of liberal democracy.