Based on the analysis of productive forces, modes of production, and relations of production, Marx's theory of world history explains the driving force behind the transition of the process of history to that of world history, and elaborates the direction and purpose of the evolution of world history. The formation of world history follows the development law from particularity to universality. This paper applies Marxs theory of world history to dialectically show the phased challenges and opportunities of capitalist modernization development. Chinas highlevel institutional openingup to the world will inevitably maintain necessary resilience and tension between basing itself on Chinas specific realities and conforming to the trend of world history, and between upholding independence and drawing on the achievements of human civilization, especially the modernization of capitalism. In this way, we can deeply grasp Chinas centurylong journey from a semifeudal and semicolonial society, which was forced to integrate into the periphery of world history, to national independence, reform and openingup, and constantly demonstrate the contemporary significance in which China transcends the “SovietEastern model” and the “East Asian model”, moves towards national rejuvenation, approaches the center of world history and creates a new world history. All these provide answers to the question of whether the backward socialist “isolated island” can be built in the “vast ocean” of capitalism with the practice of the Chinese path to modernization.
