People-centered development model: A new oriental perspective

Abstract

This article interprets a human-centered development model from an Eastern 
perspective in the contemporary context. This perspective emerges from the profound 
interaction and convergence between Eastern and Western civilizations in the twentieth and 
twenty-first centuries, proposing an integrative “Substance–Function” model: core humanistic 
values of the East are regarded as the ultimate ends (Substance), while selectively appropriated 
Western achievements in science, institutions, and individualism serve as effective means 
(Function). On this basis, the article offers a framework for addressing the dialectical 
relationship between the individual and the community, ensuring that the concrete human 
being remains central to development without being subsumed into collective structures.