Based on multiple factors such as China’s historical context, real-world conditions and external environment, China must take a path of modernization with its own characteristics and suitable for its own development, namely the development of Chinese path to modernization. The establishment of the Chinese path to modernization development has a long-term practical foundation and a series of innovative breakthroughs in theory and practice. It has successfully promoted and expanded China’s modernization development. It not only bears Chinese characteristics and inherits history, but also critically draws on the successful experience of various countries. Its establishment breaks the myth that “modernization equals Westernization”, and it is the correct development path to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

“Chinese path to modernization is a modernization that coordinates material civilization and spiritual civilization” ([7]), which is a major Chinese characteristic of Chinese path to modernization. Chinese path to modernization pursues not only the development of material civilization, but also the development of spiritual civilization, and the two must coordinate with each other. Unilateral development of material civilization will gradually deprive development of impetus, while unilateral development of spiritual civilization fails to meet the practical demands of development. “Material affluence and spiritual abundance are the fundamental requirements of socialist modernization. Material poverty is not socialism, and spiritual deprivation is also not socialism.” ([7]) Therefore, only when the two develop in coordination and promote each other can we realize spiritual abundance while raising people’s material living standards. In modern society, the rapid development of productive forces has made the substantial improvement of people’s material living standards a reality. At present, among people’s demands for a better life, the demand for the high-quality development of spiritual life has become more urgent. Meanwhile, enriching people’s spiritual world is also the essential requirement of Chinese path to modernization. It is different from Western modernization which centers on capital and suffers from rampant materialism. Chinese path to modernization emerges based on the essential socialist requirement of common prosperity. Common prosperity requires not only common affluence in material life, but also common prosperity in the spiritual world. “Common prosperity in spiritual life is the value expectation of Marx and Engels for common prosperity and the inherent implication of the free and all-round development of human beings. Socialism built on the public ownership of the means of production requires promoting common prosperity in people’s spiritual life” ([9]). Chinese path to modernization is advanced based on the Marxist goal of realizing the free and all-round development of human beings, and it also emphasizes the importance of people possessing abundant spiritual life.

Youth are a part of the people, and their demands for spiritual life are an important embodiment of people’s overall spiritual demands. “Youth in the new era are the vanguard force in the construction of Chinese path to modernization, and the modernization of youth’s spiritual life can provide strong impetus for Chinese path to modernization.” ([3]) Young people with a rich and positive spiritual life can generate strong driving force for their participation in the advancement of Chinese path to modernization. By contrast, impoverished and backward spiritual life tends to dampen people’s will and deprive them of motivation for striving. Therefore, the state of young people’s spiritual life exerts an influence on the direction and progress of Chinese path to modernization. Only when youth themselves possess a rich spiritual world can they clearly and accurately understand the goal of struggle of Marxism, the development direction of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the essential requirements of socialism. On this basis, they can understand and recognize Chinese path to modernization, and personally devote themselves to promoting the development of Chinese path to modernization. Youth in the new era are the vanguard force in the construction of Chinese path to modernization, and the modernization of youth’s spiritual life can provide strong impetus for Chinese path to modernization. Youth are in a critical period of value shaping; their values have developed to some extent but have not yet taken shape. The identity of digital natives makes contemporary youth inevitably influenced by diverse online cultures and various social ideological trends. While scientific and technological progress brings massive positive knowledge and information of value systems, it also carries a large amount of negative, backward or passive information due to online chaos, resulting in the prevalence of ideologies such as “individualism” and “consumerism”. If youth possess a rich spiritual world, they can resist the influence of such harmful ideological trends, gain the ability to distinguish right from wrong, and find the correct direction suitable for the development of Chinese path to modernization.

“Realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the great dream of the Chinese nation since modern times.” ([5]) The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation relies not only on a solid foundation of material development, but also on deeper and more lasting spiritual strength. The rich spiritual world of youth is an important source of cultural confidence and a powerful spiritual impetus for advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

“With the accelerated evolution of profound changes unseen in a century across the world, consolidating the cultural subjectivity of Chinese culture, fostering the cultural subjectivity of youth, and strengthening youth’s integrity and confidence as Chinese citizens have become exceptionally necessary and important.” ([8]) A rich spiritual world can enable youth to establish ideals and convictions, and firm their goal of striving for national rejuvenation. If youth possess a rich spiritual world, they can establish lofty value goals and integrate their personal life ideals with the journey of national development and national rejuvenation. Faced with external ideological infiltration and some negative social sentiments, a rich spiritual world serves as the spiritual pillar for youth to steady their inner hearts and keep striving for the country, always maintaining the original aspiration of working hard for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Faced with external ideological infiltration and some negative social sentiments, a rich spiritual world serves as the spiritual pillar for youth to steady their inner hearts and keep striving for the country, always maintaining the original aspiration of working hard for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. A rich spiritual world can temper youth’s will to strive and strengthen their sense of responsibility. The rise and fall of the country is every citizen’s responsibility. If the youth generation has ideals, competence and a sense of responsibility, the country will have a future and the nation will have hope. The journey toward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has never been smooth sailing. Youth are required to surmount difficulties from the front lines of rural revitalization to high-tech research and innovation, and from border defense to exchanges on the international stage. Youth lacking a rich spiritual world are more likely to shrink back when facing difficulties, have weak stress resistance, and lack the courage to forge ahead against hardships. A rich spiritual world can help youth forge strong inner hearts, correctly view hardships, failures and setbacks. When confronting difficulties on the journey of great rejuvenation, they will uphold their sense of responsibility, face challenges with a more tenacious attitude, and dare to take on responsibilities.

“Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and China’s principal contradiction has evolved into the contradiction between people’s ever-growing demands for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development.” ([5]) Young people are in a stage of rapid growth and maturation. Thanks to their vigorous energy, abundant curiosity, bright expectations for national development, as well as strong innovation and creativity, their needs for a better life are higher and more urgent compared with other groups, among which the demand for spiritual life stands out prominently. “The entry of socialism with Chinese characteristics into a new era constitutes the Chinese context for enriching youth’s spiritual world” ([4]).

People’s demands for a better life include not only abundant material life, but also prosperous spiritual life. This generation of youth grows up in an era with relatively abundant material resources. Basic material demands such as food, clothing, housing and transportation have been greatly improved compared with the past. Although they still have the need and room to pursue higher material living standards, their demand for spiritual life matching the current high material living standards has become more urgent. First, the improvement of material living standards frees youth from devoting all their energy to pursuing material life, and their spare time and energy need to be filled with rich spiritual life. Second, youth’s minds and personalities have not yet fully matured, and their pursuit of a better life carries strong demands for spiritual nourishment and cultural guidance. Contemporary youth live in an era of explosive internet information with numerous and complex information access channels, and the internet is flooded with vulgar short videos, internet celebrity culture and other similar content. With the entertainment‑oriented and fragmented turn of spiritual production, the human spiritual world falls into inner solitude wrapped in hubbub and value nihilism. Long-term exposure to low-quality fragmented information makes it difficult for young people to form a complete and closed scientific ideological system of their own. Worse still, precise push delivery driven by internet algorithms may create an information cocoon. Trapped long-term in ideas that cater to their self-perception, some young people are prone to spiritual barrenness and even various psychological problems. A rich spiritual world can help young people build their own information discrimination ability, filter harmful information, relieve psychological pressure, safeguard mental health, and cultivate sound personalities. Third, youth’s pursuit of a better life inherently involves the free and all-round development of individuals, which cannot be achieved without the participation of a rich spiritual world. Youth’s all-round development includes not only the improvement of physical strength and intelligence, but also the free development of spirit and individuality. A rich spiritual world can free youth from spiritual emptiness and value confusion brought by material alienation, elevate their humanistic and moral attainments, broaden their horizons, and shape well-rounded individuals who develop comprehensively in morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics and labor.

Youth’s cultural confidence is the foundation for youth to possess a rich spiritual world. Without firm cultural confidence, the development of Chinese youth’s spiritual world will become hollow or disoriented. The core socialist values are the concentrated embodiment of contemporary Chinese spirit, and embody the shared value pursuit of all people. The core socialist values embody the spirit of contemporary China in a concentrated form and encapsulate the shared aspirations of all Chinese people. An understanding of the essential attributes, theoretical origins and practical roots of the core socialist values can foster young people’s cultural confidence.

First, the core socialist values are rooted in Marxism. From the perspective of essential attributes, the core socialist values uphold the fundamental stance of putting people first, embody socialist attributes at the ideological level, and take national development, social justice and the shared happiness of all people as the ultimate value pursuit. Second, the excellent traditional Chinese culture is the source of the core socialist values. The core socialist values are deeply rooted in the fertile soil of China’s over 5,000 years of civilization, and represent the creative transformation and innovative development of the ideological essence of fine traditional Chinese culture. The twelve value criteria of the core socialist values covering three levels (nation, society, individual) can all find consistent cultural origins in fine traditional Chinese culture, and also carry unique firm value pursuits belonging exclusively to the Chinese people. Finally, the core socialist values are not empty and abstract subjective theories, but rooted in the years-long struggle of the Chinese people. The profound practical foundation formed by the exploration and construction of Chinese modernization endows the core socialist values with strong realistic vitality. In the process of learning and understanding core socialist values, youth can further firm their Marxist value stance, inherit fine traditional Chinese culture, and perceive the constructive role brought by great practices. Guided ideologically by three dimensions including its essential attributes, theoretical and practical origins, youth continuously strengthen cultural confidence, uphold the theoretical guidance of Marxism, constantly integrate Marxism with fine traditional Chinese culture and China’s specific practices, and consciously resist historical nihilism.

Youth’s value pursuits and value judgments are the core contents of youth’s spiritual world. The level of their spiritual world and the strength of their spiritual power are all related to the state of their values. The core socialist values construct a complete value system from three levels: nation, society and individual, and provide guiding functions for youth living in an environment of diverse ideological trends. They not only set grand goals and lofty ideals for youth’s long-term development, but also supply value judgment standards for youth to distinguish right from wrong, becoming the core concept to stabilize and enrich youth’s spiritual world.

First, the national-level value criteria of “prosperity”, “democracy”, “civility” and “harmony” in the core socialist values anchor youth’s highest goal of struggle. They guide youth to integrate personal ideals with social ideals and national construction, inspire youth to firm ideals and convictions, establish grand value pursuits, and keep striving to advance Chinese modernization and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Second, the core socialist values establish the social-level value orientations of “freedom”, “equality”, “justice” and “the rule of law”, clarifying basic norms for youth’s participation in social life. They help youth sort out the boundary between right and wrong amid complicated social phenomena, establish correct social concepts, guide youth to consciously advocate social fairness and take the initiative to safeguard public order, develop positive social cognitive ability, and actively participate in the construction of a just society. Finally, the individual-level value criteria of “patriotism”, “dedication”, “integrity” and “friendliness” provide clear benchmarks for youth’s daily words and deeds, standardize their personal behavioral choices, guide youth to start from trivial matters around them, cultivate fine virtues in the process of growth, consciously integrate the individual self into the greater collective, and realize personal value in the process of serving the country and society. The contents of the three levels are interconnected and organically unified. Together they draw a baseline of value judgment for youth, help youth maintain composure amid clashes of diverse values, and form correct value pursuits that meet the requirements of the times.

The enrichment and development of youth’s spiritual world require corresponding guidance and regulation. In today’s pluralistic social environment, youth’s spiritual world is extremely prone to problems such as value confusion, spiritual emptiness and ambiguous goals. The core socialist values gather the shared value consensus of contemporary China and possess powerful ideological guiding force. They regulate the development direction of youth’s spiritual world in the new era and set value benchmarks for youth’s spiritual growth.

On the one hand, the core socialist values have the function of value correction, and can help youth resist the erosion of various passive ideological trends. Aiming at prevalent negative ideological trends in current society such as individualism, historical nihilism and refined egoism, the core socialist values can provide positive value guiding force. Through continuous edification by the core socialist values, youth can promptly correct value deviations, stay away from vulgar and passive spiritual pursuits, establish lofty and healthy goals for spiritual development, and standardize the positive development of their spiritual world. On the other hand, the core socialist values exert long-term guiding effects and help youth establish lifelong spiritual pursuits. Youth’s spiritual world develops over a long period. Once values take shape, they will accompany youth for their whole life and affect their choices and goals in every stage of life. Guiding youth with the core socialist values can internalize correct value concepts into stable spiritual character of youth, and regulate the development direction of youth’s spiritual world for a long time. When youth enter various stages including university, workplace and society, they can rely on the internalized the core socialist values to restrain their own spiritual pursuits and maintain a positive mental state at all times .In general, the core socialist values unify the shared value consensus of the whole society, create a positive cultural atmosphere and environment across the whole society, form a social atmosphere featuring patriotism, kindness, diligence and down-to-earth striving, and guide youth’s spiritual development from all levels.

Education is the foundation for value consolidation. It is necessary to carry out coordinated education on core socialist values through various channels including schools, families and social practice. Integrate the cultivation and practice of core socialist values into the whole process of national education to consolidate youth’s value foundation.

First, strengthen the guiding role of school education, and integrate core socialist values into basic education classes. Carry out targeted education based on the characteristics of youth at different learning stages in accordance with their aptitude. Meanwhile, advance the construction of curriculum-based ideological and political education, embed the core socialist values into specialized courses, and enable youth to internalize values in the process of learning professional basic knowledge. Innovate teaching methods, avoid empty theoretical preaching, adopt interactive teaching such as case analysis, red story lectures and celebrity classes, and build a positive educational atmosphere. Furthermore, build a collaborative home-school education system. Compared with systematic theoretical education at school, family education lays more emphasis on subtle influence accumulated day by day. Parents are children’s first teachers. Good family traditions nourish youth’s daily words and deeds, enabling youth to deepen their understanding of the core socialist values imperceptibly. Finally, attach importance to the formative function of social practice. Launch extensive moral practice activities and build diverse practical platforms. We can organize youth to visit red education bases, museums, memorial halls and other venues, and let them perceive the warmth of history through field visits. Carry out Lei Feng volunteer services and public welfare assistance, guide youth to experience friendliness and dedication in the practice of serving the people, and attach importance to perceiving value orientation in daily life. In addition, the words and deeds of Party members and cadres exert a strong exemplary effect on youth. Party members must play vanguard and exemplary roles, take the lead in promoting and practicing core socialist values, and inspire youth through their own noble conduct.

High-quality spiritual and cultural products are the main carriers and media for enriching youth’s spiritual world. Cultural creation must take the core socialist values as the value guidance, and continuously supply youth with spiritual nourishment that is ideologically positive, aesthetically refined and in line with youth’s demands.

First, uphold the correct stance in supplying cultural products. In recent years, due to the prevalence of short videos, many cultural producers deliberately stir up contradictions and belittle society to gain traffic and popularity for higher benefits. The supply of cultural products should uphold a correct stance, take the core socialist values as creative connotation, prioritize content creation, and reject shoddy creation made merely for sensational gimmicks. Second, spiritual and cultural products need to cater to youth’s demands. Youth’s cultural demands feature multi-layered characteristics. Especially due to international cultural communication, contemporary youth are deeply influenced by ACG culture and fan circle culture. We should cater to youth’s actual demands and create cultural products that not only meet mainstream cultural needs and inherit the same vein as the core socialist values, but also are loved by youth. For example, the animated film Ne Zha promotes fine traditional Chinese myths and reflects the development of Chinese animation in its production, winning deep affection from the public. Meanwhile, “The supply of spiritual and cultural products for teenagers needs to deeply connect with cutting-edge technology, and improve the quality and characteristics of spiritual and cultural products through technological empowerment ([1]).” Finally, vigorously develop cultural undertakings and cultural industries. “Foster a sound social and cultural environment, and supply high-quality cultural products and services ([2]).” Improve the level of public cultural services, deepen the reform of cultural systems, create characteristic cultural activities suitable for youth, utilize public cultural platforms and education bases to hold youth reading salons, public moral classes and red cultural lectures, and let youth perceive the inheritance of values. Meanwhile, we can utilize the internet to build online-offline collaborative education classrooms, open online red museums and digital exhibition halls, and expand the channels of spiritual education.

The enrichment of youth’s spiritual world cannot be separated from youth’s active participation. Practice determines cognition. We must stimulate youth’s subjective initiative, let youth take the initiative to participate in the production and creation of spiritual and cultural products, enable youth to deepen their understanding of the core socialist values in creative practice, and thereby influence other youth around them.

Guide student youth and online bloggers to create cultural products based on firm adherence to the core Socialist Values, centered on the dissemination of fine traditional Chinese culture and national development, combined with youth’s personal practical growth experiences, and expand communication channels through various forms and carriers such as comics, vlogs, songs and novels. Second, hold youth cultural creation competitions to stimulate youth’s creative enthusiasm. Government departments at all levels can organize various competitions according to local development conditions, such as essay contests, short video contests and photography contests. Third, improve copyright protection and consolidate legal safeguards. Due to the development of the internet, compared with traditional print media in the past, cultural products have a larger quantity and faster communication speed. If plagiarism or unauthorized use occurs, youth creators will face the dilemma of high costs and great difficulties in safeguarding their rights. We should improve corresponding copyright registration systems and rights protection mechanisms adapted to today’s cultural products and the digital era, lower the difficulty of rights protection to guarantee youth’s enthusiasm for creation, and strengthen legal publicity at the same time, enabling youth to better perceive the value of “the rule of law” while protecting their independently created spiritual and cultural products.

Improve the full-process management of spiritual and cultural products, standardize the direction of cultural communication, build a management and communication system covering content review, platform supervision and channel coordination, hold the bottom line of youth’s spiritual and cultural environment, and guarantee that the core socialist values continuously exert guiding functions.

First, strengthen the review and supervision mechanism for cultural product contents. Through publicity, culture and tourism, publishing and internet supervision departments, increase the intensity of cultural product review, and take the guidance of the core socialist values as the measuring standard. In online fields, utilize AI big data to improve review mechanisms for short videos, live streams, animations and self-media content, raise review efficiency, and carry out manual review to guarantee review effectiveness. In offline fields, strictly control the approval procedures of books, periodicals, exhibitions and films. Remove or punish relevant contents that do not conform to or even violate the core socialist values, resolutely resist erroneous ideological trends, and safeguard cultural security and ideological security. Second, consolidate platform accountability, urge platforms to strengthen supervision, and guide value orientation through platforms simultaneously. Improve laws and regulations in the field of digital culture. Short video platforms, social software, video websites, publishing houses, cinemas and exhibition halls shall implement management responsibilities, optimize product contents, adjust algorithm recommendation systems to incline toward high-quality contents guided by the core socialist values, and focus on and continuously disseminate positive energy cultural products. Finally, guide coordinated efforts of multiple channels to expand the coverage of publicity on the core socialist values. Connect all types of online-offline, official and folk communication carriers, output positive value contents simultaneously through multiple channels, form a multi-layered communication network for the core socialist values, and continuously guide youth’s spiritual world to develop toward richness and soundness.

In conclusion, in the process of guiding young people to enrich their spiritual world with core socialist values, families, schools, online platforms, government departments and other relevant entities must always keep in mind the guiding orientation of socialist ideology embodied in core socialist values. Taking the various concepts of core socialist values as guiding principles and focusing on the clear goal of enriching young people’s spiritual world, all parties shall clarify respective rights and responsibilities while conducting coordinated operations to jointly advance the accomplishment of the goal.