在文化的时间关系上，习近平文化思想的支点是守正创新，只有正确进行守正创新，文化自信才能充分自觉。文化传承起于文化发展的最初历史阶段，由家庭与社会的口口相传发展到简单的审美符号相传，具有无意识的特点。马克思的文化传承思想强调了文化传统随着社会经济基础的断裂而断裂。列宁在文化政策上保护了传统文化，但在理论上不相信统一的民族文化的存在。毛泽东受新文化运动的影响，对传统文化最初有较多批评，后来形成明确的理论表述，即“批判继承”。在新时代，随着中国崛起，其文化形象成为突出的亟待解决的问题，习近平文化思想则顺应了时代发展需要。守正创新一方面确认了对传统的自觉传承，在此基础上承认文化自信高于政治与理论的自信，另一方面用具有明确的价值性的“守正”取代一般性的“批判继承”，然后明确提出要创新出中华民族的现代文明，继承了新文化运动的创新精神。

In the time relation of culture, the fulcrum of Xi Jinping’s thought on culture is “keeping integrity and innovation”. Only with right integrity and innovation, cultural self-confidence can be fully conscious. From oral transmission in family and society to simple transmission of aesthetic symbols, cultural inheritance is unconscious when it originates from the initial historical stage of cultural development. Marx’s theory of cultural inheritance overly emphasizes that cultural traditions break down with the rupture of social and economic foundations. Although his cultural policies protected traditional culture, Lenin did not believe in the existence of a unified national culture in theory. Influenced by the New Culture Movement, Mao Zedong criticized traditional culture and then formed a clear theoretical expression, namely “critical inheritance”. In the new era, the cultural image of China has become a prominent problem to be solved urgently with its rise. Xi Jinping’s thought on culture conforms to the needs of the times. On the one hand, the idea of “keeping integrity and innovation” confirms the conscious inheritance of tradition, and acknowledges that cultural confidence is higher than political and theoretical confidence; on the other hand, it replaces “critical inheritance” with a clear value of “keeping integrity”, and then explicitly proposes to innovate the modern civilization of the Chinese nation, inheriting the innovative spirit of the New Culture Movement.