{"id":19063,"date":"2018-11-14T12:33:36","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T07:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/jwt2015\/?p=19063"},"modified":"2019-11-20T11:30:43","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T06:30:43","slug":"deciphering-the-chinese-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/internationalaffairs\/deciphering-the-chinese-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Deciphering The ‘Chinese Dream’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Deciphering<\/a><\/h3>\n

Xi’s vision for China\u2019s future\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

\u201cHistory tells us that everybody has one’s future and destiny closely connected to those of the country and the nation.\u201d \u2014 President Xi Jinping of China<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the world rubs its eyes in astonishment. In just under three decades, China has transformed itself from being a bitter-poor developing country into a global economic power. Beijing now has set its eyes on becoming a world superpower. For now, at least, fears about China’s rising power and influence are mixed with admiration for the rapid pace of its growth and development.\u00a0 The Chinese people, on the other hand, especially the political class in Beijing, see the strengthening of their country as the correction of a historical anomaly. This view is promoted by Beijing’s propaganda departments and President Xi Jinping’s \u201cChinese Dream\u201d is meant to address it.<\/p>\n

In 2012, when visiting an exhibition featuring China’s Road to Rejuvenation, President Xi Jinping first put forward the idea of the China Dream: \u201cWe are confident that the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the time of the CPC’s 100th anniversary \u2026 and China’s Dream of the ‘grand national rejuvenation’ will surely come true.\u201d Moreover, in his first public address before the 18th National Congress, President Xi declared that the party’s main duty was \u201cto achieve the great renewal of the Chinese nation.\u201d Its Chinese version is \u201czhonghua minzu weida fuxing,\u201d and in it the most important part is \u201czhonghua minzu\u201d \u2013 which has been translated as \u201cthe Chinese nation,\u201d \u201cthe Chinese people\u201d and even \u201cthe Chinese race.\u201d Since then, China’s state and party leaders have promised the Chinese people the return to the grandeur of past dynasties.<\/p>\n

Since the commencement of the China Dream, we have experienced a transitional Chinese policy in the domestic and international arenas. Chinese people see themselves as the heirs of a millennium-old civilization that was the world leader in culture, science, technology and administration right up to the 16th century. In this ideal conception, China \u2014 the “Middle Kingdom,” as it is still called in Chinese today \u2014 was at the centre of the world, surrounded by barbarians, who were willing to pay tribute to the luminosity of Chinese civilization.<\/p>\n

\u2018Century of Humiliation’<\/span><\/h3>\n

The so-called \u201cCentury of Humiliation\u201d stands out all the more against this background. It began with China’s defeat in the First Opium War (1839-1842) by the Great Britain. In the first of the so-called \u201cunequal treaties,\u201d China was forced to cede control of Hong Kong to the British. The century has a formal end that suits official propaganda: The founding of the People\u2019s Republic of China in 1949 by the Communist Party.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0The New Russo-Chinese Great Game and Future of Eurasia<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

The Century of Humiliation forms the antithesis to the rise of China. Who knows that China’s share of world economic output in 1820 was over 30 percent? Following internal Chinese rebellions, colonial exploitation, state collapse, Japanese occupation and civil war, this share had fallen to just 5 percent in the early 1950s.<\/p>\n

The phantom pain of losing imperial greatness is kept alive in the collective memory. History books, television series and newspaper articles repeatedly evoke the humiliation of the Chinese nation by foreign powers, the decline and misery. This culture of remembrance has paved the way for the mass appeal of Xi Jinping\u2019s Chinese Dream. In doing so, as a collective vision proclaimed from above, it is the exact opposite of the \u201cAmerican Dream\u201d of the realization of individual happiness.<\/p>\n

‘Global Superpower by 2049’<\/span><\/h3>\n

The plans for the \u201cgreat rejuvenation of the Chinese nation\u201d extend to 2049, the year marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. By then, China should once again emerge as a global superpower. It seems as if the nobler the goals and the farther into the future their fulfilment, the greater the sacrifices one can demand from the people. When it comes to the \u201crejuvenation of the Chinese nation,\u201d nothing like civil liberties or cumbersome constitutional processes should come in the way, according to Beijing\u2019s view. Dissenters, human rights activists, even their lawyers end up in jail. The previously hard-won liberties, even in the media, are again being scaled back.<\/p>\n

The vision of the Chinese Dream is so vague and, at the same time, so comprehensive that different messages can fit under its roof.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has the authority to interpret the content of the vision can define almost anything as an element for the realization of the Chinese Dream. When Xi Jinping visited the Three Gorges Dam in April, for instance, the ability to independently develop technology was declared essential to realizing the dream. When Xi met with senior military officials in mid-March, it was the greater integration of the civilian and military spheres. Furthermore, there have been repeated exhortations for unity and the development of strength.<\/p>\n

In its ambiguity, the Chinese Dream is also suitable as a tool for fomenting Chinese nationalism, which has been gaining traction for the past two decades. It is important as a source of legitimacy for the rule of the Communist Party, as the party\u2019s legitimacy, in ideological terms, has been eroded due to its role as the organizer of a highly effective form of state capitalism, with party workers and government officials as main beneficiaries despite Xi\u2019s unprecedented anti-corruption campaign.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s robust manoeuvring in the territorial spat with Japan in the East China Sea, and the building of artificial islands in the South China Sea to enforce its claims to the region, also serve the purpose of deliberately stirring the Chinese people’s nationalist fervour.<\/p>\n

With the Silk Road to the Middle of the World<\/span><\/h3>\n

Against this backdrop, Xi\u2019s signature project \u2014 the Belt and Road Initiative \u2014 also fits under the umbrella of the Chinese Dream. China is deploying immense resources to build infrastructure that will connect it to parts of Asia, Africa and Europe and boost its trading links to these regions.<\/p>\n

This ambitious project makes China the only country in the world currently pursuing a global vision. And, it is certainly no coincidence that the Belt and Road Initiative, regarded as a modern-day version of the ancient Silk Road, also linguistically ties up with times of former splendour.<\/p>\n

With its clever investment policy, China has been increasingly able to translate its economic strength into political influence. The new transport links and economic corridors will definitely play their part in the development of the Chinese Dream, by strengthening Beijing’s role as a Eurasian centre of gravity and turning it once again into the \u201cMiddle Country.\u201d<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that this centre should then radiate out into the world. At the Communist Party’s congress last fall, Xi called for \u201cSocialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era\u201d and recommended it as a development model for other countries. At the start of the year, The People\u2019s Daily, an official newspaper of the Communist Party, went as far as to talk of a fusion of the \u201cChinese Dream\u201d with the \u201cDream of the Whole World.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xi’s vision for China\u2019s future\u00a0 \u201cHistory tells us that everybody has one’s future and destiny closely connected to those of the country and the nation.\u201d \u2014 President Xi Jinping of China The rest of the world rubs its eyes in astonishment. In just under three decades, China has transformed itself from being a bitter-poor developing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":19064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,10277],"tags":[257,9668,10279,10280,2231,258],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jworldtimes.com\/old-site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}