The year of Chinese Dream
The author is director of the Academia Sinica Europaea at China Europe International Business School, Shanghai, Beijing and Accra, and founder of the Euro-China Forum.
The abolition of the laojiao system, or re-education through labor, the change in the family planning policy, the constitution of a leading group to conduct a wide range of economic and financial reforms, and the establishment of a national security committee form a series of well-calculated decisions which will perfect the way China is governed.
"Modern China" is interconnected with "global China", the most significant factor of change for the world. Chinese goods, technology, businesspeople, students, tourists, capital and culture are reaching every corner of the globe through countless 21st century silk roads.
In an upgraded version of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), China, literally the Middle Kingdom, is becoming increasingly cosmopolitan, but it also projects itself globally with the awareness that interdependence and cooperation characterize the 21st century. In the Chinese Dream, peace is to "global China" what progress is to "modern China", a conceptual reference and a project.
The expansion of "global China" is not accompanied by any missionary spirit. Its horizon is not hegemony or even global leadership but the return to the Middle Kingdom's ethos of centrality.
The announcement of an Air Defense Identification Zone, which covers the Diaoyu Islands, should be interpreted for what it is, a defensive mechanism already used by the US and Japan, and certainly not an offensive operation. It is obviously a masterstroke altering the Asian geopolitical status quo, since it invites the world to gradually recognize China's mapping of the East China Sea. The US administration has already asked US commercial airlines to abide by Beijing's new policy.
"Global China" is not only the increasing Chinese presence abroad, from stations in Antarctica to the North Sea route of the Arctic, but it is also an age of space travel and discovery. The Xi decade started with the launch of the Chang'e-3 and its moon rover, another significant step in the Chinese exploration of deep space.
The contrast is striking between the West's attempts to preserve the status quo and China's making of a new world. The former believes that the post-global financial crisis period can be a copy of the pre-crisis situation; the latter anticipates a future that will increasingly conform to its interests and intentions. As never before, globalization rhymes with Sinicization.
Distinct from the American Dream, the Chinese Dream cannot be a narrative of pure newness. It is the imagining of a better future with the memory of 4,000 years of history, a movement of renaissance expressed in the vision of "civilizational China".
Connotations of Chinese Dream
Inspired by the Chinese Dream, more and more people have begun to chase their own dreams, including dreams to receive better education, start businesses, purchase homes and get rich. People firmly believe that as long as they work hard, their dreams would come true. [more]
Chinese dream and China's governance
A great deal will depend on how Xi Jinping will actually implement the core features of the program he has laid out and how he will seek to create incentives and constituencies to support his programmatic goals.In sum, President Xi has now made very clear where he stands and where he wants the country to go under his leadership, and he has achieved wide-ranging endorsement of this overall program. [more]
Chinese Dream includes strong PLA
The PLA as a pillar of State security follows the trend of the times and follows a principle that is different from colonial aggression and expansion. And China firmly believes in the principles of peace, cooperation and development of military ties with other countries. [more]
The Chinese dream and peaceful development
The most difficult issue in the region now is the the relationship between China and Japan regarding overlapping claims on the Diaoyu, or Senkaku, islands group. The problem is residual from World War II, and the historical part of the issues is complicated. That is why Japan PM Abe’s revisionist statement on World War II and its impact does not help. [more]
The year of Chinese Dream
Distinct from the American Dream, the Chinese Dream cannot be a narrative of pure newness. It is the imagining of a better future with the memory of 4,000 years of history, a movement of renaissance expressed in the vision of "civilizational China". [more]
Defeat challenges, realize Chinese Dream
High economic growth in recent decades may have made China more confident of realizing the Chinese Dream, but the country's new leaders face serious challenges that could hamper their efforts to realize the goal.First and foremost is the need to fight widespread corruption. Making this his main priority, President Xi warned that corruption could lead to "the collapse of the Party and the downfall of the State". [more]
World dialogue on the Chinese Dream
The “Personal Chinese Dream” focuses on the well-being of individual Chinese citizens and thus modifies traditional notions of the primacy of the collective over the individual. The dream of the Personal is balanced with the dream of the National. In fact, the fulfillment of The Personal Chinese Dream constitutes a good part of what it means to fulfill the National Chinese Dream. [more]
Making a nation's dream come true
Promoting Chinese concepts in the rest of the world is not very difficult - stop translating key Chinese terminologies (at best, give the appropriate or closest meaning and continue with the Chinese terminology). If kung fu, wushu, rujia, shengren, junzi can be understood and accepted by the outside, why not zhongguo meng? Once you translate a Chinese term you give away the definition of thought. [more]
