China Dream

Female science fiction writers are about to occupy a significant spot on the genre's author scene in China. At least since August 2016, when Hao Jingfang (*1984) became the first Chinese woman to win the Hugo Award, it is clear that they are as successful as their male counterparts. Since the introduction of science fiction literature to China in the late Qing dynasty, the scene was male-dominated. Nevertheless, in connection with the current heyday it has lately evolved more diversified.
This paper examines social and political commentary in contemporary Chinese science fiction literature written by women. I argue that these writings pose challenging views of a future Chinese society as well as provide suggestions for a more equal society. Through a close reading of Hao Jingfang’s novella “Folding Beijing” (2014) and her short story “Invisible Planets” (2010), this paper analyzes the discrepancies between the official image and her perceptions of the “Harmonious Society” and the “China Dream”.

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How will China influence world politics in the twenty-first century? Many people answer this question by looking to Chinese history, and particularly to traditional models of Chinese world order. This essay seeks to complicate this question by asking which history, and which tradition? While it is common to look at China’s pre-modern history as ‘tradition’, this essay argues that we also need to appreciate how ‘socialism’ is treated as a tradition alongside Chinese civilization. It does this by examining how China’s public intellectuals appeal to two seemingly odd sources: Mao Zedong’s 1956 speech ‘Strengthen Party Unity and Carry Forward Party Traditions’, and the ‘Great Harmony’ passage from the two millennia-old Book of Rites. It will argue that these two passages are employed as a way of salvaging socialism; the ideological transition thus is not from communism to nationalism, but to a curious combination of socialism and Chinese civilization. This new socialist/civilization dynamic integrates equality and hierarchy into a new form of statism, which is involved in a global competition of social models. Or to put it another way, what these two passages have in common is not necessarily a positive ideal, but a common enemy: liberalism, the West and the United States.

In the spring of 2015, a series of shanshui landscapes by cartoon artist Feng Zikai decorated official China Dream posters in Shanghai, and could since then be encountered in the streets and subway stations of all major cities. While the dissemination of national values and active citizen participation in the government’s environmental modernization program is clearly the major trajectory, this rapprochement towards a formerly prosecuted artist concomitantly illustrates the current reorientation towards local traditions and cultural continuity in China’s state ideology and propaganda work. At the same time, the 2014/15 Shanghai arts scene contributed a number of avant-garde landscape art works that pronounced their creators’ concern about the environmental crisis. It will be argued that there is a subliminal dialogue between Xi
Jinping’s project of landscaping the China Dream and the artists’ selective reclamation of shanshui aesthetics in their ecocritical approaches. Whereas the national propaganda machine strives to appease opposition against rampant industrial pollution and heritage demolition, the cultural sphere responds by taking the government’s tampering with traditional ethico-aesthetic principles at its word.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has used publicly displayed propaganda art as a means of maintaining power. During the early years of the PRC, propaganda posters played a large role in establishing a cult of personality around Mao Zedong. Today's propaganda art seeks primarily to garner popular support for President Xi Jinping's " China Dream " campaign. The China Dream, popularized by Xi in 2012, is a nebulous concept that shares many of the materialistic components of the " American Dream, " but simultaneously—and more importantly—emphasizes the Chinese nation's rejuvenation to a position of wealth and power. China Dream art deviates significantly from Mao era posters and ideology by heavily incorporating ancient Confucian concepts and images. The art focuses not on communist values, but on moralistic ones drawn from the teachings of Confucius that emphasize hierarchy and filial piety. This paper argues that China Dream art is being used not only to create a new source of legitimacy for the Communist Party, but also to establish a cult of personality around President Xi Jinping. As a result, China is transforming into a leader state where the relationship between Xi Jinping and the people is becoming a relationship between ruler and ruled.

This chapter  places the spotlight on the genesis of the China Dream and its links to earlier policies in traditional and Communist China. Indeed, Xi  Jinping developed the China Dream recalling past policies and putting the narrative of “national rejuvenation” at the heart of his agenda. In concrete terms, China should be “great again” and, to this aim, economic reforms need to be implemented. Unfortunately, Xi’s reformist agenda implies political costs for economic and political stakeholders at the local and the national levels who are attempting to downsize the reach of the reforms. To contrast this opposition, since the 3rd plenum in 2013, Xi has outlined clear-cut policies: political centralization, implementation of the rule of law, ideological radicalization and a sweeping anti-graft campaign. The China Dream’s middle goal of doubling 2010 GDP per capita by 2020 (thus reaching the status of moderately prosperous society) forces Xi Jinping to achieve substantial economic success in the short term. Should he fail, Xi’s China Dream might be questioned even more.

Personalities matter. They matter particularly in the making and execution of foreign policy. And they matter even more when foreign policy becomes an extension of domestic policy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been compared to a number of present and former foreign leaders ever since he came to power in the summer of 2014. His leadership in helping to
attain unprecedented electoral results fuelled the debate on his personality further and led to numerous such comparisons. The one comparison that caught some attention was with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, not only for their nationalist campaigns but also for the bonhomie they already enjoyed. This Issue Brief argues, however, that there are more than a few reasons why Narendra Modi may be more similar to Chinese President Xi Jinping than to anyone else.

China claims that it's rise is different from other great powers: a benign and responsible power striving for just order and peaceful development. This paper raises question that why has China resorted to soft power mechanisms? What are the strategies that it employs to project soft image? And finally, how is soft power helpful in portraying China as a power distinct from the status quo powers? While utilising qualitative content analysis, this study focuses upon the origins of soft power conception, characteristics of Chinese soft power discourse and strategies that it has adopted to attain its objectives. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, has paid a profound attention to soft power as a means to realise the 'China Dream'. China's efforts to enhance regional and trans-regional connectivity, infrastructure investment and formula for poverty alleviation have contributed to brilliance of China.

Resumo: O presente artigo se propõe investigar o "Plano de Desenvolvimento do Futebol a Médio e Longo Prazo (2016-2050)" da China, que tem como objetivo transformar o país em uma superpotência do futebol. O objetivo é demonstrar a importância do futebol na construção do conceito político "China Dream", associados aos conceitos do "grande rejuvenescimento da nação chinesa" e "prosperidade". O artigo também traz uma atualização da situação do projeto, avaliando seu progresso de acordo com as metas colocadas a curto prazo (2016-2020).

Chapter Abstract: Historically, the rise of China represents a major challenge to a long history of Western hegemony, a history that includes the privileged conditions white Western migrants have enjoyed in Asia since the late 19th century. Expatriates in China are thus on the cutting edge of what seems to be a world-historic change in the balance of global power. How this plays itself out on the ground, for migrants, could have implications far beyond China, and also far beyond migration studies. This chapter considers the position of expatriates, and the study of migration, in the era of the Chinese Dream.

SHANGHAI – Yao Minji (Emily Yao) from Shanghai Daily sits down with Dr. Thorsten Pattberg from Peking University to discuss the Zhongguo Meng (Chinese Dream) Dr. Pattberg argues that Chinese key concepts should not be translated, and explains why, in his view, the Zhongguo Meng is very different from the American Dream.(July 2013)

The method to study the Chinese Communist Party is to uncover interlinks between power authority and legitimacy. These interlinks acquire new meanings and this happens through expressions of national interests and aspirations. This chapter is an exercise to understand the details of this question and the party’s search for answers to these. It tries to do this through a study of the origins, the strengths and weaknesses of the Xi Jinping thought, and does a bit of crystal gazing into the future of the party. The future can be imagined through a study of changing notions of legitimacy by looking at two questions: first, what happens to the party’s relations with the people in the post-ideological era? and second, how the changing contours of accountability and of the rule according to law impact the issue at hand? How the party handles the paradox of the stronger China also becoming more uncertain and insecure is what would matter in the end. This question is explored in this chapter by undertaking a discussion on issues of anti-corruption, next-generation leadership, and the question of lifelong appointments, among others.

https://www.routledge.com/Chinese-Politics-and-Foreign-Policy-under-Xi-Jinping-The-Future-Political/Ding-Panda/p/book/9780367470289