Want China Times
July 27, 2014
Chinese president Xi Jinping recently flew to Brazil to attend the BRICS summit, a grouping of major emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, then visited Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba. This can be seen as another major step towards Xi’s realization of the “Chinese dream,” a notion that would see China with a more pivotal role on the international stage.
2014 has been a dramatic year in terms of international geopolitics, from the recent conflict between Israel and Palestine, to the Ukraine crisis, Iraq and tensions between Japan and China over the Diaoyutai Islands and between Vietnam and the Philippines and China in the South China Sea.
It is against this background that President Xi and Premier Li Keqiang have made frequent visits overseas, as well as hosting international leaders in Beijing, such as the visits of German chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian president Vladimir Putin. These major diplomatic breakthroughs for China suggest that the various crises have shifted power balances, allowing the country to take a more active role in the global community.
Xi’s vision of the Chinese dream is not just a dream for a better future, but also suggests that the country has an historical duty to reform China, while at the same time raising the standard of living in the country, as well as its cultural and economic clout.
Xi has previously said that the Chinese dream is to double people’s income by 2020, and to be a strong country, a rejuvenated race, and a happy people by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
In its role as arbiter over the the Ukraine crisis, China paved the way to secure long-term natural gas supply contracts with Russia. We can also see Xi’s attempts to facilitate negotiations between North and South Korea, as allowing China an important strategic partner in South Korean president Park Geun-hye.
Although China’s deployment of an oil rig to an area of the South China Sea that Vietnam claims as part of its exclusive economic zone was met by large-scale protests throughout Vietnam, leading to the burning and looting of factories thought to be Chinese-owned, and a standoff at sea, the fact that the testing phase of operations was completed successfully suggests that this is an instance in which China has asserted its territorial claims successfully
Despite political upheavel and large-scale student protests in Taiwan over the cross-strait trade-in-services and trade-in-goods pacts, Xi has repeatedly called for the two sides to work together as brothers to achieve the Chinese dream and to rejuvenate the Chinese race. He even raised the possibility of holding a summit between cross-strait leaders and conducting political dialogue.
In its pursuit of the Chinese dream, China sees Taiwan as a younger brother and therefore it is proud of the achievements Taiwan has made, and is willing to help Taiwan out with its problems, as an elder brother would do. Taiwan needs to reciprocate this sentiment and should work with China towards achieving the Chinese dream.
