Manoranjan Mohanty
Economic and Political Weekly
September 21, 2013
Xi Jinping, who had assumed the post of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) general secretary and chairperson of the Central Military Commission at the conclusion of the 18th Party Congress in November 2012, was elected as the president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by the National People’s Congress (NPC) in March 2013. During the early months of his leadership he acquired the reputation of being a practical person who also had the makings of a visionary front runner. From the very start he put emphasis on paying attention to people’s concrete day-to-day problems such as jobs, housing, education and healthcare, as also giving a call for cutting down waste of food and doing away with the ostentatious lifestyles of leaders and cadres and making clean governance and anti-corruption a top priority. At the same time, his slogan of fulfilling the “Chinese Dream” by “rejuvenating the Chinese nation” had become the hallmark of his leadership style.
In this essay we will put the discourse on the “Chinese Dream” in the context of Xi Jinping’s initiatives since he came to power, locating it within the setting of various political, economic and international issues, and then try to deconstruct the formulation. We will also assess its political and ideological implications.
‘Chinese Dream’
Xi Jinping first referred to the zhongguo meng (“Chinese Dream”) in his remarks on 29 November 2012 while visiting the Exhibition on “The Road to Revival” at the National Historical Museum where exhibits depicted the history of China’s struggle against humiliation and attacks by colonial powers. He said:
“Everyone has his own ideals, aspirations and dreams. Nowadays, the Chinese Dream is a hot topic; in my opinion, realising the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the greatest Chinese dream.”
Since then the talk of the Chinese Dream and its various interpretations spread very fast in China. After being elected as president by the NPC Xi mentioned the term nine times in his concluding speech on 17 March 2013 and made “realising the Chinese Dream” the central point of his regime. Thereafter, on every major occasion he referred to the Chinese Dream. On the eve of the 92nd anniversary of the founding of the CPC when the Politburo had a closed-door meeting on 22-25 June 2013, he reportedly spelt out his idea in detail, saying that “now the Party and the country are advancing toward completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”.
If the slogan of the Chinese Dream is a part of the attempt to prepare the Chinese to work hard to realise the lofty goals set by the Party keeping in view the twin centenaries coming up, the CPC’s in 2021 and PRC’s in 2049, then there is a clear set of economic priorities. By 2020 they seek to double not only the 2010 gross domestic product (GDP) but also the per capita income that should reach $4,000. By 2040 China is predicted to surpass the GDP level of the US and become the world’s largest economy. Way back in the 1980s, the architect of China’s reforms, Deng Xiaoping had charted out the plan under which China should join the category of middle-level developed countries by the middle of the 21st century. These targets seem eminently achievable under the current pace of change. But the question people are discussing in China is whether the rejuvenation of the 5,000-year-old Chinese nation meant more than becoming yet another strong military and economic power.
In recent months the term Chinese Dream has become the most frequently used term in the Chinese media. School textbooks have been revised to present a discussion on it. There are essay competitions in schools and colleges, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has commissioned research projects on this. There are “Dream Walls” in various places where citizens are encouraged to put up posters – though not quite in the nature of the “big character posters” of the Cultural Revolution. Folk songs on the Chinese Dream, some by prominent artists, are played frequently on radio and television.
What exactly does the term “the Çhinese Dream” mean? Is it a mode of nationalist mobilisation in support of the new leadership of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang? Or does it have substantive content with social, economic, cultural and political goals? Is it to put a powerful idea in parallel with the “American Dream”? Or is it a unique Chinese notion located in Chinese historical conditions? Before we take up these questions, let us see what policy lines have emerged in the early months of Xi Jinping’s leadership.
No Policy Shifts?
Though Xi Jinping’s early performance created positive vibrations in China and abroad, it was still not clear what kind of policy choices he was making. Like the generation of Chinese to which he belonged, he seemed to be acutely conscious of the western press and intelligentsia’s assessment of each step he took. The economy, culture and the public space in China was so closely interconnected with the West that any Chinese leader had to constantly address both his domestic constituency and the world, in this case, the western world with which most interest groups in China currently enjoyed shared ventures even though they perceived the US as a competitor in most respects. Yet, on several issues, Xi had directly responded to the Chinese people’s major concerns soon after being elevated to the top leadership. But his responses and initiatives during the first six months of his assuming office were too cautious or too general to indicate any fresh thinking.
It may be too early to expect new initiatives. But, on crucial issues such as fighting corruption, promoting democracy, carrying forward economic reforms in a desirable direction and on China’s global role, the Xi Jinping leadership did not provide adequate clues to its line of action. It also means that he did not wish to make any dramatic break with the policies of the Hu Jintao regime and may make gradual adjustments to meet the demands of the changing situation. Thus the prediction by some commentators that Xi would veer away from the Hu Jintao line and restore the Jiang Zemin perspective was still not vindicated.
Fighting Corruption
Indeed, Xi has highlighted his anti-corruption drive as a major policy initiative. He not only mentioned it as a principal task in his first meeting with the press on 15 November 2012 and had a special meeting of the Politburo to chalk out a strategy and guidelines on 4 December, but addressed the full session of the Central Committee on Discipline and Inspection on 23 January. The eight-point guidelines issued by the CPC to improve work style, curb bureaucracy and fight corruption were popularised all over China thereafter. The cases of 73,000 officials prosecuted, 4,698 punished, 961 handed over to judicial organs in 2012 were reported by the media frequently to show that the Party took the anti-corruption drive seriously. A yearlong campaign was launched in April 2013 to clean up the Party by changing four undesirable elements in the work style, namely, formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance.
But, as to the approach to fighting corruption, there was still no sign of change. The CPC’s 18th Congress Report mentioned “the distinctive Chinese approach to combating corruption and promoting integrity by addressing both its symptoms and root causes, combining punishment and prevention, with emphasis on the latter”. In his speech on 17 March 2013 at the conclusion of the 12th NPC, Xi Jinping also “pledged to resolutely fight against corruption and other misconduct in all its manifestations and always preserve the political integrity of the Communists”.
What is the prevention strategy that the new leadership has suggested? Like his predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, both of whom called corruption as a life-and-death issue for the Party, it is still treated as a “governance issue” rather than a “structural issue”. The former approach involves mainly administrative measures by implementing the law and regulations while the latter goes to the economic, political and moral dimensions of corruption while subsuming under it the governance aspects. No doubt big fish have been netted by the anti-corruption drive in the recent period. Xi’s statement that his regime would catch both “tigers and flies” is now a part of the everyday conversation in China. Harsh punishment, executions through summary trials have been meted out. The disgraced Party Secretary of Chongqing, Bo Xilai’s indictment on charges of corruption, bribery and abuse of power was announced in July 2013 and his trial was scheduled to commence shortly in Jinan, Shandong Province. In the first few months of the Xi-Li regime, a climate of fear among the Party cadres had been created lest they were caught for corruption. Xi Jinping has sent out a stern message warning leaders and cadres at every level to abide by rules, be transparent in decision-making and set examples for others.
But the structural roots of corruption were still not addressed. As long as the growth-centric economic strategy that required high profit by entrepreneurs and managers through a liberalised and, therefore, discretionary regime, the scope for corruption would persist. As the Chinese experience as well as that of the other developing countries including India demonstrate, such a regime heavily relied upon networks of lobbying and gratification of various kinds, to obtain contracts for manufacture and trade, within the country and abroad. Since the size of the economy and the magnitude of the projects in China is huge, the scale of corruption is also large. It is that kind of economy and its success that has produced an amoral society in contemporary China. Contrast it with the China of yesteryears where socialist values guided people to save and sacrifice for the common good rather than accumulate wealth and luxury without limits for personal enjoyment. While it is commendable that governance measures on transparent work style and strict enforcement of law and punishment have been reaffirmed, unless they are accompanied by a set of structural measures, changing the obsession with profit-making by any means, and further combined with initiatives to build an environment of moral values, the governance measures by themselves will fail to curb the rising trend of multifaceted corruption of a high magnitude.
This is the lesson from both developed and developing countries. If the realisation of the Chinese Dream includes providing a clean, corruption-free administration where every citizen enjoys his/her rights under the law, then Xi Jinping has to announce a more comprehensive programme to fight corruption. The year-long clean-up campaign that began in April 2013 which talked of “self-cultivation” by Party cadres, echoing the message in Liu Shaoqi’s famous treatise, “How to be a Good Communist” still did not convey a comprehensive strategy to fight corruption.
Promoting Democracy
Even though the 18th Party Congress clearly ruled out China adopting a western style democracy, there is still no indication of the kind of democracy that the CPC is trying to evolve. At a theoretical level, Marxists believe that the challenge of a socialist system is to prove that it is more democratic than a capitalist society. Thus far, CPC’s one-party rule with multiparty consultation has been explained as necessary for consolidating its path of development within a framework which is sometimes described as “democracy with Chinese characteristics”. It is seen as having provided political and social stability with which China achieved sustained economic growth. But the political system has not coped with the steadily rising democratic consciousness among the masses. The protests among workers, farmers, youth and minorities continued to grow. During the first few weeks after Xi assumed the Party leadership, there were fresh cases of clampdown on press and micro blog sites some of which were later relaxed. The 2013 New Year’s Day Editorial on “Chinese Dream of Constitutionalism” in the Guangzhou journal Southern Weekend was censured by the local Party authorities leading to protests by its journalists and local people.
Xi’s open invitation for offering criticism, while talking to the democratic parties on the eve of the Spring Festival of 2013, conveyed a welcome message. But there was so much scepticism on this issue that many observers recalled the Anti-Rightist Campaign of Mao Zedong in 1957. There were many expectations as to whether there would be new initiatives by the new leadership to promote democratic processes. Would Xi Jinping, for example, give a concrete direction to democratic change by raising the level of competitive elections from the village level to the Xiang and County People’s Congress and giving them statutory powers of self-governance? A new policy package on Tibet and Xinjiang to provide political autonomy would give a signal that a confident Chinese leadership can walk an extra mile to win the confidence of the minority population and reverse the process of alienation. The incidents of violence in Xinjiang in June 2013 only witnessed more of the same “strike hard” policies rather than a new policy package of political autonomy, religious freedom, cultural rights and economic development.
However, there was a fresh round of a campaign to “serve the people” recalling the “putting people first” campaign in the early months of the Hu Jintao regime in 2003. It is noteworthy that Xi Jinping has launched a drive to promote the “mass line”, reaffirming the need to restore the Party’s link with common people. The principle of “from the masses, to the masses” has once again been a theme of the year-long campaign to clean up the party. This concept was at the core of Mao Zedong’s method of Party-building in the Yanan period, but had not seen prominence in the CPC’s political work for a long time. Many in the Party feared its connotations having links with the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The Party’s alienation from people is a common refrain of much open discussion in contemporary China. Therefore, the need to change the behaviour of cadres has been emphasised as an urgent task by the new leadership. But this trend of alienation has been talked about during the regimes of both Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Under Hu Jintao, special measures were initiated under a new governance strategy and the “scientific outlook of development”. Without taking concrete measures to ensure people’s participation in decision-making, the call for “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and realisation of the Chinese Dream may be an abstract notion.
Economic Choices
On the economic front, Xi Jinping is under enormous pressure to resume the high growth path irrespective of its social, political and environmental consequences. Actually, the growth rate of GDP had picked up once again and crossed 8% in 2012. The goal of doubling the GDP of 2010 by 2020 was achievable. Therefore, the focus had to be on “changing the growth model” as announced at the 18th Party Congress so that the widening income gap and regional disparity were reversed and the ecological goal of saving resources and reducing pollution was pursued vigorously. In the Politburo meeting of the CPC in July 2013 the Party decided to stick to the line of pursuing a moderate rate of growth of about 7% and change the focus of the growth model as stipulated in the 12th Five-Year Plan.
The emphasis on promoting domestic consumption and reducing the dependence on foreign trade was reiterated. It announced the decision to follow a “human-centric” urbanisation model with focus on raising people’s livelihood. This objective was no doubt desirable. But if that led to catering mainly to the demands of the upper strata in Chinese society and those in the developed coastal region and in mega cities, then, the prevailing social problems would be exacerbated. The new production strategy ought to address the needs of the rural population, tackle the “three rural problems” of low agricultural productivity, low income of peasants and underdeveloped countryside, meet the demands of the over 200 million floating population in the cities and attend to the growing phenomenon of unemployment. It had to address the problem of environmental degradation even more seriously. The development model had to keep in mind why contemporary China had a rising trend of social unrest. Xi Jinping has inherited a high growth economy which has given substance to his call for pursuing the Chinese Dream. But this economic success has come with many contradictions and problems. This had prompted the Hu Jintao leadership to talk of a “scientific outlook on development” that would be comprehensive and balanced. It is yet to be seen if Xi’s Chinese Dream concept is indeed fully absorbing the Hu Jintao vision.
China’s Global Role
Finally, the emerging global role of China is a point of much debate all over the world today. Having become the second largest world economy in 2010 and continuously gaining high worldwide prestige, China has two sets of options as a global power. One is the path of the earlier big powers of the colonial era and the postcolonial and post-cold war era. The US seems to be the model for many of China’s foreign policy and security analysts. Just as most Chinese youth aspire to live the American way of life, the policymakers wish to acquire the economic and military strength to match US power. China’s economic success has built up Chinese nationalism along those lines to attain and surpass the US. The current discourse on the Chinese Dream as a parallel to the discourse on the American dream is naturally seen by many observers as being linked to the great power ambitions of China. The discourse on Re-Orient and Re-emerging Powers or restoring the glory and dominance of the east in the world reflects that thought. The other is the path of global transformation of the existing hegemonic, unequal, power-governed world into a democratic, equitable, consensus-driven world. China as a permanent member of UN Security Council, a member of G-20 and BRICS can use its privilege either to pursue the big power road or the democratic road.
Soon after assuming the office of the president, Xi Jinping made his first foreign trip to Russia en route to attending the Fifth BRICS Summit in South Africa in March 2013. His Russia visit reaffirmed the close relationship between the two countries. Xi made his participation in the BRICS Summit in Durban as a signature event of his early performance. Before leaving Beijing he met the journalists of the BRICS countries and talked about the priority of protecting the “legitimate rights and interests of developing countries”. (In this press interaction he also announced his “five-point proposal for improving Sino-Indian ties”.) Dreaming with BRICS was the theme of much reporting on the Durban Summit in China.
Conveying the commitment to changing the unequal world order, the Durban Declaration of 27 March 2013 announced:
“As the global economy is being reshaped, we are committed to exploring new models and approaches towards more equitable development and inclusive global growth by emphasising complementarities and building our respective economic strength.”
However, the issue to examine is whether the BRICS leaders, especially those of China and India wished to follow the same growth model as the western countries advanced and engage in the same kind of balance of power politics with a new set of big powers managing the world or they would be the agencies for global democratic transformation. At the Boao Forum for Asia in April 2013 Xi underlined the need for reform of the international economic and financial system and called upon Asia to perform its role as the important engine of this transformation for achieving common development. He also said that “the Chinese Dream, namely, the great renewal of the Chinese nation” will be realised and will benefit Asia and the whole world.
It was noteworthy that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also made his first foreign trip after taking over as premier, to India in May 2013, and underlined its significance explicitly as a sign of a new stage of understanding between China and India and recognition of a changing world situation where developing countries mattered. Even though there were no notable agreements signed during his visit to India the political significance of his visit was appreciated widely. Equally noteworthy was President Xi Jinping’s visit to the Americas in June 2013. He first visited Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico as if to indicate the precedence contemporary China gave to relations with developing countries. Thereafter Xi Jinping landed in his first visit as president to the US and had a summit meeting with President Obama in Sunnylands, Palm Springs, California on the west coast of the US on 7-8 June 2013 before flying back to Beijing.
The informality of the closed-door meetings between the two presidents and their delegations was noted with appreciation in both countries and the summit was billed as the most significant since the Nixon-Mao Summit in 1972. This is where Xi Jinping announced that he would like to evolve “a new kind of relations between great powers”, between an established power and an emerging power. There were no doubt many issues of conflict in their foreign, economic and strategic policies, but there is an apprehension that both sides seemed to perceive themselves as the Group of Two (G-2) to manage the world’s big problems. Would China be a relatively status quoist power, maintain the prevailing strategic balance in Asia and the world, and the trade and finance system both of which had facilitated its economic growth as the second largest world economy in the recent decades? Cyber security issues, denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, and the large trade deficit of the US with China were some of the critical issues taken up during the summit. But Obama’s statement that China’s rise as a great power was good for the US and the world was a much quoted expression giving rise to the concrete emergence of a new US-China framework on a world scale. The discussion on the Chinese Dream picked up momentum in the US press and comparisons and contrasts were made. One senator called it a nightmare if China achieved its dream of becoming a world power and functioned as a global hegemon.
Thus Xi Jinping’s much publicised talk of the Chinese Dream and the stress on the agenda of rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and its 5,000-year-old civilisation can work either way. It can be translated into the agenda of becoming a dominant world power. On the other hand, the “peaceful rise of China” can also be a civilisational catalyst for transforming the unequal world. However, the Chinese leaders can certainly draw lessons from history. The 21st century clearly marks the surging wave of self-determination of people and nations in all parts of the world against all forms of hegemony and that cannot be missed by the modern rulers of any country.
At the end of the first half-year of his leadership it had become clear that Xi Jinping did not wish to be identified with the political line or leadership style of either Hu Jintao or Jiang Zemin. He would perhaps eventually fashion his own mode of leadership. It was expected by many within China and abroad that in the coming days, Xi would make clear choices on how to fight corruption in a comprehensive way, promote democracy more confidently through institutional innovations, orient development towards equity and sustainability, and build China as a democratic force for global peace and equity. The country’s future performance on those issues would clarify the meaning of the Chinese Dream.
What Is the Chinese Dream?
First of all, it should be mentioned that Xi Jinping did not initiate the discourse on the Chinese Dream; he picked it up, saying that “it was a hot topic at present”, and made it a national slogan of the Party and the state. Even the claim that The New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman coined the term is not quite accurate even though it became a significant reference in the media. He also joined an already unfolding discussion in recent years, even though his article did get special attention in China. Leading up to the 18th Party Congress, Friedman wrote in one of his articles, entitled “China Needs Its Own Dream” – a dream that “marries people’s expectations of prosperity with a more sustainable China”. He further said: “Because the next government’s dream for China’s emerging middle class – 300 million people expected to grow to 800 million by 2025 – is just like the American Dream (a big car, a big house, McDonald’s Big Mac for all) then we need another planet”. He referred to the “Chinese Dream Project” of Peggy Liu, and also to the environment non-governmental organisation (NGO), Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE).
In fact, there were books and articles even before. Li Junru of the Central Party School had published (in 2006) The China Dream: China in Peaceful Development which became a popular point of reference. Until then the focus of this discourse in China was on achieving success in the course of the economic reforms and assuring the world that China’s rise was peaceful and did not pose any threat to others. The tenor of this debate changed with the publication (in 2010) of The China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Posture in the Post-American Era by Col Liu Mingfu of the National Defence University. This was the most discussed book since its publication and it had a clear message. Liu wanted to see China as world’s number one military power and with comprehensive economic strength to back it.
In the West there were other publications as well. A 2003 book by a business journalist uses the term in a very different vein warning the western investors of the pitfalls of their “China Dream” of excessive interest in the China market which faced many uncertainties. On the other hand, Helen Wang, a Chinese student who stayed on in the US wrote The Chinese Dream: The Rise of the World’s Largest Middle Class and What It Means to You (2010) which portrayed the spectacular economic growth in China and the enormous opportunities it offered the world, while wondering at the same time if China was following the western path of development or had abiding links with the Chinese civilisation. A critical account of the consequences of the pattern of growth was given by Gerard Lemos in his 2012 book, The Endof the Chinese Dream: Why Chinese People Fear the Future where he chronicles the numerous social and health problems that the people of Chongqing face in their daily life.
Xi Jinping, however, steered this discussion in a distinctly different direction to inspire the people of China to work for a historic mission that the CPC had put before them. Even then the meaning and dimensions of the Chinese Dream discourse remained manifold.
A Framework for Mobilisation
The theoretical journal of the Party, Qiushi (Seeking Truth) in its 1 May 2013 editorial gave an authoritative introduction to the discourse on the Chinese Dream. It was entitled, “The Chinese Dream Infuses Socialism with Chinese Characteristics with New Energy”. Referring to the 5,000 years of history of China and the antecedents of such formulation in the modern period, it referred to “Grand Harmony” (datong) of Kang Youwei and the constitutionalism initiatives of Liang Qichao, the reformers of the early 20th century, Sun Yatsen’s leadership of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and the slogans of “science and democracy” in the May Fourth Movement each of which embodied elements of the Chinese Dream. It said that only the CPC’s leadership of the Chinese revolution and the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics had taken the right steps to realise these aspirations. The editorial then proceeded to identify eight tasks announced at the 18th Party Congress as the very dimensions of the programme to realise the Chinese Dream:
“…persist in the dominant role of the people, persist in liberating and developing social productive forces, persist in moving reform and opening up forward, persist in safeguarding social justice and fairness, persist in marching on the path of common prosperity, persist in stimulating social harmony, persist in peaceful development, and persist in the leadership of the Party.”
Of the above items, three have attracted a great deal of attention in the Chinese public discourse. First, the prosperity of each individual is as important as that of the entire nation. So macro development is not given precedence over micro development. Hu Jintao’s reformulation of the 2020 goal as establishing a “well-off society in all respects” and achieving a doubling of the per capita income, both for urban and rural people, are relevant here. Second, social inequality is addressed with the accent on social justice and fairness, keeping in view the problem of expanding social unrest in several sections of society. Third, there is a message for the world to assure people outside China that the Chinese Dream is to work for a “harmonious world” and it did not pose any threat to neighbours or other powers. Reportedly, Xi Jinping said as much to President Obama at their summit in Sunnylands.
However, western commentators are not convinced about the official Chinese interpretations. The Economist noticed in it a “calculated opacity’’ to create a climate for nationalist appeal. An op-ed article in The New York Times argued that Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream could be a stimulus for greater reforms or it could be a cause for fear, making him “a nationalist who set China on an aggressive course of bullying its neighbours and confronting US”.
It is interesting that the Chinese commentators have been at pains to differentiate the Chinese Dream from the American dream as much as the Americans have. Those believing in the American dream claim that irrespective of social origins of class, race and place of birth every American can achieve full realisation of his/her potentiality through the equality of opportunity provided in that society. In other words, anyone who works hard can get a fair chance to lead a happy life in the US. This assumption has been frequently contested in the US itself saying that the blacks, poor migrants, and women are still structurally discriminated against and inequalities have grown on an unprecedented scale in the recent decades. The struggle for social, economic, cultural and political equality, especially in terms of race, gender and class, still goes on in the US. One Chinese theoretician focuses on the Chinese historical conditions warranting a national renewal to point out the difference. Indeed, the 19th century clamour for a “rich people and strong nation” (Fumin qiang guo) is very much part of the new assertion in China. They are included in Xi Jinping’s 17 March address to the NPC which called for building a “rich, strong, democratic, civilised, harmonious socialist country”. Each of these terms needed qualification. For example, being rich also was to be accompanied by being sustainable. Democratic did not mean following the western model.
A “nation without a dream is a nation without a hope”, said one commentator in China,
“[h]aving a dream brings people the motivation to work hard, accept challenges and promote change…for better education, stable jobs, higher incomes, greater social security, better medical and healthcare, improved housing conditions, better environmental quality.”
Thus it can be reduced to being a general mobilisation framework to fulfil the usual aspirations of people in every country. But as a scholar put it, “the Chinese Dream is not the same for all Chinese, China is very complex, I do not see any paradigm shift and I am not sure if the rhetoric is going to last”.
This slogan can indeed be a mobilisation strategy of the new leadership to consolidate its political base and strengthen its appeal. Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” did not attract the same kind of emotional appeal and it was announced towards the fag end of his tenure. Hu Jintao’s “Scientific Development Outlook” may have been an important intervention to reorient China’s growth strategy, though with little success, but it did not touch the deep sentiments of a nationalist Chinese. During his tenure, the Beijing Olympics logo “One World One Dream” symbolised his notion of a “harmonious world”. For Xi Jinping, who faces many serious challenges in Chinese society and the world, there was perhaps a need for a new mantra of mobilisation even without making any obvious break with the existing policies. Yet his call for moving with the times gives him all the flexibility he needs to innovate and launch new policies. As he put it:
“We must make persistent efforts to press ahead with indomitable will, continue to push forward the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and strive to achieve the Chinese Dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation…To realise the Chinese road, we must spread the Chinese spirit, which combines the spirit of the Chinese nation with patriotism as the core and the spirit of the time with reform and innovation as the core.”
Globally there have been two kinds of discourses on dreams. One kind of articulation is associated with writers, philosophers, leaders of social movements, revolutions and political struggles. Mahatma Gandhi, for example, has written about India of My Dreams. Bhagat Singh, the revolutionary leader too had a powerful statement on his vision of India. These are attributed to particular leaders who were visionaries and therefore provided inspiration for succeeding generations. The earlier Chinese articulations of visions of the future of China by Liang Qichao, Sun Yatsen, Lu Xun and Mao Zedong were of the same order. Another kind of articulation is to characterise it as a national dream and propagate it as such. The American dream and the recent articulation of the Chinese Dream are of that order. They are bound to be problematised, contested and rearticulated from various vantage points from time to time.
But it is good to have dreams. As people’s poet Paash said, “you may forget everything and it may still be possible to recover them, but sabse khatarnaakh hai apne sapno ko bhul jana” (it is most dangerous to forget one’s dreams). But what kind of dream one has is important to ascertain. Xi Jinping has an arduous task of proving in practice what he means by the Chinese Dream unless it is only his mode of mobilisation of the Chinese people.
