World dialogue on the Chinese Dream
Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, author of How China’s Leaders Think and the biography of former President Jiang Zemin, has long-term relationships with China’s leaders and the Chinese government.
3. Historical
The “Historical Chinese Dream” recognizes (i) China’s rich millennia-long civilization with its high culture and seminal achievements, aspiration and expectation, turmoil and trauma, challenge and triumph, and (ii) China’s more recent development of its political theory.
Even though for much of China’s dynastic history, Chinese civilization was a high point in human civilization, there were few periods without some kinds of hardships. A unified, stable, sovereign and peaceful China has long been the goal of the Chinese people and of Chinese leaders.
In modern times, the period from the Opium Wars in the middle 19th Century to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949—for more than a century—China was beset by invasion, occupation, exploitation, oppression and humiliation. Moreover, domestic oppression in the 20th century, from rapacious warlords to extreme leftism, has left the Chinese people with a great yearning for transformation and stability. The Historical Chinese Dream speaks to this yearning and offers a new vision of a new China, one that is independent and stable, strong in its own sovereignty, and free from oppression of all kinds.
In another sense, the Historical Chinese Dream is the culmination of the arc of political theory in its progressive development from Deng Xiaoping Theory, which re-oriented China from ideological class struggle to economic development; to former President Jiang Zemin’s ‘Three Represents,’ which stressed advanced knowledge and culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people; to former President Hu Jintao’s ‘Scientific Perspective on Development,’ which optimized competing goods such as sustainable development and social equality with continuing economic growth.
All these lead up to President Xi Jinping’s ‘The Chinese Dream.’ As Deng commenced economic reform and opening up, Jiang modernized the CPC, and Hu expanded national objectives, Xi’s Chinese Dream is the natural culmination of each of these, integrating them together in delivering for the Chinese people a rejuvenated nation and better lives.
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]
