During the past few months the concept of the “Chinese dream” has been discussed with increasing frequency, both in China and overseas. Reportedly, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who is also Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary, has used the phrase on a number of occasions to illustrate his vision for the country.
Where did the idea come from, and what does it mean? The concept reportedly originated in the environmental policy non-governmental organization Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, which coined it to introduce the concept of sustainability to the Chinese.
It became more widely known when US commentator Thomas Friedman wrote about it in a New York Times article in October last year, just before the CCP’s 18th National Congress in November, at which Xi was officially elected party chief. However, since then the concept has taken on new meaning far beyond the environmental realm.
In a speech on Nov. 29 last year, Xi used the term for the first time, and described it as the “realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
At the National People’s Congress on March 17, Xi again referred to the “Chinese dream,” and stated that “we must push forward the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and strive to achieve the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
This shows that the idea has become a catchall for the efforts to transform China into a “great nation.”
However, as noted by academic Minxin Pei (裴敏欣) in an opinion piece in the Taipei Times (“China’s rule by slogan is faltering,” April 19, page 8), China’s general public is tired of such slogans, and want substance, especially as the economy slows.
There is an international angle, and that is where Taiwan comes into the picture: The “Chinese dream” as it is evolving in the minds of many in the Chinese leadership, in the bureaucracy and not in the least in the military is a “unified China.”
Beijing’s People’s Daily even stated so specifically in a major front-page editorial on the “Chinese dream” on April 1.
In other words, it means a continued thrust toward incorporation of Taiwan into the fold. So, in addition to being an appeal to the middle classes to dream of a better life — very much like the “American dream,” where one can make it from rags to riches by working hard — it also represents a statement of increasing assertiveness vis-a-vis surrounding countries.
Domestically it means an increasing emphasis on socialism with Chinese characteristics. It recently became even more clear what this encompasses: Early last month, the Xi government issued a secret memo, which was subsequently leaked, urging Chinese officials to be “relentless in their opposition to Western ideas,” and calling on officials to adopt “battlefield tactics” against liberalism and internal dissent.
In the middle of last month, Beijing issued regulations to Chinese universities about “seven banned subjects” which should not be discussed: universal values, freedom of the press, civil society, civic rights, historical mistakes by the CCP, crony networks and judicial independence.
Taiwanese have worked hard for their freedom and democracy. They will not give up the “Taiwanese dream” — remaining a free and democratic nation — in exchange for a vague “Chinese dream” that does not respect the shared values that Taiwan and the US cherish so dearly.
Nat Bellocchi is a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan and a special adviser to the Liberty Times Group. The views expressed in this article are his own.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
RSS