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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” slogan has attracted much attention. It should. The remarks and actions by a rising power’s new leader normally attract attention because they provide clues about where he intends to lead his country. Xi’s “China Dream” is meant as the vision for China over the next decade and, perhaps, longer. Its significance for international relations remains uncertain, but at a time when many are linking an assertive Chinese foreign policy to the revival of sinocentrism the prospect that the “rejuvenation” of a “humiliated” country is embodied in Xi’s vision is a big concern.

China’s official English translation has settled on “the Chinese dream” to provide the nuance that this vision is for the Chinese nation rather than the Chinese state. There is much deliberate ambiguity in the choice of Chinese words for “China” or “Chinese.” Xi is talking about “Zhongguomeng” or dream (meng) of China (Zhongguo). It is now generally understood that “Zhongguo” is equivalent to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), partly resulting from Beijing’s insistence on the “one China principle” vis-a-vis Taiwan, which says that there is only one China and that China is the PRC. Thus, those who are not PRC citizens often choose other Chinese expressions such as “huaren” (person of Chinese ethnicity) to mark their Chinese ethnic identity while differentiating from the PRC for either legal or emotional reasons. Non-PRC citizens who use “Zhongguoren” (person of China) to describe themselves reveal a strong identity with the PRC. The Chinese government has actively solicited moral and financial support from the Chinese diaspora around the world, appealing to a shared cultural heritage and shared desire for a rejuvenated Chinese homeland. Consistent with its general practice, the PRC government has already linked Xi’s “China Dream” with its overseas Chinese affairs work.¹

The fact that Xi is talking about the dream of the PRC makes sense since he has no jurisdiction over foreign citizens of Chinese extraction. Within the PRC, “Zhongguo” has a strong state connotation, which explains why “Zhongguo renmin” (people of China) is often used when the Chinese nation nuance is being emphasized. One can imagine that “Zhongguomeng” is a pithier expression with three syllables than “Zhongguo renminmeng” with five syllables or a more natural six-syllable expression such as “Zhongguo renmin zhimeng.” The PRC leaders readily assume that their version of China means both the state and the nation. But, as discussed below, the people of China have different visions about what China should be and what the Chinese dream should be. Put simply, the “China Dream” is more accurate than “the Chinese dream.” It reflects priority on state power and on the state’s projection of its power in the international arena.

This article addresses four questions. First, what does the “China Dream” mean, i.e. what does it reveal about Xi’s intentions? Second, what does this say about Xi in contrast to previous Chinese leaders? To be specific, what has been the typical pattern for a leader’s high-profile theory? Xi is unusually fast, which indicates confidence, but, perhaps also, a sense of vulnerability. Third, the “China Dream” theme should be placed in the context of Chinese debates over the past two decades. Looking back, what have analysts had to say about the “China Dream” and equivalent concepts? Last, what are some implications of the “China Dream” for Chinese domestic and foreign policy? By providing answers to these questions, I can establish the background for the Topics of the Month exchanges.

What Does Xi’s “China Dream” Mean?

Xi Jinping has been promoting the notion of the “China Dream” since shortly after assuming the top position of the Chinese Communist party (CCP). On November 29, 2012, he led the other six members of the Politburo Standing Committee in a highly publicized visit to the National Museum’s “Road to Revival” exhibit. Tracing modern Chinese history from the country’s humiliating defeat by Great Britain in the mid-nineteenth century, Xi talked about the “China Dream” as a unifying theme for the Chinese to achieve a great national revival. A top-down political campaign followed throughout the party and the country, with mandatory study sessions, revised teaching curricular and research projects, non-stop media publicity, and rallies. Given memories of campaigns in support of Mao’s “thought” and the low-key nature of campaigns in recent times, this high-intensity beginning for a new leader drew more than the usual attention in and out of China. Abroad, notably in Japan, the linkage between China’s revival in Asia and territorial issues stood in the forefront.

There are roughly three levels of interpretation for what is meant by Xi’s concept, as he continues to talk up the notion. Many Chinese officials and commentators also discuss the “China Dream,” attaching all kinds of meaning to it, while both inside and outside China there are also critics of the official “China Dream” discourse. Below I consider each of these levels, in turn, taking into account also the broader national identity debate.

Xi has gradually fleshed out his “China Dream” notion, often adapting to a specific occasion. In his initial speech, Xi emphasized that China is now close to realizing the goal of a great national revival and urged unity and party leadership. He dismissed “empty talk” (kongtan) and privileged “tangible efforts” (shigan). On March 17, 2013, at the closing ceremony of the National People’s Congress, Xi referred to the “China Dream” nine times. He interpreted it as the dream of the Chinese people, bringing real benefits to them, but emphasized also that “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is the only path to realize the “China Dream.” Xi appealed explicitly to patriotism. On May 4, 2013, China’s official youth day, Xi said that the “‘China Dream’ belongs to China’s young people and urged the young to pursue their personal goals for it. Prior to his visit to three Latin American countries starting on May 31, 2013, Xi provided a written interview with the media from those countries. He repeated his themes of March 17, 2013, but added the theme of “peaceful development” aimed at a foreign audience, but on April 9, 2013, he had told a Chinese navy unit that they should work hard toward a “strong army dream” (qiangjunmeng). Xi talked about the “strong army dream” on several other occasions.

The “China Dream” issue came up during the Xi-Obama Sunnylands summit. At the joint press conference on June 7, 2013, Xi made the following remarks:

“By the Chinese dream, we seek to have economic prosperity, national renewal and people’s well-being. The Chinese dream is about cooperation, development, peace and win-win, and it is connected to the American Dream and the beautiful dreams people in other countries may have.”²

The discussion above shows much ambiguity about Xi’s “China Dream,” leaving unclear whether this is a case of it being all things to all people or of Xi making calculated adjustments to his vision when encountering healthy skepticism from the outside world. But the “China Dream” has seen little adaptation in the domestic context. The core thinking has not changed, namely that the CCP should lead the Chinese nation in achieving the goal of national revival and the Chinese should be patriotic and realize their individual dreams through the realization of the national dream. This privileges national identity centered on the party and the state over individual or group identity. It also leaves open the extent of sinocentric claims that will satisfy the quest for China’s revival in Asia.

The Chinese official apparatus has gone all out to publicize the “China Dream” theme. The CCP Organization Department, the CCP Propaganda Department and the party organization of the Education Ministry jointly issued a directive on May 4, 2013, tying the promotion of young Chinese professors to the party ideological line, with the “China Dream” given prominence.³ As is typically the case, officials try to figure out what Xi really has in mind and write accordingly. Various party, government, and PLA agencies seek to leverage the theme to serve their own interests. For example, the official Chinese media interpret the “strong army dream” as Xi’s main line since he assumed the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission.⁴ Chinese bureaucrats have different dreams depending on where they sit.

The mainstream foreign media pay much attention to the “China Dream” or the Chinese dream, not necessarily distinguishing between the two. The Economist had a cover of Xi wearing a Mandarin gown, linking his Chinese dream to a return to historical greatness. Critical of the concept, as are many abroad, The Economist observed that the Chinese dream slogan “seems to include some American-style aspiration, which is welcome, but also a troubling whiff of nationalism and of repackaged authoritarianism.”⁵ Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post wrote that “nor is ‘rejuvenation’ likely to be more than a slogan unless it is built on…the principle of rule of law.” The Western perception of China has worsened since the start of the Great Recession in 2008, with a more assertive Chinese foreign policy and apparent backtracking in domestic politics. Xi seems to be moving China further down the path that was already alarming to many in the West and Asia.

In Asia, the Japanese are preoccupied with high tensions over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Their basic assessment is that the Xi regime will not relax its tough stance, given that Xi became involved in the dispute even before he assumed the top position.⁷ In that context, Xi’s “China Dream” is very much an arrogant Middle Kingdom syndrome, tied closely to what is viewed as China’s ongoing aggression over the islands and the PLA’s growing military power. Japanese media also view this theme as an appeal to patriotism to overcome domestic challenges that are the root cause of China’s assertiveness toward Japan.⁸An editor from the conservative Sankei shimbun called Xi’s Chinese dream “a nightmare” for China’s neighbors.⁹ Since the mainstream negative narrative about China is already set, Japanese are more focused on the bigger strategic question of countering what they view as an aggressive China striking out in all directions rather than on the finer points of what the Chinese leaders have to say.

One major difference between American and Asian discourse on the “China Dream” is that the Americans often think that the United States has some leverage on shaping the Chinese views or calculations. Fred Hiatt, for example, urged Obama to use his planned June meeting with Xi to “explain why mutually beneficial US-China relations would be served by Chinese respect for the rule of law.”¹⁰ We rarely hear such urging in the Asian countries for their leaders to act, surely a reflection of the weaker positions of most Asian countries, but it also indicates that when China’s Asian neighbors do not think that they can influence Chinese thinking to advance their interests, they often choose to shore up security cooperation with the United States as a defense mechanism. Moreover, Asians are more conscious of China’s historical thinking about the ideal regional architecture.

Why Does Xi Promote the “China Dream”?

As a new leader, Xi naturally would want to leave his own mark, but a deeper question is why he is promoting his vision this way and at this moment if we consider how previous Chinese leaders behaved. After Mao’s death on September 9, 1976, Hua Guofeng was promoted to the top leadership position within a month and was associated with a slogan as soon as October 26, when he pronounced the “two whatevers,” namely whatever Mao had said and done would be followed. On February 7, 1977, this was publicized in major newspaper editorials. It revealed Hua’s strong sense of vulnerability. Deng Xiaoping pushed Hua Guofeng aside by 1980. A landmark in establishing his theoretical position was the publication of his essays written from 1975 to 1982 on July 1, 1983. After his death, “Deng Xiaoping Theory” was written into the party constitution in 1997 following Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought, and then into the PRC constitution.

In 2002, a full thirteen years after becoming party chief, Jiang Zemin had his “Three Represents,” traced to a February 2000 speech he gave in Guangdong, written into the party constitution.¹¹ Hu Jintao became the CCP general secretary in November 2002. His “Scientific Development Outlook” was written into the party constitution in 2007 and the state constitution in 2008. It took Hu almost two years to take over the commander-in-chief position after becoming the party chief. By contrast, Xi became the chairman of the CCP Military Commission at the same time as he became party leader in November 2012.

He has been unusually fast by the standards of the CCP leaders in asserting theoretical influence. There is media speculation that the brain behind Xi’s “China Dream” is Wang Huning, a political science professor turned party leader, who is rumored to have been behind the “Three Represents” and the “Scientific Development Outlook” as well.¹² However, as the journalist who wrote the story reasoned, Wang’s success lies in his ability to read the minds of the Chinese leaders rather than shaping their views. Whoever is advising Xi does not change the fact that Xi clearly prefers to leave his mark at the start of his term.

While confident, Xi, who is determined to maintain CCP dominance, may well be feeling vulnerable about mounting public anger over acute corruption and other injustices. Despite all-out effort to maintain social stability, protests have occurred around the country. While pushing his campaign to “strike on corruption,” Xi is using the “China Dream” to rally the people to look beyond the immediate challenges they are facing. This suggests distracting the public with symbols of China’s resurgence as the regional leader.

The “China Dream” and the “China Model”

Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” campaign is taking place in the context of intense Chinese debates over the country’s past, present, and future. The reform consensus among intellectuals broke down after June 4, 1989. “New leftists” and then nationalists challenged the basic direction of Deng’s reform and opening as leading the country astray from socialism or Chinese traditions and values. They share much in common when it comes to Western political values and differ mainly in whether they are emotionally attached to socialism or the Chinese nation. Liberals continue to advocate further economic reform and, hopefully, political reform. The debates for the past ten years have mainly been about the “China model.” Those who are not represented in the political system protest against abuses by local officials. Chinese are divided about their assessment of the present situation in the country and hopes for the future.¹³ Leaders have never used the term “China model.” Their preferred slogan is “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” reflecting hesitancy on the part of Jiang and Hu to engage in ideological debates. While that hesitancy was fading in Chinese publications after 2008 with strong encouragement from above, there was no slogan to capture the changing outlook.

The “China Dream” was rarely mentioned before Xi Jinping made it a household name. As an exception, Colonel Liu Mingfu’s 2009 bestseller used this as its title, making the central point that China is entitled to lead the world because the Chinese are a superior nation tested through history. He made it clear in his book that the “China Dream” means being number one in the world.¹⁴ Liu is one of a few high-profile PLA officers who write publicly and widely urging patriotism and opposing Western values. We do not know if Xi was inspired by Liu’s book, although he may have come across it, and the title resonated with him. How much Xi shares the thrust of Liu’s analysis is obscured for the present.

While different camps did not use the “China Dream” as a slogan, they clearly had different dreams as discussed in a recent book by William Callahan.¹⁵ Callahan is also right that the Chinese intellectuals debating the “China model” increasingly see the West as a negative contrast and advocate Chinese exceptionalism. Xi might sound more conciliatory, but some Chinese official commentaries are, indeed, strongly antagonistic toward the United States and the West. As a case in point, an essay by Sun Linping in Jiefang junbao (PLA daily) on May 22, 2013, claimed that confidence in the “China Dream” comes from faith in Chinese socialism, a belief that the “ism” the Chinese hold dear is a “cosmic truth.”¹⁶ As far as I can recall, this is the first time a Chinese official paper talks about the CCP doctrine using such explicit religious terms. There has been much jeering at the audacity of the claim among Chinese netizens. While a vocal minority of educated Chinese reinforce such notions of the “China model” or “China Dream,” others doubt that their conflicting views will be aired. This means that there is no serious debate expressing skepticism about Xi Jinping’s ideological slogan.

The latest round of the ideological fights in China is over constitutionalism. After the party congress in November 2012 and right before Xi went to the National Museum, Jiang Bixin, a vice president of the Supreme People’s Court, wrote in Renmin luntan, a journal of People’s Daily, about the importance of constitutionalism. He saw concepts such as democracy, freedom, rule of law, and equality as universal values rather than bourgeois ones and urged the CCP to operate within the boundary of the Constitution. A liberal publication Southern Weekend was scheduled to published a New Year’s editorial “The Chinese Dream: A Dream of Constitutionalism,” on January 3, 2013, which was abruptly replaced by censors with “The Chinese Dream is Nearer to Us than Ever Before,” which led to a highly publicized strike by the journalists working on the paper.

Several essays in major CCP media outlets in late May attacked constitutionalism.¹⁸ One may trace the attack on constitutionalism back as early as 2004 when two researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences attacked those advocating constitutional reforms as seeking to undermine the CCP leadership and groping for a new opening after failure in Tiananmen in 1989.¹⁹ But the recent attack is coordinated, using Cultural Revolution-like rhetoric, causing a backlash among Chinese intellectuals. Zheng Zhixue argued in his article that constitutional governance is bourgeois in nature and those who advocate it are really trying to overthrow China’s socialist system.²⁰ Authors typically link arguments of this sort to the theme of the “China Dream,” making a sharp contrast between China and the West. This is one sign that this theme is conceptualized as two opposed civilizations.

The “China Dream” taps into the Chinese national identity as a great nation that fell hard as the victim of the West, a historical narrative that served as the backdrop of Xi’s initial remarks. There are at least two problems with that. One is that a rising China that still feels victimized is causing concern in some countries. The other is that such a top-down, hegemonic discourse on what the “China Dream” should be has diminishing utility for a better educated and more wired citizenry. It can be counterproductive. We observe that where the PRC government does not have direct control, people are more alienated from China. In Hong Kong there is a growing, localized trend among citizens, particularly the young, to shift attention away from Mainland China to Hong Kong issues, a separate Hong Kong dream if you will. Beijing’s call for patriotism is driving many away.

It is reasonable to see Xi as leaning conservative politically while being a reformer on the economic front. Xi has recently resorted to Maoist tactics, such as launching a campaign to emphasize the “mass line”—making party cadres go to the masses to understand their concerns—and to fight against “four winds,” namely formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism, and wastefulness, to rectify the party. Xi first mentioned the need to fight the “four winds” in mid-April, but he emphasized that theme more seriously after returning from his summit with Obama. In a rare challenge, a Central Party School official published a short essay in the school’s newspaper, Xuexi shibao, on July 8,2013, arguing that the mass line tactic should change with time. Democratic and legal institutions should be strengthened to deal with the problems the party is facing given the growing self-awareness of Chinese citizens who are no longer the same as the masses.²¹ But such isolated and subtle dissent is unlikely to affect Xi’s campaign. On July 11, 2013, when Xi visited Xibaipo, a revolutionary holy site where the Mao-led party and PLA headquarters were based prior to moving triumphantly to Beijing, he praised Mao’s party-management principles.²²

Xi has not shown his hand clearly in the ongoing ideological debates even though his expressed views seem to be closer to the new-leftists and nationalists. It appears that he fundamentally wants to control the ideological debate, putting himself above the fray as befits a top leader. Xi has stated clearly that one should not divide the history of the PRC into two thirty-year periods, using Mao’s era to negate the post-1978 era and vice versa.²³ In his very first speech on the “China Dream,” he dismissed “empty talk,” which could be a label for all ideologues and also reveals his disdain for those who debate endlessly. After all, as head of state, Xi is facing practical challenges on all fronts. In that sense, he is similar to Jiang and Hu before him. If we have to assign an ideological label to Xi, the evidence we have so far suggests that Xi is exhibiting a strong statist ideology, which may mean some flexibility about the content as long as it serves the interests of the state.

The “China Dream” and Chinese Foreign Policy

If we treat Chinese foreign policy rather than the “China Dream” as the analytical focus, we would consider a whole range of causal factors that influence Chinese foreign relations. In the scheme of things, China is going global although it remains a partial global power with a broad, but shallow global presence.²⁵ The international community views China as an emerging superpower although China’s image has deteriorated further in some countries, particularly in Japan, as revealed in a global survey released by the Pew Research Center on July 18, 2013. Building on its past investment in relationships, China continues to improve its strategic cooperation with Russia and expands influence in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. With its all-important relationship with the United States, the Chinese government is hoping for a “new type of great power relationship.” It is offering greater cooperation such as greater pressure on North Korea, bilateral investment protection, and climate change, but the Sino-US relationship remains highly contentious, which partly results from Beijing’s assertive actions in its territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam and from the PLA’s rapid military modernization and naval expansion.

In that context, the “China Dream” is likely to have significant implications for Chinese foreign policy. Chinese nationalism has already been rising, leading to a more assertive foreign policy since around 2008 with the government responding more to popular nationalism and now also adding state nationalism to the mix.²⁶ The officially sanctioned “China Dream” may well encourage China to overshoot. The leadership may think that it can channel this sentiment productively, but recent experience says otherwise. Xi’s “China Dream” is also likely to move Chinese academics, particularly those in the field of international relations, in an even more state-centric direction.” It will alienate the international community.²⁷ The “China model” has appeal because it is about China’s phenomenal economic growth, which presumably everyone admires. By contrast, a dream, which is increasingly tied to the “strong army dream,” arouses considerable concern.

At present, at least, the “China Dream” remains tied to a record of rapid economic growth, thus the China model, even though Prime Minister Li Keqiang is seeking to shift the priority away from an obsession with GDP growth rates. A sharp slowdown may cool talk of the more assertive implications of the “China Dream.” Yet, as I will discuss in the Topics of the Month, the interaction between relations with Asian neighbors, especially Japan, and China is building momentum that may be difficult to slow. The rhetoric of the “China Dream” over the coming months may not provide clear signs of what this concept will signify over Xi’s tenure as leader, but we can examine the changing context of both Chinese international relations and national identity to find more clues about its nature.