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On making Chinese Dream come true
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ALTHOUGH “Chinese Dream” has become a buzzword, it is not simply defined.
The forum “International Dialogue on the Chinese Dream” that took place over the weekend in Shanghai sought to deepen the understanding of the catchphrase President Xi Jinping first used on November 29 last year.
The forum was sponsored by the State Council Information Office and co-organized by China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration and Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
The essence of the Chinese Dream is the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through development with Chinese characteristics, said Hu An’gang, professor of political science at Tsinghua University.
Since China suffered the one hundred years of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, generations of Chinese intellectuals have aimed to rejuvenate their country, said Hu. The Chinese Dream in today’s context is a legacy and adaptation of an old intellectual tradition.
Given the national accomplishments of China, now the world’s second largest economy, certain ideals and dreams are necessary, according to experts.
China is now trying to demonstrate that a country of 1.3 billion is capable of achieving modernization and prosperity without copying the Western model, Qi Weiping, professor of East China Normal University, told the forum.
If the Chinese “road” also leads to “Rome,” ie, the common goal of modernization, then the Chinese Dream will set an example, and contribute to the diversity of world civilization, he added.
While the Chinese Dream is a great motivation, its realization depends on good governance, Kenneth Liberthal observed. Liberthal is director of the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. He outlined several challenges that China will have to address to make the Chinese Dream come true.
Pragmatic solutions
These challenges include demographic woes, scarcity of resources, the uncertainty caused by the revolutionary growth of information technology, social strains resulting from major dislocations, and lax social morals.
While the challenges are daunting, Liberthal is optimistic that the Chinese political system has the capacity to come up with pragmatic solutions.
In their suggestions, a few other scholars identified social and economic inequity as the biggest obstacle to realization of the Chinese Dream.
Rup Narayan Das, senior researcher at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, argued that a vital part of the Chinese Dream should be achieving common prosperity, because no society lacking in social equity can hope to achieve real progress.
Maria Cristina Rosas concurred. The professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said China needs to avoid the pitfalls of Latin American economies, in which the fruits of growth have not been equitably distributed.
The Chinese Dream also requires a new outlook on growth. GDP should not be the sole determinant of all things. China must find a new route to industrialization that balances the social, economic and ecological dimensions, said Alexander Lomanov, professor at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The fact that Chinese Dream is sometimes misunderstood in the West — equated with nationalism or a perceived China threat — is a sign that China ought to engage in more open dialogues with the world, said Fang Ning, director of the Institute of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Ultimately, the Chinese Dream will take on more cosmopolitanism, because it echoes our ancestors’ ideal of creating a world joined in oneness, where the fate of all humanity is intertwined, said Hu An’gang, the Tsinghua professor.
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