Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:31:51.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chinese Political Nostalgia and Xi Jinping's Dream of Great Rejuvenation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2020

Maria Adele Carrai
Maria Adele Carrai*
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

China's emergence as a great power has been accompanied by the official rhetoric of the China Dream of Great Rejuvenation (weida fuxing 伟大复兴). Although there are conflicting views among academics and political elites about the exact content of the China Dream, one of its features is the nostalgia for China's past and its five-thousand-year-old civilization. Xi Jinping's current rhetoric of a China Dream of Great Rejuvenation uses a reinvented history as an asset for the future, linking China's natural progress as a global power with a selective re-reading of its millennial history. While much existing literature already discusses China's Great Rejuvenation, this article looks more specifically at the role of historical memory and deconstructs the key interconnected components that support Xi's rhetoric, namely, the chosen trauma, glory, and amnesia. The conclusion offers some general remarks about the effect of this rhetoric on China's domestic and foreign policy and some of the risks that accompany it. This article contributes to the debates on the influence of memory in International Relations (IR), showing how constructed memories of history can significantly impact both national identity and foreign policy.

Keywords

Great RejuvenationChina dreamnostalgiapolitics of historytraumahumiliationsamnesiainternational relations
Type
Special Issue Articles
Information
International Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 7 - 25
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almén, Oscar (2020). The Chinese Communist Party and the Diaspora Beijing's Extraterritorial Authoritarian Rule. FOI-R–4933–SE, Swedish Ministry of Defence (March).Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Balazs, Etienne (1964). Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland (1981). “The Discourse of History.” Comparative Criticism 3, pp. 7–20.Google Scholar
Barr, Michael (2015). “Chinese Cultural Diplomacy: Old Wine in New Bottles?” In China’s Many Dreams, Comparative Perspectives on China’s Search for National Rejuvenation, ed. Kerr, David. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bell, Duncan (2006). Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Reflections on the Relations between Past and Present. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blustein, James (2018). “Traumatic Emotions.” In Emotions and Mass Atrocity: Philosophical and Theoretical Explorations, eds. Brudholm, T. and Lang, J., pp. 234–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Kerry (2019). China's Dream: The Culture of Chinese Communism and the Secret Sources of Its Power. Medford, MA: Polity.Google Scholar
Callahan, William A. (2004). “National Insecurities: Humiliation, Salvation, and Chinese Nationalism.” Alternatives 29, pp. 199–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callahan, William A. (2012). China: The Pessoptimist Nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Callahan, William A. (2013). China Dreams: 20 Visions of the Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Callahan, William (2014). “Chinese Exceptionalism and the Politics of History.” In Asian Thought on China’s Changing International Relations, ed. Kavalski, Emilian. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Chai, Guona 柴国娜 (2018). “Shixian Zhongguo meng shi Zhongguo gongchandang de lishi shiming 实现中国梦是中国共产党的历史使命.” Kanshou dangxiao 刊授党校 (August 27). http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0827/c223633-30253422.htmlGoogle Scholar
Chan, Koon-chung 陳冠中 (2009). Shengshi: Zhongguo, 2013 nian盛世：中國、2013年. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chase, Michael S. (2012). “China’s Search for a ‘New Type of Great Power Relationship’.” China Brief 12:17. https://jamestown.org/program/chinas-search-for-a-new-type-of-great-power-relationship/.Google Scholar
Dai, Bingguo (2010). “Stick to the Path of Peaceful Development.” Beijing Review 51 http://www.bjreview.com.cn/document/txt/2010-12/24/content_320851_2.htm.Google Scholar
Deng, Haiying 邓海英 (2013). “Zhongguo meng: Jindai Zhongguo shehui bianqian yu zhonghua minzu weida fuxing 中国梦: 近代中国社会变迁与中华民族伟大复兴.” Xueshu yanjiuhui zongshu 学术研讨会综述 1.Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto (1988). “An Ars Oblivionalis? Forget It!” APMLA 103:3, pp. 254–61.Google Scholar
Edkins, Jenny (2003). ‘‘Remembering Relationality: Trauma Time and Politics.” In Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Reflections on the Relations between Past and Present, ed. Bell, Duncan. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferdinand, Peter (2016). “Westward Ho – the China Dream and ‘One Belt, One Road’: Chinese Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping.” International Affairs 92:4, pp. 941–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, Christopher A. (2015). “The Party and the Sage: Communist China’s Use of Quasi-Confucian Rationalizations for One-Party Dictatorship and Imperial Ambition.” Journal of Contemporary China 26:96, pp. 1032–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, Howard W. (2017). Everything under the Heavens. How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1977). Philosophical Hermeneutics. Trans. and ed. David E. Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Halbwachs, Maurice (1992). On Collective Memory. Ed. and trans. Lewis A. Coser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hao, Yongping, Huang, Xianghuai and Tian, Tian 郝永平, 黄相怀&田田 (2013). “Lishi weidu zhong de Zhongguo meng历史维度中的中国梦.” Guangming ribao (October 15). http://www.npopss-cn.gov.cn/n/2013/1015/c221359-23204599.html.Google Scholar
Heath, Timothy R., Kristen, Gunness and Cooper, Cortez A. III. (2016). The PLA and China's Rejuvenation: National Security and Military Strategies, Deterrence Concepts, and Combat Capabilities. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1402.html.Google Scholar
Hobden, Stephen and Hobson, John M. (2002). Historical Sociology of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hopf, Ted (1998). “The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory.” International Security 23:1, pp. 171–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hu, Jintao (2005). “China's Peaceful Development Road” (December 12). http://www.china-un.ch/eng/bjzl/t227733.htm.Google Scholar
Hui, Victoria T. (2015). “The China Dream: Revival of What Historical Greatness?” In China Dreams. China’s New Leadership and Future Impact, eds. Liou, Chih-shian and Ding, Arthur S.. Singapore: World Scientific.Google Scholar
Igarashi, Yoshikuni (2000). Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture 1945–1970. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jacques, Martin (2009). When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World. London: Allen Lane, 2009.Google Scholar
Jaffe, Gabrielle (2013). “China's Enthusiastic Re-Embrace of Confucius” The Atlantic (October 7). https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/10/chinas-enthusiastic-re-embrace-of-confucius/280326/.Google Scholar
Jaivin, Linda (2010). “Yawning Heights Chan Koon-chung’s Harmonious China.” China Heritage Quarterly 22 (June). http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/articles.php?searchterm=022_golden.inc&issue=022.Google Scholar
Jaspers, Karl (1947). The Question of German Guilt. Trans. Ashton, E. B.. New York: Dial Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, Alastair Iain (2019). “China in a World of Orders: Rethinking Compliance and Challenge in Beijing's International Relations.” International Security 44.2, pp. 9–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Alison A. (2011). “Testimony before the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on ‘China’s Narratives Regarding National Security Policy’.” (March 10). https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/3.10.11Kaufman.pdf.Google Scholar
Kerr, David (2015). China’s Many Dreams, Comparative Perspectives on China’s Search for National Rejuvenation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Koselleck, Reinhart (2004). Futures Past. On the Semantic of Historical Time. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Robert Lawrence (2013). “Understanding the Chinese Dream.” China Daily USA (July 19). http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2013-07/19/content_16814756.htm.Google Scholar
Kwong, Luke S. (2001). “The Rise of the Linear Perspective on History and Time in Late Qing China c. 1860–1911.” Past & Present 173, pp. 157–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lagerwey, John (2010). China: A Religious State. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Lam, Joy (2008). “China's Revival of Confucianism.” USC US–China Institute (September 18). https://china.usc.edu/chinas-revival-confucianism.Google Scholar
Lapid, Yosef and Friedrich, Kratochwil (1996). The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Li, Yuqing (1999).“Deng XiaoPing and the Road of Revival of Chinese Nation 邓小平与中华民族伟大复兴之路.” Journal of Shanghai University (Social Science) 6:4, pp. 10–16.Google Scholar
Lichtenstein, Natalie (2018). A Comparative Guide to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lim, Louisa (2014). The People's Republic of Amnesia: The Tiananmen Revisited. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, Mingfu (2010). Zhongguo Meng： Zhong Mei shi ji dui jue, jun ren yao fa yan 中国梦: 中美世纪对决, 军人要发言.Google Scholar
Liu, Mingfu (2015). The China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Posture in the Post-American Era. New York: CN Times Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Peggy (2012). “China Dream: A Lifestyle Movement with Sustainability at Its Heart.” The Guardian (June 13). https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/china-dream-sustainable-living-behaviour-change.Google Scholar
Lovell, Julia (2012). “The Opium War and China’s Century of Humiliation.” In Demystifying China: New Understandings of Chinese History, ed. Standen, Naomi. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Luo, Zhitian (1993). “National Humiliation and National Assertion: The Chinese Response to the Twenty One Demands.” Modern Asian Studies 27:2, pp. 297–319.Google Scholar
Marquis, Chris and Yang, Zoe (2013). “A Tale of Two Dreams.” Civil Society, Social Media (June 28). https://web.archive.org/web/20140325021440/http://www.civilchina.org/2013/06/a-tale-of-two-dreams/.Google Scholar
Mayer, Maximilian (2018). “China's Historical Statecraft and the Return to History.” International Affairs 94:6, pp. 1217–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osnos, Evan (2013). “Can China Deliver the China Dream(s)?” The New Yorker (26 March).Google Scholar
Perdue, Peter (2015). “The Tenacious Tributary System.” Journal of Contemporary China 24:96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, Anthony and Zheng, Yangwen (ed.) (2009). Negotiating Asymmetry: China's Place in Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Resende, Erica and Dovile, Budryte (2014). Memory and Trauma in International Relations. Theories, Cases and Debates. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rieff, David (2016). In Praise of Forgetting, Historical Memories and Its Ironies. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rudaitytė, Regina (ed.) (2018). History, Memory and Nostalgia in Literature and Culture. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schell, Orville (2016). “To Forget or to Remember? China’s Struggle with Its Past.” The Washington Quarterly, pp. 143–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Tansen (2014). “Changing Regimes: Two Episodes of Chinese Interventions in Medieval South Asia.” In Asian Encounters. Exploring Connected Histories, eds. Singh, Upinder and Dhar, Parul P.. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Song, Xianlin (2003). “Reconstructing the Confucian Ideal in 1980s China: The ‘Culture Craze’ and New Confucianism.” In New Confucianism: A Critical Examination, ed. Makeham, J.. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
The Economist (2013). “Chasing the New Dream” (2013). https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21577063-chinas-new-leader-has-been-quick-consolidate-his-power-what-does-he-now-want-his.Google Scholar
Tsang, Steve (2015). “Contextualizing the China Dream: A Reinforced Consultative Leninist Approach to Government.” In China’s Many Dreams, Comparative Perspectives on China’s Search for National Rejuvenation, ed. Kerr, David. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Vandermeersch, Léon (1983). “L'idée révolutionnaire, conception étrangère à la tradition chinoise: le ‘changement de mandat’ et la restoration de l'ordre cosmique.” Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident 2:2, pp. 11–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volkan, Vamik (1997). Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Wang, Dong (2003). “The Discourse of Unequal Treaties in Modern China.” Pacific Affairs 76:3, pp. 399–425.Google Scholar
Wang, Helen H. (2010). The Chinese Dream: The Rise of the World's Largest Middle Class and What It Means to You. Bestseller Press.Google Scholar
Wang, Zheng (2008). “National Humiliations, History Education, and the Politics of Historical Memory: Patriotic Education Campaign in China.” International Studies Quarterly 52, pp. 783–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Zheng (2012). Never Forget National Humiliations: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wang, Zheng (2013). “Not Rising, but Rejuvenating: The Chinese Dream.” The Diplomat (February).Google Scholar
Wang, Zheng (2014). “The Chinese Dream: Concept and Context.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 19:1, pp. 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Zheng (2018). Memory Politics, Identity and Conflict Historical Memory as a Variable. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Cynthia (2010). International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction. London/New York: Routledge, 2010.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander (1992).“Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics.” International Organization 46:2, pp. 391–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Windelband, W. (1998). “History and Natural Science.” Theory & Psychology 8:1, pp. 5–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, Tim (2019). Geocultural Power. China's Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty-First Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, David Curtis (2005). From War to Diplomatic Parity in Eleventh-century China, Sung’s Foreign Relations with Kitan Liao. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Xi, Jinping (2012a). Xi Jinping: Chengqianqihou jiwang kailai jixu chaozhe zhonghua minzu weida fuxing mubiao fenyong qianjin 习近平：承前启后 继往开来 继续朝着中华民族伟大复兴目标奋勇前进.” Xinhua News (November 29). http://www.xinhuanet.com//politics/2012-11/29/c_113852724.htm.Google Scholar
Xi, Jinping (2012b). “Xi Jinping. Jixu chaozhe zhonghua minzu fuxing mubiao fenyong qianjin 习近平：继续朝着中华民族伟大复兴目标奋勇前进.” http://www.china.com.cn/news/politics/2012-11/30/content_27270494.htm.Google Scholar
Xi, Jinping (2013a). “Xi Jinping guanyu shixian Zhonghua Minzu weida fuxing de Zhongguo meng lunshu zhaibian 习近平关于实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦论述摘编.” Renmin Ribao (December 3). http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2013/1203/c64387-23722539-3.html.Google Scholar
Xi, Jinping (2013b). “Xi Jinping: Zaijiezaili, jixu wei shixian zhongguo meng fendou (shilu) 习近平：再接再厉，继续为实现中国梦奋斗(实录).” China News. http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2013/03-17/4650079.shtml.Google Scholar
Xi, Jinping (2014a). “Xi Jinping guanyu shixian zhonghua mingzu weida fuxing de zhongguo meng lunshu zhai bian 习近平关于实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦论述摘编.” (September 1). http://theory.people.com.cn/n/2014/0901/c40531-25581189.html.Google Scholar
Xi, Jinping (2014b). Xi Jinping zong shuji xilie zhongyua jianghua duben 习近平总书记系列重要讲话读本. Gong zhongyang xuanchuan bu bian 共中央宣传部 编 (June).Google Scholar
Xi, Jinping (2013c). Xi Jinping guanyu shixian zhonghua minzu weida fuxing de zhongguo meng: lunshu gaobian 习近平关于实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦：论述摘编. In Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi. Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe.Google Scholar
Xinhua, (2013). “Youth Urged to Contribute to Realization of ‘Chinese Dream’.” Xinhua (May 5). http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-05/05/content_28731285.htm.Google Scholar
Xinhua, (2015). “Zhixian Zhongguo meng bixu zou Zhongguo daolu 实现中国梦必须走中国道路.” (January 6). http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-01/06/c_127363503.htm.Google Scholar
Yan, Xuetong (2014). “From Keeping a Low Profile to Striving for Achievement.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 7:2, pp. 153–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Huimin (2001).“ On the Communist Party of China Leading the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation 简论中国共产党是中华民族伟大复兴的领导核心.” Journal of Deyang Education Institute, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar
Zehfuss, Maja (2007). Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Zhang, Xiaoming (2015). “China Dream: A New Chinese Way in International Society?” In China’s Many Dreams, Comparative Perspectives on China’s Search for National Rejuvenation, ed. Kerr, David. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Zhao, Jianmin and Xu, Zhijia (2009). “Zhonggong di si dai lingdao jiti de hexie shijieguan: Lilun yu yihan 中共第四代领导集体的和谐世界观：理论与意涵.” Prospect Foundation Quarterly 10:1, pp. 1–44.Google Scholar
Zhao, Tingyang (2005). Tianxia tixi: shijie zhidu zhexue daolun 天下体系 :世界制度哲学导论. Nanijng: Jiansu jiaoyu chuban she.Google Scholar
Zheng, Bijian (2005). “China's Peaceful Rise to Great-Power Status.” Foreign Affairs 84:18, pp. 18–24.Google Scholar