Abstract
The ‘Chinese dream’ sums up China’s goals in the twenty-first century. Since its first appearance in 2012, the concept of the Chinese dream has been the core of Xi Jinping’s “new thoughts, new ideas and new arguments”. At the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China it was elevated as one of the guiding principles of ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’, which represents the latest effort towards the Sinicization of Marxism. This paper aims at casting light on whether the discourse on the Chinese dream carries new contents or is based on old concepts ‘camouflaged’ as new. To do so, it will analyse the ideological implications of those ‘creative metaphors’ that compose the discursive mosaic of the Chinese dream as used by Xi Jinping in his political speeches. Drawing on the studies on conceptual metaphors and frame analysis, this study analyses those metaphorical expressions that are purposely outlined in the transcription of the speeches with the aim of signaling the originality of “Xi’s language style”. The final aim is to provide insight into what these ‘creative metaphors’ are doing in contemporary China. Results show that ‘creative metaphors’ in the discourse on the Chinese dream are meant to set the agenda on revitalising morality within the Party as well as ‘unifying’ values in today’s Chinese society, and most of them are far from being new in Chinese political discourse.
Highlights
The concept of Zhōngguó mèng 中国梦 ‘Chinese dream’ – or ‘China dream’1 – sums up the Party-state’s goal for China in the twenty-first century, while signaling a departure from previous political slogans and concepts: the concept of the Chinese dream represents the last manifestation of yǔ shí jù jìn 与时俱进 ‘keep abreast of the time’ by the Chinese political discourse (Chen Rudong 2017), and offers a very optimistic image for the future of the country (Scarpari 2015, Lavagnino 2017).[2]
The current generation of Chinese leaders led by Xi Jinping chose the metaphor of the dream as a novel way to revitalize an old goal pursued by China since Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), i.e. Zhōnghuá mínzú wěidà fùxīng 中华民族伟大复兴 the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’
Among all the speeches collected in these two volumes, this study focuses on those contained in the chapters on “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”, “The Chinese dream” and “Culturally advanced China” in The Governance of China (Xi Jinping 2014b), and “Socialism with Chinese characteristics and the Chinese dream” and “Cultural confidence” in The Governance of China II (Xi Jinping 2017b)
Summary
In October 2017 Xí Jìnpíng xīn shídài Zhōngguó tèsè shèhuì zhǔyì sīxiǎng 习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想 ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’, abbreviated as Xí Jìnpíng sīxiǎng 习近 平思想 ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, was officially enshrined in the Pantheon of Chinese political ideology. E-ISSN 2385-3042 ISSN 1125-3789 will keep his leading role even after 2023, the year settled on for the end of his mandate This status of ‘primus super pares’ – as opposed to ‘primus inter pares’ – was achieved through five years of strong anti-corruption and ‘mass line’ campaigns, a massive concentration of power held over the party, the state and the military fields, enforcement of discipline among Party’s members at all levels, as well as a revival of ideological control over the academia, the communications media and the social media. The great importance attached to these publications focusing on Xi Jinping’s communication skills or gathering of his speeches was upheld by the fact that all these books and volumes occupied the shelves of many bookstores in Beijing for the nineteenth Party’s National Congress held in October 2017 (Wang Zhen 2017)
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