From Victim to Victor. Changing the Narrative in 21st Century China

Abstract

The paper analyzes the transformation of the victim narrative present in the Chinese political discourse, all along the 20th century, both prior and during the first decades of the People’s Republic founded in 1949, into a narrative of success. Used to motivate and rally people around the Communist Party, the victim narrative lost its luster once the economic reforms and opening initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s started bearing fruit, during Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao governments. Thus, the party needed to find a new narrative as a means of legitimation. Based on the reports made at the Party Congresses in 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2012 by two of the Secretaries-General, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, the paper analyzes how the economic success attained by China at the beginning of the 21st century triggered a shift in the elite political discourse, toning down the image of China as a victim of internal or external forces, in favor of that of a rejuvenated and strong country. The new image projected was not that of a besieged China any longer, but one of a victorious country which managed to overcome major obstacles. However, the victim narrative did not totally disappear. The paper also looks at how the victim narrative was reflected into the public discourse on the internet, immediately after Hu Jintao’s rule, when the space for debate on the micro blogging platforms was much more unrestricted than it is today, in order to understand how the victim narrative was differently used by the people in order to reevaluate various events from their recent history.