«To Tell about China»

Abstract

China has gotten much more involved in debating and solving international concerns in recent years. This is the concept behind China's new foreign policy line, Diplomatic Activism. President Xi Jinping's speech on “unprecedented changes not seen in hundreds of years” poses new and pressing questions for Chinese diplomats, politicians, and academics to consider, such as “What role should China play in the world?” and “How can we effectively solve the current complex international issues?” As a result, the Chinese leadership has called for “telling China’s stories well” with other countries in order to assume the role of a big power and offer their thoughts and potential answers to this tough situation. The article considers a number of issues related to the concept of “Telling China’s stories well”, ranging from the inability of Western theories and Chinese tradition to correctly interpret China's actions at this stage to the need to develop and systematize the Chinese experience based on Chinese historical experience, cultural and philosophical heritage, as well as the demands of the times, and so on. The “Four matters of confidence”, in particular, is examined as an important component of the “China’s stories”. The author came to a conclusion that the notion of “Telling China’s stories” is a historical occurrence, because the Chinese had previously learnt to do so in antiquity in order to guarantee their dominance over the surrounding vassal states. And, with the assistance of Edgar Snow, and others, the CCP effectively informed the world about communist actions in the new history of China. Today, the new China is actively “talking about its stories” in order to promote and contribute to the creation of a new world order based on cohabitation, mutual benefit etc., rather than Western-centrism. Author expresses his deep appreciation to Prof. A.N. Karneev for constructive comments on the article's content and editing.