President Xi Research Articles

Religious Freedom “with Chinese Characteristics”

Abstract China’s approach to religious freedom is unique. Heavy State regulation and the involvement of the Chinese Communist Party often invite external critique of Chinese religious freedom based on legal commitments outside of China. However, China’s rich legal tradition and textual commitments to religious freedom suggest there is more to learn. Analyzing religious freedom in legal texts and in practice from Chairman Mao Zedong to President Xi Jinping, this article offers a dialectic account of religious freedom with Chinese characteristics. Chinese text and practice regarding religious freedom suggest three enduring constitutional commitments: non-discrimination in religious belief, normalization of religious practices, and resistance to foreign religious influence. Each of these textual commitments correspond to the values found in Daoism, Legalism, and Confucianism—the pillars of traditional Chinese culture. With this understanding of China’s religious freedom approach, the article then offers three implications for strengthening China’s commitment to its own theory of religious freedom by (1) separating State and Party policy on religious registration, (2) removing cult designations from criminal law, and (3) accommodating non-traditional religious organizations to help address social issues.

Engendering the Positive Image of the China Government through Flood Framing

The study investigated how the flood news in China is framed by the People’s Daily, an official newspaper of the Communist Party of China. The objectives of the study were to: (1) identify the frequency of thematic and episodic framing of flood events; (2) examine the frame dimensions used for framing flood events; and (3) determine the dominant valence of news articles on flood events. Altogether 180 articles on flood in the online People’s Daily (English edition) published from 1 January to 31 December 2023 were analysed. The results showed a dominance of the episodic frame (94.4%) compared to the thematic frame (5.6%). The main frame dimension is the attribution of responsibility but it is to highlight the capability of the government to take care of the people rather than to attribute blame for poor management. There was a dominance of positive valence (70.6%) compared to negative valence (26.1%) and neutral valence (3.3%). President Xi Jinping was portrayed as a “caring leader” and a “compassionate and hands-on leader” in dealing with the flood woes of the people.

India’s Foreign Policy toward China (2019 to 2024)

Abstract: This research project delves into the evolving nature of India’s foreign policy towards China from 2019 to 2024. The period began with attempts at rapprochement, exemplified by the informal Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping. However, this fragile progress was shattered by deadly border clashes at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in 2020. This watershed event marked a significant shift in India’s China policy.The project explores this shift in detail, examining how India adopted a more assertive stance. This included bolstering its military presence and infrastructure at the LAC, a strategic move to deter further Chinese incursions. Furthermore, India tightened scrutiny of Chinese investments and business practices, aiming to reduce its economic dependence on China. To counter China’s growing influence in the IndoPacific, India actively pursued partnerships with other powers, most notably the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) alongside the US, Japan, and Australia.

Pragmatic Study of Person Dexis in the Speeches of Chinese and American Leaders

Language not only conveys information, but also reveals information about the speaker’s identity, social status and behavioral motives. This paper focuses on how person dexis in the speeches of Chinese and U.S. leaders convey interpersonal connotations and realize pragmatic purposes. The selected texts are analyzed from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics according to the first, second and third person dexis. The paper is based on a corpus of 11 speeches delivered by President Xi and former U.S. President Donald Trump, in which the frequency of person dexis and the characteristics of the use are recorded. The study is conducive to have a clearer understanding of the interpersonal meanings and pragmatic purposes of different person dexis and the underlying conceptual and cultural factors influencing the usage.

Strangers to Strategic Allies: An Overview of Thriving, Prospering and Blossoming Sino-Saudi Relations

Over the last one-decade, Saudi Arabia has adopted the policy of “Looking East” and is rigorously busy in developing and augmenting its economic and diplomatic relations with China. Since 2016, China and Saudi Arabia have strongly supported and complemented each other via China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Saudi Vision 2030. In January 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a grand state visit to Saudi Arabia, during which both countries decided to enter a comprehensive strategic partnership. Later in March 2017, Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz visited China and endorsed the Belt and Road Initiative project of China. By reciprocating, China expressed its support for Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of the 2030 Vision and offered its help to Saudi Arabia in achieving a diversified economy. So, both countries are busy in cementing their relations upon the synergy of their two signature programs i.e. China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Vision 2030. This article highlights the historical overview of Sino-Saudi relations, describing how the two countries transitioned from mutual apathy to diplomatic relations, and then how this relationship grew to the point that they entered into a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Chinese-English Interpreting Strategies from the Perspective of Communicative Translation Theory : A Case Study of Xi Jinping’s Opening Speeches at the Belt and Road Forums

Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, China has been enhancing its international collaborations and expanding its global influence. This paper examines President Xi Jinping’s opening speeches at the Belt and Road Forum, highlighting the linguistic features and discussing effective interpreting strategies based on communicative translation theory. A qualitative method is employed to explain Xi’s use of allusions and colloquialisms. It is found that effective communication strategies in interpreting from Chinese to English require careful consideration at lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels. Specifically, it suggests modifying fragmented sentence structures to align with English expressions and enhancing discourse coherence through techniques such as repetition and conjunctions. As such, it is hoped to provide interpreters with practical insights for navigating challenges in interpreting activities.

Understanding China’s Grand Strategy Through the Belt and Road Initiative

China’s transition from a country striving for self-reliance in the 1950s to the world’s dominant power in 2020 is remarkable. The economic and foreign policies it followed during various phases of development helped the country to achieve the targets and goals that it set up for itself. The ambitious Belt and Road Initiative by President Xi Jinping to rebuild old Silk routes and to build new connectivity projects containing road, rail and sea transport corridors include in China’s Grand Strategy. That is to achieve self-sufficiency of up to 70% in advanced technology sectors by 2025 and to reach a preeminent position in the world by 2049. This includes protecting security interests as well as the flow of energy resources required for a steady progress. The article provides an overview of China’s progress and plans from Mao’s regime to Xi Jinping’s presidentship. In the process, it explains China’s changed priorities, interests and how foreign policy also changed according to the changing economic policies.

The “China Model”— Merits and Demerits, A Review of the Last 20 Years of the Chinese Economy

The “China Model,” which combines Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictatorship with the use of a market economy, has been a long-term growth driver of the Chinese economy, but its content has undergone a transformation in terms of both governance and economic policy. In the early 2000s, competition among local leaders who were given sizeable discretionary authority led to dramatic regional growth but also produced various side effects. In the 2010s, however, a transformation to investment competition through debt occurred in local governments, resulting later in a real estate bubble and local fiscal crisis. The adverse effects of the Xi Jinping regime’s concentration of power have created balance sheet deterioration caused by years of excessive debt and overinvestment. The Chinese economy is now being forced to liquidate its deteriorated balance sheets, which have been weakened by years of excessive debt and overinvestment. The ineffective investments and the interest payments resulting from “implicit guarantee” by the governments have become a heavy burden on the economy, further distorting the distribution of wealth and leading to a slump in consumption. To break the current deadlock, major reform is needed, including the write-off of non-performing assets, which would bring about deflationary pressure, and the reduction of the role of state-owned enterprises, a change so significant that it would reshape the “form of the nation.” However, this would inevitably clash with President Xi Jinping’s pledge for “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” a promise made to secure his extended tenure. Given that an extraordinary concentration of power is centered on President Xi and the Chinese autocratic system lacks a mechanism for regime change, achieving such reforms will be very difficult.

Growing success with sustainability: The influence of green HRM, innovation, and competitive advantage on environmental performance in the manufacturing industry

President Xi set a long-term mitigation target of carbon neutrality by 2060 in September 2020 to cut carbon emissions and improve environmental performance. As a result, the current study aims to investigate how green human resource management and green innovation affect environmental performance in pursuit of the ultimate objective of carbon neutrality. Furthermore, the research considers the potential mediating effect of a green competitive advantage to clarify the mechanisms by which GHRM and green innovation impact environmental performance. Data from 278 employees in the manufacturing industry of Heilongjiang Province were collected through a questionnaire, for which we used a quantitative random sampling technique. The study employed the Smart PLS-4 structural equation modeling technique and revealed that all three factors significantly influenced environmental performance: green HRM, innovation, and competitive advantage. Resource-based view (RBV) theory served as the theoretical foundation for the study. The study uniquely contributes to the literature on GHRM, green innovation, competitive advantage, and environmental performance.

The Battle at Lake Changjin: The Influence of Korean War Memory on Contemporary Chinese War Films

Abstract The 2021 film The Battle at Lake Changjin (长津湖) is China’s highest-grossing film. Together with its sequel, its success as a political tool rests on appealing to a broad audience while engaging with familiar themes embedded in collective memory. The Chinese Communist Party, which commissioned the films, leveraged preexisting tropes regarding the conflict and repackaged them for a modern audience. This paper will proceed in three parts. First, it will trace the deliberate development of collective memory of the conflict from its inception up to President Xi Jinping’s gaining power in 2012. Next, it will explore the new emphasis on the Korean War in the 2010s and 2020s, and the political objectives Xi seeks to achieve by propagandizing the Korean War. Finally, it will provide a thematic analysis of the films and how the intended political messaging interacted with the embedded collective memory.

Research on the Construction of Campus Football Clubs in Higher Vocational Colleges

With the continuous development of vocational education in our country, national leaders have issued important speeches and instructions one after another. President Xi Jinping emphasized in the National Vocational Education Work Conference in June 2018: "Accelerate the development of vocational education, so that everyone has the opportunity to have a brilliant life." , field inspection method, questionnaire survey method and interview method, based on the basic situation of vocational and technical colleges, analyzes the development status and existing problems of football clubs in higher vocational colleges in Yunnan Province, in order to promote campus football in higher vocational colleges in Yunnan Province. The club provides the necessary basis.

Wolf Warrior Spreads Superior: The narrative and effectiveness of Chinese public diplomacy behaviours on Twitter

AbstractSince 2013, when President Xi Jinping pioneered the concept of "telling China's stories well," the number of senior Chinese diplomats and state-affiliated media accounts on Twitter has increased. Different from the vague and evasive diplomatic parlance, some diplomats defend the policies of China in a relatively aggressive way, even sometimes resulting in online disputes with foreign politicians. They are labeled as "wolf-warrior diplomats," a term coined from the record-breaking Chinese nationalist action movie series Wolf Warrior. This paper investigates the effectiveness of China's "wolf warrior diplomacy" on audience engagement on Twitter and significant factors impacting communication effectiveness. Through the utilization of advanced offensive and humor detection algorithms, counterintuitively, this study finds that the wolf-warrior tweets improve Twitter audience engagement, though prior research pointed out that these tweets may bring out adverse feelings in some audiences. Moreover, it also unveils that providing more information and posting humorously on Chinese diplomatic Tweets can enhance their reach and dissemination.

Expanding China’s Influence via Membership: Examining the Influence of Chinese-Led International Institutions on Responses to Human Rights Issues in China

AbstractDo Chinese-led international institutions influence human rights discourse in China? Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has spearheaded the establishment of various international institutions, attracting numerous member states. States that participate in Chinese-led international institutions tend to be swayed by China's influence and are more cautious when addressing sensitive issues concerning China. Additionally, they are more likely to adopt a favorable stance towards Chinese human rights issues compared to those that are not affiliated with these institutions. This paper examines how membership in international institutions led by China affects state responses to human rights issues in China. We leverage recommendations on Chinese human rights made in the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UN UPR) between 2009 and 2018 in two steps. First, we utilize multinomial logistic regression models to determine which choices the reviewers prefer with respect to the UN UPR recommendations: not sending, sending praising, neutral, or shaming. Second, using ordinal logistic regression models, we investigate which types of recommendations reviewers are more likely to send to China if they decide to send them. Our findings show that reviewers with greater involvement in Chinese-led international institutions are more likely to send recommendations to China, which contradicts our first hypothesis. However, reviewers are more prone to make praising recommendations, aligning with our second hypothesis.

The socialization of nationalist and socialist values: Construction of the model youth in a Chinese reality TV show

Commenting on the future development of China, President Xi Jinping said, ‘China’s children today are not only undergoing and witnessing the realization of the country’s first centenary goal, they are also a new force for achieving the second centenary goal and building China into a great modern socialist country.’ This statement reflects a socially shared belief that Chinese children and youth are expected to shoulder the responsibility of nation-building. This study explores how the ideology of nationalism is disseminated through the popular Chinese reality TV show, X-Change, via the legitimation of the model Chinese youth. Using Rowan Mackay’s multimodal legitimation framework to analyse six episodes from Season 18 of X-Change, this article explores how the model Chinese youth is semiotically constructed and legitimized. Findings from the analysis reveal how the model Chinese youth represents a specific normalized national identity. This is promoted through the embodiment of the urban–rural binary by the show’s main characters and the representation of the exchange journey as the inner transformation of ‘problematic’ citizens.

Sino-Indian Climate Cooperation under Global Development Initiative: History, Challenges and Opportunities

In 2021, President Xi Jinping put forward the Global Development Initiative, and climate change is the key cooperation area of the initiative. Both China and India are developing countries and share many common interests in climate control, which has laid a solid foundation for climate cooperation between the two countries. Sino-Indian climate cooperation began in the 1990s and has gone through many stages, such as exploration, preliminary cooperation, and collaborative leadership. The two countries have conducted extensive cooperation in tackling climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and developing renewable energy, and have achieved fruitful results. However, China and India also face many challenges in climate cooperation, such as territorial boundaries and differences in economic development. Nevertheless, both sides are aware of their complementary advantages and common national interests, which has created favorable conditions for further deepening cooperation. On the whole, China and India have more opportunities than challenges in the field of climate cooperation; At the same time, the Global Development Initiative will inject new impetus into the cooperation between China and India in the field of climate change. Under the guidance of this initiative, China and India will further strengthen cooperation, jointly meet the challenges brought by global climate change, and promote the construction of a more sustainable and prosperous world.

Analysis of the Role of Urban Communication and Theme Publishing in Shaping National Image

In March 2023, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China called for the whole party to conduct an in-depth study of President Xi's ideological theme of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. Up against new trends, the publishing industry is guided by the global consciousness of "focusing on and trend and serving the overall development", and its expression and forms are in constant enrichment, with theme publishing and publications integrating various fields emerging one after another. With the deepening globalization, China's opening to the outside world never stops, for which improving China's international image has been a proposition of the times. From the perspective of theme publishing, this study explores the influence of theme publishing empowered by urban communication on the national image from the perspective of the combination of theme publishing and urban communication. Through content analysis, 89 key theme publications are analyzed with following conclusions. 1. Urban communication affects national image through topic selection planning of theme publications. 2. The discourse system of theme publications intermediately influences topic selection planning related to urban communication on shaping national image.

‘Telling China’s Story Well’ as propaganda campaign slogan: International, domestic and the pandemic

The article critically examines ‘Telling China’s Story Well’ (TCSW), a popular propaganda campaign slogan proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. Drawing on theories about storytelling and propaganda and using the COVID-19 as a contextualised example, the paper discusses how the slogan was adapted into ‘Telling China’s Anti-pandemic Story Well’ to mobilise domestic and external propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the pandemic. We argue that TCSW should be understood as a well-crafted political watchword which promotes and commands strategic narratives of doing propaganda. It has the rhetorical power to integrate and reinvigorate domestic and external propaganda, and to facilitate their convergence. Adapting this slogan to mobilise propaganda campaigns of national or global importance and interest demonstrates the CCP’s ambition to harness strategic storytelling to improve the coherence, effectiveness and reputation of its propaganda at home and abroad.

China's Response To Indonesia's Policies In The North Natuna Sea

Problems: The North Natuna Sea has emerged as a point of contention between China and Indonesia. This research delves into the ambiguity and potential conflict within China's response to Indonesia's actions in the region. Purpose: This research aims to examine China's response to Indonesia's North Natuna Sea policies. And also Investigate Indonesia's policy regarding North Natuna Sea map issuance. Methodology: Qualitative research methods are employed, primarily involving an extensive review of existing literature. The analysis relies on a descriptive approach, drawing from foreign policy theory and geopolitical theory. Results/Findings: Indonesia's bold move in 2017, Indonesia officially inaugurated the North Natuna Sea Map. Objectives were clear, demarcate territorial boundaries, maximize resource utilization, and advance maritime ambitions. There is China's Ambiguous Response that took three forms. Coercive Response, China asserted dominance via the controversial Nine Dash Line and military force deployment within Indonesia's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the North Natuna Sea. Persuasive Response, Diplomatically, China argued for South China Sea sovereignty, including the Nansha Islands and their waters. President Xi Jinping advocated mutual respect among neighboring countries. Dialogic Response, China engaged in diplomatic dialogues through forums like ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) and ASEAN-China Political Consultative Mechanism (PCM) to reduce regional tensions, seeking mutual agreements.Bottom of Form Paper Type: Geopolitical Issue Keywords: North Natuna Sea, UNLCOS, ZEE

Amplified State Capitalism in China: Overproduction, Industrial Policy and Statist Controversies

ABSTRACTAs China has emerged as a great economic power in the 21st century, comparativists and China scholars have sought to explore the characteristics of China's statist development model. Most accounts, however, have not taken seriously the policy implications of China's macroeconomic imbalance and its tendency to overproduction since the mid‐1990s. This article examines China's industrial‐policy‐centred responses to waves of overproduction crises from the late 1990s to the 2010s. China's expansive industrial policy incorporates demand‐side macroeconomic policy and long‐term planning for upgrading. This policy framework, designed to preserve the status quo, has been inherently lopsided, and has only served to reproduce China's macroeconomic imbalance. In the context of this persistent imbalance, China's industrial‐policy‐centred responses have contributed to periodic investment expansion of the state sector relative to the private sector, deepening ambitions around upgrading, and growing controversies regarding its statist model. In short, the statist features of China's economy have been periodically amplified by its particular responses to overproduction. This research shows that far from a statist shift engineered by President Xi Jinping, China's recent statist tendency has deeper historical and structural‐macroeconomic roots. This implies that the Chinese state adjusted and intensified its state interventions just as it underwent a profound process of marketization in the late 1990s.

Changing focus while maintaining balance: Strategic adjustments behind the developing Sino-Saudi relations

ABSTRACT This article explores the major drivers, constraints, and prospects for the rapidly growing Sino-Saudi relations, and argues that such a development should be deemed as the embodiment of the strategy of ‘changing the focus while keeping the balance’ that both Beijing and Riyadh have been implementing in years. While maintaining friendly gestures towards all Arab states, President Xi Jinping’s 2022 visit to Saudi Arabia demonstrates that Beijing has shifted its focus on the Arab world away from the Mediterranean to the Gulf region, both economically and politically. On the other hand, as Riyadh’s rapprochement with the Biden administration has been slow to make significant progress, Saudi Arabia has also accelerated its pace of ‘looking east’ while cautiously keeping traditional ties with the West. A robust, stable, and preferably more transparent relationship between China and Saudi Arabia might help mitigate the potential for direct Sino-US confrontation and Gulf tensions, benefiting not only the Middle East and the Mediterranean region but, against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, more economies at both ends of Eurasia.