Chinese dream's broad implications

Comments on Shaheli Das "The awakening of Xi’s Chinese Dream", 7/04/2016

To me, the China or Chinese dream, as advocated by President Xi, is largely domestic oriented as opposed to be used as a key principle in its external diplomatic relations. It is a way to unify and inspire the Chinese people, with a key focus on the mainland people, but also those Chinese in other Chinese regions, such as Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. It is mainly a domestic narrative, connecting to the past both long (the ancient glories when China was estimated to be among the world best) and short (the past decades particularly the reform era) with the aspiring future (a projected reaching to high income countries). One may interpret it as a way to justify the communist rule under the Chinese Communism Party.

The so called socialism with Chinese characters could be interpreted in a number of different ways, as China has undergone so many reforms and changes yet at each stage it has always been said to be socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Yes, given that the Communist party has always been in power, one of the most common interpretations is under communism rule, although one needs to bear in mind those reforms and changes in China and the huge differences between China now and China nearly a few decades ago.

My interpretation of the Chinese dream is, similar to the author's, that it has both individual and collective two dimensions as opposed to the largely individualistic approach embedded in the American dream. This has something to do not only with the current Communist rule, but also rooted to a degree in its history of Confucius tradition where the State was given a very important role as compared to individualism.

Does that mean communist rule forever? No one knows for sure, because it is difficult to predict what the socialism with Chinese characteristics will be in 20 to 30 years in the future, similar to the situations back 35 years ago!