Chinese Dream

The Chinese Dream (simplified Chinese: 中国梦; traditional Chinese: 中國夢; pinyin: Zhōngguó Mèng) is a term popularized after 2013 within Chinese society that describes a set of personal and national ethos and ideals in China and the Government of China. It is used by journalists, government officials, and activists to describe the role of the individual in Chinese society as well as the goals of the Chinese nation. The phrase is closely associated with Xi Jinping, who is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (Paramount leader). Xi began promoting the phrase as a slogan in a high-profile visit to the National Museum of China in November 2012 after taking the office of general secretary. Since then, use of the phrase has become widespread in official announcements and the embodiment of the political ideology of the leadership under Xi Jinping. Xi said that young people should 'dare to dream, work assiduously to fulfill the dreams and contribute to the revitalization of the nation'. According to the party's theoretical journal Qiushi, the Chinese Dream is about Chinese prosperity, collective effort, socialism, and national glory. The relationship between the phrase and the American Dream has been debated. The phrase 'China Dream' (中国梦), and the associated idea of a collective hope for restoring China's lost national greatness, have ancient origins in Chinese literary and intellectual history. In the Classic of Poetry (Shi Jing), the poem 'Flowing Spring' (下泉) describes a poet waking up in despair after dreaming of the former Western Zhou dynasty. During the troubled Southern Song dynasty, the poet Zheng Sixiao wrote a poem in which he coined the phrase 'Heart full of China Dream (中国梦), the ancient poem 'Flowing Spring.'' Moreover, popular patriotic literary and theatrical works in early 20th century China also made reference to a 'China Dream,' before the concept of the 'American Dream' was invented in 1931. In 2008, architect Neville Mars, author Adrian Hornsby, and the Dynamic City Foundation published 'The Chinese Dream – a society under construction'. The book investigates China's initial wave of rapid urbanization as it transitions to a socialist-market economy. Maps of the emerging spatial forms and analysis of the economic development processes that have originated within the extreme conditions of the 1980s and 1990s are combined with progressive planning concepts and personal portraits of a rapidly changing society. As such it synthesizes a body of research to tackle the main paradoxes at the heart of China's struggle for change and a more equitable and sustainable future. According to Mars, 'The present is so all-consuming that fast realities threaten to eclipse the slow dream of tomorrow.' The overarching premise of the book is that China reveals a direct correlation between its shifting urban forms and its waning societal objectives. In that sense the book has arguably been prophetic. Written eight years ahead of the 12th FYP that holds the same thematic title 'The Chinese Dream' (Chinese: 中国梦; pinyin: Zhōngguó Mèng) it introduces the notion that China's highly fragmented, sclerotic urban patterns determine a path of increasing inefficiency and energy-dependence. Mars introduces the term 'MUD', or Market-driven Unintentional Development to describe this new hybrid urban condition, and suggests that planning itself needs to be radically redefined in order to be effective and not contribute to the extreme ex-urbanization. The conclusion of the book is 'No New Cities' (杜绝新城), and a call for models of upgrading of existing urban centers and suburbs. In 2010, author Helen H. Wang published her first book The Chinese Dream. The book is based on over 100 interviews of the new members of the middle class in China. In the book, Wang did not define the Chinese Dream; rather, she conveyed the hopes and dreams of the Chinese people through intimate portraits of this growing demographic. The Chinese Dream has won Eric Hoffer Book Awards. In 2011, the book was translated into Chinese《中国梦》and published in China. In 2012, the second edition of The Chinese Dream with a foreword by Lord Wei was published. In the foreword, Wei wrote: In September 2012, Helen H. Wang gave a copy of her book The Chinese Dream to Tom Friedman at a dinner in Shanghai hosted by Peggy Liu, chairwoman of Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE).