Full coverage: 95 years of glory
This year marks the 95th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China, or CPC. What is the Chinese Dream? It's a dream for the people. In this episode of our special series "95th Anniversary of the CPC: Serving the People", we tell you the stories behind the dream.
"China has had the biggest economy of any country for something like 20 out of the last 22 centuries, the last 2 were in abnormal. But around this time now, China is regaining its stature as the world’s biggest economy depending on how you count it. Even in the Tang dynasty, China made more iron and steel than all of Europe, this went on for one or two hundred years. So China has been for a long time a mighty economy and industrial power, and I think this the same hard work and sense of strategy that has made China a great nation and economy, is now being focused on very worthy future directions of Chinese development that are inspiring many in other countries," said Amory B. Lovins, cofounder and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute.
"Well, Chinese dream, I think, first of all, Chinese dream, you know, you can interpret Chinese dream in different ways. You can, well, in English, you know, Chinese dream is easier. But you can see, individual Chinese dream or China as a nation state. If a nation state become strong, individual will feel safer. Of course you have very strong national defense, but if individual becomes rich, the nation state will have a solid foundation. So I think currently, actually, China actually, in addition, the people are moving in these two dimensions accordingly, at the state level and also at the individual level," said Zheng Yongnian, director of East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore.
"China could now afford to dream about a different kind of future. So this marks a key break, I think. You know, China now needs to think differently about itself. What sort of society are we trying to build? What are its characteristics? Urbanization, social welfare, levels of prosperity and so on on the one hand. And on the other hand, China could now think for the first time for, how long, more than 150 years, about its own place in the world, its own future. Because before it really become a football being kicked around the world. It was so weak. But now it was no longer in that position. China was now transformed. China was strong. China could think about not only what its place should be in the world, but what is its role in the world, even the beginning of being a great power, what kind of great power, what is a great power? And all of these things have become possible. And Xi Jinping’s notion of China Dream is addressing this question," said Martin Jacques, senior fellow of Department of Politics and International Studies; well-known author, Cambridge University.
"I think the aim of any government in the world is to provide for its people a better condition of life. So that’s important. So I suppose what the Chinese Dream, it is to lift the life of people above poverty line, its people could have income, children could go to school, better health facilities. I think that’s the dream of everyone in the world," said Joe Natuman, deputy prime minister of Vanuatu.
"What I think is the China dreaming is to keep a more relation with the world. Because China’ good relations in the world, people would have better conditions also. So what I should say is we should have every part of the world strong parties as you have the Chinese Communist Party here. We should have strong parties with dreams for their people to have good governance, that’s what we need to have more conditions for the people. They have equal opportunities, good education, good health, good justice and good social protection," said Ana Catarina Mendes, deputy general-secretary of the Socialist Party of Portugal.
