The Chinese Dream as Cultural Myth: A Narrative Analysis of President Xi Jinping's Speech

A Xinderella Story: Turning the Chinese Dream Into China’s Master Narrative

“…With Xi’s blessing, it has been working tirelessly to endow the leader with the grandeur of the Platonic-Confucian ‘Philosopher-King’, the epitome of morality, wisdom, and fortitude. Like the sage emperors of yore, only He knows the Way (dào 道) and leadeth the party and the Chinese people in an orderly society based on benevolent governance (Li 2022). In doing so, Xi upholds a long tradition in Chinese history of rulers equating themselves to the sage kings of the past to draw legitimacy from traditional-charismatic sources, along Weberian lines (Lu 2015).…”

“…The Chinese Dream has deeper roots—possibly going back a full millennium (Li 2022). In more recent times, it gained popularity in folk songs before being appropriated by fervent nationalist pundits, for whom the realisation of the dream meant China displacing the United States as the world’s superpower (Bislev 2014; Fewsmith 2021).…”

“…Such a structuralist approach has its limitations, for example, this paper’s author is not of Chinese heritage, and, as such, is susceptible to non-Chinese interpretations and cultural biases (Guo 2015). Nonetheless, the NPF has been helpful in defining generalised narrative elements, whereas some of the biases can be overcome by including a Chinese-specific cultural perspective (Jones and McBeth 2010, Xi, 2022).…”