Abstract
Culture is an essential factor influencing the way the leader of a nation speaks to their people in order to achieve political persuasion and reinforce their political power. In this chapter, I focus on the cultural elements embedded in three speeches delivered by China’s President Xi Jinping in 2019. I propose that Xi’s speeches have embraced Confucian values of putting people first as well as inheritng the political rhetoric of Maoism characterized by victimization, nationalism, and the promise of a better life. Specifically, I analyze how the classical and modern cultural and political elements have been adopted by Xi in his speeches and are used as rhetorical appeals to convince his audience. I contend that Xi aims to boost the Chinese people’s self-confidence and build the nation’s trust in him and his Party’s China leadership at a critical juncture when China is increasingly perceived as an economic, technological, and military threat to the Western world and its neighboring countries.
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Lu, X. (2021). Culture and Politics in Contemporary China: A Cultural-Rhetorical Analysis of Xi Jinping’s Three Speeches in 2019. In: Feldman, O. (eds) When Politicians Talk. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_13
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