Abstract
With its increased economic, political and military strength, China has been perceived as an exemplary model of progress by many developing states. Yet its foreign policy is seen as a threat to US interests, Asian-Pacific security and human rights worldwide. The ‘threat’ discourse emerged in the US in parallel with China’s economic growth in the early 1990s. Since then, the ‘threat’ discourse has evolved as it now centres on politics and ideology, economy and trade and strategic military goals (Yang & Liu, 2012). Against this backdrop, it is important to understand China’s foreign policy intentions, and how they are communicated to audiences within China and beyond. This chapter aims to theorise the articulation of the Chinese Dream as a public diplomacy narrative. To do so, it analyses President Xi Jinping’s New Year speeches from 2014–2019 while demonstrating how this narrative counters the China ‘threat’ discourse. The Chinese Dream, or Zhong Guo Meng (org.中国梦) was officially introduced by Xi on 29th November 2012, during a speech heralding a new era of China’s ‘rejuvenation’ (Xi, 2014, p. 38). Ever since, the Chinese Dream has played a pivotal role in the development of China’s foreign policy agenda and has informed its strategic diplomatic goals. The successful application of the Chinese Dream depends on the cultural congruency established by the myth of the American Dream in the West, as well as a range of convergent media strategies used to promote positive messages about China. This chapter concludes with an evalation of whether China’s new public diplomacy narrative may decrease global tensions and instability.
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Wu, Y., Thomas, R., Yu, Y. (2021). From External Propaganda to Mediated Public Diplomacy: The Construction of the Chinese Dream in President Xi Jinping’s New Year Speeches. In: Surowiec, P., Manor, I. (eds) Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Uncertainty. Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54552-9_2
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