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Rising Confidence Behind the “Chinese Dream”

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Abstract

Since November 2012, the Chinese leaders have been calling for the Chinese people to become confident in achieving the “Chinese Dream”. Given the mounting political, economic and social problems that China is facing and low rankings China receives on some key indicators on a global scale of comparison, one has to wonder where China’s confidence comes from. This study suggests that what gives China the reasons to be confident is not how well China has been performing in absolute terms, but how China has been performing relative to its neighboring countries. This study has selected three of China’s biggest neighbors, Japan, Russia and India, to compare with China on seven systems of performance assessment which cover the areas of government effectiveness, economic confidence, foreign direct investment confidence, intentional homicide, gender gap, international tourism, and global competitiveness. It finds that while Japan is still ahead of China in a few areas of performance assessment, China is closing in on Japan fast. On the other hand, Russia and India are trailing China in most areas of performance assessment and the gap between them is widening. Throughout the 20th Century, Russia, China and India all struggled to pursue their dreams of becoming strong and prosperous in the face of challenges from the Western powers. Today, China seems one step ahead of the rest toward achieving its dream. Behind the “Chinese Dream” project is the rising confidence about China’s current position and China’s future.

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Notes

  1. Hu Jintao’s report at 18th Party Congress, November 8, 2012. News.xinhuanet.com http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/special/18cpcnc/2012-11/17/c_131981259.htm

  2. “Xi Jinping: Pursuing a dream for 1.3b Chinese”, Xinhua, March 17, 2013.

  3. For instance, using the Gallup pulling data, the National Journal reported that American public’s confidence in institutions declines in the past 10 years, with steep loss of trust in banks (−24), Presidency (−23), U.S. Congress (−17) and U.S. Supreme Court (−13). Ron Fournier and Sophie Quinton, “In Nothing We Trust: Americans are losing faith in the institutions that made this county great”, The National Journal, April 19, 2012.

  4. For a recent study of the international sources of legitimacy, see Heike Holbig, “International Dimensions of Legitimacy: Reflections on Western Theories and the Chinese Experience,” Journal of Chinese Political Science, 2011, vol. 16, issue 2.

  5. These countries are: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei, Indonesia, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, The Philippines, Russia, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. For a recent study of China’s border dispute with most of these countries, see [3].

  6. All these figures are for the year of 2012 [4].

  7. The data for China in this study do not include those for Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan and “China” in this study refers to mainland China only.

  8. Japan is known to have the highest male and female life expectancy in the world and China suffers from a huge sex-ratio imbalance.

  9. Pratibha Devisingh Patil served as India’s 12th president from 2007 to 2012. Indira Gandhi served as India’s third prime minister from 1966 to 1977 and then again from 1980 to 1984 before she was assassinated.

  10. For some recent studies, see [14, 15].

  11. “China overtakes Japan as world’s second-largest economy”, Associated Press in Tokyo, the Guardian, August 16, 2010; “China overtakes Japan as world’s second-biggest economy”, BBC, February 14, 2011.

  12. See, for instance, [16]. Comparing India with China is also a favorite topic for the Economist magazine. See “India outpaces China: Winning the growth World Cup”, The Economist, April 15, 2011; “Comparing India and China: Chasing the Dragon”, The Economist, October 3, 2011.

  13. Yasheng Huang and Tarun Khanna, “Can India Overtake China?” Foreign Policy, July 1, 2003.

  14. Steven Rattner, “India Is Losing the Race”, New York Times, January 19, 2013.

  15. Amartya Sen, “Why India Trails China?” New York Times, June 19, 2013; Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, “How Far Ahead of India is China?” Live Mint & the Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2013. See also Bashara Peer, “India’s Broken Promise: How a Would-Be Great Power Hobbles Itself”, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2012; Pratap Bhanu Mehta, “How India Stumbled: Can New Delhi Get Its Groove Back?” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2012; Bihar Patna, “Wasting Time: India’s Demographic Challenge”, The Economist, May 11, 2013.

  16. By the definitions and measurements developed by the Intelligence Unit of the Economist magazine, the four countries in this study fall into four distinctive categories of regime type: Japan as a “full democracy”, India as a “flawed democracy”, Russia as a “hybrid regime”, and China as an “authoritarian regime [17].”

  17. See, for instance, [18, 19] Eric X. Li, “China’s political system is more flexible than US democracy”, The Christian Science Monitor, October 17, 2011; and Eric X. Li, “A Tale of Two Political Systems”, China Digital Times, July 2, 2013.

  18. Shankkar Aiyar, “China’s Do and Dare Gamble versus India’s Sit and Start Shuffle”, The New Indian Express, April 28, 2013.

  19. One such attempt at examining the troubled state of democracy is [20]. Kurlantzick’s study, however, focuses on Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria and Russia. For a recent study of the relations between performance and legitimacy or democracy, see Yuchao Zhu, “‘Performance Legitimacy’ and China’s Political Adaption Strategy,” Journal of Chinese Political Science, 2011, vol. 16, issue 2.

  20. The suggestion that China may benefit from its underperforming neighbors may sound cynical to some ears. The so-called race between China and Japan or between China and India is not and does not have to be a “zero-sum” game. The economic downturns in Japan, India or Russia do not spell good news for China and no one in his or her sound mind should wish any of China’s neighbors to fail.

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Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this study was presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Association of Chinese Political Studies and International Symposium, “China’s Domestic and International Relations: Expanding Reforms and Global Influence?” at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica, on August 23, 2013. The author would like to thank Baogang Guo, Shaohua Hu and other conference participants for their valuable comments.

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  1. Global Studies Department, Bentley University, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA, 02452, USA

    Shiping Zheng

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Zheng, S. Rising Confidence Behind the “Chinese Dream”. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 19, 35–48 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-013-9274-y

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