Glossary

Chinese officials and diplomats often describe China’s return to national greatness as a process of “advancing towards the center of the world stage.” As with other aspirational aims associated with China’s NATIONAL REJUVENATION, this “advance towards the center of the world stage” is intended to be completed by 2049, the centennial anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Most of the central leadership’s aspirations for 2049 concern domestic affairs: this phrase is one of the rare statements of what a fully rejuvenated China means for the rest of the world. 

The phrase “advancing towards the center of the world stage” was introduced in a 2011 People’s Daily editorial and saw periodic use in the early days of Xi Jinping. Xi elevated the slogan’s importance in his report to the 19th Party Congress. There he tied the claim that “our country advances ever closer to the center of the world stage” [我国日益走近世界舞台中央] to his declaration that the Party had entered a NEW ERA [新时代] in its history. As Mao gave China independence, and Deng made China prosperous, so would Xi Jinping help China “become strong.”  This stronger, more assertive China could then turn its eyes outside of China’s borders to “make greater contributions to mankind” [为人类作出更大贡献]. In Xi’s judgment, growing Chinese influence over the future of the species is an integral part of moving China to the world’s “center stage.” 

Phrases like “advancing towards the center of the world stage” and “making greater contributions to mankind” suggest the global scope of Chinese ambition while obscuring its ultimate object. An official Xinhua commentary on the 19th Congress provides an unusually forthright description of what this advance entails:

China has stood up, grown rich and become strong. It will advance  toward center stage and make greater contributions for mankind. By 2050, two centuries after the Opium Wars, which plunged the "Middle Kingdom" into a period of hurt and shame, China is set to regain its might and re-ascend to the top of the world.

…China's success proves that socialism can prevail and be a path for other developing countries to emulate and achieve modernization. China is now strong enough, willing, and able to contribute more for mankind. The new world order cannot be just dominated by capitalism and the West, and the time will come for a change (Xinhua, "Commentary: Milestone congress points to new era for China, the world," 2017).

Xinhua associates the “advance towards the center of the world stage” with a world order that is no longer capitalist nor Western-led; the less circumspect writing of Chinese academics and public intellectuals use the phrase in a similar fashion. The slogan should thus serve as a reminder that China’s leadership believes that the road to NATIONAL REJUVENATION demands structural changes to the world outside of China’s borders.

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See also:   CENTURY OF NATIONAL HUMILIATION; COMMUNITY OF COMMON DESTINY FOR ALL MANKIND; GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION; GREAT CHANGES UNSEEN IN A CENTURY;

 See SOFT BONE DISEASE

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“The Center” is a literal rendering of zhōngyāng. The phrase is is most commonly used as an abbreviation for the CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the Communist Party of China (中国共产党中央委员会), and official Chinese translations almost always opt for translating it as “The Central Committee.” The term, however, is more ambiguous than most translations into English allow. Cheng Zhenqiu, who directed  the English translation of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, described his dissatisfaction with his own translation with these comments:

Lexically, there are still many issues…for example, the translation of zhōngyāng [中央]….Sometimes zhongyang refers to the Central Standing Committee [中央常委], sometimes it refers to the Central Politburo [中央政治局], and more often it refers to the Central Committee. Abroad some have begun translating it as “the Center”; on this issue there’s room for further research. (Quoted in Holly Snape, China Law Translate, 1 December 2021)

The kaleidoscopic nature of the term is evident in Party regulations governing the Central Committee, which declares that 

The Central Committee, Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) are the brain and central hub of the Party organization. Only the Party Centre has the mandate to make decisions and interpret Party-wide and state-wide important principles and policies  (“Directive on the Operation of the Central Committee,” 2020).

The usefulness of a term whose definition can stretch to describe either the Central Committee, the POLITBURO, or the POLITBURO STANDING COMMITTEE as contingency requires has been recognized since the days of Mao Zedong, when obedience to The Center was first codified as part of the “FOUR OBEYS'' regulating Party life.  In particular, obfuscating the specific source of new directives means that decisions that may have only been made by a small group of leading cadres are cloaked with the mantle of larger party organs, suggesting a shared consensus or collective decision making process that may not actually exist.

See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE;

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, until 1927 called the Central Executive Committee (中央执行委员会), is the central administrative and decision-making body of the Chinese party-state. 

In the post-Mao era members of the Central Committee have been elected by the National Congress of the CPC every five years. These elections are a confirmation vote based on a candidate list where the number of candidates slightly exceeds the number of available seats. Usually only 8% to 12% of candidates are not elected to the Central Committee; it is customary for the Committee to include the governors and party secretaries of China’s provinces, the heads of central government bodies, major SOEs, and national party organizations, and high ranking military officers in the PLA among its members. 

The Central Committee has the nominal power to elect the members of the Secretariat, Politburo, and its Standing Committee, but in practice it merely confirms candidates pre-selected by the top leadership.  At select points in modern Chinese history–such as the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Party Congress–meetings of the Central Committee, called PLENUMS, have served as forums for substantive intra-party debates. More often the Central Committee makes small adjustments to plans already agreed on by the POLITBURO ahead of time. Documents drafted during Central Committee meetings are among the most authoritative in the Chinese policy process; each condenses the various guidelines, policies, and tasks issued since the previous plenum into a baseline directive for the entire party.

See also: CENTER, THE; PLENUM;

In Chinese historiography, the decades between the conclusion of the First Opium War in 1842 and the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 are described as a “century of national humiliation.” In these decades China lost a series of wars with European powers, ceded control of Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Manchuria, the Amur River Basin, and Outer Mongolia to alien empires, was forced to grant extraterritorial rights to foreigners in China, lost sovereign control of its markets and currency, and was saddled with onerous indemnities. This period of external intervention culminated with the Japanese invasion of 1937, which lead to the death of some 20 million Chinese. The legacy of humiliation haunts Chinese intellectuals today and provides the Communist Party of China with one of its most emotionally powerful legitimizing narratives.

The term “national humiliation” [国耻] dates to the late 19^th century and served as a common touchstone for the various nationalist movements that sought to “save the country” [救国] at the beginning of the 20^th. The founders of the Communist Party of China began their careers as activists more interested in nationalist uplift than communist utopia. In the disciplined, militarized hierarchy of a Leninist party they saw a vehicle for rescuing their nation. “Only socialism can save China” [只有社会主义才能救中国] they declared, and to this day Party historians and officials argue that Republican era experiments with other political ideologies all failed to unite China or drive out imperialist influence.

This narrative erases the sacrifices made by millions of Chinese not associated with the Communist Party for the sake of China’s future, as well as the success these sacrifices secured. It was under KMT rule that the Japanese were defeated, Western powers gave up their extraterritorial privileges in China, and China was given one of five seats on the UN Security Council. In Communist eyes these feats count for little, as they were all accomplished with the aid of imperialist powers. The early Communist leadership believed that only “cleaning out the house before inviting guests in” [打扫干净屋子再请客]— in other words, driving Westerners completely out of China before readmitting them on Chinese terms—could guarantee the founding of a NEW CHINA free from the taint of imperialist influence. The Communist version of eradicating  national humiliation thus began with the foundation of the People’s Republic of China and was confirmed by Chinese success against “American imperialism” in the Korean War.   

By instructing the children of China to chant “never forget national humiliation” (勿忘国耻) the Party legitimizes this founding moment. It also suggests to the Chinese people what nightmares might occur if Party rule falters. The century of humiliation is a narrative of victimhood. It presumes an innocent China thrust into a dangerous world, there victimized by rapacious foreigners eager to feed on any nation too weak to maintain its sovereignty. Foreign opposition to Chinese policy today is easily reframed as a continuation of this antique pattern.  Under this schema China is still a victim of undeserved hostility; without the guiding hand of a strong and united Party, these hostile forces will force national humiliation on the Chinese people once again.

See also: GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION; NEW CHINA

The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference is the central vehicle by which the Communist Party of China coordinates with and co-opts influential elites who have risen to prominence outside of the party hierarchy, such as tech entrepreneurs, religious authorities, prominent scientists and authors, or the leaders of state-sanctioned associations like the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Abbreviated in English as the CPPCC and in Chinese as the Rénmín Zhèngxié [人民政协] or simply as the Zhèngxié [政协], the CPPCC meets once a year. It is organized as a political advisory organ whose members can propose laws and policies to party authorities. Yet with no legislative power of its own, the authority of the CPPCC is limited to “political consultation.” 

The origins of the CPPCC lie in the revolutionary era, when the Communist Party sought a “united front” with various outside political parties to defeat the Japanese and then drive the Nationalists out of power. At this time the CPPCC functioned as a coordination forum for this coalition. Though Mao promised these groups a real share of political power in NEW CHINA, once he secured control of the country he moved swiftly to neuter his erstwhile allies and strip them of any real influence. Eight of these parties still exist: they are allowed only a consultative role in the Chinese system. All must accept the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and none are allowed to recruit members absent strict supervision and restriction.

A share of the CPPCC’s 3,000 seats are thus reserved for representatives of these eight legacy parties. The other members of the CPPCC are divided into four overarching classifications: representatives of the eight state sanctioned “social organizations” [社会团体], such as the Communist Youth League or the All-China Federation of Women; representatives of 13 “social circles” [各界人士], which range from “journalism” and “education” to “ethnic minorities” and “friends of foreign countries;” “specially invited personages” [特邀人士] from Hong Kong and Macau; and  “personages without a party affiliation” [无党派人士]. The remainder of the CPPCC seats are given to Communist Party members who work in diplomacy, intelligence, or the United Front system.

The central purpose of the Conference is to provide this last group with access to the others present. The CPPCC thus serves as a kind of intermediary organization that links Communist Party officials to the broader social world they hope to shape and influence. By institutionalizing access to party leaders, the Party both gives outside elites a stronger stake in the political system and creates an exclusive forum for fostering cooperation and consensus between these leaders and party personnel.

In 2018 Yang Jiechi, then the POLITBURO member responsible for Chinese foreign policy, declared that  “Building a Community of Common Destiny for Mankind is the overall goal of China’s foreign affairs work in the New Era.” (Yang Jiechi, Seeking Truth, 1 Aug 2018). This “Community of Common Destiny for Mankind,” also translated as “Community With a Shared Future for Mankind,” refers to the central leadership’s vision for the future of the international order. Party officials and party-affiliated intellectuals have long expressed frustration with the norms and structures of the post-Cold War order, which they believe are neither conducive to their continued rule nor fully compatible with China’s “ADVANCE TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE.” This slogan signals their determination to  build something better. 

At its core, building a “Community of Common Destiny for Mankind” means leveraging globalization and other types of global interdependence to reshape the international order in China’s favor.  Though the slogan is strongly associated with the NEW ERA of Xi Jiping, most of the tenets of the “Community of Common Destiny” predate him. The substance of the CPC’s critique of the existing order, as well as a tentative vision for what might replace it, were laid out by Hu Jintao in a 2003 address at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, where he declared that the aim of Chinese foreign policy was a “Harmonious World” (和谐世界). Hu argued that this “Harmonious World” would improve on existing arrangements for global governance in five specific arenas: politics, security, economic development, culture, and the environment. On multiple occasions Xi has reiterated the importance of these five categories, whose scope reflects both the scale of Beijing’s ambitions and the depth of its dissatisfaction with the existing order, to his own  “Community of Common Destiny” formulation.  

The thrust of the “Common Destiny” critique goes as follows: the existing international order was created by Western powers for Western powers. The legacy organizations at the core of this order speak for the world but are controlled by the West. The “universal values” enshrined in these institutions  are imperialistic impositions of Western concepts on other civilizations. This is just as true of the political institutions and development models pioneered by the West and now seen as normative in international society. Some of these ideas and institutions are useful advances suitable for all peoples; others are simply relics that would have long disappeared were they not upheld by the illegitimate American HEGEMONISM.

The Community of Common Destiny will have no hegemons (in Chinese the word hegemon describes a state whose predominance depends on coercive power). After the defensive blocs and security treaties that make American hegemony possible crumble, bilateral trade will become the central organizing principle of the new order. China will be the center hub of this global community. New international institutions will be founded; existing ones will be altered. All will give China a central role in global governance. None of these institutions will honor dangerous concepts like “human rights” or “universal values.” In light of Chinese wealth and power, the human community will view liberal institutions as the parochial tradition of a few Western nations, not as the default model for development. At this point, as one Xinhua backgrounder explains, humanity will finally enjoy an “open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity” (Xinhua, “China Keywords: Community With a Shared Future for Mankind," 2018).

‍See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; HEGEMONISM

The term “core interests,” often written as the longer “core interests and major concerns” [核心利益与 重大关切] , is used by Party officials as a shorthand for the set of issues so central to the GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE  that the official position on them is not subject to negotiation or compromise. The term entered the Party lexicon in 2003 in a discussion of Taiwanese independence, but subsequent party commentaries have identified these interests as falling into three broad categories: sovereignty, security, and development. 

Each category is paired with a series of corresponding threats. Threats to China’s sovereignty interests originally referred to “splittism” in Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang, but in the Xi Jinping era the term has expanded to include opposition to Chinese claims in the South China Sea and challenges to state control over Chinese cyberspace. China’s security interests are challenged both by the type of threat that can be handled with traditional military deterrence and less traditional threats to China's "political security"—that is, threats to the stability of China's socialist system and legitimacy of the CPC leadership's over it. Defending development interests means safeguarding China’s economic model from outside interference. Originally conceived in terms of securing trade routes and access to key natural resources, the Sino-American trade war of the late 2010s has prompted Party leaders to reframe threats to China’s development in terms of technology controls and tariffs. Diplomats of the Xi era are instructed to take the protection of these interests as the “starting point and end point” [出发点和落脚点] of Chinese diplomacy (Yang Jiechi, “Use Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy for Guidance, Deeply Advance Foreign Work in the New Era,” Seeking Truth, 2 August 2018).

The Core Socialist Values, first presented in 2006 under the tenure of Hu Jintao, were a response to a sense of social crisis born of China’s growing wealth. The boom economy greased the wheels of corruption while exposing an ever larger number of Chinese to the culture of the Western world. By articulating a set of cultural ideals that all Chinese can aspire to, party leaders hope to rescue Chinese society from the moral vacuum of a marketized economy while inoculating Chinese citizens against liberal ideology.  

The Core Socialist Values are expressed as 12 distinct ideals divided into three overarching categories. First are the national values of prosperity and national strength [富强], democracy [民主], civilized behavior [文明] and harmony [和谐]; second are the social values of freedom [自由], equality [平等], justice [公正] and the rule of law [法治]; third are the the individual values of patriotism [爱国], dedication [敬业], integrity [诚信] and friendship [友善]. This list of words is ubiquitous in modern China, adorning classroom walls, public squares, highway billboards, and the speeches of high officials.

 Party leaders are open about why they must publicly articulate and endorse these values. After affirming that these “Core Socialist Values are the soul of the Chinese nation,” Hu Jintao urged cadres to “use them to guide social trends of thought and forge public consensus,” to “guide the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” to “adapt Marxism to Chinese conditions… and increase [Marxism’s] appeal to the people,” to take “theories of socialism… and make them a way of thinking,” and to “rally the people under the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics” (Hu Jintao, “Political Report to the 18th Congress, Nov. 2012). Implicit in these statements is the admission that Marxist dogma did not have the same moral authority that it once did, that corruption had weakened what moral authority the Party still had, and that to govern effectively the Party must reestablish this authority in a more broadly based moral sense that would appeal to Chinese of all backgrounds.

Yet fostering the Core Socialist Values is not only a project for changing Chinese perceptions of the Party; it is just as much about changing Chinese perceptions of themselves. As Xi Jinping argued:

Without morals, a country cannot thrive, and its people cannot stand upright. Whether or not a nation or an individual has a strong sense of identity largely depends on their morals. If our people cannot uphold the moral values that have been formed and developed on our own soil, and instead indiscriminately and blindly parrot Western moral values, then it will be necessary to genuinely question whether we will lose our independent ethos as a country and a people. Without this independent ethos, our political,intellectual, cultural and institutional independence will have the rug pulled out from under it (quoted in Gow, “The Core Socialist Values of the Chinese Dream,” p. 11).

This explains why the imagery that accompanies propaganda devoted to the Core Socialist Values is drawn from the paintings, poems, and iconography of pre-socialist China: though words like “justice”and “friendship” transcend national borders, the purpose of the Core Socialist Values is to associate these values with a distinctly Chinese identity. Such an identity, party leaders hope, will fortify the Chinese people from being seduced by corrupting vices at home or subversive strains of thought abroad.  

See also: DISCURSIVE POWER; SOFT BONE DISEASE;

Those who wield discursive power possess the ability to shape, select, or amplify the ideas, frames, and sources of authority that guide political decision making. The concept was developed in response to the puzzlement and frustration many Chinese nationalists felt as their country’s mounting material power failed to translate into commensurate influence over global affairs. They concluded that China’s dazzling economic growth and rising military might was insufficient to change the structure of the international order because the norms that govern interstate relations are downstream of cultural values China had little influence over. The West’s intellectual hegemony allows it to embed its value set and viewpoint in the structure of international politics. This is a form of power: discursive power.

Often translated as “discourse power,” more rarely as “the right to speak,” and sometimes simply as “say” or “voice,” the neologism rose to prominence in Chinese academic writing in the mid-aughts and was subsequently elevated to the party lexicon in the 2010s. The various alternative translations of the term reflect an ambiguity present in the original Chinese. Huàyǔquán [话语权] is a compound word that combines huàyǔ [话语], the Chinese word for “speech,” “language,” or “discourse,” with the more ambiguous quán [权], whose meaning shifts between “authority,” “rights,” or “power” depending on the context in which it is used. “Right to speak” is therefore a reasonable translation of huàyǔquán, for the right to speak about the Party’s accomplishments through a “Chinese” frame is precisely what party leaders believe the hegemonic culture of the West denies them. However, neither dictionary listings for the word nor academic discussion of its role in international affairs emphasize freedoms or entitlements. Their focus is on influence and control. They suggest that control of the world rests with those who control the words that the world is using.

This is not an entirely new concept in Party thought. Following in Marx and Lenin’s footsteps, Mao rejected the notion of a neutral public sphere where policy can be hashed out in a process of rational deliberation. He was insistent that the world of ideas was in fact a central domain in the struggle for power, and that no idea could be divorced from the class interest or political program of those who proposed it. Chinese discussions of Western discursive power take a similar approach, treating concepts like “human rights,” “universal values,” and other guiding liberal ideals not as genuine moral or intellectual commitments but as tools of power used to legitimize American hegemony and weaken America’s enemies. Here the Soviet Union’s sad fate serves as a warning: failure to challenge the discursive power of the hegemon abroad can lead to the collapse of discursive power at home. Thus discursive power does not just influence China’s international standing, but also the political security of its ruling regime.

Chinese leaders have found no easy solutions to the problems posed by the West’s discursive dominance.  Censorship at home and interference operations abroad allow the Party to stifle some ideas that might otherwise find their way into discourse. However, Party leadership recognizes the limits to this negative approach. In their view, if China wishes to successfully reshape the operating norms of the international system, then China must articulate a positive vision of the world it wants to build; if China desires renown and acclaim on the international stage, then it must articulate a value set less hostile to Chinese success than the human rights paradigm now normative across the globe. Xi Jinping has thus directed Chinese academics to develop “new concepts, new categories, and a new language that international society can easily understand and accept so as to guide the direction of research and debate in the international academic community” (Xi Jinping, “Speech at the Symposium on Philosophy and Social Sciences,” Xinhua, 17 May 2016). Cadres and diplomats are charged with a simpler mission: “tell China’s story well” [讲好中国故事]. As Xi recently put it, to secure China's NATIONAL REJUVENATION the Party must:

Collect and refine the defining symbols and best elements of Chinese culture and showcase them to the world. Accelerate the development of China’s discourse and narrative systems, tell China’s story well, make China’s voice heard, and present a China that is worthy of trust, adoration, and respect. Strengthen our international communications capabilities, make our communications more effective, and strive to strengthen China’s discursive power in international affairs so that it is commensurate with our composite national strength and international status (Xi Jinping, “Political Report to 20^th Congress,” 2022).

See also: COMMUNITY OF COMMON DESTINY FOR ALL MANKIND; HEGEMONISM; PEACEFUL EVOLUTION; TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM

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The phrase “Great Changes Unseen in a Century,” sometimes translated by official party media as “Profound Changes Unseen in a Century,” was first used by Chinese academics following the Great Recession. The phrase is associated with the dangers and opportunities posed by American decline, and has been adopted by THE CENTER as a programmatic assessment of a changing world order. 

“Great Changes” was officially elevated into the party lexicon in 2017, when then-State Councilor Yang Jiechi described it as a guiding tenet of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy. Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy was formally adopted by the party in a 2018 Central Foreign Affairs Work Conference, where Xi informed the collected leadership of the Chinese diplomatic corp and state security apparatus that

China now finds itself in the best period for development it has seen since the advent of the modern era; [simultaneously], the world faces great changes unseen in a century. These two [trends] are interwoven, advancing in lockstep; each stimulates the other. Now, and in the years to come, many advantageous international conditions exist for success in foreign affairs (Xi Jinping, “Break New Ground in China’s Major-Country Diplomacy,” in Governance of China, vol III).

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Xi’s comments followed a tradition laid out in innumerable Party documents, speeches, and regulations, which present declarations of  policy, especially foreign policy, as following from an  assessment of the “overall landscape” (全局) “inherent tendencies” (大势), or “the great trends” (大趋势) of the historical moment in which the Party finds itself. “Great changes unseen in a century” is a shorthand for the central leadership’s current assessment of the future trajectory of the international order.

The slogan invokes a slew of great changes that shook global politics one century ago: the collapse of British hegemony and the European imperial system following WWI and the concurrent rise of the United States and the Soviet Union as the predominant powers of world politics. The slogan implies that a similar power transition is now underway, with America playing the role of faltering hegemon, and China the rising  power.  

More substantive discussions of the slogan by Chinese academics and state affiliated scholars trace this power transition to myriad causes: the growing wealth of the developing world, the rise of right-wing populism in Western countries, the debilitating effects that neoliberalism and identity politics have on American power, the resurgence of nationalism across the globe, advances in novel technologies not pioneered by the West, and the proliferation of non-traditional security threats (such as pandemics and terrorist attacks) are all common explanations for the crumbling of the American-led international order. 

Though the phrase was introduced in a rather triumphal tone, the slogan has taken on a darker valence as Sino-American relations have worsened and China has grown more isolated in the international arena. Party propagandists and Chinese academics alike now pair the phrase “great changes unforeseen in a century” with increasingly dire warnings about the unique risks and dangers China faces in the final stage of NATIONAL REJUVENATION. Thus the slogan has come to also signify a warning that China sails into uncharted waters. As Xi Jinping reported in his address to the 20th Congress:

Great changes unseen in a century are accelerating across the world… the once-in-a-century pandemic has had far-reaching effects; a backlash against globalization is rising; and unilateralism and protectionism are mounting… The world has entered a new period of turbulence and change… [where] external attempts to suppress and contain China may escalate at any time.

Our country has entered a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising... We must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms (Xi Jinping, “Political Report to the 20th Congress,” 2022).

‍See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD; COMMUNITY OF COMMON DESTINY FOR ALL MANKIND; GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION;

General Secretaries of the Communist Party of China have described “national rejuvenation” [民族复兴] as the central mission of their Party since the Thirteenth Party Congress in 1987. Their wording intentionally echoes the language used by Sun Yat-sen and the nationalist revolutionaries who overthrew the Qing Dynasty at the cusp of the modern era.  Those revolutionaries dreamed of restoring a broken nation to its traditional station at the center of human civilization. Though he lives a century after Sun Yat-sen’s death, Xi Jinping rarely gives a speech without endorsing the same aspiration. As Xi describes it, national rejuvenation is a “strategic plan” for “achieving lasting greatness for the Chinese nation” (Xi Jinping, “Political Report to the 20th Congress,” 2022). The formal term for this plan is the "National Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation," a term that could be alternatively translated as the "National Rejuvenation of the Chinese Race."

The work of a Leninist party is inherently goal oriented. Chinese governance depends on a  “high pressure system” [压力型体制] that uses a mix of campaign tactics and career incentives to focus the work of millions of cadres on a shared set of tasks, all of which are nested in a hierarchy of overarching goals. During the Maoist era China’s leadership identified the  “the realization of communism” as the “ultimate aim of the Party,” and proposed “victory in class struggle” as the path for reaching this end (Fundamentals of the Chinese Communist Party, 1976). The CPC of today still endorses the “realization of communism” as the “highest ideal and ultimate aim” of the Party, but argues that “the highest ideal of communism pursued by Chinese Communists can be realized only when socialist society is fully developed and highly advanced,” a historical process that will “take over a century” to achieve (Constitution of the CPC, 2022). In contrast, the “lasting greatness” associated with national rejuvenation can be accomplished on a more feasible timescale. The Party expects to lead the Chinese race to this desired end state by 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic of China. Achieving the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation by this date is the overarching goal of the Chinese party-state.

To attain national rejuvenation, party leadership has argued that China must become a “great and modern socialist state” [社会主义现代化强国]. In Xi Jinping’s NEW ERA this imperative has been broken down into five aspirational end states: prosperity and strength [富强], democracy [民主], advanced culture [文明], social harmony [和谐], and beauty [美丽]. The first category emphasize the Party’s drive to build a country whose COMPOSITE NATIONAL POWER is commensurate with a civilization at the leading edge of modernity; the next three identify the desired relationship between the Communist Party and a unified Chinese nation; the last is associated with campaigns to reduce pollution and forge a healthier relationship between industrial development and the natural environment. 

With sub-components as broad as these, almost any policy promoted by THE CENTER falls under the remit of ‘national rejuvenation.’ The breadth of this mandate is intentional. As communist utopia retreats ever further into the future, Party leadership has bet that reclaiming lost Chinese greatness is the one cause “the entire Party and all the Chinese people [will] strive for”  (Xi Jinping, “Political Report to the 20th Congress,” 2022). 

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See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; CENTURY OF NATIONAL HUMILIATION; 

See COMMUNITY OF COMMON DESTINY FOR ALL MANKIND

When Chinese intellectuals and Party officials inveigh against “hegemonism” they invoke a term first used more than two millennia ago to refer to a ruling power that maintains its position through violence and subterfuge. The territory of ancient China was divided between a dozen warring kingdoms; for centuries the only respite from turmoil came when leaders of unusual strategic acumen used diplomatic skill and military power to overwhelm their enemies and enforce a general peace. These kings were known as bà [霸], or “hegemons.” The order of a hegemon rarely lasted past his death. Ancient Chinese thinkers often contrasted the fragile peace produced by the “way of the hegemon,” with the imagined  “way of a true king,” which promised a peaceful order premised not on violence, but moral suasion. When 21st century Chinese proclaim that they  “oppose hegemonism” it is thus a specific style of leadership they reject–a style reminiscent of the illegitimate hegemons of Chinese antiquity.

Deng Xiaoping described the features of modern hegemonism in a blistering 1974 address to the United Nations. There he condemned the Soviet Union and the United States as 
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the biggest international exploiters and oppressors of today... They both possess large numbers of nuclear weapons. They carry on a keenly contested arms race, station massive forces abroad and set up military bases everywhere, threatening the independence and security of all nations. They both keep subjecting other countries to their control, subversion, interference or aggression.

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Deng maintained that In response to this illegitimate exercise of hegemonic power, Chinese foreign policy would focus on “strengthening the unity of the developing countries, safeguarding their national economic rights and interests, and promoting the struggle of all peoples against imperialism and hegemonism” (Deng Xiaoping, “Speech By Chairman of the Delegation of the People’s Republic of China,” 10 April 1974). Though Chinese diplomats would take a less confrontational stance during the era of REFORM AND OPENING, Deng continued to describe  “opposing hegemonism” as a central plank of Chinese foreign policy for the rest of his life. 

Chinese propagandists are still preoccupied with the ills of American hegemonism. They often pair attacks on American belligerence with a vow that China will “never seek hegemony” [永远不称霸] . When uttering this phrase, Chinese officials and diplomats are not promising to abandon China’s ADVANCE TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE. Rather, they promise that China will rise without adopting the “hegemonic” means America has relied on (such as alliance blocs, nuclear coercion, or an expansive network of global military bases) to maintain its global position. 

See also: ADVANCING TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; COMMUNITY OF COMMON DESTINY FOR MANKIND；HOSTILE FORCES

The first warnings about the dangers posed by “hostile forces” were issued in the Soviet Union of Lenin and Trotsky. The basic meaning of the term has shifted little over the subsequent century: then, as now, “hostile forces” refer to the constellation of individuals, organizations, and nations that communist party leaders believe are ideologically committed to overthrowing or subverting communist rule. The phrase does not distinguish enemies foreign and domestic; it is often used when party leaders or theorists wish to blur that distinction altogether. To label an unwelcome episode the product of ‘hostile forces’ is to insinuate that dissent and disorder within China is ultimately dependent on malicious actors outside of it.

The revolutionary leadership of the Soviet Union saw in the setbacks, reversals, and disasters that haunted their cause the malign hand of “hostile forces,” “hostile elements,” and “hostile classes.” A passage from Stalin's Short Course, an official primer on Soviet history avidly studied by Mao and his contemporaries as a textbook on socialist construction, provides an illustration of both the term itself and the mindset behind its employment:

Survivals of bourgeois ideas still remained in men’s minds and would continue to do so even though capitalism had been abolished in economic life. It should be borne in mind that the surrounding capitalist world, against which we had to keep our powder dry, was working to revive and foster these survivals….. [For example] the Party organizations had relaxed the struggle against local nationalism, and had allowed it to grow to such an extent that it had allied itself with hostile forces, the forces of intervention, and had become a danger to the state…. Comrade Stalin [thereupon] called upon the Party to be more active in ideological-political work, to systematically expose the ideology and the remnants of the ideology of the hostile classes and of the trends hostile to Leninism (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), ch. 11; emphasis added).

This bit of Stalinist rhetoric blends fear of foreign intervention, dissident ideology, and state weakness into one fearsome whole. In the late Mao era Chinese communists imported the term into their own lexicon, and have consistently used it to describe this same threatening trinity.  An editorial in the People’s Daily published shortly after the Tiananmen Square Massacre provides a characteristic example. It blames that incident on both “the [larger] international climate and the domestic climate” which allowed  "hostile forces at home and abroad” to “manufacture this storm [for the purpose of] overthrowing the leadership of the CPC, subverting the socialist system, and turning China into a vassal of the capitalist developed countries” (People’s Daily, 4 June 1990).

Classifying social groups and foreign powers by their hostility to the communist cause is a rhetorically clever solution to an otherwise difficult set of problems. Most warnings about the threat posed by hostile forces do not explicitly identify the hostile actors in question. This fuzziness allows party propagandists to imply that internal opposition relies on external support without ever having to engage themselves in the messy business of proving which organizations, individuals, or social groups are linked to foreign powers, which foreign powers they are linked to, or how these links are maintained. Diplomatic crises are avoided in a similar fashion, with the Party exploiting the threat of hostile combinations to instill urgency in its cadres without needing to accuse any specific group of foreigners of wrongdoing.

This ambiguity has proved less sustainable in the age of Xi Jinping. As Sino-American relations have worsened, the phrase “hostile forces” is often reduced to a thinly veiled label for the United States and its allies. Yet foreign pressure has only exacerbated Xi's anxieties about China's internal cohesion. Over his tenure Xi Jinping has re-engineered the state security complex to make it more sensitive to and capable of resolving internal political shocks. This overhaul has been both costly and comprehensive. Guiding this transformation is Xi’s signature TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM, a set of ideas which places the threat posed by ideological and political threats to one-party rule on the same plane as national defense. One doctrinal summary of Xi's paradigm returns to the problem of hostile forces to justify such great effort:

Hostile forces inside and outside our borders have never abandoned their subversive intent to Westernize and divide our state. They do not rest, not even for a moment... This is a real and present danger to the security of our sovereign power. (The Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Outline, ch. 6).

See also: HEGEMONISM; PEACEFUL EVOLUTION; TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM

See ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE

See GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION

The Communist Party of China claims that it discerns the “laws governing the development of the history of human society” (Constitution of the Communist Party of China, October 2022). In line with this claim, Party leaders orient both policy and strategy around official assessments of the material laws and historical trends at work in the world. The Maoist political program was ostensibly grounded in Mao’s judgment that “war and revolution” were the defining geopolitical trends of the 20^th century; to reorient the Party towards a new focus on economic development Deng Xiaoping needed to revise this judgment. Thus in 1985 Deng Xiaoping declared that “peace and development are the theme of the times.” This assessment, restated by countless Chinese strategists and statesmen in the decades that followed, takes globalization as the defining feature of modern history. Implicit in the slogan is an injunction to treat harnessing the forces of globalization for China’s development as the CENTRAL TASK of the Party.

From Mao’s fervent belief that the Party “had to take the possibility of coming under attack as the starting point of all work” flowed many of the defining policies of Mao’s last decade in power (Meyskens, Mao’s Third Front, p. 50). These included diplomatic estrangement from the West, aid for revolutionary movements across the developing world, and the the concentration of heavy industry deep in the mountain provinces of inland China. Though these policies did not long outlive Mao’s death, the extent to which China should open its economy remained a hotly contested issue throughout the 1980s.

  In the midst of debates over economic reform Deng Xiaoping informed a delegation from the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry that “peace and development are the two outstanding issues in the world today.” “Although there is still the danger of war,” he confided to the Japanese, “the forces that can deter it are growing, and we find that encouraging.” In the same address, he indicated that peace and development are “issues of global strategic significance.” Matters of peace concern “East-West relations” while matters of development concern “North-South relations.” As a war between the East and West was unlikely, prudent nations in the Global South should focus on catching up to the Global North in economic development – and such would be China’s objective in the reform and opening era (Deng Xiaoping, “Peace and Development Are the Two Outstanding Issues In the World Today,” 4 March, 1985). 

  Two months later Deng proceeded to free up resources for economic development by reducing the People’s Liberation Army to one million men. If previously his peace and development assessment had been associated with international trade and investment, it now carried a second connotation: Deng’s belief that military spending must be subordinate to the development of the larger economy.

  These conclusions were codified as party dogma when Jiang Zemin described “peace and development are the main theme of the times” as a major component of Deng Xiaoping Theory [邓小平理论] in his 1997 report to the 15th Congress. That year’s National Defense Law would reiterate this stance, stating that China’s policy was to “strengthen national defense while focusing on economic development” (China National People’s Congress, “People’s Republic of China National Defense Law,”14 March 1997). Both Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao would restate these ideas, including the line “peace and development are the main themes of the times” in every Party Congress political report they delivered in the two decades that followed Jiang’s 1997 codification of the phrase.  

Over these two decades there was only one serious challenge to the judgment that peace and development were the defining features of international politics. This occurred in 1999 after the American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Over that summer the Party allowed a widespread debate among intellectuals, academics, and party theorists over whether Deng’s sunny pronouncements still described China’s international environment. The pro-globalization forces won this argument. Their victory was codified in Jiang Zemin’s declaration that “A new world war is unlikely in the foreseeable future” and “it is realistic to bring about a fairly long period of peace in the world and a favorable climate in areas around China.” To Deng’s “peace and development” line Jiang added his own theoretical formulation, urging the Party to seize the “first two decades of the 21st century” as “an important PERIOD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY” for China’s development (Jiang Zemin, “Political Report to the 16th Party Congress,” 17 November 2002). With these slogans first Jiang, and then Hu and Xi after him, endorsed the idea that globalization was the surest guarantee of China’s rise.

 By Xi Jinping’s second term this no longer seemed so safe a guarantee. Setbacks in the BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE, unfavorable election results in Taiwan, a trade war with the United States, and mounting tensions in China’s bilateral relationship with numerous democratic nations seemed to challenge rosy assessments that development remained the theme of the times. Xi did not include “peace and development” line in his 2022 political report. The closely related “period of strategic opportunity” phrasing was replaced with references to a “a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising” (Xi Jinping, “Political Report to the 20^th Congress, 22 October 2022).

 The practical relevance of the changed assessment is perhaps best seen in the PRC’s defense budget. In 2023 this budget grew by more than 7%—even though China’s economy was only projected to grow by 5%. The Party can no longer claim that it is “strengthening national defense while focusing on economic development.” That was a strategy of a past era, an era when peace and development were the theme of the times.  

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See also: GREAT CHANGES UNSEEN IN A CENTURY; GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION; PERIOD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY; PATH OF PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT; TAKE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AS THE CENTRAL TASK.

For several decades the phrase “peaceful evolution” has been used by Chinese leaders and propagandists to describe their belief that the United States seeks to overthrow the Communist Party of China by peaceful means. Descriptions of the 'peaceful evolution' threat have changed over time, but the phrase generally describes an intentional strategy of economic pressure, ideological subversion, and active support of disaffected Chinese to trigger a revolution capable of dissolving China’s communist regime.

The phrase has its roots in the pronouncements made by John Foster Dulle when he served as Secretary of State under the Eisenhower administration. Dulles rejected arguments that America was obligated to use its military power to roll back the communist advance. He told his fellow Americans that  “liberation” from Soviet rule could occur through a “process short of war” (​​U.S. Senate Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, 15 January 1953), for “internal pressures are bound to alter the character of the communist regimes,” and thus American foreign policy should seek to “accelerate [this] evolution within the Sino-Soviet bloc” through peaceful means (Dulles, Policy for the Far East, 10-11).

Dulles’ statements had a powerful effect on communist leaders in Beijing, who were searching for an intellectual framework that might explain the source of threatening “revisionist”  trends then roiling the communist bloc. As the USSR de-Stalinized and political turmoil struck both Poland and Hungary, Mao began to intensively study Dulles’ words. At a senior leadership meeting convened in 1959 to discuss the threat of “peaceful evolution” Mao concluded:

The United States not only has no intention to give up its policy of force, but also wants, as an addition to its policy of force, to pursue a ‘peaceful evolution’ strategy of infiltration and subversion in order to avoid the prospect of its ‘being surrounded.’ The US desires to achieve the ambition of preserving itself (capitalism) and gradually defeating the enemy (socialism)” (Cold War International History Project Bulletin [Winter 1995/96], issue 6, pp. 229).

The concept would survive Mao’s death. It would undergo a significant renaissance after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the massacre on Tiananmen Square, events that conclusively proved that there were forces far more dangerous to communist rule than American military might. Shortly after those events Deng Xiaoping would declare that the United States and its allies “engage in peaceful evolution… [and thereby] wage a world war without smoke or gunpowder” (Deng Xiaoping, Deng Xiaoping Wenxuan, vol 3, p. 325).

Though party leaders and state affiliated thinkers now often frame the threat of peaceful evolution in terms of “color revolutions” or warnings that HOSTILE FORCES pose a threat to the “political security” of the standing regime, the danger they believe the United States poses to the GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION is remarkably similar. Then, as now, party leaders argue that Western powers are constitutionally averse to any great power that is not part of the liberal capitalist fold. As long as this is so, party members must remain on guard against the perils of peaceful evolution.

See also:  HEGEMONISM; HOSTILE FORCES; SOFT BONE DISEASE; TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM

The concept of a “period of strategic opportunity” was first introduced by Jiang Zemin in 2002. In his political report to the 16^th Party Congress, Jiang identified “the first two decades of the twenty-first century” as “an important period of strategic opportunity that must be grasped tightly.” In Jiang’s telling, the turn of the 21^st century introduced a rare window of time in which China could focus all of its efforts on economic development. By embracing the forces of globalization during this window the Party had the opportunity to build Chinese power through peaceful means, thereby laying the foundation for “a strong, prosperous, democratic and culturally advanced socialist country by the middle of this century” (Jiang Zemin, “Political Report to the 16^th Party Congress, 17 November 2002).

Jiang’s slogan was born out of the foreign policy debates that racked the Communist Party of China in the late 1990s. A decade before Deng Xiaoping had declared that PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT WERE THE THEME OF THE TIMES; a suite of reform era policies—including China’s opening to outside investment, Deng’s pursuit of market reforms, and the decision to terminate support for Maoist guerillas in the developing world—flowed from this assessment. A world trending towards peace and economic integration was a world where it was safe to focus the work of the Chinese party-state on economic reform.

 The annual debates over China’s trading status in Washington, the 1997 Taiwan Straits crisis, and America’s 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade all put Deng’s assessment of the international scene to question. Many in China believed that it had been a mistake to prioritize economic growth over military power or confrontation with the United States. China’s ascension to the WTO and the 9/11 attacks—which diverted American hostility away from the PRC and towards the Middle East—put an end to their worries. By 2002 it was clear that globalization would not only power China’s economic ascent but would also temper opposition to China’s growing material might.

Jiang’s conception of the period of strategic opportunity was endorsed by the two men who governed China during the remainder of this window of opportunity. Both Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping repeated Jiang’s phrase verbatim; both paired it with fulsome depictions of globalization as an unstoppable historical force. Yet as Xi Jinping’s second term came to a close, economic integration seemed a far less powerful trend than it had seemed at the start of tenure. By that point the BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE had met with numerous setbacks; China was engaged in an unforgiving trade war with the United States, and anti-China sentiment was rising across the globe. Two decades after Jiang’s introduction of the period of strategic opportunity, Xi would offer a new assessment of the times:

Our country has entered a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising… We must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms (Xi Jinping, “Political Report to the 20^th Congress, 2022).

 Xi’s new formula does not predict imminent war. It does suggest, however, that the Party can no longer rely on globalization and economic integration to shepherd the REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION. In an international environment defined by risk and danger, the strategies of the reform era are no longer sufficient to secure the Party CENTER’s desired future.

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See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; GREAT CHANGES UNSEEN IN A CENTURY; PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT ARE THE THEME OF THE TIMES; PATH OF PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT

See PLENUM.

A plenum, or more formally, a Plenary Session of a Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a gathering of all full and alternate members of the CENTRAL COMMITTEE  held to review and approve policies proposed by the POLITBURO. In the post-Mao era it is customary for each Central Committee to hold seven plenums in its five year term. These closed door meetings are usually the most important political events of any given year. The topics discussed in the plenary sessions range from revisions to the constitution to realignments of development strategy. Deliberations are secret. The General Secretary delivers a speech to the Central Committee, but this speech is usually not published until long after the plenum has concluded.  

In the post-Mao era the topics addressed in the seven plenums tend to follow a pattern: the first plenum is held to select the Politburo and Standing Committee membership, the second confirms the leadership of important government posts, the third is devoted to economic development and reform, the fourth focuses on initiatives in law or party building, the fifth lays the groundwork for the next FIVE YEAR PLAN, the sixth addresses problems of ideology, culture, or intra-party rules, and the seventh prepares the Central Committee for the upcoming PARTY CONGRESS.

Documents drafted during plenums are among the most authoritative in the Chinese policy process; each compacts the various guidelines, policies, and tasks issued since the previous plenum into a baseline directive for the entire party. At select points in modern Chinese history–such as the 3rd and 5th plenums of the 11th Party Congress–meetings of the Central Committee have served as forums for substantive intra-party debates. More often the Central Committee simply makes small adjustments to plans already agreed on by the Politburo ahead of time. 

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See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE

The Political Bureau, or Politburo, is the command headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party. The Politburo is composed of twenty-four senior leaders who can be placed in two tiers: a small core of leading generalists serving on the STANDING COMMITTEE, and a broader group of officials serving as leaders at the provincial or ministerial level. While day to day decision making authority for the Communist Party rests with the Standing Committee, Politburo members possess considerable influence over both national policy and personnel selection. The composition of the Politburo is therefore a key concern of any General Secretary; the number of loyalists he is able to elevate into the Politburo is a rough measure of his effective power.

Nominally, Politburo members are elected by the CENTRAL COMMITTEE, the body from which its members are drawn and its decision making authority is delegated. In practice, the composition of the Politburo is decided internally by the General Secretary, the Standing Committee, retired grandees, and the incumbent members of the Politburo. The rotation of Politburo seats is aided by a set of guiding retirement norms introduced in the Jiang Zemin era. In 1997 Jiang forced all members aged 70 or over to retire at the end of their five-year term; at subsequent Congresses the retirement age was lowered to 68. Though not officially codified in any party document, this norm has, with a few recent exceptions, governed the composition of the Politburo and functioned as an effective shield against gerontocracy. 

Since 2002, the Politburo has regularly held  “Politburo collective study sessions” [中央政治局集体学习] and more standard “Politburo meetings” [中央政治局会议]. During its standard meetings the Politburo discusses new policy directives, provides feedback on policy implementation, and prepares for future work conferences, plenums, or congresses. These meetings are about coordination, information exchange, and practical planning at the highest levels of the party. 

Study sessions, in contrast, play a more educational role. These sessions take place shortly after the standard Politburo meetings–usually on the same day or the day after. Professors, think tank scholars, or other experts are invited to lecture the Politburo members on a topic chosen by the General Secretary. Their lectures often end with “work recommendations” [工作建议] for the Politburo to consider. The sessions typically conclude with a speech by the General Secretary on the topic of study. In contrast to the meetings of the Standing Committee, whose agendas are rarely discussed in public, the subject of Politburo meetings and study sessions are often publicized with some fanfare. Collective study session topics are not chosen simply to educate Politburo members but to signal policy priorities to the cadres across the country. Thus even when passively listening to lectures, the Politburo fulfills its role as a bridge between the Standing Committee and the rest of the Party.  

See also: CENTER, THE; CENTRAL COMMITTEE; PLENUM; POLITICAL BUREAU STANDING COMMITTEE (PBSC);

The Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) is the most senior decision making body of the Chinese party-state. On a day to day basis the PBSC has ultimate responsibility for and administrative authority over all policy domains, and its members approve personnel appointments across China. The composition of the PBSC is thereby one of the most important indicators of the power of a General Secretary: the more loyalists he is able to place in the PBSC, the more powerful his position.

The PBSC's members are all drawn from the membership of the POLITBURO; but unlike the other members of that body, who are geographically distributed across China, the officials of the more select Standing Committee are all located in Beijing. In theory, the PBSC is subordinate to the CENTRAL COMMITTEE. Article 23 of the CPC Constitution provides that the members of the Standing Committee are elected at the plenary sessions of the Central Committee and that the PBSC shall exercise the functions and power of the Central Committee when the latter is not in session. In reality, the PBSC holds de facto power over the Central Committee, whose members usually meet only once a year and whose own membership is largely decided by negotiations between Standing Committee members and retired grandees.   

The role of the Standing Committee has evolved over time. During the Mao era, the Standing Committee held little power. But its status was elevated under Deng Xiaoping, who institutionalized party structures and began concentrating administrative authority in the Standing Committee. Its functions were fully institutionalized in the tenure of Jiang Zemin when the PBSC was transformed into the all-powerful body we know today. 

The number of PBSC members has also varied over time. Xi Jinping reduced the number of the Standing Committee’s members from nine to seven. In the pre-pandemic era the PBSC typically met once a week; during the pandemic this slowed to around 14 meetings a year. The agenda of these meetings is not available to the public and can only be guessed at by examining subsequent party directives.

 As with other members of the Politburo, PBSC members are given dual responsibilities in both the party and state apparatuses. After the 20th Party Congress, the membership of the PBSC consisted of General Secretary Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Deng Xuexiang, and Li Xi. All of these men are devoted Xi Jinping loyalists; securing their position in the Standing Committee was a political victory with no precedent in the Hu or Jiang eras.

See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE; POLITBURO; THE CENTER

The phrase “Red and Expert” began as a slogan in the 1957 “Anti-Rightist Campaign,” which targeted Chinese intellectuals critical of the Communist regime. The slogan communicated the imperative for those with specialized scientific or technical knowledge (“expert”) to be loyal to the Party and the socialist cause (“red”). As Mao wrote at the time:

Red is politics; expert is one's job. To be only expert and not red is to be a white expert. If one pursues politics so that one is only red and not expert, doesn't know one's job and doesn't understand practical matters, then the redness is a false redness and one is an empty-headed politician. While grasping politics, one must be thoroughly familiar with one's job; grasping technique must start with redness. If we are to overtake Britain in 15 years, then we must mold millions upon millions of intellectuals whose loyalty is to the proletariat” (MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol II, p. 28). 

Though the slogan implores specialists to be both “red and expert,” the slogan’s meaning has shifted from one era to another, sometimes emphasizing the demand for redness, at other times emphasizing the need for expertise. At the height of the Maoist era, the phrase was regularly used to bludgeon bourgeois intellectuals for their lack of proletarian consciousness, and was used later to celebrate the potential “red” laymen had to develop expertise equal to but distinct from that of the professional scientist or engineer. After the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping resuscitated the slogan to push the Party towards embracing technocratic expertise. As a set of regulations issued by the Central Committee in 1980 explained, the injunction to be red and expert then meant that “a Communist Party member who does not earnestly study expert knowledge and has been a layman for a long time in his own work cannot make a real contribution… His so-called political consciousness and advanced nature are mere empty talk” (“Guiding Principles of Intra-Party Political Life,” 1980). The slogan fell out of use in the late Deng era, and is only occasionally used today. 

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For Xi Jinping, the cadres and leading officials of the Communist Party of China are prone to one devastating weakness: lack of conviction. Xi attributes both hesitation in crisis and graft in prosperity to faltering faith. He often describes emotional attachment to the party’s revolutionary heritage and sincere belief in the eventual realization of communist utopia as “spiritual calcium” that fortifies the spines of party cadres in face of hardship and sacrifice. In contrast, cadres afraid to defend the Party or its historic mission suffer from "a calcium deficiency" [缺钙] and are thus stricken with “soft bone disease.” Their pusillanimous character threatens the GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION.

Xi Jinping introduced this metaphor in one of his earliest speeches as General Secretary. In his very first address to a meeting of the POLITBURO, Xi told the senior leadership of the Party that

Belief in Marxism and a faith in socialism and communism is the political soul and spiritual pillar of a Communist, enabling them to withstand all test. To put it more vividly, ideals and convictions are the spiritual calcium of Communists, and if these ideals and convictions are missing or irresolute, then there is a lack of spiritual calcium that leads to soft bone disease. This has proved true by the cases of some Party members and officials who acted improperly due to lack of ideals and confused faith.” (Adapted from Xi Jinping, Governance of China, vol I, p. 16).

Xi’s comments about officials who “act improperly” came soon after the fall of Bo Xilai and just before Xi began his historic anti-corruption campaign. Soft bone disease is thus Xi’s go-to explanation for the general institutional rot he inherited. To tame corruption the Party must do more than jail the corrupt: it must rekindle belief in the old revolutionary faith.

This is not the only context where the calcium metaphor shows up: it found just as commonly in official discussions of political security. Xi Jinping’s famous judgment that the Soviet Union collapsed because there “was no one man enough to stand up and resist” [但竟无一人是男儿，没什么人出来抗争] should be read in light of Xi’s many statements on soft bone disease. From this perspective the spinelessness of the CPSU was less a problem of manly toughness and more a problem of waning faith. The Soviets faltered because they no longer recieved the spiritual nourishment that stiffens conviction in the face of opposition and doubt. Many of Xi’s signature concepts and policies were designed to prevent the Communist Party of China from sharing their fate.

See DISCURSIVE POWER

The Total National Security Paradigm is a set of interlinked concepts that party sources describe as Xi Jinping’s signature contribution to Chinese security theory. Xi introduced the paradigm in a 2014 address where he instructed cadres to “pay attention to both traditional and non-traditional security, and build a national security system that integrates such elements as political, military, economic, cultural, social, science and technology, information, ecological, resource, and nuclear security” (Xi, Governance of China, vol, 221-222).  This distinction between traditional [传统] and non-traditional [非传统] security is key to Xi’s paradigm. “Traditional security” is oriented around threats to China’s territorial integrity and threats from foreign military powers. The Total National Security Paradigm guides cadres to place equal emphasis on “non-traditional security” threats which cannot be resolved with military tools, but which are potentially as dangerous as military defeat.

Variously translated as the Holistic Approach to National Security, the Comprehensive National Security Concept, or the Overall National Security Outlook, the core of Xi's security paradigm is a maximalist conception of security. This intellectual framework blurs the lines between hard and soft power, internal and external threats, and traditional distinctions between the worlds of economics, culture, and diplomacy. China’s accounting of its security must be “total” [总体]. Though the Total National Security Paradigm is the most forceful and systematic presentation of this idea, it is not new to Party thought. Mao introduced the phrase PEACEFUL EVOLUTION into the party lexicon to describe the threat posed by Western powers who hoped to overthrow communist regimes by instigating revolution from within. The collapse of the Soviet Union vividly demonstrated what happened to a party who ignored this threat. From that moment to the present day, party leaders and state intellectuals have portrayed the Communist Party of China as safeguarding a system under siege. Be they faced with economic coercion and political isolation or friendly offers to integrate into the international order, party authorities consistently describe their country as the object of hostile stratagems designed to subvert China’s domestic stability and the Party’s unquestioned rule.

Xi Jinping’s solution to this problem differs from its predecessors more in scale than concept. Officials in the Jiang and Hu eras offered regular warnings about the danger that ideological dissent, social protest, online media, and official corruption posed to the Party’s hold on power. The Total National Security Paradigm formalized these warnings into a more systematic conceptual framework. In Leninist systems theoretical frameworks like these are the necessary prerequisite of bureaucratic overhaul. If this was the concept’s purpose it seems to have accomplished its aim: by the 20th Congress, the Chinese government was spending more on its internal security budget than on military power, the state security apparatus saw fresh expansion down to lower levels of government, and new national bodies like the Central National Security Commission (CNSC) [中央国家安全委员会] were coordinating state security functions across China’s bureaucratic labyrinth.

See also: CORE INTERESTS; HOSTILE FORCES; PEACEFUL EVOLUTION; SOFT BONE DISEASE;

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The phrase “white left” first arose in prominence as a piece of Chinese internet slang around 2015. While it has not been adopted as a Party slogan, the phrase, mostly used as a pejorative, has slowly made its way into higher intellectual discourse since its internet debut.

The term  is used to distinguish the post-materialist concerns of Western leftists with the political program of the Chinese left, which frames political conflict through traditional class categories. Like Westerners, Chinese understand their politics in terms of a right-to-left spectrum. But “right” and “left” carry a very different valence in China, where the “left“ is generally associated with nostalgia for Maoism, unapologetic nationalism, disdain for limited government, and a hostility to capitalist enterprise, and the “right” is associated with market reforms, support for civil liberties, and a more cosmopolitan worldview. In a country where most political attitudes can be placed on a sliding scale between Josef Stalin and John Stewart Mill there is no easy home for the 'woke' political priorities of the Western left. While demands for justice for racial, sexual, and ethnic minorities do not resonate with either the Chinese right or the left, they usually provoke the most vitriolic response from Chinese leftists, who see identity politics as a betrayal and perversion of the international left’s traditional concern for the poor of the Earth.

Tied up in this critique of Western leftism as a political program is the stereotyped image of the Western leftist as a social type: in Chinese internet debates the Western leftist is often depicted as Pharisaical, shallow, and privileged; she makes showy gestures of solidarity and moralizes on human rights while living a comfortable, urbane life at the top of a system of privilege she has no real intention of overturning. In this sense the ”white” (bái 白) in  “white left” (báizuǒ 白左）is not just a reference to the race of most social justice leftists, but also a play on two words that describe character traits that Chinese leftists associate with the social justice movement: “wasted effort/to try in vain” (báizuò 白做) and “idiocy” (báichī, 白痴). To capture the term’s popularity as an insult, the pun-minded translator could thus fairly translate the term as the “useless left” or the “imbecile left.”

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