5.00–7.00pm: A18, Si Yuan Centre, University of Nottingham
6.30pm: Cercle Cité; dinner to be honored by the presence of HRH Crown Prince Guillaume
The term Chinese Dream has been used several times by President Xi Jinping since the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Congress in November 2012. The term has become a major focus of discussion in China. The paper below was given as a keynote speech at a major conference held in Shanghai last December.
The Chinese Dream is a new departure – both as a political idea and slogan. It is, for one thing, immediately accessible and, as a result, populist. Everyone knows about dreams, we all have them, whether in our sub-conscious or conscious state. Dreams belong to everyone. There is also a sense of freedom about dreams. When we dream we are not constrained by material circumstance or the real world, on the contrary we are allowed to escape from those kind of restraints. Dreams empower: they are highly personal, each and every one of us their author. The evocation of the word dream summons us all to be bold, to imagine the world not as it is but as it might be, how we would like it to be.
The term Chinese Dream is of the present: its moment has arrived. It would not have been appropriate in 1978. That was not the nature of the time. The term Chinese Dream urges the Chinese to move on, to think anew and afresh, to turn over a new page, to begin a new chapter. The Chinese Dream announces the beginning of something new but also the end of something: the end of the era of Deng Xiaoping.
Sir David Bell, vice-chancellor, University of Reading, says: “Having recently visited the country, I read Martin Jacques’ When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order [Penguin, 2009]. He defies the conventional wisdom that China is on an inexorable path to ‘Westernisation’. Rather, the Middle Kingdom, with its enduring language, culture and values, will plot an alternative route to modernisation. As Jacques puts it, the ‘gravitational pull’ of China will have a profound impact on the West, and not the other way round.”
2:10pm: Conference Room 104, Centre for American Studies, Fudan University
Sponsored by the PRC State Council Information Office and organised by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China International Publishing Group
7.30pm: Jubilee Room, House of Commons