Chinese Dream

The Chinese Dream (), also called the China Dream, is a term closely associated with Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China's paramount leader. Xi began promoting the phrase as a slogan during a high-profile tour of an exhibit at the National Museum of China in November 2012, shortly after he became leader of the CCP. The exhibit at that time was called the "Road to National Rejuvenation". Xi said that the Chinese Dream is the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" (). Since then, the use of the phrase has become widespread in official announcements and it has also been characterized as the embodiment of the leadership's political ideology under Xi Jinping. Xi said that young people should "dare to dream, work assiduously to fulfill the dreams and contribute to the revitalization of the nation." There are various connotations and interpretations of the term. The concept of the Chinese Dream is part of the inspiration for the Belt and Road Initiative and Made in China 2025. The phrase "Chinese Dream" (中国梦) corresponds with the associated idea of a hope for restoring earlier dynasties lost national greatness and has ancient origins in Chinese literary and intellectual history. In the Classic of Poetry (Shi Jing), the poem "Flowing Spring" (下泉) describes a poet waking up in despair after dreaming of the former Western Zhou dynasty. During the troubled Southern Song dynasty, the poet Zheng Sixiao wrote a poem in which he coined the phrase "Heart full of [the] Chinese Dream (中国梦), the ancient poem 'Flowing Spring'" (一心中国梦,万古下泉诗), referring back to the classical poem. It should be noted, however, that the concept of "China" did not exist in the Southern Song Dynasty and is actually a 16th-century European invention. The word "中国" , literally "Middle" or "Central Kingdom", referred actually to the capital region (see ). Popular patriotic literary and theatrical works in early 20th century China also made reference to a "China Dream.