International Politics

Xi Propagates โ€˜New Eraโ€™ Discourse Strengthening His Personal Power

Hugo Jones, writing in The Diplomat said that the โ€œnew eraโ€ โ€“ connoting a fundamental historical shift โ€“ has been systematically fused with the persona of Xi in Chinese official discourse

Beijing: Ahead of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi Jinping is pushing for a โ€œnew eraโ€ discourse to strengthen his personal power.

Hugo Jones, writing in The Diplomat said that the โ€œnew eraโ€ โ€“ connoting a fundamental historical shift โ€“ has been systematically fused with the persona of Xi in Chinese official discourse. Significantly, Xi calls Mao Zedongโ€™s time the โ€˜revolution period,โ€™ Deng Xiaopingโ€™s the โ€˜building period,โ€™ Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintaoโ€™s the โ€˜reform periodโ€™ while calling his term a โ€˜whole new era.โ€™

For the past five years, the term โ€œnew eraโ€ has appeared with increasing frequency in Chinaโ€™s white papers, propaganda, official speeches, and public diplomacy.

From early on in his premiership, it was clear that Xi Jinping sought historical significance greater than that of his two immediate predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin. This was also encouraged by growing Chinese nationalism, which predates Xi, reported The Diplomat.

For Xi, while the โ€œnew eraโ€ is scalable from the local to the international context, it is ultimately all about China, โ€œIt will be an era that sees China moving closer to center stage and making greater contributions to mankind.โ€
The discourse of a โ€œnew eraโ€ serves three functions. First, it bolsters the CCPโ€™s legitimacy in a domestic context. The โ€œnew eraโ€ is also used to provide the context for sensitive issues such as Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, said Jones.

Second, the discourse of a โ€œnew eraโ€ is used to empower the CCP and challenge norms internationally. The strongest example was on February 4, when Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin released a joint statement on โ€œInternational Relations Entering a New Era,โ€ a major foreign policy declaration that aligned China with Russia weeks before the invasion of Ukraine.

The discourse of a โ€œnew eraโ€ is also used to challenge the US, NATO, and Western countries that belong to the โ€œold,โ€ unipolar era of global politics. The โ€œnew eraโ€ is presented by China as the just temporality of a multipolar, post-imperial world.

Also Read: In 20th National Congress Runoff, Chinese Communist Party Propagates Inevitability Of Xiโ€™s Third Term

Third, the discourse of a โ€œnew eraโ€ serves to reinforce the idea that the government of China, and the governance of Xi, are always thinking in the long term, operating on fundamentally different time scales to the Western world. This reinforces certain orientalist tropes that China is inherently โ€œbetterโ€ at grand strategy, reported The Diplomat.

However, despite its popularity, this narrative disguises the reality that Xi and the CCP are often as short-sighted as other regimes โ€“ the chaotic โ€œzero-COVIDโ€ policy is just one example. This reminds us that we should take the narrative of a โ€œnew eraโ€ with a fair degree of skepticism, said Jones.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by HW News staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Dear Readers,
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
Some error occurred

Related posts

News Hub