What is it about?
By combining critical and post-structuralist discourse analysis, we argue firstly that prevalent Western-centric approaches to the study of populism only partially capture the notion of the people in contem- porary China, the study of which requires a mixture of elements from these approaches. Secondly, that the image of a Chinese people embracing the Chinese Dream and the promise for a New China, is narrated in a context where the Chinese Communist Party infuses all levels of society with mes- sages of development, prosperity, peace and freedom. And thirdly, that while previous leaders would normally address the people in a formal and detached way, the distance between leadership and the people has been reduced in the Xi Jinping era.
Why is it important?
In an effort to unravel the most representative samples of official discourse in con- temporary Chinese politics, we concentrate on speeches delivered by the highest- ranking Chinese statesman, the current President of the Peoples’ Republic of China, Xi Jinping. The selected speeches were delivered by him in three occa- sions: the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (1 October 2019); the plenary session of CCP’s General Assem- bly held on 27 September 2019; the First Session of the 13th National People’s Con- gress on 20 March 2018. We have used as selection criterion the notion of the “people” (renmin人民), looking at the frequency of the word/signifier “people” in the initial sample, and we have concluded to these three speeches from an initial sample of more than 15. In addition, we have identified other key notions which are mentioned in proximity and correspondence to the “people” in the texts. We have discovered that the collocations “Chinese nation” (中华民族) and “Chinese people” (中国人民) as well as the words/signifiers “unity” (团结), “masses” (群 众), and “harmony” (和谐) often accompany the notion of the “people”.