'CPC centenary' among popular phrases of the year

The Chinese phrase "jiandang bainian", meaning the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, was chosen as the nation's most popular phrase this year, while the hottest word related to domestic issues is "zhi", which means governance.

They are among a list of popular words and phrases collected during an annual assessment that sifts through characters used by Chinese-language media and chosen by netizens.

Organizers included the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center and the Commercial Press publishing house. It is the 16th time the lists have been published.

From 1921 to 2021, the course of an ancient and big Asian country has been changed due to the founding of the CPC, the list's organizers said. Looking back at the past century, the nation's struggle and rejuvenation was deeply interwoven with the rise of the Party, they explained.

History has proved that no matter how many hardships it faces, the Party, still in its prime, can achieve new glory in the new era together with the Chinese people, they said.

"Governance" made the list as the country has issued many good policies this year, such as providing free COVID-19 vaccines for all people and reducing students' excessive academic burden, the organizers said.

Li Yuming, a linguistic professor at Beijing Language and Culture University, said that it is very fitting to choose governance as the most popular word this year, as it represents the consensus among Chinese people that China is a big country good at governing.

This year, many countries with better medical resources have been overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic, yet China has safeguarded the health and well-being of its 1.4 billion people with effective epidemic prevention and control measures, he said.

The good governance of the Chinese government is because the country has the right development system and is on the right development path, which originated in the Party founded 100 years ago, Li said.

"A country's political development, social advancement and progress in science and technology lead to the higher level of its language and culture," he said. "The Chinese language has great power and wisdom because of the wisdom and power of the Chinese people."

Meanwhile, the Chinese character yi, meaning "pandemic", was chosen as the hottest word related to international topics this year, and the hottest phrase related to international topics this year was "metaverse".

Shen Yang, a professor of media research at the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University, said that since 2020, the world has entered the age of the pandemic, which has lengthened people's physical distance but shortened the virtual one.

Human beings have been fighting the pandemic with their vitality, technology and epidemic containment measures, he said, adding that the world should work together closely to win the battle against the pandemic.