'Chinese dream' is a world dream

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Chinese dream vision for the country has inspired an international vision from scholars at the 5th World Forum on China Studies.

The Chinese Dream, with the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as its core, was proposed by Xi last November and later elaborated and repeatedly stressed at the just ended parliamentary session which elected Xi to the presidency. 

Josef Gregory Mahoney, associate professor of Politics with the East China Normal University, said the American Dream failed to achieve lasting progress in many areas and finds itself paralyzed by political gridlock and economic uncertainty. He hoped the Chinese Dream can make a positive contribution to human development as a whole.

He also said the dream should involve conscientiously avoiding gross Western practices of over-commodification, mass consumption and foreign intervention.

Robert Engelman, president of Worldwatch Institute. [Photo by Uking Sun/chinadaily.com.cn]

"I hope the dream reverses trends of increasing income inequality and yields greater economic and political participation for everyone, but particularly for farmers and rural-based citizens, women, and minorities.”

Jacquelyn McCroskey, professor of child welfare at the USC School of Social Work, hoped consideration for all of China's children, including those left behind, living without parents or on the street, is part of the dream.

"China will need all of her children to pave the way forward,” she said.

The China Dream may put more emphasis on the common well-being of the Chinese people as a whole, which is different from the "American Dream" that focuses more on individual freedom and a chance to succeed financially, according to Robert Engelman, president of Worldwatch Institute.

Engelman thought Xi intended to move toward the original direction of the reformer Deng Xiaoping - for the nation to be stronger and richer as a whole by narrowing the income gap between the richest and the regular Chinese citizen during the last few decades of spectacular income growth.

He also said China should draw lessons from other countries in the development, and redefine wealth not as the accumulation of possessions but as healthy and long life in societies enjoying relative equality and respecting the dignity of all humans and all life.

Jae Ho Chung, professor of political science and international relations at the Seoul National University. [Photo by Uking Sun/chinadaily.com.cn]

But for Jae Ho Chung, professor of political science and international relations at the Seoul National University, the contents of the "Chinese Dream" need to be further communicated to the world, and China needs to find out a neat way to connect the dream with the vision that the world shares. He also urged the Chinese government to better communicate its foreign policy to small countries.

On the realization of the dream, Wang Zhan, president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said bringing Chinese culture into the world mainstream values should be a part of the dream.

"In this world of globalization, we should not just integrate the markets of different regions, but also the cultures of different peoples for a more solid basis of mutual understanding and cooperation.”

Mohamed Noman Galal, member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Relations and former ambassador to China, said leaders alone cannot turn the dream true and people should be motivated to work hard for the goal.