Dedicated to the development of the future stewards of U.S.-China relations
This week we focus on Xi Jinping's consolidation of power, a chengyu delivered by Xi on March 20, and a documentary series on the restoration of various Forbidden City artifacts.
Weekly Readings
Former South China Morning Post (SCMP) China editor Wang Xiangwei wrote a provocative article for his former paper criticizing Xi Jinping and the propaganda surrounding his rise. Given the SCMP's Chinese ownership, such personal criticisms highlight Xi's unfinished business in consolidating power. The top page of the Central Party School's publication website (qstheory.cn) shows the kind of personalized propaganda that Wang is criticizing. Below are links to two of the four special pages on Xi's leadership. Both the presentation and one or two of the articles are worth examining.
In his March 20th speech concluding the first meeting of the Third Plenum, Xi used this chengyu to describe the development history of the Chinese people. In his opening few sentences of this speech he used somewhere around a dozen chengyus. Throughout the whole speech...well, more than we care to count right now The speech emphasized innovation, creativity, struggle, unity, the Chinese dream, and, of course, the importance of the Party.
This week's featured video is 我在故宫修文物, a documentary series about various artifacts in The Forbidden City and the associated techniques involved in their restoration.
If you appreciate the effort we put into organizing Chinese-language policy events, providing robust language and policy resources on our website, and the kind of content you see in this newsletter, please consider
supporting us with a tax-deductible contribution--every bit helps!
The American Mandarin Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.