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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 22:4 (2023) ► pp.512–533

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The leader and the people

Shifting boundaries in Chinese populist discourse

 | University of Galway
ORCiD logo with link | Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Published online: 22 May 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.22032.fan
Abstract
This paper examines the shifting boundaries in populist discourses in China, with a focus on how the political leader’s discourse socially constructs the people. 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 contemporary 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 messages 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.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Defining populism in China: A not so easy task
  • 3.Research Design and Methodological Choices
  • 4.The leader, the people, the party and the nation
    • 4.1The October 2019 Speech
    • 4.2The September 2019 Speech
    • 4.3The March 2018 speech
  • 5.Concluding remarks: The “people” (renmin 人民) in Chinese leadership’s discourse
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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