Skip to main content

First Letter: S

quotation marks

So-called

Written by Editors on .

In Chinese Communist Party discourse, “so-called” (所谓的) can function to reference commonly used terms, but often serves as a rhetorical device to delegitimize concepts, ideas, or assertions that run counter to Party positions. When officials use this modifier in political contexts, they typically signal that the referenced concept is fabricated, hypocritical, or invalid from the Party’s perspective. The qualifier serves multiple rhetorical functions: it creates distance between the speaker and the concept being discussed, implies that the concept lacks legitimacy, and preemptively dismisses opposing viewpoints without necessitating substantive engagement with their factual basis. This qualifier is particularly effective in ideological and diplomatic disputes because it simultaneously acknowledges an opposing concept while indicating to the audience that it should be regarded with skepticism. In contemporary applications, Chinese state media routinely applies this qualifier to Western political concepts when criticizing foreign policies or defending China against external criticism.

Chinese puzzle lock

Stability

Written by David Bandurski on .

Brief

In the 1945 UN Charter, “stability” was regarded as a basic prerequisite for “peaceful and friendly relations among nations”. In international relations, stability is defined as a condition where interstate violence is unexpected and rare. More recently, the concept has figured strongly in UN discussions of development, stressing stable and peaceful societies that protect individual rights regardless of ethnicity or faith. As the UN secretary-general told a gathering in 2014: “Children need to be safe going to school. Women need to be free of violence at home and workplaces.”

While China actively engages with UN discourse on stability, the CCP has understood the concept — even as it relates to development — in more politically laden terms, with three basic strains. First, stability has been inseparable from the CCP’s efforts to manage internal divisions and power struggles. Second, it assumes the inviolable legitimacy of the CCP and its governance model, implying that only the Party can deliver it. Finally, stability has rationalised a coercive system of “stability maintenance” to address deep social divisions domestically, many resulting from rapid development without political reform.

Analysis

For much of China’s pre-reform era under Mao Zedong, stability took a back seat to revolution and power struggle. Even as it suffered at home, the young PRC affirmed itself internationally as a force for stability, defending sovereignty and non-interference.

As China emerged from the Cultural Revolution in 1975, a rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping attempted to calm ideological divisions and revive the economy. The second of Deng’s “Three Directives” for government work was “stability and unity”, which encouraged cessation of intra-Party struggles to focus on building national development. This suspension of the Party’s class struggle displeased Mao: “Without struggle there can be no progress, no peace”, he said. Only three years later, after another round of struggles, could Deng’s vision be realised.

Under Deng in the 1980s, stability meant avoiding rancour to get on with business. Closely tied to reform and development, “economic stability” took centre stage. With economic stability, reforms could proceed; with reforms, economic development could accelerate; and accelerated development offered “an even stronger guarantee of stability”. Stability also meant upholding CCP rule and ceasing internal discord. Deng emphasised “stability and unity” alongside the Four Basic Principles, which committed the nation to socialist rule and CCP leadership. Internationally, China understood stability as ensuring peaceful conditions — particularly between Cold War powers, the US and Soviet Union, but also in US-China relations.

In the late 1980s, Deng’s equation linking reform, development and stability took shape in the slogan, “stability overrides everything”. After Jiang Zemin took power following the June 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, this phrase became ubiquitous, as the crackdown was cast as a “counter-revolutionary riot” and an aberration that interrupted development. Like Deng, Jiang emphasised that “stability overrides everything”. But as the economy boomed through the 1990s, spawning inequality and social unrest, Chinese society came under blanket policing through what the Party termed “stability maintenance” (维护稳定), or weiwen. Under Hu Jintao, mechanisms of pressure and control often provoked the social tensions they sought to suppress, resulting in costly repression and resistance scholars criticised as “rigid stability”.

Since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, stability maintenance has increasingly merged with national security, reflected in the “comprehensive national security concept”, introduced April 2014. This concept has been applied with uncompromising resolve via social management, high-tech surveillance, and repression. Stability concerns drove concerted suppression of democracy protests in Hong Kong from 2014 onward, culminating in a robust national security regime in 2020. In Xinjiang, they prompted unprecedented security measures, including mass detention facilities for ethnic Uyghurs that sparked international condemnation. In 2022, Xi stated that “national security is the foundation of national rejuvenation and social stability is the prerequisite for national strength”. Stability fears have been deepened by structural challenges facing China’s economy, including unemployment, so domestic stability remains closely tied to economic stability.

mathematical formula

Scientific

Written by Editors on .

In Chinese Communist Party discourse, “scientific” refers not just to empirical scientific methods, but functions instead as a rhetorical tool claiming rational legitimacy for Party decisions and policies. When officials describe “scientific” approaches outside references to science and technology, they typically mean that these align with CCP priorities and represent a balanced consideration of Party objectives.

The term gained prominence within CCP discourse with the introduction of Hu Jintao’s guiding political principle, the “Scientific Outlook on Development” (科学发展观), which claimed to correct unbalanced growth with more rational policies. In contemporary usage, such as describing Covid-19 policies as “scientific and precise” (科学精准), the qualifier serves to portray political decisions as inevitable, rational outcomes rather than subjective choices.

sickle and chemical test tube

Science

Written by David Bandurski on .

Brief

While international definitions of science centre on the study of the physical world through unbiased observations and verifiable experimentation, the word “science” has complex, multi-layered meanings within the context of Chinese Communist Party discourse. On the one hand, science as a discipline systematically studying the natural world has been regarded as a crucial contributor to national development, driving economic growth and self-reliance.

On the other hand, notions of science have been interwoven with political claims to truth as a source of political power. From the time of Mao, with inspiration from the Soviet Union, politics and science have been bedfellows. This can be seen today as calls for “speaking politics” sometimes override scientific recommendations, as in the early days of the Wuhan outbreak, and as political education emphasising the Party’s legacy is incorporated into science education materials. References to actions or policies as “scientific” are today sprinkled throughout CCP discourse – a claim to the fundamental rightness and rationality of all the Party does.

Analysis

The fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 ushered in a wave of soul-searching about China’s future. Writing in New Youth magazine in January 1919, Chen Duxiu, one of the early founders of the CCP, personified China’s hopes for restoration in “Mr Democracy” and “Mr Science”.[1] Only these “two gentlemen”, he wrote, could “remedy all of the darkness that has shrouded China – in politics, in morals, in academic endeavours and ideas”, and free the country from external aggression and colonial occupation. Embracing the natural sciences meant abandoning the old superstitions and embarking on a project of national strengthening.

With the founding of the CCP in 1921, Party leaders were keen to lay claim to science and modernity. Taking their cues from Soviet writings, CCP theorists saw the introduction to China of the materialist philosophy of Marxism as a moment of “scientific” reckoning in which “Chinese Communists began to have a more scientific understanding of many basic issues of the Chinese revolution and society”. In the 1950s, CCP discourse made clear that the scientist’s primary role was to “serve the people”, and to be on guard against the people’s enemies.

At the outset of the economic reform and opening period in the 1980s, there was a new emphasis on science development. China’s focus was on acquiring foreign technologies, with the pace of technology imports increasing dramatically.[2] Chinese overseas study also helped to build China’s science system from the 1980s. These developments soared in the 1990s, the natural sciences viewed as crucial to overall economic development and national prestige.[3] Nevertheless, the notion of the “scientific spirit” as a trait of the CCP’s Marxist politics persisted alongside real advancements in science, marking the Party’s claim to practical and people-based policy responses. One of the most prominent examples in the reform era was the “scientific view of development” (科学发展观), a catchphrase introduced in the early 2000s by President Hu Jintao that essentially outlined the need for more balanced development.

In the Xi Jinping era, China’s advancements as a “scientific power” have continued apace. China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) places science and technology at the centre of national priorities, with Xi pledging to make China the “world’s primary centre” for science and innovation. But the conflation of the scientific and the political has also continued apace. In late 2019, as the earliest cases of Covid-19 appeared in the city of Wuhan, local doctors were disciplined for raising the alarm through private chat groups, and told that they must “speak politics, speak discipline and speak science”. Medical personnel were obliged, on political grounds, not to share information publicly, effectively delaying by many weeks a more concerted domestic and global response. Early in the pandemic, China has also placed limits on the publication of research on the origins of the novel coronavirus, prioritising politics over science.

The phrase “speaking politics” has surged under Xi, underscoring the need for obedience to the Party and its prerogatives. In recent years, there has also been a growing emphasis in science education on the need to simultaneously carry out ideological and political indoctrination of China’s youth. One recent textbook on biology, for example, instructs teachers to implant a discussion of “red genes” – a reference to the political and historical legacy of the CCP – into a unit on genetics.

[1] E. X. Gu, “Who Was Mr Democracy? The May Fourth Discourse of Populist Democracy and the Radicalization of Chinese Intellectuals (1915-1922)”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3, July 2001, pp. 589-621.

[2] S. P. S. Ho, “Technology Transfer to China During the 1980s-How Effective? Some Evidence from Jiangsu”, Pacific Affairs, vol. 70, no. 1, 1997, pp. 85-106.

[3] C. Cao, J. Baas, C. S. Wagner and K. Jonkers, “Returning Scientists and the Emergence of China’s Science System”, Science and Public Policy, vol. 47, April 2020, pp. 172-183.

Sovereignty

Written by Jerker Hellström on .

Brief

The concept of state sovereignty can be defined as the exclusive right of states to govern within their own territory. In China, sovereignty should be understood as absolute and perpetual state power, where the state is governed by the Chinese Communist Party. Moreover, it is intimately linked to China’s emphasis on mutual non-interference in domestic affairs, as outlined in the (1954) Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. China is a principled defender of a strong normative understanding of sovereignty and includes state sovereignty as one of its non-negotiable “national core interests”, of which the overarching interest is the Communist Party’s continued monopoly on power.

From the Communist Party’s perspective, sovereignty includes the exclusive right of the government of a sovereign nation to exercise control over issues within its own borders, including, for example, its political, economic, cultural, and technological activities. The CCP includes the territory within China’s de jure borders, as well as its territorial claims, in its concept of state sovereignty. As such, Taiwan and land formations in the South China Sea, for example, set the outer geographical boundaries of its claims to state sovereignty.

Analysis

China bases its concept of state sovereignty on selective historical territorial claims. For example, the CCP claims to have sovereignty over Taiwan dating back to the Qing empire (1644-1911). While it does not claim parts of present-day Mongolia, which were once ruled by the Yuan empire (1271-1368) (and later the Qing empire), Beijing argues that parts of the South China Sea were under Chinese jurisdiction during the same period and should therefore be recognised as its sovereign territory. Despite a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 finding that China’s “historical” claims in the South China Sea have no legal basis, Beijing continues to maintain this position.

In 2009 China apparently won support from the United States for its sovereignty and territorial claims when a joint statement issued by the Obama-Hu Jintao summit included language suggesting that the parties have agreed to respect one another’s “core interests”. As China’s core interests include its sovereignty over Taiwan, the statement could be interpreted as a recognition that Taiwan is a part of China, which would have been a major shift in America’s China policy. The term “core interests” did not appear in the joint statement for the second Hu-Obama summit.[1]

China’s adherence to Westphalian norms of sovereignty is another strong influence over its posture in the international human rights debate. China insists that a country’s level of development, culture and values has to be taken into account, which places strict limits on international human rights monitoring and enforcement. China tends to regard humanitarian intervention with great suspicion, arguing that it could serve as a pretext for Western countries to interfere in the domestic affairs of other states, thereby threatening their sovereignty.

Cyber sovereignty should be understood as referring to China’s efforts to control the flow of information available to internet users in China in order to ensure social stability and regime legitimacy, while playing a leading role in the global governance of cyberspace. As such, “cyber sovereignty” constitutes a pushback against ideas that cyberspace should be a free, open and global platform governed primarily by a bottom-up approach.

Cultural sovereignty can be defined as the state’s right to promote its cultural interests independently, i.e., without external interference. The CCP claims jurisdiction over issues relating to Chinese culture in other countries, when official narratives are challenged. In October 2020, for example, the Chinese authorities attempted to censor an exhibition on Genghis Khan at a Museum in Nantes, France. According to the museum, Chinese officials wanted to rewrite the history of Mongolia.

Religious sovereignty is rarely invoked in Chinese discourse, but the fact that the Chinese Communist Party asserts sovereignty over religious affairs outside its borders makes it worth mentioning here. For example, Beijing claims to be the highest authority in Tibetan Buddhism, despite the Party’s secular nature. While the 14th Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual authority in Tibetan Buddhism, resides in India, the CCP insists that it has the sovereign right to identify and appoint the next Dalai Lama.

[1] R.C. Bush, “Unchartered Strait: The Future of China-Taiwan Relations”, Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 2013, p. 222.

red-star padlock

Security

Written by Jerker Hellström on .

Brief

For China, national security and state security are synonyms (both are translated as 国家安全), meaning that the two English terms can be used interchangeably. State security refers to the consolidation of the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling position and to its protection from domestic and foreign threats. As such, threats to state security are perceived by the Party as existential in nature. State security covers political security, homeland security, military security, economic security, cultural security, social stability, and information security, meaning that these can be understood as conditions for the regime’s continued monopoly on power.

In order to fully grasp the Party’s notion of state security, it is relevant to understand the perceived threats to it, which are also threats to Party rule. An overarching threat, in the Party’s mind, is the ideological infiltration of “Western hostile forces”, including foreign NGOs and international media. Rhetorically speaking, an individual’s personal security will not be safeguarded if the regime is not secure. Meanwhile, there is an underlying assumption in China that those who act in line with the interests of the ruling class should enjoy safety.

Analysis

China’s emphasis on the Party-state as the key beneficiary of state security, rather than highlighting, for example, social and individual freedoms, is reflected in Article 2 of the National Security Law (NSL) of 2015:

State security refers to the relative absence of international or domestic threats to the state’s power to govern, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, the welfare of the people, sustainable economic and social development and other major national interests, and the ability to ensure a continued state of security [emphasis added].

The NSL furthermore defines “the state” as ruled by the CCP: “he State persists in the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party”. Similar language can be found in China’s Constitution. Hence, “state security” should ultimately be understood as security for the Party.

The primary missions of China’s civilian intelligence service, the Ministry for State Security (MSS), further reflect the Chinese concept of state security. In contrast to its equivalents in democracies, the MSS, for example, conducts domestic espionage on dissidents with foreign connections, and overseas espionage on Uyghurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, democracy activists, and members of the Falun Gong movement, as well as their supporters. This reflects concerns within the Party that these groups could become security threats, including any advocacy against Beijing which could negatively affect China’s international image.

An example of how the concept of ‘security’ is used by Chinese officials is Beijing’s efforts to defend the establishment of re-education camps in Xinjiang from 2017. While detainees have not been charged with any crimes, the Chinese government has depicted the camps as part of its counter-terrorism efforts, thereby safeguarding state security.

Cultural security is aimed at protecting Chinese society from cultural infiltration by hegemonic powers, Westernisation and cultural decay. The concept of cultural security is intertwined with “ideological security”, which involves threats including “Western-style democracy, Western cultural hegemony, the diversified dissemination of internet information and public opinion, and religious infiltration”. In 1994 Wang Huning, a current member of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee and a prominent ideologue, asserted that globalisation should be understood as Western cultural hegemony, which constituted an existential threat to the Party.

Food security is defined as national food self-sufficiency and is also aligned with regime security. This can be compared to the definition of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, where food security is “a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.

Human security is understood in China as focused on the collective humankind, rather than emphasising security for individuals, which is normally at the heart of human security discourses. In the Chinese conception, the state is seen as the key guarantor of human security, rather than as a threat to it.

PDF edition of the decoding china dictionary

Download the full dictionary here.

(ENGLISH DIGITAL VERSION)
DOWNLOAD PDF