ABSTRACT
National dreams are carefully crafted narratives. Their effectiveness depends in part upon the extent to which the dream is articulated in terms of the deep cultural code—the relations among images, ideas, and symbols that constitute a dynamic semi-historical system constituting a set of generative rules for the expression of new ideas and cultural visions that artistically capture the past, define national goals, and project those goals into new meaningful constellations. The Chinese refer to the hundred years between the 1840s and 1940s as the “Century of National Humiliation.” Narratives of “national humiliation” have played an instrumental role in constructing modern Chinese identity and, indeed, as a historical anchor for the Chinese Dream. In the space of a couple of generations, China has condensed the stages of world economic history in moving from an agricultural peasant economy, through an established industrial economy, to a new service-oriented knowledge economy that leads 5G mobile network technologies.
