The correct view regarding the history of the Chinese Communist Party

Analysis and comment of an article of Qiushi

Abstract

The Chinese Communist Party plays a crucial role in attempting to create a metanarrative on the history of China. The specific means used to achieve this goal have been analyzed from the viewpoints of politics, history and ideology. The role that political “code-words” play in such a process is still under-explored. This contribution fills part of this gap by exploring the most recent political and ideological concepts that set the boundaries of acceptable discourses on history. Our analysis focuses on an article authored by the China Institute for Historical Research and published in the January 2021 issue of Qiushi. We decode the meaning that this article conveys to policy makers and intellectuals in the People’s Republic of China. We also unveil the meaning that this and similar texts might hide to international observers, who do not enjoy an unmediated access to Chinese language sources.