MCLC: CCP video vows to fulfill dreams

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CCP video vows to fulfill dreams
Source: Sinosphere, NYT (2/9/15)
In Video, Communist Party Vows It Wants to Fulfill Your Dreams
By Chris Buckley
Perhaps you want an attractive wife? Or to open a little restaurant? Maybe blue skies and clean water? Or, less modestly, a world without war? Be assured: The Chinese Communist Party and its 83 million members are rooting for you.
That is the theme of a slick, three-minute promotional video for the party that has spread on Chinese websites in recent days.
Heart-tugging images rush by: a gaggle of ducks in a village, people picking tea on verdant terraced fields, an old man on a motorbike flourishing a red flag, a clown with a red nose handing out roses, a bartender with a cool trick. And a voice-over describes the Communist Party in a way that makes it sound like a zealously friendly neighbor, knocking on your door, quizzing you about your dreams, ready to help you open a restaurant and play matchmaker.
“On the road chasing our dreams, we walk side by side. Sharing weal and woe, transcending differences and shaping the future together,” it says. “The Communist Party is with you.”
The voice-over might sound a little too much like Darth Vader for some, and some of the lines — “weal and woe” — might sound musty. But the intent is clear: to reassure an international audience that the Communist Party is a benign vehicle for realizing the Chinese people’s aspirations.
“I want a good harvest next year”; “I want to start a diner”; “I want some more pension”; “I want a pretty wife”; “I want azurer sky and cleaner water”; “I want a world free of wars” declare a succession of voices, accompanied by English subtitles.
“Our people’s dreams are our goals,” explains the James Earl Jones-like voice-over. “For every dreamer to have a stage, and for every dream-seeker on the stage to have an opportunity for success, to have the joy of a dream come true.”
Not all the images are cozy. There are flitting images of pollution and a road crammed with cars. “This is an ancient and youthful country,” says the deep voice. “It is growing fast, yet with development disparities. It’s full of opportunities along with untold challenges.”
The Beijing News reported on Monday that the promotional video was completed in 2013, and had been released on the Internet before, though it is only now winning wide attention. It was made by the same production unit that made a short animated video showing how Xi Jinping, the Communist Party leader and Chinese president, won his job.
China’s state news media has celebrated the video as a brilliant display of the party’s ability to communicate and to win people over with its message. Critics on Twitter have given it a thumbs down, however, with some suggesting that a one-party authoritarian state fraught with corruption is not the best vehicle for realizing people’s dreams.
Make up your own mind. The video is on YouTube, which is blocked in China.
by denton.2 at osu.edu on February 9, 2015
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