China Dream Propaganda Art: Creating the Cult of Xi Jinping Brian Hart Wake Forest University Abstract Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used publicly displayed propaganda art as a means of maintaining power. During the early years of the PRC, propaganda posters played a large role in establishing a cult of personality around Mao Zedong. In addition to posters similar to those of earlier periods, today’s propaganda art competes in a mediasaturated world by using new mediums such as television, newspapers, and the Internet. Today’s propaganda art exists almost exclusively as part of President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” ( 中国梦) campaign. The China Dream, which Xi coined in 2013, is a nebulous concept that shares many of the materialistic components of the “American Dream,” but more importantly emphasizes the return of China as a nation with wealth and power ( 富强). China Dream art deviates significantly from Maoist Era posters by heavily incorporating ancient Confucian concepts and images. The art focuses not on communist values, but on moralistic ones drawn from the teachings of Confucius. I argue that China Dream art is being used not only to create a new source of legitimacy for the Communist Party, but also to establish a cult of personality around President Xi Jinping. Methods Select cities • Need variation in population sizes • Historical and cultural variation • Qufu provided a uniquely small and rural city with a unique cultural and historical significance as the hometown of Confucius Select locations within cities • Universities, tourist attractions, residential areas, and public transportation • Modes of transportation: on trains, subways, and taxis Select mediums • Posters and billboards • Newspapers and magazines • TV and online commercials Results • Considerable presence of posters and billboards on streets, but not in subway stations • Greatest number of newspaper advertisements Shenzhen • Some posters found, but generally clusteredin peripheral areas, not in central business and tourist district • Some presence of very large posters in subway stations Shanghai • Large presence of posters, particularly in subway stations and around Nanjing University • No presence in newspapers Nanjing •By far the greatest presence of posters and billboards on streets, but not in subway stations •Limited presence in newspapers Beijing • Very little presence of posters, except for a few large posters near the train station • China Dream commercials on TV screens at tourist sites Qufu “Filial piety, the blood of Chinese people” Located in Shanghai 乐善好施 : “Be given to doing charitable work” Located in a Nanjing Metro Station Funded by a Richter Fellowship Supported by Professor Qiong Zhang of the History Department Conclusions • Several factors determine the prevalence and expression of the propaganda art: • A city’s population size • A city’s distinctive economic and political characteristics • There are striking similarities between some China Dream posters and the posters of the Mao era. • The propaganda art has expanded outside of traditional mediums by infiltrating the internet, music, and television • The CCP has turned to Confucian concepts and imagery as a means of creating a new source of legitimacy • Key claims about the effects of the propaganda art: • Because Xi Jinping popularized the concept of the China Dream and made it the central focus of the CCP’s propaganda campaign, the concept itself has become culturally associated with and fixated on Xi Jinping himself. • This association of the China Dream with Xi Jinping has created a cult of of personality around him that is similar to that of Mao. This has made him into an extremely powerful and idealized figure,