Jingshen 精神: A Governmental Keyword in 21st Century China

Keywords are historical concepts, around which social ideas and values are crystallised. Moving from Raymond Williams's keyword approach, this study carries out a text-based discourse analysis of the keyword jingshen in the Chinese political discourse under Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping. Despite having had a crucial role in China’s intellectual and political debate since the late 19th century, jingshen has not receive sufficient scholarly attention. This chapter attempts to fill this void, by providing insight into the transformation of its meaning and discursive functions in 21st century China. Specifically, the analysis conducted on texts that are intertextually significant for the history of jingshen will shed light on the continuities and discontinues of CCP’s governmental strategies from the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao decade to Xi Jinping’s ‘new era’.