In early 2017, Chinese president Xi Jinping gave a speech at a domestic national security seminar in which he boldly stated his aspiration to have China take on leadership of a new global order in a “post-Western era.”¹ In this speech, he used the word “civilization” or “civilized” (wenming) three times: once to refer to China’s “great civilization of 5,000 years” (a phrase with which any China-watcher will be familiar), once to describe the common aspiration of all people for “the light of civilization,” and once as a stand-in for the idea of human progress, when he noted that “the more developed human beings and the more civilized the world are, the higher the demand for fairness and justice will be.” Given the length of the speech, the concept of “civilization” did not have a particularly prominent role in this instance; but in his usage of it, Xi was following in a long line of Chinese thinkers and leaders who have argued for nearly two centuries about the nature of “civilization” and the role that it has played in China’s international situation and standing.

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