When Ming Wan led our Topics of the Month discussion about the “China Dream,” many were uncertain about what this concept means for international relations and how does it relate to other themes popular in Chinese official discourse, such as a “new type of great power relations.” Looking back in the spring of 2014 on the “China Dream,” we can say with more certainty that it is an expression of confidence about China’s advance in the western Pacific. There is more skepticism about China’s intentions toward Japan, states in Southeast Asia, the Korean Peninsula, and the United States. While each relationship has its own dynamics, the “China Dream” operates as a guiding ideal. Even as opinions vary on which of these relationships is primarily driven by security and which by national identity, relating all of them to a single overarching principle deepens understanding of how the “China Dream” is reshaping thinking on foreign affairs. The tone recently in Washington is increasingly doubtful about “a new type of great power relations” as a smokescreen for getting acceptance of China’s “core interests” and of the “China Dream” as an assertion of national identity intended to challenge the global and regional order.

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