Li Qiang uses a lot of “Xi Jinping’s new terms” in his report and is seen as a joke.

In the recent Chinese Communist Party National People’s Congress held the day before yesterday (March 5th), Premier Li Keqiang introduced a batch of new economic concepts and terminologies in the government work report, which experts believe to be mere deceits or “Xi Jinping’s new terms”.

In his government work report on March 5th, Li Keqiang presented various new terms such as “gazelle companies,” “new offshore trade,” “zero-based budget reform pilot,” and “embodied intelligence” when describing the new policies the government is preparing to implement this year. Official media collectively disseminated these terms with official explanations.

According to Radio Free Asia, these new terms are referred to as “Xi Jinping’s new terms”. Former Peking University economics professor Xia Yeliang analyzed that the Chinese Communist government often comes up with dazzling new terms, but this year, the abundance of new terms seems particularly high. The usage of these terms might be due to the lack of optimism brought by the real economy, aiming to attract attention by using fancy new words and concepts, ultimately painting a more positive future, akin to offering promises but without substance.

The Chinese economy is facing challenges, notably highlighted by the record increase in the deficit rate and debt issuance for market rescue as mentioned in Li Keqiang’s work report. External observers are not optimistic about the Communist authorities’ ability to solve the current economic difficulties.

Commentator Qin Peng, currently residing in the United States, remarked that this year, the Chinese Communist Party has introduced many new concepts in various fields. For instance, with the term “embodied intelligence,” the government aims to integrate advanced technologies like DeepSeek into other digital products to stimulate the economy. Similarly, terms like “zero-based budget” and “tailored policies according to cities” are responses to enduring difficulties in real estate, government tax revenue, and land finance sectors, with limited policy options leading to the necessity of using new terminologies to “package and beautify” the policies.

Qin Peng exemplified that by using the term “good house,” which, though already a common Chinese term, when employed in government reports, it creates an illusion that past houses were not good. This strategy is akin to the dichotomy of old society versus new society, manipulating perceptions to make current houses seem better, in an attempt to deceive people into buying houses. In the case of the heavily promoted “investment in people,” many experts consider it a further attempt at deception.

In recent years, similar new concepts introduced at the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference include initiatives like the Belt and Road, internal and dual circulation, supply-side reform, targeted poverty alleviation, and new productive forces.

Qin Peng noted that this year’s government work report for the Congress seems to have an unusually high number of new terms. This surge can be attributed to the cold economic situation and immense international pressure under which this year’s Congress convened, with the intention of injecting a dose of optimism into the economy. Terms like “embodied intelligence” and “6G” are used to showcase a sense of leadership and a desire to surpass the world in various fields.

Xia Yeliang mentioned that among his international peers, many find the new terms proposed by the Chinese Communist Party officials perplexing. For example, the term “优供给” (优 Supply), was previously nonexistent and has no equivalent in English. These so-called new concepts lack concrete policy implementations.

Xia Yeliang pointed out that some terms are borrowed from mature phrases abroad, such as “gazelle companies,” originally a term from Silicon Valley referring to start-up companies that have gained market recognition and entered a high-growth phase after overcoming initial challenges. While the Chinese Communist Party introduces it as a new concept, in reality, it offers nothing novel.

“Embodied intelligence” is another economic concept borrowed from abroad. Xia Yeliang explained, “In Chinese, this term may sound unfamiliar, but in English, it is known as Embody AI, a concept proposed in the 1950s by the renowned computer scientist Turing. It refers to the ability to recognize the environment through a physical body, react to the recognition afterward.”

Qin Peng stated that since the Congress is a period of concentrated propaganda for the new year’s plans, it also serves as an opportune time for creating neologisms. By inventing a term, one can control its interpretation, introduce ambiguity, and drive more people to seek resource allocation. Hence, these “new terms” have become an established brainwashing strategy within the Communist Party.