What does 韬光养晦 Mean?

Many times I have said I will keep a blog and many times I have failed to do so. I hope this time will be more successful. As an inaugural post, I wanted to quickly describe the purpose of this blog and to explain what 韬光养晦 (taoguang yanghui) means. But first, let me acknowledge that the inspiration to start another blog as well as the particular format for the title both came from Bobby O'Brien's blog "农民工 (Nongmingong)," which can be found at http://nong-min-gong.blogspot.com. Thanks Bobby!

I will try to maintain this blog as a journal of what I'm reading and researching, as a space for improving my writing and posting initial drafts, and as a general chronicle of what's going on in China and in my life. I hope it is a successful endeavor.

As far as the title of the blog, 韬光养晦 will be familiar to anyone who has studied the musings of Deng Xiaoping or Chinese foreign policy. 韬光养晦 is generally translated as "Hide One's Capabilities and Bide One's Time." It was first used by Deng in the 1980s to describe China's overall foreign policy posture and it is often cited today as a typical distillation of Chinese strategic thinking. The entire string of remarks goes something like this, "Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capabilities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership."

Ever since I was an undergraduate just starting to get interested in Chinese foreign policy, I've always associated this phrase with the way China interacts with the world and I still think it constitutes a fairly accurate description. What makes 韬光养晦 especially interesting today is that it runs counter to the general process of rising power, which more often emboldens countries with growing strength to assert themselves more forcefully in international relations. My master's thesis hopes to address this central contradiction by analyzing how Chinese elites understand their rise.

Additionally, 韬光养晦 is a fairly good way of characterizing my existence right now. I'll hopefully graduate this summer from UMich and then find employment in the federal government to satisfy my Boren service requirement. My applications to PhD programs unfortunately seem to have floundered on the shoals of global economic collapse this year as well as on whatever other variables inform the decisions of admissions committees. Hopefully I'll be able to build up my capabilities for a better application next cycle. Until then, I'll simply bide my time and see how things play out.