When Zhang Weiwei was asked if it was true, as had been whispered among Chinese academics and officials, that President Xi Jinping had read his book “The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State” and recommended it to people such as the former World Bank president Robert Zoellick, he answered, “I’m glad he did.”

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Mr. Zhang, 57, who as a teenager spent three years in a Shanghai factory carving jade and in his 20s served as an English interpreter for Deng Xiaoping, is now a professor of politics at Fudan University in Shanghai, where he directs the Center for China Development Model Research, and a leading theorist of the “China model” of political and economic development. This holds that China under the Communist Party is on the right path and is destined to succeed. His most recent book, “The China Horizon: Glory and Dream of a Civilizational State,” which is due out in English this year, continues that theme.

Western critics need to get over their gloomy predictions about China, Mr. Zhang says, which have been wrong for decades. China is not going to collapse; polls show that most people are happier than ever; and the country’s economy is certain one day to overtake that of the United States. In an interview, Mr. Zhang explained why China must craft its own huayu quan (话语权, literally “speech language power”), a “narrative” or “discourse,” to tell its own story and overcome the ideological prejudices of its foreign critics. Excerpts follow:

You were an interpreter for Mr. Deng. How would you like to see “China’s 话语权” translated into English?

I suggest “Chinese discourse” or “Chinese narrative,” or in certain contexts, “Chinese political narrative.” It means there is a rightful place for Chinese discourse in the world.

Why is this important?

Discourse is crucial for any country, especially for a superlarge and fast-changing country like China, whose rise has global implications and provokes questions and suspicions. To my mind, the country should face them squarely and explain itself clearly and confidently to its own people and to the outside world. This calls for new narratives, new in content as well as in style.

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China has its own official political discourse ranging from the party’s doctrines to China’s foreign policy statements. But it’s also true that such a discourse is not easily understandable to non-Chinese, or even to many Chinese. It requires knowledge of China’s political context. For instance, the “scientific outlook for development” is a concept crucial for China’s own development and for unifying the ideology of the party’s rank and file, but it is hardly understandable to non-Chinese.

Since Xi Jinping came to power he has called for changing the writing and speaking style of the party and he himself took the lead in communicating with the people in a more direct and dynamic way.

What is needed to create such a discourse?

As far as China is concerned, social, economic and political conditions are ripe for constructing such a new narrative. There is a clear and growing demand for such a discourse. China has risen to such a degree that it can’t evade any questioning from within or without. Both Chinese and foreigners want to make better sense of what China has done and is doing and will do in the future. In economics jargon, when there is a demand, there will be a supply, which is coming naturally.

What are you researching at the Center for China Development Model Research?

We focus on both political and economic dimensions of the “China model.”

As I told Francis Fukuyama [the Stanford political scientist and author of “The End of History and the Last Man”] during our debate in 2011, we are indeed questioning many assumptions that are often taken for granted in the West, such as what constitutes democracy and good governance. We are also questioning neo-liberal economics and its perception of the Chinese economy and the world economic order.

Let me give you an example of how I perceive the China model.

In the political domain, China has created a model that can perhaps be summarized as “selection+election.” Selection is largely based on meritocracy and this model can compete with the Western model of relying solely on popular elections.

Economically, its “socialist market economy” is essentially a mixed economy: mixing the visible hand with the invisible hand, the state planning with the market forces. Since China put forward the concept of the socialist market economy in 1994, China is the only major economy that has not experienced the kind of financial crisis, debt crisis and economic crisis that have distressed so many countries. This success alone gives significant credit to the China model, however imperfect it is.

Socially, the China model is about highly positive interactions between society and the state, differing significantly from the Western model of society contesting the state. Chinese society today is extremely dynamic, but also in reasonably good order.

You said recently that “We can learn from Putin,” [the Russian president]. What did you mean?

Like it or not, Putin and his team engage the West in debate on many issues. China should also engage its Western critics in debate on various issues.

In this context, China’s new type of narrative should be comprehensive, thorough, robust and international.

Comprehensive, so as to be able to explain China’s achievements, setbacks and future.

Thorough, to be able to explain Chinese affairs clearly and thoroughly.

Robust, to be vigorous enough to engage critics in meaningful dialogues and debates.

International, to be readily understandable to most non-Chinese.

You have said that China’s recent history can be divided into three parts: overcoming bullying [before the 1949 Communist revolution], overcoming starvation [under the leadership of Mao Zedong, post-1949] and now overcoming “bad-mouthing” [by foreigners]. Where do you see this “bad-mouthing”?

Look at the Western media, BBC or CNN’s coverage of China. They seem to be 10 times more ideological than the Chinese media’s coverage of the West.

Their ideological bias is so strong that it reminds me of the Chinese media’s coverage of the West during the Cultural Revolution. Whenever the West was mentioned then, the word “capitalist” was added. Today, when the Western media mention China, they always attach such ideologically charged words as “communist,” “authoritarian,” “dictatorship.” And whenever they present a picture of Tiananmen, they put a policeman into the picture suggesting China is an oppressive police state.

This kind of Western propaganda cannot convey accurately what China really is to the outside world and leads inevitably to wrongly crystal balling China all the time. I wonder when the Western media can overcome their own ideological straightjackets and look at this fast-changing society afresh and free from ideological bias. But on the other hand, we cannot do much about it, and we don’t care much about this either, as we are used to this kind of nasty and ridiculous coverage and miserably wrong forecasts about China. Let’s leave them in darkness.

Having lived in the West for over 20 years [Mr. Zhang holds a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Geneva and was a visiting fellow at Oxford], I really think there should be a wake-up call in the West. Look at China objectively and understand how most Chinese perceive their own country. As I told Fukuyama in the 2011 debate, the Western approach to China reminds of me of Lord Macartney’s visit to China in 1793 when he had an audience with Emperor Qianlong [in an unsuccessful mission to open China to foreign trade]. The emperor in fact displayed the Chinese version of “the end of history thesis” at that time, or, “We’re the best, and you’re nothing.” Of course, history witnessed China’s sharp decline after this show of cultural arrogance. Today this fate may befall the West.

Deng Xiaoping, whom you knew, had a famous saying to the effect that China should “bide its time and hide its hand.” If China is to find its voice, its narrative, are those days over?

Deng did say that China should keep a low profile and focus on its own modernization drive. But Deng expressed this view from [a starting point of ] confidence because China was on the right historical path, and this important part of his idea was somehow missing from many later interpretations of his remark. Keeping a low profile should be from a position of confidence, and under the condition that China’s core interests are respected. That was also Deng’s idea.

With the rise of China, Xi Jinping has gone from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity on a number of key issues [such as the South China Sea, where China has engaged in land reclamation projects to advance territorial claims disputed by other countries]. This is based on self-confidence, and also reflects the new consensus reached within China that, with the rise of China, the country should be more proactive in its strategic and foreign policy. In fact, many countries, including major Western ones, have expressed the hope that China take up more international responsibilities and provide more international public goods.

Is the United States getting China wrong? What about Europe?

Both the United States and Europe often get China wrong, especially their mainstream media coverage and forecasting about China. The difference is that most European states seem to accept China’s rise and increasingly see it as a win-win opportunity. But the United States is still largely in a mode of zero-sum games and treats China with a lot of suspicion and even hostility. My counsel to the United States is also to treat China’s rise from a win-win perspective.

The New Legalist editor:
The "Chinese narrative" should be in essence one describing China and the world as multi-dimensional wholes on different existential levels, with dynamical interactions within and between different types of civilizational entities in the whole human community towards a relative balance in the time-space dimension, including interactions between different "narratives", biased or not biased". So, the "Chinese narrative" would be neither Euro(-N.American-)centric nor Sino-centric. And there is nothing wrong in describing the West as "capitalist" so long as it is viewed from the above-mentioned worldview.