President Xi Jinping’s address on China’s 2025 National Day was not merely a celebratory ceremony or a retrospective reflection. Rather, it represented a reconstruction of political narrative. Through his choice of tone and thematic emphasis, Xi projected both the logic of domestic governance and the expectations of foreign policy under the current regime. Although no major new policies were formally announced, the structure of the speech revealed key priorities for the years ahead: increased investment in science, technology, indigenous innovation, and defense modernization; tighter supervision over local governments and grassroots institutions; greater emphasis on propaganda and ideological work; and a more assertive foreign posture underpinned by historical narratives.

Historical Narrative: Reproducing Legitimacy and National Sentiment

The first major theme of Xi’s speech was the use of historical retrospection to reinforce political legitimacy. He highlighted the achievements of the People’s Republic of China since 1949, attributing them to the leadership of the Communist Party and a path of self-reliance. This narrative reasserted the Party’s central role as the ultimate guarantor of modernization. At the same time, the commemoration of the “80th Anniversary of Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan” tied nationalist sentiment to present-day legitimacy. The anti-Japanese war, framed as a “just war,” was transformed into a resource for the current regime—serving as both a tool of domestic mobilization and an instrument of international propaganda.

Economy and Livelihood: The Ballast of Regime Legitimacy

The second theme centered on the economy and people’s livelihood. Against a backdrop of global uncertainty and mounting domestic pressures, Xi repeatedly underscored the importance of “high-quality development” and “improving people’s lives.” This amounted to an explicit acknowledgement that, amid economic slowdown, supply chain realignments, and rising external sanctions, the Party must rely on the dual logic of “development and stability” to sustain societal support. For the Chinese leadership, the economy and people’s livelihood are not merely policy issues but the ballast of political legitimacy. Should living standards visibly decline, the regime’s political burden would increase significantly. Hence, “economic governance” has once again been elevated to the very core of political strategy.

Party Self-Revolution and the Quest for National Rejuvenation

The third theme was the fusion of “strict Party governance” with “national rejuvenation.” Xi stressed the Party’s need for constant self-revolution and purification in order to preserve its integrity and combat effectiveness. This is not only a continuation of the anti-corruption and discipline campaign but also a deliberate effort to bind the Party’s continuity with the state’s developmental goals. He further defined the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” as an unprecedented undertaking, with “Chinese-style modernization” as its pathway. By fusing the Party’s legitimacy, the state’s developmental trajectory, and the nation’s destiny into a single narrative, Xi crafted a threefold framework of legitimacy—historical, economic, and partisan. The speech thus simultaneously reaffirmed historical justification while projecting an expansive vision for the future.

Within this tripartite framework, two elements were particularly emphasized in media coverage: the deployment of the anti-Japanese war narrative as a political resource, and the combination of “national rejuvenation” with modernization as a long-term strategy. Added to this was Xi’s repeated call for the people to “unite more closely around the Party Central Committee,” underscoring that centralized authority remains the foundation of China’s political and developmental agenda.

Strategic Declarations and Implicit Signals

Although Xi refrained from announcing new policies, the speech conveyed several implicit signals with long-term implications. These signals, in many respects, were more consequential than formal policy declarations, for they revealed how the Chinese leadership defines its environment and prepares for future action:

First, national rejuvenation remains the supreme political objective. Xi continues to place the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” at the top of the political agenda. Unlike earlier years when concrete milestones such as the 2035 modernization blueprint or the 2049 centenary goal were emphasized, this year’s formulation was deliberately broader and more ambiguous. Such “temporal extension” serves two purposes: it reduces external expectations of specific timelines, and it transforms rejuvenation from a short-term task into a long-term belief system, capable of sustaining perpetual mobilization. In this respect, the logic echoes Mao Zedong’s notion of “continuous revolution” and Deng Xiaoping’s “long-term development strategy,” both of which tethered legitimacy to an enduring historical process.

Second, the strengthening of centralization. The call to “unite more closely around the Party Central Committee” is not an empty slogan but a reflection of current circumstances. With mounting local government debt, economic difficulties, and uneven implementation at the grassroots level, Beijing is increasingly concerned about the risks of local deviation or rent-seeking. Emphasizing centralization serves both as a warning against policy divergence and as a preparatory move toward greater concentration of authority. The logic parallels Deng’s repeated insistence on the “Four Cardinal Principles” （四個堅持） in the 1980s: reform could be flexible, but political authority remained non-negotiable.

Third, the instrumentalization of historical narrative. The pronounced emphasis on the “80th Anniversary of Victory in the Anti-Japanese War” demonstrates the strategic use of history. By juxtaposing the “justice of the war” with “today’s legitimacy,” the Party constructs a narrative chain of national destiny. Domestically, this strengthens cohesion; internationally, it provides rhetorical leverage in diplomatic disputes. From the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands to the South China Sea, Beijing has repeatedly employed historical claims to bolster its positions. The latest National Day speech reinforced this pattern, indicating that historical resources have become a structural component of governance and diplomacy.

Fourth, the economy and livelihood as the ballast of legitimacy. Confronted with youth unemployment, industrial restructuring challenges, and capital outflows, Beijing recognizes that ideological mobilization alone cannot sustain stability. Xi’s elevation of “improving people’s lives” and “high-quality development” signals that governance legitimacy increasingly hinges on performance. Compared with the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao eras, today’s “performance legitimacy” rests more heavily on a composite of technological self-reliance, supply chain security, and expanded social safety nets, aimed at mitigating structural vulnerabilities.

Fifth, the return of crisis consciousness and mobilizational rhetoric. By concluding with phrases such as “hopes and challenges coexist” and “seize every moment, never slacken,” Xi reaffirmed the wartime-like mobilizational style of political discourse. This is both a psychological preparation for the populace—signaling that the road ahead will be fraught with difficulties—and a warning to external actors that China will not easily back down. In the context of intensifying U.S.-China rivalry and heightened tensions in the South China Sea, such language lays the groundwork for further resource mobilization to sustain a firm external posture.

The Significance of Avoiding the “Unification of Taiwan”

Perhaps the most striking feature of the 2025 National Day speech was not what was said, but what was deliberately omitted—the “unification of Taiwan.” The near-total absence of this theme stands in sharp contrast to earlier addresses, such as the 2019 commemorative speech on the “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan,” the 2021 centennial speech of the Chinese Communist Party, and even the National Day speeches of 2023 and 2024. In those instances, Xi often placed “complete national unification” alongside “national rejuvenation,” and explicitly described the “resolution of the Taiwan question” as a historic mission. Since 2023, however, the frequency and intensity of such references have steadily diminished, increasingly subsumed within the broader narratives of modernization and rejuvenation.

The omission in 2025 should not be interpreted as abandonment or neglect, but as a form of “strategic silence.” Against the backdrop of economic downturn, intensifying great power competition, and heightened tensions in the South China Sea, Beijing appears to have chosen to downplay the Taiwan issue in order to avoid escalating risks and overextending itself on multiple fronts. Domestically, this allows the leadership to redirect public attention toward economic performance and governance stability. Internationally, it reduces the rigidity of political commitments, preserving greater room for diplomatic maneuvering.

In this sense, the silence itself constitutes a form of declaration. The absence of Taiwan-related rhetoric indicates a recalibration of strategy—from overt mobilization toward ambiguity and temporal extension. The Taiwan question remains embedded within the overarching narrative of national rejuvenation, but it has now been repositioned as a long-term strategic objective rather than an immediate, urgent task. In effect, it has been placed on a more distant, flexible historical timeline, enabling Beijing to adjust its policies while retaining strategic leverage.

Conclusion

The 2025 National Day speech demonstrates that silence, when deliberate, can itself become a strategic instrument of statecraft. Xi Jinping’s omission of Taiwan was not a retreat but a carefully calibrated choice, reflecting Beijing’s effort to contain risks, stretch historical timelines, and retain diplomatic flexibility under mounting internal and external pressures. By shifting from overt mobilization to rhetorical restraint, the leadership has effectively repositioned Taiwan as a distant yet enduring objective within the broader framework of national rejuvenation. This form of strategic silence serves multiple functions: it tempers immediate confrontation, consolidates domestic governance around economic and institutional priorities, and embeds the Taiwan issue within a long-term horizon that sustains China’s leverage. In Chinese political discourse, what remains unsaid may carry equal—if not greater—weight than what is declared. The 2025 speech thus reminds observers that omission is not absence, but a profound signal of strategic recalibration.