Zhongnanhai
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An area and building in Xicheng district, Beijing, China, which houses the government leaders of the People's Republic of China.
"A second tear-gas attack, combined with a violent nightstick attack on demonstrators, occurred about an hour later in front of the Communist Party headquarters at Zhongnanhai."
- 2 The government of the People's Republic of China; the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. metonymically
"Today, many people can already travel to the Chinese mainland, to Shanghai or Beijing, and talk with the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party about cross-strait relations. Why is it that we have no way to shake hands at home, to meet with each other to discuss national affairs, to form a consensus between our government and political parties on cross-strait relations? Is it possible that domestic politics are more important than the Chinese Communists and Zhongnanhai? Thus, I sincerely hope all parties and factions can eliminate their prejudices to discuss national affairs, as it is not only our right to do so, but our obligation and responsibility."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"A second tear-gas attack, combined with a violent nightstick attack on demonstrators, occurred about an hour later in front of the Communist Party headquarters at Zhongnanhai."
Etymology
The atonal Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 中南海 (Zhōngnánhǎi, “Central South Sea”), a compound of the names 中海 (zhōnghǎi, “Central Sea”) + 南海 (Nánhǎi, “South Sea; Nanhai”), two lakes in central Beijing just west of the Forbidden City.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.