Teaching Comparative

Old news revisited

Monday [marked] the publication of lengthy excerpts – 6,000 words in total – from a speech Xi gave in January 2013, less than two months after he became party chief and two months before he was confirmed as the state president…

Though innocuously titled “A few issues on upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics” and made public six years later, those excerpts… are still significant and relevant today, because of their timing and content.

On January 5 six years ago, Xi gave that speech to about 300 newly appointed members of the party’s Central Committee with the rest of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee – the country’s highest governing council – present at the auditorium of the Central Party School.

Some of the Chinese leadership

That was probably the first time Xi had revealed his intentions in detail to China’s political elites…

According to the excerpts, Xi struck a forceful but frank tone in laying out his vision for the party and the country and warning of the dangers ahead.

Citing Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Xi said socialism would triumph over capitalism but cited Deng Xiaoping as saying that it would be a long historical process, which would probably take several dozens of generations.

He warned that the collapse of the Soviet Union served as a painful lesson for the party. The underlying reason for the collapse was that the Soviet Communist Party had lost its ideological controls, he said.

[H]e said the party’s decision to pursue reform and opening up in 1978 had ensured the country would achieve stability and prosperity without copying the Western system…

Even more interestingly, he recognised that Western developed countries would maintain long-term economic, technological, and military advantages and China must be fully prepared for the two systems – socialism in its primary stage and a more advanced capitalism – to cooperate and struggle for a long time to come.

As China must learn and borrow from capitalism, it must face the reality that people would compare the strong points of Western developed countries with the shortcomings of China’s socialist development and be critical, Xi said…

The timing of the release [of the speech] is also significant as several politically sensitive anniversaries are coming up.

June marks the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen protests and the subsequent bloody government crackdown. Efforts to mark the occasion will again focus the international spotlight on China’s political system and spur calls for political reform.

In October, China will hold elaborate ceremonies to mark the 70 anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. While China has lots to celebrate – its economic strength and its lifting of hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, for example – Chinese leaders will be reminded of the enormous domestic challenges ahead…

China’s economy may be the world’s second largest already and Xi has undertaken comprehensive and forceful steps to strengthen the party’s control at all levels of society, but its leaders are still smarting from the collapse of the then 69-year-old Soviet Union in 1991.

The release of Xi’s six-year-old speech is aimed at sending a clear message on where he stands on these thorny political issues.

The analyst who wrote this essay is Wang Xiangwei the former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post. He is now based in Beijing as editorial adviser to the paper. The South China Morning Post is an independent newspaper that almost always follows the Communist Party line.

Labels: China, history, ideology, leadership, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Shiny new app, same old propaganda

If there’s one thing we know for certain about China in 2019, it’s that people there love their apps. They use WeChat to talk with friends; they spend hours battling virtual enemies on PUBG; they binge-watch short videos on Douyin. And so why shouldn’t the Communist Party get in on the action?

Xuexi Qiangguo — “study and make the nation great” — has become ubiquitous in China, an instant messenger, news aggregator and social network all in one introduced by the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in January. The first and second characters in the name, when combined — xuexi — mean “study/learn”; the same character, xi, also happens to be the character in President Xi Jinping’s surname. The app’s name, thus, can also be read as “study Xi and make the nation great.” And the Chinese are doing so, by the tens of millions.

As of late March, Xuexi Qiangguo had been downloaded over 73 million times on Huawei’s app store. It’s also currently the most-downloaded app on Apple’s Chinese app store, which is hard to reconcile with its average rating of just 2.7 stars out of five, until you take into account that all government and state-owned-enterprise employees, along with tens of millions of party members, have been “encouraged” to use it…

I wanted to experience Xuexi Qiangguo for myself… So last month I downloaded it and signed on. Suddenly there I was, immediately connected to my friends and colleagues. In the weeks since, I’ve been receiving several notifications a day; they include news coverage of Mr. Xi’s activities, a “golden quote of the day” from our president, “red patriotic songs” for me to listen to and links to online courses on traditional Chinese cultural heritage.

To do well on Xuexi Qiangguo requires a serious time commitment; those under peer pressure to use the app are typically expected to score two or three dozen points a day, and sometimes more. “Thirty points per day would only put me at the bottom among the members of the party branch I belong to,” one user on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, told me. “My colleagues are so passionate about competing,” the user said…

But to really score highly, I needed to take the quizzes — to answer questions on Mr. Xi’s speeches and works. That was where the real points were: If I correctly answered all the quiz questions, I could earn 24 points total.

And the questions were easy. The first one I encountered: “(Blank) is contemporary China’s Marxism, the 21st century’s Marxism, the guidance for our Party and our people to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, a proven, practically great, powerful ideological weapon, and must be persisted in and developed consistently over a long term.” The answer? “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” of course. What else?

Another question looked trickier at first glance: “Sticking to the Party’s overall leadership and coordination among different sectors, to build up a system with the Party’s full leadership role, and guarantee that the Party’s leadership is carried out in domains such as (blank), (blank), and (blank)”. Luckily, it was multiple choice. Among the answers were (A) Reforming, development and maintaining stability; (B) Domestic politics, foreign policy and defense; and (C) Governing the Party, the nation and the military. The answer was all of the above; the party is omnipotent, our leader in all arenas.

I gave up after about half an hour, earning a measly nine points. “Post your point of view and collect one point,” the app prompted. Why not? I thought, and moved into the comment section, only to be greeted with instructions like “only valid points of view will be awarded points” and “good comments will be prioritized for display.”…

Developed by the tech giant Alibaba, Xuexi Qiangguo has a certain polish to it. And it comes with some additional perks: Users can redeem their study points in businesses across the country for gifts like pastries, tablets, restaurant discounts and even free sightseeing tickets.

But no matter how fancy the new products look on the surface, at their core they remain the mandatory study of ideologically correct materials and the demonstration of allegiance to the central government. The minute I entered the quiz section, memories of my middle school years in Chinese classrooms came flooding back: the grandiose language, the endless repetition, the fixed answers, the publicly displayed class rankings — the collective memories of Chinese students across several generations. Many Weibo users have pointed out the parallels between Xuexi Qiangguo and the fervent “Little Red Book” campaigns of the Mao era.

And as with so many instances in which the government demands correct thought, there are already those who have learned to cheat the system. There are a sizable number of articles on how to earn credits efficiently circulating on WeChat, while tech-savvy users have turned to GitHub to download software that will earn points for them on the app automatically while they spend their time elsewhere…

So how effective has this new app effort been? Online user feedback is currently prohibited on the Apple app store, so we can gauge user’s reactions only through their earlier comments, before feedback was turned off. “Good, good, good,” one reviewer wrote. “Whatever you want me to say.” “We voluntarily downloaded this,” wrote another reviewer, who gave the app one star. “Truly.”

Labels: China, ideology, leadership, political socialization, propaganda

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

The demands of democratic centralism

A total of 15 teams of disciplinary inspectors have been dispatched to three central government departments and 42 state-owned enterprises (SOEs)... said an official statement Tuesday.

This is the third round of routine disciplinary inspections launched by the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee, the statement said.

The three central government departments were the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the National Energy Administration, and the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The 42 SOEs were administrated by the central government, including the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and China State Shipbuilding Co., Ltd.

The inspection teams will be stationed at the departments and state firms for two and a half months, and will receive complaints about violations of Party disciplinary rules from the public.

Labels: China, democratic centralism, ideology, politics, regime

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Don't despair. Trust the Party.

China’s biggest political advisory body has been told to stick to the directives of the Communist Party to confront risks and tasks Beijing called “unprecedented”.

President Xi and Premier Li applaud Wang's speech

“[We] should treat studying the political thoughts of Xi Jinping as the most important task of all, and consolidate the self-confidence in our political system,” Wang Yang, head of the China People’s Political Consultative Conference, said at the closing ceremony of the body’s annual session…

Wang’s words were addressed to more than 2,000 members of the CPPCC, the country’s biggest political advisory body, which includes former officials, academics, business owners and religious leaders from across the country.

At the opening ceremony of the 10-day session on March 3, Wang, the fourth-highest-ranking official in the Communist Party, said China was facing “unprecedented” level of risks, challenges and social demands this year.

He said the advisory body should strengthen consensus building on issues of sensitivity and risk, and guide various sectors to objectively view changing domestic and international situations and the risks they pose with China’s reform and development.

His remarks came as China is locked in a costly trade war with the United States and facing setbacks in its attempts to spread its influence around the world. At home, China is faced with its slowest economic growth in decades, while trying to carry out structural reforms and fend off financial risks…

Beijing is also faced with a series of unflattering milestones this year, including the 30th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, the 60th anniversary of the exile of Tibet spiritual leader Dalai Lama, the 10th anniversary of the deadly clashes in Xinjiang and the 20th anniversary of its crackdown on spiritual group Falun Gong.

Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan said the government was reaching out to various interest groups as it dealt with pressure from the trade war with the United States and slow economic growth, but the outcome might not be satisfying.

“It’s being played up to reach out to overseas Chinese, the private sector and other groups to rally support for Xi and the party,” Zhang said, “but it could barely convince those who are not loyal parties already.”

Labels: China, ideology, leadership, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Idealist?

"We are not allowed to talk about past mistakes."

Li Rui said this in 2013, while reflecting on the similarities between China's then-new leader Xi Jinping and the founding father of Communist China, Mao Zedong.

Mr Xi, he warned, was echoing Mao's suppression of individual thought, and was trying to build a similar cult of personality - both things he had experienced at first hand.

Li Rui joined the Communist Party in 1937… He was hand-picked by Mao to become his personal secretary in 1958.

But he was also imprisoned soon afterwards for criticising Mao's Great Leap Forward…

Despite this turbulent history with the party, the fact that Mr Li was one of the original revolutionaries meant that he occupied a special place in contemporary China - one that allowed him a degree of freedom to talk about the ruling party's many issues, and how he felt things should be done differently.

People may not be allowed to talk about past mistakes, but Mr Li did it anyway - and his work has helped historians understand the truth and scale of Mao's atrocities.

Li Rui died in Beiijng on Saturday, aged 101.

Li Rui

As a university student, Mr Li joined a group of idealistic Communist activists protesting against Japanese occupation. Shortly afterwards, at the age of 20, he officially joined the party. He was tortured for his communist activism.

But things changed when the party came into power in 1949, and by 1958 Mr Li had become the youngest vice minister in China…

Following Mao's death, the more pragmatic Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978 and Mr Li was rehabilitated and allowed back into the party. He then became a strong advocate for political reform…

He wrote five books on Mao, all of which were published overseas and banned in mainland China…

But even though his writing was censored, Mr Li was not a dissident - he remained a party member until his death. And the fact that he was left to compose his memoirs from a prestigious apartment block in Beijing shows how, despite his outspoken criticism of the current leadership, he continued to be revered for his role as one of the country's original revolutionaries.

But with Mr Li dies the idealism of the activist who joined his party eight decades ago, and spent the years since vigorously rebelling against leaders who abused their power.

"He was among the last of that generation of idealists who joined the Communist Party at the beginning, and who tried to hold the Communist Party to the rhetoric [they heard] when they were being recruited," Prof Tsang says.

"There is probably nobody else who will hold the party now to what the party had originally said it was meant to do."

Labels: China, history, ideology, leadership, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Little red app

Call it the Little Red App.

Part social platform, part indoctrination tool, a new smartphone app called Study the Great Nation is the latest effort by the Chinese Communist Party to bring its propaganda initiatives into the mobile age.

So far, it seems to be working. Study the Great Nation recently became the most downloaded app on Apple’s app store in China, and on several app stores that cater to phones running Android as well.

Not all of the enthusiasm appears to have arisen organically, however. Since the app’s release at the beginning of the year, Communist Party branches at universities and local governments have arranged for administrators to guide and monitor party members as they use the app for political education…

Study the Great Nation, which was produced by the central government’s Publicity Department, has polish and sheen enough to match any of China’s popular news and entertainment apps. Most of those apps are not focused so narrowly, however, on all things Xi Jinping, the country’s leader.

In Study the Great Nation, you can catch up on the latest state media reports on Mr. Xi’s decisions, savor a quote of the day from Mr. Xi or brush up on “Xi Jinping Thought.” You can quiz yourself on Mr. Xi’s policies and pronouncements, or take in a television show called “Xi Time,” which is … well, you get the picture.

Doing each of these activities can reward users with “study points,” which can be redeemed for gifts in future versions of the app…

Is there a social element? Of course there is. Study the Great Nation is integrated with DingTalk, a messaging app made by the e-commerce giant Alibaba. As a result, you can call or text your friends in the app, host video hangouts and even send messages that disappear, Snapchat-style, after they are read…

Ratings and reviews for Study the Great Nation are currently disabled in Apple’s app store. But App Annie, an analytics firm, has preserved 497 reviews that had been submitted to Apple’s store as of Tuesday.

They are not kind, by and large. Many are laced with dry sarcasm. The average rating is 2.7 stars out of five…

Labels: China, ideology, leadership, political socialization

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

What is it?

President Xi Jinping… stressed staying on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics at a gathering commemorating the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up.

All the theories and practice of the Communist Party of China in the past 40 years of reform and opening-up are based on the theme of upholding and advancing socialism with Chinese characteristics, he said.

There is no textbook of golden rules to follow for reform and development in China, a country with over 5,000 years of civilization and more than 1.3 billion people, Xi said.

"No one is in a position to dictate to the Chinese people what should or should not be done," he said.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics provides a broad pathway for China to advance with the times and steer the course of development today, Xi said.

"We will resolutely reform what should and can be reformed, and make no change where there should not and can not be any reform," he said.

Labels: China, ideology, political culture, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Update to Cultural Revolution study groups

Courseware on Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has been launched for free download on several websites including people.com.cn and xinhuanet.com.

The courseware, developed by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Ministry of Education (MOE), contains 30 subjects that focus on basic spirit, connotations and requirements of the thought.

The courseware is aimed at helping officials and the public, especially college teachers and students, to learn, understand and grasp the thought.

The CPC Central Committee Publicity Department, the MOE and the working committee of the central and state organs have jointly issued a circular calling for further study of the thought via the courseware.

Labels: China, ideology, leadership, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Communist, yes. Marxist, no.

At least 16 of 22 Chinese labour activists – many of them recent graduates from elite universities – who disappeared in five cities over the weekend were still missing early on Wednesday, as authorities widened their crackdown against emerging grass-roots activism led by young Marxists.

Students at Peking University (PKU)… have been warned by the university over the past two days – in the presence of their parents and others who appeared to be plain-clothes police – to ignore the weekend purge.

But the group, which gave the estimate of the numbers of activists still missing, has vowed to keep fighting for their freedom.

The latest purge follows the earlier detention of about 50 activists after a labour rights protest that began in Shenzhen at the end of July…

“Many students were told the weekend incident was a law enforcement action by relevant departments targeting [suspects] of illegal activities,” a Peking University student, close to the activist schoolmates, said, refusing to be identified for fear of retribution.

“They also warned students against taking further radical actions as the university would no longer tolerate them…

The authorities had already stepped up their watch and control on Marxist student groups in universities after the Jasic campaign. But on Friday evening, in an organised effort, 19 people, including young Marxists recently graduated from elite universities, labour activists and workers were violently snatched in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen…

Labels: China, ideology, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Visual guide to ideology

When Xi Jinping outlined his political blueprint for the next 30 years at the Communist Party congress last year, it took him three and a half hours to articulate his vision for the country.

Now, to mark the first anniversary of his speech, the party’s official mouthpiece has made a no less ambitious attempt to visualise the Chinese president’s doctrines.

The result, published on the WeChat account of People’s Daily on Thursday, is a complex colour-coded “mind map” consisting of 30 separate elements, each broken down into multiple subsections that resemble the branches of a tree.

Officially called “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, the doctrine is now enshrined in both state and party constitutions…

In general, the study of Xi’s guiding political principles is no laughing matter for cadres and officials amid the ongoing tightening of the party and the bureaucracy’s political discipline and demands for loyalty.

Dozens of institutes dedicated to the research and study of “Xi Jinping Thought” have been established in universities across the country, while school curriculums have also been revised to incorporate the new ideology into textbooks.

Labels: China, ideology, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

A 40-year plan

The Leading Party Members' Group of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee held a study session on China's reform and opening up over the past 40 years.

Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee and secretary of its leading Party members' group, chaired and addressed the meeting held Monday and Tuesday.

The meeting stressed studying and implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and a profound understanding of the major political judgement by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, that reform and opening up is the key that has determined contemporary China's future…

Summarizing the evolution of the system of people's congresses in the past 40 years of reform and opening up, the meeting noted it was fundamental that the CPC Central Committee has remained sober-minded and maintained its political orientation, and pushed forward reform steadily in line with national conditions and social and economic development realities, thus ensuring the right direction of upholding and improving the system of people's congresses.

Stressing that China's rapid development in the past 40 years has relied on reform and opening up, the statement said that reform and opening up must be unswervingly upheld to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and to fully build a modern socialist country.

The NPC and its standing committee should thoroughly study Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, fully implement Xi's thought on upholding and improving the system of people's congresses, and develop and improve the system of people's congresses with the times, the statement said.

40 Years and Counting
(From The Diplomat)

This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s Reform and Opening (gaige kaifang), initiated by Deng Xiaoping at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1978. These economic changes were so far-reaching that Deng described them as part of China’s “second revolution.” Since then, China has become an economic juggernaut with the world’s largest foreign reserves ($3.12 trillion), second-largest GDP ($11 trillion), and third-highest levels of foreign direct investment ($170 billion). Its share of the world economy grew from a mere 1.8 percent in 1978 to a staggering 18.2 percent in 2017.  China is not just an emerging economy but has surely returned to its status as a major world economic power, which accounted for nearly 30 percent of the world economy in the 15th and 16th centuries…

The forces that account for the economic success of the Chinese model have also created tensions between a political system characterized by Leninist single party-led authoritarianism and an economy and society characterized by vibrant market forces. How much of China’s super-charged economic growth can be attributed to state-led planning and how much comes from entrepreneurship and market forces? With Xi holding all the levers of political power, how much is the Chinese leadership willing to let go of economic control?

Labels: China, ideology, leadership, political culture, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Be careful what you wish for

They were exactly what China’s best universities were supposed to produce: young men and women steeped in the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party.

They read Marx, Lenin and Mao and formed student groups to discuss the progress of socialism. They investigated the treatment of the campus proletariat, including janitors, cooks and construction workers. They volunteered to help struggling rural families and dutifully recited the slogans of President Xi Jinping.

Then, after graduation, they attempted to put the party’s stated ideals into action, converging from across China last month on Huizhou, a city in the south, to organize labor unions at nearby factories and stage protests demanding greater protections for workers.

That’s when the party realized it had a problem.

The authorities moved quickly to crush the efforts of the young activists, detaining several dozen of them and scrubbing the internet of their calls for justice — but not before their example became a rallying cry for young people across the country unhappy with growing inequality, corruption and materialism in Chinese society.

“You are the backbone of the working class!” the protesters chanted at one rally, addressing workers at an equipment factory. “We share your honor and your disgrace!”

Protests are common in China, especially by workers who have nowhere else to turn in a nation without independent unions, courts or news media. But the demonstrations in Huizhou were unusual because they were organized by students and recent graduates from some of the country’s top universities, who have generally stayed off the streets since the 1989 pro-democracy movement that ended in bloodshed outside Tiananmen Square.

In the decades since that massacre, university students have generally helped advance the party’s economic and political agenda, focusing on jobs, homes and other aspects of material well-being while supporting authoritarian rule, or at least eschewing politics. As economic growth has slowed, party officials have grown more nervous about Western influences on the nation’s youth, who are more worldly and digitally connected than ever before.

But the Huizhou activists represent a threat the authorities did not expect.

Carrying portraits of Mao and singing socialist anthems, they espoused the very ideals that the government fed them for years in mandatory ideological classes, voicing grievances about issues like poverty, worker rights and gender equality — some of communism’s core concerns…

Zhang Shengye, union organizer

Since President Xi took power in 2012, the party has sought to restrict the use of Western textbooks and stop the spread of “Western values” on campus, referring to ideas about rule of law and democracy that could undermine its hold on power.

At the same time, Mr. Xi has demanded that universities expand their teachings on Mao and Marx…

But some in the party seem uneasy about the proliferation of these groups, apparently worried that their calls for greater economic equality and worker rights could undermine China’s modern-day embrace of capitalist markets.

While only a small minority of students are involved, they represent a leftist critique of Chinese society that seems to be gaining traction on college campuses, partly because the authorities have been more hesitant to suppress it than other political discussion…

Younger Chinese are often described as apathetic, selfish and obsessed with money. But Eric Fish, a writer who has studied Chinese millennials, said that the generation born after the Tiananmen Square massacre lacks the instinctive fear of authority of older generations…

Labels: China, cleavage, communism, ideology, participation, political culture, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Cosplay as political education

If anyone can best tell the scale and intensity of China’s “red education” drive to promote loyalty to the ruling Communist Party, it’s businessman Yu Meng.

The 36-year-old runs the largest Red Army uniform rental business in Jinggangshan, a city dubbed the “cradle of the communist revolution” deep in the mountains of Jiangxi. Last year alone, his company rented uniforms to 256,000 people taking part in red ideology study tours.

Political tourists in rented uniforms

Yu started the Xiangganbian Red Army uniform company 10 years ago. But it’s only in the last three years that the business has really taken off, thanks to the relentless push of patriotic education by President Xi Jinping. Xi has said he wants “faith” in communist rule to be passed down to a new generation as “red DNA”…

Most of the visitors to Jinggangshan now are civil servants, employees of state and private enterprises, and students. They are sent by their employers or schools as part of their work or study requirements.

The number of people going to the city for study tours jumped by more than 50 per cent every year from 2015 to 2017, according to the Jinggangshan government…

Many, though not all, government ministries, companies and schools make it mandatory for their employees or students to wear period uniforms for the four or five days of site visits and classes during a Jinggangshan study tour.

Yu said donning a Red Army suit – the uniform of Communist guerillas in the late 1920s and early ’30s during the civil war against the Nationalists – while visiting the city had become a phenomenon.

With the trend taking hold, Jinggangshan’s historical sites now look like they are hosting mass cosplay gatherings. Busloads of uniformed visitors swarm the city’s museum, Mao’s two former residences, and the mountaintop where Communist forces fended off the Nationalist army…

Xi has promoted red education since he came to power that year. Under his aegis, the party has intensified its clampdown on dissidents and internet censorship. The government has also used red education to promote party loyalty as a “faith”, or xinyang in Chinese, a term that can also be translated as “religion”…

But Beijing appears concerned that its message is being lost amid the uniforms and tourism. An article in party newspaper Guangming Daily last month warned that many of the study tours had become “sightseeing paid for by the government”. Another, in a magazine affiliated with state-run Xinhua, said many participants cared only about taking pictures of themselves in uniform outside historic sites and were not serious about studying the ideology the party “wants to put into their hearts”…

Labels: China, history, ideology, political socialization

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Communist China Markets

China will work to tackle the weak areas in its business environment to further improve overall competitiveness and sustain the sound momentum of steady economic performance, the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Wednesday.

The Chinese government places high importance on improving the country's business environment. Li has urged government authorities to address the top concerns of businesses and tackle institutional deficiencies to cultivate a world-class business environment in China.

"In the face of growing international competition, we must fully appreciate the pressing need for stepping up the reforms of our government's functions, which are crucial for energizing market entities and grassroots initiative and for improving China's overall business environment," Li said at the meeting…

Latest figures from the Ministry of Commerce show that in the first half of this year, 29,591 foreign-invested enterprises were established, up by 96.6 percent year-on-year. According to the 2017 report of the World Bank, China ranked the 78th in ease of doing business, up by 18 spots over 2013. In the revised negative list for foreign investment the Ministry of Commerce issued in June, the number of restrictive items was cut to 48 from 63 in 2017…

"Our efforts in streamlining administration, delegating powers and improving government services boil down to striking a proper balance between the government and the market and truly allowing the market to play a decisive role in allocating resources," Li pointed out. "Instead of redistributing powers among government departments, we should give full respect and delegate due powers to market entities."…

"The market and our people will have final judgment on the success of our efforts to streamline administration." Li said. "A key responsibility of the government is to give timely response to public concerns and faithfully live out our commitment to people-centered development."

Labels: China, ideology, political culture

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Marxist protesters in China

Beijing has long gone far to teach China about the father of Communism. Classes on Marx and Marxism are routinely part of the country’s educational curriculum, especially at the university level…

[I]n recent years, Marxism has also inspired some young activists in China, who have seen in [the Communist Manifesto] the motivation to boldly press ahead on issues of feminism, workers rights and income equality.

In sharp contrast to the official Marxist line, this new generation of Marxists has emphasised individual freedoms, with some even expressing some interest in a constitutional democracy – a stand that the country’s mainstream Marxists and Maoists usually dismiss as hypocritical.

For their part, despite Beijing’s official narrative that the party upholds Marxism, some young leftists, appalled by China’s poor protection of workers, rampant corruption and wealth gap, are not convinced…

This handful of activists have grown to their 20s during the most oppressive time for China’s civil society in decades, as Beijing in recent years introduced new, strict laws on non-governmental organisations, rounded up hundreds of rights lawyers and activists in the “709” crackdown of 2015, and tightened control over all religious groups.

That tight control over all social activities makes it impossible to estimate the number of pure Marxists in China. And the young activists recently in the news are hardly recognisable as an organised group of political dissidents.

Yet they have already unnerved the party, which has used harassment and detention to effectively silence a number of Chinese advocates of the Western notion of constitutional democracy…

A month [ago]… a handful of leftist youths showed up in the Ministry of Public Security to submit a petition. The group, all of whom had once been arrested or wanted by police for holding reading and discussion sessions about political and social issues and for doing labour-related volunteer work, demanded their records and names be cleared, saying they were only exercising their constitutional rights…

Most of the leftists… said they became interested in Marxism during their school years, but not from the mandatory Marxist courses.

Some said they joined leftist student groups, where they started reading the original works by Marx, and conducted field research among workers and even took on factory work themselves.

Han Peng, among the leftists once wanted by police, said the rise of labour activism was partly due to the economic impact of the 2008 financial crisis on Chinese manufacturers. The crisis has fuelled criticism of capitalism around the world, and was largely credited for the rise of later anarchic movements like Occupy Wall Street…

“From 2008 to 2012, there was a broad diversity of political views in the mainland media and publications, ranging from a multi-party system to the relaunch of a Cultural Revolution,” [Yuan Yuhua, a prominent Maoist scholar], said. “That was unseen in past decades.”

But as Xi came into power in 2013, Beijing adopted a tighter control over the country’s ideology. The government clamped down hard on Western notions of constitutional democracy, jailing human rights lawyers and activists in the notorious “709” crackdown, when around 300 were rounded up or harassed starting on July 9, 2015.

The government, beginning with Xi, has also listed some leftist ideas, including beliefs widely held among China’s Marxists and Maoists, as “wrongful opinions”…

Labels: China, ideology, Marxism, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Is China Marxist?

China’s Communist Party is “totally correct” to stick with Karl Marx’s theory, President Xi Jinping has said in a speech ahead of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the German philosopher whom he described as the “greatest thinker of modern time”.

Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has stressed the party must not forget its socialist roots as it works to attain the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”…

“We must win the advantages, win the initiative, and win the future. We must continuously improve the ability to use Marxism to analyse and solve practical problems,” Xi said beneath a massive portrait of Marx on a stage bedecked with scarlet and gold curtains.

Xi also instructed all party members to adopt the reading of Marxist works and the understanding of Marxist theories as a “way of life” and a “spiritual pursuit”…

Today, China, the world’s largest self-identified socialist country, outwardly displays all the trappings of a modern capitalist society, from rampant consumption to a massive gap between the urban elite and rural poor.

The apparent contradiction between party rhetoric and appearance has prompted many analysts to suggest the party is no longer really motivated by Marxism but puts practical and economic concerns above all else.

Labels: China, ideology, political culture, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Serve the people

"My job is to serve the people," President Xi Jinping told local villagers in suburban Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, on Monday.

Xi in Chengdu

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks when a senior resident of the Zhanqi Village said with excitement, "You are our good leader and the lucky star of the Chinese people!"

"Thank you. I am a servant of the public. My job is to serve the people," the president replied.

Xi was in the village to see their achievement in using the Internet to help sell local products. An elderly woman wanted to give a pair of her hand-made shoes to Xi as a gift, but the president smiled and insisted on paying for them…

Labels: China, history, ideology, leadership, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Ideological amendments

A closed-door meeting of the Communist Party’s most powerful cadres begins on Thursday to discuss revisions to the constitution that include the addition of President Xi Jinping’s political theory…

The second plenum normally sets the tone for the upcoming National People’s Congress, when the new president, premier and other top cabinet figures will be formally named. This time, the two-day meeting will focus on the proposal to revise the constitution…

Next week’s meeting will discuss making the first amendments to the constitution for 14 years, which will then be endorsed by the NPC…

But a Beijing-based source familiar with the issue confirmed to the South China Morning Post that “Xi Jinping Thought” would be included in the preamble of the constitution.

Xi

The preamble states that the party is guided by Marxism and Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the Three Represents – the latter three being the theoretical legacies of Mao, Deng and former president Jiang Zemin.

Xi’s tongue-twisting contribution to Chinese political theory – Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era – was enshrined in the party charter at the congress in October.

His interpretation of the “principal contradiction facing Chinese society” would also be added, along with some of his other ideas, according to the source…

It will be the fifth time the Chinese constitution has been amended since it came into force in 1982. Previous revisions include the replacement of “planned economy” with “socialist market economy” to describe the country’s economic system in 1993.

Labels: China, constitution, ideology, leadership

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Pushing for historical relevance

Xi

Chinese President Xi Jinping… asked senior officials to consistently uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics and promote the "great new project of Party building."

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at the opening of a workshop attended by newly-elected members and alternate members of the CPC Central Committee…

The workshop is focused on the study and implementation of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" and the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress.

"Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era must be upheld consistently as it is both the achievement and continuation of the people's great social revolutions led by the CPC," Xi said. "Both history and reality have proved that a long historical process is needed when a social revolution is declared a final victory."…

Socialism with Chinese characteristics does not drop from the sky, but comes out of the practice of 40 years of reform [Deng Xiaoping's reforms] and opening up and the practice of exploration since the establishment of the People's Republic of China nearly 70 years ago, he said.

It is also the result of the 97-year practice of the people's great social revolutions under the CPC leadership, the 170-plus-year historical process [beginning with the Opium wars] during which the Chinese nation becomes prosperous from decline, and the inheritance and development of Chinese civilization in the past 5,000-plus years, Xi added.

"It is extremely difficult to achieve the outcome," the president said.

The success of scientific socialism in China is of great importance for Marxism, scientific socialism and socialism across the world. It is most fundamental for the CPC to hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics so as to realize its historic mission in the new era, Xi said.

Labels: China, history, ideology, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Fighting poverty in China

From his home in the mountains of northeast China, Li Zhi has watched from a distance as prosperity has transformed China into a land of high-speed trains, billionaires and skyscrapers.

But the economic boom that made China rich never came to Chashan, a desolate village of 40 people about a six-hour drive from Beijing. Mr. Li, 72, spends his days limping along dusty roads to collect trash in exchange for tips. Stiff and gaunt, he subsists on a diet of rice, steamed bread and hard liquor.

Farmyard in Chashan

Nearly seven decades after the Chinese Communist Party rose to power on a promise of prosperity for all, President Xi Jinping has vowed to fulfill the Communists’ original intent, staking his legacy on an ambitious plan to complete the eradication of rural poverty by 2020.

The plan targets the more than 43 million people who still live on the equivalent of less than 95 cents a day, the poverty line set by the Chinese government…

But Mr. Xi’s lofty vision clashes with a harsh reality across much of rural China. In many villages, young people have gone, leaving older residents to fend for themselves…

“The whole idea of socialism was that all Chinese would have a reasonable living standard,” said Kerry Brown, a China scholar at King’s College London. “The nagging concern is that the Communist Party has created billionaires and a strong middle class, and yet there are still a lot of poor people. That seems to be a massive contradiction.”…

[D]uring a speech marking the beginning of his second five-year term as party leader, Mr. Xi described eradicating poverty by 2020 as one of his chief priorities, vowing to “leave no one behind in the march toward common prosperity.”…

While international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank have praised the government’s work in helping hundreds of millions of Chinese rise out of poverty in recent decades, some experts worry that Mr. Xi’s plan is more about making headlines than bringing lasting change to poor communities.

Some say the government’s focus on 43 million people is too narrow, noting that millions more live just above the official poverty line in conditions that are not much better. Others say that by concentrating on rural areas, Mr. Xi is neglecting the plight of the urban poor, many of whom are rural migrants…

But the hardest work remains ahead. As many as half of the 43 million people who are officially classified as in poverty could be disabled…

Corruption has emerged as a problem, with more than 1,800 people having been investigated last year for embezzling antipoverty funds…

Then there is the fact that Mr. Xi’s campaign is not focused on urban areas. There are more than 200 million rural migrants in China’s cities, where many struggle to receive education, heath care and other benefits because the local government does not consider them residents. Some fall into unemployment or bad health and live in squalid conditions.

“This is a very big hole in the overall picture, which the government rarely addresses,” said Philip G. Alston, a scholar and adviser to the United Nations who issued a report this year on extreme poverty and human rights in China. “The reality is that many of them are living in extreme poverty.”

Labels: China, economics, ideology, politics, poverty

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments