The ruling Chinese Communist Party is moving to step up “patriotic education” in schools, universities and religious institutions across the country, including in Hong Kong, state media reported on Friday, in a move likely designed to quash internal political challenges to Xi Jinping’s authoritarian rule.
A second draft of a “Patriotic Education Law” has been submitted to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee for review, with a view to “enhancing identification with our great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture and the Communist Party,” Xinhua news agency reported.
The draft, which analysts said is almost certain to be passed by the rubber-stamp parliament, also contains specific clauses about targeting “religious clergy and believers,” while a top official has called on Hong Kong leader John Lee to announce more “patriotic education” measures in his annual policy address next week.
The law also refers to “self-confidence,” a buzzword promoted by Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, whose “cultural thought” includes an emphasis on traditional Confucian values found in classical texts.
It comes as Xi launches a nationwide campaign to boost ruling party involvement in cultural output at every level, in a manner many have likened to Mao Zedong’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
A worker decorates a party activity room next to a wall with the portrait of Chinese president Xi Jinping promoting his socialist thought with Chinese characteristics at Tidal Star Group headquarters in Beijing, Feb. 25, 2019. Credit: Jason Lee/Reuters
The draft law, if fully implemented, will mean more patriotic propaganda in schools, institutions and places of worship, which are also being targeted by Xi’s “sinicization of religion” policy, including in Hong Kong.
Analysts said it likely heralds the further development of a personality cult around Xi, whose authoritarian style and 180-degree turn away from the economic policies of the past four decades has sparked economic hardship for many, along with a mass exodus of Chinese nationals known as the “run” movement.
Taiwan-based logger and free-speech activist Zhou Shuguang, known online by his nickname “Zola,” said “patriotic education” is simply brainwashing in another form.
“The difference between brainwashing and education is that in education, you come to understand something through comparison, contrast, doubt and denial,” he said. “Brainwashing just tells you the answer, and doesn’t allow you to doubt it or compare it with anything else.”
“They use such methods to brainwash people, with the aim of controlling them,” he said.
Institute of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture
The draft law is being publicized in the wake of a two-day National Propaganda, Ideological and Cultural Work Conference in Beijing in early October, which could mean an even higher degree of government control and influence over cultural works and creative content than before.
“Elevating leaders’ ideas and treating them as law is a key characteristic of the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian regime,” Wang Tiancheng, director of the U.S.-based Institute for China’s Democratic Transition, told Radio Free Asia, commenting on that conference.
“[Xi Jinping] grew up during the Cultural Revolution, and he’s obviously a big fan.”
China is to set up an Institute of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, probably within the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, to implement the ideas discussed at the conference, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post cited an anonymous “observer” in Beijing as saying.
Wang said Xi’s insistence on repeatedly naming political theories after himself is evidence that he wants to encourage a Mao-style cult of personality.
A Chinese flag is seen next to a statue at the entrance of Beijing South Catholic Church, a government-sanctioned Catholic church, in Beijing, Sept. 29, 2018. Credit: Jason Lee/Reuters
U.S.-based dissident Wang Juntao, who heads the U.S. branch of the banned China Democracy Party in the United States, said Xi is looking to shore up his personal authority and suppress criticism of his policies.
“Xi Jinping has three problems right now – one is how to set up a dictatorship that will come into conflict with various forces [within the political establishment], another is that the economy isn’t doing well,” Wang said.
“These two problems are now exposed for all to see, and [the third problem is that] people will try to challenge him with ideas and various methods to solve them,” he said. “So he has to create a set of mainstream statements about culture … [because] culture can reinterpret reality to a certain extent.”
According to U.S.-based current affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan, these political priorities are also what’s driving the “patriotic education” campaign.
“The Chinese Communist Party used [ideology] to dress itself up as promoting a new and advanced kind of culture, and to deceive and defraud the Chinese people,” Tang said. “Now that Xi Jinping’s claim to legitimacy is in ruins, he wants to dress up communist culture and red ideology in a garment of traditional culture to boost his legitimacy.”
Symbolic meaning
Part of that packaging is enshrined in the draft Patriotic Education Law, which mentions “historical and cultural heritage, the deeds and spirit of heroes and martyrs, traditional festivals and folk cultural activities” as ways to “enhance patriotic and family feeling,” especially among young people, and in schools.
Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Policy Association researcher Wu Se-chih said much of the draft law consists of sloganeering, however.
“The symbolic meaning is much more important than the substantive meaning,” Wu said.
But he said it would still encourage institutions to jump on the funding bandwagon.
“After it is passed, educational institutions, government departments and other organizations will be fighting for any funding or projects in its name … as a source of funding,” he said.
Copies of ‘The Governance of China’ by Chinese President Xi Jinping are displayed in a Beijing bookstore, Dec. 24, 2021. Credit: Mark Schiefelbein/AP
The law also specifically targets “compatriots” in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, to “enhance their identification with their country, and with China’s excellent cultural traditions,” so as to “safeguard national and ethnic unity.”
“They already keep talking about how patriots must run Hong Kong and Macau,” Wu said, in a reference to recent electoral changes. “It’s a bit harder for them to implement patriotic education in Taiwan, unless it’s when Taiwanese people go to China to study.”
Hong Kong’s government has already mandated “national security” education in schools and colleges, and recently started sending students to absorb “red culture” at communist pilgrimage sites, as well as abolishing a critical-thinking program titled Liberal Studies, replacing it with “Moral, Civic and National Education.”
A call to implement the law
National People’s Congress Standing Committee member Li Huiqiong called on Thursday for Hong Kong to implement the law, with specific measures to be set out in chief executive John Lee’s policy address next week, so the city’s residents would gain “a deeper understanding of their country and its history, thereby developing patriotic feelings.”
Li has also called on Hong Kong to set up a Patriotic Education Coordinating Committee to promote patriotic education among “families, religious groups, schools and enterprises,” funding it to the tune of HK$1 billion, the state-backed Hong Kong China News Agency reported.
In 2012, the Hong Kong government temporarily shelved plans to introduce a CCP-backed program of “patriotic education” into the city’s schools, after a mass protest led by then-highschooler Joshua Wong and his campaign group Scholarism.
Wong is currently in prison, awaiting trial under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, which criminalizes public criticism of the authorities.
Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang recently blamed the “anti-brainwashing” movement, along with later waves of mass pro-democracy protest in the city, on the actions of hostile “foreign forces” seeking to radicalize the city’s young people.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
