{"id":202761,"date":"2017-09-28T21:14:59","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T04:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=202761"},"modified":"2017-09-28T21:35:10","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T04:35:10","slug":"china-steps-ideology-drive-among-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2017\/09\/china-steps-ideology-drive-among-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"China Steps Up Ideology Drive Among Youth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chinese government has always made painstaking efforts to keep popular ideology in line with the Party, especially for the younger generations. In recent years, the official grip over young minds has loosened for many reasons, including the prevalence of the internet, the dominance of western media and pop culture<\/a>, and the rising awareness of circumvention tools<\/a>. All of these factors have made it increasingly difficult to meet the goals of a recent official campaign to “ward off Western influence<\/a>” in education.\u00a0In response, the Party has been struggling to ensure that its ideology is passed on to the younger generation. Te-Ping Chen from The Wall Street Journal wrote about how China has stepped up to tighten the ideological control among college students<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

In a drumbeat that has accelerated ahead of October\u2019s twice-a-decade Party Congress, President Xi Jinping\u2019s campaign to rein in civil society, online media and speech has extended to the classroom.<\/p>\n

Top universities seen as insufficiently rigorous in their ideological work are being shamed. Professors who speak out are punished. The government is sending observers to nearly 2,600 universities to monitor mandatory ideology classes, which include staples like \u201cMao Zedong thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

[…] Since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the party has kept colleges on a tight leash, fearing a reprise of student-led demonstrations. Nevertheless, there had been some room to deal with sensitive topics in the classroom. Under Mr. Xi, that narrow space is closing.<\/p>\n

[…] The Ministry of Education has declared 2017 a key year for enhancing the quality of ideological education […]\u00a0[Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Universities have been the traditional “battlefield” of ideological control<\/a>, through control over the curriculum<\/a>, compulsory bootcamps, and tightening oversight of staff ideology<\/a>. However, the Chinese government under Xi has pivoted the traditional tactics and started to appeal to the influence of popular culture. Pei Li and Tony Monroe from Reuters interviewed a Chinese rap group and explained how China taps youth culture to hook millennial cadres<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

In his baseball cap and baggy yellow t-shirt, the rap star Li Yijie – better known by his stage name \u201cPissy\u201d – is an unlikely face of China\u2019s strait-laced ruling Communist Party.<\/p>\n

His group, Tianfu Shibian, has won fans and the support of the party\u2019s youth league with songs like \u201cForce of Red\u201d and \u201cThis is China\u201d that chime with President Xi Jinping\u2019s nationalist vision of China and its place in the world.<\/p>\n

[…] The party\u2019s modernizing push also comes as a significant number of educated Chinese millennials, faced with a tough job market and high housing costs in big cities, have grown disillusioned about their career and life prospects.<\/p>\n

[…] Last month, U.S. organizers aiming to bring Grammy Award artists to China said they would only \u201cpromote artists with a positive and healthy image.\u201d […]\u00a0[Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amid the ideological struggle over China’s youth, the Communist Youth League has suffered a decline under Xi. Formerly a powerful political faction<\/a>, the CYL had promoted a number of top national leaders including Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao. An article by Nectar Gan of the\u00a0South China Morning Post looks at the reasons for its\u00a0decline<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

A new book of President Xi Jinping\u2019s remarks on the youth wing of the Communist Party \u2013 many of which have been made public for the first time \u2013 may shed some light on the decline of this once influential faction in Chinese politics.<\/p>\n

[…] The book \u2013 a collection of some 40 speeches and edicts made by Xi \u2013 offers insight into the president\u2019s thinking about the youth league, which was once the cradle for promising young cadres and future political high-fliers.<\/p>\n

[…] The youth league was excoriated by party discipline inspectors in early 2016 for its self-serving attitude, with some cadres accused of seeing themselves as \u201cpolitical aristocrats\u201d. Six months later, it underwent a shake-up aimed at shrinking its central leadership and reconnecting with the country\u2019s youth.<\/p>\n

[…] Xi also found it problematic that the faction, which was supposed to be a bridge between the party and young people, had \u201cfallen out of step with the times\u201d and was failing to do its job. […]\u00a0[Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more about changes at the CYL under Xi, via CDT<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chinese government has always made painstaking efforts to keep popular ideology in line with the Party, especially for the younger generations. In recent years, the official grip over young minds has loosened for many reasons, including the prevalence of the internet, the dominance of western media and pop culture, and the rising awareness of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1051,"featured_media":202775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14744,14745,14746,100,5,1051],"tags":[682,473,595,1444],"class_list":["post-202761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","category-society","category-top-article","tag-communist-youth-league","tag-ideology","tag-youth","tag-youth-culture","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nChina Steps Up Ideology Drive Among Youth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2017\/09\/china-steps-ideology-drive-among-youth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China Steps Up Ideology Drive Among Youth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Chinese government has always made painstaking efforts to keep popular ideology in line with the Party, especially for the younger generations. 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