China’s ruling Communist Party is making the study of President Xi Jinping’s political thoughts a top priority for all party cells across the country, ordering them to conduct regular sessions to learn his speeches and instructions.
The general office of the party’s decision-making Central Committee issued a notice to all party organs across China on Wednesday, detailing compulsory learning activities to be conducted regularly in the latest bid to embed the Chinese leader’s doctrine into the minds of more than 98 million party members and cadres.
The document came less than a month after the party convened a top-level meeting to conclude a sweeping and intense ideological campaign – known as the “thematic education” programme on Xi’s latest political thought – which lasted 10 months.
The latest notice from Beijing tells all party committees and groups that their first priority is learning Xi’s speeches, and they should benchmark all their major strategies and policies against the party chief’s instructions.
“[Party groups] at all levels shall hold their standing committee meetings or theoretical study focus groups regularly … to conscientiously study Xi Jinping Thought,” it said, adding that they should discuss ways to “implement them in light of reality”.
The notice ordered leading cadres at or above the county level to check their responses to outstanding problems and major events under their jurisdiction, to find the causes and rectify the issues, all according to what they have learned from Xi’s instructions.
Adopting from the earlier 10-month party-wide thematic education campaign, the notice also lines up a series of mandatory study sessions to be regularly carried out by the party’s more than 5 million cells.
It ordered party committees and groups at all levels to form reading groups once a year for the party leadership team to “sit down together calmly, to read the original works, learn the original texts” of Xi’s doctrines.
The instruction also wants party leaders at all levels to give at least one special party class every year to grass-roots units under their jurisdiction, to share their experiences in learning and applying the party’s latest ideological theories.
The ‘simple’ guide to Xi Jinping Thought
The ‘simple’ guide to Xi Jinping Thought
It stressed that secretaries of the grass-roots party organisation must focus their efforts on young party members by leveraging new technology platforms, especially Xuexi Qiangguo, a propaganda smartphone app popular among party members that aggregates articles, video clips and documentaries about President Xi Jinping’s political philosophy, and provides a daily quiz for users.
The notice orders party groups to organise its members to help the Communist Party further dominate and sabre-rattle in Chinese cyberspace to ensure the party’s “positive energy” remains the dominant trend in national internet traffic.
