Beijing [China], October 24 (ANI): The Chinese Communist Party is moving towards stepping up “patriotic education” in schools, universities and religious institutions across the country, including in Hong Kong to quash internal political challenges to Xi Jinping’s authoritarian rule, Radio Free Asia reported citing state media.
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,” Radio Free Asia reported citing Xinhua news agency.
As per the analysts, the draft is almost certain to be passed by the “rubber-stamp” parliament, and it 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, as per Radio Free Asia.
According to the report, 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.
According to the analysts, 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,” Radio Free Asia quoted him as saying.
“Brainwashing just tells you the answer, and doesn’t allow you to doubt it or compare it with anything else,” he said, adding, “They use such methods to brainwash people, with the aim of controlling them,” he said.
As per the report, 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 US-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,” he said.
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.
US-based dissident Wang Juntao, who heads the US 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,” Radio Free Asia quoted Wang as saying.
“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, adding, “So he has to create a set of mainstream statements about culture…[because] culture can reinterpret reality to a certain extent”.
According to US-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,” Radio Free Asia quoted him as saying.
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, according to the report.
Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Policy Association researcher Wu Se-chih said much of the draft law consists of sloganeering.
“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,” Radio Free Asia quoted Wu as saying.
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.
He added, “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”, Radio Free Asia reported.
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 1 billion Hong Kong Dollars, Radio Free Asia reported citing the state-backed Hong Kong China News Agency.
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-high schooler Joshua Wong and his campaign group Scholarism.
Notably, 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, Radio Free Asia reported. (ANI)
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