As the CCP tightens the screws on policymakers, academics and intellectuals deviating from the accepted narrative, policy errors and miscalculations will become
Six years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, in what was then still known as Leningrad, a teacher recalled her student asking whether an essay was satisfactory, or did she ‘ need to add more patriotism ’?
It’s tempting to view the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) latest ‘patriotic struggle’ as a similarly banal attempt to insert more patriotic language into intellectual discourse, merely requiring scholars to ladle on an extra helping or two of the latest platitudes and clunky propaganda to make the grade. But that would miss an important point. While the campaign might look familiar, China’s current intellectual climate renders it far more potent than may first appear.
Titled ‘The Offensive to Promote the Spirit of Patriotic Struggle, Contribute Positively to Building the Enterprise in the New Era’, the text lays down broad requirements for intellectuals to increase their ‘patriotic’ attitude. This includes training sessions and expeditions, study of Xi Jinping Thought and a propaganda drive to produce new articles, books and literary works.
On the face of it, this is not exactly new. Patriotic education campaigns in various forms are as old as the People’s Republic of China, and the CCP has long understood the role of what it calls ‘ thought work ’ in political change. There were periodic campaigns throughout the 1980s even as Deng Xiaoping moved to de-radicalise the political climate, but it was in the aftermath of 4 June 1989 that the importance of patriotic education truly came into focus. That year, the CCP confronted a profound crisis of legitimacy as it faced what its leadership saw as existential threats both at home and abroad.
In his first speech after the Tiananmen crackdown, Deng identified the Party’s ‘biggest mistake’ as the neglect of ‘ideological and political education’. What followed was a ‘patriotic education’ campaign intended to reach all citizens. The people needed to be continually reminded of the Party’s role at the centre of the nation’s great historical struggle, and as the only force capable of ending China’s ‘century of humiliation’ and realising its rejuvenation.
Most significantly, the CCP redefined what it meant by ‘patriotism’ — to equate love of the country with love of the Party.
