Historical Revisions
Published days ahead of its centennial, the official chronicle of the history of the Chinese Communist Party offers a revealing glimpse into how the current leadership would like to remember, and forget, the past.
Search Results for “political reform”
Old Ideas From Xi’s New Era Theorist
Wang Huning is now the most defining figure of Xi era political theory, the creator of political formulas that defend centralized power and charismatic politics. But an article Wang penned almost 40 years ago reads today like dissent against this “new era” orthodoxy.
False Reassurances
Though hardly a surprise, news today that the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress has passed a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong, the exact text of which has still not been made public, has rattled nerves. Anticipating the law, the Hong Kong government has in recent days sought to reassure businesses and […]
China Discourse Report 2018
For 2018, we could say that the most important testing point (测试点) in China’s political discourse arena was the contraction of President Xi Jinping’s political “banner term,” or qizhiyu (旗帜语), “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平中国特色社会主义思想), which was formally introduced at the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist […]
Impatient China
China has a serious problem with inflation. No, I’m not talking about inflationary pressures on the economy, though those numbers have been up. I’m talking about inflation of the national ego. The country, encouraged by relentless state propaganda, has grown full of itself — and this may dangerously diminish its basic capacity for self-reflection. This, […]
Will China's President Be Informed?
“To err is human,” Deng Yuwen, the former editor of Study Times, wrote in the South China Morning Post today. “And a leader who tolerates no checks on his power is even more likely to err, because power can make one arrogant and impervious to other views.” As the National People’s Congress opens tomorrow, one […]
Li Datong's Open Letter
The following open letter was posted to WeChat on February 26, 2018, by Li Datong (李大同), the former top editor of Freezing Point, a respected supplement of the China Youth Daily newspaper. The letter has been one of the most prominent voices of criticism in the wake of the announcement that China would eliminate term […]
Cults, Cores and Crowns: CMP 2017 Discourse Report
Over the weekend, the China Media Project released the Chinese-language version of co-director Qian Gang’s annual report on Chinese political discourse — his “Discourse Climate Report 2017” — through Taiwan’s Storm Media. For this year’s report, special thanks go to the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, where Qian Gang is currently on fellowship. We will […]
The Tea Leaves of Xi-Era Discourse
Five years ago, I published an article in Media Digest called “Textual Analysis of the 18th Congress Political Report” in which I listed 10 key terms to focus on to analyze the trends presaged in the report. Prior to this year’s 19th Congress, we took a different approach, compiling a database of more than 300,000 […]
Our Quick Take on Xi Jinping's Report 1
Xi Jinping’s political report today to the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was a long and drawn-out affair. There is a great deal of discourse to grapple with. But this is our initial take on some of the key points. 1. Xi Jinping’s “banner term,” the phrase that is meant to seal […]
