Duowei attacks Xi over the ‘Four Histories’; Hu Xijin threatens nuclear proliferation over renewed US focus on COVID origins

On May 25, the CCP General Office issued a “Notice on Propaganda and Education Pertaining to Party History, History of New China, History of Reform and Opening-up, and History of Socialist Development” (henceforth referred to as the Notice).  

The Notice opened by emphasizing the need for propaganda and education to be guided by “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Marxism-Leninism, and the ideas and theories of five generations of CCP leaders. “Proper implementation” (貫徹落實) of the aforementioned safeguards the various “consciousnesses” and “slogans” of “Party Central with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core.” The Notice then called for taking the opportunity of the CCP centennial to promote the teaching of the “Four Histories” (Party History, History of New China, History of Reform and Opening-up, and History of Socialist Development) in society. 

The Notice clarifies that “studying, publicizing, and implementing” Xi Jinping’s political theory (“Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”) should be the “main line” (主綫) of propaganda and education. Also, the Notice calls for understanding the “theoretical logic, historical logic, and practical logic” and “historical status and great significance” of “Xi Jinping Thought,” and urges the continuous enhancement of “political identity, ideological identity, theoretical identity, and emotional identity.” 

Finally, the Notice requires all regions and departments to organize their various propaganda and educational activities, as well as oppose “historical nihilism.” 

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On May 28, the Beijing-based overseas Chinese language media outlet Duowei News published an article on its website titled, “Dangerous Party History is Substituting One Kind of Meaninglessness for Another Kind of Meaninglessness” (危險的中共黨史正以一種虛無代替另一種虛無). Written by a columnist going by the pen name Mu Yao (穆堯), the piece attacked the CCP’s “Four Histories” and its latest propaganda and education initiative. 

Highlights of the piece include: 

1. The article notes, “learning the ‘Four Histories’ is not merely a ‘private matter’ for the CCP,” but is also a “‘baptism’ and even reconstruction of the nation’s thoughts.” 

The article continued: “The CCP uses the new ‘Four Histories’ education to shape the collective consciousness, which is both in line with [its] historical tradition and realistic motives. If you want to destroy the country, you must destroy its history. Since taking office, Xi Jinping, the top CCP leader, has repeatedly warned of ideological risks with a strong sense of bottomline thinking in defending the stability of the Red Regime, and the first to bear the brunt of [Xi’s] impact and challenge is group historical perspective. The side effects of historical nihilism and other ideological trends in the [Xi Jinping] New Era can indeed be ‘alarming’ at the time. However, this does not mean that Beijing can take the utilitarian approach and substitute one form of historical nihilism for another form of historical nihilism.”

Analysis: By criticizing the CCP for forcing the Chinese people to learn Party history and calling the task a “private matter,” the Duowei article is implicitly splitting the people and the Party. The article also observes that Xi Jinping is facing a serious ruling crisis, most prominently with the author’s use of the phrase “bottomline thinking.” 

The article notes that the CCP’s ruling legitimacy is imperiled and it risks losing popular support because its earlier lies have been exposed and it is today using new lies to cover up old lies. 

2. The article argues, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past … history is written by the victors … For a long time, these utilitarian and irresponsible creeds have been wielded to perfection by the CCP.” 

The article added that the Party has long distorted history to serve its present political needs, and cited two examples of its tampering of recent history. 

Analysis: By quoting from “Nineteen Eighty-four,” the Duowei piece is linking the Xi Jinping dictatorship with Orwellian totalitarianism. 

3. In concluding, the article notes that the “Four Histories” is but the latest in the CCP’s tradition of distorting history for political purposes, and asks rhetorically whether the “Four Histories” are “learning or mind control?” 

Analysis: Implicit in the author’s choice of “mind control” is the assumption that the CCP is a cult. It is highly irregular for the Beijing-based Duowei to make such pointed allusions via an op-ed, and even more so in considering that Duowei is widely believed to be part of the Party’s “Great External Propaganda Plan” (大外宣) network. 

Subsequently, the Duowei article was drastically revised, with its tone softened and title changed to “Reconstruction of Party History Must Simultaneously Oppose Two Kinds of Historical Nihilism” (中共黨史重建要同時反對兩種歷史虛無 ).

OUR TAKE  

1. The CCP’s brainwashing-style education is first and foremost an exercise in strengthening its ruling legitimacy. Specific to Xi Jinping, the “Four Histories” and their promotion are meant to serve as the political and theoretical basis for him to make the case for serving a norm-breaking third term in office at the 20th Party Congress in 2022. 

However, it is also characteristic of the CCP to promote and emphasize areas where it is lacking or having trouble with. The fact that Party Central feels the need to aggressively promote Party history and warn against “historical nihilism” in a General Office document indicates that Beijing is very concerned about its ruling legitimacy ahead of the centennial celebrations. The very conspicuous effort to weave “Xi Jinping Thought” into Party history also reflects a lack of intra-Party approval of Xi. 

To deflect attention away from the “perfect storm” of domestic (deteriorating economy, massive debt crisis, COVID epidemic, etc.) and foreign (COVID accountability, human rights, “wolf warrior” backlash, etc.) problems facing Xi and the CCP, Beijing has no choice but to double-down on mind-numbing indoctrination as it looks to weather existential crisis. 

2. It is possible that the author of the Duowei piece has no clear factional background and is simply opposed to the CCP’s far-left lurch under Xi Jinping. Duowei the publication, however, has CCP links, and from its previous attacks against Xi, appears to be aligned with the “anti-Xi coalition.” Hence, CCP factional elements are almost certainly behind the publication of the piece. 

The fact that Duowei was even able to publish the article is a sign that it has the backing of powerful factional forces. It takes more than just sheer chutzpah to get an article attacking Xi published when there has been very tight control and scrutiny over what is allowed to appear in public discourse in recent years. This is perhaps best exemplified by the recent censorship of former premier Wen Jiabao’s essay in an obscure Macau publication. However, Duowei, which is headquartered in Beijing, was somehow able to elude the censors the first time round and “dared” to launch a scathing, direct assault on Xi Jinping and his latest power consolidation project (“Four Histories”). 

Duowei’s brazenness corroborates Xi’s warning of “another Party Central” challenging his rule via a Qiushi essay published in May, as well as justifies his need for political signaling with his April visit to a memorial garden commemorating the Battle of Xiangjiang in Jiangxi Province. 

3. The next four or five months are especially crucial for Xi Jinping, with several “sensitive” periods coming up, including the CCP centennial, the Beidaihe meeting, the Sixth Plenum of the 19th Party Congress, and critical anniversaries (Tiananmen, Falun Gong, Hong Kong handover, etc.) in between. Xi’s domestic and foreign opponents will very likely seek to trip Xi up during the aforementioned period to undercut his “quan wei” and make it much harder to stake a claim for a third term in office. 

Businesses, investors, and governments must track CCP factional struggle developments, as well as Sino-U.S. “flashpoints” like renewed calls for investigating the origins of COVID-19 and focus on human rights (Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Falun Gong, etc.), to better anticipate and mitigate Black Swan risks.

On May 27, Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of nationalistic Party propaganda outlet Global Times, wrote five Weibo posts, three of which caught the attention of Chinese commentators and overseas media. 

In one post, Hu called on the PRC to “rapidly increase the number of commissioned nuclear warheads, and the DF-41s … in the Chinese arsenal.” The nuclear missiles and warheads are the “cornerstone of China’s strategic deterrence against the US,” he wrote. He added, “We must be prepared for an intense showdown between China and the U.S. … U.S. hostility toward China is burning. We must use our strength, and consequences that Washington cannot afford to bear if it takes risky moves, to keep them sober.” 

Hu then attacked Washington for embracing the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory. “The U.S. guided public discourse to focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and smeared the report of WHO experts. Traces of political operation are too obvious. Washington shouldn’t think it can do whatever it wants with powerful public discourse tools,” Hu wrote in one Weibo post. In another post, he wrote, “President Biden issued a statement this morning requesting the U.S. intelligence community to find out whether the novel coronavirus originated from animal-to-human transmission, or from a lab leak. Old Hu [reference to himself] tweeted at three in the morning [Beijing time]: ‘WHO scientists have ruled out the possibility of Wuhan lab leak theory, so President Biden asked the intelligence community to take up the task. What a blockbuster suspense movie. But its ending should be in the Fort Detrick biolab as that’s typical Hollywood style.’” 

OUR TAKE

1. Chinese commentators note that Hu Xijin also called on the PRC to boost its nuclear arsenal on May 8, 2020, or around the time when the Trump administration began talking about the “lab leak” origins of the coronavirus and was prominently challenging the CCP on the ideological front. Hu wrote previously that, “China needs to expand the number of its nuclear warheads to 1,000 in a relatively short time.” He added, “… peaceful coexistence between the two countries is not a thing that can be begged for; it’s shaped by strategic tools. This is particularly true as we are facing an increasingly irrational U.S., which only believes in strength.” 

According to Chinese commentators, the fact that Hu’s nuclear weaponry remarks in 2020 and 2021 came after Washington turned its attention to the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory is a sign that the CCP fears serious inquiries into the coronavirus’s origins that could potentially be damaging for the regime. We concur with this assessment, and will build on it with additional analysis and caveats. 

2. Despite the growing belief in the international community that Global Times increasingly and accurately reflects Beijing’s thinking under Xi Jinping, we do not believe that Hu Xijin and his propaganda outlet have a stronger mandate now as compared to before the Xi era. The Global Times has always voiced vigorous nationalistic and quasi-belligerent rhetoric, qualities that have only become stronger and more obvious with Xi shifting the CCP’s foreign policy from “hide strength, bide time” (韜光養晦) to “great power diplomacy” (大國外交, or known more commonly as “wolf warrior diplomacy”). Thus, it is only natural that Hu and the Global Times have gotten more extreme in the era of the “wolf warrior” CCP official. Beijing’s thinking remains more closely reflected in state and Party publications like Xinhua, People’s Daily, and Qiushi. 

That being said, Hu Xijin’s extreme views do offer some insight into the CCP’s survival-dominance view of the world. PRC foreign ministry spokespersons have slammed the Biden-Harris administration’s inquiry into COVID-19’s origins and the mainstreaming of the “lab leak” theory. The more “wolf warrior”-inclined spokespersons like Zhao Lijian have also revived the so-called “U.S.-Fort Detrick” theory of the coronavirus origin. Taking cues from how the political winds in Beijing are blowing on confronting the U.S. and the international community when pushed on COVID’s origins, Hu and the Global Times then drop the most over-the-top idea—Washington’s pursuit of the COVID origins could literally cause Beijing to go nuclear—as a form of early deterrence. 

Deterrence by extreme discourse used to work for the CCP before the Trump era. But the Trump administration’s willingness to stand up to and expose Communist China, as well as the Party’s own heightened belligerence, has rallied and forged a global “anti-CCP coalition.” Instead of securing regime survival and furthering its domination agenda, Hu Xijin’s nuclear weaponry remarks highlight the Party’s fragility on the COVID origin question and will likely spur greater international scrutiny of the issue. 

The CCP may have stolen a march against the U.S. and the West in propaganda about its pandemic handling and control, but renewed global attention on the “lab leak” theory ultimately leads to the topic of accountability that the Trump administration raised as early as April 2020. The Party’s image will be tarnished once there is international consensus on its culpability in causing another deadly pandemic, with Xi Jinping standing to lose the most given his assuming personal responsibility for epidemic control work in the PRC and his position as leader of Communist China (we looked at this in greater depth in a previous newsletter).