SinoInsight 1
On July 16, the CCP Central Committee ideological journal Qiushi published a piece titled, “Taking the Study of the History of Chinese Civilization to a Deeper Level, Enhance Historical Consciousness and Strengthen Cultural Confidence” (把中國文明歷史研究引向深入, 增強歷史自覺堅定文化自信). The article is based on a speech by Xi Jinping to the 39th collective study session of the Politburo on May 27, 2022.
Xi said that Chinese civilization is the “foundation of contemporary Chinese culture” and the “cultural bond holding all Chinese around the globe together.” He added that the Chinese people, with their “determination and will to strive for self-improvement,” have gone through a development process “unlike any other civilization in the world.” Xi then said, “Today’s China is a development of historical China; we are Marxist historicists, and we should not cut off history.”
Xi put forward five requirements for the “Chinese civilization exploration project” (中華文明探源工程):
1. The CCP should promote the Chinese civilization project to achieve more results. A “definition of civilization” and a Chinese plan for “recognizing entry into a civilized society” should be developed, and the Party must do a good job in promoting China’s “ancient civilization theory” and the research results of the Chinese civilization exploration project.
2. The CCP should deepen research into the features and forms of Chinese civilization to provide theoretical support for the construction of a new form of human civilization. As an example, Xi cited Mao Zedong as claiming that Confucius would “go wherever there is rebellion, and go wherever there is revolution” when he was roaming the many Chinese states during his time. Xi added that the CCP “cannot deny all traditional culture” and must “adhere to the principle of using the past for the present, bring forth the new through the old [推陳出新, i.e. innovate], and inherit and promote the best elements of it.”
Decoding CCP jargon:
- By “new form of human civilization,” Xi is likely referring to the CCP’s “community with a shared future for mankind” and “socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.”
- Xi and Mao are attempting to interpret Confucius through the lens of Marxist historiography and class struggle to both validate Marxist ideology and give the CCP artificial “roots” in Chinese civilization.
3. The CCP should advance the “creative transformation and innovative development” of fine traditional Chinese culture and “establish the root and soul” (立根鑄魂) of national rejuvenation. Xi said that the Party should “combine the basic principles of Marxism with China’s concrete reality and fine traditional Chinese culture.” Also, the Party should continuously advance the “Sinicization and modernization” of Marxism and the “creative transformation and innovative development” of fine traditional Chinese culture.
Xi added that the Party must “adhere to the fundamental guiding ideology of Marxism, inherit and promote revolutionary culture, develop advanced socialist culture, and seek the source of living water (源頭活水) from fine traditional Chinese culture” as it promotes the “creative transformation and innovative development” of traditional Chinese culture.
Decoding CCP jargon:
- By “creative transformation and innovative development,” Xi is in effect looking to graft Communist Party culture (which can be summarized as “deceit, perniciousness, struggle,” or 假惡鬥) onto traditional Chinese culture.
4. The CCP should promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. Xi said that the Chinese civilization is known for its openness and tolerance since ancient times, and the authorities should use “civilizational exchanges and integration” to unravel the “clash of civilizations theory,” present a “trustworthy, lovable, and respectable image of China to the world, and get the world to “understand China, understand the Chinese people, understand the CCP, and understand the Chinese nation.”
Decoding CCP jargon:
Xi’s use of “lovable” here indicates that he is building on his May 2021 initiative to tweak the CCP’s abrasive “wolf warrior” external propaganda stance in light of global pushback against the PRC. Xi is now encouraging the CCP to promote “fine traditional Chinese culture” as part of the regime’s softer, but not less subversive, effort to influence other countries.
5. The CCP should create a strong social atmosphere for the transmission of Chinese civilization. Xi said that the Chinese Communists are not “historical nihilists and cultural nihilists,” and should not “forget one’s roots and belittle oneself” (不能數典忘祖、妄自菲薄). He added that leading cadres at all levels should be “in awe of history and fine traditional Chinese culture.” Further, Xi said that the results of the Chinese civilization exploration project should be widely publicized to “educate and guide” the masses, and especially young people, to “understand and identify” with Chinese civilization and strengthen their “will, backbone, and confidence to be Chinese.”
Decoding CCP jargon and background:
- The CCP has done much to get the Chinese people to “forget one’s roots and belittle oneself” since seizing power in 1949. Through its propaganda and political campaigns, the Party severely eroded the traditional Chinese heritage in mainland China and created both historical and cultural nihilism in the younger generation of Chinese. CCP propaganda targets ancient social and spiritual traditions as “feudalism” and “superstition”; berates the Chinese people for their “backwardness,” “inferiority complex,” and “low quality”; promotes its anti-tradition concept of a “new China,” and indoctrinates the populace in its violent philosophy of struggle. Communist political campaigns, such as the Anti-Rightist Movement, Cultural Revolution, Destruction of the “Four Olds,” or “Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius” take aim at the institutions and people that once served as custodians of traditional Chinese culture.
- Xi’s call to “educate and guide” young people is likely due to children of the wealthy and the elite in China favoring or generally admiring Western civilization and lifestyles over their own cultural heritage (which was largely destroyed under the CCP). Many have emigrated or are considering migrating to Western countries because they do not believe in the CCP regime, its ideology, and Party culture. To make the Party more appealing and less distasteful to the children of the elite, Xi is getting the CCP to “acknowledge and identify” with Chinese civilization and rebrand itself as a staunch defender of traditional Chinese culture.
OUR TAKE
Xi Jinping’s promotion of traditional Chinese culture appears to be aimed at resolving his and the CCP’s various challenges in surviving and dominating as the regime navigates “great changes in the world unseen in a century”:
Survival
1. By touting the “creative transformation and innovative development” of traditional Chinese culture, Xi is looking to “reconcile” the CCP’s sustained efforts over the decades to disavow and destroy China’s five millennia-old civilization with the contemporary effort to use Chinese identity and cultural heritage as a way of shoring up the Party’s rule.
However, Xi’s emphasis on adherence to the CCP’s Marxism precludes any genuine endeavor to embrace traditional Chinese culture and civilization. For one, Marxism as an ideology rejects traditional culture and seeks its eradication on the road to ushering in the communist utopia. The CCP is also notorious for saying one thing and doing its opposite; Mao Zedong publicly proclaimed, “Long live Chiang Kai-shek!” even as the CCP attacked Kuomintang forces during the Chinese civil war, and openly promoted democracy to win over Chinese intellectuals and the United States to their cause despite having no intention of establishing a democratic government (as a matter of fact, Mao had already laid the groundwork for totalitarian rule in the CCP’s Yan’an “base area” during World War II).
Rather than restoring “fine traditional Chinese culture” or its values, Xi’s call for the “creative transformation and innovative development” of China’s national heritage will more likely lead to its further hollowing out and “Marxification” by the CCP.
2. Xi needs to give himself more political “achievements” and boost his “quan wei” (authority and prestige) before the 20th Party Congress to justify his taking a norm-breaking third term despite the regime doing very poorly (sharp economic deterioration, mounting domestic social anger, growing geopolitical pressures, increased wariness towards the PRC, etc.) in recent years.
The goal behind Xi’s promotion of traditional Chinese culture is similar to his promotion and rewriting of the Party’s history. In the latter case, Xi is justifying his importance to the CCP, downplaying the contributions of his predecessors, and making the case to the Party for why he must extend his tenure. With traditional Chinese culture, Xi is casting himself as the chief defender and guarantor of Chinese civilization to justify his staying on as leader of China to the general public.
3. Xi and the CCP are using traditional Chinese culture as a new theoretical underpinning to justify clinging on to Marxism-Leninism and “Sinicized Marxism” in Xi’s “new era.” This can be seen in Xi’s call to “seek the source of living water [of Sinicized and modernized Marxism] from fine traditional Chinese culture.”
At the same time, Xi’s attempt to root “Sinicized Marxism” in traditional Chinese culture betrays his and the CCP’s lack of confidence in the regime’s “original aspiration”—the allure of a Leninist vanguard party leading a “new China” to Marxist utopia no longer looks like a viable justification for the CCP’s authoritarian rule. Moreover, it can be argued that Xi’s effort to use “fine traditional Chinese culture” as a theoretical underpinning for the Party’s ideology represents an inadvertent repudiation of the CCP’s previous campaigns to purge the nation of traditional culture; indirect admission that the Party was in error on such an ideologically significant issue subtly undermines the regime’s political legitimacy. This also potentially opens the door to more serious reversals down the road in scenarios where Xi is forced to choose between self-preservation and preserving the Party.
Domination
1. By claiming that the CCP and its pernicious ideology are a bona fide development of Chinese civilization, Xi and the Party are looking to further misdirect the Chinese people and rally them to the regime’s cause. For instance, nationalists who may be disappointed and disgusted at the CCP’s “zero-COVID” measures and other failed policies can still be swayed into maintaining support for the regime (albeit begrudgingly) if they buy the Party’s propaganda on Chinese civilization and nationalism.
2. Xi and the CCP’s effort to use the cover of traditional Chinese culture to project a “trustworthy, lovable, and respectable image of China to the world” is merely a slightly updated version of the Party’s long-term plan to misappropriate the benign and internationally familiar aspects of Chinese culture to advance its hegemonic agenda. For instance, the CCP previously used Confucius Institutes to expand its influence operations in many countries around the globe.
Xi made it clear in his speech to the Politburo that he sees Confucius as a proto-communist revolutionary, “going wherever there is rebellion, and going wherever there is revolution.” Likewise, the PRC’s promotion of traditional Chinese culture and civilization partly serves to advance the Party’s global revolutionary ambitions.
3. Xi and the CCP are attempting to offer up “Sinicized Marxism” and Party-hijacked “traditional Chinese culture” as a counter to the U.S.-led Western bloc and its embrace of democracy, climate change, and liberal values.
While China’s civilization is an ancient one and has much to offer the world, countries should not allow themselves to be deceived by the CCP’s real intentions for borrowing the veneer of traditional Chinese culture. Instead of buying into the CCP’s “Sinicized Marxism,” governments, academic institutions, and cultural associations should look into other sources for understanding authentic Chinese culture, many aspects of which are much better-preserved in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the overseas Chinese diaspora.
SinoInsight 2
July 12
Former state security vice minister Wang Yuwen (age 60) was appointed as a member of the Ministry of Justice Party group and head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National Supervisory Commission inspection and supervision group in the justice ministry. Wang replaced Pu Zengfan (63), who is past retirement age.
OUR TAKE
1. Wang Yuwen’s transfer to the Ministry of Justice appears to be Xi Jinping’s latest effort to “rectify” the judicial system and strengthen control over a part of the CCP regime that he has long struggled to rein in. The judicial system includes the justice ministry (the prison system falls under the ministry’s jurisdiction), the courts, and the procuratorates.
The judicial system became a key organ of state violence and persecution during the Jiang faction’s era of dominance (1997 to 2012) when Jiang Zemin bolstered the political and legal affairs apparatus to perpetuate his anti-Falun Gong campaign. The Jiang faction favored judges and procurators who were willing to hand out harsh sentences to Falun Gong practitioners based on a vague law (Article 300 of the PRC criminal code) and human rights lawyers (notably Gao Zhisheng) who were willing to defend them at the time. Incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners who refused to give up their faith were often subjected to brutal torture and risked having their organs forcibly removed while still alive; prison officials were promoted and rewarded for successfully “transforming” practitioners, and often resorted to sustained torture to get “results.”
Having judicial officials who prioritize political and personal interests in upholding the law, however, was a double-edged sword for the CCP regime. On the one hand, the Jiang faction was able to safeguard Jiang Zemin’s political legacy by perpetuating the persecution of Falun Gong far beyond his tenure as Party boss. Corrupt officials also escaped justice for the most part and carried on with criminal undertakings. On the other hand, miscarriages of justice were commonplace in China and the Chinese people did not have much faith in the judicial system’s ability to properly redress their grievences. Lack of trust in the judicial system slowly eroded regime stability.
Xi Jinping thus had at least two good reasons to “rectify” the judicial system after taking office in 2012. The out-of-control judicial system was negatively affecting the CCP’s political legitimacy and regime stability, and reforms had to be made to win back the goodwill of the people. During Xi’s first term, the judicial authorities were required to accept all criminal complaints (有案必立, 有訴必應) from May 2015 (this led to the filing of over 200,000 complaints against Jiang Zemin), and the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission made a prominent effort to correct miscarriages of justice in July 2016 (the Xi leadership had already issued documents to address the issue from 2013).
To wrestle control over the judicial system from the Jiang faction and secure an advantage in factional struggle, the Xi leadership resorted to purges and personnel adjustments. Wu Aiying, the justice minister (2005 to 2017) for the bulk of the Jiang-Hu era and Xi’s first term, was purged in February 2017. Zhang Jun, then deputy secretary of the CCDI, took over as justice minister for a year before he was reassigned to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to serve as procurator-general.
Fu Zhenghua, the former public security vice minister, central “610 Office” head, and one-time Jiang faction member, replaced Zhang Jun as justice minister in March 2018. While Fu appeared to switch factional allegiances in 2012 by helping Hu Jintao stop Zhou Yongkang’s coup against his leadership, he did not win Xi Jinping’s trust. Moreover, the central role Fu took in the “709” crackdown on human rights lawyers in 2015 did not do Xi many favors insofar as the leader’s public and international image was concerned. Yuan Shuhong, the former deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Office, was appointed as secretary of the Ministry of Justice’s Party group instead of Fu when the latter was justice minister; this meant that Yuan was Fu’s superior in the justice ministry’s Party system and the latter would be subjected to his “supervision.”
In analyzing Fu Zhenghua’s appointment as justice minister, we noted that he was “merciless in rounding up his old allies in the Jiang faction” while serving as public security vice minister and that Xi could be looking to unleash him “against the dark characters running China’s prisons.” Our analysis was subsequently confirmed in an October 2021 report by the Chinese edition of Radio France Internationale about the purge of Fu. Officials told RFI that Fu “tormented the prison system and prison guards half to death” while he was justice minister, including imposing a very harsh accountability system for prison surveillance officials that allegedly led to the death of a hundred police officers in a year. Grassroots police officers had particularly cheered Fu’s downfall because they had suffered greatly under him, according to RFI.
The Xi leadership still has some ways to go in “rectifying” the judicial system. The first press conference of the campaign to “educate and rectify” the political and legal affairs apparatus on June 10, 2021 announced the correction of just 10,279 judicial cases. This is despite a “30-year retrospective review” of the judicial system (that is, from 1990 onwards) and a “comprehensive investigation” of the prison system, including cases of commutation, parole, and temporary release. The “education and rectification” at the time also investigated 134 officials at the deputy-bureau level and above, of which only 57 were from the judicial system.
2. According to publicly available information, Wang Yuwen does not have prior work experience in the judicial system. This means that his appointment to the Ministry of Justice is in line with the Xi leadership’s practice of transferring officials out of the Party organ or state government apparatus that they spent many years working at to a different government or Party position. Theoretically, officials who are installed in an unfamiliar environment where they have no prior interest networks will have less personal initiative and more faithfully follow Party Central’s orders, allowing the Xi leadership to have greater control over the parts of government where the officials are installed.
Wang Yuwen’s transfer out of the Ministry of State Security could also be part of the Xi leadership’s effort to clean up and consolidate his control over the state security apparatus. Moving officials out of the leadership ranks of the state security ministry opens up vacancies for Xi Jinping to fill up with trusted officials. Senior state security officials could also be moved out to facilitate investigations into them. It is still unclear whether Wang was reshuffled from the Ministry of State Security so that Xi leadership can better probe him or because it wanted someone else in his position. Wang is not the first state security vice minister to be transferred in recent years; in May 2018, state security vice minister Su Deliang was transferred to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to head its CCDI and NSC inspection and supervision group.
Aside from Wang Yuwen, the Xi leadership also appointed three other officials to head CCDI and NSC inspection and supervision groups in other ministries and departments in 2022:
- Jan. 6: Wang Xinzhe (58), a former sub-ministerial level inspector of the Central Inspection Team, was appointed head of the CCDI and NSC inspection and supervision group in the Ministry of Water Resources.
- June 6: Ren Hongbin (59), former deputy director at the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, was appointed head of the CCDI and NSC inspection and supervision group in the National Audit Office.
- June 29: Yang Shaojun (54), former director of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission’s Organization Department, was appointed head of the CCDI and NSC inspection and supervision group in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
