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The Chinese leader seeks to restore an earlier era of ideological indoctrination and national unity—whether his society wants it or not.
The Marx and Confucius show is just one small part of Xi’s campaign to fashion a new ideological conformity in China. Its apparent aim is to foster unity in preparation for struggles at home and abroad—but with the ultimate purpose of tightening Xi’s grip on China.
Chinese leaders “want to have a very powerful, socialist, ideological framework that can congeal the population, and this is of course under the party’s control and guidance,” Wang Feng, a sociologist at UC Irvine, told me. “What’s a more powerful way to centralize power than to control people’s thought?”
Xi’s push for communist conformity might seem anachronistic in the age of social media and the global digital commons. But it’s only one way he is dragging China back into an older, darker time.
returned to Cold War–style confrontation with the West after a period of fruitful cooperation
reestablished one-man rule to a degree unseen since the days of Mao Zedong, the Communist regime’s founder. Now he is attempting to restore the intense ideological indoctrination of earlier years of Communist rule—the era of Mao’s Little Red Book
in March, Xi introduced the “Global Civilization Initiative,” a manifesto in which he advocates “respect for the diversity of civilizations” and that “coexistence transcend feelings of superiority.” Countries, he adds, should “refrain from imposing their own values or models on others.”
That’s Xi-speak for denying the existence of the universal rights and values that undergird the global primacy of democracy
strangled private education
Lol foreign investors get fucked
Chinese leaders have a long history of trying to control thought. In 213 B.C.E., the first emperor of the Qin dynasty became irritated with scholars
unlimited genocide on westoid “scholars”
If any china-watchers or xi-speakers want to unpack all the other bullshit 
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That’s Xi-speak for denying the existence of the universal rights and values that undergird the global primacy of democracy
PARENTI QUOTE!
If China was pushing for universal rights and values, then this same author would just saying Xi is being a social imperialist and trying to push Chinese values on the world.
I would like for Chinese values to be pushed on the world
China doesn’t export revolution.
Be cooler if you did.
in March, Xi introduced the “Global Civilization Initiative,” a manifesto in which he advocates “respect for the diversity of civilizations” and that “coexistence transcend feelings of superiority.” Countries, he adds, should >“refrain from imposing their own values or models on others.”
That’s Xi-speak for denying the existence of the universal rights and values that undergird the global primacy of democracy
no, he’s right, western “democracy” is contingent on disregarding diversity and coexistence.
Real “anti-racist is code for anti-white” vibes in that statement you quoted.
it’s a real telling on themselves moment
technically they’re telling the truth!
The Marx and Confucius show is just one small part of Xi’s campaign to fashion a new ideological conformity in China. Its apparent aim is to foster unity in preparation for struggles at home and abroad—but with the ultimate purpose of tightening Xi’s grip on China.
back at it again with the insane grippy
Noo, Xi, stop gripping so hard! You’re gonna break China!
will Xi further tighten his grip on ShanDONG? tune in next week to find out
GRIP GOD
Xi must be a great climber with grip strength like this
Chinese leaders have a long history of trying to control thought. In 213 B.C.E., the first emperor of the Qin dynasty became irritated with scholars who compared him and his policies unfavorably to rulers of the distant past. His solution, so the story goes, was to confiscate suspect texts on history, philosophy, and other subjects and burn them. He did this, one ancient historian commented, “in order to make the people stupid and ensure that in all under Heaven there should be no rejection of the present by using the past.”
“The PRC isn’t real China because Mao destroyed traditions in the Cultural Revolution!!!”
My brother in Christ, there is literally nothing more traditionally Chinese than getting rid of shitty old ideas.
Chinese leaders have a long history of trying to control thought. In 213 B.C.E.,
I don’t know how to describe this but bringing up history from over 2000 years ago to make a point of a modern country having “a long history” of something feels like some form of racism. You’d never see these outlets write about a European country like that. “Italy has a long history of political conspiracies and assassinations. In 44 B.C.E., Roman Emperor Julius Casear was famously murdered by a group of senators during a senate meeting.”
I was mostly lampooning a shitty idea with an equally absurd idea.
The “real” culture of China is the culture of China. China can’t be a “fake” China by definition and claiming so is like claiming that I’m not the real me because I don’t act like I did 10 years ago. The ways that people who believe that Taiwan is the “real” China try to prove their theory is to point to some arbitrary tradition or way of doing things that’s different from the PRC and claim that the PRC killed it in the cultural revolution (very rare, except maybe for small things like bowing). From a logical point of view, that doesn’t make sense any more than me pointing to Taiwan and going “well if you’re the real China why don’t you burn books and bury scholars anymore? Huh?! Gotcha!”
The people who argue about “real” Chinese culture also tend to conveniently forget that there are many instances in Chinese history where China (the sociocultural unit) was broken up into many competing and de facto independent polities for decades at a time, much like China and Taiwan now. It’s like arguing that Shu, Wei, or Wu “weren’t the real China”. People would think you’re insane.
That being said, I think the funniest variant of the “real China” discourse are the ultra-fringe wackjobs who claim that Japan is the real China because they were never conquered by the Mongols.
Also, tangentially I want to point out that it’s more valid to point to Ancient Chinese history over ancient European history (like Rome) because unlike almost all modern European states (except maybe Greece?) China claims that it has an unbroken historical and cultural lineage going back to 213 BCE, and even earlier.
You’d never see these outlets write about a European country like that.
they do literally all the time, just with positive instead of negative stuff, and to the point where other countries’ stereotypes are appropriated and assigned to european ones (assuming they’re positive)
Qinshihuang was history’s first stemlord.
Oh fuck, China made a show about Marx and Confucius being buddies and liking modern day China? Literal
hours.The Marx and Confucius show is just one small part of Xi’s campaign to fashion a new ideological conformity in China. Its apparent aim is to foster unity in preparation for struggles at home and abroad—but with the ultimate purpose of tightening Xi’s grip on China.
this is a pretty bizarre video though
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Erk_xSGXWJg
that wig, so campy
This looks like the average C History Drama from like before 2012
Edit: Why are Zhang Shi and Zhu Xi nodding their heads with cheesy CGI from inside the portraits at 1:35, this is cheeessyyy
Edit 2: Actually if you ignore the cheesiness this is a really cool dialogue, I kinda appreciate the parallels it draws and where the two are similar and extremely dissimilar
love the cheese, embrace the camp
i loved that
Kino. Inject campy Marxism into my veins.
Make sure to post it if you find more
it’s bizarre and silly but I enjoyed it, they gave Marx some good lines.
Pure projection by the Western media that invented the fake “culture war” in the first place.
the media didn’t need to invent anything or propagandize anyone, the american people do that themselves
Like Bacteria in Petri Dishes, the ruling class has had a considerable effect in cultivating what would likely only be a very very small incident. For example, the antivax org in the UK that launched the original huge suit that caused the antivax scare we know today had like ten members in it before the case and the news running with the (false) possibilities of the case.
the media didn’t invent racism sexism or homophobia and these weren’t “small incidents”
Yeah I just mean it’s amplified by bourgeois media, it’d still be there in a “neutral” society but it’s amplified because it benefits the bourgeois class, whereas in a socialist society it can be “negated” with education until it’s as eradicated as things like that can be.
but it’s amplified because it benefits the bourgeois class
yea but whites are the bourgeois class
No, that’s not correct. Bourgeois power structures are upheld by whiteness as a concept, but I don’t think the unhoused white man I saw yesterday was bourgeois.
The vast majority of whites are globally bourgeois (yes I’m also bourgeois as an individual)
Looks like he’s contracted to crank out five of these per quarter https://www.theatlantic.com/author/michael-schuman/
He has reversed decades of market liberalization in favor of renewed state intervention in the economy, returned to Cold War–style confrontation with the West after a period of fruitful cooperation
Oh, sure, Xi is responsible for 21st Century Cold War. God, for a second there, I thought it was just my government falling back into old patterns the face of waning economic influence and an inability to synthesize a new response to modern conditions. That might have been worrying. Thank goodness one man in China is responsible. I might have had to, dunno, critically examine the policy of the organization that claims to represent me on the world stage. And that sounds like a lot of work, so it’s a good thing I don’t have to.
In October, a Chinese book distributor recalled a recent reprint of a biography of the Ming dynasty’s last emperor from sellers without a clear explanation. The Chongzhen emperor, as he was known, hanged himself when his dynasty collapsed in 1644. Perhaps the book’s cover language, which advertises that “Chongzhen’s repeated mistakes” had “hastened the nation’s destruction,” could be construed as an implicit criticism of Xi amid the country’s mounting economic problems and geopolitical tensions.
if there’s one thing you really, really cannot claim modern China does, it’s repeat mistakes. I mean fuck, even if you wanna stick to the exaggerated western historiography, they went from the failures of the Great Leap Forward to being the rising center of global production in
little more than half a century. China is a country that learns from mistakes. To suggest otherwise, especially in a United goddamn States newspaper, is absurd. And to cap it all off;Whatever the reason, today’s censors, much like the Qin emperor, seem to prefer that readers not compare present and past.
this is all supposition from an ocean away. There’s a million reasons to recall a textbook, Michael just wants you to know his personal hypothesis
To claim that China doesn’t want people to compare past and present is absolutely absurd. They are constantly pointing to the warlords period or any other period of history in China going ‘look whatever mistakes we have or are making it is nowhere near as fucking bad as that.’ as well as pointing out that whenever China falls apart is exactly when outside forces come in and literally pillage the countryside. It’s literally one of the bedrocks to understanding why China has continued to maintain political cohesion even with these massive economic changes that we’ve seen. They are well aware of what the consequences are if they fail, both from their own history and from the collapse of the USSR.
It also impossible for them not to be obsessed with the past because they literally descend indirectly from one of the oldest state government cultures ever and are literally surrounded by the artifacts of millennium of history. It is not like America where we will gladly sweep even the last decade under the rug to keep pulling the same scams over and over again. In a sane country, this article would be censored not because it’s critical of the government, but because it is just blatantly factually incorrect.
multiple building collapses in NYC within the same year
some bookseller in China makes a printing error
the reach is so far you could reach the top shelf with it. “somebody gave me resting-bitch-face in DC today. MAYBE this is because America is circling the toilet and all our institutions not to mention physical infrastructure are collapsing in realtime” Actually that doesn’t work because that’s probably actually true
The government has smothered Uyghur culture by destroying religious sites; curtailing the study of Uyghur culture, literature, and language in schools; and associating the practice of Islam with extremism.
[five paragraphs later]
Throughout the crisis in Gaza, for instance, Chinese state media have fed the public a steady stream of pro-Palestinian messaging that has contributed to an upsurge in anti-Semitic and anti-Israel discourse online. Censors could easily suppress such sentiments, but they don’t, because they help build domestic support for Beijing’s foreign policy.
Is China cynically switching policies for different Moslem communities as it suits them, or is the author?
There’s a video of a Palestinian ambassador talking to CGTN about his visit to Xinjiang. He speaks very positively about China’s development and anti-radicalization programs.
That’s the key contradiction IMO. Westoids subconsciously believe that all Muslims are violent terrorists so any attempt to deradicalized Muslims in a peaceful way is seen as an attack against the core of Islamic culture. People who realize there’s a difference between Islam and terror, including Muslims, see no contradiction between Islamic culture and detadicalization.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
He has reversed decades of market liberalization in favor of renewed state intervention in the economy,
His government prevented a disastrous crash of the real estate sector that would have dragged half the economy down with it through targeted acquisitions of failing investments and added regulations on the private firms that were left.
returned to Cold War–style confrontation with the West after a period of fruitful cooperation,
His government reacted rationally to a trade war started by the previous US president for literally no reason, and has reacted predictably and similarly to every escalation in rhetoric, sanctions, and military exercises originating from Washington.
and reestablished one-man rule to a degree unseen since the days of Mao Zedong, the Communist regime’s founder
The Party voted to end term limits according to its own rules in a process that had very little controversy in China itself.
Every accusation a confession.
