During Hu Jintao’s era, the Chinese government mandated four compulsory political courses in universities and colleges. Recently, the Ministry of Education issued a high-profile announcement to strengthen and improve the “Current Affairs and Policies” course, as an attempt to continue the party’s ideological control.

The Ministry of Education circulated a notice in April 2018, recommending that all higher education institutions in the country strengthen and improve the “Current Affairs and Policies” course to “help college students understand the situation at home and abroad in the new era correctly, and to obtain a thorough understanding of the historical achievements and historical changes of the party and the state and of the historic opportunities and challenges they are facing.” The purpose was to “further push Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era into the students’ minds, to promote the party’s major policies … and to train a new generation that will undertake the great mission of national rejuvenation.”

One student told Radio Free Asia that the course is actually “brainwashing” education in combination with current events. He cited the US-China trade war as an example. “The course tells how the United States is rude and unreasonable toward China. It also preaches that the party is very great and instills ideas about the party-state system and about xenophobia.”

The Ministry of Education stipulated that bachelor’s degree students should take no less than 8 class hours for a total of 2 credits per semester, and associate degree students no less than 8 class hours for a total of 1 credit per semester, to “ensure that the undergraduate students on campus take the course uninterrupted.”

Another student told the reporter that the “Current Affairs and Policies” course is compulsory and one cannot graduate without completing it. The credits for each political class are similar to major related classes. Many students choose to memorize the course contents.

The student also mentioned that his school once distributed questionnaires on the “Current Affairs and Policies” class, but it touched on little of the contents in the curriculum.

“A lot of stuff in the questionnaire is actually to evaluate the students’ political views. There are questions such as the following: ‘Do you agree with constitutional democracy?’ ‘Do you agree with the leadership of the Communist Party?’ ‘What do you think about religious beliefs?  One of my high school classmates who answered that he is a religious believer was called into the school for a conversation. Therefore we don’t dare to tell the truth on these questionnaires. I’m afraid that if the questionnaire is checked, the respondent will be called in for a conversation.”  Feng Chongyi, a professor at the University of Technology in Sydney, said in an interview that the “brainwashing” education exists because the Chinese ruling party must control the students’ ideological dynamics.

“After June 4, the universities intensified political classes. The democratic movement in 1989 posed great challenges to the Chinese ruling party. The government regarded students as the “worst-hit area” in terms of challenges to the Chinese Communist regime.” “(‘Brain-washing’ education) is something special in a totalitarian regime; starting at the kindergarten stage, it puts political education in the first (place). From childhood on, people have not been able to cultivate the ability to think and judge things independently and the real cognitive ability of a human being has been destroyed.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 10, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/kejiaowen/hj-01102019103938.html

China published a new rule to request blockchain service providers to get the real name of each user and not to publish contents that do not conform to the authorities’ requirements.

On January 10, 2019, the Cyberspace Admission Office issued the “Regulations on the Management of Blockchain Information Services,” which will take effect on February 15, 2019.

The Regulations state that the blockchain service provider holds the main responsibility for the safety management of the contents, that it should implement the real ID identification system for its users, and that it cannot use blockchain to conduct activities prohibited by the law or administrative regulations or produce, replicate, publish, or spread information prohibited by the law or by administrative regulations.

Source: Cyberspace Admission website, January 10, 2019
http://www.cac.gov.cn/2019-01/10/c_1123971138.htm

On October 30, 2018, Xuzhou City of Jiangsu Province published an official personnel announcement but it quickly drew heated discussion on the Internet. On January 12, the personnel announcement was taken down from the city website. Meanwhile the city published a clarification statement on its Weibo account. Central News Agency reported that a personnel announcement for the deputy Mayor of Xuzhou City of Jiangsu Province showed that he sits on 46 teams as either the director or the team leader. The teams include development and reform, land and resource management, human resources and social security, statistics, production safety, pricing, finance, taxation, and government service management as well as many others. People on the Internet questioned whether he is even able to manage all of these responsibilities. Some people believe that such a phenomenon is actually a breeding ground for bureaucracy because the duties of the different ministries and commissions that are normally set up are fully capable of running. They therefore wondered why there is a need to create so many extra teams and offices. In the official statement the city published on its Weibo account, it clarifies that some special tasks involve a number of departments and require clear leadership to improve efficiency. All those agencies are temporary and there are no separate offices and there is no funding involved. All the agencies will be closed as soon as the deadline or certain conditions are met. The Central News Agency article mentioned that it is not uncommon for a party official to have dozens of titles. An official from Changshu City of Jiangsu Province holds more than 37 official titles and another official in Shanwei City of Guangdong Province holds 43 titles. The report stated that even Xi Jinping was the team leader of dozens of teams at one point in time.

Source: Central News Agency, January 12, 2019
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201901120169.aspx

The Paper recently reported that, since October 2016, the party committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been promoting the “unity” theme between ethnic Han and Uyghur residents. The program pairs up cadres or workers at all levels of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Uyghur families. The Uyghurs must allow the cadres to visit and live with their family for five days every two months in order to “form large-scale, full coverage, and multi-level exchanges between the different ethnic groups to achieve ‘national unity’ and bring the progress in Xinjiang to a new level.” It was reported that by the end of December 2018, there were more than 1.12 million cadres and workers paired with up to or more than 1.69 million Uyghur families. They have made a cumulative 57 million visits to these families and held more than 13 million events including many different activities under the theme of “national unity and family.”

Source: The Paper, January 3, 2019
https://m.thepaper.cn/wifiKey_detail.jsp?contid=2807286&from=wifiKey