TRUMP ON CHINA • PUTTING AMERICA FIRST
The Chinese Communist Party seeks total control over the Chinese people’s lives. This means economic control, it means political control, it means physical control, and, perhaps most importantly, it means thought control.[1]
“In Classical Chinese statecraft,” Garnaut has noted, “there are two tools for gaining and maintaining control over ‘the mountains and the rivers’: the first is wu (武), weapons and violence, and the second is wen (文), language and culture. Chinese leaders have always believed that power derives from controlling both the physical battlefield and the cultural domain.” “For Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Xi,” Garnaut writes, “words are not vehicles of reason and persuasion. They are bullets. Words are for defining, isolating, and destroying opponents.”[2]
Propaganda plays a central political role for the Chinese Communist Party.[3] Beijing’s efforts to dominate political thought are stated openly and pursued aggressively.[4] In 1989, the party began organizing itself around ‘ideological security,’ a term repeated frequently since then by Chinese Communist Party leaders.[5] More recently, in April 2013, the Party issued a policy on what they call the “current state of ideology.” It held that there should be “absolutely no opportunity or outlets for incorrect thinking or viewpoints to spread.”[6]
- ↑ Amy Qin, Javier Hernandez, “How China’s Rulers Control Society: Opportunity, Nationalism, Fear,” New York Times, November 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/25/world/asia/china-freedoms-control.html
- ↑ John Garnaut, “Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China,” January 16, 2019, https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in
- ↑ David Shambaugh, “China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy,” The China Journal, no. 57 (2007): 25-58. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20066240?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
- ↑ Stephen McDonell, “China Congress: How Authorities Censor Your Thoughts,” BBC, October 16, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-41523073
- ↑ Qiushi Theory, “Closely Watch Out for Ideology Security on the Internet,” June 15, 2014, http://chinascope.org/archives/3283?doing_wp_cron=1593280261.9284429550170898437500 . Also see Jack Hu and Oiwan Lam, “In quest for ‘ideological security,’ China Pushes to Extend Communist Party Influence Inside Tech Firms,” September 10, 2017, https://hongkongfp.com/2017/09/10/quest-ideological-security-china-pushes-extend-communist-party-influence-inside-tech-firms/
- ↑ Chris Buckley, “China Takes Aim at Western Ideas,” New York Times, August 20, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-leadership-takes-hard-line-in-secret-memo.html. See also “Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation,” November 8, 2013, https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation
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