The organization may be new. But it is charged with the same old propagandistic task of bolstering the Chinese way and undermining the Western way to the extent that the latter is associated with values like democracy and freedom.
Bitter Winter reports that China has established a Research Center of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture. It was announced at a major Chinese Communist Party conference, the National Conference on Propaganda, Ideology and Culture, held in October 2023.
Xi Jinping’s Thought on Culture has a domestic side and an international side. The domestic side pertains to more effectively convincing the Chinese people of the virtues of Marxism as combined with Chinese culture.
As for the international side:
Deng Yuwen describes it as “fending off the Western countries’ values and cutting off their influence.” This is the essence of Xi’s recently unveiled Global Community Plan and the ideological core of the Belt and Road Initiative. By “Western countries’ values” Xi Jinping means democracy based on free and fair elections, separation of powers, independence of the judiciary, free media, freedom of speech, freedom of religion or belief.
This part of “Xi Jinping Thought on Culture” is something all dictators and enemies of democracy in the world can agree with, starting with Vladimir Putin.
The Research Center of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture may or may not enhance the effectiveness of Chinese propaganda. But even if Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party are simply repeating themselves here, their focus again confirms how important saturating the globe with propaganda is to the Chinese government.
