China to incorporate Xi Jinping’s ideology into education system
Beijing, Aug 25 (EFE).- China’s Education Ministry announced Tuesday that schools and universities should incorporate texts on the political thought of President Xi Jinping into their curriculum to “help teenagers believe in Marxism.”
The ministry issued the new guideline, which also aims to “cultivate the successors of socialism” with “a strong moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic foundation” that allows them “to form their own judgments and political opinions.”
“Primary schools will focus on fostering love for the country, for the Chinese Communist Party and for socialism. Secondary schools will combine study with perceptual experience, while universities will emphasize theoretical thinking,” the text read.
The ministry said “studying Xi Jinping’s thinking on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is the most important task the [party] and the country have,” and that “it is necessary to arm the minds of the students” with this doctrine.
“It must be synthesized, clarified. We must also provide students with tools to develop their spirit of sacrifice, as well as notions so that they learn everything related to the concept of national security,” the text read.
It also calls for reinforcing “revolutionary traditions” to “continue to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics,” which Xi considered in 2021 “a unique Chinese path for civilization” that “has created a new model for human progress.”
Xi’s political thinking was presented and endorsed practically unanimously at the 19th party Congress in October 2017, and was also inscribed in the Party’s statutes and constitution, supposed to equate him with Chairman Mao Zedong, the only president to have reached that level.
Reformist leader Deng Xiaoping’s contributions only achieved “theory” rank, a lower level term interpreted as an unequivocal sample of Xi’s cult of personality in contrast to the collective leadership Deng promoted to avoid the excesses of the Maoist period.
Since 2017, millions of party officials have had to read Xi’s speeches and study his political theory, which according to the country’s state media represents a “historical contribution” to the party’s development and the readaptation of Marxism to the contemporary Chinese context.
The Chinese Constitution was reformed in 2018 to eliminate the two presidential-term limit, allowing Xi to remain in power beyond 2023, something that must be approved by the 20th party congress scheduled for October 2022. EFE
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