WASHINGTON—Chinese Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping began an anti-corruption campaign soon after he assumed power in Nov. 2012 that has received much media attention, both within and outside China. It appears to have helped him consolidate his power.
Less well known is Xi’s campaign against the malignant influences of “Western values” that is affecting his policies toward the Internet, the university, Chinese media, arts and entertainment, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations.
At the Wilson Center on April 2, Xi’s renewed emphasis on propaganda and ideology was the subject of a forum, “Do Western Values Threaten China? The Motives and Methods of Xi Jinping’s Ideology Campaign.”
Robert Daly, director, Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, and host of the discussion, said the threat of Western values must be important to Xi. The new national security commission, which he heads, is taking it up, and it is getting the same level of attention as the topics of terrorism and separatism.
This ideological campaign has its origins in the Chinese communiqué, called Document No. 9, issued in April 2013, which spoke about the dangers of Western thought. It enumerated “seven unmentionable topics,” said Daly, which were “not to be freely addressed in the media or the academy.”
