Chinese Military Told to Study Xi Jinping’s Thoughts

The Chinese Communist Party has given a directive to all military units in the country to carefully study a new volume of collected works by the Party leader Xi Jinping. The collection distills the “important strategic thought, major theoretical views, and major policy deployments” of Xi, according to state propaganda.

The study of these texts are to be a “central educational task” that should increase soldiers’ “staunchness of faith in Party directives,” according to the notice, as reported by the People’s Liberation Army Daily. The full text of the directive given to the military was not made available, nor was the collection itself.

The collection includes Xi’s thoughts from the time he assumed the role as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party until mid-March this year. 

According to People’s Liberation Army Daily, “the topics chosen are prominent, and the thinking is profound.” Groups are to be organized to specifically study the texts.

The directive appears to be another move by Xi to assert his control over the armed forces after the purge of high-level logistics officer Gu Junshan. Details about the extent of the corruption of Gu have been leaked to the press over the last several months: tales of vast mansions around China with butler’s quarters, networks of underground tunnels connecting secret compounds, and stockpiles of expensive liquors and solid gold statues of Mao Zedong. 

It also comes a couple of weeks after Xi Jinping set up a new committee in charge of “deepening military reform,” and made himself the head of it.