What is the Communist Party of China so afraid of that it feels the need for a law to inculcate patriotism? Besides having stringent control over the flow of information — Google, Facebook and Twitter are banned in the country — the government also enjoys the support of most citizens. Talk to the average urban Chinese and his or her pride in the government shines through. The recent beautification of cities with new opera houses, bigger parks, wider roads and fancier shopping plazas and the crackdown on corrupt officials under Xi Jinping are themes that come up in any conversation. The fate of lawyers, journalists, feminists and others who ask too many questions rarely does, since little is reported about these dissenters.
However, not all the restrictions (censorship instructions are issued daily) have been able to control the Chinese internet, a lively space full of sarcasm and even savage mockery of the government and the CPC. Unsurprisingly, internet service providers have been dealt with in a separate provision in the Patriotic Education Law (Draft) presented last week to the legislature. They’ve been asked to produce “information that embodies the spirit of patriotism.”
What is ‘patriotic education’? The draft is unambiguous in its definition. “Patriotic education is to adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China... raise high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics... Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and Xi Jinping Thought.” This is incumbent on every section of society, but the focus is on the education system. Patriotic education must “permeate theentire course of school education,” and must be integrated with all subjects, says the draft.
The ‘thoughts’ of all these leaders are already taught in school. Obviously, that hasn’t been enough to prevent the kind of conduct that’s been made an offence under this new law. These include insulting the national flag and anthem; distorting or negating the deeds of heroes and martyrs; glorifying or denying wars, invasions and massacres; and defiling “patriotic education facilities”. Basically, questioning the CPC’s version of history will be an offence.
What are ‘patriotic education facilities’? China has more than 400 ‘patriotic bases’, most of them sites important in its liberation struggle, promoted as “Red tourism”. A recent addition is Sichuan’s Wenchuan county, where 69,180 people perished in the 2008 earthquake, including 5,335 children inside schools. The government had then silenced and even arrested those teachers and parents who’d questioned the authorities on the shoddy construction of these rural schools. Today, this is a site dedicated to the heroism ofthe survivors and their rescuers.
The recent deletion of popular science and health websites provides an example of how patriotic education is “integrated into all subjects.” These websites had questioned the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in treating Covid-19 at a time when the government was distributing it; they’d also published accounts of suffering under the prolonged lockdowns.
The draft has already drawn flak. “I love my country exactly as much as it loves me,” wrote one netizen. Another feared that one day, after all criticism has been forbidden, even “silence will come to be seen as suspect...failure to agree enthusiastically enough will become a criminal act.” Interestingly, more than one critic commented that patriotism wouldn’t have to be legally enforced if the Labour Law was implemented. Such is the scale of criticism that the ultra-nationalist Global Times has had to fall back on the old conspiracy theory and blame “US and Western information warfare” for the negative reactions. Sounds oddly familiar to the ‘George Soros toolkit’ theory back home.
