New propaganda chief Huang Kunming pushes Xi Jinping's views on Chinese-style socialism to protect Chinese identity against "universal values". This includes banning multiparty democracy and leave absolute power in the hands of the Party.
Beijing (AsiaNews) – China’s propaganda chief has warned the people of China against abandoning their culture.
Huang Kunming was appointed head of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China at last month’s Communist Party congress.
In today’s People’s Daily, he warned that some Western countries “are trying to seduce people” by peddling “so-called ‘universal values’” as to make them abandon “their identification with their own spiritual culture,” he writes.
In his article, he expands on what President Xi Jinping has said for years and which he stressed in his long speech at the Party congress.
For Huang, the people of China should not submit to “foreign” ideologies or ways of thinking like multiparty democracy but should remain attached to traditional Chinese culture and not oppose the total control exercised by the Communist Party over every aspect of Chinese social life.
“There are especially some Western countries who use their technological advantages and dominance of discourse that they have accumulated over a long period to peddle so-called ‘universal values’,” Huang says.
Such countries “are trying to seduce people into ‘beautifying the West’ and ‘being compliant with the West’, weakening or even abandoning their identification with their own spiritual culture”, he adds.
instead, China should remain rooted in its culture. Only by promoting core socialist values can the Chinese people stand tall in the “forest of the world’s people”, Huang goes on to say.
China has long railed against what it deems “Western spiritual pollution”, going so far as to ban Christmas parties and greetings since Christmas is seen as a Western festivity.
It has also jailed those who demand a multiparty state and freedom of expression, even if they use non-violence, people like Liu Xiaobo, letting them die when they get sick.
Against the backdrop, Xi Jinping has portrayed himself as a champion of globalisation and collaboration among nations.