The atmosphere in the gilded banquet hall at Beijing’s State Guesthouse was festive on Sunday afternoon, as the children of Chinese Communist Party revolutionaries gathered to celebrate the Lunar New Year and praise the most prominent member of their class, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
The annual meeting of the Yanan Children’s Friendship Association began with traditional singing of classics from the party hymnal.
“Without the Communist Party, there would be no China,” the largely silver-maned crowd of hundreds of “princelings” sang in unison.
A calligrapher showed attendees how to combine the characters for Xi’s “Chinese dream” slogan with the traditional New Year blessing of “good fortune.”
However, the celebrations gave way to stark warnings from group founder Hu Muying (胡木英), who called on the attendees to stay faithful amid the “complex and fluctuating situation” confronting China three years into Xi’s rule.
The party faces ideological “chaos” and a graft problem that needs more time to fix, Hu said. Meanwhile, “hostile Western forces are containing, slandering and doom-saying China, and working hard to subvert the communist and socialist regime,” she said.
Hu’s group is the largest representing the offspring of revolutionaries who founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949, with some growing up to hold top positions in the government and in finance.
A number of smaller princeling organizations were also in attendance. The clubs see Xi, whose father was former Chinese vice premier Xi Zhongxun (習仲勳), as one of their own, and Hu has made her annual speech a call for support for Xi since he took control of the party in 2012.
“We must seriously understand the strategic blueprint of the central leadership and catch up with Secretary General Xi’s footsteps,” said Hu, whose father was the longest-serving secretary to Mao Zedong (毛澤東). “Don’t be impatient and don’t be pessimistic. We must have the determination to fight this protracted war.”
The reference to “protracted war” was a nod to those in the party elite who might become anxious as China’s economic growth cools to the slowest pace in a quarter of a century and Xi carries out a far-reaching overhaul of government, industry and society.
The phrase is taken from the title of a group lecture delivered by Mao in 1938, during one of the darkest periods in Chinese history as Japanese troops marched across the country.
In “On Protracted War,” Mao argued that China would prevail only after an arduous struggle, rebutting both those who underestimated Japanese strength and those who saw the invader as invincible.
“Ultimately, the enemy will lose and we will win, but we shall have a hard stretch of road to travel,” Mao wrote from his stronghold in Yanan, more than seven years before Japan surrendered and 11 years before the Chinese Communist Part defeated the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the Chinese civil war.
The remark also acknowledges the prospect that Xi’s reforms — including overhauls of the military, the patronage system and state-run industries — could take many years to complete. The party is trying to implement changes without spurring the sort of mass unrest that could loosen its 66-year grip on power.
Strains on the government have increased amid a US$5 trillion stock market rout, predictions of currency declines and disputes with the US over cyberespionage, the North Korean nuclear threat and China’s military expansion in the South China Sea.
Mao’s wartime lectures might also provide clues as to why Xi is increasing pressure on state media to conform more closely to the party line.
Back then, Mao blamed the party’s own propaganda authorities for failing to educate the masses about the challenges facing them. Hu’s father, Hu Qiaomu (胡喬木), once oversaw the party’s propaganda efforts.
On Friday last week, Xi visited the headquarters of China Central Television, the People’s Daily and Xinhua news agency, where he urged journalists “to put political direction above anything else,” Xinhua reported.
All media outlets bear the surname “party,” Xi said, meaning they are offspring of the same institution.
“We have the responsibility to protect the country’s social environment and to spread positive energy, especially in today’s China, when the country is in a transition period,” Zhao Cheng (趙承), editor-in-chief for Baidu Inc, said in a discussion held by the Cyberspace Administration of China on Monday to review Xi’s media policies, according to a transcript.
To explain what is at stake, Hu borrowed another phrase from Mao, this one from a 1930 letter criticizing pessimism within the party.
“We have to hold a strong belief: a single spark can start a prairie fire,” she said.
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