8 November 2024

The Art of War: PRC Weaponizes Culture to Galvanize the People

Arran Hope

In his 2003 book From War To Nationalism: China’s Turning Point 1924–5, the historian Arthur Waldron noted that military modernization has been perhaps the single most important engine of change in China since the nineteenth century. [1] Two decades on, this observation seems truer than ever. Today, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is attempting to mobilize the population of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in preparation for battle, while pushing forward an ambitious agenda under the rubric of “modernization.” Underpinning these two interrelated programs is the Party’s ideology, a prominent aspect of which is the place of culture and history—both that of the CCP itself and that of “Chinese civilization” more broadly. The clearest articulation of this in recent years has been the formal introduction of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture at last year’s National Conference on Propaganda, Ideology, and Cultural Work (People’s Daily, October 9, 2023; China Brief, October 20, 2023)

The last month has seen an effusion of writings and events by the Party on this very topic. Issue 20 of this year’s volume of Qiushi (求实), the Party’s flagship theory journal, was published on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the “Symposium on Literary and Artistic Work (文艺工作座谈会),” and includes Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech from that event (Qiushi, October 15).

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