China's "Ideological Propaganda" and its Impact on the PRC's Foreign Policy

"Not many U.S. officials and observers have taken enough notice of changes in China's ideological propaganda and the implications for its foreign policy" – Wang Jisi (王缉思)

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently released a series of articles focusing on the rekindling of US-China scholarly exchanges. I am away on holiday this week, so am using this opportunity to help shine some extra light on this important project. The following piece by Wang Jisi (王缉思), founding president of Peking University’s IISS, is one of the many excellent contributions to be found in this report. Thank you to Scott Kennedy, its editor, for allowing Sinification to share it. The complete 100-page report can be accessed here.

Key Points

1. Too little attention has been paid to the transformation of the CCP’s guiding ideology and the impact this is having on Chinese foreign policy.

2. Three main changes stand out:

   1. Xi Jinping Thought’s subsumption and de-facto replacement of Marxism as the CCP’s guiding ideology.

   2. The gradual disappearance of Leninism from official rhetoric, which may be due to its violent and radical characteristics.

   3. The Party’s increasing emph…