[Link] "Two Case Studies in Communist Insecurity" (The Scholar's Stage)

Related: Thiel on GCRs

The Scholar's Stage excerpts a couple passages (a) from Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping.

A nice summary from the end of the post:

The concerns Xi Jinping and his clique have about the ideological integrity of the Chinese socialist system and the threat Western values and institutions pose to them are not comic curiosities. They are the foundation for China's relationship with the United States. We cannot get China policy right if we do not take the fears of these men seriously.

The excerpts themselves are fairly grim:

In 2014, the Academy of Social Sciences – the Beijing-based national research body employing thousands of researchers – was issued a warning following an inspection by the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Invited to a study session on the ideas of Xi Jinping, the inspector found that the Academy had ‘ideological problems’ and had been ‘infiltrated by foreign forces’. The message was received, loud and clear; measures have since been taken. In 2015 and 2016, the Academy published no fewer than four critical works on ‘historical nihilism’, ‘neoliberalism’, the ‘theory of universal values’, and the ‘concept of Western constitutional democracy’. The last three shared the same preface; here are a few excerpts to gauge the country’s mood: 

"Facing a new situation wherein our cultural ideology is undergoing a process of exchange, blending, and confrontation, the paramount task facing the frontlines of philosophical social science is not only to persist in upholding Marxism as our guiding ideology, but to engage in meaningful critiques of ‘universal values’, the concept of ‘constitutional democracy’, neoliberalism, historical nihilism, democratic socialism, and other mistaken ideologies from this position. We must place unfailing faith in the path of ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’, matched with an equal degree of faith in our theories, and faith in our systems."

The Academy followed the roadmap outlined in Document 9 to the letter. An entitled form of Marxism is expressed here, eager to lambast its opponents: Westerners used their universal values to impose their law all over the world – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen – but: 

"What is clear is that what the system of Western capitalist values brought to these countries was not the ‘gospel’ or ‘salvation’ but instead unmitigated unrest and disaster. The cruel lesson learned by these countries and regions demonstrates that there is no such thing as eternal values which can be universally applied to all societies, all countries, and all peoples."

On the contrary, the preface continues, there is discernibly: 

"an ideological trap, aimed at our nation, with the goal of destroying the status of Marxism and replacing it with the ideology of the Western bourgeoisie... Our nation is a socialist nation with a specific history and unique realities. What system or methods are appropriate for our nation should be decided by the national circumstances of our nation. Simply copying the political system or political methods of another country would be pointless, and might even have dire consequences for the future of our nation. China is a socialist nation and a developing superpower. We must make use of the beneficial aspects of foreign political civilisations, but never at the cost of abandoning the fundamental political system of ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’."

This passage could have been written, word for word, years before: it is pure, hard ideology.