In an attempt to control the minds of the country’s young people, the CCP is working to infiltrate universities.
Knowledge is power, and the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, well, knows that. So, it’s going after university students in order to grab greater control and instill within their minds only one ideology: the Party.
After all, universities help teach people how to think, and, if done properly, how to understand ideologies. That’s why the CCP considers them the “ideological front” in their battle to turn every Chinese citizen against religion.
In fact, as Bitter Winter has previously reported, in Central China’s Henan province, the Department of Education has launched a provincewide campaign against religious belief. So much so that students are forced to take and pass online anti-religion tests or else be threatened with the inability to graduate.
According to students at the North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power, or NCWU, in Zhengzhou city, as well as the Henan Institute of Finance and Economics, the Party Committee United Front Work Department of both universities have issued students a religious a list of Thou Shalt Not’s when it comes to religion.
The four-page brochure, titled “university students’ religious knowledge card,” presents the CCP’s policies on religion and lists eight bans in schools, among them: The spreading of religion; the establishing of religious venues and the holding religious activities; the establishing of religious groups and organizations; and the forbiddance of using modern technology to communicate religious ideas and activities.
To prohibit religious activities from spreading on campus, the school has also strengthened students’ ideological and political education. One student at NCWU said that since September 2018, the school has organized students to participate in studies created and administered by the Henan Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League. The purpose is to teach them all about President Xi Jinping’s thoughts and the Party’s policies, like how the government benefits the people. One class is held each week, with ten classes a term. At the end of their studies, students must complete a required examination.
But that doesn’t mean that students find the “education” enlightening.
“Each week’s ideological and political studies are boring and meaningless. This is a waste of our time,” said student Zhang Liang.
“What the school is doing is actually tantamount to indoctrinating upon us. For students who don’t usually watch the news and who don’t understand the truth, if they’re subjected to such propaganda every term, they will gradually feel that the government has always been doing good things for the people,” said NCWU student Guo Tao, who frequently bypasses the Great Firewall of China to browse the Internet, and get to the truth.
The university students are also encouraged to report anyone involved in missionary and religious activities.
“This method is intended to win over students’ thinking and not let them hold religious beliefs,” one Christian university student said. “For people with no religious beliefs, it’s a warning. For people who hold religious beliefs, it’s a threat.”
(All names used in the article are pseudonyms.)
Reported by Jiang Tao
