As the Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 100th anniversary, Celia Hatton looks at how party slogans reveal the turbulent history of modern China. Throughout its existence, the party has used key slogans to communicate policy and mobilise the country's vast population. These messages reflect not just the ambitions of party leaders but also have a profound impact on the lives of millions. Using the BBC archive Celia examines the story behind eight key Communist Party slogans, from their early years as a guerrilla movement to the campaigns of China's current all-powerful leader Xi XInping.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hello, and thank you for downloading china in slogans from the BBC world service with me silly hatton. This podcast is about the power of words in the story of modern china and how china's communist party has used slogans to shape the country because, as will find out, these slogans don't just reveal the ambitions of party leaders. They also have a profound impact on the lives and futures of hundreds of millions of people,
For fifteen years I lived in china, working as a journalist on my
loved sky, blue bicycle, I'd, ride to and from work along, the capital streets, gliding along wide boulevards with special bike lanes and then through narrow lane ways. Zipping past parents taking their children to school or grandma's haggling over the price of vegetables.
And there was one thing that was impossible to ignore on my journey:
I'd see slogan after slope, political messages, printed on red banners, billboards and, ultimately,
massive electronic screens that rotate through several slogans, one after another ike warm counting, all hold patriotism, innovation, inclusive
Much ginger cushion fine day measure uphold science, eradicate superstition most sites in those items
The past of the dream is undue feet,
not just in the cities. The last time I was in china in twenty nineteen, I spotted an anti poverty.
the ban on a mountain top and the far western province of Gansu. Two days,
I found similar signs back in beijing. Even if you have no,
trust in the dreams and blunt desires of the chinese communist party. The party is determined that you should know what they are
as most politically savvy, try to predict which slogans which three or four words and sometimes excruciatingly dull speeches might signal the parties next major campaign for communist weather,
forecasters. It pays to tell early on which way the wind is blowing such slogans.
lee matter throughout history. They could mean life or death. This reliance
patch phrases endures, because so much of the parties decision making takes place behind firmly closed doors
vivian. Shoe of oxford university has been studying the pollen
eggs society of china. Since the nineteenth sixties, the party filters its options very much in house and not in broad daylight, not out there.
For the people site once it's made its decisions. It has a strong need to communicate those as clearly as possible as unambiguously as possible to the people at large, and everyone takes a reading of the week,
the winds may be blowing and where the energy is where the hopes are still lodged and where there are no longer to be placed once the campaign, as decided large sections of the party kickin to gear.
to get the word out. So the message and its implicit instructions are heard not just by the general population, but also by far flung local
officials who might be tempted to deviate from the party line there have
All internal apparatus devoted
explaining to local party members and local state officials. What the key terms of a moment are
doktor jennifer alter hangar is an associate professor of chinese history at oxford university and an expert on communist party propaganda. Usually they don't call him slogans,
That term does not work in chinese, but what they call them is so called t has, which are essential. Best translated
as formulations and when
a formulation comes about a big speech has been made or a new policy has been implemented. There will be numerous carefully drafted documents that explain. This is the new formulation. This is what it means. This is how it can be explained to people. This is how it should be explained in newspapers, and the thing gets circulated as a way of making across a shoe
country, if you think about it, the central policy accessible and understandable, and that's not just to ordinary people, that's also to party and state officials themselves.
so to understand how siege in pain, China's current, all powerful president rules over twenty percent
and of the world's population,
the ninety five million member chinese communist party is the most powerful tool
cool organization in the world. You need to look at the slogans.
There are even starting to effect life way beyond china's borders in this programme. With help from the BBC archive, we look at eight key slogans that tell us the parties and china's story and to tell this tale. We have to go right back to the period when the party existed on the fringes when it was headquarters in remote caves
chapter one dreary or show wait. Wait, I don't door only
Tourism can save china in nineteen twenty one,
Young intellectuals established the party and bustling shanghai at a time when china was weak with much of the country under the control of war, the words
The small communist organization was soon forced to flee the city by the dominant nationalist regime. The communists established a new base in the remote countryside, but then in nineteen thirty, seven, a new threat on the roma women.
More and more, the sending of shanghai washing onboard nanjing
He seems to me that in a moment,
and this is a really good day. China's hills and valleys. Echo demands cry.
for it,
I'm communists and nationalist work together against the foreign invader, but follow
Japan's defeat in the second world war, China's
one. Civil war erupted again from their base
yeah, none in central china, the communists.
Focus on establishing their own vision, for the country.
Eight american journalist, sidney written burg, is one of the few out
I to visit. He spoke
the bbc in twenty thirteen. You could walk right down the valley,
through the town of young man
no that anyone lived there
There were no houses, it had been totally bomb doubt by the japanese and the people lived in caves. Doug
into the hillsides on either side of the valley. These
masters of caves is where,
all the work of leadership of the
revolution. All over china took place and the instruct,
went out from those caves and it was
it free and open. The party would operate
from yanina for twelve years gradually. Extending its power slogans were crucial. It's out of those early years that, when one of them major slogans of that time, that did emerge was that only socialism, we'll save china.
that sentiment spread quickly, its creator, the parties commanding leader, Malta dawn. He was a true
political, animal and skilled communicator
Don't was a large man said
it LE
over on one side. He had one shoulder a bit higher than the other and he was kind of a hulk and he was the brain. He was the brain
he was the great analyzer and he
a genius for income.
Leading complex political
philosophical issues.
very simple popular phraseology: one of the parties,
most enduring slogans serve the people also blossom during this time. But crucially, it went hand in hand with another idea: the parties revolutionary vision over how it would govern that still exist. Today,
chapter two sought and, although my power to negotiate
from the masses to the masses after promising past
They will be given their own land to use as doing away with hated landlords. This tcp secured huge support in the countryside, sweat to power.
I
in forty nine mao Zedong stood in tiananmen square in the heart of beijing and proclaimed the founding of the people's republic of china, the communist party was now in charge.
And with that came a new slogan that communicated the radical new way. The party was going to govern through concept called the mass line. Jennifer alter hangar, the mass line, which dates from nineteen. Forty three is at its most popular in the ninety.
Fifties and breaks down into the simple second slogan of from the masses to the masses and was the principle of governance by which the chinese communist party would
formulate policy by engaging closely with people across china and listening to their needs and their problems and then formulates these its policies and returns them back to the masses and involve people. Therefore, in implementing these policies, one
They had been created from the bbc archive william sewell remembers the profound impact that all this had at the time
members the men who used to
sweep out four ways and ass, it is, and before would bear
there have been consulted about anything. You'd been noticed at all, but now
He had a place among our discussions so that there was an
the emphasis on me
Andy inarticulate, they were drawn into a shame.
began to be made to feel that they were somebody and, of course,
to me that that was the real secret of this success in those early days was people were made to feel that they method, but even in the nineteen fifty is the new practices had mixed reviews. Many dead fear that they were involved in politics in ways that they had never been before. Others, of course, thought this too
an intrusion and found that it suddenly brought the government into their daily lives in ways that were unprecedented, and so many deeply worrying. Not what's really interesting. Is this policy of the mass line. His back and fashion doktor livia Chung research, fellow at the school of oriental, an african studies, china institute, focuses her.
reconsidering pings political philosophy, sitting peeing is very serious about a hamas lying in the region.
behind that is. He said he need to maintain blood and flash connections with the mosses that, as the phrase
used now sitting p has formal requirements,
How many days every party members should spend in the grass root to mingle with the masses, but some of the parties campaigns won't ever be welcomed. Back in the mid nineteen, fifty came a flashpoint and china's history that would have far reaching effects chapter three by large, the farm, georgia. Let one hundred
hours blue that one hundred schools of thought can ten february nineteen. Fifty six.
The soviet union suddenly turned to denounce its long time ruler Joseph Stalin. There were anti soviet uprisings in hungary and poland. Those political convulsions worried now in the rest of china's leadership, because until then much of china's communist party had been modeled on this
Darwin a soviet system that lead chinese leaders to decide to release any possible tensions that might be brewing on their turf. It took them really months to decide that it would be
I even advisable to allow a modest opening up to criticism under this rubric of letting a hundred flowers, bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend, and so the one hundred flowers campaign began. The late journalist and author LEO Bin Yan was a communist party member. At the time he spoke to the bbc in nineteen. Ninety nine, from the spring of by the fifty six to the spree of that day, fifty seven that was said was to
crucial year for china. That could be a turning point in the majority of intellectuals believed the mouse sincere. When molly caught on the people to criticise a park, they were so excited. We were full,
mobilize their mouths at the. So we started to speak out throughout the
Flowers, you see people saying ok, so the constitution says I have a right to the following, but here's what my dated nice looks like and a lot of people start criticising what they feel is increasing. The entrenched party bureaucracies saying what ultimately, these local officials of fat cats who have just
benefited from being the local parties secretary, but they're not really doing what propaganda says. They should be doing mainly serving the people.
The criticism was too much to handle for the parties leaders it branded those who had spoken out as writeth enemies of socialism, the party and the people. As the british mp christopher mayhew, reported to the bbc in nineteen fifty seven earlier this year, criticism of the communist party had been invited, but it got out of hand and now the government's contredanse. While I was in china, the party was running a nation like camp
in against non communist critics, calling them rightists and the papers were full of it is propaganda, is especially directed at the students at the entrance to part of the university. I saw slogans saying we must struggle against the rightists paste data. Identify
April and put on trial and send to labour camps numerous paper, many many of whom we had seen themselves as supporters of the socialist project and of the party
you been yen was sent to be reformed through labour and the countryside, punishment for criticising party bureaucracy, many historic
his belief, mount didn't set out to use the one hundred flowers campaign as a way to ensnare political critics, but LEO Bin Yan, believes he'd fallen into a trap set by the party elites is a greatest deception in the history. I believe in our history for comes the sword, skillfully prepared
a betrayal of the people here in picking prison very much showplace there are fourteen hundred in most
counter revolutionary serving an average sentence of ten year. Some of the prisoners here eating lunch
former speed teachers and intellectual, but most of the intellectuals who blossomed with criticism during the brief hundred flowers movement
sent to the countryside do manual labor the whole nation. You not immediately silence either within the party or out of the party arava there become so cautious. So careful is speaking.
out every opinion. The man who was responsible for carrying out the crackdown was a certain. Don't shall pin a name.
That will resurface. Again later, the one hundred flower
exercise that MAO and dung unleashed was never repeated. What occurred in the aftermath of letting a hundred flowers bloom,
so decisively negative that it's a slogan that today is now used with a great deal of irony. In many circles it signals the boundaries, the limitations, beyond which everyone who wishes to get along and be able to speak to.
Power need to stay within those boundaries would always remain in place. Sometimes shifting expanding or contracting, but ass will see through party his
free those limitations never fully disappear. Chapter four
they are entitled to a movie
on two legs:
the fear generated by the backlash to the one hundred flowers campaign, was still
sing through china, and mowing announced the country's next drive
the engineer through mass industrialization, a great leap in economic development that would allow china to overtake the west
That's a theme that also resonates in the party today, but in the nineteen fifties, led to one of the most devastating periods in recent chinese
history, the mobilization of millions behind one goal all began with slogans. So
one of my favorite with one of the famous slogans, but perhaps the most famous is the idea of walking on two legs which describes
policy of the great leap forward, namely that the greatly forward was both about rapid advances in industry. That's one leg and agriculture
that's the other leg in that exonerated industrialization class colleagues,
innovation into communes in the countryside would increase harvests and ultimately fast track china on the road towards social,
since the days of human labour can hardly ever been employed with such for future. As in modern china on this one project, the building of a new damn forty five thousand chinese men and women
toiling from sunrise the sunset and they are doing it all without any kind of a moving machinery or equipment. In fact, practically with their bare hands,
I saw men and women working like this all over china. Some of these people would be on the project full time, others might be office. Workers would go out to build dams after normal working hours or at the
all day long. The loudspeaker pours out propaganda, music and every day the workers must undergo at least an hour's political indoctrination. And the last year the communists have launched a tremendous drive to organise the hundreds of millions of peasants into com. You thus making china a real marks, a state. The leaders of communist china say that within the next
any label outstrip Britain's industrial capacity. The cotton slogan is, we must overtake, but backyard blast. Furnace is really the symbol of modern china, iter industrial revolution. They great leap forward into the twentieth century.
but instead there was a stunning decline in food production that few dare to acknowledge. Scarce resources were confiscated to meet unrealistic targets, set at the top
and in the early nineties, sixties, china, confronted mass starvation. The great leap forward campaign led to one of the most devastating famines ever recorded in human history in some areas.
Cultural situation is looking very bad. Farmers are not on the land because they ve migrated to work in industries and so very quickly, but initially looked like a utopian moment, a fast,
strolling. Agricultural acceleration turns into disaster
Unless Joseph Josephine talk to the bbc in twenty thirteen about his memories of that time, every day is cabbage cabbage troubridge for months really, everybody's
you know some people face, you'll be swollen and the legs ripley swollen.
a terrifying time anywhere. Between fifteen and forty million people die.
The parties final estimate remains a state secret. The misery caused by the great leap forward led me to retreat from the spotlight for a period, but not for long. He was preparing through slogans to mount a political come back that would unleash the most frenetic round of internal psychological and physical violence, the party as witness to date
the chapter five south korea
is justified for china. Nineteen sixty six has been the most dramatic year, the year of greatest political upheaval. Since MAO Zedong came to power, seventeen
the girl, red guards on the rampage, a widespread throughout the chinese communist party, the shattering of unity of the chinese.
leadership, all this in the name of cultural revolution. When the red gods first appeared in mid august in peking, they surprised everyone that catechism is this little red book of quotations from MAO Zedong which they wave up and down as they shout over and over again
long live chairman MAO, malagigi ones
long live chairman MAO wheat was screamed at a fever pitch all over china from study
sessions and country fields to the parties beating heart in tiananmen square.
unleashing new terror MAO had turned to young people using slogans to
big directly to legions of newly empowered red guards. He directed them too.
wage war against any perceived critics, no matter who they might be. Anyone in authority except mouth,
Any vestiges of the past could be deemed enemies of the people, one form
a red guard, was interviewed by the bbc in nineteen. Eighty nine
The
Diana. We were
very loyal to chairman MAO, who called on us to take part in this cultural evolution to open fire on a handful devils and demons and denounced the capitalists. I remember our politically instructor was a woman. Half her hair was shaved off. Our teachers were often paraded through the street and we'd make them chant, I'm a demon and the devil I'm guilty.
guilty. I deserve to die, that's the song and they had to sing it and they all sign a whoever didn't. They got beaten up some thereabout late. We used our belts to whip them, some people used sticks and the girls joined into
We also had a woman teacher who had a miscarriage after being beaten up and the mother of this teacher was pushed over a bridge and fell to her death.
author legion, John, was seven years old when her mother was targeted by the red guards.
My mother was just an ordinary worker and she was criticised and she was locked up
I still remember one of my class memory. I was playing our side and then a bunch people just ransacked our flat and my mother was taken away
was fine and then she was locked up for a few months and when she come back, she was really like a zombie and she was the beating up and she was the deprived of sleep and she was forced to write confession.
it was antivirus adversary, other things like that, she's santa. If not for us children, she wants to kill herself. This violence was encouraged. That there was a slogan to Ribeiro is justified top. I thought that you really so many people,
began to discussing trouble or try to overthrow melita students denounce that
petersen beating up that teachers in the name of the matter
revolution. The counter revolution was just a really crazy time.
And amid the chaos and avalanche slogans, old ideas, culture, thoughts and customs, we're denounced as counter
evolutionary and all the while. The veneration of chairman MAO reached new heights Julian pennifer visited china for the bbc in nineteen. Seventy,
everywhere in the city. State
and in the countryside, there are marching, color, marching and singing not emit children on their way to school, but columns of workers present soldiers, much human singing in step into almost identical, addressed a nation apparently of one mind. Apparently
in one direction. We march forward together facing our guns, attend,
enemies, he are soldiers of iron. We have hearts of steel. We follow chairman MAO over the gate of can comes number thirty, two middle school for a political slogans on its walls. Political slogans receive your re education from the workers peasant some soldiers, the children at all, become successes of the proletariat
and, of course, a long life to chairman MAO. Why does it matter to today's china think who these children grew up to be is worth remembering that the current leader see jinping was a child at this time and his father was a victim sees own experiences and the cultural revolution shaped his beliefs and ultimately, that had a profound
impact on how he governs china at that time. Seeking peace was a teenager and his father
who is a senior party official, was being persecuted and sent to jail?
and his homeless being ransacked by the red guards sitting peering at age. Sixteen was set,
to live in a rural village in a short sea province, there was extremely poor. Its shaped sees world view in fundamental way
the cultural revolution at tat time was defined,
I ain't by more as a moment of mars democracy. The word democracy was used
from sitting pings perspective, obviously that democracy
is nothing like what we are used to in england that democracy
is associated with turmoil from Dan
he understand very clearly dad democracy isn't for china,
since western democracy, isn't an option in seas, mind china
us turn even more resolutely toward the one party system and that's continually relied on slogans chapters
gum equal financial fortune. I let some
rich first night,
in. Seventy. Six saw the death of party founder meltdown
commented
at and they made
The crowd began to gather in where the great rectangle
Do you know
It was a crisis moment for the communists, leading to a brutal,
our struggle at the very top the communists
movement needed a strong new leader. He emerged in that figure we encounter before the man who led the purge after the one hundred flowers movement. Don't shop him. His first task don't needed to fit,
around how to heal the country after its most recent traumas to chart a new course for china's broken socialist model?
as we ll see. Never before would its bill
in mechanisms have to work so hard to come.
If the matter is that the party new with the right way forward, everyone in the country had been in some very deep way affected by what the cultural revolution had meant, not least done shopping himself, who had been thrown out of power and had to real, be real
born as a political figure and the party as a whole realised that, especially during this night,
seventies, china,
I sharply behind economically and not just be,
find the united states, but behind as compared to smaller countries like
taiwan and singapore and south korea, not to mention Japan, which, after all, had lost the war.
don't chopping directed china toward a radical new goal.
Opens mentioning class struggle disappeared. Instead, China was ordered to open up to the outside world, embracing economic reform. Given what had gone before ass was a truly monumental change.
The author, the judge, heard and experience duns new ideology and its slogans first hand and working in a factory under chairman MAO everybody was poor and everybody was equally
but in ninety seventy eight. When the reform started their shopping said those slogans, some people can get rich farce and also to get rich is glorious and on
Please everything plans, so many millions of Chinese took that to heart ever,
then china just start this quick marched into
making money and getting rich is still like. This today did that feel on the street
what were the conversations that were happening Vana when people first heard elite
like them shopping, saying
Some get rich first yeah yeah that yet let it won't always be equal. It took time gus lots of people find it very difficult to understand that, because it's nothing to do with socialism, but also, more importantly,
china decided to move away from class struggle to something tim emma was obsessed with, so Deng Xiaoping also come out with some things like no matter it's a black cat or white cat as large. It can catch mice. It is a good cat.
Now try to focus on booting collar me and improve people's living standards. So there was also a time that new fashions coming women start to put on lipsticks and wearing colorful close the trousers with flat
ass, the called a trumpet trousers- and I remember clearly along western american reporter famously joked that after reform opening up chinese woman suddenly got breasts because
Before you know, everybody was where you can try mombasa lumpy jackets casually tongues. Political philosophy was bold and, to the point,
I don't care whether a cast his eyes were black, so long ass. She catches mice. We must reject flushing,
without substance and every sort of boasting each
We must have a bicycle sewing machine and a television set. Each person should have sixty pounds of meat a year and half an apple.
Hardly the thoughts of mouth, but enough to confirm all those pro
says accompanied bubbling anxieties over how far these changes might stretch. Dung slogans acknowledged. His critics worries this
hogan crossing the river. By feeling for the stones, I think captures very well
the spirit and the danger of those days. I think it's showed that they were.
Conscious. They were doing something unprecedented and that it might carry much risk with that and that they were going to have to fight this step by step. So the truth is that, while reforming opening forty years later, we now look back on is just an enormous success that led to the astonishing
accomplishments of the china we see today. At the time there were many in positions of authority,
he and responsibility throughout the country who were highly dubious and they were inclined to fight against these reforms. Dont shopping ordered the party to retreat from the planned economy, giving new freedoms to entrepreneurs, but at the same time the party
venture venturing further into family life party officials had already been encouraging fewer babies, but in September nineteen eighty, an official one child policy.
was unveiled. It was a monumental shift and instantly the machinery that spread slogans to explain how and why the policy must work, went into effect,
So what you see slogan in the city or say this now become a colleague discipline. Happy
How see good looking couple holding this baby fat baby girl
and saying one child one couple long child is good eager for food yourself.
Areas of something like in the countryside. They will have a more
slogans, lie, can have less
Children more pigs, the slogans.
Tried to convince couples that one child really was best, but the parties intentions were clear. The policy was an order, not her request, mrs junker, to keep a pregnancy secret. She wanted a second child
She hid the pregnancy until that seven months it was noticed, and she went to her. Mothers has twenty miles away. The family planning
workers followed to bring her back. This story was fail
by the bbc in the eastern chinese city of Chung, JO in nineteen. Eighty three that does the field know why they don't want to.
He said I was making myself conspicuous by running away. She wanted me
Come home, so we could discuss if I would have the baby or an abortion.
These are the gymnasium soothingly. I began
or persuasion. She was
seven months pregnant as we
hurried on it more and more critical.
terribly worried, seen her getting bigger and bigger. We came
Many times
came on my own and listen
The comrades, the leaders of the
in all came to persuade her lungs machine guns than
I did want to have the baby. Yes, I did want it, but after the can and do the work I agreed to the abortion,
A your holiday hunger using salons. I went to find the best possible doctor for the operation,
because a pregnancy was so very had lost, we went way
the hospital we send people to be with her day and night in the end
It all went smoothly. Her house was
didn't pad it went well. We thought it would be best for her
if she was sterilised, but she would not agree
thought another abortion might damage our house after she came back. I persuaded her to be sterilised.
The one child policy has loosened over the years. This year it became a three child policy. Why have a limited all some ask
despite the mouth era slogan: women hold up, half the sky, the part
he is still ruled almost exclusively by men. It has retreated in part from planning the economy and in part from social interference, but it will not completely relinquish it.
Roll and family life, and, as we now see, even when push to extremes, political reform is not an option.
Chapter, seven,
by the same long live democracy in nice,
eighteen, eighty nine. The party would encounter its biggest challenge since mouth mobilized, his red guards. This time it was young people who, once
and were questioning the party supremacy they gathered on university campuses and
eventually made their way to the location that had featured repeatedly and chinese history tiananmen square inch.
Tens of thousands of students and workers have taken part in anti government demonstrations which continued all week. The unrest was,
good by the death of the former communist leader who yeah bang, who was an advocate of reform. Rwanda was one of those student protesters and nineteen. Eighty nine. Since then she's become a historian of the era. We did not take to the streets because of hatred because of anger because of grievances because of frustration on the contrary,
doktor street because of hope, because of love, because anything trust in the government to reform itself
by a few hundred students and now drawing support for millions of workers and already ready exists cities across this fascination, sir knight, this massive people demanding basic freedoms,
taken over the censure of peking and confront the communist party with it
direct challenging for decades of absolute power, the students presented a petition to the government calling for a host of democratic reforms. The authorities repeatedly told them to go home, but they were unable to contain the protesters who had a lifetime of political education, communist songs from the past fuel, their passion,
campaign, the communist international. Now that was the song that we sing again and again and again throughout
the
I
on the steps of the great hall of the people. They were singing the international as
god stood his ground in the shutters based on a taste of the communist party, but they wanted anti corruption and their pressing for democratic reforms. Slogans. Wisdom important, but this time,
the parties messages were drowned out by those generated by protesters that did time. Men
of our ideas and slogans, and language were truly from the education that we had received and revolution were stories, for example, that we go up with and that's why on one hand, view passing in the international now. At the same time, people were also singing nothing to my name like the rock and roll singer, but region.
so
individual longing for happened it's so that was exactly the whole idea about aging nigh on one hand, we were loyal to the society and at the same time we started to ask what is freedom. Everything changed
the early hours of june forth, when the people's liberation army, tanks and trucks advance through central region that, when the shooting began,
The troops have been firing indiscriminately. Still people on the streets were not really rap. The bicycle ritual scooped up the injured,
Others were shunted onto bikes and pedal to hospital. The BBC's cake, eighty witnessed it all young people was singing the international took background
one of the basic line of troops. The currently still here this evening, the killing
I want put government the huge volley of shots, just as I left the front line cause panic. The young man in front of me fell dead. I fell over him and two others were killed yards away. Two more people lay wounded on the ground. Near me,
The party blamed the tiananmen movement on anti china. Foreign forces seizing on the idea that the protest movement was
conspiracy by western governments to weaken and divide china through, went to her
after gentlemen, the idea about- and I train or foreign forces was used to legitimize too
good reason to say why we had to coin overtime.
two thousand army soldiers with eighteen, forty, seven, a machine guns and tangs against peacefully protesting students and citizens, and that's when the nationalism the patriotic education programme was coming in and they successfully cowardly way to a new generation right that could not distinguish between the region and the nation that change and the parties
language is long lasting. It's the same language. The party uses today to describe the recent protests and the chinese territory of hong kong first during the umbrella movement and twenty fifteen, and then again in twenty nineteen, the new york times Chris Buckley lived and worked in china for three decades and watched that shift in language
How any opposition was explained. I think these days that you, the way in which two centres denounce is framed, is
or, about being so to say a trade to the nation and
There is much more now about insulting
china by criticising comes communist party, for example, or being a tool of so called hostile foreign forces.
Who has seen the subverting the chinese nation and its rise in the world. So broadly, I think said the shift from thinking of it at least brought in terms of class and in class enemies into
his terms of enemies of the nation and traders to the nation. Even there's, no official
death toll stating how many were killed around tiananmen square in nineteen. Eighty, nine as another one of the parties secrets open
discussion surrounding that collective color for democracy and the parties, bloody response remain off limits, one of the taboos that Harkin's back to the one hundred flowers movement.
The crackdown and scared silence it created, even if they're not actively discussed. Some events in china have very long strand of memory.
After the shooting stopped the economic reforms, barreled on don't shopping, step down, making way for a new leader, gentlemen. In time he came out with his own slogan that would change the party.
Emily. Changing the face of china. Jiang zemin works to the podium his message. The communist party must
or die, it must embrace the markets and welcome capitalists into its ranks. We no longer is this: just the parties of the proletariat try, private entrepreneurs, professional and members of other social strata, all builders of socialism with.
These two issues as its sixteenth congress. The violation this time had an awkward name. The three represents, but it can t
an explosive idea. The party needed to be at the forefront of economic and cultural developments, so it should allow the people leading those fields into its ranks. Suddenly millionaires could become card
carrying communists jones. A man was trying to engineer this big political shift in which the communist party ended its decades,
enmity with the countless class with entrepreneurs and began to selectively at least absorbed them into the party,
and at the same time began making a big effort to incorporate academics and professionals
who had been heavily involved in the nineteen. Eighty nine protests in many ways began
Solving them into the parties will easily June's beautiful people accuracy.
designers traders gathered a hip bar flushed with their own wealth and success,
behind com or tokyo, their living, a life of glamour and consumption that only a decade ago was undreamt of
china living in their socialism country. You are more than welcome. This is a great opportunity for us,
through the young years and onto the decade in which food and towers empower china's economy grew at the fastest point ever recorded in human history. The slogans became softer, who spoke of china's peace
will rise, the need for a harmonious society. Tacitly
acknowledging that, yes, some really did get rich first leaving a very unequal population where corruption was rampant.
enter the leader with an ambitious vision. The man who still in charge today see jean Pierre chapter, eight, the chinese dream
gee
is it beijing in the hearts of chinese power
an you is just beginning:
seeking ping took. The stage is new. President spoke of his chinese dream
screw nation. We data by the communist party were all sharing.
We need new prosperity, the communist parties that call
power that leads in unites all our people. The party must govern itself. It must improve its leadership and its ability to fight corruption, policy paper internal were excited by them.
Vision. It was a vision of national renewal. Another slogan at the time that I think people found inspiring might be too strong a word, but confidence
I sense that he was a lady who had the sense of national purpose and wanted the country to you,
around that national purpose.
China dream led to huge projects: a bold investment,
and high speed trains. More assertive claims to the south. China see another successful bid for the olympics and confident ventures into space
the bread
cs. Visions for china goes hand in hand with his.
We have grandiose slogans.
cs mind communist china really only has free historical parrot. It
small who liberated the chinese people by setting up the people's republic of China prc
then it was done, shall peeing, who made china rich by starting to reform and opening up back in the early nineties, eighties
and now it s sitting ping. Who is restoring china to what he considers to be? China's rightful position in the world
and hence to china, dream of national reach. Over and because of his rhetoric of how chinese
history is being divided. He would go back to my a lot because he sees
himself as someone on par with, if not corrected a mile in what he does for the country and for the party indeed see, has a tree
The global vision he's directing his camp
aids and the slogans they represent, not just to the party faithful, but also to u, everyone living outside China's borders. One belt one road is a good example
the party approved slogan, describing china's campaign to build new global trade routes,
Indeed, they are slogans meant for global audience. At this,
in time. The slogans del ass, opposed to convince
well mastic audience that china is really.
even leadership on the global stage so dear
on policies, low guns and domestic policies.
Guns at the same time, but look away from the bright lights and bold projects underpinning see. Jinping rule and you'll find slogans reflecting the harsher greedier side of his grip on
power that side of sea revealed itself soon after he grasped the parties rains when he announced an anti corruption campaign that still in progress
more than one million officials have been disciplined for breaking the parties rules. Others didn't make it to that point. As the BBC's care.
he gracie explained from shall see province. In twenty fourteen on the fourteenth of september, a communist party official jumped to his death from his nightfall apartment
What did John would lose? A navy shows me where his body landed taller than they get the night before don't write gang had been questioned by corruption, investigators about whether he paid a bride for promotion. Twelve hours later, he joined the fast growing list of officials who prefer a quick deaf to a life of shame behind bars of anti corruption. Drive from
pretty soon after she jumping comes to powers is very important for him part of what he's doing, at the same time as arresting and purging, and often imprisoning
officials, including many senior officials who were accused of extravagant corruption, is turning into a political campaign. Almost have political advertising campaign, which is showing the public at large and I'm serious about this and officials better get into line. There's a lot of talk. There
about scraping poison from the bone, and they slogans. That suggest is almost painful physical effort to purge the chinese body politic of these toxins that she jumping had thought had crept into chinese people.
Takes. She also extended his power to crush perceived push for independence in china's far west and scenes young more than a mere
ethnic muslim leaders and other minorities have been herded into detention camps. Though the party robots this, it calls them job tray
centres inside scenes. Young two types of slogans are on show. I've always been struck despite the
he put his slogans in change unjust everywhere. One of those slogans which has become a backward sat. There is a very she's in being slogan that the ethnic groups of shingle should be like the seeds of pomegranate fruit, which are tightly packed again,
the one next to the other, certain image that conveys its idea of unity, but also uniformity within what you could call one frugal one nation, the other
plugins that you do said a warning against, for example, against so called two faced officials, in other words, officials, largely from ethnic minorities,
Who might, on the one hand, publicly declared their allegiance to the communist party and its policies, but improve
complain or even resistant against its policies didn't mounted on with red
ignite the slogans of today. He might not recognize the slogans. Writing this idea of china.
Advancing on this march through history, guided by the communist party,
they in some ways said against foes in the rest of the world.
Trying to undermine that destiny. Is aid to broader thing that man
might find some residents with still. The difference, of course, then, is that it was thought that the best way to do that is through
planning and mobilization, and, as you know, a lot of these policies are copy from the soviet union. Of course, that has largely been jettisoned, although even there you can find traces of
system. Many of the slogans might sound softer, scraping poison from the bone. Being one exception
but that doesn't mean that the need for slogans has died off season ping
has had his socialist philosophies enshrined into the chinese constitution, seething pink,
what essentially is how to make china great again. So it is meant to be
ideology that serves as a road map for national rejuvenation, auto
in dream, and apart
is being put front and centre hands,
slogan. The party leads everything defines pretty much. What seizing being fought is about, but doesn't
just come down to political raw political power at the end of it, where it is the ideology play a role, is it just a party or is it a communist party? I think
What I am getting at is how seizing pings offer at terry and control mechanisms have ahead
socialist legacy to that, and he has really
I deal ideological indoctrination to a level we haven't seen before now.
all party members are required to study, seizing being thought. They have to
the store, an app onto their mobile phone call, learning from the great country which took upon onto sitting
his name actually, and they have to use it every week and as testing their knowledge.
And keeping up with seizing pings speeches and slogans.
jinping uses the parties entrenched communications network more effectively than anyone since mile he likes to cloak himself in the language of communism. He sometimes painted the dictate
but see, jumping didn't suddenly snatch power when he became chairman of the party in two thousand twelve. Instead, he nimbly stepped onto the pinnacle of an already established structure, one created by MAO and then built up
For decades. On the one hundredth anniversary of its founding, the party is returning to its roots. For the first time in years, it's released a list of eighty officially sanctioned slogans each one and he with an exclamation mark
Its guiding seen one that the cecy, peas, earliest founders would certainly embrace. We will forever follow the party
the.
china and slogans was presented by me. Silly hatton, the producer was alex last. Thank you for listening. There will be more from the document report com,
Soon, the documentary is just one of our bbc world service podcast. There are many others, too cheese from how'd. You saw a complex human problem these once the beautiful legs had been bursting into flame. Maybe look through the answer in millions of years of evolution. This is an animal with an incredible sleep, a power thirty animals that made a smarter is the podcast that looks at how innovations in nature have inspired. Amazing human engineering, the invention of the electric battery, was inspired by the electorate eel and I'm back with season, two thirty more animals and thirty, more amazing story for a tree. Thirty animals that made a smarter from the BBC world service search for thirty animals that made a smarter. Where ever you get your forecasts.
Transcript generated on 2023-07-06.