Xi Jinping speech was call to action against foreign forces ‘westernising’ Chinese youth

Newly published excerpts from 2018 speech to education conference accused the West of plotting ‘colour revolution’, urged more ideology education

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Published excerpts from a 2018 speech reveal the education concerns China’s leader had about the battle for influence over the nation’s youth. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00pm, 2 Sep 2024Updated: 8:15pm, 2 Sep 2024

The Communist Party’s top theoretical journal has highlighted the threat from “subversive” “foreign forces” trying to influence China’s youth, by releasing excerpts of a speech Chinese President Xi Jinping made six years ago.

In the speech to the National Education Conference in 2018, Xi accused those forces of trying to “Westernise” China’s youth and plot a “colour revolution”, stressing the need for ideology education in classrooms.

“For a long time, various hostile forces have never stopped implementing strategies to Westernise and divide our country,” Xi told the conference, according to the excerpts published on the front page of the journal Qiushi on Saturday.

“They have never stopped carrying out subversive and sabotaging activities against the leadership of the party and our country’s socialist system, and they have always attempted to plot a ‘colour revolution’ in our country. The area where they focus most is in the fight over our young people.”

In the speech, Xi quoted late leader Mao Zedong who said that the activities of the imperialists would have no effect on the first and second generations after the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949, but they might hope to influence the third and fourth generations.

“Currently, our college students are the third and fourth generations,” Xi said in his speech. “In the future, there will be dozens of generations. The fight over the youth is long-term and difficult, we cannot lose, and cannot afford to lose.”

Xi called for cultivating “successors to socialism” and “establishing firm ideals and beliefs”, especially the “ideals of communist and socialism with Chinese characteristics”.