China’s State Media Try to Make Thoughts of President Xi Cool with Rap Video About His Political Theory

China’s state-run media has released another cartoon rap video to try to get the Communist Party’s political message across to the young.

The Xinhua news agency has released a three-minute cartoon featuring a man and young girl dancing in front of colourful backdrops while explaining President Xi Jinping’s political theory the “Four Comprehensives”.

The video started to circulate on social media in China on Tuesday morning.Xinhua described it as a “quirky, catchy song”.

An animated music video was released last October by the communist authorities about China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.

It featured four cartoon characters with American-accented English as they stood on top of a retro Volkswagen van.

Two months later another cartoon rap about reform was released to mark the second anniversary of the “Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms”, a high-level committee founded and headed by President Xi.

The cartoon eulogised about the group’s work.

Xi’s “Four Comprehensives” political theory refers to “comprehensively” building a moderately prosperous society, deepening reform, governing the country according to the rule of law, and enforcing strict Communist Party discipline.

The latest rap’s lyrics include:

“Listen to me: four comprehensives, four comprehensives, building a moderately prosperous society is the goal;

Repeat after me: four comprehensives, four comprehensives, reform is the impetus;

Repeat after me: four comprehensives, four comprehensives, ruling by law is guarantee;

Repeat after me: four comprehensives, four comprehensives, party-building is the key.

Xi’s theory has been heavily promoted by state media in China and follows a tradition of the country’s communist leaders formulating their own political theory, along with a catchphrase.

Former president Jiang Zemin had the “Three Represents”, while Hu Jintao’s slogan was “Harmonious Society”.

Xi has stepped up censorship and control of the media since he took office in 2012 while attaching greater importance to propaganda on the internet.

He underlined the message at the first meeting of the Central Leading Group of Internet Security and Informatisation last year, calling for “innovative and improved propaganda online”.

Some internet users have compared the latest propaganda music videos to the “model operas” produced during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

By NECTAR GAN Feb. 2, 2016 on South China Morning Post

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