Core Socialist Values

In 1989, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping stated in a speech that he considered education to be the biggest reform failure of the 1980s, and in particular ideological and political education. The government had tried to effect mass campaigns to this end, but these would not ultimately be regarded as effective. The Death of Wang Yue in 2011 might be considered an instigator for a new program. In 2012, the building of a system of "Core Socialist Values" was proposed to address what was perceived as a moral crisis resulting from China's rapid economic development, which the People's Daily refers to as the "decayed, outdated ideals of mammonism and extreme individualism."{{Cite book |last=Zhao |first=Xu |url=https://archive.org/details/competitioncompa0000zhao |title=Competition and Compassion in Chinese Secondary Education |date=2016-04-29 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-137-47941-9 |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-137-47941-9}} At the 18th National Congress, Party general secretary Hu Jintao represented the 17th Central Committee and presented the content of the new values that are intended to be enshrined by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

A quote from CCP general secretary Xi Jinping at the Eighteenth National Congress says:

{{block quote|If our 1.3 billion citizens and 82 million Party members as well as overseas Chinese can achieve consensus, we will constitute a powerful force [...]  We must realize that people from different localities and social strata who have different backgrounds and occupations think differently. We must therefore consider: where can we find consensus? Where can we allow differences to persist?Xi Jinping, How to Deepen Reform Comprehensively, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014.|author=|title=|source=}}

The twelve Core Socialist Values are:

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;National values

• Prosperity ({{Lang-zh|s=富强|p=fùqiáng}})
• Democracy ({{Lang-zh|s=民主|p=mínzhǔ}})
• Civility ({{Lang-zh|s=文明|p=wénmíng}})
• Harmony ({{Lang-zh|s=和谐|p=héxié}})

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;Social values

• Freedom ({{Lang-zh|s=自由|p=zìyóu}})
• Equality ({{Lang-zh|s=平等|p=píngděng}})
• Justice ({{Lang-zh|s=公正|p=gōngzhèng}})
• Rule of law ({{Lang-zh|s=法治|p=fǎzhì}})

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;Individual values

• Patriotism ({{Lang-zh|s=爱国|p=àiguó}})
• Dedication ({{Lang-zh|s=敬业|p=jìngyè}})
• Integrity ({{Lang-zh|s=诚信|p=chéngxìn}})
• Friendship{{efn|name=youshan}} ({{Lang-zh|s=友善|p=yǒushàn}})

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File:社会主义核心价值观.jpg promoting the twelve Core Socialist Values.]]

File:社会主義核心価値観.jpg (2017).]]

The program called for the local governments to "organize moral education campaigns", and for media organizations to "practice self-discipline". In addition, artists were asked to promote the values, while party members and state officials are expected to put these new values in practice. It also called on schools to incorporate them, with the Ministry of Education issuing a document in 2014 requesting all educational institutions promote them. Xi Jinping expressed in a high-level meeting that promotional campaigns for 'Core Socialist Values' should be thorough, to the extent that public support for Chinese-style socialism will be "as ubiquitous as the air".{{Cite book |last=Lam |first=Willy Wo-Lap |author-link=Willy Wo-Lap Lam |title=Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping: Renaissance, Reform, or Retrogression? |date=2015-03-12 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-71936-8 |edition=1st |page=283 |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781315719368}} Another quote from 2014 further elaborates his position:

{{block quote | We need to energetically foster and promote core socialist values; promptly establish a value system that fully reflects Chinese characteristics, our national identity, and the features of the times; and strive to occupy the leading position on this issue. Ethical values play a very important role among core values. Without morals, a country cannot thrive, and its people cannot stand upright. Whether or not a nation or an individual has a strong sense of identity largely depends on their morals. If our people cannot uphold the moral values that have been formed and developed on our own soil, and instead indiscriminately and blindly parrot Western moral values, then it will be necessary to genuinely question whether we will lose our independent ethos as a country and a people. Without this independent ethos, our political, intellectual, cultural and institutional independence will have the rug pulled out from under it.|author=|title=|source=}}

The 2015 National Security Law's article on cultural security requires the state to uphold socialist core values.{{Cite book |last=Yi |first=Guolin |title=China under Xi Jinping: A New Assessment |publisher=Leiden University Press |year=2024 |isbn=9789087284411 |editor-last=Fang |editor-first=Qiang |pages=83 |chapter=From "Seven Speak-Nots" to "Media Surnamed Party": Media in China from 2012 to 2022 |editor-last2=Li |editor-first2=Xiaobing}}

In 2016, Hunan Province officials responded to the campaign by organizing a series of dance routines to "spread the values" and express their support for the CCP.{{Cite news |last=Chen |first=Te-Ping |date=September 2, 2016 |title=Dancing Tool: China Uses Dance to Promote 'Socialist Values' |url=https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/09/02/cdance0902/ |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161107024117/http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/09/02/cdance0902/ |archive-date=7 November 2016 |access-date=May 23, 2020 |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal}}

In June 2017, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued several notices that intended to further restrict freedom of the press. One of the notices, with a patriotic bent, demanded broadcasters promote core values in their programs and "forcefully oppose" content that celebrates "money worship, hedonism, radical individualism and feudal thought."{{Cite news|last1=Miller|first1=Matthew|last2=Zhang|first2=Min|date=2017-06-03|title=China's broadcast regulator, tightening control of content, promotes 'core socialist values'|language=en|work=Reuters|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-regulator-broadcast-idUSKBN18U08D|url-status=live|access-date=2020-05-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170607051951/http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-regulator-broadcast-idUSKBN18U08D|archive-date=7 June 2017}}

File:Blank Paper Stuck on “Freedom” the Slogan Board in Xidian University as Protest, Nov 27 2022 (cropped).jpg stuck to the characters "自由" ("Freedom"), part of the Core Socialist Values, on the slogan board at Xidian University, in a November 2022 protest]]

Shiyuan Hao considers the program of "great significance" for a "multi-national country like China", and for the creation of both a "harmonious culture" and a "creative breeding ground" for cultural diversity.{{Cite book |last=Hao |first=Shiyuan |title=How the Communist Party of China Manages the Issue of Nationality: An Evolving Topic |series=China Academic Library |date=2015-11-30 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-662-48462-3 |pages=241, 247 |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-662-48462-3}}

Michael Gow considers that, compelled to align its interests with the "broader interests of the Chinese people and different groups", the program for Core Socialist Values might best be analyzed as a shift from a focus on the economy to cultural power; or, if one wished to extrapolate, an attempt to cement legitimacy through the creation of a new cultural order, consent to which might be regarded as "essential for long-term social stability".{{Cite journal |last=Gow |first=Michael |date=2017-01-02 |title=The Core Socialist Values of the Chinese Dream: towards a Chinese integral state |url=https://pure.coventry.ac.uk/ws/files/24553323/Binder2.pdf |journal=Critical Asian Studies |language=en |volume=49 |issue=1 |pages=92–116 |doi=10.1080/14672715.2016.1263803 |issn=1467-2715 |s2cid=157324954}}

Liu Ruisheng, a researcher of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences School of Journalism, criticizes the governments attempts more generally as simply lacking the same depth of value promotion in the west, which is "concealed" in the social sciences, education, religion, and entertainment, whereas the CCP presents ideology ad hoc. He is still pro-CCP however.{{Cite book |last=Lynch |first=Daniel C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F_91BgAAQBAJ |title=China's Futures: PRC Elites Debate Economics, Politics, and Foreign Policy |date=2015-03-11 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-9437-4 |pages=143 |language=en}}

Frank N. Pieke refers to the values as Confucian and as otherwise lacking any specifically socialist content, but then as Michael Gow points out most Chinese do share a "broadly accepted, common-sense understanding of Confucian values."

• Chinese Dream
• Eight Honors and Eight Shames
• Xi Jinping Thought
• Three Principles of the People

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• {{Cite book |last = Lynch |first = Daniel |title = China's futures: PRC elites debate economics, politics, and foreign policy |year = 2015 |publisher = Stanford University Press |location = Stanford, CA |isbn = 978-0-8047-9257-8 }}

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