It essentially is the religious text for the cult of Xi that is interventionist and rejects everything else
President Xi Jinping is remaking China in his image, rather he is remaking China to worship his image. After his principles became a key aspect of the Communist Party of China’s code, the party, once communist and now more oligarchist, has issued a new morality code for its citizens to follow. One wonders whether they have a choice in following Xi’s testaments. It has all the usual things a dictator, no matter how benevolent he might seem to be, would like to establish in a cult. The ‘Outline for the Implementation of Citizen Moral Construction in the New Era’ might have the most convoluted name for new quasi-religious text but make no mistakes, with ‘advice’ on how to raise children, surf the internet and behaving while abroad is a life guide like a good religious text usually is. While most such texts were written in long-lost times and even the written texts were the culmination of millennia of oral tradition, this was put together by the Central Commission for Guiding Cultural and Ethical Progress, which does not have the same ring as the writers of the Gospels. Xi might pretend to be the man who will lead China in its manifest destiny to be the ‘middle kingdom’ between Heaven and Earth once again but for better or for worse, he might turn out to be just another leader of a personality cult. Faith is not in crisis in everyday Chinese life, with Buddhism and Confucianism dominating their practices. In its rejection of Western models in private life and a suggestion of austerities, Xi is clearly sending a message that these adopted templates are not good enough for an Asian powerhouse, perhaps blaming democracy for a slowing economy, the Hong Kong protests and unfair trade practices that are not supportive of Chinese neo-imperialism. And contrary to similar diktats before, neither does it invoke past greats, not even Mao Zedong, nor does it prescribe openness to the world except holding up the Chinese code as the only one that matters. Frankly, despite all of Mao Zedong’s terrible flaws, he was a charismatic leader and was also a brilliant military tactician, even if the tactic was to send waves of peasants to their deaths.
The problem that Xi’s latest actions will have are not so much in China but more about how this will inspire other monolithic leaders across the world to do equally similar things, and we can think of a few who will get inspiration and will establish morality codes for their nations. Thankfully one expects most human beings to be smarter than that, but this has established a dangerous precedent for other political leaders, who must remember that they are not religious or cult leaders but politicians, elected or not, to help improve the lives of their citizens, not restrict them.
