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Millions of Chinese glued to their phones, under pressure to win top score in new game

Jiang has been lauded in the local news media for his high score on the new app devoted to promoting President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party.

Jiang has been lauded in the local news media for his high score on the new app devoted to promoting President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party. Photo: Javier Hernandez

Inside a fishing gear store on a busy Chinese city street, the owner sits behind a counter, furiously tapping a smartphone to improve his score on an app that has nothing to do with rods, reels and bait.

The owner, Jiang Shuiqiu, a 35-year-old army veteran, has a different obsession: Earning points on Study the Great Nation, a new app devoted to promoting President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party – a kind of high-tech equivalent of Mao’s Little Red Book.

Jiang spends several hours daily on the app, checking news about Xi and brushing up on socialist theories.

Tens of millions of Chinese workers, students and civil servants are using Study the Great Nation, often under pressure from the government.

It is part of a sweeping effort by Xi to strengthen ideological control in the digital age and reassert the party’s primacy, as Mao once did, as the centre of Chinese life.

“We must love our country,” said Jiang, one of the top scorers on the app in Changsha, the capital of the southern province of Hunan. “We are getting stronger and stronger.”

While many people have embraced the app as a form of patriotism, others see it as a burden imposed by overzealous officials and another sign of a growing personality cult around Xi, perhaps China’s most powerful leader since Mao’s time.

“He is using new media to fortify loyalty toward him,” said Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing. He likened Study the Great Nation to the little booklet of Mao quotations that was widely circulated during the chaotic and violent Cultural Revolution.

Since its debut this year, Study the Great Nation has become the most downloaded app on Apple’s digital storefront in China, with the state news media saying it has more than 100 million registered users – a reach that would be the envy of any new app’s creators.

But those numbers are driven largely by the party, which ordered thousands of officials across China to ensure that the app penetrates the daily routines of as many citizens as possible, whether they like it or not.

Schools are shaming students with low app scores.

Government offices are holding study sessions and forcing workers who fall behind to write reports criticising themselves. Private companies, hoping to curry favour with party officials, are ranking employees based on their use of the app and awarding top performers the title of “star learner”.

Many employers now require workers to submit daily screenshots documenting how many points they have earned.

Propaganda is ubiquitous in China, but experts say Study the Great Nation is different because the government is forcing people to use it and punishing those who cheat or fall behind.

The app allows users to earn points for staying on top of news about Xi. Watching a video about his recent visit to France, for example, earns one point. Getting a perfect score on a quiz about his economic policies earns 10.

The app comes as Xi, who rose to power in 2012, is leading a broader crackdown on free speech in China, imprisoning scores of activists, lawyers and intellectuals, and imposing new restrictions on the news media.

Xi has spoken frequently about what he calls the need to guard against online threats. He has warned that the party could lose its grip on power if it does not master digital media.

“There is no national security without internet security,” Xi said in a speech this year. “If we cannot succeed on the internet, we will not be able to maintain power in the long run.”

David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project, said the app was a way for Xi to ensure that Chinese families are invested in the life of the party at a time when many dismiss propaganda as stilted and irrelevant.

“Loyalty to the party means loyalty to Xi Jinping,” Bandurski said.

At Hulunbuir University in northern China, school officials monitor the scores of more than 1100 teachers and students who use the app as part of the school’s efforts to spread Xi’s ideas, known in China as Xi Jinping Thought.

“Everyone studies voluntarily and has very high scores,” said Bai Mei, an ideology instructor at the university.

Not everyone is as enthusiastic. In interviews, students and workers complained that superiors publicly chastised them for low scores. Others said bosses threatened to deduct pay or withhold bonuses if they did not use the app more frequently. They did not want to provide their names for fear of punishment, but some have complained online.

“What kind of phenomenon is this?” one user wrote on Weibo, a popular social media site, complaining of a salary deduction. “My God, what has happened to the party now?”

Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping is the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Photo: AAP

Critics say Xi is intruding into the private lives of Chinese citizens in a way the party has typically avoided since the Mao era.

The app makes the party’s messages difficult to ignore, awarding points only when an article has been read completely and a video has been watched for at least three minutes.

“You cannot divert attention away from it,” said Haiqing Yu, a professor who studies Chinese media at RMIT University in Australia. “It’s a kind of digital surveillance. It brings the digital dictatorship to a new level.”

In Changsha, which coincidentally is an hour’s drive from Mao’s childhood home, the local news media has lauded Jiang, the owner of the fishing gear store, for his high scores.

He and his wife sometimes answer questions on the app together at dinner, alongside their nine-year-old son.

Jiang said his military training had inspired him to devote himself fully to Study the Great Nation. By using the app, he said, he has grown even more patriotic.

“President Xi has a dream of great renaissance,” he said. “When young people are strong, the nation is strong.”

-New York Times

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