IN CHINA, ECHOES OF MAO EMERGE / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

In China, Echoes of Mao Emerge

Beijing is using ideology to compensate for its economic performance. 

By: Victoria Herczegh

A few recent developments suggest ideological change is coming to the Chinese Communist Party, however incrementally. 

Speaking at a Politburo Standing Committee session, Cai Qi, the CCP ideology chief and one of seven members of the elite Standing Committee, made some rare calls on party officials to better respond to public sentiment and guide public opinion, and to strengthen “mainstream ideology that is self-confident, self-reliant and united.” 

He also said more emphasis was needed to uphold the CCP’s overall leadership. 

Earlier, Publicity Department leader and Politburo member Li Shulei said that the party should improve the way it functions, especially with regard to how it acts toward the Chinese people. 

Li called on officials to “improve the ability and level of conducting ideological and political work,” and highlighted the importance of developing “a Chinese system of philosophy and social sciences with independent thinking.”

As Beijing grapples with an economic slowdown, social unrest and ideological uncertainty – at a time when the CCP is trying to define the next phase of its rule – these remarks evince a significant turn toward ideological mobilization, one that echoes elements of Maoism. 

Cai’s repeated instructions for propaganda officials to “focus on the economy” are not a technocratic directive but an ideological one. 

At a time of slowed growth, high youth unemployment, deflationary pressure and weak consumer demand, Cai has emphasized the importance of shaping public sentiment rather than substantially revising the way those issues are currently being treated. 

His insistence on “guiding public opinion,” strengthening a “self-confident, self-reliant and united” mainstream ideology, and tightening cyberspace management reveals a belief that economic difficulties are as much psychological and political as they are material. 

In his estimation, people’s pessimism is a political problem that needs to be corrected.

Li’s remarks complement this approach. 

By urging party officials to improve their capacity for ideological and political work, promote arts and culture, encourage reading, and build a “Chinese system of philosophy and social sciences with independent thinking,” Li has highlighted the party’s ambition to reassert ideological sovereignty. 

This means rejecting all types of foreign frameworks in favor of party-led knowledge production, thereby further increasing the party’s role in people’s everyday lives. 

Together, Cai and Li want to reinvigorate propaganda as a governing tool to manage expectations, boost the party’s legitimacy and preempt dissent during a period of structural economic stress.

This new ideological push appears to have two main goals. 

Domestically, it intends to shore up confidence and suppress narratives that could undermine the party’s claim to competent governance. 

Internationally, it means to “tell China’s stories” in a controlled, positive way that goes against the external skepticism and criticism the nation frequently has to face. 

In this way, ideology is intended to function as a substitute for rapid economic improvement.

To be sure, China’s economy needs to improve. 

It is grappling with slowed growth after decades of rapid expansion, high local government debt, a property sector collapse and deflationary pressure exacerbated by “involution” – a term used when cutthroat competition erodes profits and wages. 

Naturally, these economic problems have social and political consequences. 

The social contract tacitly signed by the government and the people said that absolute party rule would be tolerated so long as the economy continued to grow. 

But growth has slowed, and rising unemployment and underemployment, especially among youth and returning migrant workers, have affected public sentiment.

A recent increase in rural protests illustrates as much. 

Land seizures, inadequate compensation, religious demolitions and cremation mandates reflect the financial desperation of local governments burdened by debt and constrained by insufficient revenue streams. 

The return of migrant workers to rural areas has enflamed tensions as people bring urban expectations into environments that cannot satisfy them. 

Though these protests are usually localized, their frequency denotes systemic stress. 

Officials have responded through a combination of mediation and ideological management. 

New rural service centers staffed with social workers and legal advisers, for example, are an attempt to resolve disputes before they escalate. 

Crucially, these align with President Xi Jinping’s “Fengqiao experience” – a traditional CCP method launched by Mao in 1963 to contain and resolve conflicts at the grassroots level without needing to involve higher legal bodies. 

(Xi is the first paramount leader to mention the Fengqiao experience as a vital part of China’s governance, and in recent years, he has used it extensively to boost public security and instill loyalty to party leadership). 

Officials, meanwhile, are censoring economists critical of the party and warning against inconsistent policy narratives.

The Fengqiao experience aside, there are even more parallels between Maoism and Xi’s rule. 

Like Mao, Xi emphasizes the importance of ideology, the centrality of the party and the significance of unity under a strong leader. In fact, in his speeches, Xi frequently mentions Mao’s slogan: “East, West, North South and the Center. 

The CCP controls everything.” 

Both leaders distrust unchecked bureaucratic autonomy and see ideological laxity as a threat to political survival. 

Xi’s personalization of power, his erosion of term limits, and his insistence on total loyalty to the leader and the party are all elements that align with Mao’s model of leadership. 

Recent calls to better respond to public sentiment also align with Mao’s idea of “learning from the masses, then teaching them.”

There are notable differences between them, of course. 

Whereas Mao ruled through mass mobilization, class struggle and revolution while often bypassing institutions and laws, Xi leads through a highly institutionalized party-state that prioritizes order, strict monitoring and administrative control. 

Maoism was rooted in egalitarianism and hostility to markets, but Xi’s system accepts markets as tools while insisting on party dominance over them. 

Where Mao encouraged mass participation – even violent participation – Xi restricts activism to controlled channels.

Even so, recent developments cannot be ignored. 

The new, stronger emphasis on ideological work, the suppression of dissenting economic views and the increased use of propaganda to shape economic expectations all echo Mao-era practices. 

The renewed invocation of slogans, historical references and campaigns reinforces this impression. 

Moreover, the portrayal of economic problems as crises of confidence is similar to Mao’s tendency to politicize material difficulties. 

According to Mao, the collective will and revolutionary enthusiasm of human beings can overcome material and economic obstacles – an idea reflected by current efforts to discourage pessimism.

Whether this strategy succeeds is an open question. 

In the short term, tighter control over narratives and expectations may reduce panic and prevent unrest from snowballing into nationwide movements. 

But ideology can’t change the fact that China lacks the easy growth engines it had in the past. 

Without institutional safeguards, Xi must rely more heavily on personal authority and ideological cohesion. 

Maoist symbolism provides buttresses for both.

But then again, Mao didn’t rule in the international context in which Xi rules. 

China is deeply integrated into the global economy, much more politically complex and governed technocratically. 

A real return to Maoist governance would be economically catastrophic and politically destabilizing. 

Therefore, the likely outcome would not be Maoism restored but a “mixed” system in which ideological tightening coexists with pragmatic economic management.

Thus, the intensified use of Maoist ideologies is an attempt to stabilize a system currently under strain, not some kind of reversal or opening.

It is meant to reinforce the traditional concept of the leadership’s “mandate of heaven” by demonstrating moral authority and unity at a time when economic and financial performance alone can no longer guarantee legitimacy. 

In the long run, ideology cannot fully compensate for structural economic and social problems. 

If growth remains sluggish and inequality deepens, the government’s reliance on propaganda and control risks reproducing the same crucial issues – information distortion, bureaucratic fear and policy blindness – that proved so catastrophic under Mao’s rule.