Communist Party tightens grip on control of China's universities
Directive calls for higher education entities to unify under the central leadership
The Communist Party has tightened its grip on Chinese universities by reaffirming the party secretary’s leading role in them.
The General Office of the Communist Party of China, which is directly under the Central Committee, released the directive for higher education entities to unify under the party leadership yesterday.
The announcement said that after the fourth plenary session of the 17th CPC Central Committee next week, all departments at universities across the country shall “conscientiously” make implementations that “adhere to the party’s leading core position”.
It also said universities across China are to establish a unified leadership under the party committee, cooperate and coordinate with the party and “seriously carry out” the essence of democratic centralism within the party. adding that the universities' presidents should implement the party’s education policy, organise relevant resolutions of the party committee and be fully responsible for the teaching, research and management.
Last month, the party committee at Peking University, one of China’s elite institutions, told its students and professors to “fight against speech and actions” that criticise the Communist Party in an editorial in Qiushi, a Chinese journal whose name means “seeking truth”
