Chinese newlyweds ‘copy out parts of the Communist Party constitution on their wedding night’ as part of loyalty campaign
Photographs of the couple go viral on the internet in China as party members are urged to write out the entire 15,000-word document by hand
Many of China’s 87 million Communist Party members - including grassroots government employees and senior executives at state-owned enterprises - are hand copying its 15,000-word constitution as part of a wider campaign to boost party loyalty.
The 100-day campaign to hand copy the entire constitution was launched in March on a social media account of the People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, but it has caught public attention after a newlywed couple were photographed writing out paragraphs on their wedding night.
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The couple, both employees at the Nanchang Railway Bureau, decided to “put down paper and open up the party constitution to copy and to leave fond memories of their wedding night”, according to an article and a series of photographs published on Monday on a social media account operated by the department.
The article soon went viral online, with some internet users questioning if their pictures were staged. Others described the exercise as pretentious.
Some senior executives at state-owned oil companies are devoting one to two hours each day to copying out the constitution and their handwriting will be closely checked to ensure somebody is not doing it for them, said a source close to the executives, who asked not to be named .
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Many local party committees, including in Zhejiang province and the Xinjiang region, are organising the copying campaign in their areas, according to the news website Thepaper.cn.
The Nanchang Railway Bureau said the copying campaign has “become a part of their daily life” after the department launched it in late April.
