China’s top universities told to stop slacking off on Communist Party ideology
- Party inspectors find ‘common and deep-seated’ political problems on campus in two months of in-house inspections
- Orders come as leaders seek to maintain control in the lead-up to November’s gathering of the party elite, analyst says
The orders were delivered in “feedback sessions” on Thursday following a wave of inspections of some of the country’s top schools by personnel sent by the party’s Central Committee.
The meetings included senior officials from the Ministry of Education and top managers from 31 universities directly under the committee’s supervision, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party’s top anti-graft agency, said on Sunday.
The inspectors found a number of “common and deep-seated problems”, particularly in politics and ideology, the CCDI said.
“Some schools have slackened in their ideological work in the new era, [causing] hidden risks of varying degree,” it said.
“Strict enforcement of the party’s control is lagging ... and problems such as corruption in scientific research and infrastructure [investment] persist.”