Beijing tightens control over rural China with training campaign for thousands of village chiefs

Name: Chinese farmers give up on making a living from the land despite government focus on food security
Uploaded: 2023-05-17T12:00:13.000Z
Duration: 6 min 14 s
Description: Chinese farmers give up on making a living from the land despite government focus on food security

Nationwide coaching sessions aim to provide party guidance, ensure loyalty and stability at county levels

Direct training by Central Party School provides Beijing with a straight line to all village cadres

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Keeping rural managers in line is seen as an essential part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s long-term plan to maintain stability in rural regions. Photo: AP

William Zheng

Published: 8:00pm, 17 May 2023

Tens of thousands of Chinese village party chiefs have sat through the first national-level training sessions hosted by the ruling Communist Party’s top personnel department and the Central Party School – part of a massive campaign to tighten Beijing’s grip over rural governance.

The scale of the coaching lessons is unusual for the Central Party School in Beijing, which usually focuses on training promising party officials who hold at least department-head positions at the county level to prepare them for advancement in government. Lower-level officials are usually trained in their respective provincial or municipal party school branches.

The Central Party School was merged with the National Academy of Governance as part of an overhaul in 2018 to consolidate the training institutions and courses for officials.

According to a report in People’s Daily on Tuesday, 212 village party secretaries and village committee directors attended the four-day, in-person training course in Beijing from April 24. Tens of thousands of rural cadres joined the sessions via video link in classrooms set up at provincial and county-level party schools.

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Chinese farmers give up on making a living from the land despite government focus on food security

“This is the first time that the Central Organisation Department and the Central Party School (National Academy of Governance) directly conducted training for all village cadres, and it is also the largest training session for rural cadres in recent years,” the report said.