In China, the Party leads everything, and Xi Jinping is taking “everything” further than any leader since Mao.
Under Xi, China is building a new model of social governance that fuses Mao-era mobilization with modern digital surveillance. Before waging war with the U.S. over Taiwan, a campaign Xi sees as the rejuvenation and reunification of China, he must prepare the nation. Military expansion, a growing nuclear arsenal, and economic adjustments are underway. Yet economics remain his weakest point, where President Trump’s trade wars have dealt China major blows.
Xi has little control over Trump and limited means to offset the loss of the U.S. market or lure back foreign investment. For decades, U.S. capital fueled cheap manufacturing in China, but tariffs and restrictions have redirected investment to Southeast Asia, India, and even back to the U.S.
Analysts often focus on Xi’s control of the military and economy, but his social controls are just as critical. A war with the U.S. would bring hardship across daily life: conscription of young men and women, rationing of coal and electricity, loss of energy imports, wartime manufacturing, and reduced exports limited mostly to Russia and nearby states.
As a net food importer, China would face rising food insecurity, with the army fed first and civilians left behind. For centuries China’s vast population has been its greatest strength, but war could turn it into a liability unless citizens are conditioned to endure suffering and support the Party’s objectives without question.
From my own experience in the Burma war, Xi needs mothers with empty stomachs to accept their sons dying for Party goals, and families in cold, dark apartments to believe a malnourished or sick child is an acceptable sacrifice for the state.
On some level, the people’s acquiescence can be secured through threats, secret police, domestic intelligence, torture, gulags, and executions, methods China has used before and could use again. Yet aside from targeted persecutions, such as against the Uyghurs or Falun Gong, widespread violence has not been applied to the general population since the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976.
Instead, the CCP, like its Soviet counterparts, has relied on winning voluntary enlistment to the national cause. Persuasion, education, and the internalization of Party ideology are central to this effort. The CCP even borrows language from U.S. political discourse, claiming China is a country of laws and that people have rights under the constitution. The difference is that in the U.S. the Constitution is guaranteed and supreme, while in China it is subordinated to the Party.
Framed this way, the CCP presents its rule as both legitimate and protective, making citizens feel safe and convinced the Party acts in their best interests. Heavy propaganda reinforces the idea that the Chinese system is superior. When I studied in China, it was common to hear professors say, “Nigeria and India are democracies. Do you really want to live like that?” Whenever political debates, riots, or high-profile killings occurred in the U.S., they would say, “You see how much better the Chinese system is. We don’t have school shootings or assassinations.”
That claim is nearly true, but misleading. China experiences bombings and mass stabbings, often carried out by separatists. Yet because the Party controls the news, most citizens remain unaware.
Another point is that Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has doubled as a tool to eliminate political rivals. Since coming to power in 2012, he has launched the largest such campaign in Communist Party history, purging millions.
More than 4 million cadres have been investigated, with about 2.3 million prosecuted and 1.5 million convicted. High-level targets include over 120 senior officials, nearly 500 investigated since 2012, and 58 removed in just the first three quarters of 2024. In that same period, 642,000 cadres at various levels were punished.
The military has been hit hard. Sixty-three generals were expelled in what is described as the largest purge in modern Chinese history. Of the 79 generals promoted under Xi, 14 have already gone missing or been investigated during his third term alone.
Outcomes vary: roughly 80 percent receive light penalties, 10–13 percent face severe punishment, and most high-ranking officials are jailed in relatively lenient “luxury prisons,” a far cry from the executions and banishments of Mao’s era. The campaign has focused almost entirely on government, Party, military, and state-enterprise officials, not private citizens.
The CCP frames its purges as protecting the interests of citizens and the nation. After all, under communism any money stolen by leaders is considered to belong to the people, so the Party claims it must safeguard citizens’ rights and property. The irony is that while communism claims to eliminate hierarchy, it is itself highly hierarchical. When convenient, the state can label generals, politicians, or even senior party leaders as “class enemies,” just as it once did with landlords and entrepreneurs.
For ordinary citizens, social governance is increasingly framed through the language of security. Outwardly, the state emphasizes law-based governance, rights protection, and public service. In reality, these are tightly interwoven with propaganda, surveillance, and the security apparatus. After three decades of building up digital surveillance, China now has one of the world’s most powerful policing systems, seamlessly embedded in daily life.
Since 2019, the CCP has launched a wave of patriotic and defense education policies designed to reshape public consciousness around loyalty, security, and readiness to “struggle.” These measures include the morality and patriotic education outlines, curriculum reforms in 2020–21, the 2023 Patriotic Education Law, and the 2024 National Defense Education Law. Unlike earlier efforts in the 1990s and 2000s, today’s campaign is broader and deeper, saturating all levels of education with Xi Jinping Thought and the concept of “comprehensive national security.”
From kindergarten through university, textbooks stress patriotism, cultural confidence, and loyalty to the Party, even weaving ideology into science classes with references to “red genes.” Academia itself is being reshaped with new Xi Jinping Thought and national security research centers, while scientists are explicitly tasked with serving national goals. As Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang declared in 2024, patriotism is now regarded as the “spiritual essence” of scientific work.
This patriotic push extends beyond schools and universities. Community organizations hold exhibitions, lectures, and defense-preparedness activities. Businesses increasingly require new employees to undergo defense training. Meanwhile, the Ministry of State Security uses social media to run anti-espionage campaigns, framing vigilance in strongly nationalist and anti-Western terms. Together, these initiatives exploit the narrative of external threats to strengthen internal unity and discipline.
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