Mobilisation in the Party’s New Era: Ziwo geming

Abstract

In the general context of Xi Jinping’s New Era, the current leadership of the Chinese Communist Party has identified the “strenghtening of the overall Party leadership” as one of the leading principles of the whole reform agenda, while mobilisation is increasingly seen as an essential tool to implement and deepen the reforms. Recurring aspects of the mobilisation include the Party’s history and mission, as well as the promoting of the “spirit” and of the founding values of Chinese Communism. From his rise to power until today, Xi Jinping has introduced several slogans to support political mobilisation, and he has increasingly called upon the Party cadres to zìwŏ gémìng 自我革命 (“self-revolution”). Through the analysis of a selection of Xi’s speeches, this paper proposes to investigate the political meaning of the zìwŏ gémìng slogan from the historical and the political perspectives.

Keywords: Zìwŏ gémìng, Party governance, History of the Party, Mobilisation, Anti-corruption campaign.