A study reveals that the curriculum of Chinese citizenship education, a part of China's universal education system, has always taught that a good citizen is one who is loyal and obedient to the Chinese Communist Party.
According to the study, citizens were taught that they should subsume their individual goals to the collective, socialist good, "which means following the CPC's leadership", reported the Hong Kong Post.
The curriculum has carried different names over the years, including 'moral education', 'moral character education', 'patriotic education', and 'citizenship education.
The study, titled 'The Construction and Performance of Citizenship in Contemporary China', authored by researchers Carolyn L. Hsu et al, appeared in the Journal of Contemporary China on January 30, this year.
It notes that since 2012, under President Xi Jinping's rule, the connection between "good citizenship and loyalty/obedience to the Communist Party of China has only been strengthened"
The study makes the observation that "citizenship education in China teaches a more state-centred form of socialist citizenship, where citizens follow the lead of the Communist Party, and this has only strengthened under Xi Jinping".
The issue gained momentum for the leadership when the COVID outbreak took place and people critiqued the Chinese leadership and held it responsible for massive unemployment and rising prices. Amid this, the leadership also saw the threat an intelligent, socially aware, politically informed and economically suffering population can pose, reported The HK Post.
The study says the autocrat's reasoning for citizenship education is for "creating 'ideal citizens' encourages citizens to act in similar ways that legitimate and support the autocrat's rule".
Comparing Hong Kong and China, the study finds that the intention and the ability to question the state and the party leadership is more among the citizens of Hong Kong than mainland China, explaining the growing pro-democracy voices on the island.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor