The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have continuously released information about the employment pressure of university graduates, and then asked universities to send graduates to work in the hard and remote areas in the west, raising concerns about a new “Go to the mountains and go to the countryside” movement. The Chinese Academy of Historical Research, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, issued an article yesterday (Dec. 22) to whitewash the youths’ visit to the countryside, claiming it was “a great feat to promote social progress,” sparking criticism on the Internet, with some netizens even bringing up Xi Jinping‘s daughter, Xi Mingze, to make the case.
On December 22, the Chinese Academy of History posted an article on its microblogging site, claiming that the youths’ visit to the countryside was a “great feat of social progress,” while criticizing that “the youths are a ruined generation” and that going to the countryside is “persecuted” is a “false statement.
According to the media, China’s economy and employment are being tested by the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic and the international situation. According to the Ministry of Education of the Communist Party of China, the number of college graduates in 2020 is expected to reach 8.74 million, and the total number of college graduates in 2021 is expected to be 9.09 million. The authorities acknowledge that the employment situation is serious and complex.
On December 1, the Ministry of Education issued a document asking universities and colleges to push graduates to work in the west, grassroots, hard and remote areas and key fields.
After Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), had earlier proposed that college students work at the grassroots level, the official media of the CPC also revived the slogan of the Cultural Revolution, “Go to the most needed places of the motherland,” which made the outside world suspect that the authorities intend to start going to the mountains and the countryside again to solve the employment crisis.
The aforementioned tweet by the Chinese Academy of History, which whitewashed the idea of youths going to the countryside, has been deleted, presumably due to a massive flip-flop in the comments section.
However, the screenshot was posted to overseas Twitter, sparking heated debate among Chinese netizens.
“Not another trip to the countryside!
The “Institute of Obscene History
“I feel like I’ve been transported back to the Cultural Revolution.
“Is this the news now? Unbelievable.
“The ugly face is slowly coming out…
“Go back to Liangjiahe Brigade and pick up dung in memory of your comrades.
“Go to Liangjiahe! Pick 200 pounds!
“Yes, it’s a great pride and happiness to have 1.4 billion people once again to have a stupid elementary school doctor leading a great leek nation.
I think it’s a trend to rewrite the Cultural Revolution.
“Accelerate, East Korea is already on the horizon.
Why don’t these brain-dead experts send their children to the countryside?
“The families of the Seventh Standing Committee should take the lead!
I agree! The children of leaders, private children enjoy first!
“Let Xi Mingze go down first.
Xi Jinping’s daughter Xi Mingze, born on June 25, 1992, is now 27 years old and goes by the nickname of Mu Zi.
Overseas Chinese media have reported that when Xi was 18, she went to Harvard University in May 2010 to study undergraduate psychology, taking the pseudonym Chen Chu.
The New Yorker reported in April 2015 that Xi had gone to the United States to study at Harvard University, and that after receiving his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Harvard in 2014, Xi was recalled to China by his father and served as a special staffer to Xi Jinping.
The term “going to the mountains and going to the countryside” refers to the political movement that arranged for intellectual youths (Zhiqing) to settle and work in rural areas in mainland China from the 1950s to the 1970s during the Maoist era, also commonly known as “decentralization” and “team insertion. It was during the Cultural Revolution that the Chinese Communist Party organized the “Zhiqing” movement on a large scale.
The current consensus in academic circles is that this unprecedented movement to the countryside affected almost every family in the big cities, and the fate of a generation was suddenly changed. After the 1970s, there was a sudden turning point in the course of history, and the youth returned to the big cities like a tidal wave through various methods, such as replacement and sick retirement.
During this movement, the youth of tens of millions of young people was wasted, countless families were forcibly torn apart, and social chaos was created at all levels.
Xi Jinping, the Communist Party leader, was one of the thousands of young people who went to the countryside. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was beaten down by Mao Zedong, and at the age of 16 he came to Shaanxi as the persecuted descendant of a “gangster’s son” to join the troops in Liangjiahe. But Xi Jinping “benefited from the scourge” and later rose to great heights, with the result that this period in the camp became precious in his eyes: “The hard life of seven years in the mountains and the countryside was a great forging for me. I didn’t rest for almost 365 days a year, except when I was sick. I was in the kiln with them when it rained and blew, watching the animals at night, and then going with them to herd sheep, doing all kinds of work, because I carried 200 pounds of wheat at that time, and I didn’t change my shoulders on the 10-mile mountain road.
After Xi Jinping came to power, Liangjiahe became a place for official touting and officials to show their loyalty.
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