Chinese President Xi Jinping doesn't like China's characterization as a backwards, oppressive society. His solution? Wash it off.
Xi has called for a cleanup in the country's communist party, asking leaders to eschew corruption and wrongdoing for openness. He has encapsulated the proposed movement with one short, pointed slogan: Look in the mirror, take a bath.
China's leader aims to prove to a skeptical public that the country is buckling down to modernize. According to the Associated Press, the government still leans on a top-down approach to the campaign by using study sessions and propaganda rather than putting checks on levels of power. This movement is disquieting for some who claim founder of Communist China Mao Zedong would have employed the same tactics.
"Winning or losing public support is an issue that concerns the Communist Party's survival or extinction," Xi said in a teleconference Tuesday conducted amongst government personnel in their respective provinces around the nation.
During the meeting, Xi expanded on the "rectification" movement, with a particular eye toward redemption. The tagline, "look in the mirror, straighten your attire, take a bath and seek remedies," heads up the campaign, Xinhua News Agency reported. Party officials from the county level and above have been told to "reflect on their own practices and correct their misconduct."
Experts say that this kind of rhetoric is reminiscent of Mao's approach to hold a Communist nation together. Chinese politics expert and professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong Willy Lam told the Associated Press that Xin's new moves are "worrisome."
"Coming from the leader of such a huge country, it is a bit worrisome and shocking that he apparently is really a true believer in some of Mao's approaches," Lam said.
As of late, the Communist Party has felt immense pressure to stop corruption and impropriety: a former city official was filmed having relations with hired women by real estate developers who subsequently blackmailed him with the footage.
"This campaign is necessary because the [Communist Party] as a ruling party has been struggling to deal with popular distrust-popular cynical, critical, even confrontational reaction to everything the party says or does," said Ding Xueliang, who has studied Chinese politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "If they are using Mao Zedong-era slogans to deal with today's problems, no matter how much resources are put into the campaign, the outcome will be very tiny," he finished.
