Officials from Chinese universities, including the Beijing Foreign Studies University and Tsinghua University, have spoken publicly in response to the ideological instructions that have been handed down as part of President Xi Jinping's educational reforms.
Speaking to the state news agency Xinhua on Sunday, the officials spoke in support of core socialist values, but were not amenable to subjecting students to any kind of political indoctrination process.
Han Zhen, the Beijing Foreign Studies University's leading Communist Party of China (CPC) committee member, was especially vocal in his interaction with the reporter, asserting that "the value of a nation is like its spirit."
The committee head warned against "cultural nihility" in his promotion of China's national values, which the government has clearly separated from the Western values that hold the potential to be a corrupting influence upon university students.
In terms of the threat presented by Western values, Han explained that the current interest displayed by segments of China's student population can be attributed to the early years of China's reform process, when the lessons of Western experience were of great interest, while he also identified the impact of an increasingly diverse and complicated cultural landscape in modern China.
However, Han said that he is not supportive of mere indoctrination through the educational curriculum, stating that education needs to be "a process of both mutual education and self education."
His sentiment was also evident in the comments of other officials, including Zhu Jian, deputy head of the Party committee of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who stressed the importance of prioritizing "spiritual maturity" alongside intellectual development.
Zhu told Xinhua: "We should remember our responsibility to promote the socialist core values. However, we should not be homiletic to the students to inoculate them with ideas."