According to media reports published on Monday, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council have issued guidelines regarding the ideological conduct of tertiary educational institutions.
Professors are called upon to instill the tenets of Marxism, traditional culture and socialism during college activities. The guidelines stipulate that socialism with Chinese characteristics must form the basis of teaching, and that faculty members need to enhance their awareness of ideological and political matters.
Cybersecurity and the ideological and publicity teams of colleges will be reinforced under the new guidelines, while classroom discipline will be more closely monitored.
Furthermore, the guidelines recommend the establishment of systems for the guidance of students' associations, while the development of religious studies and anti-cult awareness is also called for.
The issuance of the guidelines follows on from a statement by President Xi Jinping in December of last year, in which he implored his Communist Party colleagues to improve the Party's ideological control over universities. However, a leaked document from earlier in the year, "Document 9," shows that the top ranks of the Chinese government were deeply concerned over such matters prior to last month.
The document discusses the threat of "Western anti-China forces" and potentially damaging criticism that occurs in "public lectures, seminars, university classrooms, class discussion forums, civilian study groups, and individual publications."
Then, a November report showed that journalists from a state newspaper in the northeast of China were dispatched to oversee college classrooms throughout China. The team stated that they observed professors who spoke negatively against Mao Zedong, deemed the nation's founding father, as well as the Communist Party.