A commentary titled 'Straighten Out The Communist Party’s Spiritual Backbone' was published by the CCP CC theoretical fortnightly journal on June 15 under the pen-name “Qiu Shi” (秋石). The article condemned “hostile forces” that are against China’s continued development. It added, quite interestingly, that a divided, chaotic, and weak China accords with their interests.

 

It emphasised that these hostile forces  have never even for a moment stopped advocating 'Westernization' and 'splittist' strategies and pointed to 'peaceful evolution, historical nihilism, constitutional democracy, universal values, neoliberalism, and doubts over reform and opening up' as evidence. The commentary criticized those who believe corruption is an indication of economic problems, and asserted that corruption is in essence a major political problem. It warned Party members to be vigilant against the “hype” (热炒) describing Marxism as an outdated and useless theory and lambasted hostile forces for promoting the “China threat theory” (中国威胁论) whenever the country does something well and “China collapse theory” (中国崩溃论) whenever it encounters difficulties.

 

(Comment: The pen-name “Qiu Shi” (秋石) is used by the Qiushi Editorial Board to convey the theoretical positions of the CCP Central Committee.)