The People's Daily on February 4, front-paged an important 6324-character article detailing the outlines of a serious effort to promote the role of the Young Pioneers in primary schools and among the youth. Describing the Young Pioneers as "a school for children to learn socialism and communism with Chinese characteristics, and is a reserve team for building socialism and communism", the article said that the "Young Pioneers, comprehensively strengthen the building of the party ...  and focus on training Communism successor, focusing on inheriting the red gene". It said for the building"of a modern socialist country and the realization of the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it is necessary to ensure the inheritance of the party and the people’s cause" and that "transmission of the red gene from generation to generation" to successors is of great and far-reaching significance. Predictably, the article exhorts "take Xi Jinping’s new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics as the core content of the education and training of Young Pioneers instructors at all levels, and continuously improve the political capabilities of Young Pioneers instructors".

(Comment: The article is published by the Editorial Department of the People's Daily. It includes references to 'Xi Jinping' and 'Xi Jinping Thought' six times, but mentions none of China's other leaders like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping. This push to inculcate Chinese Communist ideology among preschool children had been anticipated in my article in The Tribune dated December 21, 20120. By doing this, Xi Jinping is trying to embed Xi Jinping Thought in the minds of 1.5 billion Chinese and ensure that China remains a bastion of communism able to resist the US and West!)