7 Ideas You Can't Hold in Today's China

Document Number 9 dismisses “promoting civil society” as based on the idea that “in the social sphere, individual rights are paramount and ought to be immune to obstruction by the state”; it pits “the Party against the masses.” Nor does “neoliberalism,” defined as relying on private property and markets to shape economic activity, fare any better. The “catastrophic consequences” that have occurred in “Latin America, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe” show its flaws, the authors write, and underscore the dangers of efforts “to weaken the government’s control of the national economy.” Also disparaged is freedom of the press. It is an idea, says Document Number 9, which challenges “China’s principle that the media and publishing system should be subject to Party discipline.” Those who embrace it “gouge an opening through which to infiltrate our ideology.”