China warns against aping Western moral standarts

BEIJING - Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) claps with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro at their meeting at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas. REUTERS Photo

China’s ruling Communist Party will step up ideological education of officials to prevent them from aping Western moral standards and strengthen their faith in communism to help in the fight against pervasive corruption, state media said.

“The conviction and morals of officials determine the rise and fall of the Communist Party and the country,” Xinhua said, in a report late on July 20.

“Officials should keep firm belief in Marxism to avoid being lost in the clamor for western democracy, universal values and civil society,” it said.

The party has warned repeatedly that its members should not be lead astray by Western concepts of human rights and democracy, saying that China has the right to promote its own interpretation of such ideas to better suit its national condition and level of economic development. President Xi Jinping has mounted a sweeping campaign against deeply-rooted corruption since assuming office last year, warning, like others before him, that the party’s rule could be threatened if it does not stop the rot from graft.

The party has sought to curtail everything from bribery and gift-giving to lavish banquets to assuage public anger over graft and extravagance, and state media has published lurid accounts of officials with multiple mistresses and illegally amassed wealth.