(TibetanReview.net, Apr18’26) – In China, the party is the state and the state the party. In order to drive this message home, the party-state has introduced new school textbooks even as existing teaching materials are already heavily saturated with political indoctrination materials that scuttle independent thinking and discussion.
Students in China are now required to learn to be loyal to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) right from elementary school, and all the way till high school, with the introduction of national security text books rolled out recently, according to theepochtimes.com Apr 17.
The four-volume series, titled “National Security Education Readers for Primary and Secondary Students,” has been rolled out nationwide and is intended for use from elementary through high school, the report said, citing Chin’s state media Xinhua New Agency Apr 15. The books were compiled under the direction of the country’s National Textbook Department under the Ministry of Education.
The report said the rollout marked the latest step in the CCP’s broader push to integrate political and ideological education more deeply into China’s school system, extending it to younger age groups.
The textbooks’ contents are stated to emphasize the Party’s role in maintaining national stability, framing national security in explicitly political terms.
In the elementary school textbook, students are stated to be taught that the country’s safety and stability are the result of collective efforts “under the leadership of the Party.”
At the middle school level, the lessons are stated to stress that “national interests come first,” with national interests being obviously synonymous with party interests.
And the high school teaching materials are sated to focus on a framework of guiding principles—including adherence to Party leadership over national security and the concept of a “comprehensive national security outlook”—as core components of instruction.
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The report cited a bookseller in Beijing surnamed Wu as saying the new series is being positioned as an “authoritative” resource for national security education and will be used alongside existing political education materials, including textbooks on Xi Jinping Thought, the state ideology and guiding doctrine for the CCP and China.
The report cited some critics as saying the curriculum reflects an effort to reshape how young people understand the relationship between the state, the Party, and individual rights.
“The core of what the CCP calls ‘national security’ is ultimately political security, meaning the security of the regime itself,” a current affairs analyst from China’s Shenyang city has said.
The unnamed analyst has said the goal of the curriculum is less about educating students and more about encouraging acceptance of existing power structures.
“It is about instilling obedience [to the authorities],” he has said, adding he had chosen to send his own child abroad for education.
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The introduction of the national security textbooks is seen to have come amid a wider tightening of ideological oversight in the CCP’s education system.
In recent years, Chinese universities have been instructed to avoid discussion of topics deemed politically sensitive, especially concepts often described as Western. In regions such as Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, the CCP has replaced minority language instruction with Mandarin, the report noted.
The report cited a Chinese scholar surnamed Du as saying the expansion of political education reflects growing concern within the CCP about shaping the attitudes of younger generations.
“Indoctrination is starting earlier and becoming more systematic,” he has said, citing anecdotal examples of young children adopting political language at home. “When a system relies on continuous indoctrination to maintain [public] approval, it can also suggest underlying insecurity.”
Du has said that as social and economic pressures mount in China, the CCP’s focus on youth education has intensified, with curriculum design increasingly tied to political priorities.
The latest move is seen as underscoring the CCP’s need to use schools not only to impart knowledge but also to shape political outlooks from an early age.