Weaponizing emotion: Chinese Communist Youth League’s soft propaganda on Douyin

In China, the Chinese Communist Youth League (CYL) has been the most important impetus for formal volunteering since the early 1990s. This article begins by scrutinising the historical and institutional impulses that motivate the CYL to promote volunteering, and examines the CYL's major role in legitimatising volunteering in the past 20 years. Findings suggest that the ascribed political capital of the CYL has bestowed enough power to legitimise volunteering under the current regime, and in turn, the efforts in legitimising possibly re-enhanced the CYL's political capital. First, as a policymaker, the CYL has established a national monitoring system to legitimise volunteering. Second, as a policy executor, the CYL prefers to legitimatise grassroots voluntary service organisations in a flexible way, rather than just strictly following the written rules. In addition, the CYL's special political status affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party also indicates that, in essence, the CYL's potential in legitimisation is contingent on broader institutional change in China.

How can a weak organization be a path to power? The Chinese Communist Youth League (CYL) lacks autonomy and coherence yet it is seen as the cradle for one of the main factions within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To understand this tension, I provide a novel account of the role played by the CYL in the recruitment of leading cadres since the 1980s. Against explanations based on factional struggles, I argue that the rise of CYL-affiliated cadres is a by-product of the organization's weakness. As the Party appoints CYL heads, CCP leaders, at various levels and at different points in time, have used the League to accelerate the promotion of their protégés. For years, there has been little incentive for Party bosses to dismantle this promotion path. However, in his bid to consolidate his power, Xi Jinping has weakened this channel so that it may not be used by potential rivals.

With more than 81 million members, the Chinese Communist Youth League (CYL) is the largest youth political organisation in the world. The Chinese Communist Youth League: Juniority and Responsiveness in a Party Youth Organization is valuable as one of the few books on the topic that have been published in English. While Healy (1982) reviewed the role and activities of the CYL in the first 30 years of the People's Republic of China in The Chinese Communist Youth League, 1949-1979, Tsimonis’s bo...

The Chinese Communist Youth League is the largest youth political organization in the world, with over 80 million members. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao was a firm supporter of the League, and believed that it could play a bigger role in winning the hearts and minds of Chinese youth by actively engaging with their interests and demands. Accordingly, he provided the League with a new youth work mandate to increase its capacity for responsiveness under the slogan 'keep the Party assured and the youth satisfied'. This original investigation of the hitherto-unexamined organization uses a combination of interviews, surveys and ethnography to explore how the League implemented Hu's mandate at both local and national levels, exposing the contradictory nature of some of its campaigns. By doing so, it also sheds light on the reasons for Xi Jinping's turn against the League during his first term in office. The Chinese Communist Youth League: Juniority and Responsiveness in a Party Youth Organization develops the original concept of 'juniority' to capture the complex ways that generational power is institutionalized, alienating young people from official political processes, with significant implications for China's political development. The book will be of interest to researchers and students of Chinese politics, as well as to scholars of comparative youth politics and sociology.

This chapter examines the role of Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) as breeding ground for crucial political leaders in China. Author shows the share of former affiliates of Central Committees CCYL in the 19th Central Committee of Communist Party of China (CC CPC) and compares with data from previous CCs. Analysis points out an insignificant correlation between engagement in CCYL and promotion into the CPC structures which shows the importance of the official youth organization of the CPC in the process of selecting the most powerful cadres of the party is overrated.

After becoming General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2002, Hu Jintao surprised many observers by consolidating his power in a short period of time. There are two aspects to this power consolidation. First, he quickly promoted a large number of supporters, most notably his associates from the Chinese Communist Youth League, to key positions. Second, he buttressed himself as the core of the top leadership, at the same time forming a viable working relationship with other leaders, most notably Wen Jiabao and Zeng Qinghong. This resulted in a stable and viable power structure dominated by Hu. The institutionalization of Chinese elite politics in the last decade has created favorable conditions on which Hu was able to capitalize. However, future successions may still be hampered by institutional impediments.

What was the political landscape of China as a result of the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? The answer is two‐fold. In terms of formal institutions, provincial units emerged as the most powerful institution in Chinese politics. Their power index, as measured by the representation in the Central Committee, was the highest by a large margin. Although their combined power index ranked second, central institutions were fragmented between central party and central government institutions. The military ranked third. Corporate leaders began to assume independent identities in Chinese politics, but their power was still negligible at this stage. In terms of informal factional groups, the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) Group was the most powerful by a large margin. The Qinghua Clique ranked second. The Shanghai Gang and the Princelings were third and fourth, respectively. The same ranking order also holds in group cohesion indexes. The CCYL Group stood out as the most cohesive ...

What was the political landscape of China as a result of the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? The answer is two‐fold. In terms of formal institutions, provincial units emerged as the most powerful institution in Chinese politics. Their power index, as measured by the representation in the Central Committee, was the highest by a large margin. Although their combined power index ranked second, central institutions were fragmented between central party and central government institutions. The military ranked third. Corporate leaders began to assume independent identities in Chinese politics, but their power was still negligible at this stage. In terms of informal factional groups, the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) Group was the most powerful by a large margin. The Qinghua Clique ranked second. The Shanghai Gang and the Princelings were third and fourth, respectively. The same ranking order also holds in group cohesion indexes. The CCYL Group stood out as the most cohesive because its group cohesion index for inner circle members alone was much larger than those of the other three factional groups combined. The Qinghua Clique came second, and the Shanghai Gang third. The Princelings was hardly a factional group because its group cohesion index was extremely low. These factional groups, nevertheless, were not mutually exclusive. There were significant overlaps among them, especially between the Qinghua Clique and the Shanghai Gang, between the Princelings and the Qinghua Clique, and between the CCYL Group and the Qinghua Clique.

The Seventeenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), held on 15–21 October 2007 in Beijing, produced some interesting changes to the balance of power among different factional groups in Chinese politics. Compared to the balance of power among factional groups generated as a result of the Sixteenth National Congress of the CCP five years earlier, the four major factional groups had different experiences. In terms of power index, the Shanghai Gang, a factional group affiliated with Former General Secretary Jiang Zemin, declined substantially; the Qinghua Clique, graduates of the Qinghua University, also declined significantly; the Princelings, children of former high-ranking officials, however, increased a great deal; and the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) Group, a factional group closely associated with General Secretary Hu Jintao, witnessed substantial expansion. In terms of group cohesion index, both the Shanghai Gang and the Qinghua Clique shrank significantly; the Princelings increased somewhat; and the CCYL Group expanded substantially.

"The Chinese Communist Youth League. Juniority and Responsiveness in a Party Youth Organization." Europe-Asia Studies, 74(6), pp. 1098–1099

Based on sources that have recently been made available, this article examines how the Chinese Communist Youth League (CYL) in 1920s Shanghai faced complexities and tensions that rendered it unable to fulfil its own personnel policy and organizational goals. Previous scholarship has largely overlooked the day-to-day practice of the local grassroots of the CYL during this period, focusing instead on its strategy and program of development at higher levels. This study enriches research on early Chinese communism by providing an internal perspective on the Shanghai Communist Youth League’s (SYL) daily operations throughout the National Revolution (1924–1927), including how it engaged with subordinate organizations, how its personnel issues were managed at different levels, how human resources (students and workers) were disciplined, and how members reacted to those measures. This study also examines the complexities the SYL faced as it tried to develop strong grassroots support in industrial settings and campus contexts, and the tension between its goals of organizational efficiency and perpetuating traditional cultural elements in staff management. Despite its routine practices, such as training, education, and mutual criticism, and disciplinary measures, such as purging the organization, far from reaching the state of institutionalization that it aimed for, the SYL was plagued with unresolved problems at the grassroots. These issues became glaringly evident and formed a sine qua non for the setbacks that the organization experienced in the 1927 Shanghai coup.

The history of struggle and development over the past hundred years profoundly shows that the reason why the Chinese Communist Youth League can lead Chinese youth to make important contributions to the construction of a strong country and national rejuvenation and create brilliant achievements, in the final analysis, is to firmly support the leadership of the CPC and take the socialist road with Chinese characteristics. The Communist Youth League of China always follows the Party, which contains profound historical, emotional, value, and logical inevitability of the times. It is the cultural background for the Communist Youth League of China to maintain its original intention, the spiritual coordinates for forging ahead, and the organizational driving force for making achievements. It provides theoretical guidance, strength guarantee, and value guidance for the Communist Youth League of China to unite and lead young people to sustainable development.

Comrade Members of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Communist Youth League: To strive for the goal of holding the total population in our country under 1.2 billion by the end of the century, the State Council has made an appeal to the people of the entire country to promote the policy of each couple having only one child. This is a major measure that has significant bearing on the speed and future of the construction of the Four Modernizations, on the health and happiness of all future generations, and is in line with both the long-term future interests and the immediate interests of the people of the country as a whole. The Central Committee now calls on all Communist party members and all Chinese Communist Youth League members, and especially the cadres at all levels, to take the lead in responding to the State Council's appeal with positive and practical action, and to carry out enthusiastically and responsibly the necessary propaganda and education among the broad masses with patience and care.

Last semester our school mounted an activity called creating an entire classroom of League members, calling upon young people of every classroom to exert themselves for admission into the League within the semester. The school leadership used this as a criterion to assess the performance of every class in terms of its political work and the progress of students' studies. Thus the League branches of each class blindly emphasized quantity and vied with each other in recruiting new under the pretext of allowing not a single comrade-in-arms to fall behind. If things go on like this, I am afraid, the Chinese Communist Youth League will lose its role as a mass organization of the progressive young people. Comrade editor, please tell me whether the activity of creating an entire classroom of League members is correct or not.

In 2003, President Hu Jintao instructed Communist Youth League cadres to 'keep the Party assured and the Youth satisfied'. This laconic recognition that winning the support of Chinese youth requires a more responsive engagement with their interests and demands, provided the League with a new youth work mandate to increase its capacity for responsiveness. This original investigation uses a combination of interviews, surveys and ethnography to examine the often contradictory and self-defeating ways the League implemented this mandate locally and nationally. By doing so, it also sheds light on Xi Jinping's decision to downgrade it politically and organizationally in 2016. This book introduces a previously unexplored organization and develops 'juniority' as a conceptual tool that captures the ways generational power is institutionalized and fuels youth political apathy. For this reason, apart from China scholars, this study will be of particular interest to those working on comparative youth politics and sociology