Xi Jinping and the Four Comprehensives

Propaganda ▶ Reform and party discipline are dominant themes ▶ “Every leader tries to come up with his trademark”

“Have you heard of the Four Comprehensives?” a kindly-looking man asks a pigtailed girl with huge eyes, in a cartoon video released by China’s official Xinhua News Agency on Feb. 2. “Is it something to do with the Chinese Dream?” she responds. “Ha-ha, well, let me tell you,” he says, before launching into an explanatory rap while they walk through a psychedelic landscape, complete with a swinging monkey, tigers in cages, rocket ships, hot air balloons, and backup disco dancers including a nurse, farmer, construction worker, and soldier.

The Four Comprehensives— promoting prosperity, deepening reforms, strengthening rule of law, and stressing party discipline—are President Xi Jinping’s contribution to a tradition of Communist Party leaders coining slogans. Deng Xiaoping popularized the Four Modernizations, and later came up with Deng Xiaoping Theory; former President Jiang Zemin gave China the Three Represents. During the National People’s Congress, the Four Comprehensives were cited— alongside the slogans of Deng, Jiang, and former President Hu Jintao— by Premier Li Keqiang when he gave the annual report on the state of the country on March 5.

After leaders “come to power, the slogans become very important in policymaking,” says Ding Xueliang, a professor of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. “And every leader tries to

“Say it with me, the Four Comprehensives!”

“The Chinese Dream is almost here”