In China, quiz show is a tribute to President Xi Jinping

HONG KONG— The Chinese game show begins like many others, with flashing lights, a heroic soundtrack and rapturous applause from a studio audience.

But on this show, one topic dominates: President Xi Jinping, the man, the leader, the Communist Party chief. Contestants face a daunting array of questions about his favourite books, the meaning of his speeches, and his formative years in a rural village.

The five-part show, Studying Xi in the New Era, airing on Chinese state television this week, aims to inspire interest in Xi’s life and ideas among a younger generation. It is the latest sign of the predominance of Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades, in the daily life of citizens.

The show — which does not appear to offer cash or other prizes — poses a series of multiple-choice questions, many of them focused on Xi. There is also a smattering of questions about figures like Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

But the show often feels like an ode to Xi, whom the party has elevated to a status on par with Mao. Xi’s words dominate propaganda posters across China, and the party routinely promotes his nationalistic ideology, known as Xi Jinping Thought, in schools, newspapers and across government offices.

Over the summer, critics in Beijing questioned the adulatory promotion and Xi’s sweeping control over the government. But the game show is another sign that Xi is not going away — and that party leaders see him as a transformative figure in Chinese history.

Jane Duckett, a professor of politics at the University of Glasgow, said the game show is an extension of the news media’s intense focus on Xi in recent years. She said the show appeared to be an attempt “to situate Xi and his ideas in historical Marxist context,” lending legitimacy to his agenda.

In one segment, a contestant says that Xi’s ideology “brims with vigour.” Another describes his leadership as “infinitely powerful.”

At another moment, a moderator plays aclip of a speech and asks what Xi meant when he said that the profundity of Marxism could be traced to one sentence. Tang Xuwang, a graduate student in Marxism at the University of South China, chimes in with the correct answer: “To seek liberation for the human race.”

University professors specializing in the ideology of Xi and of other Communist leaders act as judges and commentators.

The show, which airs in prime time on Hunan Television, one of China’s most popular channels, was developed with the advice of Communist Party officials in Hunan province. The state media describes the show as a response to Xi’s call for “a thorough study session among the whole party.”

Quizzes are an established part of political indoctrination classes for officials and students in China, and often participants are given the answers beforehand so that the tests become exercises in memorization.

While there were some wrong answers in Studying Xi in the New Era, for the most part the contestants seemed well rehearsed and appeared to have memorized important lines from Xi’s speeches.

Studying Xi in the New Era, follows the debut of another ideology-themed show, Marx Got It Right, this spring as part of an effort to better explain Marxist ideals to Chinese millennials.

Party leaders have expressed concern that young Chinese are too far removed from the ideals of communist revolution and officials have expanded ideological education to try to counter Western influences.

“They want to show that the party is close to the people,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. “But it’s very difficult to convince the youth.”