From We have been harmonised (Kai Strittmatter, 2020) pp138-9
In recent years, nothing has been more guaranteed to provoke an allergic reaction from Party representatives than the suggestion that a new personality cult is being born. ‘No, certainly not!’ exclaimed Xie Chuntao, one of the leaders of the Central Party School, shortly after the Party conference. China had learned from history, he said, alluding to Mao. ‘Such a thing will not happen again’. What we were seeing was the people’s ‘respect and love’ for Xi both of which were ‘natural’ and came spontaneously ‘from the heart’.
Mao’s disciples used to say the same thing. And where once upon a time the propaganda department invented the Little Red Book for Mao, it has now given Xi a Little Red App. Its name is ‘Study (Xi) Strong Country” and, as was only right and proper, it became the country’s most downloaded app shortly after its release in January 2019, ahead of WeChat and the wildly popular video app TikTok. Party members can not only find the President’s latest speeches and thoughts there; they can peruse the Party press, download Marxist classics and revolutionary films, chat and send each other ‘red envelopes’ containing gifts of money. But most importantly and this is what makes it a killer app they can collect points: one for every essay they read from the pen of Xi, and one for every video they watch. There are ten points available for every 30 minutes of ‘Xi-time’ (as one heading in the app calls it) you indulge in, or for giving correct answers in a Xi-themed quiz. And if you give the app your attention between 06:00 and 08:30, or in the evenings from eight o’clock onwards, the points you earn are automatically doubled. Gone are the days when Party members could let the evening news wash over them and put the People’s Daily in the recycling unread; now your smartphone registers every minute you devote to something and every paragraph you read. The Party is creeping back into every crack of people’s lives. Party cells in some parts of the country have already started holding Xi study competitions with the app, and giving their workers points targets to reach, and keeping some people awake half the night. The CCP propaganda department also stated that journalists from important Party and state media organizations would receive their press cards only after a test of their ideological stability via the app. In autumn 2019, the Berlin cybersecurity company Cure53 published a study, together with experts from the Open Technology Fund. It revealed that the app was designed as a spying tool and, via a ‘back door; not only allows the authorities to view all user files, downloaded apps, and other information on Android mobile phones, but also gives the CCP the opportunity to, for example, alter those files or install keyloggers, software that records every keystroke by the user. According to the study, skimmed information such as connection and location data is transmitted daily to the xuexi.cn domain, which is managed by Alibaba. Alibaba also programmed the app for the party. Xi was once lauded as the ‘core’ of the leadership team.
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