China’s Political Discourse June 2021: Prelude to the Centennial

By China Media Project

In June 2021, as the centennial of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) approached and planned news and propaganda events went into full gear, there was a corresponding general rise in the intensity of mainstream official discourse as measured by per-article usage, so that 14 terms in our tiered table of terminologies joined the top three tiers of the CMP Discourse Scale (reflecting their increased usage), and 15 terms emerged from the bottom tier (Tier 6). 

One major highlight in official discourse for the month was the publication by the People’s Daily, just on the cusp of the anniversary, of an official chronicle of the Party’s history (党史大事记) running to close to 100,000 characters in length. The chronicle, published in successive editions of the paper, offered ample opportunity for comparison with the previous such account, released ten years ago for the CCP’s 90th anniversary. Generally speaking, the centennial edition of the chronicle was more grandiose in tone, and far more politic…