Other than that, the analysis itself seems pretty solid.
From Macro Polo:
On November 29, 2012, the newly selected Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping visited the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibit at the National Museum in Beijing. With the previous Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) in tow, Xi unveiled his vision of the “Chinese Dream” (中国梦)—the simple idea that the CCP’s collective mission to rejuvenate the nation also advances the myriad individual ambitions of Chinese citizens. Political theater aside, Xi used the occasion to clearly articulate what amounts to a mission statement: under his leadership, the CCP will lead China’s return as a global power.
Many foreign observers at the time dismissed the Chinese Dream as unoriginal, a lifting of a distinctively American idea to capture a similar sentiment among upwardly mobile middle-class Chinese. But such analyses mostly missed the point. Xi’s speech, in fact, marked the start of a major campaign to reorient domestic policy and to overhaul propaganda work to support this new agenda. That Xi chose to launch a conceptual idea, rather than economic targets or policies, in his first important speech as General Secretary is significant. Not only did it distinguish him from previous leaders, it also spoke volumes about the problem Xi inherited.
That problem was the CCP itself. Most Chinese were well aware that the Party had drifted toward crony capitalism, as corruption swelled within its rank-and-file. The CCP brand reached its nadir when the Bo Xilai crisis—in which the populist and ambitious leader of Chongqing was purged and jailed after his wife murdered a British national—exploded in early 2012, reinforcing the growing cynicism the Chinese public held toward its government.
Source: CCTV.
The crisis shook the CCP just before Xi took the reins of the world’s largest political party. Xi’s urgent task, then, which likely had consensus approval from other senior leaders, was to strengthen a weakened Party through a massive anti-corruption campaign and a reimagined Party narrative to win the hearts and minds of Chinese people....MUCH MORE
These twin efforts were of equal importance to Xi’s goals and were mutually reinforcing in their implementation. From the CCP’s vantage point, faltering public trust was as much an existential threat to its legitimacy as a potential economic collapse. The Party understood that it must stand for something beyond perpetuating its own power and its cadres’ self-enrichment. Indeed, the CCP had to fill its platform with more compelling ideas—or face a credibility crisis of monumental proportions. In this context, Xi’s Chinese Dream set the stage for the elevation of ideological work to a level perhaps not seen since the Mao era.
Propaganda often gets short shrift in mainstream coverage of Chinese politics, possibly because the propaganda apparatus is frustratingly opaque and its effectiveness hard to measure. But the CCP, as a Leninist ruling party that demands political unity among its 89 million members and public compliance with its dictates from nearly 1.4 billion Chinese citizens, invests enormous resources in the promulgation of official ideologies, media management, and public opinion guidance.
Propaganda work is so instrumental to the political system that the Central Propaganda Department (CPD), established in 1924, is almost as old as the CCP itself, which was founded three years earlier in 1921. Since 1992, the propaganda system has been overseen by a PBSC member, who heads the Central Leading Small Group on Propaganda and Thought Work (CLSGPTW). This system is responsible for all Party publicity and for the supervision of all information domains in China and, to the extent possible, abroad. That it was so important for Xi to be the first top leader since Deng Xiaoping to enshrine his name in the Party Constitution—under the aegis of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”—is a testament to the tight control and crucial role of political expression under CCP rule.
In this analysis, we seek to make sense of what we have dubbed “Propaganda in the New Era,” examining what has changed (or not) during Xi’s tenure across several dimensions: bureaucracy, funding, content, and effectiveness. We mainly focus on propaganda work aimed at domestic audiences rather than on efforts to project China’s soft power externally. Combining a range of data and qualitative analysis, we present as best an assessment as we can of how CCP propaganda under Xi (1) has been increasingly controlled by Party rather than state bureaucracies; (2) has received increased funding; (3) has markedly improved content quality; and (4) has shown effectiveness in raising levels of public trust in the Chinese government.
The Organizational Backbone of China’s Hearts and Minds
Some specialists have observed that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” with regard to Xi’s propaganda work compared to that of his predecessors, Hu Jintao (2002-2012) and Jiang Zemin (1989-2002). That is true, to an extent: after all, the propaganda system is still led by the CLSGPTW; the agency that manages propaganda work is still the ministerial-level CPD directly under the CCP Central Committee; and the Party still controls the media and censors political debate. But since the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, Xi has overseen an important shakeup of China’s propaganda apparatus (see Figure 1).
The General Secretary has appointed his political allies to leadership positions in the propaganda bureaucracy, but more significant is Xi’s reassertion of Party control over aspects of propaganda work that had been under state administration for decades. The practical consequences of these reforms have manifested in the various changes to messaging, content, and technology adoption. But it likely also had an effect on tightening the discipline and padding the budgets of Party propaganda organs, which would be necessary to better control messaging and produce high-value documentaries like Amazing China (see below on propaganda content improvements).
Personnel Changes Important but Expected
The swift launch of the Chinese Dream concept signaled that gaining control of the propaganda system was an early priority for Xi. In August 2013, Xi laid out his vision for elevating propaganda work in a speech to the quinquennial National Propaganda and Thought Work Conference, where he said the CCP should “do propaganda work better” and relevant agencies must “maintain a high degree of unanimity with the Party’s Central Committee.” Sources later told the South China Morning Post that Xi’s speech was actually “far stronger” than the summary that appeared in state media. He had apparently urged the Party to be “combative” online and “wage a war to win over public opinion” by forming a “strong internet army to seize the ground of new media.”...
Here's the problem. Climateer Investing, March 11, 2016:
I came up with Macro Polo. For a story about elephant polo!
So I looked at the Macro Polo blog. The earliest post is dated June 26, 2017. Aha!!
And I looked at the think tank's dates of publication for their various papers.
And.....2014. Two years prior to the Climateer post.
Not even simultaneous discovery/invention. And the Macro Polo think tank is part of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago and now I fear I may have unconsciously internalized the play on words and then used it without attribution thinking it was my own.
I will leave wearying reader with the story of one of the greatest polo matches of all time as I hang my head and contemplate the (possible, who knows at this point) shame I have brought upon my ancestors.
Macro Polo: "King's Cup Charity Elephant Polo Tournament kicks off in Bangkok"
And before I hear anyone going off on how the elephants shouldn't be subjected to the degradation....blah, blah, blah, these are working elephants who deserve a break from sometimes heavy physical labor, often in solitude, if there's a problem, that's what should be bitched about, the elephants seem to enjoy hanging with their elephant buddies and anyway, I like pachyderm polo matchups.
2013's contest between the Australian rugby players and the Thai ladyboys being one for the the ages.
From Bangkok's Coconuts:
Pachyderm polo: Elephants rumble in Bangkok's urban jungle
A herd of elephants romped across a Bangkok pitch yesterday for the first match of a four-day polo tournament raising money for the animals, which are heralded as a national symbol but often subject to abuse.Day 1: Citi beats PwC 11-6
Eighteen pachyderms are playing in the annual King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament, held this year on a large field in the heart of the Thai capital.
During the lumbering and unsurprisingly slow-paced matches, a "mahout" handler controls the beasts while a polo player who is also riding on the elephant's back concentrates on scoring.
This year's tournament sees a motley mix of humans competing, including professional polo players, New Zealand rugby stars, Thai celebrities and members of a transgender cabaret troupe.
Some of the competing elephants are taking time out from their day jobs in the tourist industry, while others are domesticated but currently unemployed, according to the event's organizers, the luxury hotel group Anantara.
It says the cup, now in its 14th year, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities that assist Thailand's domesticated elephants, of which there are an estimated 4,000....MORE
Here's a minute from that 2013 match while the Guardian was covering this year's edition (2016):
