2016-03-03
China’s tightly controlled state media has widely hailed a song of praise to President Xi Jinping that for many recalls the glowing revolutionary anthems for the Chairman under the rule of late supreme leader Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
The upbeat song, similar to the style of Mao-era ditties like “Chairman Mao Is The Reddest Sun Burning In Our Hearts,” is titled “How Should I Address You?”
Based around a visit by the president, who is also the general secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, to an ethnic minority Miao village, the lyrics say: “How should I address you, who have come thousands of miles to my home?”
The verses are followed by a rousing chorus of the lines, “We are in your heart, and you are in ours. The ordinary people love you very deeply. We. Love. You.”
The song isn’t the first pop anthem to laud China’s president, who has cultivated an image of a fatherly man of the people, making heavily publicized visits to popular eateries for steamed buns, and at times even crying in public.
Last year, “Daddy Xi Loves Mama Peng,” a paean to China’s first couple went viral on the Chinese Internet, to be followed by another song of praise, titled “If I’m To Marry, I Want It To Be to a Man Like Xi Dada.”
References to Chinese leaders are generally closely monitored and carefully censored on the country’s Internet, and while the songs weren’t obviously commissioned by the propaganda ministry, they dovetail neatly with attempts by Xi’s administration to consolidate power in the president’s hands and focus public attention on his image as a strong and lovable leader.
Hunan provincial propaganda department chief Zhang Wenxiong told local media: “A lot of comrades who took part in the recording of this song told me that they cried when they heard it.”
“They really took it to heart, and they felt that it really was the voice of the people,” he said.
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The video of the new pop song praises President Xi Jingping. Credit: RFA screen shotWidely picked up
Since being aired by Hunan TV on the eve of Chinese New Year, “How Should I Address You?” has been widely picked up by other official media outlets and lauded for its beauty and ability to move listeners.
“After [this song] was broadcast on Hunan TV, it went viral on the Internet and in chat groups and social media, bringing endless warmth to the start of the Year of Monkey,” enthused an article on the People’s Daily website.
“With a rhythm that mimics the drums of the Miao people, the song sounds like one of their folk songs, catchy, and with a pretty tune that you just want to keep singing,” it said.
But Fujian-based netizen Zhuang Lei said he cringed when he heard the song.
“This sort of political propaganda is about as far from the ordinary Chinese people as it is possible to get,” Zhuang said. “They just want to lead a normal life.”
“We don’t care who’s in power at the top; we would just like to be able to express our innermost thoughts,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, the new red songs have swiftly been targeted by China’s army of online satirists, with some posting edits of North Korean massed choirs and footage of Kim Jong Un making carefully staged visits to “ordinary people” to YouTube.
And many of the comments left by netizens suggest that many are at least nauseated and at worst terrified by their implications.
“Dying of nausea,” wrote one commenter in Chinese on a YouTube edition of the song.
“I nearly vomited,” wrote another.
Comments on the YouTube version of “If I Am To Marry,” which isn’t visible from the Chinese Internet without circumvention tools to get around the Great Firewall, were in a similar vein.
“I really can’t listen to any more of this; so nauseating!” wrote one commenter.
Another added “Heil Xitler!” in an apparent reference to an online meme that used a manipulated image to merge Xi Jinping’s name and face with those of Adolf Hitler.
“If I am to marry, I will marry someone like Xi Dada, a man filled with a heroic and unyielding spirit,” the song chirps, accompanied on YouTube by pictures of Xi reviewing columns of tanks and military hardware from a presidential limousine on Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue.
“He keeps going and won’t give up, in spite of changes in the world and difficulties ahead,” run the song lyrics.
An unhealthy development
Henan-based netizen Hou Shuai said such songs of praise aren’t a healthy development for Chinese culture.
“I don’t see this as positive energy,” he said, in a reference to a popular government catchphrase.
“Actually, it’s something quite perverse, and it’s pretty nauseating,” Hou told RFA in a recent interview.
According to Shandong-based political commentator Zhang Enguang, the songs are part of a growing cult of loyalty that is forming around Xi, the first Chinese leader to be described in official propaganda as the “core” of the party since former president Jiang Zemin.
“Xi Jinping likes to concentrate as much power in his own hands as possible, so he requires all of the factions he controls to support and praise him,” he said.
“We all know that songs praising Mao Zedong were ubiquitous during that era … and there are similarities with today’s China,” he said.
Zhang said that while the songs may not have been the brainchild of party propaganda officials, they are certainly welcomed and encouraged by them.
“As soon as all power gets concentrated in the hands of a single person with no other power that can check or balance them, then you start to see songs of praise coming up from the ranks,” Zhang said.
Germany-based democracy activist Fei Liangyong said the songs are part of a growing personality cult around the president.
“Even in the universities and research institutes, they are expected to support Xi Jinping fully,” Fei said. “But I don’t think it’s conducive to China’s development for one person to take the country down the road to dictatorship.”
“Once he has absolute power, then nobody will dare to oppose him at all,” he said.
