The article argues that the PEL exemplifies the CCP’s strategy of legitimizing authoritarian governance through law while tightening ideological control over youth, religious institutions, families, and the Chinese diaspora. It analyzes the legal provisions of the PEL, its discursive underpinnings, and its broader ideological context. The article also considers how patriotic education is experienced and mediated through education, culture, and media, and explores the tension between top-down ideological control and grassroots nationalist expression. Finally, it reflects on the global trend toward state-led patriotic education and comparatively explores China’s approach with developments in Russia and the United States. The article concludes that China’s patriotic education efforts, legally sanctioned and expansively applied, serve not only to bolster regime legitimacy but also to shape national identity in ways that risk marginalizing diversity and suppressing critical discourse, with broader implications for international engagement and the global contest over values and historical narratives.
Open-access article on patriotic education in China
In this article in Communist and Post-Communist Studies, co-written by Marina Svensson and Martin Lavicka, the background to and implications of China’s 2024 Patriotic Education Law (PEL) is examined.