This term, which remains a crucial phrase in the CCP’s vocabulary on press and information control in China today – in an era of rapidly developing digital communications – first appeared in official Party criticisms of former Party secretary Zhao Ziyang (赵紫阳) following the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing on June 4, 1989. The essential idea behind the term is that media control is essential to preserving regime stability, based on the leadership’s unde...
