Chinese President Xi Jinping advised Communist Youth League (CYL) to help the youth cultivate their trust in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Marxism “from the bottom of their heart”.
Addressing a grand gathering in Beijing to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Youth League (CYL) of China, Xi Jinping on Tuesday asked the organisation to always lead the “ideological progress of young people.”
The members of the Communist Youth League (CYL) are Chinese youth over the age of 14 and under the age of 28, generally, school and college-going students as well as early-stage working youth, Xinhua reported
Xi said the CYL is a school for young people to understand “socialism with Chinese characteristics and communism in practice,” the report said.
Xi further said that the league should help the youth aim high at an early age and cultivate the trust in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the confidence in socialism with Chinese characteristics and the belief in Marxism “from the bottom of their heart”.
On May 2, Communist Youth League released statistics that as of December 31, 2021, there were 73.715 million members of the CYL nationwide.
Among them, there are 43.81 million student members, 5.6 million corporate members, 13.2 million township members, 4.6 million members from government agencies and institutions, 4.5 million urban street members, and 1.8 million members of social organizations and other fields.
It is widely believed that “Little Pink” — a term used to describe young jingoistic Chinese nationalists on the internet who help in building a pro-CPC narrative — are members of the CYL.
Little Pink are different from the 50 Cent Army (also known as Wumao) as the former are not paid for their online activities whereas the latter is paid to comment and counter-narratives that are detrimental to the CPC.