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`EXHIBIT 2026
`EXHIBIT 2026
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`TikTok, ByteDance,
`and their ties to the
`Chinese Communist Party
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`Submission to the Senate Select Committee
`on Foreign Interference through Social Media
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`14 March 2023
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`Rachel Lee
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`Prudence Luttrell
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`Matthew Johnson
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`John Garnaut
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`Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media
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`Submission 34
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`Contents
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`About this Submission ............................................................................................... 3
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`Executive Summary .................................................................................................. 7
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`1. Why TikTok Matters .............................................................................................. 9
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`2. TikTok and Xi’s External Propaganda Plan ........................................................... 16
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`3. The ByteDance Origin Story ................................................................................ 25
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`4. The Party-State Transforms ByteDance ............................................................... 32
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`5. Tracing Communist Party Control Through ByteDance and TikTok ....................... 37
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`6. ByteDance Serves Party Propaganda .................................................................. 51
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`7. ByteDance in China’s Military-Industrial-Surveillance Complex .............................. 61
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`8. Analysing the App: Content Quality and Access to Sensitive User Data ................ 67
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`9. Taking Stock of the Evidence ............................................................................... 77
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`Appendix 1: Static Analysis Methodology ................................................................. 84
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`Appendix 2: Device Data Accessible to TikTok App .................................................. 85
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`Appendix 3: ‘android.permission’ Strings in TikTok Code .......................................... 86
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`References ............................................................................................................. 88
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`Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media
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`Submission 34
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`About this Submission
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`This submission is addressed to:
`
`Committee Secretary
`Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media
`Department of the Senate
`PO Box 6100
`Canberra ACT 2600
`
`The authors of this report* express thanks to the Australian Senate Select Committee on
`Foreign Interference through Social Media for the opportunity to make this submission.
`
`Our submission is motivated by concerns that TikTok (and potentially other platforms
`subject to authoritarian political leverage) pose risks not only to the data privacy of individual
`users, but to social cohesion, democratic functioning, and the national security interests of
`democratic nations including Australia and its partners and allies.
`
`The analysis in this report is anchored in open-source material, as can be examined in the
`hundreds of endnotes. Many of our references point to Chinese-language sources that
`have been overlooked by the public debate to date. Some of our most important sources
`have been excavated from digital archives after being taken offline by TikTok’s parent
`company, ByteDance, or authorities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
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`Our research confirms beyond any plausible doubt that TikTok is owned by ByteDance,
`ByteDance is a PRC company, and ByteDance is subject to all the influence, guidance and
`de facto control to which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, the Party) now subjects all
`PRC technology companies. We show how the CCP and PRC state agencies (together, the
`Party-state) have extended their ties into ByteDance to the point that the company can no
`longer be accurately described as a private enterprise.
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`These findings draw on previously unexamined sources and contradict many of TikTok’s
`public statements. The most significant findings, in our view, relate to how TikTok’s
`capabilities may be integrated with what China’s leader Xi Jinping describes as the Party’s
`“external discourse mechanisms”.
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`TikTok has recently generated attention among politicians and policymakers for its potential
`use as a data access and surveillance tool, leading to multiple national and state
`governments banning the app’s use on government-issued devices. 1 Mostly missing,
`however, has been discussion of how TikTok provides Beijing with the latent capability to
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`*
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`Rachel Lee is a pseudonym as requested by the author and agreed by the Committee.
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`“weaponise” the platform by suppressing, amplifying and otherwise calibrating narratives
`in ways that micro-target political constituencies abroad.
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`TikTok undoubtably possesses the requisite capabilities, and a close examination of
`Chinese-language sources reveals the Chinese leadership’s intent. Our research shows
`how ByteDance’s 10-year development journey tracks with Xi Jinping’s efforts to
`“meticulously build an external discourse mechanism [and] utilise the role of emerging
`media”, as Xi told a “Study Session” of China’s top leaders in December 2013.2
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`In 2017, ByteDance launched TikTok and acquired the U.S. company Musical.ly. At the
`same time, Beijing launched a six-year regulatory campaign to build Party control systems
`inside ByteDance and accelerated the integration of senior corporate leaders into its “public
`opinion guidance” regime. Over this same period, Beijing has blocked the TikTok app inside
`China while enabling it to flourish outside China – to the point that it is now one of the most
`sophisticated and powerful social media platforms in the world.
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`In May 2021, Xi returned to another Politburo “Study Session” and instructed his colleagues
`to use the “external discourse mechanisms” that they had built in order to “target different
`regions, different countries, and different groups of audiences” with “precise
`communication methods” in order to “make friends, unite and win the majority, and
`constantly expand our circle of friends who know China and are China-friendly.”3
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`Xi did not name TikTok in the official meeting readout, published by Xinhua. Subsequently,
`however, the People’s Daily (Overseas Edition) elaborated on Xi’s message in an article
`(republished by Xinhua) that called for China to “allow short video platforms to become
`‘megaphones’ for telling Chinese stories well and spreading Chinese voices well”.4 The
`article mentioned TikTok specifically as the representative example of short video platforms.
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`In Washington, in the pre-TikTok era, Russian intelligence actors "interfered in the 2016
`presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion", according to the Mueller report.5
`They did this by waging "a social media campaign that favoured presidential candidate
`Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton", while seeking to
`"provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States".6
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`Mueller found no evidence that Russia caused the election of Trump or that Trump had
`colluded with Russia. Nevertheless, Russia’s interference fed perceptions that bitterly
`divided Americans and wounded the faith of many that the election had been free and fair.
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`In Canberra, the spectacle of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election provided
`impetus to an Australian Government investigation into authoritarian interference in the
`Australian political system. According to media reports, the classified inter-agency report
`delivered in 2017 found that “the CCP's operations are aimed at all levels of government
`and designed to gain access and influence over policy making.”7
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`According to the then-Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, this analytical work “galvanised”
`the Australian Government to deliver a comprehensive counter foreign interference
`strategy, with bipartisan support. 8 It also generated conversations in other Five Eyes
`nations, catalysed Australia’s strategic recalibration with respect to China,9 and contributed
`to decisions such as blocking Huawei from 5G networks (2018), elevating the Quadrilateral
`Security Dialogue to leadership level (2021), and forging the three-nation AUKUS
`agreement to jointly develop emerging technologies and deliver nuclear-powered
`submarines to Australia (2021 and 2023).
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`In Ottawa, intelligence agencies reportedly found in 2017 that the CCP was interfering at
`“all levels of government”.10 In contrast with Australia, however, Canada’s political leaders
`did not act, and the problem of CCP interference continued to grow.11
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`Last week, while battling allegations of turning a blind eye,12 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
`announced two probes into foreign interference and a special rapporteur who will have “a
`wide mandate to make expert recommendations on protecting and enhancing Canadians’
`faith in our democracy”.13 Whatever is revealed, the damage already caused to Canadian
`democracy is real.
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`In the absence of policy action, TikTok could be the next challenge to democracies’
`resilience against authoritarian interference. As ever, the challenge is to deal with the
`potential for foreign interference before ‘elite capture’ becomes ‘state capture’.
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`It is possible that TikTok has already become so entrenched in some jurisdictions that
`politicians fear that banning TikTok might amount to political self-sabotage. As U.S.
`Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told Bloomberg earlier this month: “The politician
`in me thinks you’re gonna literally lose every voter under 35, forever.”14
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`If the risks remain unaddressed, the integrity of future elections could be vulnerable to
`allegations from both analysts and opportunists that elections have been “rigged” by a
`condominium of politicians and China’s super-app TikTok. Much of it might be overstated,
`but – in the absence of effective policy action – there will be enough truth to make the
`allegations stick, leaving the credibility of democratic processes in doubt.
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`Our purpose in submitting this report is not to prescribe legislative or administrative actions,
`but to contribute constructively to public conversations and regulatory deliberations by
`identifying relevant empirical source material and filling analytical gaps.
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`In recent years, Australia has been a pioneer among democratic countries in building a
`bipartisan foundation for analysing and building resilience against authoritarian foreign
`interference. We submit this work to the Australian Senate because we believe Australia
`could play a similarly constructive role again.
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`Disclaimer
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`Our report relies on a wide range of online and other publicly available sources on TikTok,
`ByteDance, their relationship to China’s Party-state, and risks they may pose to data
`privacy, national security, and the integrity of democratic systems globally.
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`To our knowledge, many of the most significant Chinese-language sources cited in this
`report have been overlooked in the public debate surrounding these companies. We
`consider our analysis to be sound and factual, and present it in the good faith belief that it
`is, but we are not in a position to independently verify the accuracy of the information
`contained in any public records.
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`Submission 34
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`Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media
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`Submission 34
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`Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media
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`Submission 34
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`1. Why TikTok Matters
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`This section sets out national security risks posed by TikTok to democratic nations,
`and the essential context for understanding those risks.
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`a. TikTok Is a News Platform: TikTok’s claim that it is only an entertainment
`platform is untenable. Last year a third of adult users got their news from it,
`while one in six U.S. teens say they are on the platform “almost constantly”.
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`b. Opacity and Obfuscation: TikTok is one of the world’s most important media
`platforms and yet remarkably little is known about it – thanks in part to parent
`company ByteDance’s efforts to airbrush basic information about the
`company’s founder, corporate structure, partners, and activities.
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`c. Narrative Control: Concerns about Beijing using TikTok for data harvesting
`and surveillance are well-founded. In our view, however, bigger risks involve
`TikTok’s unique potential for shaping global narratives and curating a CCP-
`friendly political landscape.
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`1.1. The Rise of TikTok, the App that “Gazes Back”
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`It is news to no one that TikTok – as an app and a business – has exploded since its
`inception. The scale of the platform’s deep insights into users’ tastes and preferences has
`revolutionised the way societies (and young people in particular) access information. It has
`ushered in what could be described as the latest epochal shift in broadcast media. As
`TikTok proclaimed, “relevance is the new reach”.15
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`With this shift, social media is moving away from reliance on the user to actively decide
`what kind of content they want to see (by curating their own feed), toward personalised
`content recommendations through algorithms that respond to cues such as watch time,
`with only passive participation required of the user.
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`It is these algorithms, and the artificial intelligence that powers them, that led one tech
`blogger in 2020 to write, “When you gaze into TikTok, TikTok gazes into you.”16 Paired with
`the short video format that delivers both instant gratification for the viewer and exponential
`volumes of data about user interests to the app, the algorithm can deliver content
`recommendations with uncanny accuracy. It is no wonder then that other companies have
`sought to learn from and compete with the TikTok model (see Meta’s Instagram Reels and
`Alphabet’s YouTube Shorts).
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`Comprehensive statistics for the Australian user base are hard to come by, but there is
`ample data on TikTok consumers both globally and in the U.S.
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`"The latest [global] data suggest that TikTok has been adding an average of
`more than 650,000 new users every day over the past 3 months, which
`equates to almost 8 new users every second."18
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`TikTok has become the crucial medium for political actors to reach younger demographics,
`especially Gen Z. “There’s no way that we can be a youth organisation trying to reach young
`people and not be on TikTok,” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of U.S. progressive
`political action committee NextGen America.19
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`Politicians, of course, face the same dilemma. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo
`recently told Bloomberg of her own concerns:
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`Passing a law to ban a single company [TikTok] is not the way to deal with this
`issue. The politician in me thinks you’re gonna literally lose every voter under
`35, forever. However much I hate TikTok – and I do, because I see the
`addiction in the bad s*** that it serves kids – you know, this is America.20
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`TikTok has revolutionised the attention economy. And yet TikTok describes itself only as an
`“entertainment platform” on a mission to “inspire creativity and bring joy”.21 According to
`TikTok’s VP and Head of Public Policy for the Americas, Michael Beckerman:
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`We are not the go-to place for politics. . . .The primary thing that people are
`coming and using TikTok for is entertainment and joyful and fun content.22
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`But the claim that TikTok is about entertainment rather than politics is untenable in light of
`the facts. (See figure on previous page.) Increasing volumes of social media users are
`getting their news from the platform and using it as a search engine to navigate key issues.
`The numbers tell a story of an unimaginably successful algorithm, and an app that has
`gained unmatched sway over society and politics seemingly overnight.
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`To understand how this was possible, we must delve into the creation stories of TikTok, its
`China analogue and precursor, Douyin, and their USD 400 billion parent company,
`ByteDance, which is the most valuable startup in the world.23 Understanding ByteDance,
`Douyin and TikTok requires understanding China’s ruling Communist Party and its guiding
`ideology, organisational structures, and legal and extra-legal mechanisms for influencing,
`coercing and controlling China’s nominally privately-owned technology companies.
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`1.2. Opacity and Obfuscation
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`Answering basic questions about how the app works, how it is controlled, and who controls
`it is not straightforward. ByteDance’s company website contains just the bare bones, shorn
`of details about the company’s founder, corporate structure, partners, and sizeable
`investment into AI.
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`Media reporting has emphasised the opacity of TikTok’s algorithm in producing virality, even
`to some of TikTok’s own employees. Chris Stokel-Walker, author of TikTok Boom, said:
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`One person at TikTok in charge of trying to track what goes viral and why told
`me in my book that ‘There’s no recipe for it, there’s no magic formula.’ The
`employee even admitted that ‘It’s a question I don’t think even the algo team
`have the answer to. It’s just so sophisticated.’24
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`Leaked internal advice from TikTok on public relations talking points encapsulates the
`company’s evasive self-presentation. The document instructs TikTok spokespersons to
`“downplay the parent company ByteDance, downplay the China association, downplay
`AI”. 25 The memo directs spokespersons to say, “There’s a lot of misinformation about
`TikTok right now. The reality is that the TikTok app isn’t even available in China.”26
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`This opacity and obfuscation is now compounded by what appears to be a concerted
`campaign to airbrush what little material was available online. Excavating four years of
`archived snapshots of ByteDance’s company website reveals layers of disappearing
`information.27 Pages that once recounted Communist Party activities inside ByteDance
`have been deleted from the website of Beijing Internet Association (an industry association
`charged with guiding the Party-building work of internet companies in Beijing).28
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`1.3. Demystifying the TikTok-Douyin-ByteDance Relationship
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`While TikTok is a household name across much of the world, its China analogue, Douyin,
`is not. Our research points to a functional fusion of TikTok and Douyin under the control of
`a single corporate entity – ByteDance, a conglomerate registered in the Cayman Islands
`but headquartered in Beijing until November 2020.
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`Douyin's tagline exhorts users to “record a good life”. Its earlier establishment in China
`offers a roadmap for TikTok’s global development (see Section 3). In Sections 4 and 5, we
`set out how TikTok and Douyin share personnel and technological resources and have
`parallel management structures, all of which link back to ByteDance. TikTok admits in its
`latest Privacy Policy for Australia: “We also share [user] information with […] other
`companies in the same [corporate] group as TikTok.” 29
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`In Sections 5 and 6, we show how the CCP exerts control over ByteDance (and TikTok)
`through a ‘golden share’ arrangement, export restrictions and cybersecurity review
`mechanisms. These sections outline key collaborations between ByteDance and Party-
`state propaganda and security organs, and the presence of Party members in key executive
`positions at ByteDance. We examine sources that show ByteDance striving to serve Party
`interests through censorship, public opinion-shaping and surveillance.
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`1.4. The Propaganda-Security Nexus
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`It is well-known that the Party’s security apparatus absorbs and repurposes technology and
`data for surveillance, social control and repression. The logic of Beijing’s interlocking data
`security laws applied to ubiquitous surveillance means that all customer data held by China-
`controlled companies will be accessible to the Party’s security services.
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`Clearly the potential for Beijing to exploit TikTok for global surveillance is vast. In our view,
`however, the most significant risk posed by TikTok is its unprecedented potential for
`censoring and proactively shaping public opinion overseas – in the United States, Australia,
`and other countries around the world.
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`1.5. How the Chinese Communist Party Could Wield TikTok
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`Intelligence agencies in jurisdictions including the U.S., 30 U.K., 31 Australia, 32 European
`Union,33 Canada,34 New Zealand,35 the Netherlands,36 Estonia,37 and the Czech Republic38
`have signaled clear concerns regarding China’s data cultivation, influence, and political
`interference activities. The U.S. National Intelligence Council, a formal panel of intelligence
`officers and independent scholars, assesses that:
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`to exploit Chinese companies' expansion of
`Beijing will be able
`telecommunications infrastructures and digital services, these enterprises'
`growing presence in the daily lives of populations worldwide, and Beijing's
`rising and global economic and political influence. Beijing has demonstrated
`its willingness to enlist the aid of Chinese commercial enterprises to help
`surveil and censor regime enemies abroad.39
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`In Section 2, we set out evidence of Beijing’s capabilities and intent relating to influence,
`interference and intelligence activities. This includes not only data harvesting and
`surveillance activities, but also the deployment of targeted propaganda designed to shape
`global discourses and influence overseas policymaking on issues related to China, with
`short video platforms identified as a key arena for exploitation.
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`In Sections 6 and 7, we show how the Party’s global propaganda and surveillance activities
`inform our risk assessment of TikTok.
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`2. TikTok and Xi’s External Propaganda Plan
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`This section details the deep drivers of the Party’s efforts to control the media
`environment and the online “propaganda and ideology battlefield”.
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`a. Propaganda Goes Digital: Xi Jinping has intensified the Party’s long-running
`efforts to adapt the Party’s propaganda and ideological systems to the digital
`age, deploying media companies as instruments of an “external discourse
`mechanism” to shape global information and ideas.
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`b. Military-Surveillance Complex: China’s intelligence agencies are bringing data
`storage and processing capabilities under their control. The People’s
`Liberation Army (PLA) – the armed wing of the Communist Party – studies the
`use of AI/ML to manage public opinion on social networks.
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`c. Political Interference: TikTok – an app that now pervades the waking lives of
`many Australian and American teenagers – has latent potential to sway
`elections, corrode people’s faith in democracy, and undermine the will of open
`societies to compete against China’s authoritarian model globally.
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`Party writings and speeches by Xi Jinping stress the importance of “cultural security” for
`China’s national unity and the survival of its socialist political system – which it defines as a
`single-party dictatorship.49 Cultural security is an element of political security – Xi calls it a
`“guarantee” – and refers to ideological power (including propaganda, media, opinion,
`education, and law) and control over information networks.50
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`The Party assumes that all external flows of information, thought, and values represent
`potential risk to China's socialist system, and that conflict with Western democracy requires
`submitting more of the world's data systems to Party norms of “internet governance” and
`“data security”. Propaganda, ideological-political “thought work”, and “international public
`opinion struggle” are the civilian tools of waging this conflict in peacetime.
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`Moreover, China’s military and security apparatuses seek global advantage in key
`technologies to support the Party’s ability to confront the West and wage ‘grey zone warfare’
`(or ‘political warfare’), including through information manipulation. The technologies given
`emphasis include those that enable mass surveillance and information operations.
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`We have observed the Party using social media tools to wage this “peacetime conflict”.
`Based on our evaluation of the Party-state’s access to and control over ByteDance and
`TikTok, we assess as high the risk that the Party will seek to leverage the company’s
`innovative algorithms and access to key data to develop its own big data harvesting and
`analysis capabilities for targeted propaganda and political interference.
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`2.1. Leveraging New Media to Target Global Audiences
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`The Party has paid close attention to new media’s influence on public opinion since the
`internet first started gaining traction in China in the mid-to-late 1990s. By September 2004,
`during the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of
`China, the Party passed its Decision on ‘Enhancing the Party’s Governance Capability’,
`which formally designated the internet as a domain for Party control and influence:
`
`Attach great importance to the influence of new types of media channels, such
`as the internet, on public opinion. . . .Strengthen the construction of internet
`propaganda teams and form a strong online positive public opinion.51
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`During his decade in power, Xi has intensified the Party’s long-running efforts to refine its
`propaganda and ideological systems and adapt them to the digital age.52 He has frequently
`instructed the Party to utilise “new media” – a term that encompasses short video platforms
`– to “strengthen the promotion of the Chinese Communist Party” and “strive to create an
`image of China that is credible, lovable and respectable”.53
`
`In November 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the
`Communist Party of China introduced its Decision on ‘Some Major Issues Concerning
`Comprehensively Deepening Reform’.54 It stipulated:
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`We will straighten out the mechanism for both domestic and overseas
`propaganda, and support key media groups to develop both at home and
`abroad. We will foster external-facing cultural enterprises and support cultural
`enterprises to go abroad and expand markets there.55
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`In order to effectively carry out this international propaganda effort, Xi has called for the
`creation of “flagship” propaganda outlets for transmitting Party messages and enhancing
`“international discourse power”.56
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`In December 2013, at a Politburo Collective Study Session, Xi told cadres:
`
`We should meticulously build an external discourse mechanism, utilise the role
`of emerging media, enhance the creativity, appeal, and credibility of our
`external discourse, tell the China story well, spread Chinese voices, and
`explain Chinese characteristics effectively.57
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`Then, in 2016, at a Symposium on the Party's News and Public Opinion Work, Xi reiterated:
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`We should strengthen the development of international communication
`capacity, enhance our international discourse power, focus on telling the
`China story well, and … strive to build flagship external propaganda media
`outlets with strong international influence.58
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`In December 2020, Xi convened a Politburo Collective Study Session to deliberate on plans
`to strengthen and enlarge China’s national security system.59 Yuan Peng, head of the China
`Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a Ministry of State Security think
`tank, also attended the session.60 While the content of Yuan’s lecture was not revealed, in
`a subsequent publication he argued that the Party should leverage a ‘post-truth’ information
`environment in its struggle for ideological security:
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`What is truth and what is a lie is already unimportant, what is important is who
`controls discourse power, this is nothing other than the twisted nature of the
`‘post-truth era’. In the face of this strange phenomenon without precedent in
`the past century, it is only by maintaining resolve, ‘not fearing the floating
`clouds’, and refusing impulsivity, that we will ultimately be able to emerge
`victorious from amidst this strategic game.61
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`(In February 2023, Hong Kong newspaper Ming Bao reported on Yuan Peng’s emergence
`as vice minister of the Ministry of State Security, under what is apparently his real name,
`Yuan Yikun.62)
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`In May 2021, at another Politburo Study Session, Xi referred specifically to his ambitions for
`promoting pro-China policymaking abroad through the deployment of targeted propaganda
`for overseas audiences:
`
`We should build an external discourse mechanism and improve the art of
`communication. We should adopt precise communication methods that target
`different regions, different countries, and different groups of audiences,
`promote the globalised, regionalised, and differentiated expression of Chinese
`stories and Chinese voices, and enhance the affinity and effectiveness of
`international communication. We should [strive to] make friends, unite and win
`the majority, and constantly expand our circle of friends who know China and
`are China-friendly.63
`
`Xi’s language of making friends, winning the majority and expanding China’s circle of friends
`is rooted in the Party’s history of “united front” work.64
`
`In August 2021, the People’s Daily published an article that elaborated on Xi’s comments
`and identified short video platforms as a key arena for deploying propaganda to enhance
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`18
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`Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media
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`Submission 34
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`China’s “international discourse power” overseas.65 An excerpt from the article, which was
`republished by Xinhua, reads:
`
`As one of the windows of China’s foreign exchanges, short video platforms
`also have a large audience abroad. Various short video apps represented by
`TikTok have emerged one after another, and many cultural short videos with
`rich content and well-made are loved by foreign internet users. … In promoting
`the transformation and upgrading of China's international communication and
`building a strategic communication system with distinctive Chinese
`characteristics, we should make good use of short video platforms that are
`open, inclusive, interactive and their advanced technological advantages,
`innovate communication methods, empower cultural communication, and
`allow short video platforms to become "megaphones" for "telling the China
`story well and spreading Chinese voices well."66
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`2.1.2. Propaganda and Power in Party Ideology
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`The sophistication, magnitude and force of Xi’s efforts to dominate the “propaganda and
`ideology battlefield” are rooted in a classical tradition of Chinese statecraft in which wu
`(weapons, violence) and wen (words, culture) go hand-in-hand. This classical Chinese
`emphasis on discursive power has been strengthened, institutionalised and re-purposed by
`Marxism-Leninism, an ideology that posits “systematic, all-around propaganda and
`agitation” as the “chief and permanent task”.67
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`The Party’s obsession with controlling communication platforms stems from a belief that
`what people talk about and how they choose their words shape the way they think and
`ultimately act. Authors are seen as “weapons”68 and words described as “bullets”69 that
`can shape perceptions, define choices, subvert governments and sharpen battle lines
`between enemies and friends.70
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`Once Xi completed his leadership accession in 2013, he directed his General Office to
`issue a communique on “The Current State of the Ideological Sphere”. This April 2013
`directive, known as Document No. 9, directs cadres to prioritise an “intense struggle”
`against seven key vectors of ideological threat.71 The first five vectors of