Apathy is not Enough: Changing Modes of Student Management in Post-Mao China

Chinese campuses have been remarkably calm since the post-1989 repression. Yet, the absence of contention masks profound changes in the party-state’s campus management tactics, exemplifying the different approaches authoritarian regimes employ to regiment students. Based on fieldwork before and after Xi Jinping’s rise to power (2012), we analyse the party-state’s move from a ‘corporatist’ to a ‘partification’ strategy on campus. Contrary to the literature that sees apathy and depoliticisation as the goal of the party-state’s management of campuses, we argue that these changes reveal the regime’s apprehension about student alienation from official political channels and constitute an effort to reverse it.