China to Target Returning Students With Correct Party Line

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has announced plans to target the country's tech-savvy young people, many of whom may have picked up unauthorized ideas during periods of study abroad, for ideological "guidance."

The party's ideological arm, the United Front Work Department, said it will set up a new task force aimed at ensuring that this "new social class" sticks to the party line.

The bureau will seek to understand and consult with returning overseas students, management in private companies, non-government (NGO) and charity sector workers, freelancers, and those who work in online media, it said.

The department was set up on June 4 -- the politically significant anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre -- in response to a speech made by President Xi Jinping last May, who called on party officials to unite all "forces and positive factors" as extensively as possible.

Xi specifically mentioned returning overseas students, the United Front said via its official account on the smartphone messaging app WeChat.

Overseas students are the most likely among the younger generation to be well informed about the use of People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops wielding tanks and machine guns to end weeks of peaceful, student-led pro-democracy protests on Tiananmen Square in the spring and early summer of 1989.