http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032202042.html?nav=rss_world

On bus-stop billboards, newspaper front pages and television news broadcasts, in school classrooms, factory study groups and student counseling sessions, at forums and meetings all across China, the Communist Party propaganda apparatus has been spreading the word from President Hu Jintao: Do good and avoid evil.

Hu's fatherly advice, in the form of eight do's and don'ts, was issued two weeks ago as an antidote to the corruption and cynicism spreading across China, a result of the often raw capitalism that has emerged during 25 years of dramatic economic change. Although his aphorisms may sound simplistic to Western ears -- "Work hard, don't be lazy" and "Be honest, not profit-mongering" -- Chinese analysts said they are a response to a deep-seated desire among people here for a moral compass to guide them through the unsettling transformation. 

"There is a feeling that things have been going wrong," said Kang Xiaoguang, a social sciences researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science. "So when I hear him say that, I say, 'Good. It should have been said a long time ago.' "

Many Chinese would agree. The Communist Party's traditional values of egalitarianism and service to the poor have largely faded away, they complain, in favor of a get-rich ideology that blurs the distinction between officials and entrepreneurs. The strait-laced morals of Mao Zedong's time, they note, have relaxed to the point that bribes are part of doing business and prostitution is practiced openly. In addition, the party's reputation for corrupt land seizures has contributed heavily to often violent peasant unrest, making the need to re-burnish the government's legitimacy more urgent.

Since taking over as party leader and president three years ago, Hu has been reaching for the right formula. Under his orders, the party has been engaged in an 18-month retraining program to fire up its 70 million members. Hu has declared that the country must pursue "scientific development," taking environmental and social concerns into account as the economy grows. And he repeatedly has urged China's 1.3 billion people to create a "harmonious society," in which competing interest groups, such as farmers and businessmen, settle differences without conflict.

"It is a step-by-step program," Kang said. "I think he has a blueprint in his heart."

Some party analysts have suggested Hu's preaching is not enough, that the country should slow the pace of economic reforms and reemphasize the benefits that came with socialism, such as health care and guaranteed employment. Hu and his premier, Wen Jiabao, have resisted the calls, which some analysts say have more to do with jockeying for position than genuine policy disagreements. But the two leaders have clearly indicated they believe headlong economic growth should be tempered by greater concern for the people left behind, particularly farmers.

Having risen through the ranks in the Communist Youth League, with its Boy Scout-like code, Hu, 63, seems to have turned naturally toward a campaign appealing for cleaner living as part of the answer to corruption and cynicism. In a speech last year to cadres training at the Central Party School, he suggested that the solution lies in renewing traditional Marxist thought, revisiting the best of Mao Zedong's policies and reviving ancient Chinese culture, including Confucianism. Of the three, Kang said, Hu looks to Chinese culture as the most likely to provide moral values.

So when he sat down with a group of delegates to the National People's Congress on March 4, Hu harked back to a long Chinese tradition that stipulates leaders are supposed to urge moral conduct on their followers. "Love the motherland, do not harm it," he said. "Be disciplined and law-abiding, not chaotic and lawless."

In all, he recited eight such rules, which he called "the eight glories and the eight shames." The official New China News Agency called them "a perfect amalgamation of traditional Chinese values and modern virtues." The People's Political Consultative Conference, the other house in China's bicameral legislature, passed a resolution saying, "Let it be a paragon and common practice of the times."

The official People's Daily newspaper quickly filled with statements from Communist Party cadres describing Hu's ideas as marvelous and saying they were starting programs to teach the eight do's and don'ts through schools, workplace meetings and popular performances.

"The characteristics of the economic and social development of our country in this period made it necessary to set out the socialist view on glories and shames," the People's Daily said in a front-page editorial Saturday. "The dramatic changes in society, rapid economic development and culture clashes have had an effect on people's ideology, living style and value system. The facts prove that without a healthy social conduct and good moral standards the overall national strength will not grow and the people will not be able to stand among other peoples of the world proudly no matter how developed the economy is."

The official China Central Television, playing its part, broadcast daily reports on Hu's meaning and how enthusiastically his ideas were being welcomed across the country. Outdoor advertising also made them available for viewing across the capital; a poster version was printed as well, distributed gratis for those who wanted to see the do's and don'ts on their walls.

Students at Beijing's Fang Cao Di Elementary School were visited by senior officials -- the children called them "Hu Jintao leaders" -- who had them memorize all eight aphorisms. Ren Tanyong, head of the Propaganda Department in Changsha, the Hunan provincial capital, announced that he was setting up a special program so the city's youth would get the message. Several professors and school administrators were quoted as saying Hu's eight lessons were just the thing for China's spoiled young generation.

But Huang Weiting, deputy editor of the party's Seeking Truth magazine, said party officials should be looking at themselves as well. "It's a cadre problem," he said in an interview.

"Eight glories and eight shames are not only a requirement for youth, but also for every citizen," he wrote this week in the party's Discipline Inspection newspaper. "Especially party members and cadres should take the lead."

Despite the noise generated by party propaganda organs, some Chinese questioned whether Hu's preaching would ever reach officials in the small towns and villages where disenchantment with the party is strongest. "It won't even get to provincial capitals," said Kang, the social scientist.

Even in Beijing, a group of recent graduates from prestigious Peking University, all of whom work in government-connected jobs, said they had not heard of the eight aphorisms after more than a week of the campaign. And in Inner Mongolia's distant Tongliao City, Bai Lianhua, a 46-year-old homemaker, said in a telephone conversation that she had no idea what they were.

"I guess it's the same kind of thing as the harmonious society, right?" she said.