China is using textbooks built around 
Xi Jinping Thought in primary and secondary schools, and Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Tuesday called for comprehensive Communist Party leadership over teaching materials. Speaking at a national conference on textbook work in Beijing, Ding said the Party must "firmly grasp the correct political direction and value orientation," CNA reported, citing state news agency Xinhua. The Liberty Times, under a headline calling the drive brainwashing that puts down roots from primary school, reported that dedicated readers, course materials and subjects such as history and Chinese are used to strengthen students' identification with Party leadership and the socialist system.
What did Ding call for? He said education has "political, people-oriented and strategic" attributes and urged faster construction of a "high-quality textbook system with Chinese characteristics," CNA reported. He also called for persistently using Xi's thought to "forge souls and cultivate people," for an original textbook system in philosophy and the social sciences, for stricter management of textbook compilation, review and publication, and for standardised selection and use.
What is already in classrooms? Unified national textbooks for morality and law, Chinese and history now cover every school stage, with revisions begun in 2022 and replacement completed this autumn semester, the Party's People's Daily reported in a long front-page article on Monday that CNA cited. Student readers on Xi Jinping Thought have been used in schools nationwide since autumn 2021, and the article presented them as helping pupils "gradually form" identification with Party leadership and the socialist system. The article quoted Xi as saying textbook work must be approached from the height of "safeguarding national ideological security." A history lesson on victory in the war against Japan gained a section titled "The Chinese Communist Party was the mainstay of the War of Resistance Against Japan," and Zhang Haipeng, head of the history textbook editorial board, was quoted as saying textbooks should guide young people toward "a correct view of history."
What about universities? Since the spring 2025 semester, a textbook on the political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics has been trialled at more than 40 universities, the People's Daily reported, covering policies Xi put forward such as "new quality productive forces" and "supply-side structural reform." An official with the Education Ministry's textbook bureau said the overall layout for original philosophy and social science textbooks was completed in 2025, covering all 29 first-level disciplines, with an "independent Chinese textbook system" due by 2030.
Figures referenced: Xi Jinping. — JudgeMarket.
