"The challenge for us is that Xi’s project of total ideological control does not stop at China’s borders. It is packaged to travel with Chinese students, tourists, migrants and especially money." analysis and advice by @jgarnaut via @niubi

I want to make these broad points about the historical foundations of CCP ideology, beyond the fact that it is important:

Communism did not enjoy an immaculate conception in China. Rather, it was grafted onto an existing ideological system - the classical Chinese dynastic system. 

China had an unusual veneration for the written word and acceptance of its didactic value.

Marxism-Leninism was interpreted to Mao and his fellow revolutionaries by a crucial intermediary: Joseph Stalin. 

Communism - as interpreted by Lenin, Stalin and Mao - is a total ideology. At the risk of being politically insensitive, it is totalitarian. 

Xi Jinping has reinvigorated ideology to an extent we have not seen since the Cultural Revolution.