This propaganda video about China's next five-year plan is nuts (and kind of catchy)
China’s governing Communist Party is wrapping up its annual leaders’ meeting today, which this year involves coming up with the nation’s next five-year plan, or the “shisanwu,” which includes economic and social policies.
Never heard of the shisanwu before? China’s official state news agency, Xinhua, is here to help. They tweeted a link to this video, which features, among other things, an image of what looks like Chinese President Xi Jinping dressed up as David Bowie:
The studio credited with the video is not overtly connected to the Chinese government, Quartz writes, but is pretty obviously pushing the party line in all their work:
Fuxing Road Studio, the production company behind the video, is evasive. It has never introduced itself as a state- or Party-backed production company, or provided credits for its filmmaking crew, but its message in unambiguously pro-Party.
Some Weibo users in China are loving the video, which is being seen as a viral hit for overseas audiences:
“China’s international image has again blown the world away with its adorableness,” wrote one Weibo user:
Another user gushed about the song and said it’s a “big hit overseas”:
“Why did I listen to this song before bed?” asked another user (we can sympathize, it’s really very catchy), adding that the foreign media is also calling the song a hit:
If you want to know what China’s gonna do/Best pay attention to the shisanwu/The shisanwu/The shisan what/The shisanwu.
Isabelle Niu is a digital video producer at Fusion.
Nidhi Prakash is a journalist in NYC via Sydney, London, Santiago, Auckland, Mumbai. She reports on international news, healthcare, labor news, and more for Fusion.