Document Number Nine

Document Number Nine (or Document No. 9), more properly the Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere (also translated as the Briefing on the Current Situation in the Ideological Realm) is a confidential internal document widely circulated within the Communist Party of China in 2013 by the General Office of the Communist Party of China. The document was first published in July 2012. The document warns of seven dangerous Western values, allegedly including media freedom and judicial independence. With respect to education coverage of the topics is forbidden. There is an emphasis on controlling and preventing communication using the internet of ideas subversive to one party rule. The document was issued in the context of planned economic reforms and increased calls for political reform. It has been described as a critique of the "liberal ways of thinking".

The document was not made available to public by the Chinese government, but in July 2013 was allegedly leaked by Chinese dissident journalist Gao Yu, who was in turn sentenced to a seven-year imprisonment for "leaking state secrets."

The document has been described as a communiqué or circular The name of the document (Document Number Nine), as it came to be commonly referred in Western English-language press, comes from the fact that it was the ninth such document issued that year in China.

The document is highly critical of what can be broadly described as "Western values" (the document itself uses terms such as "Western values", "Western principles", "Western standards", "Western ideas", and more precisely, "Western constitutional democracy" and "Western-style theories of governance," as well as making references to "Western anti-China forces"). The document is critical of "extremely malicious" ideals spreading in the Chinese society, such as ideas of (Western) constitutional democracy, civil society, universal values (freedom, democracy, and human rights), neo-liberalism, and freedom of the press (described as the "Western news values"). The document warns that such subjects undermine the Chinese Communist Party's control over the Chinese society.

...
Wikipedia