But it’s not all fun and games. Some people say they felt pressured to download it, others hope it can help their careers, and local government officials have been heavily promoting it.
“The party will go wherever the people are.”
Xi, who could rule indefinitely after parliament lifted presidential term limits last year, has enjoyed a level of officially stoked adulation unseen since Communist China’s founder Mao.
The party’s propaganda arm has become tech-savvy in its battle for the country’s hearts and minds, delivering its message through rap songs, comics and stickers on popular messaging app WeChat.
Last May, it launched another free app called “Learn about China”, featuring Xi’s first book along with academic papers analysing his views.The new app gives users access to thousands of books, magazines, newspapers, university publications and TV serials and movies.
Users must register with their mobile phone number and name their employer.
An employee at a state media company said she posts her scores on her WeChat social media account because she is in line for a promotion and hopes her bosses will see she has “the right mindset”.
A doctor at a state hospital in Beijing, who only gave her last name Xu, said she had her parents use the app to take quizzes and read articles on her behalf.
“Our scores are valid for two years and I am not sure whether they’ll be useful (for my career) later,” she added.
Li Xin, who works for a state-run oil company, said it promotes a “Xi cult”.
Dozens of provincial and county governments across the country have held workshops to promote the app in recent weeks, local media reports showed.
Beijing’s municipal propaganda department chief Du Feijin told a workshop last week that the app was a “powerful starting point for implementing the spirit of the important instructions of General Secretary Xi”, state-run newspaper Beijing News reported.Even China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, whose founder Jack Ma is a Communist Party member, is making a contribution: job ads on the company’s website shows it has been hiring software developers to work on the app.
While “Study Xi” became the top app in Apple’s China app store last month, it only managed to get an average rating of 2.4 stars out of five. Ratings and reviews for the app were disabled last week.
