On April 11, 2025, the Beijing Party Member Education Network released a remarkable 13-lesson educational series on China’s national digital strategy, Digital China. Aimed at Party cadre and members, the course provides a structured, state-approved primer on the strategy’s origins, missions, concepts, institutions, and implementation mechanisms.

The series covers every major element of Digital China: historical development, key Party terminology, the role of data, national and international objectives, the strategic framework, societal transformation, digital governance, digital security, and the construction of digital infrastructure.

The Beijing Party Member Education Network is hosted by the Organization Department of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee. The videos themselves were produced by Beijing Guoheng Zhilin Cultural Communication Co., Ltd., a firm that specializes in professional training content for Party members at all levels.

Although the 13 lessons were released publicly in April 2025, internal cues suggest that the course was developed sometime after the publication of the Plan for the Global Layout of Digital China Construction (Feb. 2023) and the establishment of the National Data Administration (Mar. 2023), but before the release of DeepSeek-RI (Jan. 2025). As a result, a few areas in the syllabus are now slightly dated (which I flag where relevant), but overall the course remains highly valuable for clarifying how the Party conceptualizes and teaches Digital China.

Was the April 2025 release timed to intensifying U.S.–China competition? It is hard to avoid that conclusion. This is, after all, an internally directed political education campaign: its purpose is to raise awareness, mobilize the bureaucracy, and increase pressure for implementation. Reinforcing this interpretation, the Party simultaneously released another online course, this one aimed at leading cadre, detailing their responsibilities and performance evaluations under Digital China. It follows a Leninist pattern with a long pedigree.

Each of the 13 lessons is roughly 10 minutes long and all are worth reviewing. If you are new to Digital China, I recommend starting with Lesson Thirteen (The Party Leads Digital China), which explains Party leadership over the strategy, and then circling back to Lesson One (Domestic and International Goals).

For each lesson in this series, I provide:

  1. A short introduction,
  2. The Beijing Party Member Education Network’s synopsis,
  3. A lightly edited machine transcription of the Chinese video, and
  4. A lightly edited machine translation of that transcript.

If you are new to Digital China, you may want to begin with my overview of the strategy and a shortlist of key concepts that cadre are expected to master. Both will help you navigate the lessons.

Let’s begin.

Beijing Party Committee Explains Digital China in Thirteen Lessons

Beijing Party Committee | Digital Society

Digital Society seeks the systemic transformation of society through digitalization. Ultimately, “digital tentacles” will extend to every corner of people’s lives.