The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is steadily making inroads with Africa’s ruling parties by convening seminars like the one held earlier this month with the Republic of Congo’s incumbent Party of Labor. In this virtual session, or a “training class” according to the CCP, some 50 mid-to-senior level Congolese party officials received briefings from their Chinese counterparts on how the “ruling party can play a leadership role” and various other topics related to mitigating the spread of COVID-19 as well as economic and social development.

But CCP officials aren’t using these forums just to promote standard CCP ideology, they’re also weaving “Xi Jinping Thought” into the discourse. Song Tao, minister of the international liaison department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, spoke at length about the latest edition of “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China,” a series compiling Xi’s speeches and writing.