Early in the morning, retirees practice tai chi under the willows lining a huge lake with an arched bridge decorated with 544 stone lions. The path leads to the Summer Palace, the former recreational residence of the Qing dynasty emperors and one of Beijing's most emblematic monuments. Nearby, students crowd the halls of Peking University and Tsinghua, the country's two most prestigious academic institutions.
Without leaving the same neighborhood, thousands of engineers with hoodies and laptops enter the headquarters of tech giants ByteDance and Lenovo. Also nearby, hidden behind high walls, discreet access controls, and almost absolute secrecy, stands the campus where those who will one day lead the world's second power are trained: the Central Party School of the Communist Party.
There are few places in China where so much potential power is concentrated in just a few square kilometers. We are in Haidian, a district northeast of Beijing where the main center for indoctrination and political training coexists with universities that feed the Chinese technocracy, dozens of state research institutes, and one of the country's largest technological innovation ecosystems. It is a laboratory where ideology, science, and AI intersect. A neighborhood where the elite that will govern China in the coming decades is shaped.
Since the late 1980s, the CCP has turned Haidian into a gigantic talent production chain. First, it selects the best students through the fierce gaokao, the national university entrance exam. Many end up at Peking University and Tsinghua, which serve as nurseries for engineers, economists, scientists, and future senior officials. The most promising ones end up crossing the gates of the Central Party School.
Founded in 1933, during the years of the communist revolutionary base, this institution was born as a Marxist center and moved to the capital after Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic in 1949. Today, it is the apex of a network of more than 2,700 centers spread throughout the country.
It is not just an academy dedicated to repeating Marxist slogans in a loop. Ideology still holds a central place, but the program also includes lessons in economics, public finance, international relations, technological innovation, AI, and crisis management. The goal, according to academics, is to train administrators capable of managing a country with over 1.4 billion inhabitants.
The doctrine taught at the Central Party School today, some analysts point out, responds to a very specific concern of the Chinese leadership: how to ensure that the CCP continues to govern without internal or external fissures. Under the current government, the campus has become the main vehicle for disseminating President Xi Jinping's ideology, especially the so-called "Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building," officially presented as the roadmap to strengthen internal discipline and shield the regime against corruption.
"The ability to govern is the Party's main competitiveness," has been summarized on several occasions by Zhu Lijia, a professor at the school, reflecting a vision shared by the Chinese political elite: the CCP must train leaders capable of managing a superpower, but also of ensuring its own survival.
In the same vein, Jiang Shigong, one of the most influential intellectuals in Xi's circle and a professor at Peking University, argues that the priority of this new stage is to build a strong state under unified Party leadership. "Political stability is the indispensable condition for maintaining China's economic development and international projection," he asserts.
The political importance of the institution was underscored just before summer with the appointment of Cai Qi as the school's president. The fifth-highest-ranking leader within the communist hierarchy, a member of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee, and considered Xi Jinping's chief of staff, now oversees the training of future generations of leaders.
The decision further strengthens his position as one of President Xi's closest collaborators and concentrates under his influence organizational, administrative, and ideological functions uncommon in a single figure. It is not a minor detail: before him, both former President Hu Jintao and Xi himself held this same position before reaching the pinnacle of power.
But Haidian does not only produce politicians. Just minutes from the school is Zhongguancun, the neighborhood where several tech giants were born. Here, university laboratories collaborate with private companies, state funds, and government agencies in areas ranging from semiconductors to quantum computing. For Beijing, innovation and national security are part of the same equation.
The physical proximity encapsulates well the strategic vision of the Chinese leadership. The engineers designing artificial intelligence algorithms, the researchers developing new technologies, the professors training the scientific elite, and the political cadres tasked with governing the country share cafeterias, metro stations, and tree-lined avenues. All are part of the same ecosystem designed to fuel the national project driven by Xi Jinping.