It was an astonishing admission from one of the Communist party’s key mouthpieces: with China’s economic star fading, its leaders now urgently needed to strengthen their hold on the media in order to maintain control.

“It is necessary for the media to restore people’s trust in the Party,” an editorial in the China Daily argued this week in the wake of a high-profile presidential tour of the country’s top news outlets in which Xi Jinping demanded “absolute loyalty” from their journalists.

“The nation’s media outlets are essential to political stability.”

China’s government-run media has long been a propaganda tool of the Party with Chairman Mao once famously declaring: “Revolution relies on pens and guns.”

But as Xi Jinping enters his third year as president experts say he is seeking to cement that grip even further, doubling down on the Party’s control of organisations such as state broadcaster CCTV, official news agency Xinhua, and Beijing’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily.

“They must love the party, protect the party, and closely align themselves with the party leadership in thought, politics and action,” Xi told newsroom staff during a highly choreographed tour of the three outlets last Friday after which he set out his blueprint for the media.

In case Xi’s message had been missed, an editorial in the People’s Daily informed news reporters their key role was not as speakers of truth to power but “disseminators of the Party’s policies and propositions”.

“Guiding public opinion for the Party is crucial to governance of the country,” the newspaper said.

President Xi Jinping shakes hands with staff members at the control room of China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing during a tour in which he asked media to pledge absolute loyalty to the party and closely follow its leadership in “thought, politics and action.” Photograph: Ma Zhancheng/AP

For experts on China, Xi’s latest teachings have signalled the start of a “no holds barred” quest to wrestle absolute control of both traditional and new media in order to better proclaim the party’s glad tidings.

Xi’s message to Chinese newsrooms, both in and outside the country, was clear, said David Bandurski, an expert in Chinese journalism from the University of Hong Kong.

“You work for the Party, the Party’s agenda is supreme and everyone needs to fall in line,” he told the Guardian

Bill Bishop, a prominent observer of Chinese politics, said Xi’s bid for media supremacy was the latest gambit in a wider push to seize absolute control over the Chinese state.

Last year Xi attempted to emphasis his leadership over China’s 2.3m-man People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by staging a massive military parade in Tiananmen Square.

Now he had set his sights on the media.

“He’s got the gun and now he’s got the pen,” said Bishop, who edits the influential China-focused newsletter, Sinocism. “Mao would certainly understand what [Xi] is doing here.”

Xi has made no secret of his battle to further tame China’s already docile state media.

His three-stop tour of newsrooms was beamed onto television screens and stamped onto front pages across the land.

Propaganda photographs, with strong echoes of Kim Jong-un’s North Korea, showed the Chinese president surrounded by fawning journalists and aides. A banner welcoming Xi to CCTV’s Beijing headquarters read: “CCTV’s family name is the party.”

Xi even extended his message to the United States, where CCTV’s international division has been on a hiring spree, urging its reporters to sign up to the Communist party’s global soft power push.

“Tell true stories of China,” Xi told staff at CCTV’s Washington headquarters during a video link conversation, adding: “I believe your work will [get] better and better.”

A video posted by CCTV on Youtube, which is blocked in mainland China, showed the channel’s apparently jubilant staff clapping furiously as they were addressed by their paymaster.

“Thank you for your encouragement and good wishes,” Ma Jing, the director general of CCTV America, told the president, flanked by a number of grinning American staff.

Within hours of Xi’s landmark tour the party’s total control of China’s state media was on full show in a series of gushing reviews.

In one piece, Xinhua claimed “reporters, experts and students majoring in journalism” had all lauded the president’s comments on journalism.

Zhang Tie, a party-employed journalist, told the party-run news agency: “The Party’s will and its propositions should be the strongest voice of the times.”

Chinese journalists were “inspired and encouraged by Xi’s visit to the media outlets and his acknowledgement of their diligence,” Xinhua went on.

Xi’s attempt to bring the media to heel is not limited to the domestic, state-run media.

In December a French correspondent was expelled from China after she challenged the party’s line over the human rights situation in the far western region of Xinjiang.

Tough new rules governing the operations of foreign media organisations in China will come into force next month, potentially affecting companies involved in publishing online material such as Apple or Microsoft.

“Those stifling steps will add to the information barriers Chinese people already face,” the New York Times said on Thursday in an editorial attacking the extraordinary lengths Xi was now going to to muffle the press.

Bishop said Xi’s bid for total media command showed his determination to hand the Communist party a far more dominant role in society than it had enjoyed in recent years.

“Xi is making it clear in every aspect of Chinese life that the Party is back with a vengeance - and if you doubt that you are at risk,” he said.

“This is all part of a trend towards a much harder or harsher authoritarianism in China,” Bishop added. “Because, ultimately, his goal is for China to have a much more highly-functioning authoritarian, single-party state. But to get there it is not going to be a soft authoritarianism it is going to be a hard authoritarianism. That is pretty clearly what we are seeing here.”

Bandurksi said it was hard to predict the consequences for China’s already bleak Chinese media landscape in terms of increased censorship and pressure. But the omens were bad. “All the signs have been very hard line,” he said.

Zhang Lifan, an outspoken Beijing historian, said he believed Xi’s fight to establish himself as “the true master” of China’s media was both a “counterattack” against an increasingly disbelieving public opinion and an attempt to fend off political challenges from within the party.

In doing so he was reducing reporters at outlets such as CCTV to little more than a Communist party “harem”.

“They are a group of servants. They are not journalists anymore. They are the party’s mouthpiece. They wait on the party,” Zhang said.

But any such talk is rejected by the state though.

“Those saying that Xi’s statements indicate a restriction on freedom of speech are making groundless accusations,” the People’s Daily said in an English language editorial.

Rather than imposing more restraints on Chinese media, the president in fact hoped to “guide public opinion by focusing more on innovative approaches,” it argued, adding: “In the next few years, Chinese media will enter a promising future.”

Additional reporting by Christy Yao

