Under an institutional restructuring plan announced today by Xinhua News Agency, called Program for the Deepening Reform of Party and Government Organs (深化党和国家机构改革方案), China has announced a deep restructuring also of the institutions overseeing the media and film industries.

We will have further comments on these changes in due course, but for now we would just like to provide full translation of the portions of the Program dealing with media and public opinion.

Naturally, one of the changes now getting the most attention is the complete razing of three major national media platforms — China Central Television (China Global Television Network), China National Radio and China Radio International — and the formation from their ashes of a new super-network to be called the Central Radio and Television Network (中央广播电视总台). The Program makes clear that the resources of all of three of these networks will be referred to in their external incarnation as “Voice of China” (中国之声).

Just to quickly give readers an indication of what this change means in terms of direct Party control from the center, China Central Television was previously overseen by the General Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (previously just SARFT), a department under the State Council. The super-network will now be situated as a state-sponsored institution, or shiye danwei (事业单位), directly under the State Council, and directly under the supervision of the Central Propaganda Department.

The bear, in other words, will be hugging its “mouthpiece” media even more closely now. And that is largely the point that comes through here — the tighter, more centralized control of media and ideology.

The opening of the Program emphasizes: “The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is the basic nature and character of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Party, government, army, society and education — east and west, south and north, the Party leads all.”