China's Xi calls for stricter party control of universities

BEIJING: China's president Xi Jinping has called for the Communist Party to exert greater ideological control over universities, state media reported Friday, amid a broad crackdown on academic freedom and dissent in the world's second-largest economy.

Institutes of higher education must "serve the rule of the Chinese Communist Party and serve to strengthen and promote socialism with Chinese characteristics", Xi said at a meeting on ideological and political work that ended Thursday, according to the official Xinhua news service.