(Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the US Government)

So long as CCP leaders continue to promulgate policy directives through party propaganda, tifa analysis will remain an important and authoritative view into what the party tells itself is true.

Internal CCP debate over tifa, which happen in the neibu, can sometimes spill into public channels by affecting the tifa-biaotai call-and-response cycle. These are subtle and time-consuming to identify, but successful tifa analysis can identify major CCP policy shifts.

Tifa are useful indicators because CCP leaders issue them in public channels, and China's implementing bureaucracy repeats them by "making representations" of where they stand, called biaotai 表态. This fosters a call-and-response cycle visible in public channels.

Tifa are the public outcome of debates that Party leaders conduct behind closed doors, in the neibu 内部. CCP-internal information systems historically promulgated lists of tifa to ensure all parts of Party and government were aligned to the Party center.

Link to the report: www.rand.org/pubs/researc...