The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) employs a system of coded speech to communicate policy directives to its implementing bureaucracy. This coded speech is governed by rules and exists in a specific cultural context, potentially confounding those unfamiliar with that context. CCP leaders deploy these codes through the party propaganda system to issue policy directives, and the codes take the form of slogans, linguistic formulations, or key phrases, collectively called tifa.

In this report, the author analyzes tifa by providing an overview of the role and relative authority of the information systems the CCP uses to develop, build consensus around, and promulgate tifa. He also identifies four essential characteristics of tifa. The author concludes that, although tifa analysis has specific limitations, it can produce authoritative determinations of what the CCP tells itself it is doing and why and could yield valuable insights into CCP leader perceptions.