China

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Sep 24, 2022 2:10 pm

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China has proved itself to be key partner for African development
We are pleased to reprint the below article by Michael Olugbode, a journalist with the Nigerian newspaper, This Day, originally carried by People’s Daily Online.

Situating his argument in the context of the contributions of the great Pan-African and socialist revolutionaries Walter Rodney and Frantz Fanon, respectively from Guyana and Martinique, and their most famous works, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and The Wretched of the Earth, Michael goes on to assert:

“It has been many decades since colonization ‘ended’ on the African continent, but the continent has not fully healed from this past trauma and continues to search for a path to continue from where its development was disrupted. Perhaps this search may have at last come to an end with the support of a country that had also once witnessed a dose of colonization and whose people has since healed from this inhumane history, having emerged from the ruins of colonization and wars to become the fastest growing economy on the planet. That country is none other than the People’s Republic of China.”

Outlining details of the multifaceted cooperation between China and Africa, he notes that the 10 plans that President Xi Jinping outlined at the 2015 FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) Summit in Johannesburg have been implemented in full, with the construction of numerous railways, highways, airports, ports and other infrastructure projects, and concludes:

“The facts are there for everyone to see that Africa has finally and gradually started moving towards a promising mode of development thanks to the fellow brother that China has proven itself to be.”
Modern science, and especially the latest archeological discoveries, has shown that the African continent is the cradle of humankind. Its people were developing slowly and steadily at their own pace until some external forces invaded the continent and carted away its able bodied men and women to strange lands where they were forced to toil for generations building the emerging economies of another continent.

Some have referred to this process as an exchange or perhaps a kind of trade, but could it be described as such when humans, treated like nothing but property, were exchanged for goods such as guns and gin. No wonder Walter Rodney, in reference to his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, argued that it was a combination of power politics and economic exploitation of Africa by Europeans that eventually led to the poor state of African political and economic development as became evident in the late 20th century. Although the author did not state his intention “to remove the ultimate responsibility for development from the shoulders of Africans… [He believes that] every African has a responsibility to understand the [capitalist] system and work for its overthrow.”

Similarly, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth provides insights into how the developmental strides of Africa were distorted. The psychiatrist provided a psychological and psychiatric analysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individuals and the nations of Africa, and discussed the broader social, cultural, and political implications of establishing a social movement for the decolonization of a person and of a people.

It has been many decades since colonization “ended” on the African continent, but the continent has not fully healed from this past trauma and continues to search for a path to continue from where its development was disrupted. Perhaps this search may have at last come to an end with the support of a country that had also once witnessed a dose of colonization and whose people has since healed from this inhumane history, having emerged from the ruins of colonization and wars to become the fastest growing economy on the planet. That country is none other than the People’s Republic of China.

China has presented Africa with a way out of its constant state of underdevelopment by offering a friendly win-win international development springboard in the form of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). At the opening ceremony of the 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping quoted the observations of an ancient Chinese scholar, who stated that: “Only with deep roots can a tree yield rich fruit; only filled with oil can a lamp burn brightly.” Xi noted that history follows its own rules and logic, and that with a similar fate in the past and a common mission, China and Africa have extended sympathy to and helped each other throughout all the past years. He said: “Together, we have embarked on a distinctive path of win-win cooperation.”

“Marching on this path, China has followed the principle of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith and the principle of pursuing the greater good and shared interests. China has stood with African countries. Together, we have worked in unity and forged ahead,” said Xi.

The words of President Xi is the moving spirit behind the FOCAC. Since the 2015 FOCAC Johannesburg Summit, China has fully implemented the 10 cooperation plans adopted at the Summit. A large number of railways, highways, airports, ports and other infrastructure projects as well as a number of economic and trade cooperation zones have been built or are under construction. Mutual cooperation on peace and security, science and technology, education, culture, health, poverty reduction, and people-to-people exchanges has been deepened. The massive financing pledged by China has been either delivered or arranged to be delivered. These 10 cooperation plans have brought huge benefits to the African and Chinese peoples. They have fully demonstrated the creativity, rallying power and efficiency of China-Africa cooperation, and have lifted the China-Africa comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership to new heights.

China has meanwhile promised to build an even closer-knit China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era. It has even gone a step further to launch an industrial promotion initiative and a China-Africa economic and trade expo in China to encourage Chinese companies to increase their investment in Africa, in addition to building and upgrading a number of economic and trade cooperation zones in Africa. China also has a plan to support Africa in achieving general food security by 2030, working with Africa to formulate and implement a program of action to promote China-Africa cooperation on agricultural modernization. China has continued to strengthen cooperation with African countries in local currency settlement and has made good use of the China-Africa Development Fund, the China-Africa Fund for Industrial Cooperation, and the Special Loan for the Development of African SMEs.

The list is endless. Every series of important cooperation plans proposed by China during each FOCAC Summit has been effectively implemented, which has provided a great boost to the economic and social development of Africa and which has been highly praised by the African people and the international community.

China-Africa trade and cooperation have both blossomed. A number of major Chinese-assisted infrastructure projects have been completed, including the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, Kenya’s standard gauge railway from Mombasa to Nairobi, and Cote d’Ivoire’s Soubre hydropower plant. These projects provide much needed transport and energy infrastructure to help further develop local industries.

The facts are there for everyone to see that Africa has finally and gradually started moving towards a promising mode of development thanks to the fellow brother that China has proven itself to be.

https://socialistchina.org/2022/09/23/c ... velopment/

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Syrian Ambassador: Muslims in Xinjiang experience greater freedom than Muslims in the West
The below extract from CGTN’s popular The Point features an interview with Syria’s Ambassador to China, HE Muhammad Hasanein Khaddam.

Although relatively new in his ambassadorial role, this is his second posting to China. Broadcast on September 7, the ambassador was one of a group of diplomats from 30 Muslim majority countries who had recently paid a visit to Xinjiang. Describing the region as an oasis, Ambassador Khaddam said the gap between what they saw with their own eyes and what is presented in the west is unbridgeable.

However, this did not surprise him, as the same lies had been told about his own country during 12 years of war waged by terrorist groups and the western powers. Muslim people in Xinjiang, he pointed out, enjoy freedoms that can’t be enjoyed by their co-religionists in many western countries that criticise China.

Turning to the situation in Syria, the Ambassador notes that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), that Syria formally joined at the beginning of this year, brings hope of a new modality of ‘win win’, without dictation or disrespect. Companies from friendly nations that stood with Syria, he explains, will enjoy numerous opportunities in the reconstruction of the country, such as in the building of ports, roads, bridges and a railway to Iraq.


https://socialistchina.org/2022/09/23/s ... -the-west/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Oct 01, 2022 2:20 pm

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Why is the great project of Ecological Civilization specific to China?
By Jianren Guo, Zhang Haiyan, Fan Meijun, John Bellamy Foster (Posted Oct 01, 2022)


John Bellamy Foster interviewed by Guo Jianren, Zhang Haiyan, and Meijun Fan

Guo Jianren: Professor Foster, thank you for doing this interview. This is my first interview with you and, as far as I know, the first interview you have completed with an ecological Marxism scholar from mainland China. The honor is mine, especially as I have a fairly long acquaintance with your great works. Back in 2004, in my doctoral dissertation, I introduced your works on ecological Marxism in a systematic way to the Chinese Marxist academic readers. In the following decades, we have studied your ecological Marxism closely, and your important contributions have been recognized, examined, and disseminated further. Thank you again for giving this lecture on “Ecological Civilization and Ecological Revolution: An Ecological Marxist Perspective” at the invitation of the Sunshine Valley Cobb Ecological Institute. This interview will mainly follow the key points of your speech.

Your lecture begins with the dialectical connections among ecological civilization, ecological Marxism, and ecological revolution, viewed from both historical and practical perspectives. You demonstrate the importance of ecological socialism or ecological Marxism in the conception of ecological civilization, and point out that in non-socialist countries, people can only talk about ecological civilization in an abstract and empty way. You oppose and refute the cultural theorist Jeremy Lent’s interpretation of the conception of Chinese ecological civilization, which separates the connections between Chinese ecological civilization, socialism, and the Marxist ideological tradition, placing Chinese traditional culture in opposition to Marxism. This makes Lent’s analysis seriously inconsistent with the historical process and practical reality of China’s ecological civilization’s conceptional development. In contrast, your analysis leads to an issue that we are very concerned about. In relation to your ecological-materialism method developed on the basis of historical materialism and dialectical materialism, and in accordance with the theoretical research into ecological Marxism and Chinese ecological civilization, the question arises: How is this connected to ideological and cultural elements other than Marxism, such as achievements in natural science, incorporation of Chinese traditional cultural concepts, or the role of Whiteheadian organic philosophy? This is a critical issue for studies of ecological Marxism in China right now, and one in which there is an urgent need for theoretical breakthroughs. Under the guidance of President Xi Jinping’s thoughts on ecological civilization in China, the practice of eco-civilization is making progress day by day. China’s practice of rapid renewal in this area requires continuous progress in theoretical updating, so that the development of practice and theory are advanced at an accelerating synergetic pace.

John Bellamy Foster: Thank you for the kind words on my work. Your first question is a very daunting one: How do we talk about the relation of Marxism, and particularly ecological Marxism, to the natural sciences, Whiteheadian process philosophy, organic philosophy, and traditional Chinese culture, all at the same time? How can these forms of theory and practice operate in synergetic ways to promote an ecological civilization in China today? Does this not present us with irresolvable conflicts? There are, of course, considerable contradictions here, but I would immediately dispel the notion that they are insurmountable by pointing to one of the foremost Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century: Joseph Needham. Needham was: (1) a pioneer in biochemistry and the history of science; (2) a Marxian theorist who advanced our understanding of the dialectics of nature and society; (3) a proponent of ecological materialism, (4) an admirer of Whiteheadian process philosophy; (5) the greatest Western expert (Sinologist) on Chinese science and culture of his day; and (6) an advocate of traditional Chinese culture, particularly for its ecological conceptions, describing himself as an “honorary Taoist.” In Needham, all of the traditions that you mention were already united, if in a somewhat eclectic way.

Chinese science, Needham argued, had long embodied “an organic philosophy of Nature…closely resembling that which modern science has been forced to adopt after three centuries of mechanical materialism.” For Needham, it was the dialectical vision of Karl Marx that was most crucial in creating a renewed ecological vision in the present day. But it was also necessary to draw on Whiteheadian process philosophy and on traditional Chinese thought. Daoism, he explained, did not deny the need for action, but insisted that there should be “no action contrary to nature.” Needham thus argued for a dialectical ecological materialism that drew on numerous sources, all of which were antithetical to capitalism. I discuss Needham’s ideas in my book, The Return of Nature. He is a reminder that Marxism is not confined to social science, but also has a second foundation in natural science. In fact, the notion of dialectics within Marxism allows for no absolute division between natural and social science.

As Needham insisted, there are deep ecological roots in Chinese culture. Nevertheless, it is socialism with Chinese characteristics and ecological Marxism that have put the concept of ecological civilization on the agenda today in China in a way that is entirely absent in the capitalist world system itself. Without a movement toward socialist production, there can be no real movement towards a system of ecological civilization. Xi Jinping has spoken of the “global endeavor for ecological civilization.” Yet central to the view I presented in my talk was the notion that ecological civilization in today’s world requires is a strong commitment to socialism. Thus, in the same speech, Xi spoke of “socialist eco-civilization,” involving a “a new model of modernization with humans developing in harmony of nature.” Here he was acknowledging that there can be no true “global endeavor for ecological civilization” unless it is at the same time a movement toward socialism, as the harsh lessons of the Anthropocene Epoch, beginning around 1950, have shown. It is this bitter experience that teaches us that we must find another way.

GJ: In your speech, you take your own country, the United States of America, as an example, and analyze the measures taken the New Green Deal in ecological governance under the Western political system, as well as its incompleteness and infeasibility. In contrast, you discern the positive factors and methods such as socialist orientation, retaining some economic planning capabilities, national direction, collective values, and mobilization of traditional cultures, etc., in China’s process of building ecological civilization. You note that these practices are the concrete embodiment and manifestation of China’s “five-in-one” overall layout in the construction of ecological civilization. In this speech, you also mention the connection between the dominant political-economic logic and the effects this has on people’s lifestyles. We know in 2014, you republished The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxist Political Economy, first published in the 1980s, in which your research on monopoly capital is also profound. Would you like to briefly explain your understanding of the general mechanism between political-economic logic and ecological civilization construction from the perspective of political reformation? Please share your more findings on this topic with the Chinese Ecological Marxist academic community.

JBF: The main question guiding my talk was why a far-reaching historical program such as that of ecological civilization could be introduced in China, while the very notion of the creation of an ecological civilization, particularly when viewed in terms of the scale of changes contemplated, was almost entirely absent from public discourse, even on the left, in the United States, Europe, and indeed, most of the world. Although it is true that the notion of a Green New Deal has been raised by progressives in the West, that conception is usually seen as simply a Green Keynesianism or green corporatism. That is, it is conceived as a narrow economic program, fully in accord with capitalism, aimed simply at the promotion of green jobs. It falls far short of Chinese aspirations for an ecological civilization, which are aimed at the development of the whole culture, as well as deep political-economic and environmental changes in which the formation of a more sustainable relationship between human beings and nature is emphasized. Moreover, while China has made moves to implement its radical conception of ecological civilization, which is built into state planning and regulation, the notion of a Green New Deal has taken concrete form nowhere in the West. It is merely a slogan at this point without any real political backing within the system. It was talked about by progressive forces and then rejected by the powers that be.

Both the current Democratic administration in Washington and their Republican opponents have rejected a Green New Deal program, even in name. Joe Biden ran partly on the basis of opposition to the progressive Green New Deal proposed by some Democrats. He promised the corporations and the wealthy that nothing fundamental would change. All of this is worlds away from China’s emphasis on ecological civilization, which is seen as at the core of the building of socialism. China, like other countries, of course is confronted with massive ecological contradictions. Yet, it has a roadmap for ecological transformation which is lacking in the imperial core of the capitalist system.

It is correct to see this as a question of differing political-economic systems and related in this respect to the theory of monopoly capitalism. The nations of what Samir Amin called the “triad”—the United States and Canada, Western Europe, and Japan—are all countries that are at the center of monopoly capitalism. This is capitalism in the age of giant corporate monopolies that are vertically and horizontally integrated, largely taking the form of conglomerates and making up the world’s leading multinational corporations that dominate the entire global supply chain. The theory of monopoly capitalism originated early in the twentieth century with the work of Rudolf Hilferding and V. I. Lenin, and was carried forward by many thinkers, including Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy in the United States—most famously in their work, Monopoly Capital. It emphasized the effective banning of genuine price competition under monopoly capitalism, which is associated with indirect collusion between giant corporations who nonetheless continued to compete over the low-cost position and in areas like the sales effort (marketing). The result was a widening of the gross profit margins of the monopolistic corporations.

Monopoly capitalism, it is argued, tends toward high unemployment/underemployment, low utilization of productive capacity, and stagnant accumulation, resulting in a slow growth trend. This is associated with the overaccumulation of productive capacity in relation to demand and of the concentration of surplus at the top of society. The overconcentration of wealth and income at the top becomes itself a barrier to capital accumulation. The crisis tendencies of the society are therefore not due to problems in the generation of economic surplus (surplus value), but in its absorption through investment and consumption. This whole set of structural conditions makes economic (and ecological) waste functional for the system as a whole, resulting in an emphasis on wasteful forms of consumption and of use, all aimed at keeping the economy going while the most basic needs of much of the population (food, health care, housing) are not met or are grossly inadequate. Military spending becomes a major part of this waste economy. In recent decades, the growth of unproductive expenditures has been extended to a massive financialization of the economy or an increase in speculative debt expansion—not simply cyclically, but on a more or less permanent basis, leading to financial bubbles and ever-increasing financial crisis tendencies, in which that the state is compelled constantly to bail out capital at the expense of the rest of the community.

The great conservative economist Joseph Schumpeter once defended monopoly capital as embodying “creative destruction.” What we are seeing today, however, is the creative destruction of the entire world environment, extending to the planet itself. In such a system of catastrophic capitalist development, there is no room for the notion of an ecological civilization, even on the part of most leftist critics, because this would require “a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large,” to quote from The Communist Manifesto. Such a reconstitution is in fact possible in ecological terms due to the waste, irrationality, destruction, and loss of human potential, all of which point to capacities of the society that are misused or lay dormant within the capitalist constellation of things. The answer is to promote a society geared to human needs and development, use values, and the protection of the environment, which, of course, requires a shift toward socialism.

GJ: In your speech, you emphasize the importance of Marx’s three concepts, “the universal metabolism of nature,” “social metabolism,” and “metabolic rift,” for the development of ecological Marxism, and point out that these three concepts are a trinity. Can these concepts be regarded as the development of the metabolic rift theory systematically expounded in Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, published in 2000? We understand China’s urbanization process is still going on, which partly means that the trend of population concentration from rural areas to urban still continues. However, rural revitalization in China has been promoted to an important strategic position, which requires the retention of a certain scale of population in the country. In addition, classic Marxist writers such as Marx and Lenin tend to believe that population dispersion is more favorable to the balanced development of economy and society and to the reduction of land exploitation. You have covered all these in this speech. Combining with your analysis of Marx’s three concepts—universal metabolism of nature, social metabolism, and metabolic rift—would you please provide constructive theoretical opinions on the relationship between China’s urbanization, rural revitalization, and the practice of ecological civilization?

JBF: When I wrote Marx’s Ecology, my emphasis was on Marx’s concepts of social metabolism and metabolic rift. Although it was always implicit in the argument that Marx had a universal conception of nature and of metabolism underlying this thought, this was not drawn out explicitly. Part of the problem was that the notion of the universal metabolism of nature was not as explicit in Capital. It was only when I did a careful study of his Economic Manuscript of 1861–1863, where the “universal metabolism of nature” was dealt with explicitly by Marx, that I realized the full dimensions of Marx’s analysis in this respect. This did not contradict the interpretation in Marx’s Ecology in any way, but it made Marx’s dialectical approach to ecological contradictions—associated with the metabolic rift—more evident. I developed this new understanding for the first time, I believe, in my article, “Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature,” in Monthly Review in December 2013. This was then carried further, together with Brett Clark in our article, “Marxism and the Dialectics of Ecology,” in the October 2016 issue of Monthly Review. There we combined Marx’s dialectic of the universal metabolism of nature, the social metabolism, and the metabolic rift with István Mészáros’s analysis of “The Conceptual Framework of Marx’s Theory of Alienation” in his book Marx’s Theory of Alienation, in order to clarify the dialectical relations. This, then, became the more unified understanding of Marx’s dialectic in this area, a view that is central to my new book, Capitalism in the Anthropocene.

I think there is a relation between this dialectic of ecology and the question of urbanization versus rural revitalization in China. You are right that Marx, Frederick Engels, and Lenin tended to emphasize the need for dispersal of population to rural areas. Placed in this context, China’s plans for further rapid urban growth have raised all sorts of ecological questions. Would such potentially hyper-urbanization enlarge the metabolic rift in China? This is a question I have myself asked. The massive reliance on migrant labor for production in the export zones is a related issue to how the rural/urban disjuncture is to be managed. I have been encouraged, though, by China’s rural reconstruction movement and, more recently, by its rural revitalization program. One of the extraordinary results of the Chinese Revolution that still persists today, but is not commonly understood in the West, is that despite the breakup of collective farms and the earlier communal structure, the land in China still is collectively owned by the rural population. In this sense, de-collectivization did not extend to full privatization. Agriculture is still to a considerable extent organized by village communities. In recent years, China has shifted back to the lessons of Marxian political economy. With only 7 percent of the world’s arable land, China is able to feed 20 percent of the world’s population. In the decade between 2003 and 2013, it increased its grain production by 50 percent. Between 2013 and 2019 the number of towns with supply and marketing cooperatives, designed to improve resource distribution in rural areas, increased from 50 percent to 95 percent. Recently, China was able to eradicate extreme poverty across the country, largely in rural areas. In the urban sector, the Communist Party of China (CPC) under Xi’s leadership has been calling for the construction of more ecological cities. These developments reflect the recognition of a dialectic in this area that has long been part of Marxist theory. The contradictions remain, however, and huge efforts have to be made to overcome them. China is seeing many ecological struggles currently in rural areas combatting pollution. But there seems to be a symbiosis here with the strong priorities of the society itself, which offers hope of further progress.

GJ: In the part of the speech regarding “revolutionary ecological socialism and the future,” you mention that ecological communism cannot be truly realized if there is no environmental proletariat, because to refer simply to ecological civilization, ecological Marxism, and ecological revolution, is not enough; we must talk about the agents of change. You have explained this in your Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution, published this year. Would you please give more specific explanation about the environmental proletariat for Chinese readers in this interview? For example, what are the characteristics of the environmental proletariat? What are the similarities and differences between the environmental proletariat and the economic proletariat? What is your meaning in saying that the environmental proletariat is the most basic and prime subject of ecological revolution to realize ecological communism?

JBF: The notion of the environmental proletariat is meant partly as a corrective in our understanding of the proletariat in history and Marxian theory, and also as a way of understanding emerging historical conditions this century. An aspect of the economism that plagued much of socialist thought—including Marxist theory—was not only a de-emphasis on the political and cultural, but also a narrowing of the material conditions to the economic, industrial, and technological aspects characterizing capitalist society. The concept of the proletariat was economistically reduced to the industrial proletariat or industrial working class and commonly restricted to the urban population. Yet Marx and Engels themselves had a much wider conception of the proletariat, not restricted to, say, the role of factory workers. Nor did they see material conditions simply in narrow economic terms, but rather as encompassing the larger environment of the workers.

This wider conception of the proletariat is most evident in Engels’s Condition of the Working Class in England, which viewed the proletariat primarily in terms of environmental conditions, directing attention to epidemiological conditions, such as the spread of disease, urban pollution, housing, injuries, class-based mortality rates, etc. Engels was writing right after the famous Plug Plot Riots, as they were called in England at the time, and in the context of the radical Chartist movement. Adopting an environmental and epidemiological approach, he wrote of the “social murder” at the working class, referring to the much lower life expectancy of workers and the refusal of capitalist society to address the conditions that lay behind this.

Although for years the working class in socialist circles was viewed almost exclusively in terms of industrial action, I think this broader conception of what we can call the environmental (not simply economic) proletariat, already present in classical historical materialism, points to the larger reality in which class consciousness—and particularly revolutionary class consciousness—grows. It encompasses also issues of the social reproduction of workers in the family. And it is from this perspective that we can understand alliances, especially in the Global South, among the working class, including proletarianized agricultural laborers, landless workers, and the peasantry. Contrary to myth, Marx and Engels were not anti-peasant but wrote a great deal supporting peasant class struggles. Moreover, the great socialist revolutions in Russia, China, and elsewhere, involved proletarian-peasant alliances. If we look at things culturally as well, an ecological materialism of the kind emphasized here fits well with the cultural materialism of figures like Raymond Williams.

In terms of the present day, where the planetary ecological crisis is increasingly becoming the leading factor governing material conditions, it is inevitable that an environmental proletariat (conceived in the broadest sense, in which we can also include the ecological peasantry) will emerge, and in fact is emerging. The “wretched of the earth” today are struggling over material conditions that are as much environmental as economic, with changing environmental conditions an indirect product of world capital accumulation. These developments are occurring in such a way that it is often impossible to distinguish the economic from the environmental causes of the material conditions in which the working classes live. If there are food shortages it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between economic and environmental causes, and the same with water shortages. But the important thing is to recognize that these deteriorating material conditions are due to the social order of capitalism, which also blocks attempts to alleviate them, promoting social murder. The struggle against these material-environmental conditions will inevitably serve to unify and overall strengthen the working classes, a phenomenon that we can see all over the world—perhaps most especially Latin America—where an alliance is emerging in some countries, though full of contradictions and complexities, between traditional socialist struggles arising from a working-class base and the related struggles of the Indigenous people. Here the unity being forged is very much an ecosocialist one.

In China, too, we can see the significance of the environmental proletariat (and ecological peasantry) in movements all over the country. But it takes a different form since the environmental struggle is directed not so much against the CPC itself or the Chinese government, but at powerful local authorities and private capital, reflecting the complex, hybrid nature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. In China, given its revolutionary tradition, there is a mass line connecting workers to the CPC and the state, and the environmental conditions of the workers have in recent years been a crucial part of the process of synergetic change taking place. Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the challenges. The low-lying delta of the Pearl River and the Guangdong industrial region from Shenzhen to Guangzhou is vulnerable to sea-level rise. This could especially affect working populations, undermining the environmental conditions of workers in the region. Rural revitalization, insofar as this accounts for the needs of the peasantry and peasant struggles, raises issues of material conditions that are as much environmental than narrowly economic. Everywhere in China today, and at all levels, there are enormous efforts being made to restore the environment.

GJ: China’s ecological civilization construction is an important part of global ecological governance and is also an important constructive force in the inevitable evolution of human civilization after the earth enters the Anthropocene. Could you please share with Chinese readers your views on the relationship between China’s ecological civilization construction and global ecological governance, and the relation between this ecological civilization construction and the great transformation of human civilization?

JBF: My talk, as I have indicated, focused on the problem that while the notion of ecological civilization has become a real force in China, it hardly exists elsewhere, outside of a few other socialist-oriented countries. It is interesting that the notion of ecological civilization arose first in the 1980s the Soviet Union, which was a post-revolutionary society—obviously with its own contradictions—but also generating, as Russian philosopher and cultural theorist Kati Chukhrov has ably demonstrated in her Practicing the Good, a level of social consciousness, that at its best was considerably more advanced than that of Western capitalism. The point here is that ecological civilization, certainly in the form advanced in China, requires a movement toward socialism for it to make headway. The inverse of this, though, is also true—a struggle for an ecological civilization necessarily gives added impetus to a movement toward socialism. China’s role in promoting ecological civilization as a stage in the development of socialism can be seen as its greatest gift to the world at present in terms of environmental governance.

Zhang Haiyan: Thank you, Professor Foster, for your wonderful speech, which brought us the vivid progress of Marxist thought with Western academic characteristics. It is clear that the Marxist classics mentioned in your speech already included ecological thoughts, like the universal metabolism of nature and social metabolism. This not only proves again that Marx’s thought reflected the social reality of his times, authentically and comprehensively, but also has a very enlightening significance for China’s current socialist practice. As early as our Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE), Chinese traditional society had the consciousness that “the four people—gentlemen, farmers, craftspeople, and merchants—are the keystone people for the country.” The classification and various living standards of “gentry, farmers, craftspeople and merchants,” as well as “three religions and nine streams,” were an important reality in the daily interaction of Chinese traditional society. I believe this is also the social-cognitive foundation for the immediate and wide social resonance and localization of Marxist thought on classes and classes struggle in China in the first half of twentieth century. However, according to Chinese traditional wisdom, the four-people division of society, into gentry, farmers, craftspeople, and merchants, is the same as the five-organ division of the human body: heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney. It does not simply refer to the strata of a country or the organs of a body, but refers to the different occupations, responsibilities of functional roles. Together, there is a wholesome entity with the integrity and self-consciousness of a family, a country, or a human being.

We had an era after liberation when all strata of society sincerely took part in the class struggle, known as the Cultural Revolution, but the operation of that logic soon arrived its end, and we have returned to the construction of a harmonious society now. Now, in the era of critical ecological crisis, what kind of people, group, or functional role do you understand as “ecological proletariat”? As the leading important subjective class reflecting the class contradictions in this era, what revolutionary actions shall the “environmental proletarians” take to realize their revolutionary ideas? Who or what is the target of this revolution? Will this plunge the world into a new dualism that process thinkers clearly oppose? What event will you see as an official kick-off signal or action for this ecological revolution? What kind of process will this revolution be and what kind of outcome will it have?

JBF: I appreciate this historical view and your opposition to the idea of a new dualism in China, which, as you say, “process thinkers” oppose. My argument on the environmental proletariat was not directed at China primarily, but rather at the still dominant capitalist world economy and the class and movement struggles all over the globe, which are now increasingly interconnected with the crisis of the planetary environment. Given the level of economic exploitation and imperialism directed at the Global South and the vast inequalities at the world level, the wretched of the earth have no choice but to rebel. These revolts will, insofar as they crystalize, will, I have argued, increasingly take the form of an emerging environmental proletariat, directed first and foremost at material survival, but ultimately aimed at sustainable human development. This is a new specter haunting capital. These developments are far too complex and dynamic to be seen simply in dualist terms. Rather, we have to perceive it as a spiral or a dialectical movement.

In China, precisely because it is a post-revolutionary society engaged in building socialism with Chinese characteristics, the nature of the struggle is quite different. China has incorporated the goal of ecological civilization into its constitution. Traditional Chinese values and socialism with Chinese characteristics have come together in the promotion of environmental values. There are all sorts of ecological struggles taking place in the society, many of these emanating directly from the populace (workers and peasants), who often find themselves in conflict with local authorities and private interests—China’s battle against corruption is relevant here too—in their pursuit of the wider societal goal of ecological civilization. This process of the development of ecological civilization and the positive role that the CPC and the Chinese state have played in the present period in its promotion is usefully discussed by John Cobb in China and Ecological Civilization: John B. Cobb in Conversation with Andre Vitchek.

We don’t know if China will succeed in overcoming its immense ecological contradictions. For example, it is faced with the gargantuan task today of rapidly reducing its enormous dependence on coal. But rather than worrying about China’s struggle to create an ecological civilization, I worry with it, and with the struggles of the Chinese people as a whole.

Meijun Fan: An ecological civilization also requires the transformation of education. It is clear that the current education system does not fit with the aims of ecological civilization. You have been teaching in universities for years, what is the main problem of the current education system? How it can be changed?

JBF: To speak of education for ecological civilization is to envision a revolutionary transformation in our whole way of thinking and way of life. At no point has capitalist “modernity,” or the culture of capitalism, been compatible with a view of civilization that is ecological. Rather, the dominant world order is conceived as an economic regime rooted in the endless accumulation of capital before anything else, promoting destructive competition, coupled with class (and monopoly) power, rooted in the pursuit of individual self-interest. Yet, ecological civilization necessarily points in a very different direction, involving limits on accumulation, competition, monopoly, and individual aggrandizement in the interest of the wider community, which includes community with the earth.

These differences can be seen in education itself. The dominant forms of education, arising out of capitalism, now taken to even further extremes under neoliberalism, emphasize hierarchical structures of learning, reductionist frames of thought, a complete rejection of all historical and critical thinking, imperial ideologies, unrestricted competition, elitism, privilege, and money as sole the measures of success. Education itself is increasingly brought directly into the market and the corporate model, training individuals simply for “competitive success.”

In contrast, education for ecological civilization would demand close acquaintance with the two great forms of knowledge: science and art. Science has to be seen as Marx viewed it, in terms of Wissenschaft, that is, embracing diverse forms of knowledge-systems based on reason and observation, extending well beyond the very narrow, restrictive conception of science that now prevails. Critical, dialectical, and historical thinking are indispensable, along with nurturing the ability to use the past to transform the present in order to create a qualitatively new future. Much of this means recovering knowledge that was lost or buried in the capitalist era, as well as resurrecting subterranean views. In this respect, a wide range of critical visions should be cultivated, including revolutionary Romantic and utopian visions, as well as socialism, and particularly Marxism, and numerous revolutionary vernaculars. Ecology, it should be understood, had its origins primarily in the work of socialists and radicals. Attention to the great variety of traditional and Indigenous cultures around the world is equally vital. Education should be understood as dialogic, in which students and teachers learn together as much as possible. Thus, there should be a vast opening up in the educational sphere, making education itself a revolutionary process aimed at both universal goals and the immediate needs of the population. Above all, what is required is imagination and the belief in community both with each other and the earth.

Fan: Many audiences who listened to your wonderful lecture are Chinese college students. Do you have any suggestions for them? What special contribution they can make to an ecological civilization in your view? Your input is highly appreciated.

JBF: In responding to what contributions Chinese college students might make with regard to the question of ecological civilization, I would like to point to the coincidence of two major historical developments: (1) the recovery and elaboration around the world of Marx’s theory of metabolic rift leading to contemporary ecological Marxism (or Marxian ecology), and (2) the emergence in China of the notion of ecological civilization, inspired in large part by Marxism, but also drawing thousands of years of Chinese culture. How these two major developments can be brought together is a crucial question for theory and practice.

In this century, we have seen a renaissance of radical ecological thought resulting from the recovery and elaboration of Marx’s theory of ecological crisis or his analysis of the metabolic rift. This has developed hand in hand with a return to Engels’s conception of the dialectics of nature, long rejected by the “Western Marxist” philosophical tradition but now increasingly recognized as an indispensable element of a materialist and dialectical view. These two developments, each of which are boundless in their implications, are revolutionizing our understanding of today’s planetary ecological crisis, generating the powerful critical tradition of ecological Marxism, which is currently developing on every continent.

Over same period the concept of ecological civilization came to prominence in China, beginning around 2002. In Hu Jintao’s landmark speech to the 17th National Congress of the CPC in 2007, the notion of ecological civilization or system-wide ecological transformation was presented primarily in terms of the principle of “harmonious” development, drawing on a concept deeply embedded in traditional Chinese culture, as exemplified by Daoism and Confucianism. However, ecological civilization was also depicted as a defining element of socialism with Chinese characteristics, requiring a transition away from the expropriation of nature endemic to capitalist modernity and pointing to the need for worldwide social transformations. It was thus closely related from the start to the Marxist critique of capitalism. Xi has made it clear in a speech on October 31, 2019, that Marxism provides “the system for promoting eco-civilization.”

My advice to Chinese students, then, is to work on synthesizing these two traditions of Marxian ecological thought—recent developments in Marxian ecology and China’s theory and practice of ecological civilization—in order to bring more clarity to both. It seems as if Chen Xueming was seeking to undertake that task a decade ago in his book The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital, a book that I found quite important, while the all-around possibilities for achieving that goal are much greater than they were at that time. Many of the concepts of ecological Marxism (or Marxian ecology) could be utilized to develop a wider, more dialectical and materialist conception of ecological civilization, which should be the goal, since it is here that the future of China and the world as a whole ultimately resides. The theory of metabolic rift could be especially helpful in conceptualizing China’s ecological civilization and the need for what Marx called the “restoration” of the metabolism between humanity and nature.

To suggest this, though, is not to in any way downplay the importance of Chinese culture, the product of thousands of years of civilization. In the same October 2019 speech, in which Xi indicated that Marxism was the means of promoting an ecological civilization, he also quoted the ancient Chinese adage related to Daoism: “When the Great Way rules, the land under Heaven belongs to the people.” The Dao De Jing conveys both a holistic world view and has been characterized as a work of “critical naturalism”—similar to ancient Epicureanism in the West, which so influenced Marx. The Dao De Jing promotes a philosophy of constancy as “returning life” that resembles modern notions of homeostasis.

To be holistic is [to join with] Heaven
To [join with] Heaven is [to follow] the Way
[To follow] the Way is to last long.
[Then] life is not in danger of extinction.


There is, in my view, no fundamental conflict in Chinese Marxism deriving its concept of ecological civilization from ancient Daoism, while combining this with Marxist ecological materialism. This could well be the secret of ecological civilization with Chinese Marxist characteristics.

About Jianren Guo
Jianren Guo,PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Philosophy School of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China.
About Zhang Haiyan
Haiyan Zhang is Director of the Ecological Practice Program at the Institute of Postmodern Development of China in Claremont, California.
About Fan Meijun
Meijun Fan, PhD is co-director of Center for Process Studies in Claremont, California.


https://mronline.org/2022/10/01/why-is- ... -to-china/

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Videos: China encirclement and the imperialist build-up in the Pacific
On Saturday 24 September 2022, we hosted a webinar on the rising aggression of the US and its allies in the Pacific region. There were a number of excellent contributions dealing with issues including the Biden administration’s increased support for Taiwanese separatism; Western power projection in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits; the hysteria surrounding China’s security agreement with the Solomon Islands; the AUKUS nuclear pact; and developments in Korea and Japan. The event stream and the individual speeches are embedded below, and can be viewed directly on our YouTube channel.

Event stream: China encirclement and the imperialist build-up in the Pacific


Ken Hammond: Fearing the loss of their global hegemony, US elites are responding with desperation


Ju-Hyun Park: China encirclement not possible without imperialist national oppression of China’s neighbors


Lilian Sing: US geopolitical hostility to China is trickling down and fomenting anti-Asian hate


Sara Flounders: There’s US ruling class consensus around derailing China’s socialist development


Li Peng: The US plays the Taiwan card to undermine China’s development and obstruct reunification


Charles Xu: A “free and open Indo-Pacific” is exactly what imperialist forces have always subverted


Ben Norton: The US is developing plans to overthrow the Chinese government by military means


KJ Noh: The US is already engaged in a multi-faceted hybrid war on China


Zhong Xiangyu: Taiwanese separatism is being leveraged towards the West’s China containment strategy


Keith Bennett: A major conflict between China and the US would be a catastrophe for humanity

https://socialistchina.org/2022/09/30/v ... e-pacific/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 13, 2022 2:42 pm

Manufacturing Consent for the Containment and Encirclement of China
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 12, 2022
Carlos Martinez

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The following detailed article by Carlos Martinez explores the escalating propaganda war being waged by the imperialist powers against China. Carlos notes that “propaganda wars can also be war propaganda”, and that the torrent of anti-China slander has a clear purpose of manufacturing broad public consent for the US-led New Cold War.

Carlos shows how the propaganda model described in Herman and Chomsky’s classic work Manufacturing Consent has been updated and enhanced using modern communication techniques, and how it is being applied today against China, in particular in relation to the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Carlos introduces the most frequently-hurled slanders on this topic and debunks them in detail.

The author concludes that this propaganda campaign is serving to “break the bonds of solidarity within the global working class and all those opposed to imperialism”, and that all progressives must resolutely oppose and expose it.

– Friends of Socialist China


If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. (Malcolm X)


The Western media is waging a systematic and ferocious propaganda war against China. In the court of Western public opinion, China stands accused of an array of terrifying crimes: conducting a genocide against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang; wiping out democracy in Hong Kong; militarising the South China Sea; attempting to impose colonial control over Taiwan; carrying out a land grab in Africa; preventing Tibetans and Inner Mongolians from speaking their languages; spying on the good peoples of the democratic world; and more.

Australian scholar Roland Boer has characterised these accusations as “atrocity propaganda – an old anti-communist and indeed anti-anyone-who-does-not-toe-the-Western-line approach that tries to manufacture a certain image for popular consumption.” Boer observes that this propaganda serves to create an impression of China as a brutal authoritarian dystopia which “can only be a fiction for anyone who actually spends some time in China, let alone lives there.”[1]

It’s not difficult to understand why China would be subjected to this sort of elaborate disinformation campaign. This media offensive is part of the imperialist world’s ongoing attempts to reverse the Chinese Revolution, to subvert Chinese socialism, to weaken China, to diminish its role in international affairs and, as a result, to undermine the global trajectory towards multipolarity and a future free from hegemonism. As journalist Chen Weihua has pointed out, “the reasons for the intensifying US propaganda war are obvious: Washington views a fast-rising China as a challenge to its primacy around the world.” Furthermore, “the success of a country with a different political system is unacceptable to politicians in Washington.”[2]

Propaganda wars can also be war propaganda. In this case, the war in question is the escalating US-led New Cold War.[3] The various slanders against China – particularly the most lurid accusations, such as that of genocide in Xinjiang – have much in common with the 2003 allegations regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, or the 2011 allegation that the Libyan state under Muammar Gaddafi was preparing a massacre in Benghazi. These narratives are constructed specifically in order to mobilise public opinion in favour of imperialist foreign policy: waging a genocidal war against the people of Iraq; bombing Libya into the Stone Age; and, today, conducting a wide-ranging campaign of economic coercion, political subversion and military threats against the People’s Republic of China.

In his book Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah, Pan-Africanist and first President of Ghana, discusses how “ideological and cultural weapons in the form of intrigues, manoeuvres and slander campaigns” were employed by the Western powers during the Cold War in order to undermine the socialist countries and the newly-liberated territories of Africa, Asia and Latin America. “While Hollywood takes care of fiction, the enormous monopoly press, together with the outflow of slick, clever, expensive magazines, attends to what it chooses to call ‘news’… A flood of anti-liberation propaganda emanates from the capital cities of the West, directed against China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Algeria, Ghana and all countries which hack out their own independent path to freedom.”[4]

The mechanisms for such “intrigues, manoeuvres and slander campaigns” have changed little since Nkrumah’s day. British media analysts David Cromwell and David Edwards explore the concept of the propaganda blitz – “fast-moving attacks intended to inflict maximum damage in minimum time.” These media attacks are “communicated with high emotional intensity and moral outrage” and, crucially, give the appearance of enjoying consensus support among experts, academics, journalists and politicians.[5] This consensus “generates the impression that everyone knows that the claim is truthful.”[6] Such a consensus is most powerful when it includes not only right-wing ideologues but also prominent leftist commentators. “If even celebrity progressive journalists – people famous for their principled stands, and colourful socks and ties – join the denunciations, then there must be something to the claims. At this point, it becomes difficult to doubt it.”

When it comes to China, many such commentators are only too happy to oblige: British columnist Owen Jones for example, writing for the Guardian, has asserted that “despite the denials of the Chinese regime, the brutal campaign against the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region is real.”[7] Jones backs his assertion up with links to two other Guardian articles, both of which rely on research provided by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) – a hawkish anti-China think tank funded by the Australian government, the US government and various multinational arms manufacturers (of which more below). That is, this self-described socialist relies on the same sources as the most extreme China hawks in Washington. Yet his public endorsement of anti-China slander, along with that of NATO-aligned commentators such as Paul Mason,[8] serves to create the impression that such slander is entirely credible, as opposed to being what it in fact is, namely yet another unhinged far-right conspiracy theory.

Although the various anti-China slanders clearly lack evidentiary support, they are nonetheless powerful, persuasive and sophisticated. It requires no great skill to persuade hardened reactionaries and anti-communists to take a hard line against China, but the propaganda war is carefully crafted such that it actively taps in to progressive ideas and sentiments. The accusation of genocide is particularly potent: by accusing China of perpetrating a genocide against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, imperialist politicians and journalists are able to mobilise legitimate sympathies with Muslims and national minorities, as well as invoking righteous indignation in relation to genocide. An emotional-intellectual environment is created in which to defend China against accusations of genocide is equivalent to being a Holocaust denier. Solidarity with China thus incurs a hefty psychological, and perhaps material and physical, cost.

Manufacturing Consent

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s 1988 work Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media remains an authoritative and indispensable analysis of how the so-called free press works in the capitalist world. In particular, the book explores the connection between the economic interests of the ruling class and the ideas that are communicated via mass media. “The media serve, and propagandise on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them. The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, and they are well positioned to shape and constrain media policy.”[9]

Herman and Chomsky develop a propaganda model, in which a set of informal but entrenched ‘filters’ determine what media consumers read, watch and hear. These filters include:

The ownership structure of the dominant mass-media firms. Media owners are members of the capitalist class, and they consistently privilege the interests of that class.
Reliance on advertising revenue. Since most media operations can only survive, meet their costs and turn a profit if they carry advertising from large corporations, they must be sensitive to the political views of those corporations.
Reliance on information “provided by government, business, and ‘experts’ funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power.”[10] The authors note that the Pentagon, for example, “has a public-information service that involves many thousands of employees, spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year and dwarfing not only the public-information resources of any dissenting individual or group but the aggregate of such groups.”[11]
A system of ‘flak’, or negative feedback, in response to news stories that don’t conform to the values of those in power. This “may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches and bills before Congress, and other modes of complaint, threat, and punitive action.”[12] With the advent of the internet – and particularly social media – methods of ‘flak’ have multiplied, and provide an important means of conditioning what information is consumed by the public.
The pervasive ideological framework of anticommunism, which serves as “a national religion and control mechanism”. Here the authors are referring specifically to the United States, but the point holds elsewhere in the West.
According to Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model, “the raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print.”[13] The resulting news output serves to “inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state.”[14]

Western mainstream media coverage of China fits comfortably within this model. Almost without exception the major media operations – from Fox News to the Guardian, from the BBC to the Washington Post – present a narrative consistently hostile to China. For example, in relation to the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong, the Western press was universal in its one-sided condemnation of the Hong Kong police and authorities, and in its effusive support for ‘pro-democracy’ protestors. Violence by the protestors – storming the parliament building, attacking buses, throwing petrol bombs, vandalising buildings and intimidating ordinary citizens – was either totally ignored or written off as the actions of a small minority, whereas the local Hong Kong government was subjected to an extraordinary level of scrutiny and condemnation. A Guardian editorial went so far as to state that “China is crushing any shred of resistance in Hong Kong, in breach of its promises to maintain the region’s freedoms”[15] – unironically citing Chris Patten, the last (unelected like all his predecessors) British governor of Hong Kong, in support of its claim. It apparently didn’t occur to the author to contrast the Hong Kong police’s incredibly restrained response to the protests with the US police’s shockingly violent repression of Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020, which saw several fatalities at the hands of the US police, compared to precisely zero at the hands of their Hong Kong counterparts.[16]

No major Western news outlet seriously explored the violence of the protestors; nor did they mention the protest leaders’ extensive links with some of the most reactionary US politicians;[17] nor did they choose to investigate the role of the National Endowment for Democracy in providing financial support to the movement.[18] Meanwhile they shamelessly ignored the millions of Hong Kong residents who didn’t support the protests, who saw that “rioters and mobs were everywhere destroying public facilities, paralysing railway systems and so on but they were called ‘Freedom Fighters’ by Western countries.”[19]

Conversely, what should be positive stories about China – for example in relation to poverty alleviation,[20] or its progress in the field of renewable energy,[21] or suppressing the Covid-19 pandemic[22] – are either ignored or magically transformed into anti-China stories. The announcement that China had succeeded in its goal of eliminating extreme poverty was “delivered with much bombast but few details”, and the whole program was written off as part of a cunning strategy by Xi Jinping “to cement his position as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong”.[23] Literally millions of lives have been saved as a result of China’s dynamic Zero Covid strategy, and yet according to the New York Times, the CPC is simply trying to “use China’s success in containing the virus to prove that its top-down governance model is superior to that of liberal democracies”. While acknowledging that a policy of saving millions of lives unsurprisingly “still enjoys strong public support”, this is put down to a familiar trope that Chinese people have “limited access to information and no tools to hold the authority accountable”.[24]

Veteran political scientist Michael Parenti wrote in Blackshirts and Reds about the absurdity of Western propaganda against the socialist world during the Cold War, and how refraction through the lens of anti-communism could “transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence.” He notes:

“If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skilful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regimes atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.”[25]

Parenti’s observation certainly resonates with the contemporary media consensus against China. For such a media consensus to be coincidental would be a statistical impossibility. It represents precisely the current political agenda of the “privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state” (that is, the imperialist ruling classes); it aims precisely to manufacture consent for the New Cold War on China.

Xinjiang

Nowhere is the propaganda model more visible than in relation to the mainstream media coverage of Xinjiang. The accusation that China is committing a genocide (or “cultural genocide”) in Xinjiang has been repeated so frequently as to become almost an accepted truth in large parts of the West. Although the accusation is backed up with precious little evidence, the story has become a global media sensation and has led to the introduction of an escalating program of sanctions, plus a “diplomatic boycott” by various imperialist countries of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022.[26] Furthermore, it has filtered into popular consciousness, fuelled by sophisticated social media campaigns. It has become the quintessential example of a propaganda blitz. As noted above, and consistent with Edwards and Cromwell’s description, this propaganda blitz is consistent across the corporate media’s conservative-liberal spectrum, from Fox News[27] to the New York Times,[28] from the Daily Mail[29] to the Guardian.[30]

Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model explains how such a story picks up steam:

“For stories that are useful, the process will get under way with a series of government leaks, press conferences, white papers, etc… If the other major media like the story, they will follow it up with their own versions, and the matter quickly becomes newsworthy by familiarity. If the articles are written in an assured and convincing style, are subject to no criticisms or alternative interpretations in the mass media, and command support by authority figures, the propaganda themes quickly become established as true even without real evidence. This tends to close out dissenting views even more comprehensively, as they would now conflict with an already established popular belief. This in turn opens up further opportunities for still more inflated claims, as these can be made without fear of serious repercussions.”[31]

The mass media is supplemented by much of the radical left in the imperialist heartlands. Popular progressive news outlet Democracy Now has parroted every lurid accusation against China in relation to Xinjiang.[32] Jacobin in 2021 gave a sympathetic interview to Sean R Roberts, author of The War on the Uyghurs: China’s Campaign Against Xinjiang’s Muslims, in which he claims that “what we see right now in the Uyghur region is a lot like the process of cultural genocide elsewhere in the world from a century ago, but benefitting from high-tech forms of repression that are available now in the twenty-first century”.[33] Meanwhile Britain’s Socialist Worker claims that “up to one million Uyghurs are locked up in internment camps.”[34] Somewhat ironically, Noam Chomsky himself is not immune to the imperialist propaganda model, stating in a 2021 podcast episode that China’s actions in Xinjiang are “terrible” and “highly repressive”, and repeating the assertion (discussed at length below) that “there are a million people who have gone through reeducation camps.”[35]

Meanwhile in the sphere of parliamentary politics, right and left have formed an unholy alliance in pursuit of the New Cold War on China. Besides right-wing fundamentalists such as Mike Pompeo, progressive Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has been hawkish regarding Xinjiang, calling on US businesses to study an Australian Strategic Policy Initiative (ASPI) report condemning China and ensure that their companies are not connected to Uyghur forced labour. Omar said: “No American company should be profiting from the use of gulag labor, or from Uyghur prisoners who are transferred for work after their time in Xinjiang’s concentration camps.”[36]

What is China accused of in Xinjiang?

Genocide

Of all the claims that are made in relation to China’s treatment of Uyghur people, the most serious is that it is perpetrating a genocide. One of the last acts of Trump’s State Department was, in January 2021, to declare that the Chinese government is “committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its wide-scale repression of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in its northwestern region of Xinjiang, including in its use of internment camps and forced sterilisation.”[37] The Biden administration doubled down on this slander, claiming in its 2021 annual human rights report that “genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang”, and that the components of this genocide included “the arbitrary imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty of more than one million civilians; forced sterilisation, coerced abortions, and more restrictive application of China’s birth control policies; rape; torture of a large number of those arbitrarily detained; forced labor; and the imposition of draconian restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement.”[38]

Canada’s House of Commons quickly followed suit,[39] as did the French National Assembly.[40] The European Parliament adopted a somewhat less adventurist resolution claiming that Muslims in Xinjiang were at “serious risk of genocide.”[41]

Genocide has a detailed definition under international law, which can be summarised as the purposeful destruction in whole or in part of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.[42] It is rightly considered to be one of the gravest crimes against humanity. As such, it is not the sort of accusation that should be thrown around carelessly and without evidence. And yet imperialist ideologues routinely do exactly that. As Herman and Chomsky pointed out decades ago, “genocide is an invidious word that officials apply readily to cases of victimisation in enemy states, but rarely if ever to similar or worse cases of victimisation by the United States itself or allied regimes.”[43]

Prominent scholar and economist Jeffrey Sachs has written in relation to the Biden administration’s accusations of genocide that “it has offered no proof, and unless it can, the State Department should withdraw the charge.” Continuing, Sachs writes that the charge of genocide should never be made lightly. “Inappropriate use of the term may escalate geopolitical and military tensions and devalue the historical memory of genocides such as the Holocaust, thereby hindering the ability to prevent future genocides. It behoves the US government to make any charge of genocide responsibly, which it has failed to do here.”[44]

What is the nature of the actual genocide charge? A 2021 report by a highly dubious Washington think-tank, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy,[45] claims that the Chinese government has implemented “comprehensive state policy and practice” with “the intent to destroy the Uyghurs as a group.” The report doesn’t claim that Uyghurs are directly being killed, but that coercive birth control measures are being selectively applied such that the Uyghur population slowly dies off.

However, there is no credible data to support these claims. It is the case that the birth rate has been trending downwards in Xinjiang, but the same is true for every Chinese province. Meanwhile, the Uyghur population from 2010 to 2018 increased from 10.2 million to 12.7 million, an increase of 25 percent. During the same period, the Han Chinese population in Xinjiang increased by just 2 percent.[46] Reflecting on the reasons for the marginal downturn in Uyghur birthrate, Pakistani-Canadian peace activist Omar Latif noted that the causes are “the same as elsewhere; more women acquiring higher education and participating in the workforce; less necessity for parents to have more children to take care of them in old age; urbanisation; lessening of patriarchal controls over women; increased freedom for women to practice birth control.”[47]

China’s one-child policy was first implemented in 1978, at a time when China was relatively insecure about its ability to feed a large population (China has 18 percent of the global population but only around 12 percent of the world’s arable land, along with chronic water scarcity).[48] The policy was in place until 2015, and largely serves to explain the long-term decline in the birth rate in China. However, national minorities – including Uyghurs – were exempt from the policy. Indeed the Uyghur population doubled during the period the one-child policy was in force. This pattern is replicated throughout China – according to the latest census data, the population of minority groups increased over the last decade by 10.26 percent (to 125 million), while that of Han Chinese grew at by 4.93 percent (to 1.3 billion) – less than half the rate.

Another data point that tends to belie the claims of a genocide in Xinjiang is that average life expectancy in the region has increased from 30 years in 1949 to 75 years today.[49]

One question that the various anti-China think tanks have not addressed is: if there were a genocide taking place in Xinjiang – including the ‘slow genocide’ of discriminatory coercive birth control – would this not lead to a refugee crisis? There is certainly no evidence of such a crisis; no camps along the border with Pakistan or Kazakhstan, and so on. Repression, war, poverty and climate change have combined to produce numerous current refugee crises in Africa, Asia and the Middle East; it is highly implausible that a full-blown genocide in Western China would not lead to any such issue. A Time article in 2021 confirmed that, in spite of both the Trump and Biden administrations’ outspoken criticisms of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the US had not admitted a single Uyghur refugee in the preceding 12 months.[50] Given that, in the same time period, Biden offered a refuge to people “fleeing Hong Kong crackdown”,[51] it’s unimaginable that the US would not offer refugee status to thousands of Xinjiang Uyghurs fleeing persecution – if they existed.

Lamenting the fact that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ‘Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’, issued in August 2022, fails to even mention the charge of genocide, Yale Law School academic Nicholas Bequelin lets slip that there simply is not a credible evidentiary basis for such a charge. “For the crime of genocide, you need to have several elements. One of the elements is intent. You need to be able to demonstrate, and to demonstrate convincingly, before a court, that the state had the intent of committing genocide. That’s the first thing. The second is that you have a number of elements for the crime of genocide – which is that it has to be a systematic, widespread extermination, or attempted extermination, of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group. There are elements that are present in the Chinese case, but it’s not clear that the intent is to lead to the extermination of a particular ethnic group.”[52]

The handful of reports on which the genocide charge is based do not provide anything like compelling evidence. What they put forward are some highly selective birth rate statistics, and the testimony of a small number of Uyghur exiles who claim to have been subjected to abuse. Working on the basis of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, China can by no means be considered as guilty of genocide.

An aside: at the time of writing, the total number of deaths caused by Covid-19 in Xinjiang is three.[53] It is very difficult to believe that state forces conducting a genocide against a given ethnic group would fail to take advantage of a pandemic in support of their project; indeed that the regional health authorities would go to significant lengths to prevent the people of this group dying from Covid-19.

Cultural genocide

A somewhat more sophisticated accusation against the Chinese government is that is perpetrating a cultural genocide in Xinjiang – not wiping out the Uyghur population as such but the Uyghur identity, Uyghur traditions, Uyghur beliefs. Although cultural genocide is not defined under international law, it apparently refers to “the elimination of a group’s identity, through measures such as forcibly transferring children away from their families, restricting the use of a national language, banning cultural activities, or destroying schools, religious institutions, or memory sites.”[54]

While the accusation seems less extreme than the accusation of physical genocide, the claims of cultural genocide are nonetheless similarly lacking in evidentiary basis. For example, all schools in Xinjiang teach both Standard Chinese and one minority language, most often Uyghur.[55] Chinese banknotes have five languages on them: Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian and Zhuang.[56] Thousands of books, newspapers and magazines are printed in the Uyghur language. What’s more, there are over 25,000 mosques in Xinjiang – three times the number there were in 1980, and one of the highest number of mosques per capita in the world (almost ten times as many as in the United States).[57]

Turkish scholar Adnan Akfirat observes that the Quran and numerous other key Islamic texts are readily available and have been translated into the Chinese, Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz languages. Further, “the Xinjiang Islamic Institute, headquartered in Urumqi, has eight branches in other cities such as Kashgar, Hotan and Ili, and there are ten theological schools in the region, including a Xinjiang Islamic School. These schools enrol 3,000 new students each year.”[58] Akfirat states that Muslims in Xinjiang freely engage in their religious rituals, including prayer, fasting, pilgrimages, and celebrating Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

These details have been confirmed by a steady stream of diplomats, officials and journalists that have visited Xinjiang in recent years. A diplomatic delegation in March 2021 included Pakistani Ambassador to China, Moin ul Haque, who explicitly rejected the accusations of religious persecution: “The notable and important thing is that there’s freedom of religion in China and it’s enshrined in the Constitution of China, which is a very important part… People in Xinjiang are enjoying their lives, their culture, their deep traditions, and most importantly, their religion.”[59]

Fariz Mehdawi, Palestinian Ambassador to China, commented that there were a huge number of mosques and one could see there was respect for religious and ethnic traditions, saying: “You know, the number of mosques, if you have to calculate it all, it’s something like 2,000 inhabitants for one mosque. This ratio we don’t have it in our country. It’s not available anywhere.” It was put to Mehdawi that he could simply have been shown a Potemkin village. He replied: “Are we diplomats so naive that we could be manoeuvred to believe anything … Or are we part of a conspiracy, that we would justify something against what we had seen? I think this is not respectful… There is no conspiracy here, there is facts. And the fact of the matter is that China is rising and developing everywhere, including Xinjiang. Since some people are not happy about that, they would like to stop the rise of China by any means.”[60]

Looking at different countries’ voting records at the UN in relation to human rights in China, it’s striking that the only Muslim-majority country that consistently votes in support of US-led slanders is NATO member Albania. During the 50th session of the Human Rights Council in 2022, members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation overwhelmingly co-sponsored the statement supporting China’s position (by 37 to 1). This pattern is mirrored in Africa (33 to 2) and Asia (20 to 2).[61] It is very difficult to believe that the vast majority of Muslim-majority countries, and countries of the Global South, would stay silent in the face of a cultural genocide committed against Uyghur Muslims in China.

Given the lack of evidence for a cultural genocide; the data and reports concerning the protection of minority cultures in China; the large number of diplomatic missions to Xinjiang; and the near-consensus voice of Muslim-majority countries defending China against slander; the accusations of cultural genocide appear to be wholly insupportable.

Concentration camps

The specific charge most frequently levelled against the authorities in Xinjiang is that they operate prison camps where Uyghur Muslims are locked up in huge numbers – the most oft-mentioned figure is one million, out of a population of 13 million.[62] The alleged purpose of these prison camps is to eradicate Uyghur Muslim culture and to brainwash people into supporting the government – to “breed vengeful feelings and erase Uyghur identity”.[63]

The “million Uyghurs in concentration camps” story is a quintessential propaganda blitz. Through sheer repetition across the Western media, along with support from the US State Department, this startling headline has acquired the force of a widely-accepted truth. And yet the sources for this “news” are so spurious as to be laughable.

A 2018 China File article attempting to locate the source of this one million figure identifies four key pieces of research, by the German anthropologist Adrian Zenz; Washington DC-based non-profit Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD); the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI); and US-based media outlet Radio Free Asia (RFA). A new player entered the game in 2021: the Newlines Institute, a think tank based at the Fairfax University of America, which issued the “first independent report” to authoritatively determine that the Chinese government has violated the UN convention on genocide. It is worthwhile considering whether these individuals and organisations most responsible for these high-profile accusations against China have any vested interests or ulterior motives.

Adrian Zenz was the first person to claim that a million Uyghurs were being held in concentration camps.[64] He is also something of a trailblazer in relation to allegations of forced labour and forced sterilisation. His relentless work slandering China has received an appreciative audience at CNN,[65] the Guardian,[66] Democracy Now,[67] and elsewhere. It is difficult to find a news report about China’s alleged use of concentration camps that does not reference Zenz’s work.

A hagiographic report in the Wall Street Journal highlights the outsized role of this one individual in the construction of a global anti-China slander machine: “Research by a born-again Christian anthropologist working alone from a cramped desk … thrust China and the West into one of their biggest clashes over human rights in decades. Doggedly hunting down data in obscure corners of the Chinese internet, Adrian Zenz revealed a security buildup in China’s remote Xinjiang region and illuminated the mass detention and policing of Turkic Muslims that followed. His research showed how China spent billions of dollars building internment camps and high-tech surveillance networks in Xinjiang, and recruited police officers to run them.”[68]

Casually hinting at Zenz’s ideological orientation, the article notes that “his faith pushes him forward” and that his previous intellectual activity includes co-authoring “a book re-examining biblical end-times.”[69] He “feels very clearly led by God” to issue anti-China slanders. In other words, Zenz is not simply a politically-neutral data scientist with a passion for human rights. Rather he’s a hardened anti-communist and Christian end-timer; he is employed as the Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation,[70] an arch-conservative organisation set up by the United States Congress in 1993 in order to memorialise “the deaths of over 100,000,000 victims in an unprecedented imperial holocaust” such that “so evil a tyranny” as state socialism would ever again be able to “terrorise the world.”[71] His book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation, he urges the subjection of unruly children to “scriptural spanking” and describes homosexuality as “one of the four empires of the beast.”[72]

Given Zenz’s ideological affiliations and intellectual record, it would not be unreasonable to demand that his research be subjected to serious scrutiny. In reality, however, his evaluations regarding Xinjiang have been uncritically accepted and widely amplified by the Western media and political machine.

Another organisation lending its support to the accusation that “more than a million Uyghurs and members of other Turkic Muslim minorities have disappeared into a vast network of ‘re-education camps’” is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).[73] ASPI is a think-tank set up by the Australian government, and has become highly influential in terms of moulding the Australian public‘s attitude towards China. Its reports about Xinjiang are among the most-cited sources on the topic.

ASPI describes itself as “an independent, non-partisan think tank”, but its core funding comes from the Australian government, with substantial contributions from the US Department of Defense and State Department (earmarked specifically for “Xinjiang human rights” work), as well as the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and others.[74] In summary, ASPI is knee-deep in the business of Cold War and the militarisation of the Pacific, and there is a clear conflict of interest when it comes to discussing human rights in China.

The most recent “non-partisan think tank” to amplify anti-China propaganda in relation to Xinjiang is the Newlines Institute, described by Jeffrey Sachs as “a project of a tiny Virginia-based university with 153 students, eight full-time faculty, and an apparently conservative policy agenda.”[75] The Newlines report – “the first independent expert application of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the ongoing treatment of the Uyghurs in China”[76] – received extensive coverage in the Western media as the smoking gun proving China’s culpability in relation to concentration camps, forced labour and cultural genocide. The report was put together by the institute’s Uyghur Scholars Working Group, an illustrious group led by none other than Adrian Zenz. Canadian journalist Ajit Singh, in a detailed investigation for The Grayzone, points out that “the leadership of Newlines Institute includes former US State Department officials, US military advisors, intelligence professionals who previously worked for the ‘shadow CIA’ private spying firm, Stratfor, and a collection of interventionist ideologues.” Further, the institute’s founder and president is Ahmed Alwani, otherwise best known for having served on the advisory board for the US military’s Africa Command.[77]

The BBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post and others all treated the Newlines report as if it represented the very pinnacle of academic rigour, without mentioning even in passing its connection with the US military-industrial complex.

It is abundantly clear that the popular narrative about Xinjiang prison camps rests on highly dubious sources. The evidence offered up by Zenz, ASPI and the like is a handful of individual testimonies along with a small selection of photographs and satellite pictures purporting to show prison camps. These pictures do appear to prove that some prisons exist, but this is not a terribly interesting or unusual phenomenon. China has some prisons, although its incarceration rate – 121 per 100,000 people – is less than 20 percent that of the US.[78]

Several commentators have pointed out that it is not easy to hide a million prisoners – approximately the population of Dallas. As Omar Latif comments: “Imagine the number of buildings and the infrastructure required to house and service that number of prisoners! With satellite cameras able to read a vehicle license plate, one would think the US would be able to show those prisons and prisoners in great detail.”[79]

Perhaps the most iconic image purporting to show a Xinjiang prison camp is that of a group of men in a prison yard wearing blue boiler suits. This turns out to be a picture of a talk given at Luopu County Reform and Correction Centre, in April 2017.[80] The Luopu Centre is an ordinary prison, with ordinary criminals, but it has been “fallaciously used to prove, show, or insinuate either concentration camps or slave labor of Xinjiang people”.[81]

Deradicalisation

The Chinese authorities claim that what Western human rights groups are calling concentration camps are in fact vocational education centres designed to address the problem of religious extremism and violent separatism. They combine classes on sociology and ethics – focused on trying to undermine ideas of religious hatred – with classes providing marketable skills such that the attendees can find jobs and improve their standard of living. The basic idea is to improve people’s life prospects so that they are less likely to be radicalised by fundamentalist sectarian groups.

The threat from such groups is real enough. The biggest among them is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which up until October 2020 was classified by the US State Department as a terrorist group.[82] It has sent thousands of its militia to fight alongside Daesh and assorted al-Qaeda groups in Syria and Afghanistan.[83]

Between the mid 1990s and mid 2010s, there was a sequence of terrorist attacks in China carried out by Uyghur separatist outfits – in shopping centres, train stations and bus stations as well as Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds of civilians. This corresponds with an increase in terrorism across Middle East and Central Asia, in no small measure related to the West’s proxy wars against progressive or nationalist states in the region. Like any population, the Chinese people demand the right to safety and security; as such, terrorism is not a problem China’s government can simply ignore.

The vocational centres were therefore set up as part of a holistic anti-terrorism campaign aimed at increasing educational attainment and economic prosperity, thereby addressing the disaffection that is known to breed radicalisation. Educational methods have been combined with a focus on improving living conditions: in the five years from 2014 to 2019, per capita disposable income increased by an average annual rate of 9.1 percent.[84]

China’s approach to tackling terrorism is based on the measures advocated in United Nations’ Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism, which “calls for a comprehensive approach encompassing not only essential security-based counter-terrorism measures but also systematic preventive steps to address the underlying conditions that drive individuals to radicalise and join violent extremist groups.”[85] Thus China is actively attempting to operate within the framework of international law and best practices. This approach compares rather favourably with, for example, the US’s operation of a torture camp for suspected terrorists, not to mention innocent victims snatched more or less at random, in Guantánamo Bay – itself an illegally-occupied area of Cuba.[86]

Without conducting extensive investigations on the ground, it is obviously not possible to verify the Chinese authorities’ claims about how the vocational education centres run. What we can say with certainty is that the accusations about genocide, cultural genocide, religious oppression and concentration camps are not backed by anything approximating sufficient proof. Meanwhile the most prominent accusers all, without exception, have a known axe to grind against China.

None of the foregoing is meant to deny that there are any problems in Xinjiang; that Uyghur people are never mistreated or ethnically profiled by the police; or that there has never been any coercion involved in the deradicalisation program. But these problems – which are well-understood in China and which the government is actively addressing – are in no way unique to China. Certainly any discrimination against Uyghurs pales in comparison with, for example, the treatment of African-Americans and indigenous peoples in the United States, or the treatment of Dalits, Adivasis and numerous other minorities in India.

Why Xinjiang?

The perverse propaganda campaign around Xinjiang serves multiple purposes. It is a component of the US-led New Cold War – a project of hybrid warfare designed to slow down China’s rise, to maintain US hegemony and prevent the emergence of a multipolar world.[87] It also connects to a century-old pattern of vicious anti-communism that aims to disrupt the natural solidarity the working classes in the capitalist countries, and oppressed people generally, might otherwise feel towards the socialist world. Lastly, Xinjiang’s geostrategic importance means that it has a special role in any overall strategy of weakening China. Bordering Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Xinjiang constitutes a key point along the major east-west land routes of the Belt and Road Initiative. It connects China to Central Asia and therefore also to the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and Europe. Xinjiang is China’s largest natural gas-producing region, is the centre of China’s solar and wind power generation, and is crucially important for China’s security.

British political scientist Jude Woodward noted that Xinjiang’s location puts it at the heart of China’s blossoming trade relationship with Central Asia – “part of the world where the confrontation between China’s win-win geo-economics and the US’s old style geopolitics are playing themselves out with the starkest contrast… China has proposed that Central Asia should be at the crossroads of a reimagined Eurasia connected by oil and gas pipelines, high speed trains and continuous carriageways, with stability underpinned by growth and fuelled by trade. China offers a vision of a world turned on its axis, placing not the ‘middle kingdom’ but the entire Asian continent at the centre of the next phase of human development.”[88]

In order to disrupt this progress, the US has resorted to destabilisation and demonisation. The maximum goal is to lay the ground for a pseudo-independent Xinjiang which would in reality be a US client state and a powerful foothold for further aggression against China and other states in the region. The minimum, and far more likely, goal is to disrupt the value chains connecting China to the Eurasian land mass, thereby slowing down the Belt and Road Initiative and damaging China’s trade relationships with Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

As an aside, the West’s stoking of instability in Xinjiang and its imposition of sanctions expose the shallowness of its commitment to the fight against climate breakdown. In 2021, Xinjiang generated 2.48 trillion kilowatts of electricity from renewable sources (primarily solar and wind) – nearly 30 percent of China’s total electricity consumption.[89] Around half of the world’s supply of polysilicon, an essential component in solar panels, comes from Xinjiang.[90]

If the US and its allies were serious about pursuing carbon neutrality and preventing an ecological catastrophe, they would be working closely with China to develop supply chains and transmission capacity for renewable energy. China’s investment in solar and wind power technology has already led to a dramatic reduction of prices around the world.[91] Instead, they are imposing blanket sanctions on China and attempting to cut Xinjiang out of clean energy supply chains.[92] This indicates rather clearly that the imperialist ruling classes are prioritising their anti-China propaganda war over preventing climate breakdown. It seems the slogan “better dead than red” lives on in the 21st century.

Refuse consent

Malcolm X, the African-American civil rights leader and revolutionary, famously said that “if you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”[93]

China is rising. Its life expectancy has now overtaken that of the US.[94] Extreme poverty is a thing of the past, and people increasingly live well. China has established itself as a leading force in the fight against climate breakdown; in the fight to save humanity from pandemics; and in the movement towards a more democratic, multipolar system of international relations. It is “now the standard-bearer of the global socialist movement,” in the words of Xi Jinping.[95]

The US and its allies are pursuing a New Cold War with the aim of weakening China, limiting its rise, and ultimately overturning the Chinese Revolution and ending the rule of the Communist Party. The barrage of anti-China propaganda provides the marketing for this New Cold War. The Western ruling classes want Chinese socialism to be associated with discrimination, authoritarianism and prison camps; not with ending poverty and saving the planet. Readers in the imperialist countries should consider whether they want to have their consent manufactured in this way; whether they share the foreign policy objectives of their ruling classes.

What would the likely repercussions be if the US and its allies were successful in their aims and the People’s Republic of China suffered the same fate as the Soviet Union?

For one thing, the consequences in terms of the climate crisis would potentially be catastrophic. A capitalist government in China would have neither the will nor the resources to continue the projects of renewable energy, afforestation and conservation at the level they are currently being pursued. A pandemic on the scale of Covid-19 would be utterly devastating, resulting in several million – rather than a few thousand – Chinese deaths. Meanwhile malaria, cholera and other diseases could all be expected to make a comeback, given the perfect storm of poverty, overcrowding, rising temperatures and sea levels – ‘Goldilocks conditions’ for pathogens.

Poverty alleviation and common prosperity would be relegated to history. Hundreds of millions would be pushed into destitution by a ruling class that had no reason to prioritise their interests. Homelessness, violent crime and drug addiction would once again become commonplace, as they did in Russia following the Soviet collapse. Furthermore a capitalist China, desperate to earn the friendship and protection of the US, would end its international role promoting multipolarity and opposing imperialism.

We must resolutely oppose and expose anti-China slander, which aims to break the bonds of solidarity within the global working class and all those opposed to imperialism; which seeks to malign and undermine socialism; and which serves to perpetuate a moribund capitalist system that everyday generates more poverty, more misery, more oppression, more violence, more environmental destruction, and that increasingly threatens the very survival of humanity.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/10/ ... -of-china/

References at link.
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sun Oct 16, 2022 2:24 pm

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As Western capitalism faces repeated crises, socialist China achieves spectacular success
We are pleased to reproduce this article by Professor Radhika Desai, which originally appeared in Global Times.

Radhika notes that, “After the disintegration of the USSR, the People’s Republic of China, under leadership of the CPC, not only survived, but succeeded spectacularly…(but) none of this was inevitable.”

The secret behind the success of socialism in China and the failure of capitalism, particularly the variety practiced in the United States and Britain, she argues, is best understood by returning to the teachings of Marx.

A further very important factor identified by Radhika is that “the Chinese revolution, even more than the Russian revolution, was at once socialist and anti-imperialist.” Her conclusion is that, “while China does not aim to be a model for other nations, its experience and policies do serve as a worthy example. Other countries can best benefit from their relations with socialist China if they also adapt China’s experience to their aspirations and circumstances.” This resonates with President Xi Jinping’s important observation that: “It [socialism with Chinese characteristics] offers a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence.”
After the disintegration of the USSR, the People’s Republic of China, under leadership of the CPC, not only survived, but succeeded spectacularly. The party-state holding overall control of the economy composed of a pragmatic mix of state and private enterprise has managed to harness market forces to build socialism and brought a very poor society to the threshold of moderate prosperity. It has scored many technological achievements along the way.

None of this was inevitable. All of it required leadership, who has been capable of well-judged decisions, political skill and wisdom, the ability to learn from mistakes, to listen to the people and, above all, to stand up to powerful capitalism and imperialism. It also required a long-standing commitment to China’s original revolutionary principles.

The fast-mounting failures of Western neoliberal and financialized capitalism throw China’s achievements into very flattering relief. These failures include recurrent crises, low growth, social inequality, political division, a scandalous record against the pandemic and, not least, its deeply misguided foreign policy of aggression which is putting the world in great danger, including danger of nuclear war.

Today, Western neoliberal and financialized capitalism, particularly in its two leading countries, the US and the UK, is manifestly failing on the productive front, while Chinese socialism is succeeding. To understand why, it is best to return to Marx. Marx considered capitalism historically progressive because it developed the forces of production by socializing them, increasing the division of labor and promoting ever more complex social cooperation.

First, competitive capitalism socialized production among firms specializing in different products. Then, monopoly capitalism socialized production within firms, making them giant productive apparatuses coordinating thousands of workers under their authority. As Marx foresaw, at this stage, capitalism had accomplished all the historical progress it was capable of and was ripe for socialism. This would involve putting these large monopolistic productive apparatuses under social control and running them in the public interest and replicating them where they were yet to be built. Their private control was no longer historically progressive, efficient or rational.

Leading capitalist countries had reached this stage in the early twentieth century and, not co-incidentally, capitalism erupted in its most profound crisis, involving two World Wars and the Great Depression. The Thirty Years’ Crisis of 1914-1945 was also bookended by the two greatest challenges to capitalism so far, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and then later the 1949 Chinese Revolution. With capitalism’s reputation in tatters, most believed the world would move in a socialist direction: progressives like Keynes and Polanyi welcomed it, reactionaries like Hayek feared it.

Amid the “golden age” of world growth thereafter, most forgot these hopes and fears. However, they were at least partially vindicated. The “golden age” would have been impossible without the “socialistic” reforms that created Keynesian welfare states in the imperialist countries, without communist countries and without Third World attempts at autonomous national development, all involving considerable state ownership and direction, all resting on high levels of working-class organization and political assertion.

However, the economic structure underlying the Keynesian welfare states remained capitalist and, inevitably, as production outran demand, they fell into crisis in the 1970s. At that point, instead of deepening socialistic reform, which would have preserved and improved their productive sectors, these societies turned to neoliberalism – freeing capitalism from state regulation and social obligation – to revive growth. Since this was akin to expecting the youthful vigor of competitive capitalism from senile monopoly capitalism, production languished in the leading neoliberal economies, replaced by an explosion of finance and other rentier activities.

This is why the widespread belief that capitalism is best at production and we need socialism only to distribute incomes equitably is false. This is why China’s socialism is leading world growth.

Secondly, the Chinese revolution, even more than the Russian Revolution, was at once socialist and anti-imperialist. To date, no socialist revolution has occurred in the homelands of capitalism, only outside them. The reason is simple: while imperialism permits capital to make greater concessions to working people in its homelands, it offers only economic subordination and poverty to others. Inevitably, socialist countries have had to build socialism by overcoming the setbacks of imperialism and in the face of unremitting imperialist resistance. Left forces – movements, parties and states – must understand this if they are to advance world socialism.

Third, China’s foreign policy recognizes the centrality of anti-imperialism and national economic sovereignty to the progress of socialism.

Fourth, and relatedly, China’s support for socialist and developing countries through aid and trade and the dense network of institutions and programs such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or the Belt and Road Initiative, serve to expand the options of developing and socialist countries who are no longer compelled to be at the mercy of imperialist institutions.

While China does not aim to be a model for other nations, its experience and policies do serve as a worthy example. Other countries can best benefit from their relations with socialist China if they also adapt China’s experience to their aspirations and circumstances.

https://socialistchina.org/2022/10/10/a ... r-success/

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Ideological Work in the New Era of Socialism in China
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 15, 2022
Gabriel Martinez

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Part 1
The Reform and Opening policy, initiated by the Communist Party of China in 1978, has produced important transformations in the economic sphere of the country. The transformation in the structure of property has, little by little, caused the basic structure of property relations in the country to change to a system where the state/public economy remains its backbone but coexists with multiple forms of property, which exist and develop together (including domestic and foreign private property). These transformations have been accompanied by a series of ideological changes, changes that have had an influence on the most varied sectors of social life. This influence can be seen in population’s way of life, in the economy, in culture, arts, and also in politics. From an ideological point of view, Chinese society has become more “diversified”, and obviously, such diversification not only has positive aspects but also produces negative consequences and brings new challenges for the development of socialism in China. In this article, I will try to outline some aspects of the formulations of the Communist Party of China on ideological work and how this work is acquiring a new role in China under the leadership of Xi Jinping.

The struggle against bourgeois liberalization in the new era of socialism

After the beginning of the reforms, an ideological trend emerged in China called “bourgeois liberalization”. The phenomenon of bourgeois liberalization, to this day, exerts a pernicious influence on China’s development process and the building of a socialist culture. How does the Communist Party define this liberalization? According to Deng Xiaoping:

“Since the fall of the Gang of Four an ideological trend that we call bourgeois liberalization has emerged. Its exponents idolize the ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ of Western capitalist countries and reject socialism. This cannot be tolerated. China must modernize, but she must not promote liberalization or take the capitalist path, as Western countries have done.” [1]

Deng Xiaoping’s warning clearly shows us that, since the beginning, the problem of bourgeois liberalization has always been the object of attention by the leaders of the Communist Party of China. Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, etc, dealt with this problem several times. However, it is not wrong to say that over the years, far from being solved, it still exists and exerts considerable influence. Faced with the new political line approved after the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP held in 1978, which established a break with the previous line of “taking class struggle as the main link”, placing economic construction and socialist modernization at the centre of the Party’s activity, a very active political tendency arose, which defended the idea that besides reforms in the economic sphere, it was also necessary to carry out reforms of a political nature, calling for more “democracy” and “freedom”. This ideological current became quite active politically, especially from the 1980s onwards, seeking to divert Reform and Opening away from its original path and direction of perfecting the socialist system, and toward the path of restoring capitalism and the bourgeois-type political system, as happened in the Soviet Union.

At first, especially among intellectual circles, an anti-Mao Zedong wave swept the country, leading to an open contestation of the resolutions presented by the CCP in its historic document On Some Problems in the History of Our Party from the Founding of the PRC to the Present Day in 1981. The document, while stating that Mao Zedong made some mistakes at the end of his life, is quite clear in its recognition and exaltation of the Chinese leader’s historical role in the history of Party and Republic-building. The document clearly states that Mao Zedong’s successes far outweigh his mistakes. It says:

“Comrade Mao Zedong was a great Marxist and a great proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theoretician. It is true that he made serious mistakes during the ‘cultural revolution’, but if we judge his activities as a whole, his contributions to the Chinese revolution arguably outweigh his mistakes. His merits are of the first order and his mistakes of the second order. He rendered invaluable service in founding and building our Party and the People’s Liberation Army of China, winning victory for the cause of liberating the Chinese people, founding the People’s Republic of China, and advancing our socialist cause. He made great contributions to the liberation of the oppressed nations of the world and the progress of humanity.” [2]

The advocates of bourgeois liberalization, taking advantage of the debates started all over the country on how to evaluate the first thirty years of China’s socialist construction process, used it as an excuse to put forward their anti-communist ideas. The problem of bourgeois liberalization reached alarming levels and ended up resulting in the counter-revolutionary riots of 1989, showing that even though the Party had carried out campaigns to fight so-called “spiritual pollution” at that time, several mistakes and failures had been committed by the Party in terms of the way it conducted the work of political and ideological education of the Party cadres and of the population in general. This was recognized by Deng Xiaoping himself, who stated at that time: “Our most serious mistake was in education – we did not provide enough education for the youth, including the students.” [3]

The founding leaders of the People’s Republic of China have always paid great attention to the problem of ideological education. Mao Zedong, in the classic work How to Correctly Solve the Contradiction Among the People draws attention to the protracted character of the ideological struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. According to Mao Zedong:

“A long period is still needed to decide the outcome of the ideological struggle waged in our country between socialism and capitalism, since the influence of the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals who come from the old society will persist in China for a long time as a class ideology. If we do not understand this situation well, or if we do not understand it fully, we run the risk of making the gravest of mistakes, that of ignoring the need to conduct the struggle on the ideological plane.” [4]

The CCP has over the years developed a very consistent ideological political line to deal with the problem of bourgeois liberalization. Jiang Zemin, for example, stated: “The practice of ideological work confirms that if proletarian thought does not occupy its position, it will be occupied by non-proletarian thoughts. We must pay attention and learn from these lessons.” [5]

However, while recognizing that the Party has always called attention to the need to strengthen ideological work, one cannot fail to recognize that Xi Jinping’s coming to power represents a turning point in the Communist Party of China’s political line. Particularly important for us to understand the political and ideological content of Xi Jinping’s thinking is the analysis of his speech delivered at a conference on propaganda and ideological work on August 19, 2013. In this speech, while remaining faithful to the principles established by previous leaders (Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao), Xi Jinping advances important reflections and formulations on how to develop political and ideological work in China. Although at that time the Communist Party of China had not yet coined the term “new era of socialism”, it is clear that the ideas contained in this important document are the compass that will guide the Party in what they call the “new era of socialism”, an era that officially began as of the 19th Congress in 2017. In this speech, Xi Jinping says:

“Economic construction is the central work of the Party; ideological work is extremely important work of the Party. Everyone clearly understands the positions of both areas of work, but in some localities and departments, it is clear that there is the phenomenon that in words the importance of both aspects of work is recognized, but there is no clarity when it comes to applying this principle. Doing the ideological and propaganda work requires that, first of all, this problem be solved.” [6]

Economic construction of the country is still the central work of the entire Party. This important definition, first put forward during the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Communist Party of China in 1978, starts from the understanding that China, being a still backward country (especially when compared to the developed emphasising central capitalist countries), needs to put economic construction and the promotion of the development of the productive forces at the centre of its attention. As Marxist economist Zhou Xincheng recognizes, establishing economic construction as the central work is “the result of the main contradiction of society”, so it cannot be understood as a subjective decision. [7] In emphasizing that ideological work is “extremely important work”, Xi Jinping calls attention to the need for the entire Party to have a correct understanding of this work, recognizing that in many respects it has not been correctly performed, and has even been neglected.

Wang Qishan, current Vice President of the People’s Republic of China and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, in an article published in the People’s Daily, emphasized that Xi Jinping has “clarified confused ideas, recovering lost positions, reversing the wrong path, establishing the authority of the Central Committee, basically reversing the situation of weakening Party leadership.” [8]

The statements made by Wang Qishan are a recognition, by a senior Party and government leader, that many things need to be corrected if the cause of socialism in China is to continue advancing along a correct path. The weakening of the Party leadership is something that is closely related to ideological and educational work. Ideological work is precisely one of the main fronts on which the Party must exercise its leadership role, making sure that the mistakes made in this area are rectified, and the cause of socialism in China continues to advance in a healthy way. Ideological work, being a “work of utmost importance”, cannot be neglected using the excuse that “developing the economy” is the central aspect of Party work. As former leader Chen Yun stated:

“If we promote socialist material progress and not socialist cultural and ideological progress at the same time, we will deviate from the correct path. If institutions or leading cadres forget or slow down their efforts to build socialist civilization, culturally and ideologically, they will not be able to do a good job in building socialist civilization materially and will even turn away from socialist and communist ideals. This is very dangerous.” [9]

In this sense, the events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are the most concrete example of what are the results produced by the underestimation of political and ideological work, as well as of a mistaken political line, in which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, after the death of Joseph Stalin, began to gradually distance itself from Marxism-Leninism. To illustrate with an example: American professor David Kotz, in an article where he recounts his experience in the Soviet Union, talks about an episode where he allegedly asked an official if he was a member of the Communist Party. According to Kotz, the officer replied, “Yes, I am a member of the Communist Party, but I am not a Communist.” [10]

Experiences such as those reported by Professor Kotz help us to understand what the internal ideological environment was that prevailed in the CPSU and in Soviet society itself already on the eve of its dissolution. The Soviet example should also serve as a lesson for the Chinese Communists, since this phenomenon is not uncommon in this country either. Here we are facing a problem closely related to the question of political and ideological convictions that should guide the activity and action of Party members. As for this problem, the Chinese have been aware of it from the moment it began to manifest itself in an acute way.

Thus, the problems that enabled the dissolution of the Soviet Union are the subject of constant reflection by the leaders of the CCP. Xi Jinping also went so far as to explicitly refer to the Soviet example to issue a warning to the CCP. According to Xi Jinping, when it began to repudiate Lenin and Stalin, the Soviet Union embarked on the path of historical nihilism, something that prepared the ideological ground for the justification of the “peaceful evolution” from socialism to capitalism. He asks:

“Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party fall from power? One important reason was that the struggle in the field of ideology was extremely intense, completely denying the history of the Soviet Union, denying the history of the Soviet Communist Party, denying Lenin, denying Stalin, creating historical nihilism and muddled thinking. Party organs at all levels had lost their functions, the military was no longer under Party leadership. In the end, the Soviet Communist Party, a great party, dispersed; the Soviet Union, a great socialist country, disintegrated.” [11]

Thus, it was on the ideological terrain, amid a lack of vigilance in the face of forces hostile to socialism, that the Soviet Union was defeated. Mao Zedong, many years earlier, analysed the importance of ideology in the process of seizing political power, whether from revolutionary or reactionary classes. He observed: “Anyone who wants to overthrow a political regime must first create public opinion and do some ideological preparatory work. This goes for the counter-revolutionary classes as well as the revolutionary classes.” [12]

As soon as this problem appeared before the socialist camp and the Communist parties, the Communist Party of China was in the front line of its denunciation, going on to develop a constant ideological struggle against the revisionist ideas which were propagated by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ideas which in practice contributed to the strategy being put forward by US imperialism. However, especially after the beginning of the Reform and Opening, the Party at various levels let down its guard in the face of the danger of peaceful evolution, which gave free course to the strengthening of imperialist cultural influence and the propagation of bourgeois liberalization. The anti-communist protests, which peaked in 1989 in the events in Tiananmen Square, prove this thesis. Deng Xiaoping himself, commenting on the end of the Cold War and the general crisis of the socialist camp, recognized that:

“It seems that one Cold War has come to an end, but that two others have already begun: one is being waged against all the countries of the South and the Third World, and the other against socialism. The Western countries are staging a third world war without firearms. By this I mean that they want to promote the peaceful evolution of socialist countries to capitalism.” [14]

The beginning of the trade war against China, the fierce campaign promoted by imperialism on the issue of Xinjiang and the attempt to politicize and blame China for the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, are nothing more than aspects of this ideological struggle promoted by US imperialism against Chinese socialism. To face this new challenge, it is essential that the Party and society strengthen ideological work and strengthen their understanding of Marxist theory. The question of ideological work and education, far from being something trivial, is a vital issue for the continuity and permanence of the Communist Party of China as the leading force of the Chinese nation and the cause of building socialism in China. The fact that such a problem has been recognized by the highest leaders as something pressing reveals how serious the ideological situation was in the country before Xi Jinping came to power.

Part II
The struggle against the marginalization of Marxism and the reaffirmation of its continuing relevance

One of the main examples of this problem in the ideological realm is the marginalization suffered by Marxism in recent years. Xi Jinping has been paying close attention to this problem, aiming to restore and consolidate the authority and leading role of Marxism as the theoretical basis guiding socialist construction and modernization in China. The problem of marginalization of Marxism is not exaggerated; rather, it is clear to anyone minimally familiar with the internal situation of the country and with the prevailing ideological environment within Chinese society. The Marxist economist Liu Guoguang, analyzing the ideological situation in Chinese theoretical circles – especially in the field of political economy – stated:

“For some time, in the field of economic science research and teaching, the influence of western economics has increased and the guiding position of economic science of Marxism has been weakened and marginalized. In the field of economic theory research and teaching, it seems that nowadays Western economics has become the dominant trend; many students consciously or unconsciously take Western economics as the dominant economic trend in our country. Some people consider Western political economy to be the guiding thought for development and reform in China, some economists openly advocate that Western political economy should be seen as the dominant trend, replacing the guiding position of Marxist economics. Western bourgeois ideology permeates both economic research work and the work of formulating economic decisions. I am very concerned about this phenomenon.” [15]

It is not only in the realm of the study and teaching of economics that Marxism is undergoing a process of marginalization. In the fields of history, philosophy, arts, etc, too, Marxism has been marginalized to various degrees. The Party uses the term “historical nihilism” to describe all sorts of ideas that seek to explain Chinese history, especially the history of the CCP and the construction of socialism, in a distorted way. In the ideological realm, the main target of “historical nihilism” is precisely Marxism, the official state ideology that should theoretically guide and direct all activities and sectors of the country. Historian Gong Yun, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Scientists, explaining the influence of historical nihilism in today’s China, said:

“In the last two decades, although historical nihilism has been criticized in academic circles, the effect of these criticisms has not yet been obvious. The views advocated by historical nihilism have a wide social influence, especially in the new media, some newspapers, and among ordinary people. Historical nihilism has formed a certain social soil and created serious consequences of division and antagonism.” [16]

Since the 18th CCP Congress, several internal ideological campaigns to combat historical nihilism have been carried out, and Xi Jinping himself even analyzed such a phenomenon in one of his speeches. At the February 20, 2021, in a Party history study conference, Xi Jinping said, “We must take a clear stand against historical nihilism, strengthen ideological orientation and theoretical analysis, clarifying the vague and one-sided understandings regarding some historical events in our Party’s history.” [17]

It is precisely because the situation has reached such a critical level that Xi Jinping pays close attention to the need to consolidate the leading position of Marxism in the ideological field. It is also for this reason that in recent years there have been repeated calls for Party cadres to raise their ideological-political level and deepen their study and knowledge of the classics of Marxism. Speaking specifically about the marginalization of Marxism, Xi Jinping said that:

“Some people consider Marxism outdated, that China currently does not follow Marxism; some people consider Marxism to be just ideological ‘preaching’ without rationality and scientific systematization. In practical work, in some fields Marxism has been marginalized, turned into something empty, symbolic.” [18]

The strengthening of the guiding role of Marxism is fundamental to ensuring that the Party cadres have a correct view of the trends of social development, understand the fundamental differences between capitalism and socialism, and increase their political, ideological and cultural confidence in the political system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Only by mastering Marxism can one correctly understand the real goals of the Reform and Opening up policy and ensure that it continues to move in the right direction. This is the reason why Xi Jinping insists on the need to consolidate the position of Marxism as the guiding ideology of the Reform and Opening up process, as well as of all the political work undertaken by the Communist Party of China. As Xi Jinping stated:

“At the present time, the environment, target, scope and methods of ideological propaganda are undergoing great changes, but the main task of ideological and propaganda work has not and cannot change. Ideological and propaganda work must consolidate the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological sphere and consolidate a common ideological basis for the united struggle of the entire Party and people.” [19]

Consolidating the guiding role of Marxism, making it increasingly a real material force guiding the process of building socialism in China, is a mandatory condition for the Party to strengthen its leadership and governance capacity, as well as to continue achieving new successes in the process of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The existence of capitalist relations of production in the primary stage of socialism and their effects on the ideological sphere

As we stated at the beginning of the article, the restructuring of the property system in China has given rise to capitalist-type relations of production, so they produce a certain type of ideology that corresponds to the character of these relations. Economist Wu Xuangong defends the idea that currently there are “a large number of economic phenomena and problems in China that did not exist in the past and are contrary to the nature and principles of socialism”. Such problems stem from the fact that in present-day China, in addition to the “main contradiction of socialist society, there is also the main contradiction of capitalism”. [20]

It is therefore correct for us to analyze what role the ideology produced by these new capitalist relations of production play in the general set of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and how the Party will deal with this contradiction in the medium and long term. The recognition of the contradictions and problems that have appeared in the country in the last 40 years – and their effects in the realm of ideology – reveals a great concern on the part of Chinese Marxist theorists to seek and find the appropriate explanations to correctly solve the problem. To do so, one must keep in mind the basic principle of Marxism that existence determines consciousness, or the economic base determines the superstructure; therefore, it would not be correct to consider that the increased dangers presented by bourgeois liberalization are works of chance, or that they arise magically. They manifest themselves ultimately as ideological representations of new petty-bourgeois and bourgeois social classes that are bound by multiple ties to capitalist private property, and are also the product of the increased ideological infiltration promoted by Western countries, especially the United States and all its ideological apparatus of political and cultural domination, to the extent that there has been a certain loosening of ideological and class education, as well as an advance in the penetration of foreign capital in the country. As Wu Xuangong stated, “The belief in socialism gradually weakened, so that Marxism was marginalized; the emphasis on self-interest, as well as the pursuit of material interests, became a trend.” [21]

In the 1990s, Deng Xiaoping and many Party cadres considered the idea of explaining the problem of bourgeois liberalization through the analysis of economic relations to be mistaken, because they saw it as an attempt to put a brake on the advance of reforms. Under those conditions it was not wrong to put the problem in those terms. However, today this problem presents itself in a completely different way than it did in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time a new bourgeoisie had not completely formed, and the problem of class struggle manifested itself basically only as a struggle against the remnants of backward ideologies and elements directly linked to imperialism working to sabotage socialist construction. Today capitalist private property has acquired an infinitely more important position and role than it did in the past, which has resulted in a significant change in the economic and ownership structure in China. This has fundamentally changed the way in which the Chinese working masses relate to the means of production, a fact that poses serious risks to the Party and the very cause of socialism in the country. Without taking into account the influence that the relations of production originating in capitalist private property and the pressure they exert for the reforms as a whole to take the direction of bourgeois liberalization, it is impossible to understand the essence of the problem. This is a question that needs to be observed by all those who wish to make a realistic analysis of the current stage of development of socialism in China. As the economist Liu Guoguang warned:

“Bourgeois liberalization occurs not only in the political field, but also in the economic field. Privatization, liberalization, and marketization; opposition to public ownership, government intervention, and opposition to socialism, these are all things that are all related to the economic field. It is not enough to oppose bourgeois liberalization, politically. To prevent bourgeois liberalization in the economic field is to prevent the economic field from deteriorating. If the economic field deteriorates (is privatized, turned into capitalism), the political field will also deteriorate. This is a basic common principle of Marxism.” [22]

Capitalist private property, even though in the primary stage of socialism it may play a positive role as an accessory element in the development of the socialist economy, ultimately represents the relations of production of a capitalist type, possessing objectives and laws of operation distinct from socialist property in its most varied forms. It is necessary, therefore, to differentiate between what are the positive effects that capitalist private property can create for the development of the productive forces, from what is the ideology it inevitably produces, and the negative effects generated by capitalist relations of production in the most varied domains of social life. It is natural that, as private property increases in importance and influence in the overall economy, its laws start to influence the various levels of Chinese social-economic formation (including influencing and exerting pressure on socialist public property), broadening and expanding its capacity for political, economic and ideological intervention. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the most serious economic and social problems that exist in China today are the direct result of the intervention of the contradictions produced by the capitalist relations of production.

In view of this inevitability, it is of utmost importance that the Party be very clear that the goal of the Reform and Opening Up is to perfect the development of the socialist system, to promote the development of the productive forces and gradually consolidate and broaden the influence and extension of the public sector of the economy, the sector that represents the socialist relations of production. The existence of private property in China is justified by the relative backwardness of the level of development of the productive forces. With the advance and development of the productive forces, with the advance of modernization, the purpose of the reforms is to adjust the role of the socialist relations of production, expanding the influence and the scope of action of the public ownership of the means of production, gradually putting an end to the tendency that has persisted since the beginning of the Reform and Opening policy, namely, the tendency of much faster increase and development of private property and the gradual decrease of the participation of the state and public sector, creating the economic and material conditions to overcome the primary stage of socialism. Obviously, such changes and adjustments will be accompanied by a sharp ideological struggle, which is also one of the forms in which class struggle manifests itself. Thus, the theories and ideas that seek to present capitalist relations of production as “socialist” or ideas that say that, in the Chinese case, “private property is not synonymous with capitalism”, are not correct.

The advance towards a more advanced stage of socialist construction is not yet completely on the agenda (the new era of socialism is situated in the scope of the primary stage of socialism), but it is clear that the problems and contradictions that China is facing today are already quite different from the problems that confronted the country in the preceding decades, something recognized by the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, which declared that there is a “new principal contradiction” in the new era of socialism. The old definition, which said that the main contradiction in China was the contradiction between the low level of development of the productive forces and the growing demands of the masses, has given way to a new main contradiction, this being the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the growing needs of the people for a better life.

Many Marxist intellectuals in China consider that, at the present stage, in order to overcome the negative effects of unbalanced development, the most important mission facing the Communist Party is to struggle to effectively build a harmonious society, to combat the negative effects produced by the expansion of private property, and to regain certain positions lost by the public economy in recent years. For such a major operation, it is more than necessary to strengthen ideological work and prepare public opinion. Objectively, this is a problem that places in opposition two projects of society that correspond to distinct worldviews and class interests. The attacks on Marxism and the tendencies that seek to diminish its role – or even deny it – are evidently expressions of the class interests of those social groups and actors who do not want to advance along the path of socialism. Many of these groups use the banner of reform and openness to justify their reactionary ideas and their opposition to the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, although they often do this in a veiled way.

Part III
Ideological work and class struggle

The struggle between bourgeois ideas, with all their effects, and the ideas of the proletariat, represented by Marxism, is a long-lasting struggle, which will exist intensely throughout the period of the primary stage of socialism in China (and even afterwards), a context where China still needs to promote its development in a hegemonically capitalist world. In the primary stage of socialism, even if within a determined scale, class struggle still exists, and it obviously exerts its influence in the ideological field. On the need to keep guard and initiative on the ideological front, pointing out that in socialism there is still class struggle, Jiang Zemin, in his speech commemorating the 78th anniversary of the Party’s founding, stated:

“Class struggle is no longer the main contradiction in our country, but for a certain period it will continue to exist within a certain limit; moreover, under certain conditions, it may intensify. This kind of struggle expresses in a concentrated way the opposition of bourgeois liberalization to the four fundamental principles. The core of this struggle is still a problem of political power. This type of struggle is closely connected with the struggle between infiltration and anti-infiltration, subversion and countersubversion, peaceful evolution and fighting the peaceful evolution that exists between us and hostile forces.” [23]

The Communist Party of China’s position on class struggle under socialism has always been very consistent and has not changed much since the beginning of the Reform and Opening-up policy. After criticizing the conception of class struggle that was in force during the period of the “cultural revolution”, the Party started to maintain that the class struggle in socialism does not occupy the position of main contradiction, but that it still continues to exist within certain limits. However, some figures, already completely influenced by revisionism and imperialist ideas, allege that the Marxist concept of class struggle is “outdated”, and when any mention is made of this basic concept of Marxism, they immediately claim that there is a danger of the resurgence of a new “cultural revolution”. It is important to point out that there is a significant difference between saying that the “class struggle continues to exist within certain limits” and saying that “the class struggle does not exist” or that such a theory would be something “outdated”. As Xi Jinping stated:

“We must adhere to the political position of Marxism. The political position of Marxism is primarily a class position, which implements class analysis. Some people say that this idea no longer corresponds to the present era, which is a mistaken point of view. When we say that the class struggle in our country is not the main contradiction, we are not saying that in our country the class struggle within certain limits no longer exists, or that in the international sphere it doesn’t exist either. After the Reform and Opening, our Party’s ideas on this problem have always been quite clear.” [24]

The definition, which recognizes that class struggle exists within certain limits, takes into account the concrete reality of China today, a reality where the various contradictions that exist can be resolved within the framework of the socialist system. The Communist Party of China, being the leading force of the state, has in its hands the political, economic and institutional instruments that enable it to adjust, modify and apply policies that help solve the problems and contradictions that exist between the various social classes, including the contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This does not mean that, also in this sphere of work, there are no errors and shortcomings, almost always produced by errors in the sphere of political and ideological work. Without a firm Marxist vision, the Party cannot correctly exercise its role as the vanguard of the working masses in China, nor can it firmly defend the interests of these classes.

The fundamental error of the Communist Party of China’s view of class struggle in the period of the “cultural revolution” was precisely that it broadened the scope of class struggle, which in practice contributed to the Party’s treating certain contradictions that existed within the people as if they were antagonistic contradictions. It was a view that did not correspond to the concrete situation of the Chinese society at the time; today the main mistake regarding the theory of class struggle is committed by those who deny its objective existence. The historical experience of the history of the construction of socialism at a world level teaches that class struggle continues to exist in socialism – even though it is not the main contradiction in socialist societies – and it is therefore wrong to deny or underestimate its action.

To deny the existence of class struggle in socialism is as serious an error as trying to artificially broaden its scope. The errors of the “cultural revolution” do not alter the fact that class struggle is an objective reality, and that it continues to exist in the primary stage of socialism. In the Chinese case, given the expansion of capitalist relations of production, it is obvious that class contradictions, including the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, can intensify again. Without recognizing the existence of class struggle, it is impossible to adopt measures to resolve the various social contradictions that exist in Chinese society, which in the medium and long term would result in the amplification of social contradictions, causing contradictions that are currently non-antagonistic in character to quickly become antagonistic contradictions.

Without Marxism and the October Revolution there would be no “Chinese miracle”: a short critique of certain conceptions of the “China’s rise”

The success achieved by the CCP in leading the Chinese nation along the path of socialism has shown the world that Marxist theory is both vital and scientific. But in view of the undeniable successes achieved by the Party, and given the intense political and ideological struggle going on, it is to some extent inevitable that certain figures who follow the Chinese development process from abroad might try to explain it by turning a blind eye to the most important and essential elements that define such process. Quite popular are the notion that China’s development results from a “developmentalist” state in the style of Taiwan, Singapore, or South Korea, or a “civilizational state”, emphasizing here the “civilizational superiority” of the Chinese nation. To give an example of the confusions, Martin Jacques, an author who has played a very important role in investigating the Chinese development process, and who openly opposes attempts to launch a new cold war against the Asian country, stressed in a Global Times article that “it is impossible to understand China in terms of traditional Marxism”, adding that the CCP is “deeply influenced by Confucianism” and that the best way to understand it would be to describe it as a “hybrid between Confucianism and Marxism”. The author also makes a point of highlighting the fact that the CCP is quite different from the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union and that the two have “very little in common”. [25]

We recognize that in all these statements – except for the claim that the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union “have very little in common” – there is an element of truth; however, we believe that the author does not address the crux of the problem, which is precisely to analyse how the Sinicization of Marxism is the main element that explains the success and rise of China, and that the ideological system of socialism with Chinese characteristics is not an eclectic mix between two philosophies with completely different bases and goals (Marxism and Confucianism). Confucianism, of course, is an important pillar of traditional Chinese culture, and obviously the Communist Party of China recognizes and incorporates its progressive elements. However, it cannot be denied that throughout its century-old history, the Chinese progressive and revolutionary movement, of which the Communist Party of China is a direct product, has always been very critical of Confucianism, and all this long before the “great proletarian cultural revolution” emerged on the scene in the late 1960s. Martin Jacques’ statement that the Communist Party of China is “rooted and deeply influenced by Confucianism” is a half-truth turned into an absolute truth, for it denies another basic fact that needs to be taken into consideration – namely that the Communist Party of China was born amidst an intense ideological and political struggle against Confucian ideology and all that it represented and still represents in the developmental history of the Chinese nation. That there are Chinese authors and personalities – including within the Party – who advocate a “new Confucianism”, or who try to explain Chinese success within the framework of “Confucianism”, is another problem, very much related to the ideological confusion generated by years of a relatively uncontrolled development of bourgeois ideas, something we have already discussed in this article.

In fact, the problem of the relationship between traditional Chinese culture and Marxism in China is a topic that deserves a separate article, such is the complexity of the subject. However, this is not to say that for the Communist Party of China, Confucianism and Marxism are two philosophies on the same footing, or, in Martin Jacques’ own words, a “hybrid between Confucianism and Marxism”. As Hou Weimin, a member of the Institute of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Scientists, put it:

“Since the Reformation and the Opening-up, there have been two types of anti-Marxist thinking. One is the ideological tendency to promote the restoration of feudalism; cultural conservatism and neo-Confucianism belong to this category. This trend of thought is characterized by advocating the ‘Confucianization of China’ and ‘Confucianization of the Communist Party’ under the banner of carrying forward traditional culture by establishing ‘Confucian colleges’ in which Confucian scholars familiar with Confucian classics rule China. Supported by some people abroad, this thinking prevailed for some time. However, its absurdity is obvious if a more proper investigation is made. Its main points have the smell of feudal zombies, so it is hard for it to get a response from the masses. The other thought is the tendency to promote the restoration of capitalism, called bourgeois liberalization by Deng Xiaoping.” [26]

About the “few similarities” between the Communist Party of China and the former Communist Party of Soviet Union, it is evident that the way Martin Jacques throws such information into his article misleads the reader into confusion. Which Communist Party of the Soviet Union is he referring to? The Party of Lenin and Stalin, or the Party of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev? Superficial statements such as those made by the author open much room for confusion and misinterpretation regarding the history of the Communist Party of China and its evolution over the years. It is necessary to point out that between the CCP and the former CPSU there is the difference that the former was able to integrate Marxism to the Chinese reality, avoiding committing the same mistakes that the Soviet Party committed in the past due to its abandonment of Marxist theory; the latter, on the other hand, gradually distanced itself from Marxism and capitulated before the ideological offensive promoted by the capitalist countries. However, it is undeniable that the Communist Party of China learned many things from the Soviet experience, so in fact there were “great similarities” between both parties, and that the Soviet experience was, from the beginning, a source of inspiration and study for the Chinese communists. As Zhou Xincheng noted:

“Initially, we had no experience in how to build socialism. We could only learn from the Soviet Union, which had decades of experience in socialist construction. The basic experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union was to be studied, including its political adherence to the Communist Party leadership and the dictatorship of the proletariat; economic adherence to the system of public ownership of the means of material production, distribution according to labour, elimination of exploitation and elimination of polarization; ideological adherence to Marxism as a guide, etc. This reflects the basic principles of scientific socialism, its common law, possessing universal value. Therefore, we have always regarded our socialist cause as a continuation of the October Revolution.” [27]

Even today many elements in the Chinese political system bear great similarities to the model that was gradually established in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The political model that establishes the Communist Party’s direction over the activities of the state and society – a system that today even some bourgeois theorists sympathetic to China tend to defend – is a direct influence of the Soviet-type political system, even if between them there are some differences (e.g. in the Chinese case there is at the same time a system of political consultation that allows the existence of other parties). Although perhaps this is not his intention, in practice Martin Jacques ends up establishing an opposition between two historical phenomena umbilically connected – the Russian and Chinese revolutions – diminishing the position of Marxism-Leninism and concealing the direct link that the process of building socialism with Chinese characteristics has with the struggle of the international proletariat and with the Russian revolution itself, in the name of the idea that the Communist Party of China “is different from all the other parties in the world”.

Still on the relationship between socialism with Chinese characteristics and Soviet socialism, it is interesting to note that Xi Jinping, in analysing the various stages of the development of the history of socialist thought and movement, divides it into six stages, citing precisely Lenin’s experience and his leadership in the October Revolution as an integral part of these stages, as well as the gradual formation of the Soviet system already in the Stalin period (respectively, the third and fourth stage of the development of the history of socialism). In other words, Xi Jinping highlights as an integral part of the development of socialist thought – in which, obviously, socialism with Chinese characteristics is included – the experience of the construction of socialism in Russia, from the victory of the October Revolution to the formation of the Soviet system with the foundation and construction of socialism in the Soviet Union, an experience led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 20, 2022 2:52 pm

China: Xi Gets Ready for the Final Countdown
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 19, 2022
Pepe Escobar

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What drives China and Russia is that sooner rather than later they will be ruling the Heartland.

President Xi Jinping’s 1h45min speech at the opening of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was an absorbing exercise of recent past informing near future. All of Asia and all of the Global South should carefully examine it.

The Great Hall was lavishly adorned with bright red banners. A giant slogan hanging in the back of the hall read, “Long Live our great, glorious and correct party”.

Another one, below, functioned like a summary of the whole report:

“Hold high the great flag of socialism with Chinese characteristics, fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, carry forward the great founding spirit of the party, and unite and struggle to fully build a modern socialist country and to fully promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

True to tradition, the report outlined the CPC’s achievements over the past 5 years and China’s strategy for the next 5 – and beyond. Xi foresees “fierce storms” ahead, domestic and foreign. The report was equally significant for what was not spelled out, or left subtly implied.

Every member of the CPC’s Central Committee had already been briefed about the report – and approved it. They will spend this week in Beijing studying the fine print and will vote to adopt it on Saturday. Then a new CPC Central Committee will be announced, and a new Politburo Standing Committee – the 7 that really rule – will be formally endorsed.

This new leadership line-up will clarify the new generation faces that will be working very close to Xi, as well as who will succeed Li Keqiang as the new Prime Minister: he has finished his two terms and, according to the constitution, must step down.

There are also 2,296 delegates present at the Great Hall representing the CPC’s over 96 million members. They are not mere spectators: at the plenary session that ended last week, they analyzed in-depth every major issue, and prepared for the National Congress. They do vote on party resolutions – even as those resolutions are decided by the top leadership, and behind closed doors.

The key takeaways

Xi contends that in these past 5 years the CPC strategically advanced China while “correctly” (Party terminology) responding to all foreign challenges. Particularly key achievements include poverty alleviation, the normalization of Hong Kong, and progress in diplomacy and national defense.

It’s quite telling that Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who was sitting in the second row, behind the current Standing Committee members, never took his eyes off Xi, while others were reading a copy of the report on their desk.

Compared to the achievements, success of the Xi-ordered Zero-Covid policy remains highly debatable. Xi stressed that it has protected people’s lives. What he could not possibly say is that the premise of his policy is to treat Covid and its variants as a U.S. bioweapon directed against China. That is, a serious matter of national security that trumps any other consideration, even the Chinese economy.

Zero-Covid hit production and the job market extremely hard, and virtually isolated China from the outside world. Just a glaring example: Shanghai’s district governments are still planning for zero-Covid on a timescale of two years. Zero-Covid will not go away anytime soon.

A serious consequence is that the Chinese economy will most certainly grow this year by less than 3% – well below the official target of “around 5,5%”.

Now let’s look at some of the Xi report’s highlights.

Taiwan: Beijing has started “a great struggle against separatism and foreign interference” on Taiwan.

Hong Kong: It is now “administered by patriots, making it a better place.” In Hong Kong there was “a major transition from chaos to order.” Correct: the 2019 color revolution nearly destroyed a major global trade/finance center.

Poverty alleviation: Xi hailed it as one of three “major events” of the past decade along with the CPC’s centenary and socialism with Chinese characteristics entering a “new era”. Poverty alleviation is the core of one of the CPC’s “two centenary goals.”

Opening up: China has become “a major trading partner and a major destination for foreign investment.” That’s Xi refuting the notion that China has grown more autarchic. China will not engage in any kind of “expansionism” while opening up to the outside world. The basic state policy remains: economic globalization. But – he didn’t say it – “with Chinese characteristics”.

“Self-revolution”: Xi introduced a new concept. “Self-revolution” will allow China to escape a historical cycle leading to a downturn. And “this ensures the party will never change.” So it’s the CPC or bust.

Marxism: definitely remains as one of the fundamental guiding principles. Xi stressed, “We owe the success of our party and socialism with Chinese characteristics to Marxism and how China has managed to adapt it.”

Risks: that was the speech’s recurrent theme. Risks will keep interfering with those crucial “two centenary goals”. Number one goal was reached last year, at the CPC’s 100th anniversary, when China reached the status of a “moderately prosperous society” in all respects (xiaokang, in Chinese). Number two goal should be reached at the centenary of the People’s Republic of China in 2049: to “build a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious.”

Development: the focus will be on “high-quality development”, including resilience of supply chains and the “dual circulation” economic strategy: expansion of domestic demand in parallel to foreign investment (mostly centered on BRI projects). That will be China’s top priority. So in theory any reforms will privilege a combination of “socialist market economy” and high-level opening, mixing the creation of more domestic demand with supply-side structural reform. Translation: “Dual-circulation” on steroids.

“Whole-process democracy”: that was the other new concept introduced by Xi. Translates as “democracy that works”, as in rejuvenating the Chinese nation under – what else – the CPC’s absolute leadership: “We need to ensure that people can exercise their powers through the People’s Congress system.”

Socialist culture: Xi said it’s absolutely essential “to influence young people”. The CPC must exercise ideological control and make sure the media fosters a generation of young people “who are influenced by traditional culture, patriotism and socialism”, thus benefitting “social stability”. The “China story” must go everywhere, presenting a China that is “credible and respectable”. That certainly applies to Chinese diplomacy, even the “Wolf Warriors”.

“Sinicise religion”: Beijing will continue its drive to “Sinicise religion”, as in “proactively” adapting “religion and the socialist society”. This campaign was introduced in 2015, meaning for instance that Islam and Christianity must be under CPC control and in line with Chinese culture.

The Taiwan pledge

Now we reach the themes that completely obsess the decaying Hegemon: the connection between China’s national interests and how they affect the civilization-state’s role in international relations.

National security: “National security is the foundation of national rejuvenation, and social stability is a prerequisite of national strength.”

The military: the PLA’s equipment, technology and strategic capability will be strengthened. It goes without saying that means total CPC control over the military.

“One country, two systems”: It has proven to be “the best institutional mechanism for Hong Kong and Macau and must be adhered to in the long term”. Both “enjoy high autonomy” and are “administered by patriots.” Xi promised to better integrate both into national strategies.

Taiwan reunification: Xi made a pledge to complete the reunification of China. Translation: return Taiwan to the motherland. That was met with a torrent of applause, leading to the key message, addressed simultaneously to the Chinese nation and “foreign interference” forces: “We will not renounce the use of force and will take all necessary measures to stop all separatist movements.” The bottom line: “The resolution of the Taiwan issue is a matter for the Chinese people themselves, to be decided by the Chinese people.”

It’s also quite telling that Xi did not even mention Xinjiang by name: only by implication, when he stressed that China must strengthen the unity of all ethnic groups. Xinjiang for Xi and the leadership mean industrialization of the Far West and a crucial node in BRI: not the object of an imperial demonization campaign. They know that the CIA destabilization tactics used in Tibet for decades did not work in Xinjiang.

Shelter from the storm

Now let’s unpack some of the variables affecting the very tough years ahead for the CPC.

When Xi mentioned “fierce storms ahead”, that’s what he thinks about 24/7: Xi is convinced the USSR collapsed because the Hegemon did everything to undermine it. He won’t allow a similar process to derail China.

In the short term, the “storm” may refer to the latest round of the no holds barred American war on Chinese technology – not to mention free trade: cutting China off from buying or manufacturing chips and components for supercomputers.

It’s fair to consider Beijing keeps the focus long-term, betting that most of the world, especially the Global South, will move away from the U.S. high tech supply chain and prefer the Chinese market. As the Chinese increasingly become self sufficient, U.S. tech firms will end up losing world markets, economies of scale, and competitiveness.

Xi also did not mention the U.S. by name. Everyone in the leadership – especially the new Politburo – is aware of how Washington wants to

“decouple” from China in every possible way and will continue to provocatively deploy every possible strand of hybrid war.

Xi did not enter into details during his speech, but it’s clear the driving force going forward will be technological innovation linked to a global vision. That’s where BRI comes in, again – as the privileged field of application for these tech breakthroughs.

Only this way we can understand how Zhu Guangyao, a former vice minister of finance, may be sure that per capita GDP in China in 2035 would at least double the numbers in 2019 and reach $20,000.

The challenge for Xi and the new Politburo right away is to fix China’s structural economic imbalance. And pumping up debt-financed “investment” all over again won’t work.

So bets can be made that Xi’s third term – to be confirmed later this week – will have to concentrate on rigorous planning and monitoring of implementation, much more than during his previous bold, ambitious, abrasive but sometimes disconnected years. The Politburo will have to pay way more attention to technical considerations. Xi will have to delegate more serious policymaking autonomy to a bunch of competent technocrats.

Otherwise, we will be back to that startling observation by then Premier Wen Jiabao in 2007: China’s economy is “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and ultimately unsustainable”. That’s exactly where the Hegemon wants it to be.

As it stands, things are far from gloomy. The National Development and Reform Commission states that compared to the rest of the world, China’s consumer inflation is only “marginal”; the job market is steady; and international payments are stable.

Xi’s work report and pledges may also be seen as turning the usual Anglo-American geopolitical suspects – Mackinder, Mahan, Spykman, Brzezinski – upside down.

The China-Russia strategic partnership has no time to lose with global hegemonic games; what drives them is that sooner rather than later they will be ruling the Heartland – the world island – and beyond, with allies from the Rimland, and from Africa to Latin America, all participating in a new form of globalization. Certainly with Chinese characteristics; but most of all, pan-Eurasian characteristics. The final countdown is already on.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/10/ ... countdown/

Capitalism’s Senility and Socialism’s Vigor are Increasingly Apparent to the World
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 19, 2022

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We are pleased to republish this important interview with Professor Radhika Desai, Convenor of the International Manifesto Group and member of our advisory group, originally published by Global Times. The focus of the interview is the ever more stark demarcation between stagnating western capitalism and booming socialist China.

Analysing the turn to neo-liberalism, particularly in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, Radhika asserts: “Liberal democracy is a contradiction in terms… Capitalism is not in the interests of the vast majority of working people.”

Questioned on the premise of earlier Western engagement with China, and its expectation that it would lead to the demise of socialism, Radhika notes: “China’s development is entirely attributed to the country’s adherence to socialism, both in the early period under Mao and in the later reform and opening-up period… After reform and opening-up, the US stepped up economic engagement with China and the idea, particularly after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, was that such engagement would also make China more or less capitalist, even neoliberal. However, for China this engagement was only another means to advance socialism… Capitalism’s senility and socialism’s vigor are increasingly apparent.”

– Friends of Socialist China

For the Chinese people, the past decade has been epic and inspirational. The country, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, has made great endeavors in boosting its economy, deepening reforms, improving the rights of its people and acting as a responsible power globally.

The world has been increasingly turbulent in recent years due to multiple crises triggered by the US-led West, while there is an obvious tendency that the West is more and more difficult to maintain its development momentum like in the last century. After the 2008 financial crisis, economic growth in Western countries has remained low, in stark contrast to China’s boom. Global Times (GT) reporter Yan Yuzhu talked to Radhika Desai (Desai), convenor of International Manifesto Group and professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba in Canada, about her opinion toward the weakness of capitalism, the adverse consequences of neoliberalism for Western development, as well as China’s role in making a way to pluripolarity.

This is the 25th of the series about this special decade.


[img]https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/at ... c7879.jpeg[/i]
Radhika Desai Photo: Courtesy of Desai

GT: After the 2008 financial crisis, especially in the last decade, economic growth in the West has remained very low and the crisis of their domestic political system has been highlighted time and again. In contrast, China has maintained a relatively stable momentum of development, and the gap between China and the US has gradually narrowed. What do you think are the reasons for this difference?

Desai: The low economic growth of major capitalist countries since 2008 is the result of the turn to neoliberalism. It never managed to restore the growth of the 1970s. It occurred because production had outstripped demand and, rather than solving the demand problem, neoliberalism only made it worse. Its attack on organized labor and social spending restricted consumption demand while its encouragement towards financial and rentier activity reduced investment demand, siphoning away funds into speculation and predatory activity. The attempt to compensate for low demand, low growth and low government revenues by extending credit to consumers and governments has only led to mountains of debt and asset bubbles that have regularly burst, weakening economies further.

This process has been ongoing for more than four decades. At the start, the major capitalist countries were much healthier thanks to their “golden age” of robust growth and the broad-based distribution of incomes. But over time, the disastrous effects of neoliberal policies were assailing ever weaker economies.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, a lot of people thought that neoliberalism would be abandoned, but it wasn’t. The reason is simple: neoliberalism, which is really not about free markets or competition but about giving ever greater freedoms to big corporate capital, is the only way to keep these economies capitalist.

But doing so at a time when capitalism can no longer generate growth, and can only make societies more and more unequal can only lead to economic and political malaise. In essence, people in these countries are paying the price of keeping their economies capitalist. They can choose capitalism, or they can choose growth. They cannot have both. Capitalism is no longer capable of delivering growth.

GT: Western political parties are constantly fighting internally without solving real problems, leading the approval ratings of many ruling parties to be at a record low. What do you think are the advantages of people’s democracy in China? Can electoral politics solve social problems?

Desai: Liberal democracy is a contradiction in terms. Keeping societies liberal and capitalist is incompatible with making them truly democratic. Capitalism is not in the interests of the vast majority of working people. Major capitalist states were not democratic in any real sense until after the World War II. The “socialistic” reforms of the “golden age” meant that the contradiction between liberalism and democracy was subdued as ordinary people got some welfarist concessions.

Neoliberalism since about 1980 has rolled back most of these concessions and contradictions have sharpened. To keep winning elections, ruling elites must now resort to more and more propaganda, secrecy and outright lies. This requires money and electoral politics in these societies, particularly in the US, has come to revolve around money and the media.

However, money and media can only do so much and, over time, politics and democracy are being hollowed out. Voters are disengaged. Politicians become “independent” of the popular will and rely on “experts,” essentially people whose opinions are conveniently neoliberal. Such mutual alienation between people and the politicians opens the door to the senseless Brexit vote and the shocking election of Donald Trump.

Today, this process has reached such a point that the UK government can announce a budget in which the rich enjoy tax cuts, while the poor suffer the resulting economic crisis, unemployment and inflation. Similarly, European politicians put their populations last and commit economic suicide only to obey the unreasonable demands of the US. In this context, there is no question of democracy. It has become a joke.

China, by contrast, adheres to a more rounded concept of “whole process democracy” in which elections are only one part of a larger process which includes a commitment to providing people with economic security and progress.

GT: The Manifesto refers to today’s capitalist world as a “political tinderbox,” where capitalism’s suitability is questioned as never before, political establishments are losing their grip and the credibility of the mainstream media is threadbare. How do you think the West has gradually fallen to this point? How will pluripolarity efforts reduce the likelihood of future conflicts in the world? What role does China play in this regard?

Desai: As I have already explained, in major capitalist democracies, politics is no longer about articulating and addressing popular needs and desires, but about keeping the lid on them so that governments can carry on the business of serving corporate and financial interests. Inevitably the political establishment is widely held with suspicion and even hated. Meanwhile, with the left on the defensive for decades, in confusion and disarray, far right and fascist forces are on the ascendant. This is what makes them political tinderboxes.

Right wing and fascist forces are tolerated by the political establishment: Bernie Sanders had to be stopped, while Trump could hold the highest office. Western countries support a regime in Kiev that relies on neo-Nazi forces and has banned the left wing opposition. This has required the wholesale distortion of Europe’s history, and that can only make the advance of the right and fascism easier.

The weakness of the left today is a profound irony. The neoliberal era, with its attack on working class people, with its built-in misogyny and racism, should have been a prime opportunity to mobilize the masses against it. Instead, the traditional parties of the left have capitulated to neoliberalism and US imperialism.

This has left the working masses in the major capitalist countries without serious representation. Only small numbers of left groups and intellectuals truly appreciate the need to marry progressive domestic politics with anti-imperialism and express solidarity for socialist countries.

As for the media, the first alternative news websites began appearing in the late 1990s. Already then it was clear that the “mainstream media” could not be trusted and such outlets have proliferated since with the rise of the internet. Corporate ownership of the mainstream media ensures adherence to neoliberalism, but it also makes serious investigative journalism impossible by thinning staffing levels.

This left wing weakness in the imperialist countries relates directly to pluripolarity. As our manifesto says, humankind will journey to socialism through pluripolarity as different countries will embark on the long road from capitalism and imperialism to socialism in their own time and in their own manner. However, given the sorry state of the left in the imperialist countries, rather than both socialist class forces and socialist nations walking hand in hand towards socialism, as ideally they should, the role of socialist nations in showing the way has become more prominent, particularly that of China.

China’s leadership in this process will also involve supporting measures to turn the institutions of international governance, including the United Nations, back to their original purpose. As you know, in recent decades, Western imperialism has tended to distort and corrupt them. Returning them to their original purposes, which included the right of nations to exercise true sovereignty by freely choosing the path and pattern of their development, including socialist forms, is critically important.

The resulting pluripolarity can only advance the cause of socialism and expand the range of efforts and experimentation that advance the cause of socialism.

GT: You once mentioned in a webinar that the West’s willingness to engage with China in the 1990s and early 2000s is based on two illusions: one, the expectation that the CPC would simply be transformed into some sort of social democratic party at best or even a neoliberal party; two, the belief that China would remain a low-cost producer of low-tech goods. In your opinion, why does the West show such fear and anger after the disillusionment? How do you see the relationship between China’s rapid development and its adherence to socialism with Chinese characteristics?

Desai: China’s development is entirely attributed to the country’s adherence to socialism, both in the early period under Mao and in the later reform and opening-up period.

China’s socialism was an affront to US capitalism but, perhaps even more importantly, China’s development was an affront to US imperialism because US capitalism requires the subordination of the rest of the world. After refusing to recognize the People’s Republic of China for decades, engaging in the ridiculous charade that the government of tiny Taiwan island was the true government of the whole of China, even giving it China’s seat in the UN and the UN Security Council. When US power sank to a postwar nadir in the early 1970s, with defeat impending in Vietnam, the then dollar in deep trouble and the Third World up in arms, Nixon came to China. His purpose was also to drive the wedge between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China deeper.

After reform and opening-up, the US stepped up economic engagement with China and the idea, particularly after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 was that such engagement would also make China more or less capitalist, even neoliberal. However, for China this engagement was only another means to advance socialism. This became clear particularly after 2008. Rather like when, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, people the world over could see that while the capitalist countries were mired in a Great Depression, with mounting economic misery, the Soviet Union was going from strength to strength and had become the second industrial power, in the 2000s, particularly in the 2010s, it became clear that China’s economic success was going from strength to strength while the major capitalist countries were languishing in a mire of low growth, rising inequality, increasing financialization, deteriorating public services, and rising political dissatisfaction. The difference could only be attributed to China’s socialist system.

The US policy of engagement was really one of attempted subordination. However, China’s leaders refused to permit this, engaging with the US and the rest of the world, in the process engineering the greatest industrial revolution ever witnessed. The CPC leadership also put China on the path to technological superiority in many fields, demonstrating clearly that Chinas’ successes are due to the efforts of Chinese firms and institutions and not to any “technology theft” as US leaders are fond of saying.

As the failure of the US to subordinate China became more and more obvious, it led to Obama’s Pivot to Asia and the mounting US hostility to China that has followed since. After many years of rising military tensions, trade and technology wars and diplomatic tensions, President Biden is today taking this hostility to new heights, fomenting a fourth Taiwan Straits Crisis that is needless and dangerous. Many even in the US are saying this, despite the consensus, uniting both Democrats and Republicans, both “realists” and “liberal internationalists,” that China is the main “threat” the US faces. This tendency to see the relations with China as a zero-sum game is the chief sign of US decline and its desperation.

The simple fact is that capitalism under US leadership is losing its hold over the world. The world can see that there are more attractive ways of organizing economies. Capitalism’s senility and socialism’s vigor are increasingly apparent.

GT: In the COVID-19 pandemic, China and many other socialist countries had a much lower mortality rate from coronavirus than did the neoliberal Western countries such as the US and the UK. How do you understand China’s life-saving epidemic prevention strategy, as well as the public health system built on it?

Desai: The contrast between the West’s failures in the face of COVID and China’s success is staggering. From the start, I argued that the West’s failures – on public health and on the economic, social, political and cultural fronts – during the pandemic have been entirely due to neoliberalism. Western countries, particularly the two leading neoliberal countries, the US and the UK, have clocked up the worst COVID death rates among all their peer countries. Their public authorities were willing, from the start, to sacrifice lives on the altar of capital, above all, financial and corporate capital. The profound irony is that in pursuing this goal, they ended up with an even worse capitalist induced crisis, as well as the worst death rates among peer nations.

Leading neoliberal financialized nations initially considered the murderous strategy of letting the pandemic rip through the population until “herd immunity” was reached (by infection, not vaccination). Public outcry and fear of the economic consequences made them choose the only slightly less murderous strategy of “flattening the curve” so that public health systems – mostly private in the US, mostly public, though excoriated by decades of privatization and contracting out, in the UK – would not be overwhelmed. However, this led to repeated lockdowns as wave after wave of the unconquered pandemic swept over these societies.

Priority for corporate capital also involved huge corporate subsidies – for testing and tracing, for example – which was usually performed badly and at great cost to the public purse. And it meant subsidizing vaccine production while letting the producers reap huge profits, again at public expense. Once vaccines could be produced, moreover, these countries relied on them alone. However, thanks to a combination of distrust of a public that already suspected that saving lives was not their governments’ first priority, distrust of Big Pharma corporations, and much media and social media disinformation, vaccine uptake has remained low and the pandemic is far from over.

It is both tragic and darkly comedic that, despite this comprehensive failure before the pandemic, Western countries still criticize China’s dynamic zero COVID strategy that has proved so effective against the pandemic for causing economic disruptions when their strategy has been far more economically disruptive on top of being a public health disaster. I read in the news that in the UK at least, another wave is already appearing. There may be more death and economic disruption to come.

The Chinese strategy is effective because it has prioritized saving lives above all else and that has also proved most effective in saving and advancing the economy.

GT: What do you think are the differences between the “rules-based international order” repeated by the US and “building a community with shared future for mankind” advocated by China?

Desai: The answer is simple. The system of international governance created after the World War II with the United Nations at its core was deeply marked by popular empowerment worldwide – of working people mobilized in unions and for the war effort in the First World, of victorious Communist parties in the Second or Communist World and of nationalist movements in the Third World. That is why it made the principle of equal sovereignty its cornerstone. The US’ attempts to use the preponderant power it got thanks to the war to vitiate this principle was only partially successful. So, the imperialist countries, with the US as their leader, has never been happy about these institutions and more or less immediately set about creating counter institutions, beginning with NATO (with Five Eyes having already originated during the War). However, during the Cold War, particularly once the Warsaw Pact was created after Germany joined NATO in 1954, imperialist countries’ room for maneuver was limited.

Undimmed US and Western imperialist impulses mean that the post-Cold War world would not enjoy a peace dividend while the neoliberal decline of these countries has meant that there was also no unipolarity but, with the decline of the West and the rise of China and other emerging economies, pluripolarity has become the new reality. This combination has brought us to the current dangers of unremitting US and Western aggression dressed up in the rhetoric of human rights and democracy which is also doomed to fail.

The so-called rules-based international order is two things at once. First, it is a project to corrupt and distort the workings of the United Nations system that has been ongoing for some time, to reorient it away from an organ of international democracy into an organ of imperialism. Second, failing that, it is an attempt to set up an alternative system of international governance outside the UN, to displace it.

On the other hand, the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind reflects the original spirit – of international democracy and cooperation and respect for sovereignty – of the UN and seeks to deepen it in a new anti-imperialist spirit that builds an apparatus for the peaceful and cooperative evolution of our wonderfully diverse and creative world.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/10/ ... the-world/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Oct 22, 2022 2:21 pm

XX congress with a plus sign
October 22, 14:19

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XX congress with a plus sign.

Unlike the infamous 20th Congress of the CPSU, which dealt a monstrous blow from within to the world communist movement and the USSR, the 20th Congress of the CPC can be regarded as historical with a plus sign.

1. Despite all the insinuations and rumors, President Xi Jinping not only retained, but also strengthened his power. Today is actually the start of his 3rd term, a departure from a former tradition that goes back to Deng Xiaoping. But here it is important to remember that the idol of Chairman Xi is not Deng, but Mao (Chinese Stalin). Thus, the principle of rotation of the political leadership of the CCP, which has existed for decades, is at least temporarily put aside. China is banking on a proven helmsman to guide China through the storm of world order transformation. About how Stalin led the USSR through the storm of the Second World War to the status of a superpower.

2. The intra-party opposition to President Xi suffered a heavy defeat, the course towards convergence with the United States was rejected by the party majority, which reasonably believes that China has entered the stage of struggle for the future world order and "returning to 2007" will no longer work. Ahead is a struggle with the United States, and those who call for a "negotiation" are becoming not only unnecessary, but dangerous for China's prospects.

3. The renewal of the CPC Central Committee and the Politburo not only reflects the redistribution of forces in the largest communist party in the world, but also consolidates the main trends approved by the congress - the struggle for the return of Taiwan to its native harbor, the decisive strengthening of the armed forces, the course towards a multipolar world without American hegemony. China will be led along this path by President Xi, and there, depending on the success of the struggle, he will either be able to go to the 4th term, or, if health does not allow, prepare successors who will not allow the situation to roll back.

4. For Russia, this means that we will not be alone in our struggle for a new world order, the US Cold War against China will escalate and China's success in this fight against the US is as important to us as our success in destroying American hegemony is important to China. Although the PRC and the Russian Federation are not allies in the full sense of the word, on the issue of combating American hegemony, we are in the same boat with China. And while this is so, there can be no talk of any isolation of Russia. Therefore, the victory of President Xi is a good signal for Russia that China is coming to the fight and will not deviate from this path, succumbing to the persuasion of those who offered to "keep it simple."

5. The US obviously expected something like this, so they are unlikely to be happy with such an outcome. The stake on internal contradictions in the CPC Central Committee did not justify itself, as well as attempts to force China to abandon its course of reunification with Taiwan through threats. In view of this, it can be expected that the United States will force the start of a military conflict in Taiwan in order to organize it at a time when China is not yet fully prepared for it. The US is well aware of the critical trigger of the situation - Taiwan's declaration of sovereignty. This will inevitably provoke a Chinese military response. Accordingly, this mechanism, from the US point of view, must be activated before China is fully prepared. Xi's victory seriously raises the possibility of a war over Taiwan, where Taiwan is assigned the role of Ukraine. Whatever the outcome of this conflict, one can expect

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7930472.html

Come on, Comrade Hu
October 22, 9:45 am

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Former general secretary of the CPC Central Committee Hu Jintao was politely asked to leave the orderly ranks.

(Video at link)

The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China reportedly ended with a complete victory for President Xi Jinping, who strengthened his position. At the same time, his opponents suffer a hardware defeat. Well, the conclusion of the predecessor under the handles has become a very symbolic point.

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What happened at the 20th Congress is unlikely to please Washington.
The war over Taiwan is coming.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7930255.html

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Google Translator

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China boosts construction of ecological civilization

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At the fifth press conference of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Vice Minister of Ecology and Environment, Zhai Qing, clarified that the Beijing executive deployed a plan to prevent air, water and air pollution.
21 OCTOBER 2022

The risk of soil contamination was reduced by 1.2 percent and the quality of surface water reached 84.9 percent, placing it on a par with other nations.

As part of its path to a modern socialist country in the new era, China intends to advance the construction of ecological civilization in order to achieve harmonious coexistence between man and nature, as well as protect the environment.

To achieve this goal, the Asian giant in the last decade focused on protecting what President Xi Jinping calls the clear waters, they also directed tasks to safeguard mountains, rivers, forests, lakes and fields.

At the fifth press conference of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Vice Minister of Ecology and Environment, Zhai Qing, clarified that the Beijing executive deployed a plan to prevent air, water and air pollution. I usually.

ce Minister Zhai stated that as a result of this policy, the presence of microparticles of harmful substances in the air of large cities went from 46 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3) to 30 μg/m3 in the last six years, in turn the risk of soil contamination was reduced by 1.2 percent and the quality of surface waters reached 84.9 percent, placing it on par with other nations.

The senior official asserted that his country's natural reserves occupy 18 percent of the national territory, also adding that the central government will continue to promote green development, promoting the generation of renewable energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which, according to Zhai , fell more than 34 percent in the Asian giant between 2012 and 2021.

At the same time, the Chinese Vice Minister of Ecology and Environment stressed that his nation will continue to make contributions to face the challenges posed by climate change, adhering to multilateralism and the principles of equity, common but differentiated responsibilities.

https://www.telesurtv.net/telesuragenda ... -0035.html

Google Translator

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‘Peaceful Modernization’: China’s Offering to the Global South
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 21, 2022
Pepe Escobar

Image

Xi Jinping just offered the Global South a stark alternative to decades of western diktats, war, and economic duress. ‘Peaceful modernization’ will establish sovereignty, economy, and independence for the world’s struggling states

President Xi Jinping’s work report at the start of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) this past Sunday in Beijing contained not only a blueprint for the development of the civilization-state, but for the whole Global South.

Xi’s 1h45min speech actually delivered a shorter version of the full work report – see attached PDF – which gets into way more detail on an array of socio-political themes.

This was the culmination of a complex collective effort that went on for months. When he received the final text, Xi commented, revised and edited it.

In a nutshell, the CPC master plan is twofold: finalize “socialist modernization” from 2020 to 2035; and build China – via peaceful modernization – as a modern socialist country that is “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious” all the way to 2049, signaling the centenary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The central concept in the work report is peaceful modernization – and how to accomplish it. As Xi summarized, “It contains elements that are common to the modernization processes of all countries, but it is more characterized by features that are unique to the Chinese context.”

Very much in tune with Confucian Chinese culture, “peaceful modernization” encapsulates a complete theoretical system. Of course there are multiple geoeconomic paths leading to modernization – according to the national conditions of any particular country. But for the Global South as a whole, what really matters is that the Chinese example completely breaks with the western TINA (“there is no alternative”) monopoly on modernization practice and theory.

Not to mention it breaks with the ideological straitjacket imposed on the Global South by the self-defined “golden billion” (of which the really “golden” barely reach 10 million). What the Chinese leadership is saying is that the Iranian model, the Ugandan model or the Bolivian model are all as valid as the Chinese experiment: what matters is pursuing an independent path towards development.

How to develop tech independence

The recent historical record shows how every nation trying to develop outside the Washington Consensus is terrorized at myriad hybrid war levels. This nation becomes a target of color revolutions, regime change, illegal sanctions, economic blockade, NATO sabotage or outright bombing and/invasion.

What China proposes echoes across the Global South because Beijing is the largest trade partner of no less than 140 nations, who can easily grasp concepts such as high-quality economic development and self-reliance in science and technology.

The report stressed the categorical imperative for China from now on: to speed up technology self-reliance as the Hegemon is going no holds barred to derail China tech, especially in the manufacturing of semiconductors.

In what amount to a sanctions package from Hell, the Hegemon is betting on crippling China’s drive to accelerate its tech independence in semiconductors and the equipment to produce them.

So China will need to engage in a national effort on semiconductor production. That necessity will be at the core of what the work report describes as a new development strategy, spurred by the tremendous challenge of achieving tech self-sufficiency. Essentially China will go for strengthening the public sector of the economy, with state companies forming the nucleus for a national system of tech innovation development.

‘Small fortresses with high walls’

On foreign policy, the work report is very clear: China is against any form of unilateralism as well as blocs and exclusive groups targeted against particular countries. Beijing refers to these blocs, such as NATO and AUKUS, as “small fortresses with high walls.”

This outlook is inscribed in the CPC’s emphasis on another categorical imperative: reforming the existing system of global governance, extremely unfair to the Global South. It’s always crucial to remember that China, as a civilization-state, considers itself simultaneously as a socialist country and the world’s leading developing nation.

The problem once again is Beijing’s belief in “safeguarding the international system with the UN at its core.” Most Global South players know how the Hegemon subjects the UN – and its voting mechanism – to all sorts of relentless pressure.

It’s enlightening to pay attention to the very few westerners that really know one or two things about China.

Martin Jacques, until recently a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, and author of arguably the best book in English on China’s development, is impressed by how China’s modernization happened in a context dominated by the west: “This was the key role of the CPC. It had to be planned. We can see how extraordinarily successful it has been.”

The implication is that by breaking the west-centric TINA model, Beijing has accumulated the tools to be able to assist Global South nations with their own models.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, is even more upbeat: “China will become a leader of innovation. I very much hope and count on China becoming a leader for innovation in sustainability.” That will contrast with a ‘dysfunctional’ American model turning protectionist even in business and investment.

Mikhail Delyagin, deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, makes a crucial point, certainly noted by key Global South players: the CPC “was able to creatively adapt the Marxism of the 19th century and its experience of the 20th century to new requirements and implement eternal values with new methods. This is a very important and useful lesson for us.”

And that’s the added value of a model geared towards the national interest and not the exclusivist policies of Global Capital.

BRI or bust

Implied throughout the work report is the importance of the overarching concept of Chinese foreign policy: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its trade/connectivity corridors across Eurasia and Africa.

It was up to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin to clarify where BRI is heading:

“BRI transcends the outdated mentality of geopolitical games, and created a new model of international cooperation. It is not an exclusive group that excludes other participants but an open and inclusive cooperation platform. It is not just China’s solo effort, but a symphony performed by all participating countries.”

BRI is inbuilt in the Chinese concept of “opening up.” It is also important to remember that BRI was launched by Xi nine years ago – in Central Asia (Astana) and then Southeast Asia (Jakarta). Beijing has earned from its mistakes, and keeps fine-tuning BRI in consultation with partners – from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Malaysia to several African nations.

It is no wonder, that by August this year, China’s trade with countries participating in BRI had reached a whopping $12 trillion, and non-financial direct investment in those countries surpassed $140 billion.

Wang correctly points out that following BRI infrastructure investments, “East Africa and Cambodia have highways, Kazakhstan has [dry] ports for exports, the Maldives has its first cross-sea bridge and Laos has become a connected country from a landlocked one.”

Even under serious challenges, from zero-Covid to assorted sanctions and the breakdown of supply chains, the number of China-EU express cargo trains keeps going up; the China-Laos Railway and the Peljesac Bridge in Croatia are open for business; and work on the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway and the China-Thailand Railway is in progress.

Mackinder on crack

All over the extremely incandescent global chessboard, international relations are being completely reframed.

China – and key Eurasian players at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS+, and Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) – are all proposing peaceful development.

In contrast, the Hegemon imposes an avalanche of sanctions – not by accident the top three recipients are Eurasian powers Russia, Iran and China; lethal proxy wars (Ukraine); and every possible strand of hybrid war to prevent the end of its supremacy, which lasted barely seven and a half decades, a blip in historical terms.

The current dysfunction – physical, political, financial, cognitive – is reaching a climax. As Europe plunges into the abyss of largely self-inflicted devastation and darkness – a neo-medievalism in woke register – an internally ravaged Empire resorts to plundering even its wealthy “allies”.

It’s as if we are all witnessing a Mackinder-on-crack scenario.

Halford Mackinder, of course, was the British geographer who developed the ‘Heartland Theory’ of geopolitics, heavily influencing US foreign policy during the Cold War: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.”

Russia spans 11 time zones and sits atop as much as one third of the world’s natural resources. A natural symbiosis between Europe and Russia is like a fact of life. But the EU oligarchy blew it.

It’s no wonder the Chinese leadership views the process with horror, because one of BRI’s essential planks is to facilitate seamless trade between China and Europe. As Russia’s connectivity corridor has been blocked by sanctions, China will be privileging corridors via West Asia.

Meanwhile, Russia is completing its pivot to the east. Russia’s enormous resources, combined with the manufacturing capability of China and East Asia as a whole, project a trade/connectivity sphere that goes even beyond BRI. That’s at the heart of the Russian concept of Greater Eurasia Partnership.

In another one of History’s unpredictable twists, Mackinder a century ago may have been essentially right about those controlling the Heartland/world island controlling the world. It doesn’t look like the controller will be the Hegemon, and much less its European vassals/slaves.

When the Chinese say they are against blocs, Eurasia and The West are the facto two blocs. Though not yet formally at war with each other, in reality they already are knee deep into Hybrid War territory.

Russia and Iran are on the frontline – militarily and in terms of absorbing non-stop pressure. Other important Global South players, quietly, try to either keep a low profile or, even more quietly, assist China and the others to make the multipolar world prevail economically.

As China proposes peaceful modernization, the hidden message of the work report is even starker. The Global South is facing a serious choice: choose either sovereignty – embodied in a multipolar world, peacefully modernizing – or outright vassalage.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/10/ ... bal-south/

What is Behind the Growing US-China Crisis Over Taiwan?
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 21, 2022



As the US wages proxy war against Russia through Ukraine, it is attempting the same process through Taiwan against China. However, there are some major differences that make America’s hostility and encroachment on China even more dangerous including the fact that even Washington, officially, recognizes Taiwan as part of China while openly arming Taipei’s administration, encouraging separatism, and even placing US troops on what is internationally recognized as Chinese territory.

Besides military tensions, economic tensions continue to grow as China is positioned to surpass the collective West economically. The US has responded with growing lists of sanctions and coercive policies targeting not only China but Washington’s own supposed “allies.”

The Chip 4 Alliance seeks to assert US hegemony over the global semiconductor industry but is instead producing a similar backfiring effect as US and EU sanctions on Russian energy exports.

References:

US Department of State – US Relations with Taiwan: https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-w… Guardian – Secret group of US military trainers has been in Taiwan for at least a year (2021): https://www.theguardian.com/world/202

Atlas of Economic Complexity (Harvard) – Taiwan: https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore

BBC – The farmers caught up in Taiwan’s tensions with China: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-631

Taiwan Foundation for Democracy: http://www.tfd.org.tw/opencms/english/

US National Endowment for Democracy – TAIWAN FOUNDATION FOR DEMOCRACY TAIPEI: https://www.ned.org/taiwan-foundation

Taipei Times – US group pressures Ma on TFD shuffle (2009): https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/fron

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – The Activist Legacy of Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/08

Wikileaks – TSAI ING-WEN COMMENTS ON DPP TURMOIL (2005): https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/05

Wikileaks – DPP CHAIRPERSON TSAI ING-WEN ON CHALLENGES FACING PARTY AND U.S. ARMS SALES (2008): https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08

Wikileaks – DPP CHAIRPERSON TSAI ING-WEN ON CROSS-STRAIT ISSUES, JUDICIAL CASES, UPCOMING ELECTIONS (2009): https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09

Wikileaks – DPP CHAIR TSAI ING-WEN ON CHEN SHUI-BIAN AND PARTY POLITICS (2008): https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08

Wikileaks – DIRECTOR’S FAREWELL CALL ON DPP CHAIR TSAI ING-WEN (2009): https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09

FT – US struggles to mobilise its East Asian ‘Chip 4’ alliance: https://www.ft.com/content/98f22615-e

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/10/ ... er-taiwan/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Oct 29, 2022 2:41 pm

ON THE EVE OF THE 20TH CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA THE CHAIRMAN OF THE CC CPRF GENNADY ZYUGANOV GAVE AN INTERVIEW TO THE POPULAR CHINESE NEWSPAPER GUANGMING RIBAO
October 19, 2022

Speaking at the International Forum of the CPC and Marxist Parties organized by the Communist Party of China you noted that the centenary of the CPC which was marked a year ago was an outstanding milestone in the history of the Chinese people which had great resonance in many countries.

How do you assess the successes achieved by the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China during the 101 years of revolutionary development?

During its more than a century-long existence the Communist Party of China has traversed a glorious path of creative endeavor. Following its initial goal and fulfilling its mission of social restructuring it managed to unite the popular masses and launch the struggle for a great resurgence of the country on the basis of the values of peace, labor, justice, humanism and progress. In this struggle it has achieved outstanding historic results. Over the past hundred years the CPC dramatically changed the destiny of the Chinese people. It liberated them from the shackles of semi-colonial dependence, national humiliation and economic enslavement and made the people masters of their land and their destiny. Under the leadership of the CPC the working people of China have driven out foreign invaders, established and consolidated their power and built a middle-income society. Today the Chinese look to the future with complete confidence and are making the history of their great Motherland in the new era. Within a historically brief space of time a massive leap has been made toward creating a high-tech industry and dramatically raising people’s living standards. Along with dynamic economic growth long-term stability of the Chinese society has been ensured. This is extremely important for the country as a whole and for each concrete individual. Socialist China is an indisputable leader on many key parameters.

The resolution of the VI Plenum of the CC CPC of the 19th Convocation “On the Main Achievements and the Historical Experience of the Party’s Hundred-Year Struggle” notes that by its successes the CPC has demonstrated the vital might of Marxism: “The scientific character and validity of Marxism have been fully tested in China. In China the popular and practical character of Marxism has been fully put into practice and its openness and modernity have been fully vindicated… Thanks to this an important turn in favor of socialism has taken place on the world scale in the historical evolution and rivalry between the socialist and capitalist ideologies and social systems.”

Almost ten years have passed since Comrade Xi Jinping was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. What do you think about how China has been led during this period in terms of politics, economics, security, culture and international cooperation?

Comrade Xi Jinping is an outstanding statesman of our time. In terms of the scale of influence on global processes his figure occupies a special place in the galaxy of the best known politicians who are constantly written about by the world mass media. Very much on our planet depends on the decisions being taken with his participation.

Xi Jinping is flesh of the flesh of the great Chinese people. His father, Xi Zhongxun, an honest man infinitely dedicated to the Party’s cause, stood at the sources of the revolutionary movement in China. He is a representative of the first generation of Chinese revolutionaries. He was among the founders and leaders of the revolutionary base in the liberated regions of the Shanxi and Gansu provinces and organizers of political work in the People’s Liberation Army of China, one of the pioneers of the policy of reform and openness. He has inherited the best qualities from his father. He continues to uphold his deep faith in the inevitable triumph of the ideals of labor, justice, humanism and progress and hence the ideals of socialism.

The ideas of Xi Jinping about socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era actualize all the fundamental tenets of Marxism. Universal in character, they constitute a major innovative contribution to the development of the Marxist theory. Xi Jinping’s conceptual approaches provide an important key to the understanding of the ongoing processes in the world and explain why the PRC has made such a dramatic breakthrough toward new development horizons.

Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, following the path of deepening the policy of reform and openness, the CPC did away with poverty and built a middle-income society. It has scored real successes in ensuring all-round supremacy of law and compliance with strict party discipline. One of the key ingredients of the success of Xi Jinping’s policy has been the strengthening of the people’s faith in its own culture, without which it is impossible to implement the “Chinese dream.”

Contemporary political leaders bear huge responsibility for the destiny of the Earth and its inhabitants. State leaders of all countries should pass on the relay of peace to the following generations, energetically contribute to the conservation of the environment, and to the progress and prosperity of the world civilization.

Unfortunately, the leaders of the main Western countries are very remote from understanding this lofty mission. Being in thrall to racial and ethnic prejudice, they still see the planet as a source of colonial plunder and gain, as a vast “field of opportunities” for imperialistic expansion. Seeking to impose its hegemony on the rest of the world, the West is prepared to put the world on the brink of war with the use of the most lethal weapons.

The aggressive policy of the USA and its satellites brings pain and suffering to the peoples of the planet. Dangerous experiments of military bio-laboratories constitute a heinous crime against humanity and call for a resolute condemnation by the international community. Support of Fascism, escalation of the Ukraine conflict and encouragement of insane missile attacks of the Bandera followers on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant illustrate the inhumanity of the Western leaders’ policy and their utter disdain of the goals of sustainable development. Sabre-rattling off the shores of the PRC, the United States and its vassals merely demonstrate that they are capable of pursuing an absolutely destructive course. It is an openly terrorist policy! There is nothing humane or creative about it!

Speaking at the UN headquarters in Geneva in January 2017 Xi Jinping said that “the destiny of the world must be in the hands of all the countries, international rules should be written jointly by all the countries, the globalization issues should be resolved together and the results of development should be available to all.” He stressed that the idea of the common destiny of humankind embodies the loftiest ideals and China’s commitment to building a wonderful world. It reflects the hopes of the peoples for a new, peaceful and just order. That is why it has the sympathy and powerful support of a growing number of countries.

The CPRF has always come out against the globalists’ attempts to put the future of civilization under threat. Our clear-cut and unambiguous position on the recent events around Ukraine and Taiwan has been reflected in concrete steps and political statements of the party with calls for actions aimed at curbing the insanity of the Western “hawks,” establishment of lasting peace, and prevention of provocations with the use of nuclear and biological technologies.

You have repeatedly stressed that the Chinese communists do not simply develop the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, but set an example for the whole planet. Their experience takes on a universal character and merits profound discussion and study. You have noted that the Chinese comrades have brought out the fourth volume of the series of books devoted to Xi Jinping’s governance system. I have three volumes of this series and I hope to get the fourth volume in Russian.

The resolution “On the Main Achievements and the Historical Experience of the Hundred-Year Struggle of the Party” adopted by the VI Plenum of the CC CPC of the 19th convocation reads in part: “Xi Jinping’s thoughts about socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era constitute modern Chinese Marxism, the Marxism of the 21st century, the quintessence of Chinese culture and the Chinese spirit, they mark a new leap in the Sinoization of Marxism.” What do you think of this conclusion?


Writing about socialist society in 1890 Friedrich Engels pointed out that it is not “something given once and for all.” And the great thinker stressed: “like any other social system it should be seen as subject to constant changes and transformations.”

The state system of any country depends directly on the level of its socio-economic development, the historical legacy, cultural traditions and the balance of social class forces. Socialism in China was born under certain conditions. It grew stronger in the confrontation with foreign invaders, in the struggle of the working people for freedom and independence. Its development involved difficult quests and the making of decisions that transformed the whole country.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics is a vivid manifestation of the social creativity of the Chinese Communist Party and people. The rapid development of your country has become a major achievement in the development of the human civilization. The PRC today has an advanced state system. It has institutional advantages and a huge potential for self-improvement. The properties and features Marxism has acquired in Chinese reality have determined the creative potential of this system.

Marx, Engels and Lenin have repeatedly stressed that the characteristics of the socialist social and economic system manifest themselves in the practice of socialist construction in each individual country. Life has vindicated these theoretical premises: a socio-economic system cannot be created according to a single template. Historical experience shows that transition to socialism calls for a combination of the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism and the real state of affairs. As Deng Xiaoping pointed out, “the combination of the overall truth of Marxism-Leninism and the reality of a concrete country is the universal truth.”

Socialism in the PRC has colossal creative potential. It is based on a truly scientific theory and practical experience of the revolution, building and reform. Proceeding from the basic principles of Marxism, The CPC has created a socio-political system which takes into account the national realities of China, its historical tradition, the strength and wisdom of the people. The party has transformed its practical experience into systemic results whose fruitfulness has been felt by the country and seen by the whole world. This enables it to look to the future with confidence while implementing the main principles of scientific socialism and preserving the shining idiosyncrasy of national culture.

Could you comment on the current state of relations between Russia and China? How do you see Russia-China relations developing after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China?

I believe that the relations between Russia and China today are at a higher level than at any time during the past decades. It is not by chance that at the official level they are described as “relations of all-embracing partnership and strategic interaction.” There is no exaggeration in this assessment. The broad cooperation between China and Russia at the present stage is marked by intensive dynamism, common perception of the key world problems, a solid legal basis and active popular support of the course for a rapprochement between our countries.

The foundation of the current relations between Russia and China is very strong. It does not depend on short-term political expediency. Its key components are dynamic trade and economic relations and sustained mutual understanding on key issues on the international agenda, support of the UN and work to strengthen its role in world affairs. Moscow and Beijing have similar or identical positions on international security issues.

There is much that brings us together. Geographical, mental, historical and spiritual proximity. Shared views on the sources of global challenges and threats which are increasingly felt in the modern world.

On August 3, 2022 the Presidium of the CC CPRF came out with a Statement, “He Who Plays with Fire Will Burn Himself,” devoted to the situation around Taiwan. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, followed by a visit of members of the US Congress to Taipei, were steps that provoke confrontation between the USA and China. Such actions, aimed at sowing chaos in the Asia Pacific region, undermine international stability.

The actions of high-ranking Washington officials have highlighted the fact that the US ruling circles are captives of old neo-colonial prejudices. It looks as if Washington is set to continue behaving in this aggressive and provocative manner.

The CPRF has always pointed to Washington’s inadmissible behavior in the world arena.

Today the United States and its satellites are pursuing a policy of revising the results of World War II. With active US support justification and even heroization of Nazi criminals and their accomplices is taking place in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Strange voices of “experts” calling for a “reappraisal” of the World War II events in Asia are being increasingly heard. All this contradicts the historical truth and leads to the denial of the decisive role of the USSR and China in the Victory over German Nazism and Japanese militarism.

Today the question of recognition or non-recognition of the outcome of World War II has become one of the key topics on the international agenda. The USA is using it to try to destroy the existing world order, establish its hegemony by force, derive geopolitical dividends from the weakening of its growing rivals. I believe that one way of countering this at the legal level could be international legal recognition of the facts of genocide of the Soviet and Chinese peoples during World War II by Europe “united” under Hitler and militarist Japan.

Further, a legal assessment should be given of the actions of current state and political leaders who encourage Fascism and are complicit in the perpetration of crimes against peace and humanity. The chieftains of the Nazi Reich were indicted for just this kind of actions. I think a legal assessment of the crimes today could be given by an ad hoc international court similar to the Nuremberg tribunal.

We see all too well how the American imperialists build their policy of provocations. They are fostering Fascism and increasingly threatening biological and radiation security of the planet. In Europe Russia is the main US target. Hostilities are conducted against our country with the hands of its East European satellites, in the first place Bandera Ukraine. That is why the CPRF supports the special military operation to de-militarize and de-Nazify Ukraine. The success of this operation would mark an important step toward de-escalation in a vast region of the world.

The actions of American puppets cause great harm to world peace. Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic countries are salient examples of this in Europe. Their Russophobic policy, the course for severing historical links and escalation of the confrontation with Russia is in glaring contradiction to the interests of durable peace and security in the region. These actions, profoundly anti-people and anti-history, are extremely dangerous.

The pro-American regimes are pawns in the grand chess game being played by the United States. Their representatives are often used to stoke up international tensions, and that includes dirty provocations against Russia and China. Developments in Ukraine, the situation around Taiwan, the cobbling together of the AUKUS bloc, the blowing up of branches of the Nord Stream gas pipeline and much else demonstrate the growing involvement of American satellites in implementing Washington’s strategy. This is the result of the wish of the US ruling circles to “share responsibility” and use others’ resources to further their ends.

Destabilization of the situation in Central Asia is one of the key tasks of the US in redrawing the world political map. This task meets the interests of the US ruling circles which are committed to “twin containment of Russia and China.” The policy of “twin containment” of our countries can and must be effectively counter-acted. This is possible through close coordination and consolidation of efforts. It is exceedingly important for Russia and China to have a common approach to the problems of the region and to see eye-to-eye on matters of economic activity, information policy, defense and security.

The CPRF is strongly supportive of the course for an all-round rapprochement between Russia and China. We consider the broadening of cooperation between our countries to be an important prerequisite for tapping new opportunities. It cannot be ruled out that the need may arise in the near future to create a powerful economic and military-political bloc capable of being an alternative to the American model of globalization.

— Could you say a few words to the readers of Guangming Daily? What are your hopes for the development of friendship between the peoples of China and Russia? And what would you wish the people of China?

Your newspaper is very popular and highly respected in the People’s Republic of China. I am glad to be able to address your readers with the best wishes of success and peace, happiness and well-being.

In particular, I would like to express my hope and confidence that our fraternal peoples will jointly overcome the most acute challenges of the modern world. The historical process is so tortuous that we should all be “on our guard.” We should work persistently to strengthen our mutual understanding, to act together and win together!

The CPRF is preparing to mark the centenary of the formation of the USSR. Moving along the path of building socialism our country has achieved great successes which have an intransient significance for the whole human race. In 1917 Russia was the first to breach the international front of imperialism and embark on the building of a new society. Following this path under the leadership of the Communist Party the Soviet people have created the most advanced economy for that time, raised living standards, developed science and culture, vanquished Fascism and conquered outer space. In the 21st century the relay of victories and accomplishments has been confidently taken from the USSR by socialist China.

The Soviet experience has shown that it is impossible to effectively counteract the West without building up economic might, without strengthening the defense capability and without uniting the efforts of progressive forces on the planet.

It is only by working persistently to strengthen the unity of the Russian and Chinese people and build up our joint efforts in the struggle against the West’s neo-colonial aspirations that we can uphold he sovereignty of our countries. As Stalin would have said in a similar situation, we will either do it quickly, or we will be crushed.

The great legacy of our friendship is the best guarantee of the joint journey of our peoples toward a bright, just and happy future!

https://cprf.ru/2022/10/on-the-eve-of-t ... ing-ribao/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Fri Nov 04, 2022 2:18 pm

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On October 16, the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was grandly opened in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Tao.

An interpretation of the CPC’s 20th congress report: the western media’s omertà on the China model of modernization and its disingenuous response to the CPC’s self-revolution
By Deborah Veneziale (Posted Nov 03, 2022)

Originally published: Guancha on November 2, 2022 by Deborah Veneziale (more by Guancha)

At the just concluded 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), General Secretary Xi Jinping’s report, on behalf of the 19th Central Committee1, provides a comprehensive summary of the party’s extraordinary achievements over the past decade and a vision for the future development of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. In many ways, this report reflects the CPC’s major innovations in Marxist and socialist theory and presents new possibilities for the major challenges facing all of humanity. But the Western media, due to their own bias, have either ignored or maliciously misinterpreted these important messages. All peace-loving and progressive people who are concerned about the world should cross these barriers of bias and carefully interpret this important report.

The CPC’s 20th Congress coincided with major changes in the world not seen in a century. The contradiction between an increasingly economically and socially weakened, but still militarily powerful, U.S. imperialism, and the peoples of the Global South and non-Western countries is becoming increasingly antagonistic. The United States has coerced most European countries and Japan into supporting the dangerous path of NATO expansion. They are also deploying dozens of military bases in Africa. The U.S.-led West has no answers to the serious challenges facing the world. In this new era, China’s ambition to build a modern socialist state is exactly what people around the world need.

In this article, we will discuss three key points from the 20th Congress report that have direct relevance to the global South.

1.The significance of the China model of modernization.
2.Achieving the longevity of political parties and nations through self-revolution.
3.The direct relevance of the security-related content of the 20th Congress report to the world.

The China model of modernization: A new hope for human civilization

According to the report, the China Model of Modernization offers a new option for the modernization of mankind. The Western media are completely silent on this important statement; not only because they lack the capacity and background to understand this new concept in depth, but also because they realize that China’s achievements in socialist modernization will break the monopoly of the Western developed capitalist countries on the “modernization” discourse and the allegation that socialism has failed to solve economic problems. Overall, China’s success in various fields constitutes an existential threat to the Western hegemonic system.

In the centuries-long history of Western hegemony, “modernity” has been equated with “Westernness”. The West acquired the “so-called original accumulation”2 of capital through brutal plundering, colonization, and the slave trade, and destroyed the basis for development of the colonized countries in the Global South. The Westerners, who had expropriated their wealth through violence and brutality, anointed themselves as “modern” and lecture the nations of the Global South from above. When Fukuyama spoke of the “end of history,” the “modern” in his eyes was undoubtedly the vision of neoliberalism. The Western system of “modernization” does not offer the Global South the opportunity to develop. Rather, privatization and open markets result in vampiric-like blood sucking of the life of the working classes in the neo-colonies. This Western system does not address the key question of the need for genuine political sovereignty in the Global South, nor does it answer the question of how it can gain the ability to “stand up” as China did in 1949.

Today, under the imperialist-imposed neoliberal system, the neo-colonial plundering of Africa continues and is directly responsible for the continued poverty of the local peoples. Burkina Faso, a West African country of just 22 million people, mines over $2 billion worth of gold alone each year, yet the profits from these natural resources are siphoned off by European, Canadian, and Australian mining companies, leaving 40% of the country’s people earning less than $2 a day3. Niger’s uranium, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt and lithium, and Nigeria’s oil, these rich natural deposits, instead of bringing economic development to Africa, have made them targets for manipulation by developed Western countries, leaving them with poverty, chaos, and a badly damaged ecosystem. The ecological disasters caused by Shell Oil in Nigeria and Exxon Mobil in Ecuador are the most vivid examples.

China’s modernization, by contrast, redefines and de-stigmatizes the concept of “modernization” from a socialist perspective. The importance of the China model of modernization has been demonstrated by the amazing economic, political, and social developmental achievements of socialist China in the following ways.

First, China’s model of large-scale modernization (both in population and land mass) has involved and benefited the entire Chinese people. In 1949, when socialist China was founded, its economy accounted for less than 5% of the world’s total; its national income per capita was 20% lower than India’s; and it ranked as the 11th poorest country in the world (based on per capita PPP adjusted GDP). By 2021, China’s economy accounted for 18% of the world economy and its per capita income was 2.7 times that of India’s. What’s more, China has fully eradicated absolute poverty, achieved universal nine-year compulsory education, and covered more than 95 percent of its population with basic health insurance. In 2021, the CPC launched initiatives to comprehensively promote rural revitalization and solidly advance common prosperity. This ensures that the country’s rural population, 700 million people, with relatively low-income levels, will benefit from economic development.

When China began its reform and opening up in the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping’s slogan of “let some people get rich first” and the rapid growth of the private and foreign-invested economy caused some socialists in the Global South to wonder whether China had deviated from the socialist line. The facts are now available to lay those doubts to rest. Deng Xiaoping also explained socialism this way: “Poverty is not socialism” and “Those who become rich first will lead those who become rich later to achieve common prosperity”. Those ideas are becoming China’s reality today. From this decades-long process, we can see that generations of leaders of the CPC have taken up the mission of their respective times and continued the practice of enriching the country and strengthening the people.

Second, the China model of modernization attaches importance not only to economic development, but also to the spiritual civilization and moral development of the people. It may not be easy to see the moral level of a population in times of peace and plenty, but in the face of an emergency like a global epidemic, it is possible to see the state of a society’s spiritual civilization. In the face of an epidemic that has claimed millions of lives globally, with over one million in the United States alone, the ruling elite in the United States, the most developed country in the world, lied to its citizens, persuading them that the epidemic was over, while using insider information to make profits in the stock market. Eight states governed by Republican governors, including Florida, Arizona, Utah, and Texas, banned the mandatory wearing of face masks in schools. In a large department store in Flint, Michigan, a security guard was shot and killed, simply because he told a customer that her children needed to wear masks in the store. As the grandmother of six grandchildren, I am deeply concerned about the extreme individualism and the serious moral decline in American society.

In contrast, the Chinese people have demonstrated a high level of morality in the face of the epidemic. The CPC mobilized 4 million grassroots organizations4 – every residential community, the lowest level of society – to provide services to the people related to epidemic prevention and control. These included managing and organizing food supplies, arranging large-scale nucleic acid testing, isolating and escorting infected people to hospitals, and regular visits to the elderly. In return, the Chinese people showed mutual trust, strict discipline, selflessness, and small personal sacrifices to dynamically clear the epidemic nationwide and safeguard people’s lives and production. This is the result of the spiritual civilization inspired by and under the leadership and organizational capacity of the Communist Party of China.

Third, Chinese modernization is sustainable because it neither plunders other countries nor nature. In the past decade, an amazingly short period of time, China has led the world in reversing the inevitable historical consequences of industrialization. No other major country in human history has modernized to this level without invading and plundering other countries. It is unlikely that the countries of the global South will ever again follow such a path of modernization. With 4.2% of the world’s population, the United States accounts for 13% of the world’s carbon emissions and 13.7 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels per capita, three times the global average. Even though a significant portion of U.S. manufacturing has moved to China, its per capita carbon emissions are still 67% higher than China’s5. If developing countries were to use the United States as a benchmark for modernization, the planet’s natural environment would be quickly overwhelmed as the process has already begun. The Western modernization narrative concludes that many, if not all, countries of the global South will not be able to modernize.

General Secretary Xi Jinping already pointed out6 when he was the leader in Zhejiang Province back in 2005: “Green water and green mountains can bring golden mountains, but golden mountains cannot buy green water and green mountains. Green water and green mountains and golden mountains can produce contradictions, but also dialectical unity”. The concept of harmonious coexistence between man and nature is influenced by traditional Chinese culture, but more importantly, the CPC is determined to lead the Chinese people along the path of high-quality, sustainable development, maintaining the original intention of serving the people. Protecting and restoring the environment while developing the economy, and even setting the ambitious goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, requires a long-term strategic vision, strong governance execution, and a high level of science and technology. This is a world away from capitalist societies.

The Western media often smear the Belt and Road Initiative as a “debt trap” for the global South, but the reality in Africa exposes their lies. China owns only 13% of African countries’ debt7; the average interest rate of Africa’s debt to China is only 2.7%, while the average interest rate of Africa’s debt to Western private capital (35% of Africa’s total debt) is 5%8. China’s infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa is more than twice that of Western countries combined; and China never imposes a political agenda on another country based on debt. The West lends the money they plundered from developing countries through institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. It then holds them hostage to a series of liberalizing reforms that destroy the foundations of industrialization in those countries and their social services like health and education. They are the ones to blame for the constantly expanding debt trap of the global South.

In Argentina, the Shanghai Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd. built the largest installed capacity of photovoltaic power plant projects in South America, to meet the electricity needs of 120,000 households9, and drive the development of the surrounding areas’ roads, schools, hospitals, tourism, and other infrastructure construction. The U.S.’s highly publicized Power Africa Initiative added a total of 12.5 gigawatts of power generation capacity to Africa from 2013 to 202110, while the Belt and Road Initiative added 36.6 gigawatts of power generation capacity to Africa over the same period11. In Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, and other African countries, China has launched a series of clean energy cooperation projects. China is expected to complete 49 power projects in sub-Saharan Africa by 2024, equivalent to 20 percent of the total installed capacity in the region over the same period, the vast majority of which are renewable energy projects12. China is proving to the world, in practice, that the China model of modernization can lead to successful and peaceful new forms of solidarity and cooperation. It can provide developing countries with ideas and frameworks and inspire them to create their own new indigenous development models.

Anti-corruption: A courageous self-revolution

In the report of the 20th Congress, it stated that “self-revolution” was “the second answer in breaking free from the historical cycle of the rise and fall of governance”. This is an assertion full of historical weight. China has a history of 5,000 years and dozens of dynasties, at least 10 of which have ruled for more than 100 years. The Han, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties were all full of vitality at the beginning of their establishment, but all of them lost that vitality at the end of their reigns, due to the corruption of the big landowning class. In 1945, Chairman Mao Zedong said in Yan’an: Only when the people rise up to supervise the government will the government dare not slack off – this is the “first answer” referred to in the report of the 20th National Congress13.

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In 2016, at a conference celebrating the 95th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping asked the entire Party to take the political courage of self-revolution, focus on solving the outstanding problems of the Party itself, enhance the Party’s ability for self-purification, self-improvement, and self-renovation, and overcome the four dangers of mental slackness, incompetence, detachment from the masses, and corruption. In 2011, former General Secretary Hu Jintao put forward these four dangers. “Self-revolution” is a direct response to these four dangers, and a solution for the CPC to break out of the historical cycle of thousands of years of human history in which rulers have been unable to stop their own decay and deterioration and have finally lost their dominant position.

Since the 18th National Congress, the Communist Party of China has cracked down on corruption, with discipline inspection and supervision organs nationwide filing more than 4.6 million cases. These included 553 investigations of cadres managed by The Organization Department of the Central Committee of the CPC, who disciplined more than 25,000 cadres at the department and bureau levels, and more than 182,000 cadres at the county level. The people’s satisfaction with the “clean” government and other anti-corruption work has risen from 75 percent a decade ago to 97.4 percent14. In the latest amendment to the CPC’s Constitution, it is clearly stated that the Party’s self-reform is a journey to which there is no end15. All of this demonstrates how the CPC, which has been in power for 73 years, is removing the sloth and corruption from its ranks through active and persistent self-revolution and liberating the people from historical cycles of governance failure, as experienced by the various dynasties in China.

Ironically, the Western media have deliberately misinterpreted the CPC’s anti-corruption campaign, narrowly portraying it as an excuse for internal power struggles and the purging of dissidents. This is partly the result of the consistent Western propaganda war, and partly because Western societies, especially the United States, have completely legitimized and institutionalized corruption under the ruling elite. If the Western media were to report and interpret China’s anti-corruption campaign in depth, it would reflect the reality that corruption is deeply rooted in their own societies.

A fundamental problem facing any society is how to distribute the total surplus created collectively by that society. As the productive forces of society become more advanced, more surplus value is created. This surplus can be distributed either to the working classes that produced it or to the treasury of capital and the exploiting class, to the reproductive needs of society (such as health care, education, research, and other public goods) or to the military and war. In capitalist societies, the vast majority of surplus value is legally distributed to the bourgeoisie, leaving only a minimum amount of surplus value for social reproduction. Western ideologies cleverly divert attention away from the question of the legal right to exploit and distribute capital and focus on the narrower issue of corruption in its defined legal sense. They cleverly devise legal frameworks that allow a small elite to legitimately rotate between the state apparatus and business, allowing public officials to be captured by various private business interests while in office and to accept delayed bribes from private businesses after leaving public office.

At an airport in a less developed country, a border control agent might take a traveler’s passport and review it ominously, imploring the traveler to slip him a $10 bribe. This is irrefutable corruption. But isn’t it also corruption when a public official does not take a penny in bribes while in office, but then uses his or her insider knowledge of the political system and hidden network of contacts to influence policy making after leaving office, receiving a high salary of millions of dollars from the big corporations that benefit from it? This is a common career path for members of the U.S. Congress. Dozens of members of Congress, who were in office between 2017 and 2019, have become corporate lobbyists, consultants, or business representatives16. Isn’t it corrupt for a public official to use the power at his or her disposal to create policies that benefit a company and then be hired by that company at a high salary after leaving office? Carla Peterman, a former member of the California Public Utilities Commission, was hired as a highly paid vice president of Southern California Edison immediately after leaving public office in 2018, after spending six years as a government official overseeing the company .17

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Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary, earned more than $150 million from paid speeches between 2001 and 201618. During Trump’s presidency, private prison contractors, microlenders, and other special interests held as many as 137 events at properties he owned, allowing the politician and businessman to profit to the tune of tens of millions of dollars19. During the epidemic, some 240 U.S. government officials held between $9 million and $28 million in stock in drug, manufacturing, and biotech companies that eventually won government procurement contracts related to the epidemic20. Hundreds of U.S. military officers have booked high-paying positions in private security businesses in the UAE before they even retire, including former Defense Secretary and four-star general Jim Mattis21. All of these actions are not considered corrupt in the U.S. political ecosystem. The political elite simply removes the word “corruption” from the dictionary and claims that they are never corrupt.

In fact, these means of enrichment are only superficial manifestations of corruption in Western capitalist countries where corruption forms the root of their political systems. The political elites in power in the United States are all representatives of capitalist interests. Of the 14 U.S. presidents elected after World War II, only Harry S. Truman had a peak net worth of no more than $1 million22. Eleven senators, in 2011, had an average of $14 million in assets and 512 representatives had an average of $6.59 million23, with the vast majority of lawmakers being representatives of the richest bourgeoisie. U.S. presidential elections require significant monetary investment, especially the most recent ones: in the 2016 election cycle, both parties invested more than $2 billion each; in 2020, the two parties combined to spend $14.4 billion on campaigns, with Democrats spending more than $8 billion24. After being funded by interest groups to get elected, presidents then use their power to give back to the interest groups. For example, most Republican presidents received huge funding from energy companies; Reagan took office and lifted price controls on oil and gasoline, and Bush Jr. refused to implement the Kyoto Protocol. From the Democratic Party, Clinton, and Obama, after receiving funding from the information technology industry, actively promoted the Information Superhighway program and cyber security construction and assisted U.S. technology companies to expand their global monopoly, catapulting them into the richest companies in the world.

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Both parties have invested in recent U.S. presidential campaigns.

Under this political system of rotating interest groups, the wealth of the big bourgeoisie has skyrocketed while the working class has benefited very little from U.S. economic growth. Since 1980, the richest 10% of the U.S. population has accounted for more than half of all economic growth, while the working class with below median incomes has received only 10% of economic growth. In each of the three periods of economic growth over the past three decades, the top 10 percent of income earners have received about half of all income growth25. Households with incomes below the median have seen almost no income growth over the two decades from 2000 to 202026. The money-driven political system guarantees that the rich can get richer ad infinitum, while working people do not benefit from economic growth and bear a heavy price in economic downturns. This is the worst kind of systemic and actual corruption demonstrated in Western capitalist countries. The West is incapable and unwilling to regulate the expansion of capital.

In contrast, the disorderly expansion of capital in China has been effectively curbed in the past few years, and financial capital was explicitly made to serve the real economy. When emerging Internet companies tried to bypass financial regulation and expand their leverage indefinitely, they were subject to severe controls. Meanwhile, the median income of rural residents nationwide increased 1.72 times in a decade, indicating that ordinary people shared the fruits of economic development. Of the 2,296 delegates to the 20th National Congress, only 18 were private sector executives, and most of these executives are also from small and medium-sized enterprises27. In a press conference at the congress, a leader of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection clearly pointed out that leading cadres should be prevented from becoming spokespeople and agents of interest groups and powerful groups28. This sends a clear signal: China’s ruling party will not let money corrupt its original intention of serving the people; it will not allow China to, once again, go into the historical cycle of the rise and fall of governance.

Under China’s socialist system, public ownership is the mainstay of the economy, with multiple ownership economies developing together; distribution according to labor is the mainstay, with various forms of distribution co-existing. This means that the dominant portion of surplus created by society is regulated by the state on behalf of the population, and private enterprises are allowed to earn reasonable profits from the socialist (not capitalist) market. In the West, corruption, in the legal sense, is a secondary issue, as capital legally robs the vast majority of surplus value. Whereas the surplus created in socialist societies is not legally appropriated by a few as it is in the West, it must be carefully protected to serve the people. With the advancement of science and technology, the overall surplus of society grows enormously. This means that corruption cannot be eradicated once and for all, and the Party’s self-revolution will be a journey without end. The latest revision of the CPC’s constitution29 enshrines that the people’s representatives do not dare to, cannot, and do not want to be corrupted. This is a difficult problem. The development of the experience, ideas, and principles of the CPC is a tremendous contribution to human understanding of how to transcend the barbarism of capitalism and establish a governance structure that is capable of self-correction over a long span of time.

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In 2017, Xi Jinping looked at the poverty alleviation manual in Liu Fuyou, a special hardship household in Zhaojiawa Village. Photo by Pang Xinglei, reporter of Xinhua News Agency.

The unipolar hegemon of the world today, the United States, is only 200 years old, a country that has not yet experienced the historical cycle of the rise and fall of governance. By way of contrast, the small Zhou Dynasty state of Lu, where Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, influenced Chinese culture for 2,000 years, was 800 years old30. An emperor of China’s Tang Dynasty once said, “Learn from history to know the rise and fall” 31. Contemporary Chinese leaders not only adhere to communist ideology but are also influenced by China’s long history. For them, the successes and failures of political decisions are judged in the context of thousands of years of Chinese history. It is a pity and a peril for the world that the lack of knowledge of history often prevents Westerners from understanding the political views of Chinese leaders.

Security: For the future of the world

The focus of Western media and think tanks on the 20th Congress report seems to be on the key word “security”. Reuters notes that “security” is mentioned 89 times throughout the report. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. think tank, sees this as a way to “blame China’s woes on external efforts to contain and undermine it”32.

These analyses are blind to the most obvious fact: humanity is on the verge of a world war, even a nuclear one. It is the U.S.-led NATO that is leading the world into this dangerous situation. On October 20, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said that NATO’s continued military support and weaponry to Ukraine is bringing NATO closer to the brink of direct military conflict with Russia33. Just a few days ago, NATO began conducting nuclear deterrence exercises34, and the U.S. military expects Russia’s annual nuclear exercises to take place in late October35, meaning NATO and Russia will conduct their respective nuclear exercises simultaneously. From the promise before the collapse of the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastward, to the successive absorption of several former Soviet republics into NATO, to the 2018 constitutional amendment of Ukraine to make NATO and EU membership its primary national strategy, to the direct support of Ukraine with economic sanctions and military aid in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and to the current demonstration to Russia with nuclear deterrence exercises, the tension between Russia and Ukraine is entirely driven by NATO’s escalation.

At the same time, the U.S. military and diplomatic elite are lobbying Washington to further increase military spending in preparation for “defeating Russia and China in overlapping timeframes”36. In the unipolar global hegemonic mindset, any independent power (especially a nuclear power) is a threat to the U.S. empire, and the only way to eliminate it is for China and Russia to submit to the U.S. system of global hegemony. This war thinking prompted President Biden to propose a record $800 billion military budget37 and to stand by while House Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan, China, to stir up Chinese national sentiment. China has shown a high degree of restraint in response.

The arrogant Western elites think that Taiwan is China’s weakness and that they can contain China by provoking Taiwan to become independent. They underestimate the importance that the Chinese people attach to history and national sentiment. As early as the 12th century A.D., the Song Dynasty government had established an administration in Taiwan38. In 1945, China won the war against fascism, liberating Taiwan, which had been occupied for 50 years, from the Japanese invaders. Taiwan is an inseparable part of China, and the Taiwan issue is an internal matter of China. On this issue, three U.S. presidents, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan, have reached a consensus with China in the form of three joint communiqués between the two countries. From a national security perspective, it is unacceptable to China that missiles deployed in Taipei could attack Shanghai and Beijing in just 10-15 minutes if Taiwan were to become “independent” and under Western control.

After hundreds of years of a humiliating history of being invaded, divided, oppressed, and plundered by Western countries, the Chinese people have finally established a new socialist China under the leadership of the CPC and achieved unimaginable achievements in socialist construction since the British colonialists launched the Opium War. Taiwan is the last scar left by China’s century of humiliation, and the Chinese people have a great determination and fighting spirit to maintain the unity and territorial integrity of their motherland. Ignorance and disregard for China’s history and national sentiments can lead to serious strategic miscalculations by the West and even lead the world into the abyss of war.

The United States maintains 750 military bases in 80 countries and territories outside its territory, including about 400 large bases with more than 200 military personnel39. U.S. military bases are located throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, and cost $55 billion to operate each year. Since 2001, overseas military bases have supported U.S. wars or military operations in at least 25 countries. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, U.S. forces have killed millions of innocent civilians. The U.S. has also waged hybrid wars against Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Russia, China and other countries to create “controlled chaos” through propaganda, diplomacy, economic, financial, political, and cultural pressure, thereby interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, undermining the foundations of their independence and autonomy, and even overthrowing their legitimate regimes.40 China’s emphasis on security is a necessary caution against the expanding U.S. hegemony and an important force in maintaining world peace.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his report that China has always adhered to the foreign policy purpose of maintaining world peace and promoting common development, and is committed to promoting the building of a community of human destiny, providing new opportunities for the world with China’s new development, and promoting the building of an open world economy. As John Bellamy Foster, editor-in-chief of the Monthly Review, said41, “The causal agent in the two global existential crises now threatening the human species is capitalism and its irrational quest for exponentially increasing capital accumulation and imperial power in a limited global environment. The only possible response to this unlimited threat is a universal revolutionary movement rooted in both ecology and peace, turning away from the current systematic destruction of the earth and its inhabitants, and providing as its alternative a world of substantive equality and ecological sustainability, namely socialism.” The CPC emphasizes the topic of security, not for the sake of narrow national hegemony, but to advocate security for the survival and development of the world’s peoples, and for a better future for humanity yet to come.

A beacon of light at the beginning of a new era

As Marx and Engels said in the Communist Manifesto, “… oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes “. The world currently stands at the beginning of a potentially decades-long new era, in which we will witness the end of the U.S. global empire. The neoliberal system is crumbling under the weight of numerous internal contradictions, historical injustices, and economic unviability. Without a better alternative, the world will descend into even greater chaos.

Thus, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China is significant not only for China, but even more so for the world, especially for developing countries in the global South. The China model of modernization, the determination of the CPC for self-revolution, and China’s sense of responsibility for world peace, as summarized and envisioned by General Secretary Xi Jinping in his 20th Congress report, will light the way to a socialist future for the countries of the global South.

Endnotes
1.↩ Nikkei Asia, Transcript: President Xi Jinping’s report to China’s 2022 party congress
2.↩ Marx, Karl. Value, Price and Profit. Section VII: Labor Power. New York: International Co., Inc, 1969.
3.↩ Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, When Will the Stars Shine Again in Burkina Faso?: The Forty-First Newsletter (2022)
4.↩ The China Quarterly, Rebuilding Authority: The Party’s Relationship with Its Grassroots Organizations
5.↩ World Population Review, Carbon Footprint by Country 2022
6.↩ China Daily, Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets
7.↩ South China Morning Post, China hits back at Africa debt-trap claims with loan write-off offer
8.↩ Reuters, African states’ private debts three times that owed to China
9.↩ Reuters, On South America’s largest solar farm, Chinese power radiates
10.↩ USAID, Power Africa Annual Report 2021
11.↩ Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Chinese energy investment concentrates on hydropower in Africa and coal in Asia, research shows
12.↩ Seetao, China-Africa clean energy cooperation is gaining momentum
13.↩ The China Story, Dynastic cycle and shadows of the past over Xi’s China
14.↩ Global Times, Anti-corruption, the vital starting point from where the world understands CPC: Global Times editorial
15.↩ Xinhua News, (CPC Congress) Full text of resolution on Party Constitution amendment
16.↩ Vox, Capitol Hill’s revolving door, in one chart
17.↩ The Orange County Register, It’s time to stop the worsening revolving door in California
18.↩ CNN, $153 million in Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking fees, documented
19.↩ CREW, Special interest groups likely spent more than $13 million at Trump properties. They got what they paid for.
20.↩ The Wall Street Journal, As Covid Hit, Washington Officials Traded Stocks With Exquisite Timing
21.↩ The Washington Post, UAE Relied on Expertise of Retired U.S. Troops to Beef Up Its Military
22.↩ USA Today, The net worth of every US president from George Washington to Donald Trump
23.↩ Ballotpedia, Net worth of United States Senators and Representatives
24.↩ Open Secrets, Most expensive ever: 2020 election cost $14.4 billion
25.↩ Washington Center for Equitable Growth, New data reveal how U.S. economic growth is divided
26.↩ Advisor Perspectives, Updated: U.S. Household Incomes – A 50+ Year Perspective
27.↩ Financial Times, Corporate China shut out of Xi Jinping’s party congress
28.↩ Business Standard, Chinese Prez Xi’s anti-corruption drive probed nearly 5 million officials
29.↩ Xinhua News, Full text of resolution on Party Constitution amendment
30.↩ China Knowledge, The Regional State of Lu
31.↩ Chandler Institute of Governance, Tang Taizong: A Golden Age of Governance
32.↩ CSIS, China’s 20th Party Congress Report: Doubling Down in the Face of External Threats
33.↩ Anadolu Agency, EU military assistance to Ukraine makes it party to conflict: Russia
34.↩ NATO, NATO’s annual nuclear exercise gets underway
35.↩ Time, U.S. Eyes Planned Russian Nuclear Exercises Amid NATO War Games
36.↩ Foreign Policy, Washington Must Prepare for War With Both Russia and China
37.↩ Reuters, U.S. House passes bill boosting Biden’s record defense budget
28.↩ Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council PRC, Basic facts about Taiwan
39.↩ Quincy Institute, Drawdown: Improving U.S. and Global Security Through Military Base Closures Abroad
40.↩ Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Twilight: The Erosion of US Control and the Multipolar Future
41.↩ Monthly Review, “Notes on Exterminism” for the Twenty-First-Century Ecology and Peace Movements

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Nov 12, 2022 3:17 pm

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Ideological work in the new era of socialism in China

We are pleased to publish this important and well-researched article by Gabriel Martinez on ideological work and struggle in China since the beginning of ‘reform and opening up’ at the end of the 1970s. Gabriel is a postgraduate student from Brazil, currently finishing his studies in Marxist Philosophy at Beijing Normal University. He has lived in China for the last five years.

He notes that the important changes in the country’s economic sphere have been accompanied by a series of ideological changes, with both positive and negative aspects and bringing new challenges for the development of socialism in China. Noting the emergence of a trend of bourgeois liberalization, the author stresses that this has always been opposed by successive generations of Chinese leaders. “However, while recognizing that the Party has always called attention to the need to strengthen ideological work, one cannot fail to recognize that Xi Jinping’s coming to power represents a turning point in the Communist Party of China’s political line… Xi Jinping has been paying close attention to this problem, aiming to restore and consolidate the authority and leading role occupied by Marxism as the theoretical basis guiding socialist construction and modernization in China.”

Analyzing the effects of the existence of capitalist relations of production in the primary stage of socialism on the ideological sphere, Gabriel notes that “it is necessary, therefore, to differentiate between what are the positive effects that capitalist private property can create for the development of the productive forces, from what is the ideology it inevitably produces, and the negative effects generated by capitalist relations of production in the most varied domains of social life.”

A great deal of other important material is covered in the article, which we consider well worth careful study and discussion. It was previously published in Chinese on the website of Kunlunce, a Chinese think tank that publishes articles by Marxist professors and researchers, and in Portuguese on the website Resistencia, which is associated with the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB).

The Reform and Opening policy, initiated by the Communist Party of China in 1978, has produced important transformations in the economic sphere of the country. The transformation in the structure of property, little by little, caused the basic structure of property relations in the country to change to a system where the state public economy was considered its backbone, but coexisting with multiple forms of property, which exist and develop together (including domestic and foreign private property). These transformations were accompanied by a series of ideological changes, changes that have an influence on the most varied sectors of social life. This influence can be seen in the way of life of the population, in the economy, in culture, in the arts, and also in politics. Chinese society, from an ideological point of view, has become more “diversified”, and such diversification, obviously, not only has positive aspects, but also produces negative consequences and brings new challenges for the development of socialism in China. In this article I will try to outline some aspects of the formulations of the Communist Party of China on ideological work and how this work is acquiring a new role in China led by Xi Jinping.

The struggle against bourgeois liberalization in the new era of socialism
After the beginning of the reforms, an ideological trend emerged in China called “bourgeois liberalization. The phenomenon of bourgeois liberalization, to this day, exerts a pernicious influence on China’s development process and the building of a socialist culture. How does the Communist Party define this liberalization? According to Deng Xiaoping:

Since the fall of the Gang of Four an ideological trend that we call bourgeois liberalization has emerged. Its exponents idolize the “democracy” and “freedom” of Western capitalist countries and reject socialism. This cannot be tolerated. China must modernize, but she must not promote liberalization or take the capitalist path, as Western countries have done. [1]

Deng Xiaoping’s quotation clearly shows us that, from the very beginning, the problem of bourgeois liberalization has always been the object of attention by the leaders of the Communist Party of China. Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, etc., dealt with this problem several times. However, it is not wrong to say that over the years, far from being solved, it still exists and exerts considerable influence. Faced with the new political line approved after the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP held in 1978, which established a break with the previous line of “taking class struggle as the main link,” placing economic construction and socialist modernization at the center of the Party’s activity, a very active political tendency arose, which defended the idea that besides reforms in the economic sphere, it was also necessary to carry out reforms of a political nature, calling for more “democracy” and “freedom. This ideological current became quite politically active, especially from the 1980s onwards, seeking to divert the Reform and Opening from its original path and direction of perfecting the socialist system, to the path of restoring capitalism and the bourgeois-type political system, as happened in the Soviet Union.

At first, especially among intellectual circles, an anti-Mao Zedong wave swept the country, leading to an open contestation of the resolutions presented by the CCP in its historic document On Some Problems in the History of Our Party from the Founding of the PRC to the Present Day in 1981. The document, while stating that Mao Zedong made some mistakes at the end of his life, is quite clear in its recognition and exaltation of the Chinese leader’s historical role in the history of Party and Republic building. The document clearly states that Mao Zedong’s successes far outweigh his mistakes. Says the resolution:

Comrade Mao Zedong was a great Marxist and a great proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theoretician. It is true that he made serious mistakes during the “cultural revolution,” but if we judge his activities as a whole, his contributions to the Chinese revolution arguably outweigh his mistakes. His merits are of the first order and his mistakes of the second order. He rendered invaluable service in founding and building our Party and the People’s Liberation Army of China, winning victory for the cause of liberating the Chinese people, founding the People’s Republic of China, and advancing our socialist cause. He made great contributions to the liberation of the oppressed nations of the world and the progress of humanity. [2]

The advocates of bourgeois liberalization, taking advantage of the debates started all over the country on how to evaluate the first thirty years of China’s socialist construction process, used it as an excuse to put forward their anti-communist ideas. The problem of bourgeois liberalization reached alarming levels and ended up resulting in the counter-revolutionary riots of 1989, showing that even though the Party had carried out campaigns to fight the so-called “spiritual pollution”, at that time, several mistakes and failures were committed by the Party in terms of the way it conducted the work of political and ideological education of the Party cadres, and of the population in general. Such a mistake was recognized by Deng Xiaoping himself, who stated at that time, “Our most serious mistake was in education – we did not provide enough education for the youth, including the students.” [3]

The founding leaders of the People’s Republic of China have always paid great attention to the problem of ideological education. Mao Zedong, in the classic work How to Correctly Solve the Contradiction Among the People draws attention to the protracted character of the ideological struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. According to Mao Zedong:

A long period is still needed to decide the outcome of the ideological struggle waged in our country between socialism and capitalism, since the influence of the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals who come from the old society will persist in China for a long time as a class ideology. If we do not understand this situation well, or if we do not understand it fully, we run the risk of making the gravest of mistakes, that of ignoring the need to conduct the struggle on the ideological plane. [4]

The CCP has over the years developed a very consistent ideological political line to deal with the problem of bourgeois liberalization. Jiang Zemin, for example, stated, “The practice of ideological work confirms that if proletarian thought does not occupy its position, it will be occupied by non-proletarian thoughts. We must pay attention and learn from these lessons.” [5]

However, while recognizing that the Party has always called attention to the need to strengthen ideological work, one cannot fail to recognize that Xi Jinping’s coming to power represents a turning point in the Communist Party of China’s political line. Particularly important for us to understand the political and ideological content of Xi Jinping’s thinking is the analysis of his speech delivered at a conference on propaganda and ideological work on August 19, 2013. In this speech, while remaining faithful to the principles established by previous leaders (Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao), Xi Jinping advances important reflections and formulations on how to develop political and ideological work in China. Although at that time the Communist Party of China had not yet coined the term “new era of socialism,” it is clear that the ideas contained in this important document are the compass that will guide the Party in what they call the “new era of socialism,” an era that officially begins as of the holding of the 19th Congress, held in 2017. In this speech, Xi Jinping says:

Economic construction is the central work of the Party, ideological work is extremely important work of the Party. Everyone clearly understands the positions of both areas of work, but in some localities and departments, it is clear that there is the phenomenon that in words the importance of both aspects of work is recognized, but there is no clarity when it comes to applying this principle. Doing the ideological and propaganda work requires that, first of all, this problem be solved. [6]

Economic construction of the country is still the central work of the entire Party. This important definition, first put forward during the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Communist Party of China in 1978, starts from the understanding that China, being a still backward country (especially when compared to the developed emphasising central capitalist countries), needs to put economic construction and the promotion of the development of the productive forces at the center of its attention. As Marxist economist Zhou Xincheng recognizes, establishing economic construction as the central work is “the result of the main contradiction of society,” so it cannot be understood as a subjective decision. [7] In emphasizing that ideological work is an “extremely important work”, Xi Jinping calls attention to the need for the entire Party to have a correct understanding of this work, recognizing that in many respects it has not been correctly performed, and has even been neglected.

Wang Qishan, current Vice President of the People’s Republic of China and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, in an article published in the People’s Daily, emphasized that Xi Jinping has “clarified confused ideas, recovering lost positions, reversing the wrong path, establishing the authority of the Central Committee, basically reversing the situation of weakening Party leadership.” [8]

The statements made by Wang Qishan are a recognition, by a senior Party and government leader, that many things need to be corrected if the cause of socialism in China is to continue advancing along a correct path. The weakening of the Party leadership is something that is closely related to ideological and educational work. Ideological work is precisely one of the main fronts on which the Party must exercise its leadership role, making sure that the mistakes made in this area are rectified, and the cause of socialism in China continues to advance in a healthy way. Ideological work, being a “work of utmost importance,” cannot be neglected under the excuse that “developing the economy” is the central aspect of Party work. As former leader Chen Yun stated:

If we promote socialist material progress and not socialist cultural and ideological progress at the same time, we will deviate from the correct path. If institutions or leading cadres forget or slow down their efforts to build socialist civilization, culturally and ideologically, they will not be able to do a good job in building socialist civilization materially and will even turn away from socialist and communist ideals. This is very dangerous. [9]

In this sense, the events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are the most concrete example of what are the results produced by the underestimation of political and ideological work, as well as of a mistaken political line, in which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, especially after the death of Josef Stalin, began to gradually distance itself from Marxism-Leninism. To illustrate with an example: American professor David Kotz, in an article where he recounts his experience in the Soviet Union, talks about an episode where he allegedly asked an official if he was a member of the Communist Party. According to Kotz, the officer replied, “Yes, I am a member of the Communist Party, but I am not a Communist. [10]

Experiences such as those reported by Professor David Kotz help us to understand what was the internal ideological environment prevailing in the PCUS and in Soviet society itself, already on the eve of its dissolution. The Soviet example should also serve as a lesson for the Chinese Communists, since this phenomenon is not uncommon in country either. Here we are facing a problem closely related to the question of political and ideological convictions that should guide the activity and action of Party members. As for this problem, the Chinese have been aware of its existence from the moment it began to manifest itself in an acute way.

Thus, the reasons that made the dissolution of the Soviet Union possible are the subject of constant reflection by the leaders of the CCP. Xi Jinping also went so far as to explicitly refer to the Soviet example to issue a warning to the CCP. According to Xi Jinping, by starting with the denial of Lenin and Stalin, the Soviet Union embarked on the path of historical nihilism, something that prepared the ideological ground for the justification of the “peaceful evolution” from socialism to capitalism. According to Xi Jinping:

Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party fall from power? One important reason was that the struggle in the field of ideology was extremely intense, completely denying the history of the Soviet Union, denying the history of the Soviet Communist Party, denying Lenin, denying Stalin, creating historical nihilism and muddled thinking. Party organs at all levels had lost their functions, the military was no longer under Party leadership. In the end, the Soviet Communist Party, a great party, dispersed, the Soviet Union, a great socialist country, disintegrated. [11]

It was on the ideological terrain and the lack of vigilance in the face of forces hostile to socialism that the Soviet Union was defeated. Mao Zedong, many years earlier, analyzing the importance of ideology in the process of seizing political power, whether from revolutionary or reactionary classes, stated: “Anyone who wants to overthrow a political regime must first create public opinion and do some ideological preparatory work. This goes for the counter-revolutionary classes as well as the revolutionary classes.” [12]

As soon as this problem appeared before the socialist camp and the Communist Parties, the Communist Party of China was in the front line of its denunciation, going on to develop a constant ideological struggle against the revisionist ideas which were propagated by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ideas which in practice contributed to the strategy being put forward by US imperialism. However, especially after the beginning of the Reform and Opening, at various levels the Party let down its guard in the face of the danger of peaceful evolution, which gave free course to the strengthening of imperialist cultural influence and the propagation of bourgeois liberalization. The anti-communist protests, which peaked in 1989 in the events in Tiananmen Square, prove such a thesis. Deng Xiaoping himself, commenting on the end of the Cold War and the general crisis of the socialist camp, recognized that:

It seems that one Cold War has come to an end, but that two others have already begun: one is being waged against all the countries of the South and the Third World, and the other against socialism. The Western countries are staging a third world war without firearms. By this I mean that they want to promote the peaceful evolution of socialist countries to capitalism. [14]

The beginning of the trade war against China, the fierce campaign promoted by imperialism on the issue of Xinjiang and the attempt to politicize and blame China for the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, are nothing more than aspects of this ideological struggle promoted by US imperialism against Chinese socialism. To face this new challenge, it is essential that the Party and society strengthen ideological work and strengthen their understanding of Marxist theory. The question of ideological work and education, far from being something trivial, is a vital issue for the continuity and permanence of the Communist Party of China as the leading force of the Chinese nation and the cause of building socialism in China. The fact that such a problem has been recognized by the highest leaders as something pressing reveals how serious the ideological situation was in the country before Xi Jinping came to power.

The struggle against the marginalization of Marxism and the reaffirmation of its actuality
One of the main evidences of this problem in the ideological realm is the marginalization suffered by Marxism in recent years. Xi Jinping has been paying close attention to this problem, aiming to restore and consolidate the authority and leading role occupied by Marxism as the theoretical basis guiding socialist construction and modernization in China. To warn about the problem of marginalization of Marxism, far from being an exaggeration, is something quite clear to anyone minimally familiar with the internal situation of the country and with the prevailing ideological environment within Chinese society. The Marxist economist Liu Guoguang, in analyzing the ideological situation in theoretical circles – especially in the field of political economy – in China stated:

For some time, in the field of economic science research and teaching, the influence of western economics has increased and the guiding position of economic science of Marxism has been weakened and marginalized. In the field of economic theory research and teaching, it seems that nowadays Western economics has become the dominant trend; many students consciously or unconsciously take Western economics as the dominant economic trend in our country. Some people consider Western political economy to be the guiding thought for development and reform in China, some economists openly advocate that Western political economy should be seen as the dominant trend, replacing the guiding position of Marxist economics. Western bourgeois ideology permeates both economic research work and the work of formulating economic decisions. I am very concerned about this phenomenon. [15]

It is not only in the realm of the study and teaching of economics that Marxism undergoes a process of marginalization. Also in the fields of history, philosophy, arts, etc., Marxism has been marginalized to various degrees. The Party uses the term “historical nihilism” to describe all sorts of ideas that seek to explain Chinese history, especially the history of the CCP and the construction of socialism, in a distorted way. In the ideological realm, the main target of “historical nihilism” is precisely Marxism, the official state ideology that should theoretically guide and direct all activities and sectors of the country. Historian Gong Yun, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Scientists, explaining the influence of historical nihilism in today’s China, said:

In the last two decades, although historical nihilism has been criticized in academic circles, the effect of these criticisms has not yet been obvious. The views advocated by historical nihilism have a wide social influence, especially in the new media, some newspapers, and among ordinary people. Historical nihilism has formed a certain social soil and created serious consequences of division and antagonism. [16]

Since the 18th CCP Congress, several internal ideological campaigns to combat historical nihilism have been carried out, and Xi Jinping himself even analyzed such a phenomenon in one of his speeches. At the February 20, 2021, in a Party history study conference, Xi Jinping said, “We must take a clear stand against historical nihilism, strengthen ideological orientation and theoretical analysis, clarifying the vague and one-sided understandings regarding some historical events in our Party’s history.” [17]

It is precisely because the situation has reached such a critical level that Xi Jinping pays close attention to the problem of the need to consolidate the leading position of Marxism in the ideological field. It is also for this reason that in recent years there have been repeated calls for Party cadres to raise their ideological-political level and deepen their study and knowledge of the classics of Marxism. Speaking specifically about the marginalization of Marxism, Xi Jinping said that:

Some people consider Marxism outdated, that China currently does not follow Marxism; some people consider Marxism to be just ideological “preaching” without rationality and scientific systematization. In practical work, in some fields Marxism has been marginalized, turned into something empty, symbolic. [18]

The strengthening of the guiding role of Marxism is fundamental to ensuring that the Party cadres have a correct view of the trends of social development, understand the fundamental differences between capitalism and socialism, and increase their political, ideological and cultural confidence in the political system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Only by mastering Marxism can one correctly understand the real goals of the Reform and Opening up policy, and ensure that it continues to move in the right direction. This is the reason why Xi Jinping insists on the need to consolidate the position of Marxism as the guiding ideology of the Reform and Opening up process, as well as of all the political work undertaken by the Communist Party of China. As Xi Jinping stated:

At the present time, the environment, target, scope and methods of ideological propaganda are undergoing great changes, but the main task of ideological and propaganda work has not and cannot change. Ideological and propaganda work must consolidate the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological sphere and consolidate a common ideological basis for the united struggle of the entire Party and people. [19]

Consolidating the guiding role of Marxism, making it increasingly a real material force guiding the process of building socialism in China, is a mandatory condition for the Party to strengthen its leadership and governance capacity, as well as to continue achieving new successes in the process of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The existence of capitalist relations of production in the primary stage of socialism and their effects on the ideological sphere
As we stated at the beginning of the article, the restructuring of the property system in China has given rise to capitalist-type relations of production, so they produce a certain type of ideology that corresponds to the character of these relations. Economist Wu Xuangong defends the idea that currently “there are a large number of economic phenomena and problems in China that did not exist in the past and are contrary to the nature and principles of socialism. Such problems stem from the fact that in present-day China, in addition to the “main contradiction of socialist society, there is also the main contradiction of capitalism.” [20]

It is therefore correct for us to analyze what role the ideology produced by these new capitalist relations of production play in the general set of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and how the Party will deal with this contradiction in the medium and long term. The recognition of the contradictions and problems that have appeared in the country in the last 40 years – and their effects in the realm of ideology – reveals a great concern on the part of Chinese Marxist theorists to seek and find the appropriate explanations to correctly solve the problem. To do so, one must keep in mind the basic principle of Marxism that existence determines consciousness, or the economic base determines the superstructure; therefore, it would not be correct to consider that the increased dangers presented by bourgeois liberalization are works of chance, or that they arise magically. They manifest themselves ultimately as ideological representations of new petty-bourgeois and bourgeois social classes that are bound by multiple ties to capitalist private property, and are also the product of the increased ideological infiltration promoted by Western countries, especially the United States and all its ideological apparatus of political and cultural domination, to the extent that there has been a certain loosening of ideological and class education, as well as an advance in the penetration of foreign capital in the country. As Wu Xuangong stated, “The belief in socialism gradually weakened, so that Marxism was marginalized; the emphasis on self-interest, as well as the pursuit of material interests, became a trend.” [21]

In the 1990s, Deng Xiaoping and many Party cadres considered the idea of explaining the problem of bourgeois liberalization through the analysis of economic relations to be mistaken, because they saw it as an attempt to put a brake on the advance of reforms. Under those conditions it was not wrong to put the problem in those terms. However, today this problem presents itself in a completely different way than it did in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time a new bourgeoisie had not completely formed, and the problem of class struggle manifested itself basically only as a struggle against the remnants of backward ideologies and elements directly linked to imperialism working to sabotage socialist construction. Today capitalist private property has acquired an infinitely more important position and role than it did in the past, which has resulted in a significant change in the economic and ownership structure in China. This has fundamentally changed the way in which the Chinese working masses relate to the means of production, a fact that poses serious risks to the Party and the very cause of socialism in the country. Without taking into account the influence that the relations of production originating in capitalist private property and the pressure they exert for the reforms as a whole to take the direction of bourgeois liberalization, it is impossible to understand the essence of the problem. This is a question that needs to be observed by all those who wish to make a realistic analysis of the current stage of development of socialism in China. As the economist Liu Guoguang warned:

Bourgeois liberalization occurs not only in the political field, but also in the economic field. Privatization, liberalization, and marketization; opposition to public ownership, government intervention, and opposition to socialism, these are all things that are all related to the economic field. It is not enough to oppose bourgeois liberalization, politically. To prevent bourgeois liberalization in the economic field is to prevent the economic field from deteriorating. If the economic field deteriorates (is privatized, turned into capitalism), the political field will also deteriorate. This is a basic common principle of Marxism. [22]

Capitalist private property, even though in the primary stage of socialism it may play a positive role as an accessory element in the development of the socialist economy, ultimately represents the relations of production of a capitalist type, possessing objectives and laws of operation distinct from socialist property in its most varied forms. It is necessary, therefore, to differentiate between what are the positive effects that capitalist private property can create for the development of the productive forces, from what is the ideology it inevitably produces, and the negative effects generated by capitalist relations of production in the most varied domains of social life. It is natural that, as private property increases in importance and influence in the overall economy, its laws start to influence the various levels of Chinese social-economic formation (including influencing and exerting pressure on socialist public property), broadening and expanding its capacity for political, economic and ideological intervention. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the most serious economic and social problems that exist in China today are the direct result of the intervention of the contradictions produced by the capitalist relations of production.

In view of this inevitability, it is of utmost importance that the Party be very clear that the goal of the Reform and Opening-Up is to perfect the development of the socialist system, to promote the development of the productive forces and gradually consolidate and broaden the influence and extension of the public sector of the economy, the sector that represents the socialist relations of production. The existence of private property in China is justified by the relative backwardness of the level of development of the productive forces. With the advance and development of the productive forces, with the advance of modernization, the duty of the reforms is to adjust the role of the socialist relations of production, in a first moment expanding the influence and the scope of action of the public ownership of the means of production, gradually putting an end to the tendency that has persisted since the beginning of the Reform and Opening policy, namely, the tendency of much faster increase and development of private property and the gradual decrease of the participation of the state and public sector, creating the economic and material conditions to overcome the primary stage of socialism. Obviously, such changes and adjustments will be accompanied by a sharp ideological struggle, which is also one of the forms in which class struggle manifests itself. Thus, the theories and ideas that seek to present capitalist relations of production as “socialist,” or ideas that say that, in the Chinese case, “private property is not synonymous with capitalism,” are not correct.

The advance towards a more advanced stage of socialist construction is not yet completely on the agenda (the new era of socialism is situated in the scope of the primary stage of socialism), but it is clear that the problems and contradictions that China is facing today are already quite different from the problems that confronted the country in the preceding decades, something recognized by the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, which defined that there is a “new principal contradiction” in the new era of socialism. The old definition, which said that the main contradiction in China was the contradiction between the low level of development of the productive forces and the growing demands of the masses, has given way to a new main contradiction, this being the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the growing needs of the people for a better life.

Many Marxist intellectuals in China consider that, at the present stage, in order to overcome the negative effects of unbalanced development, the most important mission facing the Communist Party is to struggle to effectively build a harmonious society, to combat the negative effects produced by the expansion of private property, and to regain certain positions lost by the public economy in recent years. For such a major operation, it is more than necessary to strengthen ideological work and prepare public opinion. Objectively, this is a problem that places in opposition two projects of society that correspond to distinct worldviews and class interests. The attacks on Marxism and the tendencies that seek to diminish its role – or even deny it – are evidently expressions of the class interests of those social groups and actors who do not want to advance along the path of socialism. Many of these groups use the banner of reform and openness to justify their reactionary ideas and their opposition to the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, although they often do this in a veiled way.

Ideological work and class struggle
The struggle between bourgeois ideas, with all their effects, and the ideas of the proletariat, represented by Marxism, is a long-lasting struggle, which will exist intensely throughout the period of the primary stage of socialism in China (and even afterwards), a context where China still needs to promote its development in a hegemonically capitalist world. In the primary stage of socialism, even if within a determined scale, class struggle still exists and it obviously exerts its influence in the ideological field. On the need to keep guard and initiative on the ideological front, pointing out that in socialism there is still class struggle, Jiang Zemin, in his speech commemorating the 78th anniversary of the Party’s founding, stated:

Class struggle is no longer the main contradiction in our country, but for a certain period it will continue to exist within a certain limit, moreover under certain conditions it may intensify. This kind of struggle expresses in a concentrated way the opposition of bourgeois liberalization to the four fundamental principles. The core of this struggle is still a problem of political power. This type of struggle is closely connected with the struggle between infiltration and anti-infiltration, subversion and counter-subversion, peaceful evolution and fighting the peaceful evolution that exists between us and hostile forces. [23]

The Communist Party of China’s position on class struggle under socialism has always been very consistent and has not changed much since the beginning of the Reform and Opening-up policy. After criticizing the conception of class struggle that was in force during the period of the “cultural revolution”, the Party started to defend that the class struggle in socialism does not occupy the position of main contradiction, but that it still continues to exist within certain limits. However, some figures, already completely influenced by revisionism and imperialist ideas, allege that the Marxist concept of class struggle is “outdated” and when any mention is made of this basic concept of Marxism, they immediately claim that there is a danger of the resurgence of a new “cultural revolution”. It is important to point out that there is a significant difference between saying that the “class struggle continues to exist within certain limits” and saying that “the class struggle does not exist” or that such a theory would be something “outdated”. As Xi Jinping stated:

We must adhere to the political position of Marxism. The political position of Marxism is primarily a class position, which implements class analysis. Some people say that this idea no longer corresponds to the present era, which is a mistaken point of view. When we say that the class struggle in our country is not the main contradiction, we are not saying that in our country the class struggle within certain limits no longer exists, or that in the international sphere it doesn’t exist either. After the Reform and Opening, our Party’s ideas on this problem have always been quite clear. [24]

The definition, which recognizes that class struggle exists within certain limits, takes into account the concrete reality of China today, a reality where the various contradictions that exist can be resolved within the framework of the socialist system. The Communist Party of China, being the leading force of the state, has in its hands the political, economic and institutional instruments that enable it to adjust, modify and apply policies that help solve the problems and contradictions that exist between the various social classes, including the contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This does not mean that, also in this sphere of work, there are no errors and shortcomings, almost always produced by errors in the sphere of political and ideological work. Without a firm Marxist vision the Party cannot correctly exercise its role as the vanguard of the working masses in China, nor can it firmly defend the interests of these classes.

The fundamental error of the Communist Party of China view’s of class struggle in the period of the “cultural revolution” was precisely that it broadened the scope of class struggle, which in practice contributed to the Party’s treating certain contradictions that existed within the people as if they were antagonistic contradictions. It was a view that did not correspond to the concrete situation of the Chinese society at the time; today the main mistake regarding the theory of class struggle is committed by those who deny its objective existence. The historical experience of the history of the construction of socialism at a world level teaches that class struggle continues to exist in socialism – even though it is not the main contradiction in socialist societies -, therefore, it is not correct to deny or underestimate its action.

To deny the existence of class struggle in socialism is as serious an error as trying to artificially broaden its scope. The errors of the “cultural revolution” do not alter the fact that class struggle is an objective reality, and that it continues to exist in the primary stage of socialism. In the Chinese case, given the expansion of capitalist relations of production, it is obvious that class contradictions, including the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, can intensify again. Without recognizing the existence of class struggle, it is impossible to adopt measures to resolve the various social contradictions that exist in Chinese society, which in the medium and long term would result in the amplification of social contradictions, causing contradictions that are currently non-antagonistic in character to quickly become antagonistic contradictions.

Without Marxism and the October Revolution there would be no “Chinese miracle”: a short critique of certain conceptions of the “China’s rise”
The success achieved by the CCP in leading the Chinese nation along the path of socialism has shown the world the vitality and scientificity of Marxist theory. In view of the undeniable successes achieved by the Party, given the intense political and ideological struggle going on, it is to some extent inevitable that abroad certain figures who follow the Chinese development process try to explain it by turning a blind eye to the most important and essential elements that define such process. Quite popular are the ideas that China’s development would be the result produced by a “developmentalist” state in the style of Taiwan, Singapore, or South Korea, or a “civilizational state,” emphasizing here the “civilizational superiority” of the Chinese nation. To give an example of the confusions, Martin Jacques, an author who plays a very important role in investigating the Chinese development process, and openly opposes attempts to launch a new cold war against the Asian country, in an article published by the Global Times, stressed that “it is impossible to understand China in terms of traditional Marxism,” adding that the CCP is “deeply influenced by Confucianism” and that the best way to understand it would be to describe it as a “hybrid between Confucianism and Marxism. Also in the article the author makes a point of highlighting the fact that the CCP is quite different from the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union and that they would have “very little in common.” [25]

We recognize that in all these statements – with the exception that the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union have very little in common” – there is a portion of truth, however, we believe it is not unreasonable to say that the author does not address the crux of the problem, which is precisely to analyze how the sinicization of Marxism is the main element that explains the success and rise of China, and that the ideological system of socialism with Chinese characteristics is not an eclectic mix between two philosophies with completely different bases and goals (Marxism and Confucianism). Confucianism, of course, is an important pillar of the millennial traditional Chinese culture, and obviously the Communist Party of China recognizes and incorporates its progressive elements. However, it cannot be denied that throughout its century-old history, the Chinese progressive and revolutionary movement, of which the Communist Party of China is a direct product, has always been very critical of Confucianism, and all this long before the “great proletarian cultural revolution” emerged on the scene of history in the late 1960s. Martin Jacques’ statement that the Communist Party of China is “rooted and deeply influenced by Confucianism” is a “half-truth” turned into an “absolute truth,” for it denies another basic fact that needs to be taken into consideration, namely, that the Communist Party of China was born amidst an intense ideological and political struggle against Confucian ideology and all that it represented and still represents in the developmental history of the Chinese nation. That there are Chinese authors and personalities – including within the Party – who advocate a “new Confucianism,” or who try to explain Chinese success within the framework of “Confucianism,” is another problem, very much related to the ideological confusion generated by years of a relatively uncontrolled development of bourgeois ideas, something we have already discussed in this article.

In fact, the problem of the relationship between traditional Chinese culture and Marxism in China is a topic that deserves a separate article, such is the complexity of the subject. However, this is not to say that for the Communist Party of China, Confucianism and Marxism are two philosophies on the same footing, or, in Martin Jacques’ own words, a “hybrid between Confucianism and Marxism. As Hou Weimin, a member of the Institute of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Scientists, put it:

Since the Reformation and the Opening-up, there have been two types of anti-Marxist thinking. One is the ideological tendency to promote the restoration of feudalism; cultural conservatism and neo-Confucianism belong to this category. This trend of thought is characterized by advocating the “Confucianization of China “and “Confucianization of the Communist Party” under the banner of carrying forward traditional culture by establishing “Confucian colleges” in which Confucian scholars familiar with Confucian classics rule China. Supported by some people abroad, this thinking prevailed for some time. However, its absurdity is obvious if a more proper investigation is made. Its main points have the smell of feudal zombies, so it is hard for it to get a response from the masses. The other thought is the tendency to promote the restoration of capitalism, called bourgeois liberalization by Deng Xiaoping. [26]

About the “few similarities” between the Communist Party of China and the former Communist Party of Soviet Union, it is evident how the way Martin Jacques throws such information into his article misleads the reader into confusion. Which Communist Party of the Soviet Union is he referring to? The Party of Lenin and Stalin or the Party of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev? Superficial statements such as those made by the author open much room for confusion and misinterpretation regarding the history of the Communist Party of China and its evolution over the years. It is necessary to point out that between the Communist Party of China and the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union there is the difference that the former was able to integrate Marxism to the Chinese reality, avoiding committing the same mistakes that the Soviet Party committed in the past, due to its complete abandonment of Marxist theory; the latter, on the other hand, gradually distanced itself from Marxism and capitulated before the ideological offensive promoted by the capitalist countries. However, it is undeniable that the Communist Party of China learned many things from the Soviet experience, so that it is correct to state that there were “great similarities” between both parties, and that the Soviet experience was, from the beginning, a source of inspiration and study for the Chinese communists. As Zhou Xincheng noted:

Initially, we had no experience in how to build socialism. We could only learn from the Soviet Union, which had decades of experience in socialist construction. The basic experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union was to be studied, including its political adherence to the Communist Party leadership and the dictatorship of the proletariat; economic adherence to the system of public ownership of the means of material production, distribution according to labor, elimination of exploitation and elimination of polarization; ideological adherence to Marxism as a guide, etc. This reflects the basic principles of scientific socialism, its common law, possessing universal value. Therefore, we have always regarded our socialist cause as a continuation of the October Revolution. [27]

Even today many elements in the Chinese political system bear great similarities to the model that was gradually established in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The political model that establishes the Communist Party’s direction over the activities of the state and society – a system that today even some bourgeois theorists sympathetic to China tend to defend – is a direct influence of the Soviet-type political system, even if between them there are some differences (e.g. in the Chinese case there is at the same time a system of political consultation that allows the existence of other parties). Although perhaps this is not his intention, in practice Martin Jacques ends up establishing an opposition between two historical phenomena umbilically connected -the Russian and Chinese revolution- diminishing the position of Marxism-Leninism and concealing the direct link that the process of building socialism with Chinese characteristics has with the struggle of the international proletariat and also with the Russian revolution itself, in the name of the idea that the Communist Party of China “is different from all the other parties in the world.

Still on the relationship between socialism with Chinese characteristics and Soviet socialism, it is interesting to note that Xi Jinping, when analyzing the various stages of the development of the history of socialist thought and movement, divides it into six stages, citing precisely Lenin’s experience and his leadership in the October Revolution as an integral part of these stages, as well as the gradual formation of the Soviet system already in the Stalin period (respectively, the third and fourth stage of the development of the history of socialism). In other words, Xi Jinping highlights as an integral part of the development of socialist thought – in which, obviously, socialism with Chinese characteristics is included – the experience of the construction of socialism in Russia, from the victory of the October Revolution to the formation of the Soviet system with the foundation and construction of socialism in the Soviet Union, an experience led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

References
[1] Deng Xiaoping 邓小平. “Gao zichan jieji ziyou hua jiushi zou ziben zhuyi daolu 搞资产阶级自由化就是走资本主义道路 [To engage in bourgeois liberalization is to take the path of capitalism],” Dengxiaoping wenxuan, v.3, Renmin chuban she 人民出版社,2008, pg.123.

[2] Communist Party of China. Resolution on Certain Historical Issues in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China – Adopted by the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, 1981. Accessed at: https://www.marxists.org/portugues/tema ... 06/27.html

[3] Deng Xiaoping 邓小平. “Women youxinxin ba zhongguo de shijian hao chengji 我们有信心把中国的事情做得更好 [We are confident that we can handle China’s affairs well],” Dengxiaoping wenxuan, Renmin chubanshe 人民出版社,2008,pg.327

[4] Mao Tsetung. On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People: Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, Foreign Language Press, 1971, pg.

[5] Jiang Zemin 江泽民. “Zai jinian zhongguo gongchandang chengli qishiba zhounian zuotan hui shang de jianghua 在纪念中国共产党成立七十八周年座谈会上的讲话 [Speech commemorating the 78th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China],” 1997. Accessed at: http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/item/ldhd ... h0007.html

[6] Xi Jinping 习近平. “Ba xuanchuan sixiang gongzuo zuo de geng hao 把宣传思想工作做得更好 [Do ideological and propaganda work better].” Lun jianchi dang yiqie gongzuo de lingdao 论坚持党一切工作的领导, Zhongyang wenxian chuban she 中央文献出版社, 2019, pg. 23.

[7] Zhou Xincheng 周新城. “Guandu zhongguo thesis shehui zhuyi de ruogan lilun wenti 关于中国特色社会主义的若干理论问题 [On some theoretical problems of socialism with Chinese characteristics],” Jingji ribao chubanshe 经济日报出版社,2015, pg. 357.

[8] Wang Qishan 王崎上. “Kaiqi xin shidai, ta shang xin zhengcheng 开启新时代,踏上新征程 [Starting a new era and embarking on a new journey],” Renmin Ribao 人民日报, 2017, November 7, 2017. Acessado em: http://www.xinhuanet.com//2017-11/07/c_1121915946.htm

[9] Chen Yun 陈云. “Bixu jiuzheng hushi jingshen wenming jianshe de xianxiang 必须纠正忽视精神文明建设的现象 [We should correct the tendency to neglect the establishment of spiritual civilization],” Chenyun Wenxuan 陈云文选, v.3, Renmin chubanshe, 2015, pg. 354.

[10] David M. Kotz 大卫-科茨. “Sulian jieti yuanyin shi jingying jituan zhuzhang ziben zhuyi 苏联解体原因是精英集团主张资本主义 [The reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union was that elitist groups advocated capitalism].” Zhongguo jingji wang 中国经济网, 2013. Accessed at: http://www.wyzxwk.com/Article/lishi/2013/09/306710.html

[11] Xi Jinping 习近平. “Guanyu jianchi he fazhan zhongguo thesis shehui zhuyi de ji ge wenti 关于坚持和发展中国特色社会主义的几个问题 [Some questions on maintaining and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics],” Qiushi 求实, n.7, 2009. Accessed at: http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2019-03 ... 302776.htm

[12] Mao Zedong. Speech At The Tenth Plenum Of The Eighth Central Committee, 1962. Accessed at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/arch ... wv8_63.htm

[13] Liang Zhu 梁柱. “Mozedong fanfa sixiang yong bu tuishai 毛泽东反腐思想永不褪色 [Mao Zedong’s thoughts on corruption will never dissipate],” Zhongguo shehui kexue bao 中国社会科学报, 2014. Acessado em: http://dangshi.people.com.cn/n/2014/011 ... 42270.html

[14] Deng Xiaoping 邓小平. “Jianchi shehui zhuyi, fangzhi heping yanbian 坚持社会主义,防止和平演变 [Adhering to socialism and preventing peaceful evolution],” Dengxiaoping wenxuan 邓小平文选, v.3, Renmin chubanshe 人民出版社, 2008, pg. 344.

[15] Liu Guoguang 刘国光. “Zhongguo shehuizhuyi zhengzhi jingjixue de ruogan wenti 中国社会主义政治经济学的若干问题 [Some problems of the political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics],” Jinan chubanshe 济南出版社, 2017, pg. 33.

[16] Gong Yun 龚云. “Zai lishi xuwu zhuyi zhong jianchi lishi weiwu zhuyi 在历史虚无主义中坚持历史唯物主义 [Criticizing historical nihilism by persisting in historical materialism].” Accessed at: http://www.wyzxwk.com/Article/yulun/2016/07/367869.html

[17] Xi Jinping 习近平. “Zai dang shu xuexi jiaoyu dongyuan dahui shang de jianghua 在党史学习教育动员大会上的讲话 [Speech at the mobilization and study conference on Party history],” 2021. Acessado em: https://www.ccps.gov.cn/xtt/202103/t202 ... 8208.shtml

[18] Xi Jinping 习近平. “Zai zhexue shehui kexue gongzuo zuotan zhong de sikao 在哲学社会科学工作座谈会上的讲话 [Speech at the philosophy and social science workers seminar],” 2016. Acessado em: http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016- ... 1128_2.htm

[19] Xi Jinping 习近平. “Ba xuanchuan sixiang gongzuo zuo de geng hao 把宣传思想工作做得更好 [Do ideological and propaganda work better].” Lun jianchi dang yiqie gongzuo de lingdao 论坚持党一切工作的领导, Zhongyang wenxian chuban she 中央文献出版社, 2019, pg. 23.

[20] Wu Xuangong 吴宣恭. “Yunyong lishi weiwuzhuyi jianshe zhongguo thesis shehui zhuyi zhengzhi jingji xue 运用历史唯物主义建设中国特色社会主义政治经济学 [Use historical materialism to build the political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics].” Fujian shifan daxue xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue ban) 福建师范大学学报 ( 哲学社会科学版), 2017.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Liu Guoguang 刘国光. “Zhongguo shehuizhuyi zhengzhi jingjixue de ruogan wenti 中国社会主义政治经济学的若干问题 [Some problems of the political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics],” Jinan chubanshe 济南出版社, 2017, pg. 33.

[23] Jiang Zemin 江泽民. “Jiāngzémín zài qìngzhù jiàndǎng qishi zhōunián dàhuì shàng de jiǎnghuà 江泽民在庆祝建党70周年大会上的讲话 [Speech at the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the party],” 1991. Accessed at: http://www.qunzh.com/pub/jsqzw/xxzt/jd9 ... 20990.html

[24] Speech by Xi Jinping at the School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. February 17, 2014. Quoted in Zhou Xincheng 周新城,”Jianchi jiqiao jiben yuanli fenxi shehui wenti坚持运用马克思主义基本原理分析社会经济问题 [Adhere in using the principles of Marxism in investigating economic and social problems].” Jingji ribao chuban she 经济日报出版社, 2016, pg. 228 .

[25] Martin Jacques. Why there has been an overwhelming failure to understand CPC in West, Global Times, April 6, 2021. Accessed at: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1220314.shtml

[26] Hou Weimin 侯为民. “Pipan yu chuangxin- Zhou xincheng jiaoshou jingji sixiang sumiao 批判与创新–周新城教授经济思想素描 [Critique and Innovation: an outline of Professor Zhou Xincheng’s economic thought]”,Guanli xue kan 管理学刊, 2014.

[27] Zhou Xincheng 周新城. “Jianguo qishi nian shi qingzhu shehui zhuyi lishi fazhan, jinian zhonghua renmin gongheguo chengli qishi zhounián 建国70年是庆祝社会主义历史发展, 纪念中华人民共和国成立70周年. Accessed at: http://www.kunlunce.com/llyj/fl1/2019-05-17/133451.html

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sun Nov 13, 2022 6:45 pm

US Media Searched for Crisis at China Party Congress
ERIC HOROWITZ

For the Western press, the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party offered a number of signals which—if read in good faith—could have been perceived as reassuring.

Instead, establishment outlets reverted to familiar narratives regarding China’s Covid mitigation strategy and tied these into renewed predictions of a long-prophesied economic disaster—one that would inevitably befall China as a result of its government’s decision to forsake the orthodoxy of open markets.

More than anything else, corporate media fixated on Hu Jintao’s departure from the congress hall, engaging in tabloid-variety speculation around the fate of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s 79-year-old predecessor.

Invoking the specter of a purge, outlets like the New York Times and CNN pushed the narrative that Xi manipulated events to consolidate his power. However, the “evidence” used by corporate media to suggest that Xi orchestrated Hu’s exit as part of a power grab was far from convincing.

Substantive developments
If establishment outlets covering the congress were on the lookout for substantive developments—rather than additional fodder to comport with their prefabricated narratives—they could have found them.

Despite the Biden administration’s belligerent posture vis-à-vis Taiwan, demonstrated by escalations like Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island and Biden’s own promise to deploy US forces in the event of a forced reunification, Xi indicated that China would continue to approach cross-strait relations with restraint.
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SCMP (10/16/22): “Analysts said Xi’s remarks suggested that Beijing was exercising restraint on Taiwan, despite the soaring tensions.”
Of Xi’s relatively measured statements on reunification, Sung Wen-ti, a political scientist at the Australian National University (Guardian, 10/16/22), said, “The lack of ‘hows’ is a sign he wants to preserve policy flexibility and doesn’t want to irreversibly commit to a particularly adversarial path.” Lim John Chuan-tiong, a former researcher at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica (SCMP, 10/16/22), deemed Xi’s message to the Taiwanese people “balanced and not combative.” This sounds like good news for everyone who wants to avoid a potential nuclear war.

In addition, Xi’s opening report to the congress placed particular emphasis on the task of combating climate change. The section titled “Pursuing Green Development and Promoting Harmony between Humanity and Nature” presented a four-part framework to guide China’s policy efforts in this area. Even the avidly pro-Western Atlantic Council had to admit that “China is showing its leadership in green development in a number of ways.”

Since China is home to one-fifth of the global population, and is currently the most prolific CO2-emitting country on Earth, its government’s decision to prioritize a comprehensive response to the climate crisis seems like an unambiguously positive development.

The congress even provided some encouraging news for those who claim to care about human rights. In a surprise move, Chen Quanguo, who was hit with US sanctions for his hardline approach as party secretary in both Tibet and Xinjiang, was ousted from the central committee.

But US corporate media generally failed to highlight these developments as positive news. In fact, with the exception of some coverage of Xi’s statements on Taiwan—which largely misrepresented China’s posture as more threatening than a good-faith reading would indicate—US news outlets had remarkably little to say about the substance of any news coming out of the congress.

Recycled narratives

As FAIR (3/24/20, 1/29/21, 9/9/22) has pointed out at various points in the pandemic, corporate media—seemingly disturbed by China’s unwillingness to sacrifice millions of lives at the altar of economic growth—have been almost uniformly critical of the Chinese government’s Covid mitigation strategy.
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The New York Times (10/16/22) refers to the “idea” that China’s zero Covid policies “have saved lives”—as though it’s possible that China could have allowed the coronavirus to spread throughout its population without killing anyone.
Indeed, establishment outlets have persistently demonized the “zero-Covid” policy despite its successes—in terms of both lives saved and economic development. After Xi indicated to the congress that China would continue along this path, corporate media were predictably dismayed.

Returning to its familiar line that, contrary to evidence, China’s decision to prioritize public health would ravage its economy, the New York Times (10/16/22) reported:

Mr. Xi argued that the Communist Party had waged an “all out people’s war to stop the spread of the virus.” China’s leadership has done everything it can to protect people’s health, he said, putting “the people and their lives above all else.” He made no mention of how the stringent measures were holding back economic growth and frustrating residents.

The article went on to quote Jude Blanchette, a “China expert” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who declared, “There is nothing positive or aspirational about zero Covid.” That CSIS would disseminate such a narrative—with the assistance of the reliably hawkish Times—is unsurprising, since the think tank’s chief patrons share a common interest in vilifying China.

CSIS’s roster of major donors includes military contractors Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, as well as a litany of oil and gas companies—all of whom derive financial benefit from America’s military build-up in the Pacific.

CSIS has also received millions of dollars from the governments of Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Sitting on its board of trustees are Phebe Novakovic, chair and CEO of General Dynamics, and Leon Panetta who—as Defense secretary in the Obama administration—helped craft the DOD’s “pivot to Asia.”

‘No to market reforms’.
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CNN (10/17/22) reported that “experts are concerned that Xi offered no signs of moving away from the country’s rigid zero-Covid policy or its tight regulatory stance on various businesses, both of which have hampered growth in the world’s second-largest economy.” CNN‘s experts don’t point out that China’s economy has grown 9% since 2019, when Covid struck, vs. 2% for the US.
In “Xi Jinping’s Speech: Yes to Zero Covid, No to Market Reforms?” CNN (10/17/22) framed Xi’s statement that China would not allow the deadly coronavirus to spread freely across its population as part of a broader rejection of liberalized markets by the CCP.

Aside from the obvious shortcomings of a framework that evaluates public health policy on the basis of its relationship to economic growth, CNN presented the opening of Chinese markets to foreign capital as an objective good—the forsaking of which would bode poorly for China’s economic prospects.

While China’s “reform and opening-up” has been immensely profitable for corporations—as evidenced in media coverage (Forbes, 10/24/22; NYT, 11/7/22) of global markets’ uneasiness over Xi’s alleged “return to Marxism”—its impact on Chinese workers has been uneven, to say the least. Living standards have improved generally, but labor conditions remain poor and inequality is growing.

Like the Times, CNN went the think tank route to support its thesis, quoting Craig Singleton—senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD):

Yesterday’s speech confirms what many China watchers have long suspected—Xi has no intention of embracing market liberalization or relaxing China’s zero-Covid policies, at least not anytime soon…. Instead, he intends to double down on policies geared towards security and self-reliance at the expense of China’s long-term economic growth.

Despite the fact that China watchers have, for as long as one can remember, predicted a collapse of China’s economy that has yet to materialize, corporate media keep on returning to that same old well.

For its part, FDD—to which CNN attached the inconspicuous label of “DC-based think tank”—is a neoconservative advocacy group that has an ax to grind with China. The chairman of FDD’s China Program is Matt Pottinger, former deputy national security advisor to Donald Trump.

Early on in the pandemic, a Washington Post profile (4/29/20) of Pottinger stated that he “believes Beijing’s handling of the virus has been ‘catastrophic’ and ‘the whole world is the collateral damage of China’s internal governance problems.’” The article quoted Trump’s second national security advisor, H.R. McMaster—who is also currently employed as a “China expert” at FDD—as calling Pottinger “central to the biggest shift in US foreign policy since the Cold War, which is the competitive approach to China.”

Desperate search for a purge

If consumers of corporate media only encountered one story about the congress, it probably had something to do with this seemingly innocuous development: During the congress’s closing session, aides escorted Hu Jintao—Xi’s predecessor as China’s paramount leader—out of the Great Hall of the People.

Later that day, Xinhua, China’s state news agency, said that Hu’s departure was health related. This explanation isn’t exactly far-fetched, since the 79-year-old Hu has long been said to be suffering from an illness—as early as 2012, some observers posited that the then-outgoing leader had Parkinson’s disease.

Since the whole episode was caught on camera, however, corporate media were not satisfied with China’s mundane account of events. Instead, establishment outlets seized the moment and transformed Hu’s departure into a dramatic spectacle, laden with sinister connotations. The speculation that followed was almost obsessive in nature.
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The New York Times (10/27/22) invited readers to scrutinize video of a 79-year-old retiree being escorted from a meeting for signs that he was “purged”—a conjecture that the Times otherwise provides no evidence for.
In a piece titled “What Happened to Hu Jintao,” the New York Times (10/27/22) resorted to a form of video and image analysis one would typically expect from the most committed conspiracy theorist. Despite conceding that “it’s far from evident that Mr. Hu’s exit was planned, and many analysts have warned against drawing assumptions,” the Times went on to do just that.

The article centered on nine video clips and three stills, providing a moment-by-moment breakdown of Hu’s exit from various angles and zoom levels. Some images even included Monday Night Football–style telestrator circles, which surrounded the heads of certain CCP cadres like halos in a Renaissance painting.

In reference to the haloed party figures whose “expressions did not change” as Hu was escorted away, the Times quoted Wu Guoguang, a professor at Canada’s University of Victoria:

Here was Hu Jintao, the former highest leader of your party and a man who had given so many of you political opportunities. And how do you treat him now?… This incident demonstrated the tragic reality of Chinese politics and the fundamental lack of human decency in the Communist Party.

While noting that Wu “said he did not want to speculate about what had unfolded,” the Times evidently did not consider this statement of caution as being at odds with his subsequent use of Hu’s departure to condemn the CCP in the broadest possible terms.

Indeed, the paper of record saw no problem with attributing the failure of Hu’s colleagues to react in a more appropriate manner—whatever that may have been—to “the tragic reality of Chinese politics” and a “fundamental lack of human decency” on the part of the CCP.

Here was a microcosm of corporate media’s contradictory approach to the episode: a professed reluctance to engage in conjecture, persistently negated by an overwhelming eagerness to cast aspersions. In line with this tack, the Times resorted to innuendo by posing a hypothetical question:

Was Mr. Hu, 79, suffering from poor health, as Chinese state media would later report? Or was he being purged in a dramatic show by China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, for the world to see?

Rather than asserting outright that Hu was the victim of a purge, the Times advanced this familiar red-scare narrative by including two photographs from the Cultural Revolution—one of which depicts Xi’s father being subjected to humiliation during a struggle session. With these images, the Times coaxed readers into making a spurious connection between Hu’s exit and the political repressions of yesteryear.

Unfazed by lack of evidence
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The Wall Street Journal (10/27/22) subjected Hu’s exit to the kind of analysis usually done in movies with photos linked by string on a basement wall.
The same day as the Times released its “analysis,” the Wall Street Journal (10/27/22) published a similar piece under the headline “Hu Jintao’s Removal From China’s Party Congress, a Frame-by-Frame Breakdown.”

Short on substance, since there was no actual evidence to suggest that the 79-year-old—who hasn’t held power for a decade and has never even been rumored to oppose Xi—was being purged or publicly humiliated, the Journal chose to hyperfixate on every aspect of the footage.

Predictably, cable news networks and China watchers also took part in the orgy of speculation. On CNN’s Erin Burnett Out Front (10/25/22), international correspondent Selina Wang said this:

Now, I have spoken to experts who think there is more to this than that pure health explanation, including Steve Tsang of [the] SOAS China Institute. He told me that this is humiliation of Hu Jintao. It is a clear message that there is only one leader who matters in China right now and that is Xi Jinping.

She did not mention the fact that Tsang is a fellow at Chatham House, a think tank that derives a substantial proportion of its funding from the US State Department and the governments of Britain and Japan.

The day before, on CNN Newsroom (10/24/22), Wang stated, “Hu Jintao. . . was publicly humiliated at the closing ceremony of the Party Congress.” The only support she offered for this assertion came from Victor Shih, another China watcher from the aforementioned CSIS, who conjectured:

I am not a believer of the pure health explanation. And it seemed like [Hu] sat down in a pretty stable manner. And then suddenly, he was asked to leave. I’m not sure if he whispered something, said something to Xi Jinping.

Half-acknowledging that Shih’s description of events actually said nothing at all, Wang concluded: “Regardless, it was a symbolic moment. Out with Hu and the collective leadership of his era.” For Wang and for corporate media’s treatment of the episode writ large, “regardless” was the operative word—regardless of the fact that they were merely engaged in baseless speculation, they would still inevitably arrive at the most sinister conclusion.

https://fair.org/home/us-media-searched ... -congress/

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The Uyghurs and Anti-China Propaganda
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on NOVEMBER 10, 2022
Christopher Black

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On August 26th 2022 as the US-NATO directed counter-offensive against the Donbass Republics and other Ukrainian regions resisting the NATO installed Nazi friendly regime in Kiev began to take place, the NATO states, led by the United States and Britain, escalated their aggression against China.

The Donbass Republics and Russian forces broke the Kiev offensive in Kherson and inflicted heavy losses on the Kiev regime as they did in the past several days in the Kiev attack in the Kharkov region. Western propaganda was awash in claims of a Russian defeat, but they were the same type of claims made by the Germans in 1944-45 as they rushed headlong to their destruction; claims made in desperation, which led them to sabotage the North Stream Pipelines and the Crimea Bridge, which then literally blew up in their face on October 10 and 11.

At the same time, the US and its allied states, as if the war in Ukraine is not enough to satisfy their lust for power and world hegemony, and oblivious to the severe consequences their actions and sanctions have caused themselves and their citizens over the past few months, engaged in provocations against Iran, North Korea, and Syria, even Turkey, but, most importantly, against China; with several visits of US and European political figures to the Chinese province of Taiwan, despite Chinese warnings, with the US increasing the supply of weapons to the Taiwanese secessionists, with sabre rattling using US aircraft carriers in the Pacific and by stirring up Japan to menace China, as if their defeat in 1945 had been erased from history.

Some time ago I wrote about the CIA-MI6 backed anti-China “ Uyghur tribunal” that was set up in London in July 2021 and headed by Geoffrey Nice, the British lawyer who gained notoriety for trying to frame up President Milosevic of Yugoslavia at the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, the ICTY. He failed miserably when Milosevic and his defence team, (of which I was proud to be a part) tore his claims into shreds and proved that it was NATO that had committed war crimes and atrocities in their unprovoked aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999.

But most relevant to China, Milosevic raised in his trial the fact that US and NATO planes attacked China at the same time, by launching several cruise missiles at the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing a number of Chinese officials. That attack proved that the USA and its allies consider themselves above the law, and beyond all morality. It proved them to be colonialists and imperialists to the core, and open enemies of the people of China.

Mr. Nice failed to charge any NATO officer or official or head of government for this war crime against China, as he refused, along with Canadian prosecutor Louise Arbour, to charge any NATO officials for their war crimes committed against the people of Yugoslavia.

Since then the USA has continued its aggression with economic warfare, disguised as revisions of trade agreements, as sanctions, along with cyber attacks, sabre rattling over Taiwan, a failed attempt to form a military alliance in southeast Asia against China, by agreeing to provide nuclear submarines to Australia to be aimed at China, and encouraging the Japanese to build up their armed forces for the same purpose.

It has also begun an intense propaganda campaign in all the western media, especially Voice of America and its Asia affiliates, and in the Rupert Murdoch controlled media. One of the most notorious elements of this campaign was the kidnapping, by Canadian authorities, on American orders, of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was detained in Canada for several years while the US tried to get their hands on her. That attempt finally collapsed and she returned home, but the smears of China continue.

The most persistent elements of their propaganda are the false allegations that China is committing “genocide” in its province of Xingjian against the Uyghurs, a Turkic, mainly Muslim population living there. In Europe, the Falun Gong, another CIA front group, is notorious for standing on streets and handing out anti-Chinese pamphlets containing these lies and slanders. It amounts to criminal slander, but no one is prosecuted.

In Britain, the London Uyghur tribunal, led by Geoffrey Nice was set up to conduct “hearings” about the claims. I discussed this in an earlier article. It was a failure in terms of immediate propaganda. Most of the western press ignored it and it seemed to fade away into irrelevancy. But the World Uyghur Congress, the CIA-front group that arranged and helped to finance the London tribunal and presented many of the staged “witnesses” and concocted ‘evidence” has since used the tribunal “findings” to harass China in other places.

In September 2021, the European Centre For Constitutional and Human Rights, mislead by the London tribunal and the World Uyghur Congress made allegations that certain European companies were using “Uyghur forced labour” to manufacture their products. The companies denied these claims as did China and as does most of the Moslem world, but that did not matter to the ECCHR. The big splash in the press was what they wanted and is what they got. They cited the London tribunal in support of their fake claims.

On December 14, 2021 the World Uygur Congress and its allied organisation, the Uyghur Human Rights Project, based in Washington, D.C. announced the engagement of British barrister, Michael Polak, to file a claim in Argentina, against China, for crimes against Uyghurs, basing their ability to do so on Argentina’s laws that grant it universal jurisdiction over crimes of “genocide.” Polak is chair of another anti-China propaganda group, Lawyers for Uyghur Rights.

The Uyghur Human Rights Project is funded by the US government, through the National Endowment For Democracy. It also has connections to US anti-Chinese Senators Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumacher and was nominated by other US congressmen for the Nobel Prize in order underline its efforts.

As the legal action was announced, lawmakers in Washington advanced the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, intended to block the import of goods into the U.S. produced by “forced labor” in Xinjiang and authorize sanctions on foreign individuals and entities found responsible for rights abuses. Polak was also used by the World Uyghur Congress to complain to the International Olympics Committee about the issue to try to ruin the Winter Olympics of 2022 held in China.

ON August 26, 2022 he and others finally filed a case against China in Argentina, stating, that the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), have filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Criminal Court in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August 16, accusing Chinese officials of “genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim ethnic groups.”

China reacted through its Washington embassy spokesperson, Lui Pengyu, to a Voice of America question. Lui stated that,

‘Over the past 60-plus years, the Uyghur population in Xinjiang has grown from 2.2 million to about 12 million.’

“The accusation of ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang is a flat-out lie of the century,” Liu told VOA in an email. “Whatever ploys are used; a lie repeated a thousand times is still a lie.”


Of course he is absolutely correct. But the USA and its propagandists for hire care nothing for the truth. They care only about creating an impression, of creating hostility towards China, and they are doing this in order to discredit and justify war against China.

Theses groups have not stopped at national courts and fake tribunals. On December 15, 2020, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court rejected consideration of their allegations filed with the ICC about China and their claims about the Uyghurs, on the basis that since China is not a signatory to the Rome Statute creating the ICC and accepting its jurisdiction the ICC cannot act as it has no jurisdiction to do so. In any case, as we have observed with the fake evidence presented to the London ‘tribunal’ and the Argentine court, there is nothing to investigate.

In fact we remember that just in May of this year, Michele Bachelet, former President of Chile, and High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN visited China and reported that she did not find evidence to support the claims being made against China. She immediately suffered a series of slanderous attacks in the western, especially British and American, media and reported that she was under enormous political pressure to issues a report the west had expected from her. She seems to have been forced out of seeking to continue her term of office due to this pressure. And to add insult to injury the British House of Commons refused to allow Chinese diplomats to attend the ceremonies and lying-in-state of Queen Elizabeth in London, on the pretext of the Uyghur claims.

It is about time these propagandists be held accountable for their actions, for manufacturing hatred and hostility towards a nation that has brought its people out of the poverty imposed on them by the west during the colonial period and which the west wants to impose again. It is a monstrous crime against the truth and against China.

At the Nuremberg Trials the Nazi propagandist, Julius Streicher, was hanged for putting out propaganda about Jews and inciting hatred leading to genocide. At the Rwanda Tribunal the members of a radio station were convicted of genocide for allegedly making false reports on events that the prosecutors claimed instigated hatred that led to genocide. Hate speech is proscribed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other treaties.

Is this not what Nice, and Polak, the ECHHR, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, such as Fox News and his British media, the World Uyghur Congress and its affiliated partners in crime are doing; trying to instigate hatred and hostility to justify war, to justify harming and killing Chinese? Is this not where it all leads? Is this not a crime against humanity? Are not they the real criminals?

Propaganda is a threat to peace itself. It is not only necessary to eliminate nuclear weapons and armies. It is also necessary to eliminate the psychological weapons that are used to justify, provoke and prolong war.

I wrote what follows before but it bears repeating for those that have not read it.

A Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations of November 3, 1947 denounced war propaganda;

“The General Assembly condemns all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”

A Soviet draft definition of aggression presented to the General Assembly in 1957 defined war propaganda as ideological aggression. Their draft stated that a state has committed ideological aggression when it “encourages war propaganda, encourages propaganda for the use of atomic or other weapons of mass extermination and stimulates Nazi-fascist views, racial or national superiority, or hatred and disdain for other peoples.”

But before that the Supreme Soviet on March 12, 1950 passed a law on the defence of peace that stated:

“The Supreme Soviet of the USSR is guided by the high principles of the Soviet peace policy, which seeks to strengthen peace and friendly relations between the peoples, recognises that human conscience and the concept of right of the peoples, who, during one generation suffered the calamities of two wars, cannot accept that the conduct of war propaganda remain unpunished, and approves the proclamation of the Second World Congress of the Partisans of Peace, who expressed the will of the entire progressive mankind concerning the prohibition and condemnation of criminal war propaganda.

“The Supreme Soviet decrees,

1.To recognise that war propaganda under whatever form it is made, undermines the cause of peace, creates the threat of new war and is the graves crime against humanity.

2.To bring to court person guilty of war propaganda and to try them as having committed a most grave criminal offense.”


The western powers blocked a Russian UN resolution at that time to denounce war propaganda even though it was in accord with the principles of the United Nations Charter, which makes it a duty of all member states to preserve the peace. The west relied on arguments of “free speech,” arguments that do not hold water since war propaganda is not designed to enlighten people but to twist their minds into thoughts of hatred and war.

Those who are taking part in the western propaganda campaign against China claim to be for justice but are in actuality tools of injustice. They claim to be acting for victims of oppression but the truth is they are agents of western oppression. They claim to be for peace but are in truth advocates of war. They claim to be founded in law but in fact reject all law. Reject them. Better yet, expose them. The facts, and history, will condemn them.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/11/ ... ropaganda/

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New COVID-19 measures released
By WANG XIAOYU | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2022-11-12 07:29

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An Airbus A350-900 arrives at the Baoan International Airport in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, Jan 6, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

China will reduce the COVID-19 quarantine period for incoming travelers and close contacts from 10 days to eight, cancel circuit breakers for inbound flights and no longer trace secondary close contacts of confirmed cases, authorities said on Friday.

Categories of COVID-risk areas will also be adjusted to two — high and low — from the previous categories of high, medium and low, according to a notice released by the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism that lays out 20 measures aimed at upgrading disease control measures.

The shift comes after a key meeting of the Communist Party of China on Thursday reiterated the country's unswerving adherence to a dynamic COVID-19 policy, while stressing optimization of disease control measures based on the latest epidemic situation and patterns of viral mutations.

According to the notice, all passengers arriving from overseas will undergo five days of centralized quarantine plus three days of home — or hotel-based isolation, compared with the current protocol of seven days of centralized isolation plus three days of self-isolation. It also stipulates that inbound travelers should not be placed into isolation again after finishing required quarantine periods at their first points of entry.

The circuit-breaker mechanism, which bans flight routes if inbound international flights carry COVID-19 cases, will be canceled. Inbound travelers will only need to provide one, rather than two, negative nucleic acid testing results taken 48 hours before boarding.

"For important businesspeople and sports groups arriving in China from overseas, they will be transferred to a quarantine-free closed-loop bubble via designated vehicles to conduct activities without leaving the bubble area," it said.

Meanwhile, quarantine periods for close contacts of confirmed infections have also been reduced from 10 to eight days, while secondary close contacts will no longer be traced.

The notice said that modifying categories of COVID-risk areas is aimed at minimizing the number of people facing restrictions on movement.

High-risk areas, it said, will cover residences of infected cases and places where they frequently visit. The designation of high-risk areas should be limited to a certain building unit and should not be expanded recklessly.

If no new cases are detected for five consecutive days, the high-risk label along with control measures should be lifted promptly.

While blind rollout of mass testing is forbidden, local authorities are required to test cross-provincial travelers upon arrival to detect potential infections promptly. "Prolonged and expanded battle lines against the virus should be avoided, and we must not take a wait-and-see or arbitrary attitude," it said.

The notice also requires ramping up stockpiles of COVID-19 drugs and medical equipment, preparing more hospital and intensive care unit beds, bolstering booster vaccination rates — especially among the elderly — and accelerating research of broad-spectrum and multivalent vaccines.

Wang Liping, a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Friday that given China's huge population and vulnerable groups, as well as insufficient and uneven medical resources, authorities have been highly cautious in adjusting disease control policies and each step has been discussed extensively and even piloted beforehand.

"The optimization of virus control policies does not signal relaxation, but aims for more scientific and precise approaches to fend off the epidemic while minimizing the impact on the economy and livelihoods," Wang said.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20221 ... 29456.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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