China

[blindpig]

The news is full of headlines about ‘China’s economic collapse’ — ignore them
By John Ross (Posted Aug 31, 2023)

Originally published: Morning Star Online on August 2023 (more by Morning Star Online) |

IN THE last four years, covering the period of the Covid pandemic, China’s economy has grown two-and-a-half times as fast as the U.S., 15 times as fast as France, 23 times as fast as Japan, 45 times as fast as Germany, and 480 times as fast as Britain.

To add in smaller G7 countries, China has grown four times as fast as Canada, and 11 times as fast as Italy.

China’s outperformance of advanced capitalist countries is even greater in per capita terms–a still better measure of productivity changes and potential for increasing living standards.

China’s per capita GDP grew three times as fast as the U.S., five times as fast as Italy, 44 times as fast as Japan or France, and 260 times as fast as Britain–while per capita GDP fell in Germany and Canada.

China’s outperformance of developing capitalist countries shows the same pattern–China’s per capita 4.4 per cent GDP annual average growth compares to 2.6 per cent in India, 1.3 per cent in Brazil, or 0.9 per cent in South Africa.

What is important about such economic growth, of course, is not abstract statistics but its meaning for the real lives of ordinary people.

The International Labour Organisation data on real, inflation-adjusted, wages shows that up to the latest available data–for most countries to 2022, and for India to 2021–China’s annual real wage growth was 4.7 per cent.

For Britain it was 0.1 per cent, for the U.S. it was 0.3 per cent, in France it was minus 0.4 per cent, in Germany minus 0.7 per cent and in India minus 1.3 per cent.

Given this enormous economic outperformance by China of capitalist countries, any rational discussion that should be taking place in Western mainstream media about the international economic situation would be, “why is China’s economy hugely outperforming the U.S. and the rest of the capitalist West?” and,

what lessons are to be learned from China’s socialist economy that is so outperforming the West?

For the left, the issue that needs to be assessed and publicised is,

Why are real wages rising 18 times as fast in China as in the U.S., 44 times as fast as in Britain, while in France, Germany or India real wages are falling?

Indeed, the present author would argue that much greater stress should be placed on the latter point. The international left has begun to absorb that China has lifted more than 850 million people out of World Bank-defined poverty in 40 years–by far the greatest poverty reduction achievement in human history.

But it has not yet internalised how rapidly not only the poorest but average living standards are rising in China–far faster than in any Western country.

But, of course, this real economic situation can’t be discussed in the mainstream media, because its conclusions would be too damaging for the capitalist West.

Instead, a type of mad discussion is unfolding, with U.S. claims about China’s economy becoming increasingly bizarre–one might say deranged–as they get further and further out of touch with reality.

President Joe Biden, for example, recently made a speech claiming China’s economic growth rate is “around 2 per cent,” when it was 5.5 per cent in the first half of this year and, as already noted, China’s economy is growing two-and-a-half times as fast as the U.S.

Biden bizarrely claimed that in China “the number of people who are of retirement age is larger than the number of people of working age”–entirely false, and inaccurate by a figure of many hundreds of millions of people.

Discussion in the U.S. financial media equally refuses to face real facts. Because I am an economist, every morning, after the overall news, I switch on Bloomberg TV to catch up on the latest economic data. Discussion there is like Alice Through the Looking Glass–the book the principle of which is that everything is reversed compared to the real world.

Apparently, according to Bloomberg’s analysis, China’s annual average of 4.5 per cent a year growth in the last four years is an economy in severe crisis, whereas the US’s 1.8 per cent is allegedly strong growth–not to speak of Britain’s 0.1 per cent. Similar rhetoric, out of all contact with factual reality, pervades the Financial Times, The Economist, or the Wall Street Journal.

The left is well used to such U.S. political lying–the completely fake claim that North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. naval vessels on August 4 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin, used to launch the Vietnam war, or the equally untrue claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction to justify the U.S. invasion, were classic examples.

Today, the U.S. systematically lies about the state of China and its own economy because it is crucial for U.S. capitalism to prevent its own citizens, and close allies, from understanding the real economic trends.

It is further proof, if one were needed, of the truth that if the real world and a theory do not coincide only one of two things can be done. One is to abandon the theory, the other is to abandon the real world.

In this case, the theory is that the U.S., because it is capitalist, should outperform socialist China. The real world is actual economic performance–in which China continues to outperform the U.S. and other capitalist countries by an enormous margin.

Unable to abandon its theory the U.S. is therefore forced to abandon the real world–hence the demented denial of comparative economic performance noted at the beginning of this article.

While the left should expect lies from capitalism what is rather shameful is that some sections of the left repeat such nonsense–apparently believing that if they put in a few left phrases into an analysis taken from the Western press this constitutes “socialist” commentary.

For example, an article in the New Left Review’s Sidecar called China a “zombie economy.” Some “zombie” when China’s economy is growing anywhere between two-and-a-half times and 480 times as fast as any major capitalist economy.

The real data shows the reality is simple. China has far outgrown any Western capitalist economy for more than 40 years. It continues to do so.

The result in China is by far the world’s most rapid rise in living standards–not only for the poorest but for the whole average population. It is known as the practical advantage of socialism. It is fact. We know why the U.S. has to make up big lies about it. There is no justification for sections of the left echoing them.

https://mronline.org/2023/08/31/the-new ... nore-them/


Taiwan’s Vice President William Lai, left, chats with Ingrid D. Larson, managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan/Washington Office upon arrival in New York, Aug. 13, 2023. (Photo: Taiwan Presidential Office. Editing by MintPress News)

Documents show Taiwan working with FBI to prosecute Chinese Americans, intimidate U.S. politicians
By Alan MacLeod (Posted Aug 30, 2023)

Originally published: MintPress News on August 18, 2023 (more by MintPress News) |

Amid a controversial visit from Vice President William Lai (the front-runner to be his country’s next leader), official documents reviewed by “MintPress News” show that the Taiwanese government is attempting to drum up anti-China hostility, influence and intimidate American politicians and is even working with the FBI and other agencies to spy on and prosecute Chinese American citizens.

Key points of this investigation
Taiwanese officials are monitoring Chinese Americans and passing intelligence to the FBI in attempts to have them prosecuted.
Taiwan is working with “friends” in media and politics to create a culture of fear towards China and Chinese people in the US
Taiwanese officials claim they are “directing” and “guiding” certain U.S. politicians.
Taiwan is monitoring and helping to intimidate U.S. politicians they deem to be too pro-China.
The island is spending millions funding U.S. think tanks that inject pro-Taiwan and anti-China talking points into American politics.

WORKING WITH THE FEDS TO PROSECUTE CHINESE AMERICANS
Vice President Lai’s journey to the United States is, officially, only a stopover on his way to Paraguay (the U.S. does not formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state). He is scheduled to make appearances in both New York and San Francisco.

Lai himself is an outspoken leader of the growing movement for Taiwanese independence. Many nationalists see Taiwan as culturally different from the mainland and argue it would be better off as a fully independent state. To achieve this goal, they are attempting to gain American backing and influence American public opinion. China, however, sees the matter as purely internal, and American attempts to wrest Taiwan out of its orbit as a potential trigger for World War Three.

Part of the effort to influence American politics, the cables reveal, is waging a silent war against pro-Chinese groups and directly working and sharing intelligence with the FBI and other agencies. “We should grasp the opportunity to counteract and further weaken China’s grassroots influence activities in the U.S. through adopting more offensive and lethal measures,” a cable from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) reads. The same document instructs all offices of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO or TECO)—Taiwan’s de facto U.S. embassy and consulates—to cooperate with local law enforcement.

“We are happy to witness that some local offices have already started exchanging intelligence related to China with U.S. federal staff. All offices are mandated to keep track of China’s activities and enhance the frequency of sharing information with U.S. officials,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs notes.

The exchanges between the different Taiwanese agencies make clear that Taiwan sees Chinese Americans as suspect and all pro-China or anti-Taiwanese sentiment expressed by Chinese Americans as possibly directed by Beijing itself.

“Chinese Americans have already adapted to the mainstream society, serving as the major channel for Chinese consulates to influence local politics, economics, culture, education and community groups. Their presence and activities pose great threats for Taiwan,” the New York TECO office wrote, which also noted that it had infiltrated some of these groups.

Earlier this year, Chinese American groups protested Taiwanese President Tsai-Ing Wen’s visit to the United States, upstaging the event. The demonstrations, TECO New York alleged, were led by the United Chinese Association of Brooklyn and the Chinese American Community Affairs Council.

Angered by this, it appears that Taiwan attempted to have these groups arrested and prosecuted as foreign agents, despite lamenting that they could find no evidence they broke any U.S. laws. As one cable noted:

The U.S. government is acutely aware that protesting and freedom of speech are guaranteed by the Constitution. Although it knows that Chinese Americans keep in constant contact with the Chinese Consulate in New York, it is quite difficult to charge them in ways that the FBI sued Chinese Americans.


Chinese Americans protest Taiwanese President Tsai-Ing Wen’s visit to the United States in New York on March 31, 2023. (Lev Radin | AP)

The plan, it seemed, was to continue to monitor pro-China groups in the hopes that they could find something actionable. As TECO New York wrote:

If we can collect clear and concrete evidence that Chinese Americans and community groups are directed by Chinese government, they will likely be prosecuted by the U.S. We are supposed to maintain the communication with U.S. law enforcement continuously, and share updated intelligence about Chinese Americans and community groups in our jurisdiction, in order to assist the U.S. to get hold of potential illegal actions by pro-China individuals and community groups.

“MintPress” approached both TECO New York and the United Chinese Association of Brooklyn for comment but did not receive a response.

The FBI has already helped create a culture of fear among Chinese Americans. For example, the agency falsely accused Professor Xiaoxing Xi of Temple University of spying for Beijing. During their investigation, the FBI unlawfully searched his house and held his family at gunpoint. Xi is currently suing the government. A survey taken earlier this year found that 72% of Chinese researchers in the U.S. felt unsafe, and most were looking into pursuing job opportunities elsewhere.

MONITORING, INTIMIDATING, “DIRECTING,” AND “GUIDING” U.S. POLITICIANS
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also directs TECO staff to investigate and pressure American politicians who they deem too friendly with China, attempting to create a climate of fear and suspicion in the process.

Two prominent U.S. politicians the cables highlight are Governor of New York Kathy Hochul and Mayor of New York City Eric Adams. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote that they should help “our allies in politics, academia and the media” to investigate their relations to China. As MOFA stated:

We should encourage our allies to probe and expose the relations between Chinese American community groups and local politicians, and employ the current backdrop skeptical of China in U.S. society, which will make U.S. citizens stay alert with pro-China politicians, and warn them to show restraint and spontaneously distance themselves from China under the backdrop.

While it is not explicitly stated how much—if any—influence Taiwan had in its publication, the documents also reference a series of hit pieces in “The National Review,” painting Hochul and Adams as suspiciously close to Communist China. One noted that Hochul enjoyed a “long-standing collaboration” with a genocide-denying Communist official who supports China’s “baseless claims to sovereignty over Taiwan.” Another article, which featured considerable FBI input, reported that both Hochul and Adams had received donations from Chinese Americans alleged to be secret police officers for Beijing.

The state of Utah has also turned into an unlikely battleground between China and Taiwan. In March, an “Associated Press” report headlined, “Amid strained U.S. ties, China finds unlikely friend in Utah” smeared a number of local politicians from the Beehive State, dubiously presenting them as in Beijing’s pocket. One legislator was questioned by the FBI after he introduced a resolution expressing solidarity with China in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, while a professor advocating for closer U.S./China relations was questioned twice.


This letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping to an Utah Elementary School in early 2020 was presented as evidence of China’s malign influence in the state. (Jon Elswick | AP)

Again, it is not clear whether Taiwan had any role in the story’s publication, although we do see the FBI/media/Taiwan nexus once again appearing. What is certain, however, is that they took full advantage of it. Another legislator highlighted in the AP report quickly rushed out a statement strongly supporting Taiwan and made a number of promises to the island. Fearing being smeared as pro-China, many Utah state representatives have since joined the Utah-Taiwan Friendship Caucus. Utah has also passed a number of pieces of pro-Taiwan or anti-China legislation.

Many of these bills have been promulgated by Candice Pierucci, a Republican legislator that the San Francisco TECO office describes as a “pro-Taiwan and promising political figure.” The wording of the TECO cables suggests Taiwan might consider Pierucci as under their control or direction. “Our office has directed Pierruci to follow the trend and lobby more lawmakers to join the Utah-Taiwan friendship caucus,” TECO San Francisco wrote. “We also guided Candice to take advantage of the AP reports to enhance her media exposure on ‘AP’ and ‘Fox News’ in order to shape her as a pro-Taiwan advocate,” it added (emphasis added).

MintPress approached TECO San Francisco and Pierucci for comment but has not received a response.

INFORMATION WAR
Anti-China hostility, both among elites and in the general population, has been rapidly rising in America. A recent Gallup poll found that only 15% of respondents viewed China in a positive light—an all-time low. As recently as 2018, a majority of Americans (53%) viewed the country favorably. However, increased hostility from Washington and a barrage of negative sentiment from politicians and media outlets has seen this figure fall. Hate crimes against Asian Americans have skyrocketed.

Conversely, support for Taiwan has been rising for decades, with the same Gallup poll finding a record-high 77% of Americans view Taiwan positively. Nearly nine in ten consider the conflict between China and Taiwan—a struggle between a state and an island the U.S. officially recognizes as part of China—as an “important” or “critical” threat to U.S. vital interests. Only 10% of Americans think it is relatively unimportant to U.S. national interests.

Part of this dramatic shift in outlook is down to Taiwanese efforts to bankroll a plethora of top U.S. think tanks. A 2021 “MintPress News” study found that TECRO had given millions of dollars to many of the most influential think tanks in the United States, including the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, The German Marshall Fund, the Center for a New American Security, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Hudson Institute, the Atlantic Council and the Center for American Progress.

These think tanks, in turn, pumped out papers, reports and other content supportive of Taiwan, highly critical of Beijing, and arguing that the U.S. needs to defend the former from the latter. For example, in 2019, TECRO donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Brookings Institute. Brookings, in turn, championed the island and routinely condemn Beijing’s attempts to bring it closer into its orbit.


Lawmakers in a new House select committee on China gather for a tabletop Taiwan war game exercise, April 19, 2023, in Washington. Ellen Knickmeyer | AP

However, while Taiwanese efforts might have played some role in it, most of the U.S. hostility towards China is entirely homegrown. China’s rapid economic rise has many in Washington worried that the U.S. is no longer the global hegemon. The country has turned itself into a manufacturing powerhouse and the top trading partner of more than 120 nations. China’s economy is expected to overtake the United States relatively soon. Worse still, in Washington’s eyes, is Beijing’s appetite for gigantic infrastructure projects all over the world, bringing countries closer to China and further from the United States.

China has become a world leader in a myriad of cutting-edge technologies, including 5G communications, high-speed rail, semiconductors, electric vehicles and solar energy. Unable to compete, the U.S. has pressured other nations to ban Chinese tech (and rely on America). Yet, its sanctions regime on Beijing appears to have done little to stymie China’s continued rise.

Instead, Washington’s goal appears to be to shift the conflict from the economic field towards a military one. Since President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia,” successive administrations have pulled military resources away from the Middle East and towards the Pacific. Today, the U.S. has an estimated 400 military bases surrounding China, and it has attempted to foster an “Asian NATO” of states willing to counter China’s rise.

Information warfare is also a critical component of the new struggle to halt Chinese growth. The U.S. banned sales of Huawei and ZTE electronic products and considered blocking the popular video app TikTok due to its connections with China. Other war planners have suggested “kicking China under the table” through psychological warfare, including commissioning “Taiwanese Tom Clancy” novels intended to demonize China and demoralize its citizens.

HISTORY LESSON
The triangular relationship between the U.S., China and Taiwan goes back to the Second World War when Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion centered around two poles. One was nationalist in character and led by Chiang Kai-shek of the Kuomintang Party. The other was the Communist resistance led by Mao Zedong.

Despite a lack of resources, the Communists proved more capable of repelling the Japanese invaders and fought the U.S.-backed Kuomintang off the mainland. The U.S. actually invaded and occupied parts of China with a force of 50,000 troops for four years between 1945 and 1949. But it soon became clear that the Communists were too powerful. The U.S. retreated, and Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan, an island around 130 km (80 miles) off the mainland. There, they established a one-party state that ruled the country under martial law between 1949 and 1987. After decades of political terror and repression, the country had its first democratic presidential elections in 1996.


Chiang Kai-shek, left, and U.S. Navy officials salute the U.S. carrier Bonhomme Richard off Northern Taiwan on Nov. 11, 1957. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

For decades, the United States refused to recognize Mao’s Communist government, instead viewing the government in Taiwan as the rightful ruler of all of China. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, there were many recriminations in Washington about the “loss” of China. Nevertheless, by the 1970s, it became clear that the Communists were going nowhere, and President Nixon began to pursue better relations. In 1979, the U.S. formally recognized Beijing as the sole legitimate government (thereby abandoning their Taiwanese allies). To this day, the official U.S. position is that Taiwan is not an independent state. Indeed, only a handful of countries recognize Taiwan as independent, the largest of which is Paraguay.

In the late 20th and early 21st century, China became a manufacturing hub for U.S. industry, its cheap and pliant workforce generating gigantic profits for corporate America. However, as China has become strong enough to pose a threat to U.S. dominance, attitudes to it in Washington have begun to sour. Today, in an attempt to weaken their rival, the U.S. is supporting a number of separatist movements, including in Tibet, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan.

TAIWAN’S FUTURE
Regardless of what the major powers want, support for independence in Taiwan itself has been growing. A recent poll found that 21% of Taiwanese people want the country to gradually move towards independence, while 4.5% favored an immediate break with China. The large majority, however, favored keeping the status quo situation continuing. Few advocated for unification with China.

China, however, sees Taiwanese independence as a red line, meaning increased Western attempts as pulling the island away from Beijing could result in it becoming the Ukraine of Asia. A recent poll found that most mainland Chinese would back a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. Given China’s position, then, Taiwanese politicians will have to tread carefully and deploy masterful diplomacy.

Lai, who has previously referred to himself as a “practical worker for Taiwan independence,” has attempted to encourage the U.S. to get more involved in the debate. “If Taiwan is safe, the world is safe, if the Taiwan Strait is peaceful, then the world is peaceful…We are already on the right track. Don’t be afraid and turn back because of the increased threat from authoritarianism. We must be brave and strong,” he said on Sunday.

Clearly, then, Lai sees the United States as key to the future prospects of a more independent Taiwan. The documents seen by “MintPress” clearly underscore this, though few would guess the extent to which Taiwan is meddling in U.S. affairs in its attempt to drum up support for this goal.

https://mronline.org/2023/08/30/documen ... liticians/


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Only Idiots Believe The US Is Protecting Australia From China

This artificially manipulated information ecosystem has made Australians so pants-on-head idiotic that they think the US empire is filling their country up with war machinery because it loves them and wants to protect them from the Chinese. That’s as stupid as it gets.

Caitlin Johnstone
August 29, 2023

The Economist has taken a keen interest in Australia lately, which if you know anything about The Economist is something you never want to see happen to your country. Two articles published in the last few days by the notorious propaganda outlet have celebrated the fact that Australia appears to be the most likely nation to follow the United States into a hot war with China as it enmeshes itself further and further with the US war machine.

In “How Joe Biden is transforming America’s Asian alliances,” The Economist writes the following:

“Meanwhile, the ‘unbreakable’ defence relationship with Australia is deepening, following the AUKUS agreement struck in March, amid a flurry of equipment deals and military exercises. Should war break out with China, the Aussies seem the most willing to fight at America’s side. Australian land, sea and air bases are expanding to receive more American forces. Under the AUKUS deal, Australia is gaining its own long-range weapons, such as nuclear-powered (but not nuclear-armed) submarines to be developed jointly with America and Britain. The three partners want to work on other military technologies, from hypersonic missiles to underwater drones.

“Taken together the ‘latticework’ of security agreements, shows how America’s long-heralded pivot to Asia is accelerating.”


In “Australia is becoming America’s military launch-pad into Asia,” The Economist elaborates upon this war partnership with tumescent enthusiasm, calling it a “mateship” and likening it to a “marriage”, and calling for a rollback of US restrictions on sharing military technology with Australia.

“If America ever goes to war with China, American officials say the Aussies would be the likeliest allies to be fighting with them,” The Economist gushes, adding, “Australia’s geographical advantage is that it lies in what strategists call a Goldilocks zone: well-placed to help America to project power into Asia, but beyond the range of most of China’s weapons. It is also large, which helps America scatter its forces to avoid giving China easy targets.”

The Economist cites White House “Asia Tsar” Kurt Campbell reportedly saying of Australia, “We have them locked in now for the next 40 years.”

“Equally, though, Australia may have America locked in for the same duration,” The Economist hastens to add.

Well gosh, that’s a relief.

“How the world sees us,” tweeted former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr when sharing the Economist article.

“Historians will be absolutely baffled by what’s happening in Australia right now: normally countries never voluntarily relinquish their sovereignty and worsen their own security position out of their own accord. They normally have to lose a war and be forced to do so,” commentator Arnaud Bertrand added to Carr’s quip.


As much as it pains me to admit it, The Economist is absolutely correct. The Australian government has been showing every indication that it is fully willing to charge into a hot war with its top trading partner to please its masters in Washington, both before and after the US puppet regime in Canberra changed hands last year.

This sycophantic war-readiness was humorously mocked on Chinese state media back in 2021 by Impact Asia Capital co-founder Charles Liu, who said he didn’t think the US will actually fight a war with China over Taiwan, but the Australians might be stupid enough to fight it for them.

“US is not going to fight over Taiwan,” Liu said. “It’s not going to conduct a war over Taiwan. They may try to get Japanese to do it, but Japanese won’t be so stupid to do it. The only stupid ones who might get involved are the Australians, sorry.”

He had nothing to be sorry about; he was right. Australians are being very, very stupid, and not just our government. A recent Lowy Institute poll found that eight in ten Australians believe the nation’s alliance with the United States is important for Australia’s security, despite three-quarters also saying they believe the alliance makes Australia more likely to be drawn into a war in Asia.

That’s just plain stupid. A war with China is the absolute worst case security scenario for Australia; anything that makes war with China more likely is making us less secure. Making bad decisions which hurt your own interests is what stupid people do.


That’s not to say Australians are naturally dimwitted; we’re actually pretty clever as far as populations go. What’s making us stupid in this case is the fact that our nation has the most concentrated media ownership in the western world, a massive chunk of which is owned by longtime US empire asset Rupert Murdoch. This propaganda-conducive information environment has been distorting Australia’s understanding of the world so pervasively in recent years that on more than one occasion I’ve had total strangers start babbling at me about the dangers of China completely out of nowhere within minutes of striking up conversation with them.

This artificially manipulated information ecosystem has made Australians so pants-on-head idiotic that they think the US empire is filling their country up with war machinery because it loves them and wants to protect them from the Chinese. That’s as stupid as it gets.

The single biggest lie being circulated in Australia right now is that our government is militarising against China as a defensive measure. China has literally zero history of invading and occupying countries on the other side of the planet. You know who does have a very extensive history of doing that? The United States. The military superpower that Australia’s military is becoming increasingly intertwined with. The belief that we’re intertwining ourselves with the world’s most aggressive, destructive and war-horny military force as a defensive measure to protect ourselves against that military force’s top rival (who hasn’t dropped a bomb in decades) is transparently false, and only a complete idiot would believe it.

We’re not militarising to defend ourselves against a future attack by China, we’re militarising in preparation for a future US-led attack on the Chinese military. We’re militarising in preparation to involve ourselves in an unresolved civil war between Chinese people that has nothing to do with us. China has been sorting out its own affairs for millennia and has managed to do so just fine without the help of white people running in firing military explosives at them, and Taiwan is no exception.


The imperial media talk nonstop about how the People’s Republic of China is preparing to seize control of Taiwan using military force, without ever mentioning the fact that that’s exactly what the US empire is doing. The US empire is preparing to wrest Taiwan away from China to facilitate its long-term agenda to balkanize, weaken and subjugate its top rival.

Only a complete blithering imbecile would believe any part of this is being done defensively. It’s being done to secure unipolar planetary domination for the world’s most powerful and destructive government, and only an absolute moron would agree to risk their own country’s security and economic interests to help facilitate it.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2023/08 ... rom-china/

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U.S., Japan, Korea strengthen military cooperation: where will it lead?
gilbertdoctorow Uncategorized August 29, 2023 2 Minutes

North Korea’s celebration of Navy Day received a minute’s coverage on Euro News today under the heading “No Comment.” Indeed there is not much the television viewer can say, given that the video of the North Korean leader visiting naval headquarter together with his daughters was broadcast by Euronews without any translation. https://www.euronews.com/video/2023/08/ ... s-daughter

Meanwhile, Russian state television (Sixty Minutes) provided viewers not only with video but with extensive reporting on what Kim Jong Un was actually saying. His words might send a shiver up the spine of U.S. sailors on board any the naval vessels now doing exercises off the coast of the Korean peninsula. Kim remarked that the U.S., Korean and Japanese ships now performing exercises in the neighboring waters constitute the greatest concentration of naval hardware on earth. He went on to say that North Korea is now preparing its response: to raise the nuclear capability of its own navy and to prepare for a possible nuclear war.

These developments did not escape the attention of Iran’s Press TV, which early this afternoon organized an on-air discussion of military and geopolitical developments in and around Korea.

http://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/125916

I was pleased to join the Press TV correspondent based in Korea who has a firm command of local history and current politics in the region. My own contribution was to try to distinguish between the sound of alarm sounded by Kim over what he perceives as direct threats to Pyongyang and the real objective of the United States in raising tensions in the region: namely to bring together South Korea and Japan, countries which have no particular liking for one another, under the pretext of North Korean threats, for the sake of common effort actually directed against China. This triangular relationship, like the forging of the AUKUS alliance and the NATO outreach to the Far East allies of the United States, is part of a strategic preparation for armed conflict with the PRC in the coming several years.

However, as I see it, this new triangle will likely give rise to formation of a counter-triangle force, Russia-China-North Korea. This strategic alignment is as yet only beginning to emerge from Russia’s recent casting aside inhibitions and opening serious military cooperation with Pongyang. China is so far holding back, but we should have no illusions on that score if the U.S. proceeds with creation of its anti-Chinese coalition.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/08/29/ ... l-it-lead/

[blindpig]

How Sanctions Failed To Hinder China's Development
These headlines related to China are demonstrating a very fast historic development:

Why Do the Chinese Copy So Much? - IHT/NY Times, July 25, 2012
26 Things That China Ripped Off - Insider, August 27, 2013
Chinese Tech Firms Are Increasingly Being Copied by U.S., Not Just Copying - The Street, June 28, 2018
World Record-Breaking Drone Swarm From China Puts on Magical Show - Nerdist, June 10, 2018
Pentagon unveils ‘Replicator’ drone program to compete with China - Defense News, August 28, 2023

From the last link:

The Pentagon committed on Monday to fielding thousands of attritable, autonomous systems across multiple domains within the next two years as part of a new initiative to better compete with China.
The program, dubbed Replicator, was announced by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies conference here.

“Replicator will galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of U.S. military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap and many,” Hicks said.

China's industry developed by copying designs from other producers. But it only took a few years until it started to produce better or new products for new markets. Historically this is nothing new. Germany's industrial development happened by ripping off British manufacturing processes and products. A few years later industrial German products could compete with British ones and the Brits started to copy Germany technology.

In 2018 China demonstrated large swarms of coordinated drones that could draw moving pictures into the sky.



Now the Pentagon wants to replicate such capabilities.

replicate: verb - If you replicate someone's experiment, work, or research, you do it yourself in exactly the same way.

I have been given a DJI drone as a gift. It is an excellent product. It is light enough to stay within legal limits. It has good flight characteristics, with excellent design and usability of hardware and software. It is reliable and comes at a reasonable price. Even the packaging was very well designed and underlined the value of the product.

Asides from way too expensive Apple products I am not aware of many U.S. or European mass market products that come near to its overall quality level.

If China's military gets drones of the quality that Chinese companies produce for consumers it is likely a generation ahead of everyone else.

It is doubtful that the Pentagon, with its lengthy procurement processes subject to Congressional graft, will ever catch up with that.

In 2019, when Trump sanctioned Huawei by denying it access to modern chips, I wrote:

Huawei currently uses U.S. made chips in many of its smartphones and networking products. But it has long expected the U.S. move and diligently prepared for it:
...
Soon U.S. chip companies will have lost all their sales to the second largest smartphone producer of the world. That loss will not be just temporarily, it will become permanent.

The moment of reckoning has come.

Last week Huawei presented its new cell phone Mate 60 Pro. Since the sanctions were implemented the company has developed genuinely new CPUs for cell phones as well as for other equipment. Bloomberg reports of the teardown and preliminary analysis of the processor by a U.S. company. It is fairly complicate system-on-a-chip that is to 100% made in China:

tphuang @tphuang - 2:25 UTC · Sep 4, 2023
Kirin 9000S teardown so surprising

Includes CPU, GPU, 5G modem, ISP, DSP + NPU (w/ Ascend lite/tiny cores + TPU)

All this squeezed into 110mm2 die w/o stacking
...
Oh, 9000S in teardown/testing showed better overall CPU performance & power consumption than 9000 & SD 888 + had better peak CPU performance than SD 8 Gen 1 all this w/o advanced packaging.



Huawei could do this because it is an extraordinary company that was created by an extraordinary man:

Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies, urged the US-sanctioned tech giant to maintain its technological lead in specific areas and focus on developing internal talent, according to his latest speech published on the company’s employee website on Monday.
“Huawei will save talent, not US dollars,” Ren said in the speech, which he delivered on July 28. “We will try hard to lead in some business aspects globally, not all aspects. For our products, the boundary can be relatively narrow, but our research boundary can be wider.”

In his July speech, Ren said the best motivation for talented workers is passion.

“I think the material reward is not that important,” he said. “The first thing is that [the worker] finds a position he has passion for … If he can work on something he is interested in, he will have no regrets.”

Ren added that no one is good at all aspects of a business from day one and that it takes time for people to grow their talents beyond a single specialised field. “[In time], you will see who becomes a leader. It’s a natural process,” he said.[/i]

That sounds like a company I would like to work for. Huawei's response to U.S. sanctions was not to give up but to hire more people:

Talent recruitment has long been important for Huawei. Ren initiated a programme known as “Top Minds” in 2019, just months after the company was blacklisted by the US government. That recruitment drive, later dubbed the “Genius Youth” programme, gave priority to candidates whose research had produced “tangible and impactful” results and winners of top research honours, according to an advertisement posted by Huawei on Weibo at the time.
Huawei has 207,000 employees globally, according to its website, and 55.6 per cent are research and development personnel. This is up from the end of 2021, when the company said it employed 195,000 people, with 54.8 per cent of them in R&D.

That is an extremely large research and development company to which a smaller production and sales arm is attached. Western finance and business attitude would never allow for something like it.

That is just one reason why the U.S. is losing the tech war with China:

Western media, for the most part, has ignored a remarkable array of Chinese pilot products in industrial automation, executed primarily by Huawei, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications infrastructure and the target of a global suppression campaign by the United States. Fully automated factories, mines, ports, and warehouses already are in operation, and the first commercial autonomous taxi service is starting up in Beijing. Huawei officials say the company has 10,000 contracts for private 5G networks in China, including 6,000 in factories. Huawei’s cloud division has just launched a software platform designed to help Chinese businesses build proprietary AI systems using their own data.

This again proves that sanctions can not end development when a certain base is already there:

Restrictions on technology exports to China at best are a stopgap. Eventually, China, which graduates more engineers each year than the rest of the world combined, will develop its own substitutes, as ASML, the world’s premier maker of chip lithography equipment, avers. Even as a stopgap, though, the controls are failing. They impose high costs on China in several ways but have not impeded the Fourth Industrial Revolution. On the contrary: the limited adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies by American industry is concentrated in firms that have major commitments to China.
...
To maintain a technological edge over China, we will have to spend an additional several hundred billions of dollars, train a highly-skilled workforce, educate or import more scientists and engineers, and provide broader incentives to manufacturing. It is simply too late to try to suppress China. That is no longer within our power. What remains within our power is to restore American pre-eminence.

Well, good luck with attempting that.

Posted by b on September 4, 2023 at 15:57 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/h ... .html#more

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Hanoi should be wary of ploy to use it as a pawn in regional geopolitical game: China Daily editorial
chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-09-05 19:02


US President Joe Biden's scheduled visit to Vietnam on Sept 10 immediately after attending the G20 Summit in New Delhi is expected, according to reports, to upgrade Washington-Hanoi relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership after 10 years of comprehensive partnership.

There's nothing wrong with the two countries upgrading their bilateral ties. But the fact that Biden has decided to skip the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Leaders' Meeting in Jakarta from Sept 5 to 7 to focus on his Vietnam visit gives rise to concerns about the role Washington wants Hanoi to play in its geopolitical strategy.

Vietnam and China established a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2008, but the two countries have territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Given that Washington has been trying to exploit China's territorial disputes with the Philippines to its advantage, it could use the same playbook to further complicate the dispute between Vietnam and China. After all, exploiting disputes between other countries is how Washington gets its strategic bread and butter from.

It is normal for the US to develop bilateral ties with other countries, including Vietnam. But developing ties with a country with the ill intent of driving a wedge between it and another country is a threat to regional peace and stability.

As far as China's territorial disputes with its neighboring countries are concerned, China has reiterated time and again that they should be settled through talks. China has also pledged to continue talks on the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea, which could help resolve the disputes.

Vietnam knows how important its relations with China are, and what role Sino-Vietnamese relations play in its development. Of course, it should expand economic and trade cooperation with the US. But it should not allow the US to poison China-Vietnam relations.

When it comes to economic and trade cooperation, no country should be forced to take sides between the US and China. If some countries find it difficult to balance their relations with the world's largest and second-largest economies, it is because Washington exerts pressure on them to become pawns in its geopolitical game against China.

With more and more countries, including those in Southeast Asia, becoming wary of Washington's strategic intentions, it will be very difficult or even impossible for the US to force ASEAN member states to take sides in its geopolitical game against China.

It's high time Washington realized it can no longer fool countries and began developing normal ties with Southeast Asian countries without disrupting regional peace and stability.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... b40d4.html

China stands firm in decision to ban Japanese aquatic products
By Liu Zhihua | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-09-05 19:47


Nuclear-contaminated wastewater is released from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant into the ocean on Aug 24. [Photo/Agencies]

Trade experts and analysts on Tuesday stated that China is well-placed to defend its recent actions if Japan files a complaint in the World Trade Organization (WTO) against China for restricting imports of seafood originating in Japan.

China had taken such measures due to widespread concerns over the feared adverse effects of nuclear-contaminated wastewater discharged by the Fukushima Daiichi power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

Experts said China has legitimate rights to take such emergency measures and suspend imports of all aquatic products originating in Japan, in order to safeguard Chinese people's health.

They also said the possibility of a legal case would not deter China from attempting to safeguard its rights and interests under the WTO framework.

Zhou Mi, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, which operates under the Ministry of Commerce, said WTO rules recognize that no country should be prevented from taking necessary measures for the protection of human, animal or plant life, or health, and WTO members therefore could be exempted from the multilateral trading body's free trade provisions in specific instances.

"The uncertainties relating to the long-term and widespread hazard of Japan's discharge of the contaminated water is enough for China to take import restrictions to protect its people and environment from unknown risks," Zhou said.

Following widespread concerns over the safety of seafood, China has suspended imports of all aquatic products originating in Japan since Aug 24, and submitted a notification of the emergency import control measures to the WTO on August 31.

On Monday, Japan submitted its counterargument in writing to the WTO, expressing that the suspension of imports by China is "totally unacceptable", and that "it strongly urges China to immediately repeal its measures".

In addition to the submission of its counterargument, Japan will continue to provide explanation on its position in related committees in the WTO, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on its website.

In a separate statement on Monday, Tokyo's foreign ministry said Japan has also asked China to hold discussions over the import ban based on the provisions of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement.

Zhou also said that Japan has failed the transparency obligation of WTO members, which is one of the most important principles of the WTO agreements.

The transparency obligation requires members to disclose their policies and practices publicly, especially those that may affect other members, and yet, Japan's illegal release of the contaminated water lacks necessary scientific evidence as support and transparency in procedures, data and impact analysis, he added.

Zhao Hong, a professor at Peking University's Law School and former chairperson of the WTO Appellate Body, also said without consensus from other countries, Japan's unilateral decision to release the contaminated water may also violate its obligation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, she said, adding China and other countries being affected could adopt further measures if the situation evolves.

The issue should be assessed and addressed under the framework of science and WTO agreements, but unfortunately it is very much politicalized as it is now, she said, adding if Japan files a case against China at the WTO, China will firmly protect its legitimate rights under the framework of the multilateral trading system.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular media briefing on Tuesday that China's relevant measures are completely legitimate, reasonable and necessary.

The international community is generally concerned that Japan's release of the contaminated water will bring risks to the marine environment and public safety, she said.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... b40ea.html

[blindpig]

Washington’s expanding military footprint on China’s doorsteps
Originally published: NEO (New Eastern Outlook) on September 5, 2023 by Brian Berletic (more by NEO (New Eastern Outlook)) | (Posted Sep 11, 2023)

A series of announcements by the U.S. reflect its large and still growing military presence across Asia-Pacific, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. Together, they reflect a continued and increasingly desperate desire by Washington to encircle and contain China.

These announcements include plans for expanding the number of U.S. air bases across the region as part of the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) new “Agile Combat Employment” (ACE) doctrine. It also includes plans for a “civilian port” in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km from the Chinese island province of Taiwan. Then there were recently announced plans by the U.S. Department of Defense to create drone swarms for countering China’s growing advantage in materiel and manpower.

Washington’s “ACE” in the Hole?
A recent article published by Defense One titled, “Air Force expanding number of bases in Pacific over next decade,” reported on the Pentagon’s plans to expand the number of air bases across the Pacific over the next decade to fulfill the requirements of the USAF’s “ACE” doctrine.

More than simply increasing the number of air bases in the region, ACE seeks to disperse U.S. aircraft, ammunition, and personnel among a larger number of smaller bases, thus creating more targets for potential adversaries and increasing the overall survivability for USAF assets.

The article notes:

The U.S. Air Force will increase its number of bases across the Pacific over the next decade, in an effort to spread out and become more survivable in conflict.

And that:

In the ACE concept, a few airfields serve as central ports, or hubs, while several smaller airfields serve as spokes. The idea is to be able to distribute weapons and assets over a large area and to increase survivability, versus just having a few large airfields throughout the geographically enormous region.

Despite USAF assets being distributed, command and control would be able to mass together assets from across multiple smaller bases for each specific mission or “force package.”

The concept is meant to make it more difficult in a potential conflict with China for it to target and destroy U.S. air bases with its large missile arsenals and by doing so, significantly disrupting U.S. air capabilities in the region.

While ACE doctrine may be a realistic shift away from the relatively centralized nature of U.S. military bases across the Pacific, it will take many years to implement and only if the Pentagon’s budget is adjusted to do so. By then, China’s missile arsenal will only have increased in size and capabilities, possibly neutralizing any advantage the U.S. seeks to achieve by pursuing this doctrinal shift.

And while an eventual dispersal of U.S. air assets may complicate China’s ability to target and destroy U.S. warplanes before even leaving the ground to perform missions, China also possesses a large and very capable integrated air defense system able to intercept both U.S. warplanes and the munitions they would be using against Chinese targets.

U.S. Seeks “Civilian Port” Dangerously Close to Taiwan
Reuters, in an article titled, “Exclusive: U.S. military in talks to develop port in Philippines facing Taiwan,” would report:

The U.S. military is in talks to develop a civilian port in the remote northernmost islands of the Philippines, the local governor and two other officials told Reuters, a move that would boost American access to strategically located islands facing Taiwan.

U.S. military involvement in the proposed port in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km (125 miles) from Taiwan, could stoke tensions at a time of growing friction with China and a drive by Washington to intensify its longstanding defence treaty engagement with the Philippines.

The article also notes:

The Bashi Channel between those islands and Taiwan is considered a choke point for vessels moving between the western Pacific and the contested South China Sea and a key waterway in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The Chinese military regularly sends ships and aircraft through the channel, Taiwan’s defence ministry has said.

The article fails to mention a much more important fact, that this “choke point” leading into the “contested South China Sea” is already “a key waterway,” one for Chinese maritime shipping.

While the U.S. poses as underwriting peace, stability, and prosperity in the “Indo-Pacific” region and more specifically, in upholding “freedom of navigation” in areas like the South China Sea, the reality is that most of the “navigation” taking place in these waters is trade moving to and from China between other nations in the region which consider China their largest trade partner.

U.S. government and arms industry-funded think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), as part of its “China Power” project, published a post titled, “How Much Trade Transits the South China Sea?” It included an interactive map indicating the percentage of trade that flowed through the South China Sea from each nation.

China, by far, was the largest beneficiary of navigation through the South China Sea, accounting for over a quarter of all trade passing through it. South Korea (7%), Japan (4%), and Southeast Asian nations like Thailand (5%), Vietnam (5%), and Singapore (6%) also accounted for large percentages of trade through the sea, with each of these nations counting China as their largest trade partner.

Very clearly, the U.S., by expanding its military presence in and around the South China Sea, including at choke points like the Batanes islands, is best positioned to threaten, not protect maritime shipping in the region, which would hurt China first and foremost. But it would also hurt trade among Washington’s supposed “allies” in the region it seeks to recruit in its escalating confrontation with Beijing.

Within the pages of U.S. government-funded think tank documents detailing war games between the U.S. and China, the disruption of Chinese commerce is a key element of Washington’s strategy. By creating a “civilian port” at the northernmost reach of the Philippines, so close to Taiwan and at a critical choke point leading in and out of the South China Sea, the U.S. is placing itself one step closer to a better position from which to launch a war against China.

Drone Swarms Aimed at China
Defense One, in another article titled, “‘Hellscape’: DOD launches massive drone swarm program to counter China,” would report:

China’s most important asset in potential war with the United States is “mass,” says Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks: “More ships. More missiles. More people.”

To counter that advantage, the Defense Department will launch an initiative called Replicator to create cheap drones across the air, sea, and land in the “multiple thousands” within the next two years.

Cheap drones, of the type Ukraine has deployed to great effect against Russia, can be produced close to the battlefield at much lower cost than typical Defense Department weapons.

While at first glance the strategy may seem sound, within the article itself the primary problem with these plans reveals itself. The proliferation of swarms of cheap drones being used by both sides in Ukraine are made possible by easy-to-purchase Chinese-made components.

The whole reason China has “more ships” and “more missiles” than the United States in the first place is because of its much larger industrial base. Whatever drone swarm the U.S. may be preparing for China, China will have the capacity to create one much larger to strike back with.

A Future War with China
Amid the current conflict in Ukraine, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly targeted Russian air bases deep within Russian territory. Despite the vast majority of these drones being disabled or intercepted, small numbers still occasionally make it through, causing damage. Had Ukraine possessed greater long-range strike capabilities or were Russian air defenses less capable, the damage to these centralized air bases could have been much greater and may have even potentially disrupted Russian combat operations.

The wisdom behind the U.S. Air Force’s “ACE” doctrine is apparent. Should Russia adopt a similar doctrine, distributing its warplanes over a larger number of smaller airfields, the rare instances of success Ukraine currently achieves would be even rarer still.

China is certainly learning from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and is likely studying the posture of its own air assets in relation to the U.S. military’s build-up and plans to not only disperse their assets over a wider number of smaller facilities, but also their plans to utilize drone swarms in addition to other long-range strike capabilities on a scale much larger than Ukraine is currently using.

Finally, as the U.S. moves closer and closer to Chinese territory with its military and “civilian” infrastructure, and specifically near “choke points” that could potentially restrict or cut off Chinese maritime shipping, Beijing must consider contingencies to sustain its economy including its trade even under the worst-case scenario.

In many ways, the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) already partially accomplishes this. Growing trade with Russia across Russia and China’s shared border represents another means of maintaining essential trade, including the flow of energy and raw materials, even if the U.S. implements a naval blockade in the Indo-Pacific.

Taken together, it is clear the U.S. is moving as quickly as possible to position itself best for a coming conflict with China. While U.S. leaders and the Western media suggest China is rushing to war “by 2025,” it is clear that time is on China’s side and that it is the U.S. rushing to war.

The economic and industrial advantages China enjoys over the U.S. today did not exist 2—3 decades ago. A decade from now, however, China’s advantages over the U.S. industrially and thus militarily will only have grown. The U.S. seeks to exploit a closing window of opportunity to fight now before the odds tilt any further in China’s favor. But considering the realities of these recent announcements by the U.S. and how little they actually change the odds in Washington’s favor, some may conclude that the window has already shut.

https://mronline.org/2023/09/11/washing ... doorsteps/

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Beijing stands against US sanctions
By ZHOU JIN | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-09-09 00:47


Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning. [Photo/Foreign Ministry]

Beijing said on Friday that sanctions, containment and oppression cannot stop China's development, and will only strengthen the country's resolve and ability to seek self-reliance and technological innovation.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning made the remarks as it was reported that the United States government began an official probe into an advanced made-in-China chip housed within Huawei Technologies' latest smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro.

The handset was unveiled last week while US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was on her four-day trip to China.

Mao said at a daily news conference that China always opposes politicizing trade and technology issues as well as overstretching and abusing the concept of national security.

The US has abused state power to suppress Chinese companies, which violates the principles of free trade and international trade rules, and disrupts the stability of global industrial and supply chains, Mao said.

Such a practice benefits no one and will eventually backfire, she added.

Washington has imposed a series of restrictions against Huawei and China's chip industry over the past two years.

In another development, Mao announced that Vice-Premier Zhang Guoqing will attend the eighth Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, from Sunday to Tuesday.

The forum serves as an important platform for countries in the Asia-Pacific region to build up consensus on cooperation and seek common development, Mao said.

President Xi Jinping attended the forum in 2018 and 2021, and delivered important speeches.

Mao added that China hopes to work with Russia through the upcoming visit to deepen Northeast China-Russian Far East cooperation and jointly advance regional development.

The forum was launched in 2015 to support the economic development of Russia's Far East and to expand international cooperation among Asia-Pacific countries.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... b4c74.html

Two warships monitored as they passed through Taiwan Strait
By Jiang Chenglong | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-09-09 21:27


The Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taipei, Southeast China's Taiwan. [Photo/Xinhua]

The People's Liberation Army has followed and monitored two warships from the United States and Canada which passed through the Taiwan Strait on Saturday.

Shi Yi, spokesman for the PLA's Eastern Theater Command, said in a statement that on Saturday the USS Johnson and Canadian warship HMCS Ottawa sailed through the Taiwan Strait and publicly hyped up.

"The Eastern Theater Command has organized naval and air forces to follow and monitor the entire process, and handle the situation according to law and regulations," he said.

The troops of the theater command remain on high alert at all times to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and regional peace and stability, Shi said.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... b4df9.html

China raises concerns against US' environmental disregards
By Jiang Chenglong | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-09-09 18:52


A male pangolin found in Taimushan town of Fuding, a county-level city in Fujian province, was released in good physical condition. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

China raised serious concerns and has lodged solemn representations to the United States which claimed that Chinese nationals are "diminishing the effectiveness" of an international convention on endangered wildlife through doing pangolin business.

On Saturday, China's National Forestry and Grassland Administration said in a statement that the US disregarded the significant efforts and achievements made by China in protecting the pangolin worldwide.

On Friday, US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland notified the US Congress that she had issued a finding that nationals of the People's Republic of China are diminishing the effectiveness of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora by engaging in trade or taking of pangolin species.

The NFGA said that the US action represents another example of its abuse of extraterritorial jurisdiction and goes against the principles of objectivity and fairness, extremely undermining global cooperation in pangolin conservation.

"As the leading agency responsible for implementing CITES, the NFGA expresses serious concerns about the US move and strongly opposes any attempt to damage China's reputation in pangolin protection," it said, adding that China has already lodged a solemn representation with the US and will continue to do so.

In the past decade, the Chinese government has strengthened the protection of endangered wildlife and plants, achieving noteworthy historical accomplishments, said the statement.

In 2020, all species of pangolin were identified as national first-class protected wildlife, it said, noting that in the same year, the Pangolin Conservation Research Center was established to enhance rescue, breeding and field research of pangolins.

"The Chinese government has issued notices to further strengthen pangolin conservation, intensifying the protection and monitoring of pangolin populations and their habitats in the wild, and strictly prohibiting hunting and consumption of pangolins, which effectively has promoted the recovery of wild pangolin populations in China," the administration said.

Furthermore, China has fulfilled its obligations under CITES by ceasing commercial import and export activities of pangolins and their derivatives, said the statement, adding that the country has established an inter-ministerial joint meeting mechanism consisting of 27 departments to combat the illegal trading of wildlife.

The NFGA stressed that, for over a decade, China has provided continuous capacity-building support in the wildlife protection to countries where pangolins live, collaborating with Asian and African countries to carry out a series of actions against illegal wildlife trade.

China has made significant contributions to strengthening global pangolin conservation and combating illegal wildlife trade, and has been recognized with numerous awards, such as the certificates of commendation from the Secretary-General of CITES, the Asian Environmental Enforcement Awards, and the Clark R. Bavin Wildlife Law Enforcement Awards, it said, adding that these achievements should not be discredited.

"China will further enhance cooperation with the international community, take proactive and practical actions, and play a greater role in the protection of endangered wildlife, including pangolins," said the statement.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202309/0 ... b4dd3.html

[blindpig]

Kasandras Beware - China's Economy Will Not Hit A Wall

The economist and columnist of the New York Times Paul Krugman wrote about China hitting the wall:

China is in big trouble. We’re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country’s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model is about to hit its Great Wall, and the only question now is just how bad the crash will be.
...
Wages are rising; finally, ordinary Chinese are starting to share in the fruits of growth. But it also means that the Chinese economy is suddenly faced with the need for drastic “rebalancing” — the jargon phrase of the moment. Investment is now running into sharply diminishing returns and is going to drop drastically no matter what the government does; consumer spending must rise dramatically to take its place. The question is whether this can happen fast enough to avoid a nasty slump.

That was written in 2013 when China's GDP at purchase power parity reached $16.3 trillion. The number has since more than doubled to a projected $33 trillion in 2023. (In the same time span U.S. GDP(ppp) grew from $17 to $26 trillion.) But that hasn't influenced Krugman's conclusions. Two week ago he wrote another column that paints the same gloomy picture and prescribes the same false medicine:

Since the late 2000s, however, China seems to have lost a lot of its dynamism.
...
... China clearly can’t sustain anything like the high growth rates of the past.
...
At a fundamental level, China is suffering from the paradox of thrift, which says that an economy can suffer if consumers try to save too much. If businesses aren’t willing to borrow and then invest all the money consumers are trying to save, the result is an economic downturn. Such a downturn may well reduce the amount businesses are willing to invest, so an attempt to save more can actually reduce investment.
...
The obvious answer is to boost consumer spending. Get state-owned enterprises to share more of their profits with workers. Strengthen the safety net. And in the short run, the government could just give people money — sending out checks, the way America has done.

How is giving checks (btw: no Chinese or European citizen uses those antique instruments) to people who are saving instead of consuming supposed to increase their consumption? I would presume that it would rather increase their savings. Giving more income to people who like to save to increase consumption is like pushing on a string.

David Fishman, an economist who lives in China and speaks Mandarin, had an interesting chat with a taxi driver. He concludes:

1. Even after buying a property, long-term considerations still drive Yang to save money, most prominently his daughter and parents.
2. Yang and his wife give up consumption in pursuit of their long-term goals, even working an extra job, to put away extra cash for those goals.
3. He associates loose/free consumption habits with youth and a lack of responsibility. His consumption today is strategic and intentional.
4. He is unperturbed by the prospect of real estate losing value, since he bought his house to live in, and doesn't intend to resell it.
Now, macro econ punditry is *not* my lane.

But if I hear a pundit talking about Chinese consumers, and how they will/won't behave in response to some government policy, I will always wonder what their mental model of this generic Chinese consumer's behavior looks like.

To be credible, that consumer behavior model should probably look like Yang, willing to work an extra job & skip consumption, not out of today's financial necessity, but in preparation of being a good filial son, and so his 3-year old daughter can take dance lessons someday.

And that is Krugman's problem with diagnosing China's economy. People work hard in China. And they like to save instead of consuming all their income. They retire pretty early but live long (though that retirement age is likely to rise). So having a bit of money on the side will make for a nicer living in later years:

The official retirement age for men is 60. Women in managerial positions have a retirement age of 55, while blue-collar female workers can retire at 50.
Chinese people are simply not Americans. But Krugman's economic models presume that they are and he isn't willing or capable of looking beyond those.

Still he was onto something when he opened his column with this:

The narrative about China has changed with stunning speed, from unstoppable juggernaut to pitiful, helpless giant.

It is indeed a fact that the narrative about China's economy has changed way more than China's economic numbers. But Krugman fails to ask why.

Some argue that this narrative change serves investment interests:

First, the most salient preoccupations of Western commentators reflect the skewed distribution of foreign-owned capital within the Chinese economy.
...
The second feature relates to the financial industry’s reliance on the art of political-economic storytelling to sell investment options.
But it is probably more a political instrument to support the general U.S. war against China.

Newsweek recently published a rather laughable story which asked if Shanghai (25 million permanent inhabitants) had turned into a 'ghost town'.

The Global Times editors see political motives behind such 'bad China' narratives:

If only Newsweek is doing this, then it is an isolated case, indicating the media outlet's problematic professional ethics and the negative impact it caused is not significant. However, starting from March or April this year, not only Newsweek but also other US and Western media outlets have been selectively using some specific data from a certain point or in a certain field to generalize, and even fabricate information to undermine, the Chinese economy. This is a coordinated and large-scale campaign, with consistent steps, intense actions, and extensive content, which is rare in recent years. Can we say that this is a coincidence?

The 'bad China' narrative is an economic phenomenon but is used for political reasons:

In the field of economics, there is a term called narrative economics, which uses storytelling to influence judgments, even at the cost of creating false information, to undermine the morale and confidence of the target and attempt to deter foreign investment, thereby having a substantial impact on the economy. The US has openly regarded China as its biggest competitor and even treats China as an imaginary enemy in many practical aspects. We cannot expect it to engage in fair competition with China. In order to win this "competition" initiated by itself, the US often resorts to any possible means. This perspective can explain the phenomenon in which the US is badmouthing the Chinese economy in a collective manner and can also roughly predict the US' future actions toward China, indicating that it aligns with the basic facts.

The problem the Gloom and Doom in China narratives have is that they are propaganda. Propaganda does not change reality. It falls apart when confronted with facts.

War propaganda falls apart when a war is lost. Economic propaganda falls apart when the new numbers come in. Krugman's doom and gloom propaganda from 2013 was defeated by China's growth. His 2023 propaganda is likely to have the same fate.

Posted by b on September 12, 2023 at 16:39 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/k ... .html#more

Judging a planned economy by capitalist standards is sure to fail.I remember back in '08 when Krugman presented as a Keynesian but such a cowardly one as to make no difference. Even a candyass like Maynard would kick his ass. But now not even that as he has tied his ass and rep to the Dems who have completely abandoned the New Deal but for rhetorical purposes.

It comes down to priorities and B's analysis is incomplete cause he's not a Marxist.

*******

The South China Sea’s Resource Wars
Posted on September 13, 2023 by Yves Smith

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Yves here. Natural gas and oil reserves have long been a source of conflict. The early 1990s Desert Storm operation was triggered by Saddam Hussein attacking Kuwait for taking what Iraq (apparently correctly) thought was more than its fair share of an oil field that straddled borders. None other than the Economist reported years later that Hussein had gone to the US to make sure they would not object to his incursion, and got a go ahead. Readers no doubt can easily add to this list. And as this article explains, the South China Sea has even more goodies.

By Joshua Frank. Originally published at TomDipatch


It’s an ocean of conflict and ecological decline. Despite its vast size — 1.3 million square miles — the South China Sea has become a microcosm of the geopolitical tensions between East and West, where territorial struggles over abundant natural resources may one day lead to environmental collapse.

While the threat of a devastating military conflict between China and the United States in the region still looms, the South China Sea has already experienced irreparable damage. Decades of over-harvesting have, for instance, had a disastrous impact on that sea’s once-flourishing fish. The tuna, mackerel, and shark populations have fallen to 50% of their 1960s levels. Biologically critical coral reef atolls, struggling to survive rising ocean temperatures, are also being buried under sand and silt as the Chinese military lays claim to and builds on the disputed Spratly Islands, an archipelago of 14 small isles and 113 reefs in that sea. Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam have also laid claim to many of the same islands.

Perhaps no one should be surprised since oil and gas deposits are plentiful in the South China Sea. The U.S. government estimates that 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are ready to be extracted from its floor. Such fossil-fuel reserves, some believe, are helping to — yes, how can anyone not use the word? — fuel the turmoil increasingly engulfing the region.

This year, the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative reported that several countries are pursuing new oil and gas development projects in those contested waters, which, the organization notes, could become a “flashpoint in the disputes.” Between 2018 and 2021, there were numerous standoffs between China, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries over drilling operations there, and fears are building that even more severe confrontations lie ahead.

The United States, of course, lays the blame for all of this on China, claiming its aggressive island-reclamation projects violate international law and “militarize an already tense and contested area.” Yet the U.S. is also playing a significant part in raising tensions in the region by agreeing to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines as part of its Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) security pact. The goal, no doubt, is to restrain Chinese activity with the threat of Western military might. “Next steps could include basing U.S. nuclear-capable platforms — such as strategic bombers — in Australia as well as cooperation on hypersonic missiles, cyber operations, [and] quantum computing,” writes Derek Grossman for the Rand Corporation, the “paramilitary academy” of American defense policy. (And, in fact, the U.S. is evidently preparing to deploy the first nuclear-capable B-52s to that country soon.)

On August 25th, in partnership with Australia and the Philippines (where Washington is getting ready to occupy bases ever closer to China), U.S. Marines practiced retaking an “island” supposedly captured by hostile forces. In that exercise,1,760 Australian and Filipino soldiers and 120 U.S. Marines conducted mock beach landings and air assault maneuvers in Rizal, a small town in western Palawan province in the Philippines, which does indeed face the South China Sea.

“A whole lot of damage can be done to Australia before any potential adversary sets foot on our shores and maintaining the rules-based order in Southeast Asia, maintaining the collective security of Southeast Asia, is fundamental to maintaining the national security of our country,” said Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles of the joint military drills.

Like AUKUS itself, those war games were intended to send a message: China beware. The resources of the South China Sea aren’t for the taking.

But here’s a question to consider: Is all this international saber-rattling only about fossil fuels? Trade routes through the area are also vital to the Chinese economy, while its fisheries account for 15% of the reported global wild fish catch. Yet neither its well-used shipping routes, necessary as they are to the flow of goods globally, nor those fisheries fully explain the ever-heightening controversy over the region. Having exploited that sea’s wild fisheries for decades, China is now becoming a global leader in fish farming, which already accounts for 72% of the country’s domestic fish production, It’s also increasingly true that fossil fuels have a distinct shelf life. But is it possible that another set of natural resources, arguably more crucial to the economic future of the global superpowers, could be adding to the growing territorial furor over who possesses the goods in the South China Sea?

Mining the Deep Blue Sea

You could call it a race to the bottom, with China leading the charge. In December 2022, that country unveiled its Ocean Drilling Ship, a deep sea mining (DSM) vessel the size of a battle cruiser set to be operational by 2024. Instead of weaponry, however, the ship is equipped with advanced excavation equipment capable of drilling at depths of 32,000 feet. On land, the Chinese already hold a virtual monopoly on metals considered vital to “green” energy development, including cobalt, copper, and lithium. Currently, the Chinese control 60% of the world’s supply of such “green” metals and are now eyeing the abundant resources that exist beneath the ocean’s floor as well. By some estimates, that seabed may contain 1,000 times more rare earth elements than those below dry ground.

It’s difficult to believe that devastating the ocean’s depths in search of minerals for electric batteries and other technologies could offer a sustainable way to fend off climate change. In the process, after all, such undersea mining is likely to have a catastrophic impact, including destroying biodiversity. Right now, it’s impossible to gauge just what sort of damage will be inflicted by such operations, since deep-sea mining is exempt from environmental impact assessments. (How convenient for those who will argue about how crucial they will be to producing a greener, more sustainable future.)

The U.N.’s High Seas Treaty, ratified in March 2023, failed to include environmental rules regulating such practices after China blocked any discussion of a possible moratorium on seabed harvesting. As of 2022, China holds five exploration contracts issued by the U.N.’s International Seabed Authority (ISA), allowing the Chinese to conduct tests and sample contents on the ocean floor. While that U.N. body can divvy up such contracts, they have no power to regulate the industry itself, nor the personnel to do so. This has scientists worried that unfettered deep-sea mining could cause irreparable damage, including killing sea creatures and destroying delicate habitats.


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“We’ve only scratched the surface of understanding the deep ocean,” said Dr. Andrew Chin, a scientific adviser to the Australian-based Save Our Seas Foundation.

“Science is just starting to appreciate that the deep sea is not an empty void but is brimming with wonderful and unique life forms. Deep sea ecosystems form an interconnected realm with mid and surface waters through the movement of species, energy flows, and currents. Not only will the nodule mining result in the loss of these species and damage deep sea beds for thousands of years, it will potentially result in negative consequences for the rest of the ocean and the people who depend on its health.”

Others are concerned that the ISA, even if it had the authority to regulate the budding industry, wouldn’t do it all that well. “Not only does the ISA favor the interests of mining companies over the advice of scientists, but its processes for EIA [environmental impact assessment] approvals are questionable,” says Dr. Helen Rosenbaum of the Deep-Sea Mining Campaign.

This brings us back to the South China Sea, which, according to Chinese researchers, holds large reserves of “strategically important” precious metals. China has already been fervently scouting for deposits of the polymetallic nodules that hold a number of metals used in virtually all green technologies.

“Learning the distribution of polymetallic nodules will help us to choose a site for experimenting with collection, which is one of the main goals of the mission,” said Wu Changbin, general commander of the Jiaolong, a submarine that discovered just such polymetallic nodules in the South China Sea.

Unsurprisingly, the U.S., lagging behind China in acquiring minerals for green technologies, has been keeping close tabs on the competition. In 2017, a Navy P3-Orion spy plane conducted repeated flyovers of a Chinese research vessel near the island of Guam. Scientists on the ship were allegedly mapping the area and planting monitoring devices for future deep-sea exploration.

The story is much the same in the South China Sea, where the U.S. has conducted numerous surveillance operations to follow Chinese activities there. In May, an Air Force RC-135 surveillance plane was intercepted by a Chinese J-16 jet fighter, causing an international uproar. Without providing any justification for why a U.S. spy plane was there in the first place, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken quickly pointed the finger at China’s recklessness. “[The] Chinese pilot took dangerous action in approaching the plane very, very closely,” claimed Blinken. “There have been a series of these actions directed not just at us, but in other countries in recent months.”

While these quarrels no doubt have much to do with control over fossil fuels, oil, and natural gas aren’t the only resources in the region that are vital to the forthcoming exploits of both countries.

Capitalism and the Climate

Across the globe, oil and coal are increasingly becoming things of the past. A report released in June 2023 by the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggested that renewables were “set to soar by 107 gigawatts (GW), the largest absolute increase ever, to more than 440 GW in 2023.” The natural resources supplying this global surge in renewables, like copper and lithium, are becoming the popular new version of fossil fuels. Markets are favoring the phase-out of climate-warming energy sources, which is why China and the United States are forging ahead with mining critical minerals for renewables — not because they care about the future of the planet but because green energy is becoming profitable.

China’s foray into the global capitalist system and the ruins left in its wake are easy enough to track. In the late 1970s, China’s leaders liberalized the country’s markets and opened the floodgates on foreign investment, making it — at an average clip of 9.5% per year — one of the fastest-growing economies ever. The World Bank described China’s financial boom as “the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history.” It’s no surprise, then, that energy consumption exploded along with its economic gains.

Like many of its global competitors, China’s economy still relies heavily on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, especially coal, but an ever-growing portion of its energy portfolio is made up of renewable energy. Steel-making and vehicle manufacturing now account for 66% of China’s energy use, transportation 9%, and residential use 13%. And while coal is still fueling that economic engine in a major way — China uses more coal than the rest of the world combined — the country has also become a (if not the) world leader in renewables, investing an estimated $545 billion in new technologies in 2022 alone.

While China uses more energy than any other country, Americans consume significantly more than two times that of the Chinese on an individual basis (73,677 kilowatts versus 28,072 as of 2023). And while the U.S. uses more energy per person, it also gets less of its energy from renewables.

As of 2022, the U.S. government estimated that only 13.1% of the country’s primary energy was produced through renewable sources. Even so, the energy transition in the U.S. is happening and, while natural gas has largely replaced coal, renewables are making considerable inroads. In fact, the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden in early 2022, earmarked $430 billion in government investment and tax credits for green-energy development.

The World Economic Forum estimates that three billion tons of metals and fine minerals will be needed for the world’s energy transition if we are to reach zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 — and that number will undoubtedly only grow in the decades ahead. Of course, investors love to cash in and the forthcoming explosion in the mining of green metals on land and in the world’s waters will surely be a windfall for Wall Street and its equivalents globally. BloombergNEF (BNEF), which covers global markets, claims that the demand for key metals and minerals for the energy transition will grow at least fivefold over the next 30 years, which represents something like a $10 trillion opportunity. At stake is the mining of critical minerals like lithium and traditional metals like copper, which will be used in power generation, electrical grids, energy storage, and transportation.

“[T]he energy transition could lead to a super-cycle for the metals and mining industry,” says Yuchen Huo, a mining analyst for BNEF. “This cycle will be driven by massive expansions in clean energy technologies, which would spur demand growth for both critical minerals and traditional metals.”

It should be no surprise, then, that countries like China and the United States are likely to battle (perhaps all too literally) over access to the finite natural resources vital to the world’s energy transition. Capitalism depends on it. From Africa to the South China Sea, nations are scouring the globe for new, profitable energy ventures. In the Pacific Ocean, which covers 30% of the Earth’s surface, the hunt for polymetallic nodules is prompting island governments to open their waters to excavation in a significant way. The Cook Islands has typically issued licenses to explore its nearby ocean’s depths. Kiribati, Nauru, and Tonga have funded missions to investigate deposits in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a 1.7 million square mile area stretching between the island of Kiribati and Mexico.

“This [deep sea] exploration frenzy is occurring in the absence of regulatory regimes or conservation areas to protect the unique and little-known ecosystems of the deep sea,” contends Dr. Rosenbaum of the Deep-Sea Mining Campaign. “The health and environmental impacts of deep-sea mining will be widespread… The sea is a dynamic and interconnected environment. The impacts of even a single mine will not be contained to the deep sea.”

According to those who want to mine our way out of the climate crisis, such highly sought-after metals and minerals will remain crucial to weaning the world off dirty fossil fuels. Yet, count on one thing: they will come at a grave cost — not only geopolitically but environmentally, too — and perhaps nowhere will such impacts be felt more devastatingly than in the world’s fragile seas, including the South China Sea where major armed powers are already facing off in an unnerving fashion, with the toll on both those waters and the rest of us still to be discovered.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/09 ... -wars.html

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The success of Chinese socialism

In the following article, originally published in the Young Communist League of Britain’s Challenge magazine, Kate Woolford and Rares Cocilnau debunk some of the most persistent myths surrounding China’s development.

The first misconception discussed is that China is an undemocratic, “authoritarian” state. The authors point to China’s system of whole-process people’s democracy, “which allows citizens to participate in the political process at all levels through a system of people’s congresses, not merely by voting in the occasional election as we do in the West.” The mechanisms of this socialist democracy include Local People’s Congresses – which “exist at all levels, ranging from village to provincial” – as well as the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. (On this question, readers may also appreciate Roland Boer’s article We need to talk more about China’s socialist democracy).

Regarding China’s foreign policy, Kate and Rares contrast the hysterical claims in the Western media about an “aggressive” and “expansionist” strategy with the reality of China’s longstanding commitment to peaceful coexistence and non-interference in the affairs of other countries. They note that China’s engagement with Africa has been transformative in helping that continent – so long held in underdevelopment by the colonial and neocolonial powers – to develop and modernise:

In Africa, China has funded vital infrastructure projects considered too unprofitable by Western capitalists; contributed emergency food assistance to Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea; provided 189 million doses of vaccines to 27 countries; and waived 23 interest-free loans for 17 nations. China actively contributes to the common prosperity of developing nations through win-win investments in infrastructure projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative, with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations joining it in the 10 years since it was launched.

Further, they compare China’s one overseas military base in Djibouti (which exists primarily to safeguard trade routes against piracy) with the US’s 750 overseas military bases across more than 80 countries, and Britain’s 145 bases across 42 countries.

Lastly, the authors assess the claim that China’s economy runs along capitalist lines. They note that China’s economy is dominated by state-owned enterprises, the combined assets of which constitute nearly 70 percent of GDP, asserting that “it is indisputable that the state-owned sector occupies the leading role within the economy.” They also point to public ownership of land, and to the prominent role of economic planning, with the state setting the direction of the economy and the private sector playing a subordinate role. The article makes the important point that the “approach of enabling a private economy to exist under the leadership of a state-owned economy” is not an innovation of the 1978 reforms but has its origins in the New Democracy period of the early 1950s.

The authors conclude:

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics represents a creative interpretation of Marxism applied to China’s unique material conditions, rather than an abandonment of its principles. This doesn’t mean to say that contradictions between the state-owned sector and private-owned sector have ceased to exist in China, nor that further challenges will not arise. It does however mean that the CPC, armed with the science of Marxism, can confront these challenges and overcome them.

After a century of aggression and humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, China was one of the poorest countries in the world. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the conditions and living standards of the Chinese people improved at a radical pace. Inheriting a backward, semi-feudal economy of virtually no industry, the Communist Party of China (CPC) solved the titanic problems of feeding and employing the population, stabilising commodity prices, and unifying financial and productive work– in summary, performing centuries of economic development in mere decades.

During this period, life expectancy rose by 31 years, the fastest-ever increase in a major country in human history; the average calorific intake doubled; annual income quintupled, going from 60 billion yuan to 300 billion yuan. The economy grew by 64 percent each decade, surpassing even the economic growth of the Soviet Union, which lagged behind at 54 percent. Despite this massive progress since 1949, China still faced large levels of poverty in the 1970s. Industrial expansion was waning, and these economic setbacks were further exacerbated by the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.

The CPC determined that, in order to develop productive forces and tackle poverty, they would need to forge their own path rather than continuing to emulate the Soviet model. From 1978, they permitted the re-emergence of a small private sector and opened up to foreign investments. After these changes, China transformed from a low-income to an upper-middle income country, and since 1981, has seen 800 million people lifted out of internationally defined poverty within its borders, accounting for 75 percent of the reduction in global poverty during this period.

In the face of these staggering achievements, cynics from both the left and the right continue to misrepresent and condemn modern-day China. The purpose of this article is to address some of the major accusations, namely that China is undemocratic; an international aggressor; and, since the reforms, has ceased to be socialist.

Chinese Democracy
A common misconception amongst Western academics is the idea that China has no form of democracy. According to Stein Ringen’s book The Perfect Dictatorship: “The present Chinese regime is less strong, more dictatorial, and more of its own kind than the world has mostly wanted to believe”. He alleges that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has “scaled back collective leadership for a new kind of one-person rule, complete with a touch of person cult around the supreme leader.”

While Ringen is correct to call China a “dictatorship”, he is incorrect in the sense that the word is traditionally understood in the West, that is, the absolute rule of one person or a small group. The Chinese state is what Marxists refer to as a dictatorship of the proletariat: a democracy for the workers, who impose a dictatorship over the now-dispossessed exploiters. As Xi Jinping himself explains: “Whether a country is a democracy or not depends on whether its people are really the masters of the country.”

China fulfils this criterion through a Whole-Process People’s Democracy, which allows citizens to participate in the political process at all levels through a system of people’s congresses, not merely by voting in the occasional election as we do in the West. Local People’s Congresses (LPCs) exist at all levels, ranging from village to provincial, and serve as the regional organs of state power.

Made up of 2.6 million deputies representing all regions, ethnicities, and social groups, these LPCs ensure the enforcement of the Constitution, laws, and administrative regulations. They also have the authority to adopt resolutions and decide local economic, cultural, and public service development plans and budgets. The LPCs reserve the right to elect and remove governors, mayors, deputy heads, municipal district heads, alongside many other important government positions. The LPCs of ethnic autonomous areas also have the authority to formulate region-specific regulations that align with the political, economic and cultural characteristics of the ethnic groups in their area.

China’s highest governing congress is the National People’s Congress (NPC), made up of some 3,000 deputies drawn in from all backgrounds, with frontline workers and farmers accounting for 15.7% of the total, and all 56 ethnic groups represented. The primary functions of the NPC are to amend the constitution and oversee its implementation; enact and revise basic laws; appoint and remove senior officials, including the president and vice president.

Whilst the NPC serves as the decision-making body for China’s national and social development, it is not divorced from the concerns of the ordinary Chinese people. In fact, the NPC maintains a network of outreach offices operating throughout the country, ensuring the line of contact with the people is sustained at all times. As of June 2021, outreach offices have conveyed nearly 6,600 pieces of advice on 109 draft laws and legislative plans, many of which were accepted. For example, in 2015, the outreach office in Hongqiao, Shanghai received a proposal regarding the draft Anti-Domestic Violence Law, calling for community-level organizations to be able to apply for personal safety protection orders. This proposal was then accepted and became enshrined into law.

The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is another important democratic channel, comprised of representatives from all eight democratic parties, all ethnic groups and regions, including overseas Chinese, as well as a range of people’s organisations and specially invited individuals. Through the means of CPPCC consultations, opinions on major state policies and decisions are received from people from every walk of life, enabling the various perspectives of social groups and minorities to be accounted for within state policy.

Centralisation of government in the policy-making sphere is counterbalanced by decentralisation in the work of Party cadres, which are appointed to all geographical areas and tasked with soliciting and fulfilling people’s needs. The cadres report their findings to the Party, allowing centrally determined decisions and economic plans to be consistent with the needs of society.

The NPC Outreach Offices, the CPPCC and the Party Cadres serve as communication networks linking the masses with the CPC, allowing the state to fully represent the will of the people on a national level. Simultaneously, at a regional level, the People’s Congresses uphold the practise of grassroots decision making. Clearly, claims that the Chinese system is undemocratic, or even more nonsensical, a “one-person rule”, are fundamentally incorrect.

Chinese Foreign Policy
The European People’s Party Group, the largest political group in the European Parliament, asperse that: “Beijing behaves as a global free rider, pursuing an aggressive and even hostile competition policy that ignores international rules and ruthlessly pursues its interests… [China is] threatening not only its neighbours and the rule-based global order but also our European interests and allies.” This rhetoric is commonly used to rally public opinion in favour of an aggressive European foreign policy against China.

To truly comprehend China’s foreign policy, it is necessary to grasp the concept of The Shared Future of Humanity, which takes its roots in the Marxist theory of the socialisation of labour. Numerous studies have confirmed that the production of intermediate goods, termed as “circulating capital” by Marx, is the primary factor contributing to increased productivity. Intermediate goods are produced due to a division of labour, that is, when multiple producers contribute to a final product. Thus, when labour is highly socialised, it is also highly productive.

Following this logic, a greater international socialisation of labour or, in other words – globalisation, serves to increase productivity and improve living standards for the international community as a whole. Therefore, differences between nations are not a disadvantage, as labour is more productive when it is divided, and subsequently when it is different. (For more information on this subject, see Section Four of John Ross’ book, China’s Great Road.)

Taking the vision of the Shared Future for Humanity as its guiding principle, the CPC seeks to build an international community based on greater cooperation between nations, and where differences are celebrated and used to the advantage of the international community, rather than vilified. Since 1953, Chinese foreign policy has been underpinned by Zhou Enlai’s five principles of peaceful coexistence, which are enshrined into the constitution: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. In accordance with these principles, China has peacefully settled land boundary issues with 12 of its 14 neighbours, and established a Code of Conduct to diplomatically address disputes in the South China sea between members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

In Africa, China has funded vital infrastructure projects considered too unprofitable by Western capitalists; contributed emergency food assistance to Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea; provided 189 million doses of vaccines to 27 countries; and waived 23 interest-free loans for 17 nations. China actively contributes to the common prosperity of developing nations through win-win investments in infrastructure projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative, with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations joining it in the 10 years since it was launched.

These policies stand in stark contrast to institutions like the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, which use predatory lending practices to impose US economic interests on emerging economies, keeping them indebted and demanding the adoption of neoliberal austerity as a condition for loans.

So, if China is not imposing herself on other nations through economic domination, but rather championing economic cooperation, perhaps the EPP Group are alluding to a a serious military threat that China represents? Whilst it is true that China maintains one oversees military base in Djibouti, primarily to safeguard trade routes against piracy, the US has 750 overseas military bases across more than 80 countries, whilst Britain has 145 across 42 countries. The US and Britain continue to build up their military encirclement of China, with the US maintaining 313 military bases in East Asia alone, and Britain maintaining bases in Singapore, Brunei, Australia, Nepal and Afghanistan.

Additionally, whilst China favours diplomatic discussions over military confrontation when addressing disputes and concerns, the West addresses disagreements through destructive and deadly military interventions, often on the false pretence of “human rights abuses”. Even today, no senior US officials have been held accountable for crimes against humanity in Iraq including the unlawful detention, torture and indiscriminate killing of civilians. Clearly, the accusation that China is an international aggressor, made by Western officials and political groups, exposes a glaring hypocrisy.

Has China turned away from socialism?
Since Reform and Opening Up, the socialist nature of China’s economy has been questioned, with many anti-socialist pundits wrongfully attributing its success to capitalism, distorting the structure and essence of China’s Political Economy. This was expressed back in 1999 by the Japan Research Institute: “If we accept the view that the state-owned enterprises are the cornerstone of the socialist economy, then we can conclude that contemporary China has already lost its socialist mainstay”, pointing to the reduction in the market-share of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) since the period of reform and opening up to indicate this point. This argument was reiterated in a more recent Forbes article: “China’s success provides clear evidence of the power of capitalism”.

The fact remains that SOEs have not ‘melted away’ but remain a cornerstone of the Chinese economy. As of 2021, SOEs and their combined assets constituted nearly 70 percent of China’s GDP– a hardly insignificant percentage. It is indisputable that the state-owned sector occupies the leading role within the economy.

In early-20th-century China, the national bourgeoisie not only played a crucial role in the movement against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism but also became actively involved in the economic reconstruction of China. In 1949, the policy was adopted to encourage and assist “the active operation of all private economic enterprises beneficial to the national welfare and the people’s livelihood and shall assist in their development.” At the same time, the state-owned economy retained the leading role, making it impossible for the national bourgeoisie to lead China towards capitalism. This approach was taken in respect to Mao Zedong’s distinction between the expropriation of the bourgeoisie’s economic capital and political capital. The latter should be carried out to the end, while the former, if not contained within clear limits, risks undermining the development of the productive forces. If the bourgeoisie’s economic capital can serve the development of the economy, and thus the cause of socialism, its total expropriation is unnecessary. Evidently, the approach of enabling a private economy to exist under the leadership of a state-owned economy was not exclusive to the Deng era, but in fact took its roots in Mao Zedong Thought.

The leading role of SOEs in China’s economy has far-reaching effects. The CPC can regulate investment levels; allowing for much needed investments during economic slumps, and into projects rejected as unprofitable by private enterprises, such as infrastructure, public facilities, and the riskier spheres of scientific and technological innovation. The CPC also has greater influence over micro-economics, i.e., the activities of individuals and firms, than Western capitalist nations. The state-owned sector is empowered to influence the activities of enterprises operating under different ownership structures, typically collective, cooperative, or mixed. Additionally, in order to guide the activities of the private sector, the CPC maintains an active presence of party cells within private businesses. A survey conducted by the Central Organisation Department found that 68% of private businesses had party cells by 2016, and 70% of foreign enterprises. Those that fail to adhere to CPC guidelines risk being shut down completely and absorbed by the party. On the other hand, preferential treatment is shown to businesses that contribute to the goal of building common prosperity, such as tax reductions for those prepared to take on more innovative projects. The CPC also imposes penalties on individual billionaires who violate regulations relating to foreign investment and shareholding, borrowing of public funds, concealment of personal shareholding, and buying and selling stocks.

Unlike free-market capitalist economies, China’s economic development adheres to medium and long-term economic plans, which are determined based on socio-economic tends and projections of the performance of the economy as a whole. One such example is the Five-Year plans, the blueprint of China’s economic development, which currently champions urbanisation and rural revitalisation.

China’s banking system is another important sphere of state regulation, with the CPC taking measures to prevent any possible manipulation in favour of individuals or interest groups. As a result, the substantial growth in China’s national wealth over the past few decades serves to enrich society, rather than a few rich individuals.

Additionally, land in China is publicly owned. In urban areas, land is owned directly by the state, and is possible to lease for a certain period, but only following approval from the CPC and with additional government stipulations. In rural areas, land is owned by collectives and limited to agricultural use.

The difference between socialist market-economies and free-market economies becomes abundantly clear when contrasting China to India, both nations of comparable development and population. Since 1978, China has sustained an average growth rate double that of India, and has successfully lifted its people out of poverty, while the majority of Indians remain in absolute poverty.

Evidently, China has not “lost its socialist mainstay” as critics claim, as SOEs continue to play the leading role within the economy, directing development towards the realisation of socialism, and private capital remains subordinated to the CPC.

The Theoretical Basis of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
Even among the left, some put forward the belief that ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ has abandoned the core principles of Marxism, pointing to the CPC’s acceptance of private enterprises and markets as evidence of this point.

In the words of Jiang Zemin: “[Socialism with Chinese Characteristics] is the product of the integration of the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism with the reality of present-day China and the special features of our times, a continuation and development of Mao Zedong Thought, a crystallization of the collective wisdom of the entire Party membership and the whole Chinese people, and an intellectual treasure belonging to them all.”

As the period of transition between ‘dying capitalism’ and ‘nascent Communism’, the form Socialism takes will differ based on the peculiarities of every nation and its material conditions. Taking a dialectical approach, Marx and Engels rejected rigid and immutable definitions of Socialism, with Engels writing: “like all other social formations, [Socialism] should be conceived in a state of constant flux and change.” In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels elaborate that the development of socialism depends “everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing.” In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx outlined communism as a process divided into two distinct stages. The lower stage would retain some of the “birthmarks” of capitalism, while the higher stage represented a fully developed communist society.

Clearly, Marx did not believe that higher stages of development could be achieved by bypassing or rushing through lower stages. Based on this understanding, Chinese economists have also envisioned socialism as a multi-stage process, with China situated in the primary, underdeveloped, stage of socialism. As a result, emphasis has been placed on the urgent tasks of developing the productive forces and improving the living standards of the most impoverished members of society.

Again in The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels argue: “The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.” As John Ross clarifies in his book China’s Great Road, the use of the term “by degree” indicates that Marx and Engels envisioned the transition to communism to be a prolonged period in which state-owned and private property would co-exist, just like China’s economy. Engels reaffirmed this in 1890, that the gradual building of a socialist society seemed to him “quite feasible”. Lenin echoed this point in 1918, critiquing dogmatic conceptions of Socialism, he stated that: “the transition from capitalism to communism takes an entire historical epoch.” Clearly, the idea that Socialism can be constructed in one-stroke deviates from the writings of Marx and Engels and not vice-versa.

According to Marx, distribution within a socialist society operates on the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his work” and within a communist society on the principle of “for each according to his ability to each according to his needs”. In China, distribution predominantly corresponds to the quality and quantity of someone’s work, particularly for those employed within the state-owned sector. The constitution of China affirms that: “the State upholds the basic economic system in which the public ownership is dominant and diverse forms of ownership develop side by side and keeps to the distribution system in which distribution according to work is dominant and diverse modes of distribution coexist.”

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics represents a creative interpretation of Marxism applied to China’s unique material conditions, rather than an abandonment of its principles. This doesn’t mean to say that contradictions between the state-owned sector and private-owned sector have ceased to exist in China, nor that further challenges will not arise. It does however mean that the CPC, armed with the science of Marxism, can confront these challenges and overcome them.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/09/20/t ... socialism/



Xi Jinping: China’s modernisation is socialist modernisation

The following is an excerpt from a speech given by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), at a study session for new members of the Central Committee and some other leading party members on February 7, 2023. It originally appeared in the Chinese language edition and subsequently the English language edition of Qiushi, the main theoretical journal of the CPC Central Committee.

In the speech, Xi Jinping clarifies that China’s modernisation is socialist modernisation led by the CPC. He notes that: “The report to the 20th CPC National Congress held in October 2022 pointed out that Chinese modernisation is socialist modernisation pursued under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. This is an overarching and fundamental definition of Chinese modernisation.”

He explains that the nature, purpose, founding mission, convictions, policies, and principles of the party determine that Chinese modernisation is socialist modernisation, and not modernisation in any other form, adding:

“With Marxism as its fundamental guide, our Party has deepened its understanding of the laws that underlie governance by a communist party, the development of socialism and the evolution of human society, opening up a new frontier in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of our times.”

Stressing the absolute necessity of party leadership in the process and course of modernisation, Xi says that: “Without it, Chinese modernisation will veer off course, lose its soul, or even bring about catastrophic mistakes.” The party has ” integrated high ideals with phased targets, which once set, it has tenaciously pursued with relentless hard work and dedication. After the launch of reform and opening up in 1978, we advanced gradually and consistently toward our goals for building a modern socialist country.”

In a comment strikingly similar to one he made recently to visiting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Xi says that: “Reform and opening up has been a crucial move in making China what it is today.”

The report to the 20th CPC National Congress held in October 2022 pointed out that Chinese modernization is socialist modernization pursued under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. This is an overarching and fundamental definition of Chinese modernization. Why is it important to emphasize the leading role of the Party in Chinese modernization? It is because Party leadership has a direct bearing on the fundamental orientation, future, and ultimate success of Chinese modernization.

Party leadership determines the fundamental nature of Chinese modernization. The nature, purpose, founding mission, convictions, policies, and principles of our Party determine that Chinese modernization is socialist modernization, and not modernization in any other form. Under socialism with Chinese characteristics, our Party has upheld the basic tenets of scientific socialism while also endowing it with distinctive Chinese characteristics and contemporary features. Our Party has firmly followed the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics to ensure that Chinese modernization is advanced along the right track. With Marxism as its fundamental guide, our Party has deepened its understanding of the laws that underlie governance by a communist party, the development of socialism and the evolution of human society, opening up a new frontier in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of our times and providing sound guidance for Chinese modernization. Our Party has upheld and improved the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, further modernized the system and capacity for governance, and formed a set of institutions that includes the fundamental, basic, and important systems for socialism with Chinese characteristics, thereby providing strong institutional guarantee for the steady progress of Chinese modernization. Our Party has also upheld and developed a socialist culture with Chinese characteristics to ignite the cultural creativity of the entire nation, thus providing a powerful source of inspiration for Chinese modernization. It is fair to say that only by firmly upholding Party leadership can we create a bright and prosperous future for Chinese modernization. Without it, Chinese modernization will veer off course, lose its soul, or even bring about catastrophic mistakes.

Party leadership ensures that Chinese modernization advances steadily in line with set goals. Our Party has stayed true to its founding mission of seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation, and integrated high ideals with phased targets, which once set, it has tenaciously pursued with relentless hard work and dedication. After the launch of reform and opening up in 1978, we advanced gradually and consistently toward our goals for building a modern socialist country and enriched and refined these goals in line with the evolution of our practices. Based on a review of our practical accomplishments and experiences in reform and opening up and in the new era, we clearly defined goals and requirements for China’s development to be met by 2035 and drew up a grand blueprint for building a great modern socialist country and advancing national rejuvenation at our Party’s 20th National Congress. From this historical process, it is clear that building a modern socialist country has been a consistent goal of our Party and has been pushed forward by one generation after another, bringing about remarkable achievements that have entered the annals of history.

Party leadership unlocks powerful momentum for advancing Chinese modernization. Reform and opening up has been a crucial move in making China what it is today. It is also integral to the success of Chinese modernization. Since the launch of reform and opening up, our Party has, with timely actions, steadily transformed those aspects in the relations of production that were out of sync with the productive forces and those aspects of the superstructure that were incompatible with the economic base. It has advanced institutional reform across the board and established and developed robust institutions and mechanisms suited to the conditions of contemporary China. This has unleashed all the vitality of labor, knowledge, technology, management, and capital and enabled all sources of social wealth to flow freely. Since the 18th CPC National Congress held in 2012, our Party has comprehensively deepened reform with tremendous political courage. We have adopted a problem-oriented approach and dared to brave uncharted waters, tackle tough problems, navigate potential dangers, and face new issues and challenges. We have broken the shackles of stale thinking, torn down barriers erected by vested interests, and removed institutional obstacles in all areas. Reform has been transformed from a limited set of explorations and breakthroughs in certain areas into an integrated drive being advanced across the board. This has seen us effecting historic, systemic, and holistic transformations in many fields and creating an inexhaustible source of momentum for Chinese modernization.

Party leadership brings together a mighty force for advancing Chinese modernization. Our Party is keenly aware that Chinese modernization is an undertaking of hundreds of millions of Chinese people and thus they are the main actors in this process. We must rely closely on our people, respect their creativity, and pool their wisdom and strength to move Chinese modernization forward. Upholding the Party’s mass line, we have focused on putting people first, responding to their concerns, reflecting their wishes, and improving their wellbeing when considering problems, making decisions, and getting things done, so as to ensure we win their wholehearted support for our Party’s theories, guidelines, principles, and policies. We have regarded the people’s aspiration for a better life as our goal, followed a people-centered development approach, worked hard to ensure and improve public wellbeing, and made every effort to resolve the pressing difficulties and problems that concern the people most, so that the gains of Chinese modernization benefit all our people fairly. Our Party has advanced whole-process people’s democracy, expanded democratic channels, diversified the forms of democracy, and encouraged people’s orderly participation in political affairs, so as to ensure that people participate in various ways in the management of state, economic, cultural, and social affairs in accordance with the law and invest great enthusiasm in modernization with the sense of being masters of this process. By encouraging and inspiring people with our vision of Chinese modernization, we have effectively promoted harmony between different political parties, ethnic groups, religions, social strata, and compatriots both at home and abroad, strengthened unity among all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation both in the country and overseas, and thus forged a mighty force for building a modern socialist country.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/09/19/x ... rnisation/

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CHINA AND ITS PLACE IN THE WORLD
Sep 21, 2023 , 10:16 am .


Chinese President Xi Jinping (Photo: Xinhua)

The People's Republic of China is currently the undisputed global leader in terms of industrial production and economic growth. Its system has held first place in terms of GDP in purchasing power parity since 2014, and is the second largest economy worldwide in terms of nominal GDP , after the United States. In 2022 this indicator reached 17.9 trillion US dollars, with a growth rate of 5.5%.

The country stands out in the extraction of coal, iron, manganese, lead, zinc and antimony, as well as in the timber industry. In addition, it is important to mention that considerable oil, gas and uranium exploitation is carried out in its territory. It has one third of the world's reserves of rare earth metals such as molybdenum, vanadium and antimony.

Likewise, it stands out as a leading manufacturer of labor-intensive and high-tech products, widely used in the construction industry. For example, Chinese companies generate more than half of the main aluminum, steel, cement, lead and zinc production worldwide.

In the 1980s, the Chinese government established several special economic zones with the aim of boosting foreign direct investment, which was directed to 14 coastal and port cities. This gave foreign investors the opportunity to enter China's vast domestic markets. In addition, economic sectors such as real estate, transportation, telecommunications and retail trade were opened.

For more than a decade, China has ranked first in the world in terms of manufacturing industry .

Over the past 50 years, hundreds of new industrial enterprises have been built in the country, mainly concentrated in eastern and coastal provinces such as Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Jiangxi.

In terms of exports, China also ranks first worldwide, an activity that represents 37% of its GDP. Its main exports include electrical and electronic equipment (27%), machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers (16%), furniture, illuminated signs, prefabricated buildings (4.1%), plastics (3.9%), toys (3% ), optical, photographic, technical and medical apparatus (2.9%), vehicles other than railway vehicles, trams (3.6%), iron and steel articles (2.8%). Thus, Beijing strengthens trade relations with various national economies, without neglecting cooperation with the main transnational companies.

In recent years, China has managed to significantly expand its presence in the technology, automotive and electronics market . In addition, the country is a manufacturer of various telecommunications equipment, computer and office equipment.

The quality of artifacts is growing. In the last decade, Chinese brands have placed great emphasis on quality: an example is the successful world-famous companies Xiaomi, Haier, Huawei or Lenovo. Its high-tech companies have surpassed Japanese companies in terms of global market share, and continue to close the gap with American corporations.

Rapid economic growth makes Beijing increasingly dependent on energy imports. This is a bilateral process, the result of which increasingly influences global energy markets, the policies of other countries, and global energy prices, thus stimulating production growth.

In the global economic sphere, the Asian country continues to develop its infrastructure and global trade ties. The Belt and Road Initiative continues to attract the attention and interest of several countries as China strengthens its role as a trading partner and investor. Countries in Asia, Africa and Europe are actively cooperating with the Asian country within the framework of this initiative, which contributes to strengthening China's economic position and developing trade flows.

KEY PLAYER IN THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA
In the 21st century, China has expanded its influence beyond its regional borders, which has affected the distribution of power in the world and has displaced hegemonic centers such as the United States and Western Europe in various areas of the globe. Over the last decade, the Asian country has gradually become one of the most important geopolitical and geoeconomic centers, and is recognized internationally for the impressive changes it has undertaken internally.

China has the ability to influence global processes significantly. It has achieved this with a foreign policy that is based on its national interests and the promotion of peaceful coexistence with other States. One of the key principles of its strategy is mutual respect for territorial integrity and national sovereignty; China defends its territory and independence, and expects respective treatment in deference from other countries.

Another important principle is non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. China promotes mutual non-aggression and equality and mutual benefit in its relations with other countries.

On the world stage, China firmly opposes colonialism, hegemony and imperialism, and seeks to strengthen the "shared destiny" for humanity by supporting developing countries and oppressed nations, on the peripheral, underdeveloped margin and dependent on the capitalist system. .

China's participation in international relations is increasingly relevant due to the country's growing economic and political power. In the area of ​​the multipolar order, China has promoted cooperation between developing countries and has been an important factor in the creation and development of organizations such as:

*Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Founded in 2001, the SCO is a political, economic and military organization that includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members. The SCO focuses on collaboration in areas such as regional security, trade and investment.

*Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Founded in 2015, the AIIB is a Chinese-led multilateral bank aimed at financing infrastructure projects in Asia and beyond. Despite initial opposition from the United States, many Western countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, have joined the bank.

*China-Africa Cooperation Forum (Focac). Founded in 2000, Focac is a forum that brings together Chinese and African leaders to discuss issues related to economic and social development. Since its creation, Focac has funded thousands of projects in Africa and helped improve relations between China and African countries.

As a founding member of the BRICS, China has played a nuclear role in the formation and consolidation of the platform. He has been an active advocate of the bloc's expansion, has sought to increase its power and influence on the world stage, and has sought to strengthen economic cooperation within the group.

His drive in the creation of the New Development Bank (NBD), also known as the Brics Bank, whose objective is to finance sustainable development and infrastructure projects in the member countries of the bloc and other emerging economies, and the creation of an Agreement of Contingent Reserve (ARC) in the BRICS to help mitigate financial crises and promote economic stability, are examples of this.

COOPERATION WITH THE GLOBAL SOUTH AND LATIN AMERICA
The world is experiencing changes on a scale not seen in the last century. Developing countries are becoming stronger. South-South cooperation plays an important role in stimulating the collective recovery of growing countries and sustaining the continued progress of the global economy. That was what Beijing expressed during its participation in the G77+China summit held recently in Havana, Cuba.

In that sense, China seeks to offer Latin American countries a mutually beneficial cooperation model by increasing investment in various industries, including high technology, and, most importantly, by offering powerful financial support.

China is not only carrying out bilateral dialogues with individual countries in Latin America, but is also willing to do so based on exchanges by regional blocs, for example through the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).

From the meeting in 2014, a cooperation plan was established between China and the Celac countries for the period 2015-2019. At the Second China-Celac Forum in 2018, Latin Caribbean countries were invited to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative. In the third forum in 2021, the "Joint Action Plan of China and Celac on Cooperation in Key Areas (2022-2024)" was signed, which establishes collaboration in nuclear technologies, 5G networks, space programs and construction of relevant infrastructures, in the Belt and Road framework.

Over the past ten years, the immersion of Latin American and Caribbean nations in a close economic relationship with Beijing has been evident , especially in the energy and transportation sectors. China has been positioning itself as a vitally important trade partner for the countries in the area. In 2021, Latin American exports to China reached approximately 222,582 million dollars, which represents an increase of 31.4% compared to the previous year. On the other hand, Chinese exports to Latin America were valued at 229,009 million dollars, an increase of 52% compared to the previous year.

Given these elements, our country's decision to strengthen ties with the Asian nation in the economic, commercial, financial, investment and infrastructure fields is strategically convenient for the entire republic and its society. The opportunities that China provides, both with its actions and due to the effect of these, will influence the construction of the new multipolar order.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/ch ... n-el-mundo

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Former Sri Lanka's diplomat: Chinese model breaks US hegemony
By Yao Yuxin | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-09-25 15:30

(Video at link.)

The reason why the United States sees China as an ever bigger threat is not just because of its status as the world's second-largest economy. It is primarily because China presents an alternative development model distinct from that advocated by the US and its western allies, Tamara Kunanayakam, former permanent representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office in Geneva, told China Daily.

The US has been promoting the neoliberal model to shift the decision-making power out of other countries into their hands, contributing to rising inequality and conflicts, which "is being now challenged and questioned all around", Kunanayakam said.

She said that numerous countries, including Sri Lanka, are exploring alternatives to the US-led model. They are intrigued by how China, despite being a developing nation, has successfully pursued its unique path, particularly in eradicating extreme poverty.

Unlike other countries that trigger confrontation and war, China prioritizes cooperation and sharing, which brings well-being to the people, the former representative said.

"It's an example of what can be done, and that is a threat to the US," she said.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... b7b29.html

[blindpig]

Capitalist and socialist modernisation

The Sixteenth Forum of the World Association for Political Economy (WAPE) took place from 25 to 27 September 2023 in Fuzhou, China, co-organised by Fujian Normal University. The theme of the forum was Chinese modernisaton and the prospects of world modernisation. Although unable to attend in person, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was invited to submit a video presentation.

Carlos’s presentation, entitled Capitalist and socialist modernisation, takes up a number of questions: What is modernisation? Is modernisation desirable? How has modernisation been achieved in the West? What is China’s modernisation plan? What are the unique characteristics of Chinese modernisation? How does socialist modernisation differ from capitalist modernisation? What effect does China’s modernisation on the global journey towards development and socialism?

The video and the text of Carlos’s presentation are available below.

What is modernisation, and is it necessary?
Modernisation is a somewhat nebulous concept. It means different things to different societies at different times. By definition, its parameters are constantly changing.

In the broadest sense, it means adapting to the latest, most advanced ideas and techniques for meeting humanity’s material and cultural needs.

In sociology, there is more or less an equals sign between modernisation and industrialisation, and is generally held to begin with Britain’s Industrial Revolution. We can think of it essentially as the transition from ‘developing country’ status to ‘developed country’ status; from a predominantly rural society to a predominantly urban society; from a technologically backward society to a technologically advanced society.

Is this desirable? Beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder, but most people consider modernisation to be desirable, because it enables higher living standards for the masses of the people.

With modernised industry, production techniques, communication methods, transport systems, energy systems and healthcare strategies, there exists the possibility of providing a healthy, meaningful and dignified life to all, such that each individual has reliable access to a healthy diet, to decent housing, to clothing, to education, to healthcare, to a vibrant cultural, social and intellectual life, and to fulfilling work. In short, modernisation makes it possible to attend to people’s basic human rights.

The fruits of modernisation have thus far been divided extremely unequally: the process of industrialisation in North America, Europe and Japan has created previously unimaginable wealth for a few, but this has been accompanied by desperate poverty and alienation for significant numbers. However, modernisation creates a material basis for common prosperity, far beyond what a pre-modern economy can offer.

Specifically in the case of China, the government has set a goal of “basically realising socialist modernisation by 2035”, and has defined some parameters for this:

*Reaching a per-capita GDP on a par with that of the mid-level developed countries such as Spain or the Czech Republic
*Joining the ranks of the world’s most innovative countries in the realm of science and technology
*Becoming a global leader in education, public health, culture and sport
*Substantially growing the middle-income group as a proportion of the population
*Guaranteeing equitable access to basic public services
*Ensuring modern standards of living in rural areas
*Steadily lowering greenhouse gas emissions and protecting biodiversity, so as to restore a healthy balance between humans and the natural environment

If achieved, these aims will constitute a significant – indeed world-historic – improvement in the living standards of the Chinese people, and will blaze a trail for other developing countries.

How did the West modernise?
But is China doing anything new? After all, it won’t be the first country to achieve modernisation.

In mainstream modernisation theory in the West, the dominant narrative is that the countries of Western Europe, North America and Japan achieved their advances via a combination of good governance, liberal democracy, free-market economics, scientific genius, geographical serendipity and a dash of entrepreneurial spirit.

Historical investigation reveals a considerably different story.

The most important precursors of the West’s modernisation are colonialism, slavery and genocide. The conquest of the Americas, the settlement of Australia, the transatlantic slave trade, the colonisation of India, the rape of Africa, the Opium Wars, the theft of Hong Kong, and more. The profits of colonialism and the slave trade were essential for propelling the West’s industrialisation, as was so eloquently uncovered in Eric Williams’ classic 1944 work, Capitalism and Slavery.

As Karl Marx famously wrote in Volume 1 of Capital: “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.”

Such is the ugly truth of European modernisation. And the story is not so different in the United States. Many of the so-called founding fathers of that country were slave-owners, and they established a slave-owners’ society. They went to war against the indigenous peoples and against Mexico in order to expand their territory.

In the 20th century, having established their domination over the Americas, they constructed a neocolonial global system that is still in place to a significant degree, imposing American hegemony on the world.

A network of 800 foreign military bases. NATO. An enormous nuclear arsenal. Genocidal wars waged on Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Systems of economic coercion and unilateral sanctions.

Proxy wars, coups, regime change projects, destabilisation.

This is the global system of violence that has facilitated and accompanied North American modernisation.

Japan’s rapid rise was facilitated first by its brutal expansionist project in East Asia, particularly Korea and China, and then through adaptation to and integration with the US-led imperialist system, the much-vaunted ‘rules-based international order’.

South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan Province constitute the small handful of non-imperialist territories that have been able to achieve modernisation, but these are special cases. Their shared proximity to China and the DPRK is no coincidence; they have been inducted into the imperialist club by the US, to play a dual role as regional policemen and living advertisements for capitalism on the frontline of its confrontation with socialism. Both roles rely on at least a certain degree of prosperity for a section of the population.

There is no shortage of countries of the Global South which have attempted to apply the “liberal democracy plus free market capitalism” formula, but none have been successful in modernising. Indeed the West’s prescriptions for (and interference in) developing countries have largely led to chaos and disaster.

The contrast between the West’s success in modernising and the Global South’s failure has fed into a largely unspoken but widespread and pernicious racism: an assumption that white people are somehow inherently more advanced than everyone else.

This supremacism is allowed to fester, because in addition to dividing working class and oppressed communities, it provides convenient cover for the reality that capitalist modernisation is built on the foundations of colonialism, imperialism and hegemonism.

As Kwame Nkrumah commented, “in the era of neocolonialism, under-development is still attributed not to exploitation but to inferiority, and racial undertones remain closely interwoven with the class struggle.”

How is China modernising?
China’s journey towards modernisation starts in 1949 with the founding of the People’s Republic, the early construction of socialist industry, land reform and the extirpation of feudalism and the landowning class, and the provision of at least basic levels of education and healthcare services to the whole population.

In 1963, Premier Zhou Enlai, supported by Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun, first raised the question of the Four Modernisations: of agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology. Despite a complex political environment this goal was revived in the early 1970s, and, with the launch of reform and opening up in 1978, China accelerated its pursuit of those goals, and ushered in an era of rapid development of the productive forces and improvement in the people’s living standards.

China’s journey of modernisation has evolved again in recent years with the pursuit of the second centenary goal: of building a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by 2049.

China is on a fast track to becoming an advanced, developed country, and this process stands in stark contrast to the West’s modernisation process:

First, China’s modernisation is built on the efforts of the Chinese people rather than on war, colonialism and slavery.

Second, its fruits are to be shared by everybody, not dominated by the wealthy. As General Secretary Xi Jinping said in his work report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China’s modernisation is “the modernisation of common prosperity for all.”

Even today, not everyone in the West is able to enjoy the fruits of modernisation. Consider for example the US, where tens of millions lack access to healthcare; where over half a million people are homeless; where life expectancy for African Americans is six years less than for their white counterparts; where – according to the US Department of Education – over half of adults read below a sixth-grade level.

Third, China’s modernisation is becoming a green modernisation, fuelled by clean energy, careful not to destroy the planet that sustains us. Again quoting Xi Jinping’s work report, “it is the modernisation of harmony between humanity and nature.”

Capitalist modernisation has had a disastrous impact on the environment. With 4 percent of the global population, the US alone is responsible for 25 percent of historic greenhouse gas emissions. The simple fact is that humanity literally cannot afford for China’s modernisation to follow this pattern.

Socialist modernisation will become the ‘new normal’
The West’s modernisation path is not open to the countries of the Global South, and it wouldn’t be desirable even if it were. Today, the road of capitalist modernisation is closed, so how is China able to modernise?

China does not have an empire, formal or informal, but it does have a particular advantage of being a socialist state, a “people’s democratic dictatorship based on the alliance of workers and peasants”, to use Mao Zedong’s expression. Such a state can use its power to direct economic activity towards the goals of the social classes it represents.

Thus the specificities of China’s modernisation – the commitment to common prosperity, to ending poverty and underdevelopment, to preventing climate collapse and to peaceful development – are a function of China’s political system, its revolutionary history, and the leadership of the CPC.

At a meeting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016, Xi Jinping made this point very succinctly: “Our greatest strength lies in our socialist system, which enables us to pool resources in a major mission. This is the key to our success.”

Or as Deng Xiaoping famously commented in 1984: “the superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of the productive forces than under the capitalist system.”

In a world still largely dominated by capitalism – and an intellectual world still dominated by bourgeois ideology – it’s easy to forget this system’s fundamental and irreconcilable contradictions, which Marx identified with such clarity and profundity 150 years ago; contradictions which lead inexorably to inefficiency, stagnation and crisis. A political economy directed at the production of exchange values rather than use values can never result in common prosperity.

In China, the capitalist class is not the ruling class and is therefore not able to direct the country’s resources according to its own prerogatives. At the top level, resources are allocated by the state, in accordance with long-term planning carried out by, and in the interests of, the people.

This is what is enabling a new type of modernisation, which is blazing a trail for socialist and developing countries the world over.

The fruits of this process are being shared with the world, via mechanisms such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, which are creating a path for the countries of the Global South to break out of underdevelopment, even where they lack China’s resources and political advantages.

As such, China’s evolving modernisation has great historic significance, and offers valuable lessons for the world. It is an embodiment of historical materialism in the current era: capitalism has long since exhausted its ability to fundamentally drive human progress, and therefore the future lies with socialism.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/09/29/c ... rnisation/



Whole Process People’s Democracy is a significant contribution to human rights

The 2023 China-Europe Seminar on Human Rights was held in the Italian capital Rome on September 20, with the theme, “Modernisation and the diversity of human rights among civilisations”.

Organised by the Human Rights Institute of the South West University of Political Science and Law (SWUPL) in Chongqing, China, and the Roma 9 China-Italy Economic and Cultural Exchange Centre, and hosted by the China Society for Human Rights Studies and the Faculty of Law at Sapienza University of Rome, it was attended by distinguished academics and prominent political and social activists from China, Italy, Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain and Switzerland.

In his paper, entitled ‘Whole Process People’s Democracy is a significant contribution to Human Rights’, our co-editor, Keith Bennett noted that:

“To frame international relations as being characterised by a supposed struggle between democracy and autocracy, and to stigmatise, sanction and even commit acts of war against other countries on such a basis, is itself the grossest violation of the most fundamental human rights of many millions of people and potentially of the majority of humanity.”

Drawing on The German Ideology, an 1846 work by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Keith noted that, “it is on the basis of this materialist Marxist principle that socialist countries like China, and many developing countries more generally, have placed such emphasis on the liberation and development of the productive forces. This has not been to negate or to violate human rights. On the contrary, it has been the prerequisite for their development and their guarantee.

“In this way, socialist countries, both historically and today, have paved, and are paving, the way for the elaboration of a human rights paradigm that is actually focused on people’s right and ability to manage the affairs of the state, economy and society as a whole.”

Xi Jinping’s concept of whole process people’s democracy, he explained, has its roots in Marxist theory, the historical experience of the Chinese revolution and in China’s fine traditional culture and civilisational experience.

According to this concept, politics, and therefore social relations, are not characterised by an adversarial division into contending and hostile camps, but rather by a search for consensus, harmony and inclusivity, whereby the achievement of the rights of all becomes the prerequisite for the achievement of the rights of one.

The necessary prerequisite, and material basis, to fully embody such inclusive and non-adversarial democracy is the establishment of a socialist system, where exploitation and oppression are no longer the defining characteristics of society, although they may persist to a certain extent in a primary phase of socialism.

In a situation characterised variously by frequent changes of prime ministers, unstable coalition governments, and the crisis and implosion of the traditional political party system, with once almost hegemonic political forces reduced to insignificance or even extinction, whilst new party formations prove to be nebulous and ephemeral, it surely behoves those of us in Europe to look without prejudice at alternative experiences and experiments and not least at China’s evolving whole process people’s democracy.

The full text of Keith’s paper is printed below.

We also reproduce a news report on the conference originally published by the Chinese newspaper, Global Times. Reporting the presentation made by Lord (Neil) Davidson, a member of the British House of Lords from the Labour Party and former minister, it notes his observation that certain sections in the UK’s political parties have been particularly vocal in their use of human rights criticisms to attack other states’ parties, adding:

“In the case of the UK, one does not require to be steeped in history to reflect that the history of the British Empire reveals case after case of the destruction of the human rights of peoples across the world.”

He noted that discussions on human rights with the objective of mutual understanding between countries can only serve to improve relations. Differing ideologies and differing cultures are a given in today’s world but an acceptance that mutual understanding makes for a safer world for all is hardly a controversial proposition.

Whole Process People’s Democracy is a significant contribution to human rights
Thank you very much for your invitation to participate in the 2023 China-Europe Seminar on Human Rights and for giving me an opportunity to say a few words.

Dialogue of this type is extremely relevant and timely. Human rights are the universal aspiration and entitlement of humanity. But each country and each people have to find their own way to realise them. No country can genuinely claim that its human rights situation is perfect. They remain a work in progress. To frame international relations as being characterised by a supposed struggle between democracy and autocracy, and to stigmatise, sanction and even commit acts of war against other countries on such a basis, is itself the grossest violation of the most fundamental human rights of many millions of people and potentially of the majority of humanity.

As President Xi Jinping said, when unveiling his Global Civilisation Initiative on March 15 this year:

“We advocate respect for the diversity of civilisations. Countries need to uphold the principles of equality, mutual learning, dialogue, and inclusiveness among civilisations, and let cultural exchanges transcend estrangement, mutual learning transcend clashes, and coexistence transcend feelings of superiority.

“We advocate the common values of humanity. Peace, development, equity, justice, democracy, and freedom are the common aspirations of all peoples. Countries need to keep an open mind in appreciating the perceptions of values by different civilisations, and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation.”

There are many aspects to human rights – for example, individual, social and collective – and this is one reason why the struggle for their realisation echoes throughout the entirety of human history. Moreover, to properly realise human rights cannot be solely a question of subjective desires. It has to be rooted in material reality.

As long ago as 1846, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote in The German Ideology:

“It is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and by employing real means…slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and…in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. ‘Liberation’ is an historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions.”

It is on the basis of this materialist Marxist principle that socialist countries like China, and many developing countries more generally, have placed such emphasis on the liberation and development of the productive forces. This has not been to negate or to violate human rights. On the contrary, it has been the prerequisite for their development and their guarantee.

In this way, socialist countries, both historically and today, have paved, and are paving, the way for the elaboration of a human rights paradigm that is actually focused on people’s right and ability to manage the affairs of the state, economy and society as a whole.

As Xi Jinping has noted: “If the people are awakened only at voting time and dormant afterward; if the people hear big slogans during elections but have no say after; if the people are favoured during canvassing but are left out after elections, this is not true democracy.”

In contrast to this flawed form of democracy, Xi Jinping has put forward the concept of whole process people’s democracy, which has its roots in Marxist theory, the historical experience of the Chinese revolution and in China’s fine traditional culture and civilisational experience.

Starting at least from the days of the Jiangxi Soviet Republic, the Communist Party of China has now accumulated over 90 years of governance experience embracing millions of people. It is an experience forged in the harshest conditions, where reliance on the masses was simply the only way to survive. From this was derived what is known as the mass line, which Mao Zedong explained as taking the scattered and unsystematic ideas of the masses and synthesising them in such a way that the masses of the people consciously adopt them as their own. Or, as it is known, from the masses to the masses.

Whole process people’s democracy also draws on traditional Chinese concepts of harmony and consensus. The great harmony of all under heaven, or of tianxia, as Confucius expressed it. The root of the concept of a community of shared future for humanity may also, to a certain degree, be found here.

According to this framework, the interests of the family, the society, the country, and even humanity as a whole, take precedence over that of the individual. But rather than this negating the rights and interests of the individual, it provides the context and the framework whereby they might be fully realised.

In the light of this understanding, politics, and therefore social relations, are not characterised by an adversarial division into contending and hostile camps, but rather by a search for consensus, harmony and inclusivity, whereby the achievement of the rights of all becomes the prerequisite for the achievement of the rights of one.

The necessary prerequisite, and material basis, to fully embody such inclusive and non-adversarial democracy is the establishment of a socialist system, where exploitation and oppression are no longer the defining characteristics of society, although they may persist to a certain extent in a primary phase of socialism.

In the developed western countries, politics has become just another profession. Indeed, in many cases, it has become a stepping stone to personal enrichment.

In his famous Gettysburg Address of 1863, US President Abraham Lincoln expressed his hope for, “a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Yet by 2011, the US Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz felt compelled to characterise his nation’s system as being, “of the one percent, by the one percent, for the one percent.”

In contrast to this situation, for the great majority of those engaged in governance in China, and other socialist countries, from the village level to the National People’s Congress or its equivalent, politics is not a distinct profession. Rather, representatives are drawn from all walks of life, from all professions, including ordinary workers and farmers, and from every ethnic group, and thus are genuinely aware of the problems, issues, and concerns in their communities, and are genuinely accountable to the people among whom they live and work. In a visit to China earlier this summer, I was deeply impressed to see how such grassroots governance and participatory democracy was developing and working in the Jinyuan community near to Guizhou’s provincial capital of Guiyang.

No country has a monopoly of wisdom with regards to human rights and the political systems that underpin them. However, in a situation characterised variously by frequent changes of prime ministers, unstable coalition governments, and the crisis and implosion of the traditional political party system, with once almost hegemonic political forces reduced to insignificance or even extinction, whilst new party formations prove to be nebulous and ephemeral, it surely behoves us in Europe to look without prejudice at alternative experiences and experiments and not least at China’s evolving whole process people’s democracy.

China-Europe seminar on human rights held to dispel misunderstanding
Global Times, 20 September 2023

When scholars and politicians from China and Europe gathered on Wednesday in Rome, Italy, to discuss important issues in the arena of human rights, they expressed their worries over the alarming tendency of some countries to weaponize and politicize human rights, and called for joint efforts to promote global human rights governance via cooperation and dialogue.

More than 140 scholars from 15 countries attended the 2023 China-Europe Seminar on Human Rights. The seminar, themed “Modernization and the Diversity of Human Rights Among Civilizations,” was held by the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS) and the law faculty at Sapienza University of Rome.

There is high anticipation for this year’s seminar, Chinese analysts said, as there is a need to promote communications in human rights fields and dispel misunderstandings, as some people in Europe have been trapped in information cocoons and misled by disinformation spread by some Western media outlets and anti-China forces, especially regarding China’s human rights situation.

The world has entered a new turbulent period, and global governance on human rights is facing severe threats with entrenched problems, including war, hunger and terrorism remaining unsolved, Baimachilin, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) and president of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, said at the seminar on Wednesday. Baimachilin continued that new problems, such as displaying a Cold War mentality, hegemonism, unilateral sanctions and the weaponization of human rights, have becomed major impacts to global human rights governance.

Baimachilin called for joint efforts to promote positive development of global governance on human rights through cooperation, to achieve humanity’s overall development during the process of modernization and to learn from each other to diversify civilizations.

Rome was not built in a day and human rights development cannot be completed over one night and it needs persistent efforts, said Baimachilin, while welcoming foreign guests to visit China and have a closer look at China’s human rights development.

Lord Neil Davidson, a member of the House of Lords and Labour Party Parliamentarian of the United Kingdom, attended the Wednesday seminar via video link and said that at a time of tension in international relations, it is apparent that various efforts are being made to “weaponize” the human rights debate.

Davidson noted that certain sections in the UK’s political parties have been particularly vocal in their use of human rights criticisms to attack other states’ parties. “In the case of the UK, one does not require to be steeped in history to reflect that the history of the British Empire reveals case after case of the destruction of the human rights of peoples across the world,” he said.

When it comes to the discussion of human rights and the different approaches adopted by different societies, there is no discernible benefit from confrontation, Davidson said.

He noted that discussions on human rights with the objective of mutual understanding between countries can only serve to improve relations. Differing ideologies and differing cultures are a given in today’s world but an acceptance that mutual understanding makes for a safer world for all is hardly a controversial proposition.

There is an alarming tendency that human rights have been politicized and some people in the West feel that when China talks about human rights, it poses a threat to their own values, which is not only wrong, but also ideologically biased and apprehensive, Zhang Yonghe, a standing council member of the CSHRS and also executive director of the Human Rights Institute of Southwest University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times

Zhang said that Chinese and foreign scholars discussing human rights in Rome – a place of significance for Western civilization and a city where cultures have converged and flourished for many centuries – would also help more people to understand the essence of human rights under the view of the development of all humanity.

Several foreign scholars attending the forum told the Global Times that the seminar offers a good opportunity for China and Europe to deepen understandings of each other on issues of shared concern.

“It is important for us to understand more about China… I think people here have the best starting point to have good discussions about the situations if we get more understanding of each other’s positions,” Norwegian Thore Vestby, honorary mayor of Frogn, member of parliament representing the Conservative Party, founder and chairman of Ichi Fund, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

“They are finding different subjects to attack China to keep the unipolar world,” said Vestby, referring to Western media’s reports on China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Vestby said he visited different places in Xinjiang in 2019 and what he saw was different from the description in the Western media. “I saw people singing and dancing and everyone was happy…,” he said. “They were very friendly and came to talk to me.”

The China-Europe Seminar started in 2015 and has been held seven times in various cities in China and Europe. The 2019 China-Europe Seminar was held in Austria in June that year, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held in Chinese cities with Chinese and foreign experts participating in person and virtually.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/09/28/w ... an-rights/



‘The East is Still Red’ an able defence of People’s China

In this concise review of Carlos Martinez’s The East is Still Red, Graham Harrington summarises the book’s main arguments, describing it as a “very readable and able defence of the current People’s Republic of China.”

Graham notes that, while the socialist market economies of China and Vietnam are controversial among many Marxists in the West, it is important to recognise these countries’ achievements – particularly in relation to poverty alleviation – and to assess them from a position of humility. “Given the lack of any revolution in the West, we should perhaps not be so dismissive of what has been achieved in China, or look at China from an ivory tower.”

The review originally appeared in Socialist Voice, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI).

The CPI is hosting book launches for The East is Red at Connolly Books, Dublin, on Wednesday 27 September 2023, and Cultúrlaan Mac Adam Ó Fiach, Belfast, on Thursday 28 September 2023.

For those based in the EU, Connolly Books is the best place to order a paperback copy. Elsewhere, we recommend buying from Praxis Press.

The East Is Still Red is a very readable and able defence of the current People’s Republic of China. The basic argument of the book is that China is on the right path with regard to building socialism, despite the controversy a statement like this causes among the Western left.

The Chinese Revolution of 1949 put an end to what Chinese call their “century of humiliation,” the period of the Opium Wars, Japanese colonialism, famine, and warlord rule. It was also the culmination of decades of struggle by the Communist Party of China, which had endured massacres and guerrilla struggle before the revolution.

The new People’s Republic managed to unite the country, double the life expectancy of China’s people, end horrific misogynist practices such as foot-binding in some areas, and eliminate landlordism and inequality. This was despite failures and mistakes, such as the Great Leap Forward.

For the author, China’s achievements are not just historical but in fact continue to this day. The reform and opening-up period did not mark a break with socialism in China. At the time of Mao’s death the People’s Republic had achieved many advances. Its economy had impressive successes in heavy industry, but the majority of its people continued to languish in objective poverty, and it was this fact that made the CPC examine the direction of the country.

Essentially, the argument of the CPC for reform was that if poverty remained in the country it would threaten socialism. In the 1970s China’s neighbours, including Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia, were experiencing economic booms, while China’s citizens lived on state rations. The leadership felt that this was a threat to the existence of the People’s Republic. Foreign investment was encouraged, as was a domestic private sector. The rest is history. China is now the world’s second-largest economy.

Despite the huge increase in inequality, the author argues that the reforms were still necessary for development and people’s needs. The strongest argument for this is that China has taken some 800 million citizens out of absolute poverty. The reforms did indeed create billionaires, but they also eliminated absolute poverty. If China is capitalist, then this presents major challenges to the Marxist understanding of capitalism.

We may add the existence of the second economy in the socialist states, past and present, as documented in Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny’s book Socialism Betrayed (2010). The second economy incorporated the black market, those who hoarded state-subsidised goods and in effect provided the material basis for the destruction of socialism in the country where it was born. In no country today is there a perfect socialism, where there is no private sector or markets. Martinez writes how carefully the Chinese leadership analysed the defeat of the USSR.

Along with several quotations from Mao in the PRC’s early days, Martinez gives a quotation from Lenin in 1921 to show how the CPC’s post-reform thinking was not something new: “What we must fear is protracted starvation, want and food shortage, which create the danger that the working class will be utterly exhausted and will give way to petty-bourgeois vacillation and despair.”

While China’s recent trajectory is not popular among leftists in the West, the author believes it should perhaps give us some reason to examine how Western leftists can over-idealise socialism into a utopia, while countries such as China or Vietnam have to provide for their people’s basic needs after decades of imperialist underdevelopment. Given the lack of any revolution in the West, we should perhaps not be so dismissive of what has been achieved in China, or look at China from an ivory tower.

The environment, and specifically China’s response, is looked at in a very important chapter of the book. While China’s economic boom produced much pollution, China now produces more solar panels than any other country, and is first in investment in renewable energy. It has also doubled its forest coverage.

Additionally, it is noted that China’s pollution cannot be compared with historical pollution by the likes of the United States and Britain. Per capita, China’s emissions are similar to those of Ireland and Austria. A huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions is in fact caused by production for Western consumption: American and Canadian households emit nine times the emissions of the average Chinese household. In effect, the West has exported its polluting to China, leaving it with the blame.

The book does not pretend to be a comprehensive overview of China, nor a justification of every policy taken. It seeks to examine China and explain why we need to examine it seriously, not rating it out of ten but instead seeing how China has remained much closer to its original path than Western leftists believe it to be.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/09/25/t ... les-china/

[blindpig]

Forecasting China?

In the following article, which was originally carried by Sidecar, the blog published under the auspices of New Left Review, on 8 September 2023, Nathan Sperber addresses some typical but fundamental western misconceptions concerning the Chinese economy.

He begins with the observations of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman that “China is in big trouble. We’re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country’s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits…the only question now is just how bad the crash will be”; only to then note that Krugman had been writing in the summer of 2013.

In fact, China’s GDP grew by 7.8 percent that year and in the ensuing decade its economy has expanded by 70 percent in real terms compared to 21 percent for the United States.

Similar dire predictions were made, the article points out in the early 2000s, “when runaway investment was thought to be ‘overheating’ the economy; in the late 2000s, when exports contracted in the wake of the global financial crisis; and in the mid-2010s, when it was feared that a buildup of local government debt, under-regulated shadow banking and capital outflows threatened China’s entire economic edifice.” Today, the trigger for such doom mongering is the relatively low growth figures for the second quarter of 2023.

Sperber asserts that the existence of structural weaknesses in the Chinese economy is not in dispute. But he also considers that a fundamental weakness in much Western coverage of the Chinese economy is that it responds to the needs of the ‘investor community’:

“The most salient preoccupations of Western commentators reflect the skewed distribution of foreign-owned capital within the Chinese economy. China’s economy is highly globalized in terms of trade in goods but not in terms of finance: Beijing’s capital controls to a large degree insulate the domestic financial sector from global financial markets. Overseas financial capital has only a handful of access points to China’s markets, meaning international exposure is uneven. China-based companies with foreign investors, offshore debt or listings on stock markets outside of the mainland (that is, free of China’s capital controls) generate attention precisely in proportion to their overseas entanglements.”

To illustrate his argument, he notes how countless news articles have been devoted to the travails of real estate giants Evergrande (Hong Kong-listed and reliant on dollar-denominated debt) and, more recently, Country Garden (Hong Kong-listed and again carrying offshore debt). Readers of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times will be far less likely to read about State Grid, the world’s largest electricity provider, or China State Construction Engineering, the world’s largest construction firm – “two companies less dependent on global finance and over which international investors are unlikely to lose any sleep.”

Noting how the “slow-motion collapse” of Evergrande has been portrayed in the Western media as a “calamity in waiting for the entire Chinese economy”, Sperber adds that this “elides the fact that the Chinese government deliberately prevented highly indebted property developers, including Evergrande, from accessing easy credit in the summer of 2020… Of course, no large-scale corporate default and restructuring is desirable per se. But it appears that failures like Evergrande’s have been treated by Chinese authorities as the price of disciplining the property sector as a whole and reducing its weight in the broader economy.”

Although not mentioned by Sperber, his above point also serves, inter alia, to underline how, again contra to much western reportage (even by some progressive scholars not unfriendly to China), China has not strategically departed from President Xi Jinping’s insistence that homes are for living in not for speculation. Against the common western narratives, Sperber argues that a more level-headed approach would be to put China’s current economic moment in a longer-term perspective. China’s economy was comprehensively transformed in the 1980s and 1990s, and “since this era of intense institutional restructuring ended in the early 2000s, China’s GDP has more than quadrupled in real terms but the country’s fundamental economic structure has remained stable, in terms of both the balance between state-owned enterprises and private capital, and the precedence of investment over consumption.”

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman does not mince his words:

the signs are now unmistakable: China is in big trouble. We’re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country’s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model is about to hit its Great Wall, and the only question now is just how bad the crash will be.

That was in the summer of 2013. China’s GDP grew by 7.8 per cent that year. In the decade since, its economy has expanded by 70 per cent in real terms, compared to 21 per cent for the United States. China has not had a recession this century – by convention, two consecutive quarters of negative growth – let alone a ‘crash’. Yet every few years, the Anglophone financial media and its trail of investors, analysts and think-tankers are gripped by the belief that the Chinese economy is about to crater.

The conviction reared its head in the early 2000s, when runaway investment was thought to be ‘overheating’ the economy; in the late 2000s, when exports contracted in the wake of the global financial crisis; and in the mid-2010s, when it was feared that a buildup of local government debt, under-regulated shadow banking and capital outflows threatened China’s entire economic edifice. Today, dire predictions are out in force again, this time triggered by underwhelming growth figures for the second quarter of 2023. Exports have declined from the heights they reached during the pandemic while consumer spending has softened. Corporate troubles in the property sector and high youth unemployment appear to add to China’s woes. Against this backdrop, Western commentators are casting doubt on the PRC’s ability to continue to churn out GDP units, or fretting in grander terms about the country’s economic future (‘whither China?’, asks Adam Tooze by way of Yang Xiguang). Adam Posen, president of the Washington-based Peterson Institute, has diagnosed a case of ‘economic long Covid’. Gloom about China’s economic prospects has once again taken hold.

That there are structural weaknesses in the Chinese economy is not in dispute. After two waves of dramatic institutional reform in the 1980s and 1990s respectively, China’s economic landscape has settled into a durable pattern of high savings and low consumption. With household spending subdued, GDP growth, slowing over the past decade, is sustained by driving up investment, enabled in turn by growing corporate indebtedness. But despite this slowdown, the current bout of doomsaying in the English-language business press, half investor Angst, half pro-Western Schadenfreude, is not an accurate reflection of the fortunes of China’s economy – plodding, but still expanding, with 3 points of GDP added over the first six months of 2023. It is rather an expression of an intellectual impasse, and of the flawed conditions in which knowledge about the Chinese economy is produced and circulated within the Western public sphere.

The essential thing to bear in mind about Western coverage of the Chinese economy is that the bulk of it responds to the needs of the ‘investor community’. For every intervention by a public-minded academic like Ho-fung Hung, there are dozens of specialist briefings, reports, news articles and social media posts whose target audience is individuals and firms with varying degrees of exposure to China’s market, as well as, increasingly, the foreign policy and security establishments of Western states. Most analysis of China strives to be of a directly useful and even ‘actionable’ kind. The stream of profit- and policy-oriented interventions, aimed at a small section of the population, shapes the ‘conversation’ on the Chinese economy more than anything else.

Two further features follow from this. First, the most salient preoccupations of Western commentators reflect the skewed distribution of foreign-owned capital within the Chinese economy. China’s economy is highly globalized in terms of trade in goods but not in terms of finance: Beijing’s capital controls to a large degree insulate the domestic financial sector from global financial markets. Overseas financial capital has only a handful of access points to China’s markets, meaning international exposure is uneven. China-based companies with foreign investors, offshore debt or listings on stock markets outside of the mainland (that is, free of China’s capital controls) generate attention precisely in proportion to their overseas entanglements. Thus countless news articles over the past two years have been devoted to the defaulting saga of real estate giant Evergrande – a Hong Kong-listed firm that has relied on dollar-denominated debt. Journalists and commentators may be gearing up to give the same high-visibility treatment to Country Garden, another troubled property developer with a Hong Kong listing and offshore debt. By contrast, the Wall Street Journal or New York Times subscriber will be forgiven for not remembering the last time they read an article about State Grid (the world’s largest electricity provider) or China State Construction Engineering (the world’s largest construction firm) – two companies less dependent on global finance and over which international investors are unlikely to lose any sleep.

The second feature relates to the financial industry’s reliance on the art of political-economic storytelling to sell investment options. Clients with money to invest want more than an analyst’s projection about the likely rate of return on a given investment product; they want a sense of how that product fits into the ‘bigger picture’ – into an overarching tale of opportunity, innovation or transition in one part of the market, in contrast to vulnerability, decline or closure elsewhere. Discussion of the Chinese economy is regularly inflected by narrative arcs of this marketable variety, whether ‘bullish’ or ‘bearish’. These have included, for instance: the theory of Xi Jinping ushering in a third wave of institutional reform – ‘Reform 3.0’ – at the Central Committee’s third plenum in November 2013 (nothing of the sort happened); fears of a ‘hard landing’ if not a ‘Lehman moment’ during China’s financial volatility of 2015 and 2016 (GDP growth remained close to 7 per cent); and belief in the inevitability of China ‘rebalancing’ from investment to consumption through the 2010s (the investment share of GDP has remained above 40 per cent since 2003). Such narratives, which seem to be crafted in response to the storytelling needs of Western investors and financial intermediaries, become magnets for public debate. The ‘rebalancing’ story, for example, served as a compelling inducement to invest in consumer-facing sectors of the Chinese economy – until it gradually lost credibility. Some money was made along the way, and some lost, and in that sense the story was partly successful on the industry’s own terms even though it was a poor reflection of economic fact.

That so much of the discourse on China’s economy takes shape in response to investor interests may also explain its susceptibility to short-term reversals of sentiment. As a rule, the performance of financial markets is more volatile than that of the real economy, and in China’s case it is mostly the former – to which overseas investors are most exposed, if unevenly – that drives perceptions of the latter. Hence the sharp mood swings from bullish to bearish and back, from one financial cycle to the next. In part fluctuating with the vagaries of market sentiment, Anglophone commentary also lacks consistent, credible criteria with which to assess China’s economic performance. How much growth is enough? What kind of economic expansion would it take for China not to be in a ‘crisis’? In 2009, as the Chinese government was unleashing a spectacular wave of bank lending to stimulate activity in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, it was widely believed that growing the economy by 8 per cent was necessary to avert mass unemployment and social instability. That benchmark has now conveniently vanished from view; nobody in the West today would dream of saying China should aim to grow by 8 per cent per year. And is GDP growth itself an adequate metric of economic strength? The significance that Chinese authorities attribute to GDP performance has declined. The official target for 2023 is an approximate one – ‘around 5 per cent’ – affording a measure of leeway, meanwhile the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan (2021–2025) dispenses with an overall GDP target altogether.

In addition to protean standards for evaluating performance, there is also a degree of confusion about how to interpret major developments within the Chinese economy, especially in relation to the intentions of policymakers. The travails of the real estate sector are a case in point. The slow-motion collapse of over-indebted Evergrande has repeatedly been portrayed in the Western media as a calamity in waiting for the entire Chinese economy, in yet another iteration of the ‘Lehman moment’ trope. This elides the fact that the Chinese government deliberately prevented highly indebted property developers, including Evergrande, from accessing easy credit in the summer of 2020 – a measure since referred to as the ‘three red lines’ policy. Of course, no large-scale corporate default and restructuring is desirable per se. But it appears that failures like Evergrande’s have been treated by Chinese authorities as the price of disciplining the property sector as a whole and reducing its weight in the broader economy. Although the real estate downturn, with investment declining sharply in 2022, has weighed negatively on China’s overall growth performance, this seems to be the consequence of a concerted attempt to ‘rectify’ the sector – whose shrinking share of total economic output, even at the cost of GDP growth, might well be described as a positive development.

A starting-point for a more level-headed approach to the Chinese economy is to put the current moment in a longer-term perspective. China’s economy was comprehensively transformed in the 1980s and 1990s. As a result of the waves of reform that defined those decades, agricultural production passed from the collective to the household; state industries were converted into for-profit enterprises; the allocation of goods, services and labour was thoroughly marketized; and a powerful private sector was born, expanded rapidly and was consolidated. Since this era of intense institutional restructuring ended in the early 2000s, China’s GDP has more than quadrupled in real terms but the country’s fundamental economic structure has remained stable, in terms of both the balance between state-owned enterprises and private capital, and the precedence of investment over consumption. In this context, instances of significant change – technological upgrading, the expansion of capital markets – have been slow-moving. The decline of GDP growth is itself a protracted affair, and the essentials of the present configuration are likely to endure for some time. China’s economy is neither a ‘ticking time bomb’, as Joe Biden daringly opined last month, nor – an overused expression – ‘at a crossroads’. The China bulls of the West may well continue to morph into China bears and vice versa in the coming years, while the Chinese economy indifferently trudges on.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/10/05/f ... ing-china/

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Chinese Embassy Symposium: The CPC and the Building of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 2, 2023


On 22 August 2023, the Chinese Embassy in the UK held a symposium themed The Communist Party of China and the Building of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind, to which a range of political parties, organisations and individuals were invited. Three people attended the symposium on behalf of Friends of Socialist China, at which Ambassador Zheng Zeguang, Minister Zhao Fei, Minister Wang Qi and other senior diplomats introduced Xi Jinping’s concepts in relation to building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Ambassador Zheng and the ministers from the Chinese Embassy provided valuable reports on China’s major foreign policy initiatives directed at supporting global peace, prosperity and friendship: the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilisation Initiative. The presentations were followed by contributions from Robert Griffiths of the Communist Party of Britain; Ella Rule of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist Leninist); Andy Brooks of the New Communist Party; Keith Bennett of Friends of Socialist China; and British scholars Martin Albrow, Frances Wood and Martin Jacques. The event concluded with a wide-ranging discussion, to which Carlos Martinez and Francisco Dominguez both contributed on behalf of Friends of Socialist China.

We publish below the report of the syposium from the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the UK, along with Keith Bennett’s speech and Carlos Martinez’s remarks.

– Friends of Socialist China

The Chinese Embassy in the UK Holds a Symposium on “The Communist Party of China and the Building of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind”

On 22 August 2023, the Chinese Embassy in the UK held a symposium themed “The Communist Party of China and the Building of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind”, which was attended by representatives of various political parties and people from different sectors in the UK. At the symposium, H.E. Ambassador Zheng Zeguang, Minister Zhao Fei, Minister Wang Qi and other senior diplomats at the Embassy introduced the important thought of General Secretary Xi Jinping on Party building and the important contributions made by the CPC to building a community with a shared future for mankind. Participants from the British side made remarks respectively, sharing their understanding of the tenets and significance of the relevant philosophies of the CPC.

Ambassador Zheng pointed out that to understand China, one must understand the CPC. The key to China’s great achievements to date lies fundamentally in the strong leadership of the CPC and its Party building. Since the 18th Party Congress, the Chinese communists with General Secretary Xi Jinping as their chief representative, have attached great importance to the innovation of Party building on practical, theoretical, institutional and other aspects, and formed the important thought of General Secretary Xi Jinping on Party building.

This important thought is a scientific summary of the theoretical development and practical experience of Party building in the new era. It represents a major theoretical innovation that answers the call for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It has given sensible answers to what kind of Marxist party exercising long-term governance we should develop in the new era, and how we should go about achieving it. This innovation has enabled the CPC to always remain at the forefront of the times, brimming with vigour and vitality.

Ambassador Zheng said that the CPC has led the Chinese people in a concerted effort to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, thus completing the First Centenary Goal, to embark on a new journey to build China into a modern socialist country in all respects and advance towards the Second Centenary Goal, and to promote the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernisation.

In the first half of this year, in the face of a sluggish global economy and turbulence in the international situation, China’s economy has overcome pressure and challenges and as a whole showed a positive trend of recovery. China’s GDP increased by 5.5% year on year, and the country remains an important engine for global economic recovery and growth. The fundamentals underpinning China’s sound economic growth in the long run will not change.

Ambassador Zheng noted that the CPC is dedicated to pursuing happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation. It is also dedicated to human progress and world harmony. Ten years ago in March 2013, with great foresight, President Xi Jinping made the proposition of building a community with a shared future for mankind, pointing the direction for coping with global challenges and creating a better future for humanity.

This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by President Xi. After 10 years, the BRI is playing a more prominent role as a broad platform for international cooperation and a practical path for building a community with a shared future for mankind. China has signed more than 200 Belt and Road cooperation documents with 152 countries and 32 international organisations, and cooperation under the BRI has galvanised nearly 1 trillion US dollars of investment globally and created more than 3,000 cooperation projects and 420,000 jobs for partner countries.

Faced with a world of change and turbulence, as well as accelerating transformation, in the past two years, President Xi put forward the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilisation Initiative, providing China’s solutions for promoting global development, advancing common security, and strengthening exchanges and mutual learning among civilisations. These initiatives have injected new impetus into the cause of peace and development and resonated well with the international community.

China stands ready to strengthen dialogue with foreign political parties and organisations including those from the UK, work with them to build a community with a shared future for mankind, and make unremitting efforts for common prosperity and development, and human progress.

Participants from the British side said that the symposium deepened their understanding of the important thought of General Secretary Xi Jinping on Party building as well as the CPC. As the world’s largest Marxist governing party, the CPC has led the Chinese people to make great achievements. The experience and theories of the CPC are worth learning from for political parties from other countries. The proposition of building a community with a shared future for mankind and the major initiatives put forward by the CPC have given a strong boost to world peace, stability, and development. The participants expressed their readiness to strengthen exchanges and dialogue with the CPC, and contribute to enhanced mutual understanding between the Chinese and British people and the steady development of China-UK relations.

Keith Bennett: Chinese socialism offers a profound guideline as to how diverse countries might open the road to socialism
Your Excellency Ambassador Zheng Zeguang
Dear Comrades

First, on behalf of Friends of Socialist China, and the three of us attending today, allow me to thank you and the other comrades from the Chinese Embassy for your presentations and remarks, as well as for your invitation and kind hospitality, along with our best wishes to all friends of China here today.

Allow me also to take this opportunity to pay tribute to and remember our dear friend and comrade Isabel Crook, who passed away in Beijing on Sunday at the remarkable age of 107. Personally honoured by President Xi Jinping in September 2019 with China’s highest award for foreign citizens, Isabel devoted her life to China’s revolution and socialist construction, to the development of China’s foreign language teaching in particular, and to the cause of the international communist movement. We have lost a truly remarkable person.

Following as it does our recent visit to China at the invitation of the party International Department, today’s symposium is another step in deepening our understanding and appreciation of the great strides being made in Chinese socialism under the banner of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era and with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the Central Committee and the entire party.

Delivering the report to the 19th National Congress of the Party on October 18, 2017, Comrade Xi pointed out:

“China champions the development of a community with a shared future for humanity and has encouraged the evolution of the global governance system. With this we have seen a further rise in China’s international influence, ability to inspire, and power to shape; and China has made great new contributions to global peace and development.”

On October 16, 2022, delivering the report to the 20th Congress, he noted:

“We have taken a clear-cut stance against hegemonism and power politics in all their forms, and we have never wavered in our opposition to unilateralism, protectionism, and bullying of any kind. We have improved China’s overall diplomatic agenda and worked actively to build a global network of partnerships and foster a new type of international relations… All this has seen us win widespread international recognition. China’s international influence, appeal, and power to shape have risen markedly.”

The successive development of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative are the building blocks and manifestation of this approach. They embody and represent the building of the party as the world’s leading force for peace and progress, remaining true to its original aspiration, summing up both theory and practice, and forging ahead in the new era.

Indeed, there is one leader and one statesman in the contemporary world who is clearly advocating a comprehensive and holistic programme embodying such common human values as peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom.

On March 15 this year, I, along with other comrades here, was privileged to participate in the online ‘CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting’ and to hear President Xi Jinping unveil the Global Civilization Initiative, the latest of his programmatic initiatives designed to realize a community of shared future for humanity.

As President Xi noted:

“All civilizations created by human society are splendid. They are where each country’s modernization drive draws its strength and where its unique features come from. They, transcending time and space, have jointly made important contributions to humanity’s modernization process. Chinese modernization, as a new form of human advancement, will draw upon the merits of other civilizations and make the garden of world civilizations more vibrant.”

Countries, the Chinese President explains, need to keep an open mind in appreciating the values of different civilizations and they should refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation.

This represents a fundamentally different concept and approach from that practiced by the various colonial and now neocolonial powers for the last more than 500 years, up to and including the present. However, it fully accords with the sentiments and interests of the vast mass of developing countries and their peoples, who constitute the overwhelming majority of humanity, and who are the inheritors of great, ancient and time-honoured civilizations.

Moreover, it also accords with the objective interests of the great majority of the population in every country, including our own, whether developing or developed.

Such existential threats to humanity as impending climate catastrophe, zoonotic pandemics, and nuclear annihilation, along with numerous other challenges cannot be solved simply behind national barriers or with a ‘beggar my neighbor’, ‘winner takes all’ or ‘zero sum’ mentality. Nor can all peoples’ need for peace and development be realised in this way.

As Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out, from the 19th party congress onwards, socialism with Chinese characteristics offers a new option for those countries that wish to rapidly develop their economies while maintaining their independence. This is an important example of the contribution of Chinese wisdom and Chinese experience to the quest for sustainable solutions to the problems facing humanity and it offers a profound guideline as to how diverse countries might open the road to socialism.

Thank you for your attention.

Carlos Martinez: Two major trends in global politics – hegemonism and multipolarity
Thank you very much to Ambassador Zheng Zeguang and to all our hosts for their highly informative and interesting presentations.

One thing I will take away in particular is the relationship between the three initiatives that have been announced in the last two years. The Global Development Initiative is all about development, but you can’t have development without security, peace and stability. Hence the Global Security Initiative. But you can’t have security, peace and stability without mutual respect, mutual learning, cooperation and people-to-people relations. Hence the Global Civilization Initiative.

It’s very helpful that our comrades from the Embassy have joined the dots between these three initiatives, so that we have a more cohesive and holistic understanding of China’s foreign policy.

Listening to the presentations today, I’m reminded that there are two major trends in global politics and international relations today.

The first trend is that of the New Cold War, of bloc confrontation, of unilateralism, of hegemony, of imperialism. This trend is represented organisationally by NATO, the G7, AUKUS, the Quad and other bodies – including the recent Camp David agreement between the US, Japan and South Korea. This trend is characterised by war, conflict, escalation, decoupling and inequality, and it benefits only a small handful of people and countries.

The other trend is that of multipolarity, multilateralism, respect for international law, cooperation and development. This trend is represented organisationally by BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the G77 plus China, the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation, the China-CELAC Forum, the Belt and Road Initiative, the GDI, GSI and GCI. Such a trend is one of peace, dialogue, development, friendship and progress. It benefits the masses of the world.

This dichotomy is becoming increasingly clear to the people of the whole world, particularly the Global South. That’s why more than 20 countries have applied to join BRICS, and more than 20 more have registered an interest in doing so.

Even in the West, in spite of the relentless anti-China propaganda, people are beginning to understand the reality of the situation and to appreciate China’s role in international relations and geopolitics.

For example, look at the Middle East. With the assistance of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been able to achieve a rapprochement, and this in turn brings about the possibility of an end to the terrible war in Yemen. For decades, meanwhile, the US and its allies have created conflict, division and hostility in the Middle East. Hence the popular saying in Iraq: the US bombs, while China builds.

Or look at Ukraine. While the US and its allies continue to escalate the conflict, waging a proxy war and hoping to “fight Russia to the last Ukrainian”, China has been working with all parties towards a peaceful, negotiated solution to the crisis.

So people can see with their own eyes the real dynamics of international relations; the difference between these two major trends. Increasingly they are coming to understand China’s profoundly progressive role.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/10/ ... r-mankind/

The West’s Blueprint for Goading China Was Laid Out in Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 3, 2023


U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) and China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang shake hands ahead of a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on June 18, 2023. Photo: LEAH MILLIS/POOL/AFP

The following article by Jonathan Cook explores the complex and contradictory policies of the Western powers in relation to China. On the one hand, Western leaders talk of wanting a collaborative relationship with China, and on this basis “US and European officials have scurried to Beijing for so-called talks”, including a high-profile visit by British foreign secretary James Cleverly in August. On the other hand, these same leaders are taking reckless steps towards confrontation: “showering Taiwan with weapons systems”; setting up AUKUS; forging a trilateral security arrangement between the US, Japan and South Korea; and developing new military bases in the Pacific as part of an ongoing strategy of encirclement. NATO last year declare Beijing a challenge to its “interests, security and values.”

Jonathan writes that “European leaders are torn. They fear losing access to Chinese goods and markets, plunging their economies deeper into recession after a cost-of-living crisis precipitated by the Ukraine war. But most are even more afraid of angering Washington, which is determined to isolate and contain China.”

The manifestation of these contradictory motivations is a policy of aggression combined with the pretence of a meaningful desire for peaceful engagement. “But the only real engagement is the crafting of a military noose around China’s neck, just as a noose was crafted earlier for Russia.” And the crafting of this military noose is justified to ordinary people in the West – who will inevitably shoulder the economic costs of the deteriorating relationship – with an absurd but carefully-curated narrative about protecting Taiwan. This “obscures Washington’s less palatable aim: to enforce US global dominance by smashing any economic or technological threat from China and Russia.”

– Friends of Socialist China

The West is writing a script about its relations with China as stuffed full of misdirection as an Agatha Christie novel.

In recent months, US and European officials have scurried to Beijing for so-called talks, as if the year were 1972 and Richard Nixon were in the White House.

But there will be no dramatic, era-defining US-China pact this time. If relations are to change, it will be decisively for the worse.

The West’s two-faced policy towards China was starkly illustrated last week by the visit to Beijing of Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly – the first by a senior UK official for five years.

While Cleverly talked vaguely afterwards about the importance of not “disengaging” from China and avoiding “mistrust and errors”, the British parliament did its best to undermine his message.

The foreign affairs committee issued a report on UK policy in the Indo-Pacific that provocatively described the Chinese leadership as “a threat to the UK and its interests”.

In terminology that broke with past diplomacy, the committee referred to Taiwan – a breakaway island that Beijing insists must one day be “reunified” with China – as an “independent country”. Only 13 states recognise Taiwan’s independence.

The committee urged the British government to pressure its Nato allies into imposing sanctions on China.

The UK parliament is meddling recklessly in a far-off zone of confrontation with the potential for incendiary escalation against a nuclear power, a situation unrivalled outside of Ukraine.

But Britain is far from alone. Last year, for the first time, Nato moved well out of its supposed sphere of influence – the North Atlantic – to declare Beijing a challenge to its “interests, security and values”.

There can be little doubt that Washington is the moving force behind this escalation against China, a state posing no obvious military threat to the West.

It has upped the stakes significantly by making its military presence felt ever more firmly in and around the Straits of Taiwan – the 100-mile wide waterway separating China from Taiwan that Beijing views as its doorstep.

Senior US officials have been making noisy visits to Taiwan – not least, Nancy Pelosi last summer, when she was house speaker. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is showering Taiwan with weapons systems.

If this weren’t enough to inflame China, Washington is drawing Beijing’s neighboursdeeper into military alliances – such as Aukus and the Quad – to isolate China and leave it feeling threatened. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, describes this as a policy of “comprehensive containment, encirclement and suppression against us”.

Last month, President Biden hosted Japan and South Korea at Camp David, forging a trilateral security arrangement directed at what they called China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior”.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s “Pacific Defence Initiative” budget – chiefly intended to contain and encircle China – just keeps rising.

In the latest move, revealed last week, the US is in talks with Manila to build a naval portin the northernmost Philippine islands, 125 miles from Taiwan, boosting “American access to strategically located islands facing Taiwan”.

That will become the ninth Philippine base used by the US military, part of a network of some 450 operating in the South Pacific.

Dirty double game

So what’s going on? Is Britain – along with its Nato allies – interested in building greater trust with Beijing, as Cleverly argues, or backing Washington’s escalatory manoeuvres against a nuclear-armed China over a small territory on the other side of the globe, as the British parliament indicates?

Inadvertently, the foreign affairs committee’s chair, Alicia Kearns, got to the heart of the matter. She accused the British government of having a “confidential, elusive China strategy”, one “buried deep in Whitehall, kept hidden even from senior ministers”.

And not by accident.

European leaders are torn. They fear losing access to Chinese goods and markets, plunging their economies deeper into recession after a cost-of-living crisis precipitated by the Ukraine war. But most are even more afraid of angering Washington, which is determined to isolate and contain China.

That divide was highlighted by French President Emmanuel Macron following a visit to China in April, when he urged “strategic autonomy” for Europe towards Beijing.

“Is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.

Macron soon found himself roundly rebuked in Washington and European capitals.

Instead, a dirty double game is being played. The West makes conciliatory noises towards Beijing, while its actions turn ever more belligerent.

Cleverly himself alluded to this deceit, observing of relations with China: “If there is ever a situation where our security concerns are at odds with our economic concerns, our security concerns win out.”

After Ukraine, we are told, Taiwan must be the locus of the West’s all-consuming security interest.

Cleverly’s meaning is barely veiled: Europe’s clear economic interests in maintaining good relations with Beijing must be suborned to Washington’s more malevolent agenda, masquerading as Nato security interests.

Forget Macron’s “autonomy”.

Notably, this game of misdirection draws on the same blueprint that shaped the long build-up to the Ukraine war.

Moscow cornered

Western politicians and media repeat the preposterous claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked” only because they created a cover story beforehand, as they now do with China.

I have set out in detail before how these provocations unfolded. Bit by bit, US administrations eroded Ukrainian neutrality and incorporated Russia’s large neighbour into the Nato fold. The intention was to covertly turn it into a forward base, capable of positioning nuclear-tipped missiles minutes from Moscow.

Washington ignored warnings from its most senior officials and Russia experts that cornering Moscow would eventually provoke it into a pre-emptive strike against Ukraine. Why? Because, it seems, that was the goal all along.

The invasion provided the pretext for the US to impose sanctions and wage its current proxy war, using Ukrainians as foot soldiers, to neutralise Russia militarily and economically – or “weaken” it, as the US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin explicitly termsWashington’s key aim in the Ukraine war.

Moscow is seen as an obstacle, alongside China, to the US maintaining “full-spectrum global dominance” – a doctrine that came to the fore after the Soviet Union’s collapse three decades ago.

Using Nato as sidekick, Washington is determined to keep the world unipolar at all costs. It is desperate to preserve its global, imperial military and economic might, even as its star wanes. In such circumstances, Europe’s options for Macron-style autonomy are non-existent.

Peace talks charade

The public’s continuing ignorance of Nato’s countless provocations against Russia is hardly surprising. Reference to them is all but taboo in Western media.

Instead, the West’s belligerent manoeuvrings – as with those now against China – are overshadowed by a script that trumpets its faux-diplomacy, supposedly rebuffed by “madman” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This disingenuous narrative was typified by western double-dealing over accords signed in 2014 and 2015 in the Belarussian capital Minsk – after negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv to stop a bloody civil war in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas.

There, Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and separatist Ukrainians of Russian origin began facing off in 2014, immediately after yet more covert meddling. Washington assisted in the overthrow of an elected Ukrainian government sympathetic to Moscow. In response, ethnic Russians demanded greater autonomy from Kyiv.

The official story is that, far from inflaming conflict, the West sought to foster peace, with Germany and France brokering the Minsk accords.

One can argue about why those agreements failed. But following Russia’s invasion, a disturbing new light was shed on their context by Angela Merkel, German chancellor at the time.

She told Die Ziet newspaper last December that the 2014 Minsk agreement was less about achieving peace than “an attempt to give Ukraine time. It also used this time to get stronger, as you can see today… In early 2015, Putin could easily have overrun them [areas in Donbas] at the time. And I very much doubt that the Nato countries could have done as much then as they do now to help Ukraine.”

If Russia could have overrun Ukraine at any time from 2014 onwards, why did it wait eight years, while its neighbour grew much stronger, assisted by the West?

Assuming Merkel is being honest, Germany, it seems, never really believed the peace process it oversaw stood a chance. That suggests one of two possibilities.

Either the initiative was a charade, brokered to buy more time for Ukraine to be integrated into Nato, a path that was bound to lead to Russia’s invasion – as Merkel herself acknowledges. Indeed, she accepts that Ukraine’s accession process into Nato launched in 2008 was “wrong”.

Or Merkel knew that the US would work with Kyiv’s new pro-Washington government to disrupt the process. Europe could do little more than delay an inevitable war for as long as possible.

Neither alternative fits the “unprovoked” narrative. Both suggest Merkel understood Moscow’s patience would eventually run out.

The theatre of the Minsk accords was directed at Moscow, which delayed invading on the assumption the talks were in good faith, but also at western publics. When Russia did finally invade, they could be easily persuaded Putin never planned to embrace western “peace” overtures.

Economic chokehold

As with Ukraine, the cover story concealing the West’s provocations towards China has been carefully directed from Washington.

Europeans like Cleverly are parading around Beijing to make it look like the West desires peaceful engagement. But the only real engagement is the crafting of a military noose around China’s neck, just as a noose was crafted earlier for Russia.

The security rationale this time – of protecting far-off Taiwan – obscures Washington’s less palatable aim: to enforce US global dominance by smashing any economic or technological threat from China and Russia.

Washington can’t remain military top dog if it doesn’t also maintain a chokehold on the global economy to fund its inflated Pentagon budget, equivalent to the combined spending of the next 10 nations.

The dangers to Washington are only underscored by the rapid expansion of Brics, a bloc of emerging economic powers headed by China and Russia. Six new members will join the current five in January, with many more waiting in the wings.

An expanded Brics offers new security and economic axes on which these emerging powers can organise, profoundly weakening US influence.

The new entrants are Argentina, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. China already brokered an unexpected reconciliation between historic foes Iran and Saudia Arabia in March, in preparation for their accession.

Brics+ will only strengthen their mutual interests.

That will be no comfort in Washington. The US has long favoured keeping the two at loggerheads, in a divide-and-rule policy that rationalised its continuous meddling to control the oil-rich Middle East and favoured Washington’s key regional military ally, Israel.

But Brics+ won’t just end the US role in dictating global security arrangements. It will gradually loosen Washington’s stranglehold on the global economy, ending the dollar’s dominance as the world reserve currency.

Brics+ now controls a majority of the world’s energy supplies, and some 37 percent of global GDP, more than the US-led G7. Opportunities to trade in currencies other than the dollar become much easier.

As Paul Craig Roberts, a former official in Ronald Reagan’s treasury, observed: “Declining use of the dollar means a declining supply of customers for US debt, which means pressure on the dollar’s exchange value and the prospect of rising inflation from rising prices of imports.”

In short, a weak dollar is going to make bullying the rest of the world a considerably more difficult prospect.

The US isn’t likely to go down without a fight. Which is why Ukrainians and Russians are currently dying on the battlefield. And why China and the rest of us have good reason to fear who may be next.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/10/ ... n-ukraine/

[blindpig]

U.S. Taxpayers Are Funding Their Own Conditioning for a War that Would Entail National Suicide
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - October 9, 2023 0


[Source: chinadaily.com]

CIA Cutout Spends $5 Million Per Year to Spread Anti-China Propaganda While Congress Chips in at Least $500 Million
In 2021, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA cutout provided $5 million in grants to anti-Chinese government groups. The main purpose was to try to destabilize China and spread propaganda to isolate it while building opposition to its government.

On September 14, the NED sponsored a talk by Bethany Allen, an Axios reporter billed as the first journalist to expose China’s alleged covert influence operations in the U.S. in her book, Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World.[1]

Beijing Rules is in many ways a throwback to yellow peril tracts of the early 20th century, which spread racist caricatures and paranoia about China along with a naïve view about the supposed innocence of the U.S. and how it is being victimized by China.



Bethany Allen [Source: buzzfeednews.com]

The major covert influence operation that Allen claims to have uncovered was carried out by only one person, Christine Fang, a kind of “Oriental seductress” as Allen depicts her, who was said to have used the cover of a Sister City program and sex to woo mayors and political figures like Eric Swalwell (D-CA), though it is unclear what classified information, if any, she obtained from them.


Christine Fang with Eric Swalwell. [Source: heavy.com]

Under the leadership of William F. Burns, the CIA has carried out an expansive covert influence operation in China dwarfing that what the Chinese are doing, with the CIA hiring more China experts, increasing spending on China-related efforts, and creating a new mission center focused on spying on China, including by flying spy planes off its coast.[2]


CIA Director William F. Burns on a visit to China in 2014 when he was Deputy U.S. Secretary of State. [Source: cbsnews.com]

Beijing Rules omits any mention of all this while adopting Cold War phraseology in raising alarm about China’s alleged “extension of its authoritarian reach abroad.”

Allen additionally attacks China for promoting “conspiracy theories”—a CIA euphemism—about the coronavirus that she says deflected blame from its role in causing a worldwide pandemic. This when it is known that the U.S. supported gain-of-function research that is believed to have resulted in the manufacture of COVID-19 in a lab.[3]

In February 2022, the U.S. Congress passed a measure embedded in the America COMPETES Act allocating $500 million to “combat Chinese disinformation” of the kind that Allen claims is rampant.

The real purpose of the measure is to spread negative stories about China. Most of the money was to be directed to the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), a state-run media service that oversees Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe (RFE), and Radio Free Asia (RFA), which was run under Donald Trump by a registered lobbyist for Taiwan.

According to the China Daily, all three outlets have a record of “blurring the line between objective news coverage and pro-American propaganda.”

They in turn helped build support for U.S. foreign policies directed at China and for a renewed climate of McCarthyism, epitomized by a call by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) for investigation of “far left organizations” for allegedly violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) because of alleged funding ties to China.[4]


Senator Marco Rubio [Source: dailycaller.com]

Selling War with China
On September 6, the War Industry Resisters Network supported a webinar on Selling War with China that spotlighted the profiteering underlying the spread of anti-China propaganda.


Carl Zha [Source: twitter.com]

The first speaker, Carl Zha, runs a podcast about China and the Silk Road.

He emphasized how U.S. policies toward China follow the precedent from the late 19th and early 20th centuries when they supported British imperialism and aimed to destabilize the country so U.S. businessmen could exploit it economically and access the “China market.”

During the suppression of the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion, U.S. Marines participated in the sacking of Beijing, and for nearly 100 years carried out a patrol on the Yangtze River.

The U.S. goal of weakening China was spelled out in an 1899 article in The Atlantic aptly titled “The Break-up of China, and Our Interest in It.”


U.S. Marines in China during the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion. [Source: defense.gov]

Today, Zha says that the U.S. ruling class is divided between business elites who still want to access the China Market and the Pentagon, which fears China’s economic rise and challenge to the U.S. and wants to contain and isolate China.


The Open Door Policy was promoted by Secretary of State John Hay in 1899 to better facilitate the U.S. economic exploitation of China. [Source: timetoast.com]

The Biden administration has sided with the latter in pursuing a policy of military encirclement while trying to weaken China’s semi-conductor industry and to decouple America’s economy from China’s.


[Source: 3dincities.com]

On September 10, Biden oversaw signing of a comprehensive strategic partnership with Vietnam that China viewed as aiming to “incite antagonism and confrontation” with it because of the challenge it represented to China’s traditional influence in Vietnam.[5]


U.S. President Joe Biden participates in a welcome ceremony hosted by Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, on September 10, 2023. [Source: cnn.com]

The Biden administration has further antagonized China by a) sending warships into the South China Sea and spy planes over the Taiwan Straits, which is under Chinese jurisdiction; b) expanding the U.S. military base network in the Philippines; c) fortifying the U.S. military alliance with South Korea and Japan; d) helping to transform Okinawa into a garrison state for war with China; e) sending nuclear-armed submarines and precision weapons to Australia aimed at China; f) furthering military cooperation with India; g) turning Taiwan into a heavily armed “porcupine” that hosts U.S. Special Forces; and; h) sending B-52 nuclear-armed bombers to Guam.[6]



On September 17, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff acknowledged that the Chinese spy balloon hysteria over the summer that contributed greatly to the deterioration of U.S.-China relations was entirely baseless. Many other accusations directed against China have been either false or inflated for political reasons.


[Source: ocregister.com]

Biden’s Southeast Asia policies have been driven in part by Big Tech companies like Google which do not operate in China by choice. Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who was appointed to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (AI), has invested in an AI start-up that has a contract with the Pentagon and wants to stop China from progressing on AI.


Eric Schmidt [Source: bloomberg.com]

Regarding Taiwan, Zha explained that it has been part of China since the 1600s. Most Taiwanese want to keep it as such, though the U.S. has covertly supported a separatist movement in order to provoke a Chinese invasion that would provide a pretext for U.S. military intervention.


[Source: hawaiipublicradio.org]

This goes against the spirit of the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué signed by President Richard M. Nixon during a historic visit marking U.S. recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which established the “One China Policy” that recognizes Taiwan as part of China.


Nixon and Mao during Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972. [Source: zhouhuizhang.wordpress.com]
The roots of the current conflict over Taiwan go back to 1949 when the Truman administration decided to support Chiang Kai-shek, the losing party in China’s civil war, in establishing Taiwan as his base after he fled the Chinese mainland.


U.S. military advisers training Taiwanese troops in the early 1950s. [Source: thinkchina.sg]
Four years earlier, Taiwan had reverted to Chinese sovereignty with the defeat of Japan in World War II (Japan colonized Taiwan from 1905 to 1945 after defeating China in the first Sino-Japanese War).


Mural depicting Japanese victory in Sino-Japanese War of 1905 which led to Japan’s colonization of Taiwan. [Source: forbes.com]

In June 1950, Mao was about to order the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to cross the Taiwan Straits and remove Chiang; however, the Korean War broke out and the U.S. threatened to invade Taiwan to protect Chiang, and PLA forces had to go into North Korea to save it from being overrun.


Chiang Kai-shek and General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. [Source: taipeiairstation.blogspot.com]

U.S. military provocations today are being justified because of China’s allegedly poor human rights record, including its alleged persecution of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

The context for this persecution is poorly understood in the U.S., however, and actual conditions of the Uyghurs are being misrepresented.

Zha explained that, in the 1980s, many Uyghurs became radicalized in Saudi-financed religious madrasas in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they had traveled after the U.S. had built a road from Xinjiang Province to transfer Chinese weapons to Islamic fundamentalists, armed by the CIA, who were fighting the Soviets.


[Source: britannica.com]

After the Soviet government in Afghanistan collapsed, many of the radicalized Uyghurs returned to China where they mounted a low-level insurgency against the Chinese government for more than a decade and staged riots and terrorist bombings.


Uyghur extremists, some of whom went on to fight the secular Assad regime in Syria. [Source: greenvillepost.com]

China responded by developing de-radicalization centers, which were branded in Western media as re-education camps. The media also inflated the numbers of people who had been sent there based on estimates promoted by human rights NGOs funded by the NED.


Camp building in Xinjiang where, according to Zha, Uyghurs underwent de-radicalization. Western NGOs funded by the NED claim that, in reality, the facility was a re-education center that was like a concentration camp, though it resembles more a government building. [Source: bbc.com]
The second speaker at the webinar, Christian Sorensen, a former Air Force veteran who wrote the book Understanding the War Industry, said that the U.S. may claim that China is an aggressor, but Beijing is not the one “trying to play off Long Island from the U.S. or intercede in a dispute between Georgia and Florida—the U.S. is doing this with China and Taiwan.”

Sorenson highlighted how the $9.1 billion Pacific Deterrence Initiative has been a bonanza for U.S. arms makers that keep winning major contracts for selling weapons and building new base infrastructure in Southeast Asia.

Leading war profiteers—or merchants of death as they used to be called—include RTX (formerly Raytheon), Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Booz Hamilton, KBR and SAIC along with lesser known military contractors like T3W, Amentum, and Hexagon.

U.S. oil companies have also helped lobby for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative because the the U.S. military is their top customer and they benefit from the construction or upgrading of petroleum facilities in U.S. military outposts in the Asia Pacific like Guam.

Many of the leading military profiteers are owned by Wall Street equity firms that are big-time donors to the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Among them is Blackrock which owns 6.9% of Raytheon, 5% of General Dynamics, 6.8 percent of Lockheed Martin, and 6.3% of Northrop Grumman. It gave $410,675 to Republican and $606,366 to Democratic Party candidates in the 2022 election, including $113,950 to Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a longtime Sinophobe and China hawk.[7]

A key historical turning point occurred when the Obama administration signed an agreement in 2014 allowing the U.S. military to have access to Philippine bases. Vice President Kamala Harris visited Philippines this year to secure further expansion of this access while promising U.S. funding for more Philippines bases, including ones pointed directly at Taiwan.

Okinawa, South Korea and Guam have also been heavily militarized and dotted with U.S. military installations to the detriment of the local people and environment.

The arms dealers have further made brisk business with Taiwan, recipient of $3 billion in military aid this year, which the Biden administration wants to transform into a “porcupine” that China would never dare threaten.

According to Sorensen, the U.S. corrupts countries in Southeast Asia by a) giving their governments money for infrastructure; b) offering them military training; c) letting the war industry sell its goods and services to their countries’ military; and d) stoking fear of China as a pretext for foreign military occupation.

At the end of his talk, Sorensen reiterated that the U.S. ruling elite does not give a damn about its own citizens, let alone the people of Southeast Asia. It moans about lacking the funds to provide adequate health care or public education, but can “always pull another $100 million to support military industries and war,” he said.


1.See Bethany Allen, Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World (New York: HarperCollins, 2023). The NED is also on its website promoting a new report about China and Russia’s alleged roles in undermining democracy in Africa. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the NED invests heavily in anti-China programs every year to incite “Xinjiang independence,” “Hong Kong independence,” and “Tibet independence” activities by various means, adding that the NED “colludes with ‘Taiwan independence’ forces and attempts to incite division and disrupt stability across the Taiwan Strait, which has been met with indignation and opposition from the Chinese people on both sides of the Strait.” ↑

2.Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong, “Global Espionage Grows Between U.S. and China,” The New York Times, September 17, 2023, A1. The CIA has a long record of subversion in China that is little known in the U.S. and either unknown by Allen or something she is intent on suppressing. See Jeremy Kuzmarov, “CIA Has Been Working to Overthrow the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Since Its Inception in 1949,” CovertAction Magazine, July 24, 2023. ↑

3.Allen, Beijing Rules, 9, 47, 132, 139. See Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health (New York: Skyhorse, 2021); Andrew G,. Huff, The Truth About Wuhan: How I Uncovered the Biggest Lie in History (New York: Skyhorse, 2022). Allen has been banned from China. ↑

4.Rubio has singled out the anti-war group CodePink, the target of a New York Times hit piece which accused it of taking over a million dollars in donations from a Maoist tech millionaire, Neville Roy Singham, which the Times claimed were “part of a lavishly funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda.” In Oklahoma, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters has initiated what the Tulsa World calls “an inquest to try to prove that Tulsa Public Schools are receiving payment from the Chinese government to pay for professional development coursework by a foreign language teacher at a local high-school.” These allegations have proven to be entirely baseless. What Walters claims was Chinese Communist Party (CCP) infiltration was the Tulsa public school’s paying for a Chinese language teacher at a local High School to take professional development sessions from a Confucius Classroom Coordination Office at the International Leadership of Texas Charter Schools. ↑

5.Sui-Lee Wee, “Vietnam and U.S. Deepen Ties Amid Mutual Unease of China,” The New York Times, September 9, 2023, A1, A6. ↑

6.U.S. war preparations are evident in the U.S. Air Force’s clearing out jungles in the Pacific to build new airfields and restore old ones that could provide a base for operations targeting China. ↑

7.The New York Times reported on September 13 that Schumer “has a record of blasting Beijing for currency manipulation, unfair trade practices and aggressive actions against Taiwan. As majority leader, he shepherded passage last year of legislation investing tens of billions of dollars in the American semiconductor industry as a means of reducing reliance on Beijing. He is now pushing to impose sanctions on China for its role in fentanyl trafficking and to rally senators around strategies to outpace China in the realm of artificial intelligence.” Another big donnor to Schumer has been Ernst & Young, the accounting firm which lists Lockheed Martin as one of its top clients. ↑

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/1 ... l-suicide/

(Other images at link.)

[blindpig]

The West’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is callous and irresponsible

The following article from Global Times discusses the recent escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the hypocritical behaviour of the Western powers.

The article observes that the Israeli state has ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza – a densely-populated area which has already been under effective siege for the last 16 years, and which has often been described as the world’s largest open-air prison. In addition to the loss of several thousand Palestinian lives in the last decade (mostly the result of missile strikes), Israel’s ongoing abuse of Palestinian human rights has led to the devastation of the economy and the near-collapse of basic services. Now in response to the surprise attack led by Hamas, Israel is engaged in a further act of collective punishment, cutting off electricity and water supplies, while mobilising its military for a possible full-scale ground invasion of Gaza.

The author asserts that “the urgent task facing the international community, especially the major powers, is to quickly put the brakes on this tragedy and prevent a larger-scale humanitarian catastrophe.” Unfortunately the imperialist powers are showing no interest in preventing a catastrophe or in addressing the fundamental cause of the crisis – the ongoing national oppression of the Palestinian people.

The article points out that “the most rational and responsible approach is to call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and calm and to achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible.” But the US and its allies are instead increasing their military aid to Israel, cracking down on pro-Palestine opinion at home, and waging fierce propaganda against the Palestinian resistance movement. “The words and actions of the US and many Western countries are fanning the flames rather than cooling down the situation.”

Xi Jinping commented in December 2022 that “the legitimate rights of a nation are not up for trade. I would like to reiterate that China firmly supports the establishment of an independent State of Palestine that enjoys full sovereignty based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.” It is perfectly clear that there will be no lasting peace in the region until the Palestinian people gain their freedom and self-determination, in accordance with international law.

The casualty data of this round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is being updated every day, causing concern and distress for the civilians living in the area. According to Israeli media reports on October 9, the conflict has resulted in more than 1,300 deaths and over 5,000 injuries on both sides. Both Israel and Palestine have suffered a large number of civilian casualties. Additionally, humanitarian relief organizations of the United Nations have stated that over 120,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been displaced. The conflict is still escalating, and there is a significant degree of uncertainty about how much it will escalate and in which direction it will develop in the future. However, one thing is certain: The damage and suffering caused by the conflict will largely be borne by the local civilians, and they are in great need of care and protection from the outside world.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza, where over 2 million Palestinian residents live densely packed. They already endure severe material blockades and restrictions on movement year-round, and the outbreak of the conflict has added to their dangers and hardships. Electricity and water supplies have been cut off, and a new humanitarian disaster is brewing. This is a focal point that the international community cannot afford to ignore in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The urgent task facing the international community, especially the major powers, is how to quickly put the brakes on this tragedy and prevent a larger-scale humanitarian catastrophe. It is the responsibility of the international community to address this issue promptly.

It must be said that the long-term marginalization of the Palestinian issue by Western countries, particularly the US, is extremely cruel. Western elites often ignore the actual humanitarian disasters while enthusiastically discussing abstract human rights, which is very hypocritical. We have noticed that many voices in the West are trying to create pressure for “taking sides,” listing which countries “have not condemned Hamas.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken even openly “advised” Saudi Arabia during a conversation with the Saudi Foreign Minister to “clearly condemn” the attack. To be honest, Washington is not in a position to educate anyone on this issue.

All acts of violence and attacks targeting civilians are unacceptable in any civilized society and must be strongly condemned by the international community, regardless of the perpetrators. When conflicts erupt, the most rational and responsible approach is to call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and calm and to achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible. However, in this case, we still see that the words and actions of the US and many Western countries are, in fact, fanning the flames rather than cooling down the situation. This is a consistent pattern for Western countries in many conflict regions, where they often create substantial obstacles to crisis resolution.

Take a typical example: Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, who has already announced her candidacy for the 2024 US presidential election, specifically mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “This is not just an attack on Israel – this was an attack on America.” “Finish them… They should have hell to pay for what they have just done.”

The remarks are filled with hostility and strong incitement. These extreme words promote hatred and represent the true attitude of many American politicians toward the Palestinian issue and other international issues. In their eyes, the world is seen as a binary opposition of black and white, with them representing justice. They are accustomed to understanding and perceiving the complex reality of international politics with simplistic and crude linear thinking, and they handle international hot issues with intricate historical backgrounds in a simplistic and crude manner. As a result, this approach only adds fuel to the fire and leads to greater disasters.


As an unhealed wound in the international community, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict repeatedly reminds the world of the extreme importance of collective security. The crisis is recurring primarily because the Middle East peace process has deviated from the right track, and the foundation of the “two-state solution” has been continuously eroded, with relevant United Nations resolutions not being effectively implemented. While it is important for the international community to mediate and promote the immediate de-escalation of the situation, this is only a temporary solution for the Israeli-Palestinian issue. To truly achieve lasting peace and allow the residents of this land to live stable and dignified lives, it is necessary to return to the grand ideas and principles of collective security. The pursuit of “absolute security” will only result in absolute insecurity, and there have already been enough tragedies and lessons learned from this.

It is essential to quickly de-escalate the situation and stop innocent civilians from becoming victims, as this is a basic human right. Major powers, in particular, have a responsibility to play their role and should take necessary actions to promote dialogue, achieve a ceasefire, and restore peace. Any actions that add fuel to the fire or take sides will only further complicate and hinder the situation. Only by truly practicing the concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security can the Israeli-Palestinian conflict achieve lasting peace.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/10/11/t ... sponsible/



Proposal of the People’s Republic of China on the Reform and Development of Global Governance

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an important proposal on the reform and development of global governance on September 13, 2023.

Drawing on President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is now marking its tenth anniversary, as well as his more recent Global Security Initiative (GSI), Global Development Initiative (GDI) and Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI), the document sets out China’s views and proposals on a considerable range of global issues in a systematic fashion.

It notes that:

“Today, changes in the world, in our times and in history are unfolding in ways like never before. The deficits in peace, development, security and governance are growing. Humanity is once again at a crossroads, and facing a consequential choice on its future… Facing global changes unseen in a century, and keeping in mind both China’s realities and global developments, President Xi Jinping has creatively put forth the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity… As the world faces frequently emerging hotspot issues, rising geopolitical conflicts, and rampant unilateral and bullying practices, the international community needs peace, trust, solidarity and cooperation, rather than war, suspicion, division or confrontation.”

Among the numerous issues highlighted, the document sets out that:

China firmly supports a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be upheld. All efforts conducive to a peaceful settlement of the crisis should be supported. No one gains from conflicts and wars. Imposing sanctions, exerting pressure, or adding fuel to the fire will only escalate the situation. It is important to maintain mutual respect, abandon the Cold War mentality, stop ganging up to stoke camp-based confrontation, and work to build a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture.
China maintains that it is important to preserve peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, achieve denuclearisation and establish a peace mechanism on the Peninsula. The issue needs to be resolved through dialogue and consultation, and the legitimate concerns of all sides addressed in a balanced manner.
China calls on the international community to respect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, follow the “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned” principle, and maintain engagement and dialogue with Afghanistan on that basis.
China firmly supports the Palestinian people’s just cause of restoring their legitimate national rights. The fundamental solution to the Palestinian question is to establish an independent state of Palestine that enjoys full sovereignty.
China strongly condemns all forms of terrorism and extremism. China opposes associating terrorism and extremism with any particular country, ethnic group or religion, opposes double standards on counter-terrorism, and opposes politicising or instrumentalising the issue of counter-terrorism.
Nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must never be fought. China supports greater efforts to reduce strategic risks based on the joint statement by the leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states [according to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty {NPT}]on preventing nuclear war.
Peaceful uses of nuclear energy should not be pursued at the expense of the environment and human health. The Japanese government should respond fully to the international community’s major concerns on the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water from Fukushima.
China supports the pursuit of green and low-carbon development. In the course of a just energy transition, the different national realities and capabilities of countries should be fully respected, and traditional energy should be phased out on the basis of ensuring safe and reliable alternative energy sources.
China attaches great importance to addressing climate change and maintains that countries should work in concert within multilateral frameworks to tackle this pressing global challenge. It is important to stick to the objectives, principles and institutional arrangements outlined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement, especially the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
Human rights for all is the shared pursuit of humanity. People’s happiness is the biggest human right. In advancing human rights, countries should put the people front and centre, make the people’s aspirations for a better life their starting point and ultimate goal, and keep making efforts to resolve the most practical problems that are of the greatest and most direct concern to the people, so that people can lead a good life.
Education is an important force for the progress of human civilisation. China stands ready to work with countries around the world for more educational exchange, enhance openness in education and actively support other developing countries in advancing education.
The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) benefits all countries, and all countries should be able to participate extensively in the global governance of AI. All parties should follow the principles of extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefits, give play to the role of the UN as the main channel, and promote a people-centred approach and such visions as ‘AI for good’, emphasis on development and giving priority to ethics.
Peaceful exploration and use of outer space is an equal right for all countries in the world. Lasting peace and security in outer space bears on the security, development and prosperity of all countries. China has all along upheld the principle of exploration and use of outer space for the well-being of the entire humanity, and safeguarded the international order in outer space with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 as the cornerstone.
China firmly supports the core role of the UN in international affairs. The reform of the UN should be conducive to safeguarding multilateralism and the role of the UN, increasing the voice of developing countries in international affairs, and boosting the enforcement capacity and management efficiency of UN agencies.
China supports necessary and equitable reform of the Security Council to boost its authority and efficiency, enhance its capacity to tackle global threats and challenges, and let it better fulfill its mandate prescribed in the UN Charter. The Security Council should not become a club of the big countries or rich countries. Its reform should credibly increase the representation and voice of developing countries, redress the historical injustices done to Africa, and give more developing countries with independent foreign policies and just positions the opportunity to sit on the Security Council and participate in its decision-making. China supports making special arrangements to meet Africa’s aspiration as a priority.
China supports necessary and equitable reform of the global health governance system, to raise the efficiency of the system, better respond to global public health crises, and build a global community of health for all.
We reprint the full text of the proposal below. It was originally published by the Xinhua News Agency.

Today, changes in the world, in our times and in history are unfolding in ways like never before. The deficits in peace, development, security and governance are growing. Humanity is once again at a crossroads, and facing a consequential choice on its future. Meanwhile, world multi-polarity and economic globalization keep evolving. Peace, development and win-win cooperation are the unstoppable trends of the times. Solidarity, cooperation and progress remain the aspiration of people around the world.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of President Xi Jinping’s proposal on building a community with a shared future for mankind. Facing global changes unseen in a century, and keeping in mind both China’s realities and global developments, President Xi Jinping has creatively put forth the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind. This proposal has pointed the way forward for the future development of the world and provided a solution for common challenges. Over the past decade, the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind has grown from an idea to action and a vision to reality. China calls on the international community to act on true multilateralism, uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core, support the U.N. in playing a central role in international affairs, further develop and improve the global governance system, and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.

I.Enhancing global security governance and safeguarding world peace and stability

Security is humanity’s most basic need and the most important global public good. As the world faces frequently emerging hotspot issues, rising geopolitical conflicts, and rampant unilateral and bullying practices, the international community needs peace, trust, solidarity and cooperation, rather than war, suspicion, division or confrontation. China welcomes the New Agenda for Peace presented by Secretary General António Guterres, and is ready to have further discussions and build consensus with all parties.

President Xi Jinping has put forward the Global Security Initiative (GSI). It advocates a commitment to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security; a commitment to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries; a commitment to abiding by the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter; a commitment to taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously; a commitment to peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation; and a commitment to maintaining security in both traditional and non-traditional domains, with a view to jointly promoting a global community of security for all.

China firmly supports a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be upheld, the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter observed, and the legitimate security concerns of all sides taken seriously. All efforts conducive to a peaceful settlement of the crisis should be supported. The root cause of the crisis lies in the problem of security governance in Europe. Parties concerned must face the crux of the issue squarely, stop shifting problems, build mutual trust and accommodate each other’s legitimate security concerns, so as to gradually create conditions for ceasefire and peace talks. No one gains from conflicts and wars. Imposing sanctions, exerting pressure, or adding fuel to the fire will only escalate the situation. It is important to maintain mutual respect, abandon the Cold War mentality, stop ganging up to stoke camp-based confrontation, and work to build a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture.

China maintains that it is important to preserve peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, achieve denuclearization and establish a peace mechanism on the Peninsula. The issue needs to be resolved through dialogue and consultation, and the legitimate concerns of all sides addressed in a balanced manner. Given the current situation, parties concerned need to remain calm and restrained, work to ease the situation and make efforts to create conditions for the resumption of dialogue, rather than insisting on sanctions and pressuring, which would only aggravate problems and escalate tensions. China has been actively promoting peace and talks, and will continue to work with the international community to follow the dual-track approach and take phased and synchronized steps, and to play a constructive role in the political settlement of the Peninsula issue.

China calls on the international community to respect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, follow the “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned” principle, and maintain engagement and dialogue with Afghanistan on that basis. The international community needs to continue its humanitarian and development assistance for Afghanistan, support Afghanistan in integrating into the connectivity and economic integration process in the region to enhance its capability for independent and sustainable development, and encourage Afghanistan to put in place an inclusive political framework, adopt moderate policies, combat terrorism and develop friendly external relations. Certain country needs to draw lessons from what happened in Afghanistan, abandon double standard on combating terrorism, unconditionally return to Afghanistan its overseas assets, lift unilateral sanctions on Afghanistan, and take concrete actions to fulfill responsibilities to the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan.

China firmly supports the Palestinian people’s just cause of restoring their legitimate national rights. The fundamental solution to the Palestinian question is to establish an independent state of Palestine that enjoys full sovereignty on the basis of the 1967 border and with east Jerusalem as its capital. The international community needs to step up development assistance and humanitarian aid to Palestine, and help meet Palestine’s economic and livelihood needs. It is important to keep to the right direction of peace talks, respect the historical status quo of the holy sites in Jerusalem, refrain from making radical and provocative comments and moves, promote the hosting of an international peace conference with wider participation, higher authority and greater influence, create conditions for the resumption of peace talks, and make concrete efforts to help the two states of Palestine and Israel to coexist peacefully. China will play an active role in facilitating Palestine’s internal reconciliation and peace talks.

China believes that regional hotspots such as the Iranian nuclear issue and the issues of Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen need to be resolved through political means. China supports Middle East countries in independently exploring development paths, resolving regional security issues through solidarity and coordination, and maintaining lasting peace and security in the region. China supports African countries in solving African issues in the African way to restore peace and stability on the African continent, supports African countries and people in independently choosing their paths to modernization, and supports Africa in speaking with one voice on international affairs and continuously elevating its international standing. China will enhance solidarity and coordination with the African side, and jointly implement the Initiative on Supporting Africa’s Industrialization, the Plan for China Supporting Africa’s Agricultural Modernization and the Plan for China-Africa Cooperation on Talent Development, to help Africa bring its integration and modernization onto a fast track. China firmly opposes certain country’s wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction, and believes that conditions should be created for the developing countries to grow their economy and improve the people’s well-being.

China strongly condemns all forms of terrorism and extremism. China opposes associating terrorism and extremism with any particular country, ethnic group or religion, opposes double standard on counter-terrorism, and opposes politicizing or instrumentalizing the issue of counter-terrorism. It is important to take a holistic approach and address both the symptoms and root causes in fighting terrorism, so as to eradicate the breeding ground of terrorism at the source. China supports the U.N. in playing a central and coordinating role to help developing countries build capacity for fighting terrorism, form greater synergy worldwide against terrorism, and address the challenges brought by emerging technologies.

Nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must never be fought. The international community should jointly oppose the threat or use of nuclear weapons. China supports greater efforts to reduce strategic risks based on the joint statement by the leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states on preventing nuclear war. Nuclear disarmament should be advanced in a step-by-step manner under the principles of “maintaining global strategic stability” and “undiminished security for all.” Countries with the largest nuclear arsenals should earnestly fulfill their special and primary responsibilities in nuclear disarmament, continue to effectively implement the New START Treaty, and make further substantial and substantive cuts to their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable, irreversible and legally binding manner, so as to create conditions for achieving the ultimate goal of general and complete nuclear disarmament. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is the bedrock of international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime, and an important part of the post-war international security system. It plays an irreplaceable role in promoting world peace and development. The international community should advance the three pillars of the NPT in a balanced way and jointly safeguard the treaty’s authority, effectiveness and universality.

China pays great attention to nuclear security. It has proposed a rational, coordinated, and balanced approach to nuclear security and worked actively for a global community of shared future on nuclear security. Nuclear security is a lifeline in the development of nuclear energy and application of nuclear technology. Peaceful uses of nuclear energy should not be pursued at the expense of the environment and human health. The Japanese government should respond fully to the international community’s major concerns on the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water from Fukushima, shoulder its moral responsibilities and obligations under international law, and stop discharging the nuclear-contaminated water. The Japanese government needs to show sincerity and have full communication with neighboring countries, accept strict international oversight, and ensure that the contaminated water is disposed of in a science-based, safe and transparent manner.

China is committed to upholding the authority and effectiveness of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (CWC) and to achieving the goal of a world free of chemical weapons. China urges Japan to speed up the destruction of abandoned chemical weapons in China. China upholds the CWC as a guideline for properly settling hotspot issues concerning chemical weapons, opposes politicization, and promotes international cooperation on peaceful uses of chemistry.

II. Improving global development governance and jointly pursuing global sustainable development

Development is the eternal pursuit of mankind and the shared responsibility of all countries. President Xi Jinping has proposed the Global Development Initiative (GDI) and called on the international community to strengthen unity and mutual trust, put development first, and address challenges together, thus boosting efforts to bring the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development back on track.

With the implementation of the GDI as a main focus, China will push for international efforts to consolidate and expand consensus on development and keep development front and center on the global agenda. China will pursue greater synergy of development strategies at the global, regional, subregional and national levels, including synergy between the GDI and the U.N. development agenda, to achieve complementarity and interconnected development. More will be done to harness the development resources of governments, the business community, the academia and civil societies, improve the allocation of global development resources, deepen practical cooperation in the priority areas of the GDI, and work with all sides to enrich the open-ended pool of GDI projects. China calls on developed countries to deliver on their commitments on official development assistance and climate financing, address the uneven distribution of global development resources, pay attention to development knowledge sharing, and provide capacity-building support to developing countries.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of President Xi Jinping’s proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the past decade, China has championed the Silk Road spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning, and mutual benefit, and focused on enhancing policy, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity, with a view to delivering development and prosperity to all countries. In October this year, China will host the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. That will be an opportunity for China to push for higher-level cooperation, better cost-effectiveness, higher-quality supply, and stronger development resilience in Belt and Road cooperation and work with all parties to deepen exchange and cooperation across the board, enhance the complementarity and synergy between the BRI and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and make greater contributions to global development.

China supports efforts to make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all. The international community needs to stick to opening up as the overall direction, uphold multilateralism, firmly safeguard free trade and the multilateral trading system, oppose unilateralism and protectionism, promote connectivity, and encourage integrated development; stick to equality as the basis, respect the social systems and development paths of different countries, and make the global economic governance system more just and equitable; and stick to cooperation as a driving force, pursue extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefits, and promote mutually beneficial cooperation.

Food security is essential for human survival. It is an important part of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. China supports U.N. agencies in leveraging their professional expertise and coordinating role to mobilize scaled up assistance from the international community, developed countries in particular, to meet the pressing needs of people in relevant countries. The international community needs to step up cooperation to establish a fair, equitable, sustainable and stable order for agricultural trade, and avoid politicizing and weaponizing food security issues. Greater support should be given to developing countries, especially the most vulnerable countries, to help them enhance capacity for food security.

China supports the pursuit of green and low-carbon development. In the course of a just energy transition, the different national realities and capabilities of countries should be fully respected, and traditional energy should be phased out on the basis of ensuring safe and reliable alternative energy sources. The grave challenges of energy security are essentially caused by disruption in supply chain and international cooperation, not by production or demand. China firmly opposes attempts to politicize, instrumentalize and weaponize energy issues. Countries should work together to ensure smooth supply chains, stabilize the energy market and prices, and strive for the goal of ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

China attaches great importance to addressing climate change and maintains that countries should work in concert within multilateral frameworks to tackle this pressing global challenge. It is important to stick to the objectives, principles and institutional arrangements outlined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement, especially the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Developed countries should face their historical responsibilities squarely, take the lead in significantly reducing emissions, and deliver on their commitments of financial, technical and capacity-building support to developing countries. China will work with the rest of the international community to push for the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement and to foster a fair, equitable, cooperative and win-win system of global climate governance.

III. Advancing global human rights and social governance and jointly promoting civilizational exchange and progress

Equal-footed exchange and mutual learning between different civilizations will provide robust spiritual guidance for humanity in resolving the challenges of our times and realizing common development. In proposing the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), President Xi Jinping aims to promote the exchange and mutual learning between civilizations, enhance mutual understanding and friendship between people of all countries, build international consensus for cooperation and advance the progress of human civilizations. This has injected strong impetus to the modernization of human society and building a community with a shared future for mankind.

We need to respect the diversity of civilizations, uphold the principles of equality, mutual learning, dialogue and inclusiveness among civilizations, and let cultural exchange transcend estrangement, mutual learning transcend clashes, and coexistence transcend feelings of superiority. We need to jointly advocate humanity’s common values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, reject imposing values and models on others, and oppose stoking ideological confrontation. We need to attach importance to the inheritance and innovation of civilizations, fully harness the relevance of histories and cultures to the present times, and push for creative transformation and innovative development of all fine traditional cultures in the process of modernization.

Human rights for all is the shared pursuit of humanity. People’s happiness is the biggest human right. In advancing human rights, countries should put the people front and center, make the people’s aspirations for a better life their starting point and ultimate goal, and keep making efforts to resolve the most practical problems that are of the greatest and most direct concern to the people, so that people can lead a good life. We must safeguard people’s democratic rights, fully inspire their motivation, initiative and creativity, and ensure that the people run the country, enjoy human rights equally, and become the chief participants, promoters and beneficiaries in human rights advancement.

There is no one-size-fits-all model for promoting and protecting human rights. All countries’ independent choice of their own path of human rights development should be respected. Human rights have historical, specific and practical contexts. Countries vary from one another in historical background, cultural heritage, social systems and levels of socio-economic development. Their paths of human rights advancement can have inevitable differences. They need to combine the principle of universality of human rights and their national conditions and advance human rights in light of national realities and the needs of their people. Human rights issues should not be politicized or used as a tool, double standard should be rejected, and still less should human rights be used as an excuse to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs or encircle and contain other countries as they pursue development.

Human rights is an all-encompassing, rich concept. All aspects of human rights are equally important and should be advanced in a coordinated and systematic way. Among them the rights to subsistence and development are the basic human rights of paramount importance, and economic, social and cultural rights should be accorded enough attention. Long-standing issues, such as racial discrimination, religious hatred and the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights should be effectively addressed as soon as possible. Emerging issues including digital technology and artificial intelligence in relation to human rights should receive due attention and be addressed properly.

Promoting and protecting human rights requires concerted effort of the international community. Human rights should be safeguarded through enhancing security. It is important to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, jointly follow a path of peaceful development, implement the GSI and create a peaceful environment for the realization of human rights. Human rights should be advanced through development. It is important to implement the GDI, make development more inclusive, universally beneficial and sustainable, and make sure that development is for the people and by the people, and that its fruits are shared among the people. Human rights should be facilitated through cooperation. It is important to implement the GCI, engage in human rights exchange and cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, inclusiveness and equality, learn from each other, build consensus and jointly pursue human rights progress.

The Human Rights Council and other U.N. human rights bodies should be platforms for dialogue and cooperation, not places for confrontation and pressuring. The U.N. human rights bodies should adhere to the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, uphold the principles of impartiality, objectivity, non-selectivity and non-politicization, conduct constructive dialogue and cooperation with Member States, respect the sovereignty of all countries, and perform within their mandate in an objective and impartial manner. The underrepresentation of developing countries in the staff composition of the U.N. human rights bodies should be changed as soon as possible. International human rights dialogue and cooperation should be further promoted through commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the healthy development of the global human rights cause.

Promoting the cause of women and children is an important aspect of social governance. The international community needs to keep working hard to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and put the protection of the rights and interests of women and children high on their agenda. National strategies for the development of women and children should be formulated and improved, comprehensive measures taken to ensure that women and children enjoy the various benefits of development, and the development of women and children kept in step with socio-economic progress. We should support the U.N. in its leading and coordinating role and strengthen international cooperation on the cause of women and children.

Education is an important force for the progress of human civilization. China stands ready to work with countries around the world for more educational exchange, enhance openness in education and actively support other developing countries in advancing education. We call on all countries to step up input in education and enhance its equity, inclusiveness and safety. We support the U.N.’s important role in realizing the sustainable development goal on education, the efforts to promote global peace and sustainable development through reform and development of education, and contribute to realizing equality in education opportunities and universal benefits of educational advancement, to realize the SDG on education in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

IV. Developing global governance of new frontiers and building a governance framework for the future

The progress and development of science and technology has enriched the denotations and connotations of the concepts of international peace and security. The deep sea, polar regions, outer space, cyberspace and digital technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) have become new frontiers of global governance. Faced with the new circumstances, new areas and new challenges, we need to follow the principles of peace, development, inclusiveness and shared governance, and take active steps to keep the rules governing new frontiers up to date with the times and fully reflective of developing countries’ opinions, interests and aspirations. The rights to participation, stating their views, and decision-making of developing countries should be fully safeguarded.

Scientific and technological advances should benefit all humanity, not becoming means of restricting and containing other countries’ development. Certain countries must not erode the governance of new frontiers with their hegemonic mentality, overstretch the concept of national security and build “small yards with high fences” with their advantage in science and technology. Countries need to seize the historic opportunity of the new round of scientific, technological and industrial revolution, accelerate translating scientific and technological advances into productivity, uncover new drivers of growth in the post-COVID era, and work together to leapfrog progress in development. The U.N. should play the core role in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly entitled “Promoting International Cooperation on Peaceful Uses in the Context of International Security,” ensure that developing countries fully enjoy the right to peaceful uses of science and technology to facilitate the realization of sustainable development goals, and effectively respond to security risks posed by scientific and technological development. China will enhance international exchange and cooperation in science and technology with a more open mind and actions, work with other countries to foster an open, fair, equitable and non-discriminatory environment for the development of science and technology, and promote mutual and shared benefit, to tap into China’s strength in science and technology for advancing human development.

The development of AI benefits all countries, and all countries should be able to participate extensively in the global governance of AI. All parties should follow the principles of extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefits, give play to the role of the U.N. as the main channel, and promote a people-centered approach and such visions as AI for good, emphasis on development and priority for ethics. All parties should work for greater representation and voice of developing countries, and shape widely accepted AI governance framework, standards and norms, and ensure that AI is safe, reliable and controllable, and that all countries share in the benefits of AI technologies.

The international community should commit to upholding a cyberspace featuring peace, security, openness and cooperation, and oppose the camp-based division, militarization and fragmentation of cyberspace. No party should overstretch the concept of national security, or unscrupulously deprive another country of its legitimate right to development. Advantage in cyber technologies should not be used to spread aggressive cyber technologies, or turn cyberspace into a new battleground for geopolitical competition. It is important to reject unilateral protectionism, uphold the principles of openness, fairness and non-discrimination, and create a sound, open and inclusive environment for building important international infrastructure such as submarine cables. China supports the U.N. in playing a leading role in global digital governance and rules-making. China stands ready to work with all parties to find solutions to acute issues in digital development and global digital governance, build international consensus, and develop international rules on digital governance based on the Global Initiative on Data Security. All parties should uphold multilateralism, stay committed to fairness and justice, both pursue development and safeguard security, deepen dialogue and cooperation, improve the global digital governance system, and work for a community with a shared future in cyberspace. Cybercrimes are a common threat facing all countries. China supports negotiations chaired by the U.N. to formulate a universal and authoritative global convention, to create a legal framework for countries to strengthen international cooperation against cybercrimes.

China attaches great importance to biosecurity and is committed to improving global biosecurity governance. China supports States Parties in jointly implementing the outcomes of the Ninth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention and facilitating substantive outcomes achieved by the working group on the strengthening of the Convention. China supports strengthening the Convention mechanism by resuming multilateral negotiations on a Convention verification protocol. Meanwhile, the international community should work together to advocate responsible biological research and development, and encourage all stakeholders to voluntarily observe the Tianjin Biosecurity Guidelines for Codes of Conduct for Scientists, in order to reduce biosecurity risks and promote the sound development of biological science and technology.

Oceans hold great significance for the survival and development of human society. China will work with all countries to uphold the maritime order based on international law, properly address all kinds of common maritime threats and challenges under the framework of the GSI, develop and utilize marine resources in a science-based and orderly manner under the framework of the GDI, advance marine governance cooperation based on equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect, safeguard maritime peace and tranquility and waterway security, build a maritime community with a shared future, and promote steady progress of the global maritime cause.

Peaceful exploration and use of outer space is an equal right for all countries in the world. Lasting peace and security in outer space bears on the security, development and prosperity of all countries. China has all along upheld the principle of exploration and use of outer space for the well-being of the entire humanity, and safeguarded the international order in outer space with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 as the cornerstone. On the basis of equality, mutual respect, peaceful use and inclusive development, China carries out international cooperation on outer space, opposes the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space, and advocates building a community with a shared future for mankind in outer space. Countries that are major players in outer space should take up primary responsibility for safeguarding peace and security in outer space. China supports the U.N. in giving full play to its role as the main platform for global governance and international cooperation on outer space, and supports early start of negotiations and conclusion of a legal instrument on arms control in outer space through negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament.

V. Strengthening the core role of the U.N. and advancing the reform of the global governance system

In the Declaration on the Commemoration of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the United Nations, the countries committed to strengthen global governance for the common future of present and coming generations. The Summit of the Future in 2024 presents an opportunity for us to, with a sense of responsibility to succeeding generations, cement solidarity and cooperation, advance the reform of the global governance system, and support the U.N. in better playing its role.

China takes an active part in the reform and development of the global governance system. It practices consultation, cooperation and shared benefits in global governance, upholds true multilateralism, promotes greater democracy in international relations, and works for more just and equitable global governance. The key to the reform of the global governance system lies in balancing fairness and efficiency, keeping up with the evolved international political and economic landscape, meeting the practical need to address global challenges, and being in tune with the historical trend of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit.

China firmly supports the core role of the U.N. in international affairs. The reform of the U.N. should be conducive to safeguarding multilateralism and the role of the U.N., increasing the voice of developing countries in international affairs, and boosting the enforcement capacity and management efficiency of U.N. agencies. It is important to follow the basic principle of equal-footed consultation in the U.N., and help the U.N. stand firm for justice, uphold the rule of law, promote cooperation and focus on real action.

China supports necessary and equitable reform of the Security Council to boost its authority and efficiency, enhance its capacity to tackle global threats and challenges, and let it better fulfill its mandate prescribed in the U.N. Charter. The Security Council should not become a club of the big countries or rich countries. Its reform should credibly increase the representation and voice of developing countries, redress the historical injustices done to Africa, and give more developing countries with independent foreign policies and just positions the opportunity to sit on the Security Council and participate in its decision-making. China supports making special arrangements to meet Africa’s aspiration as a priority. Security Council reform concerns the future of the U.N. and the fundamental interests of the entire membership. All parties should uphold the role of the intergovernmental negotiations on Security Council reform as the main channel, follow the member state-led principle, reach the most extensive political consensus through full and democratic consultation, and seek a package solution that addresses the interests and concerns of all parties on the five clusters of key issues related to the reform.

China advocates strengthening communication and cooperation among mechanisms such as the U.N., the G20, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to enhance macroeconomic policy coordination and improve global economic governance. It is important to boost the capacity and efficiency of international financial institutions in operation and fund-raising, increase the representation and voice of developing countries in international financial institutions, raise the efficiency of using reserve assets such as Special Drawing Rights, step up investment in international public goods urgently needed by developing countries, and ensure participation of multilateral creditors in joint handling of debts.

China supports necessary and equitable reform of the global health governance system, to raise the efficiency of the system, better respond to global public health crises, and build a global community of health for all. China supports the World Health Organization in playing a central coordinating role in global health governance and in strengthening cooperation on public health with all sides in an objective, just and science-based manner. China will continue to support and participate in science-based global origins-tracing, and firmly opposes political manipulation of any form.

Humanity is living in a time rife with challenges and also a time full of hope. Faced with global challenges that are increasingly serious and complex, countries around the world must assume the shared task of working to strengthen and improve the global governance system. China will work together with the rest of the international community to uphold true multilateralism and implement the GDI, the GSI and the GCI. Together, we will create a better future for humanity.

https://socialistchina.us6.list-manage. ... e26e88604a



China and the purity fetish of Western Marxism

In this essay, extracted from the book The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism, Carlos Garrido takes a detailed look at China’s socialist market economy and seeks to understand why so much of the Western left insistently misunderstands it.

Carlos discusses the assorted tropes about China’s ‘authoritarianism’ and ‘totalitarianism’, as well as the obscene slanders that are thrown at it in relation to human rights in Xinjiang. However, the central focus of this essay is the Reform and Opening Up process introduced from the late 1970s, specifically addressing the claims that the existence of markets and private capital in China make it a capitalist country.

The author explains that markets have existed in human society for long before the advent of capitalism (citing Marx that “market economies have existed throughout human history and constitute one of the significant creations by human societies”) and that the character of any given market is determined by its overall socioeconomic context. Deng Xiaoping made this point with particular clarity: “We cannot say that market economy exists only under capitalism. Market economy was in its embryonic stages as early as feudalist society. We can surely develop it under socialism… As long as learning from capitalism is regarded as no more than a means to an end, it will not change the structure of socialism or bring China back to capitalism.”

Carlos writes that the reform strategy responded to a specific set of circumstances and needs, “wherein an overly centralized economy, combined with imperialist-forced isolation from the world, stifled development and necessitated reforms which would allow China to develop its productive forces, absorb the developments taking place in science and technology from the West, and ultimately, protect its revolution.” Given that China has emerged as a science and technology powerhouse; given the extraordinary increase in living standards; and given the continued legitimacy and popularity of the CPC-led government, it seems uncontroversial to say that the strategy has been highly successful.

In the context of an escalating New Cold War against China, “all progressive forces in the West should unite against the US and NATO’s anti-China rhetoric and actions.” China “stands as the main global force countering US/NATO led imperialism. Its rise signifies much more than the end of US unipolarity – it marks the end of the Columbian era of European global dominance that began in 1492.” As such it is imperative that the Western left develop its understanding of Chinese socialism and build solidarity with People’s China, rather than “parroting state-department narratives on China with radical-sounding language.”

One debateable assertion the essay makes is in regard to Hua Guofeng, who served as top leader of the CPC for two years following Mao’s death in 1976. Carlos writes that “Hua Guofeng’s two whatevers (‘We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave’) perpetuated the sort of book worshiping which not only sucked the living spirit out of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, but proved futile in dealing with the problems China faced.”

This is at odds with recent research presented by Isabella Weber in her book How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate. Weber writes that the two whatevers slogan was essentially a means of emphasising loyalty to the Chinese Revolution and socialist construction, and that “paying tribute to Mao in the year after his passing was not unique to Hua.” Meanwhile, “Hua redefined revolution itself as ‘liberation of productive forces’ and elevated national economic development to the highest priority” and in so doing “paved the way for the Deng-era reforms.” It was under Hua that major efforts were first made to attract foreign investment. Weber considers it “remarkable that such drastic changes occurred under a leader who has frequently been described as a relatively unremarkable Mao loyalist.”

This article first appeared on Midwestern Marx.

Post way too long , go to link,

https://socialistchina.org/2023/10/13/c ... n-marxism/

[blindpig]

The East is Still Red – and green

In the following book review of Carlos Martinez’s The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century, Stefania Fusero provides a detailed summary of the chapter on China’s environmental record (China is building an ecological civilisation), including a discussion of China’s trajectory on ecological issues, its commitment in the last two decades to renewable energy development, its record on afforestation, and its leadership in eco-friendly transport.

Stefania also sums up the book’s position as to why China, of all countries, has emerged as the uncontested world leader in renewable energy and biodiversity protection:

China’s economic development proceeds according to state plans, not market anarchy. As a result, the interests of private profit are subordinate to the needs of society.

Unfortunately, the Western world remains oblivious to China’s advances, on the one hand because of a racist assumption that ‘civilised’ European-origin peoples should be leading the way on such matters, and on the other hand because “China’s successes in this and other areas risk demonstrating the fundamental validity of socialism as a means of promoting human progress”.

This book review was first published in Italian in La Città Futura and has been translated into English by the author.

The East is Still Red can be purchased in paperback and digital formats from Praxis Press.

Carlos Martinez’s book provides us with a wide-ranging overview of 21st century China, but in this article, I am going to focus exclusively on the chapter entitled “China is Building an Ecological Civilisation.” Although ecology is rightfully one of the most debated topics both among policymakers and at a grassroots level, we know hardly anything about the environmental policies pursued by and in the People’s Republic of China. Through Martinez’s book we get an exhaustive and detailed picture of them.

With the proclamation of the PRC on October 1, 1949, China began the long journey of emancipation of its people from poverty and underdevelopment, which would lead it to pull hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty a few years ago.

The economic development of the PRC, just like previously that of Europe, the US and Japan, was mainly based on coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, which until two decades ago made up around 80 percent of China’s energy mix. Faced with the choice between economic development resulting in environmental degradation or underdevelopment with environmental conservation, the Chinese leadership chose development.

“The abundance of cheap fossil fuel energy enabled China to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, whilst simultaneously establishing itself as a global leader in science and technology, thereby building a foundation for the construction of a modern and sustainable socialist society.”

It is thanks to that choice that China, although still a developing country, is no longer poor. At the same time, however, the effects of the industrialisation process have amplified and aggravated China’s natural vulnerability to climate change – it is one of the countries most prone to ecological disasters, with 200 million people exposed to the effects of droughts and floods; with nearly a quarter of the world’s population, China has only 5% of the planet’s water resources and 7% of the arable land.

Environmental issues have therefore become a top priority and the CPC has focused, especially in the last decade, on the transition to a green development model. If in the 1980s they made GDP growth one of their top priorities, at the 19th Congress of the CPC in 2017 Xi Jinping announced that the main contradiction that Chinese society now faces is that between unbalanced and inadequate development and the needs of people for an ever-better life.

Already in 2014 Xi Jinping wrote in The Governance of China: “We must strike a balance between economic growth and environmental protection. We will be more conscientious in promoting green, circular, and low-carbon development. We will never again seek economic growth at the expense of the environment.”

If the concepts of growth and development remain a priority on the Chinese leadership’s agenda, “innovative, coordinated, green, open and inclusive” growth and development opportunities that preserve nature are now being pursued. Such a view shifts the development goal “from maximising growth to maximising net welfare”, in the words of influential Chinese economist Hu Angang.

The commitment announced in 2014 by Xi Jinping – “China will also develop a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly geographical layout, industrial structure, mode of production and lifestyle, and leave to our future generations a working and living environment made up of blue skies, green fields and clean water” – has translated into concrete actions that caused Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, to remark: “The world has never before seen a climate programme on this scale.”

This programme covers various areas: decarbonisation, renewable sources, nuclear energy, energy efficiency, transport, reforestation, green GDP.

Decarbonisation
The Chinese government plans to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

In the 15 years from 2007 to 2022, coal’s share of the power mix was reduced from 81 percent to 56 percent, plans to build more than 100 coal-fired power plants were cancelled in 2017, and in 2021 Xi Jinping announced that China will not build new coal-fired power plants overseas and will increase its support for developing countries to pursue green development.

Total emissions from coal-fired power industries have been cut by nearly 90 percent over the last decade, with a dramatic impact in major cities – in 2019 Beijing dropped out of the list of the 200 most polluted cities and whereas in 2012 sixteen out of the world’s twenty worst-polluted cities were located in China, a decade later only two Chinese cities appear on the list.

Investing in renewables
International energy analyst Tim Buckley notes that China is the world leader in “wind and solar installation, in wind and solar manufacturing, in electric vehicle production, in batteries, in hydro, in nuclear, in ground heat pumps, in grid transmission and distribution, and in green hydrogen.” In summary, “they literally lead the world in every zero-emissions technology today.”

Over 80 percent of the solar panels built in the world are made in China. A report from the International Energy Agency notes that China’s PV-focused industrial policies have contributed to more than 80 percent cost reductions, helping the sector become the most cost-effective electricity generation technology in many parts of the world – an important contribution to global decarbonisation.

Hybrid wind and solar bases are being built in the northwestern part of the country, which by 2030 will contain about as much renewable capacity as can currently be found in all of Europe, and Chinese scientists have recently developed the world’s first prototype of a superconducting hybrid power line, whose full-scale version will transmit energy without resistance from one side of the country to the other.

Nuclear energy
China is also spearheading nuclear energy research, including fourth-generation reactors, the first of which was connected to the grid in December 2021. Fourth-generation reactors promise to be significantly safer and produce far less radioactive waste compared to previous nuclear technology.

Energy efficiency
According to the International Energy Efficiency Scorecard, China ranks 9th in energy efficiency – one place ahead of the United States, and the highest ranking of all developing countries.

Transportation
Globally, transport is responsible for about a fifth of carbon dioxide emissions, and China is so far the only country to have made truly meaningful progress in terms of decarbonising transport.

About 98 percent of the world’s electric buses are in China, and several major cities have already achieved 100 percent electrification of their bus fleet. More electric cars are sold in China each year than in the rest of the world combined.

As for high-speed rail (HSR), another important tool for decarbonising transport, China also leads the way, with more high-speed rail miles than the rest of the world combined. As of 2022, China had 37,900 km of HSR – the US only 80 km!

Reforestation
China is carrying out the largest forestation project in the world, planting forests “the size of Ireland” in just one year and doubling forest coverage from 12 percent in 1980 to 23 percent in 2020. The goal is to increase forest coverage until it reaches at least 26 percent by 2035. Meanwhile, hundreds of national parks have been developed and a third of the country’s land has been placed behind an “ecological protection red line”.

Towards a green GDP
Hu Angang proposes a ‘green GDP’ that comprises nominal GDP, green investment measures, investment in human capital, alongside a subtractive component for greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, mineral and forest depletion, and losses from natural disasters. Such a model encourages moderate consumption, low emissions and the preservation of ecological capital as a key economic goal.

Some major Chinese cities are experimenting with implementations of green GDP. Shenzhen is the first city in the world to have adopted an accounting system based on gross ecosystem product (GEP) – “the total value of final ecosystem goods and services supplied to human well-being in a region annually… measured in terms of biophysical value and monetary value.”

All China’s fault?
If China’s progress in the field of renewable energy has been publicly acknowledged by various agencies, the dominant narrative in Western mass media remains the one that we have been so generously fed with by the US and its allies: “it’s all China’s fault”.

Two key themes are repeated incessantly: 1) China has been the world’s largest emitter (in absolute terms) of greenhouse gases in recent years; 2) China has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, whereas the USA and UK have pledged to reach this goal by 2050.

It is a dishonest narrative, which does not consider such fundamental factors as:

1) the per capita emissions figure for the US and Australia is nearly twice as high that of China;

2) in terms of cumulative emissions (the amount of greenhouse gases in excess in the atmosphere right now – let’s remember that CO2 remains there for hundreds of years), the United States with 4 percent of the world’s population is responsible for 25 percent; China on the other hand, with 18 percent of the world’s population, is responsible for 13 percent;

3) China’s emissions have increased in recent decades while Western emissions have decreased because advanced capitalist countries have exported their emissions to developing countries;

4) the main capitalist countries of Europe, North America and Japan reached their peak in greenhouse gas emissions in the 1980s, after almost two centuries of industrialisation. If indeed they can achieve net zero emissions by 2050, their journey from peak carbon to net zero will have taken six or seven decades. If China achieves its goals of reaching peak emissions by 2030 and zero carbon emissions by 2060, it will have taken less than half the time of the leading capitalist countries.

Wars are harmful to the environment
Meanwhile, while China makes world-leading progress in transitioning away from fossil fuels, the major capitalist countries are failing dismally.

The most striking example is given by the fallout from the NATO proxy war against Russia, which is disastrous also in environmental terms. The sanctions against the Russian economy have led, among other things, to a significant increase in US exports of fracked shale gas to Europe; the reactivation of coal-fired plants in Germany and elsewhere; the acceleration of oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. To Martinez’s list, we must add the devastating effects that the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipeline has had on the environment.

The hybrid war launched by the United States against China is making it clear that the entire US political establishment deems that waging a new cold war against China is more important than boosting their national economy or saving the planet. Just look at the sanctions on solar power materials made in China, based on the shameful slander about “slave labour” in Xinjiang. These sanctions will drive up the prices of solar panels, thus leading to a significant reduction in new solar energy installations, with a consequent increase in harmful emissions and significant job losses.

Rich countries, poor countries
At the 2009 UN climate summit, rich nations pledged to channel $100 billion a year to less wealthy nations in order to help them adapt to climate change and the green transition. A laughably small commitment – the United States alone spends more than 800 billion dollars annually on its military – which, however, the rich nations have not fulfilled.

Chinese financing for renewable power generation overseas increased more than fourfold between 2015 and today, and Chinese political banks such as Eximbank and China Development Bank are leading the financing of major projects in developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America.

The words, the facts
“While China has made moves to implement its radical conception of ecological civilisation, which is built into state planning and regulation, the notion of a Green New Deal has taken concrete form nowhere in the West.” (John Bellamy Foster)

What is the reason for this striking contrast? Martinez has no doubts: China’s economic development proceeds according to state plans, not market anarchy. As a result, the interests of private profit are subordinate to the needs of society.

As Deirdre Griswold writes in Workers World: “China’s economic planners have the power to make decisions that cost a lot of money, but will benefit the people – and the world – over the long run. They’re not driven by profits and each quarter’s bottom line.’’

China is leading the battle against the climate breakdown – something the West is extremely reluctant to admit both for cultural reasons – fuelled by the “pervasive (albeit largely unconscious) assumption that the predominantly white nations of Western Europe and the North America are fundamentally more civilised and enlightened than the rest of the world” – and political – China’s successes in this and other areas risk demonstrating the fundamental validity of socialism as a means of promoting human progress.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/10/20/t ... and-green/



Integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and traditional culture

In the following article, the Theoretical Study Group under the Executive Council of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee gives a systematic explanation and historical background to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s concept of the “two integrations”, namely of the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and traditional culture.

The article quotes Xi Jinping as saying:

]“Given the rich foundations of our more than 5,000-year-old civilisation, the only path for pioneering and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics is to integrate the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and with its traditional culture. This systematic conclusion, drawn from our explorations of Chinese socialism, is the strongest assurance for our success.”

It notes that the history of the CPC has been a process of continuously adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times and a process of continually making theoretical innovations.

In the periods of the new-democratic revolution (1921-1949) and of socialist revolution and development (1949-1978), the CPC integrated the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete realities of the Chinese revolution. This enabled it to blaze the correct revolutionary path of encircling the cities from the countryside and seizing state power with military force, secure victory in the new-democratic revolution, complete the socialist revolution, and carry out a highly productive socialist development drive. It was during this process that the CPC established, enriched, and further developed Mao Zedong Thought, which marked the first historic step in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times.

In his explorations of a path for China’s revolution and development, Mao Zedong placed importance on interpreting and applying Marxism from a national perspective and was particularly adept at drawing nourishment from China’s cultural heritage. Indeed, he once observed that “we should sum up our history from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen and take over this valuable legacy.” Mao advocated making the past serve the present and stressed the need to “extensively and critically make use of China’s cultural heritage,” “to reject its feudal dross and assimilate its democratic essence,” and “to make the things we have inherited our own.” In this way, Mao demonstrated a practical mastery of the best of China’s traditional culture.

The CPC, the article notes, has drawn upon the Chinese concept of the people being the foundation of the state, the idea of universal participation in governance, the tradition of joint and consultative governance, and the political wisdom of being all-inclusive and seeking common ground while setting aside differences. On this basis, it established the system of people’s congresses and the system of CPC-led multiparty cooperation and political consultation.

Deng Xiaoping, it adds, stressed that “the socialist China we are building should have a civilisation with a high cultural and ideological level as well as a high material level; only if we do well on both fronts can we say we are building socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Deng also emphasised the need to carry forward and develop the Chinese nation’s fine cultural traditions and the Party’s fine traditions, oppose lingering feudal influences, and guard against the corrosion of decadent capitalist ideas. He also put forward a fundamental criterion for appraising all the party’s work, namely, whether it is favourable to growing the productive forces in a socialist society, to increasing the overall strength of the socialist state, and to raising the living standards of the people.

Xi Jinping, the article continues, has pointed out that:

“The basic tenets of Marxism must be closely integrated with China’s specific realities. We should adopt the right approaches to our national traditional culture and the cultures of other countries to equip ourselves with all the outstanding intellectual and cultural achievements of humanity.”

Xi Jinping’s Thought upholds the people-centred viewpoint of Marxism and draws extensively on the ancient Chinese governance principles of regarding the people as the foundation of the state and ensuring the people enjoy safety, prosperity, and contentment. It also adheres to Marxist principles regarding the relationship between humans and nature and draws on Chinese wisdom concerning the environment, including the ideas of humanity being an integral part of nature and all things living side by side. Likewise, it adheres to Marxist ideas on world history and carries forward the broad-minded vision advocated in traditional Chinese culture, which includes seeking prosperity for all and harmony between all nations. On this basis, initiatives such as a global community of shared future and the Belt and Road Initiative have been put forward.

The article explains that after Marxism was introduced into China, its propositions were enthusiastically embraced by the Chinese people amid fierce competition between different ideological trends, and they ultimately took root and bore fruit in the land of China. This was far from coincidental. Rather, it was because they were consistent with China’s millennia-old culture and the common values that Chinese people intuitively apply in their everyday lives. It is only with mutual compatibility that genuine integration can be achieved. “This integration is not a master plate from which we simplistically continue our history and culture, nor a pattern through which we mechanically apply the ideas of classic Marxist authors, nor a reprint of the practice of socialism in other countries, nor yet a duplicate of modernisation from any other country. Rather, it is the combining of the basic principles of scientific socialism with China’s specific realities, historical and cultural traditions, and the call of the times. It demands a harmonious blending of communist faith and socialist convictions with the millennia-old ideals of the Chinese nation.”

Integration, it explains, is not about piecing different components together; it is not a simple physical convergence, but instead requires complete fusion. While Marxism has profoundly changed China, China has also greatly enriched Marxism.

The article was originally published in Chinese in issue 13, 2023 of Qiushi Journal, the CPC’s main theoretical organ. This English language version was first published in issue 4, 2023 of Qiushi’s English edition.

In an address at a meeting on cultural inheritance and development, General Secretary Xi Jinping noted, “Given the rich foundations of our more than 5,000-year-old civilization, the only path for pioneering and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics is to integrate the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and with its traditional culture. This systematic conclusion, drawn from our explorations of Chinese socialism is the strongest assurance for our success.” In his speech, General Secretary Xi incisively discussed the significance of integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and traditional culture (referred to as the “two integrations”) and the rich implications and practical requirements therein.

The CPC’s experience and application of the “two integrations”
The history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has been a process of continuously adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times and a process of continually making theoretical innovations. The CPC has led the people through arduous quests, setbacks, and pioneering efforts to accomplish enormous tasks that would have been inconceivable for any other political force in China. Essentially, this has been possible because the CPC has remained committed to integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and the best of its traditional culture, thus continually adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times.

In the periods of the new-democratic revolution (1921-1949) and socialist revolution and development (1949-1978), the CPC integrated the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete realities of the Chinese revolution. This enabled it to blaze the right revolutionary path of encircling cities from the countryside and seizing state power with military force, secure victory in the new-democratic revolution, complete the socialist revolution, and carry out a highly productive socialist development drive. It was during this process that the CPC established, enriched, and further developed Mao Zedong Thought, which marked the first historic step in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times. By integrating Marxism’s basic tenets with China’s realities, the CPC developed many original theoretical achievements, put forward a series of important ideas regarding China’s revolution and development, and led the people in securing great successes in the new-democratic revolution and in socialist revolution and development.

In his explorations of a path for China’s revolution and development, Mao Zedong placed importance on interpreting and applying Marxism from a national perspective and was particularly adept at drawing nourishment from China’s cultural heritage. Indeed, he once observed that “We should sum up our history from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen and take over this valuable legacy.” Mao advocated making the past serve the present and stressed the need to “extensively and critically make use of China’s cultural heritage,” “to reject its feudal dross and assimilate its democratic essence,” and “to make the things we have inherited our own.” He fully tapped the contemporary value of China’s traditional culture by infusing classic Chinese idioms such as “seeking truth from facts” and “shooting the arrow at the target” with new meanings. These were used to illustrate the Marxist approach to thinking and working, which grounds all actions in reality. In this way, Mao demonstrated a practical mastery of the best of China’s traditional culture.

While upholding the basic principles of Marxist state and political theories, the CPC based itself on China’s specific realities. It drew upon the Chinese concept of the people being the foundation of the state, the idea of universal participation in governance, the tradition of joint and consultative governance, and the political wisdom of being all-inclusive and seeking common ground while setting aside differences. On this basis, it established the system of people’s congresses and the system of CPC-led multiparty cooperation and political consultation. Adapting itself to the underlying development trend of the Chinese nation toward internal cohesion and unity amid diversity, the CPC carried on the Chinese cultural tradition of striving for great unity to see all regions sharing common customs and practices amid rich diversity and all people coming together as one family. On this basis, the CPC instituted the system of regional ethnic autonomy and creatively developed Marxist theories on ethnicity.

In the new period of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, the CPC upheld and developed Marxism in light of new practices and contemporary features in order to successfully found, uphold, safeguard, and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics and form the theory of Chinese socialism. This represented a new step forward in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times. To accelerate socialist modernization, the CPC remained committed to steering the advancement of its cause with theoretical innovation and kept integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and exploring the right path for building socialism in China. It thus led the people in making impressive achievements in reform, opening up, and modernization.

In the course of advancing these endeavors, the CPC placed great value on the positive role of traditional culture. Deng Xiaoping stressed that “the socialist China we are building should have a civilization with a high cultural and ideological level as well as a high material level; only if we do well on both fronts can we say we are building socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Deng also emphasized the need to carry forward and develop our nation’s fine cultural traditions and our Party’s fine traditions, oppose lingering feudal influences, and guard against the corrosion of decadent capitalist ideas. He endowed the idea of moderate prosperity—a dream ceaselessly pursued by the Chinese people for millennia—with contemporary meaning by formulating a three-step development strategy for socialist modernization. He also put forward a fundamental criterion for appraising all our work, namely, whether it is favorable to growing the productive forces in a socialist society, to increasing the overall strength of the socialist state, and to raising the living standards of the people. This “three favorables” criterion demonstrated the traditional Chinese spirit of being pragmatic and of using ancient knowledge to meet present needs. In the face of challenges posed by deepening reform, more expansive opening up, and the development of a socialist market economy, the CPC used China’s profound cultural heritage and abundant cultural resources as a foundation and support for its efforts to foster firm ideals and convictions, promote core socialist values, and develop an advanced socialist culture. Defining the development of a strong socialist culture as a strategic task, it enabled our culture to thrive and thus provided a strong guarantee for the smooth advancement of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization.

Following the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, socialism with Chinese characteristics entered a new era. Chinese Communists, with Xi Jinping as their chief representative, have remained committed to integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and traditional culture and brought about historic achievements and changes in the Party and the country. On this basis, they have established Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, marking yet another new step forward in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times. Proceeding from a new historical juncture and new realities in China’s development, the CPC has continued to make breakthroughs in theory and practice and led the people in securing great success for Chinese socialism in the new era.

In upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, General Secretary Xi has placed great importance on carrying forward and developing the best of China’s traditional culture and continuously deepened understanding of the “two integrations,” particularly with regard to integrating Marxism’s basic tenets with China’s traditional culture. He has pointed out that “the basic tenets of Marxism must be closely integrated with China’s specific realities. We should adopt the right approaches to our national traditional culture and the cultures of other countries to equip ourselves with all the outstanding intellectual and cultural achievements of humanity.” He has also emphasized, “We need to pay special attention to exploring the very best of China’s 5,000-year-old civilization and base our efforts to carry forward fine traditional culture on the stances, viewpoints, and methods of Marxism, so as to firmly remain on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

It was in his speech at the ceremony marking the CPC’s centenary in 2021 that General Secretary Xi put forward the concept of the “two integrations” by placing the “second integration” on an equal footing with the first. Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era was established on the basis of upholding the “two integrations” and serves as a shining example for this concept. For instance, it upholds the people-centered viewpoint of Marxism and draws extensively on the ancient Chinese governance principles of regarding the people as the foundation of the state and ensuring the people enjoy safety, prosperity, and contentment. On this basis, it proposes a people-centered development philosophy. In addition, it adheres to Marxist principles regarding the relationship between human and nature and draws on Chinese wisdom concerning the environment, including the ideas of humanity being an integral part of nature and all things living side by side. On this basis, it espouses the concept of harmony between humanity and nature, thus giving shape to Xi Jinping’s thought on ecological conservation. Furthermore, it adheres to Marxist ideas on world history and carries forward the broad-minded vision advocated in traditional Chinese culture, which includes seeking prosperity for all and harmony between all nations. On this basis, initiatives such as a global community of shared future and the Belt and Road Initiative have been put forward. These new ideas, new thinking, and new strategies, which are original and contemporarily relevant, have elevated efforts to promote China’s traditional culture to new heights.

Since its founding in 1921, the CPC has actively guided and promoted China’s advanced culture while keeping its traditional culture alive and strong. When integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities, it has always sought to carry forward and develop China’s traditional culture. The CPC’s new theoretical innovations embody both the basic tenets of Marxism and the best of Chinese intellectual thought as well as the practical experience of Chinese Communists. The “two integrations” proposed by General Secretary Xi represent a systematic summary of the CPC’s invaluable experience in keeping traditional Chinese culture alive and strong over a long period, a further deepening and extension of the first integration, and a major theoretical innovation.

The rich implications and practical requirements of the “two integrations”
“What is it that sets our socialism apart? What enables it to thrive with such vitality?” As General Secretary Xi has stated, “The answers lie in its distinctive Chinese characteristics, and the essence of these characteristics is encapsulated in the concept of the ‘two integrations’.” In his speech at the meeting on cultural inheritance and development, General Secretary Xi systematically expounded on the rich connotations and core tenets of the “two integrations” from five perspectives, shedding light on their significant implications and practical requirements.

The prerequisite is mutual compatibility
General Secretary Xi has pointed out, “Although Marxism and fine traditional Chinese culture have different origins, they are highly compatible.” With a history stretching back to antiquity, China’s traditional culture is extensive and profound; it is the crystallization of the wisdom of Chinese civilization. It espouses many important principles and concepts, including pursuing common good for all; regarding the people as the foundation of the state; governing by virtue; discarding the outdated in favor of the new; selecting officials on the basis of merit; promoting harmony between humanity and nature; ceaselessly pursuing self-improvement; embracing the world with virtue; acting in good faith and being friendly to others; and fostering neighborliness. These maxims, which have taken shape over centuries of work and life, reflect the Chinese people’s way of viewing the universe, the world, society, and morality. They are highly consistent with the values and propositions of scientific socialism.

After Marxism was introduced into China, these propositions were enthusiastically embraced by the Chinese people amid fierce competition between different ideological trends, and they ultimately took root and bore fruit in the land of China. This was far from coincidental. Rather, it was because they were consistent with China’s millennia-old culture and the common values that Chinese people intuitively apply in their everyday lives. It is only with mutual compatibility that genuine integration can be achieved. This integration is not a masterplate from which we simplistically continue our history and culture, nor a pattern through which we mechanically apply the ideas of classic Marxist authors, nor a reprint of the practice of socialism in other countries, nor yet a duplicate of modernization from any other country. Rather, it is the combining of the basic principles of scientific socialism with China’s specific realities, historical and cultural traditions, and the call of the times. It demands a harmonious blending of communist faith and socialist convictions with the millennia-old ideals of the Chinese nation. It is about ensuring that the tree of Marxist truth takes root in the Chinese soil with rich historical and cultural traditions and truly flourishes.

Integration is a mutually beneficial process
Integration is not about piecing different components together; it is not a simple physical convergence, but instead requires complete fusion. Though it is reciprocal, integration should not erase the identity of either side but lead to mutual enhancement, creating greater and better versions of each. As General Secretary Xi has pointed out, integration has “created a new, organically unified cultural entity, enabling Marxism to truly take root in China, modernizing traditional Chinese culture, and facilitating the emergence of a new culture that serves as the cultural form for Chinese modernization.” While Marxism has profoundly changed China, China has also greatly enriched Marxism. Through the historical process of advancing the “two integrations,” the CPC has used the power of Marxist truth to give a new lease of life to the great civilization that the Chinese nation has cultivated over thousands of years, enabling it to radiate with renewed vitality. By the same token, traditional Chinese culture has provided Marxism with rich nourishment, endowing it with a distinctive Chinese quality, style, and ethos. Through such integration, a closer bond has been formed between Marxism and the glorious history of the Chinese nation, thereby allowing Marxism to become deeply rooted in China and be truly embraced by hundreds of millions of Chinese people. Integration has also seen traditional Chinese culture move from antiquity to modernity and emanate great inspirational power, inherent charm, and contemporary appeal. In contemporary China, developing a sound, people-oriented socialist culture for our nation that embraces modernization, the world, and the future means fostering a socialist culture with Chinese characteristics in the new era to pool strength, consolidate unity, nourish the roots, and forge the soul of our nation for advancing Chinese modernization.

Integration has reinforced the foundations of our path
The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics has been blazed under the guidance of Marxism and is based on the continuation and development of more than 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. General Secretary Xi has pointed out, “The path China has taken is inextricably linked with Chinese culture. This is where the genetic code for the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics resides—in China’s fine traditional culture.” Only within the context of more than 5,000 years of Chinese civilization can we truly understand the historical necessity, cultural significance, and unique strengths of the Chinese path. He has emphasized, “Without the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization, where would the Chinese characteristics come from? If it wasn’t for these characteristics, how could we have today’s successful path of socialism with Chinese characteristics?” Therefore, as we follow this path, it is imperative to keep adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times and remain committed to the “two integrations.” As General Secretary Xi has pointed out, integration has “endowed the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics with greater historical depth and broadened its cultural underpinnings. Just as Chinese modernization infuses Chinese civilization with modern vitality, Chinese civilization imparts a rich heritage to Chinese modernization.” Integration has enabled us to draw on the abundant intellectual and cultural resources of our ancient civilization to promote Chinese modernization. At the same time, it has infused the ancient Chinese civilization with new life by incorporating it into the modernization process. Chinese modernization seeks to build upon, rather than erase, China’s ancient civilization; it has been developed here in China, not copied from any other country; and it has stemmed from the renewal, not the disruption, of Chinese civilization. Chinese modernization is a broad avenue that leads to a strong country and national rejuvenation. While allowing the Chinese civilization to shine with renewed radiance, it has also helped bring about a new form of human advancement.

Integration has opened new space for innovation
The Chinese civilization is distinguished by its outstanding originality. This originality fundamentally determines that the Chinese civilization upholds tradition without clinging to the past and respects ancient wisdom without reverting to antiquated thinking. It also defines our nation’s fearless character of facing new challenges head-on and embracing new things. Integration is in itself a form of innovation, but it also opens vast ground for theoretical and practical breakthroughs. It inspires intellectual insights and reflects profound truths, theoretical concepts, and philosophical wisdom. General Secretary Xi has stated that “Integration has enabled us to retain the theoretical and cultural initiative and effectively apply this to the path, theory, and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Socialism with Chinese characteristics comprises a cohesive whole in which its path, theory, system, and culture are closely interwoven and operate in unison in practice. This is the defining feature of Chinese socialism. The power of our culture is also deeply imbued in this path, theory, and system. History and present reality have repeatedly shown that through integration, the CPC is able to seamlessly coordinate its endeavors to explore the right path, develop sound theories, establish effective systems, and promote advanced culture. The path, theory, system, and culture of Chinese socialism not only embody the fundamental principles of scientific socialism but also exhibit the distinctive features of our country, nation, and times. Xi Jinping has stressed, “‘The second integration’ is yet another instance of freeing the mind. It allows us to fully harness the precious resources of fine traditional Chinese culture to explore future-oriented theoretical and institutional innovations within a broader cultural space.” Integration is not just about discarding the outdated in favor of the new—it is a journey toward the future. The “second integration” has helped unleash the innovative power of fine traditional Chinese culture and provided the CPC with intellectual guarantees, inspirational strength, and moral support as it blazes the right path, builds sound theories, and establishes effective systems, ultimately resulting in a great number of innovative theories, institutional innovations, and new achievements in all fields.

Integration has helped fortify our cultural identity
The Chinese nation has forged ahead through thousands of years of trials and adversities and remains as vibrant as ever. A key reason for this is our firm sense of cultural confidence and awareness. This confidence and awareness are deeply woven into the cultural lineage of our nation and have endured and grown stronger over time. Their source can be traced to our cultural identity. This identity has given us a firm cultural sense of self, fueled our cultural creativity, and provided fundamental support for our cultural confidence and awareness. It is only in this way that the Chinese nation has fully realized intellectual independence and truly come to stand firmly among the nations of the world. Losing our national cultural identity would mean losing our spiritual home and the lifeblood of our culture. The establishment of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is a powerful embodiment of our cultural identity. Emerging from the vast backdrop of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, it incorporates the best of Chinese traditional culture into the blueprint for national rejuvenation. This has allowed the Chinese nation to give prominence to our own culture and prioritize our own needs while remaining open and inclusive, all of which has seen fine traditional Chinese culture exhibiting renewed vitality and timeless charm in the new era. The most fundamental and important tasks in developing a modern Chinese civilization are to adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, maintain firm cultural confidence, and better shoulder new cultural missions in the new era. Amid global changes of a magnitude not seen in a century, we are witnessing interactions between various ideas and cultures, with exchanges, integration, and clashes all becoming more frequent. We must always preserve the identity of Chinese culture, resolutely oppose cultural nihilism, firmly resist any attempt to strip away the Chinese elements, ideology, values, mainstream thought, or historical significance of Chinese culture, and make continued efforts to fortify the common spiritual home of the Chinese nation.

The “two integrations” shed light on the fundamental path and mechanism for adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times. More importantly, through the “second integration,” we have pioneered a new paradigm for the CPC’s theoretical innovations. The “second integration” constitutes a profound summary of the CPC’s experience in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times and indicates a thorough grasp of the development laws underlying Chinese civilization. It reflects the new heights the CPC has attained in its understanding of the path, theory, and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, in its historical and cultural confidence, and in its consciousness in promoting cultural innovation while carrying forward traditional Chinese culture.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/10/17/i ... l-culture/

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The Need to Disarm the Discourse on China
Posted on October 20, 2023 by Yves Smith

Yves here. As has become more and more evident, what passes for US leadership has completely lost its mind. We are trying to run a two-front war while still insisting China is our #1 enemy and escalating. This post focuses on the propaganda program.

One of the best lines in the must-see movie The Lives of Others, which centers on a senior and once hyper-loyal Stasi officer going rogue to protect a prominent intellectual, is:

To think that men like you once ran a country.

This should become the epitaph for the Biden Administration.

By Cale Holmes. an international relations analyst, writer, and environmentalist who has lived in Beijing and serves as CODEPINK’s China Is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator; and Lawson Adams a college student in Los Angeles California who spent two of his four years in the Navy working at the NSA in Oahu, Hawaii as a Chinese language analyst

From racist tweets to rising hate crimes, the media’s anti-China propaganda has created a climate of aggression. Two weeks ago, a man drove a car into the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, yelling “Where’s the CCP?” Arab Americans have been targeted during the Persian Gulf War, the War on Terror, and U.S.-backed atrocities in Palestine. It’s no surprise that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are in the crosshairs of white supremacy as the U.S. targets China. Back in April, a Columbia University found that three in four Chinese Americans said they’d suffered racial discrimination in the past 12 months.

When the Trump administration launched the China Initiative to prosecute spies, the Department of Justice racially profiled Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of Chinese researchers who dropped their affiliation with U.S. institutions jumped 23 percent. The Biden administration has ended the initiative, but the Department of Justice and the congressional anti-China committee are still targeting political leaders in the Chinese community.

As Biden continues the crackdowns of his predecessor, his administration is also escalating in the Asia-Pacific region. From expanding military bases in the Philippines – including one potential base in the works intended to join contingencies in Taiwan – to building a fleet of AI drones to target China, militarists are creating conditions for a hot war in the Pacific. As the U.S. prepares for war, Forbes published an article on September 25 about an aircraft carrier “kill chain” and its potential use in a war with China. In February, CNN journalists accompanied a U.S. Navy jet approaching Chinese airspace. As a Chinese pilot warned the U.S. to keep a safe distance, an American soldier remarked: “It’s another Friday afternoon in the South China Sea.”

Not only are we normalizing U.S. aggression. We’re also relying on the military-industrial complex as an unbiased source. Pro-war propaganda is derailing China-U.S. ties, increasing anti-Asian hate, and hiding the realities of public opinion across the Pacific.

After launching the AUKUS military pact between Britain and Australia in 2021, as well as stiff export controls designed to limit China’s economy last year, the U.S. began 2023 with what appeared to be an olive branch. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to visit China in February. Then came the “spy balloon.”

A Chinese balloon was blown off course and eventually shot down by the U.S. military. The Wall Street Journal and NBC uncritically printed and broadcasted statements from US Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder about the balloon’s surveillance capabilities. On February 8, citing three unnamed officials, The New York Times said “American intelligence agencies have assessed that China’s spy balloon program is part of global surveillance.” The same story mentions the U.S. State Department’s briefings to foreign officials that were “designed to show that the balloons are equipped for intelligence gathering and that the Chinese military has been carrying out this collection for years, targeting, among other sites, the territories of Japan, Taiwan, India, and the Philippines.”

On April 3, the BBC and CNN published conflicting stories on the balloon that cited anonymous officials but contained inconsistencies about its ability to take pictures. It wasn’t until June 29 that Ryder admitted no data had been transmitted. In September, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told CBS the balloon wasn’t even spying. This matched China’s statements about the balloon, as well as that of American meteorologists. But the damage was done. Blinken had postponed his trip to China. He eventually went in June, after a trip to Papua New Guinea, where its student protesters rejected his plans to militarize their country under a security pact.

On May 26, Blinken made a speech, referring to China as a “long-term challenge.” Politico went further, publishing a piece on May 26, called “Blinken calls China ‘most serious long-term’ threat to world order” with a same-day USA Today article also taking the liberty of using challenge and threat interchangeably.

A Princeton University study found Americans who perceive China as a threat were more likely to stereotype Chinese people as untrustworthy and immoral. Intelligence leaks about a China threat combined with the age-old Yellow Peril syndrome have allowed for incessant Sinophobia to dominate our politics.

Misinformation, the Other Pandemic

In May 2020, Trump told a scared country with 1 million recorded COVID-19 cases and almost 100,000 dead that the pandemic was China’s fault. Again, our leaders cited undisclosed intelligence. For its part, CNN showed images of wet markets after The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Walter Russell Mead called “China Is The Real Sick Man of Asia.” A year later, Politico eventually acknowledged Trump cherry-picked intelligence to support his claims but the Biden administration ended up also seeking to investigate the lab leak theory. And the media went along with it.

For The Wall Street Journal, pro-Iraq War propagandist Michael Gordon co-authored an article claiming that “three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.” An anonymous source said, “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality.” But the source admits it’s not known why researchers were sick.

The article relies on the conservative Hudson Institute’s Senior Fellow David Asher’s testimony and the fact China has not shared the medical records of citizens without potential COVID-19 symptoms. It is even admitted that several other unnamed U.S. officials find the Trump-era intelligence to be exactly what it is – circumstantial.

A year earlier, during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries moderated by CNN, Dana Bash asked Bernie Sanders: “What consequences should China face for its role in its global crisis?” She asked the question referencing how Wuhan’s authorities silenced Dr. Wenliang but failed to mention China’s People’s Supreme Court condemned the city’s police for doing so. She also didn’t acknowledge how Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Shi Zhengli revealed in July 2020 that all of the staff and students in her lab tested negative for COVID-19. Shi even shared her research with American scientists. Georgetown University COVID-19 origin specialist Daniel Lucey welcomed Shi’s transparency: “There are a lot of new facts I wasn’t aware of. It’s very exciting to hear this directly from her.”

But from the Page Act of 1875, which stereotyped Chinese as disease carriers, to job discrimination during the pandemic, it is Asian Americans who ultimately pay the price for the media’s irresponsibility and participation in medical racism. They are already among the casualties of the new cold war. But that war not only threatens residents of the U.S. but the entire planet too.

Profit, Not Principle

This summer, the U.S. armed Taiwan under the Foreign Military Transfer program, reserved for sovereign states only. This violates the one-China policy which holds that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is one China. Biden is also trying to include Taiwan weapons funding in a supplemental request to Congress. Weapons sales to Taiwan go back to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, as well as Reagan administration’s assurances that the U.S. will keep sending weapons but not play any mediation role between Taipei and Beijing. In 1996, a military standoff between the U.S. and China erupted in the Taiwan Strait, followed by an increasing flow of lethal weaponry up to the present.

The New York Times published a story on September 18, mentioning Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which it says was “a show of support for the island.” Never mind that the majority of Taiwan residents surveyed by the Brookings Institute felt her visit was detrimental to their security. The media also often ignores voices from Taiwan who don’t want war, favor reunification, or reject attempts to delete Chinese history in their textbooks.

Still, Fox News continues to give a platform to lawmakers like Representative Young Kim who wrote a piece on September 20 advocating for more military patrols in the South China Sea. On October 17, The Washington Post published a story about the Pentagon releasing footage of Chinese aircraft intercepting U.S. warplanes over the last two years. The story does not share the context of U.S. expansionism or how multiple secretaries of defense have threatened Beijing over its disputed maritime borders. Microsoft is even getting in on the action, with articles from CNN and Reuters last month uncritically sharing the software company’s claims that China is using AI to interfere in our elections, despite no evidence shared with the voting public.

It demonstrates how war profiteers are edging us closer to a conflict. From sending the Patriot weapons system to Taiwan to practicing attacks with F-22 Raptors in the occupied Northern Marianas Islands, Lockheed Martin is raking in lucrative contracts while residents of the region fear an outbreak of war. RTX supplies Israel’s Iron Dome and is now designing engineering systems for gunboats in the Pacific. When arms dealers make money, victims of imperialism die. With strong links to the military, it’s hard to imagine that Microsoft, News Corp, and Warner Bros. Discovery would care as long as their stocks go up too. Intelligence spooks and media moguls don’t know what’s best for people or the planet. And it’s time for a balanced and nuanced understanding of China. That begins with disarming the discourse and keeping the Pacific peaceful.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10 ... china.html