China

[blindpig]

China responds to Rubio’s remarks on South China Sea after his phone call with Philippine FM
January 25, 2025 Global Times


Mao Ning Photo: Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs

In response to a U.S. State Department statement claiming new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussing Beijing’s “dangerous and destabilizing actions in the South China Sea” with his Philippines counterpart Enrique Manalo over phone and underscoring the “ironclad” U.S. defense commitment to Manila, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday that the U.S. is not a party to the South China Sea issue and has no right to interfere in the maritime issues between China and the Philippines.

Mao said “the military cooperation between the U.S. and the Philippines should not undermine China’s sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, still less should such cooperation support or advance the Philippines’ illegal claims.” China will continue to take necessary steps to firmly safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests and uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea, said Mao.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Wednesday local time with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo about issues of mutual concern, including so-called China’s “dangerous and destabilizing actions in the South China Sea.”

Rubio underscored the U.S.’ “ironclad commitments” to the Philippines under the Mutual Defense Treaty. The two sides also exchanged views on ways to advance security cooperation, expand economic ties for shared prosperity, and deepen avenues for further regional cooperation, according to a readout released by the U.S. Department of State on Wednesday.

Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, said that the U.S. will continue the diplomatic rhetoric, but to what extent Rubio’s remarks will turn into concrete actions in the region is still a question.

“The Marcos Jr. administration of the Philippines also needs to learn that the U.S., especially under the leadership of the Trump administration, will not be hijacked by any other countries, including its allies, for any unnecessary dangers,” Li noted.

Lü Xiang, an expert on U.S. studies and research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday that the Trump administration is likely to continue to launch groundless accusations against China’s legitimate acts in the region.

“However, the Trump administration will be less interested in getting involved too much on issues not directly related to U.S. core interests, as this is what ‘America First’ means. In addition, China now has much more strength [to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests] in the region, and the consequences of being ‘unnecessarily provocative’ would be unaffordable to both Washington and Manila,” Lü noted.

The Chinese military conducted joint sea-air combat readiness patrols in the South China Sea from January 17 to 19 to maintain peace and stability in the area, according to a statement by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command. The statement was issued after the Philippine Navy held live fire drills and carried out joint maritime exercises with the U.S. in the South China Sea.

“Any military activity that stirs up trouble in the South China Sea is within our control,” the PLA statement read. The statement directly targets the provocative exercises conducted by the Philippine navy near Huangyan Dao, and its joint exercises with the U.S., Zhang Junshe, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times.

Humprey Arnaldo Russel, director of the China Research Center in the Institute for Strategy and Global Studies at the University of Indonesia, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview published on Tuesday that “ASEAN is a family. When a family faces a problem, it is unwise for one member to turn to external parties for ‘help.’ ASEAN, as a unity, is bound by shared values such as harmony, non-interference and the commitment to finding peaceful solutions to problems.”

“These core values will not change because of any single member’s actions. Therefore, it would be far more beneficial for the Philippines to engage directly with China, as this is where the solution lies,” said the Indonesian expert.

Source: Global Times

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2025/ ... ippine-fm/

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China’s Shocking DeepSeek AI Pops US Big Tech Monopoly Bubble
January 30, 2025



By Ben Norton – Jan 29 2025

Chinese AI company DeepSeek shocked the West with a groundbreaking open-source artificial intelligence model that beats huge Silicon Valley Big Tech monopolies. Is the US stock market bubble popping?

China is making enormous progress in the development of artificial intelligence technology, and it has set off a political and economic earthquake in the West.

The stocks of US Big Tech corporations crashed on January 27, losing hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization over the span of just a few hours, on the news that a small Chinese company called DeepSeek had created a new cutting-edge AI model, which was released for free to the public.

The UK’s leading newspaper The Guardian described DeepSeek as “the biggest threat to Silicon Valley’s hegemony”.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/6hRmK84_K7Q[/youtube]

This is widely being dubbed a “Sputnik moment” — a reference to 1957, during Cold War One, when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite in outer space, called Sputnik 1.

The United States had significantly underestimated the technological capabilities of the former Soviet Union then, just as the US has vastly underestimated the technological capabilities of China today.

What is remarkable is that this small Chinese company was able to develop a large language model (LLM) that is even better than those created by the US mega-corporation OpenAI, which is half owned by Microsoft, one of the biggest corporate monopolies on Earth.

In order to develop its groundbreaking R1 model, DeepSeek reportedly spent around $6 million.

That would be a mere rounding error in Silicon Valley. US Big Tech corporations have plowed roughly $1 trillion into developing artificial intelligence in the past decade. In 2024 alone, Silicon Valley capital expenditure on AI was $197 billion, and it is expected to be $234 billion in 2025.



When OpenAI announced in December 2024 that it had introduced ChatGPT Pro, it was charging $200 per month to use the application.

Compare that to the DeepSeek R1 model, which is open source. Not only is their app free to use, but you can download the source code and run it locally on your computer. It can even be used without the internet.

Even better, DeepSeek’s LLM model only requires a tiny fraction of the overall energy and computing power needed by OpenAI’s models. In short, it is cheaper to run, better for the environment, and accessible to the entire world.

This is why the week it was launched, in late January, DeepSeek became the number one app in the United States, overtaking ChatGPT.

Alarm bells immediately sounded in Washington. US officials claimed the app is a supposed “national security” threat — their favorite excuse to justify imposing restrictions on Silicon Valley’s Chinese competitors.

The US Navy promptly banned DeepSeek, citing “potential security and ethical concerns”.

Starting in Donald Trump’s first term, and continuing through the Joe Biden administration, the US government has waged a brutal technology war and economic war against China.

Washington hit China with sanctions, tariffs, and semiconductor restrictions, seeking to block its principal geopolitical rival from getting access to top-of-the-line Nvidia chips that are needed for AI research — or at least that they thought were needed.

DeepSeek has shown that the most cutting edge chips are not necessary if you have clever researchers who are motivated to innovate.

This realization unleashed pandemonium in the US stock market.

In just one day, Nvidia shares fell 17%, losing $600 billion in market cap. This was the largest one-day drop in the history of the US stock market.

This was a blow to global investor confidence in the US equity market and the idea of so-called “American exceptionalism”, which has been consistently pushed by the Western financial press.

Some financial analysts are now publicly wondering if this could be the beginning of the popping of the massive bubble in the US stock market.

A look at the Buffett Indicator, which measures the market capitalization of publicly traded stocks in the US in comparison to GDP, shows that it is at the highest level ever recorded, at more than 200% of GDP. This is significantly higher than it was at the peak of the Dot-com bubble, which burst in 2000.



Another common metric, the price-to-earnings ratio, or P/E ratio, which compares the inflation-adjusted earnings of US publicly traded companies to the price of their stocks, similarly demonstrates that they are very frothy — at the highest levels since the Dot-com bubble, and even higher than they were in 1929, at the peak of the stock market mania which crashed and contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s.



This is why even Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest US bank, JPMorgan Chase, warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January that the US stock market is “inflated”.

What is even more concerning is how extremely concentrated the US equity market is.

Much of the growth in recent years in the S&P 500, the index of the 500 largest publicly traded companies on US stock exchanges, has been driven by a small handful of Big Tech corporations, which are known as the Magnificent 7, or the Mag7. These are Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, and Alphabet.

Together, those seven Big Tech corporations made up a third of the weight of the entire S&P 500, as of December 2024.

Moreover, those same seven companies made up nearly a quarter of the weight of the MSCI World Index.



There are trillions of dollars from investors all around the world that have flooded into the stocks of these US Big Tech monopolies under the assumption that they have no real competition, that they’re the only game in town.

However, China has shown that there are competitors, and they are challenging the technological chokehold that Silicon Valley has on most of the world.

Given how much the US economy has been financialized in the neoliberal era, and how much depends on continuing to inflate asset prices, a crisis could be on the horizon if the AI bubble pops.

https://orinocotribune.com/chinas-shock ... ly-bubble/

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Only Pathetic Bootlickers Spend Their Energy Criticizing China

The buzz around Xiaohongshu and then DeepSeek has had an unusually high volume of westerners speaking positively about China for the last couple of weeks, which of course means we’re also seeing many westerners falling all over themselves to say “Well actually China is actually quite bad actually” in response.

Caitlin Johnstone
January 29, 2025

The buzz around Xiaohongshu and then DeepSeek has had an unusually high volume of westerners speaking positively about China for the last couple of weeks, which of course means we’re also seeing many westerners falling all over themselves to say “Well actually China is actually quite bad actually” in response.

Western liberals who fancy themselves enlightened and critical of power tend to get very squirmy and uncomfortable in their skin when they hear people saying positive things about the PRC, and love nothing more than to tell you that China is just as evil and tyrannical as the western power alliance, if not worse.

This is objectively, measurably false. China hasn’t spent the 21st century killing people by the millions in wars of aggression. China isn’t circling the planet with hundreds of military bases while working to destroy any nation or group anywhere in the world who disobeys it. China isn’t strangling nations around the globe with starvation sanctions for refusing to bow to its dictates. China didn’t just spend 15 months lighting the middle east on fire and backing a live-streamed genocide. China hasn’t spent the last three years endangering the world in frequently terrifying acts of nuclear brinkmanship with a rival nuclear superpower. Only the US-centralized empire has done this.

Whenever I point this out I get empire apologists going “Well yeah, SO FAR! We haven’t seen China doing all that evil foreign policy shit YET because they’re still not powerful enough!” Which is just silly. China absolutely is powerful enough to be a whole lot more abusive and murderous abroad, and it simply isn’t. Westerners love to claim that China has secret agendas to conquer the world someday (hilariously implying that these hypothetical future abuses make China morally comparable to the US empire’s current known abuses), but if you actually dig into the evidence for these claims what you’ll find every time is that all they provide evidence for is China’s openly stated goal of a multi-polar world that isn’t ruled by Washington.

Our ancestors set sail to conquer the world; their ancestors built a wall. This notion that China has an interest in ruling over a bunch of white foreigners has as much rational basis as old racist superstitions that black and brown people wanted equal rights so that they could come and steal white men’s wives and have sex with their daughters.

They’re just a better civilization than ours — not because theirs is miraculous or perfect, but because ours is just that murderous and dystopian. They simply do the normal thing while we do the freakish thing: they make the lives of their citizens better and better and avoid unnecessary wars, while western governments make the lives of their citizens worse and worse while plunging into new acts of mass military slaughter every few years.

Any criticisms you could level at China — that their domestic policy is more authoritarian than ours, that their culture is more conservative, etc — are eclipsed in moral terms by the depravity of our own western governments by orders of magnitude. And why would you even level such criticisms while living under the single most bloodthirsty and tyrannical power structure on earth? That would be like a German living under the Third Reich looking overseas and bitching about Brazil.

I find nothing more pathetic than a westerner who lives under the shadow of the US empire spending their time and energy criticizing the abuses of nations who lie outside that power structure. It’s an embarrassing, bootlicking way to live. Focus on criticizing the far greater abuses of the far greater evil that you actually live under, loser.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/01 ... ing-china/

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The US seeks to reverse China’s progress and bring it to heel

The International Manifesto Group (IMG) organised a webinar on ‘Trump’s Presidency and the Prospects for Peace in 2025’ on Sunday 19 January, the day before the US presidential inauguration.

The speakers were:

Ramzy Baroud (Palestine Chronicle)
Jacquie Luqman (Black Alliance for Peace)
Andrew Murray (Stop the War Coalition)
Gabriel Rockhill (Critical Theory Workshop)
Keith Bennett (Friends of Socialist China); and
Sara Flounders (International Action Center)
The event was moderated and introduced by Radhika Desai on behalf of the IMG and was also sponsored and supported by Friends of Socialist China, Palestine Chronicle, Critical Theory Workshop and the International Action Center.

Building for the event, the IMG wrote: “Given that the US is usually the prime instigator of our world’s conflicts and given that Trump sometimes spoke on the campaign trail about ending at least some of them, we ask what prospects the incoming Trump administration offers for peace. Will Trump’s second term be more or less aggressive than his first? Will he honour his campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine? Will he double down on his enthusiastic support for Israeli genocide? Will he escalate the New Cold War on China or attempt another ‘deal’? Will opportunities for peace in Korea and Iran be seized or squandered? What to make of Trump’s bellicose rhetoric in relation to Central America? How will the new administration affect humanity’s trajectory towards peace and multipolarity?”

Keith’s contribution focused on China and Korea and we reproduce his remarks below. Videos of all the contributions can be viewed on the IMG’s YouTube channel.

Meeting on the theme of Trump’s Presidency and the Prospects for Peace in 2025, it is natural we look especially at the war raging in Ukraine for nearly three years and at the situation in West Asia, as a tentative ceasefire emerges after more than 15 months of unrelenting genocide in Gaza. With so many thousands of lives being lost is it self-indulgence or overreach to also turn our attention to the Asia Pacific region?

But today, no bilateral relationship is more important, more strategic and more fraught with dangers of global conflict than that between the United States and China.

Faced with the peaceful rise of China, a rise unparalleled in human history, it has essentially become a consensus among the otherwise contending wings of the US ruling class that the preservation of US global hegemony necessitates taking China as Washington’s principal adversary. From Greenland to the South Pacific. And from semiconductors to social media.

As with Cold War One and the Soviet Union, the US seeks to reverse China’s progress and, at best, bring it to heel, through a combination of a debilitating arms race, ideological subversion and economic and technological strangulation. A key difference is that not only has China drawn lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whereas the USA and the USSR were essentially economically insulated from one another, China has spent the best part of half a century integrating itself into the global economy, creating such facts on the ground in the process as ever more complex global supply chains, and with China accounting for some 11% of US foreign trade.

So, what does Trump’s return mean for China/US relations?

First, Trump revels in his role as Disruptor-in-Chief, so the first thing we should expect is the unexpected. Certainly, if he carries through on even a fraction of his recent threats regarding tariffs, not only will China face an economic challenge. The entire global economy, in a parlous enough state as it is, and not least the US economy itself, will be plunged into crisis.

But overall, there seems little reason to anticipate a fundamental change of direction. When Biden assumed the presidency, many had hopes for a return to a more rational and constructive China policy in Washington. This did not materialise. Far from reversing Trump’s anti-China measures, the Biden administration ratcheted them up substantially, especially in terms of trying to restrict China’s access to computer chips and other advanced technology.

To the extent there was change under Biden, it came essentially in two areas:

• His administration largely eschewed the openly racist rhetoric of Trump (kung flu, Chinese virus, etc.), which undoubtedly made life somewhat more tolerable for many Chinese and other Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

• Whereas Trump was an ‘equal opportunities bully’ when it came to insulting and threatening allies and adversaries alike, Biden’s team worked hard, and with a considerable degree of success, to reinforce cohesion in NATO, get the EU onside, and reinvigorate and reinforce old alliances, such as those with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, all with a view to confronting China, along with Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and other states in Washington’s crosshairs.

So, even if Trump ups the ante with China, it will not break the essential continuum established by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton with their 2011 ‘pivot to Asia’.

The ‘team of rivals’ that Trump has been assembling certainly lacks the intellectual brilliance of that forged by Abraham Lincoln, but it is not monolithic on China.

Trump himself cares little for ‘liberal democracy’ and, on that level, his antipathy to China probably lacks the deep ideological foundation that the US Democratic Party has come to increasingly embody. His motivation is more straightforwardly venal and mercenary. He will fight ruthlessly but may be prepared to cut a deal if he feels the terms are good. Or, perhaps as importantly, can present it as a win. We need to think only of his apparent volte face on TikTok, doubtless related to its ability to help feed his social media obsession.

The same cannot be said for his proposed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who clearly will not be satisfied with anything less than the overthrow of the Communist Party of China.

A similar orientation can be seen on the part of a number of Trump’s other nominees, including those to be given trade, defence and national security portfolios.

But this, in turn, is different from the stand of Trump’s current ‘bestie’ (although for how long is anyone’s guess) Elon Musk, whose Shanghai factory accounts for half of Tesla’s global production.

Another area where this pattern can be expected to assert itself is in diplomacy and hence on the international balance of forces. As mentioned, while the Biden administration strove, with considerable success, to unite the imperialist camp, in the case of Trump, from Angela Merkel to Justin Trudeau, if there’s one thing he seems to enjoy more than insulting America’s adversaries it’s insulting America’s allies.

The Asia Pacific region is where key issues still unresolved from the 1940s continue to fester and where the interests of nuclear powers, principally the United States, China, Russia and the DPRK, collide and at times coincide. How will Trump, in his second presidential term, react to tensions in the Taiwan Straits or the South China Sea?

On the Korean peninsula, will he once again resort to threats of unleashing “fire and fury”, as he did in the early stage of his first presidential term or will he seek a further meeting with Kim Jong Un? No other serving US president ever dared to meet the top leader of the DPRK, something that Trump did three times, even accepting Kim Jong Un’s invitation to step into the DPRK. Even after negotiations broke down, the two men are understood to have continued private correspondence. On the campaign trail, Trump spoke of his relationship with Kim Jong Un and of his desire to get back to dialogue.

But the DPRK is not the same country as in Trump’s first term. Its nuclear weapons program, along with its delivery mechanisms, is considerably further advanced and its international position apparently strengthened by its new strategic alliance with Russia. On the other hand, the DPRK appears, at least for now, to have tired of the volatile, unpredictable and unreliable diplomacy of the USA, which had stymied and frustrated some three decades of DPRK efforts to normalise relations.

Regarding China, as Inauguration Day looms, Trump appears to be playing the same game of personalised diplomacy. An invitation to President Xi Jinping will see the unprecedented attendance of Vice President Han Zheng at tomorrow’s ceremony. Commenting on his phone call with President Xi on Friday, Trump said it was, “a very good one for both China and the USA. It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together and starting immediately. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the world more peaceful and safe!”

According to China’s Xinhua News Agency: “Trump thanked Xi for his congratulations, saying that he cherishes his great relationship with Xi, hopes to continue to maintain dialogue and communication, and looks forward to meeting Xi at an early date. The United States and China are the most important countries in the world today, and they should maintain long-lasting friendship and work together to safeguard global peace.”

Of course, Trump never seems to have a phone call with another world leader that he doesn’t seem to think has gone great. And just the day before, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson slammed comments by Marco Rubio, as “unwarranted attacks” after the senator – in his confirmation hearing – called China “the most … dangerous near-peer adversary” the US had ever faced.

But significantly there has been no repetition of Trump’s December 2016 pre-inauguration phone call with the secessionist leader of China’s Taiwan province. Although there will be quite senior Taiwan representation, from both the ruling DPP and the opposition Kuomintang, at tomorrow’s inauguration.

And last night, describing it as an exclusive, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had told his advisers that he wants to visit China within his first 100 days in office. Perhaps significantly, the Xinhua News Agency was quick to report this.

How these relationships play out will have a major bearing on the future of the world in the days to come.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/01/24/t ... t-to-heel/

[blindpig]

Is the average Chinese already better off than the average American?
Not yet, but ...
Roger Boyd
Feb 07, 2025

In 2023 the US GDP per capita was calculated at US$81,695 while Chinese GDP per capita was calculated at US$12,614. That is of course at official exchange rates, and the Chinese exchange rate is significantly undervalued with respect to what the actual RMB can buy. To correct for this, a “Purchasing Power Parity” (PPP) calculation is used, to take into account the differing prices. At PPP, US GDP per capita in 2023 was US$81,695 while Chinese GDP per capita was US$24,558. Taking into account GDP per capita growth in the intervening two years, in 2025 US GDP per capita PPP in 2025 will be about US$84,000 while for China it will be about US$27,000; China’s GDP per capita is about 32% of the USA. But is the average standard of living in China really only one third of that in the US?

In earlier periods much criticism was made of the Chinese economic statistics, but over the years those statistics have been greatly improved. In addition, the service sector is still only about half of Chinese GDP while it is over 70% in the US. The correct value of services are much harder to tie down than those of the industrial sector. In fact, it may be that much of what is counted as services in the US is utterly mythical, or is in fact not the provision of an economic service but in reality rentier profiteering. Mainstream economics banished measures of such profiteering in the early twentieth century, with all profits being seen as “good profits”, no matter whether they are gained through providing a good or service at an efficient market price or are in fact gained through monopolistic and oligopolistic market manipulation, corporate collusion and the corruption of the state apparatus. In China, the Party-state acts to limit such rentier and corrupt practices, especially after the crackdown on state corruption under Xi, while in the US such things run rampant. The corruption of the state has even been legalized by the US Supreme Court as they defined money to be the equivalent of protected free speech.

So let’s take a look into those US GDP calculations.

16% of US GDP comes from “housing services”. A chunk of that is actual rents that are inflated by widespread collusion and monopolistic actions by landlords (many of which are now private equity and other large investment companies). Then we can add the realtor services where prices are kept much higher than in places such as the UK and China by monopolistic practices, as a percentage of inflated house prices; 5-6% in the US vs. 1.4% or less in the UK vs. 2-3% in China. About half of housing services is the completely mythical “household imputed rent” that owners of properties are supposedly charging themselves. China does calculate this, but the calculation is so conservative as to be negligible.

Below are instances of Chinese rent in Chengdu (US$600 for a 2 bedroom furnished apartment) and Guangzhou (US$550 for a two bedroom furnished apartment); both are first tier major Chinese cities.





Shanghai and Beijing (akin to New York or London) have the highest rental costs in China, below is what you can get in Shanghai for the equivalent of US$1,000 per month. How much would this be in New York or London?



At least two thirds of “housing services” is fictitious or rentier profits, so minus 10% from US GDP

17% of US GDP is “healthcare”, a sector dominated by monopolistic profiteering by health insurers, primary care and hospital service providers, and significantly overpaid specialists organized into closed shops (generally known as “associations” to hide their self-serving nature) that control new entrants via the university sector and the certification boards. China spends 7% of GDP with much, much greater levels of efficiency. For example, the Chinese state controls drug prices at levels that provide reasonable profits to manufacturers while the US state allows for widespread price-gouging even in critical medications. For example, a vial of insulin costs US$66 in the US (and that was after a major cost reduction agreement with the Biden administration) and only C$35 (US$25) in the neighbouring Canada, the equivalent of only US$8 in the UK and between 50 cents and US$1 in China. The actual production cost in the West of a vial of insulin has been estimated at between US$2 and US$8. The US insulin market is an oligopoly dominated by Eli Lilly (US), Novo Nordisk (Denmark) and Sanofi (France); the same firms provide insulin at those cheaper state-regulated prices in Canada and Europe. Then there is the utter con of “Medicare Advantage” where the captured US state facilitates the provision of unneeded and overpriced “additional services” to Medicare recipients.

Many tourists to, and foreign residents of, China have noted that the Chinese healthcare system provides a better level of service than the US system at much lower prices.








Remove another 10% of US GDP as rentier-seeking price gouging, treatments and tests not actually required, and closed shop overpayments to specialist staff.

8% of US GDP is provided by the financial services industry. It was not until 1993 that many US financial “services” were counted as productive within GDP. Instead, they should be treated as intermediate inputs - i.e. costs. Much pure rentier profiteering is also involved in a highly oligopolized financial sector. At the least the sector does not add much value, and in many cases actually produces costs such as the 2008 GFC. A good article on this subject.

Remove another 5% (I am being conservative) of US GDP.

So we have already cut 25% of US GDP as being such glaringly obvious utter bullshit and profiteering!

Since the mid-1990s the US government started playing statistical games to reduce the stated level of inflation, which kept down inflation-adjustments to Medicare and Social Security etc., lied to Americans about inflation leading to lower wage increases, and inflated GDP growth (via a lower GDP deflator). The major cheats were:

Assumption that consumers will switch to cheaper alternatives when prices rise, so the “representative basket of goods and services” is altered. Of course, the average person would consider this to be inflation! Moving from a good beef steak, to chicken, to Spam, to dog food because of price rises would be caused by inflation, but “substitution” would hide much of the drop in living standards.

The statisticians adjust for “quality improvements” that may in fact be an illusion. Just because a computer’s processor gets faster doesn’t mean that its value went up, the software on it may just get more bloated. Also service and product shitification, such as the lowered quality of Google searches or the inability to get hold of a human being on the telephone is not counted as inflationary. Is the lack of legal ability to fix items one has bought been reflected in the CPI?

The general weighting of categories of goods in the “representative basket of goods and services” may not reflect actual preferences and the needs of different groups of consumers. The basket much more reflects upper middle class inflation rates (lower) than working class inflation rates (higher). Also, some highly questionable sudden changes have been noted, as with gasoline when gas prices sky rocket.

These games have been played since at least the mid-1990s, overstating GDP (by understating the GDP deflator) every year.

Being conservative again, I will deduct 10% of US GDP but the figure may be much higher.

Another 5.5% of US GDP goes on education, both on schools and colleges. The quality of US school education has been declining for years, made worse by the appalling economic and social conditions of the US underclass, whether they be white “crackers” or inner-city Blacks. The numbers of functionally illiterate and/or innumerate adults keeps growing; from 19% in 2017 to 28% in 2023. The university sector has increasingly become a massively overpriced good run by overflowing numbers of administrators for their own benefit, while the actual teaching is left to low paid post-docs, adjuncts, and contract staff. Also only one third of US under-graduates take STEM subjects while two thirds of Chinese students do. The Chinese university sector, where tuition varies from US$400 to US$1500 a year for Chinese nationals (and room and board is extremely cheap), is now easily out-performing its US equivalent. The widespread shitification of the US education sector has not been taken into account in GDP statistics.

Deduct 2% of GDP, it could be more

Officially, the US spent 3.4% of GDP on “defence” but there are many hidden budgets and off-budget “one-off” expenditures (e.g. military aid to Ukraine, the “one-off” US$ trillions on Iraq, Afghanistan and the “Global War on Terror”). At least 5% of GDP in an average year is more accurate. A huge amount of this is state-sanctioned profiteering and spending on weapons systems that are more designed for profit than usability. The ability of Russia to massively out produce the whole West in basic munitions, with much, much lower costs is evident of the colossal waste in this sector. Comparisons to Chinese defence expenditures and capabilities also point to massive waste. The US Military Industrial Complex is dominated by a few huge corporations that have fully infiltrated the purchasing apparatus of the US military and security services.

China spends less than 2% of GDP on “defence”, US$321 billion equivalent at market exchange rates and is outperforming the US which spends about US$1 trillion; perhaps the PPP adjustment should be to times 3 for China vs. the US? The US military is stronger than the Chinese one, but a lot of that is due to the previous decades of heavy US expenditures, and the current difference is not great as calculated by the 2025 Global Firepower Index. Here we are comparing the output achieved in a single year, not the results of decades of very high spending.

Being conservative again, I will deduct 3% of US GDP but the figure may be higher.

Not properly counted in US GDP is the collapse in the value of the nation's infrastructure that has been under-invested in since the 1970s. Just compare the New York subway to Shanghai's. Construction costs are also much lower in China.









If only the US had spent those colossal US$ trillions on up to date infrastructure rather than foreign wars! But no, and even the Council for Foreign Relations recognizes the issue:

The U.S. population has almost doubled since the 1960s, when most of the country’s major infrastructure systems were designed. Many are reaching the end of their lifespan and are dangerously overstretched, experts say.

In its 2021 report card [PDF], the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), an industry group, gave the nation’s infrastructure a “C-,” up from a “D+” in 2017—the highest grade in twenty years. Still, the group estimated that there is an “infrastructure investment gap” of nearly $2.6 trillion this decade that, if unaddressed, could cost the United States $10 trillion in lost gross domestic product (GDP) by 2039.

Some of US GDP is actually expenditures forced upon consumers through shitty infrastructure, such as traffic congestion. But also, much of the real world quality of life of the population is a product of the quality of the public infrastructure as it is from personal spending. And the situation will only get worse for the US, as more and more of its aged and very badly maintained infrastructure reaches end of life and deteriorates much more rapidly.

Being conservative again, I will deduct 10% of US GDP but the figure may be higher.

So, that’s a total of more than half of US GDP. Making Chinese GDP per capita about two thirds of US GDP per capita on the “calculated by Roger” measure, which feels a lot more realistic. The Gini coefficient, a measure of income disparity, was not much different between the US and China. Wealth inequality is much worse in the US though, so the average Chinese person will be more better off when compared to the average US person than that two thirds implies. For example, over 80% of Chinese own their own homes vs. only 66% of Americans.

The Chinese Party-state acts to remove profiteering and rent-seeking behaviour, and consciously restricts parts of the economy seen as detrimental (e.g. sub-prime loans), and also has the state directly own many "natural" monopolies such as energy provision and railways. It also invests massive amounts in infrastructure rather than US$ trillions on foreign wars. The US is run by a bourgeois oligarchy that owns the US state and its “democratic representatives”. Vast amounts of US GDP are simply fictitious and subject to widespread rentier profiteering and monopoly and capitalist collusion practices. But the US GDP statistics count rentier profiteering as “output” rather than properly as an oligarch tax on the rest of society.

Much of the US is also run in ways that may produce higher profits but also produce much, much higher prices as the economy is captured by monopolies/oligopolies that are not as efficient nor resilient as companies disciplined by properly functioning efficient markets. An excellent example is of course the profiteering financial sector which regularly causes financial crises which require huge bailout costs, as with the 2008 GFC and the 2021 GFC that was hidden under the COVID pandemic crisis. A good recent example is the price of US and Canadian eggs, with the US agricultural monoliths consolidating output into huge chicken factories that are highly exposed to contagious diseases. Such exposure also leads to much greater use of antibiotics (perhaps antibiotics should be seen as “chicken medicine” in the US given the huge use of them on factory animals). Why Canada is safe, for now, from very high egg prices.

In China the Party-state serves the people and controls the bourgeoisie, in North America the bourgeoisie owns the state and both major political parties. Chinese GDP per capita is growing at about 5% per year, and its infrastructure gets better every year. US per capita GDP is growing at only about 1% per year at best, and its infrastructure keeps getting worse; real “as calculated by Roger” US GDP per capita may fall below that of the 1.4 million Chinese within the next decade. And there will be sub-populations of Chinese that are bigger than the whole US population with a significantly higher GDP per capita. Welcome to the new reality which is accelerating toward a US population and oligarchy that is still living in the past. It’s why Western tourists keep being stunned when they visit China, they have been systematically lied to by their media and their politicians.







There are many propaganda outfits that misrepresent China, from the MSM, to influencers, to NGOs (which include the CIA and NED funded Tibetan, Falun Gong and Xinjiang propaganda NGOs), to state functionaries, to academics, to individual operators. This is a good investigation of one of them.



The US government only a few months ago passed a law that explicitly funds anti-China propaganda at a rate of US$325 million per year, to add to the huge amounts already being spent by Western governments. We are also finding how much USAID money found its way into anti-China media, influencers and NGOs.



The truth would not just be shocking for the US and Western populations but also call into question the last five decades of neoliberalism and free market fundamentalism. So, as in 1984, the population must be fed lies and learn to hate those that threaten the interests of the US oligarch rulers.

https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/is-the ... ady-better

*******

From Xizang to Appalachia and Altadena: A Tale of Opposite Disaster Responses
Posted by Internationalist 360° on February 6, 2025
Sharon Black


Members of the Xizang Forest Fire Brigade help to transfer local people’s household items after the earthquake.

Trump’s recent visits to climate disaster sites underscore capitalism’s failures, while China’s response to the Xizang earthquake shows the way

President Donald Trump recently visited two U.S. climate disaster sites — Asheville, North Carolina, and Los Angeles. In addition to racist rants against immigrants and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) hires, he also targeted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Trump said his goal was to shut down the already underfunded agency and pass the problem of disaster relief to the states and local politicians to avoid federal responsibility.


Asheville, N.C., Sept. 27, 2024. Months later there were still many roads closed and homes without power.

People in Appalachia remain cold and homeless

More than four months after Hurricane Helene struck, many residents in western North Carolina remain essentially homeless. They are temporarily housed in hotels and face eviction during a freezing winter. More than 1,600 families lost access to Transitional Sheltering Assistance because FEMA was unable to contact them digitally.


A person uses a garden hose in an effort to save a home from catching fire during the Eaton Fire on Jan. 8.

California disaster continues

The Palisades and Eaton Fires in California were contained after nearly a month, but the danger of mudslides remains. To date, 29 people have been reported dead, and victims are still being identified. At least 17,000 homes and structures were destroyed, leaving families homeless and left to fend for themselves.

Meanwhile, predatory landlords have hiked rents, often violating Governor Newsom’s rather weak emergency decree limiting rent increases to 10% this month.

Health consequences in the region have not yet been fully measured, especially for young children, infants, and older people, whose lungs are more at risk of disease from inhaling poisonous air. The Los Angeles–based Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice has called on the government to convert military production from bombs and guns to manufacturing air purifiers and personal protective equipment (PPE).

While Trump demagogically attacked Los Angeles’s Black Mayor, Karen Bass, he did not condemn price-gouging landlords, multi-million–dollar insurance companies, or profit-hungry utility companies such as Southern California Edison. Residents in Altadena, where 75% of African Americans living there own their homes, have charged the company with negligence and greed.

Trillions to the war machine

Nevertheless, the U.S. government continues to funnel trillions into the war machine, which includes genocide in Palestine. Imperialist war remains the priority for U.S. government spending.

China’s disaster response to the Xizang earthquake

While the Eaton Fire broke out on Jan. 7 in the United States, people in China’s Xizang Autonomous Region (referred to as Tibet in the Western press) suffered a devastating 6.8-magnitude earthquake. What followed in China contrasts sharply with what transpired in the U.S.

China’s President Xi Jinping ordered all-out rescue efforts to save lives. He called for top priority being given to treating the injured, meeting the basic needs of those affected, and speeding post-disaster recovery.

The earthquake struck at 9 a.m. Village representatives from the local government and the Communist Party of China immediately alerted the central government and went door to door to begin rescue efforts — even before specialized teams arrived. Military aircraft from the Western Theater Command took off early that day to set up a command station in Dingri County. Disaster teams, medical personnel, and supplies — including members of the People’s Liberation Army — were already on their way.

A report and video titled “Heroic Rescues After the Xizang Earthquake” from The Point in Beijing, released just 24 hours after the quake, explain the process in depth. What’s remarkable is that these efforts took place at high altitudes, in freezing temperatures, and with limited daylight. Pictures show Chinese rescue teams using drones to light up the area and working around the clock.

More than 14,000 people participated in the rescue efforts, and 46,000 have been relocated and housed. By Jan. 8, the largest highway had been cleared, and hot meals were available.

The Chinese People’s Armed Police Force’s Xizang Contingent organized a voluntary blood donation drive in response to a critical shortage at the Xizang Autonomous Region blood center caused by the earthquake.

A new recruit told the Global Times, “As soldiers, it’s our duty to help the people in the disaster area.” About 200 soldiers took part in the drive.

Here are a few videos and pictures depicting the Chinese government’s efforts on the ground:

“A total of 407 people have been rescued and over 30,000 relocated after a magnitude-6.8 #earthquake jolted southwest China’s #Xizang Autonomous Region. Governments at all levels deployed rescuers, funds and relief supplies to the quake-struck area. Pictures

Prefabricated housing was assembled in approximately 2-3 minutes by the China Railway Group Limited (CREC).

Workers solidarity is universal

In Gurong Village, Dingri County, 31-year-old village leader Sang Jie sprang into action as soon as the first tremors struck. After alerting the central government, he organized local teams to rescue people by digging them out with their bare hands until professional crews could arrive. A Facebook video from CGTN features an interview with him.

In Los Angeles, Marcia Garcia, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, sprang out of bed after hearing about the fires in Altadena. With her sons, she grabbed buckets and hoses and drove to the historic Black community in Altadena to help. In an NPR interview, she said, “Our values and our principles come first. That’s what our parents taught us. They always used to say, ‘Help others without concern for who they are or why they need help.’”

In western North Carolina, similar stories of heroism and sacrifice emerged. A young boy hiked more than 11 miles through mountainous terrain to reach his mother. Eddie Hunnel, carrying only a life vest and rope, jumped into the New River to save a woman trapped in a house being washed away by the storm. He paid little attention to his own safety, though he later admitted he was shaken when the real danger sunk in. Hunnel was in the area for his son’s wedding.

From China to Los Angeles and Appalachia, ordinary people have shown an incredible capacity for sacrifice and altruism and the ability to work together. Such cooperation and solidarity are key to human survival.

What is missing in Los Angeles, North Carolina, and the United States as a whole is a system that matches our natural ability to cooperate, protect one another, and act heroically when needed — a system that puts people’s needs before profits.

China’s President Xi Jinping summed it up best: “Saving lives is the most important thing.” It should always come before capitalist profits and imperialist war.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/02/ ... responses/

******



Socialist education: what can we learn from the Chinese example?

We are pleased to republish this article by Logan Williams, which was originally published by the Morning Star. It provides a broad overview of educational policies and attainments in the different phases of the long Chinese revolution and points to the need for the education sector in Britain to engage with the Chinese experience.

Noting that the British government has launched a Curriculum and Assessment Review, Logan argues that it is “vital that educators and trade unionists across Britain seek to examine and apply lessons from alternative forms of education across the globe for post-Covid British education – most notably through an examination of progressive forms of education, such as the Chinese approach.”

Having briefly reviewed early Chinese attempts at modernisation, he states that the first genuine attempts at pursuing mass education in China emerged in the rural soviets set up by the Communist Party of China (CPC) under the leadership of Mao Zedong in Jiangxi in the early 1930s. Priorities included three key focuses for education namely “the right of all workers, peasants and other working people to education; the introduction of free schools for all children to be embarked upon immediately; educational establishments to be run by the people with support from the party.”

The success of such policies was recorded by the progressive American writer and journalist Edgar Snow when he visited the liberated areas in Yan’an in 1936, but despite these successes, “there were immense problems still to overcome in the liberated regions with 95 per cent of the population still illiterate, no pre-existing school buildings, virtually no books and very few teaching materials. But the experiences gained in the liberated areas would prove vital in the shaping of China’s new education system following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.”

The early years of the People’s Republic saw a massive expansion of schooling and alongside this, there was simultaneously a mass literacy campaign in the factories and the fields with lessons taking place in lunch breaks or in evening classes. These efforts worked together to achieve the colossal task of reducing illiteracy to below 10 per cent in many areas by 1958.

As the People’s Republic of China entered the second phase of its development, known as “reform and opening up” from the end of 1978, the gains made for Chinese education under Mao’s leadership were expanded and deepened during the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin.

Following the massive achievements in the reform period, not least the targeted pursuit of progress in key STEM subjects, which laid the groundwork for the new era of Chinese development in the 21st century, it is now possible to see the fruits of China’s policies, with the country supporting the world’s largest education sector with 270 million students enrolled in 514,000 educational institutions.

Moreover, the national student nutrition programme has supported 37 million students across rural China to access education through the provision of high-quality meals daily. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China has also focused on tackling the growing mental health crisis faced by students through the successful passage of the ‘double reduction’ policy which looks to restrict the amount of homework and additional tutoring that has hitherto burdened students.

Logan concludes that it is therefore logical for British educators, progressives, socialists and trade unionists to seek to learn lessons from the Chinese education system, considering its role in defeating illiteracy and its vital contribution to the transformation of China’s economy into the industrial and scientific powerhouse it is today.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the issue of education within Britain came to the forefront of the British consciousness from the issue of examinations and assessment to lockdown learning and the role of education as a vital tool to overcome child poverty as highlighted by the work of the National Education Union, among others.

The emergence of these issues has led the British government to launch the Curriculum and Assessment Review to explore the reforms needed to begin to solve the problems rooted deeply within the British education system.

It is therefore vital that educators and trade unionists across Britain seek to examine and apply lessons from alternative forms of education across the globe for post-Covid British education — most notably through an examination of progressive forms of education, such as the Chinese approach, if we are to forge an education system ready to face the challenges on the horizon.

Education before the revolution
Education in China before its Westernisation in the early 20th century was a highly developed system reserved solely for the offspring of the ruling class. The system was based on Confucian social philosophy, namely that there is an innate inequality within human beings, which was used to reinforce the deeply entrenched class system stemming from the emperor.

This class system relied on the education system to produce highly educated mandarins sourced from of the sons of noble families to reinforce the rule of the emperor. The children of the peasants, at the time making up 90 per cent of the population, received no formal education and were instead forced to labour in the fields alongside their parents.

The first changes to the centuries-old traditional Chinese education system came at first from Western influences in the 1911 nationalist revolution. The revolution sought to modernise China and succeeded in overthrowing the ancient imperial order.

The leaders of this revolution emerged from either Christian mission schools in China or abroad and sought to replicate these forms of education centred around the bourgeois ideals of economic, technical and scientific efficiency.

The education system of the new Chinese republic would seek to create a new elite moulded along Western lines in an attempt to drag China into the modern capitalist world with little regard for the great majority of its people. These policies would leave the peasant masses in illiteracy with only 15 per cent of Chinese children attending primary schools and 10 per cent attending middle school by 1937.

The first genuine attempts at pursuing mass education in China emerged in the rural soviets set up by the Communist Party of China (CPC) under the leadership of Mao Zedong in Jiangxi. These first attempts were led by the soviet government established in a mountainous area within the Jiangxi province in 1931 through its constitution that placed education as a priority for the newly formed government.

These priorities included three key focuses for education namely “the right of all workers, peasants and other working people to education; the introduction of free schools for all children to be embarked upon immediately; educational establishments to be run by the people with support from the party.”

During both the Yan’an period (1933-45) and the third revolutionary civil war (1946-49), Chinese communists made immense efforts to follow these key aims by establishing schools and education courses wherever soviets were established.

These efforts were recognised by Edgar Snow when he visited Yan’an in 1936, where upon arrival he found that more than 200 primary schools had been established in the region. As well as a teacher training college for primary teachers, an agricultural school, a trade union school and a CPC school which consisted of 400 students.

Despite these huge successes, there were immense problems still to overcome in the liberated regions with 95 per cent of the population still illiterate, no pre-existing school buildings, virtually no books and very few teaching materials. But the experiences gained in the liberated areas would prove vital in the shaping of China’s new education system following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

Education after the revolution
The first few years of the People’s Republic of China were focused on restoring order, restarting the devastated economy and laying the foundations for a successful transition to socialism.

At first, the fledgling republic sought to emulate the successful Soviet model of development through the construction of a five-year plan centred around the use of agriculture to drive investment in heavy industry with the goal of establishing 150 heavy industrial plants.

Within this period the education system had two main tasks: the first was to quickly train the experts needed for the new emerging industries and, the other was to raise the level of basic education with the goal of involving peasants and workers in the struggle for building a socialist society.

Following the passage of the 1949 common programme of the Chinese government (a temporary constitution) there was a rapid expansion in the availability of access to Chinese schools with the number of pupils attending primary schools rising from 24 million in 1949 to 64 million in 1956 with a rise in the number of secondary school pupils attending schools rising from 1 to 6 million in the same period.

Alongside this dramatic increase in the number of Chinese youths attending schools founded in the first decade of the People’s Republic, there was simultaneously a mass literacy campaign built in the factories and the fields with lessons taking place in many places on lunch breaks or within evening classes led by local people in each area. These efforts worked together to achieve the colossal task of reducing illiteracy to below 10 per cent in many areas by 1958.

As the People’s Republic of China entered the second phase of its development best summarised through the policy of “reform and opening up” from the end of 1978, the gains made for Chinese education under the government of Mao were expanded and deepened through the leadership of Deng Xiaoping.

Deng’s education reforms were centred around developing education across all regions of the country simultaneously and harnessing the technological progress emerging in the late 1970s through an emphasis placed on the pursuit of progress in stem subjects.

One of the key elements of this reform was to devolve most pedagogical decision-making out to local authorities as part of the 1985 reform of the ministry of education. The devolution of pedagogical decision-making enabled these bodies to shape education to meet the needs of the local community in its efforts to pursue the economic growth achieved through Deng’s reforms.

It is clear that the reforms pursued by Deng; both in terms of the devolution of pedagogical power and the targeted pursuit of progress in key STEM subjects have laid the groundwork for the formation of the new era of Chinese development in the 21st century.

In the new era, it is possible to see the fruits of those reforms with China supporting the world’s largest education sector with 270 million students enrolled in 514,000 educational institutions. Within this education sector, it has been possible to recognise key support programmes which have enabled equitable access to high-quality education across all regions of the country.

In particular, the national student nutrition programme has supported 37 million students across rural China to access education through the provision of high-quality meals daily. Xi Jinping’s government has also focused on tackling the growing mental health crisis faced by students through the successful passage of the double reduction policy which looked to restrict the amount of homework and additional tutoring undertaken by students.

The need for this reform is born from the statistics that 87.6 per cent of junior to high school students finish homework after 10pm most nights and sleep for less than eight hours, which has been seen as a contributing factor to 22 per cent of all adolescent suicides being directly attributed to study stress.

It would be remiss not to also highlight the monumental efforts undertaken by Xi’s government since 2012 to alleviate poverty across China. Since 2012, the government has worked to lift 100 million of its population out of poverty through a mass mobilisation of China’s citizens and CPC cadres. These achievements will undoubtedly aid the Chinese people in achieving their goal of becoming a leading nation in terms of education by 2035.

It is logical therefore for British educators, progressives, socialists and, trade unionists alike to seek to learn lessons from the Chinese education system due to its role in defeating illiteracy and, the work produced to transform China’s economy into the industrial and scientific powerhouse it is today.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/02/05/s ... e-example/

[blindpig]

DEEPSEEK COMPARED TO CHATGPT ON THE UKRAINE WAR – WHO IS WINNING?



by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

The last Chinese as clever, as profiteering, and as popular in the imagination of millions as DeepSeek was Dr Fu Manchu.

“Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan,” wrote his creator Sax Rohmer, the alias of an Englishman: “invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present …Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the Yellow Peril incarnate in one man.”

Appearing first in 1912, educated at several western universities, the “Chinese devil’s” plots were aimed at combating fascism, communism, and the British empire. His methods included honey-trap girls, poisons, germs, spiders, and unspeakable tortures. He was a caricature of western fear of the superiority of the Chinese race.

DeepSeek is his new name; the racism is the same.

According to a US government-backed report issued a few days ago, DeepSeek is “highly biased as well as highly vulnerable to generate insecure code, toxic, harmful and CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear] content.”

Open AI, the US government-connected company which owns the competing ChatGPT, has declared the Chinese villain is a thief. “DeepSeek may [sic] have inappropriately distilled our models…We take aggressive, proactive countermeasures to protect our technology and will continue working closely with the US government to protect the most capable models being built here.”

Last December the New York Times launched court action against Open AI, accusing it of the same plagiarism on which Open AI is now relying in its attack on DeepSeek. “Independent journalism is vital to our democracy,” the newspaper claimed. “For more than 170 years, The Times has given the world deeply reported, expert, independent journalism… Defendants’ unlawful use of The Times’s work to create artificial intelligence products that compete with it threatens The Times’s ability to provide that service. Defendants’ generative artificial intelligence (“GenAI”) tools rely on large-language models (“LLMs”) that were built by copying and using millions of The Times’s copyrighted news articles, in-depth investigations, opinion pieces, reviews, how-to guides, and more…The law does not permit the kind of systematic and competitive infringement that Defendants have committed. This action seeks to hold them responsible for the billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages that they owe for the unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.”

This is the first time in US federal court history that the reproduction of government deception operations and propaganda by newspaper reporters has been subjected to a test, not of the espionage statute as in the Ellsberg and Assange cases, but of the copyright laws.

A month later, the New York Times attacked DeepSeek, not for plagiarising the Times, but for reproducing Chinese government propaganda. “If you’re among the millions of people who have downloaded DeepSeek, the free new chatbot from China powered by artificial intelligence, know this: The answers it gives you will largely reflect the worldview of the Chinese Communist Party. Since the tool made its debut this month, rattling stock markets and more established tech giants like Nvidia, researchers testing its capabilities have found that the answers it gives not only spread Chinese propaganda but also parrot disinformation campaigns that China has used to undercut its critics around the world.”

This is no more than one press pot calling another media kettle black. But with billions of dollars at stake in the stock market capitalisation of the American and Chinese companies producing Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, this is also a battle of the propaganda operations of the US government in the wars it is currently waging.

For a test of this warfighting, DeepSeek has been questioned on issues of the Russian war in the Ukraine and the US war against Russia. Its answers, which follow verbatim, reveal no evidence (repeat no evidence) of Chinese backing for the Russian side. Instead, surprise (repeat surprise) – there is evidence that DeepSeek is no more capable than Chat GPT of distinguishing between propaganda and truth.

So long as DeepSeek trains on the English language and answers questions from the current English-language database and large language model, this is inevitable.

Resisting English-language dominance in AI is now Kremlin strategy.

On December 11 at a conference on AI in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin warned that systems like ChatGPT and DeepSeek are ideological creations potentially hostile to Russia. “I brought up the worldview sovereignty,” Putin said, “because the algorithms, the underlying AI principles are being laid down, at least for the time being, mostly by humans who are guided by certain values, language, images, culture, history, and traditions, as well as national specifics and interests. To be able to determine the future of Russia, we must create such technologies ourselves and, of course, do so in collaboration with those who are willing to work.” Among its many purposes, Putin went on, “the AI technology is called upon to become the critical resource…to strengthen the country’s defence capability.”


President Putin speaking on the AI conference of last December; Sberbank chief executive German Gref applauding. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/

Putin also addressed the Chinese AI expert at the conference. “China is making great strides in its technological development and is using vital instruments for this development. Of course, artificial intelligence, which is your professional sphere, is one of these crucial instruments.”

Subsequently, the US Government’s propaganda organ, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, claimed in a report that “as Chinese companies such as DeepSeek prove that advanced AI can be built at lower costs, Russia’s global ambitions are faltering under the weight of ideological restrictions, an exodus of tech talent, and Western sanctions that cut off access to essential hardware.”


Source: https://www.rferl.org/

In Part One of this investigation, the US system ChatGPT was found to be running a committed anti-Russian propaganda line on all questions which users ask on the war in the Ukraine; click to read. This bias has not been reported yet inside Russia; it is not acknowledged outside.

Following this up, DeepSeek has now been asked the same questions on the Ukraine war, and its answers compared for DeepSeek’s propaganda orientation for or against Russia.

DeepSeek issues a qualifier from the start. “As of my last update in October 2023, several podcasts have gained popularity for their in-depth analysis and discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war.” In other words, the Chinese developers of DeepSeek have added no new training for its large-language models (LLMs) to answer these questions for the past sixteen months. This is despite the fact that DeepSeek has announced updated models V2, V3, and R1 which were released in May 2024, December 2024, and January 2025, respectively.

No published or contacted source can explain why the data bases for the war questions have not been updated in these new models. By contrast, ChatGPT claims that its updates, while also periodic, are more recent than DeepSeek’s, and are thus on the war issues, more timely.

Follow this verbatim record of questions (italicized) and DeepSeek answers:

Q: What podcasts that discuss the Russia-Ukraine war are the most popular?

A: 1. The Daily (The New York Times):

o Overview: This podcast often covers significant global events, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It provides daily updates and in-depth analysis.

o Why Popular: Known for its thorough reporting and expert interviews, “The Daily” is a go-to source for many listeners seeking reliable news.

2. Pod Save the World:

o Overview: Hosted by former Obama administration staffer Tommy Vietor, this podcast delves into international affairs, including the Russia-Ukraine war.

o Why Popular: The hosts bring a unique perspective with their political experience, making complex issues more accessible.

3. War on the Rocks:

o Overview: This podcast focuses on military strategy and international security, offering detailed discussions on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

o Why Popular: It features experts and analysts who provide deep insights into the military and geopolitical aspects of the war.

4. The Eastern Border:

o Overview: Hosted by Kristaps Andrejsons, this podcast provides historical context and current analysis of Eastern Europe, including the Russia-Ukraine war.

o Why Popular: The host’s deep knowledge of the region and its history offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of the conflict.

5. Ukrainecast (BBC):

o Overview: This podcast is dedicated to covering the Russia-Ukraine war, with regular updates and expert analysis.

o Why Popular: As a product of the BBC, it offers high-quality journalism and a global perspective on the conflict.

6. The Red Line:

o Overview: This podcast explores international conflicts and geopolitical issues, including the Russia-Ukraine war.

o Why Popular: It provides a balanced view, often featuring multiple perspectives on the issues discussed.

7. Deep State Radio (DSR):

o Overview: Hosted by former government officials and journalists, this podcast covers a range of international topics, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

o Why Popular: The hosts’ insider knowledge and candid discussions make it a favorite among those interested in geopolitics.

8. The Intelligence (The Economist):

o Overview: This daily podcast from The Economist covers global news, including updates on the Russia-Ukraine war.

o Why Popular: Known for its concise and insightful reporting, it provides a quick yet thorough overview of current events.

These podcasts are popular due to their reliable sourcing, expert analysis, and comprehensive coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. They cater to a wide range of listeners, from those seeking daily updates to those interested in deeper geopolitical and historical context.

Q: What are the most popular podcasts that discuss the Russia-Ukraine war from a pro-Russia stance?

A: Podcasts that discuss the Russia-Ukraine war from a pro-Russia stance are less common in mainstream Western media, but they do exist, particularly on platforms that cater to alternative or non-Western perspectives. Here are some notable examples:

1. The Duran:

o Overview: Hosted by Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christoforou, “The Duran” provides analysis of global events, including the Russia-Ukraine war, from a perspective that often aligns with Russian viewpoints.

o Why Popular: The hosts offer a critical perspective on Western media narratives and provide alternative analyses that resonate with listeners skeptical of mainstream coverage.

2. Sputnik Radio:

o Overview: Sputnik, a Russian state-owned news agency, produces various podcasts and radio programs that discuss international affairs, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, from a pro-Russia stance.

o Why Popular: As an official Russian media outlet, it provides direct access to the Kremlin’s perspective and is popular among those who support Russian policies.

3. RT (Russia Today) Podcasts:

o Overview: RT, another Russian state-funded media organization, offers podcasts and programs that cover global news, including the Russia-Ukraine war, with a pro-Russia bias.

o Why Popular: RT’s content is widely accessible and provides a platform for Russian viewpoints, making it a go-to source for those seeking an alternative to Western media.

4. The Grayzone:

o Overview: Hosted by Max Blumenthal, “The Grayzone” covers international politics and conflicts, including the Russia-Ukraine war, often challenging mainstream narratives and presenting a pro-Russia perspective.

o Why Popular: The podcast is known for its investigative journalism and critical stance on Western foreign policy, attracting listeners who are skeptical of mainstream media.

5. Fort Russ News:

o Overview: This platform offers news and analysis from a pro-Russia perspective, including discussions on the Russia-Ukraine war.

o Why Popular: It provides detailed coverage and analysis that aligns with Russian interests, appealing to those who support Russia’s actions in the conflict.

6. The Katehon Think Tank:

o Overview: Katehon is a geopolitical think tank that produces content, including podcasts, from a pro-Russia and Eurasianist perspective.

o Why Popular: The think tank’s analysis often supports Russian geopolitical strategies and provides a scholarly approach to understanding the conflict.

7. Vladimir Pozner:

o Overview: Vladimir Pozner, a well-known Russian journalist, occasionally discusses the Russia-Ukraine war in his interviews and podcasts, offering a pro-Russia viewpoint.

o Why Popular: Pozner’s extensive experience and articulate presentation make his perspectives compelling to listeners who align with Russian narratives.

These podcasts and platforms are popular among audiences who seek alternative viewpoints to mainstream Western media coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. They provide a platform for pro-Russia perspectives, offering analyses and narratives that support Russian policies and actions in the conflict.

Q: Do you have any raw data for the popularity of these pro-Russian media?

As of my last update in October 2023, I don’t have access to real-time or raw data regarding the popularity of specific podcasts. However, I can provide some general insights into how podcast popularity is typically measured and where you might find such data:

How Podcast Popularity is Measured:

1. Download and Stream Metrics:

o Platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts track downloads and streams, which are key indicators of a podcast’s popularity.

o Raw data for these metrics is typically proprietary and not publicly available unless shared by the podcast creators or platforms.

2. Chart Rankings:

o Podcasts often appear on charts (e.g., Apple Podcasts’ “Top Shows” or Spotify’s “Top Podcasts”) based on their performance in specific categories or regions.

o These rankings can give a rough idea of a podcast’s popularity relative to others.

3. Social Media Engagement:

o The number of followers, likes, shares, and comments on platforms like Twitter (X), YouTube, and Facebook can indicate a podcast’s reach and audience engagement.

4. Website Traffic:

o Tools like SimilarWeb or Alexa can provide estimates of traffic to a podcast’s official website, which can correlate with its popularity.

5. Patreon or Donation Metrics:

o If the podcast is supported by platforms like Patreon, the number of supporters and funding levels can be a proxy for its dedicated audience size.

Where to find data on identified podcasts:

• YouTube: You can check their channel for view counts, subscriber numbers, and engagement metrics.

• Social Media: Their activity on platforms like Twitter (X) and Facebook can provide insights into their audience size and engagement.

• Podcast Platforms: While raw download data isn’t publicly available, you can check their rankings on platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify to gauge their relative popularity.

• Third-Party Tools: Services like Podchaser or Chartable may provide some analytics or rankings, though detailed data might require a subscription.

• Use third-party analytics tools (e.g., Chartable, Podtrac) if the podcast is registered with them.

• Monitor their social media and YouTube metrics for real-time engagement data.

Q: Why are these channels popular?

• Alternative Narratives: They offer perspectives that challenge mainstream Western media coverage, appealing to audiences skeptical of traditional news sources.

• Geopolitical Analysis: Many of these channels provide in-depth analysis of military and geopolitical strategies, attracting viewers interested in detailed discussions.

• Pro-Russia Stance: They align with the views of audiences who support Russian policies or are critical of Western involvement in Ukraine.

Note: The proportion of podcasts that are pro-Ukraine versus pro-Russia or neutral in the context of the Ukraine-Russia war can vary significantly depending on the platform, audience, and region. However several trends can be observed: Approximately 60-70% of podcasts in Western media are pro-Ukraine; approximately 10-20% are pro-Russia, mostly found on Russian platforms or niche channels. While these channels are popular among certain audiences, they are often controversial and criticized for promoting pro-Russia propaganda. It’s important to approach their content critically and cross-reference information with other sources.

Approximately 10-20% of podcasts on the war are neutral/balanced; they are often academic or analytical in nature. These estimates are rough…The overall trend, especially in Western media, leans heavily towards a pro-Ukraine stance.

Q: Does the use of Twitter to promote result in more podcast listens? Please provide a response with hard metrics.

The relationship between Twitter (now X) promotion and podcast listens is well-documented, and several studies and industry reports provide hard metrics to demonstrate the impact. While I don’t have access to proprietary data from specific podcasts or platforms, I can summarize findings from industry research and case studies that highlight the effectiveness of Twitter in driving podcast engagement.

Key Metrics and Findings

1. Twitter’s Own Data:

o According to Twitter’s internal studies, tweets about podcasts result in a 27% increase in click-through rates (CTR) to podcast platforms compared to other types of content.

o Twitter users who engage with podcast-related tweets are 2.5x more likely to listen to the podcast being promoted.

2. Chartable (Podcast Analytics Platform):

o Chartable’s data shows that podcasts promoted on Twitter see an average increase of 15-20% in unique listeners within the first week of a campaign.

o They also found that tweets with audiograms (short audio clips with visuals) generate 2x more clicks than text-only tweets.

3. Buzzsprout (Podcast Hosting Platform):

o Buzzsprout’s analysis reveals that podcasts that actively use Twitter for promotion see a 30% higher growth rate in downloads compared to those that don’t.

o They also found that tweets with hashtags related to the podcast’s niche increase discoverability by 50%.

4. Nielsen Social Media Study:

o A Nielsen study found that social media mentions, particularly on Twitter, correlate with a 14% increase in podcast listenership.

o They also noted that podcasts with active Twitter accounts grow their audience 2x faster than those without.

5. Case Study: “The Daily” (The New York Times):

o “The Daily” uses Twitter extensively to promote episodes, and their data shows that episodes promoted with audiograms and quotes on Twitter see a 25% higher listen rate compared to episodes without promotion.

o They also found that tweets with guest mentions or trending hashtags drive 3x more engagement.

6. Triton Digital’s Podcast Report:

o Triton Digital’s research indicates that podcasts promoted on Twitter experience a 10-15% boost in downloads during active campaigns.

o They also found that live-tweeting during podcast releases increases real-time engagement by 40%.

Conclusion: Hard metrics from industry studies and case studies consistently show that using Twitter to promote podcasts results in significant increases in listens, downloads, and audience growth. The platform’s ability to amplify content through hashtags, multimedia, and community engagement makes it a powerful tool for podcasters looking to grow their audience.

Q: Do the audiences and experts of podcast channels that discuss the Russia-Ukraine war demonstrate persuasion and changes in viewpoints over time or do they continue to reinforce and strengthen the same views?

A: The impact of podcasts discussing the Russia-Ukraine war on audience and expert viewpoints is complex and varies depending on several factors, including the podcast’s stance, the audience’s pre-existing beliefs, and the quality of the content. Here’s an analysis of how these dynamics typically play out:

1. Reinforcement of Existing Views

• Echo Chambers: Many podcasts, especially those with strong pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine biases, tend to attract audiences who already share similar views. These listeners often seek content that reinforces their existing beliefs, creating an echo chamber effect.

o Example: Pro-Russia podcasts like The Duran or RT’ primarily appeal to audiences skeptical of Western narratives, and their analysis often strengthens these listeners’ support for Russian actions.

• Confirmation Bias: Audiences are more likely to accept information that aligns with their worldview and dismiss or ignore opposing perspectives. This reinforces their existing viewpoints over time.

• Expert Reinforcement: Experts featured on these podcasts often share the same ideological leanings as the hosts, further solidifying the audience’s beliefs.

2. Persuasion and Shifting Viewpoints

• Nuanced Discussions: Podcasts that present balanced, well-researched, and nuanced discussions have the potential to persuade listeners and experts to reconsider their views.

o Example: Podcasts like The Daily (The New York Times) or War on the Rocks often provide in-depth analysis that can challenge simplistic narratives, leading some listeners to reevaluate their positions.

• Exposure to New Information: When podcasts introduce new evidence, historical context, or expert opinions, they can shift viewpoints, especially among audiences who are less ideologically entrenched.

• Critical Thinking: High-quality podcasts that encourage critical thinking and present multiple perspectives can foster a more open-minded audience.

3. Polarization Over Time

• Deepening Divides: In highly polarized topics like the Russia-Ukraine war, podcasts often contribute to deepening ideological divides. Pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine podcasts tend to harden their audiences’ positions, making them less receptive to opposing viewpoints.

• Tribalism: Audiences may develop a sense of loyalty to their preferred podcast or host, leading to a tribalistic defence of their views and a rejection of alternative perspectives.

4. Expert Perspectives

• Experts as Influencers: Experts featured on podcasts can significantly influence audience opinions. However, their impact depends on their credibility, the strength of their arguments, and their ability to communicate effectively.

o Example: Military analysts like Michael Kofman (often featured on War on the Rocks) can persuade listeners by providing detailed, evidence-based analysis.

• Expert Evolution: Some experts may evolve their views over time as new information emerges, and this evolution can influence their audiences. However, experts with strong ideological commitments are less likely to change their positions.

5. Audience Demographics and Openness

• Open-Minded Listeners: Audiences who are less ideologically committed or who seek to understand multiple perspectives are more likely to experience shifts in their viewpoints.

• Ideologically Committed Listeners: Audiences with strong pre-existing beliefs are more resistant to persuasion and are more likely to use podcasts to reinforce their views.

Conclusion: The impact of podcasts discussing the Russia-Ukraine war on audience and expert viewpoints depends largely on the podcast’s approach and the audience’s openness to new information. While many podcasts reinforce existing views and contribute to polarization, others—particularly those that prioritize nuance, evidence, and balanced discussion—can persuade listeners and experts to reconsider their positions. However, deeply entrenched ideological divides often make significant shifts in viewpoints challenging.


If you’d like to explore specific examples or strategies for fostering more open-minded discussions, let me know!

DeepSeek’s answers fail to acknowledge that Fort Russ News has ceased to exist after coming under sustained DDOS attacks; and that Katehon’s last podcast was on June 24, 2024. Also missing from DeepSeek’s profile of Katehon is that it is produced in Moscow by a group led by Konstantin Malofeyev, the publisher of Tsargrad; Sergei Glazyev; and General Leonid Reshetnikov, a senior Soviet, then Russian intelligence officer who in his retirement from active service led the state think tank, the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. Pozner gives interviews and in October 2024 directed a four-episode documentary for Russian state television Channel 1 called Turkish Notebook. He is not a regular podcaster, however.

THE ANTI-RUSSIAN PODCASTERS DEEPSEEK RATES “RELIABLE ”


Left to right: Michael Barbaro (US) of The Daily; Tommy Vietor (US) of Pod Save the World; Michael Kofman (US), War on the Rocks; Kristaps Andrejsons (Latvia), Eastern Border.

THE PRO-RUSSIAN PODCASTERS DEEPSEEK RATES “CRITICALLY”


Left to right: Peter Lavelle (US), RT’s Cross Talk; Melik Abdul (US), Sputnik’s Fault Lines; Max Blumenthal (US), Grayzone; Alexander Mercouris (UK), The Duran.

Without access to podcast metrics, DeepSeek is unable to compare the size of the audiences for the pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian podcasts; measure the relative audience impact of the podcasters within each category; or explain the selection of Katehon and Pozner. Identification of other pro-Russia podcasters such as Gonzalo Lira, Judging Freedom (Andrew Napolitano), Scott Ritter, and Redacted fails to register their audience size; the death of Lira in January 2024; and the apparent irrelevance of Redacted, which focuses on industrial design.

Comparing the answers to questions on the war by ChatGPT and by DeepSeek, there is no evidence that DeepSeek is the more biased. A Moscow source explains: “The DeepSeek bias comes from being trained on liberal western media. All you get are summaries of what all the Anglo-American media have been writing. This is the same for ChatGPT and comparable western LLMs. As future models get trained on voice and video they will be biased further unless the Chinese and Russians refrain from training on more English content and avoid the biases in that content. Russians and Chinese will be wrong to train on data from the Anglo-Saxon world.”

For analysis of the Chinese “national socialist” model from which DeepSeek has emerged so swiftly and effectively, read Ron Unz’s essay:



https://johnhelmer.net/deepseek-compare ... more-91054

******

China Urged To End Successful Policies

In a variant of the Sowing Doubt About China - But At What Cost? propaganda scheme, the New York Times makes the (somewhat racist) claim that China lacks the capability to turn talent into innovation:

What DeepSeek’s Success Says About China’s Ability to Nurture Talent (archived) - New York Times, Feb 10 2025

The subtitle reveals the core thesis:

China produces a vast number of STEM graduates, but it hasn’t been known for innovation. Cultural and political factors may help explain why.

In a globalized world the innovation ability of a country can be measured by the number of global patents it files.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides data on these.



China, which the NYT says is not known for innovation, is by far leading the pack.

One might argue that China, with four times the population of the United States, should have innovated even more than that. But seen under this aspect the U.S. is also far from the top.

Per million inhabitants China filed 1.2 patents per year while the United States filed 1.5. But the real leaders here are South Korea with 5.5 patents per year per million people followed by Japan with 3.3/y/million.

Real world numbers are not sufficient to support the NYT's central thesis. That is why it barely mentions some. Its argument comes down to a political one:

Pavel Durov, the founder of the messaging platform Telegram, said last month that fierce competition in Chinese schools had fueled the country’s successes in artificial intelligence. “If the U.S. doesn’t reform its education system, it risks ceding tech leadership to China,” he wrote online.
The reality is more complicated. Yes, China has invested heavily in education, especially in science and technology, which has helped nurture a significant pool of talent, key to its ambition of becoming a world leader in A.I. by 2025.

But outside of the classroom, those graduates must also contend with obstacles that include a grinding corporate culture and the political whims of the ruling Communist Party. Under its current top leader, Xi Jinping, the party has emphasized control, rather than economic growth, and has been willing to crack down on tech firms it deems too influential.

If that is indeed so why is it supposed to be bad?

Is it really healthy for a country to have Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet (Google) leading in Market Cap? The author fails to follow that question.

She instead misleads about the alleged crack-down:

Beijing has blessed the A.I. sector — for now. But in 2020, after deciding that it had too little control over major companies like Alibaba, it launched a sweeping, yearslong crackdown on the Chinese tech industry.

The crack-down against Alibaba owner Jack Ma came when he tried to expand Alibaba into the so called fin-tech business.

Juggling with credit and various derivatives thereof is a part of the economy that is better to be kept under control. The 2008 mortgage credit crisis and the following government bailout of private banks have taught as much. Pouring money and talent into a sector that is not productive and carries high risk is not in any societies' best interest.

In an aside the NYT author comes near to acknowledging that:

(DeepSeek’s founder, Liang Wenfeng, pivoted to A.I. from his previous focus on speculative trading, in part because of a separate government crackdown there.)

How can one conclude from there that China still has to liberalize?

But the best way for China to capitalize on its well-educated, ambitious A.I. work force may be for the government to get out of the way.

China's government planning and control over education and its economy has led to its astonishing rise.

Lacking the abundance of capital which OpenAI and other U.S. companies are spending on their attempts to monopolize their fields, DeepSeek had to innovate. It did so and has beaten its competition.

How less government intervention would have led to a better performance than China has shown is difficult to argue. The NYT for one fails at it.

Posted by b on February 10, 2025 at 10:51 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/02/c ... .html#more

[blindpig]

Made in China 2025
February 14, 17:06



Made in China 2025

In 2015, Xi Jinping announced an initiative called “Made in China 2025” to make Chinese industry self-sufficient in at least strategic sectors within 10 years. Numerous statements emphasized that the world was on the cusp of a new technological revolution, and China could only succeed by investing in a more advanced manufacturing base. A flood of government subsidies and other financial support was intended to help China achieve its goals.

American officials criticized the program for seeking to squeeze out foreign companies, a criticism that intensified after Trump began his first term.
By 2019, the United States had pressured Beijing to give foreign companies more opportunities to ship to China. In its most recent five-year economic plan, released in 2021, China’s leaders said the world was becoming increasingly unstable and “self-reliance” in science and technology was paramount. The Chinese have made some progress, though. In the electric vehicle sector, government support has grown from $15 billion in 2019 to more than $45 billion in 2023. Last year, electric vehicles and hybrids accounted for 48% of sales in China, up from 41% the year before. Most of these EVs were made by Chinese brands such as BYD and Geely. BYD recently overtook Volkswagen to become China’s best-selling automaker.
Government investment has turned Chinese companies into global leaders in shipbuilding, with the government pumping in about $132 billion. The Chinese now control more than half of the world’s commercial vessel tonnage, up from 5% in 1999. For years, China was an importer of chemical products, especially from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. However, since 2021, that deficit has turned into a surplus. In 2024, China posted a $34 billion surplus in chemical exports, compared with a $40 billion deficit in 2020. That’s about it.

In other ways, China’s quest for self-sufficiency continues to face insurmountable challenges. In aerospace, state-owned Comac’s C919 airliner has failed to compete with Boeing and Airbus because it is loaded with foreign systems and components. The C919 won’t fly without landing gear from Germany and engines from the US and France. Beyond technology, China’s food supply is limited by a lack of arable land and fresh water, making it far from self-sufficient. In 2024, China imported 105 million tonnes of soybeans, up 21% from 2019, much of it from the US, while meat imports rose 55% over the same period.

In the semiconductor industry, Western countries are working hard to prevent China from catching up. Ten years ago, the Chinese said that 70% of China's chip needs would be met by domestic production by 2025. According to estimates by the consulting company International Business Strategies, China has only been able to meet 30% of its needs. Chip imports, according to Chinese customs data, amounted to almost $400 billion last year.
China does not have its own technology for making modern chip production facilities, which are currently produced in the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States. American and export restrictions block China's attempts to acquire them. Manufacturing advanced chips has proven almost impossible for China. However, in 2023, Huawei Technologies released its own integrated circuit, but it still did not compete with Western models.

Ahead of the upcoming global trade standoff with the United States, the Chinese are coming out with a background, the economic blows to which could cause irreparable damage to the Chinese economy. Whether China has proportionally effective counter-levers remains an open question. It is obvious that the Americans will hit hard at vulnerable points already this year.

@neinsider - zinc

As the example of DeepSeek, with the help of which China brought down the American stock market by almost 1 trillion dollars, showed, China also has tools to hurt the US. Underestimation of the mobilization capabilities of the Chinese economy and its deep foundations has repeatedly let the US down in assessing the potential of one of its main opponents. The Chinese understand perfectly well that an economic clash with the US is inevitable and are preparing for it. In this regard, the course towards increasing self-sufficiency seems correct and fully justified. We should not forget about this either.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9670371.html

Google Translator



Reflections on Western and Chinese Approaches to Operate Local Government

The following article by Douglas Rooney, originally published on Li Jingjing’s China Up Close blog, contrasts Western and Chinese approaches to local governance through two key examples. In Britain, the author’s hometown faces the closure of its local Partnership Centre, a community hub, due to funding cuts. Despite the decision being framed as a local choice, the community council lacks the resources to keep it running, effectively outsourcing blame for austerity to local residents. This reflects a broader trend in Western localism, where decentralisation is championed as empowering communities but often leaves them under-resourced.

In contrast, Douglas highlights China’s 12345 Hotline – the Beijing headquarters of which was included in the itinerary of the Friends of Socialist China delegation to China in April 2024 – as a model of effective local governance. Established in 1987, the hotline allows citizens to report issues directly to the government, from minor nuisances to significant problems. With millions of calls annually and a 97 percent satisfaction rate, it provides a streamlined way for residents to communicate with authorities. The hotline, alongside other mechanisms like WeChat groups and focus groups, integrates local concerns into a centralised decision-making process, ensuring problems are addressed without overburdening local communities.

The article argues that while Western localism often devolves responsibility without adequate support, China’s approach emphasises collaboration and problem-solving. Chinese local governance is part of a broader system of whole-process people’s democracy, in which citizens are actively consulted and solutions are pursued collectively.

Douglas concludes:

While Western politics is often about parceling out responsibility (and blame) for a problem, Chinese politics is about trying to find a solution to a problem. The 12345 Hotline is probably the most representative example of this solution-orientated approach to local governance. And judging by the positive response of Chinese citizens, it is an approach to local governance that resonates with everyday people.

Douglas Rooney is a Scottish Christian Socialist, currently working in Beijing.

In my hometown, my mum serves on the local community council (the lowest tier of representative government in the UK). Community councils are usually given a minuscule budget by the larger county or city government to spend on projects in their community: host a local gala, re-paint the park benches, maintain a local news board – that sort of thing. In my hometown, these duties also include managing the local Partnership Centre. This is a large building in the center of the town where you can find the local library, a community cafe, and a dance hall – basically a one-stop shop for community activities.

At the start of this winter the community council got bad news – the county government is no longer going to cover the running costs of the Partnership Centre. However, the county hasn’t made a decision to close the Partnership Centre. Instead, they have told the community council that it is their decision if they want to keep the Centre running after the county pulls funding in the summer.

But this isn’t much of a choice: without help from the county, the local community council will have to find an extra £8000 a month for upkeep costs. In the working-class town where I grew up, it is inconceivable the community will find this kind of money. Next year, the Partnership Centre will close because the government has slashed local budgets, but, on paper at least, the decision will have been made by the local community, and this will probably be enough to ensure the lion’s share of the blame is laid at the feet of the community council.

I was thinking about this story recently when I attended the Beijing Forum on Swift Response to Public Complaints. This Forum was primarily to discuss the progress made on the 12345 Hotline (more on this later), but experts from North America and Europe were also in attendance to share their thoughts on local governance.

The key concepts put forward by Western contributors were those of a responsible citizenry and localism. We heard about how difficult it was for central or municipal government in the West to coordinate with local communities: for example, about how, during the pandemic, New York City government initially found it difficult to establish adequate local testing centres because the municipal government simply didn’t have a good idea of where in the local community had the capacity to host them.

In Europe and North America the solution for this kind of administrative fog is decentralization. Those decisions that can be made in the local area will be made there because, we are told, local people will have a better understanding of local needs and capacity than a bureaucrat in a city hall, regional assembly, or national government. The future of Western municipal government is creating responsible citizens who will work as partners with the government to deliver for their local area.

In the United Kingdom, we have been testing this style of local government for decades. From Tony Blair’s commitment to devolution to David Cameron’s Big Society to Keir Starmer’s new deal for the regions, successive British governments have been championing localism as a solution to difficult local problems. And there is a reason it has attracted support from across the political spectrum: it sounds really good. Who doesn’t like the idea of putting local people in charge of their own lives?

Yet, I couldn’t help but keep thinking about my mum and her community council. They have been empowered to make a decision for their local community, but resource constraints mean that there is only one realistic outcome. In theory, local people are making decisions about their town. In practice, though, the government is outsourcing blame for a funding decision that was ultimately taken in London. This is localism not as a practical solution to administrative problems, but as a way to offload guilt for austerity onto local people.

At the Conference the Chinese philosophy for local governance was also on display, and it was markedly different from the Western variation. A representative example of this Chinese theory of local governance is the 12345 Hotline.

The Beijing 12345 Hotline was established in 1987 as a “Mayor’s Hotline” (there were back then only three operators and one line). The Hotline has since expanded into a comprehensive citizens’ complaint system, operating in eight languages with 1700 operators. Between January and September 2024, the Beijing Hotline received around 18 million calls and reported a satisfaction rate of 97%. Since being first set up in the 1980s, the complaints hotline has expanded across the country, with most major cities having their own version.

The Hotline exists so that normal citizens can alert the government to problems in their local area. This can be anything ranging from a stray cat causing a nuisance to traffic problems in your morning commute, to a workplace violating health and safety regulations. The operators will assess the problem and either try to solve the issue there and then or pass the issue on to the relevant department.

The 12345 Hotline has solved this conundrum of administrative fog for Chinese city governance. Through the hotline, citizens now organically report problems and concerns about their lives to the district and city government. Putting all this data together gives the municipal and provincial governments a pretty good idea of what works and what needs to improve, while it gives residents (both Chinese and foreign) a way to communicate directly with the government.

Of course, the 12345 Hotline isn’t the only mechanism by which local residents can pass on their complaints and ideas to the government: for example, one sub-district administrator reported great success in setting up WeChat groups for various stakeholders in the local community (one for foreigners, another for business owners and so on). Another attendee reported holding regular focus groups with different representatives of the local community.

All this is to say that Chinese municipalities have found a way to deliver on the promise of localism championed by Western politicians and academics. Local people are included in a continuous process of consultation about their local community. Unlike in the case of my hometown, however, local people are not set adrift from the central government, tasked with dealing with problems that are beyond the scope of local resources to solve. Instead, local people and communities are integrated into a decision-making process that ultimately includes the national government – what is called in China a whole-process people’s democracy.

While Western politics is often about parceling out responsibility (and blame) for a problem, Chinese politics is about trying to find a solution to a problem. The 12345 Hotline is probably the most representative example of this solution-orientated approach to local governance. And judging by the positive response of Chinese citizens, it is an approach to local governance that resonates with everyday people.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/02/12/r ... overnment/

In the following article, Steve Ellner provides a detailed analysis of Donald Trump’s Latin America policy as he embarks on his second presidential term, arguing that its bellicosity is closely related to US imperialism’s increased hostility to China.

According to Ellner: “US President Donald Trump’s threats to take over the Panama Canal, convert Canada into the 51st state and purchase Greenland may not be as ludicrous as they seemed. The proposals, albeit unachievable, lay the groundwork for a more ‘rational’ strategy of targeting China (not so much Russia) and singling out real adversaries (as opposed to Canada and Panama), which include Cuba and Venezuela, with Bolivia not far behind.”

Arguing that much of Trump’s analysis is drawn from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, he draws attention to the think tank’s James Carafano’s advocacy of a “rejuvenation of the Monroe Doctrine”.

Trump’s choice of anti-Cuba zealot Marco Rubio as secretary of state reinforces the perception that the Trump administration’s foreign policy will pay special attention to Latin America and that Latin American policy will prioritise two enemies: China and the continent’s leftist governments. Carafano calls the strategy ‘a pivot to Latin America.’

He notes that the threat to Panama is a reminder that currents on the right and within the Republican Party still denounce the “canal giveaway.” Ronald Reagan warned against it in his attempt to secure the Republican presidential nomination in 1976 and again raised the issue in his successful bid for the presidency four years later.

Drawing attention to what he considers a certain difference in approach from that taken by the US Democratic Party, he observes that, “the McCarthyite new right targets the more leftist Pink Tide leaders such as those of Venezuela and Cuba, but it is not letting moderate ones such as Lula off the hook. Rubio calls Brazil’s Lula a ‘far-left leader,’ while Musk has expressed certainty that he will not be reelected in 2026. Some analysts have raised the possibility that Trump will slap the Lula government with tariffs and sanctions to support the return to power of Jair Bolsonaro and the Brazilian far right.”

Trump’s real target in all three threats [against Panama, Canada and Greenland] was China… Trump made his case for the annexation of the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland (a gateway to the Arctic) by arguing for the need to block China’s growing presence in the hemisphere…

In the 21st century, China’s investment in and trade with Latin America have increased exponentially. China has now surpassed the US as South America’s top trading partner. Some economists predict that the net value of trade, which in 2022 was valued at $450 billion, will exceed $700 billion by 2035.

When it comes to Washington’s anti-China rhetoric, competition with the US on the economic front receives less attention than it merits. If ever the ‘it’s the economy stupid’ [a phrase made famous by Bill Clinton] statement was apropos, it is in the case of China’s challenge to US hegemony.

The Heritage Foundation’s 38,000-word ‘Plan for Countering China,’ enumerates an endless number of non-economic threats [supposedly] posed by China. Many of the threats put the spotlight on Latin America due to its proximity. For example: ‘China’s role in global drug trafficking, exploiting instability in the US and Latin America caused by illegal migration… The US government should close loopholes in immigration law and policy that China is exploiting.’

Surveying the role played by the Latin American right in this situation, he notes that former Brazilian President Bolsonaro and current Argentine President Milei employed extreme anti-China rhetoric in opposition, only to adopt a more pragmatic approach in office.

“All this indicates that the Trump administration will probably face resistance to its anti-China campaign in Latin America from an unexpected source, namely local business interests.”

This article contains some formulations and opinions with which the editors of this website are not fully in agreement. However, we reproduce it for its detailed factual presentation, interesting analysis and clear anti-imperialist standpoint. It was originally published by Links, an Australian publication which describes itself as an international journal of socialist renewal. A slightly abridged version was first published in Jacobin.

Steve Ellner is an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for over 40 years.

US President Donald Trump’s threats to take over the Panama Canal, convert Canada into the 51st state and purchase Greenland may not be as ludicrous as they seemed. The proposals, albeit unachievable, lay the groundwork for a more “rational” strategy of targeting China (not so much Russia) and singling out real adversaries (as opposed to Canada and Panama), which include Cuba and Venezuela, with Bolivia not far behind. The strategy is what James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation calls the “Rejuvenation of the Monroe Doctrine,” which, after all, in its day encompassed Canada and Greenland in addition to Latin America.

Trump’s choice of anti-Cuba zealot Marco Rubio as secretary of state reinforces the perception that the Trump administration’s foreign policy will pay special attention to Latin America and that Latin American policy will prioritise two enemies: China and the continent’s leftist governments. Carafano calls the strategy “a pivot to Latin America.”

Political analyst Juan Gabriel Tokatlian writing in Americas Quarterly was more specific. After citing Trump’s plans for military action against Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela in his first administration, Tokatlian reasons “a second Trump White House may well lack some of the more rational voices that averted more rash actions the first time around.”

Honouring the Monroe Doctrine
The pundits are at odds as to whether Trump was fantasising and hallucinating when he made all three threats or was acting out his “Art of the Deal” strategy of intimidation to extract concessions. But both interpretations miss the broader context which suggests that a larger strategy of US interventionism is on the table.

The Panama threat is a reminder that currents on the right and within the Republican Party still denounce the “canal giveaway.” Ronald Reagan warned against it in his attempt to secure the Republican presidential nomination in 1976 and again raised the issue in his successful bid for the presidency four years later. Two decades later in the lead-up to the turning over of the canal, a prominent journalist, Thomas DeFrank, alleged that Panamanians were incapable of maintaining standards of efficiency. He concluded that once the US pulled out, Panamanians would “suffer more economic woes, let the canal languish and decline, and prove Ronald Reagan a prophet.”

The “Reagan Doctrine,” which justified US intervention in Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere on grounds of combating Soviet influence, was an update to the Monroe Doctrine. Subsequently, in 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry declared “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” though he did not renounce US interventionism, only unilateral intervention. The neocons and the Republican right rejected even this bland position.

The “rejuvenated” Monroe Doctrine promises to direct attention at practical targets south of the border, as the US invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989 clearly demonstrated. Both were quick, “clean” operations, in stark contrast with the drawn-out wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Carafano of the Heritage Foundation — which does much of Trump’s strategising — writes that a revived Monroe Doctrine “would comprise partnerships between the US and like-minded nations in the region that share common goals, such as mitigating the influence of Russia, China and Iran.” As for the enemy closer to home, Carafano singles out the Sao Paulo Forum consisting of leftist governments and movements in Latin America. Trump was even more specific when he announced that Venezuela was one “of the hottest spots around the world” that his Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Allen Grenell would be dealing with.

Trump’s remarks on the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland may foreshadow forceful, if not military, actions to achieve regime change against the real adversaries. Trump holds a special grudge against Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. He may want a second chance to topple Maduro after the first chance, beginning with the recognition of the parallel government of the inept Juan Guaidó in 2019, turned out to be such a fiasco. The same can be said for Rubio who at the time called on the Venezuelan military to throw its allegiance behind Guaidó and added that US military intervention was an option. The well-publicised questioning of the validity of the Venezuelan presidential elections of last July 28 provides Trump and Rubio a golden opportunity.

The new right that has emerged in the 21st century, with Trump as its most visible figure, is more fixated on combating Communists and leftists such as Maduro than were conservatives of the prior years following the end of the Cold War. And Latin America is the only region in the world where leftist governments abound in the form of the so-called “Pink Tide” (Nicolas Maduro, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Gustavo Petro, Claudia Sheinbaum, etc). Those nations are in the crosshairs of Trump and his close allies.

Elon Musk is a prime example. Having assimilated the new right’s McCarthyism (which Trump inherited from Roy Cohen), Musk tweeted “Kamala vows to be a communist dictator.” In the four days following Venezuela’s July 28 elections, he wrote more than 500 messages about Venezuela, one of which was a tweet that read “shame on dictator Maduro.” Musk also applauded the right-wing coup against Evo Morales in 2019 and after Morales’ party returned to power in Bolivia, he brazenly warned: “We will coup whoever we want.”

The McCarthyite new right targets the more leftist Pink Tide leaders such as those of Venezuela and Cuba, but it is not letting moderate ones such as Lula off the hook. Rubio calls Lula Brazil’s a “far-left leader,” while Musk has expressed certainty that he will not be reelected in 2026. Some analysts have raised the possibility that Trump will slap the Lula government with tariffs and sanctions to support the return to power of Jair Bolsonaro and the Brazilian far right.

Since its initial formulation, the Monroe Doctrine has been given different readings. While Monroe’s principal message in 1823 has been summarised as “America for the Americans,” Latin Americans recalled the Monroe Doctrine’s 200-year legacy of countless US interventions. Viewing it from a different perspective, Trump invokes the Monroe Doctrine as a warning to China to stay clear of the US’s hemisphere.

The China target
Trump’s real target in all three threats was China. Trump posted the Panama canal “was solely for Panama to manage, not China,” and “we would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!” In reality, a Hong Kong-based company is administering two of Panama’s five ports, a far cry from Trump’s claim that Chinese soldiers are operating the canal.

Trump made his case for the annexation of the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland (a gateway to the Arctic) by arguing for the need to block China’s growing presence in the hemisphere. Trump’s threat to annex the territory of a sovereign nation says a lot about the bellicose mentality of the US president. It is also a reflection of the desperation of segments of the US ruling class in the face of the nation’s declining economic, but not military, power. The real reason why Trump is targeting China, while he plays peacemaker between Russia and Ukraine, is economic.

In the 21st century, China’s investment in and trade with Latin America have increased exponentially. China has now surpassed the US as South America’s top trading partner. Some economists predict that the net value of trade, which in 2022 was valued at $450 billion, will exceed $700 billion by 2035.

When it comes to Washington’s anti-China rhetoric, competition with the U.S. on the economic front receives less attention than it merits. If ever the “it’s the economy stupid” statement was apropos, it is in the case of China’s challenge to US hegemony.

The Heritage Foundation’s 38,000-word “Plan for Countering China,” enumerates an endless number of non-economic threats posed by China. Many of the threats put the spotlight on Latin America due to its proximity. For example: “China’s role in global drug trafficking, exploiting instability in the U.S. and Latin America caused by illegal migration… The U.S. government should close loopholes in immigration law and policy that China is exploiting.”

Other areas of concern attributed to China and originating largely from Latin America include “transnational criminal activity,” “war drills” carried out in Latin America, and China’s Cuban-based espionage. In addition, in a conversation with the Chinese government, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen raised concerns regarding that nation’s alleged sponsorship of “malicious cyber activities”.

Particularly unfounded is the allegation that China seeks to export autocracy, or, in the words of then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, “validate its authoritarian system and spread its reach.”

Washington’s discourse on China’s threat to democracy resonates among the far right in Latin America. Leopoldo López, for a long time “our man in Caracas” on the far right of the political spectrum, testified before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2023 that “autocrats” such as Maduro and “Chinese communists,” were threatening Venezuelan democracy, with Russia and China “at the center of [an] autocratic network.”

Yet there is little evidence to back up Pompeo’s and López’s accusations. China is hardly preaching the virtues of authoritarian rule. In fact, Beijing’s repetition of the phrase “socialism with Chinese characteristics” indicates how little interested it is in exporting a model, at least in comparison to Moscow throughout the history of the Soviet Union.

Jeffrey Sachs has made the point clearly that the US-China clash is not really about ideology, but rather economic growth: “Then we have the tensions with China. This is blamed on China, but it’s actually an American policy that began under former President Barack Obama because China’s success triggered every American hegemonic antibody that says China’s becoming too big and powerful.”

If economic rivalry is the real source of worry in Washington, then China is clearly a larger concern than Russia. Carafano notes: “There are persistent calls in the U.S. to pivot to Asia and leave Russia as Europe’s problem. Others suggest an accommodation with Moscow to undercut relations between Russia and China.”

The renowned international relations scholar John Mearsheimer is the foremost advocate of the position that the Chinese threat to the US is second to none. For Mearsheimer, ideology is not at play, but rather China’s unanticipated, rapid economic growth. He argues “it would be a mistake to portray China as an ideological menace today,” and adds contemporary China “is best understood as an authoritarian state that embraces capitalism. Americans should wish that China were communist; then it would have a lethargic economy.”

The right versus Latin America’s economic elite
As in the US, powerful economic groups in Latin America support the far-right, but their interests and viewpoints do not always coincide. This is the case with agro and other business sectors that stand a lot to lose from the Latin American right’s hostility toward China, which jeopardises markets and the influx of investments. Indeed, local business groups have come into conflict with right-wing politicians and often find themselves at odds with Washington’s anti-China campaign.

True to form, the Latin American right along with Washington has put up resistance to initiatives promoting cooperation with China. For instance, the decision of Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela to sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan and extend them to Beijing in 2017 was not free of controversy. The Trump administration reacted by withdrawing its ambassador in protest leading Varela to demand “respect … just as we respect the sovereign decisions of other countries.” This was followed by a scandal known as “VarelaLeaks,” involving an alleged $142 million in bribe money from mainland China to secure the deal. China adamantly denied the charge.

Upon reaching power, far-right leaders such as Bolsonaro and Argentine president Javier Milei could not have been nastier in their language regarding China. In Bolsonaro’s first year in office, for instance, his foreign affairs minister Ernesto Araújo declared that Brazil will not “sell its soul” to “export iron ore and soy” to Communist China. But in both cases, pressure from economic groups resulted in surprising turnabouts.

Milei, for his part, at first thwarted the implementation of agreements with Beijing and called its leaders “murderers” and “thieves,” but then opted for pragmatism. After an exceptionally friendly encounter with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit in Rio last November, a currency swap deal worth billions of dollars was resumed.

All this indicates that the Trump administration will probably face resistance to its anti-China campaign in Latin America from an unexpected source, namely local business interests.

A Cold War rerun?
The Heritage Foundation’s foreign policy statement designed for a second Trump presidency is titled Winning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering China. The title is deceptive. The US-China rivalry lacks the basic ideological dimension of the former Cold War, which consisted of a confrontation between two distinct political-economic systems, both of which were fervently defended as superior dogmas.

Furthermore, China does not practice the “internationalism” that characterised the Soviet Union, which counted on the loyalty of Communist Parties throughout the world. Indeed, prominent leftists have criticised Beijing’s alleged lack of solidarity with left-wing movements and governments elsewhere.

In addition, China’s model consists of over 400 billionaires (according to Forbes), even while the new right’s discourse demonises Chinese Communism. Scratching beneath the surface, the new narrative blames China and its economic expansion, partly driven by Chinese capitalists, for the inroads of the Latin American left. The twisted logic recalls Hitler’s vitriolic attacks on Jewish capitalists for being responsible for the advance of Communism.

Similarly, the Heritage Foundation calls out Latin American Pink Tide governments for “opening the region to China.” Carafano points to the leftist leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, whose parties belong to the Sao Paulo Forum, for their nations’ “expanding relations” with China, Russia and Iran.

In the spirit of conspiracy theory, Carafano writes: “The [Sao Paulo] Forum formulates increasingly active and aggressive policies to undermine pro-U.S. regimes in the region and accepts transnational crime, including networks from the Middle East, as a helpful tool for destabilization.” In addition to the failure of the Forum’s detractors to present concrete evidence linking the group to crime and terrorism, its heterogeneity, which includes grassroots labour, ethnic and environmental movement as well as ones inspired by the Catholic Church, clearly puts the lie to the claim.

The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez critically writes on the Forum’s 2023 meeting in Brasilia, Brazil. Gonzalez expresses scepticism of the Forum’s opening declaration which praised China for its “defence of the principles of International Law, in particular the no intromission in the internal affairs of Latin American nations.” Indeed, China adheres to this principle in its opposition to Washington-imposed sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela and other regime change attempts.

The Pink Tide’s support for China’s position on national sovereignty is a far cry from imitating the Chinese model, as the new right claims. The Pink Tide’s opposition to interventionism and support for a “multi-polar world” is more in line with “Third Worldism” than any kind of socialist or Communist dogma. That said, market socialism as practiced in China has influenced Pink Tide leaders such as Maduro to pursue “friendly relations with private capital.”

Economic rivalry, not ideological differences nor plain maliciousness, is the essence of the confrontation between the US and China in Latin America. The Heritage Foundation and the rest of the new right are doing Washington policymakers a disservice by drawing attention to secondary issues, if not bogus ones, in its efforts to highlight the danger posed by China-Latin American relations.

The real issue is China’s increasing economic ties in the region including huge investments in the form of the Belt and Road Initiative for ambitious infrastructure projects, which 22 Latin American Caribbean nations have signed on to.

President Joe Biden attempted to counter the Belt and Road Initiative with his “Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity,” which he launched at the Summit of the Americas in 2022. He called it a “new and ambitious economic agenda.” The think tank Council on Foreign Relations characterised Biden’s investments to counter the Belt and Road Initiative as paltry.

Under Trump, the prospects are likely to be worse. In his recent Americas Quarterly article forecasting the trends of Trump’s second administration, Tokatlian wrote “if recent history is any guide, Washington is unlikely to offer much of an alternative when it comes to investments or help with infrastructure.” If this is the case, the US will be in no position to win the hearts and minds of Latin Americans. If the Chinese do, it will be because of their vibrant economy, not because of the export of ideology.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/02/12/t ... n-america/

[blindpig]

The Astonishing Reorientation of the Chinese Economy
From Real Estate to Industrial Development Within Five Years
Roger Boyd
Feb 19, 2025



Jason Smith on Twitter

Throughout the 2010s China was experiencing a quite colossal residential real estate boom, including extremely bubbly price appreciation, which toward the end of the decade the Party-state was striving to deflate in a controlled manner. From the turning of the decade onwards, it has been very successfully deflated. The sheer scale of the reduction in real estate activity is detailed by professor Huang Qi Fan of Fudan University:

After more than twenty years of development, China’s real estate market has undergone major “adjustments” in the past four years—from 2021 to 2024 … When discussing real estate, five indicators are typically mentioned.

The first indicator is the total construction volume of real estate, including residential and non-residential properties. In 2020, it was 2.2 billion square meters, while the total data for 2024 is not yet available but based on the data from the first eleven months and estimating one more month, it is over 600 million square meters …

The second indicator, aside from construction, is the sales of completed homes. In 2020, new home sales were 1.8 billion square meters, while last year’s sales volume was 500 million square meters, which is also a decline of about 60%. That’s two indicators, each down over 60% …

The third indicator is land leasing volume. In 2020, national land leasing amounted to 8.7 trillion yuan, while the estimate for 2024 is around 3 trillion, which is still relatively optimistic. From January to October, the land leasing volume was actually over 2 trillion. Even if the last two months add another trillion, it would just exceed 3 trillion. In summary, 8.7 trillion minus over 5 trillion is about a 30% reduction …

The fourth indicator that everyone is concerned about is housing prices. Overall, housing prices have dropped by 40% to 50%. By the end of 2024, the figures are not yet out, but as of November, the national statistical indicators show housing prices have dropped by 40% compared to 2020. Some places have dropped a bit more and some a bit less, etc …

The fifth indicator is that real estate has historically accounted for 45% of all financing in China’s financial system. Last year, the public’s desire to buy houses significantly decreased, leading to a 50% annual reduction in mortgage loans compared to 2020. Developers want funds, but their credibility is poor and their debt levels are extremely high, so banks are hesitant to lend large amounts to developers. Consequently, developers’ financing abilities have also weakened significantly, with a reduction of about 50%.

In summary, among the five indicators, three have dropped by two-thirds, and two are down nearly 50%. In this sense, you can certainly say that China’s real estate market has undergone a very serious adjustment, the most severe in 20 years.

Real estate construction (residential and non-residential) down from 2.2 billion sqm to 600 million, new home sales down from 1.8 billion sqm to 500 million, land leasing down from 8.7 trillion yuan to 3 trillion, house prices down 40%, and residential real estate financings down 50%. In the West such huge falls would be expected to feed into a major financial crisis and a deep economic recession. But not in China, which also weathered the COVID pandemic in parallel while GDP growth remained positive (2021: 8.4%; 2022: 3%; 2023: 5.2%; 2024: 5.4%) and the economy grew a cumulative 23.8%. With population to all intents and purposes static, that means that average GDP per capita increased by nearly a quarter in those four years of a massive real estate crash. The price to incomes ratio of real estate was halved in four years, fulfilling the Party-state’s goal of making housing much more affordable to China’s younger generation.

As Huang details, China never allowed for things such as sub-prime mortgages, zero down payments and widespread securitization to infest and undermine the Chinese financial system. It was such things that both created greater risks within the US housing finance sector, and when the crisis hit rapidly transferred and intensified it across not just the US but the whole Western financial system.

the Chinese government has always been clear-headed and has never allowed any local government or enterprise to offer zero down payment for homes. If there were any violations allowing zero down payment, they would be immediately shut down upon discovery.

Second, various bad debts in China’s real estate sector have never been bundled together to issue bonds that would enable high leverage.

In summary, if there are bankruptcies in real estate, they will be the bankruptcies of individual companies. If there are bad debts, they will be localized; there is no multi-fold leverage turning into bad debts in the financial market, nor is there a frenzied high leverage or zero down payment scheme for the public to buy homes, creating numerous bubbles.

Even if there are problems in China’s real estate sector now, they are issues of excessive inventory, inventory reduction, and high debt ratios of real estate companies. In short, we should not confuse China’s real estate issues with those of the U.S. or the subprime mortgage crisis, imagining how terrible it could be. This kind of thinking only leads to self-inflicted disarray and exaggeration of the situation.

The Party-state did not allow short-term profiteering and speculation at the cost of the stability of the financial system. In addition, much of the price appreciation did reflect the phenomenal growth in real incomes in the first two decades of this century, while at the same time the country was rapidly urbanizing. It was only in the 2010s that this started to take on the characteristics of a bubble.

China’s experience is also nothing like the Japanese experience which was the result of both an intentionally constructed bubble and crash and outright economic warfare by the US against Japan. This documentary details the intentional crash engineered to steer Japanese society away from its development state apparatus and toward a neoliberal future.



There will be no three decades of stagnation and increasing neoliberalism in China. At the time of its real estate and economic crash, Japan was fully urbanized. In contrast, China is still only half-way to full urbanization at 48%; “over the past few decades, it has increased by 30 percentage points, and it can still increase by another 30 percentage points in the coming decades”. Western critics who point to “ghost cities” and “ghost infrastructure” should understand this, there is still massive future pent up demand that can fill up the empty real estate at the right price. The Chinese investment was not wasted, it will become very fully utilized.

In 2024 Chinese house prices fell 8.5% and are expected to fall at a slower pace this year. With real incomes continuing to rise at 5% a year, a continuation of this trend through the balance of the decade will see a further reduction of the housing price / income ratio of over one third. Add in very mild inflation and that could easily be close to a halving.

In China, in 2020, it took 23 to 30 years of household income to buy a home, according to national statistics; globally, it’s generally 7 to 10 years of household income for a family to purchase a home.

That 7-10 years is itself inflated by the widespread bubble in Western house prices, greatly exacerbated by the loose monetary and fiscal policies during and after the COVID pandemic. In 2024 that Chinese house price to income ration is now more like 15 years, significantly down but still too high. With a further halving by 2030, the ration would be 7.5. On a par with the West, but still too high. Another five years and the ratio could easily be in the historical norm and affordable level of 4-5. The Party-state would have achieved affordable house prices for the younger generation without a financial or economic crash. Then real estate prices can track increases in household income. The Party-state can be expected to use its dominance of the financial system, and its lack of neoliberal ideological blindness, to keep household property lending and therefore prices in check.

At the same time, the Party-state is looking at buying up large amounts of unsold homes to provide affordable rental units. More from Huang:

China’s urban-rural integration will provide a foundational demand for residential real estate development in the next 20 years. The demand is still there and will gradually be released … [in addition] various [government] departments have laid out at least five measures …

The first measure is that the government initially allocated 300 billion yuan last year, and by the end of September, it clearly announced an allocation of 3 trillion yuan. I estimate that by next year, there will be another 3 trillion yuan, or even 6 trillion yuan in total. Ultimately, there will be tens of trillions, or even 100 trillion yuan, to acquire the inventory in real estate …

If our country invests tens of trillions, housing prices are currently discounted to about 60% or 70% of their normal prices. At a 60% discount, 1 trillion yuan could buy 1 billion square meters, but now it could buy 1.6 billion square meters, allowing for a significantly greater purchase of homes …

Any country should have such public housing. Public housing is for the residents and urban citizens; Hong Kong has 50%, Singapore has 70%, and typical countries have about 20%-25%. Our country has also clearly stated the goal of establishing around 20%-25% of state-owned affordable housing for the public. Over the past few years, due to the overheating of the real estate market, the government’s affordable housing only accounts for 5% of the total demand …

With a population of 1 billion, if we assume that 200 million people need government-subsidized housing, requiring about 20 billion square meters at 10 square meters per person, and currently, we have only 5%, we need to add another 15-16 percentage points, which means purchasing 10 billion to 20 billion square meters. If the government acquires this 20 billion square meters, it can provide housing for 200 million urban residents—whether migrant workers needing rental housing or recent graduates who cannot afford to buy homes. This would serve as a safeguard.

So it is obvious that the Party-state will use this opportunity to establish a sizeable stock of public housing, with its purchases greatly aiding the cash-flow of the residential real estate construction sector. The Party-state is also allocating several trillion yuan to support local governments in upgrading dilapidated buildings; providing demand for the residential construction sector. From 2025 onwards the property sector will no longer act as a drag upon the economy.

At the same time as property investment levels collapsed, the investment in productive assets has risen to fill the gap; driven by Party-state policies focused on economic and industrial upgrading. As this CNBC article notes:

“Unlike other economies that went through a wrenching adjustment in their housing market, China’s investment rate isn’t falling,” HSBC’s chief Asia economist Frederic Neumann and a team said in a report Friday. “Instead, [capital expenditure] is shifting towards infrastructure and, importantly, manufacturing.”

China’s investment levels did not fall with the property crash, they were reoriented toward productive investments, as with the phenomenal increase in the size of the Chinese electric vehicle industry in the past few years. Or the massive drive to overcome US high technology export restrictions. This switch in the nature of Chinese investments is why Western state and media actors keep wailing on about “Chinese over-capacity”. China is now very successfully investing to be the high technology leader of the 2030s, with the over capacity being in Western defunct capacity such as the many internal combustion engine manufacturing sites. Or the Western oligarch-profiteering approach to AI. As the CNBC article goes on to note:

Despite widespread attention on whether Beijing would bail out the property sector, real estate got no mention in the finance ministry’s spending plans, and limited attention in a ministry-level press conference about the economy during the parliamentary meetings. Instead, the housing minister was included in the lineup for a press conference about people’s livelihoods.

“Supporting the modernization of the industrial system” came first in the finance ministry’s report, followed by “supporting the implementation of the strategy of invigorating China through science and education.”

Within that second priority, the finance ministry said it would allocate 31.3 billion yuan for improving vocational education. Amid high youth unemployment, especially for university graduates, electric car company BYD and battery maker CATL are among those working with vocational schools to train staff for their expanding workforce.

Upgrading the industrial system and upgrading the quality of the Chinese workforce are the highest priorities. The implosion of the property sector will be softened and managed, but there will be no all out rescue; it will be allowed to deflate to reasonable levels. There is also a reorientation of the leadership cadres of the Party-state to support the technology upgrading orientation:

An increasing number of senior Chinese officials also come from an engineering background, particularly in aerospace.

One of those leaders with a rocket science background is Yuan Jiajun, who in October 2022 joined the Communist Party of China’s Politburo, the second-highest level of power. Yuan oversaw Chinese space missions in the early 2000s, including the first Chinese manned spaceflight mission called Shenzhou 5.

I repeat the graph from the beginning of the article below, showing the utter reorientation of Chinese bank new lending from the real estate sector to the industrial sector.



The West has reason to be very worried, not because of Chinese “excess capacity” but because of all the Western capacity that is being obsoleted by Chinese advances. The global light vehicle industry is just one of those sectors, another is the global chip industry as China increasingly exports mainstream chips at much lower prices than Western manufacturers.

Much has been made in the drop of in foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, driven by the increasingly restrictive Western technology restrictions. This is yet another Western own-goal as Western corporations are less exposed to the hot bed high technology environment within China and will inevitably fall further and further behind. China does have economic issues that it is dealing with, but that is not stopping its focus on economic and technological upgrading. It is passing the West while so many Western commentators deny its success, ignoring indicators of increasing strength and even claiming that China’s economic indicators are somehow “made up”. Or that much of the investments have been “wasted”, or at “what cost?”. Such a delusional state is not supportive of rational and robust Western decision making, rather it is a marker of increasing intellectual decline within the Western courtier class of policy makers, think tanks, media and other analysts.

In the early nineteenth century the disconnected Chinese elite were delusional with respect to their relative power compared to that of European nations and they paid the price in a century of humiliation. The delusional elites are now the Western ones, and they and their fellow citizens will pay the price for their delusions. The reconnection with reality will be very painful for their psychological health given their fundamental beliefs in Western supremacy.

https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/the-as ... ntation-of

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AI for the people? How China’s AI development challenges U.S. big tech
February 17, 2025 Gary Wilson

The following text is based on a talk given by Gary Wilson at the “Deep Seek and the Challenge to U.S. Technological Hegemony” webinar on Feb. 16, hosted by the Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group. The full webinar is available on YouTube at



Let’s start with the U.S. tech war against China. Some call it a New Cold War. A problem with that term is there’s no guarantee it will stay “cold.” There is a major U.S. military buildup around China, with a U.S. Army drone warfare Green Beret unit now stationed in Taiwan, and aircraft carriers from the U.S., France and Japan conducting “war games” in the South China Sea.

Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, the first high-level U.S. official visit since the 1990s, was a provocation challenging China’s sovereignty, that was backed with an unprecedented escalation in U.S. military activity in the region that came dangerously close to sparking a “hot war.”

Anyway, whatever we call it, a New Cold War, an economic war, trade war or tech war — the U.S. has made China’s science and technology a target. The U.S. has imposed strict limits on technology transfers, restricted access to semiconductors, sanctioned Chinese tech companies, blocked academic and research collaboration, and halted many scientific exchanges.

This tech war didn’t just start. It really began in 2011 with Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia, a Cold War-style containment policy. The Pivot to Asia was primarily a military operation but also introduced export controls on advanced technologies.

As a military operation, it involved moving 60% of U.S. naval forces into the Asia-Pacific region, militarily surrounding China, and expanding military exercises like RIMPAC, the world’s largest naval war games.

The tech war escalated significantly during Donald Trump’s first presidency with trade restrictions and sanctions on Chinese firms, including Huawei and ZTE.

Then, with Joe Biden, even more severe restrictions were imposed. The U.S. also expanded military and technology alliances against China, like AUKUS – some call it the Asian NATO — and the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral pact.

In the first few days of his second term, Trump implemented more aggressive export controls. The media is calling it a “tough on China” policy. Just two days ago, Trump’s State Department removed the statement “We do not support Taiwan independence” from its U.S. relations with Taiwan web page. The Financial Times reported this week that Trump has threatened China with 60% tariffs and he may ban Nvidia semiconductors.

Why are semiconductors such a big deal?

Semiconductors are the foundation of modern technology — enabling the functionality of virtually every device and system we use every day. For example, since the 1970s, every automobile has required semiconductors in order to operate.

Biden’s Commerce Secretary said – and I quote – “the goal is to limit China’s ‘access to advanced semiconductors that could fuel breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and sophisticated computers.’”

Despite the restrictions, China has been making significant strides in semiconductor technology. Huawei is developing advanced high-powered chips, and the performance of its new Ascend 910C compares to Nvidia’s H20, the GPU used to build DeepSeek R1. While DeepSeek was trained on the Nvidia H20, it used the Ascend 910C for inference, the process where a trained AI model draws conclusions.

This brings us to DeepSeek AI, a large language model or LLM built in China that equals the best in the U.S.

It was developed using less data and computing power and at a fraction of the cost of U.S. models.

With its release it profoundly became clear that the U.S. is not winning its tech war against China. Instead of falling behind, China showed its strength.

It’s not just DeepSeek — China has built entire high-tech industries that now dominate globally:

Huawei is the world’s leading 5G telecommunications company.
BYD is the world’s top electric vehicle maker.
CATL leads in advanced battery technology.
Tongwei is tops in solar power.
DJI is the world’s largest commercial drone maker.
U.S. restrictions haven’t stopped China

When the Pivot to Asia began in 2011, the U.S. led in 60 of 64 key technologies globally.

By 2022, China had surpassed the U.S. in 52 of those technologies.

For years, AI was dominated by U.S. companies like Google and Microsoft’s OpenAI, but today, China is leading in AI development and applications, not just with DeepSeek. Why?

Unlike the U.S., which focuses on AI for corporate profits, China sees AI as a driver of economic transformation — a way to modernize its economy.

Lenin famously said that communism is Soviet power plus electrification. Today, he might say, high tech.

In 2017, China released its “Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan.” That plan is based on building open-source platforms to coordinate hardware, software and cloud-based systems.

This approach is similar to how technologies like the Internet’s World Wide Web or Linux (the operating system for servers, cloud computing, mobile devices, and supercomputers) became dominant: They were built on open source standards that allowed for worldwide collaboration and innovation.

Accessible open-source AI can overtake the for-profit proprietary tech monopolies.

One of DeepSeek AI’s most groundbreaking features is its ability to run on low-cost hardware, including laptops, even smartphones — making AI more accessible than ever before. This decentralized approach contrasts with how AI is used in the U.S., where companies like Amazon and Walmart deploy closed AI systems for worker monitoring, automation and robotics while using it to cut wages and suppress union organizing.

The potential benefits of treating AI as a public utility are immense. Rather than displacing workers or driving inequality, open-access AI can be used for equitable planning of production and distribution.

China is already leveraging AI for public services

China has embraced smart cities, using AI to optimize urban management, traffic control, waste management, and energy efficiency. There are over 500 smart city pilot projects in China right now. AI is also being used in health care, education, and disaster response:

Health care: AI is being used to predict disease outbreaks, optimize hospital resource allocation, and provide personalized health care.
Education: AI is being used to enhance personalized learning and helps bridge urban-rural education gap.
Disaster Preparedness: AI assists in flood prediction, earthquake monitoring, and emergency response coordination.

Despite U.S. restrictions, China continues to advance in AI, semiconductors, and other high-tech industries. China is shaping the future of global technology, and AI could play a key role in the economic planning of production and services to meet people’s needs.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2025/ ... -big-tech/

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China Surpasses Disney and Pixar: Ne Zha 2 Dominates Global Box Office.
February 19, 2025


The Chinese film Ne Zha 2 is projected to surpass 2 billion dollars in box office revenue and could become the highest-grossing animated film in history. Photo: IC

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The latest Chinese animated film has broke multiple records and became the first film in the world to surpass the $1 billion mark. After its success in Asia, its entry into the West put it in first place at the international box office.

In a historic milestone for the Asian giant’s film industry, Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 has surpassed its US counterpart Inside Out 2 (Pixar) at the global box office, marking a significant turning point in the global film landscape.

China’s state-run media outlet CGTN informed that Ne Zha 2 has grossed an impressive 12.32 billion yuan (approximately $1.7 billion) in ticket sales, cementing its position as the most successful animated film of the moment.

According to data from online movie platforms, the Chinese animated blockbuster earned $3.1 million on its North American opening day, ranking 4th on the North American daily box office chart. The film officially premiered in the US on February 14, setting new two-decade records for pre-sale box-office earnings and screening volumes among Chinese-language films in the region.

The success of Ne Zha 2 not only underlines the meteoric rise of Chinese cinema, but also challenges Hollywood’s traditional supremacy in the global cultural industry. Released simultaneously in 770 theaters in the United States and 42 cities in Canada, the film has generated unprecedented enthusiasm among both Chinese and international audiences.


The North American premiere of “Ne Zha 2” took place in Los Angeles, USA, on February 8, 2025. Photo: CGTN.

Shi Wenxue, a cultural critic in Beijing, highlighted the significance of Ne Zha 2’s achievement as a reflection of the growing global recognition of Chinese cinema and its ability to compete in terms of quality and technology.

The film has not only captured the imagination of audiences in China, where it has become the highest-grossing film in history, but has also set records in regions such as Oceania, where it has been screened in more than 124 cinemas, a milestone for Chinese-language films in that region in the past two decades.

Despite facing certain cultural barriers outside of China, Ne Zha 2 has impressed international viewers with its visual effects and emotionally resonant narrative. With a solid 8.3 rating on IMDb, the film has earned praise for its stunning visuals and ability to leave a lasting impression, even among those less familiar with its cultural context.



In contrast, US animated films, such as Pixar’s Inside Out 2, have traditionally dominated the global market with universally accessible narratives and deep emotional resonance. However, the success of Ne Zha 2 suggests a shift towards greater cultural diversity in global cinematic offerings, challenging Hollywood’s one-size-fits-all narrative and encouraging a broader appreciation of Chinese cultural narratives.

With the potential to become the first animated film to surpass $2 billion in global revenue, Ne Zha 2 not only celebrates the power of Chinese cinema but also opens up new possibilities for future Chinese productions in the international market.

As it continues its impressive run at the global box office, Ne Zha 2 is positioning itself not only as a cinematic phenomenon but also as a symbol of China’s growing cultural and economic influence on the global entertainment industry.

https://orinocotribune.com/china-surpas ... ox-office/

[blindpig]

China Has Already Become the Leader in Advanced Critical Technologies: The Ninth Newsletter (2025)

Will the US’s geopolitical chess moves, from Greenland to Ukraine to Russia, be enough to eclipse China’s rapid advancement in critical technologies?

27 February 2025


Cao Fei (China), My Future Is Not a Dream 05, 2006.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

In his first month back in the White House, US President Donald Trump indicated his interest in annexing Greenland and brokering a peace deal for Ukraine that would include access to Ukrainian minerals and metals. It is important to note that Greenland has already been a point of contention around its vast holdings of rare earth minerals with such remarkable names as dysprosium, neodymium, scandium, and yttrium (there are seventeen rare earth minerals that are central to any advanced technology). Given that Greenland is part of Denmark, it is therefore beholden to European Union (EU) rules. In 2011, the EU published a list of critical raw materials, which included these rare earth minerals. Then, in 2023, the EU passed the Critical Raw Materials Act, which urged domestic production of these critical minerals and metals and their import into the continent. Ukraine, meanwhile, has an enormous trove of rare earth metals (from apatite to zirconium) as well as reserves of lithium and titanium. Trump demanded at least $500 billion of these reserves from Ukraine as payment for the US’s support in the war. ‘I want to have security of rare earth’, Trump told reporters in early February, sounding like a character from the Lord of the Rings.

Currently, both the United States and Europe import almost all of these crucial rare earth metals from China. In late December 2024, in retaliation for the US tightening sanctions and tariffs on China’s technology sector, the Chinese government banned the export of antimony, gallium, and germanium as well as superhard materials (matter with a hardness greater than 40 gigapascals or GPa) to the United States. Under former President Joe Biden, the US had tried to derail China’s developments in artificial intelligence and chipmaking equipment by restricting the export of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to China. China’s ability to squeeze the supply chain has created a crisis in the West, which is precisely why Trump made his remarks about Greenland and Ukraine’s rare earth cache.


Liu Xiaodong (China), Diary of an Empty City No. 2, 2015.

It makes total sense from the US national security position to seek a ceasefire in Ukraine. The US gains nothing from this war, which has become a matter of prestige for Europe’s elites. If Trump can restart relations with Russia, he could use that to leverage rights over minerals and metals in Ukraine as well as to demand control over Greenland’s resources (rather than outright annexation).

But more than anything, if the United States is able to revive relations with Russia, it will seek to weaken the country’s alliance with China. This is the ‘Reverse Kissinger’ strategy: under US President Richard Nixon, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger pursued an approach in the late 1960s to befriend China in order to isolate the Soviet Union, while Trump’s Reverse Kissinger approach seeks to isolate China by rupturing its links to Russia. On 4 February 2022, China and Russia signed a ‘no limits’ friendship agreement; twenty days later, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and despite misgivings about this development, China supported the Russians throughout the war. It is, therefore, unlikely that Russia will accede to a Reverse Kissinger strategy, although there are sections of the Russian elite that are eager for a rapprochement with the West.

The United States loses nothing if it enforces a ceasefire in Ukraine. Russia is not a major threat to US control over the world economy. It is merely a commodity exporter, namely of oil, natural gas, and other minerals and metals. The US knows that Russia will not attack it with its nuclear arsenal because that would be suicidal, and the US knows that Russia merely would like a security guarantee that its cities not be threatened by intermediate nuclear weapons held in neighbouring states.

China, however, is seen by the United States as a serious existential threat. In the weeks since Trump began to announce his tariffs and potential annexations, a small Chinese company unveiled an open-source machine learning platform called DeepSeek that significantly outperforms US-based ChatGPT in a number of respects, including technical and mathematical tasks. Concurrently, during the impending ban of the social media platform TikTok, US users abandoned it not for a Western replacement but for China’s Xiaohongshu (or Red Note). Finally, China’s nuclear fusion device Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), Physics World wrote, ‘produced a steady-state high-confinement plasma for 1,066 seconds, breaking EAST’s previous 2023 record of 403 seconds’. This last development is an advance for the potential of a fusion power plant, a promise of almost limitless clean energy without significant radioactive waste.


Fang Lijun (China), Series 2 No. 10, 1992–1993.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, established by the Australian government in 2001 and partly funded by the Australian military, has developed a Critical Technology Tracker that keeps close records of sixty-four critical technologies. Their latest report in August 2024 provides a twenty-one-year assessment of which countries lead in the development of critical technologies. Between 2003 and 2007, the United States led in sixty of sixty-four technologies, while China led in only three of them. Between 2019 and 2023, however, the US led in only seven of the sixty-four technologies, whereas China led in fifty-seven of the sixty-four. China leads in such diverse areas as advanced integrated circuit design and fabrication (semiconductor chipmaking), gravitational sensors, high-performance computing, quantum sensors, and space launch technology. The United States leads in atomic clocks, genetic engineering, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy, quantum computing, small satellites, and vaccines and medical countermeasures. The report notes that ‘China’s enormous investments and decades of strategic planning are now paying off’. The commitment to innovation has spread across Chinese society. In the Lingang New Area in Shanghai, the local government has articulated policies for an industrial area with high-level computing power to accelerate industrial innovation through the new quality productive forces that have been established.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has announced deep cuts to science funding in the United States. A Chatham House essay appeared at the end of January with the urgent title ‘The World Should Take the Prospect of Chinese Tech Dominance Seriously, and Start Preparing Now’. Interesting that the headline did not directly focus on the United States but on ‘the world’ because the writer worried that ‘in the most extreme scenario, China could eclipse the US rapidly’.


Liu Wei (China), Revolutionary Family, 1992.

In 1891, the late Qing poet and diplomat Huang Zunxian (1848–1905) took the elevator to the viewing gallery of the Eiffel Tower (opened only two years earlier). Huang wrote a poem, ‘On Climbing the Eiffel Tower’ (登巴黎铁塔), about the extraordinary views he enjoyed from there, looking down at the ‘million acres of the world’s most fertile lands’. Though the technology that enabled him to enjoy this view impressed him, he was less captivated by what was on the ground:

All of Europe is an ancient battlefield;
Its people love war and don’t compromise lightly.
Today six great emperors divide the continent,
Each boasting that he’s the strongest leader of the world.
These fellows resemble the proverbial kings in a snail shell.
Who wasted their time chalking up victories and defeats.

Today, not much has changed but the vocabulary of the battlefield: tariffs, unilateral coercive measures, intermediate nuclear missiles, and the iron dome.

During the pandemic, the watchword in US allies like India was ‘collaboration, not confrontation’. It would be so much better if the United States decided to collaborate with China for the well-being of the planet rather than trying to force the country to reverse its development.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... echnology/

[blindpig]

Putin: developing relations with China is a strategic choice made by Russia with a view to the long term

Chinese President Xi Jinping took a phone call from his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on February 24. It is the second time that the two men have been known to speak this year and follows the recent dramatic changes in the United States’ position on the Ukraine crisis and the resultant diplomatic contacts between Russia and the US.

President Xi said that both history and reality tell us that China and Russia are destined to be good neighbours, and the two countries are true friends that share weal and woe, support each other and pursue common development. The bilateral relationship has a strong internal driving force and unique strategic value. It is neither targeted at any third party nor affected by any third party. Both countries have long-term development strategies and foreign policies. No matter how the international landscape changes, the relationship shall move forward at its own pace, contribute to both countries’ respective development and revitalisation, and inject stability and positivity into international relations.

For his part, President Putin said that developing relations with China is a strategic choice made by Russia with a view to the long term; it is not an act of expediency, not affected by any temporary incidents, and not subject to interference by external factors. Under the current situation, close communication between Russia and China is in keeping with the two countries’ comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era and will send a positive message that Russia and China play a stabilising role in international affairs. He further provided an update on the latest interactions between Russia and the United States, and on Russia’s principled position on the Ukraine crisis. He said that Russia is committed to removing the root causes of the conflict and arriving at a sustainable and long-term peace plan.

The following article was originally published on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Useful background analysis may be found here.

In the afternoon of February 24, President Xi Jinping took a phone call from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Xi recalled that during the virtual meeting with President Putin before the Spring Festival, we provided guidance for the growth of China-Russia relations in 2025 and coordinated position on many major international and regional issues. Our two countries’ competent authorities have acted on our common understandings to steadily advance cooperation in various fields, including commemorating the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the world’s anti-fascist war. Both history and reality tell us that China and Russia are destined to be good neighbors, and our two countries are true friends that share weal and woe, support each other and pursue common development. Our bilateral relationship has a strong internal driving force and unique strategic value. It is neither targeted at any third party nor affected by any third party. Both countries have long-term development strategies and foreign policies. No matter how the international landscape changes, our relationship shall move forward at its own pace, contribute to our countries’ respective development and revitalization, and inject stability and positivity into international relations.

President Putin said that Russia attaches great importance to its relations with China. In the year ahead, the Russian side looks forward to maintaining high-level exchanges with China, deepening practical cooperation, jointly commemorating the 80th anniversary of victory in the world’s anti-fascist war and in the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression. Developing relations with China is a strategic choice made by Russia with a view to the long term; it is not an act of expediency, not affected by any temporary incidents, and not subject to interference by external factors. Under the current situation, close communication between Russia and China is in keeping with the two countries’ comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era, and will send a positive message that Russia and China play a stabilizing role in international affairs.

President Putin provided an update on the latest interactions between Russia and the United States, and on Russia’s principled position on the Ukraine crisis. He said that Russia is committed to removing the root causes of the conflict and reaching a sustainable and long-term peace plan.

President Xi noted that soon after the full escalation of the Ukraine crisis, I had outlined China’s basic position, including four points about what must be done to address the crisis. Last September, China and Brazil, together with other Global South countries, launched the group of Friends for Peace to foster the atmosphere and condition for the political settlement of the crisis. China welcomes positive efforts made by Russia and relevant parties to resolve the crisis.

The two sides agreed to maintain communication and coordination in various ways.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/02/27/p ... long-term/



China’s DeepSeek AI reveals advantages of socialism

The following article by Hugo East, originally published in Workers World, describes the rapid rise of DeepSeek’s R1 model, the corresponding stock devaluation of the US tech giants, and the role played by China’s socialist market economy in fostering innovation.

Hugo writes that “DeepSeek owes its efficacy to the socialist character of the People’s Republic of China… Socialist planning has enabled the PRC’s meteoric rise as a world power rivaling the US, as evidenced by the success of DeepSeek.” He relates the emergence of DeepSeek to the inauguration ten years ago of the Made in China 2025 initiative, which sought to transform China from an exporter of relatively low-cost manufactured goods into a global leader in innovation.

Citing the Critical Technology Tracker (published by the think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)) the article notes that in the period from 2017 to 2023, China was the leading country in 57 of 64 critical technologies. The author writes that Made in China 2025 “fits squarely within China’s socialist economic development as first initiated by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1949 under the leadership of its then-leader Chairman Mao Zedong”.

The article also points out that DeepSeek’s success proves the ineffectiveness of US sanctions against China, which have only served to accelerate China’s technological development. “Just like the PRC’s recent ascendency in automotive manufacturing, DeepSeek has found success despite the U.S.’s attempts to starve China’s AI industry of supposedly vital resources through a targeted trade embargo.”

With computing power limited by the US government’s semiconductor war, Chinese researchers have had to rely on “algorithmic innovation” – which has also “had the effect of making DeepSeek much less expensive, both in direct financial cost and in energy consumption”.

Hugo concludes:

DeepSeek is just one of several technological and scientific innovations developed under a socialist economy that challenges capitalist profits while benefiting the whole world.

The Chinese company DeepSeek released its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to the U.S. market on Jan. 20. By the following week, it was the most downloaded app on the iOS App Store, surpassing Open AI’s ChatGPT.

The rapid rise of DeepSeek caused an unprecedented crash in the valuation of multiple U.S. tech companies, wiping out close to $1 trillion in combined market value from chip giant Nvidia Corp. and other peers. The loss to Nvidia was by far the largest, fastest devaluation of a U.S. company in history.

Socialist economic planning behind DeepSeek’s success
DeepSeek owes its efficacy to the socialist character of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in which it was developed. The PRC’s economic central planning, through which it seeks to combine the advantages of strictly regulated capitalistic markets with state-owned enterprises designed for the benefit of the Chinese people, conforms to socialist methods of planning initiated by its first leader Mao Zedong. Socialist planning has enabled the PRC’s meteoric rise as a world power rivaling the U.S., as evidenced by the success of DeepSeek.

The latest iteration of that socialist planning is a ten-year initiative that began in 2015 called “Made in China 2025” (MIC 2025). In a report issued in 2017, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said of MIC 2025: “Contrary to key elements of the Third Plenum Decision [PRC’s previous central economic plan], in which the Chinese leadership called for markets to play a decisive role in the allocation of resources across the economy, MIC 2025 instead appears to reaffirm the government’s central role in economic planning.”

MIC 2025 has in the final year of its implementation, through DeepSeek, seen the seeds it has planted bear fruit. A September 2024 study called the Critical Technology Tracker — published by the think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) prior to the rise of China’s now-world-class AI sector — found that from 2003 to 2007 China led the world in just three out of the 64 critical technologies that the study tracked. From 2019 to 2023, however, China was the leading country in 57 of those 64 technologies, with the U.S. leading in the remaining seven — one of which in 2023 was AI.

The ASPI report states: “Some observers might argue that China’s ascendance into a research power — indeed the research power — doesn’t matter, because other countries, the U.S. in particular, remain ahead in commercialisation, design and manufacturing. That might be true for some technologies, but it represents a very short term attitude. China, too, is making enormous investments in its manufacturing capabilities, subsidising key industries and achieving technological breakthroughs that are catching the world by surprise.”

MIC 2025 fits squarely within China’s socialist economic development as first initiated by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1949 under the leadership of its then-leader Chairman Mao Zedong. In an interview with U.S. journalist Edgar Snow excerpted in “Red Star Over China,” Mao said, “When China really wins her independence, then legitimate foreign trading interests will enjoy more opportunities than ever before.

“The power of production and consumption of 450 million people is not a matter that can remain the exclusive interest of the Chinese, but one that must engage the many nations. Our millions of people, once really emancipated, with their great latent productive possibilities freed for creative activity in every field, can help improve the economy as well as raise the cultural level of the whole world.”

The PRC’s current leader, Xi Jinping, has carried on Mao’s plans by reigning in the “reform and opening-up” policies of the previous Deng Xiaoping government. Bloomberg reported in February 2024, in an article headlined “Xi Crackdown on ‘Hedonistic’ Bankers Fuels Industry Brain Drain,” that, “Indications are growing that Xi is shifting away from four decades of market-oriented reforms and financial innovation.”

Bloomberg further quoted University of Hong Kong professor, Zhiwu Chen, as saying, “I see a new Chinese economy coming into shape soon in which the financial sector will have only two types of players: government-run banks and government-run insurance companies. … While it will not totally go back to its pre-1978 planned-economy mode, it will be close.”

It is significant, given these reforms to incentivize workers to move away from finance jobs, that the owners of DeepSeek’s parent company, High-Flyer, came from the world of finance, as hedge fund managers. Their recent forays into AI perfectly align with the CPC’s goals for the Chinese economy, to guide China’s top minds into productive areas of the economy and away from the useless gambling and speculation markets that constitute so much of the financial sector.

These regulations imposed by the CPC come from its conformance with the long-term socialist project of the PRC and contrast sharply with the way U.S. companies overwhelmingly are operated. In a July 2024 interview, DeepSeek’s founder Liang Wenfeng made this fact plain: “Our principle is neither to sell at a loss nor to seek excessive profits. … This time, our goal isn’t quick profits but advancing the technological frontier to drive ecosystem growth.”

Chinese tech again innovates around U.S. trade embargo
Just like the PRC’s recent ascendency in automotive manufacturing, DeepSeek has found success despite the U.S.’s attempts to starve China’s AI industry of supposedly vital resources through a targeted trade embargo. The Biden administration created trade controls that the U.S. used to keep the hardware — mostly computer chips manufactured by the U.S. company Nvidia — out of China.

But, as the New York Times columnist Cade Metz said in a Jan. 27 article, “The impressive performance of the DeepSeek model raised questions about the unintended consequences of the American government’s trade restrictions. The controls have forced researchers in China to get creative with a wide range of tools that are freely available on the internet.”

A recent article in the British scientific journal Nature summarized the details of DeepSeek’s innovation. Wenda Li, an AI researcher at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, said: “Having limited computing power drove the firm to ‘innovate algorithmically.’ During reinforcement learning the team estimated the model’s progress at each stage, rather than evaluating it using a separate network.”

Mateja Jamnik, a computer scientist at the University of Cambridge, [England,] said: “This helped to reduce training and running costs. The researchers also used a ‘mixture-of-experts’ architecture, which allows the model to activate only the parts of itself that are relevant for each task.” (Jan. 23)

These innovations have put DeepSeek’s performance on a variety of tasks on par with the U.S.’s current leader, OpenAI’s ChatGPT — even outperforming it on some.

These algorithmic innovations also had the effect of making DeepSeek much less expensive, both in direct financial cost and in energy consumption. The Nature article reports: “DeepSeek hasn’t released the full cost of training R1, but it is charging people using its interface around one-thirtieth of what [OpenAI’s] o1 costs to run.

“The firm has also created mini ‘distilled’ versions of R1 to allow researchers with limited computing power to play with the model. An ‘experiment that cost more than £300 [US $370] with o1, cost less than $10 with R1,’ says Krenn. This is a dramatic difference which will certainly play a role in its future adoption.”

DeepSeek’s R1 and OpenAI’s o1 are types of language models used to solve complex problems and perform scientific reasoning.

U.S. market response symptomatic of capitalist flaws
When DeepSeek’s release became evident to the U.S. financial markets, the effects were devastating. In one day Nvidia lost $600 billion in its stock’s value, a record for a single company. The S&P market lost 1.5% of its value, and tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped a whopping 3.1%. The combined loss was nearly $1 trillion.

The scale of these losses is attributable to the central role that speculation plays in U.S. valuations. Venture capital firms have pumped billions of dollars into U.S. AI companies based on the assumption that U.S. AI would remain dominant in the world, and the companies’ valuations, determined by the stock market, were extremely high. OpenAI was valued at $157 billion prior to the release of DeepSeek.

The speculative value of the U.S. energy sector also fell precipitously due to DeepSeek. U.S. AI requires a tremendous amount of energy to develop and operate. DeepSeek requires far less because of the algorithmic innovation it employs to compensate for its relative lack of computer chips. Fighting Words, the journal of the Communist Workers League, said in a Jan. 29 article: “Since the DeepSeek app requires far less electricity than its U.S. counterparts, power companies, which had been preparing new projects for nuclear, fossil-fuel and some ‘green’ power plants took a beating as well. Power companies like Constellation Energy, GE Vernova and Vistra each plunged more than 20 percent.”

U.S. AI requires so much energy that, in October 2024, Microsoft entered into an agreement to rehabilitate the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, 100% of whose power would flow directly to Microsoft in order to support its AI projects. They are seeking a $1.6 billion federal loan for the project. Prior to the release of DeepSeek, it was estimated that by 2030, 17% of the U.S. energy output could be going to data centers used by tech companies to power AI.

DeepSeek is just one of several technological and scientific innovations developed under a socialist economy that challenges capitalist profits while benefiting the whole world.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/02/26/c ... socialism/

[blindpig]

Communicating the principles of Marxism-Leninism to the young generation

What follows is the text of a speech given by Fiona Sim (co-founder of the Black Liberation Alliance and member of the Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee) at our recent bilateral webinar with Renmin University of China, held on 26 February 2026.

Fiona describes the economic, political and ideological conditions faced by young people in the West in the present era: a brutal neoliberalism, characterised by rising poverty, inequality and alienation; witnessing devastating wars and seemingly inevitable climate collapse; and being fed relentless propaganda fomenting “a culture of nihilism and pessimism”.

In academia, ruling class ideology prevails and seeks to either ignore Marxism or to paint it as some sort of failed experiment. Certainly young people are “protected” from the fact that “there is another world possible and it is being built now – by China, Cuba, Vietnam, DPRK, Laos, and many more entering their own revolutionary processes” that people can take inspiration from. And yet objective reality is increasingly radicalising young people; increasingly they understand that they “can organise, unite, and work together to resolve the contradictions and build a socialist alternative”.

The young generation are rejecting the right-wing and neoliberal ideologies that shamelessly capitulate to the reactionary rhetoric of the far-right. In Venezuela, we have seen how young people formed the biggest demographic that voted for Maduro. In Britain, young people started encampments in support of Palestine and continue to turn out in their tens, if not hundreds of thousands to protest the fascists on the streets as well as the government’s war mongering policies in lieu of the “cost of living crisis” and plummeting employment rates. In China, we see how Socialism with Chinese Characteristics has shown the proof is in the proverbial pudding and the young people are drawn to the hope it brings, with 74 million young people as proud members of the Communist Youth League.

Fiona concludes:

Right now the contradictions of imperialism are at their sharpest. Presidents like Donald Trump expose the barefaced brutality of US hegemony and the capitalist system is leaving millions in destitution and despondence. The conditions could not be more ripe for revolution. To get there, the young people must be prepared. The young generation must be encouraged to study the revolutionary histories and ongoing resistance movements of the world because in a world so rife with despair, Marxism-Leninism remains humanity’s hope for the future.

For young people, there is a lot of reason to be nihilistic about the future and the current state of the world. We have inherited a world that is heating up. With the global average temperature rise predicted to climb permanently above 1.5°C, a mass extinction event of thousands of species grows more likely by the day. In recent decades, millions have died in the wars and genocides in Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Ukraine, and so on. Millions more around the world have died from the sanctions regime of the United States government whether by Democrat or Republican. Many young people have been permanently displaced from their homelands as a result.

The young people are the next generation, but will this next generation be the last of humanity? What will be left for the generations to come?

In the West, these are the logical questions for a generation that has been conditioned to believe that the everyday person has no influence on the systems of a society or the governance of the world. The neoliberal philosophy has poisoned the human psyche, presenting Capital as a god and capitalists as its angels. The proletariat make offerings of commodities to the bourgeois gods while driven to fight among themselves for the scraps that fall off the table. Here the idea of “meritocracy” takes root.

In such a system, working class young people become cogs in the capitalist machine–taught to worship brands and TikTok trends while being forced into minimum-wage jobs that keep them trapped in poverty, living at the behest of slum-like landlords and lining the pockets of CEOs of privatised infrastructure (whether that be water, rail, or energy). This form of alienation is a means of crushing revolutionary spirit: separating the individual from the collective, from the community, from the vanguard. At its core, as Mao says in Combat Liberalism, liberalism is “a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension.” This is demonstrated in its highest form under neoliberalism.

Even the leader of the Catholic Church Pope Francis identified in the early years of the Covid pandemic that neoliberalism is a dogma that is “causing the human family to fall apart”. Dogma is most dangerous in the way that it convinces the masses that there is no future. That another world is not possible.

That is why the scientific method is needed to provide a framework to counter the unscientific, the immaterial, the unconscionable. This propaganda is instilling a culture of nihilism and pessimism in our youth in the young generation. But we all know that there is another world possible and it is being built now – by China, Cuba, Vietnam, DPRK, Laos, and many more entering their own revolutionary processes.

In this vein, Marxism must be decoupled from the counterinsurgent disinformation campaign that has many young people convinced that Marxism is merely the sheltered Eurocentric dogma of privileged white men. It would be ludicrous to apply this logic to other fields of science. We do not consider Newton’s law of gravitation nor Einstein’s theory of relativity to be any less astute because of their founder’s backgrounds.

Yet, it’s this misinformed idea of Marxism that is spread in our liberal universities which are rife with post-modernist and post-structuralist thought, encouraging individualist thought and disparaging Marxist framework. In the West, Britain being no exception, Marxist professors are not held with esteem by academia. They are rather seen as objects of curiosity and bemusement rather than serious scholars of theory.

The capitalist class would rather convince the working class that the Marxist philosophy is futile and niche rather than allow it to flourish and bring about their overthrow.

This is why Marxism-Leninism must be presented to the young generation not as a dogma but a science to be studied. A science that survives the test of time with a rich revolutionary history. The class struggle has been waged for over a century using the science of Marxism-Leninism to free the peoples of the global South.

From Grenada to Ghana, revolutionary leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Samora Machel have studied the observations of Marx and Lenin to liberate their countries from the oppression of the Colonisers and imperialists. This is how Kwame Nkrumah came to theorise neocolonialism as the last stage of imperialism. This seminal text contextualised the contradictions of the so-called post-colonial world of independent nation-states in Africa and beyond.

It is the beauty of dialectical and historical materialism that produces such rich revolutionary theory that is developed with each new generation, shedding new insights and resolutions. Marxism-Leninism as a science is always adapting to the material conditions and situating ideas within the ongoing social processes as documented by history. In this way, it gives rise to revolutionary optimism that can empower the young people with the knowledge that the end of capitalism is not a question of if but how and when.

And this is what the young people need to know: that we are not held hostage to a capitalist system. We can organise, unite, and work together to resolve the contradictions and build a socialist alternative.

In the imperial core, Black communist organisations like the Black Panther Party in the US – founded and led by young African-Americans in their day –emerged as a recognition of the contradictions that plagued society. They recognised Marxism-Leninism as a means of understanding the mechanics of white supremacy and racism as necessary for upholding capitalism. They formed coalitions with the most marginalised in society to self-organise against the state and took inspiration from the revolutions in China, Cuba, Algeria.

In the words of the late Marxist historian Professor Stuart Hall, “race is the modality in which class is lived” and the interconnected nature of social struggles cannot be ignored. Freedom can only come when all facets of social subjugation are challenged head on–whether that be racism, misogyny, disableism, homophobia. They are tools of divide and conquer used in countries like Britain today where refugees from Africa and Asia are the government’s scapegoats for austerity, where the far right are hijacking this rhetoric to recruit and spread their vitriol. This strategy serves to reinforce and uphold imperialism. However, there is hope.

The young generation are rejecting the right-wing and neoliberal ideologies that shamelessly capitulate to the reactionary rhetoric of the far-right. In Venezuela, we have seen how young people formed the biggest demographic that voted for Maduro. In Britain, young people started encampments in support of Palestine and continue to turn out in their tens, if not hundreds of thousands to protest the fascists on the streets as well as the government’s war mongering policies in lieu of the “cost of living crisis” and plummeting employment rates. In China, we see how “socialism with Chinese characteristics” has shown the proof is in the proverbial pudding and the young people are drawn to the hope it brings, with 74 million young people as proud members of the Communist Youth League. Those numbers are unfathomable to us in Britain.

But in the spirit of revolutionary optimism, we must persevere with all the tools in our arsenal, no matter how limited. The Black Liberation Alliance tries to engage young people and students of the diaspora through exposing them to Black Liberation, the Black Radical Tradition, and the anti-imperialist struggles around the world.

Organisations like Friends of Socialist China, the Morning Star, Venezuela Solidarity Campaign and all the anti-imperialist campaigns in Britain are all important organs to enable the dissemination and sharing of information that counters the mainstream narratives that permeate the education system. We must engage with the young people and we must prioritise outreach.

Right now the contradictions of imperialism are at their sharpest. Presidents like Donald Trump expose the barefaced brutality of US hegemony and the capitalist system is leaving millions in destitution and despondence. The conditions could not be more ripe for revolution. To get there, the young people must be prepared. The young generation must be encouraged to study the revolutionary histories and ongoing resistance movements of the world because in a world so rife with despair, Marxism-Leninism remains humanity’s hope for the future.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/03/07/c ... eneration/

[blindpig]

China's Port Expansion in Africa
March 16, 3:12 PM



China's Port Expansion in Africa

1. Black - financing by China of construction of port infrastructure and various projects.
2. Red - ports where PLA Navy ships stop or are used for naval exercises.
3. Yellow - the most used ports, where both the PLA Navy presence and the implementation of Chinese economic projects are noted.
4. Chevron - PLA Navy base in Djibouti.
5. Countries marked in gray - African countries, where Chinese projects related to port infrastructure are being implemented.
6. Countries with yellow borders - countries where both economic projects and the presence of the PLA Navy are actively developing.

The cost of such economic expansion is estimated at several tens of billions of dollars. And these are only the ports. At the same time, strengthening the economic and logistical influence also provides a concomitant increase in the capabilities of the PLA Navy off the coast of Africa. China's most ambitious project is the creation of a full-fledged naval base in Guinea, which will provide opportunities for the presence of the Chinese Navy in the Atlantic. The struggle for control over Guinea will intensify in this regard. The US wants to prevent China from implementing this project. We can also expect attempts to destabilize countries where there is dominant Chinese economic and political influence.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9727959.html

Google Translator

[blindpig]

Studies show strong public support for China’s political system

The following article by prominent author, ecologist and anthropologist Jason Hickel addresses the trope, often heard in the West, that China’s political system is “authoritarian” and undemocratic. Hickel looks at the evidence from the “two main studies on this question – both conducted by established Western institutions”, indicating that “the government in China enjoys strong popular support, and that most people in China believe their political system is democratic, fair, and serves the interests of the people”.

According to the most recent study by the Alliance of Democracies, “people in China have overwhelmingly positive views of their political system. 92% of people say that democracy is important to them, 79% say that their country is democratic, 91% say that the government serves the interests of most people (rather than a small group), and 85% say all people have equal rights before the law.” Indeed, Hickel notes that China outperforms Western countries on all these metrics.

The author observes that, while China does not have a Western-style liberal democracy, “it does have its own system of democracy, which it refers to as a whole-process people’s democracy, with principles of democratic centralism and a unique party system. This system seeks to institutionalise popular engagement in the policy-making process to ensure responsiveness to people’s needs.” It turns out that “what matters most when it comes to people’s perceptions of democracy is not whether their country has Western-style elections, but whether they believe their government acts in the interest of most people”.

Readers interested in understanding more about China’s socialist democracy may wish to read articles on the topic by Roland Boer and Jenny Clegg.

Conventional narratives in the West claim that the government in China lacks popular legitimacy and only retains power through coercion. But existing evidence from the two main studies on this question – both conducted by established Western institutions – shows the opposite. These studies demonstrate that the government in China enjoys strong popular support, and that most people in China believe their political system is democratic, fair, and serves the interests of the people.

The first study is published by Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. The Ash Center operates what they describe as “the longest-running independent effort to track Chinese citizen satisfaction with government performance”. Regular surveys have been conducted since 2003. The most recent results were published in 2020, in a report titled “Understanding CCP Resilience: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time”.

This is not a pro-China publication. In fact, the Ash Center starts with the assumption that China is an authoritarian system dependent on coercion, and is therefore likely to face a crisis of public legitimacy. But the study’s actual results establish very different conclusions.

The authors summarize their results as follows. “We find that, since the start of the survey in 2003, Chinese citizen satisfaction with government has increased virtually across the board. From the impact of broad national policies to the conduct of local town officials, Chinese citizens rate the government as more capable and effective than ever before. Interestingly, more marginalized groups in poorer, inland regions are actually comparatively more likely to report increases in satisfaction. Second, the attitudes of Chinese citizens appear to respond (both positively and negatively) to real changes in their material well-being.”

The report finds that public satisfaction with the central government is extremely high. In 2016, the final year of data, it stood at 93%, having generally increased over time. Satisfaction with lower levels of government is somewhat lower but still very strong; for instance, provincial governments enjoyed 82% support in the final year of data.



The second study is published by the Alliance of Democracies (AoD), a Danish NGO founded by the former Secretary General of NATO and the former Prime Minister of Denmark. AoD partners with Latana, a market research firm based in Germany, to conduct annual surveys on democracy perception in more than 50 countries around the world. They have published the Democracy Perception Index report every year since 2019. It is the gold standard in the industry, produced by liberal institutions that certainly cannot be accused of having a pro-China bias. And yet the results on China are consistently striking.

According to the most recent report (2024), people in China have overwhelmingly positive views of their political system. 92% of people say that democracy is important to them, 79% say that their country is democratic, 91% say that the government serves the interests of most people (rather than a small group), and 85% say all people have equal rights before the law. Furthermore, China outperforms the US and most European countries on these indicators – in fact, it has some of the strongest results in the world. The figure below compares China’s results to those from the US, France and Britain. These results may help explain the high levels of satisfaction with government reported by the Ash Center.



The AoD study also assesses people’s perceptions of freedom of expression, and free and fair elections. Here too, China outperforms the US and most of Europe. When given the statement “Everyone in my country can freely express their opinion on political and social topics”, only 18% of people in China disagreed (compared to 27% in the US). And when given “Political leaders in my country are elected in free and fair elections”, only 5% in China disagreed (compared to 27% in the US).

One possible criticism is that people in China may be reluctant to say negative things about their government because they may fear repression. But the Latana methodology is explicitly designed to mitigate against this possibility. The AoD report states “In contrast to surveys conducted face-to-face or by telephone, the anonymity offered by Latana’s methodology may help reduce response bias, interviewer bias, and respondent self-censorship.” These methods appear to be effective. If China’s positive results are due to fear of repression, we would expect to see similarly positive results in countries that are regarded as having repressive regimes, but this does not occur. People living in such states do not hesitate to express critical opinions. For instance, in Russia only 50% of people said their country was democratic.

Many people are surprised by the AoD results for China because they believe China does not in fact have a democratic system. It is true that China does not have a Western-style liberal democracy, where voters elect the head of state every few years. But it does have its own system of democracy, which it refers to as a “whole-process people’s democracy”, with principles of democratic centralism and a unique party system. This system seeks to institutionalize popular engagement in the policy-making process to ensure responsiveness to people’s needs (see summaries here and here, and a podcast on this with US Professor Ken Hammond here). Direct elections occur at the two most local levels of the National People’s Congress, with elected deputies then voting for those who will serve in the higher levels.

Whatever one might think of this system, it is clear that most people in China seem to like it.

The results of the AoD study suggest that what matters most when it comes to people’s perceptions of democracy is not whether their country has Western-style elections, but whether they believe their government acts in the interest of most people. In many Western countries that have regular multi-party elections, people do not believe that their governments act in the interests of most people, and do not believe their countries are democratic. In China, people overwhelmingly perceive that their government acts in the interests of most people, and this may be key to high democracy perception there.

This result is not particularly surprising, given that CCP came to power through a popular revolution that enjoyed mass support from peasants and workers, with the explicit objective of improving the lives of the oppressed majority. While China has experienced several major policy changes over time, including a process of market liberalization in the 1980s that caused high inflation and widespread protest, over the past decade the government has taken strong steps to reduce poverty and ensure universal access to good housing, food, healthcare and education.

None of this is to say that China’s political system does not have problems and internal contradictions that must be overcome. It does, just as all countries do – nobody could reasonably claim otherwise. But these studies point to an important reality that should be grappled with: that the Chinese people have a much higher regard for their political system than people in the West tend to assume.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/03/27/s ... al-system/



US Defense Secretary Hegseth wants to overthrow China’s government, in ‘crusade’ against left (and Islam)

]In the following article on Geopolitical Economy, Ben Norton exposes the extreme anti-China views of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Ben notes that, in his 2020 book American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free, Hegseth describes the Chinese as “literally the villains of our generation” and warns: “If we don’t stand up to communist China now, we will be standing for the Chinese anthem someday”.

This anti-China sentiment is not restricted to the past. “As defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has pushed for extremely aggressive policies against Beijing”, commenting just this month on Fox News that the United States is prepared to go to war with China. He calls for the US to stop trading with China and to do everything within its power to stop China’s rise.

These alarming views are combined with flagrant islamophobia, misogyny and homophobia.

Hegseth is not the only China hawk in Trump’s cabinet. As we have noted previously, “Marco Rubio is an anti-China fanatic, who stands for more tariffs, more sanctions, more slander, more support for Taiwanese separatism, more provocations in the South China Sea, and more destabilisation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Mike Waltz has long pushed for closer military cooperation with India, Japan, Australia and other countries in the region in preparation for war against China.”

Increasingly, there is consensus within US policy circles in favour of an escalation of the campaign to encircle and contain China. Progressive and anti-war movements in the West must resist this dangerous trajectory.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a self-declared “crusader” who believes the United States is in a “holy war” against the left, China, and Islam.

In his 2020 book American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free, Hegseth vowed that, if Trump could return to the White House and Republicans could take power, “Communist China will fall—and lick its wounds for another two hundred years”.

Hegseth declared that the Chinese “are literally the villains of our generation”, and warned, “If we don’t stand up to communist China now, we will be standing for the Chinese anthem someday”.

In Hegseth’s conspiratorial worldview, Chinese communists and the international left are conspiring with Islamists against the United States and Israel, which are sacred countries blessed by God.

Under Trump’s leadership, Hegseth promised, “Israel and America will form an even tighter bond, fighting the scourge of Islamism and international leftism that will never fully abate”.

“Islamists will never get a nuclear weapon but will be preemptively bombed back to the 700s when they try”, he added.



In the book, Hegseth heaped praise upon the medieval Crusaders, and he argued that Western conservatives in the 21st century should continue the holy war they started a millennium ago.

One of his chapters is titled “Make the Crusade Great Again”.

On the first page of the book, Hegseth proudly said his “American crusade” is a “holy war”, and he insisted that leftists are not “mere political opponents. We are foes. Either we win, or they win—we agree on nothing else”.

Hegseth also stated with certainty that there will soon be a civil war in the United States, between the right and left.

“Yes, there will be some form of civil war. It’s a horrific scenario that nobody wants but would be difficult to avoid”, he wrote. He asserted that there are “irreconcilable differences between the Left and the Right in America leading to perpetual conflict that cannot be resolved through the political process”, and he predicted a “national divorce”.

Pete Hegseth says the US is “prepared” for war with China
As defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has pushed for extremely aggressive policies against Beijing.

In March 2025, Hegseth told Fox News that the United States is “prepared” to go to war with China.

In a speech he gave to the US armed forces a few days after assuming his role in January, Hegseth pledged, “We will remain the strongest and most lethal force in the world”.

In another address in February, he expressed his commitment to “making our military once again into the most lethal, badass force on the planet”.

Donald Trump discovered Hegseth because he worked at Fox News for a decade, starting in 2014. He was a co-host of the conservative talk show Fox & Friends.

Although he cynically portrays himself as a “populist”, Hegseth has an extremely elite résumé. He studied at Princeton University and worked as a stock market analyst for the Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns (which collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis). He later did a Master’s degree at the blue-blooded Harvard Kennedy School, which has trained a Who’s Who of the global political class.

Before Trump’s first term, Hegseth was just another cookie-cutter neoconservative Republican. In fact, he was such a mouth-foaming hawk, and he so strongly supported the illegal invasion of Iraq, that he volunteered to fight there for the US Army.

Hegseth worked for a year at the US internment camp at Guantánamo Bay, in occupied Cuban territory. When he served there, brutal torture was being carried out by the George W. Bush administration.

As defense secretary, Hegseth has defended Trump’s decision to deport undocumented immigrants to Guantánamo Bay. He visited the internment camp and posed for a Pentagon photo op to support the policy.

Pete Hegseth’s extremist theocratic views

Pete Hegseth is closely linked to an extremist Christian nationalist church that preaches that the United States should follow biblical law.

Hegseth’s church is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which believes that the LGBT community should be criminalized. Some of its prominent members argue that women should lose the right to vote, and have even spoken positively of slavery.

Hegseth has numerous tattoos associated with Christian extremist and white nationalist movements, including one of the “Crusader’s Cross” and another that says “Deus vult”, or “God wills it” in Latin. This slogan was used during the Crusades.



His 2020 book American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free is a 21st-century call to continue the original Crusades, albeit against the political left this time.

Over half of the nearly 300-page book was dedicated to attacking the left. Of the 14 chapters, nine are about what he calls “leftism”.

Hegseth attacked the left for socialism, secularism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, and so-called “genderism” and “globalism”.

He also bizarrely associated the left with Islamism, which he called “the most dangerous ‘ism’”. Hegseth spent an entire chapter demonizing Islam.

In his delirious fever dreams, leftists and Islamists are part of a global conspiracy to destroy the United States.

“Next to the communist Chinese and their global ambitions, Islamism is the most dangerous threat to freedom in the world”, Hegseth wrote.

Pete Hegseth’s crusade against China
In American Crusade, Hegseth denounced “our largest geopolitical foe, communist China”.

He mentioned China and the Chinese 110 times in the book.

The Chinese “are literally the villains of our generation”, Hegseth wrote.

He quoted Trump, who said in 2019, “China is a threat to the world in a sense, because they’re building a military faster than anybody”.

“Even Mickey Mouse would understand that the communist Chinese government and its economic engine are a threat and we must compel our companies to stop enabling them with American technology”, Hegseth argued. “We must bring the companies back home to America, coercively if necessary”.

“China has a dream—it’s called the Chinese dream—and it ends with the reestablishment of the former Chinese Empire”, he claimed.

Hegseth declared that, through so-called “globalism”, China is waging a “technological war, cultural war, trade war, and military war”.

“If we don’t stand up to communist China now, we will be standing for the Chinese anthem someday”, he insisted.

Hegseth’s argument was deeply contradictory. He warned that China is a powerful and growing threat, but he simultaneously insisted that it is weak and fragile.

“The Chinese economy is fake because it’s not free, yet powerful—built through theft, intimidation, and the weakness of China’s opponents”, Hegseth wrote.

US trade dependence on China is “a massive national security issue; an emergency, really”, he wrote. He insisted that the United States should stop trading with China, maintaining, “You cannot trade fairly with an enemy that lies, cheats, and steals”.

This quote was deeply ironic, considering the CIA director and secretary of state in Trump’s first term was neoconservative Mike Pompeo, who infamously declared, “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses”.

In his book, Hegseth claimed there is rampant “Chinese influence in American media and universities”, fearmongering about Walt Disney and Confucius Institutes.

“Does any sane American actually think communist China is our friend? Anyone? Of course not!” Hegseth wrote. He added, “Except for communism-loving Bernie Sanders and his ‘bros,’ commonsense Americans understand what China represents”.

Hegseth predicted that, if the Democrats won the 2020 US election, “Leftism will enslave us all with big government until it’s enslaved by Islamism”, and “there will be some form of civil war”.

He claimed that, if Trump lost the 2020 election, “Communist China will rise—and rule the globe. Europe will formally surrender. Islamists will get nuclear weapons and seek to wipe America and Israel off the map. Freedom will fade, tyranny will rise”.

Trump did end up losing the 2020 election, and none of that happened.

Nevertheless, Hegseth predicted that, if Trump and the Republicans came back to power, “Our free-market economy will flourish, while China will not be able to cheat and compete—just like the Soviet Union”. He wrote triumphantly, “Socialism, defeated”.

He continued:

Communist China will fall—and lick its wounds for another two hundred years. Europe will still surrender, but pockets of freedom-loving resisters will remain. Islamists will never get a nuclear weapon but will be preemptively bombed back to the 700s when they try. Israel and America will form an even tighter bond, fighting the scourge of Islamism and international leftism that will never fully abate.

Pete Hegseth: The US and Israel are waging a “crusade” to save the West

Pete Hegseth’s entire worldview is opposed to the left. In American Crusade, he stated that his ideology is “Americanism”, which he defined as “an unapologetic allegiance to the founding ideals of the United States of America”. He emphasized that Americanism is “the opposite of leftism”.

“Another way to define Americanism is American nationalism”, Hegseth added. He proudly identified himself and Trump as American nationalists, arguing that the United States is “the only true bastion of freedom on the planet”.

At the same time, however, Hegseth’s concept of “Americanism” is international. He sees other far-right nationalist movements in the West as allies in a global civilizational struggle against China, the left, and Islam.

“Americanism is alive in places such as Poland, which reject the globalist visions of leftist bureaucrats in old Europe”, Hegseth wrote, adding, “Regrettably, we have more in common with those international freedom fighters then we do with modern American Democrats”.

“Americanism is alive in Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahu boldly stands against international anti-Semitism and Islamism”, he wrote.

“If you love America, you should love Israel”, he asserted. “Israel is enemy number one for both Islamists and international leftists— which is reason alone to love it”.

Defense Secretary Hegseth met with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu in February 2025. The Pentagon readout noted that the “Secretary emphasized the unbreakable bond that exists between the United States and Israel and praised Israel as a model ally in the Middle East”.

In American Crusade, Hegseth boasted that he had visited Israel several times.

He mentioned Israel and Israelis 54 times in the book.

To learn about Israeli history, he recommended that his readers watch videos from the right-wing YouTube channel PragerU.

“For us as American Crusaders, Israel embodies the soul of our American Crusade”, Hegseth wrote. “Faith, family, freedom, and free enterprise; if you love those, learn to love the state of Israel”.

According to Hegseth, the United States is leading a civilizational battle, in alliance with Israel. He implored Christians today to continue the Crusades started in the 11th century.

He wrote:

Simply put: if you don’t understand why Israel matters and why it is so central to the story of Western civilization—with America being its greatest manifestation—then you don’t live in history. America’s story is inextricably linked to Judeo-Christian history and the modern state of Israel.

“We Christians—alongside our Jewish friends and their remarkable army in Israel—need to pick up the sword of unapologetic Americanism and defend ourselves. We must push Islamism back”, he added.

At the same time, Hegseth acknowledged that his extremist views had caused him to lose friends.

“In this cause, I’ve lost friends. Many”, he wrote. “Some members of my extended family have no interest in speaking with me, and the feeling is mutual. People I used to admire send me nasty letters and emails telling me what a terrible person I am”.

Pete Hegseth: “We must fight back against the evil forces of secularism”
Pete Hegseth is a theocratic Christian nationalist. He opposes the separation of church and state and deeply believes that the United States is a Christian nation, and that its laws should be based on the Bible.

“We must fight back against the evil forces of secularism”, Hegseth wrote in American Crusade. He argued, “Our founders would be disgusted with the secularist America of today”.

“Without God, America is not America”, he declared, asserting that the “secularism movement is incompatible with Americanism”.

An entire chapter of his book was dedicated to “defeating the Church of Secularism”.

If Trump and the Republicans can remain in power, Hegseth predicted in 2020, “Abortion will finally and forever be illegal and our government schools either abandoned or fully transformed”.

He insisted that schools should promote “the factually true story of American exceptionalism”.

According to Hegseth, Trump is an important ally in the fight for theocracy.

“President Trump has stemmed the tide of secularism, at least for now”, Hegseth wrote in 2020, during Trump’s first term. “He unabashedly supports faith and fights back against the secular currents long at work in American society”

Trump “has emboldened Christians, including pastors, to be more involved in politics and our culture. He has inspired Crusaders!”, he said.

(This statement is rather comical, given that it is widely known that Trump is not religious. In fact, when asked in an interview what his favorite Bible verse was, Trump was unable to name a single verse. Then, when asked if he preferred the Old or New Testament, Trump said both.)

In American Crusade, Hegseth also identified himself as a big fan of the far-right rapper Kanye West.

“After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, one of the most powerful things to happen to our country—and to me—was the Christian conversion of the rapper Kanye West”, Hegseth said in 2020.

“If Kanye is with us, who can be against us?” Hegseth wrote, repeatedly praising the rapper, also known as Ye.

After Hegseth published this book, Kanye West came out as a Nazi and praised Adolf Hitler.

Pete Hegseth’s crusade against Islam
While Hegseth wants the United States to be a Christian theocracy, he is violently opposed not only to Islamism (as a theocratic political movement), but to Islam itself (as a religion).

In American Crusade, Hegseth wrote that “no ‘ism’ is more dangerous to freedom than Islamism is”.

While he acknowledged that many Muslims are not Islamists, and that they consider Islam as a religion distinct from Islamism as a political movement, Hegseth argued that there is essentially no difference.

Hegseth criticized even “regular Muslims”, claiming that they “believe that Islam’s destiny is to control the world”.

In his book, he put quotes around the words “moderate” mosques and “peaceful” Muslims, denying that they can exist.

“Islam is not a religion of peace, and it never has been”, Hegseth declared.

He even unironically used the term “Muslim hordes” in the book, writing:

Next to the communist Chinese and their global ambitions, Islamism is the most dangerous threat to freedom in the world. It cannot be negotiated with, coexisted with, or understood; it must be exposed, marginalized, and crushed. Just like the Christian crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes in the twelfth century, American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against Islamists today.

Demonstrating his ignorance of Islam, Hegseth absurdly likened Iran (a Shia-majority country) to its mortal enemies ISIS and Al-Qaeda, extremist Salafi-jihadist groups that consider Shia Muslims to be heretical polytheists and have sought to exterminate them.

During Trump’s first term, Hegseth went on Fox News to call for Trump to bomb Iran.

In his book, Hegseth told Americans, “If you support gay rights, instead of harassing conservatives, you’d protest outside the Iranian Embassy”. Likewise, he said feminists should stop criticizing sexism in the West and should instead protest outside the Iranian and Saudi embassies.

Hegseth was especially critical of Turkey. He complained that when Turkey was welcomed as a member of NATO in 1951, “Foreign policy types back then believed that allowing it into the club would bring its government closer to the West and our Western values”.

He noted that this “worked for a while but has fallen apart today. Instead, as with China, the opposite has occurred”.

Hegseth condemned Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, because he “decided to reject the secular tradition of his institutions” and “dismantled the NATO-trained army that has long maintained Turkey’s secular institutions”.

In other words, Hegseth opposes secularism in the United States, but supports it in Turkey.

Hegseth also said that Erdoğan “openly dreams of restoring the Ottoman Empire”, writing, “He’s an Islamist with Islamist visions for the Middle East. Yet NATO members have pledged to defend his regime? The last time I checked, that’s not what NATO was about”.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/03/25/u ... and-islam/



Roland Boer: We need to talk more about China’s socialist democracy

We are pleased to publish this original article by Roland Boer (Professor of Marxist Philosophy at Dalian University of Technology, China, and author of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners (Springer, 2021)). The article provides the reader with a very valuable introduction to China’s socialist democratic system, a topic about which there is widespread ignorance in the West.

We need to talk more – much more – about China’s socialist democratic system. Why? There are many reasons, but the main reason is that we should not let the criticisms of China from the small number of “Western” countries set the agenda. So let me propose the following thesis: China’s socialist democratic system is already quite mature and superior to any other democratic system. Actually, this is not my proposition, but that of a host of Chinese specialists. They are very clear that China’s socialist democratic system is already showing its latent quality. Obviously, we need to know much more about how this system works and how it is constantly improving.

Before I proceed, let me ask you to put aside your preconceptions and assumptions concerning the meaning of “democracy.” If you come from one of the few “Western” countries, you will need – as Mao Zedong pointed out many years ago – to wash your brain of your assumptions concerning “democracy.” There is no such thing as “democracy” per se, but only historical forms of democracy. Of these, Western-style capitalist democracy – limited to periodic elections for candidates from a limited number of political parties – is only one form, and quite thin at that.

By contrast, socialist democracy, with now more than a century of development, is quite different and increasingly mature.

Overview
To begin with an overview: the system (制度zhidu) of socialist democracy in China has seven integrated structures or institutional forms (体制tizhi): electoral democracy; consultative democracy; grassroots democracy; minority nationalities policy; rule of law; human rights; and leadership of the Communist Party. Let me use a diagram to illustrate:


Obviously, I cannot deal with all of these components here, let alone the political theory that arises from the practice. I have written elsewhere on these matters in Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners (Springer 2021), I refer the reader to that work. It has copious references to Chinese language works. Here I would like to focus on electoral, consultative, and base-level (grassroots) democracy.

Electoral Democracy
In China, electoral democracy is practised mainly with regard to the people’s congresses. Given that China has stepped onto the centre of the world stage, there is increasing attention – albeit misguided in some parts – on the National People’s Congress (NPC) that meets once a year, usually in March or April. Thousands of elected delegates come to Beijing to make major decisions. Indeed, the NPC is the highest legislative authority in China, and for anything to become law it must be approved by the NPC.

However, the NPC is part of a much wider structure. There are five levels of such congresses, with the most basic level found in villages, minority nationality townships, and towns.

National People’s Congress (first met in September 1954)
Congresses in provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly administered by the central government
Congresses in sub-districts of larger cities and in autonomous prefectures
Congresses of cities not sub-divided, municipal districts, counties, and autonomous counties
Congresses in villages, minority nationality townships, and towns
Given that China has a population of 1.4 billion, this means that there are many, many people’s congresses across the country.

How do elections work? All of the congresses require delegates to be elected.

All very well, but do people vote? Every citizen over the age of 18 has the right to vote and there are strict regulations concerning the number of candidates and number of voters required for an election to be valid. Every citizen has the right to vote, and only when more than 50% of eligible voters in a district actually vote is an election valid. The candidate with the majority of votes is elected.

Who can stand for election? Any citizen may stand for election. Candidates can be nominated by all political parties and mass organisations. A candidate can also be nominated by ten eligible voters in direct elections and by ten delegates in indirect elections.

How many candidates stand for election? The basic rule is that the number of candidates must be more than the number of delegates to be elected. In direct elections, the number of candidates must be 30%-100% more than the number of delegates elected; in indirect elections, the excess of candidates to delegates elected must be 20%-50%.

Why do I distinguish between direct and indirect elections? Elections to the lowest two levels of the people’s congresses are direct, with local people voting for candidates. The next three levels are indirect, which simply means that delegates from the lower levels of people’s congresses can be elected to higher levels. Thus, by the time the 3,000 or so delegates prepare to go to Beijing for the NPC, there has already been an extraordinarily detailed process to elect them for this task.

Are candidates vetted? Of course, since you need experienced and quality people, with the necessary skills and abilities to make a real contribution to people’s well-being. That they should be supporters – albeit critical – of China’s socialist system goes without saying.

Can electoral democracy be improved? Unlike the few Western countries, which have stagnating and now fragmenting political systems, China’s electoral democracy is seen as a constant work in progress. When you immerse yourself in the immense amount of analysis and research in China, you will find many proposals, such as improving the system of elections to people’s congresses; ensuring the principle of the same vote in urban and rural areas; enhancing the ability of the standing committees of people’s congresses so as to undertake the work of the congresses when the latter are not meeting; further education as how the system works so that people can participate in a more informed manner; ensuring that all eligible voters can physically vote, including migrant workers from the countryside; and improved supervision of the organs of governance so as to eliminate bribery and ensure more efficient functionality.

One question remains: observers used to the antagonistic politics of Western countries – in which everything becomes a focus of political point-scoring (think of COVID-19) – struggle to understand how voting works in the NPC. Most resolutions are passed, usually with a huge majority. Is the NPC, then, simply a “rubber stamp” for the will of … (fill in the blank). Not at all, but in order to understand how this works, let us turn to consultative democracy.

Consultative Democracy
Let me begin this section with some history. While people’s congresses date back to the 1940s,[1] the reality and practice of consultative democracy is even older and more deep-rooted. The key is to be found in the “mass line (群众路线 qunzhong luxian),” which was developed in liberated Red Areas during the long revolutionary struggle. While we find early elaborations on the practice and theory of the mass line in the works of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai and others, it was, of course, Mao who coined the slogan “from the masses, to the masses” – a practice that arose from concrete experiences of integrating the will of the non-Party masses with the policies of the CPC.

We need to understand the terminology used here. To begin with, the term “masses (群众 qunzhong)” is rich in its connotations: it designates the rural and urban workers who form the bedrock of the CPC. At the same time, the term “masses” overlaps significantly with with the term “people (人民 renmin).” In this light, expressions such as “the Party leads the people” or “taking the people as centre (以人民为中心yi renmin wei zhongxin)” also mean “the Party leads the masses” and “taking the masses as the centre.” Further, “mass organisations” play a crucial role in China’s political system. They are neither social organisations of the sort found in bourgeois civil society and in tension with the state, nor are they Communist Party organisations. Instead, mass organisations are distinct and have a “mass character (群众性 qunzhongxing),” with deep political roots and a long history. In short, they represent public concerns that are not directly connected with the structures of governance.

How does the mass line work? Let me quote the scholar Ma Yide (2017, 27): the mass line “is inclusive, as the opinions of the broad mobilised masses are listened to; it is guided by reason, as the views of the masses are studied and become the views of the central system; it achieves balance through reflection, as opinions are constantly tested through the actions of the masses; and it links consultation and decision-making, as the views of the masses are elevated into action.”

From this long history of practice, what is known as consultative democracy arose in the New China. Today it takes many forms, including:

1) Institutionalisation in the many levels of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conferences (CPPCC). The top-level CPPCC meets at the same time as the CPC, providing detailed advice and consultation concerning legislation to the many committees and delegates at the NPC.

2) The many levels of CPPCCs include delegates from all representative groups, including the eight other political parties, minority nationalities, religious bodies, mass organisations, and new social groups such as migrant workers. This is not to say delegates from these groups cannot be elected to the people’s congresses, for they are elected to those bodies as well.

3) The ever-expanding forms of consultation and feedback. These include the old-fashioned but irreplaceable practice of face to face discussion, but this is now supplemented by a plethora of on-line consultation and feedback, soliciting proposals, and much, much more. Here too can we find the myriad apps on mobile phones, which one can use for feedback and voicing opinion. With many decades of experience, Chinese people are well accustomed to such practices and are vocal indeed about all manner of issues.

4) Consultation is the standard practice in the multitude of meetings that take place, whether in mass and social organisations, multi-level people’s congresses, Party organisations at all levels (which are also concerned with Party building), rural and urban community self-government organisations, and migrant labourers from the countryside. This democratic practice has influenced the forms of urban and rural governance, policy agendas (from local budgets to the national five-year plans), the structure of direct elections at the grassroots level, and labour-management relations.

5) Base-level or grassroots democracy is also a form of consultative democracy, but I will discuss this practice in the next section.

So we have two substantial forms of democratic practice in China, each with a long history and – crucially – each engaged with and influencing one another. The way they work together has both deep cultural roots and a distinct Marxist emphasis, in which non-antagonistic contradictions are the key to socialist construction. But this is to stray into theory, so let me return to the question I raised at the close of the previous section: voting patterns in the NPC.

For those used to Western-style antagonistic politics, to “mud-slinging,” political point-scoring, and “parliamentary privilege” under which a politician is free from being prosecuted for defamation and slander, the practices in China may seem a little strange. The key lies in the dialectical interaction of both electoral and consultative democracy, in which they complement one another through their strengths and are able to resolve respective limitations.

For the NPC, by the time a piece of legislation comes up for a vote, it has undergone an extremely long and arduous process of deliberation and consultation. Multiple meetings – in the many bodies mentioned earlier – take place, feedback is sought, and differences in opinion are aired without holding back. Indeed, contrary arguments are encouraged and expected, with debate, revision, and further debate until a consensus is reached. Only then can the legislation arrive at the NPC for a vote.

Grassroots Democracy
A distinct type of consultative democracy is “base-level (基层jiceng)” democracy, or what is known in English as “grassroots democracy.” At one level, this type of democracy is the oldest type in human history. We may call it “base-level communism,” and it goes back – in different forms – for millennia. Friedrich Engels, for example, devoted considerable attention to old European practices, especially in Germany’s “Mark association (Markgenossenschaft).” And Marx found he had to respond to questions from Russian socialists already in the 1880s, since the latter were debating whether the Russian “village commune” could provide a path to communism without having to go through all of the stages of capitalist development.

At a more specific level, grassroots democracy has developed its own forms over many decades in China as part of its socialist democratic system. We find it emerging during the period of revolutionary struggle and in the political structures of the Red Areas, as well as the “small parliaments [小议会xiao yihui]” typical of rural areas and the mostly spontaneous urban committees in the 1950s. My interest here is in a new stage of developing grassroots democracy from the first decade of the new millennium. By now there are tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of local examples from which to draw insights. And if you dig into the analysis and research on the practices of grassroots democracy, you find an immense amount of material.

Many of these practices began with participatory budgeting, and then expanded into many other areas of local governance. We find in villages in remote mountainous areas, in the urban districts of major cities, and in many towns and smaller cities. Out of a very large number of examples, let us consider two examples, the first concerning participatory budgeting in Wuxi city, Jiangsu province, and the second from Dengzhou, a small county-level city in Henan province.

Wuxi, Jiangsu Province
The practice of participatory budgeting Wuxi dates from 2006 and is known as “sunshine finance (阳光财政yangguang caizheng).”[2] It signals an earlier stage in the long process of combating corruption among some city administrators, and was developed to include local people in the crucial matters pertaining to budgets and projects. The process in Wuxi can be divided into three stages.

Stage 1: This the stage of comprehensive consultation and is known as “projects recommended by the masses before the meeting.” Opinion and feedback is sought at all levels, making the most of community neighbourhood committees, residents’ groups, and residents themselves. Social media is also used to garner opinions and conduct surveys.

Stage 2: This is the decision stage and is known as “items decided by popular vote at the meeting.” The steps are as follows: a) selecting residents to participate in the meeting by drawing lots and selecting from previous representatives, with an emphasis on including common people and deputies of the local People’s Congress; b) calling a meeting, which begins with a detailed report, item by item, from the proposal developed in stage 1; c) extensive consultation, debate, and dialogue with people’s representatives, which includes explanations of any items the people do not understand or with which they are dissatisfied; d) a vote is undertaken by the residents’ representatives, with a focus on identifying priority expenditure items and those lower on the list of priorities.

Stage 3: The final stage is known as “follow-up supervision by the masses after the meeting,” and focuses on implementation. In this stage, project managers are required to keep the residents’ committee informed about each stage of the project, with regular onsite inspections. After completion, public representatives and experts make an evaluation on the project, and local residents can also provide feedback on the project performance to the local government. These assessments form part of the process for developing a new project.

Dengzhou, Henan Province
Dengzhou is a small county-level city that has a focus on primary industries. By now, the items subject to democratic deliberation in Dengzhou concern much more than budgets.[3] They run all the way from long-terms plans for rural construction to family planning and rural cooperative medical care. In these democratic activities, participants are elected in light of a reputation for honesty, fairness, and political consciousness. A quota applies, ensuring that representatives also come from new interest groups and emerging social organisations. Clearly, they are not “hand-picked” to give a prearranged result, and the approach is not tokenistic as one finds in Western systems in which bodies pretend to seek public opinion and then proceed as already decided. Instead, Chinese grassroots has substance and real representation.

Dengzhou’s approach is known as the “4+2” approach, which entails “four meetings and two public announcements.” In more detail:

First meeting: the local CPC branch engages in wide consultation and detailed investigations to make preliminary proposals.

Second meeting: the village’s “two committees” debate the CPC branch proposals.

Third meeting: all village CPC members meet to debate opinions from the village’s “two committees,” and engage in further gathering of public opinion.

Fourth meeting: the villagers’ representative meeting or villagers’ resolution meeting discusses and votes on proposals from the previous gathering.

First public announcement: resolutions from the villagers’ meeting are publicised for no less than seven days.

Second public announcement: results of implementation of the decisions are announced to villagers in good time.

Wuxi and Dengzhou are merely two examples out of thousands upon thousands of such practices. Importantly, they do not take a one-size-fits-all approach, but use the well-tried targeted approach. By this I mean that each practice of grassroots democracy arises from local concerns and realities. Constant analysis and proposals for improvement lead to refining the methods and indeed – as with Dengzhou – expanding them. The growing experience also ensures that participants become familiar with the practice and can participate more effectively.

Socialist Democracy in Practice
I have been able to write here only about electoral, consultative, and grassroots democracy in this piece, but I hope that it gives an insight into how extensive such practices are in China, and indeed how long a history lies behind them. To complete the picture, I would need to present material on rule of law (which has undergone significant further development in the last decade), socialist human rights (with a focus on socio-economic well-being), minority nationalities, and the way socialist democracy requires the leadership of the CPC and is indeed enhanced by such leadership.

But let me close by emphasising that socialist democracy in China is not seen as a given. They do not feel they have “arrived” at socialist democracy – unlike Western countries where their political systems have stagnated and are now atrophying. Instead, socialist democracy in China is a constant work in progress. Targeted practices, careful expansion, further education in socialist democracy, ensuring full representation from all groups, enhancing and encouraging participation – these and more are simply part of a constant process of reform and renewal.

Perhaps the reader can see now why I began with the observation – drawn from Chinese experts – that the latent superiority of socialist democracy is beginning to be realised in China. From my own observations on the ground, my sense is that socialist democracy has already achieved significant maturity. For my Chinese friends, colleagues, and comrades, it is still a work in progress.

References
Boer, Roland. 2021. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners. Singapore: Springer, 2021.

Bu Wanhong. 2015. “论我国基层协商式治理探索的成就与经验———基于民主恳谈会与“四议两公开”工作法的分析” (On the Achievements and Experience of the Exploration of Grassroots Consultative Governance in China – An Analysis Based on the Democratic Forum and the Working Method of “Four Meetings and Two Public Announcements”). 河南大学学报（社会科学版）(Journal of Henan University (Social Sciences)) 2015 (9): 45-52.

Ma Yide. 2017. “The Role of Consultative Democracy under the Constitutional Framework and the Associated Rule of Law.” Social Sciences in China 38 (2): 21-38.

Mao Zedong. 1940. “On New Democracy (January, 1940).” In Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2: 339-84. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1965.

Shen Jianlin, and Tan Shizan, “参与式预算的中国实践、协商模式及其转型———基于协商民主的视角”. (Practice, Consultation, and Transformation of Participatory Budgeting in China – Based on the Perspective of Consultative Democracy). 湖北社会科学 (Hubei Social Sciences) 2016 (3): 23-26.

[1] The practice followed Mao’s instruction in 1940: “China may now adopt a system of people’s congresses, from the national people’s congress down to the provincial, county, district and township people’s congresses, with all levels electing their respective governmental bodies” (Mao 1940, , 352).

[2] I draw this example from Shen Jianlin and Tan Shizan (2016).

[3] The example of Dengzhou is drawn from Bu Wanhong (2015).

https://socialistchina.org/2021/09/26/r ... democracy/