On the one hand, hooray for supporting the development of infrastructure in Africa and stuff. On the other hand, booooo for being a top trading partner with the Zionist Entity, and selling drones to Indonesia, and all that.
So what the Hell do you make of it all! Like I get that there’s this term called “realpolitik” which is somehow relevant, but I’d like a longer explanation than just one word. Like how does the good and the bad fit together at its core?
You could certainly write tomes about this topic — many people have done exactly that — and maybe I’m being a bit incurious to expect someone to serve me a quick answer on a silver platter instead of diving into as many articles and PDF books as I can get my hands on… But I’m also just kind of tired of having such extremely underdeveloped views on the most populous AES state and country in general, after I came to unlearn or mistrust whichever views I’d had on China previously.
China is interested in Raison d’État. same as any other modern state. They are capitalist because their economy obeys the law of value, even the SOE’s are subject to this if anyone here took the time to read about it. This website’s darling Michael Hudson, despite having some interesting contributions in american fiscal policy, has a remarkably weak defense of china, boiling down to “they dont have a federal reserve”. Comrades here trying to run defense and tie themselves into knots for its foreign policy decisions are being very silly to be frank. The sharp contrast between pre and post maoist china’s foreign policy can be explained simply, the capitalist roaders won the struggle, they have no interest at this point in time of fighting for global revolution. Their material support for cuba is a pittance, and possibly a strange artifact of cold war antagonisms. The extended loans with interest, they have privatized healthcare, and their economy runs on the extraction of raw materials from Africa and South America. None of this is to paint them as “imperialist” obviously we can defend them against western depredations, but trying to call them some bastion of socialism is bananas. And to paint them as some sort of special economy who succeeded because of the magic of "market socialism"is also a mistake. Their success is in fact highly similar with other “tiger” economies of Asia. Highly Prudent governance and massive state investment to ward off the falling rate of profit non-withstanding.
The red sails article linked below is the classic example of lazy dengist analysis that honestly falls apart with a little thinking. there is almost no political economic explanation of why billionaires must exist and the same, borderline gnostic, claim of a “master plan” by the CPC. Taking trite quotes from deng and saying “historical materialism” does not absolve people of actually having to defend their economic explanations. I have deconstructed myths about chinas “need” for market socialism, capitalist penetration, etc before and will do so again if asked, but this stuff is straight out of lenin and was functionally settled almost 100 years ago at this point.
Their decision to open up their economy and subject hundreds of millions was the force that saved capitalism. Those people labor now so the rich of the world can live lives in abject splendor. There is no such force waiting in the wings for next time. Who knows how that contradiction will resolve. Who knows how the seeming impending showdown with the USA will go.
Mao had plenty of skeletons in his closet when it comes to foreign policy and you can’t pin that on Deng since Deng was expelled from the party and shoved into some factory. I would argue that Mao’s skeletons were as bad as Deng.
People who try to divide China’s foreign policy between Mao and Deng don’t know what they’re talking about. Mao-Deng vs Jiang-Hu-Xi makes a lot more sense than Mao vs Deng-Jiang-Hu-Xi.
I dont disagree there is not a hard break between mao and deng but the fundamentals of the opening up period, the regrettable failure of the cultural revolution, and the decline of Mao/gang of 4 power and rise of deng/capitalist roaders power are all fundamentally related and intrinsic to china’s dropping of a global revolutionary outlook and beginning of a capitalist realpolitik worldview. these things were more fully realized as you say in Hu-Xi etc but the groundwork was critically laid down before that. Would love to talk more on this.
Both Mao and Deng had China supporting countries committing genocide (Pakistan, Cambodia) while Jiang, Hu, and Xi mostly kept China’s hands clean with the exception of the Zionist entity of course, which started under Deng anyways and possibly even under Mao. I don’t think China joining the WTO under Jiang is the same as China supporting Pakistan in committing genocide against the Bangladeshi under Mao, which prompted India to intervene and led to warm relations between India and the Soviet Union which still exists to this day in warm Indian-Russian relations. Seriously, all the blackpilled and backstabbing shit was under Mao and Deng. There’s Pakistan and Cambodia, there’s the invasion of Vietnam, there’s the support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan. You also had stuff like China supporting UNITA instead of the MPLA. Meanwhile, Jiang, Hu, and Xi just had China join/found a bunch of transnational organizations and opened trade with everyone.
“China is capitalist because it still has the law of value” is a bunch of leftcom nonsense.
Fascinating. Explain further? How does commodity production and firms chasing profit not define capitalism? If you are not a Marxist feel free to assert that and come up with some new method of defining these things. Or did the soviet unions failed struggle over commodity production and revisionism under Khrushchev not make that point clear? Is it merely the Communist parties perceived dominance, despite many other commenters on this website explaining how the “Marxist” theory that is produced and consumed by the party being of extremely mediocre quality? Or perhaps the recent plenum’s assertion that the “free market” will continue to define every aspect of state investment? This is fundamental stuff, the ability of the state to stave off the falling rate of profit, but the reality that that continues to define literally every aspect of china’s economy can not be divorced from its politics. http://www.news.cn/politics/20240721/cec09ea2bde840dfb99331c48ab5523a/c.html
How does this opinion square with Lenin and Stalin’s writings on the nature of external trade controls, “the tax in kind” or any other sorts of works on the NEP and its understanding as the literal inverse of what occurred during china’s opening up period, regarding specifically the imposition of capitalism upon collective farming? Stalin would critically ask if the rate of value is predominant or controlled, and clearly the chinese states massive investments in propping up vast portions of the economy that are suffering capitalisms depredations is indicating the economy is critically defined by that aspect, in stark contrast to NEP or stalin era soviet union.
Again, as I have previously laid out here, whether it be the claim that the market is superior to the state, that import substitution is necessary, or that this is just a neo-NEP, all fail with a fairly basic reading of lenin, stalin, or mao’s writings? If you believe capitalism is a superior method of production than socialism than we might as well discard the entirely of the soviet union and north korea’s experiences regarding this and start from square one.
Again comrade, we arent among liberals, we can have sincere and in depth discussions about the nature of the modern political economy and china’s place in that world. and not sugarcoat anything. I am happy to provide additional reading and discuss with you on any of these topics.
I am genuinely curious in the thoughts of a modern dengist. If leftcommunism is just everything to the left of your given ideological strata, then thats a profound disappointment compared to Mao’s intense debates on the topic. if its something more substantial, I would hear it. None of this is to criticize china’s vast accomplishments, although again as laid out in previous comments almost all of those accomplishments can be attributed to the maoist period, with the deng period merely cannibalizing everything the socialist period built up.