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Just waiting, regardless of the outcome of this, for some radlib to explain to me why this is proof that China isn't actually socialist because they should've just hit the big red "establish communism" button
I just think China should focus on what is important, making me happy. They just have to immediately establish communism without using any authoritarian means and also not kill anyone and do it well enough that the western media has no choice but to tell me how well they are doing. Is that too much to ask?!
China: Brings 100M people out of poverty over the course of a generation
US Media: "Praise Capitalism! It has ended global poverty! Boo China! It is exploiting its residents for cheap labor!"
China: Rapid industrialization and modernization campaign turns it into a global superpower
US Media: "Praise Neoliberal Globalist Trade Policy! Behold the market efficiencies yielded by free trade and laisse-faire economics! Boo China for emitting so much green house gas! Boo China for producing so much industrial waste! Boo China for acquiring technology and professional training from Western businesses! Boo China for sending workers abroad to develop business in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia!"
China: Combats Islamic Extremism without launching a bloody invasion and engaging in a multi-decade long campaign of bombings, assassinations, and torture prisons
US Media: "Praise the Global War On Terror! We have brought enlightenment and democracy to the Middle East! Boo China for terrorizing Xinjiang! Boo China for Islamophobia! Boo China for mass incarceration!"
American Leftist: "I just can't get over the impression that China Man Bad"
Like, I can't blame you. We're neck deep in Sinophobia, Orientalism, and Pentagon propaganda. But, at a certain point, you need to turn your skepticism towards the people we know are consistently lying to us.
Literally saw an ultra on twitter wet their pants because China will still have private property after this move
As opposed to America, where there is no dominant economic ideology whatsoever and absolutely no forces coercing anybody to follow it.
Interesting that there's another post from a similar article that frames this as "China likes their private sector and wants to keep it, they're desperately trying to keep them in line" and a bunch of people talking about how "neoliberalism has corrupted china".
From this it seems like the "next step" is actually being put into motion, as they had already said they would in the past few years. The benefits of highjacking the global capitalist economy to build their own productive forces and gain leverage over the capitalist economy are not as interesting as before, and they've said for a while that they would start switching to an even more state-controlled system now that their controlled capitalist highjacking was not as useful as before.
It certainly seems to be a very dangerous game, and I'm aware that my perspective on this is very narrow since i'm in the west and i can't speak/read mandarin.
This seems to take the right direction, and from what i've heard I feel like xi's fight against corruption and the infiltrated capitalists is going well. Still, the contradictions of the current chinese model are a dangerous game to play, but I still think it was a good choice to make and a good strategy because it's allowed them to gain strength without too much opposition for a while, and the west genuinely seems to have been fooled for some time. Would china have been better off going the more soviet way and becoming economically isolated, wouldn't they still have the same attempts at capitalist infiltration?
I don't know nearly enough about china but this is making me very, very interested.
We should probably start learning Mandarin so we can stay informed. I know that sounds extreme but leftists need to start doing stuff.
Unironically yes, I kinda want to learn it. I don't know what the best way to do it is, maybe we could organize something on here or the discord to do it because it's much easier with other people and when you can actually speak and practice out-loud.
. I don’t know what the best way to do it is
Take a course. Learning mandarin in a group without experienced teachers will take you a decade.
Community colleges/university language courses can be surprisingly cheap too.
I feel like the understanding of china has progressed a lot in the western left, or at least on places like these. I mean myself, just a few months back, I didn't think much of china and fully accepted the idea that they were an authoritarian state-capitalist country and had communism or socialism only in name. I also fully bought the narrative around Xinjiang and HK, etc. I've learned a TON in just the past 2-3 months and i'm still learning, thanks for those sources!
Leftists need to have grand vision and start to think how to carve a path for socialism in this time of crisis.
it's precisely for having done this that we support the actions of the CPC, their decisions were correct under the conditions that were imposed on them
doesn't mean it would be correct for america, or even other third world countries such as mine (though it would definitely be more fitting in our cases for reasons that should be obvious)
you seem to think your point of view is "balanced" and "rational", when it's precisely the opposite, you're making statements while treading on the surface
reality is way more complicated than you think, and marxists need to know how to deal with contradictions. the CPC has shown a surprising ability to do this and their syntheses, most of the time, make perfect sense under their situation
i don't understand how so many socialists are fine with the idea of transitioning from socialism to communism, but as soon as you talk about transitioning from capitalism to socialism (with a revolution first so that the bourgeoisie isn't in power), something LENIN could see like 100 years ago with the NEP, you guys go haywire. like, why is this so controversial lol
this is my optimistic view of Xi, that he is the anti-corruption leader that is trying to stop the power grab of the mega capitalists. He's basically trying to stop the flood created by Jiang Zemin and his Shanghai clique.
That's interesting because that sentiment contrasts pretty strongly with the assessment from Chinese economist Wu Jinglian (who represented more of the right-leaning market reform wing of the party and was even derisively referred to as "Market Wu") about the future of the party about a decade ago as he was complaining about “old-style Maoists” gaining significant influence in the government since 2004. He claimed that this left-wing faction is pressing for a return to central planning and was placing blame for the corruption and economic inequality in China on the market reforms Wu helped lead.
We even saw Jack Ma surprisingly speak favorably of an eventual return towards more of a planned economic model predicated on ongoing technological development:
Over the past 100 years, we have come to believe that the market economy is the best system, but in my opinion, there will be a significant change in the next three decades, and the planned economy will become increasingly big. Why? Because with access to all kinds of data, we may be able to find the invisible hand of the market.
The planned economy I am talking about is not the same as the one used by the Soviet Union or at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The biggest difference between the market economy and planned economy is that the former has the invisible hand of market forces. In the era of big data, the abilities of human beings in obtaining and processing data are greater than you can imagine.
With the help of artificial intelligence or multiple intelligence, our perception of the world will be elevated to a new level. As such, big data will make the market smarter and make it possible to plan and predict market forces so as to allow us to finally achieve a planned economy.
I think this is really interesting and a good point. At some point of conglomeratation and regulatory capture, one probably reached for much of the West already the difference between corporate and state planning basically becomes a moot point. Both are effectively planned economies, just one is planned to maximise only profits and the other planned in line with the goalsof the state. Deciding and influencing the goals of the state is the key question.
I’m aware of Wu being well respected among many economists in China which are very unlikely to be very well represented in this rising hardline “Maoist” (unlikely “Maoist” in the MLM sense) faction in the party that Jinglian has spoken about. Yet still critics have noted that Wu’s influence on the government has been increasingly waning. They have noted to how he was no longer being invited to weekly economics seminars held for prominent leaders and how his name was conspicuously left off the government’s honors list of top 100 outstanding contributors to the country’s transformational economic reforms. CPC media even allowed the publishing of rumors that essentially accused him of being a spy for America which he later denounced as “dirty tricks” by his critics within the party. Despite being a clearly biased source and the alleged loss of influence, Wu still remains more privy to the inner politics and infighting within the CPC than many other analysts that we may hear of in the West.
Despite being more neoclassical-oriented, the characterization of Justin Yifu Lin as a “neoliberal” seems a bit inappropriate due to his advocacy of a more active government role in economic development which is contrary to neoliberal ideology. Michael Hudson and David Harvey have also acknowledged how neoclassical economics has become popular in Chinese economics departments; however, the CPC's recent closure of the Unirule Institute of Economics that had been founded to promote economic liberalization since the early 1990s and was comprised of liberal Chinese economists have analysts noting that this was another indication of economic liberal ideals becoming increasingly less welcome. It's also worth noting though that the incorporation of a neoclassical economic analysis does not wholly preclude socialist ideology as the socialist economist Oskar Lange had developed a socialist economic model based on neoclassical economics through the Lange Model. The power struggle between the factions of the CPC will continue, but it appears that a more left-leaning anti-liberal faction is at the very least gaining more ground under Xi. Western imperialism and capitalist encirclement will continue also to present a major obstacle to socialist development in China though as it has for every other socialist country.
My hunch is, the way the government and economy is set up in China, if the people want socialism, they'll get socialism. If they end up wanting to abandon it for free-market capitalism, well, that's probably what they will end up with too.
(This is opposed to the US, where we will never be able to vote for socialism, even if like 99% of us want it, due to how our government is set up i.e. the capital class will just have socialism declared unconstitutional by the supreme court or some shit).
Capital flight will always be a danger. So they probably gotta keep a two-faced attitude to prevent them from going ham.
Alright I’ve been convinced, China good. Used to be critical support now I’m mostly on board
Can't wait to discover China's economic measures are being even more faked and fabricated than ever before.
As our domestic economy shrivels up like a grape and there's a new mass migration out of the collapsing interior, it'll be fun to read all about how China's building new Ghost Cities and wasting it's natural resources on a next generation mass transportation and communication infrastructure.
:crab-party: :crab-party: finally some good news :crab-party: :crab-party:
I just made my wife watch Hypernormalization, and it does a decent job of getting this point across, IMO.
what are the chances that race-obsessed westerners will chynabad about chyna
Struggling to connect a few dots here. Why would so many Chinese folks want to get US citizenship and head back over to China? What's that accomplishing for them
Because they would, all things considered, rather live in China at the moment. However their concern is being able to leave if the CCP tries to confiscate wealth or take other actions against the bourgeoisie there. Not saying it's rational, but it's what they think.
I think this is also partly the reason for the rise in property prices in the US, Canada, and the UK. Real estate is a relatively safe place to stash wealth, and many of the foreign buyers in recent years are Chinese nationals.
10 years for citizenship so when the bourgeoisie is liquidated in China, she can escape to the US and burn here.
According to the new provisions, private firms will need a certain amount of CCP registered employees, which is already a long-term practise in large private firms but not smaller ones.
These cadres will make sure businesses follow the guiding ideology “Guided by Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”
Duties of cadres will include the duties of strengthening ideological guidance, guiding private economic figures to increase their awareness of self-discipline, build a strong line of ideological and moral defence, strictly regulate their own words and deeds, cultivate a healthy lifestyle, and create a good public image.
Interesting. I don't think this kind of socialism would work here in the US.
Am I reading this correctly when I see this as saying the CCP is going to sort of function like a union within private firms?
That's one way to put it, I guess. I'm not sure exactly. It seems rather vague or I'm not used to the nomenclature.
If your intention is to transition to full socialism between 2035 and 2050 this is an obvious step you need to take to guard against reactionary behaviour among the private bourgeoisie-owned sector. Putting a CCP team inside every company and requiring a certain % of employees to be CCP members ensures you have the party in place to prevent the bourgeoisie from rebelling when the transition occurs.
It seems like a smart way to organizationally avert a predictable conflict that will come with their long term plans.
I think it works for China, but I think American culture would push back against this hard.
It's kinda funny. It's completely unacceptable to have the political party in your private firms, but it's perfectly fine to have the private firms in your political party. I guess that pretty much captures the difference between China and the US.
Only because the bourgeois-owned media whips the reactionary population into a frenzy. It's a completely different story when you don't have that influence because you've pushed the working class into power over the bourgeoisie.
Either way America would go through multiple cultural revolutions before it gets to socialism.
Fuck yeah, the "private sector" is a rampant socially atomising wealth extraction monster that must be tightly leashed.
From the statement, it looks like it's going to be allowed to exist, but with increased party oversight. This definitely seems like a step towards integration of the private sector into the public, but it's still early.
