• Posad_al_Assad [any]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    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.