China: The Key or an emerging imperial power?

[RadioRaheem84]

So I wouldn't lead the discussion away from the topic of another thread, I decided to start a whole new one on the enigma of China:

Links to the notion that China is using capitalism and will soon be on the road again to Socialism:

http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/how-the-communist-party-of-china-safeguards-workers-interests-during-crisis/#more-6008

http://www.workers.org/2010/world/china_0805/

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB1000142405274870472000457537711371751 7200.html

China coming under fire from foreign firms. Strengthening the position of workers against foreign firm demands and there are even rumors of it supporting national liberation movements in Nepal and India.

http://www.southasiaanalysis.org//papers16/paper1565.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q7fImzTdJI


Links to the contrary:

http://www.monthlyreview.org/books/chinaandsocialism.php

http://monthlyreview.org/1105wu.htm

http://monthlyreview.org/0606weil.htm

So what is the real story here? Regardless of the intentions, China still fostered an environment that was hugely detrimental to workers, that cannot be denied. But it would be remarkable to see the Chinese CP finally give up the neo-liberal reforms and revert to socialism again.

Your thoughts?

[Proletarian Ultra]

So what is the real story here? Regardless of the intentions, China still fostered an environment that was hugely detrimental to workers, that cannot be denied. But it would be remarkable to see the Chinese CP finally give up the neo-liberal reforms and revert to socialism again.

I don't see this happening per se, but there is a rising national-populist mood in China that will be difficult to tamp down. Already the party has thrown Jiang Zemin and his Shanghai Clique overboard (most underreported story of the 'aughts, IMHO) for the Hu/Wen regime and their 'scientific development concept'. There is pressure to go further from people like Bo Xilai that will be difficult to resist.

Similar things are happening in South Africa, as well. Thabo Mbeki: now you see him, now you don't. And now even Zuma is being challenged from the grassroots, as the ANC Youth League and the SACP - mortal enemies - struggle over who can seize the space to his left.

[RadioRaheem84]

I don't see this happening per se, but there is a rising national-populist mood in China that will be difficult to tamp down.

I hope this doesn't translate into blatant Chinese nationalism that has already been present in certain sectors and largely anti-Japanese.

[Proletarian Ultra]

I hope this doesn't translate into blatant Chinese nationalism that has already been present in certain sectors and largely anti-Japanese.

Could go either way ATM.

[danyboy27]

if china become communist in the future, what might happen next will be either a massive revolution worldwide or ww3 with nuclear missiles fucking up humanity real good.

its a dangerous gamble, how far the american corporation will go to protect their interest?

[Adil3tr]

Imperial Capitalist Power, without a doubt

[Rusty Shackleford]

When the CPC was founded it represented the proletariat, the peasantry, the national bourgeoisie and one other group. yes the national bourgeoisie. it was a time of anti imperialism.

There were two tendencies. one was the revolutionary and marxian maoist wing and the other was the reformist "we need to develop capitalism first" Dengist wing. So far, the dengists have successfully fucked the chinese proletariat and brought a huge amount of capital into the country. now those fuckers need to be kicked out.

I really hope the labor movement gets stronger in china.

[RadioRaheem84]

I hope the Left wing of the CPC grows some cojones and kicks out the Dengist sellouts. Things look less grim as they're starting to make demands of the foreign firms. They're awash in capital, enough is enough. How many more billionaires do they need to construct capitalism before crushing it? My view is that the CPC are enjoying their yachts while also wanting to throw the imperialists overboard.

[Invincible Summer]

When the CPC was founded it represented the proletariat, the peasantry, the national bourgeoisie and one other group. yes the national bourgeoisie. it was a time of anti imperialism.

There were two tendencies. one was the revolutionary and marxian maoist wing and the other was the reformist "we need to develop capitalism first" Dengist wing. So far, the dengists have successfully fucked the chinese proletariat and brought a huge amount of capital into the country. now those fuckers need to be kicked out.

I really hope the labor movement gets stronger in china.

This is one problem with the "Bloc of Four Classes" thing, IMO. If the communist wing of the party is not strict enough and the people not involved enough in the party processes, then who's to say how far down the capitalist road the national bourgeoisie will make the nation go?

I fear that China has waited far too long, and I think it may even be too late unless the labour movement really gets a huge kickstart.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'll just repeat (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1814269&postcount=130) what I said in another thread.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I doubt they will ever achieve real socialism and as for their future....definetly an imperial power.I'd be very surprised if they weren't imperialist.

[Queercommie Girl]

Actually I think China is going back to being a semi-colonial country dominated by Western multi-nationals. You guys presume too much power on the part of China. China is still a relatively poor and weak third world country at the moment.

And the superstructure of the People's Republic will face complete dissolution, like what happened in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, if privatisation is not seriously reversed soon. It is an impossibility for a capitalist economic basis to uphold a socialist superstructure, even a completely superficial one.

But China will not become an imperialist capitalist power in its own right. It is too weak for that. China either restores socialism or it will become like one of those Latin American states under US domination.

[Queercommie Girl]

Any "socialist" who still thinks China today is basically on the "healthy road" towards socialism doesn't even deserve the name "socialist". Maybe he/she should jump down from a high building like those Foxconn workers in China did to clear up his/her own head.

[Barry Lyndon]

I'm going to copy what I wrote on a previous thread:

"...defending the PRC as a workers state is a pretty hopeless position. From what I know about China, the PRC hasn't been acting in a remotely socialist manner since the 1970's. If anything, its reverted to a super-exploitative form of state-directed capitalism. I am not a 'state-cappie' Trot or an anarchist, I am very supportive of Cuba and the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, but I draw the line at China. No regime that admits CEO's into its 'Communist' party, has dismantled its universal healthcare and education systems, warehouses children in sweatshops, sides with the bourgeois Indian government against the Maoist rebels, and enabled thousands of children to DIE because schools made out of shoddy construction materials collapsed in an earthquake while the rich kid's schools remained intact, is deserving of mine or any revolutionaries support. Whatever it once was, the PRC is an enemy of the workers today."

[RadioRaheem84]

Well of course as of now the PRC is a capitalist state that is an enemy to the working class. The point of this thread was to ask if anyone here saw any attempts by the PRC to give up the reforms and revert to socialism? While some say no, there is also the working class to think about and what they can do to change things.

[Queercommie Girl]

Well of course as of now the PRC is a capitalist state that is an enemy to the working class. The point of this thread was to ask if anyone here saw any attempts by the PRC to give up the reforms and revert to socialism? While some say no, there is also the working class to think about and what they can do to change things.

The ruling powers in the PRC are now thoroughly bureaucratic-capitalist. Of course, strictly speaking the superficial superstructure of the proletarian state has yet to collapse, but it will probably do so in the not-so-distant future.

There is still a "left-wing" within the CCP itself, represented by bureaucrats like Bo Xilai who has got a very tough hand on corruption. But essentially this "left-wing" only explicitly aims to destroy bureaucratic corruption within China, not actually restoring the planned economy in any meaningful sense. And even this very limited "left-wing" in the CCP has got hardly any real political power at all to enact any kind of changes to present conditions on the national level.

There are also a handful of very small-scale (essentially no larger than a village) "small-socialist" collective communes like Nanjie Village that still exist in the country. These are just little tiny droplets of genuine communism within an entire ocean of degenerate corrupt neo-liberal bureaucratic capitalism.

Technically China today is still a "highly deformed worker's state", but the chances of it restoring socialism within the present structure without some kind of revolutionary movement is virtually completely zero.

[RadioRaheem84]

Great analysis comrade. Yes, I agree that the left wing is really weak within the CPC and it's really based more on fighting corruption and making demands on the foreign firms to not ask for too much.

The whole reformist road is plagued with contradictions. For instance, what is to be done with the growing bourgeoisie class that has grown from the reforms? They aren't just going to give up their wealth. The bureaucrats aren't going to give up their new found wealth either.

I guess the Monthly Review crowd and Minqi Li is right, China is not the key to anything except the demise of the capitalist system and possibly civilization, unless there is a full adoption of socialism by many world governments.

[Queercommie Girl]

China could indeed be the "key" in the sense that the Chinese working class can potentially play the pivotal role to change the entire world.

[RadioRaheem84]

China could indeed be the "key" in the sense that the Chinese working class can potentially play the pivotal role to change the entire world.

:thumbup1: Absolutely. I thought that there was some evidence of the CPC playing a role in rolling back reform and reverting to socialism, but I see this as largely false hope now. It is all about the working classes. I just hope they'l steer clear away from blatant nationalism.

[Queercommie Girl]

There are some genuine socialists still at the lower layers of the CCP, but I can't see them doing anything at this stage. Even just to take power within the party structure, they would need to have a revolutionary movement based on the masses anyway.

[The Hong Se Sun]

I personally think Mao should have never given in to the right wing so much. He should have told them to shut up and kept doing what he was doing. But I guess he loved democracy too much to do that, which is respectable but it caused a lot of problems.


To answer the question though, I think the people of the PRC need to go back and read their little red books and overthrow these clowns who call themselves communist and replace Xiaoping thought with Maoist thought. They need to realize that it was the people of the poor and working class who started and finished the revolution but it has been stolen from them. I think if the government doesn't start to change that the people will rise up and replace them. China was a equal place under Mao with many great things for the average worker and peasant. Now the government has taken everything away as mentioned before, health care, equal schooling have been taken away with other things. I think the people will rise up eventually and overthrow this system in favor for socialism.