The People's Republic of China - Discussion

[Dhul Fiqar]

Hi everyone!

I live in Beijing at the moment, and I'd like to see how people in this community feel about the country and the direction that the PRC government has taken "Socialism with Chinese characteristics".

I'm pretty sure this is the right forum, but I guess it could also reasonably be filed under "Capitalism vs. Socialism" or "Theory", and I'll leave it up to the admins to move it if they want.

Anyway, my personal feeling is that Beijing is generally doing a good job, even though they do spend an uncomfrotable amount of energy on sucking up to other countries. But I'd argue they are employing what I call the "just you wait" policy. The jist of that policy being, that according to many estimates, China only has a couple of decades to go before they are the largest economy in the world. Thus all they have to do is make powerful friends, be careful not to upset anyone for the next few years, and then they can do just about anything they want, and I believe we've already seen them be able to do a lot of things that would have been considered unacceptable by the West a few years ago.

So just you wait, muhahahahahahahaha!!! :D

Ehem, well, anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, well, this is in keeping with the definition of 'diplomacy' that holds that it's: "The art of saying 'niiiiice doggie!' untill you can find a rock."

So, what do you guys think about China in general? Oh, and if anyone has any questions about living here, I'd be more than happy to answer 'em.

--- G. Raven

(Edited by Dhul Fiqar at 3:52 am on April 25, 2002)

[deimos]

i think that the "Chinese way" isn't very good.The country is completely polarized.The rich east, the poor west.Sure, there are some Shanghaiers who are rich, but there are millions who aren't. I think the u$ will find a way to keep the prc down.A civil war or something like that.Or they think that they have to help the tibetans against the chinese.Probably a century after the occupation.Thats the american way!

[revolutionary spirit]

workers weren't involved in the chinese revolution

[Kez]

Whats the policy of private eterprise in china, for exmple in USSR, it was
51% govt, 49 % private , i think when gorbachov came
whats growth rate of China

and also, what kinds of food are there in china apart from usual?

comrade kamo

[Fires of History]

I'm not really sure what I think of China, haven't ever been there. However, I have studied closely 1949 and on, and for the most part it has been a good thing. My main concern is the 'Party,' and it seems that all concerns focus on the survival of the Party, to the detriment of anything else that seems to be not for the Party. I think this will change over time as those that knew Mao personally start to fade into the past. This, to me, will also herald the beginning of the rise of China to the economic powerhouse it has the potential to become.

I totally agree with you about the eventual rise of China, we might as well start learning Mandarin now.

My fear is that the U$, as it begins to lose power and economic might in light of the rise of China, will start a war to stop them. Some lame excuse will be found, and I see a war between the Rising Dragon and a slipping Uncle Sam as inevitable.

I wonder what excuse they'll use...

[kingbee]

i have been 4 times (goin nxt year i hope aswell)- its not communist/socialist- there is an insane amount of mcdonalds in beijing, not to mention kfc and others too. peasants are loosing out, and there have been many demonstartions sayin there wouldnt be the treatment of the workers at the mo under mao.

[honest intellectual]

It seems to me that China is only nominally communist but I've founs it very hard to assess from the outside (same with Cuba or any other country that claims to be communist)

[LeftoverAnimal]

the PRC break human rights all the time and i think it is god damn sick. They use Communism/Socialism as a shield really, but like Russia they are just state Capitalists! I recently sent a letter to the Chinese Government complaining about the ill treatmen of a prisoner of conscience. China is in an appaling state and need a revolution.............but they need a good leader to lead it, not like Chairman Mao. Agood example of the lunacy of the revolution is explained well in the film 'The last Emperor' which is well worth watching.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Hi comrades, and thanks for all the input.
I'll try to answer you in order of your posting.

deimos: While it's true that the country is economically polarized, I've never witnessed anything like the Chinese culture. It's completely all-encompassing and has a unifying factor way beyond religion, and has in fact kept religion from spreading in China. The thousands of years of tradition is really a religion in and of itself. However, it is true that Taiwan share that culture, yet are at ideological odds with Beijing, so you definitely have a point about the precariousness of the situation, especially when America gets involved. It's a real tight-rope they have to walk for the next decade or so.

revolutionary spirit: While some workers were involved in the revolution, a lot more peasants were. Maoism basically holds that peasants are workers, and thus brothers in arms against he exploitative capitalists. This was necessary because China was (and is) a largely agricultural society.


TavereeshKamo: Not sure about the exact percentage, but private enterprise has been on the rise since Deng's 'cat speech', where he said China's economy was a cat and that it didn't matter if the cat was black or white, as long as it caught mice. I'm not sure what to make of that, the guy never sounded very sincere in his socialist beliefs to me.
The growth rate is about 7%, which is fantastic considering it's the third largest economy in the world already. The US government has been secretly questioning this figure, but independent institutions have backed it up.
As for the food, the people in the South will eat ANYTHING, but here in the North we prefer noodles ;)

Firesofhistory:
It's true that the focus is overly Party-centric, but it's more of a Chinese concern than a socialist one. Through the ages, the unity and harmony of the country has been paramount to all matters of government, and they now see the party as the unifier.
I agree that the U$A won't sit idly by while some 'gooks' push them out of their prized position of being the only superpower. I'm afraid they'll go through Taiwan, although militarily it's extremely tricky to stage an invasion from there. Perhaps they won't even go overtly military, because it's basically impossible to capture China without mind boggling casualties on both sides. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but in the meantime I can understand why Beijing doesn't want to make any waves in the relationship.

kingbee: I'm not sure if I agree with measuring socialist influence accordeing to the ammount of KFC and McDonald's franchises, but I wholeheartedly share your disgust in seeing them pervade the landscape here.
As for the treatment of the workers, that's because of WTO requirements, western imposed unrest and inequality. China is required to lay off a lot of people and sell some government-owned businesses, but this requirement overlooks the fact that the employment policy here is heavily based on having far more staff than you need, which is something that's hard to convince private enterprise to carry on with once the state moves out of the 'employment market'.

honestintellectual: It's true that it's very difficult to assess from the outside, especially since China claims to be "communist with Chinese characteristics", which basically means they have some unusual twists on the basic Marx doctrine.

LeftoverAnimal:
I see your sig is by the Dalai Lama, so I take it you're referring to the Tibetan situation. I'm not going to get into debating that, but I feel I must state that Mao was by far the best leader China had ever seen.
As for 'The Last Emperor', it's a nice little western movie, but ultimately just entertainment. The ex-emperor eventually became a self-confessed communist and lived out his days as a common worker, feeling tortured by what the over-indulgence of the old empire had done to his people.
Perhaps you should watch something a little more critical, that is if you insist on basing your views of an entire revolution on movies. And remember, the pre-1949 situation in China was a million times worse than anything that came after it. Sure, a LOT of mistakes have been made, but look at neighbouring countries like India that have had 'democratic' governments and are stuck in a quagmire of poverty and desperation.

--- G. Raven

[revolutionary spirit]

i don't think peasants can be considered workers because at the end of the day they would rather keep to themselves on their own plot of land with their family.Whilst the workers relys on each other on a large scale to live and that is so why Socialism is for the worker.

In China it was a peasant revolution and in Cuba it was more of a middle class one.Only in 1917 was there a worker's revolution and that was as true as a socialist state could be for a number of years

[Dhul Fiqar]

Hmn, I think that statement is a pretty broad generalization of the state of mind of nearly half the world's population (by some estimates).

It's a fact of life that peasants are required in huge numbers to keep nations the size of China well fed, but that doesn't mean they're all loving it. There is now a mass exodus from the countryside to the cities, most of it illegal, which is concerning the government. If they prefer to "keep to themselves in their own plot of land", then why is it so difficult to keep them out of the cities?

I'd say a primitive agrarian village community relies on one another just as much, if not a great deal more, than the workforce of a factory in the city.

But those are just my two Renminbi on the subject :)

--- G. Raven

[revolutionary spirit]

back under mao it was the peasants who were fighting for their little plot of land.Yes china is a large country but so was Russia and it was the workers who took over there and china is nothing to what russia was under lenin.The peasants perfer isolation and if the revolution had spread to other regions in the world the small population of the workers would of been able to maintain the general population


Maybe an agarian village but a city with a metropolis of millions of workers would be the perfered choice of a socialist revolution.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Good points.

However, the revolutions didn't exactly go as planned, Marx expected them to begin in established capitalist societies and then spread to areas like Russia and China later on. I think we have to be a little tolerant of deviation from the plan as layed out originally.

I think the peasantry has been underestimated and over-simplified in the past.

--- G. Raven

[revolutionary spirit]

marx also left it open that a revolution could happen in a backward country and miss out capitalism.

I just don't think you can really call a revolution that was not or is not spear headed by the workers as a communist/socialist state.

[Fires of History]

Revolutionary Spirit said, "I just don't think you can really call a revolution that was not or is not spear headed by the workers as a communist/socialist state."

Peasant farmers aren't 'workers'? Do you need to have worked in a factory to legitimize a 'real' revolution? I think limiting oneself to industrial workers as the only source of 'real' revolution is a narrow view. An agricultural society such as China never had any hope of having the majority of people working in factories.

Keep it up Dhul Fiqar! :)

[revolutionary spirit]

no not just factory workers but workers who rely on other workers from a wide range of other ranges of professions.While the peaseant just relies,if ever,on another farmer.A factory worker relies on a whole host of different people and that's where socialism will excel.

I do believe in Russia only 10% of the population were workers whilst the rest were peaseants,and they would of carried the weight of them if it hadn't been of foreign intervention and a un soviet germany

I just think socialism/communism was made for the worker