Month: May 2023

China’s modernization is directed toward common prosperity for all

In the following article, originally written in early February 2023, our co-editor Keith Bennett argues that whilst modernization is a common aspiration of humanity, China’s course of socialist modernization, which will more than double the number of people living in modernized societies, offers a fundamentally different paradigm to that of the global minority who led the first wave of modernization beginning with the industrial revolution. China’s modernization, Keith argues, “represents something fundamentally new – something that moreover will come to be seen as a trail blazer for the only modernization that is actually comprehensive, equitable and sustainable.”

China’s modernization aims to achieve common prosperity for all whereas, in the developed capitalist countries, “even after hundreds of years, not only does the gap between rich and poor remain, does the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer persist, they are once again being exacerbated and becoming acute.”

And whilst the capitalist countries laid the basis for their development through what Xi Jinping has described as the, “brutal and blood-stained path of enrichment at the expense of others”, a process graphically described by Marx in Volume One of Capital, China is sharing the lessons and opportunities of its socialist modernization through programs such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative.

An abbreviated version of the article was published in the People’s Daily on May 29, 2023.

The process of modernization, as it is generally understood today, essentially began with the development of first Great Britain, and then some other countries in Western Europe, as well as the United States, in the nineteenth century with the industrial revolution. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan became the first non-white nation to join this historical process.

In the contemporary world, the realization of modernization has become a universal aspiration of humanity. Yet it remains a goal attained by just a minority of the world’s population. It is in this context that we must begin to see the significance of Xi Jinping’s statement, in his report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last October that, “from this day forward, the central task” would be to lead the people towards the Second Centenary Goal of “building China into a great modern socialist in all respects”. He explained that this central task entailed:

  • The modernization of a huge population.
  • The modernization of common prosperity for all.
  • The modernization of material and cultural-ethical advancement.
  • The modernization of harmony between humanity and nature.
  • The modernization of peaceful development.

From this five-point summary, one can see that, whilst modernization is a global process and a universal aspiration, it can take and assume radically different forms. So, whilst China’s socialist modernization shares some characteristics with the path trod by western capitalist nations, it has more differences than similarities. It represents something fundamentally new – something that moreover will come to be seen as a trail blazer for the only modernization that is actually comprehensive, equitable and sustainable. The Chinese leader’s thesis on modernization is a significant component of Xi Jinping Thought and as such even a cursory study of its significance will highlight both that it is thoroughly grounded in the scientific socialist tradition and also that it constitutes Marxism for the 21st century.

As already mentioned, so far modernization has only been achieved by a minority of, overwhelmingly white, nations. In terms of scale alone, therefore, China’s modernization will more than double the percentage of the world’s population living in modernized societies. As such, it will profoundly change, and indeed revolutionize, global society and economy, and hence the prospects and possibilities for those nations and peoples still facing existential questions of development. Already, China’s elimination of extreme poverty represents by far the greatest contribution to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG). As Xi Jinping put it in his report to the 19th Party Congress in 2017, socialism with Chinese characteristics “offers a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence.”

The comprehensive and unique character of China’s socialist modernization is further illustrated in Xi’s second point – that it is modernization of common prosperity for all.

As Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping made clear, common prosperity is an intrinsic requirement and essential feature of developed socialism. In the first stage of China’s reform and opening up, Deng Xiaoping elucidated that some people should be allowed to get rich first. The overall effect was to very substantially raise the standard of living and quality of life for the overwhelming majority of the population. However, the inequalities generated went too far and in some instances became quite egregious. This generated problems not simply across the nation as a whole, but also, for example in terms of sometimes glaring regional disparities. Nevertheless, Deng himself was always crystal clear that the purpose of allowing some to get rich first was solely as a step towards the long-term goal of realizing common prosperity for all. And, as complex and tough as that process undoubtedly is, China is now making steady progress in that direction.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the urban-rural wealth gap has kept narrowing ever since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012. In 2021, disposable income in urban areas was 2.5 times that in rural areas, compared with 2.88 times in 2012. This progress was registered after China successfully pulled the remaining 100 million rural residents out of the World Bank’s definition of absolute poverty over the decade since 2012. China has also managed to create the world’s largest social safety net, even if a great deal remains to be done to improve and perfect it. The basic old age insurance program, China’s pension fund system, has expanded since 2012 to cover 1.04 billion people. The coverage of unemployment benefits and work injury insurance also soared, reaching 230 million and 290 million people respectively.

On a world-wide scale, the fact that China’s modernization is modernization of peaceful development is the most fundamental point of all and provides the starkest contrast with the capitalist road to modernization. The basis for this latter was poignantly and succinctly summarized by the founder of scientific socialism in the nineteenth century. In Chapter 31 of Volume One of his most seminal work, Capital, Karl Marx wrote:

“The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation.”

Addressing the Oxford Union in 2015, the Indian politician and writer Shashi Tharoor noted: “India’s share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores was 23%. By the time the British left it was down to 4%. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India. In fact, Britain’s industrial revolution was actually premised on the deindustrialization of India.”

It is this law of capitalist development uncovered by Marx that led Lenin to define as an essential feature of capitalist society the division of the world into a small handful of oppressor nations on the one hand and a great mass of oppressed nations on the other. It is precisely as a result of this division that the majority of humanity has still to achieve modernization.

Yet, the fact that the key developed nations to a great extent built their modernization on the blood and bones of the global majority does not mean that they have been able to achieve common prosperity for all at home. Even after hundreds of years, not only does the gap between rich and poor remain, does the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer persist, they are once again being exacerbated and becoming acute. That is why Britain is currently experiencing a wave of strikes, unprecedented in recent decades, as workers from the most diverse sectors often demand not pay increases in real terms but simply amelioration of the decline in their real wage levels as a result of years of austerity culminating in record inflation. Meanwhile, multimillionaire ministers in the Conservative government are forced to resign when their avoidance of millions of pounds in tax obligations are exposed to the light of day.

Outlining China’s line of march to modernization at the 20th Party Congress, Xi Jinping stressed: “In pursuing modernization, China will not tread the old path of war, colonization, and plunder taken by some countries. That brutal and blood-stained path of enrichment at the expense of others caused great suffering for the people of developing countries. We will stand firmly on the right side of history and on the side of human progress.”

China’s realization of common prosperity for all, its more than doubling of the number of people living in modernized societies, and its contributions to global modernization through such means as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative constitute the path to the realization of humanity’s community of shared future. It is a fundamentally different paradigm for modernization.

Rest in power Comrade Tongogara

Comrade Tongogara (born Danny Morrell), one of Britain’s staunchest and most outspoken supporters of Mao Zedong and friend of socialist China, passed away on May 11 2023. Born in Jamaica, he spent most of his adult life in north London, a life he devoted to the struggle for black liberation, socialism and communism, working tirelessly and supporting every progressive struggle. His belief in Mao’s concept and practice of the mass line made him many friends and comrades across a wide range of revolutionary and progressive organizations and campaigns, among different communities, and people from various walks of life. Alongside Marx, Lenin and Mao, he was equally inspired by the struggles of the Jamaican people, of the African liberation movements and of such African-American revolutionaries as George Jackson.

In 1970, he was a founding member of the Black Unity and Freedom Party (BUFP), whose newspaper was Black Voice. In a paper presented to the 15th Forum of the World Association for Political Economy (WAPE), hosted by Shanghai’s International Studies University in December 2021, the editors of this website cited the BUFP as one of the organizations that, “collectively constituted the mass proletarian base for China friendship and solidarity in Britain.” 

In his last years, Tongogara especially devoted his energies to the Free Mumia Campaign UK, which he launched at a meeting in Brixton, south London, in 2008. One of the most high-profile political prisoners in the United States, Mumia Abu-Jamal, a revolutionary journalist who first joined the Black Panther Party in 1968 at age 14, was originally sentenced to death on trumped up charges in 1982 and has been held in US prison hell holes ever since.

On being informed of Tongogara’s passing, FoSC co-editor Keith Bennett, who had been his friend and comrade since 1976, wrote in part:

“He was a staunch and constant supporter of Mao Zedong and his work embodied and bore testimony to Comrade Mao’s profound and powerful observation that the evil system of colonialism and imperialism arose and throve with the enslavement of black people and the trade in black people, and it will surely come to its end with the complete emancipation of the black people.

“Tongogara’s life and work helped bring that day closer. He will be remembered and honored.”

The below article was originally published in Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and was written by comrades in the Mumia UK Campaign.

`Brother Tongogara (born Danny Morrell) passed away peacefully in Barnet Hospital on Thursday 11 May 2023. Born in Jamaica in 1942 on 6 February (he was proud to share a birthday with Bob Marley), he lived in Tottenham, London, for most of his adult life. A long-time friend and supporter of many campaigns across London and internationally, Comrade Tongogara will be well known to many FRFI readers. He was an untiring campaigner, omnipresent at events such as Africa Liberation Day, May Day, taking political messages to Notting Hill Carnival, picketing the Home Office and outside the BBC for Irish prisoners. He supported the free Leonard Peltier campaign as well as regularly protesting outside the US embassy and the high court.

In 1970 he was a founding member of Black Unity and Freedom Party which later became the African People’s Liberation Organisation in 1998. In the 1990s he supported the work of the Colin Roach Centre in Hackney, campaigning against deaths in police custody and highlighting the racist violence of the state.  He also brought learning to the movement, organising lectures with Caribbean Labour Solidarity, and celebrating Claudia Jones with an annual event. Alongside political action he believed in political study and shared liberation literature, taking books by George Jackson, Karl Marx, Assata Shakur, Mao Tse-Tung and Mumia Abu-Jamal to events and street stalls.

In 2008 he convened a meeting in Brixton to launch the Free Mumia Campaign UK and became an untiring campaigner and spokesperson. He brought many people into the campaign when Mumia was still facing the death penalty and kept the campaign going until the present day. Along with others, Tongogara set the political tone of the campaign which has always been anti-imperialist and anti-racist.

Tongogara took the Free Mumia banner, often alone, far and wide, including outside banks, train stations and Lloyds building in the City of London, demanding the release of Mumia. He was a powerful speaker and a tireless engaging street activist who had the ability to connect people and bring new people into the movement. His kind and principled approach, together with his determination and courage has been an example for many others.

This is a glimpse into the life and legacy of comrade Tongogara. All who knew Brother T can remember with a combination of joy and gratitude what he brought and gave to the struggle for class and race liberation over exemplary decades. May he rest in power.

Africa Day celebrated in Beijing

The 60th Africa Day, inaugurated when the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded in 1963, was celebrated in Beijing on May 25. Joining State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang at the reception were  Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia Demeke Mekonnen Hassen and Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Congo Christophe Lutundula, who were visiting China, as well as the African diplomatic corps.

Qin Gang stressed that, over the past 60 years, China and Africa have offered each other support, sharing weal and woe. No matter how the international situation evolves, China has always been there for Africa. China and Africa enjoy close friendly exchanges, and leaders of the two sides visit each other as often as relatives do. In the last six months alone, four African presidents paid state visits to China, and since the beginning of this year, more than ten African officials above the ministerial level have also visited China.

Being the world’s largest developing country and the continent home to the most developing countries, Qin Gang said, China and Africa need solidarity and cooperation more than ever. Turning to the economic front, he noted, that the two sides have together constructed and commissioned over 10,000 km of railway, nearly 100,000 km of highway, and an array of important infrastructure, including airports, docks, bridges and power plants. China is the first country to explicitly support the African Union (AU) in joining the G20.

Ministers Demeke and Lutundula said that through the common struggle for national liberation and independence, Africa and China have established a profound friendship, with solidarity and mutual trust becoming the cornerstone of the Africa-China partnership. China has made important contributions to Africa’s development and has become the most important partner in Africa’s integration.

The following reports, and Qin Gang’s speech, were first published on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Qin Gang Attends Africa Day Reception

Chinese Foreign Ministry, 25 May 2023

On May 25, 2023, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang attended and addressed the Africa Day reception in Beijing. Also in attendance were Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia Demeke Mekonnen Hassen, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Congo Christophe Lutundula, and diplomatic envoys from various African countries to China.

On behalf of the Chinese government, Qin Gang extended congratulations on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Qin Gang said that the founding of the OAU is an epoch-making event in the history of Africa, and the start of a new chapter of African countries seeking strength and development through unity. At the turn of the century, the African Union (AU) took over the baton, and led African countries forward with bigger strides toward development and revitalization. With continued rise in its international status, Africa has become an important force with global influence. Over the past 60 years, China and Africa offered each other support, sharing weal and woe. No matter how the international situation evolves, China has always been there for Africa. In particular, over the last decade, guided by the principles of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith, and of pursuing the greater good and shared interests in developing China’s relations with Africa put forth by President Xi Jinping, China-Africa relations have been growing with the “acceleration button” on, and entered a fast track toward a new era of a stronger China-Africa community with a shared future. China and Africa enjoy closer friendly exchanges, and leaders of the two sides visit each other as often as relatives do; enjoy ever-deepening win-win cooperation, delivering more benefits to the two peoples; enjoy stronger coordination on international affairs, serving as an important force for international fairness and justice.

Continue reading Africa Day celebrated in Beijing

The G7, economic coercion and the art of projection

In this article for the Morning Star, Carlos Martinez addresses the “stunning hubris and hypocrisy of the imperialist powers” in accusing China of economic coercion. He points out that G7 states are all involved in multiple forms of economic coercion, and that the US is the world’s sanctions superpower, imposing unilateral economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries, affecting literally billions of people.

When it comes to economic coercion, China is not a perpetrator but a victim. Carlos writes: “What is the Trump-Biden trade war against China other than an attempt to use tariffs, sanctions, threats and penalties in order to contain China’s development; in order to force China’s government and companies to change their behaviour in order to better serve the interests of US capitalism rather than the Chinese people?”

The article also addresses the accusations about Chinese “debt traps” in Africa, citing numerous sources debunking this slanderous claim.

THE stunning hubris and hypocrisy of the imperialist powers was on full display in Hiroshima last weekend, with the G7 condemning China for a “disturbing rise” in its “weaponisation of economic vulnerabilities.”

Coercion is, after all, at the heart of what unites the countries of the G7 — a for-us-by-us club of rich nations with a collective interest in maintaining their place at the top of the geopolitical pyramid.

Each member state built its wealth to a significant degree on the basis of colonialism and the exploitation of the land, labour, resources and markets of the global South.

That the G7’s role in global affairs is to bolster the US-led so-called “international rules-based order” is amply confirmed by the 2014 exclusion of Russia following its intervention in Crimea.

Why wasn’t such an extraordinary measure taken in response to the illegal and genocidal war on Iraq? Or in response to the war of regime change against Muammar Gadaffi, during which Nato countries bombed Libya into the stone age?

Any thinking person can understand the basis of this double standard: that G7 membership is predicated on an acceptance of the US-led imperialist system.

Continue reading The G7, economic coercion and the art of projection

China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo expand cooperation

The President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, paid a state visit to China at the invitation of his counterpart, President Xi Jinping, May 24-29. 

Meeting on May 26, the two heads of state announced the elevation of their bilateral relationship from a strategic partnership of win-win cooperation to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

Xi Jinping pointed out that China and the DRC have established a profound traditional friendship in the historical process of striving for national liberation and opposing colonial aggression, and the two countries are strategic partners sharing broad common understandings and working jointly for common progress.

This statement of President Xi carries deep and profound historical content and significance. When the founding father of the DRC, the Pan-Africanist and revolutionary socialist Patrice Lumumba, was murdered by the imperialists and their local stooges in 1961, millions of people across China gathered to express their militant solidarity with the Congolese people and mourn for their slain leader. Premier Zhou Enlai presided over one such gathering of 100,000 people in Beijing’s Workers’ Stadium.

On November 29 1964, when the US and other imperialist powers escalated their overt intervention in the Congo in response to the tenacious resistance of the Congolese people, millions of Chinese again mobilized in solidarity. Mao Zedong, joined by other senior Chinese leaders, including Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen, Dong Biwu and Guo Moro, presided over a mass rally of 700,000 people in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Similar gatherings took place in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xian, Kunming and across the country.

The previous day, Chairman Mao had issued a statement in support of the Congolese people and against US aggression. US imperialism, the Chinese leader noted, had “murdered the Congolese national hero Lumumba, and subverted the lawful Congolese government. It imposed the puppet Tshombe on the Congolese people, and dispatched mercenary troops to suppress the Congolese national liberation movement. And now, in collusion with Belgium and Britain, it is carrying out direct armed intervention in the Congo. In doing this, the purpose of US imperialism is not only to control the Congo, but to also once again enmesh the whole of Africa, particularly the newly independent African countries, in the grip of US neo-colonialism. US aggression has encountered heroic resistance from the Congolese people and aroused the indignation of the people of Africa and the whole world.”

Mao’s statement continued:

“Congolese people, you are not alone in your just struggle. All the Chinese people are with you. All people throughout the world who oppose imperialism are with you… By strengthening national unity and persevering in protracted struggle, the Congolese people will certainly be victorious and US imperialism will certainly be defeated.”

China’s solidarity with the Congolese people’s struggle was not confined to words and gestures. Throughout the 1960s, China rendered significant moral and material support to the armed struggle of the Congolese people against imperialism and neo-colonialism waged by such historic leaders as Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Antoine Gizenga.

Having referred to this history, Xi Jinping went on to say that China has been the largest trading partner and largest source of foreign investment for the DRC for many consecutive years. The successful experience of Chinese modernization shows that developing countries have the right and ability to explore paths to modernization suited to their national conditions. China is ready to work with the DRC to further synergize their development strategies, and to support each other and pursue cooperation for greater development and common progress on their paths to development and revitalization.

Xi Jinping pointed out that China will continue to provide assistance for the economic and social development of the DRC, support the DRC’s industrialization strategy, strengthen cooperation with the DRC in such fields as energy, minerals, agriculture, infrastructure and manufacturing, and further tap into their potential for cooperation in such fields as digital economy, education and health. China is also ready to send agricultural technology experts to the DRC.

Under the current international circumstances, he noted, China and Africa should strengthen solidarity and cooperation more than ever. Both sides should stay committed to the basic norms governing international relations, reject all forms of hegemonism and power politics, oppose interference in other countries’ internal affair, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries.

Having congratulated Xi on his re-election as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and as President of China, President Tshisekedi noted that the friendly cooperation between the DRC and China, having withstood the test of time and achieved fruitful results over the past half a century, deserves to be cherished by both sides. He thanked China for its important help and valuable support for the DRC’s economic and social development over the years, and stressed that the DRC remains firmly committed to the one-China policy and firmly supports China’s efforts to realize national reunification. 

After the talks, the two heads of state jointly witnessed the signing of multiple bilateral cooperation agreements in such areas as investment, green economy and digital economy.

President Tshisekedi also met with other Chinese leaders, including Premier Li Qiang. Premier Li noted that China and the DRC are good friends, partners and brothers, adding that bilateral relations will surely achieve greater development and better benefit the two peoples. For his part, Tshisekedi noted that the DRC highly values cooperation with China and is willing to learn from China’s experience in its leapfrog development.

In the joint statement signed by the two heads of state, China and the DRC agreed to expand cooperation in education, scientific research, health, infrastructure construction, mining, agriculture, digital, environment, sustainable development, hydrocarbon fuels, energy, defense and security, and other fields in line with the interests of both sides.

China reiterated its firm support for the Congolese side in safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, safeguarding its own security and development interests, firmly supporting the Congolese side in steadily advancing major domestic political agendas, firmly supporting the Congolese people in independently choosing a development path suited to their national conditions, and resolutely opposing interference by external forces in the internal affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

They agreed to strengthen cooperation in the field of peace and security, especially closer military exchanges between the two countries, cooperation in personnel training, combating transnational crime, equipment technology, military industry, joint exercises and training.

China will encourage more enterprises to invest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and participate in infrastructure construction in accordance with the relevant plans formulated and recommended by the DRC, so as to help the diversified development and industrialization of the Congolese economy. And it will strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation in agriculture, processing and manufacturing, natural resource exploration, development, and local processing to increase its added value, and support the Congo in achieving independent and sustainable development.

The two sides agreed to regularly evaluate mining cooperation and consolidate relevant cooperation based on the long-term and mutual interests of the two countries. With an attitude of mutual trust, pragmatism and fairness, problems arising in the process of cooperation should be resolved through friendly consultations. China will continue to encourage enterprises to accelerate the implementation of agreed infrastructure projects, strengthen cooperation with the Congolese mining sector, encourage enterprises to participate in investment in the development of the new energy battery value chain, support the upgrading of the industrial chain and enhance independent development capabilities.

They also agreed to deepen high-quality cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. China welcomes the Democratic Republic of the Congo to join the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative. The DRC is willing to strengthen cooperation with China at the bilateral and multilateral levels on the implementation of the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative.

President Xi Jinping was invited to  pay a state visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The specific date will be agreed through diplomatic channels.

Immediately prior and preparatory to the state visit, the DRC’s Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula visited China at the invitation of State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

Qin said that China is willing to help the DRC to turn its resource advantages into a driving engine for economic development, and hopes that the DRC could create a sound business environment and provide security guarantee for Chinese investors, adding that both sides should strengthen solidarity and coordination at the UN and on other multilateral occasions, firmly safeguard the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, safeguard the common interests of developing countries, and jointly develop fairer and more equitable international order and global governance.

Alexis Gisaro Muvuni, DRC’s minister of state for infrastructure and public works, a member of President Tshisekedi’s delegation, in an interview with Xinhua prior to the visit, praised the results of the two countries’ infrastructure cooperation, such as the People’s Palace, home to the National Assembly and the Senate, and the Martyrs Stadium, which can accommodate 80,000 people. The minister said that Chinese companies genuinely support Africa by building infrastructure, including roads and bridges, and bring tangible benefits to the Congolese people.

The following articles were originally carried on the websites of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Xinhua News Agency and People’s Daily. The Joint Statement was machine translated from Chinese and lightly edited by us.

Xi Jinping Holds Talks with DRC President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo

Chinese Foreign Ministry, 26 May 2023

On the afternoon of May 26, 2023, President Xi Jinping held talks at the Great Hall of the People with President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who was in China for a state visit. The two heads of state announced the elevation of the bilateral relationship from a strategic partnership of win-win cooperation to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

Xi Jinping pointed out that China and the DRC have established a profound traditional friendship in the historical process of striving for national liberation and opposing colonial aggression, and the two countries are strategic partners sharing broad common understandings and working jointly for common progress. Xi said in recent years, bilateral cooperation in various fields has yielded fruitful results. China has been the largest trading partner and largest source of foreign investment for the DRC for  many consecutive years, and the two sides have become a close-knit community with shared interests and a shared future. The successful experience of Chinese modernization shows that developing countries have the right and ability to explore paths to modernization suited to their national conditions. China is ready to work with the DRC to further synergize their development strategies, and support each other and pursue cooperation for greater development and common progress on their paths to development and revitalization. Xi Jinping expressed the confidence that China’s high-quality development will create more cooperation opportunities and a broader market for the DRC, and promote greater progress of bilateral relations.

Xi Jinping pointed out that China will continue to provide assistance for the economic and social development of the DRC, support the DRC’s industrialization strategy, strengthen cooperation with the DRC in such fields as energy, minerals, agriculture, infrastructure and manufacturing, and further tap into their potential of cooperation in such fields as digital economy, education and health. China is also ready to send agricultural technology experts to the DRC. China hopes that the DRC will provide policy support and convenient services to Chinese enterprises investing and doing business in the DRC, and foster a fair, just, and safe business environment. China is ready to work with the DRC to strengthen coordination and cooperation in multilateral affairs, jointly practice true multilateralism, and uphold international fairness and justice.

Xi Jinping stressed that China and Africa, being the world’s largest developing country and the continent home to the largest number of developing countries, have always been a community with a shared future. Under the current international circumstances, China and Africa should strengthen solidarity and cooperation more than ever. Both sides should stay committed to carrying on the basic norms governing international relations, reject all forms of hegemonism and power politics, oppose interference in other countries’ internal affair, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries. China firmly supports Africa in pursuing an independent development path and becoming an important pole in the world politically, economically, and culturally. China is ready to create new opportunities for African countries with its own new development, and will work with African brothers to follow through on the outcomes of the Dakar meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, advance the Belt and Road cooperation, support Africa in achieving sustainable development, and jointly build a China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era.

On behalf of the people of the DRC, Tshisekedi once again expressed warm congratulations on the success of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Two Sessions of China, on President Xi Jinping’s re-election as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee and President of China, and on China’s great achievements in the new era under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. He expressed the confidence that China will realize the second centenary goal. Tshisekedi noted that the friendly cooperation between the DRC and China, having withstood the test of time and achieved fruitful results over the past half a century, deserves to be cherished by both sides. He thanked China for its important help and valuable support for the DRC’s economic and social development over the years, and stressed that the DRC remains firmly committed to the one-China policy and firmly supports China’s efforts to realize national reunification. The DRC is ready to work with China to deepen cooperation in such areas as economy, trade, resources, infrastructure and healthcare, enrich the DRC-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, and build a mature, stable and groundbreaking DRC-China relationship for the benefit of the two peoples.

After the talks, the two heads of state jointly witnessed the signing of multiple bilateral cooperation agreements in such areas as investment, green economy and digital economy.

The two sides issued a Joint Statement on Establishing a Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Chinese premier meets with DRC president

Xinhua, 26 May 2023

Chinese Premier Li Qiang met with visiting President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo here on Friday.

Noting that China and the DRC are good friends, partners and brothers, Li said under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, bilateral relations will surely achieve greater development and better benefit the two peoples.

China is willing to further synergize development strategies with the DRC, work for open cooperation that is mutually beneficial, share development opportunities, jointly promote the development and prosperity of the two countries, said the premier.

Li urged efforts to further expand trade and investment cooperation, boost cooperation in such traditional fields as infrastructure construction and mining industry, and actively explore new growth drivers of cooperation in such areas as agriculture, finance, new energy, and cultural and people-to-people exchange.

It is hoped the DRC can provide a fair and just business environment for Chinese enterprises to make investment in the country, and better guarantee the security and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and institutions there, Li said.

China will further enhance unity and cooperation with African countries at large including the DRC, support the implementation of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the economic recovery and sustainable development in Africa after the pandemic, Li added.

Noting the DRC highly values cooperation with China, Tshisekedi said the country is willing to learn from China’s experience in its leapfrog development, further promote bilateral cooperation, consolidate friendship between the two peoples, and jointly respond to climate change and other global challenges.

Joint statement of the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the establishment of a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership

People’s Daily (Chinese), 27 May 2023

At the invitation of President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, paid a state visit to the People’s Republic of China from May 24 to May 29,2023.

During the visit, the two heads of state held talks in a cordial and friendly atmosphere, exchanged in-depth views on China-Congo and China-Africa relations and international and regional issues of common concern, and reached broad and important consensus.

Li Qiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, and Zhao Leji, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, separately met with President Tshisekedi.

The two heads of state said that since the normalization of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1972, the friendship between the two countries has stood the test of time and endured for 51 years, benefiting the two peoples.

The two heads of state expressed satisfaction with this and believed that China-Congo friendship is a common precious wealth of both sides and worthy of continuous strengthening and meticulous safeguarding by both sides. In order to further consolidate political mutual trust and deepen and expand practical cooperation in various fields, the two heads of state announced that their bilateral relations will be upgraded to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

The Congo once again warmly congratulated the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the national parliamentary ‘Two Sessions’ President Tshisekedi warmly congratulated President Xi Jinping on his outstanding leadership of China and his re-election as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and President of the People’s Republic of China.

 The Parties agree that:

(1) We will further give play to the leading role of the head of state diplomacy, maintain the momentum of political dialogue and high-level exchanges between the two countries, and strengthen mutual trust and joint efforts between the two countries;

(2) Further enhance China-Congo relations and expand cooperation to education, scientific research, health, infrastructure construction, mining, agriculture, digital, environment, sustainable development, hydrocarbon fuels, energy, defense and security and other fields in line with the interests of both sides;

(3) To continuously enhance people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, carry out close cultural exchanges and interactions, promote tourism, and consolidate the achievements made in the field of human rights in a spirit of independence and mutual respect;

(4) Maintain consultations to revitalize the mechanism of the Economic and Trade Mixed Commission of the two countries as a powerful framework for planning, promoting and guiding bilateral cooperation, and jointly promote the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership;

(5) Strengthen the exchange of experience, better align the goals of Chinese-style modernization and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and establish a fruitful, innovative, fair, closer and more stable strategic partnership;

(6) Strengthening mutual support on issues involving each other’s core interests is the core essence of China-Congo relations. Here, China reiterates its firm support for the Congolese side in safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, safeguarding its own security and development interests, firmly supporting the Congolese side in steadily advancing major domestic political agendas, firmly supporting the Congolese people in independently choosing a development path suited to their national conditions, and resolutely opposing interference by external forces in the internal affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congolese side reaffirms its firm adherence to the one-China principle, considers Taiwan to be an inalienable part of China, and opposes any words and deeds that undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity;

(7) To support each other in international affairs and defend the international order based on international law and norms governing international relations in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and relevant international conventions;

(8) Strengthen solidarity and cooperation among countries, support true multilateralism, and promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity;

(9) Strengthen cooperation in the field of peace and security, especially closer military exchanges between the two countries, cooperation in personnel training, combating transnational crime, equipment technology, military industry, joint exercises and training. The two sides agreed to strengthen the protection of the security and legitimate rights and interests of citizens and institutions of the other side in their respective territories. China has provided assistance to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the implementation of the Military Planning Law and military capacity building.

(10) Promote cooperation in the field of investment under the framework of the strategic partnership established by the mixed committee, in accordance with market rules and the terms of relevant contracts signed. The two sides are willing to promote the high-quality development of investment cooperation between the two countries in accordance with the principle of marketization and the spirit of the contract. China will encourage more enterprises to invest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and participate in infrastructure construction in accordance with the relevant plans formulated and recommended by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, so as to help the diversified development and industrialization of the Congolese economy. China will help the Congo implement its digital transformation plan, continue to expand investment and financing cooperation with the Congo, strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation in agriculture, processing and manufacturing, natural resource exploration, development, and local processing to increase its added value, and support the Congo in achieving independent and sustainable development. The Congo will further improve the business environment, provide good conditions for Chinese enterprises to operate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and effectively protect their legitimate rights and interests, while Chinese enterprises must abide by the laws and regulations of the Democratic Republic of the Congo;

(11) Regularly evaluate mining cooperation and consolidate relevant cooperation based on the long-term and mutual interests of the two countries. In an attitude of mutual trust, pragmatism and fairness, problems arising in the process of cooperation should be resolved through friendly consultations. China will continue to encourage enterprises to accelerate the implementation of agreed infrastructure projects, strengthen cooperation with Congolese mining, encourage enterprises to participate in investment in the development of the new energy battery value chain, and support the upgrading of the industrial chain and enhance independent development capabilities.

(12) Strengthen consultation and coordination on the affairs of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), highly value the important role of FOCAC in promoting the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Africa, and jointly implement practical cooperation in various fields within the framework of the Dakar Action Plan (2022-2024);

(13) Deepen high-quality cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.

China welcomes the Democratic Republic of the Congo to join the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is willing to strengthen cooperation with China at the bilateral and multilateral levels on the implementation of the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative.

China is highly concerned about the situation in eastern Congo and believes that the countries of the Great Lakes region are a community of shared destiny and security. China calls on all countries concerned to abide by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the Constitution of the African Union and to respect and safeguard the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of member States. China condemns the violence and human rights abuses committed by armed groups, expresses its sympathy to the Congolese people who have suffered from criminal acts, and supports the re-establishment of confidence and peace through the implementation of the Nairobi Process and the Luanda Road Map. China supports the efforts of relevant regional organizations to restore peace and security in eastern Congo. China firmly supports Africans in resolving African issues in African ways and supports and encourages relevant regional organizations and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on the Great Lakes Region to continue to play a constructive role.

China appreciates President Tshisekedi’s insistence on putting “people first” as his policy, as put forward by President Xi Jinping in his people-centered development thinking. President Xi spoke highly of the remarkable achievements made by the Democratic Republic of the Congo under the leadership of President Tshisekedi in advancing the domestic political, economic and social development agenda, safeguarding national security, stability and territorial integrity, and enhancing the country’s international influence. China believes that under the leadership of President Tshisekedi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo will accelerate the realization of peace and stability throughout its territory and rapidly restart economic and social development.

The Congolese side highly appreciates China’s support for projects such as the Central African Culture and Art Center and the Koluvić Vocational and Technical Training School. China will strengthen cooperation with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in vocational and technical education and continue to send medical teams to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The two sides undertake to implement the important consensus reached during the visit and relevant cooperation agreements.

The two sides agreed that the complete success of President Tshisekedi’s visit to China is of great significance to promoting the development of China-Congo relations and promoting the building of a China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era.

President Tshisekedi expressed his heartfelt thanks to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese government and people for the warm and friendly reception extended to his wife and the Congolese delegation during his visit, and invited President Xi Jinping to pay a state visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the specific date to be agreed upon by the diplomatic channels of the two sides.

Chinese FM meets DRC vice PM

Xinhua, 23 May 2023

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Monday met in Beijing with Christophe Lutundula, Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Noting China and the DRC are good friends and brothers that enjoy a time-honored friendship, Qin said China warmly welcomes President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo’s upcoming state visit to China and expects that the two heads of state will make top-level planning and define the strategic direction for the development of China-DRC relations in the next stage.

Qin pointed out that China has been the largest trading partner and source of investment to the DRC for many consecutive years. China will continue to work with the DRC to advance the building of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, implement the consensus under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, and achieve win-win cooperation.

China is willing to help the DRC to turn the resource advantages into a driving engine for its economic development, and hopes that the DRC could create a sound business environment and provide security guarantee for Chinese investors, Qin said.

Qin said both sides should strengthen solidarity and coordination at the UN and other multilateral occasions, firmly safeguard the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, safeguard the common interests of developing countries, and jointly develop fairer and more equitable international order and global governance.

Lutundula thanked China for its important assistance and valuable support to the DRC’s economic and social development over the years, noting that the DRC firmly upholds the one-China policy.

He said that the DRC will promote pragmatic cooperation in various fields and strengthen communication and coordination with China to bring more benefits to the two countries and peoples.

Interview: DRC-China infrastructure cooperation beneficial to Congolese people, says state minister

Xinhua, 25 May 2023

Infrastructure cooperation between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and China has yielded fruitful results and practical benefits for the Congolese people, Alexis Gisaro Muvuni, DRC’s minister of state for infrastructure and public works, has said.

Before the DRC’s President Felix Tshisekedi’s state visit to China from May 24 to 29, Muvuni, a member of the Congolese government delegation, praised the infrastructure cooperation between both countries in an interview with Xinhua.

Since the 1970s, the Chinese government has aided the construction of projects such as the People’s Palace, home to the National Assembly and the Senate, and the Martyrs Stadium, said Muvuni.

“The People’s Palace is the place where major political events take place, while the Martyrs Stadium, which can accommodate 80,000 people, often holds various major events. So these projects testified to the vitality of China-Congo infrastructure cooperation,” he said, adding that the China-aided Haut-Katanga General Demonstration Hospital, which was handed over in 2020, is another example of such cooperation.

According to Muvuni, the China-aided Central African Cultural and Arts Center is the project that excites him the most. The project is considered one of Africa’s most significant China-aided initiatives and is expected to be completed by the year-end.

“This is another flagship project for the cooperation between the two countries,” said Muvuni, adding that he closely follows the art center’s construction progress.

Chinese companies and investors have vigorously promoted bilateral infrastructure cooperation and made concrete contributions to local communities over the years, Muvuni said.

He said that Chinese companies genuinely support Africa by building infrastructure, including roads and bridges, and bringing tangible benefits to the Congolese people.

Muvuni also expects closer commercial exchanges between the two countries to serve the bigger picture of the two economies.

G7 drive to war must be stopped in its tracks

We are very pleased to republish the following article by Robert Griffiths, which originally appeared in the Morning Star, and is a summary of the report he delivered to a recent meeting of the Political Committee of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB).

Noting that the G7 summit of leading imperialist powers, recently held in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, represented a drive to war that must be urgently stopped in its tracks, the General Secretary of the CPB observed that whilst these seven powers – the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada – account for more than half the world’s wealth, they constitute no more than one tenth of the world’s population. The leaders of this global minority met in the city where the US – still the only power to have used nuclear weapons in conflict – murdered some 140,000 people, half the civilian population, on August 6 1945. As Comrade Griffiths states:

“Ever since, it [Hiroshima] has symbolised the struggle for peace and nuclear disarmament against the barbarism of weapons of mass destruction.” However: “All but one of the seven leading capitalist states represented in Hiroshima either possess nuclear weapons (the US, Britain and France) or play host to them (Germany, Italy and Japan).” 

Calling out the hypocrisy of western charges against China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – North Korea), Griffiths observes that, “the US-funded military build-up continues in Taiwan, although the G7 countries still claim to respect the ‘One China’ policy which recognises that Taiwan is as Chinese as the Isle of Wight is English. The US Seventh Fleet and its nuclear-armed submarines with around 900 nuclear warheads patrol the Pacific and Indian oceans and adjoining seas off the coasts of China and North Korea.” The G7 countries all refuse to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which the United Nations voted to adopt in 2017, and which has been signed or ratified by countries, including Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guyana, Bolivia, Palestine, South Africa, Brazil, Ireland, Austria and Malta.

All in all, the CPB General Secretary argues, the decision to hold the G7 meeting in Hiroshima was a “disgusting display of breathtaking hypocrisy, double-speak and dishonesty; a gross insult to the atrocity’s survivors and the bereaved.” Furthermore, the claim that these powers have no intention to “thwart China’s economic progress and development”, he explains, flies in the face of weekly announcements by the US, British and other Western governments blocking or expelling Chinese companies from whole sectors of their economies. 

The G7 summit made clear that the main political, economic and military target of the world’s leading capitalist powers is China, Griffiths explains, going on to state that: “The left, working-class and peace movements ignore these dire danger signals at their – and the planet’s – peril…

“The Doomsday Clock operated by the admirable Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now stands at 90 seconds to midnight — the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.

“Can the Green Party in England and Wales and the SNP [Scottish National Party] still tell the time? Have all the Labour left MPs lost their watches, leaving the time-telling to Jeremy Corbyn? 

“How much longer will trade unions fail to make the connection between low wages, poor services, precarious employment and the massive expansion of Britain’s nuclear weapons arsenal?”

Calling for intensified efforts to build the peace movement, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Stop the War Coalition, the CPB General Secretary concludes by calling on his party to “support the invaluable work of the Friends of Socialist China.”

We also take this opportunity to thank the Communist Party of Britain and Comrade Robert Griffiths for their valuable and much appreciated cooperation and support for our work.

THIS year’s G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, was a far cry from its origins in the informal gathering of four finance ministers convened by the US 50 years ago.

Last weekend’s three-day high-profile event produced a detailed communique and four supplementary statements from the leaders of the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada.

Together, these states account for more than half (at least 53 per cent) of the world’s wealth, between one-third and a half of global production, but no more than one-tenth of the world’s population. 

China is excluded from this club because it does not subscribe to the sovereignty of capitalist market forces. Following the destruction of its socialist system, Russia was a member of what became the G8 from 1997 until — in the wake of the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected president Viktor Yanukovich — it reincorporated Crimea in 2014.

The EU has played a full part in G7 proceedings since 1977, but is classed as a “non-enumerated member.” Whoever thought up that classification deserves a medal. 

Why was Hiroshima chosen to host this year’s G7 summit? 

Continue reading G7 drive to war must be stopped in its tracks

Introducing ‘The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century’

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was interviewed by Sean Blackmon on the Sputnik Radio show By Any Means Necessary about his new book, The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century.

Carlos talks about his motivations for writing the book, the crucial importance of opposing the US-led New Cold War, the necessity for Marxists to understand and defend Chinese socialism, and the ever-contentious question of whether contemporary China is indeed socialist.

The full interview can be viewed on Rumble.

Find out more about the book | Buy the book | Join the book launch on 4 June 2023

Is Japan once again treading the path of aggressive militarism?

We are pleased to publish the below article about the dangers of revived Japanese militarism, and its historical antecedents, which has been submitted to us by James De Burghe, a British socialist long resident in the People’s Republic of China.

James outlines how Shinzo Abe, a former Japanese Prime Minister assassinated in 2022, imbibed far-right, racist and militarist views from his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who had been in charge of economic policy when the Japanese occupied northeast China. Initially imprisoned as a class A war criminal by the American occupation authorities after Japan’s defeat in World War 2, he was soon released in order to play a key part in setting up the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has largely dominated Japanese politics ever since, eventually serving as Prime Minister, 1957-1960.

Abe, who served as Prime Minister from 2006-2007 and again from 2012-2020, followed in the same path as his notorious grandparent, controversially revising school textbooks, declining to apologize for – or even acknowledge – Japanese war crimes, and seeking to repeal or revise Article 9, the supposed ‘peace clause’ of the post-war Japanese constitution.

These revanchist policies are now being pursued with a vengeance under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, leading to fraught relations with Japan’s neighbors, along with increasing resistance from people at home.

There are alarming signs that Japan is once again drifting towards becoming a fascist-led aggressive militaristic state. The legacy of Nobusuke Kishi has borne fruit through the efforts of his grandson, Shinzo Abe, who was Japanese Prime Minister from 2006–2007 and 2012–2020.     

Nobusuke Kishi was the minister who ran Japan’s economic policy in Japanese-occupied Manchuria from 1937 to 1940. He was a convinced supporter of the Yamato race theory that proclaimed Japan as a racially superior nation.  Kishi had nothing but contempt for the Chinese as a people, and he regarded them as “dogs – that need to be trained to obey us without question”. His brutal policies led directly to the deaths of thousands of Chinese civilians forced to work a 120-hour week at gunpoint for meagre food rations. There was no attempt to make working conditions safe, and many slave laborers perished through accidents with molten metals. Thousands more perished from starvation and disease or were executed. Kishi believed there was no point to establishing the rule of law in Manchukuo (as the Japanese called north east China when it was under their occupation) – instead brute force was what was needed to maintain Japanese control.

Continue reading Is Japan once again treading the path of aggressive militarism?

Book launch: The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century

Date Tuesday 6 June
Time7pm Britain / 2pm US Eastern / 11am US Pacific
VenueMarx Memorial Library
London EC1R 0DU
And Zoom
register on eventbrite

The new book by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez, The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century, has been published by Praxis Press. It is currently available to buy on the Praxis Press website in paperback and ePub forms, and will be available more widely from early June.

The book provides a concise, deeply researched and well argued account that China’s remarkable rise can only be understood by acknowledging its socialist past, present and future. Read details and testimonials for the book.

On Tuesday 6 June 2023, at 7pm (Britain), we will be holding a launch for the book, in-person at London’s Marx Memorial Library and online (Zoom and YouTube).

SPEAKERS

  • Carlos Martinez – author
  • Danny Haiphong – author, journalist and broadcaster
  • Rocio Maneiro González – Venezuelan ambassador to the UK
  • Roger McKenzie – International editor, Morning Star
  • Jenny Clegg – author and peace activist
  • Chair: Iris Yau
Register for online or zoom event

Chinese Foreign Ministry: the G7 is undermining peace and development

On Saturday May 20, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded promptly to the anti-China remarks emanating from the Hiroshima Summit of the G7 imperialist bloc.

The spokesperson noted that the communique and other documents adopted at the summit contain comments on the situation in the Taiwan Strait and accusations regarding the East China Sea, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and China’s nuclear power, professed G7 opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo and claims about “economic coercion” that allude to China.

The spokesperson added that while the G7 claims to be “promoting a peaceful, stable and prosperous world,” it is actually, “hindering international peace, undermining regional stability and curbing other countries’ development.”

The statement stressed that resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese. The one-China principle is the solid anchor for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

On “economic coercion”, the spokesperson said the massive unilateral sanctions and acts of “decoupling” and disrupting industrial and supply chains make the US the real coercer that politicizes and weaponizes economic and trade relations, urging the G7 not to become an accomplice in economic coercion.

Noting that China has always pledged itself to ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and always kept its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security, it noted that the people’s republic was the only one among the five recognized nuclear powers to have made such pledges.

Pointing out that the international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world, the statement concludes:

“We urge G7 members to catch up with the trend of the times, focus on addressing the various issues they have at home, stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs, stop containing and bludgeoning other countries, stop creating and stoking bloc confrontation and get back to the right path of dialogue and cooperation.”

The following article was originally published by the Xinhua News Agency.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Saturday made remarks on G7 Hiroshima Summit’s hyping up of China-related issues, urging the countries to stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs.

According to reports, the G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communique and other documents adopted at the G7 Hiroshima Summit contain comments on the situation in the Taiwan Strait and accusations regarding the East China Sea, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and China’s nuclear power, professed G7 opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo and claims about “economic coercion” that allude to China.

The spokesperson said the G7 makes high-sounding claims about “promoting a peaceful, stable and prosperous world,” but what it does is hindering international peace, undermining regional stability and curbing other countries’ development. That simply shows how little international credibility means to the G7.

Despite China’s serious concerns, the G7 used issues concerning China to smear and attack China and brazenly interfere in China’s internal affairs. China strongly deplores and firmly opposes this and has made serious demarches to the summit’s host Japan and other parties concerned, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson stressed that resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese. The one-China principle is the solid anchor for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Noting that the G7 keeps emphasizing cross-Strait peace, and yet says nothing about the need to oppose “Taiwan independence,” the spokesperson said this in effect constitutes connivance and support for “Taiwan independence” forces, and will only result in having a serious impact on cross-Strait peace and stability.

Affairs related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet are purely China’s internal affairs, the spokesperson said, stressing that China firmly opposes interference by any external force in those affairs under the pretext of human rights.

China is a firm defender and contributor to international maritime rule of law, the spokesperson said, adding that the East China Sea and the South China Sea have remained overall stable. Relevant countries need to respect regional countries’ efforts to uphold peace and stability and stop using maritime issues to drive a wedge between regional countries and incite bloc confrontation.

On “economic coercion”, the spokesperson said the massive unilateral sanctions and acts of “decoupling” and disrupting industrial and supply chains make the U.S. the real coercer that politicizes and weaponizes economic and trade relations, urging the G7 not to become an accomplice in economic coercion.

Noting that China is firmly committed to a defensive nuclear strategy, the spokesperson said China has honored its pledge to “no first use” of nuclear weapons and always kept its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security.

China is the only one among the five nuclear weapon states to have made those pledges. China’s position is above board and should not be distorted or denigrated, the spokesperson added.

The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values, still less will it succumb to the rules of exclusive small blocs designed to serve “America-first” and the vested interests of the few, the spokesperson said, urging G7 to reflect on its behavior and change course.

“We urge G7 members to catch up with the trend of the times, focus on addressing the various issues they have at home, stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs, stop containing and bludgeoning other countries, stop creating and stoking bloc confrontation and get back to the right path of dialogue and cooperation,” said the spokesperson.

Interview with Roland Boer on the nature of Chinese socialism

In this very interesting and detailed discussion, Roland Boer and Ben Norton delve into a number of the key issues from Roland’s book Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners. The core of the discussion is around answering the left critique of China’s post-1978 economic reforms: that these constitute a return to capitalism; that Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues were capitalist roaders who sought to overturn socialism via the introduction of market mechanisms.

Roland points out that markets go back thousands of years, long pre-dating capitalism. As such, there’s no equals sign between capitalism and markets; markets existed before capitalism and they can exist after capitalism. The question for socialists is how to use markets within a socialist context; how to use market mechanisms within a framework of an overall planned economy which is directed at meeting the immediate and long-term needs of the people, and preparing the ground for an eventual transition to a classless society.

Roland makes an important distinction between two key aspects of socialism: that of common ownership of the means of production, and liberation of the productive forces. The two do not necessarily always advance in neat and predictable correlation. This is something that is understood by all existing socialist societies – in China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos and the DPRK. Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues understood very well that a high level of the productive forces was a material prerequisite for China’s development of an advanced socialism and ultimately for communism. The whole purpose of the reform process has been to develop China’s productive forces whilst simultaneously pursuing the fundamental socialist objective of improving people’s lives. On both counts, the process has been phenomenally successful.

Ben contrasts the level of development and living standards in India and China, noting that hundreds of millions in India continue to face devastating poverty, while China is responsible for at least 70 percent of all poverty alleviation in the last four decades. He points out that this disparity is primarily a manifestation of the two countries having different social systems.

The two take on a number of other key questions, including the nature of socialist democracy, the treatment of migrant workers, the household responsibility system, corruption, and the consolidation of Marxism in China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.

The video was first posted on Ben’s Geopolitical Economy Report channel.

China marks 33rd national day of assisting disabled persons

On May 21, which marked China’s 33rd national day of assisting people with disabilities, President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to Rehabilitation International, an international organization that was celebrating its centenary in Beijing alongside the China Disabled Persons’ Federation. 

Marking the occasion, President Xi extended his greetings to all people with disabilities, their relatives, and the dedicated personnel serving them across the nation. He also expressed gratitude to all international organizations and people from all walks of life who demonstrate care and support for the cause of empowering people with disabilities in China.

He praised Rehabilitation International for working tirelessly to safeguard the dignity of people with disabilities, protect their rights and improve their well-being.

China pays particular attention to the well-being of people with disabilities, Xi said, noting the country will continue to improve the social security and service systems for them.

The following article was originally published by the Xinhua News Agency.

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the Rehabilitation International Centennial Celebration on Sunday.

On China’s 33rd national day of assisting disabled persons on Sunday, Xi extended his greetings to all individuals with disabilities, their relatives, and the dedicated personnel serving them across the nation. He also expressed gratitude to all international organizations and personages from all walks of life who demonstrate care and support for the cause of empowering people with disabilities in China.

Rehabilitation International is an international organization of great influence in regard to the cause of persons with disabilities, and has worked tirelessly in safeguarding the dignity of such individuals, protecting their rights and improving their well-being, said Xi. He added that China actively supports the organization’s work.

China pays particular attention to the well-being of people with disabilities in the country, Xi said, noting the country will continue to improve the social security and service systems for these people and promote the all-around development of relevant programs.

China is willing to join hands with all countries worldwide to promote international exchanges and cooperation on disability, and continue improving the health and well-being of humankind, Xi said.

Hosted by Rehabilitation International and organized by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation, the centennial celebrations of Rehabilitation International kicked off in Beijing on Sunday.

Xi Jinping’s keynote speech at China-Central Asia Summit

The Presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan joined Chinese President Xi Jinping in the northwestern Chinese city of Xi’an, starting point of the historic Silk Road, for the first in-person summit between China and Central Asia on May 18-19. Around the summit, the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan also paid state visits to China. The President of Turkmenistan already paid a state visit to China in the first week of January.

Among the numerous agreements reached at both the summit and associated bilateral events, when the six heads of state jointly met the press, having concluded their deliberations, they officially inaugurated the China-Central Asia Summit Mechanism. They have agreed to meet biennially, with the venue to be rotated among the participating countries. The next summit will be hosted by Kazakhstan in 2025. And a Permanent Secretariat for the Mechanism is to be established in China.

President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech to the summit on May 19. The Chinese leader cited Xi’an as the starting point of the ancient Silk Road and recalled the ‘journey to the west’ by Han dynasty envoy Zhang Qian more than 2,100 years ago.

Outlining some practical achievements since he first proposed the joint building of a Silk Road Economic Belt in 2013, during his first visit to Central Asia as President, Xi went on to note four global necessities related to Central Asia at the present time:

  • The world needs a stable Central Asia. The sovereignty, security, independence and territorial integrity of Central Asian countries must be upheld.
  • The world needs a prosperous Central Asia. A dynamic and prospering Central Asia will help people in the region achieve their aspiration for a better life.
  • The world needs a harmonious Central Asia. Ethnic conflicts, religious strife, and cultural estrangement are not the defining feature of the region. No one has the right to sow discord or stoke confrontation in the region, let alone seek selfish political interests.
  • The world needs an interconnected Central Asia. With its unique geographical advantages, the region has the right foundation, condition and capability to become an important connectivity hub of Eurasia.

In building a China-Central Asia community with a shared future, Xi stressed the need to stay committed to four principles:

  • Mutual Assistance: Always give each other unequivocal and strong support on issues concerning our core interests such as sovereignty, independence, national dignity, and long-term development. 
  • Common Development: To forge new drivers of growth in finance, agriculture, poverty reduction, green and low-carbon development, medical service, health, and digital innovation.
  • Universal Security: Stand firm against external attempts to interfere in domestic affairs of regional countries or instigate color revolutions. 
  • Everlasting Friendship: Carry forward our traditional friendship, and enhance people-to-people exchanges. 

Identifying eight key tasks, Xi stressed the need to:

  • Strengthen institutional building.
  • Expand economic and trade ties.
  • Deepen connectivity.
  • Expand energy cooperation.
  • Promote green innovation.
  • Enhance capabilities for development, including through poverty reduction, utilizing science and technology, vocational education and local job creation.
  • Strengthen dialogue between civilizations.
  • Safeguard peace in the region.

We reprint below the full text of President Xi Jinping’s speech. It was originally carried by the Xinhua News Agency.

Working Together for a China-Central Asia Community with a Shared Future Featuring Mutual Assistance, Common Development, Universal Security, and Everlasting Friendship

Keynote Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping
President of the People’s Republic of China
At the China-Central Asia Summit

19 May 2023

Distinguished Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Friends,

I’d like to welcome you all to Xi’an for the China-Central Asia Summit to explore together ways for closer cooperation between China and the five Central Asian countries.

Continue reading Xi Jinping’s keynote speech at China-Central Asia Summit

CGTN interview with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the President of Kazakhstan, arrived in the Chinese city of Xi’an on May 17, for a state visit to China and also to attend the first in person summit of the heads of state of China and the five countries of Central Asia. This will be held in the northwest city, that was the starting of the original silk road that linked China with Central Asia many centuries ago, on May 18-19.

Holding talks with President Xi Jinping shortly after his arrival, the Chinese leader wished Tokayev a happy birthday, noting that he turned 70 this very day. He pointed out that Tokayev’s state visit to China on this special occasion speaks volumes about the strength of the bilateral ties and once again attests to his unique bond with China. China and Kazakhstan are trustworthy good friends, good brothers and good partners, he added.

Shortly before he left for China, Tokayev gave an interview to Wang Guan from CGTN’s Leaders Talk series in the Kazakh capital, Astana. 

President Tokayev explains that, as a country at the center of Eurasia, Kazakhstan should be a territory of peace and friendship. (Although not mentioned in this interview, Kazakhstan’s hosting of several rounds of Syrian peace talks would be a good example of this aspiration.) The country should have as many friends as possible, first of all with its immediate neighbous, and should pursue a balanced, multi-directional foreign policy. 

Recalling meetings with his Chinese counterpart, Tokayev describes Xi Jinping as a great leader, for whom he has great respect and who is leading China to a bright future. He expresses support for the concept of a community of shared future and the global initiatives on security, development and civilizations, adding that they contribute positively to the necessary work of building a world free of discrimination, sanctions and pressure. 

Noting that both Kazakhstan and China are Asian countries, Tokayev insists that it is therefore senseless to conflate modernization with westernization. “We have our own way,” which involves learning anything that is useful, but which does not allow any interference in internal affairs.  He expressed strong support for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which Xi Jinping first proposed 10 years ago during a state visit to Kazakhstan. 

Kazakhstan is to assume the role of chair and host country of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) later this year, following the summit to be held in the Indian capital, New Delhi. Tokayev, who, as Kazakh Foreign Minister, attended the group’s founding meeting in Shanghai in 1996, describes the SCO as a unique body with a diversified agenda, which does not confine itself to security and military issues only, but also applies itself to economic, investment, cultural and other matters.

Tokayev rejects any move aimed at antagonizing, containing or decoupling from China, noting that the neighboring country has never caused any harm to Kazakhstan in history. He is crystal clear about Taiwan, noting that it is a part of China and that China will, of course, eventually be reunified. The principle of the territorial integrity of all states is fixed in the United Nations Charter and must be respected. 

The Kazakh leader, as his interviewer notes, is today one of the very few world leaders who speaks fluent Chinese. He lived in China for nearly eight years, starting as a student in 1983. Kazakhstan was at that time a part of the Soviet Union and China and the Soviet Union were just then starting to repair and resume their relations after a period of bitter estrangement. Tokayev was therefore a pioneer and icebreaker. Shortly after completing his studies in 1984, he returned to Beijing and served as a diplomat in the Soviet Embassy until 1991. 

Tokayev describes his period studying in Beijing as one of the best times in his life and fondly recalls his university teacher after Wang Guan presents him with his video message. Switching to Chinese, Tokayev says that China and Kazakhstan are reliable partners who support each other’s development and all weather friends. Asked to name his favorite Chinese writer, he cites Lu Xun, who Mao Zedong described as, “not only a great man of letters but a great thinker and revolutionary.”

The full interview is embedded below.

G7’s coercion claim against China slammed as ‘absurd’

In the following article, originally carried on China Daily, Chen Weihua deconstructs and ridicules the claim – expected to appear in the statement arising from this weekend’s G7 Summit – that China is engaged in ‘economic coercion’.

Chen Weihua includes observations from a number of commentators, including Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez, that it is in fact the US and its allies that are the world leaders in economic coercion. As Carlos states, “the G7 states are all involved in multiple forms of economic coercion, and to accuse China of doing so is hypocritical in the extreme.”

Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs comments: “The report that the G7 may call out China’s economic coercion is hypocritical given that the US is by far the world’s biggest deployer of unilateral coercive measures.”

The United States and its Western allies have been the major perpetrators of economic coercion that have inflicted suffering on millions of people around the world, according to international experts and scholars.

G7 leaders meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, from Friday to Sunday are set to issue a statement that includes their concerns about alleged economic coercion by China, Reuters reported, citing unnamed US officials.

“The report that the G7 may call out China’s economic coercion is hypocritical given that the US is by far the world’s biggest deployer of unilateral coercive measures,” said Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist who served as a special adviser to the UN secretary-general from 2001 to 2018.

Research by Francisco Rodriguez, a professor at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies, has found that economic coercion by the US, the European Union and other Western allies has devastated vulnerable groups in targeted countries and degraded living standards.

He reports that 30 of 32 studies on the effects of economic sanctions by the US and others found that they had negative effects on outcomes including per capita income, poverty, inequality, mortality and human rights.

In the cases of Iran, Afghanistan and Venezuela, sanctions that restricted government access to foreign exchanges affected the ability of those states to provide essential public goods and services, and had substantial negative spillovers on private sector and nongovernmental actors, according to the research published online on May 4 by the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Better approach

“Rather than accusing China of what the G7 itself does, a much better approach by the G7 would be to call for discussions with China so that all countries ensure that economic and trade measures are compatible with the UN Charter and World Trade Organization rules,” Sachs said.

He said the G7 represents a group of wealthy countries allied with the US that accounts for 10 percent of the global population and 31 percent of global GDP at international prices. By comparison, BRICS — a bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — represent 40 percent and 32 percent respectively.

“The G20, which brings the two (G7 and BRICS) together and others, is a much more representative grouping,” he said, adding that the G20 should be expanded to include the African Union to increase representation.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said on Jan 11 at the inauguration of the headquarters of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that China was the first country to support the AU in joining the G20 and will encourage G20 members to take robust steps to support a greater role for the AU and African countries in the global governance system.

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, warned on Friday that “hostile” US policy risks splitting the world into two blocs. He urged the West to offer investment not “lectures” to developing countries.

“It would be a good idea … for the other G7 countries to try to put pressure on the United States and say, what you’re doing is forming the world into two blocs, and that will be hard,” he told the Agence France-Presse on the sidelines of the G7 ministerial talks in Japan.

Stiglitz warned that competition between US Democrats and Republicans to look tough on China could undermine international action on climate change and other global crises.

Carlos Martinez, co-editor of Friends of Socialist China, a London-based platform, echoed Sachs by saying that “any accusation of Chinese economic coercion is beyond absurd”.

“The US is by far the global leader in unilateral sanctions,” he said, citing the cases of Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and China.

Martinez added that the US has been using the role of the dollar in the global economy to apply long-arm jurisdiction, forcing third parties to go along with its sanctions regime.

“The G7 states are all involved in multiple forms of economic coercion, and to accuse China of doing so is hypocritical in the extreme,” he said.

Report on Eritrean president’s state visit to China

The President of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, paid a state visit to China, beginning on May 14. The visit was, in part, timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Eritrea’s independence, which falls this May 24. The very same day is also the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Eritrea.

Although the two countries formally established relations on the day of Eritrea’s independence, their ties go much farther back, not least as China actively supported the Eritrean people during the protracted armed struggle they waged to win their national independence and liberation. President Afwerki himself came to China in 1967 as one of a group of young Eritrean revolutionaries to receive military and political training at a military academy in Nanjing. This period was formative to his later leadership of the liberation struggle and the building of a new society. Over the years, the Nanjing academy provided training to freedom fighters from many African countries engaged in armed national liberation struggles against imperialism, colonialism and racism and later to promote the development of armed forces of the continent’s newly independent countries.

Meeting President Afwerki on May 15, President Xi Jinping praised him as “a senior African leader and an old friend of China. Just now, on your way here [referring to their moving from the welcoming ceremony in Tiananmen Square to talks in the Great Hall of the People], you talked about your experience in China and your deep feelings towards China.”

Noting that China and Eritrea share a deep traditional friendship, Xi continued to note that in the face of the current international situation, which is full of instability and uncertainty, developing a sound China-Eritrea relationship not only serves the common and long-term interests of the two countries, but is also of great significance to safeguarding regional peace and international fairness and justice. China is ready to work with Eritrea to deepen a close and friendly relationship between the two countries as friends and comrades.

Xi Jinping emphasized that China appreciates Eritrea’s long-standing adherence to an independent foreign policy, firmly supports Eritrea in exploring a development path suited to its national conditions, firmly supports Eritrea in safeguarding its sovereignty, security and development interests, and opposes external interference in Eritrea’s internal affairs and the imposition of unilateral sanctions. China is ready to share experience with Eritrea on national governance, continue to support each other, jointly oppose unilateralism and bullying, and safeguard the common interests of the two countries and the vast number of other developing countries. The Chinese leader also thanked Eritrea for providing support and assistance to China during its recent evacuation of Chinese citizens in Sudan, which again demonstrated the profound friendship between the two countries of sharing weal and woe and helping each other in difficulties.

For his part, Isaias Afwerki began by referring again to the support that China had extended to the struggle of the Eritrean people for independence and expressed his “profound gratitude” to the Communist Party of China. Whilst 30 years of diplomatic relations are being celebrated, practical strategic ties of friendship and cooperation began in earnest 60 years ago. He spoke of his special bond with China that has lasted for over half a century, and said that the Eritrean people will never forget the precious mental and material support the Chinese people provided for Eritrea’s independence and liberation. China is a great country. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the country has grown from a poor and backward country into a major country in the world, making outstanding contributions to peace and development of humanity. China has always held the moral high ground, put forward its own solutions to global challenges, upheld international fairness and justice, and encouraged developing countries seeking independence and development. Any attempt to contain or suppress China’s development is bound to fail. The evolution of the international order is at a critical stage, and African countries still face hegemonism and various unfair and unjust treatment. The international community expects and believes that China will make greater contributions to human development and progress and international fairness and justice. Eritrea hopes to strengthen cooperation with China and believes that Eritrea-China strategic partnership will help Eritrea achieve national economic and social development.

Earlier that day, Afwerki had also met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Li pointed out that the two sides should further synergize their economic and social development strategies and strengthen exchanges on formulating industrial development plans, building industrial parks and supporting the development of key industries. Both sides should deepen cooperation in infrastructure, marine fisheries, water resources and energy and mineral resources development, and foster new highlights of cooperation in such areas as digital economy, green economy and blue economy. China will continue to provide assistance for Eritrea’s economic and social development to the best of its ability.

President Afwerki said that the Eritrean side appreciates China’s firm support for Eritrea’s independence and development and highly applauds China’s important contribution to maintaining world peace and opening up a new path for the modernization of humanity. Eritrea is ready to step up friendly cooperation with China, draw on China’s experience, promote further development of the Eritrea-China strategic partnership, write a new chapter in the Africa-China friendship, jointly oppose hegemonism, and join hands to build a more equitable and just international order.

The below reports on the two meetings were originally carried on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. For background information, we also reproduce below an interview with China’s Ambassador to Eritrea Cai Ge, originally carried by ChinAfrica, which is published under the auspices of Beijing Review.

Ambassador Cai refers to Sino-Eritrean large-scale cooperation in gold, polymetallic and potash mining, as well as in telecommunications, heavy equipment and infrastructure. He notes that China has been Eritrea’s top trading partner, largest source of investment and top contractor for years. The two countries also cooperate closely in health, agriculture, education and culture. As of 2022, China has sent 275 doctors to Eritrea in 15 groups and also built the country’s largest hospital. In terms of cultural cooperation, he notes that the Chinese TV drama Minning Town has been broadcast on Eritrean national television. This series has been immensely popular in China for its inspiring but gritty and realistic depiction of a community rising out of poverty. It tells the story of villagers from the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, who migrated and built Minning Town from scratch on the edge of the Gobi desert, with help coming in time from counterparts in the more prosperous province of Fujian. All 23 episodes, with English subtitles, are available to watch on YouTube.

In summary, Ambassador Cai notes that: “The China-Eritrea partnership, which is based on similar historical experiences and shared values and has its roots in mutual support in revolutions and national construction, has been strengthened over time. Both countries uphold an independent foreign policy and multilateralism, oppose hegemony and hegemonic acts, advocate the right of all countries to choose their own path of development, insist that African issues should be solved by Africans through African means, and object [to] interference in internal affairs.”

Continue reading Report on Eritrean president’s state visit to China

New book: The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century

We are pleased to announce that the new book by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez, The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century, has been published by Praxis Press. It is currently available to buy on the Praxis Press website in paperback and ePub forms, and will be available more widely from early June.

Description

China provides a powerful living example of what can be achieved under a socialist system; by a Marxist-led government firmly grounded among the people. The East is Still Red explains the escalating hostility by the imperialist powers towards China and clears up various popular misconceptions.

All available evidence indicates that not only is the Communist Party of China committed to Marxism, but it is a leading force for the development and enhancement of Marxism in the 21st century.

If the first century of human experience of building socialism teaches us anything, it is that the road from capitalism to socialism is a long and complicated one, and that ‘actually existing socialism’ varies enormously according to time, place and circumstances. China is building a form of socialism that suits its conditions, using the means it has at its disposal, in the extraordinarily challenging circumstances of global imperialist hegemony.

Carlos Martinez provides a concise, deeply researched and well argued account that China’s remarkable rise can only be understood by acknowledging its socialist past, present and future.

Continue reading New book: The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century

Aukus might create jobs – but at what cost?

This article by Jenny Clegg, originally published in the Morning Star, discusses the recent announcement by Britain’s Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU) that it welcomes the Aukus trilateral security deal on the grounds that it will ostensibly create thousands of well-paid jobs for British engineers.

Jenny points out that, even on the basis of purely economic calculations, directing Britain’s advanced engineering sector towards a project like Aukus is utterly self-defeating. It will adversely affect ties with China – trade with which is connected to orders of magnitude more jobs than Aukus is. Furthermore, it means divesting from far more promising and worthwhile projects, particularly in relation to preventing climate breakdown.

Aukus is part of an escalating US-led drive to war against China, and what’s more it violates the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It is patently foolish for Britain to attach itself to such a project, and particularly so for the British working class. Jenny asks of CSEU members: “Do they want to be building a world of conflict, tension and destabilisation for decades to come? Is that the kind of future they envisage for their children and grandchildren?”

THE Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU) has welcomed the benefits of Aukus, creating thousands of well-paid jobs, securing thousands more across the supply chains for years to come.

But what about the costs?

Within Britain’s constrained budgets, creating one job in the defence sector means cutting significantly more jobs — quite possibly those of trade union members — in sectors, for example, that provide for social welfare.

The £3 billion defence spending increase recently announced by PM Rishi Sunak to go on supporting the delivery of Aukus is enough to pay the junior doctors’ claims in full one-and-a-half times over. And it is just the start.

The benefits to the supply chain might not be that great either since over a third of MoD supplies are purchased from overseas.

The reactors to power the Aukus submarines are to be built by Rolls-Royce in Derby using weapons-grade highly enriched uranium.

Thousands of jobs will be created, yes, but these vessels are for war-fighting so this will breach the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) stipulation that the exchange of nuclear technology must be “for peaceful purposes.”

This also violates the spirit of the Nuclear Weapon Free Zones of the south Pacific and south-east Asia. There, the expanding authority of the Anglosphere is not something that is welcomed.

It goes against hopes to make the region a zone of peace, instead increasing the likelihood of regional nuclear proliferation and an escalating arms race.

A recent meeting of former Pacific leaders raised complaints about the “staggering” amount of money committed to Aukus which “flies in the face of Pacific Islands countries … crying out for climate change support,” the “threat … challenging our future existence,” they said, “is not China but climate change.”

The gross overexpansion of Britain’s military industrial base is to prepare for war with China. But China has not fought a war for 40 years; it maintains a defensive military posture with just one overseas base and only a small nuclear arsenal kept under “no first use.” By treating China as the enemy, Aukus will surely turn it into one.

China in fact is Britain’s fourth-largest trading partner; economic links have generated at least 150,000 jobs across the country and there is great potential for this to grow.

Not long ago Chinese companies stepped in to help in the rescue of Jaguar Land Rover and saved 3,000 jobs at British Steel.

Why put all this at risk? China should be seen as an opportunity not a threat.

By the time the submarines become operational in the 2040s, the world will be massively transformed.

The emerging markets of the Brics countries already exceed the G7 in economic size and will easily double this in 20 years.

A paradigm shift is under way as these rising powers reset world agendas — it is their priorities on climate change, health and tackling poverty that are now driving the world economy.

Yet Britain continues on the path of disproportionate military influence even as it drops out of the world’s top 10 economies in the coming years.

The CSEU is working with the Australian engineering unions, yet the Australian Council of Trade Unions (Actu), which brings together 36 trade unions, has not endorsed the pact and maintains its backing of Australia’s nuclear-free defence policy.

To support the huge Aukus military expansion, the Australian taxpayer will pay on average US$6bn per year for the next 30 years — a whacking total of US$245bn.

To secure Britain’s high-skilled base requires long-term contracts but the MoD’s seemingly easy solution stokes more problems for the future: the more that is invested in arms production, the harder it is to reverse — the end of a contract means thousands of jobs are at stake and the chase for investment becomes endless.

The British government has just spent over £6bn on the two aircraft carriers, now one is being mothballed. How many more white elephants are planned?

The CSEU needs to think again. Instead of delivering the labour movement into the pockets of BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, instead of driving China onto a war-footing, it should inform its members of the implications of the scheme.

It should ask them: do they want to be building a world of conflict, tension and destabilisation for decades to come? Is that the kind of future they envisage for their children and grandchildren?

We are nowhere close to having sufficient green skills to deliver the green transition globally — the CSEU should be encouraging apprentices to hone their skills for a green future; and it should get creative and set up teams of members to come up with alternative ideas not least to serve the new agendas and growing markets of the global South.

People in Britain can only rely now on skilled engineers to ensure the economy remains relevant in the coming decades. Politicians are failing us — it is up to the unions to envisage a different future for the country and to see that Britain’s advanced engineering is put to good use in a vastly changing world.

Liu Liangmo: China’s anti-imperialist, anti-racist, Christian revolutionary

We are pleased to republish the following article on the revolutionary life of Liu Liangmo (1909-1988), a Chinese anti-imperialist, progressive Christian, and pioneer of solidarity between the African-American people and the Chinese revolution. Written by Eugene Puryear, it was originally published by Liberation School, an initiative of the US Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). As Comrade Puryear explains:

“While excavating this history is important in its own right, it is even more so because the promise and the contradictions of these wartime attempts to build unity among the exploited and oppressed hold important lessons for our own time.” 

Liu’s political activity began with the progressive cultural circles in Shanghai linked to the underground Chinese Communist Party, where he pioneered the use of mass singing of patriotic and anti-imperialist songs as a means of popular mobilization.

In 1940, he left China for the United States to work with United China Relief, which worked to build support for the Chinese people’s resistance to Japanese aggression, as an arm of the united front that had been re-established between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang. Once in the United States, his interest in cultural work inevitably and rapidly drew him into a close association and friendship with Paul Robeson, with whose work he had already become familiar before leaving China. 

Liu began writing regularly for the progressive black press in the United States. In 1942, he reported on a New York rally, also attended by Claudia Jones, demanding the opening of a Second Front in western Europe, at a time when the Soviet people were heroically resisting the Nazis at Stalingrad. Clearly linking this demand to the struggle for the liberation of oppressed people everywhere, he wrote:

“Forty thousand New Yorkers … attended the Second Front rally at Union Square… I was very much interested in the placards which people carried … the most outstanding ones are: ‘Smash Race Discrimination,’ ‘Equal Rights to Negroes NOW!’ and ‘Free India NOW!… It is interesting to me because it clearly demonstrated the inter-relationship of these problems … the reactionaries and Tories don’t want to see Soviet Russia win; neither do they want India to be free, nor Negro people to have equal rights so they delay the opening of a Second Front, they delay in giving freedom to India, and they keep on Jim-Crowing the Negro people in this country. But the people of the world black and white and brown together demand that: a Second Front be opened in Europe NOW; Free India NOW; Equal rights to Negroes NOW.” 

Liu returned to China after liberation and the founding of the People’s Republic, but his work and example undoubtedly helped to lay important foundations for ensuing decades of collaboration and solidarity between the black liberation movement and socialist China. Mentioning a number of key people who contributed to this, Puryear writes: 

“Harry Belafonte would tell Paul Robeson’s confidante Helen Rosen of his fascination with New China: ‘When Alassane Diop, Guinea’s former Minister of Communications, came back from a visit to the new China in the early 50s, he told me that the city of Shanghai was clean and beautiful, that its citizens had a decency and spirit unequaled anywhere else in the world. I asked myself how a nation devastated by war and riddled with hunger, disease, and illiteracy was able to order the lives of 800 million citizens. I erupted into an insatiable curiosity about China.'”

The great singer, actor and lifelong progressive activist and freedom fighter, Harry Belafonte, passed away this April 25th at the age of 96.

A second article by Puryear sets out the author’s view of the communist movement’s popular front policy, with particular reference to Liu’s work in the United States.

Introduction

Liu Liangmo (1909-1988) was a prominent Chinese anti-imperialist, religious leader and, from 1942-1945, columnist for the Pittsburgh Courier—at that time the nation’s widest circulating Black newspaper. Liu’s columns (and actions as an organizer) were a significant part of efforts by progressive Chinese people, on the mainland and in the diaspora, to build alliances with the Black Liberation movement as part of a broader effort to shape the post-war world.

His words linked the causes of ending colonialism, imperialism, and race discrimination—from the Yangtze to the Ganges to the Mississippi—mirroring the words and actions of millions of others involved in similarly-minded struggles around the world, including Liu’s favorite U.S. singer: Paul Robeson.

Liu’s columns represent the efforts of Communist and aligned currents to turn the allied effort in the favor of the exploited and the oppressed. This was counteracted in the so-called “Cold War,” as imperialist forces worked to make the world “safe for capitalism” in the wake of the World War II.

His columns and activities offer interesting insight into the struggle within the “Second United Front” in China between the Nationalist Kuomintang and the Communists during the Second World War and their differing approaches to the post-war world: whether China should be an anti-colonial vanguard or seek inclusion in the imperialist “great power” club. The “Nationalist” Chinese government’s chose the latter, heavily impacting their approach to racism in the US.

On the other side, the nascent global left-wing coalition hoped to use the new leverage the war created: notably the curtailing of the anti-Bolshevik crusade and the embrace of the USSR as an ally, the attendant rise in the prestige of communism, and the need to mobilize colonial and all resources on the U.S. home-front. This leverage opened some space for the first legal labor and political organizations in colonial Africa and the Black Liberation movement in the U.S. Also critical was the importance of India and China to the overall allied effort against Germany, Italy, and Japan; to end colonialism, Jim Crow, and the old imperialism.

Continue reading Liu Liangmo: China’s anti-imperialist, anti-racist, Christian revolutionary

Interview: China is governed in the interests of working people, the US in the interests of capital

In this interview with Global Times, Sara Flounders – a contributing editor to Workers World and a member of our advisory group – shares her analysis of the escalating New Cold War and the US’s global hegemonic project. Comparing the West’s approach of war, sanctions, coercion and destabilisation with China’s vision of a human community with a shared future, Sara observes:

The very concept of shared future and cooperation has a profound impact. It’s not threatening to other countries, and it has the win-win idea, meaning if your economy is growing and our economy is growing, that’s better for both of us. That’s the basis of building further and deeper trust.

Sara points out that the differing approaches to international and domestic politics taken by the US and China can ultimately be explained by their differing social systems. In socialist China, the government operates in the interests of working people, whereas “the political parties in the US operate in the interests of the top corporations and banks.”

The interview concludes with a note of caution: with US hegemony in decline, the US ruling class is hitting out in all directions in a bid to prevent that decline. “It’s a very dangerous juncture, because this is very threatening to US imperialism and we have to be prepared what they will do to try to preserve their role.” The situation calls for maximum unity of the global working class and oppressed nations, to defend our collective interests and press ahead to a multipolar future free from imperialism.

GT: The Russia-Ukraine conflict has dragged on for more than a year. What lessons can the world draw from this conflict?

Flounders: Hopefully, they will draw the conclusion not to go along with US provocations, intentional disruptions, and efforts to create crisis.

Now, out of this war in the past year, Russia has not only survived economically, its currency and its trade with the Global South have been reinforced and are stronger today. However, for the EU, they’re in a much weaker position. We shouldn’t forget that even though they are US allies, they are also competitors. The euro is now weaker than the dollar, the war has benefited the US and yet has been very harmful for all of the EU countries that went along with the war.

I think countries around the world will draw their conclusions. Do they want to be roped into this? Especially in Asia, who can US imperialism rope in in terms of their own sovereignty? Who can resist the US pressure?

GT: Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen was in California and met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. While the US contains Russia through the Ukraine war in Europe, does it also want to provoke a war in the Taiwan Strait to contain China?

Flounders: This meeting was a direct and intentional violation of signed agreements that the US has made with China. China is one. Taiwan is a province of China. This is agreed to by the world, by the United Nations, by the US and by Taiwan’s “constitution.” For Kevin McCarthy to line up other congressional members and meet with Tsai Ing-wen is a direct violation of past agreements.

In the same way that Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last year was a direct and deliberate violation of the agreement. There’s no reason to do this, except to attempt to create provocations, to create further disruption of what had been an orderly process of reconciliation and of Taiwan becoming part of China, which is the wish for great majority of the people, even in Taiwan.

China’s approach is to continue to use diplomacy to not be baited into an intentional provocation. However, it is becoming a difficult situation because one offense after another, one arms shipment after another. And US aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, destroyers, sail into the Taiwan Straits. These are all intended provocations, and any one of them could be a dangerous jumping-off point. 

GT: The US pursues hegemony by provoking conflicts. China promotes a human community with a shared future. What do the two differing governance concepts bring to the world?

Flounders: The very concept of shared future and cooperation has a profound impact. It’s not threatening to other countries, and it has the win-win idea, meaning if your economy is growing and our economy is growing, that’s better for both of us. That’s the basis of building further and deeper trust.

Continue reading Interview: China is governed in the interests of working people, the US in the interests of capital