A high-level forum on the Chinese path to modernisation amidst great global changes was held in hybrid format on March 3-4. The organisers were the Institute of Japanese Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS); the Advanced Research Institute for 21st Century Chinese Marxism of the CASS University; and the Shanghai Research Institute, CASS-Shanghai People’s Government. Some 17 senior Chinese specialists in Marxism addressed the forum, including Wang Weiguang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and Deng Chundong, a member of the CPPCC National Committee.
FoSC co-editor Keith Bennett presented a paper, in which he outlined Xi Jinping’s five key criteria for Chinese modernisation and went on to note that, “whilst China’s socialist modernisation 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 modernisation that is actually comprehensive, equitable and sustainable. The Chinese leader’s thesis on modernisation 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.”
Touching on the international significance of this, Keith continued:
“As China advances in its modernisation goals, so, through such means as the Belt and Road Initiative, the steady expansion of the BRICS Plus mechanism, the institutionalised forums for cooperation with Africa, with Latin America and the Caribbean, and with other regions, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and so on, it is also inviting fellow developing countries of the Global South, and indeed others, to join the train of China’s rapid development and growing prosperity. As a result, Socialist China has truly become the powerful locomotive blazing the trail towards modernisation for the global majority.”
The fact that China’s modernisation is modernisation of peaceful development is the most fundamental point of all and provides the starkest contrast with the capitalist road to modernisation, Keith noted, before going on to illustrate how capitalist modernisation had been built on the super exploitation of the oppressed nations and peoples, yet, “the fact that the key developed nations, to a very great extent, built their modernisation 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. In the advanced 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.”
Other international speakers included Fukushima Mizuho, leader of the Social Democratic Party of Japan; several prominent scholars from Russia; leading members of the communist parties of Portugal, Italy and the USA; and Stephen Perry, Honorary President of Britain’s 48 Group Club.
We reprint below the full text of Keith’s contribution.
Dear comrades and friends
I would like to thank the Institute of Japanese Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Advanced Research Institute of 21st Century Contemporary Chinese Marxism, the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences – Shanghai Research Institute of the Shanghai People’s Government for their kind invitation to address this timely conference on the important theme of Chinese Modernisation under Great International Changes.
The process of modernisation, 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 realisation of modernisation has now become a universal aspiration of humanity. Yet it remains a goal so far 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 in October 2022, 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 country in all respects”. He explained that this central task entailed:
- The modernisation of a huge population.
- The modernisation of common prosperity for all.
- The modernisation of material and cultural-ethical advancement.
- The modernisation of harmony between humanity and nature; and
- The modernization of peaceful development.
From this five-point summary, one can see that, whilst modernisation is a global process and a universal aspiration, it can take and assume radically different forms. So, whilst China’s socialist modernisation 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 modernisation that is actually comprehensive, equitable and sustainable. The Chinese leader’s thesis on modernisation 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 modernisation has only been achieved by a minority of, overwhelmingly white, nations. In terms of scale alone, therefore, as China is home to some 22 per cent of the world’s population, China’s modernisation will more than double the percentage of humanity living in modernised societies. As such, it will profoundly change, and indeed revolutionise, global society, economy and culture, 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.”
As China advances in its modernisation goals, so, through such means as the Belt and Road Initiative, the steady expansion of the BRICS Plus mechanism, the institutionalised forums for cooperation with Africa, with Latin America and the Caribbean and with other regions, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and so on, it is also inviting fellow developing countries of the Global South, and indeed others, to join the train of China’s rapid development and growing prosperity. As a result, Socialist China has truly become the powerful locomotive blazing the trail towards modernisation for the global majority. This precisely illustrates an important aspect of the profound truth of which President Xi Jinping constantly reminds us, namely that the world and humanity are presently witnessing and experiencing changes unseen in a century.
The comprehensive and unique character of China’s socialist modernisation is further illustrated in President Xi’s second characteristic – that it is modernisation 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. This was the vision that Mao Zedong advanced in the early 1950s, when the New China was still in its infancy.
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, to truly revolutionise the forces of production, and to hugely increase China’s comprehensive national strength. However, the inequalities generated went too far and in some instances became quite egregious. This generated problems and contradictions 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 realising common prosperity for all as an essential feature of socialism. Universal poverty, he pointed out, is not socialism. And, as complex and arduous as that process undoubtedly is, China is now making steady and very definite progress in that direction.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the urban-rural wealth gap has kept narrowing ever since the new era began with 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 security 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, had expanded since 2012 to cover 1.04 billion people. The coverage of unemployment benefits and workplace injury insurance has also soared, already reaching 230 million and 290 million people respectively within the last few years.
On a world-wide scale, the fact that China’s modernisation is modernisation of peaceful development is the most fundamental point of all and provides the starkest contrast with the capitalist road to modernisation. The basis for this latter was poignantly and succinctly summarised by the key founder of scientific socialism in the nineteenth century. In Chapter 31 of Volume One of his most seminal work, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, 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.”
Very similar examples could also be cited in regard to China and indeed other countries and civilisations.
It is this law of capitalist development, uncovered by Marx, that led Lenin to define an essential feature of imperialist society, as he termed the highest stage of capitalism, namely 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 modernisation.
Yet, the fact that the key developed nations, to a very great extent, built their modernisation 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. In the advanced 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. That is why Britain in the last few years has experienced 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 high rates of inflation. These strikes have embraced the most diverse sectors of working people, from the traditionally militant and well-organised rail workers’ trade unions to those hitherto unaccustomed to taking strike action, such as nurses and junior doctors.
Outlining China’s line of march to modernisation at the 20th Party Congress, Xi Jinping stressed: “In pursuing modernisation, China will not tread the old path of war, colonisation, 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 realisation of common prosperity for all, its more than doubling of the number of people living in modernised societies, and its contributions to global modernisation, through such means as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, constitute key paving stones on the path to the realisation of humanity’s community of shared future. It is, therefore, a fundamentally different paradigm for modernisation. A modernisation for the whole of humanity.
Thank you for your attention.
