The second Friends of Socialist China delegation to the People’s Republic of China took place from 26 May to 5 June 2025.
Invited by the China NGO Network for International Exchanges (CNIE), which works under the direction of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (IDCPC), 15 comrades (nine from Britain and six from the United States) visited Xi’an and Yan’an (Shaanxi province), Dunhuang and Jiayuguan (Gansu province) and Shanghai. The delegates attended the 4th Dialogue on Exchanges and Mutual Learning among Civilisations, as well as participating in discussions and visiting a range of historic revolutionary sites, museums, famous scenic spots, cooperatives, as well as demonstrations of cutting edge technology.
Celebrating revolutionary heritage
On 28 May, the delegation travelled by train from Xi’an to Yan’an, the quintessential ‘Red Tourism’ destination that was the centre of the Chinese Revolution between 1936 and 1948 – where the leadership and army were based, where the largest and most important pre-liberation revolutionary base area was set up, where much of the theoretical work of the revolution was done, and where Mao Zedong Thought was officially adopted by the party. Classic works of Mao Zedong such as On Practice, On Contradiction, On Protracted War, and On New Democracy were written there, based on extensive study and discussion, and synthesising the lessons of the movement’s experience up to that point with the existing theory of Marxism-Leninism.
We visited the caves where Mao, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi and others lived and worked for over a decade, and where legendary foreign friends such as Edgar Snow, Norman Bethune, Anna Louise Strong and Agnes Smedley visited. We also visited the building where the 7th National Congress of the CPC was held, from 23 April to 11 June 1945 – a crucial event setting out the strategy for the final phase of the struggle against Japanese occupation and for the pursuit of New Democracy.
We toured the beautiful Yan’an Revolutionary Memorial Hall, first opened in 1951, displaying 1,300 revolutionary cultural relics and telling the whole story of China’s struggle for liberation. The last agenda item for the day was an inspiring lecture and discussion with a representative of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the CPC.
Several days later, in Shanghai’s former French Concession, we were taken on a guided tour of the Site of the First National Congress of the CPC. The museum at the site includes powerful exhibits telling the story of why and how the CPC was established. Incidentally, last year’s delegation visited the Red Boat in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, where the First Congress moved to in order to avoid the attention of the French Concession police.
Red Tourism is hugely popular in China. Important sites connected with the history of the Chinese Revolution are extremely well preserved and managed, and they attract large volumes of visitors from around the country. This type of tourism plays an important role promoting an understanding of China’s revolutionary history and connecting younger people in particular to the generations that made extraordinary sacrifices in order that China could stand up, assert its sovereignty, build socialism and become a force for good in the world. This feeds in to a widespread confidence and belief in socialism, which unites the Chinese people and forms a line of defence against the imperialist powers’ pernicious anti-communist propaganda.
Promoting civilisational exchange
On 30 May, our delegation attended the opening session of the Fourth Dialogue on Exchanges and Mutual Learning Among Civilisations, in Dunhuang, Gansu province. Moderated by Liu Jianchao, Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee (IDCPC), the session featured a keynote speech by Vice President Han Zheng, plus addresses from Dithapelo Keorapetse (Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Botswana), Ji Bingxuan (Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress), Sommad Pholsena (Vice President of the National Assembly of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic), Hu Changsheng (Secretary of the CPC Gansu Provincial Committee) and Bidya Devi Bhandari (former President of Nepal).
Following the opening ceremony we watched, along with several hundred other delegates from around the world, the Rhythm of Dunhuang performance – a multimedia spectacle of dance, music and visual art, celebrating the history, culture and diversity of Dunhuang – an important town on the ancient Silk Road that has for centuries been a melting pot of different cultures and religions. The performance was inspired by the murals of the Mogao Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage site containing some of the finest examples of Buddhist art in the world, spanning a period from the 4th to the 14th century.
Our group contributed to a parallel session of the Dialogue on Exchanges and Mutual Learning Among Civilisations, organised by Schwarzman Scholars of Tsinghua University, on the theme of Youth power in dialogue among civilisations.
Representing Friends of Socialist China and Qiao Collective, Creighton Ward described the serious problems faced by young people in the US, in the context of escalating crisis and despair, and opined that China provides a powerful counterexample. “We have much to learn from China’s antipoverty measures, commitment to building ecological civilisation, and autonomous development. Its successes reflect the historical agency of labour in the world’s largest socialist state and the necessity of socialism to restore ecologically harmonious social and economic relations.”
Callum Norris took up a similar theme, highlighting the problems faced by British young people in the areas of housing, education and employment, as well as the sense of despondency resulting from the British ruling class’s militarism, its support for genocide in Gaza, and its failure to respond effectively to the climate crisis. He noted that youth in Britain are gradually becoming less susceptible to anti-China propaganda, and as a result are starting to take inspiration from China’s successes in tackling poverty, in promoting global peace and in protecting the natural environment. He concluded: “I look forward to the day when young people in China, Britain and the rest of the world can unite together to overcome the many challenges facing the world today and build a brighter future.”
The political significance of the conference and performance, and of the Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI) that China has proposed, is to put forward a message of peace, harmony, mutual learning and mutual respect among different cultures, religions, ethnicities and civilisations. The Western powers, particularly the US, are busily promoting notions such as the “clash of civilisations”, or the Thucydides Trap, seeking to normalise the inevitability of conflict between different cultures and nations, thereby preparing public opinion for an escalating campaign of encirclement and containment against China. China’s response, via the Global Civilisation Initiative, is to promote dialogue, understanding, friendship and cooperation among different peoples. Rather than building public support for war, the GCI builds public support for peace, for peaceful coexistence, for cultural exchanges and for mutually beneficial cooperation. It insists that war can be avoided if there is the political will to do so.
Protecting the planet
One of the key themes of the delegation was sustainable development. On 31 May we visited the Shouhang Dunhuang 100MW Molten Salt Tower Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant – one of the first of its kind, and among the largest in the world. Twelve thousand sets of panels (heliostats) reflect the sun and direct its rays to a central tower, where molten salt is heated to 565 degrees celsius. The molten salt is then used to generate steam, which drives a turbine to produce electricity which is fed directly into the state grid.
The molten salt acts as a sort of battery, storing energy as heat for up to 11 hours. This means electricity can be generated even when the sun isn’t shining, thereby avoiding the intermittency problem of regular photovoltaic solar power. As a result, no reserve capacity (which would typically be provided by fossil fuel) is needed. There is no chemical waste, pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.
The technology is hugely impressive in itself, but it is also a testament to decades of systematic investment in research and in the underlying infrastructure required to support such a project. China can plan at this scale because of its socialist governance; while Shouhang is a private company, it organises its work in accordance with the national economic plans and in coordination with the government.
In Jiayuguan, Gansu – a wonderful, modern city built from scratch starting in 1958 – we visited the Smart Grid and Localised New Energy Consumption Demonstration Project operated by JISCO (the Jiuquan Iron and Steel Corporation), a significant state-owned enterprise. JISCO powers its own operations, as well as meeting the energy needs of the town, through a combination of renewable (wind and solar) and fossil fuel (coal) sources, integrated using a sophisticated smart grid system, which transmits and distributes electricity more efficiently and reliably than traditional grids, and which easily accommodates the growing proportion of renewable sources.
Alongside its core operations, JISCO runs a diverse range of businesses in the region. Our delegation enjoyed a tour of the Zixuan Winery (along with wine tasting!), which houses the largest underground wine cellar in Asia, producing 10,000 tons per year of high-quality wine, and which was the first Chinese winery to be certified organic. We also visited the Qimu Dairy Company, a national standard demonstration farm for dairy cows, where, aside from enjoying the delicious yoghurt and ice cream, we were pleased to witness the humane treatment of the cows, which spend most of their days roaming freely in the extensive grasslands.
China’s extraordinary progress in green energy, sustainable agriculture and other elements of environmental protection is a reminder that attempts by the US to “decouple” from China really mean decoupling from the future of humanity.
Defend Socialist China
On 3 June, the delegation participated in a dialogue with the China Institute at Shanghai’s Fudan University, consisting of a panel discussion featuring Professor Zhang Weiwei, Professor Wu Xinwen, and Friends of Socialist China co-editors Carlos Martinez and Keith Bennett, followed by a wide-ranging discussion with the audience.
In his opening presentation, Carlos introduced his book The East is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century, explaining that the core motivation for writing it was to present some of the extraordinary successes of Chinese socialism since 1949, to debunk the endless anti-China propaganda that’s pervasive in the West, and to analyse China’s social, economic and political system.
Addressing the question of whether or not modern China is a socialist country, Carlos pointed out that the channeling of such enormous resources to meeting the needs of ordinary people – tackling poverty, improving people’s wellbeing, becoming a renewable energy superpower, successfully managing Covid-19, building advanced infrastructure throughout the country, and so on – is only possible because of the location of political power in China; is only possible because capitalists do not constitute the ruling class; because the correlation of wealth and power that characterises capitalist society has been broken; because the government is representative of, and answerable to, the working people.
Zhang Weiwei agreed with Carlos’s assessment of China’s social system, noting that “first, the dominant position of public ownership is guaranteed, including the state’s ownership of land and strategic resources; second, the political, social and capital forces have formed a balance that is beneficial to the vast majority of the people; and third, the Communist Party of China is a party of overall interests, which is completely different from the partial interest parties in the West.” Zhang added that, whereas environmentalists in the West have long been calling for a Green New Deal, China is actually implementing one on a massive scale, and it is China’s socialism that makes this possible.
Keith picked up this theme, observing that even in the private sector, economic activity is regulated and organised in accordance with a plan and is expected to serve the overall interests of the country. Keith also emphasised that China, as the world’s largest and most advanced socialist country, is playing a profoundly valuable role putting forward solutions to the existential problems faced by humanity.
Wu Xinwen described the ongoing discussion as to whether “socialism with Chinese characteristics” or “Chinese socialism” better reflects the particularity and universality of China’s system (with the former emphasising the particularity and the latter emphasising the universality). He also challenged the label “state capitalism”, pointing out that policy in China is led by the Communist Party rather than organisations representing capital.
Delegates raised questions on a wide variety of topics including China-Africa relations, whole-process people’s democracy, the possibilities for de-dollarisation, China’s internationalism, and the genocide in Gaza. The discussion can be watched in full on the China Academy website.
Technological advancement and common prosperity
One of the delegation’s last visits was to the Lenovo Shanghai Future Center, showcasing the latest in AI, robotics and smart city technology. One particularly memorable demonstration was an AI-assisted coffee machine which produced a cappuccino with a chocolate sprinkle Friends of Socialist China logo!
Throughout the trip, both in big cities like Shanghai and in smaller ones like Jiayuguan, delegates were impressed by the level of technological advancement and the quality of the infrastructure. China is really innovating in making its cities liveable, sustainable, convenient, clean, green and pleasant places.
As China becomes more and more advanced, its people are increasingly able to enjoy the fruits of that development. This is common prosperity in action: progress is shared by all, not monopolised by the wealthy. It stands in stark contrast to the West, where the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and where public services are being systematically dismantled. Again, China can pursue common prosperity because of its socialist system, in which resources are allocated on the basis of the overall needs of the people, and particularly the working class and peasantry.
Moreover, the principles of common prosperity have broader, global implications. The Chinese vision is that all regions and all social groups can enjoy a better life, and that the fruits of development can be shared by all. This notion is extended to the whole world via the concepts of the Global Community of Shared Future, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative and the Global Civilisation Initiative. In such a framework, all peoples can enjoy a better life; all countries can experience development, peace and sustainability.
For the vast majority of people in the world, this is a compelling and attractive vision. The only thing in the way of realising it is, of course, a moribund US-led imperialist system which thrives off conflict, exploitation and ecocide.
As such, standing with China is a necessary component of opposing imperialism and building a better world. We hope our delegation played some small part in raising understanding of – and solidarity with – China.
Excellent article! This is good news!