Friends of Socialist China, Author at Friends of Socialist China

Then and now: Proletarian internationalism and Friends of Socialist China

What follows is a presentation on the Western left’s solidarity with the Chinese Revolution and the People’s Republic of China over the years, and the motivation for setting up Friends of Socialist China. It was delivered at the the Fifteenth Forum of the World Association for Political Economy (hosted by the Shanghai International Studies University, China, and held online on 18-19 December 2021), and was jointly written by Friends of Socialist China’s co-editors.

The accompanying slides can be found at SlideShare.

Dear Comrades

On behalf of Friends of Socialist China, I would like to express our thanks to the World Association of Political Economy for inviting us to participate in this important conference and to extend our greetings to all our fellow participants.

Friends of Socialist China was formed in May 2021 by a small group of activists in Britain and the USA with a long record in the progressive movement and specifically of solidarity with the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese revolution.

Our analysis of our tasks and our understanding of our work flow from the basic tenets of Marxism, starting from the observation by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto that, unlike other parties in the working-class movement, communists bring to the fore the interests of the working class as a whole, independent of all nationality. This premise was further elaborated and developed by Mao Zedong, who noted that the people of countries yet to win their liberation have a duty to support the socialist countries, whilst the socialist countries have the responsibility to support the countries and peoples who are still struggling for their liberation.

Keith Lamb: Why the Uygur Tribunal is another sham that seeks to ignite atrocity

In this article Keith Lamb, following up on a piece published last week, further explores the sham nature of the ‘Uygur Tribunal’ – its spurious sources, its funding, its flagrant bias towards Uygur separatism, and its use by the Western military-industrial complex to further the drive to war on China. Republished from CGTN.

In my previous article, using the examples of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, I outlined a system where Western elites can further their geopolitical ends and drive up their profit margins through the atrocity of war. Essential for instigating these atrocities is a superb propaganda system that indoctrinates Western citizens into supporting these wars through exaggeration, decontextualization and distortion.

A simple narrative of “good” versus “evil” is laid out to justify Western belligerence. However, the tail wags the dog, the geopolitical and profit motives are the prime mover and then the atrocity is constructed.

For example, Afghanistan, and the never-ending war on terror, were always going to be a “fantastic” money-spinner for a military-industrial complex devoid of a cold war with the Soviet Union. Then Iraq and Libya, both rich in oil, were plundered of their resources. Furthermore, the independence asserted by all three states was not to be tolerated by the West.

China and the other socialist countries are smashing the myth of socialism as undemocratic

Friends of Socialist China was honoured to be invited by the International Department of the Communist Party of China to participate in a virtual meeting of Marxist parties in Europe, North America and Oceania, entitled ‘Democracy, Justice, Development and Progress: The Pursuit of Marxist Political Parties’ on 15 December 2021. This meeting brought together over 20 Marxist political parties and organisations to discuss and share insights on these themes, as well as to compare notes on innovation in Marxist theory and practice.

The keynote speech was given by Song Tao, head of the CPC’s International Department. He began by recalling internationalist comrades such as Norman Bethune who had assisted the revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people. Locating the failure of the Paris Commune in the lack of a strong leadership core and guiding ideology, he noted that Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era was a new breakthrough in adapting Marxism to Chinese conditions, thereby creating a brand new image of socialism in the world, positively impacting the global balance of forces between socialism and capitalism, and thereby promoting the emancipation of all humanity.

Comrade Song’s speech was followed by those from the leaders of the Communist Party of Australia, Hungarian Worker’s Party, Italian Communist Party, Communist Party of Canada, Communist Party of Britain, Communist Party of Denmark, Communist Party of Finland, Communist Party of Spain and the Communist Party of the USA.

Closing the meeting, Qian Hongshan, Deputy Head of the CPC International Department, again underlined that the emancipation of all humanity was the strategic goal of all Marxist parties throughout the world.

Friends of Socialist China co-editors Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez submitted written speeches to the meeting on invitation. The following is the contribution prepared by Carlos Martinez.

Dear comrades and friends,

The themes of today’s event are democracy, justice, development and progress. These are concepts that capitalism has long tried to exercise a monopoly over. The capitalist world, led by the US, has sought to portray itself as the central force for democracy and progress globally. Conversely it has sought to portray the socialist world as the enemy of democracy and progress; as a force of authoritarianism and backwardness. This was a core pillar of the propaganda connected with the Cold War, and is now central to the New Cold War.

In recent years, the idea of the socialist countries being ‘backward’ or ‘undeveloped’ has started to lose any of the resonance it once had, even among people in the West. The People’s Republic of China in particular has emerged as a powerhouse in science and technology; it is among the world leaders in 5G, in artificial intelligence, in quantum computing, in nanotechnology, in space research, and more. China’s successful campaigns to suppress Covid-19 and to eliminate extreme poverty have caught the world’s attention, and the ‘backward’ label just does not stick.

Keith Lamb: Phoney ‘Uygur Tribunal’ seeks to build public support for anti-China strategy

Below we republish an article by Keith Lamb in CGTN about the so-called Uygur Tribunal and its value for the imperialist powers in building public support for the US-led New Cold War on China. The author points out that millions of people in the West were deceived by the lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, or Muammar Gaddafi’s use of rape as a weapon of war, and therefore tacitly lent their support to the horrific and criminal wars waged against Iraq and Libya.

The sham “independent” Uygur Tribunal (UT), funded by the U.S. government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), recently declared that China is committing genocide in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. This is despite “witnesses” changing and exaggerating their tales when seeking asylum; despite the main “academic” papers being funded by the military-industrial complex and the U.S., and despite the “evidence” being found full of inconsistencies and circular referencing.

What then is going on? Doesn’t the West pride itself on openness and honesty? If you believe the meta-propaganda then yes; but scanning history the West has inflicted agonizing suffering on the Global South and carrying out these injustices, and covering them up, requires sophisticated dishonesty.

The universalization of ‘liberal democracy’

The following article, written by Danny Haiphong and Carlos Martinez, has been accepted for publication in the journal International Critical Thought, where it will appear in early 2022. We have permission to publish the draft on this website, since the subject matter is particularly pertinent to current debates on the question of democracy.

The word democracy is connected to a large and diverse body of meaning. In the broadest sense, it simply refers to the exercise of power – directly or indirectly – by the people. However, in the leading capitalist countries, its meaning is much more specific: it has become synonymous with the system of ‘liberal democracy’, characterized by a multi-party parliament, universal suffrage, the separation of powers, and a strong emphasis on the protection of private property.

This narrow definition is widely considered in the West as a universal and absolute truth. Indeed, in the dominant Western narrative, adherence to the principles of liberal democracy constitutes the fundamental dividing line in global politics. On one side there is a group of ‘democracies’ (including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe, Japan, India and South Korea) and on the other side a group of ‘non-democracies’ or ‘authoritarian regimes’ (including the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and most of the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America).

Carlos Martinez: the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is an act of Cold War

On 16 December 2021, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was interviewed on the China Plus radio show ‘World Today’ about the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which has just passed through the US House of Representatives. The full episode can be found here.

Charles McKelvey: Does the world need capitalist democracy or socialist democracy?

We are pleased to republish these reflections on our recent event, The Summit for Socialist Democracy, originally posted by Charles McKelvey on his Substack.

With respect the December 9-10 “Summit for Democracy,” hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden, the Korean intellectual Kiyul Chung had the quote of the day. Kiyul characterized the event as an “imperial circus,” and he declared that “if Malcolm X were still alive, he would probably say that all of the house Negroes have been invited, but all of the field Negroes have not been invited.”

In response to the imperial circus, the Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group organized The Summit for Socialist Democracy. The participants in the December 11 panel were:

Quote: The detention of Julian Assange shows the reality of ‘freedom of speech’ in the West

It seems that anyone can enjoy freedom of the press and freedom of speech as long as they refrain from criticizing or disclosing the unspeakable crimes committed by the US. Otherwise, they may end up behind bars like Julian Assange. When the US next calls for safeguarding freedom of the press and freedom of speech, people will remember what happened to Mr Assange.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on December 13, 2021

Wang Wenbin speaks on Julian Assange and the outrageous hypocrisy of the West's freedom of speech narrative.

"It seems anyone can enjoy freedom of the press and freedom of speech as long as they refrain from criticizing or disclosing the unspeakable crimes committed by the US." pic.twitter.com/1WCbaueK43
— Friends of Socialist China (@socialist_china) December 13, 2021

Quote: The US must be held to account for its abuses of human rights

While the US talked about democracy and human rights at the ‘Summit for Democracy’, the innocent Afghan people who were gunned down by the US military were brushed aside and their families had no place to complain about their grievances. This is the harsh reality brought to the world by the so-called democracy and human rights advocated by the US. We condemn the brutal military intervention by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in the name of democracy and human rights. We call on the international community to look into the US military’s war crimes of killing innocent civilians around the world and hold it accountable.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on December 14, 2021

Total clarity from Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"We condemn the brutal military intervention by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in the name of democracy and human rights." https://t.co/KghlzzZ13h pic.twitter.com/NZUxlk3tti
— Friends of Socialist China (@socialist_china) December 15, 2021

Zhao Lijian: Britain is in no position to lecture China on human rights

On human rights, the UK is by no means doing a great job. In its hundreds of years of colonial history, the UK has committed numerous crimes in many parts of the world. Systemic racial discrimination, violence, provocation and hate crimes against ethnic minorities are on the rise. In immigration detention centers, conditions are poor and the rights of immigrants are seriously violated. If the UK truly cares about human rights, it should conduct investigations into the UK military’s killing of civilians and acts of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq and hold the troops accountable. If the UK truly cares about human rights, it should return Chagos to Mauritius. If the UK truly cares about human rights, it should not have sat idly by as the resurgence and spread of COVID-19 claimed the lives of nearly 150,000 citizens. The UK should reflect on its own problems and earnestly redress them before wantonly criticizing others.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on December 15, 2021

The UK government has released a report criticising the Chinese government over its running of Hong Kong. Perhaps Britain, which for 150 years ran Hong Kong as an apartheid colony, "should reflect on its own problems and earnestly redress them before wantonly criticising others." pic.twitter.com/lFZ59fQb4H
— Friends of Socialist China (@socialist_china) December 15, 2021

Unmasking Imperialism podcast about Chinese socialism and Xinjiang propaganda

In this interview with Ramiro Sebastián Fúnez for his show Unmasking Imperialism, Carlos L. Garrido and Edward Liger Smith take on a series of common misconceptions regarding the Chinese revolution and socialism with Chinese characteristics, including the relationship of socialism to the market, the questions of Tibet and Xinjiang, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Amongst their many important points, they make clear that the great achievements scored since the adoption of the reform programme in the Deng Xiaoping era would have been impossible and inconceivable without the foundations laid in the period of Mao Zedong’s leadership.

Danny Haiphong on the anti-China agenda of Biden’s Summit for Democracy

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong appeared on China News Service to analyze the significance of Biden’s Summit for Democracy. Haiphong connects the Summit to the US’s woes at home and abroad, as well as its clear anti-China agenda.

The show is in Standard Chinese, but Danny’s interview segments are in English with Chinese subtitles.

Four Criteria of Democracy: The Superiority of China’s Full Process Socialist Democracy over the Democracy in the United States

We are very pleased to publish the text of this important speech made by Cheng Enfu (Principal Professor, University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and President, World Association of Political Economy) to our Summit for Socialist Democracy held on 11 December 2021. The full event can be viewed on YouTube.

The key to a country’s democracy is whether the people are the masters of their own country. To that end, four important criteria must be considered in determining whether a country’s political system is democratic.

1. The right to vote is important, but more important is people’s wide participation

When people have the right to vote, they can freely express their personal will, but this is far from enough, because the equality in the political right of “one person, one vote” does not necessarily remove other inequalities in economic and social terms. To solve this problem, people must have the right to participate in an all-around manner. The right to participation is the kernel of democratic politics. A democracy in which the people have only the right to vote but not the right to broad participation, i.e., they are awakened only at the time of voting and then go dormant afterwards, is formalistic. Evidently, it is of equal importance to ensure and support the people’s position as masters and to allow them to participate deeply in the management of both national and social life, through elections in accordance with the law as well as through systems and means other than election.

Li Jingjing: Does China have democracy?

CGTN reporter Li Jingjing recently posted a presentation on YouTube explaining China’s political system and countering the standard narrative in the West that China is ‘authoritarian’ and ‘undemocratic’. The video is embedded below, along with the text, which Li Jingjing has kindly provided us with.

China has… democracy?

Yes, guys. I know a lot of you probably are very shocked right now, especially if you are from the West.

“No, there’s no way China is a democracy, it’s an authoritarian government that oppresses its people! As we were told by our governments and media!”

Ok ok, if it really oppresses its people, then how do you explain this:

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer in 2020, 82% of Chinese trust their government, ranked No.1 in the world, followed by India, Australia, Canada and Germany. And you see, this research was done in 2020, after China went through lockdowns and hit hard by COVID 19 pandemic in the first half of that year, the trust in government is still higher than any other countries. I’m sure that number got even higher after the economy and wellbeing of people got better in 2021.

Danny Haiphong: ‘Uygur Tribunal’ is a misinformation arm of the US’s anti-China agenda

The following article by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong, originally published on CGTN, exposes the so-called ‘Uygur Tribunal’ as being totally lacking in credibility and existing for the singular purpose of contributing to the US-led New Cold War against China.

On the same day that the U.S. hosted the first day of its “Summit for Democracy,” the U.K.-based “Uygur Tribunal” released a report alleging that China had committed “crimes against humanity” toward the Uygur ethnic group in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Findings in the report repeated the same allegations against China that have become commonplace in the West over the past several years. The so-called “Uygur Tribunal Chair” Geoffrey Nice presented the report and said that China is both detaining Uygurs in the millions and engaging in “genocide” through the control of births.

Of course, the “Uygur Tribunal” is not an impartial source. The campaign is a project of a U.S. consortium of anti-China think-tanks in charge of spreading propaganda in the name of human rights. In fact, the “Uygur Tribunal” website explains that the World Uygur Congress formally requested Geoffrey Nice to launch the project. The World Uygur Congress received $400,000 in 2020 alone from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a regime change-arm funded by the U.S. Congress and inheritor of the CIA’s numerous campaigns of political interference around the world.

Film review: The Battle at Lake Changjin

The following review was written by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett.

The Battle at Lake Changjin, directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam, premiered at the Beijing International Film Festival on 21 September 2021 and was released in China on 30 September. As part of its international distribution, it has been showing at selected cinemas in Britain, Ireland, the USA and Canada since 19 November and in Australia since 2 December. With a budget of some US$200 million, it is the most expensive Chinese film ever made. However, the acclaim with which it has been received has also made it the highest grossing film of 2021, the highest grossing film in Chinese history and the highest grossing non-English language film.

At just two minutes under three hours in length, the film is a revolutionary epic, with the main action centred around the Changjin Lake area of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the bitterly cold winter of 1950, shortly after the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA) had entered the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. Confronted with the harshest natural and climatic conditions, forced to survive on starvation rations, and faced with an enemy that was better trained, better equipped, better fed, better armed and with complete mastery of the skies, the Chinese troops “fearing neither hardship nor death”, to use the well-known Chinese expression, continue to forge ahead in the most courageous and ingenious of ways. Armed with the element of surprise, and although making the ultimate sacrifice, by successfully blowing up the Shuimen Bridge, they score the most decisive victory ultimately ensuring the achievement of China’s objectives in the war.

Joint statement on democracy and common development

We are very pleased to republish this statement, coordinated by the International Department of the Communist Party of China, promoting a pluralistic approach to the issue of democracy and calling on the world’s countries to develop mutual understanding and cooperation rather than attempting to pursue hegemony and unilateralism.

The statement has been endorsed by 351 political parties, social organisations and think tanks from 140 countries and regions. Friends of Socialist China is proud to be among the signatories.

Joint Statement of World Political Parties, Social Organisations and Think Tanks on making Independent Efforts to Explore the Path Toward Democracy and Working Together to Promote Common Development

Democracy represents an important achievement of humanity in the advancement of political civilisation, and development an eternal pursuit throughout human history. People of different countries and regions, through their unremitting explorations, have brought about distinctively varied forms of democracy and development paths, presenting a magnificent spectacle of flourishing human civilisations. Political parties, as they are in a position to build, preserve and develop democracy, have been charged with the important mission to realise democracy and promote development. In view of the above, we, the 351 political parties, social organisations and think tanks from 140 countries and regions, issue a joint statement to the whole world as follows:

The resumption of diplomatic relations between China and Nicaragua is a blow to imperialism

By Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett

On 9 December 2021, Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada announced the resumption of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Nicaragua. This was followed the next day by a meeting in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin between Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu and Laureano Ortega, the representative of the Nicaraguan government and a son of President Daniel Ortega, at which the two countries issued a joint communique announcing the re-establishment of their diplomatic relations.

This development is welcome and inspiring news for all those committed to anti-imperialism and especially for all those who care about the prospects for the development of socialism in Central and South America.

US Peace Council statement against the Cold War on China

We’re pleased to republish this statement by the US Peace Council, issued on 9 December 2021, against the US-led New Cold War on China and against the AUKUS military alliance between the US, Britain and Australia.

The signs of the new cold war with China are everywhere. The political signal comes from the top. President Biden’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, tellingly called Renewing America’s Advantages, states: “We must also contend with the reality that the distribution of power across the world is changing, creating new threats. China, in particular, has rapidly become more assertive. It is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”

Competition with China has worked its way into almost every aspect of Biden Administration policy. Biden often justifies his big domestic spending plans for infrastructure, physical and social, by the “need to compete more effectively with China.”

Not yet a year old, the Biden Administration has been mounting provocation after provocation toward People’s China: fresh military aid and political support to Taiwan, intense naval and submarine activity in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Straits, and the Straits of Malacca through which much of China’s oil imports pass; a new U.S. military base on the northwest coast of Australia facing the South China Sea; bogus claims of “Uyghur genocide” in Xinjiang province; ongoing support for separatism and the Dalai Lama in Tibet; not to mention last year’s American NGO-funded “democracy” disruptions in Hong Kong.

China is more meaningfully democratic than the Western capitalist states

In this brief interview with Xinhua, Carlos Martinez explains how China’s whole process people’s democracy is in fact much more meaningfully democratic – in terms of being accountable to the people – than is the West’s ‘liberal’ capitalist democracy. The video is embedded below, followed by the report, which originally appeared in Xinhua on 9 December 2021.

China’s whole-process people’s democracy is far more meaningfully democratic than the Western liberal democracy, Carlos Martinez, a British author and political commentator, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Ordinary Chinese people are much more engaged in running their communities and society, said Martinez, adding that “the basic interests of ordinary people in China are represented in government to a far greater degree than the case in the West.”

Noting that the shaping of democracy in China has its own background, he said there was no template available for the type of democracy the Chinese people needed when the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949.