Friends of Socialist China, Author at Friends of Socialist China

Carlos Martinez: Meng Wanzhou’s release is a victory for the peoples of the world

On Thursday 30 September, Carlos Martinez was interviewed by Rania Khalek and Eugene Puryear on BreakThrough News. They discuss the global significance of Meng Wanzhou’s release, parallels with the kidnappings of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab and North Korean entrepreneur Mun Chol-myong, Taiwan, the militarisation of the Pacific, and the need for multipolarity.

Robert Griffiths: The origins of the Chinese ‘lab leak’ theory

This article by Robert Griffiths, general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, comprehensively exposes the mendacity and cynical motivations of the conspiracy theory that the Covid-19 pandemic was caused by a ‘lab leak’ from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is republished from the Morning Star.

On January 24 last year, the Washington Times reported: “The deadly animal virus epidemic spreading globally may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory linked to China’s covert biological weapons program, according to an Israeli biological warfare expert.”

Reporter Bill Gertz based his story on a five-year-old broadcast on Radio Free Asia about the Wuhan virology institute and his interview with Dany Shoham, “a former Israeli military intelligence officer who has studied Chinese bio warfare.”

Charles McKelvey: China and the Third World

We are pleased to republish this interesting piece by Charles McKelvey which explores the parallel trajectories – and recent convergence – of the projects for Third World liberation and Chinese socialist construction. The article, rich in historical detail, concludes that the continuing and deepening coordination between China and the rest of the developing world is crucial to the emergence of a more rational, prosperous and democratic world system.

Two projects of importance to the future of humanity have sustained themselves for the last seven decades, namely, the Third World project of national and social liberation, and the Chinese project of socialist construction. They evolved in a parallel form, with occasional points of contact and coincidence. But for the past ten years, they have moved toward significant cooperation, and in the process, they are constructing an alternative more just and less conflictive world-system. And they are doing so precisely in a historic moment in which the capitalist world-economy is falling into parasitic decadence. The project of the Third World plus China is laying the foundation for a sustainable future for humanity; whereas the neocolonial world-system is demonstrating its unsustainability.

Happy birthday socialist China!

We are republishing this excellent article by Stephen Millies in Struggle for Socialism. The article gives an overview of China’s extraordinary achievements since the founding of the People’s Republic on 1 October 1949, and highlights its continuing significance to working class and oppressed peoples worldwide.

Seventy-two years ago, on Oct. 1, 1949, Mao Zedong declared “China has stood up!” The socialist People’s Republic of China was born after decades of struggle.

Chinese women stepped forward with unbound feet. No longer could U.S. and British warships prowl the Yangtze River. Peasants, workers and progressive intellectuals knew their liberation had come.

Interview with Carlos Martinez on the propaganda war against China

On 25 September, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was interviewed on the Rebirth of Communism YouTube channel about China: what is the nature of the propaganda war being waged against it? What’s really happening in Xinjiang? Why does much of the Western left support this propaganda war? What are the reasons for the different levels of economic and social progress in India and China since the late 1940s? Will China suffer the fate of the Soviet Union? What does China’s project of being a ‘great modern socialist country’ by 2049 entail?

Fully implementing the new development philosophy and accelerating efforts to foster a new development dynamic

We are pleased to publish this important article from the latest English language edition of Qiushi, the main theoretical journal of the Communist Party of China. It presents a comprehensive and detailed outline of China’s new development dynamic, focused on the domestic economy. It draws attention to China’s decreased reliance on foreign trade, which peaked in 2006. The article deals frankly with the challenges faced and the problems needing to be tackled on both the domestic and international fronts, but also explains how these can be overcome on the basis of the growing prosperity of China and the inherent strengths of the socialist system. It deserves careful reading.

While addressing a seminar for principal provincial- and ministerial-level leaders on the guiding principles of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee on January 11, 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that moving faster to foster a new development dynamic dominated by the flows of the domestic economy but in which domestic and international flows are mutually reinforcing is a major strategic task proposed by the CPC Central Committee in its Recommendations for the 14th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development that concerns the overall development interests of the country. We must acquire an accurate understanding of this task from an overall perspective and actively promote its advancement.

Happy National Day of the People’s Republic of China

An infographic for China’s National Day – the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China – celebrating and reflecting on China’s extraordinary progress since its liberation in 1949.

Reminder: Special online showing of ‘1921’ (2 October)

Friends of Socialist China are pleased to offer a rare opportunity to watch the film 1921.

Date: Saturday 2 October 2021
Time: 7pm Britain / 2pm US Eastern / 11am US Pacific
Registration: Eventbrite

About ‘1921’

‘1921’ is a full length feature film produced to mark this year’s centenary of the Communist Party of China. It is set against the background of the intense class struggle waged by the young Chinese working class in Shanghai in particular. The action also takes us to Moscow, Paris and elsewhere. Key early Chinese communists like Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping all feature in this not to be missed film. As gripping as any Hollywood blockbuster, it is also an education and an inspiration.

A review by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett can be read online.

Please note the film is in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles.

Who is organising the screening?

This event is organised by Friends of Socialist China, in coordination with Trinity Cine Asia. It is co-sponsored by the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, the Morning Star, the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, the International Manifesto Group, and Qiao Collective.

How does the online screening work?

At the start time (7pm Britain, 2pm US Eastern, 11am US Pacific), registered users will receive (by email) a link to stream the film. They will then have a three-hour window in which to watch it.

Why are we charging for this event?

Please note that Friends of Socialist China are not making any money from the showing; our purpose in arranging it is to ensure that its important political and cultural content reaches a wider audience. However, Trinity Cine Asia, with whom we are partnering to organise the screening, have paid the costs of distribution and marketing; therefore all proceeds go to them.

China calls on the UN Human Rights Council to address impact of colonialism

Republished from CGTN

The United Nations’ Human Rights Council should work to eliminate the negative impacts of colonialism on people around the world, a group of 21 countries and regions has urged.

Economic exploitation, inequality, racism, violations of indigenous peoples’ rights, modern slavery, armed conflicts and damage to cultural heritage are among the legacies of colonial repression, according to a statement read by China’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva Chen Xu.

The signatories to the statement come from across the globe including Russia, Egypt, Syria, Argentina, Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Iran, Sri Lanka, Armenia and Myanmar.

“We call on the Human Rights Council, the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights and relevant Special Procedures to pay continued attention to the negative impact of legacies of colonialism on the enjoyment of human rights,” the statement read.

Nicaragua, Palestine, Comoros, Tajikistan, Laos, Belarus, DPRK, Burundi, Venezuela and Cuba also put their names to the statement.

The period 2021-2030 marks the fourth decade the UN has dedicated to the eradication of colonialism. The first being 30 years after the pioneering 1960 Declaration on Decolonization.

A separate statement delivered by Jiang Duan, a minister in the Chinese delegation also on behalf of a group of UN members, called for nations that have conducted illegal military interventions to pay reparations. Without naming any states, he pointed out that such action had severe consequences for social and economic development.

Crimes committed during such interventions need to be fully investigated, he added.

Hua Chunying: Washington DC is the birthplace and headquarters of economic coercion

A powerful quote from Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying about the US use of economic warfare against developing countries.

For a long time, the US has been engaged in unilateral bullying practices, imposing long-term sanctions on Cuba, the DPRK, Iran, Venezuela, among other countries. Washington DC is the birthplace and headquarters of economic coercion. The US, through its policies and actions, has provided the world with textbook examples of coercive diplomacy, which means achieving one’s strategic goals with military threats, political isolation, economic sanctions and technical blockade.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on September 29, 2021

Carlos Martinez: Will China stay red?

On 25 September, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was interviewed on the Rebirth of Communism YouTube channel about China. Topics discussed include: what is the nature of the propaganda war being waged against it? What’s really happening in Xinjiang? Why does much of the Western left support this propaganda war? What are the reasons for the different levels of economic and social progress in India and China since the late 1940s? Will China suffer the fate of the Soviet Union? What does China’s project of being a ‘great modern socialist country’ by 2049 entail?

This clip addresses the question of whether China can withstand the external and internal pressures to change its class character, or is it destined to suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union, abandoning socialism and adopting capitalism.

Radhika Desai: Release of Meng Wanzhou ends a contemptible mess of illegality

This article by Radhika Desai, reposted from CGTN, shines a light on the geopolitical motivations and the illegality of Meng Wanzhou’s detention, and situates it within the US’s ongoing attempts to preserve a “rules-based international order” based on unilateralism and hegemonism.

The release of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, from her detention in Vancouver and her immediate return to China end a complex saga that would fill multiple volumes.

They would concern the U.S.’s underhand moves to meet the technological and competitive challenge of Huawei, particularly on 5G technologies. They would detail the U.S.’s mixed and ambiguous motivations concerning China. It would further involve Canada’s own entanglement in tense relations between its two biggest economic partners. All this before we even got to the details of the case against Meng. Here we can only make a few limited but critically important points.

Roland Boer: We need to talk more about China’s socialist democracy

We are pleased to publish this original article by Roland Boer (Professor of Marxist Philosophy at Dalian University of Technology, China, and author of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners (Springer, 2021)). The article provides the reader with a very valuable introduction to China’s socialist democratic system, a topic about which there is widespread ignorance in the West.

Este artículo se ha traducido en español.

We need to talk more – much more – about China’s socialist democratic system. Why? There are many reasons, but the main reason is that we should not let the criticisms of China from the small number of “Western” countries set the agenda. So let me propose the following thesis: China’s socialist democratic system is already quite mature and superior to any other democratic system. Actually, this is not my proposition, but that of a host of Chinese specialists. They are very clear that China’s socialist democratic system is already showing its latent quality. Obviously, we need to know much more about how this system works and how it is constantly improving.

China and Vietnam vow to promote their shared socialist path

We are pleased to reproduce this account in CGTN of the recent phone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) Central Committee. Both leaders emphasised that communist party-led rule and the development of the socialist system is the core of the two countries’ shared interests.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) Central Committee, on Friday renewed their pledge to promote the socialist course of both countries, during a phone conversation.

President Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said China and Vietnam, as socialist neighbors, share a community of destiny with strategic significance, and have a lot of common interests and concerns given the complex situation brought by the combination of the once-in-a-century world changes and COVID-19 pandemic.

Carlos Martinez: lies about Xinjiang are designed to build public support for the New Cold War

Below is the text of a speech given by Carlos Martinez at the recent webinar organised by the Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution and the China NGO Network for International Exchanges to expose the Western media’s propaganda in relation to the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

The video of the full event can be watched on YouTube. The webinar has also been written up in CGTN, China Daily, and Asia Free Press.

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak today.

Living in the West – as I do, in London, England – I’m exposed to a very intense media propaganda campaign in relation to Xinjiang.

When I read the newspapers, or I watch the debates in the Houses of Parliament, I often see accusations of Chinese genocide against Uyghur Muslims, of cultural genocide, of forced labour, of forced sterilisation of women, of prison camps. Actually we see these sorts of accusations every day.

Review of ‘China and the Left: a socialist forum’

We are pleased to republish this detailed and helpful summary of the recent ‘China and the Left’ forum recently organised by Qiao Collective in association with the People’s Forum, Monthly Review and CODEPINK. The review first appeared on Charles McKelvey’s blog.

A full playlist of videos from the forum can be found on YouTube.

A socialist forum on China and the Left, sponsored by the Qiao Collective, was held in New York City on September 18, 2021. The Qiao Collective was formed in January 2020 by intellectuals and activists of the Chinese diaspora, with the intention of defending Chinese socialism against imperialist aggression.

Opening Keynote Address by the Qiao Collective

In the Opening Keynote address on the “The U.S. Hybrid War,” Michelle of the Qiao Collective maintained that Chinese trade has long stimulated imperialist aggression, which has included the colonial concession zones, the taking of Hong Kong, the backing of Chinese nationalists, and the support of Formosa. Imperialist aggression against China is historic.

Danny Haiphong: Biden’s Global COVID-19 Summit is an exercise in American selfishness

In this article for CGTN, Danny Haiphong exposes the motivation behind the Virtual Global COVID-⁠19 Summit hosted by Joe Biden on 22 September 2021. Having utterly failed to protect its population from the pandemic, having refused to properly learn from and cooperate with China, and having led the construction of a system of vaccine apartheid, the US now seeks to portray itself as a global leader in the struggle against Covid-19.

On September 22, U.S. President Joe Biden held a virtual summit on COVID-19 and pledged to increase U.S. assistance in the global fight to end the pandemic. Biden’s promises, when taken out of context, appear reasonable. The U.S. will pledge an additional $370 million to administer COVID-19 vaccines globally and work with the European Union to meet the World Health Organization (WHO)’s goal of ensuring 70 percent of the world’s population is fully vaccinated by the end of 2022. The U.S. will also increase its donations of ventilators, therapeutics and personal protective equipment (PPE) to lower-income countries.

Speakers from Pakistan, China and Britain expose media lies about Xinjiang

On 24 September 2021, the Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution (IICR, an Islamabad based think tank) and the China NGO Network for International Exchanges (CNIE) held a webinar of international experts to expose the Western media’s propaganda in relation to the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was among the speakers. The video is embedded below, along with a list of the speakers and a report of the event, republished from Asia Free Press.

Speakers

Sabah Aslam, Executive Director, Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution
Liu Lujun, Secretary-General, CNIE
Xu Lyuping, Vice-President of CNIE, former Vice-Minister of the International Department of CPC Central Committee
Carlos Martinez, author and co-editor of Friends of Socialist China
Dr Wang Jiang, Research Fellow, Institute of China’s Borderland Studies, Zhejiang Normal University, China
Maria Zeb, Culture Program Manager, All Pakistan Chinese Overseas Youth Federation
Muhammad Zamir Assadi, journalist with Independent News Pakistan
Mustafa Hyder Sayed, Executive Director, Pakistan-China Institute
Pang Chunxue, Minister-Counselor of the Embassy of China in Pakistan

Xi Jinping’s reply to letter sent by the family members of historic friends of China

Demonstrating the unbroken internationalist ties between the Chinese revolution and its internationalist comrades across centuries and generations, President Xi Jinping has replied to a joint letter received from the family members of foreign comrades and friends who made outstanding contributions to China’s liberation and the building of socialism. They include relatives of such legendary figures as Edgar and Helen Snow, George Hatem (Ma Haide), Rewi Alley, Israel Epstein, Hans Muller and David Crook.

Originally published on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.

On September 14, 2021, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and President Xi Jinping replied to the letter from family members of some international friends, including Edgar and Helen Snow, George Hatem, Rewi Alley and Israel Epstein, paying high tribute to the international friends who had stood and fought shoulder to shoulder with the CPC and the Chinese people through thick and thin and made invaluable contributions to China’s revolution, development and reform.

In his reply, Xi Jinping pointed out that in the first half of the 20th century, a large number of international friends, including Snow, Hatem, Norman Bethune, Dwarkanath Kotnis, Alley and Epstein, traveled thousands of miles to China, where they shared weal and woe and fought side by side with the CPC and the Chinese people. We always remember their invaluable contributions to China’s revolution, development and reform and their genuine friendship with the CPC and the Chinese people.

Xi Jinping underlined, in the past 100 years since its founding, the CPC has, answering the call of the times, people’s expectations, and trust of its international friends, united and led the Chinese people in delivering the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects through unrelenting hard work, and is now leading the Chinese people in marching toward the second centenary goal of fully building a great modern socialist country and in promoting the noble cause of world peace and development. The choices your loved ones made decades ago are exactly right.

Xi Jinping noted, history keeps surging on, and the great spirit is passed down from generation to generation. I hope you will follow the steps of your loved ones, and contribute your fair share to strengthening the friendship and cooperation between the Chinese people and people of the world, and to building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Recently, 16 family members of international friends, including Snow, Hatem, Alley, Epstein, Hans Muller, David Crook, Zheng Lvcheng, Elizebetta Pavlovna Kishkina, Richard Frey, Ruth Weiss, Eva Sandberg and Betty Chandler, have jointly sent a letter to President Xi Jinping. In the letter, they extended warm congratulations on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, and expressed their hope of jointly commemorating the martyrs on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. They said, they are proud that their family members chose to stand with the CPC and the Chinese people, and are willing to carry forward the internationalist spirit in the new era under the guidance of the initiative of building a community with a shared future for mankind, and make new contributions to enhancing the friendship between Chinese and foreign people and supporting China in realizing the second centenary goal.

Jeremy Corbyn: A new nuclear arms race and Cold War will not bring security

In an important contribution to Labour Outlook, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks out loud and clear against the New Cold War, and calls for the major powers to focus on cooperation to find global solutions to global problems.

Since its announcement last week, AUKUS has faced growing international opposition, including from Governments often closely allied with the US, UK and Australia on the global stage, with France ending its contract to supply submarines to Australia.

It has also been met with incredulity from peace and disarmament groups across the world.

This international opposition reflects an obvious truth that real security won’t come from starting a new nuclear arms race or new Cold War.