Friends of Socialist China, Author at Friends of Socialist China

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.

Reminder: The Summit for Socialist Democracy (11 December)

A reminder that our Summit for Socialist Democracy webinar takes place on Saturday 11 December, 9am US Eastern / 2pm Britain / 10pm China.

Details

On December 9-10, Biden is hosting a ‘Summit  for Democracy’, “bring together leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector to set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal” and to “defend against authoritarianism”. The geopolitical theme of this is, of course, to close ranks in the capitalist world against China, Russia, Cuba, DPRK, Venezuela and other countries. The ideological theme is to reaffirm the superiority of capitalism and so-called liberal democracy.

Our event will challenge the dominant narratives around democracy, will highlight the democratic systems prevailing in socialist societies, will discuss the plutocratic nature of neoliberal capitalism, and will expose how the concept of democracy is leveraged in support of a deeply undemocratic and violent imperialism.

The event is organised jointly by Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group, and is co-sponsored by the Morning Star, the International Action Center, Nodutdol and Qiao Collective.

Speakers

Cheng Enfu (Principal Professor, University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Carlos Ron (Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America, Venezuela)
Isabel Monal Rodríguez (Director of the Department of Marxist Studies, Academy of Sciences of Cuba)
Luna Oi (Vietnamese blogger and broadcaster)
Kiyul Chung (Professor, Tsinghua University, China; Korea University, Tokyo, Japan)
Layla Brown (Assistant Professor, Northeastern University, US)
Zhai Guoqiang (Deputy Director of the Institute of International Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Elias Jabbour (Professor, Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil)
Roland Boer (Professor, Dalian University of Technology, China)
Danny Haiphong (Co-editor, Friends of Socialist China; Contributing editor, Black Agenda Report)
Ju-Hyun Park (Writer and organizer, Nodutdol)
Moderator: Radhika Desai (Professor, University of Manitoba, Canada)

China and the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

This important article in CGTN by Alfred de Zayas, professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and former United Nations Independent Expert on Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, discusses the wilful and dangerous weaponization of the word ‘genocide’ and its utterly inappropriate application to the treatment of the Uyghur population of Xinjiang.

When the UN Charter was adopted 76 years ago, the drafters wanted to add an international bill of rights, but no draft had been negotiated. In the light of the atrocities of World War II, it seemed more important to lay down principles of international criminal law in the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials. It was three years later that the General Assembly turned to the scholarly work of the Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin on the “ultimate crime” and, after much debate, adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948.

“Homo homini lupus” – a man is a wolf to another man. History records many atrocities and massacres including the Armenian genocide from 1915 to 1923, the Nanking Massacre in 1937, the Holocaust from 1941 to 1945, the genocide of the Igbos, the genocide of the Tamils in Sri Lanka…

Ian Goodrum: The ‘Summit for Democracy’ is a master class in hypocrisy

We are pleased to republish below this important article by Ian Goodrum in People’s World exposing the profound hypocrisy lying just beneath the surface of Biden’s ‘Summit for Democracy’, and discussing the realities of China’s socialist democracy.

The image above shows US soldiers holding three Grenadians prisoner during the October 1983 US invasion.

If you thought discourse in the United States couldn’t get more childish, think again: This week, the White House is convening the geopolitical equivalent of the He-Man Woman-Haters’ Club from Our Gang.

The club has an official name, of course; the Summit for Democracy, wherein U.S. President Joe Biden and 110 of his closest friends have a super-secret special meeting in their treehouse to talk about how great they are. But however hard they try to gussy it up, this affair is no different from what Spanky, Alfalfa, and Buckwheat got up to in those Hal Roach short films decades ago.

Carlos Martinez: the Summit for Democracy is just another excuse for China-bashing

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was recently interviewed by CGTN in relation to Biden’s upcoming Summit for Democracy, which is in reality an attempt to consolidate pro-imperialist forces globally against China and other socialist and progressive countries. This is the second part of the interview (the first part can be found here). The video segment of the interview is embedded below, followed by the text of the report, which is republished from CGTN.

These issues will be explored in detail at our Summit for Socialist Democracy, to be held on Saturday 11 December.

I think to some extent, the political context in the West is that anti-China propaganda, particularly in the U.S., has reached a stage where politicians seem like they are forced to engage in China-bashing. It’s become like a form of populism. The media and politicians have been blaming China for everything- for COVID-19, for unemployment, for declining or slow economic growth.

So Biden feels that he has to prove to people that he’s not going to be soft on China. He made it clear from the start that he planned to continue Trump’s basic policy of hostility towards China. But at the same time, Biden wants to put some kind of distance in people’s minds between himself and Trump. And he’s doing that in two key ways, and both of them sort of feed into the summit.

There is greater democracy in China than in many self-proclaimed democratic countries

We are pleased to republish this article from China Daily featuring a selection of opinions about the China: Democracy That Works white paper released at the beginning of December 2021.

Dispelling a universal type of democracy, China’s latest white paper on the issue presents Chinese whole-process people’s democracy as a true and most suitable form in the country’s context, political analysts say.

The document, titled “China: Democracy That Works”, was released by the State Council Information Office on Saturday. Democracy is a common value of humanity and an ideal pursued by ancient civilizations including China and cherished by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people, it said.

Carlos Martinez, co-editor of Friends of Socialist China, said that the white paper provides a detailed insight into China’s own democratic system at a time when the United States and its allies are making a big push to promote Western capitalist democracy as the only legitimate form of governance.

Carlos Martinez: The Summit for Democracy won’t succeed in propping up US hegemony

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was recently interviewed by CGTN in relation to Biden’s upcoming Summit for Democracy, which is in reality an attempt to consolidate pro-imperialist forces globally against China and other socialist and progressive countries. A video segment of the interview is embedded below, followed by the text of the report, which is republished from CGTN.

These issues will be explored in detail at our Summit for Socialist Democracy, to be held on Saturday 11 December.

I think the international context is quite sensitive (and) quite fragile. The main reason behind this being the emerging “new cold war,” which is led by the United States and is directed primarily against China. It’s also directed against Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela (and) the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Essentially, all those countries that you can say, they’re unwilling to accept the U.S. vision of international relations, the so-called liberal international order in which the U.S. enjoys more or less unchallenged hegemony. And U.S.-China relations have really deteriorated in recent years, particularly since 2018.

‘The country that bombed you is your friend. The one that built your new railway is your enemy’

We are pleased to republish this article by Tom Fowdy, originally carried by RT. The author calls out the grotesque hypocrisy of imperialist criticism of China for having built a high speed railway to Vientiane, the capital of Socialist Laos – a small country on which the United States dropped more bombs than were dropped in the whole of World War II, killing some 10% of the population and making it the most bombed country in history.

This is the Western media’s bizarre messaging to the people of Laos, a nation that was carpet bombed by America, and which is now being vilified for accepting a new $9 billion railway line paid for by China.

Thursday was National Day in Laos, a celebration marking 46 years since the landlocked Southeast Asian nation deposed its monarchy and became a revolutionary communist state, an effort which was supported by Vietnam.

This year, the anniversary had added significance, as it saw the opening of a major new project, an electrified high-speed and freight railway system connecting the capital city, Vientiane with its northern neighbour, China.

Dee Knight: the ‘Summit for Democracy’ is the apex of hypocrisy

In this timely article, Dee Knight of the Anti-War Subcommittee of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) International Committee dissects and exposes the true nature of President Biden’s ‘Summit for Democracy’. He particularly notes that the invitation to the Taiwan authorities is a direct attack on the ‘one China policy’, established as the basis of China-US relations since the time of the 1972 Shanghai Communique. He further outlines the hypocrisy of the US position with regard to such countries as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Honduras. These and other themes will be further elaborated in our Summit for Socialist Democracy on Saturday 11th December.

President Biden’s December 9–10 “Summit for Democracy” has already stirred up a storm. The White House says the summit will have “three principal themes: defending against authoritarianism, fighting corruption, and promoting respect for human rights” — clearly targeting Washington’s chosen “autocratic states,” China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

The government of Taiwan is among the 100-plus invitees, prompting suspicions that a key goal is de facto recognition of the island as a sovereign state. This continues the systematic gutting of the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, signed by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, in which the United States acknowledged the One-China policy and agreed to cut back military installations on Taiwan. Now Taiwan is bristling with military installations of all kinds, and has trainers from the U.S. on site — also in violation of the Shanghai Communiqué. It’s a pressure campaign against China, threatening world peace, despite recent friendly talk between Biden and Xi.

China plays a crucial role supporting progress and sovereignty in Latin America

This article by Carlos Martinez, which first appeared in the Morning Star of 4 December 2021, discusses China’s economic engagement with Latin America in recent decades; debunks claims that this engagement is a form of neocolonialism; and concludes that China’s solidarity with Latin America is an important support for sovereign development in the region.

In the last two decades, economic links between Latin America and the People’s Republic of China have been expanding at a dizzying rate. Bilateral trade in 2000 was just 12 billion USD (1 percent of Latin American’s total trade); now it stands at 315 billion USD. In the same time period, China’s foreign direct investment in Latin America has increased by a factor of five.

Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, 19 of the 33 countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region have signed up to the China-led global infrastructure development strategy. Infrastructure projects have been a particular focus for Chinese firms. Writing in Foreign Policy in 2018, Max Nathanson observed that “Latin American governments have long lamented their countries’ patchy infrastructure.” China has “stepped in with a solution: roughly $150 billion loaned to Latin American countries since 2005.”

On democracy in China: state power serves the people rather than capital

We’re pleased to republish below the full text of China: Democracy That Works, an important white paper released by China’s State Council Information Office on 4 December 2021.

At a time when the US and its allies are making a big push to promote Western capitalist democracy as the only legitimate form of governance (for example by holding a so-called Summit for Democracy this week), the document ‘China: Democracy That Works’ provides a detailed insight into China’s own democratic system. Many in the West, having been told for so long that China is ‘undemocratic’ and ‘authoritarian’, will be surprised to find out that China has an extensive system of electoral representation at every level of society. Unlike in the West, China’s electoral democracy is not manipulated by financial interests; electoral campaigns are not high-budget marketing exercises; and people get elected on the basis of their record of serving the people.

As the document states, “state power serves the people, rather than capital.” This is the fundamental difference between China’s socialist democracy and the West’s capitalist democracy. This basic fact explains how China, in spite of being a developing country, is able to so effectively prioritise meeting the needs of the masses of the people – eradicating absolute poverty, suppressing the Covid-19 pandemic, tackling homelessness, stamping out corruption, constructing the world’s biggest social welfare system, and transitioning to a low-carbon economy.

The document notes that different countries have different histories and national conditions and that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to democracy. It therefore does not attempt to universalise China’s democratic model, but it does forcefully reject the attempts by the Western capitalist countries to universalise their model.

Note that Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group are holding a Summit for Socialist Democracy on 11 December 2021 that will explore some of these ideas in detail.

Preamble

Democracy is a common value of humanity and an ideal that has always been cherished by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese people.

This year marks the centenary of the CPC. Since its founding in 1921, the Party has taken wellbeing for the Chinese people and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as its abiding goals, and has made continuous efforts to ensure the people’s status as masters of the country. China is a country with a feudal history dating back several thousand years that descended into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society after the Opium War of 1840. Over the past hundred years, the Party has led the people in realizing people’s democracy in China. The Chinese people now truly hold in their hands their own future and that of society and the country.

Quote: Wang Wenbin on the US’s brazen misuse of the word ‘democracy’

For too long the US has been using democracy as a cover to flagrantly engage in infiltration and subversion in sovereign countries, impose economic sanctions, cause turmoil and chaos, and wage wars of occupation, bringing disaster to the affected countries and the international community.
The so-called ‘Summit for Democracy’ will not turn Washington into a democratic high ground. It will only expose further the true face of the US as a manipulator and saboteur of democracy in front of the whole world.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on December 1, 2021

Biden's 'Summit for Democracy' is nothing short of a farce.

Much better will be our Summit for Socialist Democracy on Saturday 11 December, featuring @LunaOi_VN @CarlosJRonVE @eliasjabbour @hermit_hwarang @SpiritofHo @PanAfrikFem_PhD @RadDesai & more!

https://t.co/q4zuBPYjt4 pic.twitter.com/8c61c1ElLs
— Friends of Socialist China (@socialist_china) December 1, 2021

Danny Haiphong exposes the rank hypocrisy of the so-called Summit for Democracy

Co-editor of Friends of Socialist China Danny Haiphong appeared on By Any Means Necessary with Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman to discuss the upcoming Summit for Democracy led by the Biden Administration. The conversation included an in-depth analysis of the differences between socialist democracy and capitalist democracy in preparation for FoSC’s upcoming Summit for Socialist Democracy. You can register for that here.

John Ross: The international and historical significance of the resolution on the history of the CPC

In his latest article, which we are pleased to republish from Learning from China, John Ross provides a useful summary of the three key resolutions on party history adopted by the Communist Party of China in its century of struggle. Against this background, John further outlines how generations of Chinese communists, and especially Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping, have defended, applied, enriched and developed Marxism-Leninism and in so doing have not only immeasurably improved the lives of the Chinese people but also contributed significantly to the progress of humanity, especially to the liberation struggles of the countries and peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The following article was originally published in Chinese by Guancha.cn.

The “Resolution on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century”, adopted by the Sixth Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in November 2021, is, rightly, regarded as in the first place an issue for China itself. As the Resolution notes in its first sentence: “Since its founding in 1921, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has remained true to its original aspiration and mission of seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation.”

It is obviously correct to start with the position of China itself. But the second sentence of the Resolution starts by noting the connection of China’s national struggle with international developments – in particular in regard to socialism: “Staying committed to communist ideals and socialist convictions, it [the CPC] has united and led Chinese people of all ethnic groups in working tirelessly to achieve national independence and liberation.” Indeed, for reasons that will be analysed, this resolution on the history of the CPC is of very great international and historical importance for all countries as well as for China itself. Therefore, while in no way wishing to deflect from the correctly China focussed nature of discussion on the Resolution, it is also hoped here it may cast some light on the discussion if international aspects of the significance of the Resolution are also considered.

China and Africa: The real story of Western hypocrisy

In this extensive interview and conversation between Brian Becker and Professor Ken Hammond, these two veteran activists dissect China’s policies towards and presence in Africa. Starting with the latest ‘fake news’ fabrication regarding China supposedly seizing control of Uganda’s main airport, they contrast China’s strategy of win-win cooperation to the rapacious record of imperialism on the African continent, and situate this within the changing dynamics of relations between the US and China.

Bertie Ahern: China’s infrastructure investment has been of major benefit to the people of Africa

In this short interview with CGTN in advance of the 8th Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern gives his opinions on China-Africa relations. He praises the growing role of FOCAC, points to the transformative impact of China’s infrastructure investment, and debunks the idea that China has laid a ‘debt trap’ for African countries; indeed he notes China’s leading role in debt relief for poor and indebted nations. Video embedded below.

Keynote speech by Xi Jinping at opening ceremony of 8th FOCAC ministerial conference

We are very pleased to publish the full text of President Xi Jinping’s important speech to today’s opening ceremony of the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

Noting that this year marks the 65th anniversary of the start of diplomatic relations between China and African countries, Xi notes that China and Africa have “forged unbreakable fraternity in our struggle against imperialism and colonialism”.

The Chinese President goes on to make four proposals, concerning fighting Covid-19, deepening practical cooperation, promoting green development and upholding equity and justice.

He further notes that the two sides have jointly prepared the ‘China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035’. Its first three-year plan features nine programmes, covering medical and health, poverty reduction and agricultural development, trade promotion, investment promotion, digital innovation, green development, capacity building, cultural and people-to-people exchange, and peace and security.

Your Excellency President Macky Sall,

Distinguished Colleagues,

Dear Guests and Friends,

It is such a pleasure to attend the opening ceremony of the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Let me first express sincere appreciation to President Sall and the government of Senegal for their excellent organization, and extend a warm welcome to the colleagues and guests attending the Conference.

This year marks the 65th anniversary of the start of diplomatic relations between China and African countries. Over the past 65 years, China and Africa have forged unbreakable fraternity in our struggle against imperialism and colonialism, and embarked on a distinct path of cooperation in our journey toward development and revitalization. Together, we have written a splendid chapter of mutual assistance amidst complex changes, and set a shining example for building a new type of international relations.

Remembering Mao Anying, son of Mao Zedong who died fighting US imperialism in Korea

The following article by Xia Yuansheng – president of the Hunan Provincial CPC Historical Figures Research Association – recalls the heroic sacrifice of Mao Anying (eldest son of Mao Zedong), who died on the frontlines of resistance against US imperialism and in solidarity with the Korean people. This episode forms part of a tremendously important history of militant anti-imperialist solidarity and enduring bonds of friendship between China and the DPRK.

The article was published in Chinese in 2010. It is included in the most recent issue of Dongsheng Chinese Voices, to mark the 71st anniversary of Mao Anying’s death (25 November 1950). Chinese Voices provides a valuable weekly newsletter containing a selection of articles by key Chinese thinkers.

On 25 June 1950, the Korean War broke out. On the third day, the United States imperialists announced armed assistance to south Korea and at the same time ordered its Seventh Fleet to sail into the Taiwan Strait, blatantly interfering in China’s internal affairs, and on 15 September the United States landed at Inchon and soon crossed the “38th parallel”, blatantly burning the war to the border of China and North Korea and the Yalu River, directly threatening the security and peace-building of new China. Faced with the most severe test of foreign war, political and military struggle, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, at the request of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the will of the Chinese people, decided to send troops to resist the U.S. and aid the DPRK. on October 18, Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, issued the order “Resist the U.S. and aid the DPRK, protect the country”. On October 18, Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, issued an order “to defend the interests of the Korean people, the Chinese people and the peoples of the East by transforming the Northeast Frontier Defense Army into the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army and marching to the territory of Korea at once to fight with the Korean comrades against the invaders and to strive for a glorious victory”. On October 25, the first battle was won, opening the prelude to the war against the U.S. and Korea, so the Chinese people have always taken this day as the anniversary of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army’s departure for North Korea.