With the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China scheduled to open on October 16, the International Department of the Communist Party of China has released this short video highlighting the publication of Volume IV of President Xi Jinping’s collection of articles and speeches, The Governance of China.
The video highlights how China has achieved its first centenary goal (marking 100 years since the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1921) of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, with the complete elimination of extreme poverty, and is now advancing towards the second centenary goal (which will mark 100 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949) of building a great modern socialist country in all respects.
President Xi points out that China is now closer than ever before to realizing its cause of national rejuvenation and more confident than ever of achieving it.
The video also outlines the Chinese leader’s thinking on building a community with a shared future for humanity, highlighting in particular China’s global supply of vaccines and the role of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in poverty alleviation, along with China having signed BRI agreements with 149 countries and 32 international organizations.
During his intensive working visit to New York last month for the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held tens of meetings with his counterparts from all parts of the world. We present here some important highlights from his meetings with the representatives of a number of developing and progressive countries that are friendly to China. All materials are taken from news reports carried on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
In his September 19 meeting with Wang Yi, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is of historic and milestone significance. He is fully confident that the congress will be a complete success and boost China’s efforts to seek greater prosperity. Pakistan always regards its relations with China as the cornerstone of its foreign policy. This has become a common understanding of the whole Pakistani society. Bilawal expressed appreciation for China’s support to Pakistan in tackling the pandemic and floods. Pakistan is ready to work with China to implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, maintain close strategic coordination, consolidate Pakistan-China all-weather strategic cooperative partnership, and deepen all-round cooperation between the two countries.
Meeting Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla the same day, Wang Yi said that China and Cuba are good friends, good comrades, and good brothers with mutual trust and a shared future. The heads of state of the two countries have built their friendship and maintained close communication. The Chinese side stands ready to work with Cuba to follow the guidance of the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, deepen unity and cooperation, and consolidate and develop the special friendship between China and Cuba.
Rodríguez thanked the Chinese side for the long-term support for Cuba’s national course of justice and for the solidarity and assistance when Cuba suffered from the pandemic, disasters, and other difficult times. Cuba is glad about the profound friendship and political mutual trust between the heads of state of the two countries.
Marking the United Nations’ International Day of Peace on September 21, the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD) organized a commemorative event in hybrid format, taking as its theme, ‘Acting on the Global Security Initiative to maintain world peace and stability’. Several hundred people from around the world attended, offline and online.
The event was opened with a congratulatory letter sent by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which was read by Liu Jianchao, Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China.
In his letter, President Xi said that the world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation. “At this important historical juncture, I put forward the Global Security Initiative, call on all countries to uphold the common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept, respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, abide by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and take seriously the legitimate security concerns of all countries.”
This was followed by a keynote speech from Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, delivered via video link. Wang noted that, all countries need to practice mutual respect, enhance solidarity and coordination, respect others’ national security, sovereignty and development interests, and refrain from interfering in others’ internal affairs. “We need to work together to improve global governance, firmly oppose hegemony and bullying, practice true multilateralism, safeguard world peace and stability, and promote the development and prosperity of all countries.”
In the video embedded below, produced by and originally published on CGTN, FoSC co-editor Carlos Martinez responds to questions about why the US is suddenly showing an interest in the islands of the Pacific, and why the recent US-Pacific Island Country Summit wasn’t held years ago. Carlos notes that the US and the other imperialist powers have almost totally ignored these small nations in the post-colonial era. Their attention has been drawn by a blossoming and mutually-beneficial relationship between the Pacific Island countries and the People’s Republic of China. Of particular concern was the security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, signed in April 2022.
Carlos points out that China has never had a colonial relationship with these countries, but is very willing to provide aid, trade, and investment; furthermore, it works with these countries without attempting to compromise their sovereignty. Unfortunately, this runs counter to the US’s evolving strategy of encircling and containing China.
Transcript
CGTN: Since Joe Biden came to office, the U.S. has put greater focus on the Asia-Pacific. What caused this shift?
Martinez: The difference between Donald Trump and Biden in terms of their approach to the Pacific Islands really reflects the overall difference in their foreign policy. Trump’s motto was “America First.” His administration didn’t really pursue alliances, but talked quite openly about the need to maintain U.S. hegemony.
Now, Biden’s foreign policy is somewhat more sophisticated than Trump’s, but he’s seeking ultimately the same thing as Trump. He’s seeking to consolidate and expand U.S. hegemony, U.S. imperialism, but he wants to do it in a more consensual way. He wants to build an alliance.
CGTN: Beijing in April signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands. In contrast, the country seemed to keep its distance from the U.S., given that the Prime Minister skipped a planned appearance with Wendy Sherman during her Asia Pacific trip in August. How do you explain the contrast between the Solomon Islands’ attitudes toward the U.S. and China?
Martinez: The fact is that in recent decades, the imperialist powers have almost completely ignored the Pacific Island countries. They’ve been left to try and overcome the legacy of a century of colonialism, a century of underdevelopment on their own. Many of these countries suffer terrible poverty, terrible inequality. Many of them struggle with high crime rates, with ethnic tensions. And these problems are largely a product of their colonial history, but the former colonizers don’t apparently feel any sense of responsibility toward them.
China, on the other hand, is a nearby major power. There has never been a colonial relationship with these countries, but it is very willing to provide aid, trade, and investment, that’s very willing to help these countries to develop without compromising their sovereignty. This will make sense for the Solomon Islands and for the other Pacific countries, but it’s the opposite of what the U.S. wants as part of its strategy of China encirclement.
That’s the reason for this kind of sudden flurry of diplomatic activity in the region. That’s the reason for this forthcoming U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit. That’s the reason for the U.S., Australia, Japan, and Britain forming this Partners in the Blue Pacific. These are imperialist powers that are doing everything they can to prevent normal and mutually beneficial relations between China and the Pacific Island countries, the reason being that they insist on the whole region being part of a so-called sphere of influence, in which the people of the region are just sort of humble pawns in the U.S.’s imperial chess game.
CGTN: Why wasn’t the summit set up years ago rather than now?
Martinez: What the summit represents is an example of the cold war mentality. Why has the United States suddenly decided that it cares about its relationship with the islands of the Pacific? The reason is because those islands have increasingly good relations with China, and because China has emerged as a major trading partner of those islands. China is the principal supplier of COVID-19 vaccines to these islands. China’s working very strongly with these countries around climate change issues, which are having a very heavy impact on the islands of the Pacific.
The United States, not wanting to see China having good relations with these countries, suddenly decides that it will have a conference. It will have a summit and it will try and essentially bribe these countries back into the U.S. camp.
The Biden administration is paying much more attention to the Pacific Islands because he wants to incorporate these countries into an anti-China alliance so that they can form another island chain and used potentially to intimidate or to blockade China.
The bigger picture is that the U.S. economy has essentially run out of steam. There’s no question of the U.S. matching the dynamism of the Chinese economy. China has become by far the world leader in new energy, telecommunications, 5G, nanotechnology and several other key areas. Average life expectancy in China has now overtaken that of the U.S. So increasingly, ordinary Chinese people are living longer and living better than their counterparts in the U.S., and the U.S. sees this as a threat and it’s responding to this threat with what I think we should agree is a very dangerous militarization and by resorting to cold war strategies, block-based politics, division, and decoupling.
This runs counter to the interests of the American people. It runs counter to the interest of the Chinese people, and it runs counter to the interest of the people of the world.
Marking the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, leaders of numerous countries sent greetings to President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders.
Reporting the messages of greetings, the Xinhua News Agency and other Chinese media gave notable pride of place to the greetings sent by China’s fraternal socialist countries, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Republic of Cuba.
DPRK leader Kim Jong Un noted that, over the past 73 years, China has made “remarkable successes in accomplishing the socialist cause, braving all sorts of challenges and trials of history” and had entered the new stage of comprehensively building a modern socialist country since the 18th Party Congress.
The Korean leader also expressed solidarity with China’s struggle to defend the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and realize national reunification. He further noted that the two parties and two countries are supporting and encouraging each other in the common socialist cause.
Vietnamese Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong and state President Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed their firm belief that under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, the Chinese people will certainly achieve the national development tasks and goals set forth by the CPC and forge ahead on the road of building China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful.
Lao leader Thongloun Sisoulith expressed his belief that the brotherly Chinese people will make new and greater achievements in the new journey toward China’s second centenary goal of building a great modern socialist country in all respects, and successfully realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero conveyed their conviction that the socialist cause in China will be strengthened after the successful holding of the Congress of the Communist Party this month.
Foreign leaders congratulate the People’s Republic of China on 73rd founding anniversary
Leaders of many countries and international organizations have recently telephoned or sent letters to Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), to warmly congratulate on the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the PRC and wish the upcoming 20th National Congress of the CPC a full success.
Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), on behalf of the WPK, the government of the DPRK and the people of the DPRK, extended warm congratulations to Comrade General Secretary Xi Jinping, the CPC, the government of the PRC and the brotherly Chinese people.
The following article, originally published in CGTN on 1 October 2022, details an important renewable energy project that will combine the output from the Kela Solar Power Station in Sichuan with that of the nearby Lianghekou Hydropower Station. The Kela solar plant will send its electricity output to the hydropower plant, which is already connected to the national grid. In combination, the two will be able to mitigate the problems of fluctuation and intermittency associated with both photovoltaic and hydropower technology.
When it opens in 2023, this will be the world’s largest hybrid energy plant, and will make an important contribution to China’s historic goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060.
A nice detail from the article is that the solar panels at the Kela plant are being elevated to a height of 1.8 meters in order to allow local herdsmen to continue to feed their cows and sheep in the area.
China is upgrading a major hydro power plant as part of the world’s largest hybrid energy project, generating electricity from hydro and photovoltaic powers.
Kela Solar Power Station will be built in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, close to Lianghekou Hydropower Station, located on the Yalong River, with generating capacity of 1 million kW. The solar panels will be installed on the mountains at an altitude of up to 4,600 meters, with extra 1 million kW in capacity. The project is expected to operate for 1,735 hours in a year with an average annual power capacity of 2 billion kilowatt-hours when completed in 2023.
China is ushering in clean energy practices as it aims to peak carbon emissions in 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.
Kela Station will help cut carbon dioxide emissions by over 1.6 million tonnes, an equivalent of burning 600,000 tonnes of coal, according to Qi Ningchun, chairman of the Yalong River Hydropower Development Co. Ltd., operator of the project.
Kela Station will be a complementary power source for the hydropower station as the two plants’ outputs change distinctively throughout the year.
We are pleased to reproduce this article by Stephen Millies, originally carried by our US comrades of Struggle/La Lucha greeting the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and celebrating the struggles and achievements of the Chinese revolution.
Since Mao Zedong declared that “the Chinese people have stood up”, Stephen notes, life expectancy has more than doubled, surpassing that in the US. Illiteracy, which stood at some 80% at the time of liberation, has been virtually eliminated. Thirty-seven million people attend university. 52% of them are women.
Noting the centuries-long confrontation between China and imperialism, the author notes that imperialist hatred has only increased in the face of the socialist country’s achievements. The terrible wars in Korea and Indochina were a key part of US imperialism’s response to the Chinese revolution, as was McCarthyism at home. Refuting some of the key anti-China smears used to confuse working and oppressed people in the United States, Stephen concludes: “Our enemy is high rents, police brutality and mass incarceration. We need what China has: a socialist revolution.”
When the People’s Republic of China was born on Oct. 1, 1949, the country was devastated by years of war. At least 20 million Chinese people were killed. Starvation stalked the land.
The Chinese Revolution swept that misery away. Seventy-three years after Mao Zedong declared that “China has stood up,” look at what socialism has accomplished:
Life expectancy has more than doubled to reach 77.3 years. That’s a longer lifespan than in the U.S.
Women moved forward with unbound feet. Chinese scientist Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2015. She discovered artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, which are used to combat malaria.
While 80% of China’s people couldn’t read or write in 1949, illiteracy has been virtually abolished. Thirty-seven million people attend universities compared with 117,000 before the revolution. More than 52% of college students were women.
China has become the workshop of the world. The People’s Republic makes more than a billion tons of steel annually. China has built more miles of high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined.
Even greater advances have been made by China’s national minorities, whose languages and cultures flourish. One of the great victories of human rights was the abolition of serfdom in Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army. The Chinese Revolution inspired oppressed people around the world, including Malcolm X.
China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Comrade Wang Yi attended the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month.
Besides delivering his address to the assembly on September 24, Wang Yi had a packed programme, which saw him:
Hold tens of bilateral meetings with other national leaders, both from countries friendly to China as well as those not so friendly, along with senior UN officials and leaders of international organizations
Meet with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
Meet jointly with representatives of the National Committee on US-China Relations, US-China Business Council and US Chamber of Commerce
Chair the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative (GDI), attended by senior leaders from more than 40 countries
Address the Informal Leaders’ Roundtable on Climate Action
Attend the Security Council Foreign Ministers’ meeting on the Ukraine issue
Deliver a major speech on the prospects for China-US relations to the Asia Society
Participate in the meeting of BRICS Foreign Ministers
Delivering his September 24 speech, Wang began by noting that humanity was facing various challenges, including the continued resurfacing of the Covid-19 pandemic, uncertain global security, and fragile and unsteady global recovery. “The world has entered a new phase of turbulence and transformation…But we are also at a time full of hope. The world continues to move towards multipolarity…Around the world, the people’s call for progress and cooperation is getting louder than ever before.”
Posing the question of how to “ride on the trend of history to build a community with a shared future for mankind”, he explained that “China’s answer is firm and clear”:
We must uphold peace and oppose war and turbulence. “Turbulence and war can only open Pandora’s box, and he who instigates a proxy war can easily burn his own hands.”
We must pursue development and eliminate poverty, upholding all countries’ legitimate right to development.
We must remain open and oppose exclusion – “decoupling and supply chain disruption will hurt both those who practice them and others.”
We must stay engaged in cooperation and oppose confrontation. “Our biggest strength will come from solidarity; our best strategy is to stick together through thick and thin; and the brightest prospect is win-win cooperation.”
We must strengthen solidarity and oppose division. “Peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom are common values of humanity.”
We must uphold equity and oppose bullying. “International rules should be drawn up by all countries together. No country is above others, and no country should abuse its power to bully other sovereign countries.”
Affirming that China will “pursue the shared interests of the vast majority of countries”, Wang went on to note that:
China has been a builder of world peace and is “the only one among the five Nuclear-Weapon States that is committed to no-first-use of nuclear weapons.” (Note: Wang Yi refers here to the five recognised nuclear powers under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The DPRK, India, Pakistan and Israel also possess nuclear weapons.)
China has been a contributor to global development. “Contributing about 30 percent of annual global growth, China is the biggest engine driving the global economy. China is a pacesetter in implementing the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It has met the poverty reduction goal ten years ahead of the envisioned timeframe and accounts for 70 percent of the gains in global poverty reduction… It has provided development aid to more than 160 countries in need and extended more debt-service payments owed by developing countries than any other G20 member state.”
China has been a defender of the international order. By this, Wang refers to “the international system with the UN at its core and the international order based on international law”, which, it should be noted, is very different from the so-called ‘rules based international order’, constantly touted by a handful of countries, principally the United States and Great Britain, which is nothing but a flimsy cover for the attempted maintenance of imperial diktat. “As a member of the developing world, China will forever stand together with other developing countries. We are heartened to see the rapid progress achieved by the developing world in recent years, and we will continue to speak up for other developing countries…Developing countries are no longer the ‘silent majority’ in international and multilateral processes. With stronger solidarity among ourselves, we China and other developing countries have spoken out for justice, and we have become a pillar of promoting development cooperation and safeguarding equity and justice.”
China has been a provider of public goods. “We have done our best to provide anti-pandemic supplies and shared our practices on combating the virus. China is among the first to promise making COVID-19 vaccines a global public good and to support waiving intellectual property rights on the vaccines. China has provided over 2.2 billion doses of vaccines to more than 120 countries and international organizations…In response to climate change, China is committed to pursuing a development path that puts ecological conservation first, one of green and low-carbon growth…China accounts for one-fourth of all the trees planted globally. We have been making unremitting efforts to foster a community of life for man and Nature… This year, we have provided over 15,000 tons of emergency humanitarian food assistance to other developing countries in need.”
China has been a mediator of hotspot issues. “While adhering to the principle of non-interference in others’ domestic affairs and respecting the will and needs of the countries concerned, China has endeavoured to help settle hotspot issues in a constructive way…China supports all efforts conducive to the peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis…The Palestinian question is at the heart of the Middle East issue. Justice is already late in coming, but it must not be absent… China firmly supports the Cuban people in their just struggle to defend their sovereignty and oppose external interference and blockade.”
Turning to the Taiwan issue, Wang Yi noted that: “Fifty-one years ago, right in this august hall, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 with an overwhelming majority, which decided to restore the lawful seat of the People’s Republic of China in the UN and to expel the ‘representatives’ of the Taiwan authorities from the place which they had unlawfully occupied. The so-called ‘dual representation’ proposal put forth by the United States and a few other countries to keep Taiwan’s seat in the UN became a piece of waste paper…When entering into diplomatic relations with China, 181 countries all recognized and accepted that there is but one China in the world and Taiwan is a part of China, and that the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China. By firmly upholding the one-China principle, China is not only upholding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also truly safeguarding peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and non-interference in others’ internal affairs, a basic norm of international relations that is of vital importance to the large number of developing countries.”
Coming to the conclusion of his speech, Wang Yi declared: “As China has one-fifth of the global population, its march toward modernization has important, far-reaching significance for the world. The path that China pursues is one of peace and development, not one of plunder and colonialism; it is a path of win-win cooperation, not one of zero-sum game; and it is one of harmony between man and Nature, not one of destructive exploitation of resources.”
We reprint below the full text of Comrade Wang Yi’s speech, which was originally carried on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. In a subsequent post, we will present some highlights from the minister’s New York meetings with the representatives of a number of friendly, progressive and developing countries.
Mr. President, Dear Colleagues,
We are at a time fraught with challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has kept resurfacing. Global security faces uncertainty. Global economic recovery is fragile and unsteady, and various risks and crises are emerging. The world has entered a new phase of turbulence and transformation. Changes unseen in a century are accelerating.
On Saturday 24 September 2022, we hosted a webinar on the rising aggression of the US and its allies in the Pacific region. There were a number of excellent contributions dealing with issues including the Biden administration’s increased support for Taiwanese separatism; Western power projection in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits; the hysteria surrounding China’s security agreement with the Solomon Islands; the AUKUS nuclear pact; and developments in Korea and Japan. The event stream and the individual speeches are embedded below, and can be viewed directly on our YouTube channel.
Event stream: China encirclement and the imperialist build-up in the Pacific
Ken Hammond: Fearing the loss of their global hegemony, US elites are responding with desperation
Ju-Hyun Park: China encirclement not possible without imperialist national oppression of China’s neighbors
Lilian Sing: US geopolitical hostility to China is trickling down and fomenting anti-Asian hate
Sara Flounders: There’s US ruling class consensus around derailing China’s socialist development
Li Peng: The US plays the Taiwan card to undermine China’s development and obstruct reunification
Charles Xu: A “free and open Indo-Pacific” is exactly what imperialist forces have always subverted
Ben Norton: The US is developing plans to overthrow the Chinese government by military means
KJ Noh: The US is already engaged in a multi-faceted hybrid war on China
Zhong Xiangyu: Taiwanese separatism is being leveraged towards the West’s China containment strategy
Keith Bennett: A major conflict between China and the US would be a catastrophe for humanity
Britain’s General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) initiated an autumn series of online seminars, under the theme The Bigger Picture, on September 15, by inviting Friends of Socialist China co-editors Carlos Martinez and Keith Bennett to introduce on the theme ‘China in the World Today’. Chaired by GFTU General Secretary Doug Nicholls, Carlos kicked off with a look at China’s domestic situation, focusing on poverty elimination and preventing climate catastrophe. Keith followed, addressing the questions of Taiwan and the relations between China, Britain, and the US. A lively discussion ensued, which could certainly have gone on for much longer.
Next events in the series will feature Dr. Francisco Dominguez, academic, activist and member of our advisory group, who will speak on the Decline of US imperialism on October 20; and our friend Dr. Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), who will speak on NATO Friend or Foe on November 17. You can register for these events at The Bigger Picture: Autumn Series of Online Seminars – GFTU.
The GFTU is pleased to facilitate informed debate and critical thinking about many subjects in its education programme and the views of speakers and participants do not necessarily reflect those of the GFTU.
In the following article, first carried in the Morning Star, Kenny Coyle details the “major reversal in US-China relations”, most recently highlighted by Biden’s unequivocal declaration that the US would commit its forces in the event of a military conflict between China and its renegade island province of Taiwan. This, Kenny explains, is “viewed with alarm in Beijing”, as it “increases the possibilities of a US-China war.”
The article outlines the key points of the three Sino-US joint communiques, noting how the second was swiftly undermined by the ‘Taiwan Relations Act’, and drawing attention to the ‘Taiwan Policy Act’, currently making its way through the US legislature. This would allow for an “enduring rotational US military presence” on Taiwan, something that the US has not maintained since 1979 when it established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic. As Kenny rightly concludes, this “suggests dark days lie ahead.”
On Sunday 18 September, US President Joe Biden told the US news programme 60 Minutes that the US military would go to war in Taiwan should Chinese forces land on the island chain to enforce its sovereignty.
While China has never ruled out the last-resort use of military force, it has always insisted on its preference for peaceful reunification. Biden’s most recent comments repeat previous statements, including one made in Japan, Taiwan’s former colonial occupying power, in May. They are, however, the first since US house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s journey to Taipei in August which resulted in China holding major military exercises after her visit.
Pelosi’s meeting with the political leadership of Taiwan certainly enraged China and inflamed tension in the area. This was no diplomatic faux pas; it was the whole point of her trip.
An official visit by the third most senior politician in the US on a US Air Force special air mission Boeing C40 military jet emblazoned with US livery to a territory in which Washington does not have an embassy or a consulate was a deliberate provocation.
China got the message. Once Pelosi’s jet departed Taiwan’s self-declared air space, rejoined by her US Air Force escort, China announced a series of live-fire military drills around the main island of Taiwan and reaffirmed its declaration of sovereignty over the territories administered by the Taipei authorities.
With the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China scheduled to open on October 16, the party’s leading theoretical journal, Qiushi, has recently published an extract from an extremely important speech made by General Secretary Xi Jinping on January 5, 2018, at a seminar for new central committee members and other leading cadres.
Echoing the opening of Comrade Mao Zedong’s famous article, ‘Where do correct ideas come from?’, Comrade Xi asserts that, “Socialism with Chinese characteristics did not fall from the sky”, but rather is deeply rooted not simply in the four decades of ‘reform and opening up’, but in the whole history of the Chinese revolution and in the inheritance of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.
He goes on to explain that the socialist revolution constituted, “the most extensive and profound social transformation in the history of the Chinese nation.” After the establishment of the basic socialist system, the Party has, “made a long-term exploration of how to build socialism in China and has made important achievements as well as experienced serious twists and turns. The main problem here is that building socialism in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society like ours is an unprecedented undertaking, and there is no ready-made model to follow.”
Engels, he points out, noted that “‘the so-called ‘socialist society’ is not something that is set in stone, but should be seen, like any other social system, as a society that changes and reforms frequently.'” Socialism with Chinese characteristics has to be grasped, “in the course of the evolution of socialism in the world,” from Marx and Engels who turned socialism from an ideal into a science, to the October Revolution, which saw scientific socialism develop from theory to practice. Furthermore: “After the end of the Second World War, a number of socialist countries were born, especially our Party led the people to establish New China and the socialist system, which led scientific socialism from practice in one country to development in many countries. At that time, the socialist camp was flourishing, and together with the anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist struggles of Asian, African and Latin American countries, it formed a basically evenly matched pattern with the capitalist world, which is why Comrade Mao Zedong said that ‘the east wind overwhelmed the west wind.'”
However, historical development is full of twists and turns. Events in the late 1980s and early 1990s not only led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the East European socialist countries, they also, “brought a serious impact on the vast number of developing countries that aspired to socialism, and many of them were forced to take the path of copying the Western system.”
Noting that the previous year had seen the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, Comrade Xi explained, “I mentioned this major historical event at the beginning of the second part of the 19th Party Congress report in order to declare the historical impact of the October Revolution on the birth and development of the Chinese Communist Party. As Lenin profoundly pointed out in commemorating the fourth anniversary of the October Revolution, ‘this first victory is not yet final,’ but ‘we have already begun this enterprise. It does not matter when and for what period the proletarians of which country will carry this cause to its conclusion. What is important is that the ice has been broken, the voyage has been opened, the way has been shown.'”
Therefore, Xi notes, “The success of scientific socialism in China is of great significance to Marxism and scientific socialism, and to socialism in the world.” It is conceivable, he continues, that if the leadership of the CPC and China’s socialist system had also collapsed, then the cause of socialism as a whole could have been plunged into darkness. As it is, “Socialism with Chinese characteristics is becoming the banner for the development of scientific socialism in the 21st century and the mainstay for the revitalization of socialism in the world.”
The Chinese leader also addresses the question of the CPC being both a “ruling party” and a “revolutionary party”. He explains that those who assert that the party has transitioned from a revolutionary party to a ruling party are mistaken. They are not two distinct things. “We are communists and revolutionaries and should not lose our revolutionary spirit,” Comrade Xi notes, and continues: “Our Party is a Marxist ruling party, but at the same time it is a Marxist revolutionary party, and we must maintain the same vigor, revolutionary enthusiasm, and desperate spirit as in the past during the revolutionary war and carry out the revolutionary work to the end.”
This document has yet to be officially published in English translation. What follows is a machine translation from the Chinese original, received from the Dongsheng news group. As a result, it may contain some minor inaccuracies and should not be considered definitive. However, we are reprinting it on account of its great importance, rich content and timeliness.
When I met with Chinese and foreign journalists after the First Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, I said that practice has proved that our Party is able to lead the people not only in a great social revolution, but also in a great self-revolution of the whole Party. Let me first make some comments from the perspective of social revolution.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era is the fruit of the great social revolution led by our Party and the continuation of the great social revolution led by our Party, and must be carried out consistently.
Both history and reality tell us that a social revolution often requires a long historical process to achieve ultimate victory. Only by looking back at the road taken, comparing the road of others, looking far ahead of the road, to figure out where we came from, where to go, many issues to see deep, accurate.
We are very pleased to reproduce this key extract from an important speech by Daniel Ortega, President of revolutionary Nicaragua, with thanks to our friends at Multipolarista. As a multipolar world emerges, Comrade Ortega explains, the US is trying desperately to maintain its hegemony by attempting to destroy the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China and the economies of the European countries.
What harm, Ortega asks, has People’s China done to the United States or to the peoples of the world – to the peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa or Asia. What worries them rather is that China is providing benefits to these peoples, so the United States is losing its power to keep them enslaved.
Speaking on the day that US House Speaker Pelosi arrived in Taiwan, Ortega said that he was sure that the Chinese people, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, have the strength, intelligence and experience to formulate the correct response that will further strengthen the People’s Republic and weaken US hegemony.
Amidst all these tumultuous events, the veteran Nicaraguan revolutionary leader points out, a new world is being born, something to which Nicaragua and its people are contributing their little grain of sand every day.
The following video, which we reproduce with thanks to our friends at Kawsachun News, features a warm and important speech by Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of the Commonwealth of Dominica at the September 10 launch of the Dominica-China Friendship Association, attended by a galaxy of the country’s VIPs, including President Charles Savarin.
Prime Minister Skerrit hails the formation of the Friendship Association as a “most progressive move towards a deepening of already strong ties” between the two governments and peoples.
Roosevelt Skerrit is the third successive Prime Minister from the Dominica Labour Party. The first, Rosie Douglas, was a long-standing and good friend of the People’s Republic and Communist Party of China. Unfortunately, he tragically died on October 1 2000, from a heart attack, after just a few months in office, and before he could complete the work he had initiated of breaking the ties that the previous right-wing government had established with the Taiwan authorities. It fell to his close comrade Skerrit to take this step on March 23 2004.
In his speech, Skerrit notes that this decision has enhanced the lives of Dominica’s people – including in education, human resources, health care, agriculture and sports. China has also extended invaluable help in the face of two tropical storms and the global pandemic. He drew particular attention to the word friendship in the new association’s name. Friendship, the Prime Minister explained, means that you stand with your friends, especially in difficult times. He encouraged the association to issue statements of solidarity with China whenever the country is unjustly attacked.
We are pleased to reprint the below article by Michael Olugbode, a journalist with the Nigerian newspaper, This Day, originally carried by People’s Daily Online.
Situating his argument in the context of the contributions of the great Pan-African and socialist revolutionaries Walter Rodney and Frantz Fanon, respectively from Guyana and Martinique, and their most famous works, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and The Wretched of the Earth, Michael goes on to assert:
“It has been many decades since colonization ‘ended’ on the African continent, but the continent has not fully healed from this past trauma and continues to search for a path to continue from where its development was disrupted. Perhaps this search may have at last come to an end with the support of a country that had also once witnessed a dose of colonization and whose people has since healed from this inhumane history, having emerged from the ruins of colonization and wars to become the fastest growing economy on the planet. That country is none other than the People’s Republic of China.”
Outlining details of the multifaceted cooperation between China and Africa, he notes that the 10 plans that President Xi Jinping outlined at the 2015 FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) Summit in Johannesburg have been implemented in full, with the construction of numerous railways, highways, airports, ports and other infrastructure projects, and concludes:
“The facts are there for everyone to see that Africa has finally and gradually started moving towards a promising mode of development thanks to the fellow brother that China has proven itself to be.”
Modern science, and especially the latest archeological discoveries, has shown that the African continent is the cradle of humankind. Its people were developing slowly and steadily at their own pace until some external forces invaded the continent and carted away its able bodied men and women to strange lands where they were forced to toil for generations building the emerging economies of another continent.
Some have referred to this process as an exchange or perhaps a kind of trade, but could it be described as such when humans, treated like nothing but property, were exchanged for goods such as guns and gin. No wonder Walter Rodney, in reference to his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, argued that it was a combination of power politics and economic exploitation of Africa by Europeans that eventually led to the poor state of African political and economic development as became evident in the late 20th century. Although the author did not state his intention “to remove the ultimate responsibility for development from the shoulders of Africans… [He believes that] every African has a responsibility to understand the [capitalist] system and work for its overthrow.”
Similarly, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth provides insights into how the developmental strides of Africa were distorted. The psychiatrist provided a psychological and psychiatric analysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individuals and the nations of Africa, and discussed the broader social, cultural, and political implications of establishing a social movement for the decolonization of a person and of a people.
It has been many decades since colonization “ended” on the African continent, but the continent has not fully healed from this past trauma and continues to search for a path to continue from where its development was disrupted. Perhaps this search may have at last come to an end with the support of a country that had also once witnessed a dose of colonization and whose people has since healed from this inhumane history, having emerged from the ruins of colonization and wars to become the fastest growing economy on the planet. That country is none other than the People’s Republic of China.
China has presented Africa with a way out of its constant state of underdevelopment by offering a friendly win-win international development springboard in the form of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). At the opening ceremony of the 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping quoted the observations of an ancient Chinese scholar, who stated that: “Only with deep roots can a tree yield rich fruit; only filled with oil can a lamp burn brightly.” Xi noted that history follows its own rules and logic, and that with a similar fate in the past and a common mission, China and Africa have extended sympathy to and helped each other throughout all the past years. He said: “Together, we have embarked on a distinctive path of win-win cooperation.”
“Marching on this path, China has followed the principle of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith and the principle of pursuing the greater good and shared interests. China has stood with African countries. Together, we have worked in unity and forged ahead,” said Xi.
The words of President Xi is the moving spirit behind the FOCAC. Since the 2015 FOCAC Johannesburg Summit, China has fully implemented the 10 cooperation plans adopted at the Summit. A large number of railways, highways, airports, ports and other infrastructure projects as well as a number of economic and trade cooperation zones have been built or are under construction. Mutual cooperation on peace and security, science and technology, education, culture, health, poverty reduction, and people-to-people exchanges has been deepened. The massive financing pledged by China has been either delivered or arranged to be delivered. These 10 cooperation plans have brought huge benefits to the African and Chinese peoples. They have fully demonstrated the creativity, rallying power and efficiency of China-Africa cooperation, and have lifted the China-Africa comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership to new heights.
China has meanwhile promised to build an even closer-knit China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era. It has even gone a step further to launch an industrial promotion initiative and a China-Africa economic and trade expo in China to encourage Chinese companies to increase their investment in Africa, in addition to building and upgrading a number of economic and trade cooperation zones in Africa. China also has a plan to support Africa in achieving general food security by 2030, working with Africa to formulate and implement a program of action to promote China-Africa cooperation on agricultural modernization. China has continued to strengthen cooperation with African countries in local currency settlement and has made good use of the China-Africa Development Fund, the China-Africa Fund for Industrial Cooperation, and the Special Loan for the Development of African SMEs.
The list is endless. Every series of important cooperation plans proposed by China during each FOCAC Summit has been effectively implemented, which has provided a great boost to the economic and social development of Africa and which has been highly praised by the African people and the international community.
China-Africa trade and cooperation have both blossomed. A number of major Chinese-assisted infrastructure projects have been completed, including the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, Kenya’s standard gauge railway from Mombasa to Nairobi, and Cote d’Ivoire’s Soubre hydropower plant. These projects provide much needed transport and energy infrastructure to help further develop local industries.
The facts are there for everyone to see that Africa has finally and gradually started moving towards a promising mode of development thanks to the fellow brother that China has proven itself to be.
The below extract from CGTN’s popular The Point features an interview with Syria’s Ambassador to China, HE Muhammad Hasanein Khaddam.
Although relatively new in his ambassadorial role, this is his second posting to China. Broadcast on September 7, the ambassador was one of a group of diplomats from 30 Muslim majority countries who had recently paid a visit to Xinjiang. Describing the region as an oasis, Ambassador Khaddam said the gap between what they saw with their own eyes and what is presented in the west is unbridgeable.
However, this did not surprise him, as the same lies had been told about his own country during 12 years of war waged by terrorist groups and the western powers. Muslim people in Xinjiang, he pointed out, enjoy freedoms that can’t be enjoyed by their co-religionists in many western countries that criticise China.
Turning to the situation in Syria, the Ambassador notes that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), that Syria formally joined at the beginning of this year, brings hope of a new modality of ‘win win’, without dictation or disrespect. Companies from friendly nations that stood with Syria, he explains, will enjoy numerous opportunities in the reconstruction of the country, such as in the building of ports, roads, bridges and a railway to Iraq.
The below article by Stephen Millies was originally published by the US socialist journal Struggle/La Lucha. It is an interesting and provocative response to those comrades on the left who contend that capitalism has been restored in the People’s Republic of China.
Noting that China’s economy may already be larger than that of the United States, Stephen asserts that: “This tremendous economic growth is the result of China’s socialist revolution… You can’t explain China’s fantastic economic growth except by admitting there’s some other social system than capitalism in charge.”
An interesting aspect of the article is its presentation of how the Soviet Union, even in the late 1980s, played a major part in the liberation of southern Africa. It also notes that: “Sometimes retreats are absolutely necessary. For example, the Long March was a glorious retreat that saved the Communist Party of China from being destroyed.” In this context, Stephen also references Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP), along with an observation from Karl Marx that, following a socialist revolution, the working class might have to “buy off the band” of the wealthy.
Wall Street and the Pentagon view the People’s Republic of China as their number one enemy. China is the target of U.S. imperialism’s “Pivot to Asia.”
China’s economy may already be larger than the United States. The American Enterprise Institute―one of the best-known capitalist think tanks ― admits China surpassed the U.S. as the world’s biggest manufacturer back in 2010.
That’s historically significant. Factories in the United States exceeded Britain’s production in the 1890s.
China is now the “workshop of the world.” In 2021, China built nearly 17 million more motor vehicles than the U.S.
This tremendous economic growth is the result of China’s socialist revolution. It’s not just a matter of China making more than a billion tons of steel a year or having more miles of high-speed rail than the rest of the world.
When Mao Zedong declared “China has stood up” in 1949 and the People’s Republic of China was born, Chinese people lived to be, on average, just 36 years old.
By 2022 life expectancy had more than doubled to reach 77.3 years. That’s a longer lifespan than in the United States.
Despite these tremendous gains, some communists and revolutionaries contend that capitalism has been restored in the People’s Republic of China. They point to the 606 billionaires in China, including 67 in Hong Kong.
The process of economic reform in China in the 1980s is not always well known or understood. ‘How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate’, published last year, is an important contribution to both understanding and debate. The first book by Isabella M. Weber, Assistant Professor of Economics at the USA’s University of Massachusetts Amherst, it won the 2021 Joan Robinson Prize, named for the renowned Cambridge economics professor and friend of socialist Asia.
The book details the complex debate that took place in China in the 1980s, which involved veteran Chinese leaders from the first generation of the revolution, young Chinese economists, Eastern European economists, and mainstream western economists from international financial institutions and elsewhere.
With the exception of the veteran revolutionary leaders, many of the participants in these debates were pushing a strategy which was to later become known elsewere as shock therapy. Their view did not prevail. Rather, what emerged was an “experimental and radical gradualist economic reform”, that drew from traditional Chinese economic statecraft, the leaders’ experience of hyperinflation before liberation, and the early results of the initial economic reforms in the countryside.
In this interview, originally published in the Czech language on Alarm, and then in English translation on the online East European socialist magazine LeftEast, Isabella expands on some of her book’s key themes. She notes that: “We have to remember that at that time China was unlike Czechoslovakia, Poland, or East Germany in that it was a very poor country. Mao’s reign laid important foundations for the economic reform, like basic healthcare system, public infrastructure, and industrialization, but nevertheless China was still a very poor country with a GDP lower than Sudan or Haiti. Of course, that doesn’t represent the whole level of development of the country, but it gives you a sense of what we’re talking about.”
Making a comparison to the economic reforms carried out in Russia from the end of the decade, Isabella describes this as an example of what was at stake for the Chinese. She draws a clear and very important distinction between the Chinese and Russian leaders and situations of the time:
“In the Chinese case in the 1980s the most powerful people in the leadership were first generation revolutionaries, so they approached the economic reforms with a very different perspective than Gorbachev or Boris Yeltsin. Another difference is that China started the reform coming out of the Cultural Revolution, which meant that at the beginning of the reforms the bureaucratic system was being re-established, whilst in the Russian case the bureaucratic system was very rigid.”
When today’s historiography refers to the debate about economic reforms in Eastern European countries during late communism, it often uses the term the “long transition”. It shows that the economic transformation from state socialism into neoliberalism was a process that took off in some of the countries in Eastern Europe in reaction to the oil crisis in 1973. Their debt was getting out of the control and it forced them to work more closely with Western financial institutions, but it also meant much deeper transformation of the world’s economic system with the end of the gold standard and Bretton-Woods economic system. Cooperation between Eastern European economists and Western financial institutions helped to shape the debate about the need for further economic transformation of state socialist economies.The most radical supporters of the neoliberal economic reform, later known as „shock therapy“, were influenced by Pinochet’s Chile or the military regime in South Korea. But at the same time, very similar debates over economic reform were taking place in China. Political economist Isabella M. Weber‘s astonishing new book How China Escaped Shock Therapy details the complex debate over economic reform in China in the 1980s between, on one side, young Chinese economists, Eastern European economists, and people from Western financial institutions that tried to push through “package reform“ (which would later be known as shock therapy), and, on the other, the old guard of the Chinese leadership who had first cut their teeth in the country. In the end, the latter group decided on their own experimental and radical gradualist economic reform that emerged from traditional Chinese economic statecraft, their experience of hyperinflation among during the Second World War, and the successful agrarian reforms of the 1980s. Why did the Chinese leadership decide that the neoliberal approach to economic reform was not an option for their country? We spoke with Isabella M. Weber, a political economist and assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Research Leader for China at the Political Economy Research Institute.
When did the debate about the need for economic reform start to appear in China and what was the driving force behind this push for economic reform?
The debate started after Mao Zedong’s death, but even in the last years of Mao’s reign there were already less official initiatives to rethink the communist project. It also coincided with China’s reapproachment with the USA, which marked a radical shift in China’s foreign relationships. I think that the year of Mao’s death was crucial. The transition period between Mao’s reign and Deng Xiaoping is often overlooked in the historiography of China’s reforms. To my mind this period marks a radical break with the ideas of Cultural Revolution. It was a shift from mass mobilization and revolutionary forms of social organization to a more developmentalist and economistic agenda, but initially this agenda was in the spirit of the “Big Push,“ a ten-year plan that involved importing foreign technologies and capital goods in exchange for Chinese oil, which was predicted to be discovered in larger quantities back then. The problem was that these projected findings of petroleum turned out to be inaccurate, so this plan imploded within the span of two years. So when Deng Xiaoping came into power it was clear that a new economic model was needed.
In this important article, originally carried on Counterpunch, Alfred de Zayas, a former long-term United Nations employee, dissects the recent report of the Office of the (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights on China’s Xinjiang region, which he believes, “should be discarded as propagandistic, biased, and methodologically flawed.” The report, he notes, was not mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, comes in response to pressures from Washington and Brussels, and forms part of their geopolitical hybrid war against China.
De Zayas draws a comparison with his own mission to Venezuela, prior to which he read all the relevant reports from the OHCHR, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. But when he fact-checked these on the ground, he saw a fundamentally different picture from that contained in reports by ideologues who had not been to Venezuela.
The author therefore writes that, “the questions must be raised whether and to what extent the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council are operating in the service of Western interests, to what extent the human rights concerns of the rest of humanity are taken on board.”
On 31 August 2022, the last day of Michelle Bachelet’s 4-year tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office released a 46-page document, which I believe should be discarded as propagandistic, biased, and methodologically flawed. This document, which was not mandated by the Human Rights Council and responds to pressures on OHCHR by Washington and Brussels, bears the superficially neutral title “ Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”[1].
Already in June 2022, at the beginning of the 50th session of the Human Rights Council, China’s ambassador Chen Xu deplored the increase in “politicization” of the Council, reminding the members that “disinformation has become rampant, which seriously runs counter to the original purpose of the Human Rights Council.”
High Commissioner Bachelet did well in delaying publication of the Xinjiang “assessment” and returning to Chile before the unappetizing and destructive debates start during the forthcoming 51st session of the Council (12 September-7 October 2022). Already the Chinese mission has rejected[2] the “assessment” as unprofessional and incompatible with the end-of-mission statement issued by Michelle Bachelet after her successful mission to China and Xinjiang in May 2022, a statement, which I consider balanced, detailed and constructive[3]. Alas, Bachelet’s statement after her well-prepared visit did not succeed in silencing the Washington and Brussels critics that have been systematically misrepresenting the situation in Xinjiang and misusing it for purposes of their geopolitical hybrid war against China. Bachelet’s sedate statement was met by hostility, media mobbing and calls for her resignation.
In the below article, originally published by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), Jim Naureckas takes the New York Times to task for yet another of its regular attacks on China’s highly effective Zero Covid policy. He notes that if the Chinese government had followed the same policies as its US counterpart regarding the pandemic, and got the same results, then four and a half million people would have died. As China did not follow the US example, the country has experienced 15,000 deaths – the majority from a spring 2022 outbreak in Hong Kong, which has a different medical and social system to the mainland. Meanwhile, the US has suffered more than a million Covid deaths – and with a current fatality rate of around 450 per day is set to lose around 160,000 more people this year if present trends continue.
Jim notes that nowhere in the New York Times article under review is there any comparison of the respective national death tolls or any hint that the USA’s life expectancy has now dropped below that of China. And whilst the article (like many others of its type in the western media) claims that China’s determination to suppress the virus has triggered an economic crisis, the author notes that in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, China’s economy grew by 2.4% while the USA’s shrank by 3.4%. The USA’s economy is projected to grow by 1.3% this year. However, Goldman Sachs projects 3.0% growth for China.
Four and a half million people.
That’s how many Chinese people would have died from Covid-19 had its government taken the same approach to the pandemic that the United States has taken, and gotten the same results.
Instead, China has had 15,000 deaths from Covid—most of these from an outbreak in the spring of 2022 in Hong Kong, which has its own healthcare system.
Meanwhile, the United States has lost more than a million people to Covid since the pandemic began. Deaths currently continue at the rate of about 450 a day, which would add up to roughly 160,000 a year if present trends continue.
