Books Archives - Friends of Socialist China

China Changes Everything: An anthology by social justice activists, journalists and commentators

We’re very pleased to announce the release of a new book, compiled by the Friends of Socialist China US Committee and edited by Kyle Ferrana, exploring China’s remarkable rise and its role in the world. Topics include China’s poverty alleviation program, its progress in developing green energy, the Belt and Road Initiative, the nature of the Chinese economy, China’s foreign policy, and much more.

China Changes Everything can be purchased from Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Part 1: China’s Road to Socialism

A Fundamental Difference: China – Socialist or Imperialist? – Sara Flounders
Communist Principles & Culture Drive China’s Development for the Benefit Of All Humanity – Jacqueline Luqman
Completing the Original Mission: Reinvigorating Marxism in Contemporary China – Ken Hammond

Part 2. Socialist Planning in Practice

Infrastructure:

Reflections on How China is Building Socialism – Sydney Loving
Steel Tracks vs War Tracks: China Builds Subways and Aids Gaza While the U.S. Builds Militarism – Lee Siu Hin
Between the Rust Belt and the Model City – Pawel Wargan
A Tale of Two Economic Systems’ Transit – Betsey Piette

Healthcare:

If China Provides Universal Healthcare, Why Can’t the U.S.? – Margaret Flowers
Healthcare in China: A Cooperative Project – Sue Harris

Green Development:

China Leads the World in Energy Production and Green Technology – Lyn Neeley
China: Terraforming for the 21st Century – Judy Bello
China’s Aquacultural Revolution – Kyle Ferrana

Part 3. Plans for a Future World

Contrasting Strategies of the U.S. and China: Prospects for Peace and Solving Global Problems – Roger Harris
The Race for Moondust: U.S. Imperialism vs. China – Janet Mayes
Science Fiction or Science Reality? Socialism Leads Humanity out of Artificial Scarcity – JR Hagler

Part 4. Moving from Isolation to Prosperity

Leadership Was the Key in China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation Campaign – Dee Knight
Dismantling Western Hypocrisy on Xinjiang and Gaza – Arjae Red
Xizang’s Leap from Serfdom to Socialism – Arnold August

Part 5. The U.S. War Drive Against China Intensifies

The U.S. Advances Its Dystopian Plans to Destroy China – Megan Russell
China Cannot Be Contained – Margaret Kimberley
The U.S. Wants War with China – Joe Lombardo
The Greatest People’s Success Story in Human History – KJ Noh
Taiwan’s Residents Reject Being Washington’s Proxy – Chris Fry
An Analysis of the Escalating U.S. Threats Toward China – Mick Kelly

Part 6. China’s Impact on the World

Around the World China is Turning on the Lights – Greg Dunkel
Lips and Teeth: Korea, China, and Northeast Asia’s Long Revolution – Ju-Hyun Park
Is China’s Foreign Policy “Good Enough”? – Danny Haiphong
China, Yemen and the Red Sea Passage – Ché Marino
Should the Renminbi Replace the Dollar? The Surprising Answer – Radhika Desai

Part 7. Looking Back & Looking Forward

The Rise of China and the Crisis of U.S. Imperialism – Gerald Horne, Anthony Ballas, Aspen Ballas, and PM Irvin
Shoulder to Shoulder: British People’s Solidarity with the Chinese People’s War of Resistance – Keith Bennett
200+ Years of U.S. Military Deployments in and around China – Michael Kramer
Defend the Socialist Countries, Stand With the Peoples of the World Against Imperialism – Carlos Martinez

Storming the Heavens: Peasants and Revolution in China, 1925-1949 – viewed through a Marxist lens

We are pleased to announce the release of a new book by Jenny Clegg.

Storming the Heavens: Peasants and Revolution in China, 1925-1949 – viewed through a Marxist lens brings into focus the central role of peasant mass power in China’s revolutionary transformation. Engaging with debates in peasant studies, on China’s historical transformation, as well as within the Communist movement, it delves into both objective and subjective aspects of the peasant struggle.

In critiquing reformist-orientated perspectives of mainstream Western Sinology, the discussion draws on the neglected works of Chinese Marxists, Chen Hanseng and Chen Boda, to reveal how a system of monopoly rent exacerbated land hunger impacting both poor and middle peasants, making radical land reform the central issue for the revolution. It goes on to explore how the Asiatic features of Chinese feudalism shaped landlord power to complicate peasant organisation at local levels.

Going on to address questions of peasant agency and CPC leadership, traditional rebellion and modern proletarian revolution, the work considers case studies from the field of Chinese peasant studies together with Party documents. Following the zig-zag revolutionary process, it sees how Party and peasant were brought together in a dynamic relationship of mutual learning within a context of change.

Mao’s methods of rural work, Party building and mass organisation are shown as meaningful in meeting the practical challenges of agrarian transformation. Applying a distinctive class analysis, the book shows how the CPC found ways to tackle the resilience of feudal power, handling the contradictions both among the peasants and between the agrarian and national movements to unite the revolutionary forces in reaching towards a socialist future.

Order from manifesto press

About the author

Jenny Clegg is a China specialist. She first visited China in 1971 and has followed its development and international role ever since. She was awarded a PhD by the University of Manchester for her thesis on peasants and revolution in China in 1989, and subsequently became a Senior Lecturer in Afro-Asian Studies and Asia Pacific Studies at universities in the North of England. She continues to research and write about China from a Marxist perspective. She is a member of the Friends of Socialist China advisory panel.

Endorsements

Storming the Heavens is a major accomplishment. It combines detailed historical analysis of China’s agrarian social relations, prior to 1949 and beyond, with a keen sense of theory, integrating Western and Chinese sources, Marxist and non-Marxist alike, into a vibrant picture of struggle and transformation. The CPC’s programs and practices are given detailed, and often admiring, attention, while still being carefully dissected with an eye to errors, misjudgments and shortcomings. The complexities of national vs. agrarian movements, relations between poor and middle peasants, navigation of stages in social and political development, differences in class structure between north and south, and much more — all of this unfolds in a story that is both remarkably specific and deeply universal in its implications. All in all, a fine addition to our knowledge of modern China.

David Laibman, Professor Emeritus, Economics, City University of New York, Editor Emeritus, Science & Society

This monograph is a systematic study by a British Marxist economist of the situation in rural China during the Republican period. It presents an insightful analysis of the new democratic revolution in the countryside of China centred on the agrarian revolution led by Mao Zedong. This book is very important for any Chinese scholar who wishes to learn about the perspectives of research from experts outside China, and is extremely useful in all capitalist countries, especially those in the South, for understanding how to develop the countryside and truly safeguard the interests of the peasants through reforms, as well as for understanding the theories of Marxism-Leninism and its sinicization.

Cheng Enfu, Member of the the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, President of the World Association for Political Economy

For those who wish to understand the origins of the Chinese revolution, this book is an essential guide to negotiating the complex terrain of the agrarian class structure in pre-revolutionary China; the Marxist and alternative analyses of this structure; and the debates which underlay the eventual formulation by the CPC of the strategy that led to victory over both the Japanese and the Kuomintang. As well as discussion of the theoretical contribution of Mao Zedong to Marxism, as this guided CPC strategy….the book covers a range of debates over an extensive area of discourse.

Utsa Patnaik, Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi, India.

Jenny Clegg’s Storming the Heavens offers a brilliantly enlightening Marxist understanding of socialist China. Based on years of research it is focused on the dynamic and transforming relationship between the Communist Party of China and China’s diverse peasant communities. Like the studies made by Lenin of Russia’s peasantry, or Connolly’s of Ireland’s, both very different, it enables us to understand the specifically national characteristics of the party’s Marxist practice. It is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand China’s role in the world today.

John Foster, Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences, University of the West of Scotland

Introduction

Part 1 Landlord monopoly and peasant land hunger – the distinct characteristics of China’s agrarian structure

Introduction
Chapter 1: Land Ownership, Rent and the Condition of the Peasantry
Chapter 2: Landlordism and Commerce
Chapter 3: Landlord, State and Village – the Articulation of Economic and Political Power in Chinese Feudalism
Chapter 4: The Impact of Imperialism

Part 2 From stagnation to crisis: economic and political dimensions of agrarian China’s decline

Introduction
Chapter 5: Market and Technological Constraints and the Problem of Monopoly Rent
Chapter 6: Huang and the Involuting Peasant Economy of North China – Between Lenin and Chayanov
Chapter 7: The Role of the State – for the Common Good or Legitimising Landlord Power?
Chapter 8: The Tenacity of Chinese Feudalism
Chapter 9: Peasant Rebellions and Why They Failed
Chapter 10: The Failure of Reforms
Chapter 11: The Convoluted Trajectory to Revolution

Part 3 China’s revolutionary experience from United Front to land revolution (1924-1937) and the evolution of Mao’s strategy

Introduction
Chapter 12: Peasants and Revolution – from Lenin to Mao
Chapter 13: China’s First Revolution and the CPC-KMT United Front (1924-1927)
Chapter 14: From the Towns to the Countryside – Rethinking Revolutionary Strategy
Chapter 15: The Land Revolution, Soviet Power and the Dynamics of Peasant Class Struggle
Chapter 16: Mao and the Sinification of Marxism – Class Analysis and the Mass Line
Chapter 17: From Agrarian to National Revolution

Part 4 China’s revolutionary experience from Second United Front to land revolution (1937-1949) and the implementation of Mao’s strategy

Introduction
Chapter 18: The Anti-Japanese War and the United Front (1937–1945) – the Challenges of Party Building
Chapter 19: Building the New Democratic State
Chapter 20: The Return to Land Revolution (1946-48) – from Moderate to Radical Land Policies
Chapter 21: The Return to Land Revolution (1946-48) – Mao’s methods refined

Part 5 Peasants, revolution and the CPC

Introduction
Chapter 22: From Traditional Rebellion to Modern Revolution
Chapter 23: Peasants as Free Trade Familialists – Thaxton’s Contribution
Chapter 24: What Difference did CPC Leadership Make?

Conclusion

Xi Jinping’s Governance of China illuminating the path ahead

In the following article, which was originally published by China Today, our co-editor Keith Bennett welcomes the publication of the English language edition of the fifth volume of Xi Jinping’s ‘Governance of China’, noting:

“Through the writings and speeches of President Xi one can gain a better understanding of China – where it is going and how it approaches the great issues facing humanity. This is related to the fact that, under Xi’s leadership, China is returning to the centre of the global stage. But it does so, not as an aspiring new hegemon, and not following the old path of colonialism and hegemonism, which have caused, and continue to cause, so much bloodshed and suffering, but rather from a new and visionary paradigm.”

Keith briefly outlines the lineage of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, through the internationalist rallying cry of Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, Lenin’s elevation of the oppressed peoples to stand alongside the working class in the world revolutionary process, and Zhou Enlai’s elaboration of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, through to today’s collective rise of the Global South, with Socialist China in the vanguard.

Xi Jinping’s concept of a community of shared future for humanity can be embraced and welcomed by the great majority of humanity.

Like many people around the world, be they China scholars, friends of China or students of Marxism, I have been looking forward to the publication of the fifth volume of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China and was very pleased to hear that it is now available.

The eagerness and interest with which this latest volume has been awaited and will be received reflects a number of things. Through the writings and speeches of President Xi Jinping one can gain a better understanding of China – where it is going and how it approaches the great issues facing humanity. This is related to the fact that, under Xi’s leadership, China is returning to the center of the global stage. But it does so, not as an aspiring new hegemon, and not following the old path of colonialism and hegemonism, which have caused, and continue to cause, so much bloodshed and suffering, but rather from a new and visionary paradigm.

Xi’s grand vision of a community with a shared future for humanity is welcomed by a majority of the world’s nations, particularly the Global South family, who have suffered for centuries under the iron heel of the Global North. Xi’s vision is welcomed precisely because it accords with the interests and needs of the people of every country.

As far back as 1848, German philosophers and revolutionary socialists Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), co-authors of The Communist Manifesto, wrote that, “In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they [the communists] point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.”

As the foremost proponent of Marxism for the 21st century, Xi has inherited, applied and developed this principle elaborated by Marx and Engels.

Historically, this development has passed through a number of distinct phases. Taking into account the fact that imperialism had completed the colonial division of the world, and that the modern national liberation movement was coming into being as the most powerful ally of the working class on a world scale, Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) – founder of the Russian Communist Party – updated the slogan of “workers of the world unite” to also embrace the oppressed peoples. At the same time, faced with the fact that the Soviet Union was likely to remain the world’s sole socialist country, at least for a time, he advanced the concept of peaceful coexistence as an important component of the foreign policy to be pursued by a socialist state. Later, Zhou Enlai (1898-1976), then Chinese premier, in turn, faced with the fact that states with different social systems would continue to exist for a long historical period, raised peaceful coexistence from a policy to the level of theory, encapsulated and summed up in his famous Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy inherits and builds on this entire legacy. If, 70-plus years ago, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence gave the socialist countries, and the newly independent countries just embarking on the road of building a new society, freedom to breathe and room to maneuver, today we face a qualitatively different situation.

As a key component of the changes unseen in a century, we now see the collective rise of the great mass of developing countries, which today we generally refer to as the Global South, with socialist China as the vanguard, an indispensable nation steadily advancing to the center of the world stage.

This therefore places the question of what kind of world should we build and how should we build it, not simply as a task on the agenda but rather as a task taken up for solution, and so this is precisely a key question to which Xi Jinping Thought addresses itself.

Around the time I first visited China, back in 1981, and prior to that, practically the first sight that people encountered as they entered the mainland from Hong Kong was the huge banner reading, “Long live the great unity of the peoples of the world!”

And just as Marx and Engels wrote about the “common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality,” for his part, Confucius (551 BC- 479 BC) famously advocated the great harmony of all under heaven.

It is by embodying these precepts of both scientific socialism and fine traditional Chinese culture and civilization, and proceeding from the theory of “adapting the basic tenets of Marxism to China’s realities and to its traditional culture”, that Xi has defined the strategic goal, the task taken up for solution, as the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

Of course, some might say that this is just a phrase. And in the mouths of many politicians around the world that would most likely be the case. But in Xi’s case it represents the summation and acme of a whole body of continually developing theories and practices. In particular, it is the cumulative product of a whole series of initiatives, starting with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and proceeding through a series of global initiatives on development, security and civilization. Together, these represent the building blocks of global peace, common prosperity, mutual respect and harmony, which, in turn, are the prerequisites for a sustainable community of shared future.

Xi is also clear that this cannot be realized solely through relations among states but rather must also embrace people-to-people diplomacy. In fact, he has gone so far as to stress that relations between peoples are the foundation and bedrock of good state-to-state relations. In this he inherits and builds on Mao Zedong’s conclusion that, “The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.” That is why Xi gives so much attention to people-to-people diplomacy, meeting people on his travels, keeping in contact with old friends even after decades, writing personal letters, and never forgetting China’s old friends and their family members and descendants.

Today, humanity has long since passed the point where its fundamental problems can be contained or resolved within national borders. Not all progressive people in the West realize it yet, but the issue is no longer whether one is for or against globalization, but whether to continue to go down the road of a globalization where the rich continue to get richer and the poor continue to get poorer on a global scale, as practiced by the ruling circles in advanced capitalist countries, or whether to pursue an equitable and inclusive globalization as championed by China. Likewise, the existential threats facing humanity, whether they be from the looming threat of climate catastrophe, the danger of nuclear war or of zoonotic pandemics, all show that a community with a shared future for humanity is a worthy goal, one that can be embraced and welcomed by the great majority of humanity. But even more fundamentally, it is increasingly becoming the very prerequisite for the continuation of human civilization and indeed survival, and most likely for the survival of many other forms of life on earth as well.

No country, no matter how rich or powerful, can solve the problems facing humanity and Mother Earth on their own, let alone with a “beggar my neighbor” attitude. Rather, it’s the case that we sink or swim together. Xi’s concept of a community with a shared future is the shoreline that humanity has to swim towards. The Governance of China is like a lodestar or lighthouse illuminating the way to a distant shore. That is why I am sure that this latest volume will be eagerly awaited, read, studied and discussed by people on every continent.

China is a force for peace and progress, that’s why the world needs China

Friends of Socialist China was among the organisers of a hybrid event in Portland, Oregon (US), held on 22 June 2025, discussing Kyle Ferrana’s important book Why the World Needs China.

In his speech (delivered via Zoom), Carlos Martinez endorsed the central thesis of the book, arguing that China represents a global vision centred around peace, progress and sustainable development; whereas the US and its allies represent a global vision centred around imperialism, hegemony, war, ecocide and chaos.

Discussing recent developments in West Asia, in particular the US-Israeli criminal attacks on Iran and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Carlos highlighted China’s constructive role in the region, including its mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia and its support for Palestinian unity. He linked the attacks on Iran with the West’s continuing efforts to destabilise China and broader imperialist resistance against a rising multipolar world.

Emphasising the need for global solidarity, Carlos called for building “a global united front composed of the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, the anti-imperialist forces of the Global South, and the progressive forces in the advanced capitalist countries”, for supporting the forces of liberation worldwide, and for supporting the socialist countries – “and particularly China, as the largest and most advanced socialist country, as the country which is at the core of the emerging multipolar system”.

The video of the speech is embedded below, followed by the text.

“Why the World Needs China” is the somewhat provocative title of Kyle’s book.

But in my view the essential correctness of this title is becoming clearer and clearer with every passing day, and specifically with every despicable act of aggression carried out by the United States and its Israeli proxy against the people of Palestine, of Iran, of Yemen and of Lebanon.

As you all know, last night the US military openly joined Israel’s criminal war against Iran, bombing three nuclear facilities. I say “openly joined the war”, because the fact is that the US and its allies been providing weapons, intelligence, logistical support, war propaganda and diplomatic cover from the very beginning – both for this war on Iran and for the genocidal assault on Gaza.

The whole world can increasingly see what the United States and its allies represent, and increasingly the whole world can see what China represents. And these are two vastly different visions of the future of the world, one put forward by the capitalist class in the United States, one put forward by the working class in China.

The US is proposing a Project for a New American Century. This neoconservative notion – originally associated with notorious hawks such as Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney – has become a consensus position in mainstream US politics, adhered to by all administrations, Republican and Democrat alike. It’s a fundamentally hegemonist, imperialist proposal; a proposal for spreading death and destruction for the sake of projecting the US’s domination of the 20th century into the 21st century.

Book review: Torkil Lauesen – The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism

The following text by Carlos Martinez, written for the May-June 2025 issue of Communist Review, reviews The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, by Danish revolutionary intellectual Torkil Lauesen.

The review highlights and explores a number of key themes from the book, including the assessment of the history of the global working class movement within a framework of historical materialism; the possibility that humanity has reached a turning point and that capitalism has run out of ways to sustain itself; and the indispensability of constructing a global united front composed of the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, the anti-imperialist forces of the Global South, and the progressive forces in the advanced capitalist countries.

The review notes: “One of the most significant aspects of The Long Transition is its serious attempt to understand and explain contemporary China, and in particular to assess the results – and perhaps necessity – of the Reform and Opening Up process introduced in 1978, gradually introducing market mechanisms to the economy, allowing private ownership of capital, encouraging investment from abroad, and integrating China into the global economy.”

Lauesen’s investigations of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics lead him to the conclusion that “the importance of socialist-oriented development in China can hardly be overestimated. It can tip the global balance of power decisively in favour of a socialist world order.”

As Carlos states in his review, The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism is a richly rewarding and important read. It can be purchased or downloaded from Iskra Books.

Long transition

The latest book from Danish revolutionary intellectual Torkil Lauesen, The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, is highly ambitious in its scope, providing an assessment of the first two centuries of humanity’s attempts to build socialism, and outlining some of the necessary or possible next steps on that journey.

Lauesen describes in some detail the history thus far of the “long transition” from capitalism to socialism – starting with the first rumblings of proletarian revolt in mid-19th century Europe, then moving on to the Paris Commune, the rise and fall of the German workers’ movement, the October Revolution, the early attempts at socialist construction in the Soviet Union, the eastward shift of the revolutionary centre of gravity in the post-WW2 era, and the ongoing socialist project in the People’s Republic of China.

These milestones are contextualised within a long-running, dialectical struggle between two social systems. While all except the last are by now studied as history rather than as contemporary politics, and while many failed to achieve their stated aims, they all form links in an ongoing chain: the long transition to socialism. Lauesen writes that “the struggle and suffering of millions of communists and socialists for the past two hundred years have not been in vain, but are contributions to this long process of creating a better world.” (p2)

Such a sentiment – heartening to those of us that have lived through a low ebb of the communist tide – echoes the powerful words of Korean revolutionary Kim San in Helen Foster Snow’s remarkable Song of Ariran:

Nearly all the friends and comrades of my youth are dead, hundreds of them… Their warm revolutionary blood flowed proudly into the soil of Korea, Manchuria, Siberia, Japan, China. They failed in the immediate thing, but history keeps a fine accounting. A man’s name and his brief dream may be buried with his bones, but nothing that he has ever done or failed to do is lost in the final balance of forces.^{^[1]}

In such a framework, the retreats suffered by our movement should be considered as part of an inevitable ebb and flow of a complex trajectory that could take hundreds of years but which nonetheless has an inexorable historical materialist tide. As Deng Xiaoping observed in 1992, commenting on the collapse of the Soviet Union: “Feudal society replaced slave society, capitalism supplanted feudalism, and, after a long time, socialism will necessarily supersede capitalism. This is an irreversible general trend of historical development, but the road has many twists and turns… Some countries have suffered major setbacks, and socialism appears to have been weakened. But the people have been tempered by the setbacks and have drawn lessons from them, and that will make socialism develop in a healthier direction.”^[2]

The transition process is complicated by the fact that capitalism and socialism do not exist independently of one another, but rather constitute a unity of opposites, one constantly acting on and transforming the other. Lauesen writes for example that “the way capitalism works today is a product of the Russian Revolution and Soviet industrialisation, the anti-colonial uprisings in the Third World, the 1968 uprising, and the current Chinese development of socialism.” This view is shared with the late Egyptian Marxist Samir Amin, who wrote that “the long transition of world capitalism to world socialism is defined by the internal conflict of all the societies in the system between the trends and forces of the reproduction of capitalist relations and the (anti-systemic) trends and forces, whose logic has other aspirations – those, precisely, that can be defined as socialism”.^[3]

Capitalism is running out of road

Marx and Engels thought that capitalism’s contradictions and its tendency towards crisis would condemn it to a relatively brief existence. Lauesen cites Engels in 1847, writing that the bourgeoisie “will at most win a few years of troubled enjoyment, only to then be immediately overthrown… You shall be allowed to rule for a short time… but do not forget that ‘the hangman stands at the door’”. (p54)

A hundred and seventy-eight years hence, it has to be admitted that capitalism has shown itself to be remarkably adaptive, “finding new escape routes from its problems” (p22) in the form of new technologies, colonial and imperial expansion, war, repression, cultural hegemony, and the provision of “bread and circuses” to a privileged layer of the working class.

However, while problems can be swept under the carpet, they can’t remain there permanently. Neoliberal globalisation gave the US an additional four decades of hegemony starting in the 1970s, but Lauesen considers that capitalism is running out of options for mitigating its contradictions.

I do not believe that capitalism will survive this century. Capitalism reached its zenith around 2000. It is still dominant, but is in decline, reflected in the turn from neoliberal economic globalisation towards military defence of a US hegemony that is no longer economically based. The decline of US hegemony and the rise of China as a driver for a more multipolar world system can lead to a geopolitical balance, in which social movements and nations in the global South can move in the direction of socialism. (p10)

China’s emergence is central to Lauesen’s analysis. While the US-led capitalist world system is in decline, China – led by a Communist Party and following a hybrid economic model with public ownership and planning at its core – is increasing in strength, prosperity and influence. China is “the leading industrial producer and the biggest actor in the world market”, as well as being “the driving force behind the effort to establish a multipolar world-system.” (p10)

Furthermore, China’s rise is not reliant on hegemonism. As President Xi Jinping has pointedly remarked: China will “neither tread the old path of colonisation and plunder, nor the crooked path taken by some countries to seek hegemony once they grow strong.”^[4] Because the capitalist class in China is not the ruling class, it is not able to define the country’s foreign policy. Li Zhongjin and David Kotz have pointed out, any drive towards hegemonism by China’s capitalists is restrained by a CPC government which “has no need to aim for imperial domination to achieve its economic aims”, and “the Chinese capitalist class lacks the power to compel the CPC to seek imperial domination.”^[5]

Lauesen considers that the failure of the forces of global socialism to win a final victory over capitalism is rooted primarily in the fact that capitalism has still found ways to expand; it has still until very recently retained the edge in terms of driving human progress forward. This is changing. As Deng Xiaoping commented in 1984, “the superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system”.^[6] The extraordinary success of DeepSeek’s R1 model; China’s leading role in renewable energy and green transport; its charting of new territory in telecommunications, advanced industry, space exploration, medical science and more all indicate that humanity is reaching a turning point.

Understanding China

One of the most significant aspects of The Long Transition is its serious attempt to understand and explain contemporary China, and in particular to assess the results – and perhaps necessity – of the Reform and Opening Up process introduced in 1978, gradually introducing market mechanisms to the economy, allowing private ownership of capital, encouraging investment from abroad, and integrating China into the global economy.

Lauesen’s writing betrays a certain ambivalence on this topic, and it’s not difficult to imagine that, given his long adherence to a variant of Cultural Revolution-era Maoism, it has been no easy task coming to terms with Deng Xiaoping Theory. And yet, Lauesen’s methodology adheres to Mao Zedong’s observation that “the only yardstick of truth is the revolutionary practice of millions of people”.^[7] As such, he recognises that China’s extraordinary rise constitutes “an epochal change in the world-system. China was able, for the first time in two hundred years, to break the polarising dynamic of capitalism between the West and the rest of the world.” (p256)

Lauesen also recognises that this success would likely not have been possible without the introduction of market reforms and integration into the global economy from the late 1970s onwards. Marx writes that “the development of the productive forces of social labour is capital’s historic mission and justification”.^[8] China’s leadership recognised that capital could still perform that historic mission in a socialist country, under the leadership and guidance of the Communist Party. Lauesen views this as necessary, in a context where “actually existing socialism” in both Soviet and Chinese flavours had been as yet unable “to break the power of the global capitalist market, which blocked the road to the development of socialism”. (p221)

In a capitalist-dominated world, without a sufficiently developed economic base, China had to become part of the world economy. It had to build up its productive forces under conditions which would almost certainly be a threat to the hard-won political preconditions, since capitalist norms and values would penetrate society… It could not continue the development of its productive forces without investments and trading with capitalist countries. It needed to begin the transfer of technology from the imperial countries. (p226)

Interestingly, Lauesen considers that the concept of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ is not a post-Mao development; that China’s economic reform was not a manifestation of Mao Zedong and his supporters losing the two-line struggle with so-called capitalist roaders. Rather, Mao himself “was part of this new strategy, shifting the course from port to starboard to avoid sailing too close to the wind of the looming storm of global capitalism”. (p221)

In this analysis, the Third Industrial Revolution – the rise of electronics, telecommunications, automation and computers, combined with the massive expansion of globalised production chains enabled by containerisation – gave a new lease of life to capitalism and affected the balance of power in the global class struggle. “Revolutions erupted in Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, and so on, but despite their socialist aspirations, they hardly left the ground concerning the construction of socialism. Therefore, it was not only the Cultural Revolution that lost its steam through the 1970s, it was revolutionary movements all over the world. This indicates that there was a deeper transformation occurring in world capitalism, which was reflected in global class struggles.” (p218)

China needed to rapidly develop its productive forces – “not only to eradicate poverty in China itself, but also because it is necessary to possess the most developed technology to break the dominance of capitalism, and thus promote a global transformation towards socialism” (p272). And this dynamic is first detected not in Deng’s speech at the third plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in December 1978, but in Richard Nixon’s meeting with Mao in Beijing in February 1972, and China’s acquisition of various industrial facilities from the West in the following years.

Bringing the story up to the present, Lauesen states that “a socialist-oriented China will be of great importance for a transition towards global socialism”, in particular because it “will create possibilities for anti-capitalist struggles within the remaining capitalist world system”. As such, “the importance of socialist-oriented development in China can hardly be overestimated. It can tip the global balance of power decisively in favour of a socialist world order” (p276). This is consistent with the great Italian Marxist philosopher Domenico Losurdo: “Thanks to the prodigious economic and technological development of China, defined as the most important event of the last five hundred years, the Columbian era has come to an end”.^[9]

Global united front

The capitalist system is increasingly becoming a hindrance to human progress, and a threat to human survival, but a socialist future is not, of course, guaranteed. It was 110 years ago that the heroic Polish-German revolutionary and theoretician Rosa Luxemburg popularised the idea that humanity faced a stark choice: between socialism and barbarism. But now as then, barbarism is still on the table, and in this era of existential threats to humanity – climate change, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, nuclear warfare, the dangers posed by unrestrained and unscrupulous use of artificial intelligence – its possible dimensions are all too visible.

Objective factors increasingly favour the global movement for socialism, but the subjective factors have to be mobilised as well. Lauesen writes: “Capitalism can collapse in a brutal, chaotic endgame of wars and natural disasters. To avoid this is our task; and to accomplish that task, we must fulfil the transition to socialism. To do this, we need to learn from the past and mobilise, organise, and develop a strategy for future struggles.” (p2)

In Lauesen’s view, the left in the Global North will not be the driving force in the transition toward global socialism. But this doesn’t mean that the left should simply maintain a humdrum existence fighting for better pay and conditions. “It is not enough to wait for the proletariat of the Global South to create a revolutionary situation in our part of the world”. (p359)

Rather, Marxists in the West must urgently adopt an internationalist perspective and help construct a global united front composed of the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, the anti-imperialist forces of the Global South, and the progressive forces in the advanced capitalist countries. After all, “if reforms in the Global North are not accompanied by the deconstruction of imperialism, then they are not a step forward — they are parasitic”. (p353)

Lauesen urges his readers to make a permanent break with social chauvinism; to make a permanent break with the arrogant Western Marxism described by Losurdo, which rejects the leadership and the lessons of actually existing socialism; to support the Global South’s struggle against imperialism; to support those countries and movements developing socialism; to oppose wars; and to “make sure that the North is no safe ‘hinterland’ for imperialism, which means struggle against right-wing national chauvinism, racism, and imperialist political and military intervention”. (p359)

The appeal from the Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East, held 125 years ago, urges the Western working classes: “You cannot free yourselves without helping us in our struggle for liberation. The wealth of our countries is, in the hands of the capitalists, a means of enslaving you.”^[10] Lauesen calls on us to take up this challenge anew.

In a relatively long book, dealing with difficult and controversial topics, there is inevitably no lack of things to disagree with. Nonetheless, The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism is a richly rewarding and important read.

[1] Chang Chi-rak and Nym Wales. Song of Ariran: A Korean Communist in the Chinese Revolution. San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972, p216

[2] Deng Xiaoping 1992, Excerpts From Talks Given In Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shanghai, Marxist Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1992/179.htm

[3] Samir Amin. Global History: A View from the South. Cape Town, South Africa : Dakar, Senegal : Bangalore, India: Pambazuka Press, 2011, p185

[4] Xi Jinping 2023, Full text of Xi Jinping’s keynote address at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting, Xinhua. https://english.news.cn/20230316/46287ba021164317ab578b18b447a0af/c.html

[5] Li Zhongjin and David Kotz 2020, Is China Imperialist? Economy, State, and Insertion in the Global System, American Economic Association. https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2021/preliminary/paper/e4D3fNd3

[6] Deng Xiaoping 1984, Building a Socialism With a Specifically Chinese Character, Marxist Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1984/36.htm

[7] Mao Zedong 1940 On New Democracy, Marxist Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_26.htm

[8] Karl Marx. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. V. 3: Penguin Classics. London, 1981, p368

[9] Domenico Losurdo. Western Marxism: How It Was Born, How It Died, How It Can Be Reborn (ed. Gabriel Rockhill). Monthly Review Press, 2024, p227

[10] Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East: Appeal from the Congress (1920), Marxist Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/baku/to-workers.htm

Book review: The Great Reversal – Britain, China and the 400-Year Contest for Power

We are pleased to republish the below review by Glyn Ford of Kerry Brown’s ‘The Great Reversal: Britain, China and the 400-Year Contest for Power’, published by Yale University Press in July 2024.

Professor Kerry Brown is the Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, a prolific author, a former diplomat at the British Embassy in Beijing and one of Britain’s most distinguished and erudite Sinologists. Or as Ford aptly puts it: “Kerry Brown is one of Britain’s most skilled and knowledgeable Chinese hands, which explains why he is no longer a UK diplomat serving in China.” He continues to satirise the somersaults in UK policy towards China in recent years, which indeed defy logical comprehension: “One moment it was President Xi drinking a pub pint in a local with Cameron and next proposals to ban Beijing’s diplomats from the Strangers Bar in the Commons.”

Ford considers Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s recent China visit to have been “seriously underwhelming,” believing it has left Labour “looking for the plot.” He argues that: “Brown’s book, stretching across four centuries, may help show where it might be found. When Britain first encountered Imperial China, we were the supplicants. The Qing economy was stronger and their technology superior – as so authoritatively mapped in Joseph Needham’s ‘[History of] Science and Civilisation in China.’”

Paraphrasing Mao’s famous expression, Ford notes that the nineteenth century wars between Britain and China demonstrated that power grew out of the barrel of a gun. “London’s drug wars between 1839-42 and 1856-60 were fought to prevent China from bringing under control the opium epidemic destroying civil society. The fruits of victory included the legalisation of opium and Hong Kong. This is a period of subjugation that China’s rulers have burnt deep into their psyche.”

As a result of the forces unleashed in Chinese society, Ford notes: “Internally, nationalism and communism were competing poles of attraction for China’s confident new men and women. Communism came out top and, after a difficult quarter century, the country was able to stand tall for the first time in almost four centuries. Socialism with Chinese characteristics proved better at driving economic growth than free-market capitalism.”

He explains that: “Kerry Brown wants Britain to get real about China. Adrift from Europe after Brexit and with little opportunity of economically chaining ourselves to a mad dog in the United States, there is no option but to engage with China.”

Whilst echoing the claims of “serious human rights problems in China”, Ford pointedly adds: “But we are living a fantasy to believe we have either the strength or moral authority to take the lead. Britain’s perfidious history makes us one of the least appropriate advocates in China’s eyes, while our needy economy makes threats of economic coercion comic.”

Glyn Ford was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the British Labour Party from 1984-2009 (and concurrently for the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party, 1999-2009.) His special interests include East Asia, especially the Korean peninsula. He is the author of three books on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a country he has visited over 50 times. The most recent was reviewed by Keith Bennett in the Morning Star. His previous book was reviewed by Carlos Martinez in the Morning Star and by Keith Bennett in Chartist. Since leaving the European Parliament, Ford has remained active in ‘Track 2’ diplomacy with the DPRK and with East Asia generally.

The below review was originally published by Chartist. Chartist describes itself as “the bi-monthly political magazine of the democratic left” and is generally considered a representative voice of the so-called ‘soft left’ in the British Labour Party.

Kerry Brown is one of Britain’s most skilled and knowledgeable Chinese hands, which explains why he is no longer a UK diplomat serving in China, but rather in the greener pastures of academia heading the Lau China Institute at King’s College London. After all, he can’t possibly have ridden the bucking bronco of what purported to be a coherent China policy over the last long quarter century since the retrocession of Hong Kong in 1997. The short China deck of partner, competitor and adversary has been regularly shuffled both within and across UK governments. One moment it was President Xi drinking a pub pint in a local with Cameron and next proposals to ban Beijing’s diplomats from the Strangers Bar in the Commons.

Now, after Rachel Reeves’s seriously underwhelming visit, Labour is left looking for the plot. Brown’s book, stretching across four centuries, may help show where it might be found. When Britain first encountered Imperial China, we were the supplicants. The Qing economy was stronger and their technology superior – as so authoritatively mapped in Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China – and their power was enormous in their fastness. When Britain first knocked, China never even answered the door. Their fatal flaw was stasis. The English protestants had discovered progress that triggered the first industrial revolution. While they were defensive and insular, we became offensive and expansionist.

The Anglo-Chinese Wars demonstrated that power grew out of the barrel of a gun. That was the proximate cause of victory, but not before Chinese society was debilitated by dogma and drugs. Missionaries substituted the catechism for Confucius. A shadow black economy emerged as opium, grown under the auspices of the British government in India, destroying civil society. George Orwell’s father was a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in the Indian Civil Service. London’s drug wars between 1839-42 and 1856-60 were fought to prevent China from bringing under control the opium epidemic destroying civil society. The fruits of victory included the legalisation of opium and Hong Kong. This is a period of subjugation that China’s rulers have burnt deep into their psyche.

As the West’s other imperial powers caught and, in the case of Germany and the US, eventually passed Britain, there was a scramble for China. It was a pointillist occupation as they cherry-picked China’s cities for occupation with Russia and Japan scavenging over the scraps. Beijing’s central control collapsed into warlordism. The country and civilisation were at the bottom. The only way was up.

Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905 saw Asia best Europe for the first time. This and the post-War world saw the easy emergence from the social ruins of modernism and nationalism. Britain was challenged for pride of place both in and over China. Internally, nationalism and communism were competing poles of attraction for China’s confident new men and women. Communism came out top and, after a difficult quarter century, the country was able to stand tall for the first time in almost four centuries. Socialism with Chinese characteristics proved better at driving economic growth than free-market capitalism. Democracy, despite claims to the contrary, was no necessity for economic success. The somersault was complete with China back on top. Its technology is back with the best, and in some sectors ahead of the game. Its military might expand to catch and match the US. The economy takes the lead. As The Great Reversal notes, China is the largest trading partner for 120 countries globally. The UK, in contrast, is on zero.

Kerry Brown wants Britain to get real about China. Adrift from Europe after Brexit and with little opportunity of economically chaining ourselves to a mad dog in the United States, there is no option but to engage with China. The deck needs to be stacked and dealt with the principle of collaborator, contender and challenger. There are undeniably serious human rights problems in China. But we are living a fantasy to believe we have either the strength or moral authority to take the lead. Britain’s perfidious history makes us one of the least appropriate advocates in China’s eyes, while our needy economy makes threats of economic coercion comic. The Germans know not to be in the vanguard when pressing Israel on its human rights violations. For some reason, Britain seems tone-deaf with respect to China. Even the EU in the shadow of Trump is talking of building relationships not just with partners that share values, but those with shared interests. As the US looks to hunker down domestically within the Americas after seizing control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, the future looks bleak for a Britain going it alone. The EU is another option, but that’s another story. But even then, China shouldn’t be neglected.

Book review: People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red

We are pleased to republish this short review of ‘People’s China at 75, the Flag Stays Red’, edited by our co-editors Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, which was originally published in the current (Spring 2025) edition of China Eye, the magazine of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU).

In the editorial, editor Walter Fung also writes: “Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez’s book, People’s China at 75, the Flag Stays Red, is extremely important as it presents facts from the Chinese point of view of China’s development since the 1949 revolution. Not all histories, even by eminent historians and well qualified scholars present accounts which are without some ‘Western’ bias.”

Further information about SACU, including PDF editions of China Eye, may be found here. The book can be purchased from the Praxis Press website in paperback or digital format.

People’s China at 75, the Flag Stays Red, Edited by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez. 152 pages. Praxis Press Glasgow, 2025.

This is an important book for anybody who wants to understand the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Communist Party of China (CPC). Written by several expert authors, the book relates the origins of the CPC and the formation of the PRC and discusses the current position in the world in a clear and concise way. Many references are given at the end of each chapter. The introductory chapter is ‘understanding socialism with Chinese characteristics’, written by the two editors of the book, both of whom are members of SACU.

The aims of Xi Jinping in his programme for a’ New Era;’ are listed and explained. They include: battling against corruption, eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring that those lifted out of poverty do not slip back into poverty, tackling pollution, protecting the environment, safeguarding diversity, being a leader in renewable energy and working against climate change, increasing medical care and insurance and also old age pensions.

Steps will be taken to strengthen the Party and ensuring that it serves the people. In addition, support will be given to support other socialist countries. A strategic goal will be building a world community of a shared future for humanity.

Other chapters include; building socialism with Chinese characteristics, standing up and opposing hegemony and China’s socialist democracy. Jenny Clegg, a SACU Vice-President relates China’s transition to socialism during the years 1949-56. Despite many challengers and mistakes much was achieved in providing basic necessities of life such as food, clothing and rural medicine through the efforts of barefoot doctors. Advances were made in agricultural techniques and life expectancy was significantly increased.

Book Review: The East is Still Red by Carlos Martinez

We are pleased to reproduce below a review of Carlos Martinez’s The East is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century, from the blog Explore the Mundane: Ordinary Notes from a Taiwanese Chinese American Adoptee.

The book is described as being a necessary read, “both as a person newer to Marxism-Leninism and as a person born in Taiwan trying to understand the historical and present relationship between China and Taiwan.”

The reviewer, Kayla, highlights in particular the sections covering the early history of the Chinese Revolution; the response to the “Mao as monster” narrative; The Communist Party of China’s continuing commitment to Marxism; and the importance of opposing the US-led drive to war with China.

Kayla concludes:

The East is Still Red is a significant contribution to combat the West’s anti-China, anti-communist propaganda and to demonstrate the increasing escalation of the new Cold War to contain China. This book is an extraordinary guide for organizers and activists alike, and I would encourage folks especially on the left, to study this extraordinary resource and to learn about socialist China.

The East is Still Red can be purchased in paperback and digital format from the Praxis Press website.

Author and political activist Carlos Martinez writes a compelling case about the necessity of socialism, rooted in the revolutionary science of Marxist-Leninism, in his book The East is Still Red.

Learning about history, though essential, can be a daunting task because of how much research is digested and how dense the text itself can be. This is not the case with The East is Still Red. Martinez’s work is incredibly accessible and digestible, with each chapter being relatively short and broken into clear subsections. It’s easy to follow along with the arguments that Martinez presents, backed with ample evidence and sources.

The East is Still Red was necessary for me to read, both as a person newer to Marxism-Leninism and as a person born in Taiwan trying to understand the historical and present relationship between China and Taiwan. Through Martinez’ research and compelling writing, it’s also opened other avenues and resources to learn about socialist China. (I wrote more about this in January’s monthly reflection, “On Coming Out of the Fog” which you can read HERE.)

The U.S. ruling class is trying to maintain its hegemony, and we’ve seen the ongoing and increasing escalations to ‘contain’ China. These anti-China policies are bipartisan, as we saw with the Obama administration’s 2012 ‘Pivot to Asia’. Regardless of whether the Democratic party or the Republican party are in office, they both serve U.S. imperialism where there is no place for socialism, a direct threat to their existence.

Note: The summary below does not do justice to the thorough research and analysis that author and political activist Carlos Martinez conducted for The East is Still Red. As with all book reviews and reflections, I’ve done my best to highlight key takeaways as a reader (though I cannot emphasize enough to check out this book for yourself).

PAST

It’s impossible to discuss the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 without mentioning the multifarious ways that war, occupation, and foreign policy have contributed to China’s history, including the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War. And, in nearly all of these wars, the U.S. played an insidious role whether it was its failed attempts to negotiate an agreement between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC), its declaration to contain communism in the Truman Doctrine, or its (ongoing) military support for Taiwan.

This broader context of global relations is necessary to understand the long fight against foreign domination and exploitation, to understand the economic conditions of China, and to contextualize its historic achievements of evolving from a semi-feudal country towards a socialist country.

China’s flag stays red

The meeting room of London’s Marx Memorial Library was packed on the evening of Thursday March 20, with others joining online, for the launch of People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red, edited by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, the editors of this website.

The meeting was chaired by Carlos Martinez, with speakers, Keith Bennett, Professor Radhika Desai and Dr. Jenny Clegg. They were followed by a lively round of discussion and questions and answers. Andrew Murray was also due to speak but unfortunately was not able to make it.

We publish below the text of Keith’s opening speech. The meeting can be viewed on YouTube (and the video is also embedded below).

The book is available from the publishers in paperback and digital formats. Note that, for the month of March 2025, to celebrate the launch meeting, Praxis Press are running a 25 percent discount on their full catalogue – the discount code is 25FOR25.

Thank you for coming this evening and thank you also to those who have joined us online and those who will watch online in the days to come.

We’re fortunate to have a number of the authors who contributed chapters to this book with us this evening and doubtless they’ll introduce their work and the themes they sought to address.

As co-editor, along with Carlos, I want to say a bit about why and how we came to produce it.

There are two well-known sayings in English that I’d like to mention here.

The first is: Never judge a book by its cover.

And the second is: There’s an exception to every rule.

So, please take a look at the beautiful cover of our book.

I’m sure many of you have already seen it. I submit that it represents one of the exceptions to the rule. In words, as well as graphically, it sets out what we want to say and where we stand.

As Friends of Socialist China, we conceived of this book as part of our celebration of the 75^th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, which fell on October 1^st last year. And thanks to the stupendous efforts of our publisher, comrade and friend, Kenny Coyle, who also contributed a highly thoughtful and enlightening chapter on the antecedents of socialism with Chinese characteristics in Lenin’s explorations on the ways of building socialism, we got it out in time for our celebration and conference, held in London’s historic Bolivar Hall on the last Saturday of September.

With a day-long conference attended by well over 100 people, a book, and a special supplement in the Morning Star, it was a landmark in the development of our work.

Some comrades have kindly said that we must have worked very hard to produce the book. I’ll let others be the judge of that. But I’ll just say that we did so in about three months – if I recall correctly – from start to finish; from conceiving the idea to the published product.

We could do so thanks to the amazing cooperation we had from all our authors and, as I’ve just mentioned, the sterling efforts of our publisher.

Book launch: People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red

Date	Thursday 20 March 2025
Time	6:30pm Britain / 1:30pm US Eastern
Venue	Marx Memorial Library London EC1R 0DU And Zoom

Speakers

Keith Bennett
Andrew Murray
Radhika Desai
Jenny Clegg
Chair: Carlos Martinez

Information

Edited by Friends of Socialist China co-editors Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, and published by Praxis Press, People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red brings together a range of perspectives regarding the trajectory of Chinese socialism over the past 75 years, with the aim of presenting China’s achievements and challenging popular misconceptions.

Today’s China is at the forefront of the world economy. It has eliminated absolute poverty and is leading the world in tackling climate change, as well as in the development of the cutting-edge technologies that will be essential to building a sustainable future for humanity.

China has achieved this unprecedented development in less than a century, yet these achievements are frequently misinterpreted or distorted. People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red, featuring chapters by Andrew Murray, Cheng Enfu, Roland Boer, Radhika Desai, Ken Hammond, Jenny Clegg, Keith Bennett, Carlos Martinez, Kenny Coyle, Mick Dunford, J Sykes and Efe Can Gürcan, aims to provide the political, historical and economic context that best explains China’s astonishing rise.

We will be officially launching the book at London’s historic Marx Memorial Library. Join us in person or online for fascinating talks from contributors to the volume, and gain fresh insights on the much misunderstood and misrepresented People’s Republic of China.

There will be copies of the book available for purchase, at a special price of £10!

Organisers

This event is organised by Friends of Socialist China and supported by the Morning Star and the International Manifesto Group.

Ghassan Kanafani, China, and the global struggle against imperialism

We republish below a book review by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez of Ghassan Kanafani — Selected Political Writings, recently released by Pluto Press.

Best known for his literary works, Ghassan Kanafani was also a leading member and spokesperson of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and co-author of its program, Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine. Carlos comments: “A powerful and consistent advocate of armed struggle against colonial occupation, and of the centrality of the working class and peasantry in the struggle for national liberation, Kanafani was deeply influenced by the ideas of Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, and situated the Palestinian liberation struggle within the broader global struggle against imperialism and for socialism. His two visits to China (in 1965 and 66) left a profound mark on his thinking.”

The review further notes that Kanafani “took tremendous inspiration from the construction of ‘actually existing socialism’ and the revolutionary anti-colonial struggles waging around the world, and situated the Palestinian struggle within a global united front against imperialism.”

Carlos concludes:

As Kanafani wrote, “the Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary, wherever they are, as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era”. As such, Selected Political Writings deserves to be widely read. The editors have performed a most valuable service in making Kanafani’s political contributions available for readers of English.

This review first appeared in the Morning Star.

This new volume from Pluto Press, edited by Louis Brehony and Tahrir Hamdi, brings together some of the most important essays, manifestos and journalistic reports by the revered Palestinian writer and activist Ghassan Kanafani.

Kanafani is best known for his literary works, all of which are deeply imbued with the spirit of anti-colonial resistance. His novels, short stories and essays, such as Men in the Sun (1962) and Returning to Haifa (1969), vividly depict the experiences of exile, dispossession and resilience, giving voice to the Palestinian collective memory.

Rashid Khalidi, in The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine observes that, “among the literary figures whose ideas and images played a major role in the revival of Palestinian identity, Kanafani was perhaps the most prominent prose writer and the most widely translated”.

Kanafani also made important contributions as a journalist, theorist and political activist. Indeed, the editors of Selected Political Writings consider that he was “Palestine’s greatest Marxist thinker. His ideas – forged in the firepit of war, crisis and armed resistance – are flammable materials, rich in the lessons of the revolutionary sparks which ignited his era.”

Kanafani was spokesperson of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP – a Marxist-Leninist organisation that forms part of the resistance front in Gaza today) from the time of its formation in 1969, and co-authored its program, Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine.

A powerful and consistent advocate of armed struggle against colonial occupation, and of the centrality of the working class and peasantry in the struggle for national liberation, Kanafani was deeply influenced by the ideas of Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, and situated the Palestinian liberation struggle within the broader global struggle against imperialism and for socialism. His two visits to China (in 1965 and 66) “left a comparably profound mark on his thinking”.

Indeed, on page 113 of Selected Political Writings, in an extract from Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine, we find: “The Palestinian and Arab liberation movement in alliance with national liberation movements in all undeveloped and poor countries will, in facing world imperialism led by the USA, find a strong ally to back its forces and augment its power of resistance. This ally is the People’s Republic of China.”

A major milestone in socialist history – a review of People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red

We are very pleased to republish below a comprehensive review by Gabriel Rockhill of “People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red”, edited by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, the co-editors of this website, and published by Praxis Press.

Recalling how Lenin rejoiced when the October Revolution outlasted the Paris Commune, Gabriel notes: “Karl Marx, writing on these events at the time, celebrated the unprecedented advances of the workers’ movement while lucidly identifying its principal limitation: it had not crushed the bourgeois state and founded a proletarian state capable of defending its interests. This is a lesson that Vladimir Lenin had taken to heart, and his reputed dance in the snow feted the practical success of a correct theoretical assessment.”

On October 1^st, 2024, for which anniversary this book was published, the People’s Republic of China eclipsed the longevity of the Soviet state.

How should those “who support the struggle for a more egalitarian and ecologically sustainable world” respond?

Gabriel notes that the book “seeks to respond to these questions and others through rigorous materialist analysis and a coherent theoretical framing of the PRC’s place in world history. Comprised of eleven incisive analyses framed by a capacious introduction, the book serves as a useful guide to anyone interested in a crash course on China by some of the world’s leading experts on the question. Given its readability, with concise essays and a total length of just under 150 pages, it is particularly well suited for full-time organisers and a broad readership outside of academic circles. Since it covers so much terrain and tackles many pressing questions head-on, it is, in many ways, a perfect primer on China. At the same time, it is packed with empirical details, extensive references, and insightful analyses that will be of interest to those with a strong working knowledge of the PRC.”

He goes on to argue that every socialist project has had to chart new territory in its own unique circumstances and explore ways of eking out an existence in a hostile, imperialist world intent on destroying it. Implicit in the book’s argument is the rejection of the idealist approach to the question of socialism, which consists in defining it in the abstract and then dismissing anything in the real world that does not live up to this speculative abstraction. Instead, Bennett and Martinez invite us to approach the issue of socialism from a dialectical materialist vantage point. This means recognising that it is a process that takes on specific forms in different material circumstances, and we, therefore need to analyse the complexities of practical reality rather than simply relying on theoretical definitions from the sidelines of history.

Outlining some of China’s achievements, as presented in the book, he writes that:

“Since many of these facts are undeniable and even admitted by the imperialist powers, there has been an attempt to attribute China’s meteoric rise to its supposed embrace of capitalism in the post-Mao era. Many analysts, including self-proclaimed Marxists, embrace a schematic and reductivist version of history that simply juxtaposes a socialist age under Mao to a capitalist epoch begun with Deng Xiaoping. One of the many strengths of this book is its dialectical and materialist approach to the history of the People’s Republic, which provides a fine-grained elucidation of the concrete realities of the PRC’s developmental strategy rather than falling prey to metaphysical ‘all or nothing’ assumptions.”

Echoing the conclusion of Deng Xiaoping’s November 1989 talk with Julius Nyerere, the founding president of Tanzania, Gabriel summates:

“As long as China remains on the socialist path, approximately one sixth of the world’s population will be living under socialism and striving – against great odds – to chart uncharted territory. As one of the longest lasting and largest socialist experiments on planet Earth, there is much to learn from it. This book is an indispensable guide to understanding the PRC and appreciating its impressive accomplishments in only seventy-five years of existence.”

Gabriel Rockhill is the Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop / Atelier de Théorie Critique and Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, USA.

“People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red” can be purchased from the publishers in paperback and digital formats.

This review was originally published by Black Agenda Report. It has also been republished by Popular Resistance and Internationalist 360°. An abbreviated version was published by the Morning Star.

One of the most legendary scenes of revolutionary joy in the history of the world socialist movement is said to have occurred when Vladimir Lenin reportedly went out to dance in the snow in order to celebrate the fact that the recently minted Soviet Republic had outlasted the Paris Commune. The workers who had taken over the French capital in 1871 and launched a collective project of self-governance were able to hold out for seventy-two days before the ruling class trounced this experiment in a more egalitarian world. Karl Marx, writing on these events at the time, celebrated the unprecedented advances of the workers’ movement while lucidly identifying its principal limitation: it had not crushed the bourgeois state and founded a proletarian state capable of defending its interests. This is a lesson that Vladimir Lenin had taken to heart, and his reputed dance in the snow feted the practical success of a correct theoretical assessment.

The Soviet Union lasted for seventy-four years if one includes the five years of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917-1922). The People’s Republic of China (PRC) recently outstripped it by celebrating its seventy-fifth birthday (1949-2024). Measured in years rather than days, the celebration organized in the Great Hall of the People was much more sober than Lenin’s purported frolic in the snow. It included a balanced appraisal of what has been accomplished thus far and what remains to be done. President Xi Jinping delivered a speech that stressed how the Communist Party of China (CPC) “has united and led the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in working tirelessly to bring about the two miracles of rapid economic growth and enduring social stability.”[1] Reactions in the imperial core, known for its histrionics regarding China’s imminent collapse, were markedly different. The title of one of the Associated Press’s articles directly contradicted Xi Jinping’s claim: “China marks 75 years of Communist Party rule as economic challenges and security threats linger.”[2]

People’s China at 75: “Anyone who wants to understand socialism in China should read this book”

We recently launched People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red, a collection edited by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, bringing together different perspectives and understandings of the trajectory of Chinese socialism over the past 75 years.

We are pleased to publish below the first review, from Fight Back!, published on 25 October 2024.

After summarising the book’s contents, the review concludes:

Everyone interested in socialism should study the experience of China, and People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red stands out as an extraordinary collection of important writings on China’s achievements, struggles, and contributions to the world revolutionary movement.

The book can be purchased on the Praxis Press website in paperback and digital formats.

Marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Praxis Press, together with Friends of Socialist China, has released an excellent new book, People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red. This book is edited by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, and compiles articles by China experts from all over the world explaining and defending Chinese socialism. Anyone who wants to understand socialism in China, from 1949 to today, should read this book.

The articles in the book cover a number of important topics. We can’t cover them all here, but we can look at some highlights. For example, Jenny Clegg’s article “China’s transition to socialism: 1949-1956” explains the period during which China laid the foundations of socialism. She discusses China’s post-war rehabilitation, New Democracy, and how it ensured that China would progress along the socialist road. The article examines the practical, economic elements of this transition, such as the development of Agricultural Producers Cooperatives, together with the political and ideological debates of the period. As Clegg writes in her conclusion,

A careful handling of class relations allowed the people’s struggles against capitalism to unfold in sequenced steps, workers and peasants discussing and educating themselves as they engaged in policy implementation. Grassroots cadres, learning on the job, built broad support as the dynamics of class struggle exposed the inherent contradictions at each step.

Leading Chinese scholars Cheng Enfu and Chen Jian, in the article “The significance of China’s fulfilment of its Second Centenary Goal by 2049,” explain and analyze the Communist Party of China’s “goal of building China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by the centenary of the People’s Republic of China.”

The book also includes a short article by Roland Boer titled “China’s socialist democracy” which addresses the principle that “socialist democracy strengthens the leadership of the Communist Party, and the leadership of the Communist Party strengthens socialist democracy.” Boer is explaining a dialectical relationship at the core of the socialist system. “In other words, the leadership of the Communist Party ensures that the people are masters of the country, and the robust exercise of socialist democracy ensures that the Communist Party continues its role of legitimate leadership.”

J. Sykes, author of The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism, contributes the article “Mao, China, and the development of Marxism-Leninism.” In this article Sykes explains Mao’s contributions to Marxist theory. He breaks down Mao’s contributions to dialectical and historical materialism, revolutionary strategy, problems of socialist construction, and the defense of Marxism-Leninism against modern revisionism. While concisely explaining Mao’s contributions in each of these areas, Sykes makes the point that “Mao’s contributions to revolutionary theory are not limited to the Chinese context,” but are universal. “The theory-practice dialectic in fact goes both ways. By applying Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of China, Marxism-Leninism itself was further developed and enriched.”

In the article “Building socialism, building the ecological civilization,” Efe Can Gürcan explains how China is leading the way in environmental sustainability. This article does well to highlight how China is working to develop green technology in a world increasingly put at risk by the perils of climate change.

Finally, the collection ends with an excellent article from Carlos Martinez: “How China survived the end of history.” Martinez examines how China survived the wave of counter-revolution that swept the socialist world between 1989 and 1991 to continue on the socialist road when so many other countries didn’t.

Everyone interested in socialism should study the experience of China, and People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red stands out as an extraordinary collection of important writings on China’s achievements, struggles, and contributions to the world revolutionary movement.

It's real! pic.twitter.com/OEqEU6McEg
— Carlos (@agent_of_change) September 27, 2024

New book: People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red

At our London conference marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, held on 28 September 2024, we launched a new book: People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red. Edited by Friends of Socialist China co-editors Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, and published by Praxis Press, the book brings together different perspectives and understandings of the trajectory of Chinese socialism over the past 75 years, with the aim of presenting China’s achievements and challenging popular misconceptions.

The book can be purchased on the Praxis Press website in paperback and digital formats.

Synopsis

When the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed on 1 October 1949, China was one of the poorest and most wretched societies on earth. Illiteracy was as high as life expectancy was low but as Chinese leader Mao Zedong had remarked even before the formal announcement of the creation of the PRC, “The Chinese people have stood up.”

Today’s China is at the forefront of the world economy, it has eliminated absolute poverty and is leading the world in tackling climate change, and the development of new, high quality productive forces, essentially conforming to the fifth industrial revolution.

China has achieved this unprecedented development in less than a century, yet these achievements are frequently misinterpreted or distorted. People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red, organised by the co-editors of Friends of Socialist China, aims to challenge these misconceptions and provide the political, historical and economic context that best explains China’s astonishing rise.

Chapters

Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez: Understanding socialism with Chinese characteristics
Ken Hammond: Building socialism with Chinese characteristics
Jenny Clegg: China’s transition to socialism: 1949-1956
Andrew Murray: Standing up, living long, opposing hegemony
Cheng Enfu and Chen Jian: The significance of China’s fulfilment of its Second Centenary Goal by 2049
Kenny Coyle: The ‘primary stage of socialism’ in historical context
Roland Boer: China’s socialist democracy
Mick Dunford: Common Prosperity
J Sykes: Mao, China, and the development of Marxism-Leninism
Efe Can Gürcan: Building socialism, building the ecological civilisation
Radhika Desai: Patient finance: Beijing’s core challenge to the Washington Consensus
Carlos Martinez: How China survived the end of history

About the authors

Keith Bennett is a Co-editor of Friends of Socialist China. He studied Chinese History and Politics at SOAS University of London and, on graduating, began a lifetime of working with China at the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) in 1979. He has visited China regularly since 1981 and is also Deputy Chairman of the 48 Group Club, whose July 1953 ‘Icebreaker Mission’ was the first western trade delegation to the People’s Republic.

Professor Cheng Enfu is the former President of the Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Principal Professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, President of the World Association for Political Economy, Editor-in-Chief of the World Review of Political Economy, Editor-in-Chief of the World Marxism Review, and Honorary Editor-in-Chief of International Critical Thought. His research mainly focuses on Marxist political economy.

Dr Jenny Clegg is an independent writer and researcher, specialising in China’s development and international role; and a former Senior Lecturer/Course Leader in Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK. Her works include: China’s Global Strategy: towards a multipolar world (Pluto Press,2009); Storming the Heavens – Peasants and Revolution in China, 1925-1949: a Marxist perspective (Manifesto Press, forthcoming).

Kenny Coyle is a writer, editor and publisher. He is the director of Praxis Press and is a regular contributor to the Morning Star. He has lived and worked in various parts of Asia since 2000.

Professor Michael Dunford is Emeritus Professor at the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, and Affiliate Scholar at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Professor Radhika Desai is Professor at the Department of Political Studies, Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada and Convenor of the International Manifesto Group. Her Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013) proposed geopolitical economy as the proper Marxist anti-imperialist framework for understanding world affairs in the capitalist era. She hosts a fortnightly show, Geopolitical Economy Hour on the Geopolitical Economy Report website. Her most recent book is Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy (2022, Open Access).

Professor Efe Can Gürcan is an Associate Professor who currently serves as a Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Additionally, he holds the positions of Research Associate at the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, based at the “University of Manitoba, Visiting Scholar at the Shanghai University Institute of Global Studies, and Senior Research Fellow at Hainan CGE Peace Development Foundation. Gürcan has authored seven books and over 30 articles and book chapters on international development, international political economy, and political sociology. His latest co-authored book is China on the Rise: The Transformation of Structural Power in the Era of Multipolarity (Routledge, 2024).

Professor Ken Hammond is professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University. He has been a socialist activist since his student days at Kent State University in the late 1960s-early ‘70s. He lived and worked in China from 1982-87 and has traveled and taught there over the past 42 years. He currently works with Pivot to Peace and is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. He is the author of China’s Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future and China and the World, 1949-2024.

Carlos Martinez is a researcher and political activist from London, Britain. His first book, The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse, was published in 2019 by LeftWord Books. His most recent book, The East Is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century, was published in 2023 by Praxis Press. He is a co-editor of Friends of Socialist China.

Andrew Murray is political correspondent of the Morning Star for the second time, the first being from 1978 to 1984. In between he has been Chair of the Stop the War Coalition, Chief of Staff at Unite the union, and an adviser to Jeremy Corbyn when he was Leader of the Labour Party. He has written many books including The Fall and Rise of the British Left and Is Socialism Possible in Britain?

J. Sykes is a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the author of The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism.

It's real! pic.twitter.com/OEqEU6McEg
— Carlos (@agent_of_change) September 27, 2024

Three-Body Problem: science fiction for China’s ‘New Era’?

The following article by David Peat – Iskra Books editorial board member and secretary of the Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee – discusses the new Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s novel The Three-Body Problem, comparing it with the original book and with last year’s Chinese television adaptation by Tencent.

While describing the Netflix adaption as “admirable in many respects”, David considers that the series is somewhat let down by “poor scriptwriting and ham-fisted characterisation”. Compared to the Chinese adaptation, the Netflix version is too fast-paced, packing too much into a small number of episodes. “With more room to breathe, the novel and the Tencent series also bring out other elements” not covered by the Netflix series, including ecological themes.

David writes: “It has been noted that recent Western science fiction, particularly in cinema, is based either on simplified superhero narratives or extremely pessimistic dystopian/post-apocalypse scenarios, and this reflects a spiritual and ideological absence in late capitalist culture.” Liu Cixin, by contrast, “focuses on proactive and creative responses to long-standing and seemingly intractable problems affecting the whole of humanity.” As such, “Liu Cixin’s stories are fitting science fiction for China’s ‘New Era’ period of continuing socialist construction, undertaking (and more importantly achieving) its own enormously complex and profound projects of poverty elimination, green transformation, and high-quality development.”

David concludes that the Three-Body Problem has the potential to foster cultural understanding and people-to-people exchange between China and the West, “opening a door to the captivating world of Chinese science fiction for a global audience.”

This article contains no spoilers for any of Liu Cixin’s works or their adaptations.

The Three-Body Problem (三体), a science fiction novel released in 2006, counts as perhaps the major cultural ‘crossover’ success of China in the last decade. This was true even before the release of the new Netflix television adaptation of the book, released on the 21st of March 2024, and produced and written for the screen by Game of Thrones show creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, alongside Alexander Woo.

That the creators of arguably the largest television ‘phenomenon’ of recent years saw fit to choose Three-Body as their next project is testament to the cultural impact of this work within China and, increasingly, in the wider world. All the more interesting since the author Liu Cixin, a cultural icon in the PRC, refuses to repudiate his country’s revolutionary history, including its current governing party, the Communist Party of China. As such, he cannot easily be co-opted as a ‘dissident’, and those seeking to market and adapt his works in the West find themselves in the awkward position of having to promote an author who is proud of his country’s achievements and is able to critically engage with the historical path of the Chinese revolution in a productive way, avoiding what Xi Jinping refers to as “historical nihilism.”^[1]

This article will look at the original book series, as well as a Chinese-made (Tencent) adaptation from 2023, and compare them with the recently released US-made (Netflix) adaptation. It will assess the relative merits of each version, different audience reactions to these series, as well as some wider considerations of the differences between contemporary Western and Chinese science fiction.

Three-Body Problem was published in China in 2006. The book is the first of a trilogy, with subsequent volumes titled The Dark Forest (黑暗森林) and Death’s End (死神永生), with the trilogy collectively known as Remembrance of Earth’s Past (地球往事). It achieved broad commercial and critical success domestically, with Liu’s works accounting for 2/3rds of the Chinese science fiction market, and abroad, with translations into more than 20 languages. In English, the first volume of the trilogy, translated by Ken Liu, received the coveted Hugo Award for ‘Best Novel’ in 2015, the first non-English speaking writer to do so. Liu Cixin’s dominance of modern Chinese science fiction can also be seen in the enormous domestic (and moderate international) success of film adaptations of his Wandering Earth novel, with China selecting the second instalment in this film series as its submission for this year’s Oscars.

The plot of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past series is difficult to summarise, especially when trying not to spoil anything. In general, the action initially takes place in a near-contemporary era with the deaths by suicide of various theoretical and applied physicists around the world, many of them leaving cryptic notes suggesting something along the lines of “Physics doesn’t exist.” The first book also jumps back to Mao-era China and follows Ye Wenjie, herself a gifted physicist, during the Cultural Revolution and subsequent work at a radio telescope base in Inner Mongolia. In the broadest possible strokes, the series can be considered an ‘alien contact’ story, but it also touches on themes such as ecology and human development, ‘game theory’, the capacity for ideological groups to form depending on external circumstances, global cooperation to overcome multi-generational problems, and high-level physics concepts.

The books were extremely well-received, with many praising their creative and inventive use of scientific concepts, enormously ambitious ‘high-concept’ action sequences, and philosophical themes. Equally, however, some readers critiqued the series, suggesting that these overwhelmingly abstract ‘ideas’ take centre stage, to the detriment of any focus on interpersonal drama and character development. As such, for years it was considered that the novels were ‘unfilmable’.

There had been a few abortive attempts at adapting the book series in China, in animation, or even video game form. Eventually, the Chinese company Tencent succeeded and released a 30-episode series in January 2023. This covers the events of the first novel, Three-Body Problem,_,in exhaustive detail, and is considered a highly faithful adaptation, often with dialogue taken straight from the novel. On release, it was praised by fans of the book, with strong performances, excellent cinematography and impressive special effects, especially for its budget and the fact it was a Chinese television drama. However, there were also some criticisms, from both domestic and international audiences, which criticised the show’s irregular pacing, poor performances by non-Chinese actors, and the ‘old-fashioned’ CGI of the ‘video game’ section of the story.

Disappointing “rush to judgment” on China’s role in the Congo

The article below, written by Dee Knight and republished from Black Agenda Report, responds to a recent review by Ann Garrison of Siddharth Kara’s 2023 book Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives.

Garrison had written, also in Black Agenda Report, that “huge Chinese corporations so dominate Congolese cobalt mining, processing and battery manufacture that one has to ask why a communist government, however capitalist in fact, doesn’t at least somehow require more responsible sourcing of minerals processed and then advanced along the supply chain within its borders.”

Dee Knight responds with a comradely criticism – while recalling Garrison’s “strong record of incisive anti-imperialist reporting on Africa” – that the book review (and the book under review) ignores some important facts about Congo’s mining industry and China’s role in it.

Referencing the work of Isabelle Minnon, a lawyer and activist in Belgium, and others, Dee observes that “China’s role has been to bring new, large-scale investment on a new basis: combined financing for industrial mining and public infrastructure – roads, railroads, dams, health and education facilities.” The effect of this has been to reverse the trajectory towards de-industrialisation of Congo’s cobalt economy, and to provide much-needed infrastructure for development.

Furthermore, “China cancelled the DRC’s interest-free loans worth an estimated $28 million, promised to fund more infrastructure projects and also give $17 million in other financial support as the DRC joins the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).”

The win-win nature of the China-DRC relationship – as opposed to some sort of neo-colonial dynamic – is what has provoked the ire of Western commentators.

Based on her reading of Cobalt Red, Ann Garrison writes that “Huge Chinese corporations so dominate Congolese cobalt mining, processing and battery manufacture that one has to ask why a communist government, however capitalist in fact, doesn’t at least somehow require more responsible sourcing of minerals processed and then advanced along the supply chain within its borders.” [emphasis added]

Garrison has a strong record of incisive anti-imperialist reporting on Africa, so it is necessary to consider her question seriously. Unfortunately, the result of such consideration suggests Garrison rushed to judgment about China’s role in the Congo, and failed to look beyond Cobalt Red for facts and analysis of the DRC’s rapidly changing mining industry.

Others have researched the issue more fully and accurately. One is Isabelle Minnon, a lawyer and activist in Belgium. Her research report, “Industrial Turn-Around in Congo?” appeared last October in Lava, a Belgian magazine of social criticism and Marxist analysis.

Minnon shows that China has been part of the solution, not of the problem. “China has responded to the DRC’s need to have partners who invest in industrialization,” she writes. Western colonists had bled Congo dry through onerous debt, leaving it “weighed down by a burden that prevented it from developing economically. In 2001 industrial production was at a standstill, mining sites deserted.”

When the DRC turned to the World Bank and IMF for help, they insisted on privatizing the mining sector, laying off thousands of mine workers. Hundreds of mines were sold with “dormant mining titles” to foreign companies – “not to produce but to resell them at the right time” for big profits.

The measures didn’t wipe out the mining industry, but they pushed thousands of laid-off mine workers and their families to fend for themselves as artisanal miners, and then sell the minerals to processing companies. That was the situation described in Cobalt Red.

China’s role has been to bring new, large-scale investment on a new basis: combined financing for industrial mining and public infrastructure – roads, railroads, dams, health and education facilities. The result was “After decades of almost non-existent industrial production, the country became and remains the world’s leading producer of cobalt and, by 2023, became the world’s third largest producer of copper.” The new deal “puts an end to the monopoly of certain Western countries and their large companies whose history shows that this exclusivity has not brought development to the country.”

The arrangement has dramatically reduced the role of artisanal mining. “Since the enormous increase in production in the mining sector in Congo, 80% of mining production is done industrially. Sicomines [China-Congolese Mining Co.] has built the most modern factory in the DRC for processing raw copper.” The same is true for cobalt, replacing artisanal mining with organized, industrial production. Industrial mining is a reversal of artisanal mining.

“Resource-for-Infrastructure (RFI) deals like this all over Africa have helped China foster strong relations with several countries,” writes Halim Nazar of India’s Institute for Chinese Studies .

Western competitors are not happy. “The IMF publicly criticized the DRC for taking on too much debt,” Nazar writes. But it has been a “debt-investment” based on real growth.

A Peace-for-Concessions Swap?

Avril Haines, US Director of National Intelligence, visited Kinshasha airport last November 20, to meet with DRC President Tshisekedi, together with Molly Phee, Undersecretary of State for Africa, the State Department’s most senior official for Africa. It was the first day of Tshisekedi’s presidential campaign, reports Tony Busselen , author of Congo for Beginners. The top US officials focused on peace between the DRC and neighboring Rwanda, offering help in difficult upcoming elections. Tshisekedi won the heavily contested elections in a landslide .

A December 1 report in Politico suggests it may have been a peace for concessions swap. “The meeting with Haines comes at a time when Washington is trying to counter China in Africa. Congo is home to about 70 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves and China is the largest producer. Beijing is Kinshasa’s largest trading partner and has acquired important mining rights since the 2000s. Control of the market gives the country a big lead over the US in the race for crucial parts for electric vehicle batteries.”

Did Haines press for Tshisekedi to review Congo’s contracts with China? Politico quotes Cameron Hudson, a former CIA intelligence analyst for Africa: “If anything, this administration has already shown that it is willing to review contracts with China.” Last February 16, Tshisekedi’s administration published a highly critical report on the China contract. The President ordered an audit of the contract, and called on China to revise it on a “win-win” basis.

When President Tshisekedi was invited to China last May, he gave an interview on Chinese TV in which he distanced himself from the policy of condemnation and interference against China. China had cancelled the DRC’s interest-free loans worth an estimated $28 million , promised to fund more infrastructure projects and also give $17 million in other financial support as the DRC joins the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Isabelle Minnon cites Franz Fanon’s observation that “Africa has the shape of a revolver whose trigger is in the Congo.” She adds that “those whose finger is on this trigger have the power to build or destroy the DRC and all of Africa.” She says this is how, following the 1961 US-and-Belgium-backed coup d’état and assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the colonialists were able to install Mobutu Sese Seko, who governed for 31 years, and cooperated with them in destroying the Congolese economy by miring it in debt. After the DRC and China agreed on a resource-for-infrastructure deal, the situation has improved – so much that the deal “fueled the fury of Western countries to the point that” the World Bank and IMF tried to force a 50 percent reduction in the infrastructure budget.

The Wilson Center published a report in September 2021, that “Artisanal miners produce 20% of the country’s cobalt output. The remainder comes from foreign-owned firms, primarily Chinese, whose rechargeable battery industry accounts for around 60 percent of global cobalt demand.” [emphasis added] Note that industrialized mining is many times more productive than artisanal mining, so even producing 20% of output, there are more artisanal miners than industrial mine workers.

Who likes Cobalt Red, and who doesn’t

Ann Garrison acknowledges criticism of Cobalt Red – she says Open Democracy “called it a sensationalistic, self-aggrandizing ‘White Saviour’ exposé.” OD said Cobalt Red “simply rehashes old stereotypes and colonial perceptions of the DRC, with indulgent use of dehumanizing rhetoric, lack of research ethics, and ignorance and/or erasure of local knowledge.” Perhaps most telling, the OD critics say Cobalt Red’s author “is intent on portraying the DRC as an unchanging, suffering world out of time.” But times are changing, and much of this change can be traced to the innovation of the resource-for-infrastructure deal with China.

Garrison notes that “Kara (the author of Cobalt Red), “has been interviewed on countless podcasts, on Democracy Now, and at the Foreign Policy Association. This last – along with bestseller ranking in the NY Times and Publishers Weekly and shortlisting for the Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year – suggest approval from questionable sources. There is questionable honor sharing glory with such “heroes” of the Foreign Policy Association as Antony Blinken and Madeleine Albright, General David Petraeus, journalists Robin Wright and David Sanger, and foreign policy titans like William Burns and Fiona Hill.

It may be that Ann Garrison didn’t notice that China’s role in the Democratic Republic of Congo was a significant change. In one sense that’s understandable. Change has not manifested itself completely, and the process may well be far from perfect. But in her article she rushed to judgment too quickly, without making appropriate comparisons.

The East is Still Red – and green

In the following book review of Carlos Martinez’s The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century, Stefania Fusero provides a detailed summary of the chapter on China’s environmental record (China is building an ecological civilisation), including a discussion of China’s trajectory on ecological issues, its commitment in the last two decades to renewable energy development, its record on afforestation, and its leadership in eco-friendly transport.

Stefania also sums up the book’s position as to why China, of all countries, has emerged as the uncontested world leader in renewable energy and biodiversity protection:

China’s economic development proceeds according to state plans, not market anarchy. As a result, the interests of private profit are subordinate to the needs of society.

Unfortunately, the Western world remains oblivious to China’s advances, on the one hand because of a racist assumption that ‘civilised’ European-origin peoples should be leading the way on such matters, and on the other hand because “China’s successes in this and other areas risk demonstrating the fundamental validity of socialism as a means of promoting human progress”.

This book review was first published in Italian in La Città Futura and has been translated into English by the author.

The East is Still Red can be purchased in paperback and digital formats from Praxis Press.

Carlos Martinez’s book provides us with a wide-ranging overview of 21st century China, but in this article, I am going to focus exclusively on the chapter entitled “China is Building an Ecological Civilisation.” Although ecology is rightfully one of the most debated topics both among policymakers and at a grassroots level, we know hardly anything about the environmental policies pursued by and in the People’s Republic of China. Through Martinez’s book we get an exhaustive and detailed picture of them.

With the proclamation of the PRC on October 1, 1949, China began the long journey of emancipation of its people from poverty and underdevelopment, which would lead it to pull hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty a few years ago.

The economic development of the PRC, just like previously that of Europe, the US and Japan, was mainly based on coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, which until two decades ago made up around 80 percent of China’s energy mix. Faced with the choice between economic development resulting in environmental degradation or underdevelopment with environmental conservation, the Chinese leadership chose development.

“The abundance of cheap fossil fuel energy enabled China to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, whilst simultaneously establishing itself as a global leader in science and technology, thereby building a foundation for the construction of a modern and sustainable socialist society.”

It is thanks to that choice that China, although still a developing country, is no longer poor. At the same time, however, the effects of the industrialisation process have amplified and aggravated China’s natural vulnerability to climate change – it is one of the countries most prone to ecological disasters, with 200 million people exposed to the effects of droughts and floods; with nearly a quarter of the world’s population, China has only 5% of the planet’s water resources and 7% of the arable land.

Environmental issues have therefore become a top priority and the CPC has focused, especially in the last decade, on the transition to a green development model. If in the 1980s they made GDP growth one of their top priorities, at the 19th Congress of the CPC in 2017 Xi Jinping announced that the main contradiction that Chinese society now faces is that between unbalanced and inadequate development and the needs of people for an ever-better life.

Already in 2014 Xi Jinping wrote in The Governance of China: “We must strike a balance between economic growth and environmental protection. We will be more conscientious in promoting green, circular, and low-carbon development. We will never again seek economic growth at the expense of the environment.”

If the concepts of growth and development remain a priority on the Chinese leadership’s agenda, “innovative, coordinated, green, open and inclusive” growth and development opportunities that preserve nature are now being pursued. Such a view shifts the development goal “from maximising growth to maximising net welfare”, in the words of influential Chinese economist Hu Angang.

‘The East is Still Red’ an able defence of People’s China

In this concise review of Carlos Martinez’s The East is Still Red, Graham Harrington summarises the book’s main arguments, describing it as a “very readable and able defence of the current People’s Republic of China.”

Graham notes that, while the socialist market economies of China and Vietnam are controversial among many Marxists in the West, it is important to recognise these countries’ achievements – particularly in relation to poverty alleviation – and to assess them from a position of humility. “Given the lack of any revolution in the West, we should perhaps not be so dismissive of what has been achieved in China, or look at China from an ivory tower.”

The review originally appeared in Socialist Voice, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI).

The CPI is hosting book launches for The East is Red at Connolly Books, Dublin, on Wednesday 27 September 2023, and Cultúrlaan Mac Adam Ó Fiach, Belfast, on Thursday 28 September 2023.

For those based in the EU, Connolly Books is the best place to order a paperback copy. Elsewhere, we recommend buying from Praxis Press.

The East Is Still Red is a very readable and able defence of the current People’s Republic of China. The basic argument of the book is that China is on the right path with regard to building socialism, despite the controversy a statement like this causes among the Western left.

The Chinese Revolution of 1949 put an end to what Chinese call their “century of humiliation,” the period of the Opium Wars, Japanese colonialism, famine, and warlord rule. It was also the culmination of decades of struggle by the Communist Party of China, which had endured massacres and guerrilla struggle before the revolution.

The new People’s Republic managed to unite the country, double the life expectancy of China’s people, end horrific misogynist practices such as foot-binding in some areas, and eliminate landlordism and inequality. This was despite failures and mistakes, such as the Great Leap Forward.

For the author, China’s achievements are not just historical but in fact continue to this day. The reform and opening-up period did not mark a break with socialism in China. At the time of Mao’s death the People’s Republic had achieved many advances. Its economy had impressive successes in heavy industry, but the majority of its people continued to languish in objective poverty, and it was this fact that made the CPC examine the direction of the country.

Essentially, the argument of the CPC for reform was that if poverty remained in the country it would threaten socialism. In the 1970s China’s neighbours, including Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia, were experiencing economic booms, while China’s citizens lived on state rations. The leadership felt that this was a threat to the existence of the People’s Republic. Foreign investment was encouraged, as was a domestic private sector. The rest is history. China is now the world’s second-largest economy.

Despite the huge increase in inequality, the author argues that the reforms were still necessary for development and people’s needs. The strongest argument for this is that China has taken some 800 million citizens out of absolute poverty. The reforms did indeed create billionaires, but they also eliminated absolute poverty. If China is capitalist, then this presents major challenges to the Marxist understanding of capitalism.

We may add the existence of the second economy in the socialist states, past and present, as documented in Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny’s book Socialism Betrayed (2010). The second economy incorporated the black market, those who hoarded state-subsidised goods and in effect provided the material basis for the destruction of socialism in the country where it was born. In no country today is there a perfect socialism, where there is no private sector or markets. Martinez writes how carefully the Chinese leadership analysed the defeat of the USSR.

Along with several quotations from Mao in the PRC’s early days, Martinez gives a quotation from Lenin in 1921 to show how the CPC’s post-reform thinking was not something new: “What we must fear is protracted starvation, want and food shortage, which create the danger that the working class will be utterly exhausted and will give way to petty-bourgeois vacillation and despair.”

While China’s recent trajectory is not popular among leftists in the West, the author believes it should perhaps give us some reason to examine how Western leftists can over-idealise socialism into a utopia, while countries such as China or Vietnam have to provide for their people’s basic needs after decades of imperialist underdevelopment. Given the lack of any revolution in the West, we should perhaps not be so dismissive of what has been achieved in China, or look at China from an ivory tower.

The environment, and specifically China’s response, is looked at in a very important chapter of the book. While China’s economic boom produced much pollution, China now produces more solar panels than any other country, and is first in investment in renewable energy. It has also doubled its forest coverage.

Additionally, it is noted that China’s pollution cannot be compared with historical pollution by the likes of the United States and Britain. Per capita, China’s emissions are similar to those of Ireland and Austria. A huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions is in fact caused by production for Western consumption: American and Canadian households emit nine times the emissions of the average Chinese household. In effect, the West has exported its polluting to China, leaving it with the blame.

The book does not pretend to be a comprehensive overview of China, nor a justification of every policy taken. It seeks to examine China and explain why we need to examine it seriously, not rating it out of ten but instead seeing how China has remained much closer to its original path than Western leftists believe it to be.

Book review: China and America’s Tech War from AI to 5G

In this review of China and America’s Tech War from AI to 5G: The Struggle to Shape the Future of World War, the new book by AB Abrams, Will Podmore notes that China has major advantages in five crucial areas of strategic and economic significance, namely artificial intelligence, quantum computing, green and nuclear technologies, telecommunications, and semiconductor chips. China is also, he notes, the world’s largest R&D investor and accounts for nearly half of all patent applications lodged worldwide.

Podmore writes that its unaffordability deters many US citizens from university study, but in China the numbers are rising fast. Moreover, the Chinese percentage of STEM graduates among its student cohort is double that of the US. China has also overtaken the US in the number of peer-reviewed papers published in scientific journals.

The US response, Podmore observes, has been to step up its attacks on China’s Huawei. But, as Abrams notes: “By initiating hostilities the US may only have accelerated its own decline by pressing China and its suppliers to phase out reliance on both American inputs such as software as well as on US chips.”

Britain’s decision to strip out Chinese equipment from its 5G network within seven years will cost over £7 billion and delay 5G rollout by at least three years. Podmore evokes a famous aphorism of Mao Zedong when he describes all this as “lifting a rock, only to drop it on your own feet.”

For their part, the editors of the MIT Technology Review write: “It’s becoming increasingly clear in the West that while the venture capital model is good at building things people want, it’s less good at producing things society needs in order to solve hard, long-term problems like pandemics and climate change.”

Abrams’ book is published by Lexington Books. However, at £96, it is beyond the reach of all but a handful of individual readers. A Kindle edition is currently available at a slightly more affordable £38. It may also be possible to order it through your library.

This review was originally published by the Morning Star.

China has major advantages in five key broad areas of technological competition with high strategic and economic significance — artificial intelligence, quantum computing, green and nuclear technologies, telecommunications and semiconductor chips — due to its greater home market scale, flexible regulatory environment and faster product integration loop.

China is the world’s largest overall (public and private) R&D investor. And China is not producing copies, as is commonly alleged: China files nearly half all the patent applications submitted worldwide.

The unaffordability of higher education in the United States means that fewer US citizens are going to university, but in China the numbers receiving higher education are rising fast. In 2013, 40 per cent of Chinese students graduated in STEM subjects, under 20 per cent in the US.

In the period 2016-2018, China overtook the US in the number of peer-reviewed papers published in scientific journals. The 2019 PISA (the OECD Programme for International Student Assessments) found that Chinese students were the best educated in the world.

The US responded not by upping its investments in high tech but by stepping up its attacks on China’s Huawei.

By 2019, 40 per cent of the world’s population used telecoms that passed through Huawei equipment. The US government alleged that Huawei was using its equipment to spy on other countries.

Nevertheless, the US House of Representatives intelligence committee had concluded in 2012 that there was no evidence that the firm was installing back doors in its equipment for espionage purposes.

Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security found no evidence of any security threat or malpractice from Huawei. And, as Abrams points out, “It was the NSA, not a Chinese government agency, which sought to install back doors into Huawei equipment for espionage purposes.”

The NSA made US tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Apple assist its surveillance efforts.

Arise, Africa! Roar, China!: Black and Chinese citizens of the world in the twentieth century

We republish below a review by Joel Wendland-Liu of the important and fascinating 2021 book Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century, which explores aspects of the historic linkages between progressive African Americans and the Chinese revolution.

As noted in the review, the book “documents the experiences of five individuals – W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Liu Liangmo, Si-lan Chen Leyda, and Langston Hughes – through the lens of their relations to China, with African America, racism, U.S. government persecution, and anti-imperialist working-class struggles for freedom.”

Joel’s review, originally published in People’s World, summarizes some of the key themes in the book, including the extensive work carried out by Liu Liangmo to promote understanding of China in the US; Paul Robeson’s longstanding and consistent support for the Chinese Revolution; the extraordinary life of Afro-Chinese dancer Sylvia Si-lan Chen Leyda; and W.E.B Du Bois and Shirley Graham Du Bois’s eight-week trip around China in 1959, of which W.E.B. Du Bois wrote: “We saw the planning of a nation and a system of work rising over the entrails of a dead empire.”

Also discussed is Langston Hughes’ famous trip to Shanghai in 1933:

Hughes differed from most Western visitors by refusing to stay within the racist cocoon that comprised the international concession zone in the city. He ate street food, enjoyed Chinese theater, and interacted with working-class Chinese people like humans. While these activities may seem normal today, at the time they set him apart from Euro-Americans who spread racist stereotypes about Chinese people, enforced Jim Crow rules, and typically viewed Chinese people as diseased, dangerous, and untrustworthy. Hughes’s experience in China, along with his political support for the revolutionary struggle, impacted his poetry, novels, and short stories over the next decade or so.

Joel observes that the book “gives new insights into the interactions and political relationships of revolutionary Chinese and African-American intellectuals, pointing frequently to new connections across cultures and languages that deserve even more scholarly scrutiny.”

We have previously carried an interview with the author, Gao Yunxiang.

When the slender, affable Chinese man took the podium in Harlem’s posh Golden Gate ballroom on a late autumn afternoon to denounce three recent lynchings in Mississippi, the audience’s FBI informant perked up. Liu Liangmo, a public speaker employed by United China Relief, a non-partisan charity that raised funds to aid China during a brutal Japanese invasion, proceeded to denounce racism as a system: lynchings, poll taxes, and Jim Crow apartheid. He highlighted white supremacy’s links to fascism and imperialism and called for equality and self-determination for all peoples. The bespectacled Liu took his seat to the applause of several hundred at an event sponsored by the Negro Labor Victory Committee, the Negro Quarterly, and the actor Orson Welles. As a professional public speaker, Liu’s task was to promote a deeper understanding of China to American audiences. In the age before television, public speaking events were among the most important ways an organization that couldn’t afford to make a movie or publish a newspaper could share its ideas. In his nine years in the U.S., Liu believed he had traveled 100,000 miles across most of the country.

Historian Gao Yunxiang is a Professor of History at Ryerson University in Toronto. In this original and well-researched book, Arise Africa! Roar, China!: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century, she documents the experiences of five individuals—W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Liu Liangmo, Si-lan Chen Leyda, and Langston Hughes—through the lens of their relations to China, with African America, racism, U.S. government persecution, and anti-imperialist working-class struggles for freedom. Liu, persecuted by the FBI and the immigration regime, left the U.S. in 1949 to serve as a leader of the Chinese Democratic League, one of the several non-communist parties that continues to serve in the country’s National People’s Political Consultative Conference. He also helped to mobilize the Chinese Christian community in support of resistance to Japanese occupation and the ultimate revolutionary transformation of the country.

Contents