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 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, which fell on October 1st 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.
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!
In January, the Chinese tech startup DeepSeek stunned the world with the release of its R1 artificial intelligence model, which outperforms its major US-based competitors, at a fraction of the cost of development, requiring orders of magnitude less energy, and not relying on the latest and greatest semiconductors. The model is fully open source, and has been made available for free worldwide.
The release of DeepSeek R1 led to an unprecedented drop in share price for several US tech giants, most notably chip-maker Nvidia, which has been attracting enormous investment on the premise that the future of AI relies on faster and better semiconductors.
Just a few weeks earlier, the Chinese mobile app RedNote (Xiaohongshu / Little Red Book) unexpectedly gained a substantial user base in the US in the days running up to the Biden administration’s TikTok ban (which has since been suspended by Trump). The sudden appearance of millions of US users on RedNote led to an unprecedented cultural exchange between particularly young people in China and the US – in spite of the best efforts of the US government to prevent such exchanges.
In this rapidly-changing technology landscape, our webinar of 16 February 2025, organised jointly with the International Manifesto Group, addressed questions such as:
Is the release of DeepSeek’s R1 model a “Sputnik moment”, as it has been described?
Are we witnessing the decline of US technological hegemony?
Why has DeepSeek had such a profound impact on the US tech market?
Has Biden’s “chip war” with China been a failure?
Can AI be a public good, or is it destined simply to generate profits for Big Tech?
Is China’s socialist market economy outperforming Western neoliberalism?
In what way is China’s approach to AI different to that of the US?
What is China’s Global AI Initiative?
How are Chinese technologies such as RedNote and DeepSeek impacting perceptions of China?
Speakers were as follows:
Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group, moderator)
Alan Freeman (Economist, co-director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group)
Li Jingjing (Journalist and broadcaster, CGTN)
Gary Wilson (Author, War and Lenin in the 21st Century)
KJ Noh (journalist, political analyst and peace activist)
Ben Norton (China-based broadcaster and geopolitical analyst)
Michael Roberts (Marxist economist and blogger)
Ali Al-Assam (Managing Director of the NewsSocial Cooperative)
We embed below the full event stream and the individual presentations from YouTube.
On Sunday 26 January, the Friends of Socialist China US commmittee held a hybrid public meeting (live in Portland and online via Zoom) on the theme of defending Socialist China. The event brought together speakers from a range of different organisations and backgrounds, covering several important themes related to Chinese socialism and the struggle against imperialism and war.
We republish below a report of the event that appeared in Workers World. Beneath the report, we embed the video of the full event as well as the individual contributions.
The Friends of Socialist China – U.S. Chapter, a coalition of anti-imperialist forces, held an incisive hybrid event on Jan. 26, to clarify the international role and domestic policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — to dispel the myriad of misconceptions that pervade the West due to the onslaught of false propaganda that we are forced to consume on a daily basis.
The event was held in person before a packed audience at the Portland, Oregon Central Library. More than 600 people registered for the Zoom webinar hosted by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). Others watched by FaceBook stream and hundreds more are viewing the program on UNAC and Friends of Socialist China YouTube channels.
The analysis of the seven presentations, each taking up a different topic, was striking in its breadth and depth. Especially notable was the vast number of established facts about modern China that would have been news even to someone familiar with the political, economic and social organization of the PRC. Some of those facts follow.
Material conditions in People’s China
During the tenure of Mao Zedong as Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC), life expectancy in China grew by one year, every year. The PRC went from practically the poorest country on Earth to solving the basic problems of feeding, clothing, housing, educating (the vast majority were made literate) and caring for the health of their nearly quarter of the world’s population; the role and social position of women were dramatically improved.
The PRC had about 19% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, while the U.S. GDP declined to about 14%. From industries like automobiles and ship-building (about 50 times the capacity of the United States) to steel and green technologies, the PRC is leaving the United States behind.
The PRC is one of only four formerly colonized countries or regions to achieve “developed” status. It accomplished this without slavery, without colonization, without war and without invading foreign countries.
China has the longest post-retirement life expectancy — between 18 to 28 years. Blue=collar women workers can retire at age 50 and men at 55. Others retire between the ages of 60 and 63.
Some 70% of Chinese millennials own their own homes. This is twice the rate of the U.S. Between 90% and 96% of Chinese households own their own homes, usually without any debt.
In January, the Chinese tech startup DeepSeek stunned the world with the release of its R1 artificial intelligence model, which outperforms its major US-based competitors, at a fraction of the cost of development, requiring orders of magnitude less energy, and not relying on the latest and greatest semiconductors. The model is fully open source, and has been made available for free worldwide.
The release of DeepSeek R1 led to an unprecedented drop in share price for several US tech giants, most notably chip-maker Nvidia, which has been attracting enormous investment on the premise that the future of AI relies on faster and better semiconductors.
Just a few weeks earlier, the Chinese mobile app RedNote (Xiaohongshu / Little Red Book) unexpectedly gained a substantial user base in the US in the days running up to the Biden administration’s TikTok ban (which has since been suspended by Trump). The sudden appearance of millions of US users on RedNote led to an unprecedented cultural exchange between particularly young people in China and the US – in spite of the best efforts of the US government to prevent such exchanges.
In this rapidly-changing technology landscape, our webinar addresses questions such as:
Is the release of DeepSeek’s R1 model a “Sputnik moment”, as it has been described?
Are we witnessing the decline of US technological hegemony?
Why has DeepSeek had such a profound impact on the US tech market?
Has Biden’s “chip war” with China been a failure?
Can AI be a public good, or is it destined simply to generate profits for Big Tech?
Is China’s socialist market economy outperforming Western neoliberalism?
In what way is China’s approach to AI different to that of the US?
What is China’s Global AI Initiative?
How are Chinese technologies such as RedNote and DeepSeek impacting perceptions of China?
Confirmed speakers
Ben Norton (China-based broadcaster and geopolitical analyst)
Li Jingjing (Journalist and broadcaster, CGTN)
KJ Noh (Journalist, political analyst and peace activist)
Michael Roberts (Marxist economist and blogger)
Alan Freeman (Economist, co-director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group)
Gary Wilson (Author, War and Lenin in the 21st Century)
Ali Al-Assam (Managing Director of the NewsSocial Cooperative)
Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group)
The article below is a write-up of that event by Sue Harris for Workers World.
Summarising the remarks made by the panelists (Gabriel Rockhill, Danny Haiphong and Carlos Martinez) and the chair (Sara Flounders), Sue notes that “the panelists agreed on the usefulness of Marxist theory in pursuing the struggle of the exploited classes against their exploiters and of oppressed nations against imperialism, which they considered the centre of today’s class struggle”.
Further: “The imperialist ruling class is trying to mobilize the population to consider People’s China their enemy. The speakers eloquently combatted these lies, which are delivered incessantly with the ruling class’s massive propaganda machine.”
On Oct. 24, 2024, in New York City, Friends of Socialist China celebrated the release of two revolutionary books: “People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red,” edited by Carlos Martinez and Keith Bennett, and “Western Marxism,” a collection of essays by the Italian Marxist-Leninist Domenico Losurdo, translated into English for the first time, with an introduction co-written by Jennifer Ponce de León and the editor, Gabriel Rockhill.
The meeting, which united Marxists working in different areas in defense of China against U.S. imperialism, was held at the Workers World Party office in midtown Manhattan in New York. The office, called the Solidarity Center, is used by groups joined in the working-class struggle, including workers at Amazon, Laundry Workers, student encampments for Palestine and the Venceremos Brigade for socialist Cuba.
Broadcast on several different media platforms, the meeting was carried on independent journalist Danny Haiphong’s YouTube channel, was on Zoom and was made into a podcast. A link to the meeting’s video will be available at workers.org and iacenter.org.
On the panel at the book launch were Haiphong, Gabriel Rockhill, Martinez and Sara Flounders, all known for their knowledge of developments in the People’s Republic of China and their ability to get this knowledge across in Zoom broadcasts, videos, articles and books.
It was in keeping with the anti-imperialist and struggle orientation of the speakers that Flounders, who chaired the meeting, opened with a salute to the revolutionary Yahya Sinwar, chair of the Political Bureau of the Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement. Sinwar was an organizer in Gaza of the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, a martyr in battle against Zionism and U.S. imperialism.
Flounders said, referring to Sinwar, “Resistance does not die with the martyrdom of leaders. Resistance lives on, driven by the hunger of millions for liberation and justice.”
A multipolar world
Haiphong helped found Friends of Socialist China, is co-author of “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence” and a contributor to Black Agenda Report. His well-attended broadcasts cover geopolitics relating to China, West Asia, the Ukraine war and how the development of a multipolar world — as opposed to a unipolar world dominated by U.S. imperialism — can aid the liberation of the bulk of humanity.
Rockhill is Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop and professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. He has had many books published, with one set for publication in 2025, “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?” He is editor-in-chief of the World Marxist Review and a co-director of Anti-Imperialist Marxism, a book series with Iskra.
Martinez is a researcher and political activist living in London. His first book, “The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse,” was published in 2019 by LeftWord Books. His recent book, “The East Is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century,” was published in 2023 by Praxis Press and reviewed in Workers World. (workers.org/2023/07/72231/) He is a co-editor of Friends of Socialist China.
The panelists agreed on the usefulness of Marxist theory in pursuing the struggle of the exploited classes against their exploiters and of oppressed nations against imperialism, which they considered the center of today’s class struggle.
The imperialist ruling class is trying to mobilize the population to consider People’s China their enemy. The speakers eloquently combatted these lies, which are delivered incessantly with the ruling class’s massive propaganda machine.
With their exposure of what they call “Western Marxism,” the speakers also refuted those academic Marxists who might have strong critiques of capitalist society but who never side with existing socialist countries, and they also undervalue the role of national liberation struggles.
They discussed how theory must be applied dialectically, taking into account the challenges of building socialism or even building a national economy in a world still dominated by imperialism. As Martinez put it, “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels didn’t have the opportunity to view a socialist country over a long period of time.”
Flounders took up the same question, saying it is our responsibility to combat the ideas of the “housebroken, tamed Marxists in the predatory, capitalist centers, those who strip Marxism of its revolutionary character, the academic Marxists who find ways to support their own imperialist governments against the rising anti-colonial and revolutionary struggles of the Global South.”
In the presentations and in a lively Q&A, the panelists had an opportunity to develop their ideas and introduce their works.
Ali Al-Assam – Friends of Socialist China; Director, Mushtarek
David Peat – Editor, Iskra Books; Secretary, Friends of Socialist China Britain committee
Chair: Fiona S – Friends of Socialist China
Information
While much of the global narrative surrounding Xinjiang has focused on accusations of human rights abuses, it’s crucial to ask whether these claims are rooted in fact or driven by geopolitical motives. What does the West truly know about Xinjiang, beyond the allegations?
Rather than accept unverified accusations at face value, it is important to explore the real story: Xinjiang’s tremendous achievements in areas like clean energy, robotics, and transport, which the West could learn from. How has the region embraced such rich cultural and religious diversity, including the celebration of Uyghur traditions and the region’s harmonious multicultural coexistence?
Xinjiang is not only a hub of technological advancement but also plays a pivotal role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative—a global trade and infrastructure project with significant implications for the future of international cooperation. What lessons can be drawn from Xinjiang’s success as the economic and strategic heart of this initiative, especially in cities like Kashgar, a crucial link between East and West?
Join us for an in-person event at Marx Memorial Library, where Roger McKenzie, Ali Al-Assam and David Peat will share their firsthand experiences from their recent visits to Xinjiang. Through their insights, we can explore what the world might learn from Xinjiang’s advancements and how it challenges the prevailing narrative in the West.
The event, which was held at the International Action Center HQ, featured a panel discussion with Carlos Martinez (co-editor of People’s China at 75), Gabriel Rockhill (editor of Western Marxism), and Danny Haiphong (independent journalist and broadcaster). The panel was chaired by Sara Flounders of the International Action Center.
Embedded below is a video of the event, which was live-streamed on Danny Haiphong’s YouTube channel, followed by the approximate text of Carlos’s remarks connecting the two books.
What was the reason for putting People’s China at 75 together?
The main motivation was that this milestone, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, when Mao Zedong famously proclaimed in Tiananmen Square that “the Chinese people have stood up”, provided an opportunity to reflect on the significance of that event.
And it’s an evolving significance. The Chinese people are still living that history; indeed the world is living that history. The Chinese Revolution changed the world forever, and the processes of building socialism and struggling against imperialism are ongoing processes that modern China is very much a part of.
So we wanted to examine China’s trajectory since 1949 and to help people get to grips with China’s socialist project in all its different phases. Certainly this is a topic that’s very little understood in the Western world, including among many on the left.
And that’s perhaps where the overlap lies between the two books we’re discussing this evening.
The Western Marxism described by Losurdo is essentially dogmatic; it considers socialism from an abstract, purely theoretical viewpoint.
For these Western Marxists, it’s a handful of academics spending their time in conferences and writing vast impenetrable volumes that are at the cutting edge of knowledge production.
For the Eastern Marxists on the other hand – the people that are oriented to the actually existing struggle against imperialism and for socialism – it’s precisely those states, movements and parties that are engaged in the process of building socialism and struggling against hegemony that are making the major contribution to moving humanity’s collective understanding forward.
The dialectical relationship between theory and practice is at the core of Marxism. As Mao famously put it in his essay ‘On Practice’, “if you want knowledge, you must take part in the practice of changing reality. If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.”
Abstract theory won’t help us much when it comes to understanding modern China.
Where in Marx’s Capital or Theories of Surplus Value can you find a reference point for China’s reform and opening up process, which was launched in 1978? Nowhere.
Apart from anything else, Marx and Engels didn’t live to see the emergence of socialist states – beyond the early experiment of the Paris Commune – and couldn’t be expected to predict what problems might face a socialist state, recently emerged from semi-colonial semi-feudal status, thirty years after its founding, faced with imperialist encirclement and nuclear blackmail, and dealing with the responsibility of feeding a fifth of the world’s population with 6 percent of the world’s arable land.
Just as no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no revolutionary process proceeds along straight and predictable lines. Or as Lenin put it when discussing the heroic 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland: “Whoever expects a ‘pure’ social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.”
People see huge inequality in China, people see private capital in China, people see billionaires in China, people see McDonalds and KFC in China, and they pronounce: this isn’t socialism.
But what about the elimination of absolute poverty? What about the extraordinary improvements in people’s living standards? What about the fact that in this vast Asian country of 1.4 billion people, nobody suffers malnutrition, everybody has sufficient food, everybody has a roof over their head, everyone has clothing, everyone has access to education, healthcare, running water and modern energy.
Here we are in New York, in the heart of global capitalism. Do people here have those basic rights? How far would I have to walk from this building to find someone that doesn’t have a roof over their head, or who doesn’t have healthcare? I suspect not very far.
Why is it that China’s been able to solve these problems? Why is it that China is so focused on living standards and meeting people’s most fundamental human rights? Why is it that China is so far out in front when it comes to renewable energy, electric vehicles, forestation and biodiversity protection? Why is it that China made so much effort to prevent loss of life during the Covid-19 pandemic, whereas in the US over a million people died?
Clearly, the answer relates to China’s economic, political and social project. That China remains on the path to socialism, that has a mixed economy in which the commanding heights are publicly owned, that is run by a Marxist-Leninist party, and where the capitalist class is denied the right to organise in its own political interests.
So in terms of the line Losurdo draws in Western Marxism, I think it’s reasonable to say that on one side of that line you have people who only criticise and condemn China, who label it as capitalist or imperialist, who push the slogan ‘Neither Washington Nor Beijing’; and on the other side you have people who stand in solidarity with China, who seek to learn from China, who showcase China as an example of what can be achieved under socialism, and who resolutely oppose the US’s plans to contain and encircle China.
We are pleased to reprint below the speech given by Comrade Phonesy Boulom, First Secretary of the Embassy of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) in London, at the opening session of our September 28 conference celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
The representative of the LPDR outlines the course of Laos-China friendship, which has socialism at the core, as well as her country’s achievements and goals along the road of socialist-oriented development. She concludes with the rousing call: “Let us build socialism together.”
Excellency Ambassadors, colleagues from the Diplomatic Corps
Dear Comrades
At the outset, I would like to apologise that Ambassador Douangmany is unable to join us today due to his earlier commitment in Scotland. I have a great pleasure and honour to attend this important event today. On behalf of the Embassy of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR), I would like to convey my heartfelt congratulation to our Chinese comrades and friends on the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, it has made a great number of impressive accomplishments in securing national stability, peace and economic growth. China embraced the centenary of the Communist Party of China and ushered in a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics and built a prosperous society in all aspects. This is a historic accomplishment by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people striving for unity and raising a high profile of China in the world, especially in economic development.
Laos and China have enjoyed a long-standing relationship and stable strategic partnership for a long time based on ‘four goods’, namely good neighbours, good friends, good comrades and good partners. The two parties and the two governments have sympathised with and supported each other in the struggle for national independence, liberation and building socialism, which has created an absorbing and deep friendship. Laos and China are socialist countries with the same ideals, with similar political regimes and development paths. Although the regional and international conditions are rapidly changing and complicated, both countries have continued to adhere to the direction of relations based on mutual trust, which provides assistance and creates mutual benefits at a high level.
Lao PDR, under the leadership of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), nowadays continues to enjoy political stability, peace, and social order, and steady economic growth, which are the foundation and precondition for social and economic development. Laos was one of the fastest-growing economies in the world prior to the Covid 19 pandemic, averaging growth of 7.5-8% per year. But then the outbreak of the pandemic came, by which the country has been heavily affected.
In the first 6 months of 2024, the economy grows at about 4.7%. The government adopted in 2021 the 9th 5 year National Social-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP) for 2021-2025, with the aim to graduate from least developed country (LDC) status by 2026, to become a self-reliant and an upper-middle income country by 2030. This Five-Year Plan sets out the fundamental direction for creating a new turning point in socio-economic development in the coming years.
Once again, we are all here today to commemorate the 75th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. On behalf of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and on my own behalf, I would like to express my warmest congratulations and best wishes to Minister Zhao Fei and the entire friendly people of China for good health, well-being and greater success in your noble tasks, as well as continued progress and prosperity.
I am pleased to note that the existing bonds of friendship and close cooperation between our two countries have been further enhanced continuously and widely in various areas. I am confident that our bilateral relations will be further enhanced in the coming years. Let us build socialism together.
Below is a brief report by Betsey Piette, originally published in Workers World, about the conference held in New York City on Sunday 29 September to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. This event, held at the historic Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center in Harlem, was initiated by Friends of Socialist China and put together by a range of progressive groups and individuals.
Speakers included:
Gerald Horne – Author and Historian
Zhang Weiwei – Director, China Institute, Fudan University
Henry Hakamaki -Iskra Books, Hosts Guerrilla History podcast
Danny Haiphong – Journalist and Co-Founder of Friends of Socialist China
Margaret Kimberley – Executive Editor, Black Agenda Report
Larry Holmes – First Secretary, Workers World Party
Mick Kelly – Political Secretary, Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Lee Siu Hin – Director, China/US Solidarity Network
Omowale Clay – International Secretariat, December 12th Movement
Ken Hammond – Party for Socialism and Liberation, Author of multiple books on China
Radhika Desai – Convenor, International Manifesto Group
Charles Xu – Qiao Collective
Mushahid Hussain – Senator and Chair, Pakistan – China Institute
Michael Wong – Veterans for Peace Nat’l Board, VFP China Working Group
KJ Noh – Journalist and Analyst of the geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region
Sara Flounders – International Action Center, Friends of Socialist China
Dee Knight – DSA International Committee’s China/Asia Subcommittee
Sharon Black – East Coast Co-Coordinator of Struggle/La Lucha
Bahman Azad – President, US Peace Council
Creighton Ward – Qiao Collective
Julie Tang – “Comfort Women” Justice Coalition, Co-Founder of Pivot to Peace
Ju-Hyun Park – Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
Arjae Red – Union Organizer – Visit to Xinjiang
Arnold August – Journalist and Author, Visitor to Xizang (Tibet)
Monica Moorehead, Managing Editor,Workers World newspaper
The video stream of the event is embedded below the report.
October 1, 2024, marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, when Mao Zedong declared that “the Chinese people have stood up.” The Friends of Socialist China organized events in London on Sept. 28 – and, along with Workers World Party, in New York City, on Sept. 29, to celebrate the enormous role China plays in the world today and its contributions to the global struggle.
Speakers addressed the growing danger from U.S. threats, military encirclement and hostile anti-China propaganda that are escalating daily and the need for progressive forces to join together to explain and defend China. Other remarks emphasized China’s important role in providing support for developing countries in Africa and the Global South, including the significance of the recent Africa Summit held in Beijing in early September.
Other speakers addressed China’s contribution with the Beijing Declaration, jointly issued by the Palestinian resistance organizations, on ending divisions and strengthening solidarity to fight against the U.S./Israeli genocidal wars in West Asia.
The program, held at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center in New York City, opened with the reading of solidarity messages to the people of Palestine and Lebanon in recognition of the horrific escalation of the genocidal bombing, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the murder of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.
Two representatives from the Chinese Consulate in New York were welcomed. Program Chairperson Sara Flounders introduced a new book to check out: “People’s China at 75,” by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez.
The program included the opening session and four panels in a Mass Assembly for Peace and Solidarity. The panels’ themes included: “Exposing Imperialist Propaganda”; the “Impact of the New Cold War”; “China and the Global South”; and the “Hybrid War on China,” with speakers either addressing the event from the podium or via pre-recorded messages.
Organizers of the New York City event include Friends of Socialist China and Workers World Party in coordination with sponsors Black Agenda Report, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Qiao Collective and the International Manifesto Group.
Over 100 people packed the hall. Around 300 more, including 80 from 25 countries outside the U.S., viewed the program by Zoom.
On Saturday 28 September, Friends of Socialist China – with the support of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and the Morning Star – hosted a conference in Bolívar Hall, London, to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The event was attended by over a hundred people, making it the largest event in Britain in solidarity with People’s China in several decades, and an important milestone for Friends of Socialist China.
Opening the event, Carlos Martinez noted that the fact we have been able to organise such an event now, in spite of the relentless propaganda campaign against China in the West, points to a number of factors.
First and foremost, China’s role in the world increasingly speaks for itself, and stands in stark contrast with the foreign policy of Britain, the United States and the European Union. Looking at the wildly varying policies of China and the West in response to the genocide in Gaza, the US’s proxy war in Ukraine, the attempted electoral coup in Venezuela, the blockade of Cuba, the climate crisis and more, it’s increasingly clear that China is a force for peace and progress, whereas the West is a force for war and reaction. Meanwhile, while ordinary people in the West face a cost of living crisis, China is eradicating poverty, building infrastructure, and raising living standards.
Carlos observed that there is also a subjective factor involved: in its three and a half years of existence, Friends of Socialist China has been playing a valuable role presenting the reality of Chinese socialism to a progressive audience in the West, and the Morning Star, CPB and other groups have also been doing important work along those lines.
Lasting all day, the conference featured a range of speakers from different backgrounds, including academics, trade unionists, journalists, and diplomats. We will be publishing videos and texts from the event in the coming days.
The opening rally was addressed by Venezuelan ambassador to the UK Félix Plasencia, Cuban ambassador to the UK Ismara Vargas Walter, Minister Zhao Fei from the Chinese Embassy, First Secretary of the embassy of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic Phonesy Boulom, and RMT president Alex Gordon. Indian Workers Association (GB) vice-president Harsev Bains introduced a minute of silence in honour of the veteran Indian communist and longstanding friend of China Sitaram Yechury.
The first panel, on China, multipolarity and the rise of the Global South, was chaired by Myriam Kane, and featured contributions from Senator Mushahid Hussain (video), Murad Qureshi, Jenny Clegg, Francisco Domínguez, Ali Al Assam, and Roger McKenzie (video). Myriam also read out messages of solidarity from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Patriotic Party of Türkiye.
The second panel, on China’s road to socialism, was chaired by Fiona Sim, and featured contributions from Keith Bennett, Andrew Murray, Pawel Wargan (video) and Eben Williams. Unfortunately due to technical reasons, the pre-recorded video by World Association of Political Economy president Cheng Enfu could not be shown, but we will be publishing the text soon.
The final panel, on Standing up against the New Cold War, was chaired by David Peat, and featured contributions from Chen Weihua (video), Liz Payne, Ben Chacko, and Kevan Nelson.
The closing rally was chaired by Micaela Tracey-Ramos, and featured contributions from George Galloway (video), Zhang Weiwei (video), and Robert Griffiths.
We would like to thank all the speakers, chairs, and attendees for making the event such a success, and we look forward to building on the momentum generated.
The conference was also used to launch the new Praxis Press volume People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red, edited by Carlos Martinez and Keith Bennett, and featuring contributions from Ken Hammond, Jenny Clegg, Andrew Murray, Cheng Enfu, Kenny Coyle, Roland Boer, Mick Dunford, Josh Sykes, Efe Can Gürcan, Radhika Desai, Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez.
The following day, on 29 September, comrades in the US organised a conference China at 75: Changes Unseen in a Century, featuring an array of great speakers including Gerald Horne, Margaret Kimberley, Qiao Collective, Danny Haiphong, Julie Tang, Ken Hammond, Bahman Azad and many more.
Below we republish a report of the London conference by Morning Star editor Ben Chacko, followed by an article about the event in China Daily.
‘A beacon of hope’ – 75 years of socialist China
SEVENTY-FIVE years after its communist revolution, China is still working to build “an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world of peace and shared prosperity,” minister of the Chinese embassy Zhao Fei told a celebratory anniversary meeting in central London at the weekend.
Friends of Socialist China hosted a day-long conference on China’s revolution in Bolivar Hall on Saturday with support from the Communist Party and Morning Star.
The packed meeting heard from Cuban, Venezuelan and Laotian diplomats, Chinese and British scholars, journalists, revolutionaries and anti-racist activists who discussed Chinese socialism, the new cold war and the rise of the global South.
Zhao told attendees that the Chinese Communist Party remained true to its founding principles, had won “the largest battle against poverty in history” and was determined to pursue a peaceful foreign policy in the face of provocations from the United States.
Internationally, it remained “a beacon of hope and a true friend for all countries still struggling for full independence,” Venezuela’s chargé d’affaires Felix Plasencia pointed out, noting its role in assisting countries suffering from unilateral US sanctions, particularly during the Covid pandemic when the US tried to block medicines from reaching Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.
Together with Cuban ambassador Ismara Vargas Walter, he stressed China’s work to usher in “a new era of international co-operation” in which domination by US imperialism, enforced by the threat of war, unequal trade treaties and punitive sanctions regimes, is replaced by respect for each country’s sovereignty — a model exemplified by the Belt & Road Initiative, which in contrast to loans from the IMF or World Bank provides development funds without political or economic-policy strings attached.
In future “no single nation or bloc of nations will be able to determine the fate of the others,” Walter said.
Sessions challenged common myths about the People’s Republic of China.
In a whistle-stop tour of its history, Friends of Socialist China’s Keith Bennett pointed out that Western perceptions of a contradiction between the revolutionary zeal of the Mao years and the “reform and opening up” period since 1978 were often misleading.
The Mao period was not a disaster for China — “life expectancy rose by a year for each year Mao was in power” and in providing education, basic healthcare and building up national infrastructure of road and rail had laid the groundwork for the spectacular economic growth that has taken place since, he pointed out.
If Mao’s China had been one of the most equal countries on Earth, “it was to a large extent an equality of shared poverty,” prompting the shift to market mechanisms under Deng Xiaoping. But the shift left under Xi Jinping — reflected in a mass social housing programme, stricter curbs on private business and stronger enforcement of workers’ rights — showed that China was now seeking to correct the social problems generated by pursuit of growth at all costs, including wealth inequality and environmental degradation.
Alex Gordon for the Communist Party of Britain looked at the successes of China’s planned economy, slamming Britain’s failed HS2 high-speed rail project, which over a decade provided profits for housing developers from inflated land prices but failed to build the high-speed rail links between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, London and continental Europe it was planned to do.
“In the decade it took to turn HS2 from a rail infrastructure project into luxury homes opportunities for billionaires, China developed a 40,000-kilometre publicly owned high-speed rail network … China’s latest Fuxing bullet train reaches speeds of 350kmh to slash travel times on the 818.9-mile Beijing-Shanghai route to just four hours,” he pointed out.
He challenged propaganda suggesting China did not respect workers’ rights, saluting the first national agreement on truckers’ terms and conditions in the country negotiated by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions with Logory Logistics this May, covering 3.8 million lorry drivers.
On that note Iraqi communist Ali al-Assam reported back from a summer tour of the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, confronting the lies of Western media about forced labour and religious persecution.
The packed mosques and calls to prayer of Urumqi and Kashgar reminded him of Iraq or Lebanon, he said, while the treasures of Islamic literature in the region’s public libraries showcased a rich and ancient culture.
Xinjiang was a high-tech hub for the Belt & Road Initiative and there was no trace of forced labour in its 90 per cent mechanised cotton sector — bar that of the robots.
All street signs in the major cities were first in Uighur and second in Chinese, he said, while Communist Party of Britain leader Robert Griffiths recalled his own trips to Xinjiang and the fact that leading Communist Party and municipal leaders were Uighur and addressed their meetings in the language.
Assam’s contribution highlighted China’s increasing scientific and technological lead over the West, something clear in its dominant role in renewable industries globally.
Above all, speakers urged a wider understanding of China’s positive international role, as the leading country in tackling climate change, demonstrating the benefits of a planned economy and in challenging US world hegemony.
The US drive to war with China, to which Britain is signed up, has to be opposed through confronting the lies about Chinese aggression and expansionism, multiple contributors stressed.
US military spending was three times higher than China’s — or 15 times higher per head of population — while Nato together amounted to 75 per cent of all world military spending. If there’s a new arms race, it was clear who was driving it.
China’s position as the only UN security council member with a no-first-use nuclear policy should be appreciated, attendees heard, while the US-British military build-up around China’s coasts should be seen as the aggressive provocation that it is.
Summing up, Griffiths quoted Chinese President Xi Jinping’s observation that “without China, socialism might have retreated to the margins” of world politics following the fall of the Soviet Union.
But instead, China was taking an ever more active role in the international communist movement and was the leading international force in trying to replace imperialism with a multipolar world.
It deserved far greater support across the British left — and the hundreds who attended were urged to do more to confront misinformation and anti-China propaganda designed to soften up the British people for world war.
Friends of Socialist China looks forward to organising more such events — and its anniversary conference was proof this relatively new group has an important role to play in the British left and peace movements.
Supporters of China celebrate 75th anniversary at London event
Friends of Socialist China, an online platform that promotes understanding of Chinese socialism, organized a conference in London on Saturday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct 1.
Carlos Martinez, the co-founder of Friends of Socialist China, opened the conference in Bolivar Hall by saying China is “a force for peace and progress” amid the current military conflicts and climate crisis.
He cited China’s position in demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the Belt and Road initiative that provides development opportunities for the world, and the country’s advances in green technologies to tackle climate change as major achievements.
Zhao Fei, minister of China’s embassy in the United Kingdom, addressed the more than 100 attendees and reflected on the “two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability” that China has achieved during the past 75 years with the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China.
“On our journey ahead, we will inevitably be confronted with problems, risks, and challenges,” Zhao said, adding that by upholding the fighting spirit, further deepening reform, and unleashing new productive forces, China will become a great modern socialist country in all respects by the middle of the century.
Cuba’s ambassador to the UK, Ismara Vargas Walter, said when the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, it marked the triumph of the indomitable spirit of the Chinese people in their struggle for sovereignty, dignity, and a future free from colonialism and imperialism.
Walter said China has been “a beacon of hope for the oppressed” because its policy of peaceful development, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation stand in sharp contrast to coercion and militarism.
Felix Plasencia, a former ambassador to China for Venezuela, and Phonesy Boulom, first secretary of Lao’s embassy in the UK, also spoke at the event, praising China’s role in championing cooperation with developing countries and opposing wars and unfair sanctions.
The conference was divided into three panels: China, multipolarity and the rise of the Global South, China’s road to socialism, and standing up against the New Cold War.
Around 20 speakers, including academics, trade unionists, and journalists, spoke in person or via video and shared their firsthand observations, longtime studies, and positive opinions about China.
The Praxis Press also launched a new collection of essays at the event that were edited by Carlos Martinez and Keith Bennett. Titled People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red, the book features contributions from experts on China from around the world.
Hoy participamos, en nuestro Bolívar Hall en Londres, en un encuentro organizado por @socialist_china en el que celebramos el 75° aniversario de la República Popular China junto a colegas de la embajada de China en Londres y la hermana embajadora de Cuba, @IsmaraWalter,… pic.twitter.com/RR5nAxZgiU
— Embajada de Venezuela en el Reino Unido (@EmbaVenezUK) September 28, 2024
October 1, 2024 will mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, when Mao Zedong declared that “the Chinese people have stood up”.
Friends of Socialist China is initiating two events to mark this historic occasion, in London on Saturday, September 28 and in New York City on Sunday, September 29.
These events will highlight the extraordinary achievements of Chinese socialism over the past 75 years and bring people together to counter the rising tide of anti-China propaganda and the U.S.-led New Cold War. Details below.
London: Celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of People’s China (Saturday 28 September)
Sunday, September 29 10am – 6pm EDT The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, 3940 Broadway New York, NY 10032 (map)
Discussions will include the ongoing processes of poverty alleviation and modernisation; China’s role in the struggle against climate catastrophe; China’s contribution to Marxist thought; the significance of the recent meeting of all the Palestinian organizations in China and more.
Confirmed speakers include:
Gerald Horne – Author and Historian
Danny Haiphong – Journalist and Co-Founder of Friends of Socialist China
Margaret Kimberley – Executive Editor, Black Agenda Report
Larry Holmes – First Secretary, Workers World Party
Mick Kelly – Political Secretary, Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Lee Siu Hin – Director, China/US Solidarity Network
Omowale Clay – International Secretariat, December 12th Movement
Ken Hammond – Party for Socialism and Liberation, Author of multiple books on China
Radhika Desai – Coordinator, International Manifesto Group
Charles Xu – Qiao Collective
Michael Wong – VP, Veterans for Peace and VFP China Working Group
KJ Noh – Journalist and Analyst of the geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region
Sara Flounders – International Action Center, Friends of Socialist China
Dee Knight – Author and Peace Activist
Sharon Black – East Coast Co-Coordinator of Struggle/La Lucha
Bahman Azad – President, US Peace Council
Julie Tang – “Comfort Women” Justice Coalition, Co-Founder of Pivot to Peace
Ju-Hyun Park – Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
The event will also include representatives of the following organizations:
The following article, written by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez for the Morning Star, provides a whirlwind tour of the extraordinary progress made by the People’s Republic of China since its founding on 1 October 1949.
In spite of this progress – on poverty alleviation, improvement of living standards, women’s rights, environmental conservation and so much more – China is facing an escalating propaganda war, part of a US-led New Cold War aimed at slowing, and ultimately reversing, China’s rise.
Carlos writes that this is the last thing the world’s peoples need:
Humanity faces serious existential threats in the form of climate breakdown, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, and the possibility of nuclear war. To face up to these threats, we need to work collectively and within a framework of multipolarity, the UN charter, and international law. As such, we must build bonds of friendship and co-operation with China, and we should seek to understand China better.
Towards that aim, on Saturday September 28, from 10am to 4.30pm, at Bolivar Hall, London W1T 5DL, Friends of Socialist China and the Communist Party of Britain, supported by a number of other organisations, are holding a conference to mark the 75th anniversary of the PRC’s founding.
There will be panel discussions on: China, multipolarity and the rise of the global South; China’s road to socialism; and Standing up against the New Cold War. Speakers include Felix Plasencia (Venezuelan ambassador to Britain), Minister Zhao Fei from the Chinese embassy, George Galloway, Robert Griffiths, Alex Gordon, Jenny Clegg, Zhang Weiwei, Victor Gao, Radhika Desai, Ben Chacko, Andrew Murray, Roger McKenzie and many more. Register at www.bit.ly/china-75.
October 1 2024 will mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, when Mao Zedong declared that “the Chinese people have stood up.”
In the intervening period, China has undergone an extraordinary transformation.
Life expectancy has increased from around 35 to over 78 years, surpassing that of the US. Universal literacy has been achieved. Extreme poverty and malnutrition have been eliminated. Famines are a thing of the past.
In the years immediately following the founding of People’s China, feudalism was dismantled and warlord rule was ended. New China won and defended its sovereignty.
Education and healthcare were rolled out to the countryside for the first time.
The social and economic position of women has improved beyond recognition — one example being that, before the revolution, the vast majority of women received no formal education whatsoever, whereas now a majority of students in higher education institutions are female.
China was one of the poorest countries in the world and languished in a situation of extreme technological backwardness.
Now it’s one of the world’s leading innovators in science and technology — particularly in renewable energy, space exploration, digital networking, quantum computing, nanotechnology and advanced manufacturing. It has displaced the US as the world leader in both scientific research publication and patent grants.
Crucially, China has emerged as the pre-eminent world leader in tackling climate change. Its investment in wind and solar power has brought costs down globally by as much as 90 per cent.
Indeed a recent Financial Times editorial admitted that “when it comes to climate change, Beijing’s green advances should be seen as positive for China, and for the world.”
Although it’s described in the Western media as a malevolent and aggressive power, China’s record is remarkably peaceful. It hasn’t been at war in over 40 years.
And unlike the US, China doesn’t have a global infrastructure of hegemony — foreign bases, troops and weapons stationed in other countries, and so on.
Nor does China engage in economic hegemonism. While much is made of China’s economic power, its loans and investment throughout Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere are generally speaking welcome, because they come with a low rate of interest, there are no conditions of austerity, and they’re used to fund crucial infrastructure projects that are allowing countries to break out of underdevelopment after centuries of colonial and neocolonial exploitation.
For example, with Chinese finance and support, Ethiopia opened the first metro system in sub-Saharan Africa a few years ago. Again with Chinese finance and support, Bolivia has launched a telecoms satellite that provides connectivity to the whole country — the poorest country in South America.
Indeed just a couple of days ago, President Xi Jinping announced at the opening ceremony of the Forum on China–Africa co-operation in Beijing that China would unilaterally give all least developing countries (LDCs) zero-tariff market access for all products, making China the first major economy to take such a step. “This will help turn China’s big market into Africa’s big opportunity.”
China plays a helpful role on the diplomatic stage, its contributions oriented towards peace and co-operation. A case in point is the tragic situation in Gaza. While the US and Britain continue to provide the weaponry of genocide, along with financial and diplomatic cover, China has been a loud and consistent voice demanding an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
China always reiterates the necessity of respecting the fundamental national rights of the Palestinian people, and — significantly — it recently mediated an agreement between 14 Palestinian resistance movements, with the rationale that Palestinians need the maximum level of unity if they’re going to win their rights.
While of course there are problems and contradictions, just as there are in all countries, Chinese people live better than they ever have done, and China plays a positive role in the world.
Research by the Harvard Kennedy School shows that the Chinese government enjoys the support of more than 90 per cent of the population — not something that can be said of Keir Starmer and his neoliberal friends.
And yet people in the West often have a negative impression of China. China is presented by politicians and journalists as being an aggressive, expansionist power; an authoritarian dystopia engaged in myriad human rights abuses; a climate criminal; and so on.
The anti-China propaganda has not moved on much from the days of Fu Manchu — these inscrutable Chinese hate our democracy and they want to take over the world.
Faced with imperial decline and the inevitable emergence of a multipolar world, the US ruling class is waging a fightback in order to keep the Project for a New US Century train on the rails. This includes a propaganda component which is essentially aimed at generating public support for a reckless new cold war.
Ordinary people in the West must not allow their consent to be manufactured for confrontation with China, which does not serve their interests.
Humanity faces serious existential threats in the form of climate breakdown, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, and the possibility of nuclear war. To face up to these threats, we need to work collectively and within a framework of multipolarity, the UN charter, and international law.
As such, we must build bonds of friendship and co-operation with China, and we should seek to understand China better.
October 1, 2024 will mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, when Mao Zedong declared that “the Chinese people have stood up”.
Friends of Socialist China is initiating two events to mark this historic occasion, in London on Saturday, September 28 and in New York City on Sunday, September 29.
These events will highlight the extraordinary achievements of Chinese socialism over the past 75 years and bring people together to counter the rising tide of anti-China propaganda and the U.S.-led New Cold War.
Discussions will include the ongoing processes of poverty alleviation and modernisation; China’s role in the struggle against climate catastrophe; China’s contribution to Marxist thought; the significance of the recent meeting of all the Palestinian organizations in China and more.
The New York City event is jointly organized by Friends of Socialist China and Workers World Party in coordination with Black Agenda Report, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Qiao Collective and the International Manifesto Group. It will take place on Sunday, September 29 from 10am to 6pm, at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, 165th and Broadway in Harlem, New York.
Guests can attend in-person (seating is limited) or virtually.
Registration required for online and in-person participation via Eventbrite.
Confirmed speakers include:
Gerald Horne – Author and historian
Danny Haiphong – Journalist, Co-founder of Friends of Socialist China
Margaret Kimberly – Executive Editor – Black Agenda Report
Larry Holmes – First Secretary – Workers World Party
Mick Kelly – Political Secretary – Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Lee Siu Hin – Director – China / U.S. Solidarity Network
Omowale Clay – International Secretariat – December 12th Movement
Ken Hammond – Party for Socialism and Liberation, author of multiple books on China
Radhika Desai – Coordinator – International Manifesto Group
Michael Wong – Vice Pres. of Veterans For Peace and VFP China Working Group
KJ Noh – Journalist, analyst of the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region
Sara Flounders – International Action Center, Friends of Socialist China
On Saturday 29 June 2024, the International Manifesto Group and Friends of Socialist China co-organised a webinar on the topic Changes unseen in a century – Gaza, the shifting balance of forces and the rise of multipolarity, bringing together leading analysts of global politics to explore the unfolding geopolitical consequences of Zionism’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people.
The speakers included Seyed Mohammad Marandi (University of Tehran), Lowkey (Political campaigner and hip-hop artist), Ramzy Baroud (Editor, Palestine Chronicle), Faoud Bakr (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Sara Flounders (International Action Center) and Bikrum Gill (International relations expert).
Embedded below is the full video of the event, followed by the text of the remarks given by Friends of Socialist China co-editors Carlos Martinez and Keith Bennett.
Carlos Martinez: The heroic Palestinian people are in the vanguard of the struggle for a better world
Thank you very much everyone for joining this webinar today, and thanks especially to the speakers.
The speakers are all a great deal more knowledgeable than I am on the subject matter, so I’m going to keep these introductory remarks brief.
I just wanted to explain a little bit about the theme of the event; the rationale for holding it.
The title references “Changes unseen in a century”, which is an expression that’s often been used by Chinese President Xi Jinping over the course of the last five years to describe the global political shift that’s taking place.
What does “changes unseen in a century” mean? And what were the big changes that happened a century ago?
What happened a century ago, in 1917, is that a revolution took place in Russia, which was the start of humanity’s transition from the era of capitalism to the era of socialism. The October Revolution led to the formation of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the building of socialism in China, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Nicaragua, and the people’s democracies of Eastern Europe.
It also gave an important impetus to the anti-colonial movement and national liberation struggles around the world – in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific.
It was the first major breach in the imperialist world system, and it hastened the demise of colonialism. It changed the world forever.
Of course, a lot has happened in the intervening period, and not all of it good. A lot of countries won their liberation, but the Soviet Union and many other socialist countries don’t exist any more. We’ve witnessed the rise of neoliberalism and neocolonialism. We’ve lived through the supposed “end of history”.
But times are changing once again. These are the changes unseen in a century. The so-called post-war rules-based international order – that is, US hegemony – is breaking down.
The “end of history” narrative isn’t convincing any more.
Neoliberalism has run out of road.
The countries of the Global South are rising. China is stronger than it’s ever been. Iran is stronger than it’s ever been. Several countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have thrown off the neocolonial shackles and are pursuing sovereign development and explicitly aligning themselves with the forces resistance of worldwide.
Africa is recovering from the period of structural adjustment and moving towards unity and development. BRICS is becoming increasingly important – and has overtaken the G7 in population size, economic size, and global influence.
The US and its allies can no longer impose their will on the world.
They pummelled Afghanistan for 20 years and ended up handing it back to the very same forces that they claimed to be going after in the first place.
Friends of Socialist China is pleased to be co-organising (with the International Manifesto Group) this webinar on Saturday 29 June 2024, which will bring together leading analysts of global politics to explore the unfolding geopolitical consequences of Zionism’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people.
Date: Saturday 29 June 2024
Time: 11am US Eastern / 8am US Pacific / 4pm London / 11pm Beijing
Faoud Bakr (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine)
Sara Flounders (International Action Center)
Camila Escalante (Kawsachun News)
Bikrum Gill (International relations expert)
Keith Bennett (Friends of Socialist China, International Manifesto Group)
Moderator: Carlos Martinez (Friends of Socialist China, International Manifesto Group)
Details
This webinar will bring together leading analysts of global politics to explore the unfolding geopolitical consequences of Zionism’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people. Following on from the Ukraine crisis of recent years, the hypocrisy and blatant double standards of the major western powers have united the countries and peoples of the Global South to an unprecedented degree, and on both the diplomatic and mass popular level, rendering US imperialism and its Zionist shock troops increasingly isolated, as significant European powers at last recognise a Palestinian state, people from all walks of life mobilise, and young people in the imperialist heartlands start to be drawn into struggle in a way not seen since the Vietnam War. Together, the global majority are starting to drive changes unseen in a century. The webinar will examine such key topics as the relationship between the Palestinian people’s struggle and the overall multipolar process; the importance of Israel to the perpetuation of the US-led world order; and the potential for China and Russia to play a leading role in bringing about a lasting and just resolution to the Palestinian question.
On 16 June 2024, we held a webinar reporting back on the first exclusive Friends of Socialist China delegation to the People’s Republic of China, which took place from 14 to 24 April 2024. At the webinar we heard back from the delegates about their experiences and observations of Chinese socialism. The speakers were:
Danny Haiphong (Broadcaster; Author, ‘American Exceptionalism and American Innocence’)
Fiona Sim (Black Liberation Alliance)
Roger McKenzie (International editor, Morning Star)
Margaret Kimberley (Editor-in-chief, Black Agenda Report)
Russel Harland (trade unionist and Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee member)
Sage Stanescu (researcher and Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee member)
Embedded below is the full livestream (unfortunately including, in the first few minutes, various interruptions by racist trolls attempting to sabotage the event) and the individual panel contributions (thankfully without interruptions!).
The first exclusive Friends of Socialist China delegation to the People’s Republic of China took place from 14 to 24 April 2024. Fourteen comrades (11 from Britain, two from the US and one from Ireland) visited Beijing, Hangzhou and Jiaxing (Zhejiang province), and Changchun and Siping (Jilin province). The packed program featured visits to public service and community facilities, historic revolutionary sites and museums, political, scientific, cultural, industrial, and agricultural organisations, exhibition centres and cooperatives; as well as meetings with academics, publishers and officials.
At this webinar, we’ll hear back from the delegates about their experiences and observations of Chinese socialism.
Speakers
Margaret Kimberley (Editor-in-chief, Black Agenda Report)
Danny Haiphong (Youtuber; Author, ‘American Exceptionalism and American Innocence’)
Roger McKenzie (International editor, Morning Star)
Fiona Sim (Black Liberation Alliance)
Sage Stanescu (researcher and Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee member)
Russel Harland (trade unionist and Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee member)
Friends of Socialist China, in conjunction with the International Manifesto Group, organised a well-attended webinar on Saturday May 11 on the theme of Black Liberation and People’s China – Rediscovering a History of Transcontinental Solidarity.
The webinar marked the 65th anniversary of the historic visit to China by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, where, together with his wife Shirley Graham Du Bois, the great scholar and revolutionary celebrated his 91st birthday on February 23rd, 1959.
Focusing specifically on transcontinental solidarity between the Chinese revolution and the African-American freedom struggle, the webinar noted that this revolutionary history neither begins nor ends with Dr. Du Bois. It embraces Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson from the 1930s; Robert F. and Mabel Williams and Malcolm X in the 1960s; the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and 1970s; and many others, joined by Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, as well as Chinese American communists and progressives and returned overseas Chinese.
The event was moderated by our co-editor Keith Bennett and featured a distinguished panel of speakers as follows:
Professor Gerald Horne, John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies, University of Houston, USA;
Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly, Associate Professor of African American Studies, Wayne State University, USA;
Dr. Gao Yunxiang, Professor of History, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada;
Dr. Zifeng Liu, Post Doctoral Scholar, Africana Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, USA;
Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor and Senior Columnist, Black Agenda Report; and
Qiao Collective, a diaspora Chinese media collective challenging US aggression against China
The video of this interesting and important webinar is embedded below, followed by the individual contributions.
Black Liberation and People’s China: Rediscovering a History of Transcontinental Solidarity
This year marks the 65th anniversary of the historic visit to China by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, where, together with his wife Shirley Graham Du Bois, the great scholar and revolutionary celebrated his 91st birthday on February 23rd, 1959.
This anniversary provides a fitting opportunity to reflect on a remarkable and enduring link between two peoples fighting for their liberation on opposite sides of the Pacific and under very different circumstances. This transcontinental solidarity between the Chinese revolution and the African-American freedom struggle neither begins nor ends with Dr. Du Bois. It embraces Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson; Robert F. and Mabel Williams; the Black Panther Party; Amiri Baraka; and many others, joined by Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Chinese American progressives and returned overseas Chinese like Tang Mingzhao.
Speakers
Professor Gerald Horne, John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies, University of Houston; Author of numerous books, including W.E.B Du Bois: A Biography and Black and Red: W.E.B Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War
Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly, Associate Professor of African American Studies, Wayne State University; Author, including of Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States and W.E.B Du Bois: A Life in American History (co-authored with Gerald Horne)
Dr. Gao Yunxiang, Professor of History, Toronto Metropolitan University and author of Arise Africa! Roar China!: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century
Dr. Zifeng Liu, Post Doctoral Scholar, Africana Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, Author of Redrawing the Balance of Power: Black Left Feminists, China, and the Making of an Afro-Asian Political Imaginary, 1949-1976 (Ph.D thesis; book forthcoming)
Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor and Senior Columnist, Black Agenda Report; Author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents
Qiao Collective, a diaspora Chinese media collective challenging US aggression against China.
To explore these historic connections and their contemporary significance for the global anti-imperialist struggle and the fight against the new cold war, this webinar is being organised by Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group.
Sunday 16 February 2025, 4pm Britain, 11am US Eastern, 8am US Pacific
of foundation.
10am – 4:30pm BST
Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London, W1T 5DL (
