George Galloway: Chinese dragon soars despite West’s biased caricature

The veteran British parliamentarian and anti-imperialist campaigner George Galloway has been returned to Westminster after a dramatic February 29th byelection victory in the northwestern English town of Rochdale, caused by the death of the sitting MP, Tony Lloyd.

The leader of the Workers’ Party of Britain (WPB) polled 12,335 votes, giving him a majority of 5,697 and 39.7 percent of the vote. He began his victory speech with reference to the current leader of the British Labour Party:

“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza. You will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine, in the Gaza Strip.”

George Galloway is also a long-standing and prominent friend of China. In this short video, shown by CGTN on February 5, five days before the start of the Year of the Loong or Dragon, George cites examples of how western media have used dragon imagery to project a hostile picture of China. For example, the Economist had branded China as the “world’s worst polluter”, ignoring both the culpability of western countries since the industrial revolution and current per capita emissions.

Such narratives, George continues, contrast with China’s actual contributions and initiatives fostering global cooperation and prosperity. Referencing this year’s 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, George notes that many western leaders have tried to stop the rise of the dragon, but all have failed in the face of modern China with its mixed economy under socialist leadership. The sun has risen in the east.

Referring to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in which more than 130 countries participate, George says that while China’s adversaries deliver lectures, orders, threats and invasion, China delivers airports, high-speed rail, six-lane highways and rising prosperity.

Last year, he concludes, Britain named China as its biggest threat. He relates this to the increasing dysfunction and decay of Britain’s economy, politics and society. The more China advances, the more the UK falls behind.

Dismantling Western hypocrisy on Xinjiang and Gaza

We are pleased to republish below a valuable article by Arjae Red, a union activist and Workers World Party leader, on the attempts by the imperialist media to misdirect pro-Palestinian sentiments on the left towards an anti-China narrative based on slanders about the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Arjae observes that Western propagandists are “making bogus comparisons between the Israeli settler regime’s treatment of Palestinians and the treatment of Uyghur people by the Chinese government and Communist Party.” He points out that, however, not a single government in a majority-Muslim country has backed these slanders against China, whereas they do unequivocally condemn Israel’s genocidal acts.

The article explores the national question as it relates to both situations. The US views Palestine as a “strategic staging ground for US military and economic domination of West Asia”, and the Palestinian people as “an obstacle in the way of the accumulation of superprofits”. This provides the clear context for the sustained national oppression of the Palestinians. The People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, was founded “as a multinational workers’ state, forged through the overthrow of feudal and capitalist ruling classes and by ousting parasitic forces, such as Japanese and British imperialism.” From the beginning, the PRC has promoted the rights and cultures of minority nationalities. Indeed, “the Chinese People’s Republic inscribed into its political framework regional autonomy for formerly oppressed nationalities, like the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.”

Comparing the Israeli state’s treatment of Palestinians with the Chinese state’s treatment of Uyghurs, the difference could hardly be starker. While Palestinians experience blockade, occupation, siege, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and bombardment, “Uyghur and other ethnic minorities enjoy government grants and other affirmative action programs in education and job opportunities… Rather than destruction and extraction in Xinjiang, Beijing’s policies promote development. Major infrastructure projects have built housing, schools, hospitals and high-speed public transport.”

Arjae further notes that the US-led sanctions over Xinjiang have a dual purpose: to disrupt Xinjiang’s integration into the Belt and Road Initiative; and to cause economic hardship and discontent among the local population.

The author concludes with two key slogans of our time: “Free Palestine from the river to the sea! US hands off China!”

This article was originally published in Workers World on 16 January 2024.

The movement in the U.S. supporting Palestinian national liberation has drawn truly massive numbers of people in action. On Jan. 13, for example, a reported 400,000 people marched on the White House, marking the largest pro-Palestine demonstration in U.S. history.

To counter this growing outpouring of support for Palestine in the center of world imperialism, Western propagandists are trying to misdirect the popular outrage towards People’s China. They are trying to revive the discredited “Uyghur genocide” narrative, making bogus comparisons between the Israeli settler regime’s treatment of Palestinians and the treatment of Uyghur people by the Chinese government and Communist Party. A closer look at each situation reveals enormous differences.  

Who do we believe? 

The intense propaganda charging “Uyghur genocide,” starting in 2016, saturated the U.S. corporate media, quoting statements by U.S.-funded NGOs and U.S. politicians. The statements aimed to slam through heavy sanctions against China.

Following a fact-finding trip to the region, however, a 2019 delegation from the Council of Foreign Ministers — a key decision-making body of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — endorsed and commended China’s treatment of its Muslim citizens (hongkongfp.com, March 3, 2019). With 57 member states, the OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental bodies in the world.

A week after our trip to Xinjiang last year, a large delegation from the League of Arab States, including top official representatives from more than 16 Arab/Muslim countries, visited Xinjiang. In a June 2023 press statement, the delegation praised “the social harmony, economic development, people of all ethnic groups living in harmony in Xinjiang and accelerated progress.” They urged caution toward “international forces who smear and even demonize Xinjiang.”

No governments in majority-Muslim countries support the U.S. charge of “genocide” of a Muslim minority population in Xinjiang. Meanwhile, these governments publicly criticize U.S.-supported Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Multinational workers’ state vs. Zionist settler colony

Central to the comparison is a class analysis of the social foundation of the states of Israel and the People’s Republic of China. Like the United States, Israel was founded as a settler colony, built upon the slaughter and forced removal of Indigenous peoples, theft of their lands and the settlement of a majority European population. 

U.S. strategists viewed the Israeli state on Palestine’s land mainly as a strategic staging ground for U.S. military and economic domination of West Asia, and thus as a major contributor to the profits of the world imperialist ruling class. They saw Palestinians as an obstacle in the way of their accumulation of these superprofits. To accomplish this conquest, the Israeli state has threatened to appropriate or erase every vestige of Palestinian culture, including Palestine’s history and food.

Israel as a state is thoroughly exploitative, extractive, and oppressive to the core. The state and the settler population, if it subscribes to Zionist ideology, serve the ends of the global imperialist ruling class.

The People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, was founded as a multinational workers’ state, forged through the overthrow of feudal and capitalist ruling classes and by ousting parasitic forces, such as Japanese and British imperialism. The Chinese Revolution established a state based on the political rule of an alliance between the workers, peasants and other progressive classes, led by the Communist Party. 

The Chinese People’s Republic inscribed into its political framework regional autonomy for formerly oppressed nationalities, like the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Historic Uyghur cities, such as Ürümqi, which had been renamed “Dihua” (meaning “to civilize”) following a 1755 Qing Dynasty invasion, regained their original Uyghur names. 

Uyghur culture is widespread and celebrated in today’s China, which includes teaching the Uyghur language, as well as the languages of other ethnic populations in the region, in public schools. Before the Chinese Revolution, these languages were suppressed.

The People’s Republic is thoroughly multinational, based on the political rule of the working class and guided by the Communist Party. Its public goals involve developing a socialist economy and maintaining social harmony between ethnicities. 

Israel destroys, China builds

Videos abound of the unmitigated destruction of Gaza by Israeli Occupation Forces. The IOF have bombed and bulldozed entire city blocks to dirt and rubble, razing homes, hospitals and schools. 

Over decades, Israel has kept Gaza under a brutal blockade and crushed Palestinian businesses. Now the attacks have left the population without food, water, medicine and electricity.

Rather than destruction and extraction in Xinjiang, Beijing’s policies promote development. Major infrastructure projects have built housing, schools, hospitals and high-speed public transport. These projects outdo anything U.S. business or government projects have done on U.S. territory. 

Uyghur and other ethnic minorities enjoy government grants and other affirmative action programs in education and job opportunities, which enable them to establish their own thriving businesses and fully participate in the vibrant Chinese economy. All of this has gradually reduced the wealth and development gap between the western Xinjiang region and the eastern coastal region of China, where, historically, all of the heavy industry was concentrated. 

Xinjiang experiences no economic blockade except what U.S. policies impose. The Chinese government ensures that the basic needs of the people are met. During the COVID-19 outbreak, for example, Communist Party organizations delivered food and other supplies to Uyghur communities.

Continue reading Dismantling Western hypocrisy on Xinjiang and Gaza

Chip wars: breaking the siege

The following article by Bappa Sinha, originally published in People’s Democracy (the English-language weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)) provides valuable insight into the US-initiated “chip wars” against China, which “show no signs of abating and have escalated further in 2023 with indications of more to come.”

Sinha describes the rationale for the chip wars as being essentially economic, with the US seeking to maintain its technological dominance. “Having already lost its manufacturing leadership due to outsourcing production, the US is critically dependent on its lead in advanced technologies to retain its global dominance. With China catching up and, in many cases, leapfrogging the US in frontier technologies, the US sees the denial of semiconductor technologies with its outsized impact on modern production and economy as an effective mechanism of keeping China down.”

The author details the numerous measures that have been taken by both the Trump and Biden administrations to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductor technologies, including the imposition of export controls, the blacklisting of Chinese companies, and the imposition of sanctions.

However, “China has not been sitting on its hands waiting for its economic development to be choked.” China has been leveraging its particular advantages – its huge internal market, its dominant position in manufacturing, its education system, massive funding for research, and its “socialist economic planning which can set national industrial policy to undertake long term strategic initiatives” – in order to break the US’s technology siege.

In August 2023, Huawei released the Mate 60 pro, powered by a Chinese-manufactured 7nm chip – “precisely the kind of processor that the US sanctions had sought to prevent with their stated goal of denying China access to 14nm and below chip technology.” Industry insiders expect that China will soon be able to produce a 5nm chip. “These releases and announcements indicate China has weathered the storm and is poised to break through the siege that the US sanctions have sought to enforce.”

Sinha concludes that the US’s chip wars are destined for failure.

“Despite its head start in semiconductor technologies and massive financial resources at its disposal, the US, under neoliberal capitalism, is unlikely to be able to put policies in place to be able to remain ahead of China in the long run.”

The chip wars launched by the United States and its allies against China show no signs of abating and have escalated further in 2023 with indications of more to come. These wars are, in effect, a siege on China’s technological progress and economy. These across-the-board sanctions on leading-edge semiconductor chips, technology and equipment are a desperate attempt by the US to hold on to its geopolitical hegemony.

Background

While people are focused on the Ukraine war and Taiwan as frontiers of the geopolitical tussle between the US-led western alliance and the emerging powers of China and Russia, another front where the battle is being waged is in the tech domain – specifically, the semiconductor sanctions that the US is using to curtail China’s access to advance chips and technology to manufacture them. The US’s excuse for these measures is framed in military terms, saying that advanced semiconductors enable China to produce advanced military systems and improve the speed and accuracy of military decision-making. The tired western bogeyman of human rights violations is also cited as a reason for these sanctions. The sanctions are a naked attempt by the US to wage economic war against China. Having already lost its manufacturing leadership due to outsourcing production, the US is critically dependent on its lead in advanced technologies to retain its global dominance. With China catching up and, in many cases, leapfrogging the US in frontier technologies, the US sees the denial of semiconductor technologies with its outsized impact on modern production and economy as an effective mechanism of keeping China down. These actions are akin to technology denial regimes that the US, along with its allies, implemented during the Cold War.

The current round of technology sanctions by the US started in 2018 under the Trump administration. With the US increasingly getting concerned with China’s progress and leadership in telecommunications, especially in 5G, the US barred procurement of Huawei and ZTE equipment by all US federal government agencies, citing security concerns. This was especially ironic given the Snowden revelations about all leading US telecom equipment makers routinely having backdoors in their equipment for snooping purposes by the US intelligence agencies. The ban was preceded and followed by intense US lobbying worldwide, asking foreign governments to implement similar restrictions on Huawei. In December 2018, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on US request under the pretext of violating US sanctions against Iran. These actions wouldn’t suffice as Huawei was already the global leader in 5G technology, having become the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment and the second largest manufacturer of mobile phones, supplanting Apple from that position.  In May 2019, the US cut off Huawei from access to American technology. This not only cut off Huawei from procuring US chips but also from designing and getting the chips made from foundries such as TSMC, as those also depended on US technology. On the software side, Google announced that it would cut Huawei’s access to the Android platform. These moves were a fatal blow to Huawei’s phone business as Huawei had no short-term solutions for the loss of access to mobile chips. Their telecom equipment business (such as bay stations) survived as it didn’t depend on leading-edge chips and could be procured locally.

Continue reading Chip wars: breaking the siege

Britain using ‘China threat’ narrative to divert from real problems

In the following article, which was originally published in the Global Times newspaper, a Chinese analyst explains that the moves by the British police to establish a new unit to counter supposed threats posed by China, Russia and Iran is actually an attempt to shift the blame for the UK’s present predicament while blindly following the United States. 

According to Zhang Jian, vice president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), in the past few years, especially after Brexit, the UK has faced numerous difficulties, including economic underdevelopment and a domestic cost of living crisis:

“The ruling Conservative Party has been unable to address these problems and has instead blamed external factors, such as countries like China and Russia.”

Some extreme right-wing members of the Conservative Party are constantly seeking out the so-called threats and enemies after Brexit in order to divert public attention, he noted. “Especially with the upcoming general election in the UK, the issues of the Conservative Party’s ineffective governance are becoming more prominent, prompting them to work harder to blame their problems on foreign countries.”

The article further notes that police investigations into previous claims that China was supposedly operating “secret police stations” from businesses owned by members of the Chinese community in such places as Hendon in north London, Croydon, south of London, and Glasgow in Scotland, had concluded that there had been no illegal activity.

In response to the reports that British police are establishing a new unit to “counter threats posed by China, Russia and Iran,” Chinese experts on Sunday pointed out that the UK intends to shift the blame for its domestic underdevelopment issues onto foreign countries while blindly following the US’ diplomatic policies.

According to media reports, the UK police said on Friday that they had set up the new unit as they were very concerned about “risks ahead of a national election expected this year.” Matt Jukes, the UK’s head of counter-terrorism policing, said the evidence and the sense among his officers was that the challenge posed by hostile states was “greater now than since the days of the Cold War,” Reuters reported. 

However, this move by the British security agencies, especially the naming of certain countries, is only to shift the focus from the government’s inability to handle domestic affairs to external issues, rather than being based on justified security considerations, Chinese analysts told the Global Times on Sunday.

In the past few years, especially after Brexit, the UK has faced numerous difficulties, including economic underdevelopment and a domestic cost of living crisis, Zhang Jian, vice president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times. 

“The ruling Conservative Party has been unable to address these problems and has instead blamed external factors, such as countries like China and Russia,” Zhang said.

Some extreme right-wing members of the Conservative Party are constantly seeking out the so-called threats and enemies after Brexit in order to divert public attention, he noted. “Especially with the upcoming general election in the UK, the issues of the Conservative Party’s ineffective governance are becoming more prominent, prompting them to work harder to blame their problems on foreign countries.”

Observers pointed out that the Conservative Party has been leaning toward the US in its post-Brexit foreign policy, and the establishment of an anti-China unit is part of that policy. 

“This is because after Brexit, the UK has had to rely more on the US,” Zhang told the Global Times on Sunday. 

The UK enacted a national security act in December 2023, which the government stated “will help ensure that the UK remains the hardest operating environment for malign activity undertaken by foreign actors.” Before the act was enacted, the UK has repeatedly accused China of stealing its information or operating unofficial agencies in the country, which China has firmly opposed.

The claim that the Chinese side is suspected of “stealing British intelligence” is completely baseless and malicious slander, said a spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in the UK in September 2023. 

“We urge the relevant British authorities to stop manipulating anti-China politics and cease this self-directed political farce,” said the embassy in a statement.

Earlier in April 2023, the Chinese Embassy in the UK also made it clear that there are no so-called Chinese overseas police stations. “It is important that some from the UK side respect the facts rather than spread false accusations,” said an embassy spokesperson.

In June, a police investigation into “secret Chinese police stations” in London has concluded that “no criminal activity” has taken place, according to the BBC. 

Martin Jacques: China will reach climate goal while West falls short

In this concise opinion piece for the Global Times, Martin Jacques discusses the extraordinary progress made by China in recent years in green technology, in particular solar photovoltaics, wind energy and electric vehicles.

China is already “by far the biggest producer of green tech”, and the gap is widening. As such, “it looks as if China’s voice on global warming will carry an authority that no other nation will be able to compete with.”

Martin observes that China is becoming a major exporter of green technology, and that its investment and innovation has driven an unprecedented decrease in prices globally, most notably for renewable energy. “China’s dramatic breakthrough in new green technologies is offering hope not just to China, but to the whole world, because China will increasingly be able to supply both the developed and developing world with the green technology needed to meet their global targets.”

This should of course be a boon for the green transition in the West, but the author points out the contradiction between the goals of saving the planet and pursuing a New Cold War against China: “How can the West become dependent on China for the supply of these crucial elements of a carbon-free economy when it is seeking to de-risk (EU) or decouple (US) its supply chains from China?”

Martin describes the West’s protectionist response to China’s green tech as “a petty and narrow-minded response to the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced”, and urges politicians to cooperate with China on ecological issues and to embrace its contribution to the shared global project of protecting the planet.

Martin Jacques is a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, and the author of the best-selling book “When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order.”

There has been constant low-level sniping in the West against China’s record on climate change, in particular its expansion of coal mining, and its target of 2060 rather than 2050 for carbon zero. I have viewed this with mild if irritated amusement, because when it comes to results, then China, we can be sure, will deliver and most Western countries will fall short, probably well short. It is now becoming clear, however, that we will not have to wait much longer to judge their relative performances. The answer is already near at hand. 

We now know that in 2023 China’s share of renewable energy capacity reached about 50 percent of its total energy capacity. China is on track to shatter its target of installing 1200GW of solar and wind energy capacity by 2030, five years ahead of schedule. And international experts are forecasting that China’s target of reaching peak CO2 emissions by 2030 will probably be achieved ahead of schedule, perhaps even by a matter of years. 

Hitherto, China has advisedly spoken with a quiet voice about its climate targets, sensitive to the fact that it has become by far the world’s largest CO2 emitter and aware that its own targets constituted a huge challenge. Now, however, it looks as if China’s voice on global warming will carry an authority that no other nation will be able to compete with.

There is another angle to this. China is by far the biggest producer of green tech, notably EVs, and renewable energy, namely solar photovoltaics and wind energy. Increasingly China will be able to export these at steadily reducing prices to the rest of the world. The process has already begun. It leaves the West with what it already sees as a tricky problem. How can it become dependent on China for the supply of these crucial elements of a carbon-free economy when it is seeking to de-risk (EU) or decouple (US) its supply chains from China? 

Climate change poses the greatest risk to humanity of all the issues we face today. There are growing fears that the 1.5-degree Celsius target for global warming will not be met. 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded. Few people are now unaware of the grave threat global warming poses to humanity. This requires the whole world to make common cause and accept this as our overarching priority. 

Alas, the EU is already talking about introducing tariffs to make Chinese EVs more expensive. And it is making the same kind of noises about Chinese solar panels. The problem is this. Whether Europe likes it or not, it needs a plentiful supply of Chinese EVs and solar panels if it is to reduce its carbon emissions at the speed that the climate crisis requires. According to the International Energy Authority, China “deployed as much solar capacity last year as the entire world did in 2022 and is expected to add nearly four times more than the EU and five times more than the US from 2023-28.” The IEA adds, “two-thirds of global wind manufacturing expansion planned for 2025 will occur in China, primarily for its domestic market.” In other words, willy-nilly, the West desperately needs China’s green tech products.

Knee-jerk protectionism demeans Europe; it is a petty and narrow-minded response to the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced. Instead of seeking to resist or obstruct Chinese green imports, it should cooperate with China and eagerly embrace its products. As a recent Financial Times editorial stated: “Beijing’s green advances should be seen as positive for China, and for the world.”

The climate crisis is now in the process of transforming the global political debate. Hitherto it seemed relatively disconnected. That period is coming to an end. China’s dramatic breakthrough in new green technologies is offering hope not just to China, but to the whole world, because China will increasingly be able to supply both the developed and developing world with the green technology needed to meet their global targets. Or, to put it another way, it looks very much as if China’s economic and technological prowess will play a crucial role in the global fight against climate change. 

We should not be under any illusion about the kind of challenge humanity faces. We are now required to change the source of energy that powers our societies and economies. This is not new. It has happened before. But previously it was always a consequence of scientific and technological discoveries. Never before has humanity been required to make a conscious decision that, to ensure its own survival, it must adopt new sources of energy. 

Such an unprecedented challenge will fundamentally transform our economies, societies, cultures, technologies, and the way we live our lives. It will also change the nature of geopolitics. The latter will operate according to a different paradigm, different choices, and different priorities. The process may have barely started, but it is beginning with a vengeance. Can the world rise to the challenge, or will it prioritize petty bickering over the vision needed to save humanity? On the front line, mundane as it might sound, are EVs, wind power, and solar photovoltaics.

Everyone should wake up to US’ blame game in Red Sea, Ukraine crises

In this article, originally published in Global Times, British academic James A. Smith notes that the United States and Britain are currently engaged in a bombing campaign against Yemen, which flows from US support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, yet “according to US officials, it is China who should apparently be making the peace.”

Smith argues:

“We’ve heard this all before. The US has also repeatedly stated that it is China’s responsibility to ensure peace in the Ukraine conflict too. However, the reality is that in both scenarios, not only does US foreign policy run completely contrary to the interests of peace, but moreover, the White House has no intention in either instance of attempting a balanced peace scenario brokered on China’s terms.

“Instead, what is being asked is that Beijing capitulates to enforcing American-centric goals and interests in respect to each conflict. And of course, because US officials know there is no chance of that happening, the goal of these public overtures is merely a propaganda effort to smear China as being responsible or culpable for the given wars that US is in fact escalating, and thus to frame China as a threat to the international order. American foreign policy is not driven by an attempt to ensue balance, peace or stability, but on a prerequisite goal that it must always maintain unilateralist hegemony at all costs.”

According to the author, as China will not support unilateralist American foreign policy goals in seeking peace, the US subsequently uses this to push a narrative that China is a threat to the peace. This is the propaganda game played by US officials. It is an act of gaslighting to demand that China support peace, when in fact it means supporting American strategic goals.

Dr. James A. Smith is a senior lecturer in Literature and Theory at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the author of Other People’s Politics: Populism to Corbynism.

Recently, the US asked China to “help” maintain the flow of Red Sea shipping. The US is currently in a state of conflict with Houthi rebels in Yemen. The cause of the conflict is a failure of the US to push for a ceasefire and peace negotiations in Israel, which has caused regional tensions and instability. The US and UK, in turn, have responded with a bombing campaign in Yemen. However, according to US officials, it is China who should apparently be making the peace.

We’ve heard this all before. The US has also repeatedly stated that it is China’s responsibility to ensure peace in the Ukraine conflict too. However, the reality is that in both scenarios, not only does US foreign policy run completely contrary to the interests of peace, but moreover, the White House has no intention in either instance of attempting a balanced peace scenario brokered on China’s terms. 

Instead, what is being asked is that Beijing capitulates to enforcing American-centric goals and interests in respect to each conflict. And of course, because US officials know there is no chance of that happening, the goal of these public overtures is merely a propaganda effort to smear China as being responsible or culpable for the given wars that US is in fact escalating, and thus to frame China as a threat to the international order.

American foreign policy is not driven by an attempt to ensue balance, peace or stability, but on a prerequisite goal that it must always maintain unilateralist hegemony at all costs. To this end, contemporary US foreign policymaking, unlike the Cold War, does not yield a notion of compromise with states that it deems to be adversaries. Rather, its objectives focus on preventing the breakdown of unipolarity and enabling strategic competitors to emerge which challenge the post-1991 status quo. In other words, the US pursues maximalist goals and does not compromise on “strategic space” in its diplomacy and continually aims to expand its leverage.

That is why, for example, the US was not prepared to compromise on the subject of NATO in order to alleviate tensions with Russia or bring a swift end to the Ukraine conflict. Instead, it sets itself on a policy that aimed to use the conflict as a means to impose a zero-sum strategic defeat on Moscow so that it could eliminate them as a competitor and destroy economic integration between Russia and Europe. The US only finds a peace outcome acceptable if it supports all its strategic goals. 

Given this, when China proposed a peace plan for the Ukraine conflict last year, the US readily dismissed it. Yet at the same time, the US had repeatedly asked China to put “pressure” on Russia, to end the conflict. What does this mean? It does not mean brokering a peace or a mutually acceptable resolution, but rather subduing Moscow to follow American foreign policy preferences, which is of course a total non-starter. China isn’t being asked to make peace or find a mutually acceptable resolution, but to act on the behalf of the US.

Therefore, as China will not support unilateralist American foreign policy goals in seeking peace, the US subsequently uses this to push a narrative that China is a “threat” to the peace. This is the propaganda game played by US officials. It is an act of “gaslighting” to demand that China support “peace,” when in fact it means supporting “American strategic goals.” When China does not comply, it is accused of deliberately prolonging and enabling the conflict. 

The mainstream media in turn responds by assuming that China “supports” the side against the US in the given conflict. In the process, the narrative then whitewashes the actual culpability America has in having created those wars in the first place through its pursuit of unilateralist and zero-sum policies. One example of this is refusing to compromise on the expansion of NATO, or alternatively, giving Israel unconditional and uncritical backing in the war on Gaza and even resorting to more military solutions when the instability escalates. Yet China, a bystander, who does not have a direct stake in any of these conflicts, and would prefer peace and stability as its primary goals, is somehow framed as the threat in a conspiracy against the West. This is the game the US plays, and everyone should wake up to it. 

Embracing the Year of the Dragon

In the following article, which was originally published by China Today to coincide with the start of the Year of the Dragon, our co-editor Keith Bennett, noting that the Lunar New Year has increasingly become a common festival of people throughout the world, goes on to illustrate how it has become an integral part of British life, celebrated not only by the Chinese community and all those with a connection to China, but increasingly by people from all communities and all walks of life. 

Keith notes how the celebration in London’s Chinatown, which had already become one of the largest and most spectacular outside Asia, was brought to Trafalgar Square by progressive mayor Ken Livingstone, and due in large part to the hard work and efforts of two great friends of China, the late Redmond O’Neill and Jude Woodward. 

Highlighting how China’s late Premier Zhou Enlai had stressed that his country’s diplomacy rested on a tripod of state-to-state, party-to-party and people-to-people relations and that President Xi Jinping has often stressed that good people-to-people relations are the foundation for sound state-to-state relations, Keith concludes:

“British people from all walks of life and backgrounds have been increasingly taking Chinese New Year to their hearts. It has become part of our culture and calendar. This is one more reminder that Cold War hostility and bellicosity do not represent the interests of the people of any country and are therefore destined to fail.”

Chinese people, and people throughout the world, are looking forward to welcoming the Year of the Dragon, which falls on February 10, 2024. The Dragon is considered the most auspicious of the 12 signs in the Chinese zodiac and this year is specifically the Year of the Wood Dragon, the first since 1964. According to Lifestyle Asia, “Wood Dragons enjoy fulfilling careers. They’re likely to materialize all their ambitions into actions, coming up with truly revolutionary ideas.”

In the run up to the Chinese people’s greatest holiday, there has already been some good news. On December 22, 2023, the 78th United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution by consensus that, as from 2024, the Chinese, or Lunar, New Year shall be designated as a UN “floating holiday,” to be taken into consideration when drafting the world body’s calendar of conferences and meetings.

This might be best understood as a welcome and quite possibly overdue recognition of reality. The Lunar New Year has long since ceased to be solely a great festival for all Chinese people; for other countries and peoples in East Asia sharing a cultural heritage and numerous neighborly bonds with China; and for overseas Chinese and people of Chinese heritage on the five continents and across the four seas. It has increasingly become a common festival of people throughout the world.

In my country, Britain, it is, of course, a special occasion for our Chinese community and for all those of us with a connection to China. This naturally especially applies to Chinatowns, such as those in London, Liverpool (the oldest in Europe), Manchester and elsewhere.

The London Chinatown Chinese Association (LCCA), one of the U.K.’s most important Chinese organizations, long led by the indefatigable Chu Ting Tang, proprietor of the Imperial China restaurant, works hard throughout each year to stage one of the greatest and most spectacular Chinese New Year celebrations outside Asia, which attracts tens of thousands of people – not just Chinese people, but Londoners from every background in this most multicultural and multinational of cities, joined, too, by visitors and tourists from all over.

This great celebration had long since outgrown the crowded pavements of Gerard Street, Lisle Street, Wardour Street, Newport Place, and others in the heart of Chinatown, when Ken Livingstone, the progressive mayor of London, brought it to the heart of the capital in nearby Trafalgar Square.

This was a key part of Ken’s ambitious program to recognize and celebrate the city’s great diversity, from Ireland’s national Saint Patrick’s Day, to the Notting Hill Carnival (originally inspired by Claudia Jones, a communist of Trinidadian origin, who met Chairman Mao and is now buried to the left of Karl Marx), to the Eid, Diwali, Vaisakhi, and Hannukah festivals of the Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Jewish faiths.

None of this would have been possible without the devoted and tireless work of two great friends of China, who were mainstays of the mayor’s office and administration. Redmond O’Neill and Jude Woodward, socialists, Marxists, and internationalists, left us far too early, but we remember them not least at Chinese New Year. Its central place in London life is thanks in great part to them.

The Chinese New Year is also a focus for all in the business community with an interest in China and the Chinese market. This is now marked by an ever-increasing number of dinners and receptions, but the flagship event has long been the “Icebreakers” Chinese New Year Dinner, customarily held in the ballroom of the iconic Dorchester Hotel, home also to the China Tang Restaurant, founded by the late Sir David Tang, on Park Lane, and organized by the 48 Group Club. Originally hosted by the London Export Corporation (LEC), the first U.K. company to trade with the new China following the establishment of the People’s Republic, and founded by the late Jack Perry, it is now joined by the China Britain Business Council (CBBC) and the China Chamber of Commerce in the U.K. (CCCUK), and features keynote speeches by the Chinese ambassador and other VIPs, both British and Chinese. It has even received letters and messages of greetings from President Xi Jinping and other top Chinese leaders.

For the last couple of decades, the Chinese affiliates, and China interest groups, of the Conservative, Labor and Liberal Democrat parties have all also hosted celebratory dinners, although these have now been somewhat negatively impacted by the new Cold War mentality and the rise of neo-McCarthyism. My personal highpoint from these events – although they have also been attended by a number of serving prime ministers and receptions have been held at 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence – was when former Chinese Ambassador to the U.K. Liu Xiaoming joined Jeremy Corbyn, the first socialist leader of the Labor Party in at least eight decades, to celebrate at the Phoenix Palace, one of London’s most outstanding Cantonese restaurants, as well as brought the traditional lion dance to life at Labor’s headquarters.

But, as mentioned, Chinese New Year in the U.K. has now gone well beyond those with a specific China interest. It is, for example, marked with special projects and lessons in many of our primary schools up and down the country.

China’s late Premier Zhou Enlai, in my view the greatest diplomat of the 20th century, stressed that China’s diplomacy rested on a tripod of state-to-state, party-to-party, and people-to-people relations.

President Xi Jinping has often stressed that good people-to-people bonds are the foundation for sound state-to-state relations.

British people from all walks of life and backgrounds have been increasingly taking Chinese New Year to their hearts. It has become part of our culture and calendar. This is one more reminder that Cold War hostility and bellicosity do not represent the interests of the people of any country and are therefore destined to fail.

Happy New Year of the Wood Dragon!  

Asian NATO under a new guise

In the following article, which was originally published on the Australian website Pearls and Irritations, Tim Beal analyses the increasing focus on the Asia-Pacific region by the NATO military alliance, with China as its main potential target.

Tim notes recent military activities in the region on the part of Germany, France and the Netherlands, while Britain, “enthused with imperial nostalgia and memories of the Opium War, flaunts its very expensive but very vulnerable aircraft carriers in a mix of high ambition and low farce.”

There are, however, impediments to NATO’s regional expansion, including the potential role of more independent minded leaders in some member countries, such as Türkiye, Hungary, Slovakia, and even France. Tim therefore argues that the Seoul-based United Nations Command (UNC) might be pressed into service as a more pliant alternative, citing an article by US strategist Clint Work to explain:

“Although the Koreas, both South and North, are important in their own right the peninsula’s position in US geostrategy is principally as an instrument against China. Sometimes, Work mentions China, sometimes he uses North Korea as a surrogate for China and on other occasions he employs coded phrases for China such as South Korea’s ‘broader regional responsibilities’.”

Regarding the UNC, Tim further notes that: “Despite its name it is not an organisation under the control of the United Nations but in fact a US-controlled military alliance that got its misleading title during the early stages of the Korean War when the Soviet Union was boycotting the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) over the US blocking of recently-established People’s Republic of China (PRC) taking over the China seat from Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China (ROC) which had retreated to Taiwan province. And because of its name and its illegal use of the UN flag and logo, the UNC can be portrayed as a UN body, an expression of ‘the international community’, rather than the US military.”

Tim Beal is a retired New Zealand academic, whose main focus has been Northeast Asia. He is the author of ‘North Korea: The struggle against American power’ (2005) and ‘Crisis in Korea: America, China and the risk of war’ (2011), both published by Pluto Press.

Over the past couple of years there has been a flurry of activity linking NATO, and some of its constituent countries with the states of American East Asia, principally Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been a frequent visitor, and in December 2023, the US embassy in Seoul arranged for senior representatives from eight NATO countries to visit South Korea to “engage in discussions on the security situation in the Indo-Pacific region and other pertinent issues”. Meanwhile back in Washington Representative Mike Lawler has introduced a bill in Congress aimed at “establishing [a] task force for NATO-like Indo-Pacific Alliance”. The Luftwaffe made headlines in August 2022 by flying non-stop, refuelling in air, to participate in the Pitch Black exercises in Australia and more of the Bundeswehr returned in 2023 for the Talisman Sabre 23 exercises. In November a British army unit participated in military exercises in South Korea.  France and the Netherlands have been doing their bit, and Britain, enthused with imperial nostalgia and memories of the Opium War, flaunts its very expensive but very vulnerable aircraft carriers in a mix of high ambition and low farce. The participation of Asian militaries in the NATO space has been, so far, very low key. The Japanese sent observers to Air Defender 23 in Germany, and the South Koreans joined in a cyberwar game in Estonia in November 2023. However regional leaders – the Asia Pacific Four (AP4), Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand – have been invited with some fanfare to mix with the grown-ups at NATO summits in Madrid and Vilnius. Moreover, NATO has been active in crafting Individually Tailored Partnership Programmes (ITPPs) with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and soon, New Zealand.

The reasons for this accelerating activity are easily discernible. For regional leaders – Yoon, Kishida, Albanese, etc – the illusion of European support in a war against China must offer comfort; delusionary given the state of European militaries but something to clutch at. For the Europeans in NATO, civilians and military, there is a desperate need to convince Washington that they are still relevant, given the shift of USA attention towards China and the failure of the proxy war in Ukraine. The search for relevance has been a constant since the Soviet collapse; as Senator Richard Lugar put it in 1993, for NATO it’s either ‘out-of-area or out-of-business’. NATO chose out-of-area and Beijing is the logical, and final, destination.

Continue reading Asian NATO under a new guise

US peace activists call for dialogue and understanding with China

The following article in China Daily reports on a recent delegation to China by the US Peace Council, at the invitation of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD). Among the delegates were Bahman Azad (president of the US Peace Council), Ajamu Baraka of Black Alliance for Peace, Immanuel Ness (chair of the New York Peace Council), and Roger Harris of the US Peace Council executive committee.

The purpose of the trip was to encourage dialogue between the US and China, to promote peace and mutually beneficial relations, and to oppose an escalating New Cold War. Bahman Azad commented: “It is our hope that with the information obtained from this visit and closer cooperation with CPAPD, we will be able to help clear the fog of misunderstanding that is being created about China in our country”.

The delegates all commented on the profound difference between the US and China in terms of their approach to international relations. Ajamu Baraka contrasted China’s commitment to building a community with a shared future for mankind with the “crisis-oriented zero-sum diplomacy” of the West. Ajamu points out in a report on the delegation for Black Agenda Report that “we have witnessed concretely the results of the Chinese approach with the historic agreement brokered by the Chinese between Saudi Arabia and Iran that effectively ended the Obama war in Yemen.” Ajamu explores these issues further in an interview on Margaret Flowers’ Clearing the FOG podcast.

In the Black Agenda Report article, Ajamu also talks about the Global Security Initiative (GSI), linking it to the long-term multipolar project – “the transition from Western colonial/capitalist domination of the last five hundred years to new power configurations and social systems that have not yet taken a permanent form but, nevertheless, are in dialectical emergence.” Roger Harris supports this point in an article about the delegation written for Counterpunch: “in this contentious geopolitical climate, China and by extension the Global South pose a countervailing space from US imperial hegemony.”

We will hear from Bahman and Ajamu – alongside Sara Flounders, Danny Haiphong, Dee Knight, Lee Siu Hin, Qiao Collective, Radhika Desai, and representatives of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament and Communist Party USA International Department – on Sunday 18 February at a webinar organised by Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group, entitled Peace delegates report back from China: Building solidarity and opposing the New Cold War.

At a time when China-United States relations are increasingly defined by narratives of rivalry, a recent visit by US peace activists to China offered a refreshing counterpoint.

Seeking to build bridges of understanding between the two nations, a delegation from the US Peace Council visited China last month at the invitation of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament.

They shared their firsthand experience in China at a recent webinar to demonstrate that cooperation, not competition, is the path to a peaceful future.

“What we witnessed was a modernizing China focused on promoting peaceful development of all nations and respect for international law by all states,” said Bahman Azad, the organization’s president.

This commitment to peaceful development stands in stark contrast to the “China threat” narrative often peddled by the US media and government officials. That narrative “presents China’s economic development and its growing diplomatic role in the global affairs as a ‘threat’ to the United States”, said Azad.

“It is our hope that with the information obtained from this visit and closer cooperation with CPAPD, we will be able to help clear the fog of misunderstanding that is being created about China in our country,” he said.

For Immanuel Ness, chair of the New York Peace Council and a professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, China’s commitment to equity and noninterference resonates deeply.

“The idea of creating equity, not just equity within a country, but equity among countries came across to me as being extremely important,” he said. “Peaceful development means noninterference in the internal affairs of countries of the Global South, and the world as a whole. That was one of the important aspects of creating a sense of peace.”

He said China’s efforts to develop global partnerships and build political trust are key to creating a more peaceful world. “That level of trust is based on openness and inclusiveness, and on the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, something that has been abrogated by the West,” he added.

Roger Harris, a member of the US Peace Council’s Executive Committee and a member of the delegation, highlighted the fundamental divergence in core values between the two nations.

While the US national security doctrine emphasizes “full spectrum dominance”, he said he was impressed by China’s principles of “independence, common prosperity, and peaceful development”.

“The Chinese recognize and celebrate the fact that there’s a very high level of integration between China and the US, particularly in economics. They also see that these intertwined relationships are positive and that they result in the mutual benefits of both countries,” said Harris.

Ajamu Baraka, another member of the delegation and chair of the coordinating committee of the Black Alliance for Peace, further emphasized the difference in the two nations’ diplomatic approaches.

He contrasted China’s commitment to building a “community with a shared future for mankind” with the “crisis-oriented zero-sum diplomacy”, what he called “characteristic of diplomacy emanating from the West”.

China is also committed to pursuing peaceful development based on mutual respect and win-win cooperation and steering the reform of the global governance system under the principle of fairness and justice, said Baraka.

This fundamental divergence in core values underscores the importance of open dialogue and understanding in bridging the divide, he added.

During the visit to China, the delegation members and their Chinese counterparts held “informative, constructive, and productive” discussions, said Azad from the US Peace Council.

At the heart of the agreements reached between the two sides lie people-to-people exchanges. Recognizing the power of direct interaction, both sides pledged to facilitate youth travel and cultural exchanges, allowing citizens to experience each other’s realities firsthand.

Joint webinars and seminars are planned, tackling complex topics like the intricacies of US-China relations and broader issues of global peace. By encouraging open dialogue and knowledge sharing, these initiatives aim to dispel the fog of misinformation and mistrust that clouds bilateral relations, said Azad.

Self-confidence and self-reliance, openness and inclusiveness, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation

China’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is also a Member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, delivered an important and comprehensive speech at a Beijing Symposium on the International Situation and China’s Foreign Relations on January 9, 2024.

Saying that in the preceding year China had created a favourable environment for building a great modern socialist country and advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and had made new contributions to maintaining world peace and promoting common development, Wang Yi went on to identify six highlights:

Our head-of-state diplomacy has been immensely successful, achieving new milestones in major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.

In 2023, President Xi Jinping was personally involved in the planning and execution of major diplomatic actions. He chaired two home-ground events, attended three multilateral summits, made four important overseas visits, and held more than 100 meetings and phone calls.

Solid progress has been made in building a community with a shared future for mankind, lending new impetus to the building of a brighter future for humanity.

During General Secretary Xi Jinping’s historic state visit to Vietnam in December 2023, the most important political outcome reached between the two sides was to upgrade the bilateral relationship to a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance. This characterisation has marked not only a new level in the “comradely and brotherly” relations between the two socialist neighbours but also a full commitment of the Indochina Peninsula to jointly building a community with a shared future. 

The inclusion of Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has brought its coverage to the whole of Central Asia. China is working with Cambodia and Laos on a new, five-year action plan, and has reached agreement with Malaysia, in addition to Thailand and Indonesia, adding to the good momentum toward a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future. In his visit to South Africa, President Xi Jinping announced with President Cyril Ramaphosa the decision to build a high-quality China-South Africa community with a shared future, taking China-Africa relations to a new stage.

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was successfully held, taking BRI cooperation to a new stage of high-quality development.

 Ten years on, Belt and Road cooperation has extended from the Eurasian continent to Africa and Latin America and expanded from physical connectivity to institutional connectivity and people-to-people bonds. 

The BRICS mechanism achieved a historic expansion, adding new strength to unity and cooperation in the developing world.

BRICS countries have made dedicated efforts to promote global growth and improve global governance. Inspired by the vibrancy and appeal of the mechanism, dozens of developing countries have officially applied for its membership. The expansion marks a milestone in the development of the BRICS mechanism, and ushers in a new era of strength through unity for the Global South. The expanded “greater BRICS” will surely play a stronger role in shaping a more just and equitable global governance system and increasing the representation and voice of the Global South in international affairs.

A successful China-Central Asia Summit was held, creating a new platform for good-neighbourliness and friendly cooperation in the region.

China and the five Central Asian countries, connected by mountains and rivers, have always been friendly neighbours. China hopes to see, more than anyone, a stable, prosperous, harmonious, and interconnected Central Asia. At a key moment in the evolving international landscape, President Xi Jinping and the heads of state of the five Central Asian countries gathered in the historical city of Xi’an, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road, for the inaugural China-Central Asia Summit. 

President Xi Jinping comprehensively elaborated on China’s foreign policy toward Central Asia, and decided, together with the heads of state of the five Central Asian countries, to build a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future, formally establish the mechanism of meetings between the heads of state of China and Central Asian countries and set up a permanent secretariat for the China-Central Asia mechanism. 

We facilitated the historic reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, setting a new example of political settlement of hotspot issues.

President Xi Jinping had in-depth communication with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Iran, persuading the two countries to let go of past grievances and meet each other halfway. We are glad to see that Syria has rejoined the family of the League of Arab States; Qatar, Syria, Iran, and Türkiye have restored diplomatic ties or normalised their relations respectively with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, with Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, with Sudan and with Egypt; and the people of regional countries are taking the future of the Middle East back into their own hands.

Wang Yi went on to say that over the past year, when faced with major issues concerning the future of humanity and the direction of world development, China has all along stood firmly on the right side of history and on the side of human progress in its diplomacy, and made decisions that can stand the test of practice and time, and gave a further six examples in this regard:

Continue reading Self-confidence and self-reliance, openness and inclusiveness, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation

‘Clash of civilisations’ is essentially a racist concept

The following is a short commentary by our co-editor Keith Bennett, which formed part of a year-end review by Beijing Daily on President Xi Jinping’s Global Civilisation Initiative. 

Published on the Beijing Daily news client app under the title, “‘Clash of civilisations’ is essentially a racist concept”, Keith argues that there are currently two fundamentally different world views with regard to civilisations and the relationship between them. The ‘clash of civilisations’ concept, as advanced by the late US scholar Samuel Huntington, is at base, “a racist conception which constructs a hierarchy of civilisations… placing them in an adversarial and antagonistic relationship to one another. It provides an intellectual and ideological fig leaf for the weaponisation of immigration, Islamophobia, a new cold war, and wars of aggression against countries of the Global South.

“In stark contrast, the Global Civilisation Initiative advanced by President Xi Jinping makes clear that the history of humanity… has seen a variety of civilisations come into being, develop and thrive, and this has in return promoted the overall development of human society.”

An extract of Keith’s commentary was published among a selection of quotations carried in the print edition of Beijing Daily and the full text was carried on its app.

Beijing Daily is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China’s Beijing Committee.

There are two fundamentally different outlooks with regard to civilisations, and the relationship between them, in today’s world.

In the western capitalist countries, ideas of a ‘clash of civilisations’, as promoted for example by the late Samuel Huntington, find a strong resonance, in more or less overt or covert forms. Huntington himself may be dead, but his malign influence lives on. At base, it is a racist conception which constructs a hierarchy of civilisations, elevating that of the West, which is actually the most recent major civilisation in historical terms, and placing them in an adversarial and antagonistic relationship to one another. It provides an intellectual and ideological fig leaf for the weaponisation of immigration, Islamophobia, a new cold war, and wars of aggression against countries of the Global South.

In stark contrast, the Global Civilisation Initiative advanced by President Xi Jinping makes clear that the history of humanity, spanning thousands of years, has seen a variety of civilisations come into being, develop and thrive, and this has in return promoted the overall development of human society. Diversity has been a prominent feature, and indeed a hallmark, of civilisations.

People therefore need to keep an open mind in appreciating how different civilisations perceive values, and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others, as well as from stoking ideological confrontation or politicising civilisational issues.

The world is facing both old and new challenges. This is all the more reason why we need to promote dialogue and exchanges among cultures and civilisations. The differences among civilisations should be seen not as a curse but a blessing – they enrich human society as a whole. Moreover, dialogue and joint study will increasingly reveal the common humanistic essence of civilisations, no matter how diverse the forms they might assume.   

Exchanges and mutual learning among civilisations need to be promoted on a number of levels – among scholars, specialists and academics as well as on a people-to-people basis, particularly among young people. This will not only promote science and knowledge, but also mutual understanding, peace, and friendship, thereby helping to build a community of shared future for humanity.

China accounts for more than 20% of the global population. Its civilisation and culture are therefore by definition of very significant importance and influence for humanity. China’s culture and civilisation are also the oldest uninterrupted ones on earth and thus provide important reference materials for humanity as a whole. They have also exerted profound influence on the cultural and civilisational development of neighbouring countries in particular, as can be seen especially in Korea, Japan and the countries of both south-east and central Asia. They are also profoundly inclusive and have never hesitated to absorb, inherit, and incorporate, apply and develop, advanced ideas from outside, be they of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) or of Karl Marx. This in turn helps create a dialectical interaction that can make Chinese civilisation and culture profoundly attractive to people throughout the world.

Confucius put forward the idea of the great harmony of all under heaven. This is something with which people in all parts of the world can identify with and aspire to. Indeed, faced with existential threats to humanity, it increasingly becomes a necessity.

Similarly, the Chinese concept of harmony between people and nature greatly echoes the sentiment and aspirations of many young people, in particular, in the West and again increasingly represents an imperative for human survival.

Webinar: Building solidarity and opposing the New Cold War – Peace delegates report back from China

Date Sunday 18 February
Time4pm Britain / 11am US Eastern / 8am US Pacific

Although the Biden administration has made some small gestures towards improving US-China relations, the US continues to escalate its campaign of encirclement and containment. The US has ramped up its military aid to Taiwan; it is attempting to strengthen the AUKUS nuclear alliance; it is doing everything it can to prevent China’s emergence as a major computing power; it is imposing sanctions and tariffs on China; and it is relentlessly spreading lurid anti-China slander.

Recognising the terrible dangers posed by the New Cold War (and its potential degeneration into a hot war), a number of peace activists from the US have recently taken part in delegations to China, in order to build understanding and solidarity, and to see China’s reality with their own eyes.

We will hear back from these peace delegates and discuss ways to continue building people-to-people links between the West and China, and to develop a powerful movement for peace and cooperation.

Speakers

  • Ajamu Baraka (Coordinating Committee Chairperson, Black Alliance for Peace)
  • Bahman Azad (President, US Peace Council)
  • Sara Flounders (Co-director, the International Action Center)
  • Danny Haiphong (Youtuber; Author, ‘American Exceptionalism and American Innocence’)
  • Dee Knight (DSA International Committee’s Anti-War Subcommittee)
  • Lee Siu Hin (Founder, China-US Activist Solidarity Project)
  • Charles Xu (Writer and researcher, Qiao Collective)
  • Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group)
  • Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament
  • Communist Party USA International Department

Organisers

This webinar is jointly organised by Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group.

A short history of the semiconductor war

The following article, written for Friends of Socialist China by Mehmet Özbağcı, provides a brief history of the semiconductor industry, followed by a description of the ongoing ‘chip war’ initiated by the US in 2018.

Mehmet explains that the US is attempting to use its dominance of the semiconductor industry – particularly advanced chip design – to prevent China from developing its own semiconductor infrastructure and thereby impede China’s progress in advanced manufacture, artificial intelligence and modern military technology.

However, the US’s strategy – based primarily around sanctions – is likely to fail. The nature of China’s economic system is such that it can direct enormous resources to critical projects, and China has already made significant progress on domestic semiconductor design and production.

Mehmet concludes that “the US’s attempts to suppress China’s progress in semiconductors have been unsuccessful. The supply problems created by sanctions and the restriction on Chinese researchers’ access to new technologies have led the state, the private sector and academia to unite and work together towards the goal of technological self-reliance. It seems that China has not only developed short-term solutions to US sanctions, but has also paved the way to disrupt US control over semiconductors in the long term.”

Mehmet Özbağcı is a Turkish socialist currently studying towards a Master’s degree in Shanghai.

Throughout the industrialised world, steel was the peak of production technologies and the heart of all economic activities from the beginning of the 19th century to the second half of the 20th century. Machines that drove the industrial revolution, steamships and trains that shaped transportation and global trade, cannons, tanks and planes that changed the face of modern war… All of these were the result of steel production that became more widespread and efficient day by day.

The importance of steel began to decline from the second half of the 20th century for two reasons. First, technological advances and maturation of the production process reduced the strategic significance of the sector; and second, the emergence of nuclear weapons made direct war between great powers difficult and made steel, the raw material of conventional weapons, less important.

Towards the end of the 20th century, a new technology began to make different economic sectors (including transportation, communication and military) more and more dependent on itself. This technology was semiconductors, the basic building block of digital transformation. The increase in the processing capacity of semiconductors and the cheapening of their production led to the filling of every area of daily life and economy with digital technologies. (MILLER:2022)

The direct sales of semiconductors amounted to $515 billion in 2023, accounting for approximately 3.5 percent of global GDP. The main drivers of semiconductor demand are smart devices, computers, automotive, industrial technologies, and government services. Considering that semiconductors are vital for the existence and development of those technologies, it can be confidently stated that the impact of semiconductors on the global economy goes far beyond their share in global GDP: According to some calculations, the annual contribution of semiconductors to the global economy between 1995 and 2015 is more than $3 trillion. (SIA:2024)

Like steel, semiconductors also transcend the economic and social sphere and become decisive in the military field: air defence systems, drones, modern missile batteries, electronic warfare systems and surveillance technologies cannot be produced without semiconductors. But the military importance of semiconductors goes far beyond their current uses. According to many military analysts, artificial intelligence (AI) applications and autonomous weapon technologies, which will completely change the face of the battlefield, depend on access to the latest technology semiconductors. (Gargeyas:2022)

The importance of semiconductors has placed them at the centre of China-US rivalry. The aim of this article is to examine the mutual moves of these two actors in the process following 2018 and to list the factors that could be decisive in the semiconductor competition based on them.

United States: protectionist technology leader

The US, which is the birthplace of semiconductor technology, is the leader of the sector with a 48 percent share. Semiconductors are the US’s fourth largest export item. But this leadership does not stem from direct production. Semiconductor production is largely concentrated in East Asia and especially in the island of Taiwan. The US market share stems from its specialisation in semiconductor design and the licences it has in the sector: The copyrights of the main semiconductor architectures and the technologies that produce them belong to the US. (SIA:2024, MILLER:2022)

The US has considered its de facto monopoly on semiconductor technologies an important part of its national security long before 2018. Semiconductor manufacturers were also included in the Wassenaar Arrangement on export control for critical military technologies for American interests in 1996. (ACO:2022)

US protectionism specifically targeted China’s attempts to establish a semiconductor production substructure in 2018: the Trump administration banned the export of various technologies of critical importance for semiconductor production to China, claiming that China’s state incentives led to unfair competition. (MILLER:2022)

In 2020, Chinese communication giant Huawei and China’s largest semiconductor manufacturer SMIC’s access to US suppliers and technologies was effectively cut off. This move was justified on the basis of US national security interests and the relations of those companies with the PLA. (MILLER:2022)

Continue reading A short history of the semiconductor war

Understanding China Conference calls for correcting misperceptions about China

The 2023 Understanding China Conference was held in Guangzhou at the beginning of December. It marked the 10th anniversary of the conference, which has developed into a major platform for the world to gain insight into China’s development strategies.

The three-day conference attracted 70 international guests from more than 30 countries and regions, and took as its theme, “China’s New Endeavours amid Unprecedented Global Changes – Expanding the Convergence of Interests and Building a Community of Shared Future”.

President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the conference, saying that “to understand China, the key lies in understanding Chinese modernisation.” China is advancing the noble cause of building a great country and national rejuvenation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernisation and promoting the building of a community with a shared future, Xi wrote, noting that China’s future is closely linked with the future of humanity.

Speaking to Global Times during the conference, Martin Jacques, Senior Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, said:

“I think one of the characteristics of Chinese modernisation, which is profoundly different from Western modernisation, is that while Western modernisation was really built on exploiting the rest of the world through colonialism, Chinese modernisation, as a developing country, builds a very close and constructive relationship with the developing world.”

Chinese modernisation is actually a gift that benefits the developing world, where the great majority of the world’s population lives, whereas Western modernisation was really about preventing and suppressing, Jacques added.

We are seeing the world today with two different parts, two different narratives and two different world views, Mushahid Hussain Syed, Chairman of the Pakistani Senate’s Defence Committee and Chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute, told Global Times.

“One has been presented by the US and Western countries, which is security centered, which is military dominated with talks of conflicts, with talks of confrontation,” he said, noting that in China the world view is about connectivity, cooperation and inclusivity.

David Ferguson, Honorary Chief English Editor of Beijing’s Foreign Languages Press, added: “China doesn’t have an exploited working-class enduring poverty to enrich a small elite. Chinese modernisation is about shared development, about everybody rising.”

The following article was originally published by Global Times.

The 2023 Understanding China Conference (Guangzhou), which concluded on Sunday, has become a major platform to address a significant “understanding deficit” between different countries and civilizations and to help fostering mutual trust. 

As the key to understanding China is understanding Chinese modernization, which is different from Western modernization, a number of attendees to the conference told the Global Times that it’s significant to promote and increase the understanding between China and the people around the world, especially when the US’ and Western media have not only been misleading the public on China but also deliberately orchestrating and engineering hostility that has been deepening the understanding deficit. 

The three-day conference, attracting 70 international guests from more than 30 countries and regions, kicked off under the theme of “China’s New Endeavors amid Unprecedented Global Changes — Expanding the Convergence of Interests and Building a Community of Shared Future” on Friday.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Understanding China Conference, which has developed into a major platform for the world to gain insight into China’s development strategies.

President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the conference on Saturday, saying that “to understand China, the key lies in understanding Chinese modernization.” 

China is advancing the noble cause of building a great country and national rejuvenation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization, and promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, Xi said, noting that China’s future is closely linked with the future of humanity.

Continue reading Understanding China Conference calls for correcting misperceptions about China

South Korean president visits Europe to promote US-led war drive against China

South Korea’s hard right President Yoon Suk-yeol toured a number of European countries, including Britain and France, in late November. 

Following talks with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the two issued the Downing Street Accord, which stated in part: “Peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is an indispensable element in the security and prosperity of the international community. Given the serious nature of the situation in the East and South China Seas, we strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the region.”

This drew a sharp reaction from China. At a November 24 regular press conference, spokesperson Mao Ning urged the two countries to stop making irresponsible comments on issues bearing on China’s core and major concerns.

Noting that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, Mao emphasised that the Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affair and brooks no interference by any external forces.

She added: “China urges relevant parties to stop making irresponsible comments on issues bearing on China’s core and major concerns and be very prudent about what they say or do.”

In a November 28 article published by the World Socialist Website (WSWS), Ben McGrath writes that the Downing Street Accord “specifically denounces North Korea and Russia as well as Hamas, while all but ignoring the genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza. However, as with all such agreements being adopted today, whether with the US or between Washington’s allies, the chief target is China.

“The ‘international order’ is that established by Washington in the post-World War II period and which is threatened by China’s economic growth. Yoon and Sunak’s claims that they are defending ‘stability’ or the ‘rule of law’ is to uphold an international order dominated by the US in which it set the rules and under which London and Seoul have pursued their own national interests.”

He further notes:

“Over the last decade, the US has responded to China’s economic rise by drastically ramping up the militarisation of the Indo-Pacific to encircle and undermine the world’s second-largest economy. British imperialism has signed up to this war drive as a means of reestablishing a military presence and expand their own influence in Asia…  

“For all their talk of the ‘rule of law’ and ‘human rights,’ both London and Seoul have demonstrated they have no concern for either in their defence of Israel and its genocidal war against the oppressed Palestinian people.”

Noting the reference to Taiwan, McGrath explains that it “is not an innocent remark, but specifically meant to challenge the ‘One China’ policy under which the vast majority of countries including the US recognise Beijing as the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.”

“The focus on Taiwan represents the most open and provocative attempt by Washington and its allies to goad China into a war, given that Beijing will not allow Taiwan to become a military base for imperialism or to set a precedent for carving up Chinese territory.”

He adds that: “Specific measures in the accord call for London and Seoul to prepare a Memorandum of Understanding on closer military cooperation, increasing bilateral military exercises between the two and conducting joint patrols, supposedly targeting North Korea’s attempts to avoid sanctions. This can only raise tensions in the Indo-Pacific, where patrols and military exercises on Beijing’s doorstep have become an almost daily occurrence and heighten the danger of military conflict…

“South Korea’s increased cooperation with Britain also means increased cooperation with AUKUS, the military pact that includes Australia and the US. Notably, a UK [parliamentary] Foreign Affairs Committee recommended in August that South Korea as well as Japan be invited to join parts of AUKUS, specifically the technological defence cooperation agreement, or Pillar Two of the pact. US military officials and those close to the military have similarly argued for an ‘AUKUS+2’ deal. The inclusion of South Korea or Japan in any aspect of AUKUS would be highly provocative.”

The following articles were originally published by the Xinhua News Agency and the World Socialist Website.

China tells ROK, Britain to stop making irresponsible comments on issues concerning China’s core interests

BEIJING, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) — China on Friday urged the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Britain to stop making irresponsible comments on issues bearing on China’s core and major concerns.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks at a press briefing when asked to comment on contents in the Downing Street Accord signed by ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak concerning China’s Taiwan region and the South and East China Seas.

Noting Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, Mao emphasized that the Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affair and brooks no interference by any external forces.

As for issues related to the South and East China Seas, neither the ROK nor the UK is a party concerned, and there has never been any problem with regard to the “freedom of navigation and overflight,” she said.

“China urges relevant parties to stop making irresponsible comments on issues bearing on China’s core and major concerns and be very prudent about what they say or do,” Mao said. 


South Korean president visits Europe to promote US-led war drive against China

Nov. 28 (wsws.org) — South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol completed a trip to Europe last Sunday with stops in the United Kingdom and France. The tour was closely bound up with the development of military alliances throughout the Indo-Pacific region and with European powers as part of the US-led war drive aimed at China.

Continue reading South Korean president visits Europe to promote US-led war drive against China

A tale of two Chinas: Rhetoric on foreign domination and domestic instability

The following original article, submitted to Friends of Socialist China by Nolan Long (a Canadian undergraduate student studying politics at the University of Saskatchewan), shines a light on the absurdly contradictory Western media coverage of China. “First, China is described as a global superpower in terms of its supposedly dominating and exploitative foreign policy; on the other hand, China is represented as an unstable, backward, underdeveloped country, bound to inevitably collapse due to the failures of socialism.”

This portrayal and the various popular narratives associated with it – that China is engaged in “debt trap diplomacy”, or that the Belt and Road Initiative is a form of colonialism, or that the Chinese economy is on the verge of collapse – are promoted as part of an ongoing propaganda war, itself a crucial component of an escalating effort to contain and encircle the People’s Republic. These various claims “exist at the heart of the West’s insecurity about its decreasing relevancy and power in the twenty-first century.”

The falsity of this anti-China hysteria is amply exposed by its contradictory nature; and yet it is unlikely to go away any time soon. As Nolan concludes: “The tale of two Chinas presents a picture of Western insecurity and modern Chinese power, a theme that will increasingly come to the fore as China continues to develop on its own and on the world stage.”

Contemporary rhetoric on the People’s Republic of China, as disseminated by Western corporate media, is made up of contradictory claims about Chinese domination and Chinese instability. It is simple enough to find intentionally missing information or context, exaggerations, and even outright lies in the muniments of most corporate media. But a deeper analysis reveals two competing narratives, both of which have become increasingly (and paradoxically) common over the last few years.

First, China is described as a global superpower in terms of its supposedly dominating and exploitative foreign policy; on the other hand, China is represented as an unstable, backward, underdeveloped country, bound to inevitably collapse due to the failures of socialism.

Notably, the first typified China is used in Western capitalist media to generate fears about China’s development efforts in the Global South, which have largely been at the expense of Western hegemony and financial interests. Despite the positive results of the Belt and Road Initiative, capitalist media portrays China as a rapacious villain running rampant across the globe.

Here, China is described as an economic powerhouse. But when discussing Chinese domestic affairs, Western journalists suddenly think China is a poor, underdeveloped state, sometimes on the brink of complete collapse. These two conceptions of China cannot coexist, and go a long way in demonstrating the irrationality and lack of scholarship among anti-communists and defenders of American hegemony.

Continue reading A tale of two Chinas: Rhetoric on foreign domination and domestic instability

Senator Mushahid Hussain: Two visions, two destinies

In this short commentary for CGTN Reality Check, Senator Mushahid Hussain – Chairman of the Senate Defence Committee of Pakistan, Chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute, and member of the Friends of Socialist China advisory group – compares and contrasts two of this year’s anniversaries: the 10th anniversary of China advancing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. 

Mushahid describes the BRI as “probably the most important diplomatic and developmental initiative launched in the 21st century… about connectivity, about cooperation, about reviving the ancient Silk Road, which 2,000 years ago was probably the first instance of globalisation linking China’s Silk Road with Central Asia, with the Middle East, with even Europe.”

In contrast he notes that the US-led invasion of Iraq was “a war that was unjust, a war that was illegal, a war that was immoral, because it had no sanction of the United Nations, no sanctions of legality behind it.”

And while China is talking about connectivity and cooperation, “the West, led by the United States, is obsessed with the militarisation of international relations, igniting a new Cold War, talking of containing China, building a new pattern of military alliances.”  In this regard, Mushahid draws attention to the moves to create an ‘Asian NATO’, along with AUKUS, the Quad, and the tripartite alliance agreed between the United States, Japan and South Korea at their Camp David meeting. The senator concludes:

“These two contrasting visions show that the world is headed in a manner of confrontation sparked by the West, while what the world needs today in the post-pandemic world is to have a common approach, to face common challenges in a collective manner. And that is what China is doing and that is what the Global South would like – to build a better tomorrow without overlords and without underdogs.”

We reprint the article and embed the video below.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative – BRI, which is probably the most important diplomatic and developmental initiative launched in the 21st century. And it was done by President Xi Jinping of China when he spoke at Astana in Kazakhstan, about connectivity, about cooperation, about reviving the ancient Silk Road, which 2000 years ago was probably the first instance of globalization linking China’s Silk Road with Central Asia, with the Middle East, with even Europe. Connectivity through commerce and culture among countries and continents.

And this year on March 16, and I was present then, when President Xi Jinping launched the Global Civilization Initiative at the World Political Parties High-level Dialogue. Dialogue among civilizations, respect among civilizations, cooperation among civilizations, learning from each other. A civilizational cooperation in contrast to the vision that had been once presented and very popular in the West about the clash of civilizations.

But 2023 also marks another anniversary, and if I may say so, a dark anniversary, a sad anniversary. Twenty years ago, the United States launched unilaterally a war in Iraq. A war that was unjust, a war that was illegal, a war that was immoral, because it had no sanction of the United Nations, no sanctions of legality behind it. It was an attempt to bully and browbeat a country for ideological and geopolitical reasons. 

And these two anniversaries also present humankind today two contrasting visions. I would say that we are perhaps at an inflection point when the global center of gravity is shifting, when we are facing turbulence and transformation.

China is talking of connectivity and cooperation. The West is talking of containment, conflict, confrontation. China is talking of modernization, of being more inclusive, of diversity, of equality in international relations. The West, led by the United States, is obsessed with the militarization of international relations, igniting a new Cold War, talking of containing China, building a new pattern of alliances, military alliances.

NATO is now becoming an “Asian NATO.” NATO was talking of a threat from China while China is not part of the North Atlantic. China is thousands of miles away from the North Atlantic.

They are talking of AUKUS, Australia, UK, U.S., a new military organization. They are talking of Quad, which is again a military alliance, and recently U.S. President Biden hosted the leaders of South Korea and Japan at Camp David to forge yet another alliance, yet another pact ostensibly to contain China.

So, these contrasting visions are reflected in the pattern of contemporary international relations. China is building bridges, and a great example of that bridge building has been the China-brokered rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, who were at loggerheads for the last three-four decades, which destabilized the Middle East. And thanks to China’s efforts, there’s been normalization, there’s been rapprochement, and there’s been the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Conversely, we see the United States, the Western countries, building barriers based on protectionism, tariffs and trying to isolate China. These two contrasting visions show that the world is headed in a manner of confrontation sparked by the West, while what the world needs today in the post-pandemic world is to have a common approach, to face common challenges in a collective manner. And that is what China is doing and that is what the Global South would like – to build a better tomorrow without overlords and without underdogs.

Dee Knight: Traveling to prove China is not our enemy

This fascinating article by Dee Knight describes a recent peace tour to China by a small group of activists from the US, and includes Dee’s reflections on his visit and a number of topics related to China and the New Cold War.

The report includes mention of the group’s brief stopover in Taipei, and Dee briefly discusses the US’s recent undermining of the One China policy:

“Visiting Taiwan enroute to mainland China reveals something nearly everyone agrees on: Taiwan is very much part of China. Both Chinese governments agree, and the US government has shared this view since at least 1972, when US President Nixon and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping signed a treaty to that effect. It makes you wonder why the US is pushing for Taiwan to be ‘independent’ of the mainland, spending billions to arm it to the teeth, and sending war ships through the Taiwan Strait, thus violating China’s territorial waters, at the risk of triggering a flareup to war at any moment.”

Describing the group’s trip to Shanghai, Dee contrasts the relative affluence and modernity of the city today with the poverty and backwardness imposed upon it in the early part of the 20th century, when it was a playground for Western imperialists – a time when “the colonial powers forced China’s weak government to cede control of trade in both Shanghai and Beijing” and the streets of Shanghai’s ‘International Settlement’ concessions “had signs saying ‘No Chinese or Dogs Allowed.'”

Comparing Shanghai’s transport infrastructure with that of the US, Dee writes:

Underground, the metro hums along: more than 20 lines rival the extent of New York’s MTA, and humble it for cleanliness, courteous service and safety. All the stations I saw have escalators, elevators, and super-clean floors. They also have moving barriers between the passenger platforms and incoming trains, to protect riders.

On China’s network of high-speed rail, Dee observes: “These bullet trains now connect all of China’s major cities, following the gigantic infrastructure projects of recent decades. The US has no bullet trains, and can’t seem to find the financing for them, especially since the profit potential in military production is so much higher.”

Dee also includes some reflections on China’s system of governance, describing the mechanics of its whole-process people’s democracy and countering the Western media’s tropes about China as an authoritarian tyranny and police state.

We didn’t see homeless people anywhere in China. We also didn’t see any signs of repression or oppression anywhere – including Xinjiang. The Chinese people we encountered seemed both calm and content. Tension, conflict and stress are low.

Dee writes powerfully that “visiting China made me believe peace is possible”, that the Chinese people very much do not want war or confrontation with the US, and opining that the US’s policy of trade war and military brinkmanship is a dead-end for humanity.

Cooperation, common prosperity and a shared future make much more sense. That formula has found warm welcomes across the globe. It even includes major initiatives in green development, where again China is leading the way. It has more solar and wind energy generation than the rest of the world combined. And while it still uses more fossil fuel for energy than non-polluting sources, Xi Jinping has pledged that by mid-century fossil fuels will be phased out. That would be an accomplishment worth emulating. It’s much better to save the world from burning up than continue with the current US craze of military brinksmanship!

Dee Knight is a veteran of the US peace and socialist movements, and is a member of the International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and of the Friends of Socialist China advisory group.

“China Is Not Our Enemy” was the theme of a ten-day visit to China in early November. The visit was designed to find and highlight a path to common prosperity and a shared future between China, the United States, and the rest of the world. Visiting China made me believe peace is possible.

We flew from JFK to Taipei to Shanghai. Then we took a “bullet train” to Beijing. From there we flew to Urumqi and Kashgar, Xinjiang. Then back to Urumqi to Changsha, Hunan, and from Changsha to Shanghai. Then back to Taipei and from there to JFK.

1. Taiwan is part of China.

Getting to China from the USA is easier now than it was centuries ago for Marco Polo when he traveled from Venice by camel over the old Silk Road. We boarded a jumbo jet at 1am November 1 at Kennedy Airport in New York – actually 1pm in Taiwan and China, which are 12 hours ahead of New York. The flight was a mere 17 hours, so we landed at about 6am November 2. We flew nonstop through northern Canada, then down past Japan and Korea to reach Taiwan. Service on the China Airlines jumbo jet was impeccable – two main meals, enjoyable movies, and plentiful snacks with beverage service.

Visiting Taiwan enroute to mainland China reveals something nearly everyone agrees on: Taiwan is very much part of China. Both Chinese governments agree, and the US government has shared this view since at least 1979, when US President Nixon and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping signed a treaty to that effect. It makes you wonder why the US is pushing for Taiwan to be “independent” of the mainland, spending billions to arm it to the teeth, and sending war ships through the Taiwan Strait, thus violating China’s territorial waters, at the risk of triggering a flareup to war at any moment.

Before landing in Taipei we spoke with a Chinese couple who were part of the original post-WW2 migration from the Mainland to Taiwan after the Red Army defeated Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang (KMT). Chiang transferred what was left of his army, plus thousands of camp followers and businesspeople across the strait, and took over the Taiwan government with US backing. There was no pretense of democracy – Chiang staged a military takeover and set up a dictatorship that lasted till his death in 1975, always with lavish US support. It was much the same in the southern half of Korea following Japan’s surrender at the end of WW2. There the US backed one dictator after another until the 1990s, when massive popular protests led to brief periods of democratic government – in each case ultimately suppressed by military takeovers backed by the US. Recently Biden held a summit with the leaders of Japan and South Korea to forge an alliance against China and North Korea.

Continue reading Dee Knight: Traveling to prove China is not our enemy

China and the US: who’s really in a ‘vulnerable negotiating position’?

In the following article, originally published in the Morning Star, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett argues that, contrary to the Western media consensus that China is in a “vulnerable negotiating position” vis-a-vis the US-China relationship, it’s actually the US which is struggling economically and which is increasingly isolated on the global stage.

Keith observes that the deterioration in the relationship over the last decade was not instigated or encouraged by China. “As a socialist country still engaged in a quest for modernisation and development, China is committed to peace and has no interest in war.” The US has been steadily undermining the One China Principle, surrounding China with military bases, and “rigged up a string of alliances aimed at containing China, be it the Quad with India, Japan and Australia, Aukus with Australia and Britain, or this summer’s Camp David deal with Japan and South Korea.”

However, while the US has continued to escalate its aggression towards China, it has comprehensively failed to achieve its objectives, and China’s weight in the global economy and standing in the international community have been steadily rising. Keith points out that, for example, more than 40 countries have now expressed interest in joining BRICS.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the recent Belt and Road Forum – which included representatives from more than 150 countries, including some 23 heads of state and government and the secretary-general of the UN – Xi Jinping set out in simple but powerful terms China’s vision of development and peaceful cooperation:

We have learned that humankind is a community with a shared future. China can only do well when the world is doing well. When China does well, the world will get even better.

This is a message that resonates with people around the world, and which stands in stark contrast to the US’s increasingly aggressive and belligerent stance. As Keith notes, “it is little wonder that this is a more appealing message to the majority of countries in the world, that wish to develop their economies while maintaining their independence.”

Meanwhile the US finds itself increasingly isolated on the world stage, for example with the vast majority of countries opposing its brutal embargo against Cuba and its pro-genocide stance in relation to the Gaza war.

The recent Apec summit in San Francisco was largely overshadowed by the meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that immediately preceded it.

The two men met for four hours on November 16, in a mansion once better known for the US soap opera Dallas having been filmed there. For what was almost certainly the most important diplomatic encounter of 2023 its actual results appear rather modest.

They featured an agreement on Artificial Intelligence, counternarcotics co-operation, the resumption of military-to-military communications, the expansion of direct flights, and the promotion of a range of bilateral exchanges, including a high-level dialogue on tourism and streamlining visa application procedures.

An agreement to co-operate on climate change was announced just before the summit. US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry has been one of just a handful of US politicians to have retained a rational approach to China.

But what was actually significant about the meeting was that it took place at all — and in so doing, as a number of commentators have noted, established a floor under bilateral relations.

That this should rightly be regarded as a not inconsiderable achievement is in itself testimony to just how far the world’s most important diplomatic relationship has deteriorated in the last decade under the successive presidencies of Obama, Trump and Biden.

From the Chinese point of view, Xi’s visit was above all a voyage for peace. As the Chinese leader told a subsequent business dinner: “I often say that what the Chinese people oppose is war, what they want is stability, and what they hope for is enduring world peace.”

Continue reading China and the US: who’s really in a ‘vulnerable negotiating position’?

The Western left and the US-China contradiction

In the following article, which was originally published in People’s Democracy, the weekly English-language newspaper of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM), Prabhat Patnaik takes up the contradictions in the view taken by parts of the western left with regard to China and its growing contradictions with US imperialism. 

He begins by stating that, “significant segments of the non-Communist Western Left see the developing contradiction between the United States and China in terms of an inter-imperialist rivalry.” (One would just observe here that Comrade Patnaik is being either diplomatic or charitable, or quite possibly both, as a number of western communist parties, not least the Communist Party of Greece [KKE], are at least equally prone to this fundamental political error.)

Such a characterisation, Comrade Patnaik notes, “ironically makes these segments of the Left implicitly or explicitly complicit in US imperialism’s machinations against China… since the two countries are at loggerheads on most contemporary issues, it leads to a general muting of opposition to US imperialism.”

Comrade Patnaik further notes that this deviation is not new on the part of some sections of the left, citing attitudes to NATO’s bombing of the former Yugoslavia and current conflicts in both Ukraine and Gaza. 

Regarding the claims that China is a capitalist country, Patnaik writes:

“As for China being a capitalist economy, and hence engaged in imperialist activities all over the globe in rivalry with the US, those who hold this view are, at best, taking a moralist position and mixing up ‘capitalist’ with ‘bad’ and ‘socialist’ with ‘good’. Their position amounts in effect to saying: I have my notion of how a socialist society should behave (which is an idealised notion), and if China’s behaviour in some respects differs from my notion, then ipso facto China cannot be socialist and hence must be capitalist. The terms capitalist and socialist however have very specific meanings, which imply their being associated with very specific kinds of dynamics, each kind rooted in certain basic property relations. True, China has a significant capitalist sector, namely one characterised by capitalist property relations, but the bulk of the Chinese economy is still State-owned and characterised by centralised direction which prevents it from having the self- drivenness (or ‘spontaneity’) that marks capitalism. One may critique many aspects of Chinese economy and society but calling it ‘capitalist’ and hence engaged in imperialist activities on a par with western metropolitan economies, is a travesty. It is not only analytically wrong but leads to praxis that is palpably against the interests of both the working classes in the metropolis and the working people in the global south.”

Hence:

“It is not inter-imperialist rivalry, but resistance on the part of China, and other countries following its lead, to the re-assertion of hegemony by western imperialism that explains the heightening of US-China contradictions.”

Significant segments of the non-Communist Western Left see the developing contradiction between the United States and China in terms of an inter-imperialist rivalry. Such a characterisation fulfils three distinct theoretical functions from their point of view: first, it provides an explanation for the growing contradiction between the US and China; second, it does so by using a Leninist concept and within a Leninist paradigm; and third, it critiques China as an emerging imperialist power, and hence by inference, a capitalist economy, which is in conformity with an ultra-Left critique of China.

Such a characterisation ironically makes these segments of the Left implicitly or explicitly complicit in US imperialism’s machinations against China.  At best, it leads to a position which holds that they are both imperialist countries, so that there is no point in supporting one against the other; at worst, it leads to supporting the US against China as the “lesser evil” in the conflict between these two imperialist powers. In either case, it leads to the obliteration of an oppositional position with regard to the aggressive postures of US imperialism vis-à-vis China; and since the two countries are at loggerheads on most contemporary issues, it leads to a general muting of opposition to US imperialism.

For quite some time now, significant sections of the western Left, even those who otherwise profess opposition to western imperialism, have been supportive of the actions of this imperialism in specific situations. It was evident in their support for the bombing of Serbia when that country was being ruled by Slobodan Milosevich; it is evident at present in the support for NATO in the ongoing Ukraine war; and it is also evident in their shocking lack of any strong opposition to the genocide that is being perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinian people in Gaza with the active support of western imperialism. The silence on, or the support for, the aggressive imperialist position on China by certain sections of the western Left, is, to be sure, not necessarily identical with these positions; but it is in conformity with them.

Such a position which does not frontally oppose western imperialism, is, ironically, at complete variance with the interests and the attitudes of the working class in the metropolitan countries. The working class in Europe for instance is overwhelmingly opposed to NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, as is evident in many instances of workers’ refusal to load shipment of European arms meant for Ukraine. This is not surprising, for the war has also directly impacted workers’ lives by aggravating inflation. But the absence of any forthright Left opposition to the war is making many workers turn to right-wing parties that, even though they fall in line with imperialist positions upon coming to power as Meloni has done in Italy, are at least critical of such positions when they are in opposition. The quietude of the western left vis-à-vis western imperialism is thus causing a shift of the entire political centre of gravity to the right over much of the metropolis. And looking upon the US-China contradiction as an inter-imperialist rivalry plays into this narrative.

As for China being a capitalist economy, and hence engaged in imperialist activities all over the globe in rivalry with the US, those who hold this view are, at best, taking a moralist position and mixing up “capitalist” with “bad” and “socialist” with “good”. Their position amounts in effect to saying: I have my notion of how a socialist society should behave (which is an idealised notion), and if China’s behaviour in some respects differs from my notion, then ipso facto China cannot be socialist and hence must be capitalist. The terms capitalist and socialist however have very specific meanings, which imply their being associated with very specific kinds of dynamics, each kind rooted in certain basic property relations. True, China has a significant capitalist sector, namely one characterised by capitalist property relations, but the bulk of the Chinese economy is still State-owned and characterised by centralised direction which prevents it from having the self- drivenness (or “spontaneity”) that marks capitalism. One may critique many aspects of Chinese economy and society, but calling it “capitalist” and hence engaged in imperialist activities on a par with western metropolitan economies, is a travesty. It is not only analytically wrong but leads to praxis that is palpably against the interests of both the working classes in the metropolis and the working people in the global south.

But the question immediately arises: if the US-China contradiction is not a manifestation of inter-imperialist rivalry, then how can we explain its rise to prominence in the more recent period? To understand this we have to go back to the post-second world war period. Capitalism emerged from the war greatly weakened, and facing an existential crisis: the working class in the metropolis was not willing to go back to the pre-war capitalism that had entailed mass unemployment and destitution; socialism had made great advances all over the world; and liberation struggles in the global south against colonial and semi-colonial oppression had reached a real crescendo. For its very survival therefore capitalism had to make a number of concessions: the introduction of universal adult suffrage, the adoption of welfare State measures, the institution of State intervention in demand management, and above all the acceptance of formal political decolonisation.

Political decolonisation however did not mean economic decolonisation, that is, the transfer of control over third world resources, exercised till then by metropolitan capital to the newly independent countries; indeed against such transfers imperialism fought a bitter and prolonged struggle, marked by the overthrow of governments led by Arbenz, Mossadegh, Allende, Cheddi Jagan, Lumumba and many others. Even so, however, metropolitan capital could not prevent third world resources in many instances from slipping out of its control to the dirigiste regimes that had come up in these countries following decolonisation.

The tide turned in favour of imperialism with the coming into being of a higher stage of centralisation of capital that gave rise to globalised capital, including above all globalised finance, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union that itself was not altogether unrelated to the globalisation of finance. Imperialism trapped countries in the web of globalisation and hence in the vortex of global financial flows, forcing them under the threat of financial outflows into pursuing neo-liberal policies that meant the end of dirigiste regimes and the re-acquisition of control by metropolitan capital over much of third world resources, including third world land-use.

It is against this background of re-assertion of imperialist hegemony that one can understand the heightening of US-China contradiction and many other contemporary developments like the Ukraine war. Two features of this re-assertion need to be noted: the first is that metropolitan market access for goods from countries like China, together with the willingness of metropolitan capital to locate plants in such countries to take advantage of their comparatively lower wages for meeting global demand, accelerated the growth-rate in these economies (and only these economies) of the global south; it did so in China to a point where the leading metropolitan power, the US, began to see China as a threat. The second feature is the crisis of neo-liberal capitalism that has emerged with virulence after the collapse of the housing “bubble” in the US.

For both these reasons the US would now like to protect its economy against imports from China and from other similarly-placed countries of the global south. Even though these imports may be occurring, at least in part, under the aegis of US capital, the US cannot afford to run the risk of “deindustrialising” itself. The desire on its part to cut China “down to size” so soon after it had been hailing China for its “economic reforms” is thus rooted in the contradictions of neo-liberal capitalism, and hence in the very logic inherent to the reassertion of imperialist hegemony. It is not inter-imperialist rivalry, but resistance on the part of China, and other countries following its lead, to the re-assertion of hegemony by western imperialism that explains the heightening of US-China contradictions.

As the capitalist crisis accentuates, as the oppression of third world countries because of their inability to service their external debt increases through the imposition of “austerity” by imperialist agencies like the IMF, and in turn calls forth greater resistance from them and greater assistance to them from China, the US-China contradictions will become more acute and the tirades against China in the west will grow shriller.