New Cold War Archives - Page 7 of 18 - Friends of Socialist China

Arming Taiwan is an insane provocation

In this incisive article written for AntiWar.com, John V Walsh exposes the utter recklessness of the US’s policy of increasing arms supplies to Taiwan.

Walsh describes the US’s longstanding First Island Chain strategy – a collection of military bases, weapons and troops deployed specifically in order to project US power and to contain and encircle the People’s Republic of China – and notes that Taiwan is at the center of this strategy. Indeed Taiwan is considered by Washington’s hawks as “America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier”.

Walsh observes that while the US officially adheres to the One China Policy, which recognizes that Taiwan is part of China, it has been arming Taiwan for decades and is increasingly flagrant in its encouragement of secessionist forces. For obvious reasons, this is a red line for Beijing. “A secessionist Taiwan, as an armed ally of the US, represents to China a return to the Century of Humiliation at the hands of the colonial West.”

The US should adhere to international law and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs. “Taiwan and Beijing can settle their disagreements by themselves. Frankly put, disagreements between the two are none of America’s business.” Furthermore, the US should put an end to provocations and militarism in the region, and take China up on its oft-repeated offer of mutually-beneficial cooperation between the two economies.

Those in the West who are concerned with building a lasting peace should pressure their governments to stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and to stop arming Taiwan.

The Island of Taiwan has been turned into a “powder keg” by the infusion of U.S. weaponry, pushing the Taiwanese people into the “abyss of disaster.” These are the words of the Chinese Defense Ministry in reaction to the recent $440 million sale of U.S. arms to the island. And now the U.S. is also giving, not selling, arms to Taiwan, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

The “First Island Chain” Strategy of the U.S.

Taiwan is but one in a series of islands along the Chinese coast, often called “The First Island Chain,” which now bristles with advanced U.S. weapons. These are accompanied by tens of thousands of supporting U.S. military personnel and combat troops. The “First Island Chain” extends from Japan in the north southward through Japan’s Ryukyu islands which include Okinawa, to Taiwan and on to the northern Philippines. (U.S. ally, South Korea, with a military of 500,000 active duty personnel and 3 million reserves is a powerful adjunct to this chain.) In U.S. military doctrine the First Island Chain is a base to “project power” and restrict sea access to China.

Taiwan is at the center this string of islands and is considered the focal point of The First Island Chain strategy. When the fiercely hawkish Cold Warrior, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, conceived the strategy in 1951, he dubbed Taiwan America’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier.”

Taiwan is now one source of contention between the U.S. and China. As is often said but rarely done, the pursuit of peace demands that we understand the point of view of those who are marked as our adversaries. And, in China’s eyes, Taiwan and the rest of these armed isles look like both chain and noose.

How to understand Kissinger and China’s high-level diplomacy

In this article, which was originally published on CGTN, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong explains the significance of the recent visit to China by veteran US statesman Dr. Henry Kissinger and assesses some reactions to it.

Kissinger, who recently celebrated his 100th birthday, and who has visited China more than 100 times, pioneered the establishment of ties between the People’s Republic of China and the USA, together with President Richard Nixon, Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai.

Danny points out that Kissinger’s latest visit comes at a watershed moment in the two countries’ relationship. And, whilst US officialdom sought to belittle the visit, at least publicly, sourly observing that someone who is now a private citizen enjoys better access to Chinese leaders than their US counterparts, whilst some others on the left imagine that Chinese leaders are unaware of Kissinger’s historical role regarding Vietnam, Laos, Chile and other countries, both of them fail to take account of the overriding importance of China/US relations, not only for the people of the two countries, but for all humanity.

Kissinger’s warm reception, Danny notes, sent a strong message that China is ready to engage in dialogue with the US so as to get relations back on the right track. Kissinger has recently warned of the dangers of US relations with both China and Russia degenerating into open conflict. Against this background, Danny notes: “The era of hegemony for any country is… coming to an end. Kissinger’s visit placed a spotlight on the choices in front of the US elite.”

At the age of 100, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger traveled to Beijing and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top officials on July 20, 2023, amid a watershed moment in China-U.S. relations.

The visit caused a great level of confusion among the Western media and members of the U.S. political class. Some outright dismissed the significance of the visit. Others expressed a “sour grapes” mentality. National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby demonstrated this reaction best in his claim that it was “unfortunate that a private citizen can meet with the defense minister and have a communication and the United States can’t.”

Outside of the political class, social media users in the U.S. have gone so far as to claim that China misunderstands Kissinger’s true role in the world. Critics remarked that while Kissinger played a major role in normalizing ties between China and the U.S., his tenure within the foreign policy establishment has also been characterized by aggressive U.S. interventions in Vietnam, Laos, Chile, and several other countries. Thus, few on the U.S. side have attempted to truly understand China’s side.

Kissinger’s visit marked an important opportunity not only for China but also humanity as a whole. China-U.S. relations are not simply bilateral in nature. The relationship between these massively influential countries makes an impact on everyone, and everything, living on this planet.

Video: Are China and the US heading for war?

Co-editor of Friends of Socialist China Danny Haiphong joined Andy Boreham of Reports on China to discuss the likelihood of war between China and the US following remarks by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban referencing the dangers of such an outcome.

What we defend, what Wall Street wants to destroy

The following article by Sara Flounders unpicks US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent demands that China “shift to a market-oriented system”, drop its putative “coercive actions against American firms”, and participate in the US’s unilateral and unenforceable sanctions against Russia.

Sara points out that the US is in no position to complain about China’s subsidies to state-owned enterprises, given that “every capitalist economy, including that of the US, subsidizes key industries”; some of those who suffered ruinous poverty as a result of the 2008 financial crisis may remember the trillions of dollars of subsidies that bailed out the banks rather than the poor. Meanwhile calls for China to end “barriers to market access for foreign firms” ring decidedly hollow in the light of hundreds of US trade barriers and sanctions on China.

China’s use of “non-market policies” is not in itself the source of the US’s escalating hostility. “Most frustrating to the imperialists is that the socialist development of the economy is guided by the 90-million member, popularly supported Communist Party of China. There is a party cell in every workplace, school and neighborhood. This is what US politicians and corporate investors consider a ‘dictatorship,’ restricting their freedom. On the other hand, unelected billionaires making all decisions are proof of ‘democracy.'”

Sara observes that China’s socialist strategy has brought about “the largest and most rapid improvement in material conditions in modern history”. Furthermore, via its Belt and Road Initiative and other programs, China is enabling the emergence of a truly multipolar order – a serious threat to the US-led imperialist system. The article concludes that Chinese socialism is creating important gains for the global working class, and should be defended and supported. “It is in the interests of workers here to defend China and condemn the onerous demands of US imperialism.”

The article was first carried in Workers World.

What is the material basis of the growing hostility on every level of the U.S. ruling class toward China?

No great struggle is based on the personalities or aspirations of individuals. At the root is a very concrete, material basis that drives the conflict. Otherwise, meetings, discussions and diplomacy would succeed. These techniques can paper over differences – but not fundamentally resolve them.

Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen’s talk on June 7 to a group of U.S. businesspeople at the American Chamber of Commerce in China exposed how well these U.S. corporate heads understand the basic, irreconcilable difference. They are deeply frustrated about their inability to maintain their dominant global position, as well as by China’s non-compliance with their self-proclaimed “rules-based order.” (tinyurl.com/2s45jh53)

Yellen is a top capitalist economist. She is a former Chair of the Federal Reserve and headed the White House Council of Economic Advisors. Yellen has taught economics at Harvard, Yale and the London School of Economics. Her words carry weight and reflect the thinking of imperialist think tanks, strategists, politicians and businesspeople.

Yellen’s talk in China was similar to a longer presentation she gave at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on April 20, published in preparation for her announced trip to China. It sharply defined the Biden administration’s demands on China.

Biden keeps lying about the US “not trying to surround” China

In the following brief article, Caitlin Johnstone unpicks President Biden’s recent claim that the US’s military escalation in the Pacific is not about surrounding China but about “maintaining stability in the Indian Ocean and in the South China Sea.” Caitlin points out the obvious: that Biden is lying. The US’s 313 military bases in East Asia, its initiation of AUKUS, its transfer of nuclear-capable bombers to Indonesia, its provocations in Taiwan and more all form part of a broader project of encircling and containing China. Frankly, “only a drooling idiot would believe the world’s most powerful empire is militarily surrounding its top geopolitical rival as an act of defence.”

Caitlin observes that the Chinese leadership understands these dynamics very well and is under no illusions as to the US’s intentions. When Biden says that the US is not trying to contain China and that the US is engaged in acts of defence, the purpose is to dupe the public in the West and generate support for an incredibly reckless military strategy that offers nothing of value to ordinary people.

The author concludes by advising readers to ignore the words of US officials and instead focus on their actions. “Ignore what officials say about wanting peace and not trying to surround China and supporting the One China policy etc. Just watch all the US war machinery that’s being rapidly added to that region.”

President Biden had a recent interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria during which he defended his controversial decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine and suggested that the US can continually support Ukraine the way it supports Israel rather than adding it to the NATO alliance.

About halfway through the interview Biden said something about China that’s worth flagging, because the claim he makes is self-evidently false, and it’s not the first time he’s made it.

Describing the conversations he’s been having with China’s President Xi Jinping, Biden said the following:

“We’re going to put together the Quad which is India, Australia, the United States and Japan. I got a call from him [Xi] on that. He said why are you doing that. I said we’re not doing that to surround you, we’re doing that to maintain stability in the Indian Ocean and in the South China Sea. Because we believe the rules of the road about what constitutes international air space, international space and the water should be maintained.”

How China became the world’s industrial superpower – and why the US is desperate to stop it

In this detailed and informative video explainer on Geopolitical Economy Report, Ben Norton discusses China’s extraordinary rise and the economic dynamics of the New Cold War.

Ben notes that in 1950, China represented just 5 percent of global GDP. In purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, it currently represents 19 percent of global GDP, compared to 15 percent for the US. No other country in history has undergone such a dramatic transformation in so short a period. Ben makes the critically important point that this progress is the result of socialist, not capitalist, economics. He notes that in China’s socialist market economy, the commanding heights, including finance, infrastructure, transport and energy, are run by the state, and that the state continues to guide the economy overall, via five-year plans and multiple other mechanisms. China’s strategy has succeeded in transforming an overwhelmingly agrarian country into a leading industrial power, thereby creating the resources needed to develop more advanced socialism.

China’s rapid industrialization has led to it becoming the world’s largest manufacturer, and a leading innovator in advanced industry. This has some important – and contradictory – consequences for the West. Firstly, the West – and particularly the US – has been deindustrializing while China has been industrializing, and it now finds itself in a position where it is unable to outcompete China in terms of industrial innovation. This leads the US towards notions of ‘decoupling’ and trying to engage in various forms of economic coercion to suppress China’s rise. Secondly, however, China has become the global manufacturing center, and its high levels of productivity and innovation make it integral to multiple crucial value chains. As such, Western companies tend to be unwilling to ‘decouple’ or divest from China.

These competing needs are fomenting divisions within the Western ruling classes and are leading to decidedly incoherent foreign policy in Washington, London and elsewhere. The US is intent on preventing China from continuing to develop and becoming the world’s foremost economy, and yet the US’s financialized capitalism lacks the means to compete with (or indeed decouple from) China.

Renewable energy development is less important than stopping Chinese industry!

In this brief but incisive blog post, Canadian anti-imperialist writer Justin Podur unpacks the contradictory remarks made by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her visit to Beijing, complaining about China’s use of state subsidies in certain parts of its economy. As Justin points out, “if the market system is the best and most efficient, why would Yellen complain about China using state subsidies or protections and interfering in it? Wouldn’t that just allow the US to use the market to win the game?” And why would they want China to adopt measures that would – according to free-market fundamentalism – accelerate its rise?

The reality is that the US wants Beijing to adopt an economic strategy that “would actually destroy the basis of China’s growth and ensure its subordination to the US.” One side-effect of this is that it would cause a major disruption to the solar energy industry, in which China is dominant (Justin notes that China holds 80 percent of photovoltaic patents worldwide). As such, “the imperialist anxiety to stop the rise of Chinese industry conflicts with the green priority for a transition to renewables.” But in this battle of priorities between hegemonism and the environment, the US is siding with hegemonism. An important reminder that the struggle against the New Cold War is also a struggle to keep the planet habitable.

Janet Yellen went to China and warned them there would be consequences if they didn’t adopt a market economy. There’s so many admissions in this little statement that shouldn’t go unnoticed. If the market system is the best and most efficient, as its proponents claim, why would Yellen complain about China using state subsidies or protections and interfering in it? Wouldn’t that just allow the US to use the market to win the game? If the market is the “cheat code”, as the gamers say, then how could China “cheat” by using non-market mechanisms? The flip side of the coin is also there. If the US, as its officials repeatedly cry, is desperate to stop the rise of China, why would they advise China to take steps (like market reforms) that should, according to market theory, only accelerate China’s rise? Perhaps it is because Yellen knows market reforms would actually destroy the basis of China’s growth and ensure its subordination to the US.

I want to talk about one of these Chinese industries that has grown up under state subsidy and protection that is – again according to Western environmentalists – very important in the struggle against climate change: photovoltaics (solar panels) and other renewable energy technologies.

There’s this video from a youtube channel called Tech Teller that outlines some details about the rise of China’s PV industry. The news hook for the video was the arrest of a Chinese PV executive, Pu Yonghua of Jiangsu Green Power New Energy, in Germany. It looked like Germany was going to pull a Canada (with the kidnapping of Meng Wanzhou of Huawei) and get into a pointless years-long conflict at US urging. But it looks like Pu Yonghua was released a few days later.

Tech teller’s video provides some “startling figures” about China’s dominance in PV:

of 150,000 PV patents worldwide, Chinese companies hold 120,000 of them.
The top ten PV companies in the world are all Chinese.
Chinese PV has a market share of 60% in the US and peaked at 95% in the EU. EU’s domestic PV capacity accounted for 3% of market share there.
200 countries are customers of Chinese PV products.

The EU’s attempt to raise its renewable energy use to reduce its dependence on Russian gas is ultimately a plan to transfer its dependence on Russia — to China.

China’s PV industry is so far ahead that the US and EU industries are going to have a lot of difficulty catching up. This despite, as the video tells, depraved and repeated attempts to stop China from developing by both the US and EU.

There are problems with PV, as environmentalists like Stan Cox have noted, including the mining footprint of rare earths and the use of fossil fuels in their production. But there is a Green consensus on the need to get off of fossil fuels and PV technology will be key to get there. The imperialist anxiety to stop the rise of Chinese industry conflicts with Green the green priority for a transition to renewables. It is another case of Western imperialism vs the environment. If you believe climate change is an existential issue for the species like nuclear war, you could use Chomsky’s phrase and consider it a choice between Hegemony or Survival.

Which do you think the US will choose?

Can we avoid war with China, and save the planet instead?

In this review of Carlos Martinez’s The East is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century, author and activist Dee Knight decries the US ruling class’s obsession with maintaining its “single-superpower status”. This obsession – shared by both Republicans and Democrats – is the top source of instability and the threat of war. Furthermore, it stands in the way of desperately-needed cooperation to prevent climate breakdown.

Dee writes that, while the US is aggressive in asserting its hegemony, China is “aggressive about saving the planet”, becoming the world’s first renewable energy superpower. It is in the process of shifting its growth model towards high-quality, green growth, based on innovation and emphasizing fairness of distribution. However, China’s path to modernization – built on common prosperity, peace, and harmony with nature – is “viable for a socialist society, but difficult to achieve with capitalism in which growth is the holy grail, no matter at what cost.” Dee writes that “China can indeed have ‘the best of both worlds’ – faster growth through centralized planning in a mixed economy, and better quality development since it doesn’t have to depend exclusively on the profit motive.”

As such, China’s socialism provides valuable inspiration and support for the countries of the Global South.

This article was first carried in LA Progressive on 22 June 2023.

Carlos’s book can be purchased in paperback and electronic formats from Praxis Press.

As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in China June 18, a NY Times report said “a wall of suspicion awaits him.” In a phone call before the visit, the report said “China’s foreign minister told Mr. Blinken it was ‘clear who bears responsibility’ for deteriorating bilateral relations.” The report added that the US has “issued a barrage of sanctions on Chinese officials and companies, and tried to cut off Chinese access to critical technology globally.”

The next day Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Blinken. Xi said China “respects the interests of the United States and will not challenge or replace the United States,” and that Washington “must also respect China and not harm China’s legitimate rights and interests.” Xi also said what happens between the two countries has a “bearing on the future and destiny of mankind,” and that their two governments “should properly handle Sino-US relations with an attitude of being responsible to history, the people and the world.”

There was a near-war incident in the Taiwan Strait during the second week of June. A Chinese patrol boat intercepted a US Navy war ship. The two vessels came within about 150 yards of each other, according to reports. US officials deemed the Chinese interception an “unnecessary provocation,” claiming its war ship was merely exercising freedom of navigation on the open seas. The Chinese defense minister said such “freedom of navigation” patrols are a provocation to China.

For US officials The Taiwan Strait is “open seas,” but China regards the narrow waterway as part of its internal territorial waters. For comparison, we can imagine what would happen if China sent war ships to exercise freedom of navigation next to the island of Santa Catalina, near Los Angeles, or near Hawaii, or Puerto Rico.

The Taiwan Strait interception is a reminder of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which led to the nightmare of war in Vietnam. The two incidents are part of a pattern: the US first fosters and fortifies “friendly” elements inside a country it wants to dominate, then deploys its military dangerously close to the chosen enemy’s borders; then it accuses the enemy of “aggression.” The pattern has been at work against both China and Russia in recent years. The results have already been disastrous, and could easily become catastrophic.

Strategies of denial: Bidenomics and the New Cold War on China

In this insightful article on New Left Review’s Sidecar blog, Grey Anderson explores the Biden administration’s new industrial strategy (incorporating the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act), and its connection with the ongoing efforts to suppress China’s economic rise.

Anderson writes that this anti-China orientation is not an “unfortunate by-product” of the $4 trillion spending plan, but its “motivating purpose”. The logic governing the new era of infrastructure spending is fundamentally geopolitical; “its precedent is to be sought not in the New Deal but in the military Keynesianism of the Cold War, seen by the ‘Wise Men’ who waged it as a condition for victory in America’s struggle against the Soviet Union.”

The article notes that export restrictions on AI and semiconductor components are specifically geared towards preventing China from emerging as a major player in these crucial industries, and as such constitute “a veritable declaration of economic war.” The New Cold War, however, is not solely economic, given the US’s renewed commitment to the Quad alliance, its creation of AUKUS, its huge and expanding array of military bases, its growing expenditure on hi-tech weaponry, and its increased supply of arms and military advisors to Taiwan.

The author notes that Washington is currently in a difficult position, in that it must “reconcile the imperative to prevent any state other than itself from dominating one of the great centres of world power (Asia, Europe, the Persian Gulf) with evidence of its citizens’ likely disinclination to back a major international war abroad, after twenty years of unending armed escapades.” The proposed ‘solution’ to this problem appears to be seeking to lure China into aggressive actions, thereby “hardening the resolve of the peoples in the broader coalition to intervene and for those engaged to intensify and widen the war to a level at which they would win it.”

There has been a lively debate on the American left about the Biden Administration’s industrial strategy. Discussion has focused on the prospects opened up by the massive stimulus – totalling some $4 trillion, if we factor in the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act alongside the Inflation Reduction Act – from training up ‘progressive technocrats’ to retrofit buildings to the feasibility of capitalist state-led ‘decarbonization’ under conditions of global overcapacity and falling economic growth.

So far, assessments have been mixed, differentiating ‘the good, the bad, the ugly’, albeit with the stress on the first. If the boost to employment and ‘green’ good works promised by the IRA cannot be dismissed, nor can its shortcomings: lack of funding for housing and public transport, neutered regulatory standards in the electricity sector, leasing agreements that give oil and gas producers access to public land. ‘The IRA’, a representative appraisal in Jacobin reckoned, ‘is at once a massive fossil fuel industry giveaway, a historic but inadequate investment in clean energy, and our best hope for staving off planetary catastrophe’.

In other words, the left critique has gone beyond ‘good, but not big enough’ – but perhaps not very far beyond. Almost entirely absent in these discussions is the geostrategic rationale that powers this national-investment drive, reshoring production on the US mainland, bagging lithium mines and sponsoring construction of microchip factories, in a militarized bid to outflank China.

Viewed from the halls of power, the anti-China orientation of US industrial policy is not an unfortunate by-product of the green ‘transition’, but its motivating purpose. For its conceptors, the logic governing the new era of infrastructure spending is fundamentally geopolitical; its precedent is to be sought not in the New Deal but in the military Keynesianism of the Cold War, seen by the ‘Wise Men’ who waged it as a condition for victory in America’s struggle against the Soviet Union.

Today, as after 1945, policymakers find themselves at an ‘inflexion point’. ‘History’, wrote future National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan during the 2020 presidential campaign, ‘is again knocking’:

The growing competition with China and shifts in the international political and economic order should provoke a similar instinct within the contemporary foreign-policy establishment. Today’s national security experts need to move beyond the prevailing neoliberal economic philosophy of the past forty years… The US national security community is rightly beginning to insist on the investments in infrastructure, technology, innovation, and education that will determine the United States’ long-term competitiveness vis-à-vis China.

Detailed at length in a report for the Carnegie Foundation, under the signature of Sullivan and a camarilla of other Biden advisers, ‘foreign policy for the middle class’ collapsed factitious distinctions between national security and economic planning. Hopes that globalized doux commerce might permanently induce other powers to accept US hegemony had been deceived. Another approach was in order. ‘There’s no longer a bright line between foreign and domestic policy’, Biden declared in his inaugural foreign policy speech. ‘Every action we take in our conduct abroad, we must take with American working families in mind.’ Trump’s victory, forged in the deindustrialized heartlands of the opioid crisis and ‘American carnage’, had shaken the Democrat establishment. What’s good for Goldman Sachs was no longer, it seemed, necessarily good for America.

Campaigning against the New Cold War is crucial for all who value peace and justice

We are pleased to publish below the video and speech of a presentation made by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez at a 28 June webinar of the United National Anti-War Coalition, on the theme of US anti-China propaganda, a prelude to war. Carlos exposes the extraordinary hypocrisy and falsehood of the propaganda war that the Western powers are waging against China, and highlights how it is being leveraged to shift public opinion in favor of anti-China hostility.

He points out that the escalating campaign of China encirclement and containment is threatening to derail global progress on key issues, noting that “the future of humanity actually hinges on global cooperation to address our collective problems.” As such, Carlos calls on all progressive and peace-loving people to make campaigning against the New Cold War a core part of their work.

Other speakers at the event included Lee Siu Hin of the China-US Solidarity Network, Sara Flounders of the International Action Center, and Arjae Red of Workers World Party. The full webinar can be viewed on YouTube.

Dear friends, thank you so much for inviting me to speak at this important event. I’m very sorry not to be able to join you in person, as I’m currently in Guiyang, China, on a delegation.

The theme of today’s event, “Anti-Chinese propaganda, a prelude to war”, is closely connected to the rationale for writing my book, “The East is Still Red: Chinese socialism in the 21st century.”

I had two key aims in mind with the book.

One was to talk about socialism, about how China is a socialist country. So many people think that China used to be a socialist country and then became capitalist with the introduction of market reforms. I wanted to show that China remains a socialist country and that socialism provides the framework for its incredible successes in poverty alleviation, development, renewable energy, and so on.

And I wanted to say to the Western left – which tends to be a bit unsure about China – look, China’s achieved all these things, it’s raised living standards beyond recognition, it’s gone from being a technologically backward and oppressed country to being a science and tech powerhouse, it’s leading the global shift to multipolarity; why on earth would we want to ascribe these successes to capitalism rather than socialism? Let’s celebrate socialist victories, let’s uphold the history and politics of the global working class.

Hence ‘The East is Still Red’.

The second key aim in writing the book was to stand up to the propaganda war, which is part of a wider New Cold War against China, and that’s the focus of my talk today.

This work of standing up to the propaganda war is urgent. It needs to be a major focus for socialists, communists, progressives, for anti-war campaigners worldwide; really for anyone that doesn’t think “better dead than red” is a viable slogan for the 21st century.

Because the propaganda war is war propaganda.

It seeks to build the broadest possible public support for a New Cold War, for a campaign of containment and encirclement, and ultimately very possibly for a hot war.

Let’s get something straight. This New Cold War, this anti-China campaign, has absolutely nothing to do with human rights.

When the West throws disgraceful slanders at China over alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, does anybody seriously think they’re manifesting a hitherto secret fondness and respect for Muslim people and their religion?

Where was that sentiment when they killed over a million people in Iraq?

Where was that sentiment when they destroyed Afghanistan, turning a quarter of its population into refugees and imposing brutal poverty on the rest?

Where was that sentiment when they bombed Libya into the Stone Age?

Where’s that sentiment today as they wage a disastrous proxy war against Iran in Yemen, creating the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world?

If they’re concerned about Muslims being placed in prison camps and denied their human rights, the first place they need to look is their illegally occupied corner of Cuba, that is, Guantanamo Bay.

When the West spreads outright lies about the suppression of Tibetan or Inner Mongolian language and culture, does anyone seriously think they’re standing up for the rights of indigenous peoples and for the preservation of precious human history?

How many indigenous languages are taught in US schools? To what extent is indigenous culture – and righteous resistance against colonialism – celebrated in US society? When was the last time native rights were upheld over drilling rights? Why does the US Congress seem more concerned with preserving Tibetan heritage than shutting down the Dakota Access pipeline?

These anti-China stories – all of which can be and have been comprehensively debunked – have nothing to do with upholding the principles of freedom, democracy and justice.

Webinar: US anti-China propaganda, a prelude to war

Date	Wednesday 28 June
Time	8pm US Eastern / 5pm US Pacific
Venue	Zoom

SPEAKERS

Lee Siu Hin – China-US Solidarity Network
Carlos Martinez – Author: The East Is Still Red
Sara Flounders – International Action Center
Arjae Red – Workers World Party

Even as the war in Ukraine rages, the US has increased its aggression towards China including increasing its military presence around China, provocations over Taiwan, heightened propaganda on Xinjiang, and claims of a Chinese spy base in Cuba. Does Blinken’s trip to China mean any change in these war threats?

Recently two US antiwar activists have returned from a trip to China. Hear from these antiwar activists and from others presently in China about the real situation in the country. Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez will be introducing his new book The East is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century.

DPRK exposes chicanery of Blinken’s China visit

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has exposed the US hypocrisy and chicanery behind the recent Beijing visit of Secretary of State Antony Blinken. A commentary describing it as a “provoker’s shameful begging visit”, written by international affairs analyst Jong Yong Hak, was released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 21.

According to Jong, the Biden administration has pursued a policy aimed at controlling, opposing and isolating China from Day One. This included threatening military intervention over Taiwan, the most important of China’s core interests, while escalating regional anti-China moves through mechanisms, such as the Quad and AUKUS, and seeking to create a new military bloc with Japan and South Korea.

However now the US says that it is calling for dialogue. In Jong’s words: “The US made the bilateral relations complicated and created problems. So if it respects the vital interests of China and stops all the hostile acts, the reason for deteriorating the bilateral ties will not exist any longer.”

According to KCNA, “the US Secretary of State flew to China to beg for the relaxation of relations, because of the extreme uneasiness that the attempt to press and restrain China may become a boomerang striking a fatal blow to the US economy and that China-US confrontation may trigger off the unprecedented military conflict which can lead to irretrievable disasters. In a word, the US state secretary’s recent junket can never be judged otherwise than a disgraceful begging trip of the provoker admitting the failure of the policy of putting pressure on China.”

The below article was originally carried by KCNA.

Jong Yong Hak, an international affairs analyst of the DPRK, made public the following article “Provoker’s Shameful Begging Visit” on June 21:

U.S. Secretary of State Blinken recently visited China, which attracted the attention of the international community.

The U.S., that had talked so often about the “theory of threat from China” and seriously threatened the main interests of China, dispatched its top diplomat to China, calling for “relaxation of relations”. This creates a lot of conjecture and comments.

The point of the foreign policy pursued by the present U.S. administration after its inauguration was to control, oppose and isolate China.

From the first day of its assumption of power, the Biden administration in the grip of repugnancy toward the Chinese government had made the pressure and control in an all-round way the point of its policy towards China, deliberately escalated the confrontation, violated the legal development and interests of the Chinese people and attempted in every way to prevent the prosperity of China.

It also described the Communist Party of China as a devil and spoke ill of the “human rights” situation in China. And even the U.S. chief executive committed serious political and military provocation without hesitation by openly suggesting U.S. forces’ “military intervention” over the Taiwan issue, the most important of China’s main interests.

It is none other than the present U.S. administration that has deliberately escalated the regional tensions while strengthening the anti-China complexes, including QUAD and AUKUS, and seeking to establish a new military bloc consisting of Japan and puppet south Korea.

But now the U.S. is talking about “communication” with China and “removal of the danger from misunderstanding and misjudgment”. It is just like a guilty party filing the suit first.

As the saying goes, “The man who made a knot should untie it”.

The U.S. made the bilateral relations complicated and created problems. So if it respects the vital interests of China and stops all the hostile acts, the reason for deteriorating the bilateral ties will not exist any longer.

It is the height of the double-dealing and impudence peculiar to the U.S. to provoke first and then talk about the so-called “responsible control over divergence of opinion”.

This time, the U.S. secretary of state flew to China to beg for the relaxation of relations, because of the extreme uneasiness that the attempt to press and restrain China may become a boomerang striking a fatal blow to the U.S. economy and that China-U.S. confrontation may trigger off the unprecedented military conflict which can lead to irretrievable disasters.

In a word, the U.S. state secretary’s recent junket can never be judged otherwise than a disgraceful begging trip of the provoker admitting the failure of the policy of putting pressure on China.

It is quite natural that China urged the U.S. to stop clamoring about the “theory of threat from China”, cancel illegal and unilateral sanctions on China, abandon suppression of China’s sci-tech development and not to interfere in the internal affairs of China at will.

If one forgets history, one will repeat the same mistake and if one fails to see reality properly, one will make a bigger mistake.

If the U.S. persists in its moves to seek hegemony and confrontation in international relations, oblivious of the lesson of history, it will never be able to escape from the fate of the loser.

Blinken’s visit and Biden’s true colors: imperialist arrogance toward China

In this informative discussion on Breakthrough News, Brian Becker and Ken Hammond address the latest developments in US-China relations, in particular Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing and Joe Biden’s labelling of Xi Jinping as a “dictator”.

The two note that there was some short-lived optimism following Blinken’s visit that there could genuinely be scope for improving US-China relations, which are currently at their lowest ebb in half a century. Blinken had a lengthy discussion with Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang, as well as meeting separately with President Xi and Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reported that Wang Yi reiterated China’s baseline – and entirely reasonable – demands: “that the US stop playing up the so-called ‘China threat’, lift illegal unilateral sanctions against China, stop suppressing China’s scientific and technological advances, and not wantonly interfere in China’s internal affairs.” Blinken meanwhile asserted that the US is committed to “managing differences responsibly and cooperating in areas of common interests.”

However, Biden’s foolish comments about the so-called spy balloon incident, in which he referred to Xi Jinping as a “dictator”, almost immediately wiped out any goodwill resulting from the Blinken visit. Ken observes that Biden’s comment betrays the US administration’s profound hostility towards China, and its fear of China’s rise. This fear, combined with the continued need of US capitalism to engage economically with China, leads to erratic and confused statements and policies.

Brian points to certain parallels between the McCarthyism of the Cold War era and the New McCarthyism of the New Cold War, including a nasty, racist and deeply antidemocratic witch-hunt. He points out, however, that China’s integration into the global economy means that attacks on China also cause significant harm to the West. Furthermore, import restrictions on Chinese products such as solar panels lead to inflated prices for US consumers and are impeding meaningful climate action. As such, the New Cold War is damaging for ordinary people in the West.

Ken and Brian describe the US as being addicted to war, and observe that the propaganda war against China is part of a broader war drive. They call for a determined struggle against this propaganda war.

Professor Hammond’s new book, China’s Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future, is available on 1804 Books.

The Western left must reject anti-China propaganda and join the progressive global trend

What follows is the text of a speech given by veteran British peace activist and China specialist Jenny Clegg at the launch event in London for Carlos Martinez’s book The East is Still Red: Chinese socialism in the 21st century.

Summarising the key points of the book, Jenny highlights in particular the escalating New Cold War and anti-China rhetoric in the West. “China is being presented as an existential threat to the Western way of life so as to prepare a climate for war.”

Beyond the obvious dangers of preparing a climate for war, Jenny points out that the incessant lies and misinformation about China also serve to cut progressive movements in the West off from a rising multipolarity, thereby leaving them “isolated from potential alternatives, trapped in the cul-de-sac of racist myths of the indispensable West.” And further: “The Western Left risks getting left behind as the multipolar trend begins to shift US hegemonism and imperialism to the margins.”

Jenny concludes by recommending the book as a weapon against the New Cold War; a “tool for activists to get ready to grasp the great changes that are unfolding.”

The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century can be purchased in paperback or digital editions from Praxis Press.

Back in 2017, following Trump’s election, Xi Jinping made a landmark observation that ‘the world is in the midst of great changes unseen in a century’.

At that time, there were only a handful of us on the Left here in Britain seriously following China – connecting now and then to a few other individuals in Europe, in North America.

As Trump went on to unleash his trade and technology wars, disrupting 40 relatively tranquil years of US-China engagement, we found ourselves deluged in hostility, struggling to stay sane in an environment awash with crazy lies and disinformation – about the Hong Kong ‘democracy’ movement, the Uighurs, the so-called ‘Wuhan virus’ – unleashing Sinophobia. Distinct among racisms, this gives the ‘threatening hordes’ a leader, imagining behind every Chinese lurks a demonic Fu Manchu. We began to network.

Then came Pompeo’s speech at the Nixon Centre in July 2020 – “Securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time” he declared. Our networks sprang into action – first No Cold War, then the International Manifesto Group, initiated by Radhika Desai (whose book on Coronavirus, Capitalism and War we launched here just over a month ago), and also Friends of Socialist China.

On economic coercion: Imperialist hypocrisy reigns supreme

In this article for the Morning Star, Andrew Murray takes issue with the G7’s accusations against China over ‘economic coercion’. Andrew points out that this obscenely hypocritical accusation is just the latest excuse for China-bashing. “With Hong Kong now quiet, the Covid pandemic abating and the Dalai Lama asking young followers to suck his tongue, the world’s great capitalist powers have instead united around challenging China’s economic relations with the rest of the world.”

The article details the extensive economic coercion practised by the US, including sanctions on Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, North Korea, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Yemen, Zimbabwe and Palestine – almost none with UN backing. “The US really loves its sanctions.” Aside from which, the US’s financial domination is built precisely on coercion, in the form of forced austerity, privatisation and deregulation.

China, meanwhile, “has been lending money to countries across the global South to help power their development and give them an option beyond dependence on London and Washington.” Certainly it’s true that China benefits from its loans and investments, but with the all-important difference that “there is no Chinese McDonnell Douglas lurking in the small print of their deals. Beijing is not going to invade or bomb anyone, nor subvert a sovereign government.”

Andrew concludes that the G7’s China-bashing is simply a manifestation of the US and its allies refusal to accept that the days of their “rules-based world order” (ie hegemony) are numbered: “The G7 attacks on China are the sound of the departing masters of the universe raging against the passing of their power.”

A brand new spectre is haunting the head honchos of the world economy — it is “economic coercion.”

Who is doing the coercing? The People’s Republic of China of course.

Having decided to convene, wildly inappropriately, in Hiroshima last month, it was perhaps inevitable that the leaders of the G7 states would devote some time to stoking up international conflict.

Today, that means above all finding fresh reasons to confront China. With Hong Kong now quiet, the Covid pandemic abating and the Dalai Lama asking young followers to suck his tongue, the world’s great capitalist powers have instead united around challenging China’s economic relations with the rest of the world.

Now to accuse imperialists of hypocrisy is akin to accusing the Pope of believing in the resurrection or Keir Starmer of believing in nothing much at all. It is not just a statement of the obvious, it is a key part of the job specification.

Closer ties with NATO would be a strategic blunder for India

In the following article, which was originally published in the Morning Star, Keith Lamb argues that Washington’s flattery of India and its encouragement of stronger ties with NATO, citing an alleged “Chinese threat”, is a trap into which New Delhi should not fall. The border dispute between India and China, he notes, is a legacy of British colonial aggression and India’s future lies in greater cooperation with China and the Global South generally. India’s support for the struggle of Mauritius to reclaim the Chagos Archipelago, a territory in the Indian Ocean which remains under illegal British colonial control and is home to a massive US military base, is cited by Keith as an example of how India grasps this imperative on some level. India’s interests, he argues would be well served by further consolidation of the BRICS grouping and greater promotion of regional energy integration and supply chains, not least the long-mooted Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline.

After a recommendation by the congressional committee on strategic competition with China, the US claims that India “is one of Washington’s closest allies.” As such, it is now courting India to join Nato to counter Chinese “aggression.”

India must not fall to Washington’s flattery and the trumped-up China threat. Strategically and economically, India’s future lies with greater co-operation with China and the global South, not Nato, which opposes development.

In terms of Chinese “aggression,” the US hypes up the border dispute. This dispute is a remnant of British colonialism annexing Chinese territory.

China’s claims are rational, not expansionist — they exist due to British hegemonic attempts to swallow up both China and India.

Importantly, this dispute is managed unprecedentedly well. The line of actual control is patrolled by non-gun-carrying troops. This peaceful status quo would be ruined by US-led Nato machinations, which continue, under a different guise, the hegemonic project of the British empire.

Colonialism hasn’t finished — it is alive under US leadership which has a greater global military presence than under the British empire. It seeks, through its hard power, to divide the global South and bring it to heel — strategically this is what India’s invitation to Nato represents.

On one level, India understands this, which is why India backs Mauritius’s claim on the British-controlled Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which hosts a US military base capable of threatening the Indian subcontinent.

The US talks about developing India and using India as the new “world factory,” but due to hegemonic strategic concerns, a country the size of India will never be allowed to develop to a comparable standard to that of the US

Hegemonism doesn’t seek development — it seeks to exploit and it seeks unipolarity. Those who try to break out of the net of economic domination will be countered.

China is the perfect example of this. It co-operated with the US, but due to its huge size, even a modest standard of development is seen as a threat to unipolarity.

India, if successful, would encounter the same problem — though if it loses its independence to the cancer of Nato perhaps it will never develop beyond being a low-end factory.

Anyone who doubts the resolve of the US and its power to silently smother its Nato “allies” needs to revisit the Nord Stream pipeline bombing allegations.

Europe is now cut away from Eurasia and is more reliant than ever on transatlantic shipping for its trade and energy.

India, though artificially disconnected from Eurasia, due to politics and connectivity, unlike the Nato-led Europe, still has the independence to overcome these issues.

Political co-operation can be achieved through the Brics coalition, which is currently expanding based on the principle of win-win global South development, rather than Nato’s principle of preventing the rise of the global South.

Britain seems doomed to join the new Washington Consensus

In this article for the Morning Star, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez takes a look at the results of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s recent official visit to the US. Sunak’s summit with Joe Biden produced very little of substance, but the Atlantic Declaration for a Twenty-First Century US-UK Economic Partnership reiterates Britain’s ongoing commitment to the New Cold War and the Project for an American Century. Carlos writes that the document “represents a shared commitment to doubling down on the new cold war, continuing with the encirclement and containment of China, and proceeding with the proxy war against Russia.”

While talking up the need for a “rules-based order”, the Declaration makes clear that the US and Britain intend to continue violating international law via their AUKUS nuclear pact and their extensive set of unilateral sanctions. Meanwhile, their calls for global action to tackle climate change ring decidedly hollow given their sanctioning of China’s solar energy products and the trend of replacing Russian energy with North American fracked shale gas.

Noting that Labour in its current iteration offers no improvement on the question of Britain-China relations, Carlos concludes that “Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Sunak and Keir Starmer are all Trumpists when it comes to pursuing this incredibly reckless new cold war.”

Last Wednesday marked the second annual UK-US Friendship Day. Although this momentous occasion was met with near-universal indifference on both sides of the Atlantic, Rishi Sunak took the opportunity to celebrate by making his first official visit to the US as Prime Minister.

The discussions didn’t reap the variety of fruit Sunak had been hoping for; the Tories’ long-promised free-trade deal remains in deep freeze. Indeed, very little of substance was announced beyond the Atlantic Declaration for a Twenty-First Century US-UK Economic Partnership.

This declaration makes clear that the focus of US-UK collaboration today is to jointly manage “new challenges to international stability,” in particular “from authoritarian states such as Russia and the People’s Republic of China.”

Chen Weihua on the New Cold War, Taiwan and Ukraine

On the road in Brussels, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong caught up with the prominent Chinese journalist Chen Weihua (China Daily’s EU bureau chief) for a very interesting interview.

Chen comments at length on the New Cold War and the deterioration in US-China relations during the Trump administration. Having worked in the US for several years during the Obama years, Chen witnessed a far healthier bilateral relationship, characterized mainly by cooperation – in spite of the launch of the Pivot to Asia, which obviously heralded a strategic shift on the part of the US. However, Trump dismantled the policy of engagement that had been in place since the restoration of relations between the two countries in the 1970s and, sadly, the Biden administration has been no improvement when it comes to US-China relations. Biden on the campaign trail criticized Trump’s trade war, but in office he’s continued and deepened it.

Regarding the Taiwan issue, Chen Weihua appealed to US politicians to not undermine the One China Principle or attempt to change the status quo over Taiwan. He stated that there is a consensus in China in favor of peaceful national reunification, and a general understanding that this process may take considerable time. For the US to encourage Taiwanese separatism and stoke the flames of conflict in the region is dangerous and ill-advised.

Video: ‘The East is Still Red’ launched in London

On Tuesday 6 June 2023, at Marx Memorial Library in London, we held a launch event for Carlos Martinez’s book The East is Still Red – Chinese socialism in the 21st century. Aside from Carlos, the meeting was addressed by Her Excellency Rocío Maneiro González (Venezuelan ambassador to the UK), Danny Haiphong, Roger McKenzie and Jenny Clegg, and was chaired by Iris Yau.

Carlos opened the session by discussing his purpose in writing the book. He stated that the two key motivations were: to oppose the propaganda war on China such that people’s consent isn’t manufactured for the West’s escalating campaign of containment and encirclement; and to contribute to building understanding of Chinese socialism. Describing China’s extraordinary achievements in the realms of poverty alleviation, green energy development, tackling Covid, and promoting a peaceful, multipolar world order, Carlos questioned why people on the left would want to ascribe such achievements to capitalism. In spite of the introduction of market elements to China’s economy, and its integration into global value chains, the working people led by the Communist Party maintain political power. This is the ‘secret’ of China’s incredible progress and the continuing improvement of people’s living standards.

Roger McKenzie, international editor of the Morning Star, discussed the racist ideology that forms a backdrop to the propaganda war on China and the West’s attempts to disrupt growing economic and political links between the countries of the Global South. Roger further talked about the inspiration the developing world is drawing from China – a country that has directed such massive resources towards improving people’s living standards, which is demonstrating in practice a clear alternative to ‘Washington Consensus’ neoliberalism.

Rocío Maneiro, who was Venezuela’s ambassador to China from 2004 until 2011, and who accompanied Hugo Chávez on his trips to China in that period, described living through a period in which the international balance of power shifted from West to East, principally due to the multipolar strategy promoted by China. Speaking as a representative of Venezuela – a country which continues to suffer due to the sanctions, destabilisation and coercion applied by the Western powers – Rocío stated that China’s international policy is based on equality, on win-win relations, on peaceful cooperation and a collective vision of a prosperous future for humanity. She concluded that, after reading The East is Still Red, “it is almost impossible to describe socialism as a failed political system.”

Danny Haiphong – a popular broadcaster, journalist and co-editor of Friends of Socialist China – focussed on the multipolar project which lies at the heart of China’s foreign policy. The US’s concern with China, Danny pointed out, is not simply about economic factors or the idea that China is becoming economically powerful; more fundamental is that China’s foreign policy – informed by its socialist political system – is offering the global majority a new and far more democratic model of international relations. The Belt and Road Initiative, the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and other bodies are changing the landscape of international cooperation; are bringing rapid development to the Global South and allowing them to assert their sovereignty and pursue their own development model. This shift constitutes an existential threat to the US-led imperialist world system.

Speaking by Zoom, Jenny Clegg – a longstanding China expert, academic and peace activist – discussed the relentless sinophobic propaganda that accompanies the escalating New Cold War. This propaganda cuts people off from understanding not only China’s internal dynamics but the multipolar project that it pursues. Multipolarity is already opening up space for sovereign development and cooperation in the Global South, and indeed is opening up new paths to socialism, but people in the West find themselves unable to understand and engage with these processes. As long as this is the case, the Western left will continue to struggle to develop its own role in the global struggle against imperialism and for socialism.

The speeches were followed by a lively discussion and Q&A session.

The video stream of the event, hosted by Danny Haiphong, is embedded below.

The West & China on the brink: will the New Cold War turn hot?

Britain’s Stop the War Coalition organized an online lecture and discussion on the danger of the new cold war with China turning hot on May 25, 2023. Dr. Jenny Clegg, former senior lecturer in Asia Pacific Studies as well as an officer of Stop the War and a member of the Friends of Socialist China advisory group, made a presentation and then responded to questions, initially from Chris Nineham, Vice Chair of Stop the War, who chaired the event.

Jenny detailed the extensive militarization of the vast Pacific Ocean by the United States and other imperialist powers, not least with the US Pacific Command based in Hawaii, the US bases located in their colonial territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, as well as in South Korea, Okinawa and the Japanese mainland, and the recent agreements to regain access to bases in the Philippines and to establish a base in Papua New Guinea. Due to its colonial presence in the region, far from the US mainland, the Pacific waters claimed by the US dwarf those claimed by China. Britain claims about the same amount of the Pacific as China by virtue of its continued colonial possession of the Pitcairn Islands (combined land area of 18 square miles; permanent inhabitants as of January 2020, 47), whilst France also claims vast waters from its colonial occupation of New Caledonia.

According to Jenny, at the center of US strategy to maintain its domination of the Pacific today is a move to create an Asian NATO via a number of initiatives, including linking the AUKUS agreement, between Australia, Britain and the United States, to the upgrading of its military alliance with Japan, to forging new military agreements with the Philippines, and so on. Britain is also at the center of such moves, with, for example, its new military alliance with Japan, along with its central role in AUKUS.

The video embedded below, originally uploaded by Stop the War, features Jenny’s introductory talk, along with her response to questions posed by Chris Nineham.