New Cold War Archives - Page 7 of 19 - Friends of Socialist China

US steps up effort to drive a wedge between Vietnam and China

In this article, which was originally carried in People’s World, Amiad Horowitz takes up a recent off-handed comment by US President Joe Biden, that he intends to travel to Vietnam shortly, noting that CNN described it as another attempt to “counter China’s influence.” Amiad further identified this as “part of the US’ new Cold War aimed at China and other socialist and progressive states, [with] leaders in Washington [hoping] to drive a wedge between China and Vietnam.”

Amiad notes that Washington has now been pursuing this policy for years, but with little success. Going along with this, he explains, “would go against the established tenets and guidelines of Vietnam’s foreign policy.”

The US has remained undeterred, but as “the Biden administration amps up the tensions in Asia, the Chinese and Vietnamese governments have chosen to pursue a path of cooperation and peace.”

To illustrate his argument, Amiad refers to high-level diplomatic meetings between the two socialist countries on August 9 and 10 as well as to other recent encounters:

“In fact, as the two largest socialist countries, their relationship takes on a special significance, a relationship of ‘brothers plus comrades’, as a joint statement put it in November last year.”

Immediately following the original publication of this article, on August 16, China’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Kunming the provincial capital of Yunnan, with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang.

Wang Yi told his visitor that, as neighbouring countries sharing the same ideology, “the two sides should prepare for the next stage of high-level exchanges.” They should also, Wang added, jointly uphold the ideals and beliefs of the communist party and the cause of socialism.

Tran was attending the Seventh China-South Asia Expo, along with other senior leaders from countries in the region, including Laos, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

Amiad Horowitz studied at the Academy of Journalism and Communications at Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics. He lives in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.

Last Tuesday, in an offhanded remark, President Joe Biden mentioned that he intends to travel to Vietnam “shortly” as part of an effort “to change our relationship” with the country. While no official plan, agenda, or timeline was given, CNN was quick to report that the Biden administration continues to hope it will be able bring Vietnam into the campaign to “counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.”

As part of the U.S.’ new Cold War aimed at China and other socialist and progressive states, leaders in Washington hope to drive a wedge between China and Vietnam. The two socialist states share a border, and it appears U.S. imperialism is determined to integrate Vietnam into its strategy of encircling China from all sides.

While the United States has pursued this wedge policy toward Vietnam for years, it hasn’t met with much success so far. Any explicitly anti-China agreement with the U.S. would go against the established tenets and guidelines of Vietnam’s foreign policy, which include peaceful coexistence with all states, avoiding entanglement in any military alliances, and never using the threat of violence against another country.

Washington remains undeterred in its effort to draw Vietnam in, however. As the Biden administration amps up the tensions in Asia, the Chinese and Vietnamese governments have chosen to pursue a path of cooperation and peace.

A transformative period in world history

This article by Irish journalist and former hunger striker Tommy McKearney, first published in Socialist Voice, assesses the deepening economic and political crisis of global capitalism – a crisis which is evolving into a full-blown crisis of legitimacy, given a powerful new factor: “the presence of a viable alternative in the east, that is, the People’s Republic of China.”

McKearney describes China’s growing weight in international relations, writing that it “has now become a leading influence in three of the world’s most important regions, and has done so without the use of military expansionism.” China’s multipolar strategy, and its consistent adherence to the principles of non-interference and win-win cooperation, have earned it the trust and support of much of the Global South. As far as the imperialist ruling classes are concerned, this constitutes more than just an economic problem: “A deeper concern is that the Communist Party of China has overseen the development of an economic template that is much more successful than that promoted by free-marketeers.”

The imperialists’ response to this crisis is the initiation of a reckless New Cold War – a strategy of hegemonism and hybrid warfare which is now more-or-less a consensus position in the corridors of power in Washington and London.

Referring to some of the Western left’s previous criticisms and misunderstandings of Chinese socialism, McKearney concludes his article with a significant comment: “Whatever view we took in the past about the Chinese path to socialism, it is incumbent upon us now to give adequate consideration to developments in that amazing country where the East is still glowing red.”

Over the past few months the public, or at least a section of it, has been watching with interest the trials and tribulations of two high-profile political demagogues. We refer, of course, to the arraignment of Donald Trump and the British House of Commons voting to censure Boris Johnson.

Yet in spite of what appeared to be damning indictments against both men, they have not been completely ostracised. Mainstream conservatives in both the United States and Britain have deliberately avoided outright condemnation of their actions. It is important to analyse the reason for this reluctance, as it casts a light on significant developments internationally.

The capitalist ruling class, led from the United States and embedded in Western Europe, has had more than two centuries to perfect techniques for retaining power. For the most part they prefer to create the appearance of governing by consensus. They do, after all, control the means of production, giving them enormous influence over employment, thereby facilitating the divide-and-rule strategy used to split working-class communities.

Moreover, ownership of the mass media allows for the creation of a self-justifying narrative. Granting the people a vote every few years lends the appearance of legitimacy to all of this.

Report: Online launch of The East is Still Red

On Sunday 13 August 2023, Friends of Socialist China, the International Manifesto Group, Midwestern Marx and Critical Theory Workshop jointly held an online book launch for Carlos Martinez’s The East is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century.

Speakers included Carlos Martinez, Ben Chacko (editor of the Morning Star), Chen Weihua (China Daily EU bureau chief), Amanda Yee (writer and podcaster), Dan Kovalik (author of NICARAGUA: A History of US Intervention and Resistance), Sara Flounders (author of SANCTIONS – A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy) and Charles Xu of Qiao Collective. The event was chaired by Professor Radhika Desai.

In Carlos’s introduction, he focused on debunking the notion that China has become an imperialist country, describing this as a powerfully demobilising idea at a time when we should be uniting the broadest possible forces against the US-led New Cold War. Carlos posed the following questions about China: Does it seek to dominate foreign markets, land, labour and resources? Does it use its economic strength to dictate policy or assert hegemony over poorer countries? Does it go to war in pursuit of its economic interests? Does it engage in regime change, destabilisation, unilateral sanctions and economic coercion, in pursuit of its economic interests?

Carlos argued that the answer to all these questions is a resounding no. He pointed out that China has not been involved in a war in over four decades, and does not have a global infrastructure of military bases or troop deployments. He also pointed out that China does not engage in regime change, destabilisation or unilateral sanctions, and has never used its economic strength to dictate policy or assert hegemony over poorer countries. He contrasted this with the record of the US and its allies – a record of military, economic and political imperialism.

Ben Chacko pointed out that it is crucial to develop a better understanding of China at the current time, in the context of rising US hostility and an emerging New Cold War. Highlighting the Biden regime’s extreme inconsistency in its China policy – on the one hand saying that it wants a cooperative relationship, and on the other hand undermining the One China Principle and escalating attempts at containment and encirclement – Ben noted that the US isn’t at all sure of its ability to actually win a Cold War against China. As such, it is making preparations for a potential hot war on China, which would clearly be disastrous for humanity.

China’s ecological civilization a profound contribution to humanity

In this opinion piece for the Global Times, Carlos Martinez describes the extraordinary progress made by China over the past two decades, emerging as a world leader in renewable energy, electric vehicles, green public transport and biodiversity protection. That China rather than the advanced capitalist countries has made such progress is “a reflection of China’s socialist system, which is structured in such a way that political and economic priorities are determined not by capital’s drive for constant expansion but by the needs and aspirations of the people.”

The West on the other hand, more interested in protecting its global hegemony than preventing climate breakdown, is moving in the opposite direction. The US’s proxy war on Russia has led to a huge increase in US exports of fracked shale gas to Europe; a rise in coal consumption in Europe; and ramped up oil drilling in the North Sea. Meanwhile the US and Britain have both recently announced major new drilling projects. And rather than cooperating with China, these countries impose sanctions on its renewable energy industry.

However, the countries of the Global South are enthusiastically cooperating with China and benefitting from its experience, support and investment. “Environmentalists in the West should draw the appropriate lessons, resolutely reject anti-China hysteria, oppose decoupling, oppose the new cold war, and promote maximum global cooperation to save the planet.”

Tuesday, August 15, marks China’s first National Ecology Day. On August 15, 2005, 18 years ago, Xi Jinping, then Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), first put forward the concept that green mountains are themselves gold mountains, when he visited Yucun, a village in Zhejiang Province.

At a national conference on ecological and environmental protection in July 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China should support high-quality development with a high-quality ecological environment and promote the modernization featuring the harmonious co-existence between human and nature.

Over the past decades, China has made extraordinary progress, emerging as a world leader in renewable energy, electric vehicles, green public transport and biodiversity protection.

A BBC News article of June 29 noted that, of the half a trillion US dollars spent worldwide on wind and solar last year, China accounted for 55 percent. China’s solar capacity is now greater than that of the rest of the world combined. Indeed, it can reasonably be considered as the first “renewable energy superpower.”

Around 99 percent of the world’s electric buses are in China, along with 70 percent of the world’s high-speed rail. China is carrying out the largest reforestation project in the world, with forest coverage having doubled from 12 percent in 1980 to 24 percent last year.

And China’s commitment to green development is only deepening. Environmental sustainability is a central theme at all levels of government, and the nation’s ambitious goals to achieve peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 are actively informing China’s economic strategy.

The new cold war is being fought at the planet’s expense

The following editorial from the Morning Star addresses recent absurd claims by British politicians and journalists that Chinese electric vehicles are being (or may be) used to spy on Britain. The author points out that this laughable notion is in fact part of “a weird trade protectionism operated on behalf of a foreign government (the United States)”, itself a component of a broader campaign of China containment.

The editorial observes that “major problems facing humanity require international co-operation — and China’s leading position in green technology makes co-operation in this field essential.” Given that China is home to nearly half of all electric vehicles and two-thirds of high-speed rail worldwide, and given that it “installed more renewable energy last year alone than the US has in its whole history”, coordination with China on environmental issues is a matter of urgent and obvious interest to the people of Britain and indeed the rest of the world. And yet the imperialist ruling classes continue to adhere to their Cold War slogan of better dead than red.

THE summer parliamentary recess once meant “silly season” for the newspapers because there was no politics to report.

Today it is politicians themselves publicising nonsense. MPs’ scaremongering that importing electric vehicle technology from China will allow our cars to spy on us is laughable.

The gaggle of ministers and backbenchers running to the Telegraph with their national security concerns do not, of course, suggest that China’s dominant position in the renewables industry says anything positive about it.

China might be home to nearly half of all electric vehicles worldwide, two-thirds of high-speed rail, and have installed more renewable energy last year alone than the United States has done in its whole history. It might account for 60 per cent of wind power manufacturing and 75 per cent of solar.

Anything to learn from this? The advantages of economic planning? Of targeted public investment in strategic sectors?

No, the MPs show no concern with investing in the British renewables sector. Their priority is to keep China out — even if it means ditching green tech.

Rules suggesting car-dealers hit a minimum quota of 22 per cent of sales being of electric vehicles by next year should be scrapped, they say.

Mournfully they hint that perhaps even the plan to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 must be cast aside, in case it proves a Trojan horse for Beijing.

The most reactionary wing of the Conservative Party has scented an opportunity since their Uxbridge by-election victory — assigned by both Tories and Labour to the unpopularity of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s ultra-low emissions zone.

The PM quickly painted himself as the champion of motorists. He trumpeted daily reliance on cars by a majority of British households as evidence that cars are fantastic, not that something needs to be done about our public transport system. Advocates of buses, trains or bicycles are ivory-tower dwelling elitists, says a man who criss-crosses England by private jet.

By the end of July the Express was reporting plans of a “major rebellion” by Tories against any phase-out for petrol and diesel cars. Back-bench MP Nick Fletcher calls low-traffic neighbourhoods a “socialist plot” — if electric cars can be depicted as a communist conspiracy, so much the better for Big Oil.

Of course, MPs are not just hyping the China threat to protect fossil fuel interests.

The new cold war is a much wider phenomenon. This is not the first time Britain has shot itself in the foot in order to “decouple” from China: in 2020 the government scrapped its agreement with Huawei to deliver 5G, a move former business secretary Vince Cable pointed out was not based on security concerns but blind obedience to the United States.

But major problems facing humanity require international co-operation — and China’s leading position in green technology makes co-operation in this field essential.

Sanctions applied to Chinese solar panel exports based on US allegations of forced labour slowed commissioning of new solar energy plants in the US by an estimated 25 per cent last year.

We are hobbling emissions reduction based on rumours — nothing more. Even the much-vaunted “spy balloon” shot down by the US earlier this year never did any spying, Washington quietly admitted a few weeks later.

In the process, we are shoring up US dominance of high-tech and digital platforms — with the transatlantic furore against TikTok being used to drive out a rare non-US-owned digital player and entrench the position of companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, which are repeatedly caught spying on their users.

The new cold war is becoming a vehicle for the right to secure liberal consent to greater censorship, a weird trade protectionism operated on behalf of a foreign government (the United States) and abandonment of environmental targets.

The left should not fall into the same trap.

Activists demand Biden and Congress end war on Korea

In the following article, which was originally published by Workers World, Joe Piette reports on the broad-based National Mobilization to End the Korean War, that was held in Washington DC, July 27-28, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the signing of the armistice agreement that ended three years of bitter fighting on the Korean peninsula.

Events included a press conference in front of the US Capitol, a rally in front of the White House, and a conference at George Washington University, where the keynote speaker was the renowned progressive scholar, Professor Bruce Cumings.

Joe also points out that the current US war drive against China is once again increasing the threat to the Korean people, too. “To stop this campaign,” Joe writes, “peace-loving people must organize resistance. This effort must include self-education to undermine mass media misinformation against China. Recommended reading should include The East is Still Red, by Carlos Martinez [co-editor of this website].”

July 27 was the 70th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended combat in the Korean War. That agreement — among the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the north, the People’s Republic of China and the United States — to suspend fighting was expected to be temporary, in anticipation of negotiations for a peace treaty after three months. The Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south was not a signatory of the truce.

Since then, however, the U.S. has stationed tens of thousands of troops in South Korea, tensions remain high, and to this day a peace agreement has never been reached.

The 70 years of U.S. (and more recently, U.N.) sanctions, isolation and military threats have denied the DPRK’s population the necessities of life, prevented the reunification of Korea and prolonged the state of war. It is time to end the Korean War and reunite Korean families, demilitarize the Korean Peninsula and reduce the risk of nuclear war in northeast Asia.

The stated goal of the Korea Peace Action Coalition organizers is to urge “President Biden and Congress to support a formal end to the Korean War. In Congress, we’re asking for the support of H.R.1369, the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, which calls for diplomacy with North Korea to formally end the Korean War, a comprehensive review of travel restrictions to North Korea, and the establishment of liaison offices in the U.S. and North Korea.”

End the Korean War now!

A news conference on July 27 in front of the U.S. Capitol featured a broad array of activists and organizations: Christine Ahn, Women Cross DMZ; Joy Gebhard, Divided Family Member; Rick Downes, Coalition of Families of Korean & Cold War POW/MIAs; Lt. General (Retired) Daniel P. Leaf, U.S. Air Force; Joyce Ajlouny, American Friends Service Committee; Hana Marie Kim, 30 Under 30 activist and high school student; and Barbara Lee, U.S. Congress member from California.

Following the press event, an emotional Han ceremony at the Foundry United Methodist Church gave the many participants of Korean ancestry an opportunity to express and manage the complex emotions of sorrow, resentment, grief, sadness and hope that afflict many members of families separated during the Korean War and the following seven decades of a divided Korea.

Later, a rally in front of the White House featured Echo Hyunsook Cho, Women Cross DMZ; Medea Benjamin, Code Pink; internet personality Nick Cho, “Your Korean Dad”; and other speakers. It was followed by a spirited mile-long march past the Korean War Veterans Monument to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where an interfaith vigil was held.

DPRK expresses full solidarity with China in light of US provocations

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has expressed its full solidarity with its socialist neighbour and ally after the United States recently declared its intention to provide the Chinese renegade province of Taiwan with a further 345 million dollars’ worth of weapons.

In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 4, Maeng Yong Rim, director general of the Department of Chinese Affairs in the DPRK’s Foreign Ministry, noted that the US action, “constitutes a flagrant violation of the one China principle, which the US committed itself to before the Chinese government and people, and of the spirit of the three China-US joint communiqués. It is also an interference in the internal affairs of China and a grave encroachment on China’s sovereignty and security.”

According to the DPRK official:

“While talking about the improvement of relations with China, the present US administration is clinging to the Taiwan issue, the most important core interests of China. Its intention is clear.

“It is the sinister intention of the US to turn Taiwan into an unsinkable advanced base against China and the first-line trench for carrying out its strategy for deterring China and thus secure its hegemonic position in the Asia-Pacific region.

“But the US ambition for hegemony can never work on the strength of the powerful Chinese people.”

Maeng Yong Rim went on to warn: “Independent and sovereign states in the Asia-Pacific region have the strength and will to firmly defend their sovereignty and core interests from the US high-handed and arbitrary practices.”

His statement concluded: “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will fully support any measure of the People’s Republic of China to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and achieve the sacred cause of the unification of the Chinese nation.”

The following article was originally carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Maeng Yong Rim, director general of the Department of Chinese Affairs of the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK, issued the following press statement on August 3:

Recently, the U.S. made public “Weapons Aid Package” for providing Taiwan with weapons worth 345 million U.S. dollars, thus driving the military tensions in the Asia-Pacific region to another ignition point of war.

In less than three years since the present U.S. administration came into power, it provided military aid to Taiwan as times as the preceding administration had done.

The U.S. is planning to provide Taiwan with military aid worth 10 billion U.S. dollars for the coming five years and emergency defense aid worth a billion U.S. dollars every year.

This constitutes a flagrant violation of the one China principle, which the U.S. committed itself before the Chinese government and people, and of the spirit of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués. It is also an interference in internal affairs of China and a grave encroachment on China’s sovereignty and security.

The U.S. says in public that it abides by the principle of one China but instigates in the rear the “independence” of Taiwan, inseparable part of China. Such shameless duality and double-dealing of the U.S. are a dangerous political and military provocation totally destroying the stability of the regional situation and an anti-peace reckless act which must be condemned by the world people.

‘The East Is Still Red’ a necessary read

In this review, first published in Workers World, John Catalinotto commends Carlos Martinez’s recently-released The East is Still Red as a valuable contribution to the discussion among Marxists regarding the class character of the People’s Republic of China. John considers that the book “arms anti-imperialists with the truth” about China, and convincingly argues the need for those in the West to resolutely struggle against the calamitous US-led New Cold War.

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

With his recently published book, “The East Is Still Red,” Carlos Martinez has clarified the role of the Chinese revolution in improving the lives of a fifth of humanity. The book is a contribution to the discussion among Marxists regarding the class character of the People’s Republic of China.

As the title implies, Martinez argues that the PRC is still socialist and that anti-imperialists worldwide should defend People’s China against U.S. and world imperialism.

The book’s six chapters are based on articles published in 2021 and 2022, organized into a succinct and well-sourced presentation of Martinez’s arguments.

Martinez shows the achievements of People’s China in the chapters, “China’s long war on poverty” and “China is building an ecological civilisation.” If it were just a problem of presenting facts, he would win by a landslide. His challenge is overcoming imperialism’s domination of the worldwide media and miseducation, aka, the Big Lie.

For example, Martinez quotes from international agencies to point out that China’s recent economic growth has moved hundreds of millions of people out of poverty into a stable and secure life: “To eradicate extreme poverty in a developing country of 1.4 billion people — which at the time of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was one of the poorest countries in the world, characterized by widespread malnutrition, illiteracy, foreign domination and technological backwardness — is without doubt ‘the greatest anti-poverty achievement in history,’ in the words of United Nations Secretary General António Guterres.” (un.org/press/en/2019/sgsm19779.doc.htm)

This should convince anyone. However, imperialism’s Big Lie condemns everything in China, twisting reality into its opposite and imposing a distorted version of the world. This skews perception among much of the population in the imperialist heartlands of North America, Europe, Japan and Australia.

In the chapter, “Manufacturing consent for the containment and encirclement of China,” the author describes how mind-bending weapons of the imperialist ruling class have waged a relentless ideological assault on People’s China, in preparation for war.

What makes the book important is that it arms anti-imperialists with the truth. They can learn from it and repeat this truth to all who will pay attention. This process is a first step to building solidarity with People’s China at a time when the U.S. government wages an economic war and sails warships near the Chinese coast.

Is China socialist?

The big question for those who consider themselves to be on the side of socialist revolution is: What is the class character of People’s China?

Martinez notes that, “[F]or many on the left (particularly in the West), 1978 marked a turning point in the wrong direction — away from socialism, away from the cause of the working class and peasantry. The introduction of private profit, the decollectivization of agriculture, the appearance of multinational companies and the rise of Western influence: these added up to a historic betrayal and an end to the Chinese Revolution [this part of the left argues].

“The consensus view within the Communist Party of China is that socialism with Chinese characteristics is a strategy aimed at strengthening socialism, improving the lives of the Chinese people, and consolidating China’s sovereignty.”

Martinez agrees with the CPC’s consensus. He spends a good part of the book presenting the Chinese experience since 1978. Nearly 100 million party members are defending socialist property rights, even though a capitalist class has grown — it includes billionaires — and great inequalities in wealth exist. Imperialist corporations are exploiting Chinese labor. The CPC’s success in continually improving the daily lives of all China’s inhabitants, he argues, has cemented the working class’s loyalty to the Beijing government and to the CPC.

That China’s economy has weathered the 2008 capitalist crisis that brought capitalist finance to the brink of collapse is proof that the billionaires are not driving decisions, even though they were allowed to join the CPC. The party stayed in control and built “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

That China came through the COVID-19 challenge, began a shift toward defending the environment and was able to plan industrial development instead of letting the hunt for profit distort its growth are themselves proof of this success.

In the chapter, “Will China suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union?” Martinez presents in a positive light the CPC’s position of strength, and does it well. One point Workers World disagrees with, however, is attributing the Soviet failure to individual Soviet misleaders, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. These two were representatives of broad sectors within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and their decisions reflected a long process of deterioration of the CPSU, under relentless pressure from the world capitalist class. This point will require further analysis.

An important question worthy of further discussion is the possible consequence of limiting mass mobilizations in the long struggle for communist ideals — such as “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” If sacrifices are necessary to defend the socialist state with Chinese characteristics, for example, from imperialist attack, how does the party fire up ideological commitment from its population without this mobilization? How will the CPC mobilize international support from the masses without an appeal to egalitarian ideals?

Defend People’s China

Martinez convinces the reader in the chapter, “The left must resolutely oppose the U.S.-led New Cold War on China,” of the necessity of this task. In doing this, he performs a service to the worldwide movement for socialism.

The struggle against the New Cold War is an indispensable component of the struggle for socialism

The Communist Party USA held its second International Conference on 29 July 2023. Below is the video and text of the presentation delivered by Carlos Martinez on behalf of Friends of Socialist China. Carlos describes the escalating US-led New Cold War against China and warns of its dangers, concluding: “The struggle against imperialism, against hegemony and against Cold War is not a ‘nice to have’ for our movement; it’s an indispensable component of our work, of our struggle for socialism and a brighter future for humanity.”

The conference also featured contributions by representatives of the governing communist parties of China, Vietnam and Cuba, alongside speeches by numerous other organizations and individuals. The full event is can be viewed on YouTube.

Greetings on behalf of Friends of Socialist China to the CPUSA International Conference 2023. It’s an honour to be invited to participate in this event; to join you in struggle against an imperialist system that’s destroying the planet, whilst spreading war, chaos, poverty, inequality and misery.

As you know well, the United States is leading a multifaceted campaign of containing and encircling China. This escalating Cold War has multiple components: sanctions; a trade war; a propaganda war; the undermining of the One China Policy; the arming of Taiwan province; so-called Freedom of Navigation Assertions in the South China Sea; the formation of AUKUS – a trilateral nuclear pact with Australia and Britain, which is in clear violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; the encouraging of Japanese re-armament; the attempt to stop China developing advanced semiconductor technology; the attacks on Huawei and TikTok. The list goes on.

It’s a Cold War in the sense that it doesn’t currently involve direct military engagement between the main protagonists, but that may well not permanently be the case, given the levels of recklessness and stupidity prevailing in Washington DC and elsewhere in the imperialist camp.

What’s the purpose of this New Cold War? It’s not only about suppressing China, or rolling back the Chinese Revolution. Just as the original Cold War was fought not exclusively against the Soviet Union but against the very notion that the nations of the world could exercise sovereignty and independence; so is this Second Cold War about preventing humanity’s trajectory towards a multipolar system of international relations, about preserving, defending and consolidating US hegemony – or as Truman called it, “a world environment in which the American system can flourish.”

China is the primary target – because it’s become a major power; because it’s become the economic centre of gravity for the Global South; because it’s become a science and technology powerhouse; because its people live increasingly well; because its extraordinary successes in tackling poverty, improving its people’s living standards, developing green energy systems, fighting the pandemic and more provide material proof that Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” was a mirage, that neoliberal capitalism is not the final stage of human development.

There’s a great deal at stake in today’s epic struggle between the forces of imperialism and the forces of multipolarity and socialism.

Book review: IF Stone – The Hidden History of the Korean War

Written to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement, this book review by Carlos Martinez of IF Stone’s recently re-issued The Hidden History of the Korean War seeks to identify the lessons to be learnt from the so-called “forgotten war”, and to draw out parallels between the original Cold War in the Pacific and the New Cold War in the Pacific.

A shorter version of this review was published in the Morning Star.

The 27th of July 2023 marks 70 years since the signing of the armistice agreement at Panmunjom, finally bringing about a cessation of hostilities in a war that was extraordinarily destructive but which has been largely ignored.

As Bruce Cumings writes in his preface to I.F. Stone’s classic The Hidden History of the Korean War – first published in 1952 and recently reissued by Monthly Review Press – the Korean War is a forgotten war, “remembered mainly as an odd conflict sandwiched between the good war (World War 2) and the bad war (Vietnam).”

For those seeking to build a peaceful and prosperous future for humanity, the lessons of the Korean War must not be forgotten. Indeed re-reading The Hidden History it becomes clear that there are several crucial parallels with today’s world.

Stone’s meticulous investigation provides abundant proof that most of the key players in the US government and military actively wanted the Korean War; that it was the right war, in the right place and the right time in terms of US imperialist interests.

Top US generals have since admitted that their “police action” in Korea gave them just the excuse they needed to construct the military infrastructure of Cold War in the Pacific: a vast network of overseas bases; large-scale, long-term deployments of US troops in Korea and Japan; and the permanent stationing of nuclear warheads in the region.

The Korean War set the whole military-industrial complex in motion. It created the national security state. It was the first major test case for the Truman Doctrine of “support for democracies against authoritarian threats” and helped establish the US in its self-assumed role of global policeman. By forcing through a United Nations endorsement of its invasion, the US was able to establish its dominance of the UN-based international system.

Reading Izzy Stone’s reporting today, it’s striking the extent to which these mechanisms of Cold War still exist and are being used to wage a New Cold War. The military bases, the troop deployments, the nuclear threats that aimed to contain socialism and prevent the emergence of a multipolar world in the 1950s continue to serve the same purposes in 2023.

Stone’s book emphasises that peace was very much an option in 1950.

The Soviet Union of course wanted peace; having lost 27 million lives and sustained incredible damage to its infrastructure in the course of saving the world from Nazism, the Soviets needed space to rebuild. The People’s Republic of China also wanted peace; having only been founded in October 1949 after long years of civil war and struggle against Japanese occupation, the last thing the new state needed was to become embroiled in another war. (In the event, nearly 400,000 Chinese volunteers gave their lives fighting in Korea).

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.