Socialism Archives - Page 2 of 12 - Friends of Socialist China

105 years of the Communist Party of China – true to its principles, firm in its course

The 1st of July 2026, marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. To mark the occasion, we are pleased to publish this reflection by Oliver Vargas, a British-Bolivian current affairs commentator working for CGTN in Beijing, written from Yan’an – the revolutionary base where the Long March ended and where the Party made its headquarters through the most decisive years of war and revolution.

Vargas argues that the revolutionary sites of Yan’an are best understood as global heritage sites of the international workers’ movement, whose lessons belong to the peoples of Latin America and the wider Global South. He locates the secret of the Party’s enduring vitality in its tradition of rigorous self-governance and self-reform – a habit written into its DNA since 1921 and raised by Xi Jinping into a systematic doctrine – bound together with its unbroken bond with the people.

Laureano Ortega visits China

Laureano Ortega Murillo, Presidential Advisor of Nicaragua for the Promotion of Investment, Trade and International Cooperation, and Coordinator for Cooperation with China, visited China recently.

On June 22, Laureano and his delegation met with Vice-minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee (IDCPC) Ma Hui.

The following article was originally published on the IDCPC website.

Ma Hui Meets with Laureano Ortega Murillo, Presidential Advisor of Nicaragua and Coordinator for Cooperation with China

Beijing, June 22 (IDCPC) – Ma Hui, Vice-minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, met here today with a delegation headed by Laureano Ortega Murillo, Presidential Advisor of Nicaragua for the Promotion of Investment, Trade and International Cooperation, and Coordinator for Cooperation with China.

Ma said that since the two countries resumed diplomatic relations five years ago, China-Nicaragua relations have achieved leapfrog development under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state. China appreciates Nicaragua’s firm adherence to the one-China principle and will continue to support Nicaragua in safeguarding national sovereignty and dignity, independently choosing a development path suited to its national conditions, and opposing foreign interference. The CPC cherishes its traditional friendship with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua, and stands ready to deepen the exchange of experience in state governance and administration and expand the breadth and depth of inter-party exchanges, so as to advance sustained and steady development of China-Nicaragua relations. Ma also briefed the guests on the rich essence of Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building and on the education campaign on establishing and practicing the correct view of governance performance.

Laureano highly commended the results of bilateral cooperation over the past five years. He reiterated Nicaragua’s firm adherence to the one-China principle, and said that inter-party exchanges are an important pillar of bilateral relations. The FSLN stands ready to further deepen inter-party exchanges and cooperation, strengthen the sharing of experience in party governance and state governance, and deliver greater benefits to the two peoples.

Erwin Ramirez, Minister of Development, Industry and Commerce of Nicaragua, Ramiro José Cruz Flores, Nicaragua’s Ambassador to China, and others attended the meeting.

Cuba and China reaffirm socialist solidarity

As previously noted by us, on June 11, a video call was held between Liu Haixing, Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee (IDCPC) and Emilio Lozada García, Head of the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).

The following article was originally published on the website of the IDCPC.

Liu Haixing Holds a Video Call with Emilio Lozada García, Head of the International Relations Department of the PCC Central Committee

June 11 (IDCPC) – Liu Haixing, Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee (IDCPC), held a video call with Emilio Lozada García, Head of the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).

Liu said that as comrades and brothers in the socialist camp, the Chinese people will always stand together with the Cuban people. No matter how the international landscape evolves, the commitment of the CPC and the Chinese government to the long-term friendship with Cuba will not change; the resolve to support Cuba in pursuing a socialist path suited to its national conditions will not change; and the direction of advancing China-Cuba practical cooperation and helping the Cuban people improve their lives will not change. He noted that in the face of extreme external pressure, the Cuban people, under the strong leadership of the PCC Central Committee, have firmly safeguarded national sovereignty and security and demonstrated unwavering determination to oppose foreign interference. A just cause enjoys abundant support, while an unjust one finds little. China firmly supports the just struggle of the PCC and the Cuban people.

Lozada stated that Cuba and the entire Latin America are currently going through a complex and grave situation. In disregard of the basic norms of international law and the universal opposition of the international community, the United States has escalated its blockade and sanctions against Cuba in all respects, which has seriously violated the Cuban people’s rights to subsistence and development and caused severe difficulties and challenges to Cuba’s economic and social development. The solidarity and firm support China has shown to Cuba are of vital importance to Cuba. The PCC congratulates the CPC on its upcoming 105th anniversary and stands ready to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the CPC to advance the building of a Cuba-China community with a shared future.

Cuba’s economic reforms and the prospects for socialist renewal

The following article by Carlos Martinez, co-editor of Friends of Socialist China and author of The East Is Still Red, examines the most far-reaching changes to Cuba’s economic model in more than 60 years – a programme of 23 strategic axes and 176 measures approved unanimously this month by the National Assembly.

Much of the Western press, and a good part of the Western left, has rushed to read the reforms as the moment the blockade finally broke the Revolution. Carlos argues the opposite: that they are best understood as a defence of socialism under siege, following the strategic logic China has pursued since 1978 – the controlled use of markets and foreign investment to develop the productive forces while the Communist Party retains political power and public ownership of the commanding heights. As the Cuba specialist Isaac Saney puts it, the measures, “far from representing a retreat”, constitute “a strategic effort to preserve and deepen the social gains of the Revolution”.

The article sets the reforms against the backdrop of an unprecedented US siege – 64 years of blockade, escalated under Trump and Rubio, with fuel choked off and blackouts of up to twenty hours a day – and traces Cuba’s two decades of gradual reform, from Raúl Castro’s “Guidelines” to the Mariel Special Economic Zone consciously modelled on China and Vietnam. The decisive question, Carlos insists, is the one that separated Beijing’s reforms from Gorbachev’s “perestroika”: who holds political power? Cuba, he argues, is travelling the road of China’s reform and opening up, not the Soviet road of perestroika – and China’s solidarity, in energy, food and party-to-party ties, may prove decisive.

In President Díaz-Canel’s words: “There is no sovereignty with an empty plate” – and “We are not going to come together only to resist. We are going to come together to create. To produce. To decide. To oversee. To prosper, and to transform.”

A version of this article, translated into Portuguese, can be found on Brasil de Fato.

China’s success vindicates the project of the global left

The video below is an interview of Carlos Martinez by Jason Smith, for CGTN’s The Bridge to China podcast. Recorded in the lead-up to the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the wide-ranging conversation covers the nature of China’s economic system, the achievements of Chinese socialism, the state of the left in the West, and the transition to a multipolar world.

Carlos argues that China is best understood on its own terms, as socialism with Chinese characteristics: a fundamentally socialist system with a significant market component, in which the state holds the commanding heights – banking, energy, telecommunications, rail and the top levels of industry – and directs investment through national planning. The presence of markets, billionaires or inequality does not make a country capitalist; what matters is which class holds power, and the ultimate measure is the living standards of ordinary working people.

On that measure, China stands apart: it is the country that has eliminated extreme poverty, effectively ended homelessness, and pursued common prosperity, a world-leading renewable energy build-out and the saving of lives during the Covid pandemic. If China is socialist and succeeding, Carlos contends, that vindicates the project of the global left – which is precisely why the West’s new cold war is aimed at preventing a socialist alternative from succeeding.

The interview surveys the scale of China’s transformation – some 800 million people lifted out of poverty, the “seven guarantees” that underpin poverty alleviation, life expectancy rising from around 35 at liberation to over 79 today, near-universal mortgage-free home ownership, and the most extensive public infrastructure in the world. Comparing China with India – liberated within two years of one another, from similar starting points – Carlos draws out what a revolution and Communist Party-led planning have made possible: sovereign development free of IMF discipline, coherent five-year plans, and the capacity for mass mobilisation, exemplified by the three million cadres deployed in the poverty alleviation campaign.

Turning to the West, Carlos describes the long retreat of the left under the neoliberal counter-revolution – de-industrialisation, the rise of the precariat, and a social peace bought with the super-profits of imperialism that are now drying up. He points to the crisis of confidence deepened by Gaza and to the Corbyn moment as signs that material reality is shifting, and to a growing openness to China – from “Chinamaxxing” and the RedNote migration to the surge in inbound tourism. The dogmatism that still leads much of the Western left to withhold recognition of China’s decidedly socialist achievements, he argues, plays into a US grand strategy whose core is the encirclement and containment of China.

The lesson for developed and developing countries alike, Carlos concludes, is that public ownership is not inefficient but the precondition for any serious industrial policy, that long-term planning beats short-term shareholder value, and that the West must come to terms with an inevitably multipolar world – starting, at a minimum, with adherence to the United Nations Charter.

Danny Haiphong: There is reason to hope

The following article by Danny Haiphong – journalist, broadcaster and a co-founder of Friends of Socialist China – argues that, against the nihilism and pessimism spreading through the West, geopolitics and political economy offer genuine grounds for optimism. He frames US unipolar imperialism (less than a century old) and Western colonialism (about four centuries old) as brief blips in human history, met throughout by constant resistance – from Maroon societies to twentieth-century liberation movements.

The US empire, Danny contends, is in material decline: its share of global GDP has fallen from 35–50 percent in 1945 to 20–25 percent now, while manufacturing has shrunk to under 10 percent of the economy, leaving it dominated by finance, insurance, real estate and military contracting. Endless war is therefore a symptom of weakness, not strength – the warmongers can only destroy, not build.

A multipolar reality is emerging. China is the article’s prime example: from being one of the poorest countries in the world at the time of the founding of the People’s Republic, it has managed to eliminate extreme poverty and become a leader in robotics, AI, high-speed rail, renewables and reforestation, with over 90 percent public trust in government grounded in results. Danny extends the case to a resurgent, sanctions-proof Russia; to Iran, whose retaliation against US–Israeli strikes and control over the Strait of Hormuz have significantly increased its global standing; and to smaller states defying sanctions – the DPRK’s construction boom, Zimbabwe’s recovery from the crippling sanctions imposed by the west to punish the country for land reform, and Cuba’s healthcare achievements despite blockade.

Danny concludes:

The sociopathic rulers of US empire (what some have deemed the Epstein class) are committed to taking everyone down with their collapsing system of empire and neoliberal capitalism. Endless war and theft masquerading as economics is the only path left in front of them. US-Israeli genocide in Palestine and Lebanon, not to mention the dozens of other deadly wars and the imposition of abject poverty for more than half the planet to enrich just eight ultra-rich individuals, understandably fuel despair and disgust amongst those in the collective West who detest this reality. But there is reason to hope. We can find it in the billions of people struggling to build a better world.

Pure socialism is pure idealism: a reply to Jacobin on China

In the following article, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez responds to a recent Jacobin book review which presents China’s economic rise as a simple story of “brutal exploitation” indistinguishable from the horrors of Britain’s industrial revolution.

While not doubting the hardships described in the book under review, Carlos argues that Jacobin’s framing is ahistorical and idealist. China’s growth has not merely enriched a class of capitalists but transformed the lives of the majority, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and improving working class wages and conditions at an extraordinary pace.

The book review essentially compares China with an imagined socialist utopia, rather than comparing China with other destinations of outsourced production – where wages are lower, repression harsher, and no comparable rise in living standards is on offer.

Drawing on Friedrich Engels, Deng Xiaoping, Michael Parenti and John Smith, the article shows how China’s socialist land ownership system has protected living standards for hundreds of millions, and how the state is working to expand protections for workers in the “gig economy”. The article concludes:

At a moment when China is the largest and most developed socialist country on earth; when it is the leading proponent of a multipolar world order; and when it is the target of a systematic propaganda war designed to manufacture consent for a New Cold War (and ultimately hot war), for self-described socialists and anti-imperialists to offer this kind of context-free condemnation is, to say the least, deeply unhelpful.

Jacobin has published a review by Daniel Cheng of Adrift in the South, the memoir of the Chinese worker-poet Xiao Hai, detailing the harsh conditions he faced as a migrant worker in the megacities of southern China.

The book itself sounds interesting and worthwhile, and there is no reason to doubt the harshness of the conditions Xiao Hai describes. But the frame the review wraps around his story – that China’s economic miracle was “made possible by the brutal exploitation of millions of workers”, and that China’s development and the dark satanic mills of Britain’s industrialisation can be comfortably placed together in a category of “the universal suffering of capitalism” – is ahistorical, idealist, and, in the present geopolitical conjuncture, actively unhelpful.

Exploitation has to be contextualised

The first thing to say is that China’s growth has not simply enriched a class of capitalists. It has transformed the lives of the great majority. Over the past half-century, China has lifted an estimated 800 million people out of extreme poverty – by the World Bank’s own reckoning, more than three-quarters of the entire reduction in global poverty over the same period. Chinese workers and farmers today live longer, eat better, are far better educated and enjoy a level of material security their grandparents could barely have imagined.

Manufacturing wages roughly trebled between 2005 and 2016, and real wages have continued to climb at an impressive clip. The rate of exploitation of Chinese labour has been falling, not rising.

Webinar: Imperialism vs multipolarity – The US and China’s clashing visions of the international order (21 June)

📆 Sunday 21 June 2026, 2pm Britain, 9am US Eastern, 9pm China

A discussion of the Trump-Xi summit, the tariff war, US military aggression across the Global South, and the prospects for the world to come.

When Donald Trump arrived in Beijing in May for talks with President Xi Jinping – the first visit by a US president in nine years – the observant could detect a major shift in the international order. Successive US administrations’ increasingly desperate efforts to maintain dominance – through tariffs, sanctions, military aggression and technology warfare – have been failing as China’s economic might and diplomatic influence have grown. The trip Trump had hoped to make in triumph had to be made amid the disaster of his failing war on Iran, on top of the earlier failure of his tariff war against China.

Rather than projecting power, Trump was left with no alternative but to treat China as a peer. China now accounts for roughly 30 percent of global manufacturing output; the Belt and Road Initiative spans continents; and a growing majority of the world’s people are orientating away from US hegemonism and towards a pluripolar future. Xi’s quietly confident offer of “a new paradigm of major-country relations” and a “constructive relationship of strategic stability” went largely unchallenged.

Trump will undoubtedly flail against this new reality, and that flailing will bring further misery to the world. But there are signs that a critical corner is being turned in the journey towards a multipolar world order based on sovereignty, development and peace.

Join our panel of analysts, activists and scholars for a wide-ranging discussion of the Trump-Xi summit and its aftermath, the tariff war, US military aggression across the Global South, and the prospects for the world to come.

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

Confirmed speakers

Cheng Enfu (President of the World Association for Political Economy)
Ben Norton (Founder and editor-in-chief, Geopolitical Economy Report)
Carlos Martinez (Co-editor, Friends of Socialist China)
Jacquie Luqman (Black Alliance for Peace)
Jenny Clegg (Author and peace campaigner)
Ken Hammond (Professor of History, New Mexico State University; Pivot to Peace)
Mick Dunford (Emeritus Professor, University of Sussex)
Mike Klonsky (Educator, author and activist)
Moderator: Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group)

Complete success of Xi Jinping’s visit takes relations with DPRK to new height

Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and President of the People’s Republic of China, paid a state visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), from June 8-9 at the invitation of his DPRK counterpart Kim Jong Un.

Xi Jinping, together with his wife Peng Liyuan and his delegation, arrived at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport at around noon where they were greeted by DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that:

“The historic Pyongyang meeting between the top leaders of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of China was arranged again at a time when the traditional DPRK-China friendship, forged in the long journey for independence against imperialism, peace and the accomplishment of the socialist cause, weathering all hardships of the times, is being developed at a new strategic level.

“Comrade Xi Jinping’s visit to the DPRK in the significant year marking the 65th anniversary of the conclusion of the DPRK-China Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance serves as the important and meaningful one in developing the DPRK-China friendly and cooperative relations, the strategic option and valuable common asset of the two parties and the peoples of the two countries.”

A welcoming ceremony for the Chinese leader was held in Kim Il Sung Square in the heart of the DPRK capital.

As Xi Jinping and his wife arrived by car, a cavalry escort lined up to welcome them while the military band played welcoming tunes. Kim Jong Un and his wife greeted Xi Jinping and his wife at the square. Xi Jinping and his wife, along with Kim Jong Un and his wife, shook hands with their respective accompanying personnel. The top leaders of the two parties and two countries jointly ascended the review stand as the military bands played the national anthems of China and the DPRK, with a 21-gun salute. Accompanied by Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping inspected the honour guard of the three services of the Korean People’s Army. Guardsmen shouted in Korean, “Wish Comrade Xi Jinping good health”. Afterward, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un watched the march-past together.

En route from the airport to Kim Il Sung Square and then from Kim Il Sung Square to the Kumsusan State Guesthouse, where Xi Jinping stayed during his visit, people of the DPRK lined both sides of the streets, waving to welcome Xi’s arrival.

The two leaders held talks during the afternoon.

Xi Jinping noted that after seven years, he is very pleased to once again visit the beautiful city of Pyongyang and feels especially warm and familiar. He expressed his readiness to work with Comrade General Secretary to take this visit as an opportunity to strengthen top-level planning and strategic guidance for China-DPRK relations in the new era, promote bilateral relations advancing with the times and achieving greater progress, so as to better benefit the two countries and peoples, and make positive contributions to peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and the world.

Xi stressed that China and the DPRK are both socialist countries led by communist parties. The traditional friendship between the two countries is rooted in their shared ideals and beliefs as well as their common goals, and is backed by a profound historical foundation, a solid political basis and strong emotional bonds. Friendship passed down from generation to generation, a shared future and mutual support have always been the defining features of China-DPRK relations. No matter how the international situation changes, the Chinese party and government’s firm stance on highly valuing China-DPRK traditional friendship will not change, the firm support for General Secretary Kim Jong Un in leading the DPRK’s socialist cause will not change, and the firm commitment to safeguarding the shared interests of the two countries and preserving a favorable strategic environment will not change.

Xi Jinping pointed out that, in the face of the profound changes unseen in a century that are accelerating across the world, the two sides should take a broad and long-term view, build on past achievements and open up a new future, draw wisdom from the development process of the relations between the two parties and the two countries, seize opportunities in the prevailing trend of human history, inject new contemporary connotations and strong impetus into the traditional friendship between China and the DPRK, and open up a brighter prospect for the socialist cause of the two countries as well as regional peace and development.

Xi Jinping: The shared socialist ideal is the defining character of China-DPRK relations

Immediately prior to his arrival in the DPRK capital Pyongyang, Rodong Sinmun (Workers’ Newspaper), the central organ of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), published a signed article by Xi Jinping, entitled, ‘Carrying Forward the Past and Opening the Future, Forging Ahead Together – Writing a New Chapter in the Traditional China-DPRK Friendship’.

In the article, Xi states: “China and the DPRK are friendly socialist neighbours that watch over and help each other and share a common destiny. The traditional China-DPRK friendship is the shared precious treasure of the two parties, the two countries, and the people of the two countries. No matter how the times change or how the international situation shifts, the traditional China-DPRK friendship has always been unbreakable and grows stronger over time… Historically, the older generation of leaders of China and the DPRK knew one another intimately and were as close as can be. In recent years, I have met with General Secretary Kim Jong Un six times, maintained close strategic communication, and jointly drawn up the blueprint for the development of China-DPRK relations.”

He adds: “The shared socialist ideal is the defining character of China-DPRK relations. The Communist Party of China and the Workers’ Party of Korea are both Marxist ruling parties, and China and the DPRK are fellow travellers on the socialist road… The traditional friendship of shared destiny is the deep foundation of China-DPRK relations. In the turbulent years of fighting for national independence and national liberation, the people of China and the DPRK shared weal and woe, depended on each other in life and death, and forged a great fighting friendship with their blood. In the development of each country’s socialist cause, the two peoples have stood shoulder to shoulder, sharing comforts and hardships, vividly embodying the comradely friendship of mutual trust, solidarity, and mutual aid.”

Noting that, “in recent years, in the face of accelerating once-in-a-century changes in the world and an international situation entangled by change and turbulence, China and the DPRK have insisted on concentrating their energies on managing their own affairs well, forging ahead and striving unremittingly on the socialist road,” Xi draws attention to the important political events in the two countries this year, noting the commencement of China’s 15th Five Year Plan and the Workers’ Party of Korea’s convening of its ninth congress.

Looking forward, he suggests that China and the DPRK should:

Deepen strategic communication and firmly grasp the correct direction for the development of China-DPRK relations. “We must maintain the fine tradition of high-level exchanges between the two parties and two countries, visiting often and meeting each other like relatives.”
Strengthen exchanges and mutual learning and jointly push forward the steady and sustained advance of the two countries’ socialist cause. “We must hold firm to the path and be unchanged in our resolve, support each other in walking the socialist road that suits our own national conditions… firmly safeguard the political security of both countries… and lead the socialist cause of the two countries to keep moving from one victory to the next.”
Strengthen the alignment of the two countries’ development strategies, tap cooperation potential in all fields, share opportunities, and jointly promote development, so as to better benefit the people of both countries. “Through flexible and varied forms, we must keep friendly exchanges active, deepen mutual understanding, tighten emotional bonds, and pass the baton of China-DPRK friendship from generation to generation.”
Oppose hegemonism and power politics and oppose all schemes and acts that seek to revive militarism and that endanger regional security and stability… and join hands to push forward the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

In conclusion, Xi states that, “We stand ready to forge ahead and write a new chapter together with our DPRK comrades, so that the traditional China-DPRK friendship will shine with an even more brilliant contemporary lustre and make a greater contribution to promoting peace, stability, development, and prosperity in the region and indeed across the world.”

Also on June 8, Rodong Sinmun carried an editorial welcoming the “goodwill mission of the Chinese people” headed by Xi.

It says that the visit, “serves as support and encouragement to our Party and people in the struggle for the comprehensive development of socialism.”

It writes that the relations between the DPRK and China, “are the invincible friendly relations closely united with comradely friendship and bloody ties in the protracted struggle to oppose foreign aggressors and build socialism.

“True to the intention of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, the Korean revolutionaries helped the Chinese revolution with blood in the arduous anti-Japanese struggle. The Chinese people, too, regarded the Korean revolutionaries fighting for the national liberation as their own flesh and blood and rendered material and moral assistance to the Korean people in their struggle.

“The brilliant victories won by the Chinese people in the arduous revolutionary civil war and by the Korean people in the fierce Fatherland Liberation War would have been unthinkable without the fraternal friendship and class ties which have been steadily carried forward and consolidated between the revolutionaries, service personnel and peoples of the two countries.”

It concludes by stating that: “The Korean people sincerely hope that the Chinese people will achieve greater successes in the struggle for comprehensively building a modern and powerful socialist country, rallied close around the Communist Party of China with Comrade Xi Jinping as its core, and firmly defend the national sovereignty, territorial integrity and interests for development.

“We will, in the future, too, join hands with the Chinese comrades on the road of advancing the socialist cause and defending peace and security in the region and the rest of the world.”

Lao leader: China is the leading banner for socialism and the Global South

General Secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee and President of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) Thongloun Sisoulith paid a state visit to China from June 2-6 at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Sisoulith began his visit in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province.

On the afternoon of June 5, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and President Xi Jinping held talks with Sisoulith at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry report, Xi Jinping once again congratulated Thongloun Sisoulith on his re-election as General Secretary of the LPRP Central Committee and President of Laos. Xi noted that China has always regarded Laos as a priority in its neighbourhood diplomacy, firmly supports Laos in pursuing a socialist path suited to its own national conditions, and stands ready to work with the Lao side to carry forward traditional friendship, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and enhance solidarity and coordination. China is willing to work with Laos to achieve a new leap in bilateral ties and build an all-weather China-Laos community with a shared future in the new era.

Xi Jinping put forward four points for advancing China-Laos relations and building a higher-standard, higher-quality and higher-level bilateral community with a shared future:

Keep to the socialist path. The two sides should jointly safeguard the socialist system and the leadership of communist parties, maintain close strategic communication, implement the new five-year cooperation plan between the two parties and deepen exchanges on governance experience.
Consolidate the foundation of mutually beneficial cooperation. China is willing to strengthen strategic alignment with Laos and foster new growth drivers for cooperation. The two countries should capitalise on the advantages of the China-Laos Railway as a golden transport corridor. They should deepen cooperation in traditional sectors such as agriculture and electricity while expanding collaboration in emerging areas including artificial intelligence and the digital economy, and China will continue to provide assistance within its capacity to Laos.
Strengthen traditional friendship between the two peoples. Taking the Year of China-Laos Friendship as an opportunity, the two sides should expand cooperation in culture, education, health care and local exchanges, make good use of their shared revolutionary heritage, and enhance mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples.
Improve coordination on foreign policies. China appreciates Laos for adhering to the one-China principle, supporting the four major global initiatives, taking an active part in the Belt and Road cooperation, as well as firmly supporting China’s core interests and major concerns. China looks forward to Laos playing a greater role in regional and international affairs. The two sides should strengthen multilateral coordination and safeguard the common interests of the Global South.

Thongloun Sisoulith stated this visit carries great significance, as it is his first official overseas visit since his re-election as General Secretary of the LPRP Central Committee and President of Laos, which also falls on the 65th anniversary of bilateral ties and the Year of Laos-China Friendship. The Lao side expresses sincere gratitude for China’s long-standing support and assistance to Laos.

China now stands as the leading banner for the socialist system and developing countries, and a mainstay in safeguarding world peace and promoting the building of a multipolar world. China’s development has provided valuable experience for the vast number of developing countries, including Laos.

After the talks, the two sides jointly witnessed the signing of cooperation documents covering areas such as inter-party exchanges, people’s wellbeing, finance, customs, trade, youth exchanges and media.

The KPL Lao News Agency also carried a report of the meeting.

The Lao leader also met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on the same day.

Li said that China is willing to enhance strategic communication and close collaboration with Laos and promote the building of the China-Laos community with a shared future.

Noting that this year marks the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations, Li said China and Laos have always relied on each other and offered mutual assistance over the years. Especially in recent years, under the strategic guidance of the top leaders of the two parties and countries, China-Laos relations have ushered in the best period in history.

He added that China is willing to enhance the alignment of development strategies with Laos and fully unleash the positive effects of China’s zero-tariff policy. China will continue to scale up bilateral trade, further advance cooperation on the China-Laos railway, accelerate the construction of the China-Laos Economic Corridor, and expand cooperation in energy and mineral resources, artificial intelligence, the digital economy and other fields to deliver more practical results.

Thongloun expressed gratitude to China for the valuable support and assistance it has provided over a long period of time, adding that Laos will firmly adhere to the one-China principle and firmly support China’s core interests on issues such as Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

The Lao News Agency added that both sides welcomed the growing cooperation in trade, investment, infrastructure, energy and connectivity, including the recent inauguration of the 500-kilovolt Laos-China power transmission line.

Thongloun Sisoulith also met with Zhao Leji, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.

During his visit to Zhejiang prior to his arrival in Beijing, Sisoulith visited Yucun Village in Anji County. This is where President Xi Jinping first advanced the concept that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” in August 2005. (An article reproduced below provides detailed background on this.)

Prior to his high-level meetings in Beijing, on June 4, Sisoulith visited the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China as well as the Beijing Aerospace City, where he was briefed on China’s latest achievements in aerospace science and technology.

He also met with former Chinese ambassadors and Chinese volunteer veterans who supported Laos during its national liberation struggle and participated in road construction projects in northern Laos during the 1960s and 1970s. The meeting provided an opportunity for the Lao leader to express appreciation for their contributions to the longstanding friendship and cooperation between Laos and China.

In a special article written for the 65th anniversary of China-Laos diplomatic relations, Thongloun Sisoulith wrote that: “Regardless of how the international landscape has evolved, the Laos-China friendship has remained steadfast, resilient, and ever stronger, demonstrating the ideological values, and the remarkably stable and vibrant strategic cooperation that characterise the Laos-China relations.

“Guided by the spirit of the ‘Four Goods’, namely good neighbours, good friends, good comrades, and good partners, our two countries elevated relations to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in 2009. This important milestone laid a solid political foundation conducive to expanding cooperation across all fields. In 2017, our two Parties and States further enhanced cooperation and established the Laos-China Community of Shared Future, opening a new chapter of deeper solidarity, greater mutual trust and closer strategic coordination.

“Today, the Laos-China relationship stands at its highest point in history, serving as a model of equality, mutual respect and mutually beneficial cooperation…

“The Lao PDR reaffirms its unwavering commitment to closely cooperate with the People’s Republic of China, in supporting efforts to coordinate comprehensive joint development strategies, advance mutual development, deepen reform, and broaden international cooperation, and jointly pursuing the path of socialist development in accordance with the respective national conditions.”

On June 4, China’s People’s Daily released a video highlighting the deep friendly ties between China and Laos, told largely through the eyes of successive generations of the Lao Pholsena family, who have long maintained a personal friendship with Xi Jinping, since the children of the family studied at Beijing Bayi School in the 1960s, where they came to know and befriend their schoolmate Xi, inaugurating a friendship that has lasted for over half a century.

Xi’s visit set to deepen China-DPRK ties

On June 5, the Xinhua News Agency and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) both announced that at the invitation of Comrade Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and President of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Comrade Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and President of the People’s Republic of China, will pay a state visit to the DPRK on June 8 and 9.

In a feature article previewing the visit, Xinhua noted that, “Xi’s upcoming visit, his first to the neighbouring country in seven years, is expected to draw a new blueprint for the development of relations between the two parties and the two countries, inject strong impetus into the joint cause of socialist construction, and make new contributions to regional peace, stability and prosperity.”

It went on to note that in March 2018, the two leaders held their first meeting, during which they reached principled consensus on four aspects of developing China-DPRK relations in the new era. Xi and Kim met three times in less than 100 days that year, making history in high-level exchanges between China and the DPRK.

The two leaders also exchanged visits in the first half of 2019 and in September 2025, Kim made another visit to China. Since 2018, the top leaders of the two parties and the two countries have held six meetings and maintained close communication in various forms, leading the China-DPRK relations to forge ahead in the new era.

Xinhua added: “This year marks the 65th anniversary of the signing of the China-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, making Xi’s upcoming visit to the DPRK even more important.”

The article noted that during his previous visit, Xi paid homage to the martyrs of the Chinese People’s Volunteers at the Friendship Tower in Pyongyang. Xi wrote in the inscription book, “To remember the martyrs” and “The China-DPRK friendship lasts from generation to generation.”

The traditional friendship between China and the DPRK was forged by the elder generation of leaders of the two parties and two countries, cemented in the revolutionary struggle, and continuously deepened in the course of socialist construction, Xi said in his exchange of New Year greeting messages with Kim in 2024.

During Xi’s visit to the DPRK in 2019, hundreds of thousands of residents in Pyongyang lined the streets to welcome the Chinese president, leading Xi to recall the occasion during his talks with Kim in Beijing last year, saying he could feel the family-like friendship between the two peoples all along the way.

This, Xinhua noted, finds its expression in the fact that “from economic and trade exchanges to education and sports cooperation, China-DPRK exchanges and cooperation in various fields continued to deepen and has grown ever more solid, bringing benefits to the peoples of both countries.”

The article concludes: “China-DPRK relations are vividly described in a Chinese song: ‘We share a great friendship; we share common ideals; which have united us with incomparable strength.’”

China and the Global Green Revolution – a webinar review

Friends of Socialist China’s US committee recently organised a hybrid event in Portland on the theme ‘China’s Global Green Revolution’, co-facilitated by Sara Flounders and Carlos Martinez, alongside seven contributors to the book China Changes Everything. The discussion explored how China’s lead in renewable energy, reforestation, ecological agriculture and green technology is reshaping the global response to the climate crisis – and why defending that contribution against the new cold war matters for the whole of humanity.

The following review, by Lyn Neeley, summarises the speakers’ contributions, from record-efficiency coal plants and the race for lunar helium-3 to glow-in-the-dark street plants and saltwater rice. A recording of the event is available via the International Action Center.

How China prepared for the new global food crisis, caused by the US war on Iran

The US-Israeli war on Iran has triggered a global food and energy crisis that, by some estimates, could push as many as 45 million people into hunger – on top of the hundreds of millions already going hungry around the world. Prices of staple foods are rising sharply, supply chains through the Persian Gulf are disrupted, and the burden, as ever, will fall hardest on the Global South.

In this important essay for Geopolitical Economy Report, Joe Scholten examines how China has prepared for precisely this kind of crisis – and how rational socialist planning has insulated its 1.4 billion people from the kind of shock the world is facing.

The lesson is not new. During the 2022 food crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, world prices of corn, wheat and soybeans nearly doubled; US grocery prices rose by 11.4 percent that year. China was largely unscathed, thanks to a strategic food reserves system. Today, that system stands at over 700 million metric tons of grain – enough to feed the entire population for a year. Add to this a vast fertilizer reserve, world-leading agricultural drone deployment (over 300,000 units, more than half the global total), AI-enabled pest identification, and $757 billion in water conservation investment under the 14th Five-Year Plan.

As the author puts it: “State planning and the socialist mode of production, in the form of state-owned enterprises and cooperatives under the guidance of a communist party, are capable of addressing fundamental needs.” Where Western pundits once mocked China’s stockpiling as either bureaucratic waste or preparation for aggressive war, the reality is now plain to see: China has anticipated the crisis that US imperialism has manufactured, and stands ready to help cushion its neighbours from the worst of it.

I wrote an article on the topic of food security in China in 2022. The main rationale for that prior essay was that there had been warnings of a global food crisis as the result of the war in Ukraine.

Indeed, prices of staple commodities like corn, wheat, and soybeans nearly doubled in price in the first year of the conflict, and millions were pushed into hunger worldwide.

China marks May Day with tangible gains for working people

On the eve of May Day, Chinese President Xi Jinping extended festive greetings and best wishes to the country’s working people. He called on workers across the country to work hard, deliver solid results, and play a leading role in driving high-quality economic and social development. Party committees and governments at all levels, he added, should safeguard workers’ lawful rights and interests, address their most pressing concerns, and encourage them to strive unremittingly for the country’s grand goals.

A feature article published by the Xinhua News Agency explored these themes in greater depth.

Noting that Xi Jinping has said that “model workers and exemplary individuals are the moral exemplars of the people and the pillars of the nation,” it added that in the week leading up to May Day, 3,024 individuals and organisations were honoured for their contributions to major national strategies, projects and priority industries. Recipients ranged from engineers, technicians, teachers and doctors, to delivery workers.

The article added: “Xi has built a reputation for hard work since his early years as a village official in a poor rural area of northwest China more than half a century ago. As the country’s top leader, he has called on the society as a whole to respect model workers and promote the spirit they embody and has backed the commitment with a range of policy and institutional measures.

“He has called for building a large, highly skilled industrial workforce with strong ideals, technical expertise, a capacity for innovation, and a sense of responsibility and dedication, while also emphasising workers’ welfare and protections.

“In recent years, China has continued to expand legal protections and social security coverage for workers, with growing attention to those in new forms of employment such as food delivery couriers and ride-hailing drivers, as well as older workers beyond the standard retirement age…

“Beyond policy measures, Xi has also conducted on-site inspections to ensure their needs are being met. In 2023, he went to a migrant worker housing complex in Shanghai, entering homes, inspecting shared facilities such as communal kitchens and laundries, and speaking with residents about their daily lives.

Xi Jinping says that China and Laos should take a strategic perspective on the future and destiny of socialism

Special envoy of General Secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith, Saleumxay Kommasith, recently visited China. The visit took place within the context of the close comradely relations between the two neighbouring socialist countries, and in particular to further brief China’s leaders on the key outcomes of the 12th National Congress of the LPRP, which took place in early January, and also as part of the Year of China-Laos Friendship, with 2026 marking the 65^th anniversary of their diplomatic relations.

Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping met with Saleumxay Kommasith on April 21.

Xi pointed out that the mutual dispatch of special envoys by the CPC and the LPRP to brief each other on major political agendas demonstrates the profound traditional friendship and high-level political mutual trust between the two sides. He expressed his belief that that under the leadership of the Central Committee of the LPRP headed by General Secretary Thongloun, the Lao Party, state and people will surely overcome all difficulties, successfully complete all goals and tasks, steadily follow the socialist path, and achieve the centenary goal of the Party.

Xi emphasised that, at this new historical starting point, China and Laos should follow the policy of long-term stability, forward thinking, good neighbourliness and comprehensive cooperation, and the spirit of being good neighbours, good friends, good comrades and good partners. The two sides should take a strategic perspective on the future and destiny of socialism to maintain close coordination and cooperation, deepen strategic alignment, expand practical cooperation, jointly address common challenges, and advance the building of a China-Laos community with a shared future toward high standards, high quality and high levels.

Saleumxay, who is a member of the Political Bureau of the LPRP Central Committee and deputy prime minister of Laos, conveyed a letter from Thongloun to Xi and briefed him on the 12th National Congress of the LPRP. He noted that China has maintained a safe and stable domestic political and social environment for a long time and created a miracle of sustained and rapid economic growth, and its role and influence on the international stage have been continuously enhanced.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, met with Saleumxay on the same day.

China’s solidarity with Venezuela, Iran and Cuba

The text below is an edited version of a talk given by Alex C during a launch event for the book “China Changes Everything” held at the SHAPE (Self Help for African People Everywhere) Center in Houston and online on March 28, 2026.

The speech observes that, as the US escalates its wars of aggression against the Global South – invading Venezuela, bombing Iran and tightening its stranglehold on Cuba – the People’s Republic of China has stood firmly alongside the peoples under attack. Alex C traces China’s concrete solidarity with three revolutionary nations on the frontlines of the struggle against imperialism. In Venezuela, China defended Maduro’s government against US-backed coup attempts, and provided critical economic assistance and diplomatic support.

In Iran, China has been a lifeline, purchasing Iranian oil to offset the impact of sanctions, supplying military components, and building a comprehensive strategic partnership that has fundamentally undermined Washington’s efforts to economically strangle the Islamic Republic.

In Cuba, China has contributed $80 million toward the island’s electrical grid, forgiven substantial debt, and partnered with Havana on an ambitious transition to renewable energy.

Drawing on the lessons of Lenin and Mao, the speech reminds us that “nations which embrace revolutionary socialism can and will endure the onslaught of imperialism” – and calls on those of us in the imperial core to stand with the anti-imperialist camp.

The text of the speech first appeared on Workers World. The text is followed by a video of the full launch event.

Venezuela — like China, Iran, Cuba and so many other countries under siege by the United States — is one of many links in the chain of international proletarian revolution. To paraphrase China’s Chairman Mao Zedong, the Venezuelan people stood up in 1999, proclaiming that from that day forth, they would be the masters of Venezuela’s destiny, not international capital.

The 15th Five-Year Plan and China’s economic outlook

We are pleased to republish the below article by the distinguished Marxist economist Michael Roberts, which looks at the reality of the Chinese economy and its prospects in the context of the adoption in March of the 15^th Five-Year Plan, by the country’s highest legislative body, the National People’s Congress (NPC).

Adopting the Marxist standpoint of seeking truth from facts in his economic analysis, Michael deals with a number of erroneous claims often made regarding the Chinese economy in a rigorous but comprehensible fashion, which also does not shy away from some of the very real challenges it faces.

He sees the economic growth target set for this year of around 4.5-5% as being well justified and goes on to explain:

“In 2025, China’s real GDP growth was 5%, a rate among the major economies of the world only surpassed by India (which exaggerates its GDP data) and more than twice the US growth rate and three times that of the rest of the top G7 capitalist economies.

“Since 2020, the government has set a target for China to become a ‘mid-level’ economy, (as defined by the World Bank at $20,000 per person at 2020 prices) by 2035. That meant effectively doubling its per capita GDP over those 15 years. It is clearly on target to do that as China’s per capita income would need to grow only at an average annual rate of about 4.17% a year from hereon. Assuming China averages an annual real per capita GDP growth rate from hereon of about 4.5%, then it will surpass the World Bank definition by 2034.”

Making an important comparison, he further notes: “China’s per capita GDP would still be only 27% of that of the US (assuming the US per capita GDP grows at a 1.5% average rate from here). In contrast, India’s per capita GDP would be only 5% of the US by 2035.”

He then proceeds to deal with the fact that: “China’s GDP and growth rates are continually dismissed by many mainstream Western economists as well as by some on the heterodox left,” but points out:

“Recently the prestigious Penn World Tables have confirmed that they consider China’s growth data as broadly accurate and no longer attempt to ‘adjust’ it downwards… Yes, corporate debt is high, and the property market is still falling. But nearly all this debt is financed entirely from domestic savings, unlike many examples of rapid credit expansion elsewhere. So, this debt is perfectly manageable.”

He also deals with the balance and relationship between investment and consumption, another issue on which a measure of confusion abounds:

“China’s household consumption is not stagnating, it’s growing 4.4%, more or less in line with GDP growth. Exports are not driving growth. Net trade accounted for about 20% of 2025 growth, the rest was driven by domestic consumption and investment.”

Webinar: Socialist Chinamaxxing – How China’s achievements are a product of its socialist system (12 April)

📆 Sunday 12 April 2026, 3pm Britain, 10am US Eastern, 10pm China

In spite of several years of intense propaganda and misinformation about China in the media, large numbers of young people in the West are going through “a very Chinese time in their lives”, not least because they are seeing China’s extraordinary achievements in poverty reduction, technological innovation, ecological protection, infrastructure development and more.

This webinar, organised by Friends of Socialist China and supported by the International Manifesto Group, will explore how these achievements are a product of China’s social, political and economic system: socialism. The speakers will argue that China’s progress would simply not have been possible within a framework of capitalist rule, and that the country’s experience provides a powerful example of the superiority of socialism in terms of delivering for the people and for the planet.

Confirmed speakers

George Galloway (Former MP, leader of Workers Party of Britain)
Li Jingjing (Journalist and political commentator, CGTN)
Chen Weihua (Former China Daily EU bureau chief)
Ben Norton (Editor, Geopolitical Economy Report)
Danny Haiphong (Geopolitical analyst and journalist)
Tings Chak (Asia co-coordinator, Tricontinental Institute)
Qiao Collective (Diaspora Chinese media collective)
Chair: Ileana Chan (Host of the Global Majority for Peace podcast)

Chinese Embassy in London hosts briefing and discussion on Two Sessions

The Chinese Embassy in London hosted a symposium on March 19 for Ambassador Zheng Zeguang to brief on the recently concluded annual ‘Two Sessions’ – of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) – held in Beijing, which he had attended as a CPPCC member, and to exchange views in this regard with British friends from various walks of life.

He began, however, with remarks concerning current events in West Asia, which he correctly noted is an issue with which everyone is concerned. The US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran is, he noted, a war that should never happened and Iran had been attacked while negotiations were ongoing; it is a war that does no good to anyone, that had no authorisation from the UN, and that violates international law.

The Ambassador further outlined the ongoing diplomatic efforts to restore peace being undertaken by Foreign Minister Wang Yi as well as by Zhai Jun, special envoy of the Chinese government on the Middle East issue, who was still in the region at time of speaking.

Ambassador Zheng noted that the Two Sessions reviewed and adopted the Government Work Report and the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, setting key priorities for China’s economic and social development in 2026, and providing top-level design for development over the next five years.

They are, he explained, a vivid example of whole-process people’s democracy under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. During the Two Sessions, deputies to the National People’s Congress and members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference gather in Beijing to deliberate on state affairs. Both the Government Work Report and the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan were formulated after extensive consultation with all sectors of society, bringing together the broadest possible wisdom and consensus, and reflecting the shared will of the Chinese people.

Ambassador Zheng identified the scientific formulation and implementation of Five-Year Plans as an important governance experience of the Party and a distinctive political advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Through successive Five-Year Plans, China has worked with perseverance to translate its blueprint into reality, creating the twin miracles of rapid economic growth and long-term social stability. By implementing the 15th Five-Year Plan, China will continue to write new chapters in these two miracles and provide stability and positive energy to the world.

He also pointed out that the world is undergoing growing transformation and volatility. Unilateralism and acts of bullying are on the rise, regional conflicts persist, and the international order is facing serious challenges. The more turbulent the world becomes, the greater the need to promote dialogue and cooperation. China always stands on the side of international fairness and justice and on the right side of history. China stands ready to strengthen cooperation with all countries in implementing the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilisation Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative, with a view to a community with a shared future for humanity.