Seventy years ago, the Bandung Conference brought together 29 Asian and African countries to discuss the common challenges facing the Third World. The conference was a milestone in the global struggle against colonialism and imperialism, and laid the foundations for the Non-Aligned Movement.
Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group co-organised a webinar on Sunday 27 April 2025 to address the legacy of Bandung and its relevance to the contemporary world. Speakers at the event were:
Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group)
Ben Norton (Founder and editor, Geopolitical Economy Report)
A small but significant step in sports diplomacy and people-to-people friendship between China and India was marked by the participation of Hong Kong China in the 2025 Kabaddi World Cup, which was held from March 17-23, 2025.
Kabaddi originated in India some 4-5,000 years ago. It is a contact sport between two teams on opposite halves of a field or court where individuals take turns to chase and try to touch members of the opposing team without being captured by them. The name is derived from the Tamil word “Kai-pidi,” which means “holding hands.” It is the second most popular and viewed sport in India after cricket and is particularly popular in Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. It is also the national sport of Bangladesh and is widely played in Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and elsewhere in South Asia. In all, it is currently estimated to be played in some 50 countries and has been an official sport at the Asian Games since 1990.
This year’s World Cup was also significant for being the first to be held outside Asia. Games were played in the cities of Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Coventry and Walsall in England’s West Midlands region. The previous World Cup was held in Melaka, Malaysia.
Bhupinder Gakhal, a City of Wolverhampton Council cabinet member for resident services, welcomed the tournament: “This is a proud moment for our city. We aim to use the World Cup to introduce kabaddi to more schools, colleges, and universities across the West Midlands, inspiring our young population to be more active.”
Hosted by World Kabaddi and delivered by the British Kabaddi League (BKL) on behalf the England Kabaddi Association, and sponsored by the Irish sports betting company Paddy Power, the key objectives of the World Cup included:
Promoting diverse cultures and bringing communities together through Kabaddi.
Celebrating the sporting heritage of black minority ethnic (BAME) communities.
Encouraging physical activity and exercise among minority ethnic groups.
Delivering coaching and learning programs for local schools through Kabaddi.
A total of 16 national teams were expected to participate, but this was reduced to 10 due to visa and other issues.
With the Hong Kong Kabaddi Association of China having just been founded in 2018, their teams were unsurprisingly not ranked among the favourites.
Playing in Group B, on March 18, the men’s team lost 49-68 to Wales, 21-73 to India on March 19, and 28-70 to Scotland on March 20. Also on March 20, they defeated Italy, 53-50. They lost 23-89 to England in the Quarter Finals.
The Women’s team fared better, advancing to the semi-finals. On March 17, they defeated Hungary 73-20 and lost 39-45 to England on March 19. They lost 15-53 to India in the semi-final. In the match to decide third place, they defeated Wales 75-14.
We embed below a short video clip where a member of the women’s team reacts to taking third place in the tournament and a detailed interview from four years ago with Wai-man (Wyman) Tang, the key founder of organized kabaddi in Hong Kong on what inspired him and his hopes for the sport’s development in China’s special administrative region.
You can read more about the Hong Kong Kabaddi Federation here.
On 10 March 2025, the CODEPINK China Is Not Our Enemy book club hosted Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez for a discussion about The East is Still Red, which was the first book the group read together. The video of the session is embedded below.
The video starts with a 10 minute introduction by Carlos, explaining the key motivations for writing the book: to challenge the New Cold War propaganda against China; and to build understanding of Chinese socialism and counter the notion that China has “gone capitalist”.
The presentation is followed by a wide-ranging discussion about common prosperity, China’s foreign relations, China’s democratic processes, its management of the Covid-19 pandemic, and its actions around preventing climate breakdown.
Embedded below is a talk given by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez at a meeting of the South Yorkshire Morning Star Supporters Group, at the Central United Reformed Church, Sheffield, Britain, on Thursday 27 March 2025.
Carlos explains why it’s not reasonable for the West to pin the blame for the environmental crisis onto China or to portray it as a climate criminal; the remarkable progress China is making on renewable energy, electric transport, biodiversity protection and afforestation; China’s role in pushing forward the global energy transition; and the dangers of the escalating New Cold War in terms of preventing urgently-needed cooperation on environmental issues.
The presentation was followed by a lively discussion and Q&A.
Embedded below is the video of a recent live panel discussion, hosted by Friends of Socialist China co-founder Danny Haiphong, exploring the geopolitical tensions between China and the United States, particularly in the context of Trump’s trade policies, military escalation, and hostile media narratives. The panel features journalists and analysts Carl Zha (host of the Silk & Steel Podcast), Li Jingjing (CGTN), and KJ Noh (peace activist and co-host of The China Report), each offering insights into China’s March 2025 “Two Sessions” and the ongoing developments in US-China relations.
A key theme was China’s foreign ministry taking a more assertive position in response to US aggression. While China still seeks friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation, and maintains a clear orientation towards peace, its leadership is making clear that China will not simply buckle in the face of bullying and that China is prepared to defend itself from any kind of attack.
Carl Zha emphasised how China has been preparing for US tariffs since Trump’s first term, diversifying its economy and reducing reliance on the US market. He further noted that China’s economy is not heavily dependent on exports to, or investment from, the US.
Li Jingjing, reporting from the National People’s Congress, highlighted that China’s priority is domestic economic development, technological advancement and improving rural livelihoods. Military spending is a small part of the agenda compared to investments in infrastructure, rural wellbeing and AI.
KJ Noh analysed the US’s military strategy, pointing to its war games in the Asia-Pacific, its consolidation of the First Island Chain, and its overall strategy to weaken China. He argued that the US military-industrial complex fuels war rhetoric, even as China prioritises peace and economic growth.
The discussion also addressed Western media misrepresentations of China and the rising anti-China hysteria based on the US ruling class’s fear of China’s challenge to Western dominance and hegemonism.
In January, the Chinese tech startup DeepSeek stunned the world with the release of its R1 artificial intelligence model, which outperforms its major US-based competitors, at a fraction of the cost of development, requiring orders of magnitude less energy, and not relying on the latest and greatest semiconductors. The model is fully open source, and has been made available for free worldwide.
The release of DeepSeek R1 led to an unprecedented drop in share price for several US tech giants, most notably chip-maker Nvidia, which has been attracting enormous investment on the premise that the future of AI relies on faster and better semiconductors.
Just a few weeks earlier, the Chinese mobile app RedNote (Xiaohongshu / Little Red Book) unexpectedly gained a substantial user base in the US in the days running up to the Biden administration’s TikTok ban (which has since been suspended by Trump). The sudden appearance of millions of US users on RedNote led to an unprecedented cultural exchange between particularly young people in China and the US – in spite of the best efforts of the US government to prevent such exchanges.
In this rapidly-changing technology landscape, our webinar of 16 February 2025, organised jointly with the International Manifesto Group, addressed questions such as:
Is the release of DeepSeek’s R1 model a “Sputnik moment”, as it has been described?
Are we witnessing the decline of US technological hegemony?
Why has DeepSeek had such a profound impact on the US tech market?
Has Biden’s “chip war” with China been a failure?
Can AI be a public good, or is it destined simply to generate profits for Big Tech?
Is China’s socialist market economy outperforming Western neoliberalism?
In what way is China’s approach to AI different to that of the US?
What is China’s Global AI Initiative?
How are Chinese technologies such as RedNote and DeepSeek impacting perceptions of China?
Speakers were as follows:
Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group, moderator)
Alan Freeman (Economist, co-director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group)
Li Jingjing (Journalist and broadcaster, CGTN)
Gary Wilson (Author, War and Lenin in the 21st Century)
KJ Noh (journalist, political analyst and peace activist)
Ben Norton (China-based broadcaster and geopolitical analyst)
Michael Roberts (Marxist economist and blogger)
Ali Al-Assam (Managing Director of the NewsSocial Cooperative)
We embed below the full event stream and the individual presentations from YouTube.
On Sunday 26 January, the Friends of Socialist China US commmittee held a hybrid public meeting (live in Portland and online via Zoom) on the theme of defending Socialist China. The event brought together speakers from a range of different organisations and backgrounds, covering several important themes related to Chinese socialism and the struggle against imperialism and war.
We republish below a report of the event that appeared in Workers World. Beneath the report, we embed the video of the full event as well as the individual contributions.
The Friends of Socialist China – U.S. Chapter, a coalition of anti-imperialist forces, held an incisive hybrid event on Jan. 26, to clarify the international role and domestic policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — to dispel the myriad of misconceptions that pervade the West due to the onslaught of false propaganda that we are forced to consume on a daily basis.
The event was held in person before a packed audience at the Portland, Oregon Central Library. More than 600 people registered for the Zoom webinar hosted by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). Others watched by FaceBook stream and hundreds more are viewing the program on UNAC and Friends of Socialist China YouTube channels.
The analysis of the seven presentations, each taking up a different topic, was striking in its breadth and depth. Especially notable was the vast number of established facts about modern China that would have been news even to someone familiar with the political, economic and social organization of the PRC. Some of those facts follow.
Material conditions in People’s China
During the tenure of Mao Zedong as Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC), life expectancy in China grew by one year, every year. The PRC went from practically the poorest country on Earth to solving the basic problems of feeding, clothing, housing, educating (the vast majority were made literate) and caring for the health of their nearly quarter of the world’s population; the role and social position of women were dramatically improved.
The PRC had about 19% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, while the U.S. GDP declined to about 14%. From industries like automobiles and ship-building (about 50 times the capacity of the United States) to steel and green technologies, the PRC is leaving the United States behind.
The PRC is one of only four formerly colonized countries or regions to achieve “developed” status. It accomplished this without slavery, without colonization, without war and without invading foreign countries.
China has the longest post-retirement life expectancy — between 18 to 28 years. Blue=collar women workers can retire at age 50 and men at 55. Others retire between the ages of 60 and 63.
Some 70% of Chinese millennials own their own homes. This is twice the rate of the U.S. Between 90% and 96% of Chinese households own their own homes, usually without any debt.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake, (popularly known as AKD), who was elected President of Sri Lanka in September 2024, and whose party, the National People’s Power (NPP), whose main component is the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front), Sri Lanka’s largest Marxist party, and of which AKD is also the leader, and who then went on to win a supermajority in November 2024 parliamentary elections, paid a state visit to China from January 14-17 at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
During his visit, Sri Lanka’s head of state gave a customarily wide-ranging interview to He Yanke for the CGTN program Leaders Talk.
Asked about his talks with President Xi Jinping, which had been held earlier that day, President Dissanayake said that Xi had emphasised that China’s achievements today are not just the result of the last two decades but also the outcome of the blood, toil, sweat and hard work of the Chinese people. This had made a deep impression on him.
On the relations between China and Sri Lanka, he said that whenever China draws up plans or programs, it always puts the people first. Similarly, the current Sri Lankan government is committed to the principle of serving the people in everything it does. As a result, the friendship between China and Sri Lanka, which has deep historical roots stretching back 1,000 years, will now enter a new stage.
China’s victory over poverty, the Sri Lankan leader continued, is inseparable from President Xi’s unwavering conviction and decisive leadership. He is a leader who always puts the people first, genuinely works for their welfare, spares no effort in safeguarding their interests and remains deeply connected to them.
Noting that his first visit to China was in 2004, when he served as Sri Lanka’s Minister of Agriculture, Dissanayake noted that China had made extraordinary achievements in the ensuing two decades. Asked what he had drawn from his visit to the Museum on the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), he said that behind all China’s achievements lies a history of relentless struggle, unwavering belief and refusal to give up. These lessons are applicable to the development of all countries.
Sri Lanka also wished to learn and benefit from China’s technological expertise and related investment in the field of renewable energy, where it had become the global leader.
Likewise, China’s pivotal role in the global fight against poverty was setting an extraordinary example for countries and peoples worldwide. Sri Lanka will research and learn from this example and he wishes to personally visit China’s rural areas to see their development first hand.
Starting from the famous rubber-rice pact of 1952, today China is Sri Lanka’s most trusted economic partner. One of the first countries to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it has become very important to Sri Lanka’s economic development, with increasing and diversifying exports to China and developing large scale industrial parks to complement the existing major infrastructure projects high on the agenda.
Studying and learning from China’s development model, he stressed, was essential for Sri Lanka. A key lesson is that every country must find its own way to modernisation and adopt a development model suited to its own conditions, rather than blindly copying the development experiences of others.
Regarding the well-known initiatives put forward by Xi Jinping, Dissanayake said that the Global Development Initiative means that the benefits of human progress and development can reach every individual; the Global Security Initiative offers inclusiveness and universal benefits; and the Global Civilisation Initiative respects and integrates unique civilisations and cultures, and the shared values of all countries.
Asked about how his government is facing challenges and implementing change, the Sri Lankan leader first noted that his government had been formed when the national economy was in tatters and the country had been forced to declare bankruptcy. Therefore, its immediate priorities were to pull out of the crisis, ensure economic stability and drive forward development through well structured planning and decisive action.
The political system also needs major reforms, with the entrenched issues of corruption and waste needing to be addressed.
CGTN’s full interview with President Dissanayake is embedded below.
In the latest episode of The China Report, embedded below, hosts Amanda Yee and KJ Noh interview Professor Ken Hammond about his new book, China and the World. The three have a wide-ranging discussion about the trajectory of China’s foreign policy over the last half-century, as well as interrogating the dominant narratives about China in the West and exploring the nature of China’s economic development.
Ken details how the rapprochement between the US and China in the early 1970s, starting with the visits by Henry Kissinger in 1971 and Richard Nixon in 1972, opened a path for “China being able to open up to a broader range of outside engagements”, and in many ways enabled the Reform and Opening Up process that began in 1978. While improved relations with the US came at a not-insignificant cost to China’s role in promoting socialist and national liberation revolutions – contributing to some confusion in the West and elsewhere as to China’s political trajectory – “China was pursuing what could be described as a deep game, taking a long-term perspective that required making certain compromises or accommodations in the short term to achieve fundamental objectives in the long term”.
The three talk about China’s economic reforms and how, while they introduced serious contradictions and imbalances into Chinese society, they ultimately enabled China to overcome poverty and underdevelopment. Ken points out that the country achieved an average of 10 percent GDP growth for several decades and that “this growth didn’t just benefit the wealthy; it flowed directly to the people”. On this topic, KJ recounts discussions with Chinese officials in the late 1990s and early 2000s, who described market reforms as “like getting onto a wild horse – but we believe we can contain this horse”. The record shows that they have indeed been able to do so.
Talking about China’s whole-process socialist democracy and its extremely high levels of public consciousness and engagement, Ken describes China as “a state in which the interests of the working class are at the heart of everything that goes on”, and contrasts this with the money-driven politics of the US in which the interests of the capitalist class are at the heart of everything.
China and the World is available to pre-order from 1804 Books.
Embedded below are the video and transcript of the 36th episode of Geopolitical Economy Hour, in which Radhika Desai, Michael Hudson and Mick Dunford discuss the significance of the 75th anniversary of the Chinese revolution; the reasons for China’s continued economic successes; China’s role in the construction of a multipolar system of international relations; China’s people-centred development versus the West’s capital-centred development; the structure of the Chinese economy and land ownership; the likely impact on China of a new Trump presidency; and much more.
The video and transcript were first published on Geopolitical Economy, edited by Ben Norton.
Transcript
RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 36th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the show that examines the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of our world. I’m your host, Radhika Desai.
MICHAEL HUDSON: And I’m Michael Hudson.
RADHIKA DESAI: And working behind the scenes to bring you our show every fortnight are our host Ben Norton, our videographer Paul Graham, and our transcriber Zach Weisser.
Thanks to many conferences I’ve been to, our usually fortnightly show has become a monthly show, that is, it’s been a month since our last show. And what a month it’s been. The historic U.S. election results came in while I was at the Valdai Discussion Club conference.
Traditionally, it ends with a speech, usually a landmark speech, by President Putin. This time was no different. Two days after the U.S. election results had been declared, Putin reviewed the fundamental principles of Moscow’s foreign policy, giving a wide berth to the U.S. election results. However, he ended with two key sentences that laid bare Moscow’s stance towards them.
Putin said, “Everyone should be clear that putting pressure on us is useless, but we are always prepared to sit down and talk based on the consideration of mutual legitimate interests in their entirety.”
“In that case, there may be little doubt that 20 years from now, in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the United Nations, future guests of a Valdai Club meeting will be discussing much more optimistic and life-affirming topics than the one we are compelled to discuss today.”
That was what Putin said at Valdai.
The U.S. election results were followed by the almost immediate collapse of the German government. A Western discursive shift from the illusion that Ukraine could defeat Russia to talk of a negotiated end to the conflict, even with territorial concessions. Announcements of layoffs in German industry, which picked up pace at a funereal drumbeat.
Trump’s cabinet appointments, the resumption of the Syrian conflict, the apparent ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which has been immediately violated, a Georgian attempted color revolution, the Baku COP meeting, the Sri Lankan elections that brought a Marxist to power; the list is very long.
Indeed, in retrospect, the liminal period between the U.S. presidential election in early November and the U.S. presidential [inauguration] in late January was bound to be rocky, and so it is proving to be. Our conversation will likely touch on many of these topics.
However, for the leitmotif of the conversation today, we’ve chosen a topic we’ll be meaning to cover this year; the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, which most of you know took place in 1949.
For if the United State’s destructive and malevolent presence can be seen in each one of the events rocking the world today, so is China’s constructive and benign [presence].
An entire army of U.S. and Western commentators are busy trying to talk down the Chinese economy, the foundation of China’s international influence.
It is allegedly suffering from the prospect of deflation, faces Japanification, has a real estate crisis and is losing domestic legitimacy. Moreover, we are told, it will not be able to stand up to U.S. sanctions.
So clearly, to understand China’s role in countering the U.S., we need to understand the secrets of the longevity of the Chinese Revolution.
To do this with us today is a familiar guest, Professor Mick Dunford of Sussex University and of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Mick, as you know, is a geographer and a scholar of China. And as we have seen in other shows, he also keeps a keen eye on events in Russia, in Europe, and the world in general. So welcome, Mick.
MICK DUNFORD: All right. Thank you very much, Radhika. And thank you, Michael. It’s a great pleasure to join you again.
RADHIKA DESAI: Yes, we’re really pleased to have you. And I want to start, Mick, with a very important article you wrote recently, in which you provided a framework for the understanding of the history of revolutionary China’s success along two parameters.
One was about how China’s development has been determined by the interaction of internal and external constraints, and these constraints caused regular crises, but China had to operate within them.
And the other parameter was exactly how the Communist Party of China experienced these crises and these constraints and responded to them. So perhaps you can start us off by laying out briefly how you understand China’s achievements.
As we reported last week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer held his first in-person meeting with President Xi Jinping on November 18 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. As we noted in our introduction to that report, “much of the goodwill generated by the meeting would have been spoiled by Starmer’s tactless and undiplomatic behaviour in publicly raising a number of contentious issues”.
In the video embedded below, Andy Boreham, a journalist from New Zealand who lives in Shanghai and speaks fluent Mandarin, reports on the meeting, observing that Britain is not in a position to lecture China on human rights, given its shameful support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its repression of British citizens who express solidarity with the Palestinian people, including Asa Winstanley and Craig Murray.
Mr Starmer, you have absolutely no right to lecture anyone on human rights.
Andy notes that Starmer also raised the case of Jimmy Lai, who is charged with conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and to publish seditious material. Andy points out that “Lai used his influence and money to try to destabilize China. He’s now facing the legal consequences of his actions – consequences he’d face in any country, including the UK.”
The video also takes up the story that appeared in the Western media that Chinese officials “kicked out” British journalists when Starmer raised the issue of human rights. Andy explains that it’s standard practice for journalists to only be allowed to attend the first few minutes of meetings between world leaders, before the discussion of substantive issues begins, and this is exactly what happened in this instance.
The video was first posted on the Reports on China YouTube channel.
In the following video interview with Global Times, prominent Marxist economist Richard Wolff explains the central contradiction in the US ruling class with respect to its relationship with China.
On the one hand, the US business community is eager to maintain good economic relations with China, which represents an important market, trading partner, avenue for investment, and source of investment. US companies “want to be able to produce in China, and even more, they want to sell into the Chinese market, which is one of the fastest-growing and largest markets in the world.”
On the other hand, the US political establishment is increasingly hostile to China. This hostility is driven to a significant degree by the fact that China is challenging the US’s global hegemony. “The last century has been the century of the American Empire, and it now sees its role in the world economy – financially, in export and import, and in other areas – being challenged above all by the People’s Republic of China.”
Meanwhile the US is facing a deepening crisis of capitalism, with growing inequality, economic instability, and a shrinking middle class. Politicians have identified two convenient scapegoats for these problems: 1) immigrants from Latin America; 2) China. Wolff points out: “Capitalism has always moved in this way. But because our politics are controlled by big business, politicians can never blame capitalism. They cannot blame the big businesses that fund them. So, who do they blame? China.”
Wolff conjectures that it may be possible to use this division in the US ruling class to pursue an agenda of peace and cooperation; that the peace movement may be able to work together with the business community to prevent a war with China.
Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez addressed a Young Communist League of Britain educational on capitalism and the environment, held on Zoom on 14 November 2024.
In his presentation, Carlos discusses the current trend in the West for blaming China for the climate crisis, on the basis of its having become the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. He points out the various flaws in this logic, including that China’s per capita emissions are around half those of the US; that China is the “workshop of the world” and, as such, has “imported” a huge volume of emissions from the West; and that, in terms of cumulative carbon emissions (the quantity of excess carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere), North America and Western Europe are responsible for the lion’s share.
He notes that China’s environmental record is purposefully painted in a negative light in order to minimise the West’s historic responsibility and to imply that China – a developing country – should contribute at the same level as the West to the global fund for helping poorer countries with climate change adaptation and mitigation. This clearly runs counter to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities – a principle enshrined in international law.
Carlos also highlights China’s remarkable progress in the last 10-20 years in pursuing an ecological civilisation, noting that environmental protection has become integrated into all levels of policy-making and economic planning. Credible analysis indicates that it has already reached its goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030. Meanwhile, it has become by far the global leader in renewable energy, electric transport, biodiversity protection and afforestation. China’s innovations and investment in green energy have brought costs down globally by upwards of 80 percent, and, via the Belt and Road Initiative, China is helping countries of the Global South to leapfrog fossil fuel-based development.
Carlos goes on to explore the reasons that China in particular has emerged as a trailblazer in environmental protection, and concludes by pointing to the danger of a New Cold War impeding urgently-needed global cooperation around climate change.
In the video embedded below, Friends of Socialist China co-founder Danny Haiphong interviews Professor Zhang Weiwei, a Chinese professor of international relations at Fudan University and the director of its China Institute. The interview covers a wide range of topics, including the Western media portrayal of China as aggressive, the concept of the civilizational state, China’s preference for a peaceful approach to international relations, the conflict in Ukraine, China’s diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East, and the changing global balance of power.
Zhang Weiwei notes that, while the US and its allies insist on describing China as a threat to regional and global peace, China’s record of peaceful development speaks for itself. China has not fired a single shot in over 40 years, and is the only nuclear power to have a consistent policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. When the US was economically ascendant, it was already waging wars around the world. China however is now the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, and yet it maintains a powerful commitment to peace and to solving problems through negotiations. Zhang highlights China’s diplomatic breakthroughs this year with regard to Middle East politics, including its mediation of the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and its role in bringing together 14 Palestinian factions.
Professor Zhang points out that the conflict in Ukraine is mainly the result of US policy and the insistence on NATO expansion, stating that most Chinese feel that NATO is a relic of history that should have been disbanded long ago. China will be resolute in opposing NATO’s expansion into Asia.
Discussing the concept of “changes unseen in a century”, Zhang Weiwei highlights the emergence of a credible alternative for the Global South in the form of the BRICS grouping – whose GDP is already larger than that of the G7 – along with the Belt and Road Initiative, the economic emergence of several countries, and the failure of the US’s tech war against China.
Counselling the US to adopt a more peaceful approach to international relations, Zhang Weiwei notes that the Biden administration’s nuclear strategy is based on the concept of mutually assured destructions, when what the world needs is mutually assured prosperity.
Professor Zhang is providing a video contribution to our events to mark the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, in London and New York City.
Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, a small island state in the Eastern Caribbean, paid an official visit to China from January 22-28, becoming the first leader from the region to visit China in 2024.
During his visit he was interviewed by Wang Guan for the CGTN series Leaders Talk.
Prime Minister Browne noted how small island states are extremely vulnerable in today’s world, citing as contributory factors, climate shocks, the COVID pandemic, the impact of conflicts and wars, limited resource endowments and the debt burden.
He sees the relationship with China as crucial to Antigua’s ability to meet these challenges. His country was one of the earliest in the Eastern Caribbean region to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic, 41 years ago.
Today he says that their bilateral relationship is one of the closest in the world between a big and a small country. Antigua has a population of less than 100,000.
China’s contribution to global peace and prosperity, the Prime Minister says, is unmatched. He sees it as being driven by President Xi Jinping’s philosophy and noble vision of a shared future for all. He describes President Xi as easily the most powerful and respected leader on the planet. Antigua and Barbuda is a beneficiary of China’s benevolence in many aspects of its development, not least in poverty alleviation.
In 2018, Antigua became the first country in the Eastern Caribbean to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This has had a beneficial impact on many aspects of the country’s development, for example in the renovation and extension of the port in the capital, St. John’s. Funding for this could not be obtained from the World Bank or the IMF and Browne categorically rejects any suggestion of a Chinese ‘debt trap’. Rather, he views China as the most benevolent country on the planet, adding that this and other projects could not have been accomplished without its concessional loans and aid.
Another example he cites is that of agricultural cooperation. This is aimed at taking steps towards food security. At present, some 80% of the food consumed in Antigua is imported, mostly from the United States, with contributory factors being the lack of a sufficient labour force and the exacerbation of the county’s natural aridity due to the impact of climate change. China’s assistance in modernising and replacing the country’s water supply infrastructure is playing a key role here.
With regard to Taiwan, Browne says that his country is a consistent supporter of the one-China principle. This will not change under his leadership or that of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party, which he leads.
The full interview with Prime Minister Gaston Browne is embedded below.
On 16 June 2024, we held a webinar reporting back on the first exclusive Friends of Socialist China delegation to the People’s Republic of China, which took place from 14 to 24 April 2024. At the webinar we heard back from the delegates about their experiences and observations of Chinese socialism. The speakers were:
Danny Haiphong (Broadcaster; Author, ‘American Exceptionalism and American Innocence’)
Fiona Sim (Black Liberation Alliance)
Roger McKenzie (International editor, Morning Star)
Margaret Kimberley (Editor-in-chief, Black Agenda Report)
Russel Harland (trade unionist and Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee member)
Sage Stanescu (researcher and Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee member)
Embedded below is the full livestream (unfortunately including, in the first few minutes, various interruptions by racist trolls attempting to sabotage the event) and the individual panel contributions (thankfully without interruptions!).
What follows is a presentation by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez for a webinar on China’s modernisation organised by the International Department of the Communist Party USA.
Carlos discusses the meaning and importance of modernisation, going on to describe China’s process of modernising over the course of 75 years and its proposal for “basically realising socialist modernisation by 2035”.
Carlos continues by describing the modernisation process in the advanced capitalist countries – in particular its reliance on colonialism, domination, hegemony, slavery and plunder – and compares that with China’s modernisation trajectory. While China doesn’t have the ‘advantage’ of dominating other countries, it does have the advantage of a socialist system which “enables us to pool resources in a major mission”, as Xi Jinping has put it. China’s modernisation will therefore differ enormously from Western modernisation in that it will not be based on hegemony; it will be a modernisation of common prosperity; and it will be sustainable – the modernisation of harmony between humanity and nature.
The presentation concludes:
China’s modernisation will be a historic contribution to the global socialist project, to the struggle against imperialism, and to humanity’s shared goal of a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future.
The other presentations submitted to the webinar (by members of the CPUSA and the Communist Party of Australia) can be found on the CPUSA International Department’s Youtube channel: @idcpusa
Today’s webinar is all about modernisation, which is something that’s talked about a great deal in China today, but which is not a concept that’s discussed very much in the West.
Is it something that’s worth talking about? Is it something that’s worth pursuing?
For China and for other developing countries, what modernisation means is higher living standards for the masses of the people.
Modernised industry, greater productivity, modern communication methods, transport systems, energy systems, healthcare strategies and so on add up to the possibility of providing a healthy, meaningful and dignified life to every human being.
That means every single person having reliable access to nutritious food, to good quality housing, guaranteed education and healthcare, modern energy, clean water, and to a vibrant cultural, social, intellectual and working life. So when we talk about modernisation, we’re essentially talking about attending to people’s basic human rights.
It’s called modernisation because it involves leveraging developments in science and technology; it means adapting to the latest, the most advanced ideas and techniques for meeting humanity’s material and cultural needs.
We can broadly think of it as transitioning from ‘developing country’ status to ‘developed country’ status; from a predominantly rural society to a predominantly urban society; from a technologically backward society to a technologically advanced society.
Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, visited China from March 23-29. During his visit he gave an interview to Wang Guan for the CGTN series Leaders Talk.
Skerrit, who has visited China 12 times in the 20 years since the two countries established diplomatic relations shortly after he became Prime Minister, describes the country as a true and reliable friend in difficult times.
His meeting with President Xi Jinping had been the highlight of his current visit. They had reached a consensus on bilateral and multilateral issues, especially the need to take stronger measures to tackle the threats posed by climate change and to build stronger resilience in this regard.
Skerrit acclaims the Chinese leader’s work for global peace and prosperity, in a way that will allow every country to prosper. China’s example in this regard should be emulated by the developed countries.
The Dominican Prime Minister agreed with President Xi’s observation that China-Dominica relations have become a model of south-south cooperation. He noted that although Dominica is a very small country, Xi always treats him as an equal.
Dominica fully supports the one China principle, which it regards as a tenet of international law, and will support and play its part in the peaceful reunification of China.
Expanding on China’s friendship in difficult times, Skerrit said that whenever Dominica faces difficulties, China comes to its aid without even having to be asked. As a small Caribbean island country, Dominica is highly susceptible to natural disasters, such as Hurricane Erika in 2015 and Hurricane Maria in 2017, which destroyed or damaged some 90% of buildings on the island, and climate change is truly an existential threat for small island states in particular, whether in the Caribbean or the South Pacific. Dominica is seeking to harness its own resources, such as geothermal and hydro, with the aim to achieve 100% renewable energy usage by 2030.
China had played a major role in reconstruction following the hurricanes, for example, completing the reconstruction of the West Coast Road, which links the capital Roseau with the second city of Portsmouth, in 2020, despite the challenges posed by COVID. Other key aid projects of China are the Dominica-China Friendship Hospital along with the building of six schools. The Friendship Hospital is described by Skerrit as the most modern one to be found in the Caribbean and he singles out its cardiology unit as a key example of a facility that ensures that Dominicans can now receive specialist treatment without needing to travel abroad.
In agricultural technology, China is helping Dominica to contribute to regional food security through the development of seedlings that are more resilient to pests and to the vagaries of the climate.
As for his impressions of the changes in China that he has been able to witness in 12 visits over two decades, Skerrit simply describes them as magical, citing in particular achievements in technology, infrastructure, education and the promotion of common prosperity.
Skerrit also commends China’s promotion of dialogue in dealing with international issues as well as its rejection of unilateral sanctions, especially the United States’ unfair and unjust sanctions on Cuba. He rejects the misconceptions harboured by the United States and some European powers regarding China’s engagement with the countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This engagement is focused on economic development and social advancement and China’s support and cooperation come with no conditions. Loans extended to the Caribbean and Latin America by China have the lowest interest rates, sometimes being fixed at zero.
The full interview with Prime Minister Skerrit is embedded below.
Friends of Socialist China, in conjunction with the International Manifesto Group, organised a well-attended webinar on Saturday May 11 on the theme of Black Liberation and People’s China – Rediscovering a History of Transcontinental Solidarity.
The webinar marked the 65th anniversary of the historic visit to China by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, where, together with his wife Shirley Graham Du Bois, the great scholar and revolutionary celebrated his 91st birthday on February 23rd, 1959.
Focusing specifically on transcontinental solidarity between the Chinese revolution and the African-American freedom struggle, the webinar noted that this revolutionary history neither begins nor ends with Dr. Du Bois. It embraces Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson from the 1930s; Robert F. and Mabel Williams and Malcolm X in the 1960s; the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and 1970s; and many others, joined by Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, as well as Chinese American communists and progressives and returned overseas Chinese.
The event was moderated by our co-editor Keith Bennett and featured a distinguished panel of speakers as follows:
Professor Gerald Horne, John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies, University of Houston, USA;
Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly, Associate Professor of African American Studies, Wayne State University, USA;
Dr. Gao Yunxiang, Professor of History, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada;
Dr. Zifeng Liu, Post Doctoral Scholar, Africana Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, USA;
Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor and Senior Columnist, Black Agenda Report; and
Qiao Collective, a diaspora Chinese media collective challenging US aggression against China
The video of this interesting and important webinar is embedded below, followed by the individual contributions.
Black Liberation and People’s China: Rediscovering a History of Transcontinental Solidarity
In the video embedded below, Carlos Martinez, co-editor of Friends of Socialist China, speaks to Jason Smith on the latter’s “The Bridge” podcast about a range of topics concerning China.
The two discuss the rationale for the formation of Friends of Socialist China; China’s achievements in poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and the fight against Covid-19; the nature of China’s political system; the slanders in the Western media about human rights in Xinjiang; the Belt and Road Initiative; China’s role promoting development in the Global South; the accusations around “debt trap diplomacy”; and the prospects for improving relations between China and the West.
