I have been a bit busy lately with the beginning of our semester, so I am just catching up with your articles now.
I wish I shared your optimism about China. I believe you are right path the US is picking the fight and not the Chinese. But I am a bit wary of Xi and his centralization of power. I was much more optimistic about China when there was more pluralism in the party. Xi seems to be undoing the formal and informal institutions of collective leadership that were the keys to China's success. To legitimate his power-play -- which puts him on par with greats like Mao and Deng - I fear he will stoke Chinese chauvinism and nationalism. We are already seeing this with the rise of China's Wolf Warrior diplomacy and more aggressive policies regionally and globally. Of course, these can be interpreted as a response to aggressive US efforts to contain China and start a new Cold War. But China now seems to be falling into this trap (set by the US) and abandoning Deng's policies of "hiding strength and biding time" tha served it so well. It also seems to be positioning itself as just another Great Power, ready to dominate and exploit, whereas before it seemed to be advocating for an end to Great Power politics and the transition to a more democratic and inclusive world order (in the tradition of NAM).
Anyhow, just my 2 Kopek's worth. I hope I am wrong.
Hello Andrej. Thank you for your commentary. With respect to China’s foreign policy, I would remind that the progressive leaders and movements of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa are saying that China’s policies are not imperialist, and that China respects the autonomy of their region as she provides important economic and diplomatic support. Since the progressive movements of these regions have a commitment to defending their autonomy, and would be reluctant to ignore imperialism in any form, I think their view should be taken seriously as a reasonable description of objective reality.
With respect to the internal politics of China, the tendency of the scholars affiliated with the Qiao Collective, the Friends of Socialist China, and the International Manifesto Group is to avoid entering into debates concerning Chinese politics, because these questions are very difficult to address from outside China. I find myself sympathetic to this position.
By its very nature, a revolutionary process has to take and consolidate political power, and it therefore is obligated to play the games of power, implementing the proposals of the revolution and defending the revolution against internal enemies supported by foreign actors. In its necessary exercise of political power, the revolution is morally and politically obligated to take seriously the voice of the majority of the people. Ideally, it should develop constitutional structures that protect the voice of the people, and it should respect these constitutional structures and not try to evade them. Indeed, one way to evaluate the legitimacy of a revolution is to investigate the constitutional structures of power, and to examine if, in a general sense, these structures are followed in practice. I have found this to be definitely the case in Cuba, and from what I have learned thus far, in China as well.
But in evaluating the legitimacy of a revolutionary process, we confront the ideological games of the international enemies of the revolution. Twenty-five years ago, I discovered that the Cuban counterrevolution mispresented things by leaving out important relevant facts. Today, the counterrevolution not only leaves out relevant facts, it also invents facts. And these omitted and invented facts concern precisely those matters concerning which you could not possibly know if you did not live in Cuba. Diabolically clever, these folks.
In my examination of China thus far, I have found the same tendency toward the omission and invention of facts with respects to matters that people outside of China cannot know. It provides cause for suspicion of claims about supposed authoritarian tendencies in China.
Given the history of false counterrevolutionary claims against sovereign socialist projects, I think that we ought to set a very high bar as a standard for internalizing claims concerning which we are not really in a position to know. We ought to view them with skepticism, as nothing more than unverified ideologically-motivated claims, unless and until extensive and persuasive empirical evidence is presented. Meanwhile, we should focus our energies on seeking to stop the aggressive actions against China, a terrain in which we do find extensive and persuasive evidence of misrepresentations in order to justify imperialist policies.
That’s my two Kopek’s worth. I hope I’m right.
Greetings from Havana, where we are finally winning the battle of Covid!
Great commentary as always Charles!
I have been a bit busy lately with the beginning of our semester, so I am just catching up with your articles now.
I wish I shared your optimism about China. I believe you are right path the US is picking the fight and not the Chinese. But I am a bit wary of Xi and his centralization of power. I was much more optimistic about China when there was more pluralism in the party. Xi seems to be undoing the formal and informal institutions of collective leadership that were the keys to China's success. To legitimate his power-play -- which puts him on par with greats like Mao and Deng - I fear he will stoke Chinese chauvinism and nationalism. We are already seeing this with the rise of China's Wolf Warrior diplomacy and more aggressive policies regionally and globally. Of course, these can be interpreted as a response to aggressive US efforts to contain China and start a new Cold War. But China now seems to be falling into this trap (set by the US) and abandoning Deng's policies of "hiding strength and biding time" tha served it so well. It also seems to be positioning itself as just another Great Power, ready to dominate and exploit, whereas before it seemed to be advocating for an end to Great Power politics and the transition to a more democratic and inclusive world order (in the tradition of NAM).
Anyhow, just my 2 Kopek's worth. I hope I am wrong.
Hello Andrej. Thank you for your commentary. With respect to China’s foreign policy, I would remind that the progressive leaders and movements of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa are saying that China’s policies are not imperialist, and that China respects the autonomy of their region as she provides important economic and diplomatic support. Since the progressive movements of these regions have a commitment to defending their autonomy, and would be reluctant to ignore imperialism in any form, I think their view should be taken seriously as a reasonable description of objective reality.
With respect to the internal politics of China, the tendency of the scholars affiliated with the Qiao Collective, the Friends of Socialist China, and the International Manifesto Group is to avoid entering into debates concerning Chinese politics, because these questions are very difficult to address from outside China. I find myself sympathetic to this position.
By its very nature, a revolutionary process has to take and consolidate political power, and it therefore is obligated to play the games of power, implementing the proposals of the revolution and defending the revolution against internal enemies supported by foreign actors. In its necessary exercise of political power, the revolution is morally and politically obligated to take seriously the voice of the majority of the people. Ideally, it should develop constitutional structures that protect the voice of the people, and it should respect these constitutional structures and not try to evade them. Indeed, one way to evaluate the legitimacy of a revolution is to investigate the constitutional structures of power, and to examine if, in a general sense, these structures are followed in practice. I have found this to be definitely the case in Cuba, and from what I have learned thus far, in China as well.
But in evaluating the legitimacy of a revolutionary process, we confront the ideological games of the international enemies of the revolution. Twenty-five years ago, I discovered that the Cuban counterrevolution mispresented things by leaving out important relevant facts. Today, the counterrevolution not only leaves out relevant facts, it also invents facts. And these omitted and invented facts concern precisely those matters concerning which you could not possibly know if you did not live in Cuba. Diabolically clever, these folks.
In my examination of China thus far, I have found the same tendency toward the omission and invention of facts with respects to matters that people outside of China cannot know. It provides cause for suspicion of claims about supposed authoritarian tendencies in China.
Given the history of false counterrevolutionary claims against sovereign socialist projects, I think that we ought to set a very high bar as a standard for internalizing claims concerning which we are not really in a position to know. We ought to view them with skepticism, as nothing more than unverified ideologically-motivated claims, unless and until extensive and persuasive empirical evidence is presented. Meanwhile, we should focus our energies on seeking to stop the aggressive actions against China, a terrain in which we do find extensive and persuasive evidence of misrepresentations in order to justify imperialist policies.
That’s my two Kopek’s worth. I hope I’m right.
Greetings from Havana, where we are finally winning the battle of Covid!