News on China

[salvador segui]

Hello all,

I just did not know where to put it, but i think that a discussion on China is due. If the moderator has not openned a special window for it we can use historical analysis as a start.

We can use this article, gives good current info.

http://www.marxist.com/Asia/china_war_workers.htm

as well as

http://www.tedgrant.org/works/4/9/chinese_revolution.html

and Trotsky's writtinngs on China.

In my opinion China is a society in transition, where the CPC leadership wants to transform the country into a capitalist one.

Any views?

p.

[mir]

Well, the CP has clearly succeeded in transforming the country into a capitalist state.  The only thing communist is their flag, and I wouldn't be surprised if they changed that.

[salvador segui]

Well, i though the poll would show that there is a divided opinion.

I don't think that China has finished the process towards capitalism, although is quite advanced.

I base my sentence in 3 facts:

1. The bulk of the economy is still in the hands of the state and there still a high degree of planning. However since the abolition of the monopoly of foregin trade, the trend is that the percentage of GDP related to private economy is on the rise. Now accounts for around 30%

2.Political power is not in hands of the new arising capitalist class, of course one can say that about many regimes in the world (or in the past), but the political power is still in the hands of a caste of bureaucrats.

3. and therefore (this is a very simpllistic post, i admitt it, ) the class nature of the Chinese State has not fundamentally changed. The new capitalists could be expropiated at any time, actually this will have a massive support amongst the population.

One think that ASEAN declares China a market economy but still is a degenerated bureaucratic worker's state, where property rights are granted in a very special way and the ruling class is not the capitalist class.

I will admit that the CPC bureaucracy is willing to transform the country into a capitalist one and they oppression to the working class is second to none, but still the task in China is, right now, a political revolution.

This is my opinion anyway, from a Marxist point of view

ps in that sense i think that reading some stuff about the state will be very useful.. some ideas

to compare with the URSS
http://www.marxist.com/russiabook/part4.html
http://www.marxist.com/russiabook/part7.html

and the state in general

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm

[Dasher]

After Mao died and the gang of 4 were removed the CPC leadership moved to a position as early as 1983 of moving to open up China.  They, the bureaucracy of millions, became a fetter on society.  20 years on we see the result. One 1/3rd live under bourg property relations while 2/3rds face changes to move to this, albeit reluctantly.
This cannot be termed a capitalist state as yet but moving that way under the guidance of the leadership in China.
China was never a healthy workers state but started out as a deformed workers/peasants state in the image of Moscow. No democracy from the outset.
The top bureaucrats would like to move quicker to the market economy but it is not so easy. If they succeed,which is in doubt given the state of the world economy, they would move from proletarian bonapartism, resting on the workers, to bourg. bonapartist rule like Putin.
As in Russia, who are being forced to reclaim some assets like Yukos, the whole project in China can also be reversed and
clampdowns against mafia capitalism can take place. They did this in Macau recently.
So, whilst moving to capitalism in a 'boom' is the direction at the moment, this process is not set in stone, and is dependent on many factors which the top bureaucrats do not control.

World politics in the next period will shake everything from top to bottom. In China that means the development of the gravediggers of capitalism, 1 billion or so proletarians who will strive for their emancipation, insodoing, overthrowing the Stalinist bureaucracy alongside the new capitalist oligarchy, which is their mirror image.

[P.O.U.M]

Chairman Bob calls China capitalist...

[turnoviseous]

Hey salvador segui,

I agree with you.

A funny thing comes to my mind tho. China´s leader in the 90s said that they want to let capitalism into China to create conditions for communism. I, of course, dont believe that for a second.

But still, if there is a workers´ revolution, they might be prooven to have uncosciously done exactly that - if we were to presuppose that conditions were not present at the time, of course.


comradely,

[Iskra]

China is capitlaist, it was never socialist, but now it isn't even state capitlaist, and the government's oppressive as ever.

[ACE]

I understand that China has been forming a solid front with putin however.  This isn't a bad thing even if both can't be called true Communist, as long as they are willing to work together against total world domination by the U.S. it's not such a good idea to breed infighting.  The heart of Capitalist power must be the FIRST target, that means the U.S.A.  let us not be distracted from this the prime objective.