this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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China is interested in Raison d'État. same as any other modern state. They are capitalist because their economy obeys the law of value, even the SOE's are subject to this if anyone here took the time to read about it. This website's darling Michael Hudson, despite having some interesting contributions in american fiscal policy, has a remarkably weak defense of china, boiling down to "they dont have a federal reserve". Comrades here trying to run defense and tie themselves into knots for its foreign policy decisions are being very silly to be frank. The sharp contrast between pre and post maoist china's foreign policy can be explained simply, the capitalist roaders won the struggle, they have no interest at this point in time of fighting for global revolution. Their material support for cuba is a pittance, and possibly a strange artifact of cold war antagonisms. The extended loans with interest, they have privatized healthcare, and their economy runs on the extraction of raw materials from Africa and South America. None of this is to paint them as "imperialist" obviously we can defend them against western depredations, but trying to call them some bastion of socialism is bananas. And to paint them as some sort of special economy who succeeded because of the magic of "market socialism"is also a mistake. Their success is in fact highly similar with other "tiger" economies of Asia. Highly Prudent governance and massive state investment to ward off the falling rate of profit non-withstanding.
The red sails article linked below is the classic example of lazy dengist analysis that honestly falls apart with a little thinking. there is almost no political economic explanation of why billionaires must exist and the same, borderline gnostic, claim of a "master plan" by the CPC. Taking trite quotes from deng and saying "historical materialism" does not absolve people of actually having to defend their economic explanations. I have deconstructed myths about chinas "need" for market socialism, capitalist penetration, etc before and will do so again if asked, but this stuff is straight out of lenin and was functionally settled almost 100 years ago at this point.
Their decision to open up their economy and subject hundreds of millions was the force that saved capitalism. Those people labor now so the rich of the world can live lives in abject splendor. There is no such force waiting in the wings for next time. Who knows how that contradiction will resolve. Who knows how the seeming impending showdown with the USA will go.
Mao had plenty of skeletons in his closet when it comes to foreign policy and you can't pin that on Deng since Deng was expelled from the party and shoved into some factory. I would argue that Mao's skeletons were as bad as Deng.
People who try to divide China's foreign policy between Mao and Deng don't know what they're talking about. Mao-Deng vs Jiang-Hu-Xi makes a lot more sense than Mao vs Deng-Jiang-Hu-Xi.
I dont disagree there is not a hard break between mao and deng but the fundamentals of the opening up period, the regrettable failure of the cultural revolution, and the decline of Mao/gang of 4 power and rise of deng/capitalist roaders power are all fundamentally related and intrinsic to china's dropping of a global revolutionary outlook and beginning of a capitalist realpolitik worldview. these things were more fully realized as you say in Hu-Xi etc but the groundwork was critically laid down before that. Would love to talk more on this.
Both Mao and Deng had China supporting countries committing genocide (Pakistan, Cambodia) while Jiang, Hu, and Xi mostly kept China's hands clean with the exception of the Zionist entity of course, which started under Deng anyways and possibly even under Mao. I don't think China joining the WTO under Jiang is the same as China supporting Pakistan in committing genocide against the Bangladeshi under Mao, which prompted India to intervene and led to warm relations between India and the Soviet Union which still exists to this day in warm Indian-Russian relations. Seriously, all the blackpilled and backstabbing shit was under Mao and Deng. There's Pakistan and Cambodia, there's the invasion of Vietnam, there's the support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan. You also had stuff like China supporting UNITA instead of the MPLA. Meanwhile, Jiang, Hu, and Xi just had China join/found a bunch of transnational organizations and opened trade with everyone.