100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party

The Chinese Communist Party is celebrating the 100-year anniversary of its founding.

With the "new cold war" rhetoric of recent years, I notice the Republicans seem to be more often using their old favorite description, "Communist China." I haven't noticed any retro reference to "the Chicoms" lately, but they will probably start popping up soon.

John Kenneth Galbraith wrote of the old Cold War (The Culture of Contentment, 1992):

The natural focus of concern was the Soviet Union and its once seemingly stalwart satellites in Eastern Europe. Fear of the not inconsiderable competence of the Soviets in military technology and production provided the main pillar of support for American military spending. However, the alarm was geographically comprehensive. It supported expenditure and military action against such improbable threats as those from Angola, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Laos, Cambodia and, massively, tragically and at great cost, from Vietnam. From being considered a source of fear and concern, only Communist China was, from the early 1970s on, exempt. Turning against the Soviet Union and forgiven for its earlier role in Korea and Vietnam, it became an honorary bastion of democracy and free enterprise, which, later repressive actions notwithstanding, it rather substantially remains. [my emphasis]

I quote that as a reminder of how confusing it can be to describe the Chinese system. American and European commentators long found it convenient to describe China in the honorary-capitalist terms to which Galbraith alluded. On the right where characters like Jordan Peterson get a respectable hearing, it was convenient to attribute the drastic reduction in global extreme poverty in recent decades to the healthy miracle of capitalism. Fitting the large number of people in China benefiting from that change is a bit awkward for the capitalist-miracle narrative.

China, along with Cambodia, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam all considered themselves Communist countries today. But what kind of currently-existing system should be legitimately considered socialist (and/or Communist) has been a source of contention pretty much since the moment the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917. When Yugoslavia split from the Soviet Union in foreign affairs and also took a different approach to constructing a Communist system, the USSR resorted to denouncing it as a fascist country. Later China and Russia went through phases of improving relations with Yugoslavia and distancing themselves from it, all the while criticizing the other's Yugoslavia policy.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the USSR and China conducted a very public dispute - whose implications the American foreign policy establishment was remarkably slow in recognizing - which included not only a dispute over the correct approach to socialist revolution and transformation in non-socialist countries but also intense disputes over when the other was practicing true socialism. China for years polemicized against the USSR as having "restored capitalism" as a result of the post-Stalin economic reforms it undertook.

That dispute also had domestic implications in China, because in the post-Mao era, China also adopted some changes that had similarities to the post-Stalin reforms in the USSR, i.e., decentralizing planning and a greater reliance on material incentives for workers and managers. Even during Mao's rule from 1949 until his death in 1976, his economic policies swung greatly from a Stalinist economic model to experiments like the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), with alternations back to an approach more similar to the Soviet one. The former failed badly in its own terms, and seems to be generally regarded as a badly-conceived experiment. The Cultural Revolution had a more overtly political emphasis, but it too had serious effect on inhibiting economic growth. Neither event seems to be held in high esteem by the current Chinese leadership.

It seems obvious to me that China's current model is not simply a variant of neoliberal capitalism. It still relies on government-driven economic planning and measures like capital controls that are heresy to the neoliberal gospel. At the same time, China is heavily integrated economically with capitalist economies including those of the EU and especially the US. As John Kenneth's son Jamie Galbraith recently wrote (James Galbraith: China and Supply Chains – The White House Review’s Focus on US Dependence Naked Capitalism 06/25/2021). Posted on June 25, 2021 by Yves Smith):

To be sure, the Chinese still, in many important advanced areas, draw from and depend on the United States. Certainly, the US can slow the inroads of Chinese firms in some cases, and certainly the US can foster ... its own advantages in new sectors by maintaining and expanding its research and development base. Certainly, there are many things to be done in the United States to meet urgent environmental, public health, and critical social goals.

But the US position, as an economy with only one-fourth the population, equally now depends on the Chinese market, and on downstream Chinese firms supplying applications to the world. While precautions against natural disasters and pandemics can be taken – up to a point – the central unstated message of this 100-day Review [by the Biden-Harris Administration] is that the greatest risk to the supply chain, in each of the four areas, is disruption of normal trade relations with China. In short, as an objective economic matter, we learn here, the United States has an overwhelming interest in peace. [my emphasis]

Western critics mock China's building program of erecting urban areas for which they are not yet people to settle there. Whether that is wasteful "gubment planning" or forward-thinking preparation for expected economic and population growth is a matter of perspective, which time will presumably clarify.

Apart from the large of polemics over China's economic policies, China's government does clearly describe itself as socialist in its economic system and Communist in its political system. And the celebration around the 100 anniversary of the Part reflect that.

Macadrean Vidal Liy reports for the conservative-leaning Spanish El País (El Partido Comunista de China cumple 100 años reescribiendo la historia 30.06.2021):

“Con el tiempo, a los que no vivimos aquello se nos olvidan las privaciones y sacrificios que vivieron esos héroes. Al venir a verlo, los recordamos y nos sentimos inspirados para el futuro”, recita de corrido una estudiante de la Universidad Politécnica de Xian, que ha venido a Yanan en viaje de fin de curso con su clase. Otros visitantes repiten declaraciones similares."

Que sean tan parecidas no es casualidad. Es el mensaje que el Partido quiere transmitir. Desde febrero, el presidente chino, Xi Jinping, ha lanzado una campaña de dimensiones colosales, la mayor desde los tiempos de Mao, para que los 91 millones de militantes del PCCh estudien la historia oficial de la formación y para que saquen precisamente esas conclusiones. La consigna repetida una y otra vez en discursos y medios oficiales es “no olvidar nunca la intención original, recordar siempre la misión” de los primeros tiempos de la institución. ["Over time, those of us who do not experience that forget the deprivations and sacrifices that those heroes lived through. When we come to see them, we remember them and feel inspired for the future," recites a student from the Polytechnic University of Xian, who has come to Yanan [to the Museum of the Revolution] on an end-of-year trip with her class. Other visitors repeat similar statements."

That they are so similar is no coincidence. That is the message that the Party wants to convey. Since February, Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a campaign of colossal dimensions, the largest since Mao's time, for the CCP's [Chinese Communist Party’s] 91 million militants to study the official history of the formation and to draw precisely those conclusions. The slogan repeated over and over again in speeches and official media is "never forget the original intention, always remember the mission" of the early days of the institution.] (my translation)

In other words, they are highlighting both the role of the Communist Party and the national-liberation aspect of the revolution in this narrative the article discusses.

En la versión recogida este año en el libro oficial Breve Historia del Partido Comunista de China, han desaparecido las antiguas críticas al Gran Timonel por el caos, las purgas y las muertes de la Revolución Cultural. En su lugar, aquella campaña pasa a ser elogiada como una medida anticorrupción -precisamente, la marca de la casa del mandato de Xi, que se ha deshecho de importantes enemigos políticos mediante una amplia operación contra la venalidad de los funcionarios públicos-. Las turbulencias de aquella era se achacan a una “insuficiente puesta en práctica de su ideología correcta”. Y desaparece la apostilla de “esta amarga lección histórica no debe olvidarse” en el apartado que describe el Gran Salto Adelante.

La nueva Breve Historia oficial dedica también a Xi un enorme protagonismo. Una cuarta parte de sus páginas se dedican a examinar y loar su mandato como el de un líder carismático que antepone siempre los intereses de la población. Solo su gestión de la pandemia de la covid-19 llena cinco de las 531 páginas del volumen.

[In the version collected this year in the official book Brief History of the Communist Party of China, the old criticisms of the Great Helmsman [Mao] for the chaos, purges and deaths of the Cultural Revolution have disappeared. Instead, that campaign is now hailed as an anti-corruption measure – precisely the trademark of the house of Xi's mandate, which has rid itself of major political enemies through a broad operation against the venality of public officials. The turbulence of that era is blamed on an "insufficient implementation of its correct ideology." And the apostille of "this bitter historical lesson must not be forgotten" disappears in the section that describes the Great Leap Forward.

The new official Brief History also makes Xi a huge protagonist. A quarter of its pages are devoted to examining and praising his mandate as that of a charismatic leader who always puts the interests of the people first. His handling of the covid-19 pandemic alone fills five of the volume's 531 pages.]

By the way, China and Russia are getting along pretty well right now. Russia, China declare friendship treaty extension, hail ties PBS Newshour 06/28/2021:

Putin and Xi have developed strong personal ties to bolster a “strategic partnership” between the two former Communist rivals as they vie with the West for influence and face soaring tensions in relations with the U.S. and its allies. While Moscow and Beijing in the past rejected the possibility of forging a military alliance, Putin said last fall that such a prospect can’t be ruled out entirely.

During Monday’s call, Putin congratulated Xi on the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China celebrated Thursday, saying that China is marking it with “new achievements in the country’s social-economic development and on the international stage” and recalling Soviet support for the Chinese communists.

Moscow marked the CPC’s centennial by sharing historic documents on Soviet-Chinese links with Beijing.

Deutsche Welle News gives a background report from just before the official anniversary celebration scheduled for July 1, China gears up for the Communist Party's 100th birthday 06/29/2021:

See also: Michael Standaert, As China’s Communist Party turns 100, economic challenges loom Aljazeera 28.06.2021