[A-List] A Chinese Marxism view: Problems of int'l. strategy for today's China

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Shen Ruji's approach is apologetic for revisionism. Conceptually, this
approach is empty-headed. The argument that capitalism must first
develop fully and be allowed to run its productive course before
socialism can be realized is indeed early Marxist, except that for Marx,
the years that occured in Europe was 1848. It was a path taken by the
European Social Democrats who saw evolutionary dialectics as the most
reasonable and least coatly or painful way. In Germany, it was overcome
by captialist Fascism. According to this approacch, there is indeed no
need for revolution, just sit back and wait for capitalism to exhaust
itself. The contribution of Lenin was his carrying Marx one step further
by taking from Hobson the idea that capitalism will gain a second life
through imperialism. IKt was through imperialism that the undeveloped
Third World bacame vicitimized from capitalism even though feudalism had
not given way to capitalism in these countries. Thus socialist
revoultion is necessary not becuase capitalism cannot evolve naturally
into socialism, but because capitalism evolved naturally into
imperialism, the victims of which have no choice but to find liberation
from socialist revolution. The reason the Soviet Union failed was
because in adopting compromises with capitlaism, it inevitably
trnasformed a revolutionary state into a imperialist state. This
happpened in post Revolution France when the bourgoisie took control and
gave rise to the Napoleonic Empire. The same happen in England when the
bourgoisie too control and gave rise to the British Empire. The Cold War
was a rivalry between a captialist imperialist superpwoer and a
socialist imperialistic superpower. The nature of such a rivalry favored
the capitalist imperialism state and condemned the USSR into inevitable
defeat. without the suport of the people of the Third World.

The left in China, both the old and the new, oppose China's move toward
socialist market economy because the captialist road inevitably leads to
imperialism and betrayal of the revolution. The Chinese revolution, both
the nationalist bourgeoise revolution of 1911 and the cmmunist
revolution of 1949 was first and foremost a national liberation
movement, one through capitalism and the other through socialism. The
capitalist path had been tried and failed. The socialist path has not be
fully tried and may still suceed, albeit with tiral and error as it
proceeds. When China says it will never seek hegemony, it is saying that
it will not permit capitalism to dominate. There is still hope for
socialism suceeding but if revisionism is allowed to replace revolution.
If the Communist Party of China turns revisionist, the Chinese
revolution will go the way of the French Revolution or the Russian
Revolution and fail. The nationalist revolution of 1911 failed but hope
survived in China because there was a counter underground party in the
form of the Communist Party of China. This time there is no counter
underground party and the Chinese nations will fall with the betrayal of
the revolution and neo-imperialism will be victorious. Thus US strategy
of pushing China toward capitalism will end up in a conflcit of two
capitalistic imperialist super powers that wil destroy the world. Peace
can only be preserved if the US helps China to stay on the socialist
path. The only hope for the Chinese revolution is the new left. But the
new left seems to be focusing on bringing capitalism to the peasants
rather than opposing the program of turning the peasantry into a rural
bougeoisie. I am optimistic that capitalistic market economy will fail
because it inherently cannot accomodate equality. We are a long, long
way from any end of history. Two exciting countries where drastic
changes from the collapse of capitalistic markets will take place will
be the US and China, but for different reasons.


Henry C.K. Liu

The Causes and Effects of the Sino-Soviet Split

by

Henry C.K. Liu

The October Revolution of 1917 was launched on the slogan: ‘All Power to
the Soviets’ through which the minority Bolsheviks won leadership in the
Soviets, workers councils that constituted the power behind the new
socialist government. Democracy was not an objective of the October
Revolution, but rather a target for elimination in order to establish
the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was because in feudal Russia
in 1917, the proletariat was an abstraction yet to be created as a
dominant class by industrialization. The proletariat in its infancy
could not possibly command a majority under universal suffrage in a
feudal agricultural society. Therefore dictatorship of a minority
proletariat is the only revolutionary path to socialism. In
pre-industrial societies, democracy is by definition reactionary in the
absence of a dominant working class. Lenin considered the revolution in
Russia as a fortuitous beginning of an emerging socialist world order
that required and justified a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Leninists work for the acceleration of socio-economic dialectics by the
violent overthrow of capitalism which had been the violent slayer of
feudalism. Evolutionary Marxists, such as social democrats, believe in
scientific dialectic materialism which predicts the inevitability of the
replacement of capitalism by socialism as a natural outcome of
capitalism’s internal contradiction. But the evolutionary process
requires the emergence of capitalism as a natural outcome of feudalism’s
internal contradiction. Marx saw the process of evolution toward
socialism as taking place in the most advanced segment of the world, in
capitalistic societies of Western Europe when the bourgeoisie had
replaced the aristocracy as a result of the French Revolution. The
Russian Revolution showed that it is in the pre-industrial societies
that radical revolution is needed to bring about socialism by
short-circuiting the evolutionary process from feudalism to capitalism
to socialism.

<><>The first edition of Stalin’s Problems of Leninism which appeared in
April 1924 asks: “Is it possible to attain the final victory of
socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the
proletarians of several advanced countries?” The answer was: “No, it is
not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the
bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For
the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist
production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country
like ours, are not enough. For this we must have the efforts of the
proletariat of several advanced countries.” <>

The strategic key words on internationalism are ‘final victory’ which
cannot be achieved with just ‘socialism in one country’. But ‘final’
means not immediate but in the future. And international communism was
focused not on the whole world, but on “the proletariat of several
advance countries” where evolutionary conditions were ripe. Social
Democrats, such as Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, titans of Marxist
exegesis, favor gradual, non-violent and parliamentary processes to
effectuate inevitable evolution towards socialism. On the other end of
the spectrum were radical revolutionaries such as Rosa Luxemburg and the
Spartacists who staged an abortive coup to overthrow the social
democratic government in Germany. <>

Still, all Marxists share the belief that the structural antagonism
between a capitalistic bourgeoisie class and a proletariat class in
advanced economies was a necessary precondition for creating socialism,
which required the resolution of the contradiction between the efficient
productivity of capitalism and the economic dys-functionality of the
mal-distribution of wealth inherent in capitalism. The good of
capitalism is that it creates wealth; the bad is that the way wealth is
created in capitalism requires wealth to go to the wrong places. Wealth
is good; it is the mal-distribution of it that is bad. A class struggle
emerged after the French Revolution left much of Europe with economic
and political systems in which the bourgeoisie governed the proletariat
with exploitative rather than symbiotic relations. But much of the world
outside of Western Europe was still operating in agricultural feudalism
in which the landlord class continued to exploit the landless peasants. <>

Lenin up to his death in 1924 believed that the Russian Revolution was
only a local phase of world revolution. He expected proletariat
uprisings in Germany, Poland and the Danube valley and declared himself
as not a “socialist chauvinist”. Lenin and the Bolsheviks sent all
possible aid to the radical leftist fringes in Germany, Sweden and Italy
to combat reactionary obstacles. The Soviet Party even considered
sending troops to help Hungarian Bolshevik Bela Kun. The Third
International (Comintern) accepted the Bolshevik Revolution as the true
fruition of Marxism and declared itself as a weapon for world
revolution. Reaction in the advanced countries to international
Bolshevik “menace” was basic to the rise of fascism. <>

The October Revolution was an unexpected anomaly because geopolitical
circumstances caused it to take place in a pre-industrial country the
majority population of which was peasants rather than factory workers,
and the main socio-economic conflict was between landlord and landless
peasant classes rather than capitalist and worker classes. It is then a
revolutionary task to create a proletariat class in Russia and other the
Socialist Republics within the USSR as quickly as possible through rapid
industrialization, not merely to catch up with the more industrialized
West, but to hasten revolutionary dialectics of transition from
feudalism to capitalism to socialism. Thus the modernization strategies
of the Soviet revolutionary government were fundamentally different than
the imperialist strategies of Peter the Great. It was wrong to see
Soviet industrialization as inter-imperialist rivalry as the Western
anti-communist left does. Social engineering had to be speeded up to fit
revolutionary dialectics. This new proletariat class, not having existed
before the revolution, had not had the experience of being oppressed by
capitalists. In fact there was a shortage of capitalists to realize the
triumphant class struggle that was supposed to be the victorious outcome
of the revolution. Yet it was problematic for the new proletariat class
to be a new antithesis against a nonexistence thesis of capitalism. The
revolution provided the solution by creating a class of state
bureaucrats, known as party cadres, which opponents immediately name the
New Class. Notwithstanding the ideological role of the party cadre is to
guide the revolution toward socialism, this new class acted essentially
as management against labor in the new industries to facilitate a
controlled class struggle toward socialism. The socialist proletariat,
in the absence of a capitalist class, mistook the bureaucratic
management class as the target of class struggle and played into the
hands of reactionaries. This eventually culminated in the Solidarity
Movement that began in Poland, a broad anti-communist social movement
that united the Catholic Church with the anti-communist left. <>

Trotsky and the adventurist left described the process of “bureaucratic
counterrevolution” with French Revolution term “Thermidorian reaction”
that followed Robespierre’s fall on 9 Thermidor of the French
Revolutionary calendar (July 27, 1794) that ended the Reign of Terror .
The reference to Thermidor was meant to show that the
“counterrevolution” was not a restoration, a return to the ancien
regime, but a counterrevolution on the path toward socialism. Trotsky
attacked revolutionary aspirations that shifted from the bottom to the
top with the consolidation of a new order of class rule for the purpose
of sustaining the revolution, not withstanding that the revolution has
always been from the top and that the idea that it should have been from
the bottom was fantasy because the bottom did not exit in Russia. And
where the bottom existed, there was no revolution. <>

Oppression in pre-revolution Russia was mostly of a feudal nature. A
peasant revolution without a proletariat core was merely a revolt
against the established feudal order, not revolution for socialism. This
peculiar incongruity between revolutionary theory and Russian actuality
gave impetus to the internationalists to advocate carrying the
revolution to where revolutionary conditions actually existed – in the
advanced industrialized countries with a large working class. The
concessions made to the kulaks and the petty bourgeoisie by the NEP
between 1921 and 1927 restored needed symbiotic trade between urban
centers and the rural periphery. This concession advanced the revolution
from feudalism toward capitalism but it fell well short of the ideology
of socialist revolution. In the eye of the radical revolutionaries who
set their aim at instant socialism, the NEP was a disappointing step
backward. In reaction, Trotsky advanced the concept of “permanent
revolution”, an incessant drive for proletariat dictatorship on all
fronts in all parts of the world, even in countries where the
proletariat did not exist, such as China. Permanent revolution was a
misnomer. What Trotsky advocated was in fact pre-mature revolution in
countries where revolutionary conditions were lacking. <>

By the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in June 1924, a time when the
capitalist system was booming worldwide, albeit in reality heading for
the 1929 crash, the revolutionary forces were on the defensive and
Trotsky’s internationalist priority of world revolution was rejected as
naive advanturism. The situation was similar to neo-liberal market
fundamentalist globalization of the past two decades when a speculative
boom anchored on debt was interpreted as evidence of the end of history
in its march toward world socialism. Marx's laws of motion declare that
society progresses from feudalism to capitalism at the point when
feudalism ceased to support the forces of production. In turn,
capitalism gives way to socialism by the dictatorship of the proletariat
once its productive potential has been fully exhausted rendering its
continued existence obsolete. But Russia went straight from feudalism to
socialism in 1917, as did China in 1949, and Vietnam in 1975. These
revolutionary states ended up shadow-boxing non-existent capitalism in
their effort to achieve socialism. <>

In the second edition of Problems of Leninism published in August 1924,
the very foundation of international communism was reordered to reflect
the objective reality that the USSR was going to remain the sole
communist state in a world of long-lasting if not permanent capitalist
wonders. The Soviet Revolution needed to be protected first and foremost
from effective, coordinated hostile reaction to revolution in the
advanced countries giddy with prosperity. These natural cradles of
inevitable evolution from capitalism toward socialism turned out to be
powerful counter-revolution headquarters. The role of the Comintern was
accordingly reduced to opposing foreign counterrevolutionary
intervention against the USSR to keep the socialist lamp burning, rather
than engaging with unacceptably high-cost but futile sacrifice in
struggles that could not possible be won in the prosperous capitalist
countries or to foster prematurely for untimely socialist revolution in
pre-industrialized colonies that had no proletariat class. The socialist
revolution, instead of building on the summit prosperity of the advanced
stage of capitalism, was saddled with all the decrepit problems of
feudal decay. Socialism, instead of being the final stage of human
development, was mired in object poverty without the necessary
wealth-creating institutions offered by capitalism. Revolution was
casting a poverty shadow everywhere.

Under such circumstances, the Comintern needed instead to act as an
instrument of Soviet state diplomacy in a world order full of hostile
anti-communism states that were materially more prosperous. This meant
that the Communist parties in all countries had to seek cooperative
arrangements with whatever influential sections of society they could,
in the interests of promoting ‘state-to-state friendship with the Soviet
Union’, temporarily sublimating the revolutionary advancement of the
class interests of workers. This change in the Comintern line was
demonstrated in two events in the mid-1920s - the British General Strike
in 1926, and the defeat of the upsurge of workers in Shanghai, China in
1926-7. The betrayal of the General Strike in Britain fractured the
British communists and gave birth to the anti-communist, anti-Soviet
British left. At the USSR Party Congress in 1927, The Central Committee
under Stalin defeated Trotsky’s “left deviationism” by a plurality of
854,000 to 4000 votes. In exile, Trotsky stigmatized Soviet policy in
this period as “Stalinist”.

Next: Revolution in China (still in progress)



Albert Sargis wrote:




China Doesn’t Want to Be “Mr. No?-- Problems of International
Strategy for Today’s China

China Doesn't Want to Be "Mr No" -- Problems of International Strategy
for Today's China [Zhongguo Du Dang "Bu Xiansheng"] is one of ten book
published thus far in the China’s Problems series by Jinri Zhongguo
Chubanshe [Today’s China Publishing House]. The book was published
February 1998 is a first printing of 50,000 copies. This is a very large
first printing in China.

The book was written by Shen Jiru, a researcher at the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences World Economics and Politics Research Institute and
member of the Board of Directors of the Chinese European Studies
Association and the Chinese European Union Research Association. The
foreword is by Liu Ji, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences

In this 400 page book Shen Ruji covers a wide range of the international
political and economic problems China that confronts today. Shen
examines how reform is changing China’s idea of the society it wants to
become and its conceptions of the kind of relations it wants with other
countries. As seems to be a trend these past few years, the canonical
texts invoked to support the author’s theses seem to be more often drawn
from the writings of Marx and Engels rather than from those of Lenin and
Mao. Both Lenin and Mao are also invoked in the book, however. One
useful approach to following the evolution of Chinese
communist/socialist ideology is to consider what is missing or receives
less emphasis than before. Innovations in ideology are not claimed by
their orginators but rather credited to the wisdom of the ancients. A
constant pattern in Chinese ideological innovation over the past several
thousand years has been putting new wine in old bottles.

The Marx invoked throughout the book is the early Marx of the Communist
Manifesto. Interestingly, this is a similar approach to that of some
Western students of Marx who look for a more democratic Marxism tend to
pay more attention to the early rather than the later writings of Karl
Marx.


Why Did the USSR Collapse? A Critical Question for Socialist China

Shen opens the book with an examination of why the Soviet Union
collapsed, a question which preoccupies more than a few Chinese
communists at high levels. Why them and not us? What went wrong? What
lessons can China draw from the collapse of the Soviet Union? Although
much of the causes for Soviet collapse is familiar to Western readers,
it is interesting to see what lessons are drawn from the perspective of
a Chinese expert on international relations.

Shen’s answers these questions on pages 14 - 22 of the book.

o The Soviet Union aimed to set itself up as a hegemonic
world power. The result was that it created enemies, lost
friends and wasted its national economic strength. The
USSR took a confrontational, not cooperative approach to
international relations. It refused to join the IMF, World
Bank and did not cooperate at the UN. Shen still assigns
most of the blame for the start of the Cold War to the USA.
o Cuba failed to learn the lesson of its failure in the
Cuban missile crisis but redoubled its efforts to compete
with the USA. This strategy was doomed to failure. The
“Soviet threat?enabled the USA to set up rings of
alliances against the USSR. Shen says that the
confrontational tactics of the USSR created many enemies
for the USSR. Soviet expansion in the Western sphere of
influence strengthened opposition to the USSR and Soviet
insistence on matching the US weapon for weapon exhausted
its economy. Very poor housing conditions and living
standards for its people was the result. The Soviet Union
was a superpower on the world stage but its people
suffered from food shortages and long lines for consumer
goods at home.
o Failed economic reforms worsened the plight of the USSR.
The economy became more and more complex, exceeding the
capacity of even a government with 100 ministries. The
failure to get the prices right was a fundamental failure
of the totally planned, highly centralized economy. The
failure of Soviet leaders beforel Gorbachev to relax total
control over prices was a major factor in the decline of
the USSR. The lack of supply and demand signals from price
information resulted in waste and declining growth. Shen
contrasts this with the free market prices for many
products since reform began in China. The worsening of the
economy accentuated conflicts among the nationalities. The
Ukraine and Russia were unwilling to see a drain of funds
to the less developed republics. The less developed
republics didn’t want to lose their mineral resources to
Russia and the Ukraine. These divisions hastened the
breakup of the USSR.
o Ruthless suppression of dissent. The Soviet Union not only
had a high pressure ‘big brother party?attitude towards
the other socialist countries but strongly suppressed own
people. Especially during the 50’s and 60’s the USSR
became more bureaucratic and government grew in size. A
privileged elite held on to its selfish interests. The
Soviet Union suppressed people who criticized the
government, the great majority of whom were not against
socialism but wanted to solve real problems in society.
This deprived the USSR of many people who could have
helped solve these problems and made many people
sympathize with those enemies of socialism who were among
the great majority of good people victimized by this
policy. That the USSR fell apart so quietly is explained
by the Chinese saying “Those who lose the support of the
people fall from power?[Shi ren xinzhe, shi tianxia]
o Absence of the rule of law was also an important reason
for the fall of the Soviet Union (p. 227)


Ideologues Have Stifled Thinking in China But No-one Has The
Right To Do That

Shen sees convergence between capitalism and Chinese-style socialism,
see considerable social progress in capitalist societies (at one point
(pp. 36 - 42) comparing Marx’s Communist Manifesto to the practice of
western societies and finding much of Marx’s social program realized in
the West. Shen believes that China for decades ignored great progress in
capitalist societies in what he calls the social functions of the state
including protection of worker rights, graduated income tax, and
unemployment insurance.

In Shen’s discussion of “peaceful evolution?[heping yanbian] [pp. 42 -
46, also p. 225] which ideologists condemned until Deng clamped down on
the ideologists in 1992. Shen sees peaceful evolution as natural,
positive and indeed at work in the peaceful evolution towards more
social progress in western developed capitalist societies. The history
of this social development in advanced capitalist societies over the
past century demonstrates that capitalist societies still have much room
to make progress.

Shen wrote that there can be no forbidden areas in the search for truth.
Shen added that for a long time Chinese have had been forbidden to
discuss these ideas such as convergence of systems and the great
improvements in the social aspects of capitalist societies over the past
century by certain authorities on theory since they were seen as an
attack on socialism.

[Note: the reference to theoretical authorities appears to be to Chinese
communist party ideologist such as Deng Liqun. The March 1998 book in
the China’s Problem’s Series “Confrontation: A True Account of the Three
Periods of Ideological Liberation?[Jiaofeng: Sanci Sixiang Jiefang
Shilu] an extended attack on ideologists who have hindered reform. The
book has about 200 pages devoted to ideological opening during 1997.
Communist Party ideologists in the early 1990s attacked the theory of
some people in China and the plot of some Western countries that China
would “evolve peacefully?into a capitalist society [heping yanbian. Shen
in many places in his book refutes attacks on “peaceful evolution. ]

Shen writes (p. 42) “It is very regrettable that in the past some
authorities on theory didn’t allow people to discuss new developments in
contemporary capitalism. Even more strictly forbidden were efforts to
explore the deep reasons for this progress. The reason for these
restrictions is that it would nourish an evil capitalist wind, destroy
the morale of socialist society and make people wish for capitalism.
Therefore, for quite a long period, any discussions of the causes for
progress of capitalist society were restricted to studies of the
progress of capitalist societies in science and technology.

“If we do not acknowledge all the changes and progress in capitalism as
a result of peaceful evolution (heping yanbian) how will we ever be able
to accept our inheritance of the culture of all humanity as Deng
Xiaoping taught us? If we do not acknowledge the changes and progress in
capitalist society over the past century, that how will we be able to
co-exist and cooperate with capitalism over the long term? The test of
truth is the practice of the people of each country. No authority on
theory has the right to establish a monopoly over the right to make
judgments on what is true and what is false.?/P>

In discussions of corruption later on in the book, Shen makes an
interesting reference to “peaceful evolution? Shen contrasts corrupt
Chinese officials who use their power to steal public property and waste
public money with the behavior of Robert McNamara who left the Defense
Department with two suitcases and drove himself home or the former U.S.
president who retired to his peanut farm. Shen asks “wouldn’t importing
a bit of this kind of “peaceful evolution?be a good thing for China?[p.
225]

Shen calls China’s biggest problem not foreign affairs but confronting
the parochialism and rigid hierarchies in Chinese society which vastly
reduce efficiency in the economy and society. Shen calls this fengjian
(often mis-translated as feudal -- it is not Western feudalism) a word
Chinese leaders and intellectuals regularly use to characterize the
closed nature of Chinese work units and their unwillingness to cooperate
and share information.


Critical Role of the Market in Transforming Values

Shen on p. 226 writes “the heart of the fengjian thinking is to destroy
the independence and initiative of the individual. In fengjian thinking
people are not treated as human beings but as slaves absolutely
subservient to a leader. Most people become mere appendages or followers
of the leader with no minds of their own. Over a long period of time
these ideas permeated the psychology of the Chinese people. These ideas
became part of their way of thinking and their values as they look at,
think about and solve problems. But values such as independence,
initiative, equality, competition and spirit of enterprise established
during the formation of the market are directly and fundamentally
opposed to the fengjian values of dependence, subservience, foolish
loyalty and endurance of hardships.?One example of the consequences of
this set of attitudes and behaviors (generally called “fengjian?in
China) has been that the central government to get information about
environmental problems and to see that environmental regulations are
enforced. Shen makes a much broader point -- that this phenomenon is a
serious one for Chinese society as a whole (pp. 222 - 227).]


A Four-Pole World is Emerging: U.S., Russia, European Union and
China

Shen Jiru calls for China to involve itself as a full-fledged
cooperative partner in world affairs working towards a world that is
multi-polar [duojihua -- to become multi-polar -- is a key word in
Chinese discussions of foreign policy] rather than dominated by one
country (the USA). Shen sees the four emerging poles of world politics
as the United States, the European Union, Russia, and China. (pp. 76 -
77) Shen examines and refutes the “conflict of cultures view?associated
with Prof. Huntington (pp. 82 - 85) and traces a shift in American
public and official opinion over the last two years away from looking at
China as a threat to the U.S. or to the countries on the periphery of
China. (pp. 85 - 94)

Shen sees China working together with the US to assure that US security
interests are satisfied so that it will no longer need to hold onto its
hegemonic position. Shen quotes with approval the recent Zbigniew
Brzenski book “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Geostrategic
Imperatives ?(pp. 99 - 112) since Shen sees in that book an
acknowledgement that America’s position as the only superpower will not
last forever. [Shen also noted that the Brzenski book will be published
in Chinese translation by the Shanghai People’s Publishing House]
President Jiang Zemin’s visit to the United States in October 1997
opened a new stage in Sino-American relations (pp. 113 - 117). Shen also
discusses recent developments and prospects for Chinese relations with
Russia (strategic partnership), the European Union (a great economic
power which is gradually emerging as an independent pole. Europeans are
world leaders in social and macroeconomic organization, something which
many Chinese who tend to look more to the U.S. than to Europe for
advanced S&T do not realize. p. 125.)


Sino-Japanese Relations and UN Security Council Reform

China and Japan: friendly but with dark clouds in view such as the
Diaoyutak/Senkakus islands dispute and the burden of history. Especially
important in Shen’s view is the unwillingness of the Japanese (Shen
contrasts the attitudes of Germany and Japan towards war guilt) to
acknowledge crimes during World War II. In a chapter on U.N. reform,
Shen argues that Japan should only get a Security Council seat if it
admits to its W.W.II war crimes and suggests that the world must be very
watchful lest Japanese militarism once again become a threat (pp. 146 -
154). Germany by contrast, has acknowledged and drawn lessons from the
past, and deserves to be a place on the Security Council. Shen suggests
a nine permanent member UN Security Council. Permanent members include
two EU countries, Russia, U.S. and China with a veto. Non-veto permanent
members include one EU country, African member, Latin American member,
and Asian member. Germany, France and the UK would rotate through the
veto and non-veto seats. (pp. 163 - 164)


International Economics Negotiations: Win-Win But Chinese Media
Gives the Wrong Idea

Shen argues that international cooperation is win-win. Shen criticizes
the Chinese media for playing up Chinese gains and ignoring Chinese
concessions in international trade negotiations. This gives many Chinese
people an unreasonable view of trade negotiations. They come to see it
as a conflict in which national honor is involved. One-sided reporting
re-enforces the impression of some people of trade negotiations as a
kind of battle rather than a way in which conflicting interests are
resolved by concessions by both sides. China by making reasonable
compromises in international negotiations is not being insulted or being
forced to accept a dishonorable result. (see pp. 383 - 401 the chapter
on compromise in international relations; trade negotiations see esp.
pp. 386 - 387) .


Need to Accept Constraints in Trade System, Understand Capital
and Human Talent Markets

International economic cooperation requires much tighter international
links than ever before. Accepting constraints is the price of being part
of an international trading system. For example when the World Bank gave
Thailand policy suggestions along with a US$ 1.6 billion loan to help it
overcome its 1996 financial crisis, this was not intervention in
Thailand’s internal affairs but assistance. China needs a great deal of
capital for its development -- it needs to be sensitive to the operation
of international capital markets (pp. 344 - 350). China needs to learn a
lesson from the United States which became a world power “capable of
totally obliterating all humanity?partially because it built an
attractive environment and tolerant society which successfully absorbed
top talent from all over the world. (p. 351)

Shen also devotes a chapter to the role China in the world economy and
the formation of regional trading blocs. Shen advocates strengthening
economic cooperation with the United States, Russia and the European
Community while “neglecting?Japan. Geopolitics and not just economics
must be considered in China’s trade relations. China needs to develop a
wide range of trading partners so that it will not get too dependent on
any one trading partner. (pp. 333 - 334) Involvement in Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) is especially important for China which gets
80 percent of its foreign investment and 75 percent of its foreign trade
from the Asia-Pacific region (p. 254).


PRC Military Needs Modernization But Not World-Class Force
Projection Capabilities

China needs to absorb new high tech from foreign countries. An example
is the Czech passive radar aircraft detection system (TAMRA) from the
HTT factory that can detect 71 targets simultaneously in a 500 kilometer
radius including the U.S. F-117 stealth fighter. (p. 198). China needs
two aircraft carriers, says Shen (pp. 197 - 202) but its does not need a
military anywhere near the size of the U.S. military since China just
needs to defend its own territory. Geopolitical strategists will
appreciate the big chart on pp. 174 - 175 giving the geographical
coordinates and occupation status of many of the major South China Sea
islands which China claims along with the Philippines, Malaysia, and
Vietnam.


Why Isn’t The World Communist Yet? Marx Has The Answer....

There is a strong Marxist (perhaps one might say even not very
Marxist-Leninist but the author doesn’t put it that way) running thread
running through this book. As Confucius taught his disciples, we should
try to understand the thread running through the whole. Marx and Engels
are quoted time and again, and in particular a quote of Marx to the
effect that if capitalism has not reached the limit of its development,
the conditions for socialism are not yet ripe and that even if it does
emerge, its victory can only be temporary. Here we have the response to
one fundamental question about communism -- Why isn’t the World
Communist Yet? . This Marxist thread running through “China Doesn’t Want
to Be ‘Mr. No’”, like all good threads , is clear to see at the opening
and the close of the book. (pp. 22 - 27 and 378 - 382]


If Capitalism Has Not Yet Reached Its Full Potential, Said Marx
and Liu Shaochi...

The answer to this critical question is that capitalism has much more
capacity to develop and improve than Marx anticipated. According to such
authorities as Karl Marx and Liu Shaochi (a Chinese leader once reviled
as China’s Khruschev, but seen in today’s China as a fallen hero) if
capitalism has not matured to the stage where it can be replaced by
socialism, the victory of socialism can only be temporary.


Then the Victory of Socialism Can Only Be Temporary

Liu Shaochi in the early days of the PRC used to quote Marx’s words “If
the material conditions that necessarily result in the disappearance of
the capitalist mode of production and with it the overthrow of the
capitalist ruling class have not yet appeared in the historical process,
but should happen despite this before history requires it, then the
victory of the proletariat in overturning the rule of the capitalist
class can only be temporary and indeed is only a byproduct of the
capitalist revolution itself. ... Similarly, if the social and economic
conditions favoring the assumption of power by the capitalist class are
not yet mature, then the overthrow of the monarchy by the capitalist
class can only be a temporary one.?[from Collected Works of Marx and
Engels (Chinese edition) Vol. 1, p. 171] as quoted on p. 23 of the book.
[see also pp. 22 - 27 and pp. 378 - 379] Near the very end of the book,
another quote from Marx, this time from Volume 2 of the Collected Works
makes the very same point. “Any type of social system that has not fully
developed all its productive potential cannot disappear. Moreover, any
system which embodies higher relations of production absolutely cannot
appear until the material conditions which created it in embryonic state
in the old society have matured to the point that the old can give birth
to the new.?[from Collected Works of Marx and Engels, (Chinese edition)
Vol. 2, p 83.


If Marx Were Alive Today and Were to Give A Press Conference

If Marx were to wake up today 114 years after he went to sleep in 1884,
writes Shen, Marx most certainly would feel that it was too bad about
the Soviet Union. If a journalist were to ask Marx about China’s
cooperation with the capitalist companies, Karl Marx would remark that
Lenin only had one capitalist friend -- Armand Hammer -- but China has
dozens of friends among the big companies and banks of the capitalist
world. If the journalist were to ask Marx about cooperation between
socialist and capitalist countries, “Marx would certainly remark that
cooperation and coexistence are to the advantage of both capitalism and
socialism even if, upon occasion, there would be some peaceful evolution
taking place that China didn’t particularly like. Marx would say that
one thing he had never anticipated is that after sowing these seeds in
the West, the only harvest was of fleas. But out of China in the East
came a socialist dragon!?[pp. 380 - 381]


“Marxist?Theoreticians Should Throw Away Their Yellowing
Dogma-Filled Books

Shen explains “The Chinese Communist Party and Government are still
working hard to improve relations with the developed capitalist
countries on the basis of Deng Xiaoping’s theories. This is all in
accordance with an understanding of the historical position of
capitalism and is in perfect accord with the laws of the progress of
human society found in the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. I say to all
those who resist opening and reform, I hope you throw away your
yellowing books which dogmatize and petrify Marxism, take it out of
context, and append erroneous theories to it. What you need to do is to
study Marxism and Deng Xiaoping theory in the light of the rapid
development of the world and of actual practice. Don’t be a flea, become
a lively dragon!?[p. 381] In a footnote, Shen quotes Marxist’s famous
retort to an overly rigid application of his ideas. Marx said “I am not
a Marxist!?/P>

Shen reminds readers that Marx writing in the 1870s and Engels writing
in the 1890s both believed that a peaceful transition from capitalism to
socialism was possible. Why do some of the theoretical authorities of
China want to make rules for the people of the future (and for the
future people of other countries) and make the claim that armed struggle
the distinction between true and false socialism? This kind of attitude,
even aside from the fact that it will earn China the emnity of the
Western countries, has nothing to recommend it at all. We have no right
to set ourselves up as the judges of other countries. We must trust in
the wisdom of the people of the future. [pp. 382]


China Doesn't Want to Be Mr. No Important Evidence of Continuing
Opening in China

“China Does Not Want to Be “Mr No?is a remarkable book that illustrates
why some Chinese leaders and scholars call 1997, the year of the
Fifteenth Congress of the Communist Party of China, the third year
(after 1978 and 1992) of important opening of China to new ideas and
freer thinking.