Re: [Marxism] Fidel Castro on the Chinese Revolution - FIRST ENGLISH PUBLICATION

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Walter:
> carrot, but Washington is still doing what it can to encourage
> the overthrow of the Chinese system and its replacement by a
> system acceptable to the United States of Disneylandia.

You mean a place where a non-unionized workforce can make $20 per week
turning out goods for Walmart? Silly me, I thought that already existed.

> In light of Cuba's close relationship with China as indicated in
> the joint celebrations in Beijing and Havana this week, and also
> as related in Fidel Castro's speech on the Chinese Revolution's
> 50th anniversary, readers should find this statement by the U.S.
> State Department of particular interest. All of the steps taken
> by China to open its economy to market forces have succeeded in
> helping China to develop into the fastest growing economy on the
> planet. But it's not enough to satisfy Washington which won't be
> happy until the People's Republic adopts a capitalist system in
> every respect.

The State Department document you allude to has nothing to do with a clash
between rival economic systems. The U.S. does not appreciate what it
perceives as Chinese "mercantilism", nor does it appreciate "intellectual
property" theft, but in other respects it fully acknowledges the mode of
production in China today:

>>Some 27 years ago, Chinese leaders took a hard look at their country and
didn't like what they saw. China was just emerging from the Cultural
Revolution. It was desperately poor, deliberately isolated from the world
economy, and opposed to nearly every international institution. Under Deng
Xiaoping, as Mr. Zheng explains, China's leaders reversed course and
decided "to embrace globalization rather than detach themselves from it."

Seven U.S. presidents of both parties recognized this strategic shift and
worked to integrate China as a full member of the international system.
Since 1978, the United States has also encouraged China's economic
development through market reforms. <<

Embracing globalization? Indeed.

>  So much economic activity going on between these
> two countries makes it hard for Washington to engage in the kind
> of tough talk it reserves for weaker countries. While we can be
> certain that Washington makes mischief in China as well, there
> is little evidence that it engages in the kinds of paid internal
> opposition organizing, nor are there any efforts to block China
> from the international market. Notice the rather soft tone with
> which Washington advises China of its area of difference. Quite
> a difference from the way Washington tries to strangle Cuba at
> every point and on every occasion. Comparing Washington's ways
> of addressing China and Cuba helps demonstrate the bizarre and
> absurd nature of Washington's blockade of Cuba. In recent years
> we've seen a greater appreciation of this in the United States,
> but still not yet strong enough to obtain a change in policy.

There is nothing bizarre about the different treatments meted out to Cuba
and China:

(From Heritage Foundation "Backgrounder #1010" titled "Why the Cuban Trade
Embargo Should Be Maintained")

Those who favor lifting the embargo often point to the examples of Vietnam
and China to justify their position, claiming that eliminating the embargo
will encourage the growth of a free-market economy which will undermine the
communist regime. Such comparisons are not valid. Capitalism is destroying
communism in China, but the driving force is not international trade. It is
a strong domestic market economy tolerated by the communist government.
China's market economy is dominated by many millions of small entrepreneurs
who are devouring the communist command economy. Moreover, China's market
economy has been growing in depth and diversity since the mid-1980s. Free
trade is promoting faster market growth and expanding the personal freedom
of millions of Chinese, encouraged by entrepreneurs and investors from
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere who are providing the capital,
entrepreneurial skills, and international trade contacts which are
compelling China to transform its economy. In the process, a vast and
prosperous middle class is being created.

In Cuba, however, the Castro regime is not willing to liberalize the
economy and create a free market. Cuban exile communities in the United
States, Latin America, and Europe are not willing to work with Castro, and
market initiatives by the Castro regime to encourage them to do so are very
recent, dating from 1993 for the most part. The basic orientation of the
hard-liners surrounding Castro is to contain and restrict all initiatives
that unleash individual entrepreneurship and creativity. For example, the
government has arrested people for earning "too much" money in the
dollarized informal economy, the variety of legally permitted "family
businesses" has been restricted, and tax rates on the income of
self-employed Cubans have been increased. Moreover, Cuba's constitution and
legislation specifically prohibit all private initiative, notwithstanding
recent reforms allowing self-employment by Cubans in approximately 140
categories of economic activity from which all professionals (the core of
any middle class) are expressly barred. For over three decades, the regime
has operated on the basis of divide and rule. Castro's bitter enmity toward
the Cuban exile community precludes the possibility of replicating in the
Caribbean what China's exile community has accomplished in China.

None of the alleged "market reforms" undertaken to date in Cuba are true
free-market initiatives. Free enterprise remains highly restricted. Foreign
investors doing business in Cuba today deal mainly with Castro's regime.
Cuban partners in joint ventures and mixed companies are approved by Castro
as "safe." Moreover, unlike China, Cuba has barely started to open up its
economy, and what little has been done to date has been permitted with
great official reluctance and with the objective of assuring the communist
government's political survival. China's economic transformation has been
under way since 1978, when important agricultural reforms were introduced,
including the right of peasant farmers to grow the crops they wished and
retain some of their profit. Moreover, the government of China has
encouraged the marketization of the country's coastal provinces, and since
1992 the Chinese constitution has incorporated the concept of the
"socialist market economy." Although China remains a communist nation where
political freedoms are sharply restricted, the ruling regime has permitted
vigorous development of the private sector, thus laying the seeds for its
eventual demise and potential replacement by a politically pluralist, more
open society.


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