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Written by: Nick G. on 4 December 2024

 

Dear Ken,

I am replying to your comments on our Facebook page about our attitude towards China.

I know you are a long-time reader of our material, and that you were, for a while, a leading member of our Party. They are both good reasons for listening to your criticisms and taking them seriously.

I also acknowledge your personal connections to China through family and friends as a strong basis for your defence of China.

One of your comments is: “At a time when we are facing a hot possible nuclear in Europe and the Middle east i would suggest that the CPAML concentrate on the activities of the United States Israel and their satraps including Australia instead of joining in China bashing.”

Ken, we have posted, to date, 212 articles and statements this year. Four of them have specifically criticised China, and the vast majority have “concentrated on the activities of the United States, Israel and their satraps including Australia.”

In the context of attacking US imperialism’s preparations for war with China, we have sometimes referred to China as an imperialist rival of the US, but that is in the context of depicting US imperialism as the main source of regional and global tensions, and as the number one enemy of the world’s people.

Ken, I don’t dispute that you “personally have seen the great rise in living standards under Xi Jinping”.

Like you, I have been to China many times, and have seen the same thing.

When I first went to China, the Cultural Revolution was still in full swing. Yes, there was poverty, but the power of the landlords had been broken and the wealth of capitalists confiscated. Whilst people were living frugally, the Party was committed to eliminating the gap between town and country, and the bourgeois right manifested in the gap between mental and manual labour.

It is wrong to say that the Cultural Revolution kept the Chinese in poverty. I was in China just after the end of the Cultural Revolution, and could see that living standards had gone up.  My belief is that if the socialist economy of China had continued past Deng’s restoration of capitalism, it would have continued to improve, and people’s living standards with it, but without the yawning gaps of contemporary China’s class structure.

You say that “Poverty is only glamorous for people who don't have to live in it”. For our part, we do not glamourise poverty, either here or in China.

What we have said (for example, in our Spring 2020 Australian Communist article China and the Widening of Relative Poverty  - AC+2020+Spring.pdf ) is that a socialist society committed to the elimination of class differences has become a capitalist society with one of the world’s largest Gini Coefficients, and that whilst many people have been lifted out of absolute poverty, they have been placed into the relative poverty of an entrenched capitalist class system.

Your comment on our post about Banana Man and his flaunting of wealth over a worthless piece of non-art is that we are “China bashing”.  Even if we had wanted to, there is no need to when China does such a good job of bashing itself through the ostentation and extravagance of the billionaires who have crept out from under Deng’s reforms.

Ken, you have shared Comrade Xiang Guanqi’s criticism of Xi Jinping Thought 12 times. Yes, we do need to have our profile raised, and may even get more followers thanks to your efforts.  However, we question why you have sent it to two pages that support the Palestinian people. What other reason is there for this than to try and undermine our standing with supporters of Palestine? Is it because you think that China supports Palestine, and that any criticism of China is a criticism of Palestine? China played a positive role in bringing together 14 organisations representative of the combined Palestinian resistance. As we said at the time, this was a good thing but China had its own agenda, achieving a united Palestinian statement supporting a “two-state solution” involving a state with which it has had diplomatic relations since 1992 and is currently Israel’s third largest trading partner globally.

You state that “China under Xi Jinping is supporting the Palestinians”. Diplomacy, and China’s vote at the UN, is important, but to send our material to Palestine support groups implies that we are more interested in “China bashing” a friend of the Palestinians, and are therefore not supporting the Palestinians ourselves.

Forty of this year’s articles on our website have been specifically in support of Palestine. That’s an average of a bit more than three a month. They have included reports on rallies, analyses of Zionist aggression, the posting of calls for the release of the long-imprisoned Georges Abdullah in France, and statements by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  Regrettably, you did not point this out in your sharing of our article on China with Facebook pages supporting Palestine.

Ken, as you know, there are three nominally Communist parties in Australia, only one of which supports “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and the Thought of Xi Jinping.

One of its leaders was recently interviewed on Chinese television supporting Xi’s multipolarity and peaceful coexistence with US imperialism.

It is important that we seek to cooperate with the other two parties in the interests of our working class, but we do so on the basis of acknowledging our differences.

We have a clear-cut stand on China as a capitalist and social-imperialist country.

It is our right to use the evidence that is available to us to explain that position.

We take your criticisms seriously, hence the length of this reply.

We will, however, have to agree to disagree on China.

Regards,

Nick G.

3 December 2024