China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power An Integral Part of the Capitalist-Imperialist System An Analysis by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) Original Document by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) May 2017 Translated and Published by the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement September 2018 http://anti-imperialism.org http://revaim.org V Translator’s Foreword In May of 2017, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) initiated a study posing the question of whether China had or had not become a new imperialist power. The result- ing report answers in the affirmative: In the view of the CPI(Maoist), the People’s Republic of China has become a social-imperialist power. Further, the Chinese Communist Party, and its ideology of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics deceives and misleads socialists the world over, rejecting in- ternationalism and revolution for a suite of revisionist justifications upholding and furthering the bourgeois dictatorship in China. The CPI(Maoist) calls on the CCP to abandon its current capital- ist-imperialist trajectory, and for progressive comrades within the party to initiate struggle against the imperialist and monopoly capitalist ruling clique. Among the hallmarks of Chinese social-imperialism, the CPI(Maoist) identifies capital export, finan- cialization, deployment of troops and advisors, rapid armament and weapon sales, interference in the affairs of small nations and national liberation struggles, big-power chauvinism, support for free trade and globalization, and inter-imperialist rivalry. This last threatens to bloom into all-out wars of redivision as the western imperialists attempt to retain their flagging positions and expand their spheres of domination. We do not take this question lightly. On the one hand, China is a nation whose working class is oppressed and parasitized by western imperialism, and the western powers would give anything to reverse its development and neutralize the threat it poses to their current and former spheres of influence. However, we cannot ignore the principled criticism of long-established and inspirational parties like the CPP-NPA-NDF, or the CPI(Maoist) when they decry Chinese social-imperialism. We do not ignore revolts by Papuan villagers who storm Chinese-owned nickel-mines, or when Zambian workers rise up and murder their Chinese bosses, or when said bosses shoot and kill their striking Zambian workers. Nor can one easily ignore targeted killings in Balochistan by insurgents who pur- port to fight “the colonization of Balochistan” by Chinese corporations. No one could have missed the stunning turnaround experienced by the Sri Lankan government, from near-defeat to victory, in the war to suppress the Tamil national liberation movement. This turnaround was largely due to China’s military and financial aid. For the sake of its oil supply and future access to the Indian Ocean, the PRC joins the reactionary and expansionist Modi government in India in its support for former western puppet Aung San Suu Kyi and the Myanmar military’s ethnic cleansing of Rohingya. Wars of redivision are just over the horizon, and at least in that regard the tasks of the small anti-im- perialist movement based in the core countries has not and will not change. But as for the advent of rising imperialisms, we gain nothing by lying about the way the world truly is, and on that note, we thank the CPI(Maoist) for providing this report as a starting point for an investigation of the nature of Chinese social-imperialism, that a greater understanding of the balance of powers and the coming crisis might be reached. We would also like to thank the comrades who translated the document, MIM1 comrades for giving feedback, and especially LOOP2 comrades for important edits. We hope the present piece is put to 1 MIM: http://prisoncensorship.info/ 2 Org4LOOP: https://fight4loop.org/ VI China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power good use. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement has undertaken this translation to better understand the position of one of the world’s foremost communist parties and to make it available to other comrades in English. It is unofficial and imperfect. Its quotations and data are, with a few very mi- nor exceptions, checked against easily available sources. The footnotes in the original were for a non-western audience (clarifying what Wall Street is etc.) and were removed for brevity. All sums and statistics are rendered in western units from the Indian numbering system and may contain minor errors. Previously phonetically spelled names have been rendered in their common English variants, and the entire document has been edited for length while retaining the meaning of the text. We have been made aware of a purported English translation appearing in the days preceding pub- lication of this version. We welcome many eyes on this question, and if the purported translation is official, we defer to it. Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement September 2018 If you come across any spelling or translation errors, please contact us at [email protected] 1 Introduction In its 9th Congress held in January 2017, the United Congress of the Communist Party of India (Mao- ist) (CPI-Maoist) decided to conduct a special study on emerging trends in social, economic, political, and cultural changes with regard to strategy toward capitalist-revisionist China. The Central Com- mittee was authorised to execute this decision. As per the decision taken by the Central Committee during its 4th Conference, it considered mainly two things: the trends within China, and whether China has become a social-imperialist power. These were their two study points. After investigating, the Central Committee adopted the following thesis at its 5th Conference: “Today China has become a modern social-imperialist power, an integral part of the capitalist-imperialist world system, while also playing the role of antagonist towards the oppressed classes and people in general.” The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties, groups and powers are in solidarity with the worker-peasant, suppressed, and other oppressed classes of society with the objective of world socialist revolution, marching toward a creative struggle to win over antagonistic imperialist China and end its concep- tions of revisionism, social-imperialism, and obscurantism. Our two communist parties have two global responsibilities: to support the working class and to support its revolution. To accomplish these tasks, the social-imperialist nature of China must be exposed thoroughly. We must understand the process by which China transformed into a major and competent imperialist state among the imperialist nations of the world. We must also succeed in the process of segregating global alliances and enmities in accordance with the principles of international class divisions. We must evaluate ever-changing structural variations and their specific conditions prevailing in the world. Unless we study these aspects, we cannot understand modern wars, the politics of modern revisionists, and the incidental variations in the imperialist system. Leninism holds that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism – it is war, it is moribund. Imperi- alism affirms the rise of the socialist movement, and the 20th century has proven this. The Leninist theory of imperialism applies even today. War is the supreme tool by which imperialism divides and reorganises the world for its vested interests. Imperialism indulges in war for the sake of its monop- oly on the world. It principally gains through war. Wars are inevitable so long as imperialism exists in the world. It penetrates into underdeveloped nations in the guise of neo-colonialism to continue its obsessive compulsion for loot. It sucks the blood of the common people and the oppressed, and it is the cause of their extreme misery and distress. “Modern wars are the result of imperialism,” said Lenin, time and time again. The two world wars in first half of the 20th century broke out among the imperialist countries as a contest to gain supremacy over the world by dividing and reorganising it. “The attempt to escape the new political and economic crises of the imperialist countries led to the last two world wars,” said Mao. America has plundered the wealth of the world through imperialist war. It acquired windfall gains by selling weapons in abundance to countries who have engaged in war. In this way, America has be- come the imperialist superpower of the capitalist world. When America’s imperialist economic sys- tem incorporated a war economy, it focused only on wars. Hence, it orchestrated aggression and war. We can see this trend from Korea, Vietnam to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. War will continue so long as imperialism prevails. If we want to abolish war, we must eradicate the capitalist-imperialist 2 China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power system. The cold war between the then superpowers of the US and the USSR had an impact on the developed and underdeveloped countries. This gave rise to wars directly or indirectly among them. From 1945- 1990, at the least 125 regional wars, civil wars, and armed conflicts led to the deaths of more than 40 million people, while millions more were victimized and displaced. The economic crisis that resulted in these countries because of imperialist war is greater than that of the crisis that caused the World War II. Wars continued to break out during the 1990s. American forces waged treacherous wars in Hondu- ras, Ukraine and in Egypt, and America fomented incessant armed riots. Military interventions by Britain and America’s other allies have led to the deaths of nearly 3.2 million Muslims. The wealthiest and the most secular country in Africa, Libya, was destroyed by America. Libya, which once warmly embraced migrants, is now being destroyed, displacing half its population. More than 1 billion people live in extreme poverty and suffer from malnutrition. Moreover, nearly 17 million people are dying due to poverty every year. Half of them are children. America is trying to cover the ever-increasing expansion and expenditure of Israel. Leaving aside the welfare of its own people, America is amass- ing more than 20 trillion-dollars in debts to pay the debts of Israel and massacre Muslims. America is directing trillions from its budget to do this, subjecting its own people to misery and thereby causing the deaths of more than 200,000 of its own people every year. The imperialist riots unleashed in Syria with the intent to overthrow the government of Bashar Al As- sad have led to the deaths of 500,000 people and another 2 million wounded or displaced. Moreover, millions of people were made homeless, migrating to neighbouring countries as well as some Europe- an countries. America destroyed many communities that had lived together amidst their shrines and holy places in brotherhood, peace, secularism and non-violence. The imperialist wars of aggression waged under the leadership of America on Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq and many other countries have caused countless deaths and injuries, destroyed countless homes, and forced countless people worldwide to migrate. In order to secure the imperialist system and deceive the people of the world, imperialists and re- visionists mislead the people in all possible ways with various fictions according to the changing scenery of the contemporary world. It is time to expose and mortify them. The contemporary politi- cal vengeance of imperialism is a predictable result of the capitalist economic system. Imperialism is extending its political machinery to suppress the people by implementing its fascist dictatorship far and wide. The stronger the repression, the stronger the resistance. The worker-peasant classes, the petty-bourgeoisie and other oppressed classes of society, even the endangered species, are relentless- ly waging wars against Imperialism. Our party, the Communist Party of India (Maoist), is relentlessly striving to exterminate imperialism from the earth, to install communism, and to unite the oppressed classes and masses. Our party leads them and shoulders the responsibility to fight alongside them. In light of China’s rise as a social-imperialist power, the present task is for all working-class parties around the world to develop manoeuvres to sustain themselves. Party leadership, on these principles, must gather the oppressed classes and people of their societies and lead them in the march towards socialism. This document was released by the Central Committee to elucidate how socialist China transformed into a capitalist and imperialist power and how to develop strategies to combat it. Let us study this document thoroughly. In the light of five inherent features and three special aspects of imperialism taught by the great Lenin, let us analyse and synthesise in the light of Marxism-Lenin- ism-Maoism in order to build a correct scientific understanding of China’s social-imperialist devel- opment. 3 The 1949-1976 Socialist Revolution After the advent of the New Democratic Revolution in 1949 in China, the Chinese Communist Par- ty (CCP), with the guidance of Mao, put forward the slogan “Three Years of Preparation, Ten Years of Planning.” As a result of this campaign, individual management in agriculture, crafts, capitalist industry, merchandise, and productive manufacture was basically wiped out by 1956. Collective ag- riculture came to predominate throughout the country. A new society took shape in China as a result of socialist construction. China’s New Democratic state became a socialist state. Progressive plans were focused mainly on consumer goods useful to the society rather than profitable products. Socialist China did not have any internal or external debts during this time. China was the centre of progressive socialist revolution at this time and was virtually the only country that remained free and independent from subordination under the spheres of influence of the then superpowers (the US and the USSR) and the capitalist-imperialist market system. Relying on the policy of self-reliance, socialist China experienced a “Great Leap Forward.” Mass move- ments arose in socialist China under the slogan “Understand Revolution, Improve Production.” Social- ist China brought forward and applied new slogans and concepts, such as developing agriculture and industry equally (“Walking on Two Legs”), class struggle with coordination, struggle for production, development of science and technology, development using native resources, and many more. Revo- lutionary changes occurred in industry, and standards of working-class and peasant living increased to a remarkable level. Unemployment was eradicated. Guaranteed work for all was introduced. For over a decade during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR), industrial production in China reached up to 13.5% per year. The speed of industrialisation in China at that time was more than remarkable. It surpassed the rates obtaining in Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union. Although there were a few disturbances by revisionists during the GPCR, growth in productivity continued. China saw an increase of 9.2% per year in coal, chemical and electrical production. Capitalist roaders including Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao and Deng Xiaoping formed an anti-revolutionary trend, giving rise to internecine internal conflicts. Complex and sharp conflicts continued between revisionism and the theoretical perspective of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Modern socialist features matured in the GPCR, including in education, democracy, industry, agriculture, the struggle against patriarchal domination, in breaking down the inequality between men and women, healthcare, cul- ture, and defence. In this way, the GPCR blasted the two bourgeois headquarters that belonged to Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao and prevented the restoration of capitalism. Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist Party built a substantial society through socialism without any social barriers among the people. Workers, peasants, women, students, intel- lectuals, and other oppressed groups in China laboured to transform their motherland into a modern industrial country, a country that could provide education and healthcare to all the people within the span of three decades. They transformed their country into the most progressive system from a social, political and economic perspective. The outstanding achievements of the people resulted in their country becoming the 6th largest industrial power in the world. Yet there will continue to be opportunities for the bourgeoisie and other inhibitors of growth to arise and multiply, even in socialist society. The new bourgeoisie can arise in many places – production of essential commodities, money-exchange and distribution according to work, such as pay in 8 vari- 4 China: A Modern Social-Imperialist Power able grades. Even with the bourgeoisie overthrown, means of production and money still exist; some peasants and petty-bourgeois classes retain properties. These become the foundation for small-scale production. Nascent capitalism can grow from these seeds by leaps and bounds. There remain under socialism basic differences between mental and physical work, agriculture and industry, working class and peasantry, towns and villages and different areas and communities. Backward factors such as hangers-on in culture, traditions, and practices then become bases for attacking the foundations of socialism, as all remain present in the superstructure. Resistors of socialist construction, revan- chists and revisionists become a “holy coalition” with support from the external imperialist powers. Neo-bourgeois power-blocs arise due to growth in capitalist elements. To develop the productive forces and superstructure in accordance with the economic base of socialist society, it is necessary to revolutionize the relations of production constantly. One of the prime duties of the dictatorship of the proletariat is to create conditions unsuitable for the emergence of the neo-bourgeoisie to prevent it from gaining a foothold in the superstructure. Exploiting these conditions, very few capitalist roaders who captured upper-level power in the CCP openly crafted schemes to restore capitalism in China. They implemented their revisionist “produc- tive forces” policy both secretly and openly. The waging of internal struggles exposed capitalist con- spiracies. Mao taught that revolution should continue until communism is reached. The great Chinese working class continued its cultural revolution in accordance with Mao’s call to “Break the Centres of Capitalism” for over ten years (1966-76) under the leadership of the CCP. However, after the demise of Comrade Mao followed by the leadership of Hua-Deng, the capitalist roaders in the state apparatus seized power by conspiracy and were successful in dismantling the GPCR. As previously mentioned, they were successful in installing capitalism in all spheres, be they theoretical, political, economic and cultural. They succeeded in their goal of changing the communist party into a revisionist party, working class dictatorship into bourgeois dictatorship, and it was an outstanding achievement on their part to install a capitalist state in place of a socialist state within the span of 3 years. In this way, the global proletariat met a formidable historical defeat by the restoration of capitalism in China.