mute_compulsion

Thank you for your time, your in-depth reply and your contribution to the debate. Some of my key ideas were addressed, and I will take time to study this issue further.

My initial reply was too hastily written, and I made crucial errors due to the urgency with which I was writing. You have rightfully pointed out some inconsistencies. I will attempt to resolve them with my reply. However, a crucial one - your claim that China isn't deviating from Marxism-Leninism: I will try to resolve this one through a continous line of argument. I think that deviation is essential for China's development, but correction is crucial for its future.

Corruption and market forces existed pre-Deng. Deng did not introduce them. Class struggle continues under socialism, and you cannot instantly go from an underdeveloped, agrarian focused economy to a publicly owned and planned economy overnight.

I didn't argue that they didn't exist before. I argued that the influx of money ushered in by Deng and his economic advisors was meant to stabilize growth, where growth of the economy was and is inherently pinned to China's position in the global production and value chains. The policies suceeded by moving China from a steadily peripheral to a semi-peripheral country in terms of world production. However, I think that expansionist strategy itself failed to successfully understand the logic of contradictory capitalist expanse with the falling rate of profit co-existing with rising organic composition of capital.

That is, Chinese expansion is understandable when we look at it in terms of "development". Of course, Maoist china couldn't catch up to Deng's reforms in terms of the rate of development of the productive forces. What I argue is that the Reform and Opening up ushered in capitalist ownership to accelerate the rate of development - with a crucial blindspot with regards to China's position itself: a position where expansion itself is contradictory, as the limits to growth are dictated by the Imperialist forces of the global north. China cannot become the core. China cannot become the imperialist. China will, as long as capitalism persists, never seriously challenge the global North. [Good source on the topic: https://vuir.vu.edu.au/37770/]

But, Dengist policies were an attempt to do exactly that. Therefore, the capitalist road was taken, where expansion has to come through exploitative, extractivist relations with some portions of the global south. That in itself is the price of capitalist development of a peripheral state.

China has been systematically overinvesting to avoid the same modulation of this "developmental path" that led to US's balooned national debt (which in itself is only sustainable by having an imperialist position). So, the answers were: overinvestment, a trade surplus, etc.: all but bandages to this problem. Do you believe they are sustainable? I believe that the only solution is the acceleration of full nationalisation of not only key, but also investment portions; and the full abandonment of profit incentive. [Good source on the topic: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/surplus-absorption-secular-stagnation-and-the-transition-to-socialism-contradictions-of-the-u-s-and-the-chinese-economies-since-2000/].

Minqi Li writes:

By the mid-twenty-first century, the rapid decline of China's labor force could drag China's economic growth rate down to zero. If that happens, China's rate of return on new investment is likely to be so low that private capitalist investment will completely collapse. Only much larger state sector investments can help stabilize the disposable capitalist surplus. Eventually, society may find it desirable to intentionally lower the disposable capitalist surplus until it is eliminated. This would necessitate the transition to socialism, because only socially owned means of production can operate sustainably in an economy with zero profit. In such a socially owned economy, all economic surplus would be appropriated by the society as a whole and used for purposes determined by democratic decisions.

I think this claim is indicative of the party's contradiction:

BRI is not extractive, it’s a form of mutual development.

BRI in itself is not set up as an extractive policy. That is correct. The schema infrastructure-for-minerals, for example, is in theory exactly that - mutual development. But it is exactly due to the fact that private investment is an integral part of BRI, that the schema leads to unsatisfactory arrangements. In practice, infrastructural agreements aren't materialized, projects are underfunded or done slopply - to maximize profit for the private investment front. For example, the 2024 Sicomines renegotiation was a huge concession to China, as now, royalties have to be paid and further investment is pegged to the prices of copper. This renegotiation was inevitable becuase the infrastructural projects were not on time, on target, and were underfunded. Thus, private sections of investment strategies lead to balooning of costs for China's crucial mineral and rare-earth processing value chain. In my view, that is a fundamental error - let alone for how the DRC feels. On the other hand, the SOE elements of BRI have consistently displayed desire for mutual development by writing off debts and reinvesting, and that is a positive countertendency in terms of that policy - but again, indicative of a strategic overinvestment.

China is deviating from Marxism Leninism by following an unsustainable development path that is hitting the limits of the capitalist world system. This is indicative of secular stagnation. Capitalism generates more surplus than it can profitably reinvest. This is not a conjunctural crisis but a systemic overaccumulation problem. Maoist China did not have the same issue - because capital was not the dominant form of production. Here, about the role of money: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/renminbi-a-century-of-change/

I also do not share your opinion that the CPC is not vigilant enough, the presence of contradictions and anti-corruption campaigns does not mean that the anti-corruption campaigns are insufficient or failing.

The US will not go peacefully, and China will not "carry out socialism" in the existing configuration of the global economy by remaining passive and reactive. Its role is not predetermined, It can still turn to socialism, but it will not be a passive process because the tendencies of capital are too strong. It has to be combated. Socialism has to be the path of active political decision.

This article goes into detail. https://monthlyreview.org/articles/on-the-nature-of-the-chinese-economic-system/

It is essentially correct with regards that cadres with capitalist investment at stake have strong roles in the party. That doesn't mean that the bourgeoisie holds political control - it doesn't. The PRC is esentially handling it, as you point out with the anti-corruption campaigns. But internal dynamics of the Party are not as linear as we would hope. A lighthearted joke would be that this is Mao's ontological error - not all contradiction is infinite. It is capital that displays this, with its active negation.

Both are proceeding steadily. This gradual transformation is one that proceeds dialectically, and contains contradictions, yes, but these contradictions do not mean China is at odds with Marxism-Leninism.

I believe they are not proceeding steadily. I think that essentially multipolarity was always present under a veener of "peaceful hegemony" of the US. The US is sliding into fascism, but that doesn't mean that its power is steadily diminishing, or that its imperialist grip is lessening. It is precisely here that the transition from Deng to Xi must be situated: an effort to reassert state control over capital after marketization had fulfilled its developmental function. The presence of private capital itself under these conditions does not by itself indicate its political dominance - however, it points to the limits imposed by China’s continued integration into the global capitalist economy. It can only proceed by shifting away from capital.

Thanks for your comment. What I mean with dengism is the introduction of capitalist incentive on party level. It rose out of the 80s, luckily it was still backed up by enough of the correct line that it didn't completely collapse in light of the neoliberal tiananmen protest. But the seed is there, in the party.

I believe ultraleftism was an error. I also believe that errors are conducted with the liberalization of the economy, particularily with regards to monetary policy and foreign policy. Some, like introduction of money circulation, were done out of need. But out of those sprout contradictions that I see are not in the process of vigilant enough resolution, in my view.

I don't see why, for example, private investment should accompany SOE in BRI. It literally serves no purpose other than to lead to inefficient deals that lead to costly renegotiations and extractive arrangements. It is a concession to the interests of capital. It erodes the strongest aspects of infrastuctural deals.

Similiar things can be said about the liberalization of the Yuan. If trends that steer it towards floating exchange persist, China's qualitative differences with regards to investment when compared to the west will falter.

That is my concern. Those contradictions were ushered in by dengism. That in itself is not an error as contradictions always occur. But what will negate them? Where is the negation?^___^

I understand your angle. I think, however, that you persistently mistakenly believe that I am "telling" anyone on "how to pursue socialism". I believe that you have me for a reactionary, and that what you are basically telling me is: abandon marxist analysis for the sake of critical support.

I already "support" the PRC, as far as anyone that isn't a Chinese national and lives thousands of km away can. It is an abstract, fetishistic support, and I recognize it as such. I still offer it, because I recognize the mobilization power of "debunking".

But, my attempt is to do marxist analysis. Whether I support the PRC or whether I would hate them, it means nothing. Not to the chinese, not to the party. What I am trying to abstract are the lessons of governance we can take from china's development. It is, afterall, each nation's problematic that takes the forefront when pursuing a revolution. Each nation has their fundamental contradiction, their secondary contradictions. Studying China helps us, by analysing their contradictions, to navigate our own.

We cannot abandon criticism. Do you believe Mao had no right to criticize Stalin's writings on the economic problems of the USSR? If yoh see this through a prism of debatelordism, yes, it can appear as detraction. In practice, this is the essence of marxist analysis.

So, the fact you still approach me as if I were a detractor is confusing to me. Particularily in light of your readings of Mao's essays, which you mention in the post.

I think China is as close as we can get in its context.

Edit: I also don't appreciate the way you just responded with a bait level answer. I think this space lacks analytical debate on China. The fact you think you "got me" is funny to me, as I have studied chinese development for the past few years and have found no contemporary equivalent to its successful policies in practice. Therefore, it is the closest to socialism I personally can envision in the current real-political situation. But I argue that this is a result of the limits of both this context and of chinese errors. Do I think things could be done better? Yes. Do I think supporting the PRC is essentialy correct? Yes.

I think it is basically correct that China deviated from a vast majority of ML practical principles since the laze 1970s, including the Nixon deals, the Carter administration collusion, support of the Khmer Rouge, liberalization of the RMB and the commodification of land, et cetera.

I also believe that this did not happen in a vacuum and was instead a result of an ever-rising Sino-Soviet split that went from theoretical disagreements in times of Mao to realpolitik ideological warfare in times of Brezhnev-Deng, and as a result of the seriously isolated PRC on the international stage and an industry that began to lag behind because of trade-imposed limitations that hampered the developmental potentiality of a voucher-based, relatively commodity-free economy.

You are basicall correct when claiming that many detractors of contemporary China also abandon marxist analysis and instead blindly regurgitate western discourse, from the debt trap to surveillance myths.

However, I believe you slip into dogmatism as well when analysing dengist China. China does not necessarily need critical support in its current condition, as it merely presents itself as an ideological fetish if not conducted on a state-level.

What I mean by that is, that, unless you lead a party or even a foreign ministry, critical support changes nothing with regards to China. How we can better ours and other people's understanding of China is through genuine, historical materialist analysis and Marxism.

This requires us to concede the fact that Dengism was a deviation. That is okay. It was a deviation forced by both circumstance and by several political errors of a China that was completely fresh and alone on the international scene.

Errors are to be rectified. Let's give it time. Personally, through studies of Minqi Li, of China's contemporary monetary policy and worrying trends of further liberalization, and through the worrying combination of private investment coupled to SOE investments in the BRI led me to conclude that errors are still being conducted.

So, if you were to remain Maoist on the issue, you would have to admit these errors. China won't fall because of them. Not in the next few years. But they need to be analyzed. And in order to analyze, you cannot be, as you say, dogmatic and just push them under the rug.

This is what it means to confront contradiction. It is messy, and real. And China needs to be analyzed through what it is, not through prisms of rightist deviatonism, western imperialism or liberal constructivism.