Beijing Baloney

The Beijing regime wants us to believe that China is socialist and the CCP is Marxist.

They describe their present system as a primary stage of socialism with a socialist market economy. And by socialism they mean an early stage in the transition to communism, not the Bernie Sanders variety. This is a rather remarkable claim.

They are saying that the reliance on markets, capitalists and small private business will end when the economy and society are sufficiently developed and they will return to social ownership, and to transforming the relations of production and superstructure. For this to happen the system, indeed the whole of society, would have to completely change tack. The bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie would not object. Workers would cease to be alienated, semi-functional, low spirited wage slaves and make good progress in transforming themselves and their relations in production and society generally. At the same time, everyone with positions of authority in the CCP and government would do everything they could to assist and would abandon their power and high salaries. In other words the present regime would not need to be overthrown. Unless you believe in magic this is obvious tosh.

Xi Jinping is trying to dress things up a bit by claiming that they are already beginning to move beyond this primary stage where economic growth was virtually the sole concern and let distribution go hang. We now have the "common prosperity" agenda and a lot more support is going into propping up the state owned enterprises (SOEs).

He is also keen for people to make more "Marxism" noises. If you claim to be socialist you obviously also have to put on some sort of show of being a Marxist.

Xi's "left turn" is going down well with some of the pseudo left. And his regime is even pandering to the western academic marxians and martians. Chinese academics say they are taking great interest in all the usual suspects - Foucault, Derrida, Adorno, Habermas etc. And to keep up to date, John Bellamy Foster with his eco-Marxism is also getting a look-in. See [here]

What's more there seems to be a Chinese gravy train that is attracting some Western academics, particularly those into "multipolarity".

"Socialism" and "Marxism" is important for the regimes survival. It is part of narrative that justifies the system, and rule by the CCP. We are on the right side of history, not that decadent bourgeois democracy nonsense. Although, it is not their only ideological prop. They also talk in chauvinistic terms about how they are the means to China's increasing greatness and reversal of past humiliations. And they can also rely on the devil you know point of view which is particularly strong as long as people feel they can get by with the present arrangements.

Former Australian prime minister and present ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd refers to a speech given by Ji to upper echelons not long after coming to power reminding them that the increasing emergence of dissident views were what ultimately lead to the demise of the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc. So the "correct ideology" must be upheld and dissent nipped in the bud. See [here].

Anyone who dissents from the tyranny can be cast as an enemy of socialism, agent of western imperialism and promoter of instability.