Below is a collection of recent press reports on leftist debates/protests. I did not bother to identify the sources, because the purpose was merely to illustrate that the left was not so silent. There was also a best seller: China Can Say No - modeled after the Japanese original.
China's top conservative ideologue, Deng Liqun, who openly criticised Deng Xiaoping's 1992 tour of southern China which sparked the current economic boom, was left off the high-profile 459-member funeral committee for Deng at the request of the dead man's family, according to reports in Beijing. Deng Liqun was China's propaganda chief for several years under Deng. China marks the 20th anniversary today of the publication of a newspaper article headlined "Practice is the sole criterion for verifying truth" -- jargon that sparked a fierce political debate and a power struggle. The slogan was an ideological sleight of hand used by reformers in the Chinese Communist Party to topple Mao Zedong's anointed heir Hua Guofeng, who had insisted that China cling to Mao's radical decisions and instructions. Reformers won the power struggle against diehard leftists, leading to China dumping Mao's egalitarian policies and embracing sweeping economic changes. The anniversary comes at a time when China's leadership is plagued by a plethora of problems and trying to push through a bold reform package endorsed at last September's 15th party congress to overhaul the lumbering state sector. To support today's badly-needed reforms, the authorities appear to have loosened their grip on what Chinese can and cannot say, emboldening liberal intellectuals to speak out as well as raising hopes of a new "Beijing spring". But that loosening has angered leftists. The communists are struggling to prevent an economic slowdown from creeping in amid Asia's financial crisis and are keen to contain social unrest linked to unemployment, soaring crime, widespread corruption and rapidly declining socialist ethics. Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who is also the party chief, has confronted the problems head-on, declaring war on crime and corruption as well as trying to resurrect socialist ethics through a much-publicised campaign to "build spiritual civilisation".
"The leftists may not be that powerful, but they could exploit problems arising from reform and opening up," a Chinese political analyst said. "China's problems have no quick solutions," the analyst added. Ultra-leftists, led by former propaganda czar Deng Liqun, oppose the reforms endorsed at the congress that could throw millions out of work and reduce the role of the state sector in the economy. The President has called for vigilance against leftism. The most vocal provocations are likely to come from leftists: the socialist or Maoist die-hards who oppose Deng's reforms both on principle and for the anti-egalitarian changes they have brought about. Jiang has already felt their heat: last year, an anonymous 10,000-character petition to the President was circulated around government offices. It warned of a "new threat" resulting from reforms, which included money worship among the people and an insidious increase in private entrepreneurship. "When conditions are ripe," it predicted, employing time-honored communist locutions, "the capitalistic class will intervene in internal struggles of the Party." Despite an official denial, the author is widely assumed to be Deng Liqun, a shrewd 81-year-old former minister of propaganda who continues to be a thorn in Jiang's side. "He's a purist," says a Western academic in Beijing. In 1983, he tried slowing down Deng Xiaoping's reforms by supporting the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign, in which economic liberalization was blamed for rising levels of crime and corruption. Three years later, "Little" Deng--a nickname used to distinguish him from his illustrious rival--and like-minded leftists were behind a similar campaign to fight "bourgeois liberalization," a term that referred to the growing ranks of Chinese who showed too much enthusiasm for such imports as rock music and free speech. After 1987, the leftists gained influence in Beijing, slowing down several of Deng's planned reforms, including modest political liberalizations such as separating party and state affairs. In frustration, an obviously enfeebled Deng felt forced to take an arduous tour of southern China in 1992 to encourage faster capitalistic development. The left so dominated the official media that Deng's tour didn't make it into the country's major media outlets for two months. But when it did, the trip had the effect of revving up reforms. Jiang must heed the leftist egalitarian arguments because they resonate among the millions of workers laid off by struggling state firms and retired cadres who have lost prestige and perks. In February, the hard-line leftist magazine Zhongliu (Mainstream) ran a critical review of a new book of Jiang's essays. The article accused Jiang of ignoring basic principles of the Communist Party; last week, the government banned the edition.
So, obviously the left is not just lying down to die quietlly. If reform suceeds, the left will attack it from the spiritual/ideological angle. And if reform fails to produce substainable prosperity, the left will attack it from the operational angle. Either way, the left will continue to be a thorn on the side of the reformists.
As for your question as how to substantiate China's claim that she is still a socialist country from the perspective of a Marxist analytical framework, I am afraid I would be unable to do so, because China is in the process of redefining that framework. So the claim falls in the category of what semanticists call a declarative utterance - saying it makes it so.
Still, your points are thought provoking. Thank you.
Henry C.K. Liu
Stephen E Philion wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Nov 1998, Henry C.K. Liu wrote:
>
> > Louis Proyect:
> >
> > To be serious, the CCP is not suicidal. If the CCP really believes, as Sweeny
> > concludes, that trade will bring about its eventual demise, it will shut it down
> > in one week.
> >
>
> This kind of reasoning seems awfully voluntaristic. Whether or not China
> is able to or will complete a capitalist transition is less determined by
> the 'will' of the CCP than issues of political economic trends
> domestically and internatinally and balances of class power.
>
> I'm not sure about the level of awareness of left criticisms of Chinese
> economic reforms, or how seriously they are taken, in China at least.
> Almost every important economics conference or polisci/sociological
> conference is strongly dominated by unself-critical liberal ideology,
> especially as it concerns how markets operate, originate,...
>
> That is not to say there is no debate whatsoever, but leftists are. like
> their counterparts in the advanced capitalist regions of the world
> (of course this i s most especially the case in the US) marginalized in
> debates in China. And, of course, western Marxist criticisms can also be
> easily dismissed as 'western' and thereby uninformed, when no good
> arguments can be proffered to support one's embrace of liberal ideology.
> Thus, the serious research of people like Gerard Greenfield is generally
> regarded as 'western mudslinging' as though he were only critical of the
> abuse of labor in China, which any serious person knows tonot be the case.
>
> One interesting countertrend that is making it dificulat to label every
> Marxist(ish) criticsms of China as 'western', especially as they concern
> labor rights is that, as occurred at an international confernce on labor
> law a few weeks ago, these types of criticisms are not only coming from
> Western caucasians, but are coming from people of color from non-western
> and less developed countries . At this conference, though a
> representative of the official Federation of Trade Unions tried to label
> the call for independent trade union rights as 'western', the tactic was
> not very successful or convincing, since the people who made some of the
> most eloquent arguments for this were from the Philiopines, indonesia,
> hong Kong, and Korea, hardly typical examples of western caucasians..
>
> This is, of course, a countertrend that remains quite minor, but still
> worth noting.
> mopre below
> > Henry C.K. Liu > > Louis Proyect wrote: > > >
> Henry Liu:
> > > >China's is aware of the theoretical criticism of her policies from the
> > > Left, and
> > > >she is nor doctrinaire about defending them. But we should acknowledge
> > > that China
> > > >is still the most socialist system in the world as measured by any reasonable
> > > >standard, and as compared to any other government in power.
> > >
> Precisely how would you support this argument? When I ask this, I don't
> mean how would you support this from a "Chinese" perspective, but from a
> Marxist analytical framework.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve
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