You can try SWAPO’s website: www.swapoparty.org.na/index.php/document-publications, might be slightly outdated but it does include the 2018 changes to their party constitution by adding “socialism with Namibian characteristics”.
I’m not a history or politics buff even on the topic of China, but due decades of misinformation on China, especially in the English-speaking world, I find it necessary to speak out with official Chinese sources.
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6·1 year agoSorry I got heated up after reading the article you linked, the strong words are directed at that. I personally wish the Cultural Revolution had succeeded but alas here we are.
There will always be the risk of reactionaries sneaking into the party and climbing up to the higher ranks, or former comrades turning corrupt and endangering the the socialist cause. But that doesn’t mean we should destabilize the country just to deal with them, that only helps the reactionaries further their cause.
What everyone should learn from the Cultural Revolution is how NOT to handle internal contradictions.
This is the second time I’m seeing the Cultural Revolution put in a good light in this post, get off your high horses you naive idealists!
The Cultural Revolution was hijacked by ultras, Lin Biao tried to assassinate Mao.
This is the Constitution of the CPC in 1969: https://fuwu.12371.cn/2014/12/24/ARTI1419387596442272.shtml, it includes this paragraph in the preamble:
林彪同志一贯高举毛泽东思想伟大红旗，最忠诚、最坚定地执行和捍卫毛泽东同志的无产阶级革命路线。林彪同志是毛泽东同志的亲密战友和接班人。
(DeepL translation) Comrade Lin Biao has consistently held high the great red flag of Mao Zedong Thought and has most faithfully and resolutely implemented and defended the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrade Mao Zedong. Comrade Lin Biao is Comrade Mao Zedong’s close comrade-in-arms and successor.
Utterly disgusting.
I reread my comment and fixed a mistake for the 1964 statistic, it turned out to be 32.3% because I mixed up the denominator and used the population number from 1982 when calculating for 1964.
From Amazon it looks like the book is written in English and Han Dongping “teaches history and political science at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. Han comes from a rural background in China. ” Now that doesn’t sound like something I would waste time reading as a Chinese. But I found a PDF of it on http://www.socialiststories.com/en/writers/Han-Dongping/ so I might read it.
I’d be wary of anyone who tries to glorify the Cultural Revolution.
For example, the point about literacy rates:
From China’s second census in 1964, 233,267,947 out of 723,070,269 people over the age of 13 were illiterate, that’s 32.3%.
From China’s third census in 1982, 235,820,002 out of 1,031,882,511 people over the age of 12 were illiterate or semi illiterate, that’s 22.9%.
Note that these two statistics aren’t referring to the same thing, so the report for the third census in 1982 also mentions that the percentage of people that were illiterate and semi illiterate went down from 38.1％ in 1964 to 23.5% in 1982.
Side note: I found a site that’s supposedly “The voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA” https://revcom.us/a/174/dongping_han-en.html that mentions this book, and what do I find?
But after Mao died in 1976, top leaders in the Communist Party, headed by Deng Xiaoping, carried out a reactionary coup.
Others have mentioned China’s non-interference policy, I’d like to add that I think the only way for China to get more involved is through the UN, that means the Security Council or Peacekeeping or some other UN organization.
58·1 year agoThanks for the ping @GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml .
Chinese in China here, I think a better question than “Do you support your government” would be: “If the US government were to replace the CPC and current government tomorrow, would you approve?” Sorry to folks in Nordic countries (another stereotype propelled by liberals) because the US is the “beacon” that liberals use mainly.
If people from any country have no experience with living in other countries, they might be more inclined to topple their own government if their living conditions aren’t great and someone were to advocate for the toppling. Even if people read about how bad some foreign governments are in the news, some people would just brush it off as “propaganda”, they would have to see it for themselves to believe. This goes both ways for both the people of the US and China.
Comparison is a powerful tool, but some people whip out the “whataboutism” card when you try to do that, they tell you to address the problem instead of finding worse examples from other places. Indeed it’s always better to address the problem at hand, but people who scream “whataboutism” in relation to China’s issues are really saying “don’t look at worse places to make yourself feel good, overthrow the SEE-SEE-PEE regime now!”
Do I support the CPC and Chinese government? Yes and yes.
Does China have problems. Yes.
Do I need to hear from egotistical maniacs in other countries on how to handle issues in my country? No.
Sorry I got the impression that you meant trolls and bots hiding their real location to avoid law enforcement, because normal users can’t tell either way.
Using a VPN or other methods to hide your IP address will only delay tracking efforts, and throwaway accounts are not a thing in China with real-name verification, though there is a similar problem with personal information being stolen to register accounts, and selling your verified account for profit.
If a person is in China and tries to use a VPN/proxy based overseas to hide their real IP, they would have to add an additional layer of redirection to avoid running into a situation where multiple accounts are posting from the same IP address. If a person is overseas and tries to use a proxy based in China to make it seem like they are in China, well then they’re just inviting the authorities to ask for server logs from the local provider, it’s the same situation if they’re in China but using an IP address from another province.
Of course most trolls or bots aren’t going to be targeted IRL, usually their accounts gets muted for some duration or banned if they violate laws or platform TOS. Occasionally you see reports of people being detained for spreading rumours or outright false claims that become widely circulated.
If the person is based overseas, there’s nothing you can do to them IRL unless you’re the US.
The international bourgeoisie has a weakness for capital gains, some of them think ideologies different from capitalism are just facades for other forms of capitalism, so when China opens up foreign investment and trade, they’ll happily join in. Any hype around “anti-China” and “anti-communism” is just to appease local liberal and fascist sentiments, no self-respecting capitalist will stop investing in China just because of “moral obligations”.
Both international and local bourgeoisie in China are under close scrutiny by the people. Chinese liberals think they are helping the bourgeoisie when they complain of government regulations and restrictions, but it only helps to focus more attention on the bourgeoisie and their actions.
As for dogmatic or uninformed people who refuse to acknowledge that China is socialist, I would say that the international bourgeoisie controls a lot of technology and expertise around the world, you can’t expect to develop the productive forces by shutting them out. Self-sufficiency is an admirable spirit but it’ll only get you so far, most countries don’t have the resources to do what China has accomplished in the field of science and technology even if they’re not sanctioned or isolated by the international bourgeoisie.
It is the workers who do all the work, but to reach the workers you have to go through the capitalists, such is the dilemma of living in the real world. There are two ways to develop the productive forces, either do-it-yourself or through exchange of information. I’m going to use the example of open source vs closed-source software for this:
When working on non-core components of closed-source software, programmers could be repeating work already done by other programmers from other companies, but due to the closed-source nature it is hard for to find out if this is the case. If open source software is used for those non-core components instead, programmers can benefit from the maintenance by a larger community, and managers can benefit from reduced time and costs. This is a double-win for both managers and workers, which is why large software corporations also embrace and contribute to open source software.
If you can see how exchange of information the above example helps to facilitate the development of productive forces, this is the same logic as to why a socialist country needs to do business with the international bourgeoisie. Now we know that it’s not all positive outcomes when you invite the international bourgeoisie to invest and trade, ideological, societal and economical problems are also part of the package, which is part of the reason why some Marxists don’t acknowledge China as socialist.
a spark that sets a prairie ablaze
“A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire” is the title of a famous letter and saying by Mao Zedong. Both “Maoists” and reactionaries like to use Mao’s sayings to criticize the CPC, the former aiming to criticize the “revisionist” government, and the latter aiming to overthrow the socialist system.
“June 4th incident” or “counter-revolutionary riot/rebellion” is part of a larger topic called “1989 Political Disturbance/Turmoil”, those who are interested can try searching with these terms.
BTW, in China “Tiananmen incident” refers to the 1976 incident, both incidents began from the mournings of Chinese leaders (Zhou Enlai in 1976 and Hu Yaobang in 1989).
A few words from the article that stick in my mind after reading this: “truncated”, “ceremonial”, “absolutist”.
Very appropriate adjectives for the article itself.
I remember this being brought up in the regular press conferences of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China for three days in a row, here are some Q&As related to cybersecurity:
AFP: The US cybersecurity firm Mandiant on Thursday published a statement related to a cyberattack. It says that suspected hackers backed by China have broken into the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organizations globally. Are you aware of this report and is it accurate?
Wang Wenbin: The cybersecurity firm that you mentioned has repeatedly sold disinformation on so-called Chinese hacking attacks. The stories are far-fetched and unprofessional. The Chinese cybersecurity agency published in April the “Review of Cyberattacks from US Intelligence Agencies”, which disclosed that US intelligence agencies have been intruding on, dividing and suppressing foreign cybersecurity vendors through the Project CAMBERDADA. You might have noted that nowadays, global cybersecurity vendors rarely disclose cases of cyberattacks by the US government, but by making up reports about so-called foreign cyberattacks, US cybersecurity vendors have become accomplices in the US government’s smearing campaigns against other countries.
Bloomberg: Last night or early this morning, Microsoft said it found a China-based group that was targeting government agencies in western Europe. Does China have any comment on this report and have you had any contact with governments in western Europe asking about this?
Wang Wenbin: We noted the reports saying that the spokesman for the White House National Security Council claimed that US officials found hackers linked to China took advantage of a security weakness in Microsoft’s cloud-computing to break into unclassified email accounts of the US, and the US has notified Microsoft about this. I would like to say that in the past, it was usually the world’s No.1 hacking group—the US National Security Agency, which also serves as the US Cyber Force Command, that released such kind of disinformation. This time, it was the US National Security Council that made a public statement. Whatever agency spoke, it does not change the fact that the US is the world’s biggest hacking empire and global cyber thief.
Since last year, cyber security institutions from China and elsewhere in the world have issued reports to reveal US government’s cyber attacks against China over the years, but the US has yet to make a response. It is high time that the US explained its cyber attack activities and stopped spreading disinformation to deflect public attention.
AFP: I have a question on the report by Microsoft this week, which said a China-based hacking group was targeting Western government data. Does the Chinese foreign ministry have any further details on the origin of these hacks?
Wang Wenbin: I have answered relevant questions yesterday. The US needs to give an explanation for its own cyber attacks as soon as possible, instead of spreading disinformation and deflecting attention.
CCTV: Yesterday, Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Wang Yi met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken upon invitation in Jakarta, Indonesia. A US official said that the US side said at the meeting that the US government network was hacked and the US will hold the hackers accountable with proper measures. Do you have any comment?
Wang Wenbin: Director Wang Yi made clear China’s principled position on the issue of cyber security. The Chinese government agencies face numerous cyber attacks every day, most of which come from sources in the US. We’ve shared relevant facts with the international community on multiple occasions. China is the biggest victim of cyber attack. The US needs to stop slapping false labels on China.
Bloomberg: A US energy executive has told lawmakers in the US that China represents an increasing threat to the US power grid. The executive also called China’s activities regarding cyber hacking quite alarming. How does the foreign ministry respond?
Mao Ning: China is a victim of cyber attacks. We firmly oppose any form of cyber attacks. The US has carried out indiscriminate, large-scale cyber attacks against other countries over the years. The US Cyber Force Command blatantly declared last year that the critical infrastructure of other countries is a legitimate target for US cyber attacks. Such moves have raised concern.
Cyber security is a global challenge and requires joint response from the international community. Some in the US must not smear other countries with groundless narratives to serve their political agenda. The US needs to stop cyber attacks against other countries.
Dragon TV: According to reports, on July 20, CIA Director William Burns while attending the Aspen Security Forum said that progress has been made in rebuilding the US spy networks in China and they are working hard to build a very strong human intelligence capability to complement what they can acquire through other methods. What’s China’s comment?
Mao Ning: We’ve noted the reports. This is rather concerning. The US on the one hand keeps spreading disinformation on so-called “Chinese spying and cyber attacks”, and on the other hand tells the public about its large-scale intelligence activities targeting China. This in itself is quite revealing. China will take all measures necessary to safeguard national security.
Global Times: Today, the Wuhan Municipal Emergency Management Bureau issued a public statement and the Wuhan Public Security Bureau put up a bulletin. According to them, the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center suffered a cyberattack, which was detected by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and Chinese company 360. Global Times reported that preliminary evidence indicates that the cyberattack had come from the US. What is your comment?
Mao Ning: According to the statements from relevant Chinese agencies, a hacker group with overseas government background launched a cyberattack on the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center, which is a serious threat to China’s national security.
We condemn the irresponsible attack. China will do what is necessary to safeguard our cybersecurity.
China Daily: Lately, US officials, including National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, Secretary of Commerce and spokesperson for the White House National Security Council have commented on the so-called “Chinese cyberattacks against the US.” Officials from the US National Security Agency even said that espionage is what nation-states do. Are the statements released today by relevant Chinese agencies a response to US remarks?
Mao Ning: The statements from China are objective and professional. They simply stated a fact. This is inherently different from the accusation and smear against China from the US. The US government is engaged in malicious cyber operations against not just China but countries around the world, while blaming China for so-called “hacking attacks.” This is textbook double standards and political manipulation.
Cybersecurity is a common challenge. By politicizing and weaponizing cybersecurity issues, the US is disrupting the global effort of jointly addressing the challenge through dialogue and cooperation and hampering the mutual trust among countries. The US needs to immediately stop its wrongdoing and work with the rest of the world to make common rules through dialogue and cooperation and abide by these rules, and safeguard peace, security and stability in cyberspace with a constructive and pragmatic attitude.
There’s a famous book that goes into the details of this process, you may have even heard of it, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.
Haven’t heard that one, but here’s an example, on the left is BBC’s Chinese version, on the left is the English version:
Original article: BBC sparks uproar in China for ‘underworld filter’ on Wuhan video https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1215710.shtml
There are plenty of liberal Chinese both within China and overseas who will use anything negative to paint China, CPC and socialism in a bad light, mostly non-politcal issues.
I’m not sure which videos have this, but when I see this I expect to see cynical content that may be used to defame China.
It’s like saying “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but *says something disrespectful*”.
By “democratic capitalism” they actually mean bourgeois democratic dictatorship, as opposed to people’s/proletariat democratic dictatorship.
From “Press conference on successful implementation of ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong and Macao since the 18th CPC National Congress”: http://english.scio.gov.cn/pressroom/2022-11/06/content_78504624_9.htm
Now this doesn’t mean that the overall policy won’t change over the next couple of decades, but I think it’s more realistic for the transition to socialism to occur from within Hong Kong and Macao and not through intervention from the central government.
For reference: Xi Jinping’s address at the meeting celebrating the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland and the inaugural ceremony of the sixth-term government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2022-07/04/content_78303693.htm