WILL CHINA’S NEW LEFT BE A FORCE TO RECKON WITH?
Simon of Simon World has an intriguing post about a nascent political undercurent in China that is unhappy with the inegalitarian effects of capitalist modernization:
“The group is defined by what they oppose rather than what they stand for, the death knell of any political group.
The ‘New Left’ are worried about China’s growing income gap but without any solutions. Is the income gap worth worrying about? No, with a but. If you think of an economy as a pie, it doesn’t matter if the allocation of the pie is uneven, so long as the pie itself is growing. Is that true in China’s case? Clearly the answer is yes. Witness the massive rise in living standards for literally hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens. It is the most rapid poverty allieviation in history. Yes, there is still plenty of crushing poverty in China. But it is decreasing at a rapid rate, not thanks to trendy pop concerts or dollops of foreign aid, but thanks to a quasi-capitalist economic system”
It would seem that, to invoke Communist jargon of the Cold war past, the ” correct line” on China’s economy was decided in the contest for power between Hu Yaobang and Deng Xiaoping after the fall of the Gang of Four. Then subsequently reaffirmed in the adoption of Deng’s ” Four Modernizations” and the aftermath of Tiannamen in 1989 when elderly Maoist senior statesmen limited their crackdown to political dissent and did not try to reverse economic liberalization.
But these inchoate anticapitalist forces may try to outflank Party centrists on issues of nationalism, particularly on Taiwan and Sino-American relations and thus acquire a larger constituency for their economic policies while driving the centrists toward a harder line. They bear watching.
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:31 am
the aftermath of Tiannamen in 1989 when elderly Maoist senior statesmen limited their crackdown to political dissent and did not try to reverse economic liberalization.
A great read of post-Tiannamen China. We can often learn more by watching what others don’t do than what they do.
Another brilliant post.
-Dan tdaxp
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:00 am
Thanks for the comment. I’m getting a lot of flack from what could be termed “Western new lefties” who seem to see this as a potential panacea for what they think ails China.
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:05 am
Thank you very much Dan. Had the protestors been bolder or Deng less spry the outcome might have been very different in 1989. Deng’s immense prestige forced the crackdown but he also prevented things from going too far backward.
A while back they published the alleged transcripts ( or reconstructed paraphrasing) of the CCP politburo debate on Tiannamen in book form. Not being a Sinologist I can’t vouch for the authenticity but the transcripts certainly ” read” in a way familiar to anyone who has a bakground in studying Communist systems
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:53 am
Hi Simon,
Your blog is very valuable – my knowledge of China ( outside of philosophy) tends to be strongest in the 20th century and begins to get sketchier after Mao’s death. You’re sort of the Registan of East Asian affairs for me on the blogroll – nicely focused and well-considered postings.