Discussion Regarding the Peoples Republic of China
Critique of Martinez’s The East is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century
William Walter Kay
The East is Still Red (2023) gets some things right. For starters, Martinez relays that China’s pre-1949 revolutionaries assailed rural landlords not urban capitalists – their goal:
“…the uncompensated division of landlords’ fields among the peasants and the outright cancellations of all accumulated rural debt…”
Given that China consisted mostly of tenant-farmers these reforms constituted a transformative revolution.
Moreover Martinez, rare bird, knows that Marxism centers around the building-up of productive capacity. He imparts this from Old Karl:
“…the development of productive forces of social labour is capital’s historic mission and justification. For that reason, it creates the material conditions for a higher form of production.”
Martinez sets the Communist Party of China (CPC) securely on Marxist tracks with quotes from Deng Xiaoping like:
“Marxism attaches the utmost importance to developing the productive forces…the fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces. The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by the faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system.”
Using state-owned enterprises and command-economics the CPC achieved the most rapid growth in history. Their poverty alleviation accomplishments are unparalleled.
The late-1970s Faustian bargain the CPC entered into with the West didn’t require abandoning socialist objectives. Through a measured degree of privatization and liberalization China acquired precious technologies; and reaped eyepopping trade surpluses (now $800 billion annually).
While some contend China became capitalist, Martinez disagrees. The controversy partly arises from the fool’s errand of trying to encapsulate a country’s socio-economic structure in one word.
China hosts a hybrid system combining elements of capitalism and socialism. CPC terms like “market socialism” and “socialism with Chinese characteristics” seem more apt, but are still wanting. The CPC aspires to fully functioning socialism by 2049.
Martinez could have done a better job detailing how China’s 108,000 state-owned enterprises thoroughly dominate China’s banking, metals, energy, transport and defense sectors. As well, China’s statist and collectivist land ownership systems, urban and rural, differ qualitatively from those found in the West. Claims that China’s post-1978 boom proves market-capitalism’s superiority are neo-liberal nonsense.
A graver weakness of Martinez’s analysis is his failure to mention unemployment. Mass unemployment is a core, signature feature of capitalism which shouldn’t exist under socialism. While good data on Chinese unemployment is hard to find, the problem is undeniably significant especially among youth. Silence on unemployment leaves Martinez looking like a shill. (Martinez writes for Global Times, China Daily and CGTN.)
*
Another annoying bug in Martinez’s little book is its repetition of “collapse of the Soviet Union” (4 times) and “Soviet collapse” (5 times).
Western scholarship on the USSR’s demise deploys “collapse” ad nauseum. The more connected the scholars are to the intel community, the more they use the term. They suffer no synonyms; only “collapse” will do.
“Collapse” implies a defective structure falling upon its own weight. The USSR didn’t collapse. It was demolished by Western intel agencies and their Fifth Column. Martinez has a blind spot regarding intel orgs despite their being the lead actors on modernity’s stage.
*
Martinez unfurls his fatal error in the chapter title:
“China is Building an Ecological Civilization”
To prove this thesis Martinez scours General Secretary Xi’s oeuvre for scintillas of ecologism; unearthing a few passages buried in Xi’s Governance of China; for example:
“We must strike a balance between economic growth and environmental protection. We will be more conscientious in promoting green, circular, and low-carbon development. We will never again seek economic growth at the cost of the environment.”
Is Xi paying lip service to imperialist enviro-dogma to preserve trading relations?
Mao and Deng played along with imperialism’s overpopulation hysteria, which they never took seriously.
Martinez forgets Xi is a politician. Promises from seasoned politicians to do things 40 years hence hardly evince sincere commitment. In 2020 to the UN General Assembly, and again in 2022 to the World Economic Forum (a.k.a. Climate-Industrial-Complex), Xi promised carbon neutrality by 2060. Such gratuitous fantasizing barely warrants transcription. Nevertheless, Martinez brandishes these soundbites as proof of Xi’s devout climatism.
China (and India) sign climate protocols only on the express understanding that they aren’t required to do anything.
*
From its 1860s conception to the present, “Ecology” has been a premeditated pseudo-science. Better described as “Conservation Biology,” Ecology fuses real sciences like Zoology and Botany with the reactionary agenda of conservationism which seeks to block economic growth in order to protect antique property relations. Ecology is Marxism’s antithesis.
Groping in the dark, Martinez grasps this acorn:
The choice facing China in the last decades of the 20th century was between economic development with environmental degradation or underdevelopment with environmental conservation.
Correction:
The choice facing every country is development or underdevelopment – “environmental conservation” being underdevelopment’s decorative packaging.
“Underdevelopment” mustn’t be confused with “undeveloped.” The latter simply means an unsettled region. “Underdevelopment” refers to campaigns by imperialist states aimed at thwarting resource extraction, land clearances, and settlements in former colonial countries.
*
Martinez furthers his “Eco-China” thesis by pointing to China’s booming “climate-friendly” industries.
In the 1970s Western oil importing countries began petroleum phase-outs. These initiatives soon fused with coal phase-outs to form the “Energy Transition” which donned “Climate Change” for propaganda cover.
While China is the world’s 6th largest oil producer, domestic production lags domestic demand. China is now the world’s largest oil importer. Thus, it makes economic sense for China, apart from any climate hooey, to subsidize technologies like electromobility that reduce oil imports. This logic doesn’t work for the USA, Russia or Canada which possess inexhaustible oil reserves.
Nonetheless, China’s oil-replacement achievements are impressive. China electrified its urban bus fleet. China possesses 1.8 million public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations – 65% of the world total. China produces 8 million EVs annually – 60% of the world total.
The problem with Martinez’s reasoning (and this also applies to China’s wind and solar industries) is that China’s vaunted “climate-friendly” production must be situated within a grander fact-set; i.e., China now dominates almost every industrial sector. China manufactures a third of all cars. China produces over half the world’s steel; over half the world’s shoes…
*
Martinez notes that China reduced coal’s share of its electrical mix from 81% to 56% between 2007 and 2022. Coal crept back to 61% in 2023. More importantly, Martinez doesn’t factor in how much China’s electricity output expanded. China mines and burns more coal than ever.
Martinez highlights China’s cancellation of certain future coal-fired powerplants. Such claims are unverifiable, cost-free greenwash. Similarly, some Chinese provinces have adopted “Green GDP” statistics. These are but virtue-signaling bookkeeping exercises.
Many of China’s “climate” accomplishments, that Martinez crows about, began before the G7 launched the climate crusade (1984). True, China plans to build 150 nuclear reactors over the next 15 years; but China’s been building reactors for decades. The same goes for China’s hydroelectric projects. Chinese reforestation dates to 1970s desert cultivation initiatives. Despite “climate” rebranding, all said endeavours merely extend pre-existing policies.
Similarly, while Martinez hypes China’s ultra-high-voltage, long-distance transmissions lines; these lines often carry coal-generated electricity.
Finally, Martinez muddles the issue of urban air quality (a legit concern) with climate change (a hoax). He further presumes that efficient resource use and clean water are exclusively enviro-concerns. Even hyper-industrialists want safe drinking water.
*
Compounding his befuddlement, Martinez makes basic mistakes:
· He categorizes nuclear power as “renewable energy”!?
· He reminds:
“Carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy generated are twice as high for coal as for natural gas…”
While neglecting that during the drilling, transporting, storing and burning of natural gas copious amounts of methane leak into the atmosphere. Methane traps far more heat than CO2. (Not that this should worry us. The Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis remains a spurious ruse.)
· He boasts:
“Datong, China’s “coal capital” is seeking to put its coal reserves to better use: producing hydrogen for use in emissions-free hydrogen-powered vehicles and electricity storage.”
Coal-to-hydrogen processes spew CO2.
· Martinez posits:
“…it’s widely understood that improving energy efficiency is one of the most critical steps towards reducing quantities of greenhouse gases we are placing in the atmosphere.”
Every rational enterprise on Earth pursues energy efficiency and not necessarily to save the climate. Furthermore, Jevon’s Paradox tells us that introducing more fuel-efficient technologies increases fuel usage. New technologies render the fuel’s energy cheaper. Lowered costs open new vistas for utilizing that energy…
*
At his worst Martinez finds common cause with establishment ecofascists who, of course, praise China. Our green commissars turn greener with envy whilst ogling China’s one-party system. They covet not a dictatorship of the proletariat but a dictatorship of the ancient regime.
Alas poor Carlos:
“Tis easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.”