The demonization of China by the United States and its allies may be counterproductive

The economy of the People’s Republic of China has grown much faster than that of the United States for decades. The same is true of the average real wage in China. China is now the world’s second-largest superpower, economically catching up with the United States, if not (again). Its political influence increased with the GDP. Where the main US scapegoat was once the Soviet Union / Russia, China replaced the latter in this position. The global tourism industry is opening courts to Chinese big spenders.

China’s technological advancements continue to surprise and impress most of the world.

The basic story here largely duplicates the history of the United States and the British Empire. The United States was once just a colony, humiliated and financially abused by its settlers. China suffered similarly at the hands of the colonized aggressors, but was able to escape its official colonial status, with the exception of a few excursions. The resentment and bitterness built up in the collapse of the colonial era American Revolutionary War in the second half of the 18th century. The same thing happened in China in the middle of the 20th century. In the War of 1812, the new United States proved that the British Empire could not defeat the War of 1812. In the Korean War, the new People’s Republic of China proved that the American Empire could not not undo the Chinese revolution.

Independence economically caught up with the colonists throughout the 19th century, triggering rapid economic growth in the United States which overtook it. World War I showed a role reversal between the United States and Great Britain. On many levels – political, cultural and economic – rulers and rulers have shifted. Throughout the 20th century, the United States banished (and replaced itself) the British Empire and other European empires, thus becoming a global hegemony. After a terrible stumbling block in the Great Depression, he responded with an explosion of social democracy in the New Deal. On top of that, the United States has promised that other countries around the world will copy what they call “people” or “welfare” capitalism, which represents the epitome of human development. At the turn of the 21st century, critics named British Prime Minister Tony Blair the “American Poodle” because of his subordinate subordination to the administration of George W. Bush in the United States.

Likewise, the Chinese Revolution of 1949 sparked an astonishing economic recovery after the series of tragedies of Japanese aggression, World War II and Civil War. The economic recovery has allowed a political maturity that transforms the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China from Soviet and Soviet followers into the equivalent of their own program, values ​​and interpretations of Marxism. Culturally, China has gained incredible confidence as the awakened giant regains its hegemonic status in Asia and beyond. Due to the changes in world affairs and the constant exhaustion of the resumption phase of its development, China changed course with the death of Mao Zedong. He created a new Chinese economy and named it socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The economy has not only achieved the unprecedented feats of growth mentioned above, but also without providing most of the foreign aid to many other developing countries. The active hostility of the United States has imposed its deprivation on China. It also made independence the decisive foundation for China’s development. Over the past half century, China has been a model of the determination with which developing countries mobilize their surplus for development. Through huge investments in infrastructure, industrial capacity, capacity growth, education and R&D, Chinese workers have created surpluses which are mainly used to build and develop the Chinese economy. This deliberate investment program continued after China opened the door (1) to foreign private capitalist investment, (2) to the development and growth of Chinese private capitalist enterprises, and (3) to partnerships between they. .. The Chinese Communist Party and the National Organization of China have controlled and manipulated the resulting acceleration of excess production to invest in the growth targets set by the party and the state. China’s surplus was then used to recreate the complex class structure of private and state-owned enterprises, as well as foreign and domestic private capitalists, and ultimately to undertake market regulation and government economic planning. It was.

Today, the challenge that China presents to the United States, and indeed to the capitalist world economy, is a model that deviates considerably from the capitalist model of private laissez-faire that has prevailed in world capitalism. In this last model, the government is called to (Lacanes) only if the crisis hits and threatens private capitalism. And government economic intervention is limited in scope and scope and is temporary in time. Minimal government regulation and minimal direct production of goods and services by government are important rules.

In China, on the other hand, the Communist Party and the state intervene much more in economic problems by regulating more private companies (foreign and domestic) and letting the state own and operate businesses. What is brought to the party and to the nation is global control of economic development. Its control goes far beyond the role of government in Western Europe, North America and Japan in scope and duration. Having parties and states as a community to conduct determined policies enables the regular mobilization of most private and public resources to achieve agreed goals. The most important goal is economic development to escape the poverty peculiar to South Asia. The mobilization to stop the spread of COVID-19 through blockades in Wuhan and elsewhere was another example. It was also technically comparable and at times superior to the United States in many areas.

Keynesian economics flourished in the realm of economics when government policy clearly supported the survival of capitalism and recovery from the Great Depression of the 1930s. Neoclassical economics began in the 1970s when government policy (neoliberalism) clearly allowed Keynes’ private capitalists to support the retreat of regulations and constraints (like the New Deal and Social Democracy). There is an opportunity to regain control within the profession. China’s remarkable economic growth over the past 30 to 40 years will be triggered and made possible by corresponding developments in the field of the economy. These will involve the rediscovery, acceptance and strengthening of government economic intervention as a means of achieving socially priority goals.

As the denial of China’s continued economic success loses its rhetoric, if and how capitalism in Western Europe, North America and Japan can learn from China and coexist with China. More and more attention will be paid to the Chinese model to explore. Demonization and threats (New Cold War) directed at China’s real and false political and cultural issues are also likely to diminish in favor of mutual adaptation with China. Chinese leaders have expressed their view that, alongside state-owned and operated companies, they have and will continue to deal with trade and investment with private capitalists. This is the driving force behind their remarkable development and they believe there is no reason to change this approach.

Rather, it is part of the United States considering a military conflict with China as necessary and now reasonably possible. If that happens, the Chinese will see what the United States really opposes: the retention of power by the Chinese Communist Party and the social structure presided over by the Chinese state. Chinese leaders have said he will fight it completely.

The Chinese population is more than four times that of the United States. The total output of this economy can far exceed that of the United States in a matter of years. Its global political influence is growing rapidly. Increasingly, U.S. allies need to rethink their foreign relations in light of Chinese rule. Meanwhile, America’s economic woes (such as unstable cycles, wealth and income inequalities, political divisions, and explosive debt build-up) are increasing. The ability of the United States to change China, away from its traditional path and structure, and its ability to move it away from its traditional path and structure has proved unimpressive to almost anyone there. pay attention.

Speeding up the demonization of China appears to be a poor response and perhaps counterproductive. Yes, it duplicates the Soviet demonization that helped effectively cover the New Deal backtracking. However, rolling back the progress of other countries is a completely different project than doing it domestically. Also, the world situation today (economic, political, cultural) is very different from what it was after 1945. Nonetheless, Biden’s repetition of Cold War policies since 1945 is much closer to the original policy as the economic policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that will turn out to be the exact opposite of what the current crisis needs.

(Richard D. Wolff is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Visiting Professor in the Program at the New School University Graduate School of International Affairs, New York. Wolff’s weekly “Economic Updates” is syndicated . 100 other radio stations switch to 55 million television receivers via Free Speech TV. His last three books Where Democracy Works is Illness is a system: when capitalism cannot save us from a pandemic or from itself, Understanding Marxism,and Understanding socialism)..

Source: Independent Media Institute

This article was created by The economy for all, project of the Independent Media Institute.

(Image credit: Sunday Guardian).