Movements in contemporary |
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Chinese New Left | |||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 中国新左派 | ||||||
Traditional Chinese | 中國新左派 | ||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 中国新左翼 | ||||||
Traditional Chinese | 中國新左翼 | ||||||
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The Chinese New Left is a term used in the People's Republic of China to describe a diverse range of left-wing political philosophies that emerged in the 1990s that are critical of the economic reforms instituted under Deng Xiaoping, which emphasized policies of market liberalization and privatization to promote economic growth and modernization. [1]
Chinese intellectual Wang Hui links the emergence of New Leftism with the financial crisis of 1997 and the 1999 United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, which damaged the credibility of liberalism in China, as well as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. [2] Some of the Chinese New Left intellectuals enjoyed prominence, especially with the rise of Chongqing Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai, who promoted a set of socio-economic policies collectively termed the "Chongqing model", though they suffered a blow after the end of Bo's career in 2012 due to the Wang Lijun incident.
There is an ambiguity of the term New Left in discourse drawing from the diversity of the movement. Generally speaking, the New Left can be applied to a person who embraces leftist theories, ideals, and traditions rooted in variations of socialist ideology, and other schools criticizing postmodernism and neoliberalism. [3]
The New Left's relationship with Maoism and capitalism is complicated. Although some schools of thought suggest that the New Left wants the return to mass political movements of the Mao Zedong era and an abandonment of capitalism, others believe that it combines capitalism's open markets with socialist elements (particularly in rural China). [4] Additionally, the views within the New Left are diverse, ranging from hardline Maoists to more moderate social democrats. [5]
The term was first used by Chinese journalist Yang Ping, who published a review in the 21 July 1994, issue of Beijing Youth Daily about intellectual Cui Zhiyuan's article "New Evolution, Analytical Marxism, Critical Law, and China's Reality", remarking that China had produced its own "New Left wing". [6] [7]
Although many New Left intellectuals oppose certain Maoist approaches, the term "New Left" implies some agreement with Maoism. Since it is associated with the ultra-leftism of the Cultural Revolution, many scholars and intellectuals supporting socialist approaches and reforms, but opposing the radical and brutal approaches of the Maoist period, do not completely accept the "New Left" label. [8] Some are concerned about the fact that adopting leftism implies that China, historically different from the West, is still using a Western model to strategise its reforms and would be limited by how the West defines the Left. Intellectual Wang Hui explains the origin of, and his skepticism about, the term:
The first stirring of a more critical view of official marketization goes back to 1993 ... But it wasn't until 1997–98 that the label New Left became widely used, to indicate positions outside the consensus. Liberals adopted the term, relying on the negative identification of the 'Left' with late Maoism, to imply that these must be a throw-back to the Cultural Revolution. Up until then, they had more frequently attacked anyone who criticised the rush to marketization as a "conservative" - this is how Cui Zhiyuan was initially described, for example. From 1997 onwards, this altered. The standard accusatory term became "New Left" ... Actually, people like myself have always been reluctant to accept this label, pinned on us by our adversaries. Partly, this is because we have no wish to be associated with the Cultural Revolution, or for that matter, with what might be called the "Old Left" of the reform-era CCP. But it is also because the term New Left is a Western one, with a very distinct set of connotations – generational and political – in Europe and America. Our historical context is Chinese, not Western, and it is doubtful whether a category imported so explicitly from the West could be helpful in today's China. [9]
However, liberal intellectual Xu Youyu points out that Wang Hui's performance in his interview with the New Left Review suggests that he fully understood that the term was inevitably generated by social change and intellectual antagonism in China. [10] The term "New Left" remains fraught with confusion due to the lack of clarity in its definition. Some intellectuals labeled as New Leftists, including but not limited to Gan Yang, are associated with Western conservatives, including Leo Strauss, rather than the New Left movement of the 1960s. [11]
The concept of the New Left arose in China during the 1990s. [12] According to New Left theory, market-economy challenges stem from the fact that under Chinese economic reform, the market economy has become the dominant economic system; China's socialist economic reforms have brought the country into the global capitalist sphere. [13]
The development of the New Left is correlated to increased Chinese nationalism after its period of low-profile presence on the world stage during the Deng Xiaoping era. It is seen as a response to problems faced by China during its modernization drive since the 1980s, which has led to growing social inequality between the coast and hinterlands, and rich and poor. Some scholars believe that, based on its unique and drastic 20th-century economic and political changes, China cannot adopt the social-democratic, capitalist model of many Western countries. [14]
The Chinese New Left is concerned with the country's social-inequality issues. Some scholars believe that although the movement is not yet mature, it is likely to embed itself in Chinese society over the next century (assuming that polarization continues). [8] Strikes, sit-ins, slow-downs, and peasant uprisings, sporadic due to government suppression, are on the rise and may become more organized with the development of the New Left. [8]
Although they are skeptical and critical of capitalism, New Leftists recognize its influence on China and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of capitalist models. Cui Zhiyuan, a leading New Left intellectual, believes that it is imperative that socialism and capitalism are not viewed as opposites. [15] According to Zhang Xudong, "An advocate for New Deal-style economic and social policies in China was considered to be liberal in the 1980s, but as 'New Left' by the century's end." This overlap suggests that ideals set forth by the New Left strongly resemble the democratic socialism of the 1980s. [16] [17]
Economics plays a significant role in the Chinese New Left, whose development is closely associated with Chinese economic reform. Many supporters of the New Left generally believe that a leftist economic model should be found to tackle China's dependence on exports and savings, reduce the growing economic gap between rural and urban areas, and stimulate private business through public ownership and state planning. The capitalist free-market model applied in most social-democratic programs is undesirable because, instead of challenging and reforming the existing market economy and representative democracy, it seeks to moderate the social consequences of structural division and hierarchy. A suitable, sustainable market model is vital for China's leftist movement. [18] At the same time, the New Left criticized market reforms by citing the damage they caused to the countryside as an argument. [19]
New Left economist Cui Zhiyuan believes that a labour-capital partnership, based on the ideas of James Meade and John Maynard Keynes, can be used to introduce some flexibility to the labour market. Outside shareholders own capital-share certificates; workers own labour and share certificates, which replace a fixed wage and reduce the conflict of interest between workers and capitalists. Any decision that will improve one group (by raising the dividend on its share) will automatically raise the dividend on the shares of the other group. [18] Many New Left intellectuals are confident in the outcome of collective economic-development planning, anticipating rural industrialization. [14]
In 2010, when asked about the difference between the New Left in China and the New Left in the West, Professor Ding Xueliang of the Social Sciences Department of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology replied that, "there is no New Left in China at all, because the primary claim of the New Left is that human rights are greater than sovereignty", "The New Left in the West, they oppose the governments of their own countries on the one hand and the monopolies of their own countries on the other. Although their practical path may not be realistic, they at least have courage. The 'New Left' in China mostly appeals to the government, so how can this be called the New Left?" [20]
According to the Financial Times in 2016, several experts estimate that if there were free elections in China, a neo-Maoist candidate would win. This Maoist revival movement precedes the tenure of Xi Jinping, whose own revival of Mao-era elements seem to be intended as a conciliatory move towards the neo-Maoists. It is believed that the rising popularity of neo-Maoism is due to the growing economic dislocation and inequality under market reforms and globalisation. [21]
Critiques of Jiang Zemin's 2001 decision to allow private business people to become party members, [22] referring to the decision as "political misconduct" and "ideological confusions", helped fuel the rise of what would become known as the New Left movement. [23]
Neo-Maoists first became prominent under Hu Jintao's administration, delivering far-left attacks on CCP policy from websites such as Utopia , or MaoFlag . They expanded into a political movement through association with the Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, and succeeded in surviving crackdowns. It is believed that the CCP leadership is reluctant to eradicate these groups due to their connection with CCP history and ideology. [24]
Maoism and neo-Maoism have been increasingly popular after the rise of Xi Jinping among millennials and poor Chinese people, and they are more frequently covered by foreign media. [25] [26] [27] [28]
National Public Radio's website posted a story about Nanjie on 13 May 2011, calling it a prime example of recent "re-collectivizations" inspired by Mao's ideas: "The furniture and appliances in each home are identical, including the big red clocks with Chairman Mao's head, radiating psychedelic colours to the tune "The East Is Red." [Villager] Huang Zunxian owns virtually nothing in his apartment. The possessions are owned by the collective, right down to the couch cushions .... " Some villages around the country have followed Nanjie's example and re-collectivized." [29]
During the 1990s, rural industry began to stagnate and China's large peasant population was seen as a hindrance to the country's development. Popular demand for further modernization, urbanization, and marketization began to outweigh the successes of the previous Township and Village Enterprises. Cui Zhiyuan and Gan Yang began to establish small, rural industries and collectives to mitigate the increasing socioeconomic gap and provide an alternative to large-scale capitalism. [30]
Although Hegang has had the largest number of laid-off workers since 1996, the city has registered China's highest rate of economic growth. Cui Zhiyuan suggests that the cause of this phenomenon is its "combining public land ownership and the market". Hegang has focused on stimulating its real estate market to stimulate the development of related industries. [31]
Of the Chinese Communist Party's current ideology, the idea of privatising China's countryside has not been accepted and it remains in public hands. Although most non-urban land is used privately, it cannot be sold (unlike urban property).
In 2008, the Third Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (Chinese :中国共产党第十七届中央委员会第三次全体会议) began a new round of land-privatization reforms, [32] but these measures were limited; the transfer of land remains ambiguous, not "officially endorsed and encouraged". [33]
On 24 December 2004, four Chinese protesters were sentenced to three-year prison terms for distributing leaflets entitled "Mao Forever Our Leader" at a gathering in Zhengzhou honouring Mao Zedong on the anniversary of his birth. [34] Attacking the current leadership as "imperialist revisionists," the leaflets called on lower-level cadres to "change the current line (of the party) and return to the socialist road". The Zhengzhou incident is one of the first manifestations of public nostalgia for the Mao era reported by the international press, although it is unclear whether these feelings are widespread. It is an example of Marxist Chinese New Leftism in action.[ citation needed ]
Chinese New Leftists are often criticised by liberal intellectuals such as Liu Junning, who consider China as not liberal enough economically and politically. These liberals think that inequality and the widening gap between rich and poor are serious problems which exist in every developing country. Democracy and personal freedom are seen as important for China, although perhaps not attainable in the near future.[ citation needed ]
A group of workers and students formed the Maoist Communist Party of China in 2008, an underground, non-recognized political party opposing the ruling Communist Party government. [35] A reported party manifesto, The Ten Declarations of the Maoist Communist Party of China, was posted on the Internet, in which the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party was questioned. The party advocates a reversal of the Deng Xiaoping reforms and a return to socialism. [36] [37]
Politician Bo Xilai was promoted in October 2007 to party chief of Chongqing, a troubled province with high levels of pollution and unemployment and poor public health. Bo began a policy of expanding state-owned industries, in contrast with the rest of China, which was embracing market reforms. He led an economic reform of the region which was known as the Chongqing model and focused on expanding state influence in the economy, anti-corruption campaigns, and the promotion of "Red Culture". The policy also supported strong public welfare programs for the poor, unemployed, and elderly. [38] [39]
Bo began the Red Culture Movement in 2008, which promoted Maoist culture in opposition to the capitalist culture that characterized the Chinese reformists. Radio and television played Maoist propaganda and students were organized to "return to the countryside" and promote the singing of "red songs" during this period. [40]
From 2009 to 2011, Chongqing began prosecuting alleged Triad members in the Chongqing gang trials. [41] An estimated 4,781 people were arrested during the crackdown. [42] The prosecution was controversial in its use of torture, forced confessions, and inhumane treatment of witnesses. [43] [44]
In 2013, Bo was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is incarcerated at Qincheng Prison. Bo was removed as Chongqing's party chief and lost his seat on the Politburo. Bo's supporters formed the Zhi Xian Party to protest his conviction, but it was swiftly banned. [45]
The Xi administration, while imposing political controls on businesses, has also promoted greater economic liberalisation in Shenzhen, which was then held up as a model for the rest of China. In September 2020, the former mayor and party chief of Shenzhen, Li Youwei, published a sharply-worded commentary in Wen Wei Po , warning that due to the resurgence of leftists discussing class struggle, China was at a crossroads for economic reform. [46] In 2021, The New York Times reported that Maoism is being revived among China's generation Z due to China's growing wealth gap and the 996 working hour system, as they call for a crackdown on capitalists and posting "À la lanterne!" on social media. [47]
In February 2015, a group from 13 provinces and municipalities in China, calling themselves "Chinese Maoists Communists", held a two-day secret meeting in Luoyang, calling for a "new socialist revolution" to "reverse the restoration of capitalism". The group seemed to claim to have party elders as backers. The group was quietly arrested. [21] Luoyang was an industrial area that declined after the Chinese economic reforms of the 1990s and experienced extensive unemployment as a result. Maoist nostalgia is pervasive in the city. The neo-Maoists received online support across many blogs, Weibo, and websites such as RedChina.net. However some neo-Maoist groups refused to back it, typically those who regarded Xi Jinping's policies as sufficiently aligned to their neo-Maoist agenda. [48]
In November 2017, a group of Maoist students and workers was arrested in Guangzhou for organizing a Maoist salon. [49] [50]
On the 52nd anniversary of the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, dozens of neo-Maoists from all over China gathered in Hong Kong for commemorations, saying that their activities had been banned in the mainland. They wore Mao-era blue military uniforms and waved hammer-and-sickle flags. These Maoist groups are highly critical of the CCP's market economics, which they claim are responsible for rising inequality and corruption. [51]
A number of Maoist students participated in the July–August 2018 Jasic incident, protesting in support of factory workers and workers' rights. [52] The students formed the Jasic Workers Solidarity Group, which included #Me Too advocate Yue Xin. [28] [53] The rally was largely organized through the popular far-left neo-Maoist online forum website Utopia. [54] Fifty student advocates were later arrested; their whereabouts are unknown. [52] Political suppression has been expanded to universities, factories, and the general public. [55] Student leaders of the Jasic protests have been detained, punished and subjected to forced education by the CCP.
After Xi's emphasis on a more equal society and promotion of the term "common prosperity", Li Guangman, a retired newspaper editor affiliated with the Chinese New Left, published an article [56] [57] that claims a "profound revolution" was close that would take the party closer to masculinity and its socialist roots. [58] [59] Major Chinese state news agencies published the article, including People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency, setting off widespread worries about parallels to the Cultural Revolution. In response, the news agencies tried to downplay the incident by not carrying the article in their print versions, some of them removing the article from their sites and, in the case of People's Daily, publishing a front-page editorial in support of market forces. [60]
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his death in 1976. Its stated goal was to preserve Chinese socialism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. Though it failed to achieve its main objectives, the Cultural Revolution marked the effective return of Mao to the center of power in China after his political sidelining, in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Chinese Famine.
Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China and later the People's Republic of China. A difference between Maoism and traditional Marxism–Leninism is that a united front of progressive forces in class society would lead the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than communist revolutionaries alone. This theory, in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. Later theoreticians expanded on the idea that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions, arguing that he had in fact updated it fundamentally and that Maoism could be applied universally throughout the world. This ideology is often referred to as Marxism–Leninism–Maoism to distinguish it from the original ideas of Mao.
Bo Xilai is a Chinese former politician who was convicted on bribery and embezzlement charges. He came to prominence through his tenures as Mayor of Dalian and then the governor of Liaoning. From 2004 to November 2007, he served as Minister of Commerce. Between 2007 and 2012, he served as a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing, a major interior municipality. He was generally considered the main political rival of Xi Jinping before Xi became the paramount leader of China.
In the People's Republic of China since 1967, the terms "ultra-left" and "left communist" refers to political theory and practice self-defined as further "left" than that of the central Maoist leaders at the height of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). The terms are also used retroactively to describe some early 20th century Chinese anarchist orientations. As a slur, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used the term "ultra-left" more broadly to denounce any orientation it considers further "left" than the party line. According to the latter usage, the CCP Central Committee denounced in 1978 as "ultra-left" the line of Mao Zedong from 1956 until his death in 1976. This article refers only to 1) the self-defined ultra-left of the GPCR; and 2) more recent theoretical trends drawing inspiration from the GPCR ultra-left, China's anarchist legacy and international "left communist" traditions.
The Three-anti Campaign (1951) and Five-anti Campaign (1952) were reform movements originally issued by Mao Zedong a few years after the founding of the People's Republic of China in an effort to rid Chinese cities of corruption and enemies of the state. The result turned into a series of campaigns that consolidated Mao's power base by targeting political opponents and capitalists, especially wealthy capitalists.
Wang Hui is a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Cui Zhiyuan, born in Beijing in 1963, is a professor at the School of Public Policy and Management in Tsinghua University, Beijing, and a leading member of the Chinese New Left through his work on alternatives to neo-liberal capitalism.
The "Chongqing model" was a series of social and economic policies adopted in the Chinese megalopolis of Chongqing. It is most closely associated with Bo Xilai, who served as the city's Communist Party secretary from 2007 to 2012, though some policies were put in place by Bo's predecessors.
The Maoist Communist Party of China (MCPC) is an underground communist party in China adhering to Marxism–Leninism–Maoism. The party was established in 2008 by Chinese leftists against economic reforms pursued by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its founders were arrested in Chongqing in 2009.
In Maoism, a capitalist roader is a person or group who demonstrates a marked tendency to bow to pressure from bourgeois forces and subsequently attempts to pull the Chinese Communist Revolution in a capitalist direction. If allowed to do so, these forces would eventually restore the political and economic rule of capitalism; in other words, these forces would lead a society down a "capitalist road".
Deng Liqun was a Chinese politician and theorist who was one of the leading figures of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the 1980s, most well known for his involvement with the party's propaganda work. Deng was born in Guidong County, Hunan province, and joined the CCP in 1936. He came from an intellectual family and joined the party out of intellectual commitment. He was often referred to as "Little Deng", to be distinguished from Deng Xiaoping, the "Old Deng".
Neoauthoritarianism, also known as Chinese Neoconservativism or New Conservatism since the 1990s, is a current of political thought within the People's Republic of China (PRC), and to some extent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that advocates a powerful state to facilitate market reforms. It has been described as right-wing, classically conservative even if elaborated in self-proclaimed "Marxist" theory.
The Utopia is a Chinese internet forum noted for its strong support of Maoist and communist ideology. The forum is notable for its promotion of Maoist philosophy and for its occasional clashes with the Chinese Communist Party.
The Jasic incident was a labour dispute in Pingshan District, Shenzhen of the Guangdong province of the People's Republic of China between labour organizers and Chinese authorities that lasted from July to August 2018.
Boluan Fanzheng refers to a period of significant sociopolitical reforms starting with the accession of Deng Xiaoping to the paramount leadership in China, replacing Hua Guofeng, who had been appointed as Mao Zedong's successor before Mao's death in 1976. During this period, a far-reaching program of reforms was undertaken by Deng and his allies to "correct the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution", and restore order in the country. The start of the Boluan Fanzheng period is regarded as an inflection point in Chinese history, with its cultural adjustments later proven to be the bedrock upon which the parallel economic reform and opening up could take place. As such, aspects of market capitalism were successfully introduced to the Chinese economy, giving rise to a period of growth often characterized as one of the most impressive economic achievements in human history.
The 1978 Truth Criterion Controversy, also known as the 1978 Truth Criterion Discussion, sometimes referred to as the First Great Debate in contemporary China, was a sociopolitical debate around 1978, mainly revolving around Hua Guofeng's "Two Whatevers" and Deng Xiaoping's "Reform and opening up". The debate was also the origin of the "New Enlightenment" in mainland China in the 1980s.
The Mao Zedong Flag, now the Mao Zedong Thought Flag, often short as the Maoflag, is a Maoist website based in China, which was established by Chinese Old Left and retired Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members. The website was forced to shut down several times.
The Red Song Society is a Chinese website promoting Maoism in mainland China, sponsored by Shenzhen Red Song Society Culture Consulting Co., Ltd. The website's motto is "sing red songs; promote righteous ways".
The Left-wing Youth, Student Leftist, Leftist Students, Progressive Youth, Zuoqing, etc., is a youth community of the People's Republic of China well-known for the 2018 Shenzhen Jasic worker rights protests.
New Enlightenment, or the New Enlightenment movement, was a massive social and cultural movement in mainland China that originated in the late 1970s and lasted for over a decade. Growing out of the "1978 Truth Criterion Discussion" during the Boluan Fanzheng period, the New Enlightenment is widely regarded as a new wave of enlightenment within the Chinese society since the May Fourth Movement in 1919. The decade of the 1980s has thus been called the Age of New Enlightenment in China.
虽然汪晖在国内一再表示他反对用'新左派'和'自由主义'来说明知识界的分歧和论争,谴责这是'给别人戴帽子的方式',但他在接受英国《新左派评论》杂志采访所发表的谈话表明,他完全清楚这两个名称的出现是中国社会条件变化和知识界立场分化的产物。[Although Wang Hui has repeatedly expressed his opposition to the use of the terms "New Left" and "liberalism" to describe intellectual differences and debates in China, denouncing them as 'a way to put a label on others,' his interview with the British magazine New Left Review shows that he is fully aware that the emergence of these two names is a product of changing social conditions and the divergence of intellectual positions in China.]
The unhappy political, economic, and social consequences that accompanied rapid market transformation in the 1990s produced the context in which the New Left rose to the forefront of contemporary debates on China's direction.
中国根本就没有新左派。新左派的首要主张就是人权大于主权,中国有这样的新左派吗?[……]新左派在西方,左手打本国政府,右手打本国大公司,两边不讨好。虽然他指的那条路未必现实,但他至少有那个勇气。而中国的新左派主要是抱政府大腿的,哪来的新左派啊![There is no New Left in China at all, because the primary claim of the New Left is that human rights are greater than sovereignty, and does China have such people? [...] The New Left in the West, they oppose the governments of their own countries on the one hand and the monopolies of their own countries on the other. Although their practical path may not be realistic, they at least have courage. The 'New Left' in China mostly appeals to the government, so how can this be called the New Left?]
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: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)About Chinese 'New Left' theorist Wang Hui: