Ren Zhiqiang, a retired real-estate tycoon with close ties to senior Chinese officials, disappeared in March after he allegedly penned a scathing essay criticizing President Xi Jinping's response to the coronavirus epidemic.
Participation in global markets to avoid the devastating effects of sanctions is a bad thing now? After the collapse of the USSR, China didn't really have a choice but to open up the markets to avoid total collapse. The fact that they are still pursuing self sufficiency from those markets they were forced to enter should be a good sign that they don't plan on staying in them forever.
Yeah, the cons are capitalism gets a chance to claw its way back to power. As evidenced by this very article. An article that also shows the CPC is still capable of exerting power over the capitalist class.
By arresting a single capitalist? Was the US reigning in its capitalist class when it arrested Bernie Madoff?
How about by having a state monopoly on foreign trade? Or having shop-floor workers and their representatives constitute a majority of boards of directors?
The Chinese government is a dictatorship of the proletariat and capital remains subordinate to the government which is controlled by the communist party. This is pretty evident by things like their response to Coronavirus vs the US response but if you doubt it you should look into how many capitalists are on the Politburo, what the relationship between party and private enterprise is, and what Communist Party leadership have written over the years about managing the contradictions of capitalism since it’s reintroduction under Deng. I know I was being cheeky but when I said “oh shoot they never thought of that”, that’s your cue to realize that they have thought about it and look into what they’ve said and done about it.
This is pretty evident by things like their response to Coronavirus vs the US response
Sure, let’s actually look at some of the specifics of that response.
When you look at what they actually did, you’ll notice that quite a bit of money was spent propping up the private sector and commerce, and the mechanisms are very similar to what western, capitalist governments did to prop up their own capitalists. When you go beyond aesthetics, it’s pretty fucking obvious that the CPC is mounting a muscular defense of capitalist property relations.
February 3, 2020
On the first day the stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen reopened after the Lunar New Year holiday, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) injects 1.2 trillion yuan (US$170 billion) of liquidity through reverse bond repurchase agreements.
So, the PBOC did literally the same thing, reverse repo loans, as the US Federal Reserve to keep markets liquid,
February 18, 2020- contribution China’s State Council allows businesses to reduce or even stop contributions to provincial pension funds as well as unemployment and work insurance from February to June. It also halves the social contribution rate for large corporations between February and April. Companies can also apply for the postponement of housing fund contributions before the end of June.
Or in other words, they rolled out large tax cuts for businesses.
February 25, 2020 – China’s State Council approves an additional 500 billion yuan (US$70 billion) for small business lending on top of 300 billion yuan approved earlier in February.
They loaned money to small business owners.
March 14, 2020 – Nanjing is the first Chinese city to grant 300 million yuan (US$42 million) of consumer vouchers aimed at improving spending.
They took measures to boost consumer spending (when you total both sides up, the US wound up spending dramatically more on direct payments to individuals and welfare extensions/increases).
China’s State Council rolls out a host of measures to support the economy, including an additional central bank credit line of 1 trillion yuan (US$140 billion) to small lenders. The government also announces new monetary policies, including the prospect of lower deposit reserve requirements for small banks in the future and an additional 1 trillion yuan for small banks to spur lending to small businesses.
They made it more attractive for banks to take risky loans to small businesses.
April 7, 2020 – China’s State Council’s executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang announces plans to build 46 new integrated pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce around the country.
They supported “e-commerce.”
April 20, 2020 – China lowers its one-year loan prime rate (LPR) by 20 basis points to 3.85 per cent, while the five-year LPR is cut by 10 basis points to 4.65 per cent.
They cut interest rates on loans to banks (just like the US Federal Reserve).
June 9, 2020 - Wangfujing Group, one of China’s largest retail groups specialising in department stores, confirms it has received approval from the Ministry of Finance to sell duty-free goods.
Another tax cut.
June 24, 2020 - Premier Li Keqiang tells the State Council that China will standardise corporate fees for commerce chambers and seek to further reduce overall corporate burdens.
General changes in policy to reduce costs for corporations.
I didn’t say the public health responses were the same, I said that both western imperialist nations and China spent trillions of dollars pursuing economic policy aimed at propping up capitalists, and that many of those specific policies (which are in a list in my post above) were similar.
That less people died in China is not in and of itself evidence of a dictatorship of the proletariat. But the fact that China’s main response to this crisis has been to prop up capitalism, does seem to suggest that the DOTP doesn’t exist there.
I’m sure it wouldn’t seem that way if you assume China has a DOTP, and work backwards from your preferred conclusion while ignoring, or reframing, all evidence that contradicts your conclusion.
Now you’re just projecting. It wouldn’t seem that way to anybody who has spent any time in good faith trying to read and understand about the Chinese political and economic systems. That’s clearly not you. Luckily for us Chinese communists don’t actually care about the vapid criticisms of western leftists who don’t understand their conditions, they’ll keep kicking ass anyway.
Except in this conversation, I’m the only one actually talking about the specific policies the CPC is carrying out. You mentioned their coronavirus response, so I went through and read about the specifics of that response.
It’s not really that hard to understand what they’re doing. Try actually reading about reverse repo agreements or their VAT exemptions, before you pretend like it’s incomprehensible to “western leftists.” Many of the polices are literally the same shit European governments do, or the American government does.
And many policies are very different from anything done in Europe or America, but ultimately capital is subordinate to the party, which is the people’s party, which guides the economy to the benefit of all society. Capitalists that go against this are frequently imprisoned and executed. You can look at who holds positions of power in the government and the party and none of them are capitalists.
I hear the same vague talking points repeated by a number of CPC supporters on here, but the more I look into specifics, whether it be for coronavirus response or “taking control” of the private sector, the more it’s obvious that the Chinese state functions to prop up and defend capitalist relations.
We can explore the specifics of how, why, and at what frequency billionaires are imprisoned or killed, but killing the people behind capital doesn’t change the productive and property relations that create billionaires, not from a Marxist sense anyway.
From everything I’ve read, capitalism in China generates new billionaires at a higher rate than any other national economy. An unusually high number of them are jailed/executed, but their ranks are replaced and expanded.
At least according to the CPC itself, most of the time it would appear to be punishments for corruption or murder or other crimes, not for betrayal of the working class interest. They are not killed so that their means of production can be expropriated and given to the workers, they are killed as individual punishment for crimes. From the extent of the criminality, it would actually seem like corruption is widespread among Chinese capitalists, which is not surprising, because capitalism itself is a petri dish for corruption.
There would appear to be zero trajectory towards transferring ownership and control of the productive forces to the working class, which would be the necessary step to reign in capitalist productive relations and not just the criminality of individual capitalists.
Ah yeah damn, the CPC never considered this.
Yea, they would seem like obvious concerns, and yet in the post I’m responding to:
Participation in global markets to avoid the devastating effects of sanctions is a bad thing now? After the collapse of the USSR, China didn't really have a choice but to open up the markets to avoid total collapse. The fact that they are still pursuing self sufficiency from those markets they were forced to enter should be a good sign that they don't plan on staying in them forever.
Can you not see how what you just wrote is not responsive to what I’m saying?
You’re drawing a balance sheet of pros and cons of reintegrating into global capitalism, and pretending like there are no cons.
Yeah, the cons are capitalism gets a chance to claw its way back to power. As evidenced by this very article. An article that also shows the CPC is still capable of exerting power over the capitalist class.
By arresting a single capitalist? Was the US reigning in its capitalist class when it arrested Bernie Madoff?
How about by having a state monopoly on foreign trade? Or having shop-floor workers and their representatives constitute a majority of boards of directors?
The Chinese government is a dictatorship of the proletariat and capital remains subordinate to the government which is controlled by the communist party. This is pretty evident by things like their response to Coronavirus vs the US response but if you doubt it you should look into how many capitalists are on the Politburo, what the relationship between party and private enterprise is, and what Communist Party leadership have written over the years about managing the contradictions of capitalism since it’s reintroduction under Deng. I know I was being cheeky but when I said “oh shoot they never thought of that”, that’s your cue to realize that they have thought about it and look into what they’ve said and done about it.
Sure, let’s actually look at some of the specifics of that response.
When you look at what they actually did, you’ll notice that quite a bit of money was spent propping up the private sector and commerce, and the mechanisms are very similar to what western, capitalist governments did to prop up their own capitalists. When you go beyond aesthetics, it’s pretty fucking obvious that the CPC is mounting a muscular defense of capitalist property relations.
So, the PBOC did literally the same thing, reverse repo loans, as the US Federal Reserve to keep markets liquid,
Or in other words, they rolled out large tax cuts for businesses.
They loaned money to small business owners.
They took measures to boost consumer spending (when you total both sides up, the US wound up spending dramatically more on direct payments to individuals and welfare extensions/increases).
They made it more attractive for banks to take risky loans to small businesses.
They supported “e-commerce.”
They cut interest rates on loans to banks (just like the US Federal Reserve).
Another tax cut.
General changes in policy to reduce costs for corporations.
You’re right the responses were the same, that’s why hundreds of thousands died in both countries
I didn’t say the public health responses were the same, I said that both western imperialist nations and China spent trillions of dollars pursuing economic policy aimed at propping up capitalists, and that many of those specific policies (which are in a list in my post above) were similar.
That less people died in China is not in and of itself evidence of a dictatorship of the proletariat. But the fact that China’s main response to this crisis has been to prop up capitalism, does seem to suggest that the DOTP doesn’t exist there.
No, it doesn’t.
I’m sure it wouldn’t seem that way if you assume China has a DOTP, and work backwards from your preferred conclusion while ignoring, or reframing, all evidence that contradicts your conclusion.
Now you’re just projecting. It wouldn’t seem that way to anybody who has spent any time in good faith trying to read and understand about the Chinese political and economic systems. That’s clearly not you. Luckily for us Chinese communists don’t actually care about the vapid criticisms of western leftists who don’t understand their conditions, they’ll keep kicking ass anyway.
Except in this conversation, I’m the only one actually talking about the specific policies the CPC is carrying out. You mentioned their coronavirus response, so I went through and read about the specifics of that response.
It’s not really that hard to understand what they’re doing. Try actually reading about reverse repo agreements or their VAT exemptions, before you pretend like it’s incomprehensible to “western leftists.” Many of the polices are literally the same shit European governments do, or the American government does.
And many policies are very different from anything done in Europe or America, but ultimately capital is subordinate to the party, which is the people’s party, which guides the economy to the benefit of all society. Capitalists that go against this are frequently imprisoned and executed. You can look at who holds positions of power in the government and the party and none of them are capitalists.
I hear the same vague talking points repeated by a number of CPC supporters on here, but the more I look into specifics, whether it be for coronavirus response or “taking control” of the private sector, the more it’s obvious that the Chinese state functions to prop up and defend capitalist relations.
We can explore the specifics of how, why, and at what frequency billionaires are imprisoned or killed, but killing the people behind capital doesn’t change the productive and property relations that create billionaires, not from a Marxist sense anyway.
From everything I’ve read, capitalism in China generates new billionaires at a higher rate than any other national economy. An unusually high number of them are jailed/executed, but their ranks are replaced and expanded.
At least according to the CPC itself, most of the time it would appear to be punishments for corruption or murder or other crimes, not for betrayal of the working class interest. They are not killed so that their means of production can be expropriated and given to the workers, they are killed as individual punishment for crimes. From the extent of the criminality, it would actually seem like corruption is widespread among Chinese capitalists, which is not surprising, because capitalism itself is a petri dish for corruption.
There would appear to be zero trajectory towards transferring ownership and control of the productive forces to the working class, which would be the necessary step to reign in capitalist productive relations and not just the criminality of individual capitalists.