Chinese leaders revive Marxist orthodoxy

[FarCenter]

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The National People's Congress last March approved outlays worth 514 billion yuan ($75.26 billion) for public-security departments this year, which are almost as big as the People's Liberation Army budget of 532 billion yuan ($77.89 billion). The regional Chinese media have disclosed that this year's wei-wen budget for provinces and cities including Liaoning, Guangdong, Beijing, Suzhou had jumped at least 15% over that of 2009.

At the same time, cadres responsible for ideology and the media are sparing no efforts to push forward President Hu's slogans about "Sinicizing and popularizing Marxism" as a means to ensuring socio-political stability and promoting national cohesiveness. At a recent forum on "Promoting Popular Contemporary Chinese Marxism", director of the CCP Propaganda Department Liu Yunshan urged cadres to "deeply grasp the laws of Marxist development, and to better arm the entire party - and educate the people - with the theoretical system of Chinese socialism". "We must take hold of the people through better the latest fruits of the Sinicization of Marxism," said Liu, a conservative commissar who is also member of the CCP politburo.
Ideologues and propagandists have, since the winter, been waging a campaign that is focused on "distinguishing four boundaries". In a nutshell, party commissars are demanding that China's intellectuals, particularly college teachers and students, make clear-cut distinctions between four sets of values.

They are Marxism versus anti-Marxism; a mixed economy that is led by Chinese-style public ownership on the one hand, and an economic order that is dominated by either private capital or total state ownership on the other; democracy under socialism with Chinese characteristics versus Western capitalist democracy; and socialist thoughts and culture on the one hand, and feudal and corrupt capitalist ideas and culture on the other.

According to ideologue Li Xiaochun, "Party members and cadres must buttress their political sensitivity and their ability in political discrimination. We must bolster ideological defense line through self-consciously drawing a demarcation between Marxism and anti-Marxism," he said.

Moreover, in a paper on differentiating socialist and capitalist democracy, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Center on Socialist Systems pointed out that Western democracy was no more than "the game of the rich" and "democracy of the pocket book". The piece concluded that the quintessence of Chinese democracy must remain "democratic people's dictatorship" - and not Western-style democracy.

<SNIP>http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/LE01Ad01.html

[DJ13]

1. I think they are preparing for their own economy to crash

They have huge bubbles in both real estate and their stock markets due to their too fast economic expansion.

Imagine 400 million workers suddenly being told to accept some form of austerity program, and its no wonder the party rulers are scared.

[Jkid]

2. I'll accept a austerity program for China

If the "party" leaders also live a life of austerity too.

[Radical Activist]

3. They have actual manufacturing.

I don't see why their economy would collapse for the same reasons the US did. If anything, slumping sales to US markets should have had a bigger impact.

[DJ13]

5. They dont manufacture for domestic consumption

In their rush to grab as many manufacturing jobs from the rest of the world at the lowest possible cost they havent created a large enough domestic middle class to soak up excess capacity of products that they manufacture in the event that export demand shrinks.

They're impacted more than you might think by the worldwide economic slowdown.

[hack89]

10. Our manufacturing base is still much larger than theirs

we export a trillion dollars worth of manufactured goods per year. The difference is America makes high end capital goods instead of consumer goods.

[FarCenter]

4. The bubbles will not burst.

The prices will be whatever the party says they should be. They do no have to "mark to market".

[mdmc]

6. --

[amborin]

7. maybe they read the IMF's Rajan's report on its overproduction crisis?

[mdmc]

8. ==

[unlegendary]

9. OK Commrads

Ready for China to invade? OH NO..they wouldn't do that now would they?..or would they? I really don't want to rely on flea baggers to hide behind the constitution to protect us if they ever do.