Sinocene Channel ｜宣传网
"The history of this great nation of ours goes back several thousand years. It has its own laws of development, its own national charactertistics, and many precious treasures. As regards all this, we are mere schoolboys. Today's China is an outgrowth of historic…
This is why I say that Maoists are the worst Maoists. I am not generalizing all Maoists as counterrevolutionaries — far from it. I think, personally, they are of incredible aid an use (for lack of a better, less sociopathic term) to the furtherance of the Party's ultimate objective: the establishment, implementation and eternal (i.e. never-complete) development of socialism with Chinese characteristics. However, there is also a negative trend within the hardline Maoist camp: the very dogmatism that Mao decries here. They are looking towards the theory and the relics of the West or an archaic China which no longer exists. They consider themselves Maoists without accounting for the evolution of Chinese socialist theory that continues to this day in accordance with the ever-changing conditions of modern China. They may consider themselves great socialists and great allies to the cause, but their dogmatism is not only flawed, it is directly detrimental to the path down China's socialist road. A static ideology which does nto adapt to the times is one that is doomed to fail, and it will fail again if its influence is permitted to seep into the higher ranks of the Party.
One can look into the annals of Chinese history to find endless examples of this being the achilles heel of Chinese governments, even during the tianxia / tianming period. In fact, just as this clinging to Maoist theory can hurt China at present, so can the pure ideological nationalism and cultural puritanism that Mao was trying to set as standard during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. It is not a new issue! In the tianxia period the dynasty would routinely reject what were, objectively, scientific innovations introduced to China, and they would lose wars as a result; this not only crippled China in concrete, literal terms, but it also crushed the power of the government to command respect from the people. Of course we are no monarchists, and quite the opposite in fact, but the parallels are clear: a China that stands too religiously attached to any idea of itself, whether political dogmatism or extreme nationalism and absurdist cultural supremacism, will not stand the test of time.
And the test of time is one that is truly taxing in China's case at present. Look back as well to the dynasties' shifts in their official cosmology. At one period in Chinese history (the exact period slips me, but I want to say it was in the Tang dynasty) the government decided that in order to harmonize more efficiently with the people and gain their popular support they would regiment the exercise of national duties and executive decisions based on the calendar and cosmology of Confucianism. This failed because, of course, though China and the Chinese people likely assumed China was the logical centre of the entire universe (and thus the most advanced country on Earth), the world does not exist in states of conformity. So, they adapted! And the dynasty survived what would have been, in Europe even, its fatal mistake. The way that dynasties suceeded and survived was through their adaptation, not their inherent superiority or ideological purism. Of course they had endless problems — but we can use them as a model for understanding the present here (especially with the understanding that the past is the lens with which we look at our present, rather than a way of coldly observing and making objective analysis about past events).
One can look into the annals of Chinese history to find endless examples of this being the achilles heel of Chinese governments, even during the tianxia / tianming period. In fact, just as this clinging to Maoist theory can hurt China at present, so can the pure ideological nationalism and cultural puritanism that Mao was trying to set as standard during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. It is not a new issue! In the tianxia period the dynasty would routinely reject what were, objectively, scientific innovations introduced to China, and they would lose wars as a result; this not only crippled China in concrete, literal terms, but it also crushed the power of the government to command respect from the people. Of course we are no monarchists, and quite the opposite in fact, but the parallels are clear: a China that stands too religiously attached to any idea of itself, whether political dogmatism or extreme nationalism and absurdist cultural supremacism, will not stand the test of time.
And the test of time is one that is truly taxing in China's case at present. Look back as well to the dynasties' shifts in their official cosmology. At one period in Chinese history (the exact period slips me, but I want to say it was in the Tang dynasty) the government decided that in order to harmonize more efficiently with the people and gain their popular support they would regiment the exercise of national duties and executive decisions based on the calendar and cosmology of Confucianism. This failed because, of course, though China and the Chinese people likely assumed China was the logical centre of the entire universe (and thus the most advanced country on Earth), the world does not exist in states of conformity. So, they adapted! And the dynasty survived what would have been, in Europe even, its fatal mistake. The way that dynasties suceeded and survived was through their adaptation, not their inherent superiority or ideological purism. Of course they had endless problems — but we can use them as a model for understanding the present here (especially with the understanding that the past is the lens with which we look at our present, rather than a way of coldly observing and making objective analysis about past events).
I got a little off topic. Let's return to something more directly related to Mao's words here. He is simply suggesting what I have been arguing all night. A form of Maoism or Marxism that cannot adapt to China's unique nature and situation can only belong in books and think tanks, not in practice. It is simply too rigid to survive China's rapid changes and the great shifts brought about that no other government in China has been faced with — not only at a political, but also a technological and societal level. Mao's model worked when he was alive (and even then this is relatively debatable — 'we have liberated the piano' etc etc). But attempting to apply theory that was developed within the framework of and worked for an agrarian and feudal society, as well as against the nationalist-capitalist China of the time, is a mistake. It is not simply that simple.
People decry what they perceive as intentional ambiguities within the term "socialism with Chinese characteristics." But the term's vageueness is, to some extent, its most brilliant and inspiring quality. It does not, as Mao and Marx did, prescribe a society and a socialist road to take (I am not discrediting either of them, of course, I am just saying). It allows for the wiggle-room and innovation that has given China such prosperity and global power. And given the trends within Xi's Party, we will see what we can almost universally admit are negative elements be reduced to the point of obscurity or completely liberated entirely.
Have faith in China, and understand that you are dealing with a country entirely different than your own, with a different collective historical consciousness and experience. China is not the West. China is a country of nuance and of difference. We cannot apply static theory to a fluid society.
People decry what they perceive as intentional ambiguities within the term "socialism with Chinese characteristics." But the term's vageueness is, to some extent, its most brilliant and inspiring quality. It does not, as Mao and Marx did, prescribe a society and a socialist road to take (I am not discrediting either of them, of course, I am just saying). It allows for the wiggle-room and innovation that has given China such prosperity and global power. And given the trends within Xi's Party, we will see what we can almost universally admit are negative elements be reduced to the point of obscurity or completely liberated entirely.
Have faith in China, and understand that you are dealing with a country entirely different than your own, with a different collective historical consciousness and experience. China is not the West. China is a country of nuance and of difference. We cannot apply static theory to a fluid society.
Forwarded from The Communist Horizon
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The Coronavirus Recession Will Accelerate China’s Rise And Further Shrink American Power
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The Coronavirus Recession Will Accelerate China’s Rise And Further Shrink American Power
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The Coronavirus Recession Will Accelerate China’s Rise And Further Shrink American Power
Whether or not the Covid-19 virus is a biological weapon created by the United States (as credible analysts are speculating it is), Was...
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has announced that its combined arms battalions are now officially the basic unit of its mobile operations, according to a 20 March article by the state-owned PLA Daily newspaper.
The announcement seemingly marks the end of a process initiated in 2008 that envisaged the formation of combined arms battalions, which include air-defence, engineering, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) reconnaissance assets, to increase the PLA's readiness levels and its ability to project force within its sphere of interest.
The report states that these battalions are "modular" and designed to integrate different elements of the PLA as required, pointing out that the battalions can be combined to enhance combat effectiveness in a "plug-and-fight" fashion.
The announcement seemingly marks the end of a process initiated in 2008 that envisaged the formation of combined arms battalions, which include air-defence, engineering, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) reconnaissance assets, to increase the PLA's readiness levels and its ability to project force within its sphere of interest.
The report states that these battalions are "modular" and designed to integrate different elements of the PLA as required, pointing out that the battalions can be combined to enhance combat effectiveness in a "plug-and-fight" fashion.