by CHRIS SLEE
For socialists, events in China have often been confusing.
In the 1960s, it seemed to many leftists that China under Mao was much more radical than the Soviet Union. Yet by the early 1970s Mao had done a deal with the United States at the expense the Soviet Union and third world struggles.
Later China became a key location for transnational corporations producing for the world market. Many Australian trade unionists now see China primarily as a place where workers are paid very low wages. Few are aware of the widespread militant struggles by Chinese workers to improve their situation.
On the other hand, the rapid recovery of China after the 2008 world economic crisis has given some Australian socialists a more favourable impression of China. Perhaps the continued predominance of state-owned enterprises in some sectors of the Chinese economy should be cited as a positive example, counterposed to the privatisation mania in Australia?
For those interested in Marxist theory, the question of whether China today is a workers’ state or a capitalist state has been a source of controversy.
Origins of the revolution
To understand the complex reality of China today, we need to look at its history.
In 1921, when the Communist Party was founded, China was in chaos. Western imperialist intervention — military, economic, political and cultural — had destroyed or undermined traditional Chinese institutions, but stable new ones had not been created.
The first Opium War of 1840-42 (so called because one of Britain’s goals in starting the war was to force China to allow the import of opium from British-ruled India) had resulted a treaty giving Britain possession of Hong Kong, and opening five other Chinese ports to British trading vessels. Subsequent wars enabled various European imperialist powers and Japan to grab other pieces of Chinese territory. They also took control of the collection of customs revenue.
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