The Long Game and Its Contradictions

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. BREAKING THE EMPIRE'S DISINFORMATION MACHINE IS UP TO YOU.

He Zhao

THIS WEEK IN CHINA # 0028 (DATELINE: 9.27.2021 (First published on 10.27.2018)

If private property, money, abstract value production, class society, and the state, are abolished prematurely, when the oppressive logic and power of capital still controls the entire world, China would become vulnerable to both external imperialist violence and internal reactionary sabotage (no doubt under the banner of “democracy”).

The People’s Republic has overcome feudal corruption and colonial oppression, emerged from “100 years of humiliation” as the poorest nation on Earth, industrialised from rubble, repeatedly foiled imperialist attempts at destabilisation and sabotage, to remain 100% independent, and is today developing socialist power on the world stage. The path chosen by the Communist Party of China is now, as it has been since its inception in 1921, guided by Marxism Leninism, but not its dogmatic interpretation. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is an advancement of classical revolutionary political theory, shaped by the concrete geopolitical realities facing China today, adapting to the global material conditions of the 21st Century.

The following is a brief bird’s-eye-view of the People’s Republic's twin path of national rejuvenation and international world historic decolonisation, paving the road toward global communisation.

Nationally, the communist party aims to build a harmonious, prosperous, sustainable, and robust home base on which international engagements will rest. Domestic policy of 21st Century China hinges not only on orthodox Marxist class struggle, but a hybrid with quasi-Confucian Social Harmony. Revolutionary ideology has evolved from its earlier modes and conceptions, adapted to the particulars of Chinese culture, history, and present situation.

 

During the first phase of Reform and Opening up, roughly 1980 to 2000, developing from having lower GDP than the African average, China has focussed on building the productive forces on top of the industrial foundation laid down in the previous era, growing a strong mixed economy for which foreign investment was crucially important, and drastically improving conditions for the working class and rural poor. The second phase, roughly 2000 to now, has been focused on overcoming the problems which have arisen from the developmental process of the first phase. Uneven development/wealth inequality, corruption, pollution/environmental degradation, and various labour issues are problems par the course of adopting a hybrid economy in a global market dominated by neoliberalism, and of using private entrepreneurship as a tool of development.

Uneven development between urban East Coast and the large inner and Western rural regions has been addressed by the building of an elaborate highspeed rail system which connects regional economies and various initiatives which strengthen inter-regional trade. Uneven development between the entrepreneurs who got rich first and the working class and especially migrants has been addressed by a series of labour reform policies which have resulted in dramatic growth in the lowest-earning segments of Chinese society. By the most modest estimation, between 1990 and 2018 the number of Chinese people living in extreme poverty was reduced from 750m to less than 10m (Economist).

One of Xi JinPing’s first major projects after becoming leader was the epic anti-corruption drive, which punished 1.5 million state officials and business leaders for unjustly benefiting themselves at the expense of the people. Also implemented was a wide array of new policies which further restricted the excesses of private enterprise, in terms of trade practices, environmental regulation, worker’s rights, etc.

To combat pollution and climate change, during this second phase of development many decisions were made and initiatives were implemented from local to international level. These have included the reduction of reliance on coal, banning it in Beijing altogether (although not yet completely eliminated); massive reforestation projects; and becoming the global leader in green-technology investment.

On the path toward full socialisation, it is in the interest of the CPC to improve conditions for workers, fix labor issues, fight pollution, increase equality, and address uneven development, on its own terms, and according to its plans. Many such measures have taken place in recent years, such as the millions of urban youths sent to rural areas to assist in development and education, or the many stricter rules regarding worker well being which private businesses must follow at the risk of their companies being collectivised (a not at all uncommon occurrence).

But at the same time, grassroots labor movements are not only allowed, but encouraged. The vast majority of strikes and protests in China are against unjust CEOs and local officials, appealing to the central government. Beijing usually steps in on the side of the workers, punishing the capitalists and corrupt politicians, forcing them to change their ways. The few strikes and protests which are suppressed mostly belong to the category of anti-communist trouble makers with ties to insidious imperialist entities, whose aim is destabilisation (and these are of course amplified in Western media).

The lessons of compromised independent labor unions used by hostile bourgeois states to destroy socialism such as Solidarność in Poland, which doomed the nation to 4 decades of neo-liberal poverty and under development, and paved the way for the rise of Polish fascism today, are heeded by the CPC, and such organisations are not allowed. But at the end of each day, any still existing legitimate discontent and criticism must be viewed in the context of material reality: in the past 4 decades, the working class of China have seen a 400% increase in terms of real purchasing power.

According to the longest study of a people’s satisfaction with their government ever conducted by the Ash Center in China, and published by Harvard:

“In 2016, 95.5 percent of respondents were either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with Beijing.”

Internationally, China’s socialist foreign policy is decidedly not a continuation of the past socialist export of revolutions, but focused on the restructuring of global trade. It is a new form of internationalism based on the promotion of independent economic development of the over-exploited nations of the Global South, through mutually beneficial relationships and a policy of peaceful co-existence. The long term goal is nothing short of the elimination of the primary contradiction of imperialist capitalism — inter-continental inequality. Ending the fundamental injustice of our age, disparity between rich and poor countries, will also spell the end of myriads of cascading ancillary injustices. Alleviating poverty, promoting trade and learning, and building relationships based on respect and cooperation, new economic alliances between colonised regions will together displace Western hegemony, break imperialist cycles of violence, and end capitalist domination.

The creation of a more equal and level global playing field will have two major effects upon the world. One: workers in the imperial core, the Global North, the “first world”, will again have bargaining power to make demands, because their jobs will no longer be easily exported to poor regions with low wages. Two: people of the imperial periphery, the Global South, the “third world”, will be empowered to set the terms of their own engagement in the world, and have the chance to build independent economic strength. This reduction of global inequality produces the material conditions necessary for global socialism with local characteristics.

Business with Assholes: Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, Some Orange Moron

Contradictions in the foreign policies of the CPC include those which result from the strict non-interference in the affairs of foreign states, which has characterised Chinese foreign relations for thousands of years, and the prioritising of larger international trade relationships over ideological conflicts. One example is unscrupulous business deals with right-wing governments, such as Saudi Arabia or Israel. The “live and let live” ethic of this modus operandi even applies to ideological enemies: China also trades with the biggest terrorist organisation in the world, the USA, without even criticising its long list of illegal wars and heinous crimes against humanity (although this may be changing). Another is not supporting local leftist struggles in partner nations, such as guerrilla Maoist insurrections in SE Asia, if it might jeopardise trade relations with state entities. If the temporary “ethical net-losses” of these contradictions lead to larger “net-gains” and positive results in the long term, they are calculated as worthwhile or unavoidable.

The CPC understands that national leaders and ruling parties are fickle and ephemeral, but development and the improvement of material conditions will have long-lasting effects. Creating a more balanced global playing field is the long game, which will create the conditions necessary for systemic change in each country, by their own agency. The phrase “Socialism With Chinese Characteristics” may have seemed clumsy and overly wordy at first, but the world will slowly come to understand its internationalist meaning, and that it is this way for a very specific reason: in anticipation of Socialism with Indian Characteristics, Socialism with French Characteristics, Socialism with USAmerican Characteristics, and 1000 socialisms with local characteristics to bloom.

As of 2019, 125 countries have signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative, The PRC’s epic effort to connect the world through infrastructure and trade, to foster cooperative relationships, to develop under-developed regions, to strengthen nations weakened by imperialism, in a world historic process of actual, material decolonisation. Due for completion by later this century, the Bri will provide ground work for further sustainable international cooperative ventures such as the Global Energy SuperGrid or the Health Silk Road.

It is a long and treacherous strategy on a grand global chessboard shaped by layers of devastating historical injustice and the cascading chaos produced by exploitative and oppressive processes, and in order to win, relatively minor contradictions and problematic particularities must not obscure or impede the realisation of larger goals.

In 1921, Sun Yat Sen predicted that the fate of the Chinese people would most likely be that of the Native Americans: almost completely wiped out. Due to monarchic rot, foreign domination and abuse, and the country torn apart by warlords, infrastructure, industry, and agriculture lay in ruins; 20% of the population were addicted to opium; piles of corpses lay in the streets.

In 1950, at the birth of modern China and the Communist Party, the average life expectancy was 35 years. 2.5 decades later, at the end of the Mao era in the late 70s, it had doubled to 70, but the average citizen still lived on less than $1 a day, by many measures poorer than people in Africa, and did not have luxuries [necessities] such as indoor plumbing, refrigerators, or television sets.

Socialism could not have survived, much less thrived, under such conditions.

The 80s was an era that saw the destruction of many socialist states around the world which succumbed to ceaseless imperialist economic, political, and military violence, from USSR to Yugoslavia. In a world almost totally dominated by neo-liberalism, there were no other options for China to develop its economic strength other than growth via a limited private sector. But while capitalists exist in a mixed economy, they do not control politics like in capitalist countries, and are completely answerable to the socialist state.

In every way, the economic program devised by Zhou Enlai, under the leadership of Deng XiaoPing, continued in the direction of Maoist visionary development, in line with Lenin’s economic policies of the early USSR, and rigorously following the Marxist credo that liberation can only come from material abundance. No nation, whether socialist or capitalist, can survive in isolation, and no socialism can be built on hunger and poverty. 40 years ago the great policy of Reform-and-Opening-Up entered China into the international market, a trajectory which, in every way, should be seen as a continuation and extension of the historical legacy of Marxist Leninist theory and practice.

“it is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. “Liberation” is an historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce, agriculture, the conditions of intercourse”. –– Karl Marx, “The German Ideology”

“Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” — Karl Marx, “in the critique of the Gotha Program”

Thanks to OSD — Observatory of Sovereign Development

“For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly”

“The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.“ — Vladimir Lenin, Can We Go Forward If We Fear To Advance Towards Socialism?

 

“”We want to do business.” Quite right, business will be done. We are against no one except the domestic and foreign reactionaries who hinder us from doing business. … When we have beaten the internal and external reactionaries by uniting all domestic and international forces, we shall be able to do business with all foreign countries on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty.” –– Mao Ze Dong, On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship

“So, to build socialism it is necessary to develop the productive forces. Poverty is not socialism. To uphold socialism, a socialism that is to be superior to capitalism, it is imperative first and foremost to eliminate poverty. True, we are building socialism, but that doesn’t mean that what we have achieved so far is up to the socialist standard. Not until the middle of the next century, when we have reached the level of the moderately developed countries, shall we be able to say that we have really built socialism and to declare convincingly that it is superior to capitalism. We are advancing towards that goal.” — Deng XiaoPing

The Communist Party of China does not in fact claim that China is today already fully socialist, but a country with a mixed economy, led by a communist state, that is actively working toward the officially stated goal of “Fully Developed Lower Stage Socialism by 2050”.

Now here are a few characteristics of socialism in China:

1) Never privatised major industries, which are all public owned. Compare this to the collapse of Yugoslavia, USSR, etc., which were all marked by an immediate devouring of national industry by private entities: true transitions to capitalism.

2) Land remains collectivised, and leased to private persons or business entities for a maximum of 70 years. While home ownership numbers are extremely high in China compared to other countries, property inheritance does not exist, thus neither does a landlord class.

3) The rich do not control politics. The CPC is comprised almost entirely of working class representatives, extremely few capitalists. In the highest governing body, the National People’s Congress, there are 26 owners of private enterprises among 2600+ members (2018).

4) In Democratic Centralism, directly democratic decision-making through elections proceeds from neighbourhood and local councils up to the National Congress, and from there and above are appointed by elected officials, according to merit. This combines the best of both democracy and meritocracy, while the dangers of both are checked by the other.

5) Never experienced the boom-bust cycles typical of capitalist economies in its 40 years of steady development at a rate of roughly 10% per year.

6) Bottom segments of Chinese society experienced 40% growth since 1979; bottom segments of USA during same period: 1%. If the USA is not a good comparison due to its drastic differences in history and position, a much better one is India, another post colonial nation developing during the same period, which actually transitioned to capitalism: exponentially more inequality, nearly no progress or even regress for the poorest segments of society.

7) CPC representatives oversee all operations of corporations, which are entirely answerable to the state. CEOs, capitalists, and the super-wealthy do not control politics and influence policy via lobbies and campaign contributions, and are not at all above the law like in the capitalist West.

8) 1.5 million capitalists and state officials punished for corruption since 2007, 17% of whom were imprisoned or executed. Compare this to capitalist countries that always reward the excesses and crimes of their elites, such as the Wall Street bankers whose excesses caused the 2008 global financial crash.

9) Very real problems created by economic infrastructure building with capitalist methods, such as uneven development, inequality, bad work conditions, corruption, pollution, etc. are clearly and repeatedly addressed publicly, and in no uncertain terms. Correctional policies addressing each of these problems have been implemented, and already have had significant results.

10) Foreign engagement is always mutually beneficial, guided by the millennia old policy of strict non-interference, in support of independent development of regions dominated by imperialism. The New Silk Road, or Belt and Road initiative, seeks to build an international brotherhood of former colonised nations, together in strength against capitalist hegemony and imperial domination.

If private property, money, abstract value production, class society, and the state, are abolished prematurely, when the oppressive logic and power of capital still controls the entire world, China would become vulnerable to both external imperialist violence and internal reactionary sabotage (no doubt under the banner of “democracy”). The Communist Party would be immediately compromised by foreign backed elements; the country might be torn apart once again by civil war, and once again subjected to imperialist domination. The Chinese revolution, what so many millions fought, worked tirelessly, and sacrificed their lives for, will have been for nothing.

Marxism is anything but rigid and dogmatic, and has always been about adapting to the ever changing objective conditions of each era, using whatever is available toward revolutionary goals. The opinion of those baizuo who think that China should have chosen the disastrous course of action described above, or at least remained underdeveloped, poor, and weak, in order to satisfy their fundamentalist interpretation of Marxism, should not be indulged. These myopic and short-sighted “left com”, “ultra-left”, or modern “Maoist” types love to denounce modern China as a betrayal of socialism, without considering that it is the failure of the Western left to do successful revolutions in their countries which made it necessary for existing socialist states to adapt to the global conditions of entrenched neo-liberal capitalism.

Those who think that 1.4 billion people, who for 200 years suffered so immensely under vicious colonial rule and brutal capitalist domination, will so quickly forget what their true enemy is, don’t know much about capitalism, colonialism, or people.

The fight against capitalism continues, but on economic grounds. Because war is the way of imperialism, and military spending accounts for 90% of US GDP, while Chinese socialism is developing alliances with Africa, South America, Europe, and other parts of Asia based on mutual development. Socialists will beat the capitalists at the (what they consider their own) game of markets with rational planning, and through peaceful trade and prosperity for all, end bourgeois global hegemony.

 

We will fight until the entire proletariat is liberated.


But at the same time, criticism and self-criticism remain of course a central part of Maoist thought and practice. And yes, as communists, we should of course support authentic labor movements while opposing neo-liberal forces, but also careful not to repeat the same mistakes of ultra-leftism 60 years ago which resulted in the catastrophic Cultural Revolution. The CPC has been so extraordinarily competent and successful exactly because of having adapted to much critique, and addressed the demands of activists over the years. We must remain ever vigilant, instead of becoming lazy and putting blind trust in the state, which is always in danger of being corrupted and led astray, by (in the context of Chinese socialism) either the left or right.

The entrenched and pervasive structures of capitalism took 500 years to build, and the propertarian system of which it is an extension, 6000 years. Its dissolution requires strategies on a scale bigger and longer than is easily conceived or understood by any individual without many years of dedication, and will take more than a few decades to unfold.

Western liberals think in terms of quarterly reports and election cycles. Eastern communists think in terms of centuries, if not millennia.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
He Zhao

A Renaissance man. Radical Politics, Radical Design, Radical Rhythm, Radical Optimism. Marxis musicologist, and many other things.
goodsforthepeople.com
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Social Credit, Datong Dreams

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

This is an article from our series on septic media


FIRST PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 7, 2018 • REPOSTED DUE TO RENEWED RELEVANCY

NOTE: When this article appeared on The Unz Review, a free-speech platform frequented by many rightwingers, anticommunists and libertarians (as well as leftists), it attracted a small storm of hostile and derisive commentary, ranging (as is usually the case with Western crowds) from insult to condescension. The problem, in my view, is that the brainwash in the US (and by extension) other nations in its cultural sphere, is by now so profound that it is well-nigh impossible to defeat short of a massive cultural and political rejection of the current status quo. How that is to be accomplished remains the daunting challenge for decent and dedicated folks working to bring about liberation for humanity from the ubiquitous mental and moral toxins of US imperialism. But one thing is equally clear: For well over a century now, and with ever mounting urgency, the object has been and remains to break the capitalist elites' control over the global narrative.  Put the truths packed in this article to that effect. 
—The Editor
—The Editor

The ethical is always more robust than the legal. Over time, it is the legal that should converge to the ethical, never the reverse. Laws come and go but ethics remain.Sextus Empiricus, 200 AD.

Statue honoring Confucius. Many Westerners would be enriched by a better understanding of what this man lived and taught.

For centuries Western monarchs derived legitimacy from a God Who lent authority to the laws they promulgated. The simultaneous demise of God and the monarchic principle in 1918 left the law legitimized by force alone and, a century later, our distrust[1]  suggests that it has failed to converge with the ethical.

Things were little better in China two thousand years ago but, before we examine the evolution of its legal system, we must recall that it exists not only to suppress crime but to serve a national goal that ninety percent of the population shares: the creation, in two stages–xiaokang and dàtóng–of a radically advanced society.

Confucius’ Book of Rites, in one of its most celebrated passages, reads:

Once Confucius was taking part in the winter sacrifice. After the ceremony was over, he went for a stroll along the top of the city gate and sighed mournfully. He sighed for the state of Lu. His disciple Yen Yen, who was by his side, asked: ‘Why should the gentleman sigh?’

Confucius replied: ‘The practice of the Great Way, the illustrious men of the Three Dynasties–these I shall never know in person and yet they inspire my ambition! When the Great Way was practiced, the world was shared by all alike. The worthy and the able were promoted to office and men practiced good faith and lived in affection. Therefore they did not regard as parents only their own parents, or as sons only their own sons. The aged found a fitting close to their lives, the robust their proper employment; the young were provided with an upbringing and the widow and widower, the orphaned and the sick, with proper care. Men had their tasks and women their hearths. They hated to see goods lying about in waste, yet they did not hoard them for themselves; they disliked the thought that their energies were not fully used, yet they used them not for private ends. Therefore all evil plotting was prevented and thieves and rebels did not arise, so that people could leave their outer gates unbolted. This was the age of Grand Unity, dàtóng.

Now the Great Way has become hid and the world is the possession of private families. Each regards as parents only his own parents, as sons only his own sons; goods and labor are employed for selfish ends. Hereditary offices and titles are granted by ritual law while walls and moats must provide security. Ritual and righteousness are used to regulate the relationship between ruler and subject, to insure affection between father and son, peace between brothers, and harmony between husband and wife, to set up social institutions, organize the farms and villages, honor the brave and wise, and bring merit to the individual. Therefore intrigue and plotting come about and men take up arms. Emperor Yu, Kings Tang, Wen, Wu and Cheng and the Duke of Chou achieved eminence for this reason: that all six rulers were constantly attentive to ritual, made manifest their righteousness and acted in complete faith. They exposed error, made humanity their law and humility their practice, showing the people wherein they should constantly abide. If there were any who did not abide by these principles, they were dismissed from their positions and regarded by the multitude as dangerous. This is the Age of Lesser Prosperity’ xiaokang.

In 2011, the Prime Minister defined xiaokang as ‘a society in which no one is poor and everyone receives an education, has paid employment, more than enough food and clothing, access to medical services, old-age support, a home and a comfortable life’ and, when China reaches that goal on June 1, 2021, there will be more drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, hungry and imprisoned people in America than in China.

Guided by Xi Jinping Thought (which, like Deng’s Thought which preceded it, is a plan and its ethical justification) the National Family will then attempt to create a dàtóng society, an advanced version of Marx’s notion of Communism, ‘from each according his ability, to each according to his need’. Once it is clear that virtually every Chinese is on board with this program, this account of the steps towards it makes sense.

Anciently, laws protected the State from the people (not vice versa) and the elite assumed that everyone was naturally wicked, controllable only by impersonal laws, “Applied to rich and poor alike for offenses large and small because, if small faults are pardoned, crimes will be numerous”. Yet, though Legalism had prevailed for a thousand years, crimes were stubbornly numerous because, Confucius explained, “If people are ruled by uniform laws and punished uniformly they’ll certainly try to avoid punishment but will never develop a sense of shame. If, on the other hand, they’re led by morally admirable people and encouraged by rules of good behavior they’ll emulate their leaders, internalize the moral code and gradually become good”. 

Provincial governors began experimenting with his ideas and, four centuries later, the emperor formally adopted them and urged his officials to set a virtuous example and make repression unnecessary. Despite failures and setbacks, the rule of virtue proved popular, the spread of literacy introduced it to the masses and, just as the Master had predicted, the people gradually became good says[2]  F. W. Mote, “More important than penal law and judicial procedures in maintaining order in the community were the methods of arbitration and compromise. That route to resolving disputes allowed the parties to retain their dignity, utilized social pressures as understood by all and gave problem-solving roles to senior figures acting as arbitrators that reinforced the community’s recognition of its shared ethical norms. Some regions of China were known to be more litigious, more quarrelsome, less placid than others but, throughout their observations of ordinary Chinese life from the sixteenth century onward, early European travelers remarked on the mannerliness, good humor and social graces of the common people”.

Then as now, China’s investment in crime prevention is astounding. The common people still address older strangers as ‘auntie,’ ‘uncle,’ ‘grandfather,’ or ‘grandmother’ and act, literally, as their brother’s keepers. Social pressure, amplified by social media, is immense and even strangers commonly address mischief-makers in the street. Instead of sliding down a slippery slope, would-be criminals must struggle through a briar patch of family, workmates, classmates, neighbors and strangers intent on socializing them. Mass media regularly explain new laws and schools, offices, factories, mines and even army units discuss them. Volunteers on every block liaise with police who know everyone in their precinct by name and who have tools–temporary restraining orders and home confinement among them–their Western colleagues can only dream of. Citizens have won the right to video police who must publish the status of all active cases online. Regulations have clarified concepts like the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence and made police and court officials responsible for wrongful prosecutions–for life, with no statute of limitations. All criminals, from arrest to release, must receive humane levels of material comfort and dignity and can prosecute prison staff if their rights are breached. Criminologists assume that even murderers can reform and inmates must participate in career, legal, cultural and a course of moral education that considers the social consequences of their crime.

As in France, magistrates, traditionally regarded as neutral truth seekers, interrogate suspects, examine evidence, hear testimony and render verdicts. Since most have no formal legal training President Xi, who experimented with judicial oversight committees as a provincial governor, required jurists to be selected on their professional track records rather than political correctness and, by 2016, Shanghai’s Judicial Selection and Punitive Committee Trial Point[*]  had expelled a High Court prosecutor, two sub-prosecutors, the Vice President of the Provincial Supreme Court and a senior circuit court judge.

In 2016, Xi[3]  explained to a study group, “Law is ethics expressed in words and ethics is law borne in people’s hearts. In state governance, law and ethics have equal status and play the role of regulating social behavior, adjusting social relations and maintaining social order. If rule of law embodies moral ideals they provide reliable institutional support for ethical behavior. Laws and regulations should promote the virtuous, while socialist core values (prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, the rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendliness) should be woven into legislation, law enforcement and judicial process”.

The culture’s traditionally low opinion of lawyers received a boost from current Prime Minister Li who, as a freshman, translated commentaries on British Common Law and the Supreme Court’s internship program now attracts top students. Trained appeals court judges have been overturning decades of wrongful convictions, ordering restitution and requiring courts to study the reversals. The court’s website–which has live-streamed six hundred thousand trials, explains unfamiliar concepts like due process, invites criticism of new laws and provides a database for legal scholars–has received five billion hits.

A Shanghai Trial Spot provides defense lawyers for every criminal defendant (mandatory only for juveniles, the disabled and those facing life imprisonment or death) and wealthier provinces are following suit. Others are trialing neighborhood mediation committees. One jurisdiction found that locating mediation offices in courthouses dramatically reduced litigation costs and now Beijing wants all lawyers to take mediation training. An Internet Trial Spot bundles free mediation, dispute settlement and legal aid on a platform that connects plaintiffs to thousands of lawyers, notaries and judicial appraisers. Another uses facial and speech recognition technologies and electronic signatures so that all parties can participate in online legal proceedings. In another Trial Spot plaintiffs go all the way to trial using Weisu, an app that lets them join the courtroom from home while the program verifies their ID, submits their files and transcribes their testimonies using voice-to-text. The government plans that, by 2020, everyone will be able to afford legal proceedings and, should they wish to appeal, the courts will have electronic records of their case.

Hangzhou, home of Jack Ma and Alibaba, launched the first cyber court in 2017 to handle exclusively online disputes like e-commerce complaints, online loan litigation and copyright infringement. On its website, Beijing’s Internet Court provides artificial intelligence-based risk assessment tools as a public service and automatically generates legal documents, applies machine translation and allows people to interact with its knowledge base orally to accelerate and simplify settlements. In 2018, it heard TikTok and Baidu contest ownership rights to user-generated content in short video apps.

In Taoist-Confucian China, of course, no-one is really separate: the government is part of the family and the courts are part of the government and nobody is under any illusion that they’re independent since, to reach dàtóng, everyone must be on the same page and navigating to dàtóng is the responsibility of the Communist Party. That’s why Chief Justice Xiao Yang told a shocked British journalist, “The power of the courts to adjudicate independently doesn’t mean independence from the Party at all. On the contrary, it embodies a high degree of responsibility vis-à-vis the Party’s [dàtóng] program”. The program, with ninety-five percent popular support, will deliver xiaokang prosperity and the Party’s logic is ancient: once everyone has a home, an education, safety, plentiful food, clothing, medical and old age care in 2021 then everyone can afford to improve their manners, good humor and social graces. But if the logic is ancient, the technology is not.

Technologies that revealing details about personal integrity have always caused alarm. In 1968, when credit bureaus were reporting debtors’ sexual and political preferences, The New York Times[4] warned, “Transferring such information from a manual file onto a computer triggers a threat to civil liberties, to privacy, to a man’s very humanity–because access is so simple”. Fifty years later, three credit bureaus evaluated everyone, The NYPD surveilled New Yorkers with drones, the Federal Child Support Registry tracked parents, the No-Fly List grounded troublemakers, an IRS list blocked delinquents’ passports, the Federal Sex Offenders List wrecked offenders’ lives and the National Security Agency’s mission[5] was, ‘Know It All, Collect It All, Process It All, Exploit It All’.

The absence of capitalism, the efficiency of its crime prevention and the traditional preference for all cash, face-to-face transactions rendered credit records unnecessary until the 1980s, when Beijing launched Consumer Rights Day as a trust-building exercise. Officials and vendors took to the streets, experts discussed product quality and TV screens flashed shots of fake merchandise being shredded, crushed and burned. Though consumers are more sophisticated today, one element of the campaign remains popular: and ‘awards’ ceremony in which CEOs of cheating companies are hauled before a billion gleeful viewers, beg forgiveness and promise to change their companies’ wicked ways. Most are local but, when Apple was called out for persistently defying the two-year warranty law, CEO Tim Cook apologized and conformed. The CEOs of Volkswagen and Nikon have also taken the Walk of Shame, altered policies and groveled satisfyingly.

Then, in 2001, Internet fraud exploded, a cycle of distrust caused consumer confidence to plummet. Concerned, The People’s Daily called for ‘corporate and individual credit dossiers,’ to promote sincerity, chengxin, and trustworthiness, yongxin. Scholars extolled the benefits of accountability and American consultants went on TV to explain that credit records would make online transactions trustworthy. President Xi promised[6] to govern the country by virtuous example, hide zhiguo, and create a spiritual civilization, jingshen wenming, and called for Trial Spots to advance dàtóng. In response, Congress legislated[7] ethical manufacturing, truthful advertising, secure distribution, honest payment and trustworthy delivery and required retailers to accept returns unconditionally within seven days, to pay doubled fines for false advertising and to refund three times the price of counterfeits (Nike ran ads urging consumers to make money off the counterfeits).

Suining County[8] in Jiangsu Province had launched the first ‘mass credit’ Trial Spot in 2010. Citizens were initially given a thousand credit points and lost them for infringing legal, administrative and moral norms: a drunk driving conviction cost fifty points, having a child without family planning permission (this was before it was abolished) cost thirty-five points and delinquent loans cost thirty to fifty points. Lost points could be recovered after two to five years depending on the gravity of the infraction and participants were categorized A-D on the basis of their scores. A-class citizens received preferential access to employment opportunities while others faced scrutiny when applying for desirable jobs, government contracts, low-cost housing, social welfare, business licenses and permits. But when the county published the entire list Xinhua News compared it to the Good Citizen Cards, liangminzheng, Japanese occupiers issued during the war. Though crude and embarrassing, the trial provided valuable data on calibrated disincentives, the effects of naming and shaming and rewarding compliance with local rules and regulations.

E-commerce took off but, by 2014, the People’s Daily had become concerned, “Our national family currently suffers from socially unhealthy phenomena like economic disputes, telecommunications fraud, lack of trust and indifference to human feelings, perhaps because our integrity system is weak..Integrity systems are vitally important: they should start with government-level honesty, promise-keeping and respect for basic morality and customs, and make a genuine effort to strengthen social integrity”.

The timing was fortuitous: smartphones were becoming ubiquitous and the creating an online economy bigger than the rest of the world’s combined (during a twenty-four hour sale one merchant[9], handled a billion transactions, peddled 140,000 new cars and delivered a billion packages worth $30 billion and generated a billion credit records) and data showed that sales, profits and societal satisfaction rose with trust–a discovery that unleashed a flurry of Trial Spots designed to promote the virtuous and demote the vicious.

The first target was deadbeats, laolai, who stonewalled loan repayment because the police refused to collect debts so, in 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that anyone who failed to carry out a valid court order or administrative decision could be placed on a public list for up to two years. A Trial Spot began publishing laolai’s names, Social Security numbers, photographs, addresses and outstanding debts and restricting their access to ‘luxurious activities’ like traveling first-class. By 2018[10], the program had blocked twelve million laolai flights, five million high-speed train trips and–to Beijing’s dismay–blacklisted a thousand government officials. One laolai Trial Spot told callers, “The person you are calling is listed as dishonest by the Dengfeng People’s Court. Please urge them to fulfill their obligations”. After featuring local laolai in a video clip set to dramatic music, a court website in Henan claimed its first victory when a Guangxi deadbeat saw himself and promptly paid his $78,000 debt.

Image: Douyin

Xi invited citizens to oversee opaque government departments and by 2019, one hundred towns and cities had been listed as dishonest, their top officials banned from taking high-speed trains, visiting golf courses and high-end hotels or purchasing real estate. Their cities’ credit ratings were downgraded and local governments began realizing that they are not only administrative entities but also civil subjects subject to civil laws. The Ministries of Ecology, Finance and Customs created a joint Trial Spot that, by 2018, had punished[12] fifty-thousand corporations and reduced crimes like counterfeiting, food and drug violations and regulatory flouting. By 2019, the corporate watchdog had integrated existing laws into a transparent system of universal accountability and begun publishing every company’s inspection results and corporate behavior began to improve[13]:

Rules broken by corporations can lead to their being unable to issue corporate bonds and individuals officers being blocked from company directorships. Trust-breakers can face penalties on subsidies, career progression, asset ownership and the ability to receive honorary titles from the government. Penalties include limiting ability to establish companies in the financial sector, issue bonds, receive stock options, establish social organizations or participate in government procurement programs or receive government subsidies or in-kind support. Trust breakers are barred from senior positions in State Owned Enterprises, financial sector companies and social organizations, entry into the civil service, the Communist Party and the military; they are restricted from industry sectors including food, drugs, fireworks and dangerous chemicals and refused authentication for customs purposes; special procedures are required when they apply for loans and they are barred from purchasing real estate, land-use rights, exploiting natural resources and subject to restrictions on conspicuous consumption, no longer allowed to travel first class, on high-speed trains or civil aircraft, to visit star-rated hotels or luxury restaurants, resorts, nightclubs and golf courses, to go on foreign holidays, to send their children to fee-paying schools, purchase some high-value insurance products, or buy homes or cars.

As much as government and corporate dishonesty sap national strength, antisocial behavior, incivility and petty cheating dilute the quality of social life and Tentative Trial Spots addressing antisocial behavior, incivility and petty cheating have begun to bear fruit, too. The national railways Trial Spot[14] curtails travel for fare dodgers, disruptive behavior, smoking, scalping tickets, using false ID, invalid tickets and handles enforcement automatically. Personal Trial Spots,[15] while controversial, have stimulated a national debate about ethics: a private[16] university in Zhejiang told a businessman’s son they could not complete his enrollment because his father had failed to settle a $30,000 bank debt. While the father promptly paid the debt some netizens decried what they saw as collective punishment saying that parents, not their children, are responsible for their own misdeeds. Others argued that children should not enjoy privileges paid for with unpaid debt. Unleashed dogs, long a source of concern in Chinese cities, disappeared from Jinan after the city launched its “Civilized Dog-Raising Credit Score System” in 2018, and its success was duplicated elsewhere. Some personal Trial Spots are experimenting with credit objections, appeals and credit repair and protection of citizens’ rights.

As the trials mature, high Social Credit ratings have begun winning hearts and minds. Some automatically qualify high scorers for cheaper loans, upgraded flights, no-deposit rentals and–the ultimate Chinese incentive–desirable schools for offspring. Young people post scores to attract mates and one posted a video showing how Alibaba’s unstaffed automobile vending machine gave him a car for a three-day test drive and a cheap loan to buy it. China Daily regularly talks up the benefits, “After graduation, Zhang Hao, 28, found a job at a securities company in Hangzhou. On his mobile app, Alipay, he saw an apartment he liked. Alipay, Alibaba’s mobile payment service, rates its users’ credit based on their consumption and investment habits and Zhang had a high score so was exempted from the $1,000 security deposit and the $200 broker’s fee. The experience not only saved Zhang time and energy in renting an apartment, which is often complicated, but also gave him a fresh look at the city where he was about to build a career”.

By amplifying existing sanctions and building confidence in the law the plan hopes to make more people honest and fewer dishonest by applying the very Confucian assumption that officials and corporations should do the heavy lifting before citizens are asked to follow suit. Hence first phase[11]  will improve government transparency and public supervision of government actions, enforce commercial regulation, track corporate and industrial violations, uncover welfare and charity fraud and enhance courts’ credibility and capacity to enforce judgments.

Computer-aided virtue is on the march. Social Credit promises to be China’s biggest attitude adjustment since the Cultural Revolution and, if successful, will reduce costs and friction in trade, commerce, travel, romance and even international relations. More carrot than stick, it will empower good citizens to reap the benefits of a xiaokang society and, in the process, save an enormous amount of money.

With two percent of America’s legal professionals, one-fourth its internal security budget and unarmed police, China already has the lowest incarceration and re-offence rates on earth and the highest public satisfaction: when Harvard’s Tony Saich[17]  asked about their greatest concern people ranked ‘Maintenance of Social Order’ highest. When he asked which government service they were most satisfied with they again placed ‘Maintenance of Social Order’ first. As the most lawless centuries in its history fade into memory, will Social Credit speed China’s transition to dàtóng?

Godfree Roberts is an Anglo-American expert in Far Eastern affairs. He has been visiting China since 1967 and following its rising fortunes ever since. After receiving his doctorate from UMass, Amherst, he moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, an hour from the Chinese border, and began trying to understand the country’s phenomenal success.  Godfree serves as Publisher of the weekly newsletter Here Comes China!, and is the author of Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the Bottom.  His articles are widely published in the alternative press, including Vineyard of the Saker, The Greanville Post, The Unz Review, China Rising, and other leading anti-imperialist publications. He lost his first job in 1961 for defending China’s resumption of sovereignty over Tibet. He still annoys authorities by pointing out that the Chinese government has kept all its promises for the past 70 years while our government has broken them all.

Notes

[1] Confidence in Institutions. 2018. Gallup

[2] Imperial China 900-1800. F.W. Mote

[*] Trial Spots are administrative experiments at the local, provincial or national level to generate the statistical information required for passage of all legislation. Planners built the smaller, downstream Gezhouba Dam, as a Trial Point for the Three Gorges Dam but Congress remained unenthusiastic, finally approving the project by a small majority.

[3] Xi stresses integrating law, virtue in state governance. Xinhua | Updated: 2016-12-10 21:27

[4] Witness Says Credit Bureaus Invade Privacy and Asks Curb. NYT March 13, 1968

[5] Collect It All: The NSA Surveillance Doctrine. Andrew Conry Murray, Information Week, August 2014

[6] 18th Party Congress, November 8, 2012

[7] Global Policy Watch.

[8] China’s Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control. Rogier Creemers. University of Leiden

[9] The company also pledged $300 billion–of which the government guaranteed $12 billion–to provide finance, insurance, loans, logistics and analytical tools for cash-strapped small firms, street vendors and farmers and to help four hundred million unbanked rural people establish personal credit.

[10] Global Times, 2018/5/20

[11] Social Credit Overview. Jeremy Daum. China Law Translate. 2018/10/31.

[12] China Economic Daily

[13] What Could China’s ‘Social Credit System’ Mean for its Citizens? Foreign Policy, August 15, 2018

[14] Measures on the Administration of Railway Passenger Credit Records 2017 (Provisional) China Law Translate

[15] China Daily. 2018-7-14. 09:50:51

[16] Public universities are forbidden to discriminate on any but criminal grounds.

[17] How China’s citizens view the quality of governance under Xi Jinping. Tony Saich. Apr 2016.

 • Category: Economics, Foreign Policy • Tags: Censorship, China, China/America, Crime 

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Understanding China: The CCP (The Chinese Communist Party)

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by Godfree Roberts
OpEds
THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY
And Rotary International: Some Salient Facts

Pres. Xi Jin ping entering the Great Hall, to warm applause.

China and the US are one-party states. China, a socialist state, permits limited capitalism (Huawei) and disallows factions in government. America, a capitalist state, permits limited socialistic solutions to specific problems (Medicare), but not real socialism, and permits factions (Democrat and Republicans) in government. 

Our Capitalist Party exists for its own benefit (that is, to serve the ultra-rich, about 0.001% of the population) while their Communist Party is a service organization, like Rotary International. If we imagine the effects on America if our government had been answerable to Rotary International for the past seventy years then we can imagine why China has thrived.

Verifiable merit directs who can join the CCP

It is as difficult to join the CCP as it is to become a successful capitalist. Admission is highly restrictive and the process takes years. Candidates must explain their motives for applying; list personal shortcomings along with detailed personal, financial and political information about themselves and their families; include recommendations from two Party members; and supply character references from two non-relatives who will be accountable for them for life. During the application process they attend weekly classes in Party history and ideology and participate in volunteer activities. 

Constant malicious propaganda tries to deny and obfuscate the immense accomplishments of the Chinese people.  The Western ruling elites, increasingly worried about their sharp drop in legitimacy at home, work to block any possible non-capitalist alternatives. That fear has been in their hearts since the rise of the Soviet Union.

Three-quarters of university graduates apply but a tenth succeed.  “I was very excited,” said Allen Lin, 1 a twenty-three-year-old college senior who credits his admission to his high grades, service to student government and assistance to classmates, “Joining the Party is not easy–of the forty students in my class, only five were admitted.” Eric X. Li, a Fudan PhD multi-millionaire VC whose advocacy of Chinese governance has won world renown, has been rejected three times. Xi Jinping overcame seven rejections before being admitted. Jack Ma, a teenage student at a second-tier teachers' college, was admitted immediately.

“I promise to bear the people’s hardships first and enjoy the benefits last.”

New members swear an oath, “I promise to bear the people’s hardships first and enjoy the benefits last.” 300,000 Party members gave their lives in the war of liberation. Mao lost his wife, a son, two brothers, a sister and three nephews. Premier Zhou Enlai lost all his children and the first president, Zhu De, saw his pregnant wife tortured to death and her decapitated head nailed to the city gate.

The Party’s fundamental responsibility is creating policies and mobilizing public support for them. Many Party members will do little more than conduct door-to-door surveys on rainy Sundays or lead local cleanups, but some will head huge corporations and others will be officials, university professors or journalists. All ninety million will be able to explain new government policies to friends and workmates (though they may find this boring) so that everyone knows where the country is going and how to participate. 

The CCP's National People's Congress Assembly Hall dwarves the executive delegates.

Beijing, China. 25th May, 2020. The second plenary meeting of the third session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, May 25, 2020. Credit: Ju Peng/Xinhua/Alamy Live News

Their motto is, “Serve the People” and all 90,000,000 current members are volunteers who contribute $1,000,000,000 in annual dues and billions of volunteer hours leading China towards dàtóng. 

The Party’s ability to mobilize is impressive. One night in 2010 a Shanghai high-rise fire killed fifty-eight people. The Minister of Public Security arrived from Beijing at two am and, by dawn, had coordinated twenty-five fire stations and a hundred fire trucks, a thousand firefighters, police, hospitals, finance, insurance, housing, donations, counseling, criminal investigations and local schools. Forty-eight hours later, state-owned insurers began compensating families for lost property and $250,000 for each death. A week later, Shanghai mayor Han Zheng admitted, “We are responsible for poor supervision of the city's construction industry which caused the fire.” He implemented new building codes, fired or demoted thirty officials (of whom twenty-two were indicted and most went to prison, two for sixteen years). The contrast with London’s 2017 Grenfell Tower fire is stark. 

It appears that most folks are happy with the course they’ve plotted:

Members don’t benefit financially from participation and half have at least a junior college degree, forty percent are women, one-third are ‘exemplary farmers, herdsmen and fishermen,’ a quarter are white-collar workers, a sixth are retirees. Ten percent are ethnic minorities (ethnic minorities make up 8.5% of China’s population) and seven million civil servants are Party members.

Two-thirds of Party leaders have graduate degrees and one-fourth have PhDs.

Members vote democratically–on a one man, one vote basis–for senior Party and government appointments.

Surveys suggest that the Chinese are pleased with the Party’s supervision of their government.

1 Membership in the Communist Party of China: Who is Being Admitted and How? | JSTOR Daily. By: R.W. McMorrow. December 19, 2015

Godfree Roberts is an Anglo-American expert in Far Eastern affairs. He has been visiting China since 1967 and following its rising fortunes ever since. After receiving his doctorate from UMass, Amherst, he moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, an hour from the Chinese border, and began trying to understand the country's phenomenal success.  Godfree serves as Publisher of the weekly newsletter Here Comes China!, and is the author of Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the Bottom.  His articles are widely published in the alternative press, including Vineyard of the Saker, The Greanville Post, The Unz Review, China Rising, and other leading anti-imperialist publications.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience. 

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Marvels of Chinese Engineering—How China Builds So Fast

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—In this edition—
How China Builds So Fast • The Lhasa Express

How China Builds So Fast
The accomplishments of Chinese-style communism can be seen almost everywhere

 

Last month China made headlines around the world for announcing it had built a fully functioning 1,500 room hospital in just five days. This remarkable feat of engineering and logistics was executed in response to a Covid-19 surge in Nangong, a city in Hebei province. It recalled a time earlier in the pandemic, when workers in Wuhan erected a 1,000-bed hospital in a little over a week. Right now, even in the teeth of Coronavirus, China’s energetic builders are not only creating hospitals at breakneck pace, but moving startlingly quickly in the spheres of high speed rail, bridge-building and skyscraper construction. So today we’re putting on our hard hats and asking exactly how does China build so fast? China’s modern economic boom is little short of dazzling. Ballooning national prosperity has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, urbanised its citizenry faster than any other civilisation in human history, and created some pretty awesome infrastructure projects along the way. Not least the world’s largest dam, the world’s biggest airport and a veritable forest of shiny new skyscrapers.

World’s Most Extreme Railway | Megastructures | Free Documentary

Megastructures - The World’s Most Extreme Railway | Engineering Documentary Megastructures - The World’s Biggest Tent: https://youtu.be/5CZzA8zMqbs This is the story of the battle to build a railway across one of the most extreme environments on Earth. To lay down over a thousand kilometres of track in a remote wilderness. To drive 7 tunnels and to raise 675 bridges all at an altitude where even a simple breath is nearly impossible to come by. 140,000 workers and 2000 medics struggled for 5 years to conquer this hostile environment to complete. the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the highest, most extreme railway in the world!

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Carbon Neutral Green Finance – China May Take the Lead into a Post-Pandemic World

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Is this New York's Central Park looking at Fifth Avenue? No. Just Guiyang, China.

By Peter Koenig

How the pandemic will be reshaping the world, especially in terms of economic recovery and especially the western world, remains to be seen. So far, western economic, social and health restructuring policies are chaotic, disorganized and totally uncoordinated. Western countries are skipping from lockdowns to “opening up” back to lockdown, from the first covid-wave, to the second and the third and now approaching the fourth. Looks like there is no end in sight.

One could almost think they do it on purpose, to keep people confused and easily manipulated.

What happens in China is a different story. China is the only significant world economy – the second largest for now in absolute terms, and the largest in PPP (purchasing power parity terms) – that has put her economic and financial mechanism fully back onstream. Consequently, the Chinese supply chains – on which the rest of the world largely depends – i.e., on pharmaceuticals up to 90% – works again in full force. It is rather western ports that are still – or again? – partially closed to receive cargo container ships, especially from China, causing dangerous supply shortages at home. 

China is moving forward, always creating and leading initiatives, despite all odds, harassments, outright interferences and lie-based “sanctions” from the west. In this context and already looking into the future, into a post-covid future, China is displaying her Green Agenda, towards a carbon neutral – not only China – but world.

Following the idea of President Xi Jinping’s, of promoting a New Era of Eco-civilization, the Eco Forum Global Guiyan, for short EFG, has been held successfully for 10 sessions since its inception in 2009.

As a sideline – Guiyang, according to the Nature Index, is one of the top 500 science cities in the world by scientific research outputs.

S I D E B A R
The irrepressible vitality of socialism can be seen in contemporary China, a nation that pulses with activity in all directions. The example of Guiyang in a relatively "poor" region of China is illustrative.

EFG is the only international high-profile forum in China themed on Eco-civilization at the state-level.

Let me venture saying, the Eco Forum Global Guiyang is, so far, the only international forum of such tenor and action that may and hopefully will expand into a global movement aiming at drastically reducing the world’s carbon footprint – in short, accelerating the objective of making our civilization, our life on earth, carbon neutral – and, thereby, healthier.

To be clear, “Green Finance” is often misunderstood, especially in the west. For example, investing in electric cars, when most of the electricity is made from not only unrenewable but also highly toxic CO2-producing hydrocarbon – is not a Green Investment. This is still predominantly the case in Europe and North America.

This does not even take into account the environment-unfriendly mining and often unhealthy work conditions of exploiting and manufacturing lithium into car batteries.

The world’s chief energy source, hydrocarbons, has hardly changed in importance in the last 30 years or so. It still amounts to about 85% of all energy used in the world. This just indicates that so-called “green investments”, especially in the west, are mostly “fake” green investments, a new mode of sheer profit-driven capitalism.

These “green” investments have not even come close to a zero-carbon balance. To the contrary. The production of “green investments” used generally hydrocarbon, which lowers the energy efficiency drastically. This is clearly demonstrated in the low energy efficiency of electric cars, on average 35% to 40%, versus cars using straight petrol or gas-based energy.

This is, of course, not to advocate the continuous use of hydrocarbons. Quite the opposite. But it strongly suggests investing in research to come up with real novel carbon neutral, or even carbon negative sources of renewable energy. Such investments most likely do not yield “instant profit”, as is the key incentive and neoliberal investment motive, but such research investments are directed towards long-term societal benefits for all humanity.

Real Green Investments are for example, exploiting renewable and carbon-free sources of power, such as hydropower – wind, solar and tidal energy—with the latter taking advantage of the natural and eternal movements of the sea.

China will also continue being a world example of building “Green Cities”; investing in parks and “green housing” – housing units with plant façades – that absorb urban CO2 emissions from industry and transport.

These are Green Investments, as long as their dependence on hydrocarbon energy is way below the CO2output of the Green Investment itself.

The traditional, huge, costly, and maintenance-heavy hydropower dams ought to make way for a new generation of hydropower production: namely, small, localized, low-maintenance and even mobile hydropower plants. The latter for use in desertic and monsoon-type flash-flood prone areas. A prime example is Yemen, one of the world’s most arid countries, where floods come when it rains, but where perennial water flows are rare.

Finally, the real challenge is investing and researching in a new generation of exploiting solar energy…. the most efficient way of using solar energy – is by photo synthesis.This is what plants do to convert the energy of the sun. An estimated 95% energy efficiency might potentially be achieved, as compared to the current use of solar panels with a best-case of energy efficiency of 30% or less.

Imagine the energy freedom humanity would gain by exploiting solar energy by photo-synthesis! Almost unthinkable. But not impossible by any means. When sincere minds come together, impossible dreams become reality.

In addition, the production of solar panels which have a limited life, requires enormous quantities of energy – energy which is currently mostly produced by hydrocarbons. Plus, solar panels have an average life span of 25 – 30 years, after which they need to be destroyed – or recycled, both are energy-dependent and environmentally challenging.

 S I D E B A R
Below, the story of two simply immense accomplishments, part of China's proliferating megaprojects, the building of two highway/and hi-speed railroad tunnels of great complexity, both under extreme conditions, reflecting the stunning scientific and engineering prowess of China, not to mention her unconquerable spirit. 

World's Highest Highway Tunnel Opens to Traffic in China's Tibet

 Note: See the Appendix to learn the full story, how this marvel was built.  

President Xi further stated – “We must ensure and enhance public wellbeing in the course of development, promote harmony between humanity and nature, and take well-coordinated steps toward making our people prosperous, our nation strong, and our country beautiful.”

China may want to take this a step further. Using the Belt and Road Initiative through joint efforts, and joint ventures in Green Investments, inside, as well as outside Chinese borders, thereby providing the world with new opportunities towards improved and carbon-free standards of living. The focus always being on mutual benefits.

True to President Xi’s words: “We must continue working to promote the building of a human community with a shared future.”

Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). Peter Koenig is a research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is also a non-resident Sr. Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

 

 APPENDIX

World’s Most Extreme Railway | Megastructures

World’s Most Extreme Railway


https://youtu.be/5CZzA8zMqbs

This is the story of the battle to build a railway across one of the most extreme environments on Earth. To lay down over a thousand kilometres of track in a remote wilderness. To drive 7 tunnels and to raise 675 bridges all at an altitude where even a simple breath is nearly impossible to come by. 140,000 workers and 2000 medics struggled for 5 years to conquer this hostile environment to complete. the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the highest, most extreme railway in the world!

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The Qinghai Tibet Railway aka the Qingzang Railway aka the Lhasa Express. From Beijing to Lhasa in Tibet. Nothing like this has ever been done in the railway engineering world ???? I was spoilt for choice choosing images for today’s FD guide. One is truly humbled by the by the beauty of the land and the audacity of the project. Then I thought to myself: Humans are a strange species: we do so much harm and are so cruel - like no other living form on earth. Am I right? And then, on the other end of this broad spectrum: the audacity, determination, dedication to think of, develop and see through a project like this. This railway line belongs to one of the most daringly spectacular and difficult projects ever. Truly amazing. 

Finnish engineer Pasi Lautala travels to Beijing to see for himself. Some of the engineering challenges: the highest terrain in the world, building anything on permafrost, earthquake area, bitter cold. The trains are specially built for high elevation environments; the high-altitude passenger carriages with special enriched-oxygen and UV-protection systems. There’s also a doctor on board as altitude sickness is despite all the precautions not uncommon.

The train line includes the Tanggula Pass, which, at 5,072 m (16,640 ft) above sea level , is the world's highest point on any railroad ever. Tanggula railway station at over 5000 m (16,627 ft) the highest station. Then there are the highest and longest tunnels. Over 80% of the line runs at over 4000 meters (13,123 ft) I can go on and on with superlatives but that’d be dull. See for yourself. This project truly deserves the label megastructures and it is breathtaking in the beauty of the land and the boldness in engineering. Enjoy! And maybe someday, we’ll meet on the Lhasa express because it’s moved to the top of my list of trips I absolutely have to take. ???? ????

First published by the New Eastern Outlook – NEO. / This is the TGP expanded and annotated version. 

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