China’s New Era and What It Means
by Kenny Coyle
(CPB, £2)

JUST over a decade ago, China and Britain were roughly equal in economic size, but today, barely noticed, the Asian nation has grown four times larger. In the next seven to 10 years, it will likely overtake the US.

China's President Xi Jinping is already challenging Trump in a battle of ideas and advancing the notion of a world community with a shared future. It gives globalisation a new meaning and opposes the neocon view of divisive power politics.

Understanding these developments is now an absolute imperative for the left globally. Yet still, in Britain, discussion about the world’s largest socialist state within the broader left remains minimal. China is seen as a divisive topic to be avoided. Suspicions, hostility, protectionist fears and insularity go unchallenged and negative views prevail, often scapegoating China for the world’s capitalist ills.

The historical transformation now under way with China’s rise is rooted in its revolutionary movements in the first half of the 20th century against imperialism — Japanese, US and British — foreign and monopoly capital and in favour of the land reform movement.

Taken together, these were the largest mass upsurges of their time, pushing on beyond the 1949 establishment of the People’s Republic of China to the foundation in 1956 of a socialist state.

But what kind of socialism could such a poor country, barely able to feed itself, build? Disasters followed until finally, with Deng Xiaoping’s formulation of the primary stage of socialism in 1979, China was able to broadly stabilise and focus on economic development.

Today, following the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Congress, China now looks forward to realising modernisation by 2035 and achieving a “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced” socialist society by the centenary year of 2049.

Unlike the specious arguments about China’s capitalist exploitation and neocolonial expansionism, Kenny Coyle’s new pamphlet is on solid ground. Packed with information about the country’s overall social and economic development it shows how, ever since 1949, China has vastly outperformed other states in Asia. Spectacularly so since 1978, with approximately 800 million people lifted out of poverty and the economy growing a mind-boggling 50 times larger.

While there are certain limits on trade-union organisation, this has not meant growth at the workers’ expense. From 2005 to 2014, Chinese wages rose by 309 per cent and they are still rising. Some eight to 10 million new jobs are now being created each year, in comparison with India’s one million or fewer. Meanwhile, the state’s role in the economy has been steadily strengthened.

What has made all this possible is the leadership of the CPC which, using Marxism to analyse experiences, has been able to adapt to changing circumstances and guide future directions. Particularly welcome are chapters on China’s global impact, including an introduction to the “belt and road” initiative which, if successful, will shift the centre of global gravity towards Eurasia, ending three centuries of Western hegemony.

Then there is the question of how China’s rise impacts on people in Britain. Trade union co-operation must be stepped up and certainly China has much to learn from the British experience in areas such as collective bargaining and enforcing health and safety standards. But the point is also to look at how China itself might help a left Labour government seeking to recuperate British manufacturing.

Thus this pamphlet is a call to the labour movement and the left to focus on how to respond to the global impact of China’s rise. Failure to understand what is going on will mean Britain may well lose out on many opportunities to advance progressive policies.

The world is at a turning point and the left must turn with it. In confronting key misconceptions that impede progressive debate, Coyle’s work provides a useful place to start.

Available for £2 + £1.50 p&p from communist-party.org.uk/shop