China, the USA and Capitalism's Last Crusade by William Briggs;

Author:William Briggs;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: National Book Network
Published: 2021-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

China’s long march

The relentless rise of China has been the source of fascination for observers and commentators. While the China that we know – the rival to the United States – is a fully functioning capitalist economy, it maintains political power via the agency of the Communist Party. Too many in government and the media roll out the communist epithet. It serves them well to do so. If China threatens the power and hegemony of America, then it is as well to portray it in as black, or in this case, as red a light as possible. The world is used to Cold War tactics and any rise on China’s part can be dismissed as communist-inspired. There is also a degree of old-fashioned ‘yellow-peril’ racism at work. The two factors work in tandem. What to do about and with China occupies the minds of many. Smaller economies, long-time allies of the USA, move uneasily. Where to jump? Chinese trade is vital and yet the US alliance must not be questioned. It all goes to make for some rather schizophrenic posturing.

The Chinese story is a remarkable one. Its history is long. Any starting date for analysis is inevitably arbitrary. For our purposes, let us begin at around about the time of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. It was by no means the most violent of uprisings or revolts against imperialist domination, but it has a special significance. It epitomised, in so many ways, the rising nationalism that was to dominate Chinese thinking. It came as the new century dawned. The preceding half century had seen the very worst that imperialism had to offer, with opium wars, the forced ceding of Hong Kong, the Tai-Ping rebellion with its 20 million deaths. It saw the unity of two empires and six powerful states come together to enforce the rule of force. It also immediately preceded the birth of the Chinese Republic and the monumental changes that lay ahead.

China’s history in the first decades of the twentieth century was dominated by nationalist movements that struggled against feudalism, and against imperialist domination. Sun Yat-sen became the first leader of republican China in 1912 with the creation of the Kuomintang (KMT). Chiang Kai-shek later led the KMT. They were years of turmoil and violence. They were also years when Marxist ideology first arrived in China. Following the Russian Revolution, the CCP was formed. The Stalinisation of the Marxist movement led to a disastrous alliance between the CCP and KMT with thousands of communists being massacred.

Those same years were also marked by Japanese imperialist occupation and subsequent resistance by the Chinese. The history of China in the years leading up to 1949 and the coming to power of Mao Zedong is inextricably linked with the history of the CCP and its betrayals by Stalinism. By the time that Mao read his proclamation of the formation of the People’s Republic, the CCP had become a caricature of a Marxist organisation. In order to appreciate the later developments

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