1. Why does China, a socialist country, have mega corporations like Tencent and Bytedance? Are they collectively owned by syndicates or unions? If this is a transitionary phase to socialism, can we trust China to actually enforce Socialism after this stage ends?
  2. Child Labor in factories: Myth or Fact? I have a Chinese friend who said he personally never worked as a child in China, but obviously if this was true not every single kid would have worked in a factory.
  3. Surveillance and Social Credit: are these myths, or are they true? Why would China go so far to implement these systems, surely it’d be far too costly and burdensome for whatever they’d gain from that.
  4. Uighur Muslim genocide: Is this true?

Thank you to anyone who answers, and if you do please cite sources so I can look further into China. I really appreciate it.

edit: I was going to ask about Tiananmen Square, but as it turns out that literally just didn’t happen. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html

https://leohezhao.medium.com/notes-for-30th-anniversary-of-tiananmen-incident-f098ef6efbc2

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/

  • StalinForTime [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago
    1. Imo, China have essentially introduced a new mode of production that has not been properly analyzed in political economy. You can see this simply by the absence of traditional business cycles as we’ve witnessed in increasing capitalist economies since the eary 19th century. This mode of production is essentially characterized by a fusion of a massive, dominant public sector with extensive localized capitalization, introduction of private property, commodities and wage labor. Ostensibly, the CPC claim that the purpose of this is to build up the productive forces of the economy in order to lay the ground for a transition to socialism, guided by extensive state planning, intervention, direction, carried out through a massive and dominant public sector in the economy. I personally think they went way too, unecessarily, far, especially in certain sectors of the economy, such as housing, healthcare and education. It is clear that they are aware of these issues, and this is one reason for the increasing tight leash that the CPC is holding over their capitalists and private enterprise, as well as perhaps conditioning the economy is prepare for a long-run transition away from dependence on international capitalism, or shifting their base of economic demand towards the domestic economy and domestic consumption.

    There is also a system of complex distribution of economic management at regional, provincial levels, with the aim of establishing a form of competitive meritocracy among administrations; careers in the CPC are based on performance in such administrations. However the economy is still dominated by the public sector, by the state, thus by the party. A huge chunk, measured in terms of ownership, is in state hands, and the state is also a large co-owner in many huge, formally private, enterprises. The largest banks in the world are Chinese state banks. The state uses extensive planning, regulation, and targeted fiscal and monetary measures, as well as manipulation of financial mechanisms that would be less institutionally acceptable in the West. Also, despite the introduction of capitalistic reforms, the society as a whole, or the mode of production, thus the political system, are not really capitalist in the sense we’re familiar with because while capitalists as an economic class do exist in China, they are not politically dominant. The CPC are in charge, and they are not a capitalist class, despite the fact that their immediate interests are now somewhat tied to the capitalistic parts of their economy. Economic policy is thus not necessary, in the final accounting of things, a matter of maximization of profit or profitability. This does raise the question whether or not the party and/or state bureaucracy in China constitute a socio-economic class unto themselves, in the sense that they would have a specific socio-economic function through which they reproduce themselves as a class, and whether they are therefore the dominate class, meaning that they ultimately control production and use of the economic surplus (in the general sense, not necessarily surplus-value).

    As to whether they will actually engage in a genuine transition to socialism, I admit that I’m personally sceptical, and the main reason for this is that I don’t think that they have genuinely socialistic democratic institutions.

    • StalinForTime [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      For some more context I’m going to copy from previous posts of mine:

      China had greatly economically developed its means of production during the Maoist period, and industrialization had already progressed to a significant degree. See what Amartya Sen, of all people, said about the Maoist period:

      • Because of its radical commitment to the elimination of poverty and to improving living conditions - a commitment in which Maoist as well as Marxist ideas and ideals played an important part - China did achieve many things… [including] The elimination of widespread hunger, illiteracy, and ill health… [a] remarkable reduction in chronic undernourishment… a dramatic reduction of infant and child mortality and a remarkable expansion of longevity.

      • The accomplishments relating to education, health care, land reforms, and social change in the pre-reform [i.e. Maoist] period made significantly positive contributions to the achievements of the post-reform period. This is so in terms of their role not only in sustained high life expectancy and related achievements, but also in providing firm support for economic expansion based on market reforms.

      According to the Journal of Global Health:

      • Life expectancy soared by around 30 years, infant mortality plummeted and smallpox, sexually transmitted diseases and many other infections were either eliminated or decreased massively in incidence… By the mid-1970s, China was already undergoing the epidemiologic transition, years ahead of other nations of similar economic status. This was due to population mobilization, mass campaigns and a focus on sanitation, hygiene, clean water and clean delivery," as well as "clinical care and continuing public health programs to the masses through community-funded medical schemes and the establishment of community-based health workers "

      According to Population Studies

      • China’s growth in life expectancy at birth from 35–40 years in 1949 to 65.5 years in 1980 is among the most rapid sustained increases in documented global history… Physician and hospital supply grew dramatically under Mao due to a variety of factors (including increases in government financing, the introduction of social insurance for urban public employees, and the launch of China’s Rural Cooperative Medical System in the mid-1950’s). Rural Cooperative Medical Schemes (CMS) were vigorously promoted and became widespread in the late 1960’s as part of the Cultural Revolution.

      Sen also emphasizes gains in education:

      • China’s breakthrough in the field of elementary education had already taken place before the process of economic reform was initiated at the end of the seventies. Census data indicate, for instance, that literacy rates in 1982 for the 15-19 age group were already as high as 96 percent for males and 85 percent for females.

      Finally, see Maurice Meisner (Mao’s China and After) to summarize:

      • Yes despite all the failings and setbacks, it is an inescapable historical conclusion that the Maoist era was the time of China’s modern industrial revolution. Starting with an industrial base smaller than that of Belgium’s in the early 1950’s… [China] emerged at the end of the Mao period as one of the six largest industrial producers in the world.

      • The Maoist economic record… compares favorably with comparable stages in the industrialization of Germany, Japan, and Russia - hitherto the most economically successful cases (among major countries) of late industrialization. In Germany the rate of economic growth for the period 1880-1914 was 33 percent per decade. In Japan from 1874-1929 the rate of increase per decade was 43 percent. The Soviet Union over the period 1928-1958 achieved a decadal increase of 54 percent. In China over the years 1952-1972 the decadal rate was 64 percent. This was hardly economic development at “a snail’s pace,” as foreign journalists persist in misinforming their readers.

      If we understand capital in the Marxist sense as a social relation of self-producing value underwritten sociologically by a class relationship, then it can be argued that this was largely eliminated from China between 1956-1978, before being reintroduced under Deng.