Fork Full Of Noodles with Krish Mohan #253 – Imperialism & Ego Got In The Way Of China’s Socialist Construction

China. This is probably one of the most controversial topics to discuss in Capitalist America. If you bring up China at a party, that’s it! The night is over! Everyone has to go home because it’s sure turn into a screaming match about who read the most accurate headline about China that day. A lot of Americans don’t really understand why they’re supposed to hate China other than the fact their commie reds, that’re coming to suck the soul out of every Christian baby in America! 

Capitalists like George Soros have called China an existential competitor to the United States. But wait a minute isn’t competition good for Capitalism? That’s what is preached to us non-stop by the simps of the system? So why would it be bad to have a competitor? Shouldn’t that mean that America is pushed to produce better things? Shouldn’t that mean that America should be trying to be as good if not a better society than China?

China’s Common Prosperity program is described as “not good for investors”! And as Capitalist business leaders in America describe China as an existential threat, Capitalist politicians are pushing for a full on Hot War with China. The United States has 2 partnerships that militaristically are threatening China; The Quad, consisting of the US, Australia, Japan and India, & AUKUS, which consists of the US, the UK and Australia and also sounds like a species of Platypus that are just really socially awkward. 

Anyone feel like the US trying to fuck Australia? Look I get it. Australia was a British prison colony and everyone likes a bad boy their parent is going to hate. Plus they got a pretty cool accent. And militarism is the only the way America knows how to flirt. “Wanna see how far I can fly my drone?” “Is that a nuclear sub in your pants or are you just excited for imperialism?” “I bet the size of my navy gets your inland wet!”  

Right now China has a 20% favorability rating among average Americans. But this is hypocritical to way liberals behave towards this giant. They claim China is evil and violates human rights, but we shouldn’t spread Asian hate. It’s a lot of mixed signals here. 

So what’s behind all this hatred and hypocrisy? In order to understand that we’d have to delve into the history of China and America’s involvement in their growth. China’s main goal since the revolution that put the Communist Party in power back in 1949 has been to build a Socialist society. 

In the early part of the 20th century, thanks to British Imperialism and the Opium trade, China lost a lot of power in the global markets. The Brits had embarrassed this once proud nation with unbeatable Dynasties, by essentially turning them into a drug mule! They were basically like a college student that loses all their money in Mexico and has to transport cocaine in their butt to get home. Plus after the Japanese invasion during World War 2, China was torn apart by the ravages of war. 30 million Chinese lives were lost in the 14 years of warfare they faced. 

So after the Communists won the revolution in 1949, it was time to rebuild the country. China’s economy was weak. Mao Zedong’s goal was to eradicate poverty from China. Mao also had to keep the nation unified. So in order to help get this Socialist project off the ground, he turned to Josef Stalin. Which I get looks bad, but lest we forget, without Stalin’s help, the US and Allied forces wouldn’t have beat Hitler. The problem with Stalin was that he wasn’t ready to turn into a Capitalist state after the War. 

Mao & Stalin primarily talk about peace. Look I get that its hard to believe someone like Josef Stalin would talk about peace, but maybe that was because he was older and Nazis didn’t seem like they’d be a problem at that time. I get it. I’m older now and I only want to burn things down like 60% of the time. Stalin agreed to help China by sending scientists, technology and resources to help get their economy off the ground. 

By the first year, Mao overturned several marriage laws that were in place from the old regime. More hospitals were being built and Mao focused his attention on agriculture. In the 50s, the US slaps sanctions on China because they supported Korean independence instead of US imperialism. 

Tensions started to build between the Soviets and the Chinese and they only get worse when Stalin dies and Kruschev takes over. Both nations wanted the same thing, a Sovereign Socialist State, but were bickering over the execution of the plan. The Soviets believed China was moving too fast. By 1959, things reach a boiling point between the 2 Socialist giants. 

Kruschev meets with US President Eisenhower, who was looking to end the Cold War by making an arms deal with the Soviets. Eisenhower also wanted to the deal with the “China problem”. At this point the US had toyed with the idea of dropping a nuke on Taiwan to cripple China. Isn’t it funny that the only country that used nukes and then threatened another country with nukes, is the one that claiming we need to reign in certain countries with nuclear capabilities? Shouldn’t the rest of world be trying to reign in the nuke thirsty US empire? If sense were common…

Mao and the Chinese see making amends with an imperial power as a betrayal to the construction of a Socialist society. So they started writing about how the Soviets were imperialists and Socialist posers! “Like do you even redistribute bro?!” “Do you even lift…the working class out of poverty and share the means of production with them?” “Bro, do you even live the revolution?”  

So the Soviets responded by abruptly calling all of those scientists back and cutting off resources & advancements to China. Kruschev went against the first principle of Socialism, sharing is caring. Apparently he no longer cared. The Soviet Scientists were very confused about this decision. This was rather devastating to the Socialist cause. This is like watching 2 best buds throwing their friendship away because they can’t agree on who the best X-Man is. 

This was a catastrophe for China! With the crippling US sanctions and the loss of the Soviet’s support, China’s burgeoning Socialist economy was collapsing. With all of that and Mao’s strict new agricultural laws, China saw a wave of starvation in the early 60s. And things only got worse in this decade. 

A quick side note: I know Mao’s wave of starvation is used by Capitalists as proof of the failures of Socialism, but this disregards sanctions and the Soviet support. But more importantly it ignores the consistent wave of homelessness and starvation in Capitalist nations like the US. Don’t forget thanks how US Capitalism dealt with the pandemic homelessness and starvation rose in the last 2 years. Capitalism has yet to deal with this issue.

Not only did America invade Vietnam and bringing war to the doorsteps of China, they had to deal border skirmishes between India and the Soviet Union.

But this gave America’s Oldest Living War Criminal, Henry Kissinger the perfect opportunity to take out both the Southeast Asian & Eastern European Socialist blocks. He had a simple plan: “We want both sides to kill each other!” After meeting with Mao in secret, Kissinger arranged for Nixon to meet with him publicly in 1975. This was Nixon trying to regain good will in the eyes of the International community after the blunders of Vietnam. This was his subtle way of saying “I am not a crook!” 

It won’t be until 1979, 3 years after Mao dies, that will China become legitimized in the world’s eyes by President Jimmy Carter. At this point, thanks to wars breaking out in the South Pacific, Socialism was eroding. Legitimizing China was such a terrifying decision, the Military Industrial Complex penned a letter to Carter, telling him to reverse course on his decision and how China was a victim of Soviet imperialism. I for one am shocked to learn that the Military Industrial Complex is … literate. 

Once China was open to the globe, they started rising to the world stage. American Capitalists were very excited about China’s inclusion to the world market. They figured China would be seduced Neoliberal greed and would become a Capitalist state that America can control. But China used this to boost their economy to start raising their own citizens out of poverty. 

In the 80s, Russia’s new leader, Gorbachev decides to reopen relations with China after their feud in the 60s. Seeing this move as an insult, students decided to protest and effectively shut down the Chinese government for 7 weeks. This is the lead up the famous Tienenmen Square incident. But there are lot of discrepancies on what actually happened there. 

The student in the famous photo was alive and well. He was never arrested by the government for protesting. And this incident was days after any violence had taken place. The student protesters started the violence when the military arrived outside the square by taking arms away from them. No bystanders were killed by the Chinese Military. But the military did open fire on its citizens in retaliation. But how is that any different than what happened at Kent State, any labor action in the early 1900s, the Black Lives Matter protests and any other protest that has ever taken place in America over the last century? It’s not, so America should really just shut the fuck up before it contorts its brain into a perma-pretzel from all this mental gymnastics. 

The 90s is when things start to turn around for China. At this point they’re making most desirable products and had become the world’s manufacturer. Rapid industrialization had taken its toll on China’s climate. But this is a consequence of rapid industrialization. The same thing happened in the States, UK, India and so on! So every neoliberal establishment trying to harp on China’s Climate problem is ludicrous when they haven’t fixed their own crises. For fucks sake, California has a fire season! The southern states have hurricane seasons! And that’s just in America! If you have seasons for natural disasters, you’re a failed state working on becoming a failed planet. 

By 1997 the last vestiges of colonial control were released when Hong Kong returned to Chinese control from the 100 year UK lease. Basically this was like the crown’s international gentrification plan. I believe Hong Kong was supposed to become the Royal Brunch spot!

But, this was a signal to the world, China was becoming its own sovereign independent state without the influence of the west! Now Hong Kong is like China’s Puerto Rico. They want their own independence, and are democratic, but still under the control of a world power. 

It was only after 9/11 that China was added into the World Trade Organization. This was another controversial decision because Capitalists again though they would fall for siren call of Lady Capitalism, but that didn’t happen. So in order to put more pressure on China, the Obama Administration was pushing the Trans Pacific Partnership – which would’ve devastated the global working class and made more Capitalists very rich – and they increased the number of military bases in the Pacific Southeast. 

This brings us to today and China’s Common Prosperity program under President Xi Jingping. Under this new leadership and the growth in China’s economy, the goal to construct a Socialist society was being pushed forward. In order to eradicate poverty, China decided to look at the poverty standard under a new lens.

If you’re a conservative, think of this as getting the boots that you’d pick yourself up by. So in order to build infrastructure to do this, China had to figure out exactly what the problem was and how to find adequate solutions to uplift its people.

Now I get it! The second anyone in the west hears this they go, “Well this sounds like it’s going to get in the way of rights and freedom. What if I don’t want to fix locks and help people!” So you want the freedom to be a sociopath? Well buddy I got an exceptional country you should check out that’s built on being a sociopathic shitbag & uses freedom as an excuse to give up their humanity. 

Corporations, Billionaires and CEOs are also heavily regulated in China. Due to these regulations, Chinese Billionaires lost up to 90% of their wealth. But don’t worry they’re still billionaires! I think if you lose almost everything you have and still wind up being richer than over 95% of the world, then you have too much money. That’s one of those sentences you shouldn’t have to say out loud, but because we live in a fractured reality you absolutely have to say out loud. 

The reason why China is an emerging global power that’s a threat to imperial dominance is because they used the Communist Party to control private industries. When China opened itself to the globe they decided to keep larger things like land under public control. This way real estate corporations can’t arbitrarily spike rent on apartments built on land they’re leasing from the government without loosing control of their properties. 

China also learned from its own mistakes and the mistakes of its rivals. US Capitalism tried to achieve social goals through privatization. The social goals being an upward transfer of wealth and putting a price tag on everything from socks to identity to democracy itself. The USSR tried to achieve its goals through public enterprises and funnel more control to the government. But thanks to the paranoia of the nuclearly charged Cold War,  both nations focused their economic success on the military. 

China decided to coordinate public and private enterprises together to ensure the beneficiaries of the profit would be the Chinese people. And guess what that includes the billionaires and Capitalists that live in China. The goal is to create a stable economy without constant booms and busts like in Capitalism. And they’re succeeding. As we mentioned earlier over the last 30 years, 850 million people have been uplifted from poverty in China. That’s 76% of the world’s poverty!

In America the number of people that have been uplifted is equivalent to the number of billionaires this country has. So like 8…8 people have been uplifted from poverty in America. So I believe monetarily America has eradicated -400% of poverty in the world. 

China is far from a perfect country. Because humans are still in-charge, there was and still is corruption & greed at every level of their class structure, but the difference is that they’re trying to do something about it. America wants to give into that greed and wants everyone else to as well. And when it’s met with a nation that it can’t bend to its whims it throws a temper tantrum in the ways of propaganda. China is proving that the adage “sharing is caring” is rather profitable. 

Sources:

The US and China: A Productive Path Forward

After Years of Propaganda, American Views of Russia and China Hit Historic Lows

Eisenhower rejected military chiefs’ demand for nuclear war on China, classified account of ’58 Taiwan Strait crisis reveals

Tanks and Think Tanks: How Taiwanese Cash is Funding the Push to War with China

US State Department accusation of China ‘genocide’ relied on data abuse and baseless claims by far-right ideologue

Is China Committing Genocide? Behind the US Government’s Propaganda Campaign

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/11/02/1050999300/how-american-leaders-failed-to-help-workers-survive-the-china-shock?utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR3bmoMoRfqyUwF_sekXq-ZuWskf6IA0Xde5IGj1uOZcNzntXNoqiEm4DiU

What China Learned From U.S. Capitalism’s Development

https://www.leftvoice.org/where-is-china-going-a-review-of-two-opposing-views/