Hankow 1958: Mao’s Checklist Against Bureaucratic Decay
Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 14, 2025
Prince Kapone
From Chengtu’s questions to Hankow’s battlefield, Mao sharpened the class line, armed the masses with democracy, and struck at the overlord style that threatened to hollow out the revolution.
From Chengtu’s Questions to Hankow’s Battlefield
April 1958, Hankow. Weeks after forcing the Party to think before it leapt at Chengtu, Mao stepped into a new room with the same war in mind: keeping a young socialist state from hardening into habit. The sequence is the point. Nanning’s Sixty Points set methods of working; Chengtu disciplined methods of thinking; Hankow now takes the same knife to practice. We move from clearing the fog inside the head to mapping the ground under our feet. The atmosphere is not ceremonial. It is shop-floor serious: what must be done so the revolution doesn’t drown in its own paperwork or fall asleep at its own victory banquet.
Hankow sharpens the question that Chengtu only framed. If Chengtu answered how to think—investigate, compare, create—Hankow answers who to fight and how to fight them in the transition period. Mao lays out the terrain without metaphysics: enemies that must be isolated, vacillators that must be struggled with and rallied, workers and peasants who must be united through persuasion and rectification. He brings rhythm to the struggle—cooling off, letting loose—so class confrontation does not become a permanent siren that exhausts the people or a permanent lullaby that puts the Party to sleep. Politics commands; the numbers obey. Democracy is not a garnish; it is a weapon that keeps the line honest.
And let us kill a convenient myth before it grows legs: this is not the speech of a reckless man about to hurl a country into fantasy. It is the speech of a dialectician with a ledger—naming classes, distinguishing enemies from vacillators, insisting on persuasion among the people and coercion only for the hardened right. The so-called “Leap” in Mao’s mouth is not a drunken jump; it is a timed stride—advance, compare, rectify, advance again—taken with eyes open and ears tuned to the masses. Hankow is not bravado. It is the checklist of a revolution that intends to stay red.
Drawing the Lines of Class
Mao began at Hankow not with abstractions but with a map of living forces. First, the hardened enemy: the landlords not yet reformed, the rich peasants, the counter-revolutionaries, the bad elements, the rightists. Maybe five percent of the country—thirty million souls—but numbers mean little without politics. This bloc was the “current Chiang Kai-shek,” a reservoir of resistance that had to be isolated and struggled against. Mao’s line was sharp but not mechanical: smash their influence, reform where possible, and turn even a fraction of them into new people. If seventy percent split, that was victory. If ten percent truly changed, that was success. Nothing was permanent; all was struggle.
Second came the vacillating exploiters—the national bourgeoisie, their intellectual satellites, and the well-to-do middle peasants. Exploiters, yes, but not the same as the first. They bent with the wind, shouting support when the Party was strong, hedging when reaction threatened. Mao refused both liberal illusions and dogmatic purges. Against this class, the weapon was criticism, not annihilation. Handle them “civilized,” he said—not because they deserved kindness, but because their contradictions were not yet hostile. To treat them as sworn enemies would only drive them into the rightist camp. Better to rally the middle and isolate the hard core.
Then Mao turned to the workers. Supposedly the iron spine of socialism, they too carried contradictions. Some fought narrow battles for “five big items”—higher wages, better rations—forgetting the larger collective struggle. Others, newly made cadres, turned arrogant overnight, reproducing overlord habits in the factory. Mao did not flatter them. He demanded rectification, self-criticism, a return to the mass line inside production itself. Workers could lead, but only if they led themselves as much as they led others.
Finally, the peasants—the vast majority, and yet not a simple bloc. The cooperative movement had united millions, but suspicion lingered. Peasants still remembered cadres who had bullied them like Kuomintang tax collectors. They watched carefully whether collectivization meant equality or new layers of domination. Mao’s demand was that relations between cadres and peasants be remade through persuasion, not compulsion. Here was the Party’s greatest test: to prove that socialism was not simply a new landlord in red clothes, but a new relationship of equality. Without that, the whole alliance would crack.
In one sweep Mao named four fronts of struggle. Enemies to be fought, vacillators to be criticized, workers to be rectified, peasants to be persuaded. No fixed categories, no eternal positions—only movement, transformation, and vigilance. At Hankow, class was not a slogan; it was a compass for navigating the storm of transition.
Cooling Off, Letting Loose
Having drawn the map of classes, Mao turned to method. Struggle, he warned, cannot be treated as a permanent fever. The Party must learn rhythm: press, consolidate, press again. “We must have a strategy,” he said, “cooling off for a while and then letting loose. Without such cooling off and letting loose, it won’t flare up.” In those few words Mao buried two illusions at once: that class struggle could end with one victory, or that it could be carried on in a state of constant emergency. Both were recipes for exhaustion, either of the masses or of the Party itself.
The danger of permanent emergency was real. Exhaust the people with endless campaigns, and enthusiasm turns into fatigue, vigilance into cynicism. Mao had seen it happen. The Party could not keep the engine revved at full speed forever; the people needed air to breathe, space to digest, time to absorb gains. Cooling off was not retreat but recovery. It was the pause in the guerrilla war, the regrouping after the offensive. Without it, even the most loyal would crumble.
But the danger of permanent peace was just as lethal. Rest too long, declare victory too soon, and the class enemy reorganizes in the shadows. The people sink into complacency, cadres into bureaucracy. “Without letting loose, it won’t flare up”—without renewed struggle, contradictions do not sharpen into clarity, they rot into confusion. Mao demanded cycles: struggle to break the old, consolidation to build the new, then struggle again when new contradictions emerged. This was dialectics not as philosophy but as strategy of survival.
The transition period, Mao insisted, is repetitious and complex. One victory does not seal the revolution; one rectification does not cure bureaucracy. The same enemies resurface in new forms, the same contradictions return in sharper guise. To govern is to expect this repetition, to prepare for it, to turn it into strength rather than defeat. Mao’s formula—cooling off, letting loose—was not caution. It was tempo. It was the furnace master’s art: stoke, pause, stoke again, until the steel is tempered strong enough to hold.
Breaking the Overlord Style
Mao did not leave the disease unnamed. He told the cadres at Hankow: some of you act like the very Kuomintang we defeated. Cadres who bark orders, seize privileges, strut like petty kings—this was not socialism, it was the overlord style dressed in red. Workers and peasants could see it clearly. To them, an arrogant cadre was indistinguishable from the tax collector or the warlord. And once the people make that comparison, the Party bleeds legitimacy. That, Mao warned, is how revolutions decay from within.
The examples he offered were concrete and humiliating. A woman cadre in a Hunan hospital usurped a lavatory and forbade others to use it. Newly promoted shop workers turned on their fellow clerks as soon as they wore a Party badge. County officials strutted through cooperatives as if they owned them. Mao’s sarcasm was sharper than any statistic: socialism built on this behavior was socialism in name only. The cadres had become what they claimed to have buried.
Mao’s axiom was blunt: internal contradictions among the people cannot be solved by coercion. To beat, threaten, or silence workers and peasants is to govern with the Kuomintang’s hand. The Party must use persuasion, equality, and rectification. He reminded comrades of the Party’s guerrilla traditions: three rules of discipline, eight points of attention, the abolition of flogging and executions for deserters. Those rules had once bound the army to the masses like kin. Why abandon them now, in the name of socialism? To do so was to betray both the people and the revolution.
This was more than a moral scolding. It was a political principle. A Party that treats its people like subjects ceases to be a revolutionary party. Bureaucratism, Mao said, is counter-revolution in embryo. Every arrogant gesture, every silenced criticism, every abuse of privilege is a seed of restoration. The cure was not more paperwork or discipline from above. It was the mass line itself—cadres descending to learn from the people, contradictions resolved by debate and persuasion, equality restored in practice. Hankow made the choice plain: either purge the overlord style, or watch the revolution rot into a red bureaucracy.
Big Characters, Loud Voices
At Hankow, Mao did not merely criticize arrogance; he armed the people against it. His call was simple: let the provincial congresses publish big-character posters, and let the masses write them freely. A poster scrawled on cheap paper carried more truth than a polished report padded with lies. “Like the Yangtze River roaring down ten thousand li,” he said, mass criticism could wash away the rot clogging the Party’s arteries. It was not decoration. It was a weapon—ink turned into steel.
The posters mattered because they exposed contradictions in broad daylight. Cadres who bullied, shop managers who lorded over clerks, officials who mimicked the Kuomintang—all could be dragged before the people’s eyes. Internal contradictions among the people, Mao insisted, are not enemies to be crushed but problems to be aired, debated, and solved. Silence breeds resentment, resentment breeds alienation, and alienation becomes the soil for counter-revolution. Only by giving the people the right to speak could the Party keep its link with the masses alive.
The posters were also a school of democracy. For Mao, democracy was not the parliamentary theater of the bourgeoisie but mass participation as class struggle. To post one’s criticism publicly was to enter politics directly, without mediation. And to allow it was to bind the Party to the masses, forcing cadres to answer, correct, and change. Without such democracy, socialism suffocates; with it, socialism breathes. Hankow was Mao’s reminder that the revolution needed a living chorus, not a silent audience.
To drive home the point, Mao reached for folklore. The Monkey King, unruly and fearless, who smashed the order of heaven with his staff, became his symbol of anti-dogmatism. Big-character posters were that staff in the hands of the people—crude, disruptive, unstoppable. He contrasted it with Chu Pa-chieh, lazy and revisionist, and Monk T’ang, timid like Bernstein of the Second International. The message was sharp: without the Monkey King’s spirit of defiance, the revolution would sink into sermons and compromises. With it, even paper and ink could topple bureaucracy. Hankow’s posters were not graffiti; they were the people breaking heaven’s laws in defense of socialism.
Politics as Commander, Not Clerk
Mao reminded the cadres that numbers are not neutral. Production quotas, grain tallies, steel output—all mean nothing if stripped of politics. “Politics is the commander,” he declared, and it was not a slogan but a law of survival. If politics does not lead, then statistics rule like scripture, and cadres become accountants of decline. To treat socialist construction as bookkeeping is to mistake the revolution for a shop ledger. Mao’s warning was sharp: socialism without politics is only arithmetic waiting to be turned back into capital.
In this, Mao held fast to Lenin’s example. Lenin did not govern with abstractions; he persuaded. He walked into factories and villages, spoke plainly, argued fiercely, and trusted the masses to respond. For Mao, this was the standard of leadership—authority rooted in practice and persuasion, not in numbers scrawled on paper. Lenin’s Marxism was vivid, he said, because it was sincere, dialectical, and rooted in reality. That was the spirit Mao demanded his own Party revive.
Stalin, by contrast, carried what Mao called an “overlord flavor.” Schooled in rigid categories, he mishandled contradictions within the people, treating them like sins to be punished rather than tensions to be resolved. Mao was not erasing Stalin’s achievements, but warning against his rigidity. If China’s revolution copied this overlord style, it would divorce itself from the masses and wither. To govern without persuasion is to govern without roots, and unrooted power soon topples.
Bureaucracy, then, was not a nuisance but a mortal threat. When cadres govern like mandarins, when statistics are worshipped as ends in themselves, socialism hollows out from within. Mao’s antidote was clear: return to the mass line, resolve contradictions among the people with persuasion, reserve coercion for true enemies. China’s own guerrilla tradition—rules of discipline, abolition of flogging, persuasion over compulsion—was proof that another path existed. Hankow was a reminder: socialism is not maintained by clerks pushing paper. It lives only when politics commands, democracy breathes, and the people themselves decide the direction of the storm.
The Struggle That Repeats
At Hankow Mao struck a sober note: victory was real, but it was not final. Class struggle in the transition to socialism does not disappear—it mutates, resurfaces, and repeats. “There will be repetitions in the class struggle,” he warned. Famine, war, global shocks—any of these could turn the middle-roaders against the Party or embolden the rightists to rise again. History does not move in a straight line toward tranquility; it circles back, throws up new enemies, and forces the revolution to fight on terrain it thought already secured. To believe otherwise is to invite disaster.
Mao’s realism was rooted in the balance sheet of forces. The hostile exploiting class was only about five percent of the people, scattered and isolated, but still venomous. The vacillating national bourgeoisie bent with the wind; yesterday’s critic could become today’s ally and tomorrow’s saboteur. Even the workers and peasants, though the backbone of the revolution, carried remnants of old ideology and could be misled if cadres behaved like overlords. The battlefield was shifting and unstable. Mao refused to flatter his audience with fantasies of harmony. He told them the struggle was protracted, repetitious, complex—and that clarity, not complacency, was the weapon.
This was not pessimism. It was instruction. By admitting that reversals were possible, Mao was preparing the Party to survive them. The rightists may revolt, he said, the middle-roaders may resist, but if the Party holds the mass line, rectifies its style, and activates the people, the revolution can weather each storm. Victory is not a permanent state; it is a rhythm, a process of advance and correction. To forget this is to fall asleep at the watchtower while enemies regroup in the dark.
How does China’s system really work? Renowned scholar Zhang Weiwei explains the ‘China model’
By Ben Norton (Posted Sep 17, 2025)
Originally published: Geopolitical Economy Report on August 25, 2025 (more by Geopolitical Economy Report) |
How do China’s government, political system, and socialist market economy actually work? How does China see democracy, the USA, and Donald Trump’s trade war?
Renowned Chinese scholar Zhang Weiwei (张维为) explains the China model in this sit-down interview with Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton.
Transcript
(Highlights)
ZHANG WEIWEI: From a Chinese point of view, we need to have an overall balance between political power, social power, and the power of capital, in favor of the majority, the vast majority of the Chinese population.
In the United States, it’s a balance power in favor of the power of capital. That’s the problem.
…
And, you see, eventually the [international] system may be increasingly in goods, in the trade of goods, more and more use of the Chinese currency; but in the trade of financial products, more and more U.S. dollars.
There could be different layers of operations. That could be another way out.
BEN NORTON: So you would see this as part of China’s vision of a more multipolar world?
ZHANG WEIWEI: That’s my vision. Because this is inevitable. Multipolarity is already there, but what we need is a multipolar world order.
This is still in the making … whether there will be something better than this system.
The problem with Donald Trump is he does not want this system either—unipolarity, the United States’ economy is hollowing out. He’s not happy.
He says we should abandon that. But he looks backward.We look forward.
He says, “Let’s go back to the 19th century, and mercantilism. That’s better”. For us, this is not good.
BEN NORTON: China is moving into the future.
ZHANG WEIWEI: In a way, in many ways, it’s true, yeah.
Ben Norton Zhang Weiwei interview China 2025
Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton interviews Professor Zhang Weiwei in Shanghai, China
(Full interview)
BEN NORTON: Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by the renowned Chinese scholar Zhang Weiwei (张维为).
He is a professor at the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai. He has millions of followers on Chinese social media.
And we just participated in an academic conference, and I will be speaking with him.
张老师，很高兴认识您。(Professor Zhang, it is nice to meet you.)
I want to begin asking you about your idea of the “China model”. This is something you have been speaking about for many years, for almost 20 years now.
If you look at China’s economic development in recent decades, it’s amazing. The statistics don’t lie.
China lifted nearly 800 million people out of extreme poverty. And according to the World Bank, China is responsible for three-quarters of global reduction in extreme poverty.
China has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the world to having the largest economy on Earth, when you measure its GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP).
And China has a unique model; it describes it as a “socialist market economy”, or “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
Can you talk about the way you see the China model, and how China has been able to combine the best part of state planning and socialism with a market economy, and has been able to balance the forces of the people and the forces of the market?
ZHANG WEIWEI: If you think of the Chinese model, or the China model, in terms of the political dimension, economic dimension, and social dimension, I can give you a very quick and simple explanation.
Politically, it is about the holistic political party.
In the Western model, political parties are partial interest parties, or partisan interest parties.
And this is serious, because China is a civilization-state, which means it’s an amalgamation of hundreds of states into one over its long history.
China was first unified in 221 BCE. Since then, for most of the time, China was ruled by a unified union. Otherwise, the country would disintegrate.
Yet behind this unified union is a system of what you may call the civil-servant examination system, which was created by the Chinese.
So China’s system today is a continuation and evolution of that system.
The Communist Party of China is a holistic interest party. And behind this is a vigorous process of what I call “selection plus election”.
Selection from China’s own tradition. You have to pass all kinds of exams and tests today; your work experience, your performance. And elections for the best.
So as a result, China produces far more competent leaders than is the case in the Western models.
The Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, the top seven officials
If you look at China’s top national leaders, the top seven, the Standing Committee members of the CPC, most of them served three terms as the number one of a province, party secretary, or governor. So they have literally governed over 100 million people before they came to the current position.
So this is important.
Second, economically, we call it a socialist market economy.
In fact, it is a kind of mixed economy. But many countries also have a mixed economy. But the Chinese one is unique.
It means the state owns so many resources, from minerals to land, everything. Yet, the right to use the land is flexible. It’s very often shaped by market forces.
A good example of why China can be so successful in internet applications, even for those apps used in the United States, such as TikTok, Temu, or Shein.
They are Chinese inventions, because it came from internal competition within China. And after this, they become very competitive internationally.
So if you look at the Chinese internet applications, the whole digital infrastructure is created by the state sector.
Each and every village must have 4G and 5G. I told my French friends, I said that, if you go to Tibet or Xinjiang, there, you find the internet connections are better than in central Paris. Indeed!
Because this is a political task. You have to fulfill that. Even a village might have 4G, if not 5G, at least 4G.
At the same time, the private sector, like Alibaba Group, made the best use of this availability of top-notch infrastructure, to provide internet services and e-commerce to the best of their capability.
Also, as a civilization-state, the huge size matters a lot. Which means, sometimes I think, maybe China is the only type of country that can practice a real market economy, with full competition.
In China, we say 卷 (juǎn), which means competition, competition, competition.
They have 100 automobile plants that produce EVs [electric vehicles]. So those who are successful are extremely competitive. And then costs go down.
Socially, rather than the Western model of pitting society against the state, China is a state and society engaged in mutually positive relations.
You look at the Chinese state, and the party, it is far more reactive to whatever, you know, events, or incidents, or earthquakes. Whatever happens in China, the response is much faster in the Chinese model.
BEN NORTON: Can you talk more about the differences between the U.S. capitalist model and the Chinese socialist model?
You mentioned that, in China, many of the leading industries are run by state-owned enterprises, including, the financial sector, telecommunications, certain industries, mining, energy, the land.
And another aspect of that is that, in China, there are very rich people, there are billionaires, but they have no political power.
Whereas in the United States, we can see very clearly that powerful billionaires have significant political influence, through lobbying, through funding the campaigns of politicians.
That would never happen in China.
Can you talk about what you see as the differences between the U.S. capitalist system and the Chinese socialist system?
ZHANG WEIWEI: The American model is known for the so-called separation of powers; the executive, judicial, and legislative; and they are balanced, or whatever.
But from a Chinese point of view, these three branches all belong to the political domain. So you have a balance of power within the political domain.
The Chinese believe, from my research, that we need to have something go way beyond the political domain. We need to have an overall balance between political power, social power, and the power of capital, in favor of the majority, the vast majority of the Chinese population.
So that’s a key difference.
So from Chinese point of view, in the Chinese model, you have this kind of balance of three powers, in favor of most Chinese people.
In the United States, it’s a balance power in favor of the power of capital. That’s the problem.
And that’s a problem in many countries.
For instance, if we make any calculations, if a U.S. company, like Microsoft or Apple, invests in China, they make huge profits from China.
We made a rough calculation; Chinese workers maybe get 5% of the total profits. 95% go to either Microsoft, or Apple, or other intermediaries of foreign companies, not Chinese companies.
It could be 5% or 10% is China’s gain. But even with that, we sell more, we create jobs, and then these workers can afford a better life than before.
Of course, China also moves up in the value chain. You cannot always only do the manual labor and produce t-shirts.
And the Chinese have, the Chinese civilization-state, every year, now produces more engineers and scientists than the Western countries combined.
That makes all the difference.
Plus this balance of power, three powers, for the whole, beyond the political domain, social power, the power of capital, and political power, in favor of most of the population. That’s key.
If the United States’ companies have made huge profits in China, then they are beneficiaries of globalization.
But for one reason or another, their revenue, their income cannot be slightly more fairly distributed in the United States. And that’s the problem with the U.S.
It’s an internal problem, rather than a problem from China, from our point of view.
BEN NORTON: Can we talk about the Chinese conception of democracy?
Because a key part of what you call the Chinese model is a different conception of democracy.
Now, the very superficial understanding of democracy in the West essentially means that, every 4 or 5 years, people go and vote for a candidate who is funded by big corporations. And that’s the limit of democracy. There is no popular participation.
The Chinese understanding of democracy is much deeper. In China, you have the idea of “whole-process people’s democracy”, that democracy is a long process.
In the West, they say China is “authoritarian”. But you would argue that, actually, China has a different kind of democratic system. What is that?
ZHANG WEIWEI: You know, I challenged, many, many years ago, this whole paradigm of so-called “democracy versus autocracy”, “democracy versus authoritarianism”.
The problem with that paradigm, or old-fashioned paradigm, is that it is defined by the West. It’s like, you know, the West, for one reason or another, first registered this particular brand.
So in China, you can explain whatever, it does not make much of a difference. You’re always defensive.
So I said we need to have a paradigm shift. What I advocated is a paradigm of good governance versus bad governance.
The people who challenged me said, “Well, why do you not discuss democracy?” I said, no problem, because we divide democracy into procedural democracy and substantive democracy.
So when you talk about a regular election; a multi-party system; one person, one vote; that’s procedural democracy, or democracy in form.
What we should discuss more is, first of all, democracy in substance, the very purpose of democracy.
In China, we say 道 (dào) and 术 (shù). 道 (dào) means overall purpose. 术 (shù) means specifics,or procedures.
So the 道 (dào) must be very clear. And good governance, the 道 (dào), is the very purpose of democracy.
So China first focuses on the 道 (dào), on the purpose of good governance, and how to achieve good governance. Then we try to work out the procedures and democratic practice.
You mentioned whole-process people’s democracy. A good example is how to make the legislature to produce laws.
In the United States, it’s really confined to small circles, and lobby groups, and lawyers.
In the case of China, each and every major law must first go to the grassroots, hundreds of what are called the legal local contact centers, from the People’s Congress.
As an example, in Shanghai, we visited one such center.
The People’s Congress sent a first draft of its legislation, the law against family violence. And then they had the center organize the discussion of this draft with ordinary people.
They have kind of, I don’t know, 300 connected households. Others will give feedback.
So one piece of feedback is, in this draft, you only mentioned the husband’s violence against the wife. Well actually, especially in the Chinese countryside, there are other problems, like young people’s violence against the elderly. So this should be reflected in the law.
In the end, this is reflected. So this is what we call whole-process people’s democracy.
Then, after that, it’s not just the legislation adopted; it’s about enforcement.
There will be all kinds of, you know, groups from the People’s Congress, from the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which examined whether the family law has been implemented.
So the Chinese are much more serious about this.
Of course, we have our problems. Yet, on the whole, this part of Chinese democracy is not well understood by the outside world.
Another example is how we produce five-year plans.
If you look at China’s progress in EVs [electric vehicles]—and it is the leader in the world in the EV industry—it’s the result of four five-year plans, you know, for 20 years.
So why I consider the China model a better option than the Western model, for one thing, if we talk about the “Green New Deal”, or “Green Revolution”, there’s so much fanfare in the West, especially in Europe, you know, but even up to today, there is not much achieved.
In China, it’s completed. It’s done, with the Chinese model, with 20 years of solid work. From one one-year plan, the second five-year plan, the third five-year plan, and then, executed, done.
So to what extent can the Western model produce a green transition and fight climate change?
In our model, we can do it. In the Western model, it is difficult.
BEN NORTON: Professor Zhang, back in 2011, you participated in a debate with Francis Fukuyama, who was a defender of the Western capitalist system of liberal democracy.
He famously argued, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that it was the “end of history”, and that all countries would eventually adopt this model of liberal capitalist democracy.
He claimed that there would be an “Arab Spring” in China, and you were skeptical.
You actually argued that the Chinese system would last longer, and that the U.S. system faced many flaws, including the danger of what you called “simple-minded populism”.
Here we are, 14 years later, and I have to say, it seems like you were you were the one who won that argument.
Can you reflect on that debate and what you think about the situation today?
ZHANG WEIWEI: You know, when the debate occurred, that was in June 2011. That was the time of the Egyptian Spring, and Mubarak fell from power.
So, Professor Fukuyama was convinced that China may also go through its own “Arab Spring”.
Because, for his thesis of the “end of history”, every country’s people demand freedom of speech; for one person, one vote; so why not the Chinese?
And, I said, be cautious. I know the region. I have been to Egypt three or four times already. I said the Egyptian Arab Spring will become a Winter. I said, very firmly, I said, I have no doubt it will occur.
And, in the end, it occurred. If you tell this to the Arab people, they will say it’s true; it’s a winter.
It’s far more complicated than these idealistic “end of history” advocates say.
I said it’s bound to fail.
The same with China. It’s much more complicated; it is a civilization of thousands of years. You have to understand this.
Otherwise, whatever your prescriptions, they will not work.
Also, my debate with him was about populism. He thinks, you know, with the American media, the “free media”, freedom of speech; and he said, I remember the famous saying from Abraham Lincoln: “You can deceive some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time”.
I said, this is a bit romantic. You know, as we are in politics, we have to be very honest, because there is a huge opportunity cost.
Professor Fukuyama had this problem.
If you look at the his forecast about the Ukrainian crisis, the Ukrainian war; about Covid; about the [2024] election between, the competition between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump; he made all the wrong forecasts.
You can check it. This record will not convince.
I think he should, you know, one day come to see the limitations of his thesis.
BEN NORTON: I think in many ways he actually has recognized the limitations.
Let’s talk briefly about the trade war that the U.S. has been waging against China.
It was started by Trump in 2018, in his first term, but it was continued by Joe Biden. It’s bipartisan.
And Trump, in his second term, expanded it again. It has been going back and forth.
But you have been warning that, in the U.S., a lot of these officials are overestimating how powerful the U.S. is.
You know, there’s this famous slogan; Trump says, “We have all the cards”; and China says, “We made the cards”.
You know, China manufactures everything; the U.S. economy has deindustrialized.
So you have warned that, in reality, the U.S. economy is more dependent on Chinese production than China is dependent on exporting to the U.S. market.
How do you see the trade war? And which side is losing?
Maybe both sides are losing, but which side do you think will lose more?
ZHANG WEIWEI: Oh, the United States will lose more, for sure.
From day one, so seven years ago, when Donald Trump launched his first round of the trade war, I said openly to the Chinese audience on TV, I said the United States will suffer.
The way we see it, the United States depends far more on China, which means, if you look at the manufactured goods used by the Americans, those imported from China, either China is the only exporter and producer, or at least 80% or 90% of the components are produced in China.
In other words, the U.S. can’t find alternatives in the foreseeable future; not in one, two, or three years.
So this is the base, whether it’s an item as small as a screw, a toaster, to something as big as the frame, whatever, all kinds of heavy machine equipment.
And then, Trump’s idea that, with this kind of tariff war, the U.S. will rebuild its manufacturing industry, it’s also naive.
If you look at what we call, in this region, Shanghai, it’s called the Yangtze River Delta—and the same with the Pearl River Delta—a company like Apple, or Microsoft, or Tesla, you can find all the spare parts, supplies, the whole ecosystem within a radius of 100 kilometers. All of it.
So this kind of ecosystem has been built by the Chinese through both planning and also the market, the Chinese model, over decades. It’s a product of decades.
So the United States cannot reproduce this; it’s impossible. You don’t have this kind of ecosystem.
As a result, you want to recreate it. It will take decades and decades, if not more.
So I think it’s very naive to make this kind of calculation.
And this is one reason why we say the United States will lose, and lose miserably.
BEN NORTON: The final question I have today is about the financial system, and the role of the U.S. dollar.
China, gradually, for the past decade, has been reducing its holdings of U.S. government debt, U.S. Treasury securities.
And China is part of a global movement seeking alternatives to the dominance of the U.S. dollar and U.S. financial hegemony.
China is part of BRICS, and it is working with other countries to create alternatives.
So what do you see as the future of the global financial system?
And how do you think that China can work with the rest of the Global South, in organizations like BRICS, to create alternatives to U.S. financial hegemony?
ZHANG WEIWEI: You know, when the Ukrainian war occurred, the United States and the West applied hugely punitive sanctions against Russia, yet, the ruble has survived.
Because I summarize the Russian approach—I call, you know, the Chinese discuss the word “currency”, a currency war.
Currency, in the Chinese language, it’s two words: 货 (huò) and 币 (bì); which means “goods” (货) and “money” (币).
So Russia succeeded in turning this currency war into a war between goods and money.
The West has money; the U.S. has money. But Russia has goods.
The same with China. China has manufactured goods. The U.S. has money.
So over the long term, we believe, definitely, those with goods are in a more solid position, especially in times of crisis.
You know, this is, as China’s civilization state, if you explain this, everyone understands.
And then, the United States has weaponized everything, including dollars, including SWIFT [the interbank messaging system].
So, as a result, people look for alternatives. And the pace of this is faster and faster.
If you look at the use of CIPS, the Chinese digital payment system, it’s already growing fast. I checked the data for March of this year (2025).
The Chinese companies using Chinese currency to do business are already 54%, versus the U.S. dollar at 41%.
So, in fact, this CIPS vis-à-vis SWIFT, they represent two highways.
SWIFT is the old highway; it’s old fashioned; it’s based on the telegram; it takes days, three days at least, to make a deal; it charges a lot of fees.
CIPS represents a brand new highway, no loopholes, high-tech blockchain technology; and one deal takes one second, or two seconds; there’s basically no charge.
Obviously, more and more people will start to use CIPS. This is very, you may say it’s a bit frightening to the U.S., or whatever, to certain circles, to their financial system.
But it’s inevitable, because, again, it represents another type of technology, another type of idea.
CIPS is far more socialist—no cost, or very low cost, and very efficient—compared with SWIFT, which is a monopoly, and charges a lot.
So they’re two different approaches.
Of course, if you look at the use of dollar in the world today, it’s still used far more than the Chinese yuan, our currency.
Yet, if you look at trade in goods, the Chinese currency is already moving fast.
Of course, for the capital markets, capital goods, whatever, for the financial market, that’s another story. China is always very cautious about that.
You see, eventually the [international] system may be, you know, increasingly, in goods, in the trade of goods, more and more use of the Chinese currency; but in the trade of financial products, more and more U.S. dollars.
There could be different layers of operations. That could be another way out.
BEN NORTON: So you would see this as part of China’s vision of a more multipolar world?
ZHANG WEIWEI: That’s my vision.
Because this is inevitable. Multipolarity is already there, but what we need is a multipolar world order. This is still in the making. And hopefully this is —
I always say, you know, Russia is a revolutionary; it wants to overthrow the American-dominated system.
China is a reformer; we see that the system has both strengths and weaknesses. We should make best use of the strengths to reduce, as much as possible, the defects. We try to reform it.
The difference between China and Russia is revolutionary or reformer.
But the common ground between the countries is we all look into the future, whether there will be something better than this system.
The problem with Donald Trump is, he does not want this system either—unipolarity, the United States’ economy is hollowing out. He’s not happy.
He says we should abandon that. But he looks backward; we look forward.
He says, “Let’s go back to the 19th century, and mercantilism. That’s better”. For us, this is not good.
BEN NORTON: China is moving into the future.
ZHANG WEIWEI: In a way, in many ways, it’s true, yeah.
BEN NORTON: Well, I think that’s a good note to end on.
张老师，谢谢您。(Professor Zhang, thank you.)
ZHANG WEIWEI: Thank you.
BEN NORTON: I was speaking with the renowned Chinese Professor Zhang Weiwei.
China warns of retaliation as US pushes 100% tariffs for importing Russian oil
The Chinese warning comes amidst renewed US pressure on its NATO and European allies to impose up to 100% tariffs on Chinese imports, blaming it for funding the war in Ukraine and controlling Russia.
September 16, 2025 by Abdul Rahman
Li Chenggang (C), China international trade representative with the Ministry of Commerce and vice minister of commerce, and Wang Jingtao (R), deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, attend a press conference chaired by Ministry of Commerce spokesperson He Yadong in Madrid, Spain, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: Xinhua
Last week, US President Donald Trump demanded that his European allies impose a 100% tariff against China and India for importing oil from Russia. He apparently promised the European envoy that he would match Europe and impose similar tariffs against both countries.
Trump has accused China and India of funding the war in Ukraine by importing oil from Russia.
This was confirmed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday in an interview with Reuters. He claimed that his country will not impose more tariffs on China and India over Russian oil imports until the Europeans do it.
In response, China reiterated that no amount of external pressure or coercion will make it compromise its “sovereignty, security and development interests” and warned that if its “legitimate rights and interests are harmed” in any way it will “resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard” them.
The Chinese warning was repeated by Lin Jian, official spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a press conference on Monday, September 15.
Later on Saturday, Trump demanded NATO members halt all oil imports from Russia, promising to match their sanctions against it.
Despite imposing sweeping sanctions against Russia and helping the Ukrainian side’s war efforts, some European countries and US allies continue to import Russian gas and oil. Turkey, a member of NATO, is the third largest importer of Russian oil after China and India.
The US president claimed that if European and NATO members stop buying oil from Russia and impose tariffs on countries that import it, namely, China and India, it may help him end the war.
Trump also promised his allies in Europe that their combined moves would loosen Beijing’s alleged “control” over Russia.
Dialogue is the only way to peace
Lin denied that China supports the war in Ukraine in any way, claiming that his country’s trade with Russia follows World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and market principles and does not target any third country.
Lin Jian reiterated China’s position on the war in Ukraine that “dialogue and negotiation is the only way out of the crisis.”
“What the US has done is a typical move of unilateralism, bullying and economic coercion,” Lin said, claiming that such threats and actions disrupt global industrial and supply chains instead of resolving the issue.
“China firmly opposes the relevant party [the US] directing the issue at it” and “abusing illicit unilateral sanctions and long term jurisdiction against” it.
Meanwhile, following Trump’s pressure, G7 countries held a meeting on Friday of last week to discuss new sanctions on Russia and possible tariffs on countries it blames for “enabling” the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
The US has already imposed a 25% additional tariff on India for importing Russian oil.
India imported around 88 million tons of oil from Russia last year, amounting to 35% of its total energy needs. India resells most of the imported Russian oil to other countries, mostly in Europe.
However, the US has refrained from imposing similar tariffs on China, which imported over 100 million tons of crude oil from Russia – around 20% of its annual needs – last year.
Trump’s push on his allies to impose tariffs on China comes amidst ongoing bilateral trade talks with China in Madrid, Spain. The talks are focused on resolving outstanding issues between the two countries, including the issue of TikTok.
Li Chenggang, China’s international trade representative with the Ministry of Commerce told the media on Monday that the talks in Madrid are going smoothly and the US recognizes that “a stable China-US economic and trade relationship is of great significance to both countries and also has a major impact on global economic stability,” Xinhua reported.
The Revolutionary Reel: How Chinese cinema sustains the struggle
The power of storytelling to sustain revolutionary enthusiasm and struggle is well-known. Stories both true and fictional have encouraged fighters in times both good and bad. Vladimir Lenin loved to read novels and took particular inspiration (and the title of one of his most famous works) from Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done?. This novel continues to inspire, with Chinese President Xi Jinping citing it at the 2024 BRICS Conference, noting how the protagonist’s “unwavering determination and ardent struggle encapsulate exactly the kind of spiritual power we need today. The bigger the storms of our times are, the more we must stand firm at the forefront with unbending determination and pioneering courage.”
As the times have moved on, so have the formats of storytelling, and the moving image has come to replace the written word over the 20th century as the dominant form of narrative. In the same way as novels, the medium responds directly to the social contexts in which it is produced. In the Chinese revolutionary era, and the years leading up to the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, this was evident in the burgeoning film industry of the time, located mostly in Shanghai. The importance of many of these films and the extent to which they played an ideological role in sustaining the Chinese people’s resistance is charted in the below Sixth Tone article, which notes that the films “evolved from cultural commentary into a medium of resistance, help[ed] to shape public opinion and mobilize support for the war effort.” In place of some of the traditional melodramas or fantasy epics, the early Communist Party of China played a direct role in advocating stories which portrayed everyday people’s struggles, women’s struggles, and other tales that raised social awareness.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Chinese people’s victory against Japanese Aggression, and their inestimable contribution to the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War, and once again cinema is making an important ideological contribution. 2025 has seen numerous films depicting this victory and the Chinese people’s experiences and contributions: Dead to Rights (a story in the context of the Nanjing Massacre), both fictional and documentary films covering the Dongji Island incident (where Chinese fisherfolk saved drowning British POWs), as well as the upcoming Evil Unbound, a story covering the notorious germ warfare human experiments carried out by the Japanese Imperial army.
In addition to re-establishing the proper historical contributions of the Chinese people in the history books, which for too long have been downplayed in the West, these narratives and documentaries also remind the Chinese people, and the peoples of the Global South at large, of the importance of protecting one’s own sovereignty and their capacity for resistance and victory.
Kim Il Sung noted in 1973 that “the task set before the cinema today is one of contributing to people’s development into true communists and assisting in the revolutionising and remodelling of the whole of society on the working-class pattern.” And whether you prefer the black and white classics, or the modern blockbusters, the leftist cinema of the People’s Republic of China continues to play this role.
The following article was first published by Sixth Tone.
In the years leading up to Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Chinese cinema had already begun preparing for it. Following the Mukden Incident in 1931, a false flag attack by Japanese troops on a railway line in northeastern China as pretense to invade Manchuria, Chinese filmmakers began incorporating themes of social crisis, injustice, and national survival into their work.
As tensions escalated, film evolved from cultural commentary into a medium of resistance, helping to shape public opinion and mobilize support for the war effort.
At the time, Shanghai’s film industry was dominated by the so-called “big three” studios: the Mingxing Film Company, established in 1922; the Tianyi Film Company, founded in 1925; and the Lianhua Film Company, started in 1930.
Under the direction of the Communist Party of China (CPC), cultural figures including Shen Naixi (also known by the pen name “Xia Yan”), Qian Defu (pen name “A Ying”), and Wang Chengmo (pen name “Wang Chenwu”) formed a CPC film group and began participating in productions with the Mingxing Film Company, marking the beginning of left-wing influence in Chinese filmmaking.
Released in 1933, “Torrent,” directed by Cheng Bugao and written by Xia Yan, is often seen as the film that launched China’s “Left-Wing Cinema Movement.” In it, Liu Tiesheng, a primary school teacher caught in a flood, confronts a rigid bureaucracy and helps his community survive the disaster.
At the time, Chinese cinema was dominated by sweeping melodramas, many influenced by traditional shadow plays — an early form of Chinese storytelling. Family sagas, fantastical wuxia adventures, and other emotionally driven narratives were the most popular with audiences. “Torrent” incorporated some of these familiar elements, but it stood out for its social awareness and clear political subtext.
In many ways, the film exemplifies the core traits of early left-wing art: it viewed social change from the ground up, framed systemic failures as natural disasters, and used human-centered storytelling to highlight class struggle.
Also released in 1933, “Spring Silkworms,” another collaboration between Xia Yan and Cheng Bugao and adapted from Mao Dun’s short story of the same name, was set in a farming village in China’s southeastern Jiangnan region and follows a family that pours its energy and savings into raising silkworms, only to fall into crushing debt.
It exposes the layered exploitation farmers faced, from imperialists, the Kuomintang authorities, profiteers, and predatory landlords. Shot with documentary-style realism, the film captures rural life in striking detail, and reflects the visual sophistication Chinese cinema developed during the silent era.
Meanwhile, “Twin Sisters,” also produced by the Mingxing Film Company in 1934, reflects the growing influence of leftist thought on mainstream cinema. Directed and written by Zheng Zhengqiu, one of Mingxing’s founders, the film tells the story of twin sisters separated by class and reunited years later — with both roles played by Butterfly Wu.
While steeped in the melodramatic style popular at the time, the film uses its dramatic tension to guide audiences toward a reflection on social inequality. It pushes beyond moral storytelling to examine how class shapes identity and opportunity.
As more filmmakers turned their attention to the struggles of ordinary people, Lianhua Film Company, particularly its Second Studio, helped define this shift through a series of socially engaged productions.
Whether it was Mrs. Ye, the rural toymaker played by Ruan Lingyu in “Little Toys” (1933, dir. Sun Yu), or the group of villagers-turned-road builders led by Big Brother Jin, played by Jin Yan in “The Big Road” (1935, dir. Sun Yu), these characters reflect a distinctly class-conscious worldview. Other notable works from this period include “Song of the Fishermen” (1934, dir. Cai Chusheng) and “The Goddess” (1934, dir. Wu Yonggang).
“The Goddess,” in particular, centers on the struggles of a woman forced into prostitution, portraying her efforts to protect her son and navigate a world shaped by exploitation and judgment.
The film stands out in left-wing cinema for its restrained yet emotionally powerful storytelling, anchored by a celebrated performance from Ruan Lingyu, widely regarded as one of the finest actors in the history of Chinese silent film.
Even Tianyi Film Company, the most creatively conservative of Shanghai’s “Big Three” and best known for period fantasies and supernatural tales, released a film — “Struggle” — that engaged with the growing call for social awareness, signaling just how deeply left-wing ideas had begun to shape the film industry.
Smaller studios founded during this period, such as Yihua and Diantong, were short-lived but left an outsized impact. Diantong produced “Plunder of Peach and Plum” and “Children of Troubled Times” — both of which addressed themes that resonated with young audiences, including post-graduation unemployment and the looming threat of national collapse.
These films showed a sharper ideological focus than earlier works, as the growing urgency of national crisis pushed leftist cinema toward more overt calls for resistance.
For example, in December 1935, high school and university students in Beijing staged a mass protest calling for stronger resistance against Japan’s occupation of Northeast China, an event that would become known as the December 9th Movement.
In response, members of Shanghai’s cultural community published the “National Salvation Movement Declaration” on Dec. 12, and soon after formed the Cultural Association for National Salvation.
On Jan. 27 of the following year, prominent filmmakers including Ouyang Yuqian and Cai Chusheng established the Filmmakers Association for National Salvation. Around this time, the CPC issued the call for “National Defense Literature,” which was soon followed by similar slogans for theater, poetry, and music. In turn, the Filmmakers Association adopted its own slogan: “National Defense Cinema.”
This marked a turning point in China’s cinematic history. What had begun as socially conscious filmmaking under the Left-Wing Cinema Movement now took on a sharper political edge, as narratives increasingly placed national crisis and collective resistance at their core.
Representative works from the National Defense Cinema period include Mingxing’s “Street Angels” (1937, dir. Yuan Muzhi), Lianhua’s “Blood on Wolf Mountain” (1936, dir. Fei Mu), and the “Symphony of Lianhua” anthology (1937). These films illustrate the growing technical and narrative sophistication of Chinese cinema, while staying grounded in the lives of ordinary people.
Despite their human focus, the films were unflinching in identifying concrete oppressors and aggressors. In the “Symphony of Lianhua” anthology, the segment “Nightmares in Spring Chamber” (dir. Fei Mu) fused a traditional anti-war dream sequence from Beijing opera with visions of a global fascist invader, portrayed by Hung Jingling as a Hitler-like demon.
This merging of classical Chinese performance with contemporary political allegory was virtually unprecedented in Chinese film history.
In 1937, as open war broke out between China and Japan, the Kuomintang and Communist Party formed the Second United Front. Within this new political alignment, left-wing filmmakers, who had already gained ground in the industry, shifted their focus toward serving the national war effort.
A defining example of this shift is “Eight Hundred Heroes” (1938, dir. Ying Yunwei), produced by the newly established China Film Production Studio. Completed amid the gunfire of the Battle of Wuhan, the film dramatizes the defense of Sihang Warehouse during the Battle of Shanghai — a now-legendary episode of wartime heroism.
“Espionage Agent” (1943, dir. Yuan Congmei), produced in the southwestern city of Chongqing by China Film Studio, marked a further shift from National Defense Cinema toward what became known as “Resistance War Cinema.”
Adapted from “Secret Agent of Japan,” the autobiography of Italian adventurer Amleto Vespa, the film tells the story of his double life in Japanese-occupied Northeast China following the Mukden Incident, working under duress for Japanese intelligence while secretly aiding the anti-Japanese resistance.
Written by Yang Hansheng, the film embraced genre-film elements uncommon in Chinese cinema at the time, with actors Tao Jin, Wang Hao, and He Feiguang taking on foreign roles to deliver a gripping political thriller.
During the White Terror and the early years of national crisis, left-wing cinema played a crucial role in exposing social injustice and mobilizing public sentiment. With the full outbreak of the War of Resistance, filmmaking shifted further — becoming an active part of the anti-Japanese struggle.
By the end of the war, Chinese cinema had been fundamentally reshaped. What began as a cultural response to social injustice had become a powerful tool for political resistance and national survival.
Though wartime cinema could not fully realize the revolutionary goals it once aspired to, its legacy endured, culminating in postwar masterpieces such as “Spring River Flows East” (1947), “Long Live the Mistress!” (1947), and “Myriads of Lights” (1948).
The Chinese film Dead to Rights, a moving depiction of the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre, went on general release in London on September 5, distributed by the Cultural Centre of Nouvelles d’Europe UK.
Carlos Martinez reviews the film, arguing that: “Although harrowing to watch, Dead to Rights is not a film of despair. It restores to memory the countless unnamed heroes who resisted occupation. And it reaffirms the principle that only truth can prevent history from being distorted or erased.”
Shen Ao’s Dead to Rights (released domestically as Nanjing Photo Studio) is a Chinese film of searing power and urgency. Set during the Nanjing Massacre of December 1937, it combines meticulous historical detail with a sweeping human drama that is resonating deeply with audiences around the world. Since its release in July, the film has smashed box office records and helped to reignite the discussion about one of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century.
The story follows A Chang (Liu Haoran), a humble postman who is mistaken for a photo studio employee by occupying Japanese soldiers. Realising that their mistake offers an opportunity for survival, Chang plays along. Inside the photo studio, he encounters the owner and his family sheltering in the basement, as well as an actress taking refuge.
The group’s uneasy survival hinges on developing photographs for a Japanese army photographer, Lieutenant Hideo Ito, who is documenting Japanese activities in the city for propaganda purposes. Yet the images they process – of torture, murder and rape – become an unbearable testament to the horrors engulfing their city. Together, the group risks everything to preserve these negatives and smuggle them to the outside world, convinced that only by exposing the truth can justice be served.
The drama draws inspiration from real events. In 1938, a teenage apprentice in Nanjing did indeed copy photographs brought in by Japanese soldiers, creating an album that would later serve as crucial evidence in war crimes trials. The English title, Dead to Rights, underscores the central motif: incontrovertible proof of wrongdoing that ultimately condemned the perpetrators.
The film’s release is especially poignant given its timing, just a few weeks before the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender and the end of the Global Anti-Fascist War. As I observed in a recent article, “China’s role in the war, and indeed the very existence of the Pacific Theatre, has to a significant degree been written out of history… However, China was the first country to wage war against fascist occupation, and the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was of decisive importance to the overall global victory over fascism. In the course of 14 years of war (1931-45), China suffered over 35 million casualties, and around 20 percent of its people were made refugees.”
While the war crimes carried out by Nazi Germany are etched indelibly into global consciousness, the Nanjing Massacre and other atrocities committed by the Japanese armed forces remain far less well known outside China. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, the Eastern counterpart to the Nuremberg trials, estimated that over 260,000 people were killed in the weeks following Japan’s seizure of the city. Tens of thousands of women were raped in what the late historian Iris Chang described as “an orgy of cruelty seldom if ever matched in world history”.
Films like Dead to Rights serve to set the record straight, telling the truth about the occupation’s crimes and reasserting China’s place in the Global Anti-Fascist War. Shen’s film insists that China’s sacrifices, resistance and heroism be remembered.
But the film also arrives at a moment when this history feels painfully alive, with Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza generating horrifying images of indiscriminate bombing, destroyed hospitals and civilian massacres. Indeed, the film’s central theme – the imperative to document the crimes of an occupying force – is being replayed today by courageous journalists and citizens in Gaza, whose cameras and pens are transformed into weapons of truth. As the director has commented: “A photo was a bullet on that battlefield. The click of a shutter echoed the crack of gun. The negatives pierced invaders’ lies.”
Wherever atrocities are denied or minimised – whether the Nazi Holocaust, the Nanjing Massacre, or today’s unfolding tragedies – the work of bearing witness becomes a form of resistance. The film’s characters embody that conviction. Facing daily terror, they nevertheless refuse compromise. They echo the patriotic spirit of a generation that insisted, “We will win this war,” and demanded “not one inch less” than the full liberation of China.
Artistically, the film is striking. The opening sequence cuts between bullets firing and camera shutters clicking, equating the act of shooting with both violence and documentation. The production design recreates Nanjing’s wartime devastation with harrowing realism, while the cast delivers performances of quiet dignity and depth. Liu Haoran’s A Chang is an unlikely hero – fearful but ultimately courageous – whose humanity anchors the narrative.
Although harrowing to watch, Dead to Rights is not a film of despair. It restores to memory the countless unnamed heroes who resisted occupation. And it reaffirms the principle that only truth can prevent history from being distorted or erased. In an era when denial and revisionism persist — whether from Japanese right-wing politicians or from those who seek to obscure the atrocities being perpetrated right now by Israel — this is a powerful and important message.
Dead to Rights is an epic of historical cinema, challenging audiences to confront uncomfortable truths, remember forgotten histories, and to connect to the shared global struggle against fascism and imperialism. To remember is to resist. And to honour those who preserved the truth in Nanjing is to stand in solidarity with those who risk everything today to show the world what must not be denied.
At time of writing, Dead to Rights is showing in cinemas in London, Birmingham and Manchester in the UK. Details may be found here.
The Fission of the World's Ideological Spectrum and the Reglobalization of the 21st Century: A Chinese Perspective
By Li Shimo, AKA Eric Xun Li: Chairman of Observer Network and Director of the Advisory Committee of the Institute of China Research of Fudan University
Karl Sanchez
Sep 22, 2025
Our author, Mr. Li, is described by Wikipedia as a “venture capitalist,” to which I would add having very clear Chinese Characteristics. He’s written some very curious op/eds published by major Western media as Wiki informs us, and he’s clearly a very close student of what’s happening globally, currently and historically. This essay first appeared in Cultural Horizontal, Issue 3, 2025 and was republished by Guancha on 21 September 2025. His title, “The fission of the world's ideological spectrum and the reglobalization of the 21st century,” seeks to both reset and reorient the current ideological spectrum along traditional left/right lines instead of trying to introduce a completely new conceptualizational approach to examining political ideologies, thus making it easier for a wider audience to comprehend. This is clearly written from a Chinese perspective, which is to say that some of the author’s assumptions and analyses won’t be completely agreed to by all readers. Overall given the scope of his effort, Mr. Li does a very good job with his overview, which IMO Gym readers will find of value along with his endnotes. So, prepare yourself for a rather long read.
Since the 20th century, modern political ideology has been distributed around the world on a spectrum of left and right dichotomy. This is certainly an oversimplified abstraction, but it does summarize the structure of political orientations and political struggles within and between almost every country and region over the past hundred years. An ordinary political undergraduate can put the "three political views" of all political parties and regimes in a suitable position on this spectrum, so as to determine identity, establish political sides, and study struggle strategies. However, in the more than two decades since the heyday of globalization in the post-Cold War era came to an end, this ideological spectrum has fissioned around the world, and the originally clear pattern has become muddy, as political forces between and within countries have departed from the traditional structure of the left and right political spectrum, so that "who is our enemy?" “who are our friends?" has become quite complicated again.
Based on a simple review of the structure of the traditional left and right ideological spectrum, this paper attempts to analyze and interpret the process and driving force of fission, as well as the ideological ecology after fission, observe and explore a new ideological spectrum that may be forming, discuss China's positioning and national interests in this new ideological ecology, and put forward some ideas about the world pattern that China is participating in the reshaping of the 21st century.
From the October Revolution to World War II: A grand narrative left and right
The October Revolution launched a grand narrative of the ideological spectrum around the 20th century—the "big left." On the left is the communist ideal, socialist system and internationalist worldview represented by the Soviet Union. This worldview has been paved by Marxist thought for more than half a century, but on the whole, it is a product of the Great Revolution and a kind of politics that rises out of nowhere.
Under this grand narrative, the United States and some Western European countries are in a middle ground. The domestic politics of these countries take place in the narrative of "small left;" that is, the struggle between the left influenced by the Soviet Union and the right, which insists on capitalism as the power of capital. In this small narrative, the trend of post-war American politics was left-wing, and domestic politics was ultimately positioned on Roosevelt's New Deal, which protected labor. [1]
At that time, the vast colonized regions of Africa, Latin America and Asia basically belonged to left-leaning political tendencies, which were mainly reflected in their anti-colonial and anti-imperialist stances and the struggle for national independence, and Marxism-Leninism was their important ideological weapon. [2] From that era onwards, the struggle for sovereignty spanned left and right. Worldwide, political forces in anti-colonial countries and regions fought against imperialism from the left through the struggle for sovereignty. In the West, right-wing sovereignism emerged against internationalism, which was mainly left-wing. The political forces of the United States that opposed participation in World War I and World War II and resisted the League of Nations belonged to the latter. [3]
In general, the struggle between the left and right in this era mainly revolves around the impact of the industrial revolution on human society at the practical level. Within industrialized countries, the monopoly of capital had caused large-scale inequality, and the lives of a large number of people couldn’t be guaranteed. At the international level, the major industrialized Western countries were unprecedentedly plundering forcefully around the world. To put it simply, the right at that time was to protect the vested interests and the state of industrialization. At that time, the left was to fight for the rights and interests of the vast number of laborers and the independence and liberation of the plundered and colonized nations. [4]
China's left-right politics is also a microcosm of that era, reflected in the combination of the communist revolution and the struggle for national independence, which is the gene of modern China's founding and has a profound impact on the future.
Cold War
After the end of World War II, the world quickly entered the Cold War era of confrontation between the two camps of the United States and the Soviet Union, and the spectrum of ideological influence became particularly clear. During the half-century Cold War, the Warsaw Pact camp led by the Soviet Union advocated socialism and internationalism, and the Western camp led by the United States advocated capitalism and sovereignism [5], forming a distinct international "big left" pattern. Third world developing countries both chose sides and remained neutral. For example, the Philippines and Argentina were on the right, and most countries in Africa were on the left.
Within the two camps, the politics of various countries swung on the spectrum of "small left". In the West, the left is mainly a welfare social politics within the framework of capitalism, including high taxes, high welfare, and labor protection. On the right is the politics of low taxes and small government to protect the interests of capital. In the Warsaw Pact camp, the left was insistent on socialism and the planned economy, and the right in the implementation of a certain degree of market economy within the socialist framework.
During the Cold War, China's international position spanned the left and right. From the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's positioning was obviously left-handed, advocating a planned economy and internationalism. After the 70s, China became estranged from the Soviet Union, and then established diplomatic relations with the United States. [6]
Post-Cold War and Globalization
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the left and right patterns of the world changed dramatically. The "big left" at the international level has basically disappeared, and the Western-led right has formed an ideological unipolar hegemony on a global scale after the Cold War, and the entire ideological system of liberalism and neoliberalism has transcended the left and right and become the so-called universal value and historical conclusion. Many scholars call this era the "unipolar moment". [7] This ideological system packaged the philosophical ideas of the so-called Enlightenment in Europe into an ideological complex of contemporary politics, economics, and geopolitics, which was strongly promoted around the world. This ideological complex includes the following elements: the individual is the fundamental atomic unit of human society and enjoys natural rights; multi-party elections and decentralization are the only legitimate political systems; independent justice independent of politics is the only legitimate rule of law; the capitalist market economy is the only effective system of the global economy. In this complex, rights such as freedom of expression and freedom of the press, as well as racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation identity and even gender identity options, are tools and manifestations of the expanding of individual sovereignty. At the heart of liberal ideology is universality, and liberals believe that their values transcend any culture, religion, country, or even history, and must ultimately be accepted by all mankind and realized in the political, economic and social structure of each country.
The universalization of ideology based on liberalism, domestic economic policies guided by neoliberalism and the construction of a globalized economy have become a grand narrative that envelops the whole world at unipolar moments. The ideological spectrum is essentially detached from the left and right of tradition, and the political positioning of parties and states depends on how well they convert to the grand narrative of liberalism. At the international level, the United States is at the extreme of liberalism, and Russia has gone from the pendulum of the Yeltsin era to the era of Putin, which resists liberalism. At the domestic political level, political parties order dishes that suit their interests and positions on liberal and neoliberal menus. For example, the Democratic Party in the United States is culturally more inclined to identity politics, so they are called left-wing liberals, but economically, the Democratic Party continues to move closer to Republican-led neoliberalism, and both parties are tilted towards the interests of capital at the same time. In international politics, the liberal interventionists of the Democratic Party and the neoconservatives of the Republican Party both advocate the universalization of liberalism by political, economic and even military means.
In this era, China is once again in the middle ground. In the post-Cold War era, China has become one of the most important dominant forces in globalization by refusing to convert to liberalism and neoliberalism, absorbing the Western market economy. In international affairs, China adheres to the five basic principles of peaceful coexistence [mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non aggression, mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and co-operation for mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence] and resolutely resists the liberal universalization of the West.
Ideological fission and the post-globalization era caused by globalization: from the unipolar moment to the multipolar world
From the financial crisis of 2008 to the first election of Trump as president of the United States in 2016, globalization has undergone a major shift in the West, leading to ideological fission throughout the world. This round of globalization began in the early 90s of the 20th Century and peaked when China joined the WTO in 2001. This round of globalization is mainly led by the United States and sets rules, with global trade and economic integration, including finance, as policy manifestations, but the internal driving force contains a strong ideology—the liberal political outlook and its extended neoliberal economic theory. [8] China has fundamentally and as a whole rejected this ideological core but has fully integrated globalization in its economic structure and adhered to the framework of globalization in terms of rules, becoming an important participant and leader in globalization.
Globalization has created great economic value, China has become the world's largest economy by purchasing power parity, and the overall wealth of the United States and the West as a whole has also increased significantly. However, most countries and regions in developing countries have not benefited much. On top of that, within the United States and the West, the distribution of the benefits of globalization is also extremely uneven, with most of the new wealth being swallowed up by top interest groups, and most people in the middle and lower classes bearing the huge economic and social costs of deindustrialization. At the same time, globalization and the cultural shock caused by liberal ideology have caused great damage to the internal structure of Western society, affecting the political stability and social consensus formed in the West after World War II. [9] The United States andits NATO military alliance forcibly interfere in the politics and economy of a large number of countries and regions on a global scale, ranging from the economic means of international institutions controlled by them (such as the IMF) to revolution or even war. Such large-scale forced intervention is both interest-driven and ideological, but it has led to "imperial overexpansion" [10]. This overexpansion has enormous structural costs for the United States and the West as a whole, exacerbating social and political divisions within them.
The relatively stable left and right ideological spectrum formed in the 20th century has fissioned in this context.
(1) United States
After the Cold War, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the "big left" spectrum basically disappeared within the United States and the West, and the previous right became the entire political spectrum. Within the scope of this big right, the ideological spectrum is only divided into "small left". Economically, the left, represented by the Democratic Party of the United States, has basically abandoned labor interests since Clinton and leaned towards neoliberalism, advocating small government, reduced welfare, protection of capital, and free trade. At the economic and social level, both parties sided with the interests of capital and promoted the deindustrialization of the United States. In terms of immigration policy, the two parties generally protect the rights and interests of immigrants and are relatively lenient towards illegal immigrants, but there are differences in degree. In foreign affairs, the Democratic Party has also basically abandoned its previous left-wing dovish path and pursued a liberal intervention policy. The right, represented by the Republican Party of the United States, was the earliest proponent of neoliberalism economically, and supported small government, low taxes, low welfare, capital protection, and free trade more than the Democratic Party. In foreign affairs, neoconservatism is policy-oriented, which is similar to the liberal intervention policy of the Democratic Party. [11] Under this political orientation, revolution and military conflict never ceased during the 24-year term of the two political parties, the three presidents of Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama.
On this small or left spectrum, the differences between Democrats and Republicans focus on cultural values, racial politics and environmental climate politics. The two sides have stark opposition in values, the Democratic Party insists on legalizing abortion, and the Republican Party wants to restrict abortion; Democrats want to limit private gun ownership, while Republicans believe that gun ownership is a constitutional civil right. The Democratic Party advocates so-called multiculturalism, promotes identity politics for minorities and sexual orientation groups, implements so-called positive affirmative action policies, and constantly demands preferential and differential treatment for minorities and sexual orientation groups in school admissions and career markets. These political ideas evolved over the years to form the so-called "wokeism". The Republican Party mostly opposes these political ideas based on identity and supports and maintains classical individualism. It should be reminded here that the identity politics supported by the Democratic Party is not collectivism, but a manifestation of amplified individualism. In identity politics, the meaning of the group is to help individuals break through traditional social values that are seen as limiting personal development, and the ideological genealogy of wokeism comes from extreme modernity liberalism. [12] On environmental and climate issues, Democrats generally advocate stronger controls on businesses and stricter environmental regulations, while Republicans are more supportive of corporations and free markets.
However, this "small left" pattern was completely broken in 2016.
From 2016 to 2024, the ideological spectrum of the United States has fundamentally fissioned, and the "small left" pattern may be gone forever. At one end of the new spectrum is the new ideology represented by the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement, and at the other end is a liberal ideology that encompasses the entire "small left" spectrum in the post-Cold War era. Many media reports classify the Trump-led MAGA movement as right-wing or even far-right, but this classification is misplaced. While some of MAGA's political advocacy (such as opposing abortion legalization) is consistent with the previous right on the "small left" spectrum, many of their political advocacy (such as trade protection and reindustrialization) are closer to the left on the "small left" spectrum.
The left and right turbidity caused by MAGA is vividly reflected in the standing line in the 2024 US presidential election. Former Republican Vice President Cheney, a far-right politician hated by the Democratic Party for many years, has supported Democratic presidential candidate Harris this time, and his daughter Liz Cheney (former Republican Rep.) has also strongly participated in Harris' campaign. Most of the establishments with deep roots in the Republican Party, such as Bush Sr. and George W. Bush, have been strongly opposed to Trump and the MAGA movement since 2016. Contemporary Western academics, political elites, and mass media often refer to MAGA and its European counterparts as populism. However, the connotation of populism here is vague, and it is more of a negative label of this movement by the Western establishment, classifying this movement that is subverting the cornerstone of liberal ideology as ignorant and anti-intellectual.
MAGA is far more true than so-called populism, which is breaking the pattern of "small left and right" and may usher in a new political spectrum in the United States and the entire Western world. In political issues and theoretical terms, people tend to classify revolutionary factors as left and conservative forces as right. Because MAGA is clearly a revolutionary movement, its opponents are the so-called establishment, that is, relatively conservative political forces, who are trying to maintain the liberal order. For the time being, the author puts MAGA at the left end of this political spectrum that may be forming, and the liberal establishment in the Republican and Democratic parties at the right end.
The MAGA faction now holds the White House, gaining majorities in both houses of Congress, and the majority of justices on the Supreme Court leaning towards their political positions. Their domestic policy orientation is the opposite of the left-right consensus that has been formed over decades on the entire "small left-right" spectrum. In the field of cultural values, the MAGA faction overthrew the mainstream politics of recent decades, quickly and forcefully canceled a large number of wokeist policies of the government and society, and sought to rebuild traditional Christian values. They are also implementing stronger anti-immigrant policies. In terms of social and economic governance, the MAGA faction contains strong libertarianism, and Musk is one of the representatives. It should be noted here that libertarianism and liberalism are fundamentally different, and in many places they are even antagonistic, libertarian freedom is freedom without liberal values, which is super-moral. [13] In foreign affairs, the MAGA faction quickly and comprehensively abandoned the entire policy system of the liberal establishment. Perhaps the biggest short-term impact is to shift from strong support for Ukraine to basically accepting Russia's narrative of the conflict, trying to negotiate a truce with Russia across Europe and Ukraine, and reconcile with Russia. MAGA's view of foreign affairs seems to combine isolationism and expansionism, which may seem contradictory, but it is not necessarily. The MAGA faction's policy trend is likely to be old [Theodore] Roosevelt-style hardline expansion, but this time it is mainly aimed at the Western Hemisphere, mainly driven by realist interests, and the ideology is very weak, and there is a considerable probability that it will reduce its military presence in the Western Pacific and even Europe. MAGA's libertarian tendencies are also greatly reducing the ideological component of U.S. foreign policy, and interference in the politics of other countries on the grounds of universal values is likely to be greatly reduced. [14]
The most noteworthy is the ideological level, where the formation of the MAGA movement has a deep social, economic and historical background. Liberal political forces have gained dominance in the Republican and Democratic parties in the post-Cold War era, seizing the power mechanism of the American political system and the right to speak in society in all aspects. Their capitalist globalization, ultra-individualistic awakening politics, and universal values around the world have eroded the integrity of American society and caused a great internal division that has not been seen in almost a century. Summarizing the ideological trends within the United States in the past two decades, we can find that the fault line is not between the traditional two-party politics, but between the overall system of liberalism in the post-Cold War era and the collective counterattack force of the victim groups under this system. The latter now appears to have seized control of the Republican Party, while the Democratic Party is firmly in the hands of the liberal establishment. Liberals in the Republican Party are now silent or leaning in favor of Democrats.
The same is true at the international level. Vance's speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, as well as the quarrel between Trump and Vance and Zelensky at the White House at the end of February, seem to indicate that the position of the United States on the world ideological spectrum has undergone a qualitative fission, going to the opposite side of the forces that support Western ideology in Europe and even in Western and non-Western countries. The anti-liberal (or illiberal) political forces (such as Orban in Hungary, the AfD in Germany, etc.) that were squeezed out of Europe in the post-Cold War era suddenly gained a huge leader--the United States. The United States is completely abandoning the common platform of liberal interventionism and neoconservatism that spanned the two parties formed in the post-Cold War era and repositioning it as illiberal realism. This change is reflected in the recent tariff war launched by the United States. For example, the Biden administration focuses on uniting liberal countries with the same values to curb China's economic development, while Trump's tariff war targets all countries, including liberal Western countries, and the interest drive transcends ideology. In U.S. foreign policy, a new spectrum of confrontation between the illiberal and realist revolutionaries on the left and the liberal conservative establishment on the right has been formed.
The impact of the MAGA movement on China is undoubtedly far-reaching. Because of the central position of Sino-US relations in the world pattern of this century, its impact on the whole world is also huge. At present, the U.S. China policy is rapidly shifting from the Biden administration's ideological, political, economic and military alliance containment to the United States targeting China for economic interests. It remains to be seen whether this shift can be sustained.
(2) Europe/EU
The same ideological fission is happening in Europe, but to a different extent, and the reasons behind it overlap and differ from those in the United States. At the ideological level, European countries have been reflecting on liberalism for many years. The welfare society in Europe has played a balancing role in the inequality and division caused by American-style capitalism. But in many social and cultural areas, the EU's transnational politics and the large number of immigrants from outside the West, especially Islamic countries, are also changing the original fault line in European politics. [15] Illiberal forces in Hungary and Poland seized power and transformed their social ideological structures long before the American MAGA, and Italy may be making changes. Anti-liberal and illiberal political forces also continue to rise in major European countries. The political forces formed by France's National Alliance, Germany's AfD and Brexit have all gradually formed at least half of the country's public opinion and are likely to seize power. The same situation is happening in a number of medium-sized countries, such as the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, the Social Democratic-Direction Party in Slovakia, the Freedom Party in Austria, the "far-right" politician Jeorgescu who was banned from running in Romania, and Simion, who received the highest number of votes in the first round of the general election. It is worth mentioning that the way anti-liberal and illiberal forces in Europe gain power is different from that in the United States, where the MAGA movement gained power by gaining control of the Republican Party and European countries formed new political parties, which may make them more resistant.
In Europe, because of the large number of countries, there is no political movement or organization that covers the whole of Europe like MAGA, so we will borrow the term "illiberalism" of Hungarian Prime Minister Orban to name this political force that may be forming to subvert European liberal ideologies and institutions. [16] Although domestic political differences vary significantly between European countries, the positions of these illiberal parties on many political and policy issues are highly similar. They unanimously advocate tightening immigration policies, for which immigration is not only an economic issue, but also a cultural and identity issue. At the same time, they resisted the awakening [Woke] doctrine that originated mainly in the United States, believing that Europe must maintain Christian culture. This sense of crisis caused by the erosion of Western culture has led to an interesting phenomenon: some liberal political forces in European countries formally diverged from American identity politics on so-called multiculturalism. At the same time, the insistence of European illiberals on maintaining their own cultural authenticity has led most illiberal parties to oppose the expansion of political power in the EU and the liberal ideology behind it, advocating the preservation of national sovereignty, cultural integrity and social structure. In foreign affairs outside the EU, the biggest overlap point of non-liberal forces in European countries is pro-Russia, and almost all illiberal parties except Italy and Poland advocate reconciliation with Russia and oppose continued support for Ukraine to varying degrees.
Trump's re-election in 2024 has given European illiberal ideas and politics a shot in the arm, and it remains to be seen whether they will take advantage of the situation to expand their influence and seize more power in the coming years, or whether they will be negatively affected by the Trump administration's "America First" policy and lose power.
(3) Other anti-liberal forces in Russia and the West
In the fission and evolution of the world's ideological spectrum, Russia is undoubtedly the highlight. If we put the countries on the new "big left" spectrum that is forming, Russia must be the anti-liberal revolutionary at the far left. In the transformation of the ideological spectrum around the world, Russia is the most worthy of study and analysis. In the post-Cold War era, Russia, as a great power, has experienced the most complete cycle of transformation of the nature of the state. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian ideology initially fell to Western liberalism in all directions, and its political system, economic system, and social and cultural values were fully accepted and imitated by Russia. However, during Yeltsin's ten years in power, Russia's national strength regressed in all directions. [17]
However, Russia is fundamentally different from other former Soviet and Eastern countries, and other small Eastern European countries were absorbed by the United States and the West after completely converting to liberalism, and fully integrated into the West economically, culturally and structurally. Russia is a big country, and its size and history make it structurally impossible for the West to absorb quickly. If it cannot be absorbed quickly, it must be prevented in terms of strength. In the more than two decades after the Cold War, the West deviated from NATO's posture and promise of non-extension at the end of the Cold War peace,[18] and NATO expanded eastward to most of the former Warsaw Pact countries and many former Soviet Union member states, approaching Russia's borders.
At the same time, the situation in Russia itself changed. Putin is a political strongman who effectively took advantage of rising energy prices caused by global economic development to reintegrate and centralize power after taking office, leading Russia's all-round economic and social recovery. Russia's international status has also rebounded accordingly. In this process from collapse to recovery, Russia's elites and all classes have also begun to reflect on the total Westernization after the Cold War. [19] At the social level, Putin integrated liberal civil society, which was originally very fragmented and antagonistic to the government, and reshaped a more unified social structure. The media has also been gradually integrated from the previous liberal positioning into an ecology that is basically consistent with the overall interests of the country. At the economic level, in the face of the situation where the Russian economy was basically controlled by Western and oligarchic capital, Putin came to power to eliminate politically ambitious oligarchs, integrate oligarchs willing to develop under the will of the state, and rebuild some state-owned enterprises mainly in the energy sector, while creating others. [20] The Russian economy recovered quickly during Putin's presidencies and Premiership.
At the level of cultural values, Russia has re-established the important position of core traditional culture in the Putin era. Historically, the Russian Orthodox Church has formed a holistic identity in all aspects of its political and social structure. It is a remarkable achievement to rebuild sustainable social cohesion on the basis of a return to a religious and cultural tradition that has been around for more than a thousand years, from Soviet ideology to liberalism. Many of Russia's anti-woke policies have a strong affinity for illiberals in the West. [21] Illiberal political forces in European countries generally regard Russia as an ideological ally, and even many anti-liberal institutions and anti-woke figures in the United States. [22]
From NATO's plan to continue its eastward expansion in 2008, to the conflict in Crimea in 2014, to the conflict in Ukraine in 2022, the contradiction between Russia and the Western military alliance of the United States has now broken down in all directions. On the basis of the above political, economic and cultural developments, this break with the West makes Russia the most important non/anti-liberal country in the world, occupies an important and distinctive position on the world's new "big left" ideological spectrum, and will continue to influence the direction of the evolution of the ideological spectrum around the world.
Russia's ideological evolution and development process has a significant impact on China. After the 90s, China insisted on actively participating in globalization on the basis of the political system led by the Communist Party and the ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics, largely because it learned the lessons of the Soviet Union and Russia. In recent decades, although China and Russia have differences in ideology and political systems, they have been highly consistent in their stance on resisting the unipolar hegemony of Western liberal ideology. The close partnership between China and Russia after the Cold War and the great success of China's development have provided a strong example for Russia to reflect on its own liberalization. [23]
(4) Global South
The broad Global South includes the vast majority of countries and regions other than Western countries and Japan, including the poorest African countries, the richest oil powers in the Middle East, military powers such as Russia, and of course China and India, two huge developing countries. The countries of the Global South are highly diverse, with great differences in culture, religion, history, ethnicity, economic base, and social structure. Ideologically, many countries in the Global South also fell into the political spectrum of the 20th century, for multi-layered reasons. There are a number of countries in the Global South that were once colonies of the West and are deeply influenced by Western political structures. The most fundamental thing is that after the Cold War, most developing countries believed in the final conclusion of history and completely transplanted the liberal political system of the West, and many even copied the constitution. [24] This has resulted in the Western "small left-right" spectrum being artificially replicated to many countries in the Global South.
When the post-Cold War "small left" spectrum collapsed rapidly, the direction of the Global South is worth watching. The author believes that most countries in the Global South will gradually move away from liberal ideology and move to the non/anti-liberal side of the new "big left" spectrum. There are two main reasons here. First, the vast majority of countries in the Global South do not have the genes of liberal ideology, and their liberal values and systems are transplanted. There are also many countries whose cultures and values are fundamentally anti-liberal, and the Islamic world is a clear example, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, although they have close ties with the United States at the economic and even security levels, but have successfully resisted liberal politics and values at the ideological level. In the future, most Islamic countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey may move in the direction of illiberalism. Second, after the Cold War, most developing countries that introduced liberal ideologies and systems in all directions did not develop ideally. The significance of the fact that China, which rejected liberalism, has become the biggest winner of globalization has become very obvious. [25]
China's ideological relationship with the Global South has gone through three eras. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, China actively participated in and led the political thought of the Third World, and since the Bandung Conference, China has been one of the core countries of the Non-Aligned Movement. Although China and the Third World differed from the Soviet Union in the framework of the Cold War, they were also obviously left-wing and socialist. In the post-Cold War era, politically, China rejected the liberal ideology that the West tried to universalize, while the vast majority of developing countries accepted. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's relations with the Global South have entered the third stage, from the "Belt and Road" to the three global initiatives [Security, Development, Civilization, and the newest, Governance] and the "community with a shared future for mankind", China and the Global South in a broad sense are shaping a new era of political and ideological ideology.
A new "big left" ideological spectrum of liberalism versus non/anti-liberalism
Looking at the media, academic ideology, politics and even corporate finance circles around the world, a new "big left" ideological spectrum may be forming. The right continues to perpetuate the liberal unipolar structure of the post-Cold War era at the ideological level and continues to promote liberal ideology and political systems globally. The U.S. establishment should be the most influential political force in this faction, followed by other Five Eyes countries, U.S. core allies in the Pacific, and mainstream political forces in the European Union. The left wing is a camp composed of different illiberal and anti-liberal governments and political forces, advocating multipolarity. What the right has in common is what they want—to maintain the dominance of liberalism in the world; the difference is only to a different extent. What the left has in common is not wanting anything—liberal unipolar hegemony—but there is enormous diversity within it, and there are differences in vision of the future between different forces.
The degree of difference in the right wing can be simply divided into two factions: the firm universalists and the multipolar coexistence factions. The Biden administration in the United States and the mainstream political forces in the European Union are staunchly universalist, as evidenced by their attitude towards China. The United States and the Five Eyes, NATO, the European Union, and some countries within the European Union have begun to position China as a competitor and adversary in recent years; and in their policy documents, in addition to pointing out conflicts of interest with China, they have always used ideology as one of the main measures to classify China as an enemy. [26] And when they called on their allies to unite to contain China, common values were common mobilization slogans, whether for trade or military gain. The multipolar coexistence faction is a moderate faction in the right-wing camp, they believe in liberal values, advocate liberal ideological policies and laws in domestic politics, but are more moderate in liberal universalization, oppose the radical imposition of liberal ideology on other countries through economic and even military means, and advocate active peaceful coexistence with illiberal countries and societies. The Sánchez government in Spain, the leftist parties led by Mélenchon in France, New Zealand, South Korea and even Japan are all multipolar coexistence to varying degrees.
The left wing of the new "big left" spectrum is messy. The author temporarily summarizes them into three groups: first, the anti-liberal political forces that have sprung up within the West, such as MAGA in the United States and non/anti-liberal regimes and political parties in European countries; second, powerful powers, mainly China and Russia; and third, explorers seeking development, mainly most developing countries in the Global South. The difference between these three groups of forces is that their illiberal and anti-liberal drives are different.
The first group of forces is fighting against the liberal establishment elites of their own countries, who believe that the liberal global order established by the elite betrays the interests of their own people. At the economic level, they generally oppose neoliberalism, believing that extreme marketism has hollowed out their own industry, concentrated wealth in the hands of a very small number of people, and destroyed the social structure. At the same time, the liberal values of the elite evolved into extreme wokeism and policies of opening up to mass immigration, leading to the collapse of national cultural traditions. In foreign affairs, this group of forces advocates de-ideology, and in a key speech in Saudi Arabia in May 2025, Trump strongly condemned Western liberal foreign policy, signaling a break with neoconservatives and liberal interventionists.
In the second group, China and Russia have completely different experiences under the liberal order. China has achieved rapid development in the Western-led globalization, but it has adhered to its own political system. Russia has accepted the Western political system, but its economy and security suffered a huge blow from which it’s recovered. China's continued development faces a double obstacle from the West: both liberal political forces regard China as an enemy from both ideological and interest perspectives, and anti-liberal political forces regard China as an opponent from the perspective of interests. Russia has learned its lesson and has ideologically parted ways with liberalism, becoming the center of the world's anti-liberal ideology and a thorn in the side of the Western establishment, a contradiction that is irreconcilable and uncompromising. However, there is no fundamental ideological dispute between Western anti-liberal forces and Russia, and it even resonates in many places; They have conflicts with Russia in terms of interests, but they are not completely opposite, and the ideological quasi-tacit understanding and compromise space in interests between the two sides are fully reflected in the current attitude of the United States and Russia towards the conflict in Ukraine. But it remains to be seen whether their interests will develop towards compromise or conflict.
The third group of countries is large and very different from each other. Many southern countries span the political spectrum of tradition, but their development is limited to varying degrees by liberal political systems, and they are all seeking new ideas and paths. The Argentine government bred from the traditional right, the South African government based on the traditional left, and countries with different cultural and religious traditions in Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and India, have all tried to explore illiberal governance methods within the framework of the liberal political system implemented after the Cold War. There are also countries that have rejected liberal ideologies and political systems, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and other major countries in the Islamic world, and traditional leftist countries such as Venezuela, which are also actively exploring and practicing ideologies and systems suitable for their survival and development. But the different countries within this extremely diverse group have one thing in common: they are unwilling to continue to accept a universal ideology and political system imposed on them, nor to accept a unipolar global system. This anti-universality and anti-unipolarity defines the illiberal groups of the new Global South as the left wing of the new left and right spectrum.
China's perception of the world/the world's ideological spectrum of China
Since the 20th century, the ideological mutual cognition between China and the world has been closely linked to the left and right spectrums of tradition. After the fission of the ideological spectrum of the world in the 21st century, the cognition previously based on the traditional left and right spectrums has been fundamentally subverted. The "enemies" and "friends" on the traditional left and right spectrum have changed as a whole and fundamentally.
Looking at the old and new political forces of the United States, although Trump provoked a trade war with China in his first term, the next Biden administration is undoubtedly the most hostile government to China in the post-Cold War era. Biden's opposition to China had a very strong ideological gene, he defined the main contradiction of the 21st century as the struggle for "democracy" and even convened many countries to the United States to hold a democratic alliance conference, and the main target was undoubtedly China. Since starting his second term, Trump has stepped up the trade conflict with China, provoking the most intense trade war since globalization, but weakening ideologically and strategically. [27] Biden represented the traditional liberal establishment in the United States and the West, and Trump represents the MAGA movement that seeks to subvert liberalism within the West. Both forces have anti-China policies, but they differ greatly in nature. The former is a double contradiction between ideological disputes and interest disputes, while the latter is mainly a dispute of interests.
Trump's MAGA movement is inherently anti-liberal, and they generally do not support the so-called liberal world order. This does not mean that they do not have strong hostility towards China, but the connotation of contradictions is mainly interests, including economic, military, geographical interests, etc. It remains to be seen whether such conflicts of interest can be sustainably mitigated through compromise. But what can be expected is that at the ideological level, US interference in China and the exclusion of China through the so-called liberal world order in the international community may be alleviated.
How to analyze and judge the positions and policy orientations of various governments and political forces on China after the fission of the world's ideological pattern requires a new thinking framework and is an urgent need for international political research.
A multipolar world and reglobalization in the 21st century
Today, the world is in a major change that is undergoing all-round fission, and observing the current situation and predicting the future is like looking at the Big Dipper in the south. The author proposes an assumption: the spectrum of world ideology is transforming, the left and right wings of the new spectrum are divided by different visions of the future world pattern, the left wing pursues a multipolar world order, and the right wing tries to maintain a unipolar world order. The ideological core of unipolarism is liberalism, which contains the entire content of liberal values and its universality and unity. The left wing is extremely diverse, encompassing all ideologies and values other than liberalism, as well as some universal political forces that hold liberal values but do not support them. The ideology of the left is diverse, based on different religious, cultural and political traditions, and has internal conflicts of interest. The left's imagination of multipolarism is also very different. However, the greatest common denominator of the left is opposition to liberal unipolarity. We can try to give the world's major countries and political parties or any form of political force a suitable place on this new left and right spectrum.
In this framework, the opposition between multipolarism and unipolarism will be the main contradiction in the first half of the 21st century. From a practical and historical perspective, China will definitely be an important force on the side of multipolarism. At the practical level, globalization in the past few decades has been based on liberalism as the ideological cornerstone. However, today's unipolar model of globalization is no longer sustainable. It is the Trump MAGA regime in the United States that is doing its best to deconstruct the unipolar world order. Their imagination of a multipolar world is not clear, but they generally believe that a unipolar world is not beneficial to the interests of the American people. However, MAGA's means of promoting a multipolar world is deglobalization, which is contradictory to China's goals.
China and the vast majority of countries in the Global South need to continue to develop, which requires continued connectivity. At the same time, the existential challenges facing mankind today are global, and climate issues, nuclear proliferation problems, artificial intelligence, etc. require the joint assistance of all countries to solve them. Under the influence of deglobalization currently being promoted by the United States, China and countries in the Global South must promote reglobalization with multipolarism as the ideological narrative and seek to continue to develop and resolve human survival problems.
China's three global initiatives to the world concretize the idea of a multipolar world from the three dimensions of development, security and civilization. China's successful participation in globalization under the premise of adhering to its own political path and system can be learned by many countries in the Global South. In modern times, China has combined communist ideology with the struggle for national liberation to complete modern nation-building, which is an important embodiment and case of the pluralistic gene needed for re-globalization. There are certainly contradictions between multipolar states and political forces, and they will also experience tug-of-war, conflict and compromise. However, the main contradiction in today's world is the contradiction between multipolarism and unipolarism, and only if multipolarism wins can we realize the reglobalization of the 21st century that is in the long-term interests of China and the world. [My Emphasis]
[1] Richard Polenberg, The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
[2] Sanjay Seth,“Lenin’s Formulation of Marxism: The Colonial Question As a National Question,”History of Political Thought, Vol. 13. No.1, 1992, pp. 99~128
[3] For right-wing sovereignty in the United States, see Jennifer Mittelstadt, "Why Does Trump Threaten America's Allies?" Hint: It Starts in 1919,”The New York Times, February 2, 2025。
[4] Jake Altman, Socialism before Sanders, the 1930s Moment from Romance to Revisionism, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
[5] Sovereignism here is different from the sovereignty faction mentioned above, which is the theory of national sovereignty promoted by the United States after World War II to compete with the internationalism of the Soviet Union, and the more typical strategist of this idea at that time was Morgenthau: Hans Morgenthau, "The Problem of Sovereignty Reconsidered," Columbia Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 3, 1948, pp. 341~365。
[6] David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, 2007.
[7] Hal Brands, Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order, Cornell University Press, 2016.
[8] In September 1993, then-U.S. National Security Advisor Lake delivered a speech entitled "From Containment to Expansion", marking a shift in U.S. diplomatic strategy from the defense-focused containment policy of the Cold War to an "expansion strategy" that actively shapes the global order. The strategy is centered on supporting liberal democracies and market economies, emphasizing the use of economic power and multilateral cooperation to shape a world order that aligns with U.S. values and interests. See "Remarks of Anthony Lake: Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs: From Containment to Enlargement," John Hopkins University, September 26, 1993.
[9] Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-first Century, Harvard University Press, 2014. Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, Forum Books, 2013. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon and Schuster, 2000. J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, HarperCollins, 2016.
[10] Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, Vintage, 1988.
[11] Justin Vaïsse,“Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy,”Brookings Institution, August 3, 2010.
[12] Eric Kaufmann,“Left-Modernist Extremism,”in Jens Rydgren, ed., The Palgrave Handbook of Left-Wing Extremism, Volume 2, Springer Nature Switzerland, 2023, pp. 295~311.
[13] Samuel Freeman,“Illiberal Libertarians: Why Libertarianism Is Not a Liberal View.” Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2001, pp. 105~151.
[14] Tyler Pager,“Trump Orders Gutting of 7 Agencies, Including Voice of America’s Parent,”The New York Times, March 15, 2025.
[15] Since the global financial crisis of 2008, there has been a prolific number of political and intellectual writings reflecting on liberalism in Europe, expressing concerns about multiculturalism, globalization, and the ambiguity of national identity. For example, French right-wing commentator Éric Zemmour in "Does France Still Exist?" (La France n'a pas dit son dernier mot, 2021), a fierce criticism of liberalism and immigration policy; Thilo Sarrazin, a former director of the German Federal Bank, argued in Deutschland schafft sich ab (2010) that mass Muslim immigration would weaken Germany's cultural, educational, and social cohesion.
[16] Orban first proposed the concept of "illiberalism" on 26 July 2014 in a speech at the 25th Barvanios Summer Free University and Student Camp. He said Hungary was building an "illiberal state." He also mentioned that Hungary should draw inspiration from the success of other countries, such as Singapore, China, etc., which are economically successful but not liberal countries.
[17] Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution, Scribner, 2005, pp. 83~84.
[18] Timothy J. Colton, Russia: What Everyone Needs to Know, Oxford University Press, 2016，pp. 121~125.
[19] For example, Alexander Dugin, as a representative of "New Eurasianism", advocated that Russian civilization should be independent of the West and the East, and should be based on "state-nation-religion" to resist Western cultural infiltration and political interference. Yevgeny Primakov advocates the concept of a "multipolar world", emphasizing that Russia should play a role as an independent power in international affairs, rather than following the unipolar order led by the United States. For details, see Alexander Dugin, The Fourth Political Theory, Vol. 1, Arktos, 2012; Yevgeny Primakov, Russian Crossroads: Toward the New Millennium, Yale University Press, 2008.
[20] David Kotz, Fred Weir, "The Russian Road from Gorbachev to Putin: The End of the Soviet System and New Russia", translated by Li Xiuhui, Chinese University Press, 2015 edition.
[21] In a 2013 speech at the Valdai Club, Putin explicitly criticized "Eurasian countries that are denying their roots, including Christian values, multi-child families", stressing that Russia wants to "defend the moral code that has been formed over thousands of years". In the same year, Russia passed the "Anti-Homosexual Propaganda Law", which prohibits "promoting non-traditional sexual relations to minors". In 2023, Russia completely banned transgender people from changing their legal gender and restricted related medical interventions.
[22] For example, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of Congress from the MAGA camp, has publicly called Russia a "staunch defender of Christianity". Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has also repeatedly praised Putin for "defending God and family" in public speeches. Tucker Carlson, a well-known American media personality, went to Moscow in 2024 to interview Putin himself, further amplifying Russia's symbolic status as an "anti-woke cultural ally". For more information, see "Marjorie Taylor Greene Applauds Russia for 'Protecting Christianity'," Newsweek, April 8, 2024; "Mike Flynn Lauds President Putin's Words on 'Family & God as Strong Values West is.'" Destroying’,”Sputnik, February 23, 2023；“Interview to Tucker Carlson - President of Russia,”Kremlin.ru, February 8, 2024。
[23] Sergei Glazyev, Leaping into the Future: China and Russia in the New World Tech-economic Paradigm, Royal Collins Publishing Company, 2023. “МЭФ-2023: № 2. « Китай. Опыт модернизации для России»”, MoscowEconomicForum, 2023.
[24] [25] Eric Li, Party Life: Chinese Governance and the World Beyond Liberalism, Springer Nature, 2023. pp. 18~21; pp. 37~45.
[26] For example, the U.S. National Security Strategy (2022) states: "China is the only competitor with the intention of reshaping the international order, and is gradually possessing economic, diplomatic, military, and scientific and technological power to further this goal." In 2019, the European Commission released the EU-China: Strategic Outlook, which proposed for the first time that China is an "institutional competitor" of the EU, and regarded China as an "institutional competitor" trying to spread different governance models.
[27] Initiatives include: the dissolution of the United States Global Media Agency (USAGM), which is responsible for government-funded media such as Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA); USAID's massive layoffs laid off most of its approximately 10,000 employees worldwide, leaving only 294 key personnel.
[28] Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner,“The China Reckoning: How Beijing Defied American Expectations,”Foreign Affairs, February 13, 2018.
[29] Noah Shachtman,“Trump Is Breaking the Rule That Every Barroom Brawler Knows,”The New York Times, April 26, 2025. Kurt M. Cambpell and Rush Doshi,“Understanding China, Why America Needs a New Strategy of Allied Scale to Offset Beijing’s Enduring Advantages,” Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2025.
[30] Deng Xiaoping, Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (Volume 3), People's Publishing House, 1993, p. 353.
Karl's comments at link(too long for site). Also, he's wrong, Trump has no desire to abandon full spectrum dominance despite Little Marcos' slip of the tongue. He just doesn't want to pay for it, neither 'hard' nor 'soft' power. Let the vassals pay for the guns and to hell with 'butter' for the poor.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Xi Jinping at the UN Climate Summit: Green and low-carbon transition is the trend of the time
In video remarks to the United Nations Climate Summit on 24 September 2025, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a renewed global commitment to climate action. He stressed that green and low-carbon transition is the “trend of our time”, urging countries not to be swayed by the backsliding of “some country” (presumably referring to the United States) and to deliver ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Xi outlined three key principles. First, confidence: the world must stay resolute and consistent in its climate efforts. Second, responsibility: fairness requires that developed nations lead in emissions cuts while providing financial and technological support to developing countries, respecting their right to development. Third, cooperation: countries should strengthen coordination in green technology and industry, ensure open trade in green products, and share the benefits of sustainable growth worldwide.
Announcing China’s new NDCs, Xi pledged that by 2035 China will: reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10 percent from peak levels; raise non-fossil fuels to over 30 percent of energy consumption; expand wind and solar capacity to 3,600 GW (six times 2020 levels); increase forest stock to 24 billion cubic meters; make new energy vehicles dominant in new sales; extend its carbon trading market; and basically establish a climate-adaptive society. He concluded:
Great visions require concrete actions. Climate response is an urgent yet long-term task. Let’s all step up our actions to realize the beautiful vision of harmony between man and nature, and preserve planet Earth—the place we call home.
In a blog post, veteran educator and activist Mike Klonsky contrasted President Xi’s vision with Donald Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly – “a long and humiliating rant, filled with personal grievances and attacks on the UN, European leaders, migration policies, and clean energy.” Mike observes that Trump “spent about a quarter of his speech undermining UN-led efforts to address climate change and ridiculing renewable energy policies”. Meanwhile, “China is quietly rewriting the global energy script. The numbers aren’t just staggering—they’re humiliating for any nation like the US, still tethered to fossil-fuelled delusions”.
A Morning Star report of 25 September quotes UN climate chief Simon Stiell saying that plan announced by President Xi “is a clear signal that the future global economy will run on clean energy.”
In a separate opinion piece for the Morning Star on 25 September, London-based climate activist Paul Atkin describes the extraordinary progress China is making in relation to green energy:
• China has 17.2 per cent of the world’s people but half of the world’s solar, wind power and EVs.
• Last year, China installed as much renewable power as the US has in its entire history.
• Three out of four offshore wind turbines in 2025 are being installed in China.
• This April, China installed solar power at a rate equivalent to a new power station every eight minutes.
• Enormous solar and wind farms are being built. One of these, in Tibet, is the size of Chicago.
Paul points to the urgent necessity of working closely with China in pursuit of a sustainable future: “As the climate crisis deepens, the cost of being shackled to the US and its cold war stance against China will become more and more apparent — a point we have to make in and through the unions, Labour, the Greens and Your Party.”
Paul is among the speakers at the Socialist China Conference on Saturday 27 September.
We republish below President Xi’s speech at the UN Climate Summit, followed by the text of Paul Atkin’s article.
Honoring Commitments with Concrete Actions and Jointly Writing a New Chapter in Global Climate Governance
Remarks by H.E. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China
At the United Nations Climate Summit
September 24, 2025
Your Excellency Secretary General António Guterres,
Your Excellency President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
Colleagues,
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, a pivotal year for countries to submit their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Global climate governance is entering a key stage.
I wish to share with you three points.
First, we must firm up confidence. Green and low-carbon transition is the trend of our time. While some country is acting against it, the international community should stay focused on the right direction, remain unwavering in confidence, unremitting in actions and unrelenting in intensity, and push for formulation and delivery on NDCs, with a view to providing more positive energy to the cooperation on global climate governance.
Second, we must live up to responsibilities. In the course of global green transition, fairness and equity should be upheld and the right to development of developing countries fully respected. The transition should serve to narrow rather than widen the North-South gap. Countries need to honor the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, whereby developed countries should take the lead in fulfilling emission reduction obligations and provide more financial and technological support to developing countries.
Third, we must deepen cooperation. The world now faces a huge demand for green development. It is important that countries strengthen international coordination in green technologies and industries to address the shortfall in green production capacity and ensure free flow of quality green products globally, so that the benefits of green development can reach all corners of the world.
Colleagues,
Let me take this opportunity to announce China’s new NDCs as follows: China will, by 2035, reduce economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7% to 10% from peak levels, striving to do better; increase the share of non-fossil fuels in total energy consumption to over 30%; expand the installed capacity of wind and solar power to over six times the 2020 levels, striving to bring the total to 3,600 gigawatts; scale up the total forest stock volume to over 24 billion cubic meters; make new energy vehicles the mainstream in the sales of new vehicles; expand the National Carbon Emissions Trading Market to cover major high-emission sectors; and basically establish a climate adaptive society.
These targets represent China’s best efforts based on the requirements of the Paris Agreement. Meeting these targets requires both painstaking efforts by China itself and a supportive and open international environment. We have the resolve and confidence to deliver on our commitments.
Colleagues,
Great visions require concrete actions. Climate response is an urgent yet long-term task. Let’s all step up our actions to realize the beautiful vision of harmony between man and nature, and preserve planet Earth—the place we call home.
Thank you.
Time to follow China’s climate leadership
The climate crisis is happening now. We are in a crucial decade in the century that will make or break human civilisation.
It will not follow a path of Fabian gradualism. In physics as in politics, long periods of apparent stasis, in which forces build, hit a tipping point, setting off sudden, dramatic shifts; unimaginable until they happen, but making the previous period unimaginable once they have.
China aims to build a moderately prosperous socialist society as an ecological civilisation, expressed in the “Two Mountains” proposition — that green mountains with clear water are as valuable as mountains of gold.
So, as China grows, it will be green; not socialism with a green component, but green socialism. As one Canadian commentator put it: “China is pushing power sector transformation through central planning. It can build clean infrastructure quickly.”
So, if you have socialist planning, you can put social and ecological priorities in command in a way that the West can’t.
“China sees the old fossil fuel growth model as … unable to sustain long-term prosperity.”
If the socialism that’s built isn’t green, it can’t survive. Investment in solar power, electric vehicles, batteries, and wind power is now the core driver of China’s economy.
• China has 17.2 per cent of the world’s people but half of the world’s solar, wind power and EVs.
• Last year, China installed as much renewable power as the US has in its entire history.
• Three out of four offshore wind turbines in 2025 are being installed in China.
• This April, China installed solar power at a rate equivalent to a new power station every eight minutes.
• Enormous solar and wind farms are being built. One of these, in Tibet, is the size of Chicago.
China now has 57 per cent of its electricity generated by renewables, compared to 50.8 per cent for Britain. China’s domestic emissions are peaking, even as demand for energy increases. Emissions were down 1.6 per cent, and coal consumption dropped by 2.6 per cent, in the first half of this year.
The International Energy Agency expects China to hit peak oil in 2027. As China had driven two-thirds of global oil demand growth from 2013 to 2023, it is set to plateau then drop before 2030.
This makes investment in fossil fuel exploration or power plants increasingly risky. Banks that have traditionally put huge resources into them are beginning to get cold feet. This is putting the US fossil fuel drive at odds with markets. China’s decision to stop coal investment overseas has been pivotal.
• China’s clean energy exports in 2024 shaved 1 per cent off global emissions outside of China.
• Three-quarters of global fossil fuel demand is now in nations where this has already peaked.
• More than 60 per cent of emerging and developing economies like Brazil and Vietnam are leapfrogging the US and Europe in clean electrification.
• Pakistan doubled its previous grid capacity with new rooftop solar last year.
• Solar panel exports from China to Africa are up 60 per cent this year.
Three factors underlie this.
Physics: fossil fuels are wasteful. Two-thirds of their energy is lost to heat or inefficiency. Solar, electric motors, and heat pumps are two to four times as efficient.
Economics: as fossil fuel reserves deplete, they become more expensive to access. The more electric technology is manufactured, the cheaper and better it becomes.
Geopolitics: the old energy system left three-quarters of humanity dependent on expensive, imported fuels. Electric technologies unlock local resources.
So, the Western model of development is outmoded, and the future does not, and cannot, look like the US. China is not following the US in a race to the bottom. Ma Zhaoxu, China’s vice-foreign minister, says: “Regardless of how the international situation evolves, China’s proactive actions to address climate change will not slow down.”
In rolling back Joe Biden’s attempt to suck green investment into the US, Donald Trump has abandoned the future.
This doesn’t simply involve domestic economic self-sabotage, with more expensive fossil fuel plants pushing up bills, offshore wind farms cancelled, imperilling supply in regions like New England, but also a wrecking ball taken to disaster emergency relief and scientific research monitoring the climate.
As the world’s leading petrostate, US policy now actively suppresses the truth about climate change. Their aim is to lock as much of the world as possible into fossil fuel bondage.
Success for the US would lock the world, and the US itself, into climate collapse. But, while the US still makes some of the weather — literally in this case — it’s no longer able to determine the direction of the world.
As climate scientist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben puts it in his article Here Comes the Sun: “Big Oil spent more money on last year’s election cycle in my country than they’ve ever done before. And it’s why they’re now being rewarded with a whole variety of measures designed to slow this transition down, which may succeed.
“I mean, it’s possible that 20 years from now, the US will be a kind of museum of internal combustion that other people will visit to see what the olden days were like. But it’s not going to slow the rest of the world down much, I don’t think.”
There is a tension in the British government, with its attempt to dodge tariffs by bending the knee and committing to an annual £77 billion black hole in “defence” spending, and the stated direction of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to make Britain an “electrostate.” This involves some co-operation with China, but would require more investment than the military spend will allow.
Reform UK and the Conservative Party aim at consolidating energy dependence on the US, no matter how ruinous the cost. As the climate crisis deepens, the cost of being shackled to the US and its cold war stance against China will become more and more apparent — a point we have to make in and through the unions, Labour, the Greens and Your Party.
Some will get vertigo just by looking at this photo of the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge taken during its stress test.
Earlier in the year I wrote an article about China’s engineering exploits that focused on its amazing bridges, which included the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge. Here’s another look:
As you can see, China’s grand canyon is rather different from the one in Arizona. I went to school at Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, which allowed me to visit the Grand Canyon National Park on many occasions, and I’ve also visited the North Rim portion. I’ve gazed across in wonderment but never thought of attempting to erect a bridge since there’re no major road requiring one, although if there was the traffic through the region would vastly increase in what’s a fragile ecological area. There’re many photos taken of its construction stages online that are quite spectacular. Here are two:
A high-wire job.
Not made with Legos.
I wonder what the status is of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed after being hit by a containership 18-months ago. Here’s what Wikipedia informs us:
Officials at the Maryland Department of Transportation have announced plans to replace the bridge by October 2028 at an estimated cost of $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion. The original bridge cost $141 million to build, about $743 million in 2024 dollars.
Of course, that cost estimate was before Trump placed a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum imports. If it gets finished by 2030 at a cost under $3 billion, I’ll be somewhat surprised. Making the bridge replacement project a political priority at the heart of MAGA would be a no-brainer one would think.
China’s newest project is building a socialist modern Xinjiang as Xi Jinping very recently pronounced. Xi has made it very clear that the key to China’s development and economic growth lies in its continual modernization, of which building spectacular monumental structures is merely a small part. The Power of Siberia Two pipeline is a joint project involving Russia, Mongolia and China that several within the Outlaw US Empire’s Congress have already threatened to destroy—an attitude that encapsulates the Empire’s extremist nature versus the ingenuity of Humanity.
An Update on the Outlaw US Empire's Shipping War with China: "Last year, the United States had less than 10 ships, and China had more than 1,000 ships!
The U.S. government's curbing of China's shipbuilding industry has been in vain
Karl Sanchez
Sep 26, 2025
It appears the best place to find out what’s happening in this sphere if you’re not a specialist is Guancha. The Gym reported on this issue several months ago at the beginning of Trump’s term when this action began. This article updates the situation and provides the important aspect of the background. Perhaps the greatest falloff in its previous industrial might is the sinking of the shipbuilding industry—commercial and military. Trump has instituted a hairbrained scheme to rebuild Outlaw US Empire shipbuilding by taxing Chinese made or owned vessels with a port fee, which the article explains, has the goal of making those corporations that order ships to cease buying Chinese and buy American from shipyards that don’t exist. The numbers difference tells its own story. Northeast Asia is where most shipping is born—China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan. Once upon a time, America had serious shipyards. Here are two photos of the Kaiser shipyard that shared the Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon traversing Colombia River to construct ships beside during WW2:
It’s that way no longer. Here’s the dirt compiled by Liu Chenghui:
Last year, the United States had less than 10 ships, and China had more than 1,000 ships! The U.S. government’s curbing of China’s shipbuilding industry has been in vain
The Trump administration’s crackdown on China’s shipbuilding industry is ambitious, and there are few responders after all. According to a Reuters report on September 25, a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. think tank, shows that despite the United States imposing so-called port “service fees” on Chinese ships in an attempt to curb China’s maritime dominance, global shipping companies are still ordering merchant ships from Chinese shipyards at full speed.
According to CSIS’ analysis of S&P Global data, in the first eight months of this year, Chinese shipyards won 53% of the world’s shipbuilding orders by tonnage.
CSIS said this percentage was the same as for the whole of 2023, a year in which the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) had not yet launched a maritime investigation into the imposition of port “service fees” on Chinese shipbuilding.
“Shipping companies are still largely doing business as usual,” said Brian Hart, a researcher at CSIS’s China Power Project and one of the report’s authors.”
In 2024, China’s share of global shipbuilding orders climbed to 73%, indicating that shipowners were locking in contracts in response to possible USTR restrictions.
Starting October 14, ships built in China, or operated or owned by Chinese entities, will be subject to fees when they first enter U.S. ports. Analysts estimate that this fee could cost more than $1 million for container ships carrying more than 10,000 TEUs, and plans to increase it year by year until 2028.
The port fee for China-linked vessels is part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to revitalize the domestic shipbuilding industry and weaken China’s growing maritime power.
But the report admits that it will not be easy to catch up with the state-backed Chinese shipyards. Military and industry analysts say that less than 10 merchant ships were built at US shipyards last year, while China built more than 1,000.
Over the past two decades, China has become the world’s number one shipbuilder, with its largest shipyards undertaking both commercial and military projects. At the same time, the U.S. Navy’s fiscal year 2025 plan said the U.S. commercial shipbuilding industry was almost “completely collapsed” and called for a long-term revitalization plan to support naval shipbuilding.
The CSIS report pointed out that since the USTR announced the port fee increase in April this year, Mediterranean Shipping (MSC), the world’s largest container ship operator, has placed orders to build 12 new ships in China.
Swiss-based MSC, along with Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk and CMA CGM, has moved China-linked vessels off U.S. trade lanes to limit or avoid the new fee altogether.
As early as July, Silvia Ding, president of Maersk Greater China, said that Maersk will consider a variety of factors, including cost and technical requirements, when ordering new ships, but will not increase customer prices due to US port fees, nor will it exclude Chinese shipyards, which reflects “continued confidence and commitment to the Chinese market”.
Hong Kong’s English-language media South China Morning Post analyzed that the Trump administration’s policy of imposing high port fees on Chinese-made or operated ships has made the shipping industry face a difficult choice: either remove Chinese ships from the fleet or bear sharply rising costs. Maersk’s statement further raises questions about whether the United States can curb China’s dominance in shipbuilding.
The analysis also said that judging from Ding Zejuan’s statement, the port fee policy, which will take effect in October, may not have as much impact as some initially envisioned.
MSC also said at the time that thanks to the new East-West route network launched in February, the company was able to cope with market turmoil. MSC said the network is no longer an alliance model, but is operated independently by the company, which is highly flexible and allows the company to respond quickly to market changes.
Marie-Caroline Laurent, senior vice president of MSC, pointed out in June that China has the technology and capabilities, and even if the United States is determined to challenge China’s dominance in the global shipbuilding industry, its port fees will not be a deterrent for shipowners to order more new ships from China.
In February, the USTR proposed charging for Chinese-made ships entering U.S. ports. In April, the USTR issued a Federal Register declaring that all ships built by China and owned by China will be charged according to the amount of cargo they carry as long as they call at U.S. ports. The relevant charging measures will be officially implemented after 180 days and will be implemented in two phases.
According to the charging rules published in the communiqué, in the first phase, starting from October 14 this year, the United States will charge the so-called “maritime service fee” to any ship operated by a Chinese operator or owned by a Chinese entity based on the standard of $50 per net tonnage of the ship. This amount will be increased by $30 per year over three years to $140 per net tonnage by 2028.
Some analysts pointed out that the U.S. government is trying to force companies to build ships in the United States and stop using Chinese ships by imposing port fees and a package of tariffs on Chinese-made equipment, but it is still unclear whether these measures will be effective in practice.
It is worth mentioning that since the announcement of the port fee plan in February, U.S. officials have made several changes to the proposal due to strong opposition from shipping companies and industry bodies.
A marketing leader of a shipping company said that in view of the recent series of policies of the US government, there are still doubts about how port fees are enforced in the industry. He said the company’s customers are now more worried about U.S. tariffs than port fees, which pose a more immediate threat to businesses.
Regarding the US suppression of China’s shipbuilding, China clearly emphasized that the development of China’s shipbuilding industry is the result of technological innovation and active participation in market competition, and has made important contributions to the development of global trade and the stable and safe operation of global supply chains. The hegemonic approach of the United States of unilateralism and protectionism is unpopular, which will only push up global shipping costs, disrupt the stability of the global production and supply chain, cause damage to the interests of all countries in the world, and ultimately fail to revitalize the US shipbuilding industry.
The 1000 to 10 ships built wasn’t hyperbole as it!? Think of all the factors that would need to be supplied and accomplished for the Empire to get to 200 ships per year, which would be a 20-fold increase. Note what was mentioned above that the fees are aimed at supporting “naval shipbuilding” not commercial. Thus, one can assume and conclude that the fees will go to producing warships not peaceful commerce vessels. Let’s see how far behind is the USN’s submarine building program and what about that now obsolete billion-dollar aircraft carrier? According to Yandex AI:
Columbia-class nuclear submarine. The first submarine is planned to be available for operations in 2030, but construction is delayed by at least a year.
Virginia attack-class submarine. It is two years behind schedule.
Aircraft carrier Enterprise. It is 18 to 26 months late.
The reasons given are comical, although #1 is serious:
Workforce shortages. Shipbuilders struggle to recruit and retain staff, especially those with the skills needed to do the work.
And Trump wants to build more ships, but with what workforce? The immigrants he’s kicking out are the sort of workers who staff those jobs. Now, if we were to talk about pleasure craft for the public, we’d be seeing some numbers despite the economic times.
In closing, an unnoted datapoint: Outlaw US Empire trade with the world is now just 14% dollar-wise not tonnage-wise meaning it ought to be easy to use non-China built vessels—and there are many—for shipping the rather small amount of trade the Empire imports. Exporters will not want to pay an “importation tariff” which is what the port fees are in reality. As the author concludes, I must echo: Trump’s veiled extortion plan is unlikely to generate much tribute and will fail to revive the Empire’s deindustrialized shipbuilding industry.
China's former agriculture minister sentenced to death
September 28, 10:52 PM
Death Penalty News:
Former Chinese Agriculture Minister Tang Renjian was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes, Xinhua reports.
It was established that from 2007 to 2024, the former minister, holding various positions at both the central and local levels, accepted bribes in exchange for assisting organizations and individuals with matters such as business operations, contracting, and personnel matters. The total amount of bribes exceeded 268 million yuan (approximately $38 million).
At his trial on July 25, he admitted his guilt and expressed remorse in his final statement. Taking this into account, the court imposed a death sentence with a two-year reprieve. The reprieve means the death penalty will only be carried out if the convicted person commits new crimes during this period. After the sentence is completed, the sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment, Reuters explained.
@banksta - zinc
By the standards of our "record holders," he hasn't stolen much yet.
I wonder if other crimes committed by the former minister are revealed after yesterday's deferment, will this be considered a new crime that would invalidate the deferment?
Grand military parade as China celebrates victory in the antifascist war
Accompanied by a remarkable show of strength and unity by the anti-imperialist and socialist nations.
Proletarian writers
Tuesday 30 September 2025
At these impressive victory day commemorations, it was not only China’s military capabilities that were on display, but also its economic, political and military alliances – in particular, the ever-deepening ties between Xi Jinping’s China, Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Kim Jong Un’s DPRK.
On 3 September, China staged the largest military parade in its history. The parade included hypersonic and ballistic missiles, naval and airforce drones, and the country’s full strategic arsenal, including nuclear weapons. All accompanied by the disciplined and immaculate divisions of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
This show of dignity, sovereignty and strategic strength came on the historic occasion of the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the world antifascist war, on 3 September 1945, which marked the end of WW2 in the east.
As the soldiers marched past the presidential podium in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese people were celebrating the first in a string of hard-won victories, one in which they had for the first time succeeded in ejecting a foreign invader from their soil. The protracted people’s war led by the communists would ultimately continue for four more years until the triumphant founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Seven and a half decades later, the whole world can now appreciate the profound meaning of Chairman Mao’s historic words, delivered from that same podium on 1 October 1949, that “The Chinese people have stood up!”
A show of anti-imperialist unity
While it was shunned by western leaders, the victory parade was attended by a veritable Who’s Who of the leadership of sovereign and socialist states. President Xi Jinping was joined by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and the DPRK’s Comrade president Kim Jong Un were guests of honour among a group of 26 national leaders that included Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel, Vietnamese president Luong Cuong, Lao president Thongloun Sisoulith, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian and Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The parade came at the end of a historic meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), in which the non-imperialist Eurasian nations pledged greater cooperation and the deepening of economic and security ties – destroying attempts by the USA and European Union to sanction them all into submission and subordination.
At the centre of the celebrations was a show of unity by the three great anti-imperialist nations – Russia, China and the DPRK – who are once more united in their firm opposition to Nato aggression and imperialist domination, led by the Anglo-American imperialists.
China’s people sacrificed a staggering 35 million lives in their 14-year liberation war against Japanese fascism. The Soviet people sacrificed 27 million lives in the war to vanquish German Hitlerite fascism. The people of Korea lost some 5 million lives in the great battles to defeat Japanese and then US imperialism.
Today, Russia and China are the main impediments to imperialist domination of the entire globe. The DPRK, having refused to give up on its planned economy and socialist system, has demonstrated its commitment to the new antifascist alliance by sending troops to help vanquish the Nato-backed Banderite invasion of Russia’s Kursk region – to the great chagrin of the reactionaries.
A clear message has been sent to the modern heirs of Hitlerite fascism (the ruling classes of the Nato nations, the EU, the US and British imperialists): the SCO and Brics nations are reshaping the world. Their strength and unity was on full display in Beijing. A new world is in birth, and progressive people everywhere rejoice to see its foundation.
Nato’s proxy fascist aggression in Ukraine will fail. Nato’s zionist proxy in the middle east, the settler-colonial entity of Israel, will fall. The genocidal war on the peoples of the middle east will be defeated. The criminal finance capitalists in Washington, Europe and London will pay the price for their crimes.
Death to imperialism!
Workers of all countries, unite!
China restricts sales of rare earth elements
October 10, 8:41
Two can play the game of trade restrictions.
China is tightening the screws on the rare earth market, putting defense and
microelectronics industries at risk. Beijing has officially announced a new round of export restrictions on rare earth elements—strategic raw materials for the defense industry and microelectronics. Five more rare earth elements have been added to the list: holmium, erbium, thulium, europium, and ytterbium. Now, the export of 12 of the world's 17 elements is directly controlled by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.
Important:
The new rules are being introduced as preparations for the Trump-Xi Jinping meeting in South Korea mount.
China is banning the supply of rare earth metals to foreign defense companies and imposing strict controls on users in the semiconductor industry.
Foreign manufacturers using Chinese equipment or materials are now required to obtain a Chinese export license, even if the Chinese firms are not formally involved in the deal.
Those affected include manufacturers of chips at 14 nm and below, memory chips with 256 layers or more, and the equipment needed to manufacture them. These chips are used in a variety of products, from smartphones to AI chipsets that require high computing power.
The new requirements will also apply to AI research and development with potential military applications.
China's logic mirrors that of the United States: just as Washington restricted technology exports to China, Beijing is now restricting the export of critical materials back.
The market reaction was immediate: shares of China Northern Rare Earth Group, China Rare Earth Resources & Technology, and Shenghe Resources soared 9-10% within a day. South Korean and Taiwanese giants—Samsung, SK Hynix, and TSMC—are already analyzing the consequences. Seoul announced that it is consulting with Beijing to "minimize the damage."
The Chinese side emphasized that the measures "are aimed at protecting national security" and will be introduced in stages from November 8 and December 1, just before the expiration of the 90-day trade truce with Washington. The signal is clear: Beijing is turning rare earths into a geopolitical weapon of pressure, aligning their exports with national security interests.
In this way, Beijing is demonstrating its willingness to play by the rules of sanctions symmetry, where raw materials and technology become mutual levers of influence. The world is entering a new phase, where not oil, but rare earths and chips, are the main ammunition of the 21st-century technological war.
@china3army - zinc
Even at the start of this trade war, China was already actively demonstrating that, if necessary, it is ready to deliver harsh economic blows by exploiting the West's dependence on the Chinese economy in a number of areas.
There are some very strange things happening in China!
October 10, 9:06 PM
Trump has thrown a public tantrum over China's countermeasures against the United States.
China previously restricted rare earth metal supplies to the United States and raised fees for US-flagged ships entering Chinese ports.
Xi Jinping is demonstrating that dealing with China through threats and ultimatums is unsustainable, and that China may retaliate in kind.
Trump's threats to impose new tariffs on Chinese goods will further fragment the global economy, and a new round of trade war between the US and China will objectively push China toward closer cooperation with the BRICS and SCO countries.
China works on moving around the US chip sanctions toward a completely domestic supply chain for the third generation of chips, beyond silicon. State investment and long term focus once again delivering the goods. Quite possibly, in the early 2030s, China leapfrogs the Western chip paradigm.
“The real losers are the sanctions, designed to trap China in the silicon paradigm, which it now has a credible path to sidestep.
China has not killed the silicon chip. However, the undeniable truth is this – a significant scientific breakthrough has occurred, and its geopolitical implications are profound.
China has not ended the chip war, but it has successfully opened a new front — one fought not with geopolitics and supply chains, but with fundamental materials science.
This achievement is a clear signal that a strategy based solely on containing an adversary’s access to existing technology is doomed to fail.
The future of computing will be determined not just by who can etch the smallest lines on silicon, but by who can master the atomic intricacies of the materials that will replace it.”
Trump’s tariff war has somewhat settled down but for China.
Trump has, like his predecessor, limited exports of high-end semiconductor chips to China. He also stopped the export of machines and chemicals used to produce chips to China. These measures are extra-territorial. The Dutch company ASML is prohibited to sell its high-end machines for chip production to China because parts of them contain goods or software made in the U. S. of A.
After Trump imposed additional high tariffs on goods from China the country hit back by limiting exports of rare earth elements. China has a near monopoly on these elements. These are needed to produce modern electric motors, magnets and various sensors and semiconductors the U.S. needs. China has also stopped the import of soy-beans, one of the main products U.S. mid-west farmers depend on.
Trump had to pull back and did so. Tariffs were temporarily lowered and negotiations with China continued. A new trade agreement was supposed to signed later this month when President Trump and President Xi would meet in South Korea.
But U.S. negotiators under Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick tried to play hardball. In late September, during the talks, they imposed further restrictions on China:
On September 29, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) released a long-anticipated interim final rule (IFR) that will result in the most dramatic expansion of U.S. export control regulations in years. The IFR, “Expansion of End-User Controls To Cover Affiliates of Certain Listed Entities,” extends export restrictions to any company owned 50% or more, directly or indirectly, by any of the thousands of entities already designated on several Commerce and Treasury Department lists.
The IFR would also impose a new duty on exporters to investigate the ownership of an end user where there is reason to believe a designated entity holds a minority stake, or is affiliated with, the end user, subject to a strict liability standard for violations.
The new measures would severely restrict any export of high tech goods to China.
The country responded in kind:
Chinese Commerce Ministry (MOFCOM) announced on Thursday that in order to safeguard national security and interests, the ministry will impose export controls on rare earth-related technologies, including rare earth mining, smelting and separation, magnetic material manufacturing, and rare earth secondary resource recycling.
…
Technologies and relevant date related to rare earth mining, smelting and separation, metal smelting, magnetic material manufacturing, and rare earth secondary resource recycling, as well as the assembly, debugging, maintenance, repair, and upgrade of related production lines are prohibited from export without permission, the statement said.
Rare earth elements are used in many U.S. weapons. Each F-35 fighter jet includes some 418 kilogram of rare earth elements, a U.S. destroyer 2,600 kg, a nuclear submarines 4,800 kg. The U.S. has currently no means to produce these themselves.
There was more to the new Chinese regulation than it seemed:
This is actually big, potentially huge, notably because China’s new rare earth export controls include a provision (point 4 here: https://mofcom.gov.cn/zwgk/…) whereby anyone using rare earths to develop advanced semiconductors (defined as 14nm-and-below) will require case-by-case approval.
Which effectively gives China de-facto veto power over the entire advanced semi-conductor supply chain as rare earths are used at critical steps throughout – from ASML (who use rare earths for magnets in their lithography machines: https://asml.com/en/news/storie…) to TSMC.
The export controls are also extra-territorial: foreign entities must obtain Chinese export licenses before re-exporting products manufactured abroad if they contain Chinese rare earth materials comprising 0.1% or more of the product’s value.
So China is effectively mirroring the US semiconductor export controls that were used against them, with its own comprehensive extraterritorial control regime, except with rare earths.
The most advanced semiconductors produced today also use some rare-earth elements. Under China’s new rules each chip sale will need to be licensed by China to ensure that it will not be used for military purposes. If the new rules are handled strictly the U.S. AI-boom will soon go bust.
Rare earth are not the only field where new Chinese export rules are set to apply:
Not only did they announce the unprecedented rare earths restrictions that I posted about earlier (targeted, among others, at the advanced semiconductors sector) but they issued 4 consecutive announcements in total with other export controls on:
– The machines and expertise to process rare earths – not just the rare earths themselves, but all the specialized equipment and technical know-how to turn rare earth into usable materials (obviously making it all the harder to try to move rare earth processing away from China)
– High-performance batteries – specifically those above 300 Wh/kg needed for long-range EVs and advanced drones. And, again, export controls on all the factory equipment to make them too.
– The materials inside batteries – both graphite anodes and cathode materials (the two electrodes that are essential for batteries to function at all). Export controls also cover the specialized equipment to manufacture all of these components.
– Industrial diamonds and cutting tools – the ultra-hard materials that are used ubiquitously in precision manufacturing, for instance to cut silicon wafers for computer chips
This is absolutely unprecedented. With this China effectively gets veto power over three critical supply chains simultaneously: advanced semiconductors (via rare earths and related equipment), battery-powered vehicles and drones, and precision manufacturing across industries (via superhard materials).
It will all officially take effect on November 8, in one month.
China’s move is not really aimed at restricting exports. It just wants to discipline U.S. trade negotiators and push them back in support of free trade:
During the last round of negotiations with senior American officials in Madrid last month, China’s chief trade negotiator, Vice Premier He Lifeng, asked for the full removal of tariffs and export controls, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The latest rare-earth action, the people said, is a tactic aimed at achieving that goal.
The U.S. has yet to get understand that. Its response to China’s latest move as predictable as it is doomed to fail:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – Oct 10, 2025, 20:50 UTC
It has just been learned that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale Export Controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them. This affects ALL Countries, without exception, and was obviously a plan devised by them years ago. It is absolutely unheard of in International Trade, and a moral disgrace in dealing with other Nations.
Based on the fact that China has taken this unprecedented position, and speaking only for the U.S.A., and not other Nations who were similarly threatened, starting November 1st, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying. Also on November 1st, we will impose Export Controls on any and all critical software.
It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
DONALD J. TRUMP
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
China is well prepared for that move. Its GDP this year will be around 20 trillion. Its total exports per year to the U.S. are around $500 billion, a mere 2.5% of its GDP. China can do without those while the U.S. can not.
What Trump does not get yet is that the U.S. depends more on imports from China than China depends on exporting to the United States. But the markets do understand that. Trump’s move may well be the black swan event that will lead to their crash.
If Trump doesn’t chicken out of this fight the U.S. economy is doomed.
Posted by b on October 11, 2025 at 08:09 UTC | Permalink
China Reacts After U.S. Pushed Netherlands To Seize Chinese Owned Company
This is a a story about a fight between titans in which Europe, due to its leaders stupidity, is the most significant casualty.
Dutch government seizes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia – Politico.eu, Oct 13 2025
The move could inflame wider trade tensions between Beijing and the European Union.
The Dutch government has granted itself the power to intervene in company decisions at Dutch-based Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia.
The highly unusual step, announced late Sunday, grants the country the power to “halt and reverse” company decisions — meaning Nexperia cannot transfer assets or hire executives without Dutch government approval, according to national media.
The move is a significant escalation in relations between the Netherlands and China and could inflame wider trade tensions between Beijing and the European Union, with Europe caught in the middle of a tit-for-tat chips war between the U.S. and China.
The Dutch have effectively stolen a big Chinese owned company.
The background via Pekingology:
Wingtech Technology is a privately-run, Shanghai-listed Chinese electronics and semiconductor conglomerate headquartered in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. It began as an original design manufacturer (ODM) for smartphones and consumer devices and has since grown into one of China’s most prominent integrated technology companies, combining electronics assembly, chip design, and semiconductor manufacturing.
Wingtech in 2019 acquired Nexperia, a Dutch semiconductor firm that was formerly part of Philips’ chip division, NXP. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Nexperia is a global semiconductor company with a rich European history and over 12,500 employees across Europe, Asia, and the United States.
In December 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Wingtech to its Entity List, restricting its access to American components and technology. The U.S. unilateral sanctions threatened heavy losses and forced the Apple supplier to announce, in March 2025, the spin-off of a major part of its operations.
Zhang Xuefeng is the founder of Wingtech and CEO of Nexperia, which closed the 2024 financial year with a total revenue of $2.06 billion.
A successful businessman from China bought the Dutch company. He invested heavily and the company grew with several research and manufacturing sides throughout Europe and the world. The company paid a lot of taxes and the Dutch were happy.
In late 2024 Wingtech was put on the U.S. entity list to block Chinese semiconductor development by cutting it off from U.S. products and technology licenses.
In June 2024 the U.S. planned to extend the entity list. Not only would chip companies in China be prohibited from use of U.S. content but any international company that was 50% or more owned by a Chinese entity would likewise be penalized.
On September 30 2025 the U.S. Commerce Department extended its export restrictions:
A U.S. Commerce Department interim final rule vastly expands the number of entities subject to export control restrictions by extending the Entity List and MEU List restrictions to non-U.S. entities 50% or more owned, directly or indirectly, by listed parties effective as of September 29, 2025.
(The new Chinese export controls on rare earth metals and certain other technologies are a direct response to those new U.S. restrictions.)
The U.S. move cut of Nexperia and other partially Chinese owned companies in Europe from U.S. content.
The Dutch government, which had been forewarned and pressed by the U.S., panicked:
US officials told their Dutch counterparts that the Chinese CEO of Nexperia “will have to be replaced” for the company to be exempt from Washington’s entity list, newly disclosed court documents show.
The disclosure comes after the Dutch government effectively seized control of the semiconductor firm, a subsidiary of the Chinese company Wingtech, forcing a change in management under an obscure law known as the Goods Availability Act.
In doing so, the Dutch authorities removed founding CEO Zhang Xuezheng from his role, sparking fury in Beijing.
Court documents released by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal on Tuesday show that the United States told Dutch officials in June about a forthcoming change in the entity list, which bars American companies from trading with firms on the list.
On Sunday October 12, after the company was seized, Wingtech dropped a bombshell filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It describes how Nexperia’s 2nd level management, under Dutch government pressure, deposed of the Chief Executive Officer and owner of the company:
On 1 October 2025 (Netherlands time), Ruben Lichtenberg, a Dutch national who serves as the statutory director and Chief Legal Officer (CLO) of both Nexperia Holding and Nexperia Semiconductor, filed—with the support of two other executives, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Stefan Tilger and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Achim Kempe, both German nationals—an urgent petition before the Enterprise Chamber requesting a corporate investigation and immediate provisional measures on behalf of both Nexperia entities.
On the same day, the Enterprise Chamber granted several emergency measures immediately, without a hearing, which took effect at once. These measures included suspending Mr. Zhang Xuezheng from his positions as executive officer of Nexperia Holding and non-executive director of Nexperia Semiconductor; suspending the operation of Article 3 of the Board Rules of Nexperia Semiconductor, which defines the CEO’s duties and authorities; and placing all shares held by Wingtech subsidiary 裕成控股有限公司 Yuching Holding Limited (a Hong Kong-registered company and the sole shareholder of Nexperia Holding) under temporary management by an independent third-party trustee for management purposes, effective until the Enterprise Chamber’s oral hearing scheduled for 6 October 2025 and its subsequent ruling on the request for immediate relief.
Wingtech’s official WeChat blog released a scathing announcement, which was widely distributed in China.
Internal Legal Actions Are a Malicious Extension of External Pressure
Certain foreign executives within Nexperia have attempted to use legal means to forcibly alter the company’s ownership structure.
Their actions are closely aligned with the Dutch government’s administrative directives and, in essence, represent an effort to usurp shareholder rights and subvert lawful corporate governance under the guise of “compliance.”
We strongly condemn such politically motivated attempts to seize control.
We Will Resolutely Defend Our Lawful Rights
…
Today the Chinese government reacted to the Dutch raid of the Chinese owned company by cutting it off from Chinese technologies and products:
Chipmaker Nexperia, a subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology and a major supplier of mature chips for the automotive and consumer electronics sectors, announced on Tuesday that it has been banned by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce from exporting products made in China, including those produced by its subcontractors, after the Dutch government took over the company using a Cold-War-era law to secure Europe’s chip supply.
Nexperia said it is seeking an exemption from the export ban, which could affect Dutch access to its chips. The company operates an 80,000-square-meter assembly site in Guangdong province near Hong Kong, as well as fabrication, assembly, and testing facilities in Germany, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Britain.
If the Dutch government does not retract its decision to practically confiscate Nexperia the company will die. Its business is globalized. Parts of its products are made all over the world. Its products and sales in Europe depend on subcontractor products which are made in China.
The company is important to Europe. It produces some 90 billion bread and butter components per year which flow into other higher value European products. Sure, other Chinese companies will be happy to replace those parts. But where is the win for the Netherlands or Europe in that?
In the trade war between U.S. and China Europe should have stayed neutral. It should not have buckled under pressure from either side but rely on its own substantial trade powers to stay out of the fight. It is a fight in which the U.S. has no chance to win.
It was a huge mistake by the Dutch to submit to U.S. demands and to seize Nexperia. It was a huge mistake for Europe to submit to U.S. demands.
The minions leading Europe who have allowed for this deserve to be fired over their utter strategic stupidity.
Posted by b on October 14, 2025 at 15:33 UTC | Permalink
A view over Erhai lake, Yunan, China [Pic: Ben Chacko]
Red goes green: witnessing the truth of China’s ‘ecological civilisation’
Originally published: Morning Star Online on October 9, 2025 by Ben Chacko (more by Morning Star Online) | (Posted Oct 10, 2025)
SUSTAINABLE development is one of the world’s biggest challenges–can we raise living standards while protecting the environment and reducing emissions?
In Britain as in the United States, the answer increasingly appears to be “no”–with environmental regulation sacrificed in the name of growth.
China’s environmental record is contested: some paint it as a global villain, with the world’s highest carbon emissions (a point often used on the right to argue that there is no point in Western countries addressing climate change) while others point to its world-leader status in developing green technology including wind and solar power, electric vehicles and emission-reducing high-speed rail as a form of mass transit.
A common accusation after China began “reform and opening up” in 1978 was that the country pursued industrialisation and urbanisation without regard for nature, causing serious environmental degradation and pollution.
The Xi Jinping governments from 2011 announced a changed approach, lowering growth targets and shifting the emphasis of five-year plans to sustainability, which involved social factors (strengthening the welfare state, reducing inequality and eliminating absolute poverty) but also a greater focus on protecting the environment.
This concept took formal shape with 2018’s announcement that China was building an “ecological civilisation” and Xi’s declaration that “clear waters and green mountains are as valuable as mountains of silver and gold” was something we saw posted on billboards and heard on the lips of local leaders throughout the Morning Star’s trip to the country’s south-western Yunnan province this month.
Is it rhetoric or is it real? Our experience suggested China continues to face huge challenges, but is–as in most policy fields–more innovative and more ambitious than Western governments.
An example of the attempt to meet these challenges is the “ecological corridor” laid around Erhai, a lake 25 by five miles in area, bordered both by the sizeable city of Dali at one end and by farmland. Scientists were increasingly worried by the water quality in what remains an important source of drinking water for the local population, with multiple outbreaks of blue-green algae recorded by 2013.
A clean-up project launched in 2018 has been very successful: the lake has recorded significant biomass increases in aquatic plants, fish and birds, the water is now clean enough to drink, and the lakeshore tree-lined pathways are a pleasant space where we saw families walking, children playing in the water and young couples posing for wedding photos.
The trees were festooned with the webs of thousands of golden orb-weaving spiders, indicating a healthy insect population, while we saw white egrets nesting in others on the lake, pointing to a ready supply of fish and frogs. The lake is still fished by people, but seasonally and under strict regulation.
Professor Wang Xinze of Shanghai Jiaotong University told the Morning Star that the main source of pollution has been identified as agricultural runoff (a severe problem for many of Britain’s rivers).
The 2018 project, launched in line with the new national “ecological civilisation” policy and underlined by a site visit by President Xi, cleared an 80-mile ecological corridor around the lake, laid 20 miles of pipelines to divert farm waste to 20 treatment plants and established 559 hectares of wetland habitat.
The approach involved trial and error (incentivising farmers to relocate further from the lake was not particularly successful, he told us) and consultation with experts from several European countries; “but their advice was not always practical. One proposal was to lower the water level by two metres; but we need the water to drink. A big part of the challenge for China, given its population, is how to conserve and reuse water,” Wang explained.
The entire project–which, given it is just seven years old, has had remarkable results–depended on public co-ordination and control of resources, and it is difficult to imagine England’s privatised water companies delivering such a clean-up. My reference to water in England being privately owned, often by foreign companies, was met with incredulity not just by our Chinese interlocutors but by journalists from other countries in our group.
Environmental protection was a key theme of our visit a couple of days later to the Yangtze Finless Porpoise Research and Learning Centre in Nanjing, too. The world’s only freshwater porpoise was critically endangered by the time the Chinese government included specific measures aimed at saving it in the 13th five-year plan, which ended in 2020; the following year’s 10-year moratorium on fishing in China’s biggest river has also contributed to a modest increase in numbers.
The turnaround in Chinese policy has come too late for some animals: our guide Yiwei spoke sadly of the fate of the huge Chinese paddlefish, one of the world’s biggest freshwater fish, which died out by the early 2000s, and the Yangtze river dolphin or baiji, which is now deemed functionally extinct (some may remain but not a viable breeding population).
But the turnaround has come, and earlier, as we had enjoyed iced teas and coffees looking out over the giant river Shen Zhengrong, the head of our Nanjing hosts Xinhua Daily’s international department, told us she often came to this spot to watch for finless porpoises with her husband.
Our site visits were designed to explain the Chinese concept of “people-centred development” to an international audience and preserving the natural environment is part of that, but most had other focuses.
At Lincang in Yunnan our introduction to the macadamia and walnut industry saw local workers (including 75-year-old Model Worker Bi Jiafu) detail the role of co-operatives in providing villages with agricultural equipment and training, and of the overarching association formed by co-operatives and villages which buys and sells the produce of the individual farms, ensuring price stability and financing a national and international marketing strategy.
In Xiangyun, our visit to the Shen’er floral industrial park showcased one of the policies that enabled China to eliminate absolute poverty over the last decade, the mandated pairing of institutions in wealthy parts of the country with poor areas.
Here, Shanghai’s Jingdong was partnered with the local village to grow flowers on a large scale, raising farmers’ income by renting their land and employing them as well as issuing them shares in the resulting enterprise, which is now thriving.
But both initiatives were environmentally conscious: in Lincang, despite the massive expansion of the nut industry to the point that it produces a third of the macadamia nuts in the world, the local area covered by forest has actually increased.
The Xiangyun flower park used fine-mesh nets to protect the flowers from pests, saying they tried to avoid pesticides as they wanted an organic process. At both sites, the abundance of spiders, something the reader will have noticed I pay attention to, suggested healthy local ecosystems.
A contrast to Rachel Reeves, who decried concern for “bats and newts” as a barrier to solving the housing crisis, or Keir Starmer, who sneered at an environmental impact assessment that had limited the size of a housing development in a report which mentioned, among other issues, rare spiders.
Their mockery of ecological considerations served to push deregulation of the construction industry, something Britain has already had far too much of. China’s experience shows we should aim higher than trading off living standards against nature: it is possible, in a rationalised economy, to improve both.
And that is what has happened in China. I lived in China for three years, from 2007-10, and before last month’s visit I had not been back since then. I loved my time in China, but nobody would have said then it was a clean country: the cities were often filthy and discarded plastic was everywhere–I recall seeing waterways clogged with it, and plastic bags wafting past on the evening breeze being a regular sight.
I had heard, from friends who had visited China more recently, praise for how clean its cities were: and can now vouch for the fact that the ones I visited are cleaner and far better maintained than most British urban spaces.
Kunming, Lincang, Dali and Nanjing were not just clean but beautiful: flower boxes line the roads, trees are everywhere and many arterial roads were flanked with spectacular topiary: hedge elephants in Yunnan, dolphins and finless porpoises in Nanjing. Colourful murals cover walls, street infrastructure and the undersides of bridges.
I was interviewed by various Chinese media organisations while there. One reporter asked me what was different about China after an absence of 15 years. Besides its new cleanliness and urban beauty, I pointed to smoother motorways, far faster trains (we peaked at 216mph), and robots in the hotels.
How different the answer would be if asked about Britain. Almost nobody would say Britain’s environment, living standards or infrastructure have improved over the last 15 years: most would describe deterioration in every important aspect of public life.
It is clear that China is getting things right that Britain is getting wrong. The “ecological civilisation” announced in 2018 is not just rhetoric: and the issues it addresses are relevant to everyone on the planet.
A warm welcome for spider enthusiasts
My personal enthusiasm for spiders was noticed by our hosts, since I was periodically missing having fallen behind trying to photograph them.
But I was taken aback when they decided to make use of it–informing me one day they had invited an entomologist from Dali University and would like to film us discussing the local ecology for a TV channel.
It was great to chat to Professor Li, who mentioned a colleague had published a book about the spiders of Yunnan (like most Chinese provinces, it is a big place–slightly larger than Germany, with a population roughly that of Spain).
Later that evening, the phone in my hotel room rang: someone had come from the university with a copy of the book for me, with a personal dedication inside by the author.
A small example of the friendliness and generosity we were shown on all sides in China, even in passing encounters.
(targeted, among others, at the advanced semiconductors sector) but they issued 4 consecutive announcements in total with other export controls on: