Thread by @brianhioe

In an hour is the start of that deeply cursed Qiao/Code Pink/People's Forum conference. Since my masochism knows no bounds, I will be live-tweeting it with critical commentary...for the next ten hours

Keep an eye on this space! Join me on a journey into the heart of darkness

Since unlike these people with their crazy projections about Asia, I actually live here, so that's my 10 PM to 8 AM. But I'd be up anyway, since I sleep around 10 AM usually, and I'm doing this for the lulz. Here's the playlist of the livestream events

youtube.com/playlist?list=…

They have a discussion board on Action Network set up here, there have been some comments already, with multiple comments that just say "I want" for some reason--maybe spam. Welp, others are free to chime in, I imagine

actionnetwork.org/events/china-a…

This is my idea of fun on a Saturday night, lololol. Anyway, based on the panels, a lot seems drawn from the Monthly Review issue on China in August, here's my takedown of that

newbloommag.net/2021/09/09/mon…

And here's my takedown of Qiao from last year

newbloommag.net/2020/06/22/qia…

I'll be back in an hour or so when it starts, this will be so so so fun.

Alright, it's a bit after 10 AM EST, when this is supposed to start with an introduction but their livestream on YouTube for the first panel lists a starting time of 10 AM--guess they might not be livestreaming the introduction or they may be delayed

First panel: Speakers are Yan Hairong, Barry Sautman, Max Ajl, Sit Tsui, and Tings Chak, the subject is "Chinese Development in Global Perspective". Charles from Qiao is giving the introductory comments

All of the panelists are online except for the moderator. First speakers are Yan Hairong and Barry Sautman

Sautman starts off by claiming that attacks on China accumulating capital are from the US, aimed to smear China. Sautman acknowledges China's large accumulation of capital but dismisses accusations of colonialism, claims China is still a periphery and is mostly a manufacturer

LOL, apparently it is not possible have a lot of manufacturing and also be a colonial power. Uh, he remembers the heyday of US manufacturing and what US foreign policy was like back then, right?

Sautman dismisses the notion of the Chinese debt trap as a Yellow Peril notion, claims that their research into Chinese loans to Sri Lanka shows it's not real.

I think he's showing something but I can't see it. Look at this poster in the background, lol

Sautman claims Chinese companies work like other companies elsewhere, but acknowledges aspect of neoliberalism in China. He claims that colonialism has to involve racism in his claim that China is not colonial. Hmmmm uhhhhh Xinjiang Tibet???

He's going over the Dutch East India Company and claiming there's no comparable racial dominion by China over other states. I generally think most are aware that China doesn't fit the definition of classical colonialism, but funny he avoids the notion of "neocolonialism" here

Or, hey, you could have coercive relations with other countries and not still be technically a colonial power. I mean, it's not like the US is directly colonizing a lot of the places it has clearly imperial relations with

Now he's claiming that China backs development projects in Africa and that they're not tied to extractive industries, that Chinese projects are cheap

What the heck happening now. Music is now going on during the presentation

You have to see this if you're not already watching. I can't hear Sautman now clearly, there's also repetitive noise going on and on.

Oh shit, now Xiangyu is blasting over Sautman

In the meantime, Sautman has moved onto discussing neocolonialism, but he's still trying to discuss this as an exclusively western issue, points to the France and the US' relation to the Marshall Islands

Sautman claims China can't be neocolonial because it needs developing countries more than they need China. Okay, lol. He claims Ethiopia can't be viewed as having a neocolonial relation to China

Now Yan Hairong is talking. She claims that China's brands not being well-known internationally apart from Huawei is a sign that China is a semi-periphery, lol

She also cites higher wealth per capita in the US as a sign that China is still a semi-periphery. Funny how China can only be "periphery" or "center" in very absolutist terms, with no gradation between here

She claims China can only be a leader among peripheral or semi-peripheral countries. I think someone has never heard of former peripheral companies become colonizers in themselves and justifying this as for the greater good of other countries on the periphery--Japan anyone?

Yan is discussing China as semi-neoliberal now, claims China provides for industrialization and not deindustrialization of developing countries. Claims Chinese capital is, uh, accommodating of local conditions

Citing that the Chinese mining company in Zambia expanded and did not lay off workers when other companies did. Maybe this was simply because they had a different strategy for making profit, not because of inherent goodwill?

Apparently, Chinese companies stay when other firms leave and this is seen as a sign of Chinese commitment to Africa

Claims Chinese elites are not always pushing for less government and more free market. Uh, Jack Ma anyone? Why else did Alibaba fall?

"China rules nowhere: there are no examples of Chinese economic domination and subordination or determinative political influence exist." "Determinative political influence"--uh, Google Taiwan or Hong Kong? The main political cleavage in both is around the relation to China

"Chinese "neocolonialism" is an example of the US applying to countries a term better applied to itself". Uh, maybe they are both neocolonial??? Lol

States China does not force countries into exclusive trade with them, unlike the US. Claims China affects developing countries with neoliberalism but this is due to participation in global neoliberalism it can't get out of

"It is nonetheless implausible to imagine China becoming a colonial or neocolonial power." So basically, just thinks this could never happen

Thinks that the socialist legacy still exists in China, hence China will never become colonial or neocolonial. Right.

Tings Chak is next. She starts off by taking seriously the claim that China has abolished extreme poverty. Oh gosh, lol

Cites the reform and opening up period as lifting people out of poverty, that China has brought the most people out of poverty in the world

Claims that China has a multidimensional to tackling poverty

She's giving an anecdote now of someone she met in Guizhou that was lifted out of poverty

Now she brings up the Sino-Japanese War and destruction experienced by China as a sign of how amazing that China was lifted out of poverty

Claims this woman from Guizhou has doubled her life expectancy compared when she was born. Lol, this is all anecdotal, the first presentation was much better

Now citing how amazing it is that Xi Jinping realized that there were still people left behind by economic developing, despite how amazing China's achievements already were, credits him with bringing even more people out of poverty

Lol. Quoting this to claim that China has a bottom-up approach to poverty alleviation through the party's omnipresence at all levels of social life

I guess the idea that a lot of party members are wealthy elites would uh

Claims there's a grassroots democracy that takes place through this. Lots of Maoist fantasies here

Talking about party cadres sent down to villages, with one cadre assigned to a household. Claims that it's not glamorous work, has to do a lot of work. I don't know, governments sending officials to parts of the countryside for postings is not unique to China by any means

States the government has high popular support unlike what western media reports, as though people are ready to overthrow the government. Sorry, who is claiming this exactly?

Claims the Chinese government engages "civil society" in poverty reduction efforts. Sorry what happened to civil society under Xi in the past decade again?

She keeps bringing up people being sent down to the countryside for postings, lots of Cultural Revolution nostalgia here

Claims there is strong access to education for people from rural areas. Uh, no

I wonder if she has ever heard of the hukou system

Now going over another anecdote

In the meantime, the chat on the YouTube is full of fighting now

The second speaker for this panel still isn't done and there are four speakers, so I'm guessing this is going to go way over. Second speaker is now very impressed by this person who she encountered's son learning elevator maintenance

Now claiming that a documentary on Chinese poverty alleviation for PBS was censored because it was too positive on China

Max Ajl is the third speaker

Ajl statrs off by commenting that his comments on earlier Chinese history will be a bit different than the other, since he was originally on another panel

One of ten hours is over, lol. A total of around seven hours of talk I have to get through

Ajl, who is lagging due to his connection, is commenting that China gave hope to other third world countries in the early 20th century, claims that speaks to the present. Praising China's prescient policies from then

I dunno, has it occurred to him that contemporary China is every different than then? He's still lagging, but is now quoting Mao

Believes that still continued to inform China post-1949, states Arab theories of self-reliance drew on the Chinese experience

This is regarding focus on peasants, industrialization, etc., stopping outward flow of surpluses

China's model "allowed people to grasp the idea of a more decentralized administration of society". What?

"It put forward the idea that society should choose developmental paths based on their own internal needs, and their own sense of their external and internal balances rather than submitting to externally imposed evaluations." Uhhhh, why is this unique to China?

Claims the government made decisions on a "popular law of value." Lol no.

He believes Chinese is unique for subjecting judgments on external relations to judgments based on internal values and that this something Arab thinkers learned from China? Rather than this is how almost all decisions on external relations are made, regardless of where?

He also refers to China as industrializing in a decentralized manner several times. Okay, lol

Ajl believes this is still relevant today because the relation between the first and third world still exists today, more or less, between the periphery and core

Anyway, this seems to be an underlying thread here--how absolute these folks see the divide between periphery and core--without the ability to perceive any gradation between them. Points to something about how world systems theory is taken up today

Interesting how Ajl is fixated on this romanticized notion of China in the early 20th century and that has lent itself apparently to idealizing it in the present, this is probably a common thread for a lot of people

Last speaker on this panel is Sit Tsui

She's speaking on China confronting COVID, globalization, and the New Cold War--the "triple trap". Oh boy, she's going on about China implementing "ecological civilization"

Claims that the government is deploying workers, intellectual, and peasants are mobilized as part of this.

States common enemy is financial capitalism. But although top four world banks in the world come from China, they are state-owned, so she claims they are collectively owned. Hahahahahahahaha

She also seems to believe that land is still collectively owned, hardly seems that way in practice. Ever hear of all those "nail house" cases?

She also seems to believe that land is still collectively owned, hardly seems that way in practice. Ever hear of all those "nail house" cases?

Believes that land distribution still exists in China and land is accessible to peasants

Uhhhh how did the Wukan protests start again? What was the inciting incident? lol

Now she is venturing into touting the success of traditional Chinese medicine in treating COVID. Amazing

Claims the Chinese government never approved traditional Chinese medicine as a treatment for COVID to keep it cheap. Wow, you can't make this up

She's actually claiming that traditional Chinese medicine has a 90% effective rate in treating COVID, claims this can combat the "colonization of medical knowledge"

Yeah, Sit Tsui was one of the authors of the piece I thought was weakest in the Monthly Review issue. I see why now, lol

She claimed that the Chinese government halting Alibaba's IPO was a sign of how "financial containment" was still practiced in China--but uhhhh how did it get so big if so to begin with, that the IPO was only halted at the very last minute?

Anyway, she's calling for sending down education youths to the countryside a la the Cultural Revolution now for the sake of rural reconstruction

Going through what she sees as successful example of peasant organization now, as part of attempts to "revitalize ecological civilization", something she views as important during the New Cold War--maintaining a high level of mobilization to fight financial capitalism

Okay, so now they're breaking an hour for lunch--next is Qiao's opening keynote. I'm going to take a break as well, lol

I will be back in an hour, so stay tuned folks, lololol. This has been so entertaining so far

While we are waiting, I might as well bring to everyone's attention that this was the signature on the registration email, lol

Here's the link for Qiao's opening keynote, which is next, in case people want to follow along:

Someone is stanning the Qiao moderator from the first panel in the comments, lol

Well, the keynote is supposed to start at 12:30 PM EST, but I guess there are probably some delays (or technical issues)

Oh, they're on. Someone from People's Forum is thanking the other organizers and discussing what People's Forum is

The person from People's Forum is bringing up AUKUS as a sign of increased US military aggression toward China, states that China has committed to addressing climate destruction and is adopting policy that center humanity, as reflected in "expertly" stopping COVID

As well as support for Cuba, Venezuela, and other countries at odds with the US

Michelle from Qiao Collective is now starting the keynote

Michelle states the forum is for the sake of building organizing to challenge imperialist aggression toward China. The keynote is titled "The U.S. Hybrid War on China"

She claims the US, Germany, France, Australia, Japan have all banded together to target China, that there is also information warfare being waged against China. Attacks so-called leftists that she claims has abandoned an anti-imperialist analyst of China

Claims to be promoting anti-imperialist internationalism.

States that Qiao exists to show the world that real China, as diaspora, claims that the diaspora often instead acts as native informants for US imperialism (whether Chinese or otherwise)

She claims that her parents protested at Tiananmen

States that Qiao formed in January 2020 during the initial COVID outbreak

States that, in particular, Qiao was a reaction to the western world being gleeful about COVID hitting China, the narrative about "supposed whistleblowers" regarding COVID, as well as positive coverage of the Hong Kong protests.

She brings up the arrest of people she knows under the China Initiative, that the Cold War never ended

Argues that the US aggression toward China was part of long-term western imperialism, brings up Hong Kong being taken from China. She claims that the US "annexed the island of Formosa" to give the KMT a second life. Uhhhhh, what? "Annexed"?

Formosa refers to Taiwan for those that don't know, which is where I live and from. Sure, the KMT came to Taiwan and could only maintain power with US support, but when exactly did the US "annex" Taiwan?

Michelle claims that the US has tried to force open China's economy in order to engage in economic colonialism and economic warfare, that this is the "hybrid war", and it goes back to western imperialism back to the Opium War

She claims that China has built an economic system that resists western economic control with support of the Chinese people, lol. Uhhhh, economic interdependency anyone?

The US and China are deeply interlinked in terms of their economies, it isn't as though contemporary China has built its economy separate of western economies

Now she is quoting Deng Xiaoping, claiming that China has built a society superior to the capitalist war. Hahahahahahaha what. Chinese Maoists in, uh, China, who are not diaspora, would not be too happy with the praise of Deng

Some allowances for China's socialist project being "imperfect", but otherwise claims that the US is primarily targeting China. Brings up AUSUK now

She claims that the US is "testing nuclear missiles in Hawaii, deployed THAAD missiles in South Korea, and deployed bombers to Guam" and "sailed missile warships into China's waters." That the US is unilaterally driving this--haha, no, this is a pattern of tit-for-tat escalation

How hard is to get the fact that both are engaged in military intimidation of the other and this leads to a mutual ramping up of tensions? Not just that China is free of all guilt

Hahaha, now she is claiming that criticizing both the US and China simply greases the wheels of US imperialism

She argues that the issue extends to the region, is not just regarding China. That there is bipartisan escalation toward China from Democrats and Republicans.

Claiming that leftists such as, uh, me probably are repeating State Department talking points in calling for nuance on the issue

Claims that this is "manufacturing consent"

She brings up US aggression against Venezuela, Cuba, the DPRK (North Korea), etc. Claims that criticisms of these is simply because the socialist project in these places is imperfect

She quotes Mao about abolishing state power, specifically a quote where he says he is interested in abolishing state power but claims it is too soon. Funny how pro-cop they are

https://twitter.com/qiaocollective/status/1431651310550540290

She now claims that "We, in the imperial core, are the unfree ones"--states that views of China as authoritarian are simply the perception of China as "Oriental despotism" and in need of saving

Brings up the COVID death toll in the US to try and claim this

She claims that the US, Europe, and other western countries' failure to control COVID is genocide--while her relatives in China as safe, that China has eradicated extreme poverty. (Crowd applauds at this) Sorry, speak to any Uighurs lately?

Now quoting Deng Xiaoping again on poverty alleviation. They really are Dengist, huh?

Says her family never has to want for food or medicine or education again because they reaping the fruits of socialism.

China, Cuba, Vietnam, and the DPRK are cited as countries that have taken up the task of building socialism in a capitalist world. Claims criticisms of them are demanding ideological perfection from individuals who haven't reigned in their own western imperialist countries

"No more both sidings, no more nuancing war" she says, says anyone who criticizes China is advancing US imperialism and hurts all of the countries that China is solidarity with globally. Lol

Claims that the West is just projecting its own boogieman onto China, that they can't understand China is a real place with real people. Uhhhh and so Qiao is just projecting its own diasporic idealization onto China in response?

Anyway, five minute break while they set up the next panel. Here's the link:

Okay, they're starting. The panelists are Chris Matlhako, Elias Khalil Jabbour, Zhun Xu, and Bikrum Gill and the panel is "Political Economies of Chinese Socialism"

First speaker is Bikrum Gill on "China and Non-Western Sovereign Reclamation: A Violation of the Elemental Rule of Imperialism". Boy oh boy, this is going to be great, lol

Starts off by discussing a John Ross book on China published by People's Forum. He praises the "ending of hunger by the 1970s" in China, as compared to India, states this comparative is a frequent research concern of his

Says that locating China as socialist or capitalist doesn't always hold for China, has to understand capitalism vis-a-vis imperialism

He claims China has violated "a rule of law of imperialism", but that, as argued by Samir Amin (and he distinguishes this from Lenin's view of imperialism as the latest, highest stage of capitalism), Amin claims imperialism is always integral to capitalism from its founding

States that capital and labor is not the only contradiction of imperialism, that there is also the core and periphery contradiction. Oh boy, love this extremely binary, highly undialectical understanding of contradictions here

He's discussing the origin of capitalism in Europe as seizing the social wealth of other societies, that creates a racialized distinction, the view of who can be rational and is not

He states that this creates a racialized distinction, including denying Indigenous sovereignty, view of Indigenous as irrational. Hmmm, sounds like which country that has all these reeducation camps for its "ethnic minorities" that it claims are prone to "terrorism"?

He states China has been forced open by the West, as with other periphery countries, allow for resources to be drained to the West. China becomes viewed as irrational through these racialized terms he discusses

The comments are arguing about Taiwan now, lol

Countries that violate western rules of property are not given sovereignty in his view.

He claims that China has overturned the fundamental rule of imperialism through land reform since 1949. Oh Jesus, how many clearly capitalist countries have had land reform before? Try looking at, uh, Taiwan?

The KMT-led land reform was a key in subsequent economic development there, lololol, and nobody would ever argue that Taiwan is not capitalist

He claims the Chinese Revolution was significant because it was built on the peasantry, as in the Long March, which he claims was "central to addressing the anti-Chinese Orientalist foundations of the capitalist order"

What does that even mean. He believes that the peasantry was expelled from the cities and so learned firsthand about the experience imperialism through the Long March. Uhhhhhh what.

He says Fanon was highly influenced by the Chinese Long March, that the Long March gave rise to the notion of land reform (Uh no? He's heard of land reform before that? Like in the Soviet Union?)

He seems to be going in the direction of citing the Long March as an example and inspiration for anticolonial struggles globally

He says post-1979, China builds upon this "foundation of access to common land" through engagement with the global capitalist system, that the system gives peasantry access to the land instead of displacing them. So he knows nothing about contemporary land struggles in China, lol

He says "the moment of independence invites the moment of recolonization" so China must build up military capacity to cope with this. Hahahahaha, you're kidding

Oh man, he's talking about Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing now. A man famous for knowing Chinese. He cites how amazing it is that Toyota wanted to go to China, not asking for Toyota to come to China

Uhhhhh, they wanted to go in because of cheap manufacturing because of exploited workers and because its a big market?

He believes China was able to access technology from the world market without being dependent on it

He says that China had to open up this access to capitalism for technology, but with the continued control of land, China has not become dominated by the West. That's not how land works vis-a-vis economic domination or sovereignty, lol

He believes that global South states need to learn from China in terms of engaging with the world market, such as African states. Great, so they should all open up giant factories to produce western electronics working hours so long so their workers kill themselves

He believes that the distribution of surplus outside of western capital has done for the first time in 200 or even 500 years by China through the Belt and Road Initiative and China's relation with African countries. Wow, someone doesn't know world history

He's working on an article comparing India and China apparently.

Anyway, next speaker is Zhun Xu on "China as a Challenge to Capitalism"

He says that as a Chinese leftist, he would probably be a bit more critical, though praising Qiao as a ray of light in dark times. He is discussing how China is perceived as an important player in global capitalism

He discusses China's role in developing capitalism, some are optimistic about integrating China into capitalism, others believe China is too untamed for integration into capitalism

He states, China starts reintegration into capitalism in the 1970s, after Mao's death, Chinese elites chose to allow for cautious integration that allowed for economic growth. This brought wealth to a capitalist class

He points to how workers lost their lifetime employment and other benefits after that. Funny how different that is than all these previous speakers' glorious pro-Deng comments that claimed that Deng had brought all these people out of poverty

Probably it has to do with that he's not diaspora, lol

He says reform was done in a gradual way, not like in Russia, in which it was a "one time deal"--the legitimacy of the Chinese state is still built on Marxism

He's quoting from Confucius now about name rectification. As long as Chinese elites have not gotten rid of the Chinese Communist Party, capitalism cannot take root. Hahahaha, what? I mean, the party serves the interests of elites at this point, it's not opposed to them

Ever hear of the "Zhao family"? All these powerful wealthy families in the CCP? He cites how Marxism is still part of the curriculum in the school to cite the validity of Marxism in China, though he acknowledges some of the education is vulgar

He believes that rhetoric has consequences. Certainly it does. But often it is just rhetoric. I mean, does the fact that people are educated to be pro-capitalist in western, capitalist economic systems mean that those countries will always be capitalist and never something else?

By that logic, then Qiao and ilk should just give up their activism in western countries, lol. These countries will never be non-capitalist because their education system teaches capitalist ideology.

He says there was no left in China in the 1980s but started to emerge after the economic translation--the specter of Mao is increasingly visible in China. He states that the economic reform created capitalist roaders, so they have incentive to move to capitalism

But he claims that the Chinese "socialist society" is unique in producing new Marxists. Uh, Euro-American capitalist societies also produce Marxists? And what happens to those Marxists? Ever hear of the Jasic Struggle? All those students arrested at Peking University

States Chinese elites are in a difficult position. He says they could do a new shock therapy to try and push China more toward capitalism, but suggests there would be resistance

Interesting that he's operating as though there was still a "New Left" vs "Liberal" divide per the 1980s, whereas these positions have sort of come together now under nationalist auspices

He says the Chinese government has been more progressive in the last two years, at least in rhetoric. Wow. All the feminists cracked down on? LGBTQ groups? The banning of representations of "feminine men" in media?

He believes capitalism has "passed its heyday, even in an emerging market such as China."

Elias Khalil Jabbour is the next speaker on "The (New) Projectment Economy as a Higher Stage of Development of Chinese Market Socialism"

He starts by saying that even if "embryonic," China "constitutes the most advanced social engineering of our time"

He says China can generate quick solutions to immediate problems using its system, in a way never seen in human history. I don't know, lol, the government often tends to try and cover up issues and then they get too big to deal with, lol

He believes that China has created a new socioeconomic formation, market socialism. "Socialism has reinvented itself through market instutions." Oh boy, isn't that what they said about social democracy, "The Third Way", all these other various things through history?

He says China is not capitalist, as the private sector in China does not generate the cycles of accumulation in China. That the private sector in China is dependent on the state. Lol, as if this is not true elsewhere?

The private sector needs the state, too, under capitalism otherwise it would not exist? What did Lenin say about the state's role for the bourgeoisie again?

He's talking about five year plans, attributes Chinese technological developments such as 5G to state planning. Uhhhhh no--all these big companies are pushing for these things?

"China 'drags forward' the frontier of the humanities and social sciences." What does this mean???

He has a term for the Chinese economy he came up with, "new projectment economy", which is from the Soviet Union. He believes there are new economic laws in China, such as overcoming Keynesian uncertainty

And that it has come up with the planning of "creative Schumpeterian destruction." Lol, oh man, this is so rich

He seems really taken with Chinese technology and innovation, lol

He believes China has faced the contradictions of its development by building a welfare state. Uhhhh much of it was dismantled after the 1980s, I mean, "smash the iron rice bowl", as they said? Lol

He claims to be a Marxist-Leninist and anti-imperialist and not a western Marxist, criticizes utopianism (He's probably criticizing "western Marxism" here)

I picked up on that was probably his political view, but someone needs go back and read his Lenin, lol

He frames capitalism anti-science, China as pro-science in a way. Anyway, that was a bit all over the place

Next speaker is Chris Matlhako on "Africa and its Progressive Ties with China"

He's deputy secretary general of the South African Communist Party, is citing historical ties with China with his party

He states that the narrative is that Africa has been subsumed into China's neocolonial project, states that relations between China and Africa took off under Mao

He situates the Belt and Road Initiative as in this vein, trade between Africa and China has increased since the 1990s as a result

He states colonialism has hindered Africa's development, while dismissing the notion that China has neocolonial relations with Africa. States that China's economic interventions in Africa have been critical

States that as a member of BRICS, South Africa has had the possibility of increasing its relations with China, particularly because South Africa is mineral rich and China needs resources--that has kept it afloat

Lol, isn't that why people are concerned about Chinese neocolonialism? But well

He cites Mandela was a revolutionary but states that people have misinterpreted him

He says Taiwan has continued to try and want to make inroads on Africa, such as through dollar diplomacy, but this has been conflated as China--that's not incorrect

He states that this has broken from certain treaties that has taken place, but doesn't elaborate. He's probably claiming something about One China Principle and Policy

He says China has a non-interference policy on the continent but that African countries are not taking enough advantage of this policy. Lol. Okay

He says that narrative of neocolonialism is manufactured by western powers.

He says that new African elites benefit from new independent African states

As he phrases it, China has policies of lifting countries out of poverty

He says that African countries came to appreciate China's support for vaccines, where the West and its allies have instead seen vaccine nationalism and hoarding

While China has assisted in distributing vaccines such as Sinovac and others

He says that China's National Development Bank has become an important intervention mechanism during the pandemic (wasn't he claiming China did not intervene per the non-intervention policy earlier?)

No account of what China could possibly want out of Africa, except for apparently acting out of pure benevolence in this account, lol

There's a few minutes left for audience q-and-a, unlike the last panel. So I guess there is q-and-a, I was wondering if they decided not to do any because of possible comments, they probably just ran out of time last panel

First question is from someone that works in investing, who invests heavily in China, and it has been volatile in terms of regulations in past months. She asks about the role of Chinese elites and the billions of dollars they've lost

Asks about Jack Ma and Tencent, Ma is no longer in the picture but Tencent is doing well. Asks what the next thirty years going forward of how Xi Jinping will balance economic stability--that capitalism has gone too far and now they're reigning it back in, as this person phrases

Asks about the tech giants that have maybe gotten too far

Zhun Xu responds. He says it's a question often asked these days. He says that once the Chinese government puts something in the program, it will get realized in some way--last 5 Year Plan states that China will increase the share of labor and income distribution.

This will decrease profit for capital and create stronger protections for workers. Yes, good leftists should take what the state says as though it were holy writ.

He believes that the state is, in fact, protecting workers. Uhhhhhh Jasic again, anyone? Plenty of other labor to point to that are always popping off on a near constant basis that seem to show otherwise

He believes the state will maintain power over capitalist class. Lol, he seems unable to realize it serves as a vehicle for a specific segment of the capitalist class

Now he's citing a speech by Xi Jinping on common prosperity, states that his comments on redistribution were misinterpreted by mainstream media as philanthropy--even the media under him. He claims that this shows how much struggle there is even within government

So I guess he has a lot of blind faith in Xi Dada, lol. He says government responded with a more liberalish author, that this shows contending forces in government--but apparently Xi knows best and has people's best interests in mind

Elias Khalil Jabbour states that only a socialist country can do what China can do against rich people. Okay, lol. I mean, premodern empires sometimes tried to keep the wealthy in line, too, is taking actions against some segment of wealthy people the definition of "socialism"?

He says China is in a new wave of institutional change for a new cycle of development.

He says China is in a process of trial and error, that a lot of mistakes were committed--uhhh but apparently China has unwaveringly never strayed from the path of socialism? These people sure do love Deng, huh

Bikrum Gill is responding now. He brings up real vs formal subsumption in Marx, where previously social relations are transformed--wonders about subsumption of capitalist logic under socialist authority

I dunno, what about, uh, feudalism? Very weird to only discuss that in terms of capitalism. What did Mao say about "semi-feudal and semi-colonial" again?

It's not like China was transitioning out of fully formed capitalism

They have a guest speaker from the Simon Bolivar Institute of Venezuela now, who was not on the program, and speaking through interpretation. I didn't catch her name

She's thanking the organizers, saying she is grateful to be there

Expresses solidarity in the struggle against US imperialism

States that Maduro is constantly expressing a message of not being against Americans, but opposed to US imperialism

Laura Franco was the name for this speaker (unless I have the spelling wrong), she is introducing herself now

Now she's introducing the institute, which was formed by the Venezuelan government last year. I guess this is a PR appearance, lol

So after touting Venezuela for awhile, she's now going to discuss relations between Venezuela and China

She says it's a permanent debate in Venezuela, they are making an effort to widen the debate

According to her, China has become the main engine of growth in capitalism after the reform and opening up period, developing in a very short period of time

Brings up infrastructure development in China

States that for Venezuela, it's less breaking relations with the US, but diversifying international relations including in terms of export markets

So the relation with China is strategic in developing industries, states it drives home the point of strengthening scientific development with Chinese and Russian assistance

For China, it is about developing relations with Latin America and the Caribbean taking into account the population of the area--the region is a reliable ally for China

The allows for the possibility of extending the New Silk Road. So China is the greatest ally the peripheral countries have in freeing themselves from the grip of multilateral financial organizations such as the IMF

States that Chinese financial aid does not impose political conditions and does not undermine the self-determination of people or governments. O rly? What about stance on Taiwan being such a major issue for China's relations with other country?

Funny how China seems to have no self-interest of its own in this narrative. Since this person is actually from the Venezuelan government, obviously they're just not saying anything about where their interests may diverge from those of China

States that Venezuela has signed an important Memorandum of Understanding with China on the New Silk Road

I have no real idea what this debate she's brought up is, she hasn't said anything about two sides

Technology, infrastructure, and academic studies are areas of cooperation she's brought up

Says loans from Chinese infrastructure banks go to energy and other sectors

Lending from China has been larger than US or western-led banks in past years

Goes over countries that Chinese lending has gone to, including manufacturing investment

Why is investment being brought up here as though it were all on the basis of Chinese benevolence, lol, as though China also does not have its own self-interest

Says investment started with resource extraction but is now also in services

Minus the parts about praising China, this is just a large infodump, lol doesn't really fit into the rest of this. This is consuming the time for the next event as well

Says it's not just about consuming in the Latin American market, also about exports

Says in the face of sanctions, economic relationship with China has been key for Venezuela

According to her, China was one of the first countries to send medical supplies to Venezuela during the pandemic

Says Venezuela is impressive for keeping down number of deaths compared to other countries in the area, despite facing sanctions

It's interesting to me thinking about how badly the US did with the pandemic has caused a lot of people to idealize other countries, vis-a-vis tankie politicization

Says China "proposes to build a community of shared destiny for humanity". Dying, lol. Yes, one devoid of Uyghurs, Tibetans, and others

There will be "multipolarity in a civilization dialogue" in this when economic relations are based on a "win-win principle", not exploitation. So funny hearing all these supposed leftists going on about civilization today

Says that the global left must take an unprejudiced look at China and on the reform and opening. "It is foolish to insist China has simply reinstated capitalism." Lol

"We must instead appreciate the guiding role of a socialist party that has refused to renounce the banner of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism". Right, so why are all these Maoist student labor activists in jail?

She asserts that China will shift toward renewable energies and pioneer in this front. Right, as in the meantime, China politicizes the notion of cooperation on the climate vis-a-vis other countries

"It is imperative that all the left forces of the world engage in constructive dialogue with China." Right, there are quite a lot of left forces that would probably just get put in jail or worse in China

Phrases the reform and economic up period as aimed at building a strong economic base for China. Praises Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping's leadership in terms of environmental action.

Lol, where is Hu Jintao now anyway

She keeps talking about a debate, but I get the feeling she means something more like "conversation", I dunno

This person has now talked for close to 50 minutes

Brings up the Chinese Revolution as the "big sister" of the Venezuelan Revolution, in the words of Chavez. Playing the sidekick, huh?

Claims that the future should be a multipolar world, basically still trying to hew to some kind of narrative as though China is the leader of some kind of non-alignment movement. Probably that's what Prashad's closing remarks for this conference will be arguing, lololol

Okay, so Laura Franco is done talking. There was originally supposed to be an art workshop/social session during this hour that this instead took up, but the livestream suddenly cut. So I guess we may be onto the next panel in ten minutes

They probably have to keep to the schedule strictly for those online. There goes the hour-long break I was hoping to be able to take during the workshop before the final stretch of 3.5 hours of continuous panels.

So I guess I'll just have to do 5.5 hours continuously of this claptrap. Such is life.

It's 3:21 AM in Taipei currently since unlike these people with all their crazy projections about Asia, I actually live in Asia but, for those tuning in that may not know me as well, I go to sleep in the morning anyhow, this is probably when I'm most awake, in fact

The start time on the livestream for the third panel is now 3:45 PM EST, so I guess they delayed it. They probably should have made an announcement first on the livestream before cutting out, lol

Well, if so, see you all in fifteen

Hmmm, they still haven't started yet

Okay, they're starting. This is Robert Lee, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Madison Tang, and Sheila Xiao on a panel called "Yellow Peril, Red Scare: Orientalism, Anti-Asian Racism, New Cold War on China". First speaker is Dunbar-Ortiz

Dunbar-Ortiz brings up the Atlanta shootings as a terrifying incident, but states that scarier still is US policy aimed at killing large numbers of Asians and ramping up aggression against Asians for this

According to her, the demonization of Asians goes back to Europe, she brings up Marco Polo raising fears of China dominating Europe. She claims the paranoia goes back to quite early

Not all Asians are Chinese, quite a lot of Asians are wary of Chinese imperialism, but presumably she views global politics primarily through US racial categories

She states Europeans, along with the US founding fathers, were obsessed with China as observed in the push toward the Pacific Ocean

Certainly, Orientalism goes way back, but I wonder if this is transhistoricizing. The ideological desire to find anti-Asianness all the way back at the heart of the US nation-building project is seems like projection of current events onto a homogenized notion of history

She next brings up the Chinese Exclusion Act, the use of Chinese labor to build the railroads. Brings up Asian Despotism, by Wittvogel. Then WWII Japanese internment camps

Discusses Asian exclusion in the US labor movement, views of the US as a white country

States that a lot of anti-Asian racism originates from the white racism of the labor movement. Still, a lot of white guilt over that seems to be driving a lot of people into idealizing China in very rosy terms

Discussing racial fears regarding Japanese immigration stoked by the San Francisco Chronicle, calls to limit Japanese immigration

Obviously, immigration exclusion acts are deeply wrong, but I wonder if she knows how much immigration China accepts, hm?

Brings up Jack London's racism, particularly as related to his socialist politics

As well as London's embrace of eugenics. Well, no excuse for racism, but don't get me started on the topic of the popularity of eugenics in China in the early 20th century among Chinese intellectuals in the same timeframe, lol

Asians viewed as the perpetual foreigner, as taking over attitudes of exclusion and antagonism particularly directed towards Native Americans

LOL, music accidentally turned on again

Next up is Robert G. Lee on "Mapping Anti-Asian Violence, the Racial State and U.S. Imperialism"

The screen sharing doesn't seem to be working and still shows Dunbar-Ortiz's name for some reason

Looks like this

Situates the Atlanta shooting in the longer history of anti-Asian hate.

States that most Americans have little knowledge of APPI history beyond the railroads, Japanese internment, the California, and so cannot understand the Atlanta shootings there is an erasure of historical depth

He's discussing an online map tool he's made with others mapping violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Some backlash against Lee in the comments for signing onto a letter from the Chinese Consolidated Benevolence Association that some view as pro-gentrification

Brings up Eisenhower's comments regarding the Pacific as an American lake, states that Atlanta can't be understood without relation to US bases in Asia, regarding sexually and racially defined attacks on Asian

Certainly, but I'm sure many of these panelists cannot comment on the sexualization and racialization of ethnic minorities in China, lol. It's very similar to what is seen in the US

He's going over the map tool now. I think his computer screen is frozen because I only see text, no map, and he's talking about showing a second map. This conference has had issues with screen sharing throughout

The map seems to try and link actions in Asia to what takes place in the US, but I can't actually see it nor can anyone else watching this livestream, so I dunno

This map also includes state violence, vigilante violence, etc.

Also residential segregation, racial segregation, etc.

He says this shows a pattern of violence against Asian people both across space and time in the US

Includes individual attacks, as well, such as on families or individuals. He says that they share the common goal of trying to rid the nation of Asians

I wonder about the narrative of the US as inherently opposed to Asians--Lee tried to counterpose this to immigration melting pot narratives and is correct to point to their falsity

But the US also is happy to incorporate Asians into labor when useful (i.e., anything from railroads to the tech industry). One's narrative has to be more complex to also account for this

Next speaker is Sheila Xiao of Code Pink, whose talk is titled "Orientalism & Imperialism of the U.S. Empire: The Stakes of U.S. Projection"

Oh, it's renamed "Understanding and Mobilizing Against the US Hybrid War Against China." I guess they really like the term hybrid war now, while not actually knowing what it means

Lolwut. She says she is trying to show the destructive force of imperialism through the choice of tree, since she didn't want to pick a regular tree

Xiao says that the West's imperialism is challenged by China's hard-earned rise, Americans have been immersed in Sinophobia and Orientalism for a long time, so this dovetails

She says this creates the climate for a convenient scapegoat, East and Southeast Asian lives are viewed as disposable

According to Xiao, most are not aware of the large deaths of Chinese during the First Opium War compared to US lives, or the war on Korea killing much of the population through bombing.

She talks about difficulties for Asians in the US. I also find interesting how she compresses all Asians together--East Asians and Southeast Asians are thought of very differently, but she compresses this together for the sake of her narrative

A lot of this seems to be drawn from East Asians specifically though, as in the model minority myth

Quotes a Qiao Collective article, states that western knowledge is built on Orientalism, that there was an initial shock by Europe of the advanced nature of China, that envy turned to hate

Coming from the diaspora, this whole notion of an superior ancient China that frightened the West into fear and envy often belies diasporic nationalism--a reaction to a sense of exclusion that can be characterized as a form of ressentiment

Demonization of China distracts from crimes committed by the US. Hmmmm, it never occurs that both might commit crimes?

Dismisses notion of China wanting to take over the world, since the US has bases all over the world. Hey, well, I mean, China might want to get their too at some point, even if it's not there now?

Praises Chinese laborers on railroads as known as having the cleanest camps and so that's why they were chosen as contrasted with views of Asians as dirty

Talks about deaths from COVID in the US, phrases this as sanctioned genocide. I don't know, genocide is not a word that means "a large number of deaths", it has a specific meaning. But hey, you know where genocide is taking place?

Gasp. Why is Taiwan disaggregated from China here???

Concludes that anti-Asian hatred cannot be from anti-Chinese sentiment, as linked to US actions against China

It's obviously true that the US is a deeply racist country, but it's interesting how these folks can't conceive of other reasons why the US might want to counter China except besides racism. I mean, Thucydides trap anyone?

That would potentially occur regardless of racial composition of whatever the rising power that could potentially challenge the US would be

This is how she describes Code Pink's strategy to deal with this

States that they're building in New Zealand, Australia, Hawai'i, Korea, Guam, Okinawa, Jeju Island, and others.

States that a lot of this is convincing people that there is a war building up.

Anyway, what all these comments reflects is US-centrism, very little thought of what the world for those whom the US is not the center of life and in which the closest superpower is China is like

She's going through the various upcoming events and initiatives Code Pink is planning now

Oh, my bad. That was Madison Tang. Sheila Xiao is the Pivot to Peace speaker, not the Code Pink speaker

Misread the schedule. Anyway, Sheila Xiao is speaking now, after Tang finished her comments

She states that there must be fair, balanced, open conversation about China, without demonization of China in mainstream media, in pop culture, and academia

The talk is titled "The Centrality of Demonization in the Contemporary Imperialist War Drive". She states that discourse outside the narrow bounds of demonization is not allowed, so there's no room for debate

Xiao states that China has been surrounded by military bases, that US is preparing for war. She brings up that for most Americans, confrontation with China seems like lunacy after the disaster of trying to fight the Taliban and Afghanistan and that so Americans will oppose this

She says the demonization campaign is to prepare for war, in terms of teaching people to hate and fear China, so to oppose this, there must be efforts to counter demonizing lies about China and tell Americans the truth

It's also interesting to me how they can't separate anti-Asian racism from US-China geopolitical conflicts. Anti-Asian racism is not reducible to the latter, it predates this at a point in which China was not a geopolitical threat to China

So there's generally been a lot of transhistoricization here in claiming that the US was built on this sort of project of anti-Asian hate, fears from hundreds of years ago about the potential rise of China

States that the major myths that must be debunked are that 1) Hong Kong has had its freedom stripped from it, that 2) there are people in western China subject to genocide, which she pronounces as "Xinjing"

3) that the people of Tibet have been denied the right to free, 4) that Taiwan is an independent country, 5) that China is a policy state, 6) that China is an imperial power bullying its neighbors

Oh boy, so she doesn't think the South China Seas disputes are a thing, huh. She should maybe talk to people in Asian countries outside of China, huh?

She claims this narrative is hammered in by corporate media, so this has sold tens of millions on this, but that the response must be fact-telling campaigns about these six major areas

She says these are cherry-picked and there must be strong, factual based presentations to confront this, to tell the truth about China and "all its advances", and that they must be clear they represent people in the US and not the Chinese embassy

She says the three panelists outside of Dunbar-Ortiz had known each other a long time and thought they were the only people working on this in the past, but its become much larger

She touts the success of the conference as showing how the movement for refuting these lies is becoming larger

On the point of "Xinjing," she knows that it means "new territories", right? Why? Colonialism.

So blatant, but well

States that business and commercial interests have their own interests in preventing confrontation with China, but that is not adequate. That people must be convinced that the war machine is trying to convince people of the need to fight China

Says that working class interests will have billions of dollars spent on ramping up for war instead of healthcare and jobs, that the American people must be convinced of this as well

geopolitical threat to the US from that tweet like 12 tweets ago*

Xiao states she believes it is possible to organize against this, as shown in the anti-Asian hate demonstrations after the Atlanta shootings. She claims that anti-Asian hate is correlated to China-bashing and COVID

She says that power is "in and among the people, but they must be educated." Sounding very Marxist-Leninist there, lol

There are ten minutes left for audience Q-and-A. SOMEONE ASK ABOUT THE VIDEO GAME BAN

IT WILL TEAR THE TANKIES APART IN SPLITS

The first question is about internal class contradictions of Asian Americans, such as the diaspora bourgeoisie that acts as spokespeople for imperialism, and the role of the entertainment industry in this

Xiao states that because some celebrities have a lot of money and they are up against corporate media, that they are responding to the pressure of the people to acknowledge anti-Asian hate

Lee states that much of the pushback has to take place online and social media, as spaces where Asian Americans are active. I agree--why I'm doing this long thread to pushback against Qiao, Code Pink, and ilk, lol

He says those spaces are still "up for grabs."

The next question is about sexual imperialism and how that ties into propaganda today and Sinophobic rhetoric

Robert Lee responds, states that this key to how Asian people have been racialized in the US, such as sexual hysteria regarding Asian women, feminization of Asian men (Hmmm, which country was it that recently banned representations of feminine men in media?)

He says US bases overseas have created a culture of sexual violence, as in Okinawa

He brings up a women's organization in Okinawa that has documented 300 rapes and murders there by US servicemen, he argues this is central to understanding anti-Asian violence

The next question, which is probably the last, is about what war with China might look like--the speaker says she hadn't thought about the bases around China. She asks about how the US and Chinese markets are connected

She asks about how war with China would potentially destroy the US economy, since they are interlinked. Xiao responds saying they are hoping to avoid a hot war, but it would be a catastrophic world war if that happened

But says it would take a lot to get to that point. Doesn't seem to have a real answer about economic interdependency, lol. I wonder who she thinks would be China's military allies in that war

Anyway, ten minute break before the next panel, which is "The Stakes of Critique: On the Western Left and Discursive Framings of China" with Radhika Desai, Pawel Wargan, Mark Tseng-Putterman, and Manu Karuka.

Video here. I'll be back in ten as well

It's started again. First speaker is Manu Karuka, whose talk is titled "Take the Splinter from Your Eye: the U.S. Charges Genocide"

He first brings up Pompeo lashing out against genocide in Xinjiang, Pompeo claiming that this would eventually lead to China targeting other countries with worse behavior.

Then he brings up Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III bringing up in a speech in Singapore charging China with aggression against India and Taiwan.

Karuka is claiming that the genocide charge is to ramp up aggression against China, since there is often the view that genocide can only be stopped by armed force

I guess he's just not aware of the border conflicts between China and India, lol, he doesn't circle back to that point or regarding Taiwan

He's now discussing past nuclear threats by the US against China, bombings by the US in Korea, that starvation was only averted through aid from other socialist countries such as China and the USSR

As well as the bombing of Cambodia, Laos, etc.

He states that the US was violating human rights standards set up by the UN, as in racial discrimination, war crimes committed by the US. Views US racial crimes as exported to Asia in terms of US military actions there

He discusses Indigenous graves found in Canada and elsewhere on the sites of former schools

According to Karuka, he views the US as trivializing the charge of genocide in accusing China of this, when it is itself guilty of genocide. I dunno, maybe both can be genocidal???

He points to the US's insistence among developed nations for not treating access to food as a fundamental human right. I guess his broader point is that the US has done bad things, it cannot criticize China--hence the title of his talk

Which is from the Bible: "Take the splinter out of your eye before you criticize the plank in the eye of your neighbor" (or something like that)

Sure enough, that's the case, but now he's claiming China prioritizes human life, has eradicated poverty. Oh boy, from one form of delusion to another

He's claiming the US would resort to nuclear weapons to defend the South China Seas and Taiwan, brings up nuclear submarines to suggest this

He also brought up COVID deaths in the US again, as one of many times that speakers at this conference have done so

He calls Han settler colonialism "a crazy idea", while the "real culprits" are the US. Okay, there can be more than one settler colonial regime in the world, lol

Next is Mark Tseng-Putterman on "China and the Global Schema of Racial Capitalism". Anyway, funny thing, we've met--before he went full tankie. Sad how some people's political trajectories end up

That was in Taiwan. At the time, he admitted to not knowing too much about Asia, but realizing that in the future, a large split would be between Asians and Asian Americans. Now he's just decided to project the US onto Asia in any and all cases though

He's saying that increasing tensions between the US and China, this is reminiscent of 19th century US empire. He's trying to push back against claims of equivocating the US and China, given historical colonization of China

He views the US as trying to maintain the Open Door Policy where China is concern. He cites a Trump era document

Tseng Putterman points to US claims as expansive, promoting other countries to counter China, the US viewing Palau, Guam, etc., as potential collateral damage (and in the meantime, the Chinese military is releasing videos showing Guam being bombed as part of its propaganda)

He's doing the thing of claiming anti-Chinese sentiment is deeply at the heart of the US again, as in pushing to the Pacific to try and get access to Asian markets, the railroads, that the Boston Tea Party was about Chinese tea markets and monopolization of that by the British

He brings up the US mobilizing 5,000 troops to put down the Boxer Rebellion

He says the Open Door Policy should be viewed as free trade imperialism, without necessarily wanting to be burdened by colonial administration, that the opening up of China was done on the basis of two bloody wars

Jumping ahead to the present, he views this as looming over the US-China trade war, regarding deploring Chinese protectionism

He doesn't know how tariffs work, huh? Tariff aims to hurt China because they have to pay more for sending goods to the US

All this points to that this isn't a one-way relation, trade relations go both ways between the US and China, they are highly economically interdependent

Now he's discussing moves in the Asia Pacific, with the view of the Asia Pacific as island chains around China. He states this hurts Indigenous sovereignty in these places

He calls for building an alliance opposing US empire under the auspices of Great Power competition with China. Sure, but you have to oppose Chinese empire as well, lololol

Indigenous nations are reduced as stepping stones to China by the US, says Tseng Putterman. So, too, by the US

He turns toward discussing of THAAD missile systems as though they are a threat to China, discussing little about they are /anti/missile systems to ward off missile threats.

Sure, the US probably has an offensive purpose there too, but there's the usual downplaying of Chinese (or North Korea, as its proxy) threats to other countries in the region.

Next speaker is Radhika Desai, whose talk is titled "It’s the Geopolitical Economy, Stupid!’ Why many Western Leftists Misunderstand China"

She says that she and others have published a manifesto, urges the public to look at it. She's clicking a lot, I wonder if the screen sharing isn't working again

Desai claims that many Marxists have failed to understand how anti-capitalism must be unified with anti-imperialism.

She cites Marx's notion of "relations of producing nations", dialectic uneven and combined development that governs this

Turns toward discussing Trotsky's work on this

Says that most Marxists only use the term uneven development, if at all, but not also combined development

Oh boy, is this just going to be warmed over Stalinism

She discusses high value production of imperialist countries and low value production of weaker countries, that resistance for such countries can take the form of combined development

And that this takes place through state-directed production. Yep, I was right

She says this was the development of the US, Germany, and Japan as capitalist countries that challenged the British empire. She also argues for what she calls socialist combined development

She says socialist revolutions have only taken place outside of the center, but that many Marxists have accepted imperialism as a condition of socialism, so there is Eurocentrism, left support of imperialism sometimes--cites the Democratic Party in the US as this???

I mean, the Democratic Party is hardly a leftist party, so I dunno what that means

She views anti-imperialist resistance as causing imperialism to decline since 1940

So as such struggle intensifies, this will push against the global capitalist order. She sees China as playing a key role in this. She says that revolutions in China have established equality and developed production

Desai says this has to be done without any contribution from imperialist gains, so never will become like imperial powers. She says the USSR did this in the past, China is doing this today, lol

So yeah, warmed over Stalinism. And what would she make of all the factory workers living in horrible conditions in China, huh?

She says that the bankruptcy of capitalism is clear /even/ in the imperialist center now. I dunno, Marx thought revolution would first occur in the most advanced capitalist nations, that's rather basic, no?

Marx was not a Third Worldist, for one

She says this multipolarity is necessary for the path to socialism. But a lot of projection onto China here, not a lot of discussing of anything about actual concrete conditions in China

Pawel Wargan who is *cue dramatic music*, Coordinator of the International Secretariat at the Progressive International, is the next speaker.

His talk is "Learning About China"

He starts by talking about nostalgia for the Soviet Union that he heard about growing up in Poland

He says that playing up the police state is used as part of the "hollow triumphalism" of the fall of the Soviet Union, so he feels he has an impoverished understanding of his own country's history

He asks the question: "If I know so little about the socialist history of the country of my birth, how can I learn about China?" He says most of his information about China from the mainstream media is sensationalist

Such as "ghost cities, "social credit", etc. Lol, the latter is obviously exaggerated but if he had actually been to China, ghost cities exist

He states that this knowledge is divorced from geopolitical context, that it's similar to his lack of understanding about Poland, the place of his birth

So the point of this talk is, "I don't know very much about the country of my birth, so I will romanticize its past, and that means I can romanticize somewhere I wasn't born and have never been to", huh?

He basically believes in a thing called "actually existing socialism" and wants to downplay anything bad he hears about it.

He says that people are not allowed to celebrate China lifting 800 million out of poverty, claiming that China is not allowed nuance. Maybe it'd be helpful to listen to Chinese people who are not diaspora nationalists who also similarly have a sense of projection, hm?

Can see why this man gets along so well with Qiao, lol

He believes that he needs to learn from China, that for people of the Global South, China being able to develop in this way offers lessons and he does not view himself as in a position to criticize that view (Because of being a white person? Cause of white guilt? Lol)

Oh boy, love to see these western leftists who cannot seem to realize that China is one of the world's most unequal societies in the face of all the evidence. Just look into where your damn iPhone came from, lol

Now he is saying, "I am a western leftist, ultimately my obligation is to challenge the systems in Europe while impoverishing Europe's workers." Isn't he supposed to be the coordinator of a group with "International" in the name? So much for internationalism

He's going on about poverty alleviation again, that peasants were incorporated from this. "Will I learn from the model that succeeded? Or will I learn from the model that failed?" Maybe they both failed, lol. Or maybe they were the same model all along

He calls China a "moderately prosperous space faring society" and claims that this occurred in one lifetime. Sure, getting to space means you are socialism

That was a giant anecdote, lol, what was the point of that. Anyway, the panel is somehow fifteen minutes ahead of time, which I think mostly because the first two speakers were very concise, so it's now time for Q-and-A

Charles Xu, the Qiao Collective moderator, is asking about how thinking about themselves as western leftists, asking about how western leftists align with bourgeois critics of China, how they differ from each other in terms of emphasis

He brings up segments of the western left critical of the USSR during the first Cold War, as well, regarding differences

Desai is the first to answer, states the western left is quite complex--she says that she is criticizing people that rejected Third Worldism when she means western left, such as people criticizing China on the basis of anti-anti-imperialism

She says that there is a misunderstanding of capitalism as a self-contained and contradiction-free system, that there is a Schumpeterian understanding of capitalism as constantly innovating

Lol, there was that panelist earlier arguing that China was Schumpeterian

She says actually existing socialisms are, in fact, productively superior. Oh boy. Come to think of it, nobody talked about the famines that occurred during the Great Leap Forward today

Desai says that there is a need to undo the damage done by neoclassical economics.

Karuka says there is a need to discard anti-Communism in studying a country such as China or Cuba, but that may be too much to ask anarchists, lol

Brings up the Financial Times writing about China's zero-COVID approach and economic effects, how that points to how life is thought of differently. I don't know, lol, China is likely to change its policies to conform with the international economy if it becomes a pressing need

He says that's a sign of how how life is valued differently. Oi. As I mentioned regarding the Great Leap Forward a few tweets ago, I guess he doesn't know too much about the times in which the Chinese government has chosen to sacrifice lives for economic development

Tseng Putterman is discussing what he sees as the convergence of the right and aspects of the left such as anarchists and social democrats, states that both share the assumption that Chinese are slaves to the government rather than agents in a revolutionary process

What's funny is that he cannot see Chinese as being, uh, human beings like everyone else caught somewhere in the middle, blinded by his diasporic nationalism

He says these responses boil down to "Do you want a new Cold War or not?" I dunno, what if you see it as a misleading framework? Or you actually want a way out of being caught between great power competition between the US and China?

He says he hasn't seen anything from people that claim to stand in solidarity with China that doesn't ultimately just back US empire at the end of the day

He views it as an evasion and a sidestepping of the issue, disavowing the reality of Cold War escalation, to do otherwise

The next question is about the US use of "autonomous regions to interfere with China," such as Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and the South China Sea.

He brings up the Philippines and "another socialist country, Vietnam" as having issues with China apparently about the latter and being surprised by this

Desai says these are very complex questions, says that the US-led hybrid war against China is still at a high pitch

Says Biden is continuing Trump's policies with only minor stylistic differences

She says that people have exaggerated to what extent that China's economy was based on exports to western countries, that China's economy is self-sustaining independent of exports. She realizes that goods usually targeted are not intermediate goods, right?

She says that China's strides in technology will earn it other trading partners

Desai says that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is a milestone, it is humiliating from the US even more than the withdrawal from Vietnam in some way.

She views US power as receding, that China is already beginning to create a very different world through its...investment banks. Wow, banks. So leftist. So radical

She views the US putting warships in the South China Seas as the US having a post-Afghanistan temper tantrum. She says the US cannot rationally contemplate a war with China if it cannot contemplate a war with a medium-sized country such as Iran

She says the US has not won a single war. Still, China also has not fought a war in forty years and that war was with uhhhh supposedly fellow socialist country Vietnam, not that she'll ever account for that

Oh boy, these people probably do not know about the Sino-Vietnamese War, huh?

Desai is wary of a powerful constituency in China changing China's direction in a neoliberal and capitalist direction. Sorry, what? Didn't that already happen? Decades ago?

She brings up the fall of Jack Ma to show how things are in control. Really? Again, then, why did Alibaba get so big to begin with?

Okay, so they're taking another ten minute break before the closing keynote by Vijay Prashad. Only ten minutes behind schedule, which is a bit surprising to me, since conferences--tankie or otherwise--tend to just drag on and on.

Anyway, I'll be back in ten minutes. Live stream for the closing keynote is here

Okay, so Prashad's talk is titled "What’s the Left to Do in a World on Fire?"--the live stream started mid-talk, it looks like.

Prashad starts by saying the US basically decided to destroy the world after 9/11 and Code Pink was set up as a warning to that

He states that the anti-Iraq War movement, despite its massive size, didn't have an effect on the US. In spite of the mass arrests. He cites Kofi Annan's comments that the Iraq War was illegal to say it was illegal

The role of the UN in this all has been interesting. Tankies love to cite the UN when it suits their purposes, otherwise they're quite dismissive

Prashad says the US is the country that violates the UN charter the most, not China, India, Mexico, Cuba, or Russia

Prashad says that the US didn't even have the decency to cite the Treaty of Rome, that many members of the public don't know what it is because there hasn't been a viral TikTok video

He says the Treaty of Rome is why there is an international criminal court, but the biggest international criminal is the US, will not allow files to be opened to investigate US war crimes

Of course, this all takes place at a time in which it is feared China is using Interpol to target dissidents, shrugs off international arbitration on the South China Seas

Prashad jokes about how US presidents just get worse and worse, about liberals who love Obama. Lol, alright, let's talk about Xi then

He discusses Pompeo sanctioning ICC special prosecutor Bensouda for opening a file into US war crimes

I dunno why supposed leftists are so fixated on uhhhh court systems run by bourgeois governments, but thinking about how Chinese Interpol chief Meng Hongwei was abruptly disappeared and put in jail, so that's how that works out

He brings up that he hasn't discussed China too much yet, why he's talking about the US. He says the US does not have the right to judge anyone--or the US left. Applause for both. Lol, not everyone in the world is an American

"What gives the US left right to do anything?" He says that can only come after it builds political power in the US

"Otherwise you're just a college professor or someone who has nothing better to do than go on the Internet and harass political forces outside of the US". Apart from that not everyone's a successful professor, that sounds like uhhh, tankies?

He says no other government officials except one joined Code Pink's call not to ban Afghanistan. He says he does not cheerlead for the Taliban and do not believe they should be in power, but that they cannot be defeated by bombing them from the sky.

I wonder if he wants China to invade Afghanistan then to conduct uhhhh "socialist military intervention" or whatever

He says there hasn't been a "terrorist attack" since 9/11, since Al-Qaeda and IS have been killing Syrians and others--it's only a "terrorist attack when white supremacy is poked in the eye"...Who else likes to talk about how Uyghurs are terrorists that need to be in camps?

Oh man, the US-centrism is overpowering here

He's talking about AUKUS now, praises New Zealand from not joining AUKUS

He states that its not a violation of the non-proliferation treaty because nuclear subs are nuclear powered, not armed, but it's not like the US cares anyway

It's funny how fixated Prashad is on the law, more generally. I also find him overly fixated on states, as also seen in The Darker Nations, where he takes way too seriously countries' commitment to Global South solidarity or whatever, rather than be meant for self-interest

He's laughing at the US and the UK for having "the" in the name now. Very western-centric again. Ever hear of "the Philippines" or "the Gambia"?

He says that no self-respecting left force should for being subordinated into US efforts directed at war with China, he says he doesn't care about your opinion of Xi Jinping or China

He's talking about how China has a bigger army, navy, and nuclear arms than the Taliban, so war between the US and China is a bad idea. He says it's not an issue of what you feel about the Chinese Revolution

Lol, if only he actually lived up to these words, that's not the case at all

He says collaboration is needed on climate crisis, COVID, global hunger, but the US, UK, and Australia are prioritizing creating AUKUS

Prashad says, "How do we take Joe Biden seriously?" Lol, but why do you take Xi Jinping so seriously then?

He says other countries have no right to criticize China when it has eradicated absolute poverty. It hasn't

Prashad says he's been going back and reading Wang Hui and other Chinese intellectuals. Wang, who is now an apologist for Xi's cult of personality, lol

He says he admires Wang and other Chinese intellectuals for trying to understand the direction of society

He says "There is an incipient ignorance of China." Like him, too, on China, lol. He says China has 1.4 billion people, so it's big and hard to understand

He says that periodicization of China into abstractions like the "Mao period," "Deng period," and "Xi" are racist. I wonder how Chinese people talk about Chinese history, hm?

"Social media is a really scary thing," he says. "I am scared of social media." Yes, probably a good idea

He says "You are as likely to meet a Milton Friedman supporter in China as someone who supports Mao." He's discussing surprise about learning about Chinese Liberals

He says he sees himself as an "innovative Marxist," as his friend claimed to be, because nobody wants to claim to be an "orthodox Marxist"...Lenin, anyone?

He keeps going on about "Seven Schools of Thought" in China and being surprised about them and how complex schools of thought there are. He sees Wang Hui as intervening in this and thinking about the confidence that a country should have in its tradition

And instead looking to New York, DC, and western foreign influences. "Tradition", lol. Isn't that just called "nationalism"?

He brings up Wang Hui's four volumes on the history of Chinese thought, he says his point in bringing this up was that the left was trying to break out of rightward drift during this period (through cultural nationalism?)

He says that Deng Xiaoping also realized this as well, during his time

He quotes Engels, "Socialist history is a history fo zigzags." He says that's because socialism is the unknown, socialists are really people, but that they're scared of freedom, to be honest--they're scared off mucking up revolution, so a drift back to the past takes place

He's bringing this up to defend Deng from claims that China went back to being capitalist. I dunno, he likes to bring up Wang Hui a lot positively, but the Chinese New Left was very critical of the Deng period--very weird views from Prashad

"Experimentation is an interesting facet of Chinese communism." He says that he will discuss this then go to Wang Hui's recent article on Xi Jinping--probably the one criticized as defending Xi's cult of personality

He brings up Bo Xilai and Chongqing, claiming that this was an experiment in reviving socialist culture. He says that was watched carefully by the left of the party, that the issue doesn't need to be personalized in Bo, as in the accusations of corruption against him

Now he's gotten into a tangent about citizenship, how it's hard to create citizens in the world, since people have to learn to be citizens and be involved

He says Xi Jinping watched Bo Xilai's experiment carefully, so from 2013 onward, there was the attempt to develop more public action--he's never heard of Jasic, like all these others, huh?

Prashad states they were able to contain COVID-19 so fast in Wuhan because of people's action, not state actions, he says that was also true in Kerala in India due to workers' organizations, women's organizations, etc.

He says democracy has to be made through action and that's how what is seen coming out of China and how poverty was eradicated. Lol, so what about voting, huh? That's an action

Yep, he's gotten into Wang Hui's Revolutionary Personality essay. However, he seems to be claiming that it's not about creating Great Men of History or holding up Xi (and does not offer anything to back up that claim)

He cites the US and India's issues with China as hypocritical in the absence of democracy, of the people feeling alive to a project. No, I'm pretty sure most Chinese are not feeling alive to the great revolutionary project either, Prashad, they's just regular people alive

In criticizing India jailing journalists, he asks, "Who puts journalists in jails?" Uhhhhh, sure, but also China?

Prashad says he wants people to leave the People's Forum committed and to campaign against war on China--to seize democracy, because it won't be granted by the bourgeoisie

Sure, but seeing as capitalism is global, that won't happen if you just idealize a different bourgeoisie?

Ten minutes of Q-and-A now

Whew, it's finally almost over

The question is about poverty alleviation in China, claiming that this should also be built out with the agency of the people in the US

And how anti-Cold War campaigning fits into mutual aid efforts

Prashad says he doesn't have an answer to that, but things will become clear in the process of doing it, through learning and interacting with people

He says it's hard to organize in the US, because the fabric of society is not so clear. He says leftists cannot wait for this to be built by liberals

Second question is about suggestions for keeping up revolutionary optimism in dark times

Prashad says he doesn't really know how to take breaks either, when asked about that (Lol, I don't either, I've been sitting here for ten hours).

He says that people become convinced they're indispensable, but it's not true that one's presence is always so essential, people can relax when they need to

He says joining an organization is feeling like you're part of a project, that the Left can develop a messiah complex. Strikes me that this seems to be the same motivation for him and other conference panelists romanticizing China and anointing it messiah for the left

He stresses that it's a long-distance run, not a sprint.

He talks about elevating people to higher standards of living, not lowering everyone to the same standard of living

Third question is about how to make long-term struggle appealing and relevant for "those who expect to die tomorrow". Prashad says it's a question of who you are struggling for

All of these questions are all self-help questions, huh? Not a question that is really about China yet

Prashad says he's not a fan of always going to meetings constantly, so he wants socialism, not a never-ending anti-capitalist struggle

He says that people will never know what happens, so he doesn't focus on the long-term

He says he doesn't want people to nitpick his comments, but to go out and do things.

Since it's the third year anniversary of People's Forum, he calls on people to go thank the staff members, closes his talk on this note. Nice to mark with third anniversary with not one, but two conferences defending authoritarian regimes, lol

Well, that's all! I hope you enjoyed this madcap journey over the course of the last ten hours. I originally was planning on watching this conference to write an article on it in the vein of my two pieces at the start of the thread criticizing Qiao, Monthly Review, etc.

But then I decided it'd be more fun to live-tweet it and just use the tweets as my notes. An article version will eventually follow suit

Anyway, I'm a leftist journalist and translator in Taiwan, I'm one of the founders of of @newbloommag--which was founded in Taiwan after the 2014 Sunflower Movement and I participated in as a student--and part of @lausanhk, which was formed around the 2019 Hong Kong protests

Both were founded with the aim of finding a way out of getting caught in great power conflict between the US and China alike, to allow self-determination for these places without being used as the pawn of one side or another, and push for leftist perspectives in the movement

If you find this commentary interesting or helpful, feel free to follow! It's 7:52 AM in Taiwan and I stayed up all night for this (though I usually sleep in the morning anyway), so I'm going to pass out now, lol

Alright, going to do this again since I fixed typos--creating a thread of this with unroll @threadreaderapp