Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners

✍ Scribed by Roland Boer

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 323
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book covers the whole system of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, dealing with Deng Xiaoping’s theory, the socialist market economy, a moderately well-off (Xiaokang) society, China’s practice and theory of socialist democracy, human rights, and Xi Jinping’s Marxism. In short, the resolute focus is the Reform and Opening-Up. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is one of the most important global realities today. However, the concept and its practice remain largely misunderstood outside China. This book sets to redress such a lack of knowledge, by making available to non-Chinese speakers the sophisticated debates and conclusions in China concerning socialism with Chinese Characteristics. It presents this material in a way that is both accessible and thorough.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
Reference
Contents
About the Author
1 Introduction: Marxism as China’s Special Skill
1.1 General
1.2 Marxism as China’s Special Skill
1.2.1 Defining Marxist Philosophy
1.2.2 Philosophy and the Social Sciences
1.2.3 The General Secretary as a Thinker
1.3 Chinese Characteristics
1.4 Historical Nihilism
1.4.1 Typology of Western Genres
1.4.2 Using Western Categories to Understand China (yixi jiezhong)
1.5 Method
1.6 A Note on Sources
References
2 Reading Deng Xiaoping
2.1 Liberating Thought (jiefang sixiang)
2.1.1 Liberation From
2.1.2 Liberation For
2.2 Seek Truth from Facts (shishiqiushi)
2.3 Liberating the Forces of Production (jiefang shengchanli)
2.4 Conclusion: Laying the Foundations for Communism
References
3 Contradiction Analysis: History, Meaning, and Application
3.1 Opening Remarks
3.2 Lenin
3.3 Dialectical Materialism
3.4 Mao Zedong
3.4.1 Contradiction and Antagonism
3.4.2 Principal and Secondary Contradictions
3.4.3 Chinese Characteristics
3.5 Conclusion
References
4 The Marxist Basis of the Reform and Opening-Up
4.1 Opening Remarks
4.2 One Big Pot and Household Responsibility
4.2.1 Returning to the Countryside
4.2.2 Collective and Individual
4.2.3 Equality and Difference
4.3 Reform
4.3.1 Deepening Reform
4.3.2 Revolution and Reform
4.3.3 The Wild 90s
4.4 Opening up
4.4.1 How to Relate to Capitalist Countries
4.4.2 Self-Reliance and Globalisation
4.5 Class Analysis
4.5.1 Internal Class Contradictions
4.5.2 International Class Antagonisms
4.6 One Country, Two Systems
4.7 Conclusion: One Central Task and Two Basic Points
4.7.1 Reform and Opening-Up
4.7.2 Four Cardinal Principles
4.7.3 Both Hands Should Be Hard
References
5 China’s Socialist Market Economy and Planned Economy
5.1 Opening Remarks
5.2 De-Linking: Planning and the Market
5.2.1 Deng Xiaoping and the Socialist Market Economy
5.2.2 Market Economies in History
5.3 Contradiction Analysis
5.3.1 From Ownership to Liberating the Forces of Production
5.3.2 Primary Contradiction
5.4 Is It Socialist? Universality and Particularity
5.4.1 Universality and Particularity
5.4.2 What Makes It Socialist?
5.4.3 A Basis in Marx and Engels
5.5 Dialectical Transcendence: Beyond Planning and Market Economies
5.5.1 From Temporal Narratives to Managing the Contradiction
5.5.2 Dialectical Transcendence
5.6 Conclusion and Implications
References
6 Seeking a Xiaokang Society, or, Socialist Modernisation
6.1 Opening Remarks
6.2 The Four Modernisations
6.3 Datong: From the Confucian Tradition to Mao Zedong
6.3.1 The Book of Rites (Liji)
6.3.2 He Xiu’s Revision: Datong as Topos
6.3.3 Kang Youwei’s Confucian Reformism
6.3.4 Mao Zedong: Datong and Communism
6.4 Xiaokang: From the Book of Songs (Shijing) to Xi Jinping
6.4.1 The Book of Rites and the Book of Songs (Shijing)
6.4.2 Deng Xiaoping and Xiaokang Shehui
6.4.3 The Two Centenary Goals
6.5 Whither Datong?
References
7 The Chinese Marxist Approach to Sovereignty and Human Rights
7.1 Opening Remarks
7.2 On Universals, False and Rooted
7.2.1 False Universals
7.2.2 Rooted Universals
7.3 The Western Liberal Tradition of Human Rights
7.4 Sovereignty: From Westphalia to Anti-colonialism
7.4.1 Westphalia and Secularised Theology
7.4.2 Anti-colonial Sovereignty
7.4.3 Anti-hegemony, Non-interference, and Peaceful Coexistence
7.5 The Chinese Marxist Approach to Human Rights
7.5.1 The Prerequisite of Anti-hegemonic Sovereignty
7.5.2 The Right to Socio-Economic Well-Being
7.5.3 Policy Implications: From the Belt and Road Initiative to Minority Nationalities
7.5.4 The Rooted Universal of Chinese Marxist Human Rights
7.6 Conclusion: Mutual Recognition in a Multi-polar World
References
8 Socialist Democracy in Practice
8.1 Opening Remarks
8.2 Electoral Democracy and the People’s Congresses
8.3 Consultative Democracy
8.3.1 Philosophical and Historical Foundations: Non-Antagonistic Contradictions and the Mass Line
8.3.2 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conferences
8.3.3 Comprehensive Consultation and Democratic Supervision
8.4 Grassroots Democracy
8.4.1 History: From Engels to Pre-Liberation Red Areas
8.4.2 Two Case Studies: Miaoba and Dengzhou
8.4.3 Improving Targeted Grassroots Democracy
8.5 Minority Nationalities
8.5.1 Defining ‘Minzu’
8.5.2 Preferential Policies (youhui zhengce): Economics, Culture, and Governance
8.5.3 Autonomy and Unity
8.6 Rule of Law
8.6.1 Legal System and Rule of Law
8.6.2 Rule of Law and Rule of Virtue
8.6.3 Rule of Law Versus Rule of a Person
8.6.4 Governing the Country According to Law
8.7 Leadership of the Communist Party
8.7.1 From Historical to Practical Legitimacy
8.7.2 The Statutory Procedures of Practical Legitimacy
8.7.3 The Mutual Strength of Communist Party Leadership and Socialist Democracy
8.8 Conclusion: The Superiority of a Work in Progress
References
9 Socialist Democracy in Theory
9.1 Opening Remarks
9.1.1 Historical Forms of Democracy
9.2 Engels and Marx
9.2.1 Equating the Paris Commune with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
9.2.2 The Seeds of Democratic Centralism
9.2.3 Principles of Socialist Democracy
9.3 Lenin and the ‘Highest Form of Democracy’
9.3.1 Three Meanings of Democracy
9.3.2 The Superiority of Socialist Democracy
9.3.3 Democratic Centralism
9.4 Stalin and the Leadership of the Communist Party
9.4.1 Organic Leadership of the Communist Party
9.4.2 Proactive Human Rights Based on Freedom from Economic Exploitation
9.5 Mao Zedong
9.5.1 New Democracy
9.5.2 Democratic Dictatorship
9.5.3 Democratic Centralism
9.6 From Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping: The Problem of Democratic Centralism
9.6.1 Inner-Party Democratic Centralism
9.6.2 Separation of Party and Government
9.6.3 The Statutory Procedures of Socialist Democracy
9.6.4 Xi Jinping: Democratic Centralism and Country-Wide Governance
9.7 Conclusion: Stability and Social Health
9.7.1 Why Not Social Democracy?
9.7.2 Stability and Social Health
References
10 Xi Jinping on Marx and Engels
10.1 Setting the Scene: Why Xi Jinping’s Thought is Important
10.2 The Biography of an Engaged Intellectual
10.3 Marxism in China
10.3.1 Scientific Socialism
10.3.2 Marxism and Anti-colonial Struggles
10.4 Study Marx
10.4.1 Development of Human Society (renlei shehui fazhan)
10.4.2 Sticking to the People’s Standpoint (jianshou renmin lichang)
10.4.3 Productive Forces and Relations of Production (shengchanli he shengchan guanxi)
10.4.4 People’s Democracy (renmin minzhu)
10.4.5 Cultural Construction (wenhua jianshe)
10.4.6 Social Construction (shehui jianshe)
10.4.7 Human-Nature Relationship (ren yu ziran guanxi)
10.4.8 World History (shijie lishi)
10.4.9 Marxist Party Building (makesizhuyi zhengdang jianshe)
10.5 Conclusion: An Original Contribution to the Development of Marxism
References
11 Conclusion: On the Socialist System and Cultural Confidence
11.1 A Guide for Foreigners
11.2 Socialist System
11.3 Cultural Confidence
References