Let us start with the punchline: “Mass media in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia is depicting the People’s Republic of China as ‘capitalist’ because ‘capitalist’ is now a dirty word.
Even people in the West see ‘market economy’ as some sort of filth.”
To call China ‘capitalist’ is to smear China. It is as if to say: “Chinese people are precisely like us. China is doing to the world the same injustice, committing the same crimes as we have been doing for 500+ years.”
Western, but particularly the British and the U.S. demagogy, have managed to reach ‘heights’ of nothing lesser than deadly perfection. They already conditioned billions of brains, in all corners of the world, forced them into the uniformed, servile way of thinking. All this is not just propaganda anymore; it is the true art of indoctrination. It hardly ever misses its target. And even if it fails to convince some strong individuals completely, it always leaves a mark on the psyche of even those who are struggling to be different and ‘independent.’
In short: Western propaganda is perfect. It is deadly. Until now, it is bulletproof.
All those terms like “capitalist China,” “Chinese state capitalism,” are violating the truth, and they are repeated over and over again until no one dares to contradict them anymore.
The same goes for the lies about Uyghurs, Hong Kong, the Sino-Indian border, as well as various historical events.
But why really to lie about China ‘not being socialist’?
The answer is simple: it is because of most people associate words like ‘socialism’ and ‘Communism’ with hope. Yes, they do! At least subconsciously. Even after decades of brainwashing and smear campaigns! “Socialist China” means “China which brings optimism to its own people and humanity.” On the other hand, people on all continents associate ‘capitalism’ with something depressing, stale, and regressive. Therefore, call China ‘capitalist’, and it evokes feelings of gloominess and slump.
Imperialist, capitalist West cannot compete with socialism, anymore. Therefore, it tries to drag it through filth, tries to destroy it. Either indirectly, by sanctions and attempts to orchestrate coups in places like Iran, DPRK, Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela, or directly, like in the Middle East. China is being attacked on ‘all fronts,’ from economic ones to ideological, although not yet militarily. The most powerful and repulsive weapon, so far, has been constant injections of lies, contradictions, and nihilism. Just look at Hong Kong!
Nihilism is deadly. It destroys enthusiasm, and it robs countries of confidence and courage.
And that is precisely what the West is trying to achieve: to derail progressive socialist countries from marching forward and prevent nations oppressed by neo-colonialism from dreaming, hoping, resisting. (I described this destructive process in my book “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”).
The Western demagogues know: China robbed of its essence – and the essence is “the Socialism with Chinese characteristics” – is China which cannot inspire, cannot offer alternatives to the world. The most effective way to smear China, to silence it, is precisely to convince the world that it is ‘capitalist.’
Such techniques were used, for instance, by German Nazis who claimed that resistance against their occupation actually consisted of a bunch of terrorists. The U.S. is known to do the same. Or the British Empire, which christened rebellious local people in its colonies as “hordes of savages.” Just reverse the truth and win!
Twist things shamelessly, turn them upside-down, repeat your lies thousands of times, print them in all your mass media outlets. Chances are, your fabrications would be eventually accepted by billions of people.
In the case of China, West is trying to convince the world that PRC is the same type of gangster states like the United States or Great Britain, France, or Canada. It is doing it by calling China capitalist, by calling it even imperialist. By ridiculously equating China’s behavior to the behavior of the Western colonialist powers. By declaring that China is oppressing its own minorities, as the West has been doing for centuries.
*
But China is not a capitalist country, as it is not an imperialist one. It is the least expansionist major country on the Planet.
It does not kill millions of human beings worldwide, it does not overthrow governments in foreign countries, and it is not robbing already destitute nations of all they have left.
It is not governed by bankers and oligarchs. Instead, it is directed by the socialist 5-year plans. Its private and state companies have to obey the government and the people. They have to produce goods and services in order to improve the standard of living of the nation and the world. Companies are precisely told what to do by the government, which represents the people, not the other way around, as happens in the West. Because in the West, it is companies that are selecting the governments!
That is socialism. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The socialism which managed to get rid of all extreme poverty in the country with almost 1.4 billion inhabitants. The socialism which is building “Ecological civilization”. The socialism which is connecting the world, including, until now, the destitute countries on Earth, through the “Belt and Road Initiative”.
In China, democracy is not about sticking pieces of paper into a box. It is literally the ‘rule of the people’; it is all about the country which is developing in a socialist way, consistently making lives of its men, women, and children better and better, year after year.
It is a fresh, optimistic, constantly improving, and evolving system. Ask people in the Chinese cities and the countryside, and they will tell you. The vast majority of them are happy; they are hopeful and optimistic.
Ask people in the North American cities or countryside, and… you know what they will tell you. That increasingly, life is s**t!
*
The big problem is that majority of North Americans and Europeans know China only from the hardly strategic position of their couch commonly facing the television set or from the heavily censored Yahoo or Google ‘front’ news pages.
Many of those who go to, or who “do China” are traveling in groups, visiting major tourist destinations only. Even that is, of course, much better than nothing. China is impressive everywhere.
But only a small fraction of the Westerners, those who dare to pass judgments, know China in depth. This includes even such ‘top White House advisors,’ like Peter Kent Navarro, Assistant to President Donald Trump and Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, who knows close to nothing about China, speaks no Chinese, but writes anti-Chinese books. Or such as senior Republican Senator Marco Antonio Rubio.
And the propagandists in London, Paris, and New York are well aware of the lack of knowledge about China, at least in the West. They feel free to declare and to publish the most outrageous lies and fabrications because they know they’d not be confronted. And if confronted, they’d easily manage to censure those individuals who’d dare to contradict them.
How many times have you seen on a British television channel, a Chinese Communist man or a woman, speaking about his or her country? Never! It is forbidden. Truth is not allowed, at least in the West. Only those Chinese people who are tugging the Western propaganda line can speak freely on Western channels. Never thought about it? Then think! Or, how many Russians, pro-President Putin or pro-Communist, have you ever heard on the British or U.S. radio stations?
The Western firewall is complete.
Media is digging out the filthiest chapters of Western history, and without blinking an eye, turns things around and attributes them to China. Australians, North Americans have been sterilizing native, Roma, Aborigines, or other women. So, they invent, say that China is doing it now. For centuries, West has been locking people in its colonies and even in Europe, in the concentration camps. In a twisted way, propaganda gurus in London and Washington are attributing such behavior to China.
No proof is needed. Let your imagination run wild. People are used to lies. They are obedient, brainwashed. And they like it when other, non-Western nations are smeared, especially when they are accused of the same crimes which Europe and the United States have been committing for centuries. It makes them feel less guilty. They can then say: “The entire world is disgusting. We are all equally terrible!”
Perhaps, after these propaganda assaults, there is no more hope left. But at least, in the West, there is no rush to shed those complexes of superiority, and to get rid of the privileges.
*
And so, ‘China is capitalist!’ While baobabs are actually bougainvillea. Western-imposed global dictatorship is, believe it or not, democratic. And Western advisors have a full moral mandate to lecture the world.
Some Chinese Communist Party officials are now banned [by the West] from traveling to the United States. In contrast, the U.S. officials, who are responsible for ordering mass killings in all parts of the world, can travel virtually anywhere.
The Communist Party of China is responsible for building a prosperous, highly educated, and increasingly ecologically sound nation of almost 1.4 billion. While the Imperialist apparatchiks of the United States are responsible for overthrowing countless progressive governments, bombing millions of people, ruining the environment in the colonies, and starving hundreds of millions through sanctions. But they are not sanctioned themselves and can go almost anywhere they desire. Strange world? Go figure…
The better China is doing, the more it gets smeared. If it manages to do even better in the future, it may get attacked directly, perhaps even militarily.
And rest assured that socialist China will be doing better and better. Yes, you are guessing correctly: Under the banner of the Communist Party!
So, what should we prepare ourselves for? World War III? Annihilation of the human race? Just because the West doesn’t know how to lose? Just because capitalism and imperialism would not let go of their global grip on power, even if it means the end for all of us?
Just because North America and Europe are notorious liars, suffering from pathological complexes of superiority, as well as genocidal instincts?
I don’t think this is a good prospect for our Planet.
I’d much rather bet on optimistic, socialist China, instead of on the Western system which in the last 500+ years has already murdered hundreds of millions of people and which is, until now, covering up its crimes and its undeniable mental illness.
And not only ‘bet’; I’d rather join China, which is building a much better and ethical world. As we all should do! As some of us are already doing.
First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook – a journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Six of his latest books are “New Capital of Indonesia”, “China Belt and Road Initiative”, “China and Ecological Civilization” with John B. Cobb, Jr., “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and Latin America, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website, his Twitter and his Patreon.