Critical Annotations of Xi Jinping’s Speech at a Ceremony Marking the Centenary of the Communist Party of China on July 1, 2021
Critical Annotations of Xi Jinping’s Speech at a Ceremony Marking the Centenary of the Communist Party of China on July 1, 2021
Marco L. Valbuena, Chief Information Officer
Communist Party of the Philippines
July 5, 2021
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General Note: A reading of the speech of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), to mark the centennial of the CPC, reveals how the once “great, glorious and correct” CPC has degenerated from a party of the working class to a party ruled by modern revisionists and the bourgeoisie; from a party of socialism, to a party of capitalism; from a party of revolution, to a party of reaction. It is a party bereft of a Marxist soul. Mao Zedong, the stalwarts, heroes and martyrs of the CPC during the period of new democratic and socialist revolutions are surely turning in their graves over how Xi Jinping now presides over the CPC and imperialist China.
Xi Jinping’s 15-page (5,450-word) speech did not once mention the word “proletariat.” This is an indication of how the CPC has lost its class-based militance and revolutionary spirit. Xi Jinping echoes Kruschov’s bourgeois populist “party” and “state” of the “whole people” to mask their betrayal of socialism and the proletarian cause. Xi Jinping speaks of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought but only to denigrate and sap them of their revolutionary essence by extolling in the same breadth the modern revisionists Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi, as well as himself.
Below are critical annotations of Xi Jinping’s speech which we hope will help communists and revolutionaries in the Philippines and overseas understand how the once “great, glorious and correct” CPC has now become a party of the billionaires, oppressors and exploiters.
| Xi Jinping’s July 1, 2021 speech | Annotations |
| Comrades and friends,
Today, the first of July, is a great and solemn day in the history of both the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese nation. We gather here to join all Party members and Chinese people of all ethnic groups around the country in celebrating the centenary of the Party, looking back on the glorious journey the Party has traveled over 100 years of struggle, and looking ahead to the bright prospects for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. To begin, let me extend warm congratulations to all Party members on behalf of the CPC Central Committee. |
To avoid having to always wear the ill-fitting socialist garb, Xi Jinping avoids mentioning the word “socialism” as the goal of China, and instead speaks of “national rejuvenation” as the aspiration of the CPC. This is a concept devoid of meaning for the Chinese proletariat and peasant masses who see no “rejuvenation” as they are subjected to increasing oppression and exploitation to allow the state monopoly bourgeoisie and big capitalists to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. |
| On this special occasion, it is my honor to declare on behalf of the Party and the people that through the continued efforts of the whole Party and the entire nation, we have realized the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. This means that we have brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and we are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects. This is a great and glorious accomplishment for the Chinese nation, for the Chinese people, and for the Communist Party of China! | “Moderately prosperous” is what you get when you average the wealth of China’s 626 billionaires (listed by Forbes) who together are worth $2.531 trillion, that owned by hundreds of millions of workers and peasants which amount to practically nothing, and the possessions of a few tens of millions who toil to keep themselves in the middle.
To describe China as “moderately prosperous” is to obscure the deep economic and class divide between the bourgeoisie who rule over the state and the big corporations, and the workers who are made to toil under oppressive conditions and the small farmers displaced from their land. In building socialism, it is not the level of prosperity that is key, rather, how that prosperity is distributed to the classes that produce the country’s wealth, and how they collectively enjoy steadily improving standards of living by raising production by wielding and improving the forces of production. This can be achieved by the proletarian state taking hold of the key levers of the economy, taking hold of the wealth produced by society and distributing it to ensure the basic needs of everyone (food, clothing and other basic commodities) and improve everyone’s standards of living (public health, education, culture) and investing it in industry and science to further raise production. |
| Comrades and friends,
The Chinese nation is a great nation. With a history of more than 5,000 years, China has made indelible contributions to the progress of human civilization. After the Opium War of 1840, however, China was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and suffered greater ravages than ever before. The country endured intense humiliation, the people were subjected to great pain, and the Chinese civilization was plunged into darkness. Since that time, national rejuvenation has been the greatest dream of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. To save the nation from peril, the Chinese people put up a courageous fight. As noble-minded patriots sought to pull the nation together, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Reform Movement of 1898, the Yihetuan Movement, and the Revolution of 1911 rose one after the other, and a variety of plans were devised to ensure national survival, but all of these ended in failure. China was in urgent need of new ideas to lead the movement to save the nation and a new organization to rally revolutionary forces. With the salvoes of Russia’s October Revolution in 1917, Marxism-Leninism was brought to China. Then in 1921, as the Chinese people and the Chinese nation were undergoing a great awakening and Marxism-Leninism was becoming closely integrated with the Chinese workers’ movement, the Communist Party of China was born. The founding of a communist party in China was an epoch-making event, which profoundly changed the course of Chinese history in modern times, transformed the future of the Chinese people and nation, and altered the landscape of world development. Since the very day of its founding, the Party has made seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation its aspiration and mission. All the struggle, sacrifice, and creation through which the Party has united and led the Chinese people over the past hundred years has been tied together by one ultimate theme—bringing about the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. To realize national rejuvenation, the Party united and led the Chinese people in fighting bloody battles with unyielding determination, achieving great success in the new-democratic revolution. Through the Northern Expedition, the Agrarian Revolutionary War, the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and the War of Liberation, we fought armed counter-revolution with armed revolution, toppling the three mountains of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism and establishing the People’s Republic of China, which made the people masters of the country. We thus secured our nation’s independence and liberated our people. The victory of the new-democratic revolution put an end to China’s history as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, to the state of total disunity that existed in old China, and to all the unequal treaties imposed on our country by foreign powers and all the privileges that imperialist powers enjoyed in China. It created the fundamental social conditions for realizing national rejuvenation. Through tenacious struggle, the Party and the Chinese people showed the world that the Chinese people had stood up, and that the time in which the Chinese nation could be bullied and abused by others was gone forever. |
Proletarian revolutioniaries are not anathema to telling the narrative of a people’s common history of oppression and striving forge national unity. This is true especially in the context of rousing a nation and uniting a broad range of classes to unite and rise against colonial or semicolonial subjugation or imperialist oppression.
In doing so, communists must always link and raise the question of national oppression to the question of social oppression, i.e. to the question of classes, and the need to unite primarily the oppressed and exploited classes to fight the classes that perpetuate national oppression, i.e. the imperialists and their local cohorts. Otherwise, raising the slogan of a people’s national unity will only redound to bourgeois national chauvinism, which is where Xi Jinping’s “national rejuvenation” is ultimately leading to. |
| To realize national rejuvenation, the Party united and led the Chinese people in endeavoring to build a stronger China with a spirit of self-reliance, achieving great success in socialist revolution and construction.
By carrying out socialist revolution, we eliminated the exploitative and repressive feudal system that had persisted in China for thousands of years, and established socialism as our basic system. In the process of socialist construction, we overcame subversion, sabotage, and armed provocation by imperialist and hegemonic powers, and brought about the most extensive and profound social changes in the history of the Chinese nation. This great transformation of China from a poor and backward country in the East with a large population into a socialist country laid down the fundamental political conditions and the institutional foundations necessary for realizing national rejuvenation. Through tenacious struggle, the Party and the Chinese people showed the world that the Chinese people were capable of not only dismantling the old world, but also building a new one, that only socialism could save China, and that only socialism could develop China. |
Xi Jinping pays lipservice to “socialist revolution and construction” but reduces it as a phase to lay the foundations for his bourgeois concept of “national rejuvenation.”
He cites how China struggled to build socialism under conditions of imperialist and hegemonic powers (external forces) but omits citing the internal factors (the modern revisionists) which resisted and impeded the socialist transformation of Chinese society. He did not mention how China attained comprehensive economic development, raising of productive forces, expansion of democracy and revolutionization of the relations of production and the superstructure during the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution by asserting the proletarian line and policies against the bourgeois line propounded by the modern revisionists primarily Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. |
| To realize national rejuvenation, the Party united and led the Chinese people in freeing the mind and forging ahead, achieving great success in reform, opening up, and socialist modernization.
We established the Party’s basic line for the primary stage of socialism, resolutely advanced reform and opening up, overcame risks and challenges from every direction, and founded, upheld, safeguarded, and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics, thus bringing about a major turn with far-reaching significance in the history of the Party since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. This enabled China to transform itself from a highly centralized planned economy to a socialist market economy brimming with vitality, and from a country that was largely isolated to one that is open to the outside world across the board. It also enabled China to achieve the historic leap from a country with relatively backward productive forces to the world’s second largest economy, and to make the historic transformation of raising the living standards of its people from bare subsistence to an overall level of moderate prosperity, and then ultimately to moderate prosperity in all respects. These achievements fueled the push toward national rejuvenation by providing institutional guarantees imbued with new energy as well as the material conditions for rapid development. |
These passages are the same line/lies propounded by Deng Xiaoping and the gang of modern revisionists in China.
Xi speaks of “centralized planned economy” as if it is a dirty word, to justify the “socialist market economy” that is nothing but anarchy in capitalist production, where resources and labor are principally alloted to areas of investment promising the greatest surplus, not what is needed for comprehensive development. He denounces “isolation” as if Mao’s previous practice of proletarian internationalism, diplomacy and trade are anathema to socialism, but only to push “open(ness) to the outside world” to justify how China bowed to the demands of the imperialists in allowing foreign capital to subject the Chinese workers to superexploitation. Dengists vigorously oppose proletarian internationalism with as much energy as they push for “opening up” and integration of China with the world capitalist economy. He describes China under socialism as “relatively backward productive forces” failing to mention how China transformed the face of the countryside and achieved unprecedented industrial progress from 1949 to 1976 or 27 years, as well as in the fields of science, education, research, health and culture, during the time that millions were being organized and led by the communist party in socialist mass campaigns. |
| Through tenacious struggle, the Party and the Chinese people showed the world that by pursuing reform and opening up, a crucial move in making China what it is today, China had caught up with the times in great strides.
To realize national rejuvenation, the Party has united and led the Chinese people in pursuing a great struggle, a great project, a great cause, and a great dream through a spirit of self-confidence, self-reliance, and innovation, achieving great success for socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. |
Xi Jinping conveniently omits mentioning how China allowed the imperialists, particularly the US and Japan, and their Taiwanese and South Korean subsidiaries, to exploit Chinese workers in assembly line factories established since the 1980s and 1990s especially in the southern coastal cities such as Shenzen and Guangzou.
To the credit of the Chinese state monopoly capitalists, they used the size of the Chinese market and the mass of cheap labor as leverage to push for the transfer of some technology from US, Japanese and European companies, invested in science and research and trained their technical experts to develop their own productive forces and grow the Chinese economy. However, the vast amount of wealth being produced in China, do not accrue to the Chinese workers and peasants, rather is accumulated by officials of the CPC and their relatives, and by the big bourgeoisie in high state positions and in state-supported private enterprises. Bureaucrat capitalists in China, including Xi Jinping himself, have family members in high positions in the phoney communist party and in the giant state and private corporations. |
| Following the Party’s 18th National Congress, socialism with Chinese characteristics entered a new era. In this new era, we have upheld and strengthened the Party’s overall leadership, ensured coordinated implementation of the five-sphere integrated plan and the four-pronged comprehensive strategy, upheld and improved the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, modernized China’s system and capacity for governance, remained committed to exercising rule-based governance over the Party, and developed a sound system of intraparty regulations. We have overcome a long list of major risks and challenges, fulfilled the first centenary goal, and set out strategic steps for achieving the second centenary goal. All the historic achievements and changes in the cause of the Party and the country have provided the cause of national rejuvenation with more robust institutions, stronger material foundations, and a source of inspiration for taking greater initiative.
Through tenacious struggle, the Party and the Chinese people have shown the world that the Chinese nation has achieved the tremendous transformation from standing up and growing prosperous to becoming strong, and that China’s national rejuvenation has become a historical inevitability. Over the past hundred years, the Party has united and led the Chinese people in writing the most magnificent chapter in the millennia-long history of the Chinese nation, embodying the dauntless spirit that Mao Zedong expressed when he wrote, “Our minds grow stronger for the martyrs’ sacrifice, daring to make the sun and the moon shine in the new sky.” The great path we have pioneered, the great cause we have undertaken, and the great achievements we have made over the past century will go down in the annals of the development of the Chinese nation and of human civilization. Comrades and friends, A hundred years ago, the pioneers of Communism in China established the Communist Party of China and developed the great founding spirit of the Party, which is comprised of the following principles: upholding truth and ideals, staying true to our original aspiration and founding mission, fighting bravely without fear of sacrifice, and remaining loyal to the Party and faithful to the people. This spirit is the Party’s source of strength. Over the past hundred years, the Party has carried forward this great founding spirit. Through its protracted struggles, it has developed a long line of inspiring principles for Chinese Communists and tempered a distinct political character. As history has kept moving forward, the spirit of the Party has been passed on from generation to generation. We will continue to promote our glorious traditions and sustain our revolutionary legacy, so that the great founding spirit of the Party will always be kept alive and carried forward. |
Xi Jinping gives false reverence to Mao Zedong and the founders of the CPC. His praises for their bravery and fighting spirit, and “staying true to our orginal aspiration” are all empty and insipid platitudes.
He makes no mention of the CPC being built as the proletariat’s political party, or of Marxism-Leninism and ending exploitation, and making people the heroes of history by organizing and mobilizing them to carve a new path to liberate themselves from national and social oppression. |
| Comrades and friends,
We owe all that we have achieved over the past hundred years to the concerted efforts of the Chinese Communists, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation. Chinese Communists, with comrades Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao as their chief representatives, have made tremendous and historic contributions to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. To them, we express our highest respect. Let us take this moment to cherish the memory of comrades Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, and other veteran revolutionaries who contributed greatly to China’s revolution, construction, and reform, and to the founding, consolidation, and development of the Communist Party of China; let us cherish the memory of the revolutionary martyrs who bravely laid down their lives to establish, defend, and develop the People’s Republic; let us cherish the memory of those who dedicated their lives to reform, opening up, and socialist modernization; and let us cherish the memory of all the men and women who fought tenaciously for national independence and the liberation of the people in modern times. Their great contributions to our motherland and our nation will be immortalized in the annals of history, and their noble spirit will live on forever in the hearts of the Chinese people. |
Extolling Mao and Zhou Enlai together with modern revisionists Deng Xiaoping, Liu Shaoqi and Chen Yun is Xi Jinping’s underhanded way of (a) obscuring the key revolutionary ideas of Maoism and (b) passing off Deng and Liu as “socialists.” |
| The people are the true heroes, for it is they who create history. On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, I would like to pay my highest respects to workers, farmers, and intellectuals across the country; to other political parties, public figures without party affiliation, people’s organizations, and patriotic figures from all sectors of society; to all members of the People’s Liberation Army, the People’s Armed Police Force, the public security police, and the fire and rescue services; to all socialist working people; and to all members of the united front. I would like to extend my sincere greetings to compatriots in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and in Taiwan as well as overseas Chinese. And I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to people and friends from around the world who have shown friendship to the Chinese people and understanding and support for China’s endeavors in revolution, development, and reform. | Xi Jinping pays lipservice to the workers and farmers, who he lines up with all the other forces, as “they who create history,” brushing over how it was the millions of peasant masses and workers who primarily waged armed resistance to win victory for the new democratic revolution; and who toiled and sacrificed in their tens of millions in mass mobilizations to break the ground and carve the land to change the face of China’s countryside and build its industries from the 1950s to the early 1970s. |
| Comrades and friends,
Though our Party’s founding mission is easy to define, ensuring that we stay true to this mission is a more difficult task. By learning from history, we can understand why powers rise and fall. Through the mirror of history, we can find where we currently stand and gain foresight into the future. Looking back on the Party’s 100-year history, we can see why we were successful in the past and how we can continue to succeed in the future. This will ensure that we act with greater resolve and purpose in staying true to our founding mission and pursuing a better future on the new journey that lies before us. As we put conscious effort into learning from history to create a bright future, we must bear the following in mind: We must uphold the firm leadership of the Party. China’s success hinges on the Party. The more than 180-year-long modern history of the Chinese nation, the 100-year-long history of the Party, and the more than 70-year-long history of the People’s Republic of China all provide ample evidence that without the Communist Party of China, there would be no new China and no national rejuvenation. The Party was chosen by history and the people. The leadership of the Party is the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics and constitutes the greatest strength of this system. It is the foundation and lifeblood of the Party and the country, and the crux upon which the interests and wellbeing of all Chinese people depend. |
Xi Jinping reduces socialism to Party leadership and dictatorship to camouflage how high functionaries of the CPC and the Chinese government enrich themselves and their families through bureaucrat capitalist exploitation of state resources and abuse of power, privilege and protection. There is intrafamily links between the monopoly bureaucrat capitalists, the Chinese billionaires and member of the CPC’s Central Committee. The biggest Chinese companies have benefited from state contracts or are put under the thumb of the central government and CPC through political and business pressures.
In connivance with bureaucrat capitalists exercising absolute power, Chinese criminal overlords continue to expand their operations in illegal drugs manufacture and export, as well as in gambling, prostitution, male-child kidnapping and trafficking, illegal sale of public property, and so on. Xi Jinping misrepresents Party dictatorship as the proletarian class dictatorship. He obscures the fact that the CPC has turned its back on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the class interests of the proletariat, and now represents the interests of the state monopoly bourgeoisie and capitalist billionaires. |
| On the journey ahead, we must uphold the Party’s overall leadership and continue to enhance its leadership. We must be deeply conscious of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment with the central Party leadership. We must stay confident in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics. We must uphold the core position of the General Secretary on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole, and uphold the Central Committee’s authority and its centralized, unified leadership. Bearing in mind the country’s most fundamental interests, we must enhance the Party’s capacity to conduct sound, democratic, and law-based governance, and ensure that it fully exerts its core role in providing overall leadership and coordinating the efforts of all sides. | Xi Jinping makes no mention of the basic Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organizational tenet of democratic centralism where centralized leadership is based on democracy, and democracy is guided and unified by centralized leadership.
Xi Jinping promotes his authoritarianism. He one-sidedly foists his power on the entire Party by insisting that “core position of the General Secretary (himself)” is above Central Committee and the Party “as a whole.” By having the CPC declare him as a “core leader” (a stature of infallibility), he demands obedience of the Party, its leadership and membership, to him and his body of thought packaged as “Thought on Socialism with Chinese charateristics for a New Era.” |
| We must unite and lead the Chinese people in working ceaselessly for a better life. This country is its people; the people are the country. As we have fought to establish and consolidate our leadership over the country, we have in fact been fighting to earn and keep the people’s support. The Party has in the people its roots, its lifeblood, and its source of strength. The Party has always represented the fundamental interests of all Chinese people; it stands with them through thick and thin and shares a common fate with them. The Party has no special interests of its own—it has never represented any individual interest group, power group, or privileged stratum. Any attempt to divide the Party from the Chinese people or to set the people against the Party is bound to fail. The more than 95 million Party members and the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people will never allow such a scenario to come to pass. | Xi Jinping echoes the Soviet revisionist Kruschov by describing the CPC as a Party of the whole people, making no mention of the communist party as a party of the proletariat and its vanguard in their class struggles against the bourgeoisie.
Xi Jinping reveals himself a non-communist. He propounds the thought of the Party being classless, that it was never the representative of any “interest group” to deny the fact that the CPC under Mao was proletarian, and blur the reality today that the CPC is lorded over by the big bourgeoisie in state monopolies and giant non-state capitalist enterprises. |
| On the journey ahead, we must rely closely on the people to create history. Upholding the Party’s fundamental purpose of wholeheartedly serving the people, we will stand firmly with the people, implement the Party’s mass line, respect the people’s creativity, and practice a people-centered philosophy of development. We will develop whole-process people’s democracy, safeguard social fairness and justice, and resolve the imbalances and inadequacies in development and the most pressing difficulties and problems that are of great concern to the people. In doing so, we will make more notable and substantive progress toward achieving well-rounded human development and common prosperity for all. | This is empty phrasemongering; if one is to really rely on the people to create history, one must clearly state the need to militate the masses by conducting Marxist-Leninist-Maoist education, rousing them and making them embrace the tasks for building socialism and mobilizing them in their millions to change the face of society. This is not so much different to how the bourgeois parties speak of the “people” as recipients of their benevolence. |
| We must continue to adapt Marxism to the Chinese context. Marxism is the fundamental guiding ideology upon which our Party and country are founded; it is the very soul of our Party and the banner under which it strives. The Communist Party of China upholds the basic tenets of Marxism and the principle of seeking truth from facts. Based on China’s realities, we have developed keen insights into the trends of the day, seized the initiative in history, and made painstaking explorations. We have thus been able to keep adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of our times, and to guide the Chinese people in advancing our great social revolution. At the fundamental level, the capability of our Party and the strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics are attributable to the fact that Marxism works. | Certainly, Marxism teaches us the method of “seeking truth from facts.” But Marxism is not only a method, but more fundamentally, a class viewpoint and standpoint reflecting the interests of the proletariat. Its historical materialist component teaches us how the question of classes and class struggle fundamentally defines the characteristic of any society.
To seek truth from facts to determine the class nature of the CPC and class structure of Chinese society is to unravel the reality of capitalist restoration in China through modern revisionism which allowed the transfer of real ownership and control of the means of production from the proletariat to the bourgeoisie since 1978, paving the way for the emergence and dominance of state monopoly capitalists and owners of capitalist enterprises who thrive and accumulate capital on the basis of the exploitation and oppression of the Chinese workers and toiling people. |
| On the journey ahead, we must continue to uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development, and fully implement the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. We must continue to adapt the basic tenets of Marxism to China’s specific realities and its fine traditional culture. We will use Marxism to observe, understand, and steer the trends of our times, and continue to develop the Marxism of contemporary China and in the 21st century. | To make it appear that the CPC has not completely abandoned Mao, Xi Jinping makes mention of Mao Zedong Thought, but immediately undermines it by mixing it up with Deng Xiaoping Theory and his own “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” and passing these off as further development of Marxist-Leninist theories.
In truth, Xi Jinping’s entire speech promotes the modern revisionist ideas of Deng and Liu which Mao Zedong vigorously fought and denounced in the GPCR. Xi Jinping is Deng Xiaoping in the era of China’s assertion as an imperialist power. |
| We must uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics. We must follow our own path—this is the bedrock that underpins all the theories and practices of our Party. More than that, it is the historical conclusion our Party has drawn from its struggles over the past century. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is a fundamental achievement of the Party and the people, forged through innumerable hardships and great sacrifices, and it is the right path for us to achieve national rejuvenation. As we have upheld and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics and driven coordinated progress in material, political, cultural-ethical, social, and ecological terms, we have pioneered a new and uniquely Chinese path to modernization, and created a new model for human advancement. | “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is a myth. What prevails now is monopoly capitalism with ultra-nationalist Chinese characteristics.
Of course, Xi Jinping makes no mention how the Chinese people are living under increasingly authoritarian rule (police state where the people are subjected to constant mass surveillance), where workers have no right to organize genuine workers unions, where the right to strike was stricken off from the constitution, where they are made to toil under severe conditions of “factory discipline,” where there is massive unemployment, rural displacement of millions of peasants, oppression of national minorities, widespread destruction of the environment and plunder of marine resources even beyond Chinese seas. |
| On the journey ahead, we must adhere to the Party’s basic theory, line, and policy, and implement the five-sphere integrated plan and the four-pronged comprehensive strategy. We must deepen reform and opening up across the board, ground our work in this new stage of development, fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy, and foster a new pattern of development. We must promote high-quality development and build up our country’s strength in science and technology. We must ensure it is our people who run the country, continue to govern based on the rule of law, and uphold the core socialist values. We must ensure and enhance public wellbeing in the course of development, promote harmony between humanity and nature, and take well-coordinated steps toward making our people prosperous, our nation strong, and our country beautiful.
The Chinese nation has fostered a splendid civilization over more than 5,000 years of history. The Party has also acquired a wealth of experience through its endeavors over the past 100 years and during more than 70 years of governance. At the same time, we are also eager to learn what lessons we can from the achievements of other cultures, and welcome helpful suggestions and constructive criticism. We will not, however, accept sanctimonious preaching from those who feel they have the right to lecture us. The Party and the Chinese people will keep moving confidently forward in broad strides along the path that we have chosen for ourselves, and we will make sure the destiny of China’s development and progress remains firmly in our own hands. We must accelerate the modernization of national defense and the armed forces. A strong country must have a strong military, as only then can it guarantee the security of the nation. At the point that it was engaged in violent struggle, the Party came to recognize the irrefutable truth that it must command the gun and build a people’s military of its own. The people’s military has made indelible achievements on behalf of the Party and the people. It is a strong pillar for safeguarding our socialist country and preserving national dignity, and a powerful force for protecting peace in our region and beyond. On the journey ahead, we must fully implement the Party’s thinking on strengthening the military in the new era as well as our military strategy for the new era, maintain the Party’s absolute leadership over the people’s armed forces, and follow a Chinese path to military development. We will take comprehensive measures to enhance the political loyalty of the armed forces, to strengthen them through reform and technology and the training of competent personnel, and to run them in accordance with the law. We will elevate our people’s armed forces to world-class standards so that we are equipped with greater capacity and more reliable means for safeguarding our national sovereignty, security, and development interests. We must continue working to promote the building of a human community with a shared future. Peace, concord, and harmony are ideas the Chinese nation has pursued and carried forward for more than 5,000 years. The Chinese nation does not carry aggressive or hegemonic traits in its genes. The Party cares about the future of humanity, and wishes to move forward in tandem with all progressive forces around the world. China has always worked to safeguard world peace, contribute to global development, and preserve international order. |
Imperialist China builds its military force not only for national defense, but to defend Chinese monopoly capitalist interests overseas; this includes deployment of aircraft carriers and troops in Africa (Djibouti) and the South China Sea.
It aims to build more aircraft carriers to extend the reach of Chinese military power beyond its borders. It continues to expand its naval forces to prevent the US and its allies from lording it over the trade routes through the South China Sea and secure firm control over Hongkong and Taiwan. China is also seeking to strengthen its army and air forces in order to secure Chinese investments in the countries along the route of the so-called Belt and Road Initiative. At the same time, it is also strengthening its influence over the national armies of countries by providing military hardware and other forms of aid. Echoing Kruschov’s “peacefuls,” Xi Jinping speaks of preserving the current global capitalist system which has allowed the growth of China’s state monopoly bourgeoisie. It is pushing to preserve the prevailing system of neoliberal policies governing investments and trade, in order to continue benefitting from US economic trade and investments. This allowed China to grow in the 1990s especially with the outsourcing to China of production segments of US and Japanese companies and their subsidiaries in Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore, but which is now being threatened by US sanctions amid growing imperialist rivalries. In promoting the “preservation of the international order,” Xi Jinping firmly shuts the door to proletarian internationalism and solidarity between peoples fighting colonial and semicolonial oppression. |
| On the journey ahead, we will remain committed to promoting peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit, to an independent foreign policy of peace, and to the path of peaceful development. We will work to build a new type of international relations and a human community with a shared future, promote high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative through joint efforts, and use China’s new achievements in development to provide the world with new opportunities. The Party will continue to work with all peace-loving countries and peoples to promote the shared human values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom. We will continue to champion cooperation over confrontation, to open up rather than closing our doors, and to focus on mutual benefits instead of zero-sum games. We will oppose hegemony and power politics, and strive to keep the wheels of history rolling toward bright horizons. | Xi speaks of a “new world” dominated by Chinese capital, where countries’ sovereignties are subjected to international loan sharks and debt traps aka Chinese-provided “new opportunities”, where global resources are siphoned off by China’s giant capitalist machines, and countries exchange their cheap labor and resources with Chinese technologically advanced commodities; in other words, Xi’s new world is nothing but the old world of neoliberal policies and imperialist plunder dominated by China. |
| We Chinese are a people who uphold justice and are not intimidated by threats of force. As a nation, we have a strong sense of pride and confidence. We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will. By the same token, we will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us. Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.
We must carry out a great struggle with many contemporary features. Having the courage to fight and the fortitude to win is what has made our Party invincible. Realizing our great dream will require hard work and persistence. Today, we are closer, more confident, and more capable than ever before of making the goal of national rejuvenation a reality. But we must be prepared to work harder than ever to get there. On the journey ahead, we must demonstrate stronger vigilance and always be prepared for potential danger, even in times of calm. We must adopt a holistic approach to national security that balances development and security imperatives, and implement the national rejuvenation strategy within a wider context of the once-in-a-century changes taking place in the world. We need to acquire a full understanding of the new features and requirements arising from the change to the principal contradiction in Chinese society and the new issues and challenges stemming from a complicated international environment. We must be both brave and adept in carrying out our struggle, forging new paths and building new bridges wherever necessary to take us past all risks and challenges. |
Imperialist subjugators all arose from a lower level of social and economic development; before the end of the 19th century, colonialism was almost exclusively the realm of European countries; that the US imperialists never subjugated any country before 1898 did not stop them from engaging in wars of aggression and colonization from 1898 and throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, as it objectively needed to when monopoly capitalists began to dominate and demand the expansion of its markets, and sources of raw materials for its production, and eventually, for the export of capital and spheres of investment.
Arising from the development of monopoly capitalism, China has now become a big imperialist bully, contrary to Xi Jinping’s claims. Employing its large fleet of naval vessels, it has bullied and driven Filipino fishermen and their outriggers out of their traditional fishing areas. China has embarked on its so-called Belt and Road Initiative to unload it of its surplus capital, steel and cement production capacity, and obliging countries to take in loans for infrastructure projects. It is bound to further assert its power to compel other countries to give up their sovereignties and patrimonies, through trade, financial or economic pressure backed with military force. |
| We must strengthen the great unity of the Chinese people. In the course of our struggles over the past century, the Party has always placed the united front in a position of importance. We have constantly consolidated and developed the broadest possible united front, united all the forces that can be united, mobilized all positive factors that can be mobilized, and pooled as much strength as possible for collective endeavors. The patriotic united front is an important means for the Party to unite all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation, both at home and abroad, behind the goal of national rejuvenation.
On the journey ahead, we must ensure great unity and solidarity and balance commonality and diversity. We should strengthen theoretical and political guidance, build broad consensus, bring together the brightest minds, and expand common ground and the convergence of interests, so that all Chinese people, both at home and overseas, can focus their ingenuity and energy on the same goal and come together as a mighty force for realizing national rejuvenation. |
Xi Jinping speaks of building a united front around the Party; not around the working class; he does not speak of building an alliance of workers and all toiling people as the basic alliance for building unity at other levels; this is not a class-based united front as conceived by communists.
The CPC is not promoting class-based politics and alliances; behind the facade of “Marxism,” the CPC is actually promoting Chinese ultranationalism, not essentially different from how the bourgeois parties of other countries promote nationalism in their countries to obscure the seething class contradictions. In the face of deepening crisis, rising imperialist rivalries and Chinese assertion of hegemony and economic dominance, it is no surprise that the CPC is promoting national chauvinism as fascist parties do as a tool to draw the people away from revolutionary action. |
| We must continue to advance the great new project of Party building. A hallmark that distinguishes the Communist Party of China from other political parties is its courage in undertaking self-reform. An important reason why the Party remains so vital and vibrant despite having undergone so many trials and tribulations is that it practices effective self-supervision and full and rigorous self-governance. It has thus been able to respond appropriately to the risks and tests of different historical periods, to ensure that it always remains at the forefront of the times even as profound changes sweep the global landscape, and to stand firm as the backbone of the nation throughout the process of meeting various risks and challenges at home and abroad. | Xi Jinping adeptly avoids mentioning self-criticism as one of the hallmarks of communists; he asserts “self-supervision” as opposed to a Party supervised by the working class and people; this is the condition for corruption and self-aggrandizement to thrive especially among the high officials, the supervisors, of the revisionist Party.
Like all modern revisionists and representatives of the monopoly bourgeoisie, Xi Jinping speaks of the people as true heroes only rhetorically, but does nothing to actually mobilize and involve the masses in the affairs of the state and enable them to oversee and supervise state officials. |
| On the journey ahead, we must keep firmly in mind the old adage that it takes a good blacksmith to make good steel. We must demonstrate greater political awareness of the fact that full and rigorous self-governance is a never-ending journey. With strengthening the Party politically as our overarching principle, we must continue advancing the great new project of Party building in the new era. We must tighten the Party’s organizational system, work hard to train high-caliber officials who have both moral integrity and professional competence, remain committed to improving Party conduct, upholding integrity, and combating corruption, and root out any elements that would harm the Party’s advanced nature and purity and any viruses that would erode its health. We must ensure that the Party preserves its essence, color, and character, and see that it always serves as the strong leadership core in the course of upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. | Xi does not speak of membership in the CPC as requiring one to embrace the historic cause of the proletariat and to selflessly serve the working class and people; in China, the Party has been reduced to an all-seeing and all-controlling machine of the monopoly bourgeoisie; those who seek jobs, education, government position, contracts, must get the endorsement of the Party.
There are prevalent reports of how people seek to join the Party for them to enjoy state privileges and gain other material benefits, contrary to the communist spirit of giving up self-interest and everything one owns to serve the cause of the working class. |
| Comrades and friends,
We will stay true to the letter and spirit of the principle of One Country, Two Systems, under which the people of Hong Kong administer Hong Kong, and the people of Macao administer Macao, both with a high degree of autonomy. We will ensure that the central government exercises overall jurisdiction over Hong Kong and Macao, and implement the legal systems and enforcement mechanisms for the two special administrative regions to safeguard national security. While protecting China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests, we will ensure social stability in Hong Kong and Macao, and maintain lasting prosperity and stability in the two special administrative regions. |
The One Country, Two Systems has become increasingly untenable for China in the face of the rapid expansion of its capitalist economy, where it seeks to put the financial system and the pockets of advanced industrial production in Hong Kong firmly under central state control. |
| Resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment of the Communist Party of China. It is also a shared aspiration of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation. We will uphold the one-China principle and the 1992 Consensus, and advance peaceful national reunification. All of us, compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, must come together and move forward in unison. We must take resolute action to utterly defeat any attempt toward “Taiwan independence,” and work together to create a bright future for national rejuvenation. No one should underestimate the resolve, the will, and the ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity. | A key factor in the Taiwan issue is the semiconductor industry. The biggest semiconductor producer, the TSMC, is in Taiwan, which has the capacity for advanced semiconductor production (7 nanometer chips, and now aiming for 5, 3 and 1 nm technologies). China’s semiconductor industry is relatively backward, and has no access to advanced semiconductor production technology, particularly in the lithography or circuit etching process, which is held by a Dutch company. |
| Comrades and friends,
The future belongs to the young people, and our hopes also rest with them. A century ago, a group of young progressives held aloft the torch of Marxism and searched assiduously in those dark years for ways to rejuvenate the Chinese nation. Since then, under the banner of the Communist Party of China, generation after generation of young Chinese have devoted their youth to the cause of the Party and the people, and remained in the vanguard of the drive to rejuvenate the nation. In the new era, our young people should make it their mission to contribute to national rejuvenation and aspire to become more proud, confident, and assured in their identity as Chinese people so that they can live up to the promise of their youth and the expectations of our times, our Party, and our people. Comrades and friends, A century ago, at the time of its founding, the Communist Party of China had just over 50 members. Today, with more than 95 million members in a country of more than 1.4 billion people, it is the largest governing party in the world and enjoys tremendous international influence. |
The CPC’s membership is actually very small relative to the Chinese population [only 6.78%]. A ruling communist party not afraid of the people and who consider the mobilization of the people as key to the building of a socialist future, can build a much bigger mass party that is more tightly integrated with the broad masses. |
| A century ago, China was in decline and withering away in the eyes of the world. Today, the image it presents to the world is one of a thriving nation that is advancing with unstoppable momentum toward rejuvenation.
Over the past century, the Communist Party of China has secured extraordinary historical achievements on behalf of the people. Today, it is rallying and leading the Chinese people on a new journey toward realizing the second centenary goal. |
“Thriving nation” is an image presented to the world with the rise of Chinese dollar billionaires and their gigantic state and private capitalist enterprises. This is, however, a false picture for the hundreds of millions of Chinese workers and small farmers who daily suffer from rural poverty, unemployment, worsening forms of exploitation and oppression including slave-like factory conditions. |
| To all Party members,
The Central Committee calls on every one of you to stay true to our Party’s founding mission and stand firm in your ideals and convictions. Acting on the purpose of the Party, you should always maintain close ties with the people, empathize and work with them, stand with them through good times and bad, and continue working tirelessly to realize their aspirations for a better life and to bring still greater glory to the Party and the people. Comrades and friends, Today, a hundred years on from its founding, the Communist Party of China is still in its prime, and remains as determined as ever to achieve lasting greatness for the Chinese nation. Looking back on the path we have travelled and forward to the journey that lies ahead, it is certain that with the firm leadership of the Party and the great unity of the Chinese people of all ethnic groups, we will achieve the goal of building a great modern socialist country in all respects and fulfill the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. Long live our great, glorious, and correct Party! Long live our great, glorious, and heroic people! |
The genuine proletarian revolutionaries in China must stay true to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, firmly commit themselves to the cause of the proletariat, steadfastly unite the working class and all the oppressed classes in China and strive for revolutionary rejuvanation.
They must stand up and expose all the bourgeois populist lies of Xi Jinping and the Chinese monopoly capitalists and tell the whole world of the evils that capitalist restoration in China has wrought on the Chinese people. They must reestablish a genuine communist party in China and take back the red flag from the modern revisionists in order to expose their true colors. |
