The Second Session of the 14th National People’s Congress took place in Beijing at the Great Hall of the People. Many media outlets called this event nothing less than the main political event of the year in China.
At the session of the NPC, a wide range of issues regarding the life of China and its position on the world stage were considered. In this regard, the Chinese news agency Xinhua interviewed Dmitry Novikov, Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on International Affairs, about the domestic and foreign policy of the PRC.
— Dmitry Georgievich, what initiatives of the Chinese leader in the international arena in recent years, in your opinion, are the most significant?
— The election of Comrade Xi Jinping and his associates as leaders of the Communist Party of China and the People’s Republic of China was, in my opinion, no less important a milestone in the history of your country than the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China and the beginning of the policy of reform and openness. Under the leadership of the current General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, China has been able to very accurately assess the changes taking place in the world and the place of the PRC in them. On this basis, extremely important steps have been taken to develop the country, taking into account the large-scale changes that humanity has entered into.
The importance of the events unfolding in the world is such that they directly affect all countries and all peoples. Before our eyes, the development paths of the international community are being determined for years and even decades to come. The deep essence of these processes is the increasingly rapid and irreversible weakening of Western capital. This is influenced by two main factors. First of all, there is an increase in contradictions within the leading bourgeois powers – the USA and the states of Western Europe. At this stage they have exhausted their potential for progressive development.
The reluctance of capital to give up the extremely high rate of profit laid a number of “time bombs” under the bourgeois system. There is an uncontrollable swelling of the financial and speculative sector, which is not provided with real “content”. Sooner or later, such bubbles burst, as happened in 2008. However, the capitalists have not abandoned their vicious policies and continue to speculate on a system heavily implicated in greed, deceit and adventurism.
Under these conditions, class divisions within Western countries are deepening. The flow of social handouts, which the bourgeoisie reluctantly accepted under the influence of the successes of the USSR and the growing popularity of communist ideas, is rapidly drying up. The taking away of previous gains cannot but cause growing resistance on the part of the working people. Just yesterday this was clearly demonstrated by the French “yellow vests”. Today this can be seen in the powerful protests of farmers, transport workers and other groups in Western Europe.
External migration does not contribute to social peace either. The population understands that there is a way to solve this problem. We just need to stop destroying the statehood of the countries of the Global South, take part in solving Libyan, Palestinian and a number of other problems and help residents of Asian, African and Latin American countries improve their lives in their homeland. However, capitalist monopolies have their own calculations. They rely on the influx of cheap labor into their countries in order to put pressure on the Western, overly “spoiled”, in their opinion, proletariat.
All these phenomena provoke an acute socio-economic collapse, which is inevitably reflected in thinking, politics and culture. The ideological and moral crisis is deepening. This is becoming another problem in Western society. The values of the once great civilization, which gave world culture the names of brilliant philosophers, writers, artists and musicians, are being eroded. There are signs of its degeneration. We see them both in the growing depopulation of the European Union countries and in the degradation of their political elite.
When I talk about the degeneration of this public, I do not at all want to offend anyone. Alas, this is the reality of things. After all, when Josep Borrell divides the “civilized” West and the rest of the world into a blooming garden and a wild jungle, this is an undoubted sign of degradation – both mental and moral.
The second most important factor in weakening the influence of Western capital is its self-exposure. In pursuit of profit, the world oligarchy is increasingly cynically throwing off the masks of democracy and human rights. Once again in its history it is moving towards widespread expansion. Neocolonialism has affected dozens of countries on the planet. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan became victims of open intervention. Post-Soviet republics, many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have experienced sophisticated technologies of “color revolutions”. And of course, the West is vigorously pursuing numerous methods of economic exploitation, including the use of the dollar system.
The intervention of imperialist circles in the affairs of other countries has become the impetus for strengthening the national liberation struggle in the modern world. The peoples of the planet are increasingly demanding respect for their interests. They strive to provide no formsal, but the true sovereignty of their countries.
China is ahead of these processes. For almost two centuries, it has accumulated experience in the struggle for independent development in opposition to colonialists – old and new. Your homeland has achieved great success in solving this great task. A century ago, China was divided into spheres of influence by foreign powers. Their puppets robbed the country and humiliated a people with thousands of years of history.
It was China that was the first country in the world to feel the icy breath of World War II, when faced with the ruthless Japanese invaders. After the defeat of the Japanese militarists, the American imperialists tried to establish control over the country, relying on the Chiang Kai-shek clique. But China has overcome all these challenges with dignity. The declaration of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was an act of true independence. And this happened thanks to the leadership role of the Communist Party, which was able to direct the energy and will of the people to defend their native country.
Today again there are those who are trying to “call China to order.” The West is afraid of China’s transformation into a global superpower. He wants to hold back its development. The hatred of the imperialists is intensified by the fact that Beijing has become, without exaggeration, the voice, hope and defense of the whole world, which does not want to live under the heel of the newly emerged colonialists. Sometimes this world is called the Global South, but its interests are completely consonant with the interests of the world majority, and therefore all of humanity.
What causes particular dissatisfaction, even hysteria, among opponents of the PRC is the strong ideological foundation on which China’s progressive role in the modern world is based. The enormous merit of the CPC and Xi Jinping personally is that Chinese society remains faithful to the ideals of Marxism-Leninism, building socialism taking into account the national specifics of your large, beautiful and very interesting country.
I will list the most important, in my opinion, initiatives of the PRC leadership in the international arena. First of all, this is the concept of a community with a common destiny for humanity. It offers a path of development that is fundamentally different from the Western model of imperialist globalization. In support of this concept, China has developed specific mechanisms for implementing its ideas. These are the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative. They have received approval from dozens of countries and are already becoming the conceptual basis for the implementation of a number of specific projects.
The practical implementation of Beijing’s major initiatives was, in particular, the “One Belt and One Road” project. Its mission is to connect countries and continents through trade, investment, infrastructure development and people-to-people exchanges. 150 countries have already become participants in the Belt and Road Initiative. Over 10 years, this initiative has made it possible to absorb investments worth almost $1 trillion in the framework of more than 3 thousand joint projects. China has doubled its trade turnover with countries along the Belt and Road routes to $2.07 trillion. According to the World Bank forecast, by 2030, the development of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative will create 420 thousand jobs in China’s partner countries.
China’s international strategy is based on the ideas of equality and justice. At the latest Belt and Road Summit, Xi Jinping noted that the initiative will continue to develop on the unchanging principles of joint planning, joint construction and joint use. “There will be no place for bloc confrontation and geopolitical games, unilateral sanctions, economic blackmail and attempts at disengagement,” the Chairman of the PRC emphasized. According to him, the history of the development of the ancient Silk Road proved that development and prosperity are achieved not by war horses and long spears, but by camel caravans and goods, not by warships, but by merchant ships and friendship. And this is exactly what the system of international relations lacks today.
— What do you see as the deep meaning of the Chinese leader’s set of initiatives in the country and in the world? Can we say that since Xi Jinping came to power, a holistic concept has been formed in the field of public administration within the country and a set of initiatives in the international arena?
— As followers of the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, we communists know that it is impossible to separate domestic and foreign policy from each other. Both of them are a superstructure over the economic base and express, first of all, the interests of the ruling classes. For example, in a capitalist system, the exploitation of one’s own workers goes hand in hand with external expansion and the capture of markets. At the same time, sometimes the bourgeoisie tries to reduce the dissatisfaction of domestic workers with handouts and inciting chauvinistic and nationalist sentiments.
From the moment of its formation, People’s China set a course for building socialism. And, contrary to the speculation of those who claim that all this is just a screen for market reforms, Beijing is confidently strengthening the socialist foundations of its state. In this regard, the meeting held recently by the heads of China and