Zhongnanhai Blog (via Global Voices) picks up a discussion on Quora.com regarding the term “Communist China”; specifically, whether it is accurate and appropriate or, in Kaiser Kuo’s words, “contentious, value-laden, or outright pejorative”.
Bill Bishop, who does not himself use the term, argues in its support:
Hypocrite nutters like Glen Beck and Lou Dobbs may use it in a derogatory way, but is it inaccurate?
What other major world power (ie UN Security Council ex PRC, Brazil, India, Japan, Germany) is not a democracy, or at least the facade of one (Russia)? China is different, its ideology is different, and its political system is different. What is wrong with making sure people understand that? And how is it a double standard if it is just highlighting how China is different?
The world is on the cusp of a major power shift, and I don’t think we should elide the political reality of the system that underpins the PRC state, especially when at its core it is hostile to the US/West and its system of governance. We need to stop pretending that the China fantasy of political liberalization through economic engagement is going to happen anytime soon, if ever (credit to James Mann).
In response to the assertion that China is no longer really Communist, Bishop cites Richard McGregor’s article in Foreign Policy, “5 Myths About the Chinese Communist Party”:
“China Is Communist in Name Only.”
Wrong. If Vladimir Lenin were reincarnated in 21st-century Beijing and managed to avert his eyes from the city’s glittering skyscrapers and conspicuous consumption, he would instantly recognize in the ruling Chinese Communist Party a replica of the system he designed nearly a century ago for the victors of the Bolshevik Revolution. One need only look at the party’s structure to see how communist — and Leninist — China’s political system remains ….
Indeed, if you benchmark the Chinese Communist Party against a definitional checklist authored by Robert Service, the veteran historian of the Soviet Union, the similarities are remarkable. As with communism in its heyday elsewhere, the party in China has eradicated or emasculated political rivals, eliminated the autonomy of the courts and media, restricted religion and civil society, denigrated rival versions of nationhood, centralized political power, established extensive networks of security police, and dispatched dissidents to labor camps. There is a good reason why the Chinese system is often described as “market-Leninism.”
Zhongnanhai Blog’s Cam MacMurchy concludes:
The People’s Republic of China can be called the PRC, Mainland China, the Chinese Mainland, and even Communist China, because that is factually what it is. That is not a debatable point. The message meant to be conveyed through the use of the term, however, is subjective and personal, and the meaning of that message and its accuracy can be debated. Whether or not one prefers the use of “Communist China” is totally a matter of personal preference, but encouraging others not to use a descriptor that is factually correct is indeed, and ironically, a subtle way of injecting one’s own values and beliefs into the term.
Does all this matter?
“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.
“When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot.
“Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.”
— Analects, 13.3
More impenetrably, is a Communist China not a China?
