Republished from Black Agenda Report
The Difference between the CPC and the DNC? A Study of Politics Versus Personalities
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Unlike Joe Biden, Xi Jinping's report is centered, not on personality but on the actually-existing socialist system in China.
"Seventy-three percent of people polled in China believe they live in a democracy."
The Democratic Party recently held its convention and formally nominated Joe Biden to run against Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Biden's nomination comes amid a U.S.-led New Cold War against China that has grown enormously in scale since the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Wuhan at the end of 2019. The U.S.' New Cold War has come with sanctions, military maneuvers, diplomatic freezes, attacks on China's tech industry and endless cycles of anti-China and anti-communist propaganda. A deeper understanding of China is a critical necessity for people in the United States who want to see the principle of peace become a reality in their lifetime. A good place to begin developing solidarity with China is by understanding the difference between the Democratic Party and China's ruling party, the Communist Party of China (CPC).
The Democratic Party and the Communist Party of China couldn't be more different, but one wouldn't know this if the Trump administration's election red-baiting was the only frame of reference available to compare them. The contrast can be readily seen in two speeches: one given by Joe Biden at the Democratic National Convention and the other given by China's president Xi Jinping at the 28thcollective study of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, released to the public in Qiushi Journal on August 15th of 2020. Joe Biden's speech focused primarily on the blunders of current U.S. president Donald J. Trump. Xi Jinping's speech focused on a synthesis of Marxist political economy and its application to the policies that undergird modern China. In other words, Joe Biden and the Democrats are concerned mainly with personalities while Xi Jinping and the CPC are more concerned with policy.
"A deeper understanding of China is a critical necessity for people in the United States who want to see the principle of peace become a reality in their lifetime."
Joe Biden's convention speech quite clearly frames the 2020 election as a referendum on Trump. Trump was condemned for failing to protect people from COVID-19, befriending "dictators," and neglecting the economic wellbeing of working people and the natural environment. Biden's speech outlined what he saw as the major problems of the current administration but left out their root cause entirely. Instead, criticism of Trump's handling of the grave challenges facing the U.S. was coupled with a sermon on American exceptionalism. Biden promised to be an "American" president, a president of "light," and one who will bring the U.S. closer to racial, economic, and environmental justice as defined by the example of the Obama administration.
The villains and heroes are clear in Biden's speech. Biden and his version of the United States are the heroes. Trump and his version of the United States are the villains. Biden neither explains the true character of the U.S. social system nor offers clear policy remedies. In actuality, the Democratic Party adheres to Biden's slogan that "nothing would fundamentally change" for the rich should he win the general election. That corporate donors ultimately determine Biden's political orientation must be buried from public discourse. American exceptionalism serves as the religion employed to deflect attention away from the political and policy questions that underscore this fact.
"Biden neither explains the true character of the U.S. social system nor offers clear policy remedies."
China's ruling party takes a different approach to politics. Marxist political economy is the theory that guides the party's economic and political leadership. Politics are the instrument through which Marxist political economy is applied to the concrete conditions that exist in China. In his speech to the Central Committee's Political Bureau, Xi Jinping remarked that "the purpose of studying Marxist political economy is to better guide my country's economic development practice. It is necessary to adhere to its basic principles and methodology . . . [and] integrate [the theory] with my country's actual economic development to continuously form new theoretical results." Marxist political economy is thus no religion, but rather a science that clarifies the leadership role of the party in the pathway forward for China's national development.
Xi Jinping outlines six key tasks derived from the Communist Party of China's study of Marxist political economy. The CPC will adhere to a people-centered ideology of development, create new development concepts from actual experience, uphold and improve the basic socialist economic system of the country, improve the distribution system, maintain balance between market economic reforms and socialist construction, and continue the process of opening up economic relations with the world. Unlike Joe Biden, Xi Jinping centers his recommendations not on the personality or type of rule of a political leader like Donald Trump but on the actually-existing socialist system in China. He emphasizes that the dominance of public ownership and state-owned enterprise cannot be shaken and warns against the drawbacks of capitalism in the opening up period. Problems such as uneven income distribution are framed as the responsibility of the party to ameliorate, not a single person.
"Politics are the instrument through which Marxist political economy is applied to the concrete conditions that exist in China."
Practice and methodology are critical aspects of political struggle often ignored in the U.S. As President Xi states, practice is the source of all theory. Joe Biden's Democratic Party has proven through practice to be an organ of the capitalist class. His nomination speech possessed crafted calls for hope and unity around a "more perfect union" but did not acknowledge the many policies that helped Trump win in 2016. Biden's commitment to credit card and financial corporations, fossil fuel interests , prison/police unions , and the military industrial complex is well-documented. His repetition of faulty intelligence regarding "Russian bounties" on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and the Democratic Party's willingness to bring Republicans John Kasich and Colin Powell under its big corporate tent is a clear message that the historic commitment to austerity and war is alive and well regardless of who wins the 2020 election.
U.S. politics are mired in a crisis of legitimacy where majorities of people neither trust the government nor participate in the political process. The Communist Party of China faces no such problem. Popular legitimacy for the CPC has been verified in data compiled by mainstream publications. The Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center found that over 95 percent of people in China report satisfaction with the central government. A survey gauging popular perceptions of "democracy" conducted in part by the Alliance for Democracies found that 73 percent of people polled from China believed they lived in a democratic society.
"The historic commitment to austerity and war is alive and well regardless of who wins the 2020 election."
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