Chinese New Left
The Chinese New Left is a term used in the People's Republic of China to describe a diverse range of left-wing political philosophies that emerged in the 1990s that are critical of the reform and opening up instituted under Deng Xiaoping, which emphasized policies of market liberalization and privatization to promote economic growth and modernization.
Chinese intellectual Wang Hui links the emergence of New Leftism with the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 1999 United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, which damaged the credibility of liberalism in China, as well as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Some of the Chinese New Left intellectuals enjoyed prominence, especially with the rise of Chongqing Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai, who promoted a set of socio-economic policies collectively termed the Chongqing model, though they suffered a blow after the end of Bo's career in 2012 due to the Wang Lijun incident.
There is an ambiguity of the term New Left in discourse drawing from the diversity of the movement. Generally speaking, the New Left can be applied to a person who embraces leftist theories, ideals, and traditions rooted in variations of socialist ideology, and other schools criticizing postmodernism and neoliberalism.
The New Left's relationship with Maoism and capitalism is complicated. Although some schools of thought suggest that the New Left wants the return to mass political movements of the CCP Chairman Mao Zedong era and an abandonment of capitalism, others believe that it combines capitalism's open markets with socialist elements. Additionally, the views within the New Left are diverse, ranging from hardline Maoists to more moderate social democrats.
Terminology
The term was first used by Chinese journalist Yang Ping, who published a review in the 21 July 1994 issue of Beijing Youth Daily about intellectual Cui Zhiyuan's article "New Evolution, Analytical Marxism, Critical Law, and China's Reality", remarking that China had produced its own "New Left wing". Initially, the term was propagated by liberal opponents who contended that there was no fundamental difference between diehard Maoists and the New Left.Although many New Left intellectuals oppose certain Maoist approaches, the term "New Left" implies some agreement with Maoism. Since it is associated with the ultra-leftism of the Cultural Revolution, many scholars and intellectuals supporting socialist approaches and reforms, but opposing the radical and brutal approaches of the Maoist period, do not completely accept the "New Left" label. Some are concerned about the fact that adopting leftism implies that China, historically different from the West, is still using a Western model to strategise its reforms and would be limited by how the West defines the Left. Intellectual Wang Hui explains the origin of, and his skepticism about, the term:
However, liberal intellectual Xu Youyu points out that Wang Hui's performance in his interview with the New Left Review suggests that he fully understood that the term was inevitably generated by social change and intellectual antagonism in China. The term "New Left" remains fraught with confusion due to the lack of clarity in its definition. Some intellectuals labeled as New Leftists, including but not limited to Gan Yang, are associated with Western conservatives, including Leo Strauss, rather than the New Left movement of the 1960s.
Origin
The concept of the New Left arose in China during the 1990s. According to New Left theory, market-economy challenges stem from the fact that under the reform and opening up, the market economy has become the dominant economic system; China's socialist economic reforms have brought the country into the global capitalist sphere. The 1990s New Left intellectuals criticized market reforms for increasing inequality.The development of the New Left is correlated to increased Chinese nationalism after its period of low-profile presence on the world stage during the Deng Xiaoping era. It is seen as a response to problems faced by China during its modernization drive since the 1980s, which has led to growing social inequality between the coast and hinterlands, and rich and poor. Some scholars believe that, based on its unique and drastic 20th-century economic and political changes, China cannot adopt the social-democratic, capitalist model of many Western countries.
The Chinese New Left is concerned with the country's social-inequality issues. Some scholars believe that although the movement is not yet mature, it is likely to embed itself in Chinese society over the next century. Strikes, sit-ins, slow-downs, and peasant uprisings, sporadic due to government suppression, are on the rise and may become more organized with the development of the New Left.
Although they are skeptical and critical of capitalism, New Leftists recognize its influence on China and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of capitalist models. Cui Zhiyuan, a leading New Left intellectual, believes that it is imperative that socialism and capitalism are not viewed as opposites. According to Zhang Xudong, "An advocate for New Deal-style economic and social policies in China was considered to be liberal in the 1980s, but as 'New Left' by the century's end." This overlap suggests that ideals set forth by the New Left strongly resemble the democratic socialism of the 1980s.
Intellectual views
Economics plays a significant role in the Chinese New Left, whose development is closely associated with the reform and opening up. Many supporters of the New Left generally believe that a leftist economic model should be found to tackle China's dependence on exports and savings, reduce the growing economic gap between rural and urban areas, and stimulate private business through public ownership and state planning. The capitalist free-market model applied in most social-democratic programs is undesirable because, instead of challenging and reforming the existing market economy and representative democracy, it seeks to moderate the social consequences of structural division and hierarchy. A suitable, sustainable market model is vital for China's leftist movement. At the same time, the New Left criticized market reforms by citing the damage they caused to the countryside as an argument. Like China's Old Left, the New Left supports state socialism as the alternative to neoliberal capitalism.New Left economist Cui Zhiyuan believes that a labour-capital partnership, based on the ideas of James Meade and John Maynard Keynes, can be used to introduce some flexibility to the labour market. Outside shareholders own capital-share certificates; workers own labour and share certificates, which replace a fixed wage and reduce the conflict of interest between workers and capitalists. Any decision that will improve one group will automatically raise the dividend on the shares of the other group. Many New Left intellectuals are confident in the outcome of collective economic-development planning, anticipating rural industrialization.
In 2010, when asked about the difference between the New Left in China and the New Left in the West, Professor Ding Xueliang of the Social Sciences Department of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology replied that, "there is no New Left in China at all, because the primary claim of the New Left is that human rights are greater than sovereignty", "The New Left in the West, they oppose the governments of their own countries on the one hand and the monopolies of their own countries on the other. Although their practical path may not be realistic, they at least have courage. The 'New Left' in China mostly appeals to the government, so how can this be called the New Left?"
Some in the Chinese New Left use critical theory, such as postmodernism or postcolonialism, to critique China's market-oriented reforms.
Social movements
According to the Financial Times in 2016, several experts estimate that if there were free elections in China, a neo-Maoist candidate would win. This Maoist revival movement precedes the tenure of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, whose own revival of Mao-era elements seem to be intended as a conciliatory move towards the neo-Maoists. It is believed that the rising popularity of neo-Maoism is due to the growing economic dislocation and inequality under market reforms and globalisation.Critiques of CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin's 2001 decision to allow private business people to become party members, referring to the decision as "political misconduct" and "ideological confusions", helped fuel the rise of what would become known as the New Left movement.
Neo-Maoists first became prominent under CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao's administration, delivering far-left attacks on CCP policy from websites such as Utopia, or MaoFlag. They expanded into a political movement through association with the Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, and succeeded in surviving crackdowns. It is believed that the CCP leadership is reluctant to eradicate these groups due to their connection with CCP history and ideology.
Maoism and neo-Maoism have been increasingly popular after the rise of Xi Jinping among millennials and poor Chinese people, and they are more frequently covered by foreign media.
Nanjie Village and land reform
's website posted a story about the village of Nanjie in Henan on 13 May 2011, calling it a prime example of recent "re-collectivizations" inspired by Mao's ideas: "The furniture and appliances in each home are identical, including the big red clocks with Chairman Mao's head, radiating psychedelic colours to the tune "The East Is Red." Huang Zunxian owns virtually nothing in his apartment. The possessions are owned by the collective, right down to the couch cushions .... " Some villages around the country have followed Nanjie's example and re-collectivized."During the 1990s, rural industry began to stagnate and China's large peasant population was seen as a hindrance to the country's development. Popular demand for further modernization, urbanization, and marketization began to outweigh the successes of the previous Township and Village Enterprises. Cui Zhiyuan and Gan Yang began to establish small, rural industries and collectives to mitigate the increasing socioeconomic gap and provide an alternative to large-scale capitalism.
Although Hegang has had the largest number of laid-off workers since 1996, the city has registered China's highest rate of economic growth. Cui Zhiyuan suggests that the cause of this phenomenon is its "combining public land ownership and the market". Hegang has focused on stimulating its real estate market to stimulate the development of related industries.
Of the Chinese Communist Party's current ideology, the idea of privatising China's countryside has not been accepted and it remains in public hands. Although most non-urban land is used privately, it cannot be sold.
In 2008, the Third Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party began a new round of land-privatization reforms, but these measures were limited; the transfer of land remains ambiguous, not "officially endorsed and encouraged".