On National and International Situation

12. In the military and political arena the US however still retains its supremacy even though an objective trend towards multipolarity can also be discerned. The trend towards multipolarity – as evidenced primarily by the emergence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) comprising China, Russia and four other countries emerging from the disintegration of the USSR and the expansion and consolidation of the European Union – had slowed down in the wake of the rise of the US-led global alliance against terrorism. But with the US getting bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and its economy taking a heavy beating in the ongoing crisis, the American grip has started loosening. Concerted and sustained opposition by Russia and China has prevented the US from having its way with regard to Iran and now Syria. The SCO is steadily evolving into a powerful bloc with both economic and military cooperation, and its domain is expanding with the induction of Iran, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan as observers. Turkey, a NATO nation, participated in the 2012 SCO summit as
a dialogue partner.

13. While the trend towards multipolarity works through the complex web of international relations, the renewed spurt in mass resistance and popular protests across the world – reflecting a simultaneous intensification of two basic contradictions, viz., the contradiction between labour and capital in advanced capitalist countries and the contradiction between imperialism and the third world – has the potential to overcome the spiral of terrorism and imperialist intervention and tilt the political balance against the US-led neo- liberal order with its disastrous trajectory of severe economic crisis, permanent global war and growing ecological disaster.

14. Since 1978 China has increasingly moved in the direction of
a regulated market economy with strong state intervention which it calls building socialism with Chinese characteristics. The large- scale adoption of market economy has considerably aggravated social as well as regional disparities within China even as it has emerged as the second most powerful economy of the world. In our Eighth Congress we had observed that in course of pro-market, pro-private capital reforms China has “moved further away from any meaningful progress towards socialism”, with “[r]apidly growing capitalist relations in the base… naturally having its impact on the superstructure – on the politics, policies and priorities of the ruling party as well as conduct of its members.” The drift has continued since, marked by growing cronyism and corruption; forcible land acquisitions and horrible working conditions and low wages in private (including MNC-owned) factories and mines, frequently leading to rural rebellions and workers’ strikes which are, as a rule, sternly dealt with and sought to be kept secret; marginalisation of national minorities resulting in incidents like the Xinxiang clashes (2009); cultural degeneration including spread of bourgeois consumerism as well as feudal-patriarchal trends in society and state institutions; and similar maladies.

15. The CPC has, of course, been trying to cope with the problems under a series of guidelines like “Socialist Core Value System” and “Socialist Harmonious Society” issued previously and “Scientific Outlook on Development” issued in its latest (18th) party Congress, but in the absence of a thoroughgoing ideological-political course correction, there is hardly any evidence that China’s spectacular economic growth is contributing to democracy, equality or, to use an old slogan, “Socialist Spiritual Civilisation”. What is worrying about China is not its departure from the established 20th Century patterns of socialism or its innovative attempts to cope with new challenges in a very difficult international setting, but the conspicuous absence of the essential emancipatory vision of a revolutionary social transformation – one that reduces social disparities and elevates the basic masses from a position of mere recipients of benefits from a state power standing above them, to one of real rulers of the land. However, it is significant that even while practising increasing integration with the global capitalist economy, China has dealt with the inevitable negative impact of the current recession in a far better manner than the US, the EU and Japan by means of prompt policy decisions that have become

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