By Chris Slee

June, 2020 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Third edition; First edition: Resistance Books, 2010; Second edition: links.org.au/node/2349 (online only), 2011 — China is increasingly powerful, both economically and militarily, and increasingly influential in world affairs. But what sort of society is it?

In the 1950s China adopted a policy of “transition to socialism”. In the 1960s, Mao criticised the Soviet Union for seeking peaceful coexistence with the capitalist West. Yet by the early 1970s Mao had done a deal with the United States at the expense of the Soviet Union and third world struggles.

Later China became a key location for transnational corporations producing for the world market. Many Australian trade unionists now see China primarily as a place where workers are paid very low wages. Few are aware of the widespread militant struggles by Chinese workers to improve their situation.

On the other hand, the rapid recovery of China after the 2008 world economic crisis has given some Australian socialists a more favourable impression of China. The continued predominance of state-owned enterprises in some sectors of the Chinese economy is cited as a positive example, counterposed to the privatisation of nearly all public enterprises in Australia.