Chinese Marxism is not dead

Dr John Hanafin, a specialist in Chinese philosophy at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, agrees that "to say communism is dead in China is not true at all". It is important for policymaking to "challenge this dominant myth among academics and politicians".

Hanafin has surveyed philosophy postgraduates at 22 Chinese universities, finding Marxism continues to dominate. In 2000, the number of doctorates in Marxist philosophy was nearly twice that of Chinese philosophy, and four times that of Western philosophy. These figures have been consistent since the 1980s and are "rather startling considering our assumptions that Marxism is passe in China", Hanafin says. "There has neither been a return to China's [classical] past nor a wholesale adoption of Western philosophy."

Hanafin, who has served on the board of the official Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and has addressed the Central Party School in Beijing, says he recently asked young girls at a dancing academy in Beijing about Marxist theory. "They knew it all. I was amazed," he says...

Hanafin says that while there has been no change in the extent of compulsory Marxist studies in high school and university, the type of Marxism being promoted has changed. No longer Maoism, it embraces the rapid economic development taking place. And unique to modern China, it is a Marxism that elevates the type of yuppie who drinks single-malt scotch, collects art, drives a Mercedes and wears fine clothes - once reviled as bourgeois - to a "gao sushi", or high-quality person...

"They have redefined Marxism," Hanafin says. "In the late 1970s when I went to Guangzhou there were piles of dirty dishes everywhere because no one would work. They said, 'I'm not going to do that - we are all equal.' That was Mao's fault. Deng Xiaoping said it was wrong, and we have to develop the market economy, but keep the goal in mind."

Rather than seeing modern China as a contradiction, he says the current court philosophers liken the nation's "sweat factories and satanic mills" to Europe's Industrial Revolution. "China has said we have to go through this … and then socialism will evolve."

The iron rice bowl that provided every person with cradle-to-grave welfare under Mao was smashed because it was not sustainable, but "the goal for the future is to bring all those back when China can afford it".

But at the same time, Chinese society is experiencing a widening income and lifestyle gulf, between rural and urban residents, rich and poor, those with a city "hukou" - a residence card that gives access to education and health care, and those adrift and homeless.

And as for the return of the reviled bourgeoisie and the downtrodden proletariat? Too explosive. Hanafin says the Government prefers to explain the difference in cultural, rather than economic, terms. "The same person who in 1961 had fine wine, nice clothes and was bourgeois is now called high quality. It's a new, positive term," he says. The "di sushi", or low quality person, is negative and lacks initiative.

The biggest question is how successful this balancing act of economic growth and Marxist philosophical code will be in the long run. "You can't predict these things," Hanafin says. "Anything could happen. The whole society could collapse."

He says some economists predict that if growth slips below 7 per cent, the Government will face grave trouble from internal unrest. The Public Security Ministry says there were 87,000 "public order disturbances" last year, up 6.6 per cent. Village riots stem from disaffection over pollution and corruption or when homes are razed for development without proper compensation. The Chinese blog danwei.org notes the same textbook that created headlines for relegating Mao caused a stir among teachers for removing references to peasant uprisings through history...

Ken deWoskin, of the University of Michigan and a full-time China consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, [says], "There is still a very strong interest in the state owning and controlling and deriving benefit from the largest companies - oil, gas, telecommunications. These are traditionally Stalinist, state-owned infrastructure industries that the state would like to monetise but continue to own and control."

The West often misunderstands the Government's move to corporatise - not privatise - its major companies, he says. As the WTO clears hurdles for companies entering China, he says that in many areas substitute barriers have been built to protect state interests...

The close involvement of the Government with business can also create problems for Chinese companies as they seek to expand overseas. DeWoskin says recent attempts by Chinese enterprises to acquire oil and gas companies in Canada, the United States and South Korea have fallen over when the Chinese Government sought to change the terms of the deals - and even the acquiring company - or when the chief executive acted unilaterally.

"They recognise that a socialist economy didn't work for them … that is what the whole corporatisation process is about, but it is a troubled concept," deWoskin says. "Companies are either/or. They are governed by stockholders and boards of directors, or by agencies of the state … One of the reasons it is so difficult for China to achieve reform objectives is that they can't sort out this issue of who is in control."..

Rising professionalism among Chinese journalists studying abroad, and the impact of the freewheeling internet, is prising open "a little more space" for media. But Chinese journalists continue to be sent to Marxist study sessions which can be "insidious and bizarre" as they focus on passages that describe the media as a weapon to hold high the flag of the party. "Every day they receive [party] directives. They have learnt to deal with this obstacle course very skilfully," [David Bandurski of Hong Kong University's China Media Project] says...

The final of Super Girls, China's answer to Australian Idol, drew 400 million viewers. But the phenomenon was labelled "poison for the youth" by a party stalwart. A strange compromise was reached. "The Super Girls sang this song about the Eight Honours and Eight Disgraces, which fits into a cultural cleansing campaign," Bandurski says. Hu's moral code for living urges the young to live plainly and not wallow in luxuries or pleasures.

Bandurski says the incident smacks of a communist ideological campaign. The push to revive Marxist values in the cultural sphere is seen by some commentators as an attempt to appease the party's old guard, which is railing against the social effects of economic reform. Even Communist Labour Day has become a week-long orgy of shopping and tourism.

So Lei Feng the Model Soldier, a 1960s children's hero whose father was killed by the Japanese and who went on to selflessly do good deeds for others, has recently donned a leather jacket to appear on websites and a Learn from Lei Feng computer game that rewards players who fight secret agents with Mao's autograph. Prime-time television has been cleansed of foreign cartoons that spread "Western influence", weird hairdos, cops and robber shows and even divorce themes in soapies.