China’s lost world of internationalism

Lin, Chun (2016) China’s lost world of internationalism. In: Prashad, Vijay, (ed.) Communist Histories: Reclaiming Historiography for Communist Praxis. Communist histories (1). LeftWord Books, Delhi, India, pp. 267-315. ISBN 9789380118338

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Abstract

Postrevolutionary China aspired to proletarian internationalist principles. By a symbiotic logic, socialism and internationalism are interwoven ideologically, practically, and geopolitically. Any erosion of the former would cause and indicate the corrosion of the latter, and vice versa. This chapter traces the People’s Republic’s ethnic and foreign policy trajectories as the two interconnected wings of the “international” against a changing background of Chinese socialism in the process of formation and transformation. Initially a main player in the historical movement of international communism and later a willing participant in capitalist globalization, China remains unsettled and ambiguous in a world increasingly integrated as much as torn apart. This chapter begins by discussing the emergence of modern China as an exploited and oppressed “class nation,” signified by the rise of revolutionary Chinese nationalism following imperialist encroachment since the mid-nineteenth century. The next section looks into new China’s internal and external relations after 1949, in terms of its socialist commitment and policy frameworks within the economic and geopolitical constraints imposed on the country. The third section focuses on the negative impacts of the Sino-Soviet split on both the communist and nonaligned third worlds; China’s rapprochement with the United States is also evaluated in that context. The last section briefly and critically examines globalist and traditionalist responses to the present crises in the country, and argues for a socialist alternative. Only by resuming and developing socialism can the lost world of the international be reclaimed in China as the answer to its national and global challenges.

Item Type:	Book Section
Official URL:	http://mayday.leftword.com/
Additional Information:	© 2016 LeftWord Books
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DS Asia J Political Science > JZ International relations
Date Deposited:	09 Dec 2016 16:48
Last Modified:	13 Sep 2024 17:33
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/68583

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