Happy 99th Birthday To The Communist Party Of China!

In celebration this week of the 99th birthday of the Communist Party of China, we send our warmest comradely greetings to the cadres working hard to drive China forward to a moderately prosperous socialist society, the task entrusted to them through the programme of the party.

Socialist and anti-imperialist states have always been subjected to slanders and accusations by the imperialist press and academia. The endless clamour about ‘human rights abuses’ is a tired old technique for deceiving people. As Malcolm X once said: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Here we present a few useful facts about New China.

The Chinese Revolution (1949) and the birth of New China marked the end of feudal backwardness and over a hundred years of brutal semi-colonial domination and humiliation.

• Life expectancy used to be 35 years. Now it’s over 73.

• The literacy rate in China before the revolution was under 20%. Now it is over 91%, and for young people (aged 15 to 24) it is 99%. Every child in China receives nine years’ free education, and 21 % of Chinese youth go to university.

• In feudal China, women suffered intolerable cruelty and oppression – illiterate, with bound feet, and condemned to domestic slavery. The revolution is bringing about equality for women. Barbaric and oppressive practices are not tolerated, and women account for 46% of workers and 47% of school pupils.

• Infant deaths have dropped from 300 to 23 per 1,000.

• Unemployment has dropped from over 25% to 4% (significantly lower than in Britain, and with a developing social security system which seeks to ensure that the unemployed are properly supported).

China is wiping out poverty

• The UN says that China’s poverty alleviation strategy over the last two decades is “the most rapid decline in absolute poverty ever witnessed”.

• Since 1980, China has accounted for 75 percent of poverty reduction in the developing world. In that time, over 400 million (especially rural) Chinese have been lifted out of poverty. During the same time period in Britain, poverty levels have been rising steadily.

China supports developing countries

The People’s Republic of China leads the world in standing up to imperialist bullying. It has always been a crucial support for third-world countries trying to develop. Unlike the imperialist countries, it does not impose unfair trade terms, monopolise markets, create debt traps or force production of cash crops. It is smashing the pernicious clutch of western imperialism over Africa and Latin America.

• China provides a guaranteed market for such diverse commodities as Chilean copper, Argentinean wheat, Brazilian soy, Bolivian natural gas and Venezuelan oil. It is not perpetrating fraud or using bribery to foist disadvantageous contracts on any country.

• China has had aid projects all over Africa for decades.

• China actively supported the national-liberation movements against imperialism, colonialism and apartheid.

• China offers cheap and unconditional loans, as well as undertaking infrastructure projects at bargain prices.

China is focussed on ecologically sustainable development

Much is made of the fact that China has overtaken the US as the world’s leading carbon emitter, but people forget that China’s population is four times the US’s and many of China’s emissions result from foreign enterprises producing goods for export. Moreover, China’s industrial expansion is essentially geared to meeting its people’s needs, not to imperialist parasitism and waste. Nonetheless, China is committed to sustainable development and is becoming a world leader in environmental protection.

• The Climate Group says that China is the world’s leading renewable energy producer, with tremendous investments in solar, wind and biomass technologies.

• China’s wind energy capacity has doubled every year for three years and will be the world’s biggest by 2010.

• China is a world leader in solar technology.

Long live the Communist Party of China!