Grenada

Anti-HIV PrEP remains $2000/month in the US, two years on from generic FDA approval. In Cuba it’s now free:
In March 2019 Cuba began a pilot scheme to supply the only effective HIV prevention drug PrEP (pre-exposure prophylactic) free of charge to those in need. Following on from their successful 2015 drive to completely eradicate HIV and syphilis transmission in utero, Cuba’s National Centre for Sex Education began a program in conjunction with the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) to distribute the drug for free.

https://amityunderground.com/anti-hiv-prep-remains-2000-month-in-the-us-two-years-on-from-generic-fda-approval-in-cuba-free-truvada-healthcare-emtricitabine-tenofovir-daniel-o-day-preexposure-prophylaxis/

The Long Game and Its Contradictions:
China has overcome colonial oppression, emerged from “100 years of humiliation”, and is now developing its socialist power on the world stage. Through mutually beneficial relationships and a policy of peaceful co-existence, China under the leadership of the Communist Party is actively assisting in the independent economic development of the over-exploited nations of the Global South, eliminating the primary contradiction of our age — inter-continental inequality. Alleviating poverty, promoting trade and learning, and building alliances based on respect and cooperation, the aim is to displace Western hegemony, break imperialist cycles of violence, end capitalist domination, and pave the road toward global communism.

https://medium.com/@leohezhao/the-long-game-and-its-contradictions-8ff92823cf68?postPublishedType=repub&fbclid=IwAR1jAfUSH39nEKCkTAD7GK8ayR9YVekX6Ht6hWU7x7iKPVUK_fLdA5OlPV4

Man with the red hat wrote:

The Long Game and Its Contradictions:
China has overcome colonial oppression, emerged from “100 years of humiliation”, and is now developing its socialist power on the world stage. Through mutually beneficial relationships and a policy of peaceful co-existence, China under the leadership of the Communist Party is actively assisting in the independent economic development of the over-exploited nations of the Global South, eliminating the primary contradiction of our age — inter-continental inequality. Alleviating poverty, promoting trade and learning, and building alliances based on respect and cooperation, the aim is to displace Western hegemony, break imperialist cycles of violence, end capitalist domination, and pave the road toward global communism.

https://medium.com/@leohezhao/the-long-game-and-its-contradictions-8ff92823cf68?postPublishedType=repub&fbclid=IwAR1jAfUSH39nEKCkTAD7GK8ayR9YVekX6Ht6hWU7x7iKPVUK_fLdA5OlPV4

As per this viewpoint of the role and nature of modern China’s nature, which I disagree with, where does China buying out Piraeus, and COSCO, a state Chinese company, being detrimental to the workers there and enforcing horrible working conditions, doing exactly what any other company of any other state would in their place, fall in? Is it another of the contradictions, among the many others?
Because imo, it makes sense from a capitalist perspective and it makes sense from a geopolitical perspective of a modern Great Power working on expanding influence, following the example of the other Great Powers of the world. But from how I see it, not from a socialist perspective.

World Anarchic Union wrote:

As per this viewpoint of the role and nature of modern China’s nature, which I disagree with, where does China buying out Piraeus, and COSCO, a state Chinese company, being detrimental to the workers there and enforcing horrible working conditions, doing exactly what any other company of any other state would in their place, fall in? Is it another of the contradictions, among the many others?
Because imo, it makes sense from a capitalist perspective and it makes sense from a geopolitical perspective of a modern Great Power working on expanding influence, following the example of the other Great Powers of the world. But from how I see it, not from a socialist perspective.

We've engaged in exchanges in the past that were decent and respectful, so Ill try to answer the questions in a good faith flow-of-logic capacity from my perspective. I realize this may expand a bit more than your comment originally implied/intended, but I want to make a post defending China here where we have comrades of many tendencies. We have debated the topic rigorously in North Korea, and much of this comes from those discussions.

Does the modern "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" model have flaws that result in worker rights violations? Yes, and that is absolutely a contradiction that comes with attempting to harness the wheels of capitalism and bolt them onto a socialist system under party oversight. Do you expect the CCP to have a commissar with a loaded gun in every factory watching over every capitalist boss?

What is the primary global contradiction to building true communism within the world today? I say that is the US imperialist hegemony. I make the claim that any socialist state that arises and has to make practical decisions about its survival, will inevitably have to deal with US predation as its primary existential threat. And that under the all powerful thumb of the US capitalist economic stranglehold on the distribution of world capital, failure to "play nice" results in a drastic worsening of conditions for the entire country (ie: DPRK or Cuba) in terms of growth potential and influx of capital necessary for improving quality of life. That is based on a realistic world view of revolutions taking place in small scale local conditions (country size or smaller) and attempting to build socialism, rather than some ultraleftist dream like global world revolution or permanent revolution.

What is to be done to shatter the US hegemony and actually create the capacity for an entrenched communist state to develop? The revolutionary end is building up an economy that is capable of providing for all of its citizens. That is the main task that faces the large majority of humanity, and despite the great advances in China, it remains the main task for the most populous nation on earth. Because they are integrated into a global production chain and that's what it takes to sell. You may not agree with that strategy but there's no point in pretending it's irrational or some betrayal. It is a conscious strategy to avoid the problems that the Soviet Union and other socialist economies of the 20th century suffered in attempting to delink from the imperialist world economy. Whether it works out or not it has to be taken seriously because repeating the slow stagnation of the Soviet Union is not really an option. It may be a solution for North Korea and Cuba to chug along at a healthy but low growth with democratic workers and economic rights of the population, especially since the alternative is reabsorption into third world poverty, but for the USSR and now China which were tasked with saving humanity from actual destruction by global capitalist imperialism and leading the world to global socialism and eventually communism the stakes are much bigger. Seems odd to automatically criticize it, no socialism would be possible today without China's counterbalancing of America, something other socialist revolutions and states can't claim (though NK and Cuba do their best I do not want to disparage them).

The only realistic answer (for the moment obviously) is the government (in the form of the CCP) controlling the mechanisms of capitalism within special controlled zones and situations, and ensuring they are harnessed for the good of the total people. And to ensure that the capitalist class does not get its tendrils into the party policy apparatus. Ironically, the contradictions of international capitalism forced it to contribute to China's modernization program, and this process is still occurring today. As long as it is more profitable to run an industrial operation in China than it is in the West, essentially "free" capital (in the form of factories, infrastructure, and technology) will flow from the West to China. I really want to stress that last point, this isnt the USSR fighting desperately to secure tainted microchips to try and keep up with the Wests computers in the 80s anymore, this is fullscale technological/industrial redistribution of a type that a socialist country has never had access to.

The true question is, does the Chinese Communist Party remain committed to utilizing capitalism only so far as it takes to defeat the US hegemony, and dismantle the imperialist system? And does it remain committed to the current idea that ensures capitalist participation within society is only ever in a "repressed, for everyones good" capacity.

And I think the evidence to support the answer to those questions being "Yes" exists. Here are a few sources and some related quotes I think that express the headlines of what constitutes my confidence on this:

- The average Chinese worker puts in somewhere between 2,000 and 2,200 hours each year, Wang Qi, a researcher at Beijing Normal University, told the Wall Street Journal last year.
- That compares to a UK average of 1,677 hours last year, according to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
- But Chinese work hours have been falling for at least three decades, said Li Chang’an, a labour economist at Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics.
- “Since the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese workers have been working shorter and shorter hours,” Li said, pointing to improved labour laws, improved productivity and the introduction of two-day weekends.
- “We visit many factories every year,” Li added. “In most, working conditions are improving [and] salaries increasing while working hours are decreasing."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/06/how-hard-does-china-work

- The wages of Chinese manufacturing workers have been rising by about 11% annually (even adjusted for inflation) for about twenty years now. The IMF projects that the PRC's GDP per capita will be equal to Italy's current GDPPC by 2035.
http://www.workers.org/2015/07/21/china-rising-wages-and-worker-militancy/

http://www.china.org.cn/world/2018-01/15/content_50225798.htm

- 800 million uplifted out of poverty
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-11/07/content_34220587.htm
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/After-Bringing-800-Million-out-of-Poverty-China-Aims-to-Eradicate-It-Completely-by-2020-20170903-0021.html

- Strengthening class consciousness in full swing
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-12/09/c_135891337.htm
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1067643.shtml
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/832671.shtml#.UrE5HvQW1HV
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1682774/communist-party-orders-course-marxism-chinas-universities
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/China-to-Teach-Core-Socialist-Values-in-Schools-20170915-0022.html
http://indianexpress.com/article/world/china-to-hold-world-conference-on-marxism-in-may-300-researchers-to-attend-4903202/

- Chinese political representation, selection, and election criteria based on things like poverty eradication and environmental protection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgpQxVCekgw

https://monthlyreview.org/2015/07/01/imperialism-and-the-transformation-of-values-into-prices/

This is modern production and it is what socialism today had to compete with. If the goal of socialism is material abundance for all of humanity (a fair and simple abstraction we can at least start from in my opinion), then it is that immense wealth that is captured by global production chains that need to be redistributed. Not an easy task.

If you want to discuss specific policies that China should change to make it more socialistic, I am all ears. But I refuse to accept the idea that a country with huge swathes of the industry and economy owned by the state, a country pursuing rigorious socialist education, a country where the institutions have deep socialist roots, a country where their leaders talk like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnAqrQbW85k&feature=youtu.be has abandoned socialism completely and is wholesale pursuing capitalism (which is admittedly more than you implied, but I know this chain of criticism).

Nevertheless, there is a struggle going on. Private capital grows and with it the economic strength and political influence of the capitalist class, and bourgeois intelligentsia. This – could- carry serious long-term dangers for China. The struggle is reflected in various informal currents within the Communist Party – including healthy ones hopefully around the leadership. These currents were outlined in an article by comrade Cheng Enfu in the Communist Review, journal of the Communist Party of Britain: https://www.communist-party.org.uk/communications/cr/1873-communist-review-no-69-autumn-2013.html

Hopefully thats been a reasonable answer to your question and why I believe in supporting modern China. I also appreciate how this is not a strictly (or even majority) Marxist-Leninist region, I come here to engage with comrades from various other tendencies. But I would hope people to be a tad more critical in their thinking than just looking at stories of suicide nets or sweatshop labor (outlawed since the early/mid 2000s) or whatever.

Here's a somewhat last-minute reminder because I've been busy with real-world duties, but today at 21:00 CET, or in ca. 45 minutes there will be a radio event. You can join the Discord server where this will take place via the following link: https://discord.gg/UbqFnM

What actually happened to the Internationale? I've been gone for more than a year.

Cartanacia wrote:

What actually happened to the Internationale? I've been gone for more than a year.

In a masterfully designed agitprop program to demonstrate to the world that socialism/communism/anarchism/etc. is a source of unbridled joy, we have been doing a hop, skip, and a jump around... Jump around! Jump around! Jump up, jump up, and get down! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XhzpxjuwZy0

Excellent news, everyone: We have successfully refounded our home region of The Internationale. As such, we can now move back to our original region. I would here like to thank Zulanka for allowing us to stay in Grenada for the duration of our time outside of TI.

Zrhajan wrote:

Excellent news, everyone: We have successfully refounded our home region of The Internationale. As such, we can now move back to our original region. I would here like to thank Zulanka for allowing us to stay in Grenada for the duration of our time outside of TI.

Hurrah our Long March is a victory.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE MOVE BACK TO The Internationale

(This is a The decapole counsils puppet)