The word "ideological struggle" is a lot like how the Muslims use the word "jihad". To different people at different times, it has different meanings.
My interpretation of what Xi means by ideological struggle is that through China's opening up and reforms, many Party officials lost faith in socialism as an ideology because the ideology h…
The word "ideological struggle" is a lot like how the Muslims use the word "jihad". To different people at different times, it has different meanings.
My interpretation of what Xi means by ideological struggle is that through China's opening up and reforms, many Party officials lost faith in socialism as an ideology because the ideology had not been modernized to take into account China's circumstances. This lack of ideological study meant that the whole society just indulged in getting wealthy at any cost. Inside the party, this led to widespread corruption which threatened the stability of the party. Xi had to take firm action on this, as it would have eventually led to China becoming a multi-party democracy, which is exactly what the western powers want, but would have acted against the interests of the Chinese people. Chinese assets would have been carved up and sold the same way Soviet assets were sold off when the Soviet Union ended.
The Party could not and would not permit this to happen, which is why Xi went after corruption in a big way. The ongoing struggle against corruption is a long-term feature of Chinese socialism.
But it is not enough.
The Party is the vanguard party of the Chinese people. This means that it must offer a clear vision for the direction of Chinese society. China cannot fall into the same trap other developed economies have fallen into, which is, that they have become wealthy, and then lost direction, and became stagnant. This happened with the US, Japan and the EU. Made in China 2025, BRI are all major projects and goals for the party which Xi has set forth to make China the world's leading economy.
When it comes to economic policy, everything Xi has done has been about preventing the wealth gap becoming larger without using the sensitive term wealth gap.
It looks to me like Xi is treating China as an experimental lab for socialism; Zhejiang is his latest test project, just as Shenzhen was a test project for his father in 1980. China can adopt features of capitalism, and it must, because it can only become a fully socialist economy when it has achieved a certain level of wealth.
What is Xi's final vision? I don't know, but my guess is that he believes that China can offer a good alternative model for other nations, maybe just as a reference, not for blind copying.
If he succeeds, this ideological struggle would be longer lasting and have much more effect than what socialists from the 1920s were talking about. This is my interpretation of what "ideological struggle" means in 2021 terms.
This stands in stark contrast with the vision of capitalism and trickle-down economics which Reagan and Thatcher offered in the 1980s, and is not attractive to most people outside the US and UK.
The word "ideological struggle" is a lot like how the Muslims use the word "jihad". To different people at different times, it has different meanings.
My interpretation of what Xi means by ideological struggle is that through China's opening up and reforms, many Party officials lost faith in socialism as an ideology because the ideology had not been modernized to take into account China's circumstances. This lack of ideological study meant that the whole society just indulged in getting wealthy at any cost. Inside the party, this led to widespread corruption which threatened the stability of the party. Xi had to take firm action on this, as it would have eventually led to China becoming a multi-party democracy, which is exactly what the western powers want, but would have acted against the interests of the Chinese people. Chinese assets would have been carved up and sold the same way Soviet assets were sold off when the Soviet Union ended.
The Party could not and would not permit this to happen, which is why Xi went after corruption in a big way. The ongoing struggle against corruption is a long-term feature of Chinese socialism.
But it is not enough.
The Party is the vanguard party of the Chinese people. This means that it must offer a clear vision for the direction of Chinese society. China cannot fall into the same trap other developed economies have fallen into, which is, that they have become wealthy, and then lost direction, and became stagnant. This happened with the US, Japan and the EU. Made in China 2025, BRI are all major projects and goals for the party which Xi has set forth to make China the world's leading economy.
When it comes to economic policy, everything Xi has done has been about preventing the wealth gap becoming larger without using the sensitive term wealth gap.
It looks to me like Xi is treating China as an experimental lab for socialism; Zhejiang is his latest test project, just as Shenzhen was a test project for his father in 1980. China can adopt features of capitalism, and it must, because it can only become a fully socialist economy when it has achieved a certain level of wealth.
What is Xi's final vision? I don't know, but my guess is that he believes that China can offer a good alternative model for other nations, maybe just as a reference, not for blind copying.
If he succeeds, this ideological struggle would be longer lasting and have much more effect than what socialists from the 1920s were talking about. This is my interpretation of what "ideological struggle" means in 2021 terms.
This stands in stark contrast with the vision of capitalism and trickle-down economics which Reagan and Thatcher offered in the 1980s, and is not attractive to most people outside the US and UK.