The Chinese New Left is a term used in the People's Republic of China to describe a diverse range of left-wing political philosophies that emerged in the 1990s that are critical of the reform and opening up instituted under Deng Xiaoping, which emphasized policies of market liberalization and privatization to promote economic growth and modernization.
Chinese intellectual Wang Hui links the emergence of New Leftism with the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 1999 United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, which damaged the credibility of liberalism in China, as well as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Some of the Chinese New Left intellectuals enjoyed prominence, especially with the rise of Chongqing Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai, who promoted a set of socio-economic policies collectively termed the Chongqing model, though they suffered a blow after the end of Bo's career in 2012 due to the Wang Lijun incident.
There is an ambiguity of the term New Left in discourse drawing from the diversity of the movement. Generally speaking, the New Left can be applied to a person who embraces leftist theories, ideals, and traditions rooted in variations of socialist ideology, and other schools criticizing postmodernism and neoliberalism.
The New Left's relationship with Maoism and capitalism is complicated. Although some schools of thought suggest that the New Left wants the return to mass political movements of the CCP Chairman Mao Zedong era and an abandonment of capitalism, others believe that it combines capitalism's open markets with socialist elements (particularly in rural China).Cui, Zhiyuan. "How to Comprehend Today's China." Contemporary Chinese Thought. 37.4 (2006). Print. Additionally, the views within the New Left are diverse, ranging from hardline Maoists to more moderate social democrats.
Terminology
The term was first used by Chinese journalist Yang Ping, who published a review in the 21 July 1994 issue of Beijing Youth Daily about intellectual Cui Zhiyuan's article "New Evolution, Analytical Marxism, Critical Law, and China's Reality", remarking that China had produced its own "New Left wing". Initially, the term was propagated by liberal opponents who contended that there was no fundamental difference between hardline Maoists and the New Left.
Although many New Left intellectuals oppose certain Maoist approaches, the term "New Left" implies some agreement with Maoism. Since it is associated with the ultra-leftism of the Cultural Revolution, many scholars and intellectuals supporting socialist approaches and reforms, but opposing the radical and brutal approaches of the Maoist period, do not completely accept the "New Left" label. Some are concerned about the fact that adopting leftism implies that China, historically different from the West, is still using a Western model to strategise its reforms and would be limited by how the West defines the Left. Intellectual Wang Hui explains the origin of, and his skepticism about, the term:
However, liberal intellectual Xu Youyu points out that Wang Hui's performance in his interview with the New Left Review suggests that he fully understood that the term was inevitably generated by social change and intellectual antagonism in China. The term "New Left" remains fraught with confusion due to the lack of clarity in its definition. Some intellectuals labeled as New Leftists, including but not limited to Gan Yang, are associated with Western conservatives, including Leo Strauss, rather than the New Left movement of the 1960s.
Origin
The concept of the New Left arose in China during the 1990s. According to New Left theory, market-economy challenges stem from the fact that under the reform and opening up, the market economy has become the dominant economic system; China's socialist economic reforms have brought the country into the global capitalist sphere. The 1990s New Left intellectuals criticized market reforms for increasing inequality.
The development of the New Left is correlated to increased Chinese nationalism after its period of low-profile presence on the world stage during the Deng Xiaoping era. It is seen as a response to problems faced by China during its modernization drive since the 1980s, which has led to growing social inequality between the coast and hinterlands, and rich and poor. Some scholars believe that, based on its unique and drastic 20th-century economic and political changes, China cannot adopt the social-democratic, capitalist model of many Western countries.
After its initial development as a narrower critique in the 1990s, the New Left drew supporters of statist, populist, nationalist, or Maoist ideas.
The Chinese New Left is concerned with the country's social-inequality issues. Some scholars believe that although the movement is not yet mature, it is likely to embed itself in Chinese society over the next century (assuming that polarization continues). Strikes, sit-ins, slow-downs, and peasant uprisings, sporadic due to government suppression, are on the rise and may become more organized with the development of the New Left.
Although they are skeptical and critical of capitalism, New Leftists recognize its influence on China and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of capitalist models. Cui Zhiyuan, a leading New Left intellectual, believes that it is imperative that socialism and capitalism are not viewed as opposites. According to Zhang Xudong, "An advocate for New Deal-style economic and social policies in China was considered to be liberal in the 1980s, but as 'New Left' by the century's end." This overlap suggests that ideals set forth by the New Left strongly resemble the democratic socialism of the 1980s.Zhang, Xudong, "The Making of the Post-Tiananmen Intellectual Field: A Critical Overview." In Whither China? Intellectual Politics in Contemporary Chin, ed. Xudong Zhang (1-75). Durham: Duke University Press, 2001, p.16.Gan, Yang "Zhongguo ziyouzuopai de youlai" (Origins of the Chinese Liberal Left). In Sichao: Zhongguo 'xinzuopai' jiqi yingxiang (Ideological Trends: The Chinese "New Left" and its Influence), ed. Gong Yang (110-120). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2003.
Intellectual views
Economics Economics plays a significant role in the Chinese New Left, whose development is closely associated with the reform and opening up. Many supporters of the New Left generally believe that a leftist economic model should be found to tackle China's dependence on exports and savings, reduce the growing economic gap between rural and urban areas, and stimulate private business through public ownership and state planning. The capitalist free-market model applied in most social-democratic programs is undesirable because, instead of challenging and reforming the existing market economy and representative democracy, it seeks to moderate the social consequences of structural division and hierarchy. A suitable, sustainable market model is vital for China's leftist movement. At the same time, the New Left criticized market reforms by citing the damage they caused to the countryside as an argument. Like China's Old Left, the New Left supports state socialism as the alternative to neoliberal capitalism.
The Chinese New Left is skeptical of economic globalisation, contending that it facilitates capitalist colonization by Western multi-national companies.
New Left economist Cui Zhiyuan believes that a labour-capital partnership, based on the ideas of James Meade and John Maynard Keynes, can be used to introduce some flexibility to the labour market. Outside shareholders own capital-share certificates; workers own labour and share certificates, which replace a fixed wage and reduce the conflict of interest between workers and capitalists. Any decision that will improve one group (by raising the dividend on its share) will automatically raise the dividend on the shares of the other group. Many New Left intellectuals are confident in the outcome of collective economic-development planning, anticipating rural industrialization.
Some in the Chinese New Left use critical theory, such as postmodernism or postcolonialism, to critique China's market-oriented reforms. Other schools of thought that have contributed to the perspectives of the New Left include neo-Marxism, dependency theory, and world-systems theory.
Opposition to Western models The New Left rejects the idea of Western-style democracy, contending that competitive elections are either harmful or irrelevant to true democracy. In the New Left view, liberal democracy is an undesirable departure from the democratic concept of direct self-rule by the people. New Leftists also cite falling election turnouts and loss of confidence in election results as further weaknesses of the Western system.
The general belief on the New Left is that China's historical conditions, including its experiences with drastic economic and political changes over the course of the 20th Century, means that it cannot adopt Western democracy. New Left intellectuals criticized Francis Fukuyama's End of History theory.
The New Left rejects the Western construct of universal values, deeming them as in fact historically contingent and expressions of Western self-interest. The New Left contends that Western calls for "human rights" and "democracy" in China are in fact part of a geopolitical strategy to weaken China.
New Leftists are often skeptical of constitutionalism, deeming that its critical elements and theories exist for the benefit of capital and not the people.
Other contemporary critique A frequent New Left critique of contemporary policy is that the government has not taken a strong enough position in territorial disputes, particularly those with Japan and the Philippines, and that the government should be doing more to assert itself as a "great power" to ensure a "just world."
Historical analysis In assessing Mao's legacy, the New Left praises him for contributions in building a new China through its political, agricultural, and industrial revolutions. It deems his legacy fundamentally positive with some failings and setbacks. Among the aspects of the Mao era that that the New Left believes should be rehabilitated are certain aspects of the Cultural Revolution. For example, the New Left views the Cultural Revolution as a period of economic equality and an attempt to achieve "genuine popular sovereignty". It is assessed as a period of creative destruction that allowed ordinary people to increase their power in China. New Leftists favor the Cultural Revolution concept of Big Democracy, and its "four great freedoms" of speaking out freely, airing views fully, writing big-character posters, and engaging in big debates.
Other aspects of the Mao era praised by New Leftists include advances in literacy, public education, mass vaccination, and health care for children. New Leftists generally contend that the increases in China's development and Reform and Opening Up would not have been possible without the groundwork laid during the Mao era.
The New Left favorably regards Mao's assessment of foreign threats, and national emphasis on self-reliance in case China had to fight the Soviet Union or the United States. The New Left also credits Mao for working towards rapprochement with the United States and thereby leaving a solid footing for Deng era foreign policy.
Social movements The basic positions of the New Left support for the economically marginalized and opposition to capitalism and Western-style democracy. Differing from the Old Left, the New Left frames its positions in social justice and participatory politics as opposed to ideas of class struggle or the dictatorship of the proletariat.