Repeating Western myths about China is not left-wing
Initial response to Rusere Shoniwa’s pro-West-anti-China politics
By Lorraine Pratley.
Rusere has responded to my investigative pieces on the 1989 Tiananmen events in recent articles, and I intend to write a full response—either next or after my final two pieces on Tiananmen and a general one on China myths.
As for his latest article, China Speaks for Palestinian Rights and Acts for Zionist Settlements, Rusere is correct to call out those pro-humanity supporters who have a naive expectation that China will come in like a knight in shining armour to save Palestinians from genocide.
It is also reasonable to argue that China, by refraining from placing economic pressure on Israel, is not fulfilling moral and international legal obligations to stop ethnic cleansing in the West Bank (AI is invaluable here in understanding complex UN statutes and how binding obligations may be interpreted and applied). Yet international law aside, only the Chinese people can challenge the complicity of their own state in propping up Israel. When we lie about them on other matters, we drive people closer to their government, and away from international solidarity.
Furthermore, Rusere’s article blurs the line between legitimate left-wing, anti-war critique and Western right-wing mythology about China. This conflation not only weakens the clarity needed for left analysis, but also hampers our ability to understand the shifting global landscape—particularly the decline of the West, the rise of other powers, and what role (if any) those powers might play in resisting or enabling Western proxy wars, wars which are themselves symptomatic of imperial decay.
War and competition—is it real?
“This entanglement of interests between Israel, the US and its supposed bogeyman, China, is confusing at first sight. I’ll say it again: the only way to make sense of it all is to accept that the apex of power is not national – it sits with the Owners and Controllers of Global Financial Capital (OCGFC). The Chinese and US political systems are merely two of its senior managers. Sometimes they argue and trip over each other as they diligently strive to follow their boss’s instructions, but we shouldn’t mistake those arguments for ‘sovereignty’.”
I’ll respond more fully to Rusere’s theory about the Owners and Controllers of Global Financial Capital in a future piece. But in the meantime, people can look at the actual evidence of power dynamics in China themselves. The narrative that global elites secretly pull strings behind the scenes, and that sovereignty is a pretence, simply doesn’t hold up. Great power rivalry is already an adequate explanation for what happens in our world. In fact, the very people Rusere seems to believe are controlling China through puppet strings have been visibly and deliberately cut down to size there.
China has a clear and public policy of preventing wealthy individuals from gaining outsized influence—whether over the economy or the moral fabric of society. The most well-known example is Jack Ma, the billionaire tech tycoon behind Alibaba. To use journalist Andy Boreham’s term from his recent book The Wumao Handbook, Ma was “cancelled with Chinese characteristics”—that is, reined in by the state when his actions began to threaten the country’s long-term development goals. He was temporarily placed under house arrest—not for being rich, but for trying to use his wealth to undermine the government’s five-year policy plans, which are explicitly aimed at distributing wealth more fairly and lifting society as a whole. Yes, China is actually different. Whether you want to be part of its cheer squad is another matter, but to deny this is either ignorant or deceptive. Follow someone like Hua Bin for insights: The secret sauce of Chinese industrial success: Smart state planning plus ferocious market competition. Cyrus Janssen is another that I learn a lot from.
Instead of engaging with the long-established leftist theory of imperialism—which helps explain the drive to war, the dynamics of capitalist crisis, and the rise and fall of global powers—Rusere has invented his own theory about abstract financial puppet-masters. This allows him to reject aligning with any state or bloc—a laudable position and one I share—but ultimately avoid taking a clear position on the actual material conditions and power struggles shaping our world.
Chinese “Social Credit Score”—a psyop
What many readers may not know is that Rusere’s repeated claims of the so-called “social credit score” system in China was actually what prompted me to begin writing about China in the first place! (my expertise is on the medical industrial complex and in left-wing organising). I was deeply frustrated that he refused to engage with the body of evidence that debunks this widely circulated and misleading narrative—one that has no place on a site that claims to represent and advocate for anything “real.” For starters, go here from observers who actually live there, and here where even Wikipedia debunks it. I challenge Rusere to go to China and talk to people about it. First he will have to explain what he is even talking about, and then will have to endure the raucous laughter at the idea.
By continuing to echo this right-wing myth, Rusere not only misinforms readers but inadvertently strengthens the very ideological forces—reactionary, militarist, and pro-surveillance—that a principled, pro-freedom left must confront and dismantle.
More myths!
Now Rusere is adding pro-West Xinjiang/Uyghur and Tibet myths to the mix. He presents a distorted view of China’s approach in Xinjiang, by conflating the constitutionally-guaranteed right to practice religion in China with Islamist separatist terrorism (understandable given Pan Yue’s terminology, anyone unfamiliar with the context could misconstue it). Here’s a small selection of debunking sources from my forthcoming article: China confronted actual terrorists not oppressed Muslims in Xinjiang, and Tibet liberation vs Western oppression psyop.
By muddling truths and myths—truths about the increasing authoritarianism in the West with pro-Western myths about China that lack factual credibility—he ends up producing a confused narrative that ultimately serves the interests of Western ruling classes, and ultimately all ruling classes.
What does freedom look like?
There is nothing wrong with discussing the kind of society we would like to build—one rooted in genuine democratic principles. The fact that we do not live in such a society in the West should be our starting point for activism and our primary focus.
At the same time, we need to push back against the pro-war propaganda aimed at China by looking honestly at the facts. China has its own form of democracy—one that, in some ways, is more representative and is definitely more effective than the broken systems we’re told to believe in in the West. Ignoring that reality doesn’t help us build a real movement for freedom. Instead, it plays into the same myths that are used to justify war and the West’s desperate attempts to cling to global domination, by keeping people who are trying to understand what's really blocking our freedom distracted by a fantasy that China is worse.
Which raises the question: why is Rusere unwilling to put in the time to learn basic facts about China for himself?
Rusere is correct to challenge the idea that states can be saviours (other than guaranteeing basic human rights like China does in Tibet). That’s because we live in a capitalist world of competing rival powers. That rivalry is called imperialism. Western powers have long been the worst aggressors for various historical reasons, but the Chinese, Russian and even the Iranian states all choose to participate in the same system—one where ordinary people do not rule. No state anywhere is calling on the workers of the world to organise and rise up, in a way that inspires the lower middle classes to join them, to collectively wrench control and distribution of the fruits of their labour. Let’s have a discussion about our options, without falsehoods muddying the waters.