First Published:The Workers’ Advocate Vol. 9, No. 2, February 12, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Teng Hsiao-ping, the arch-revisionist leader of Chinese social-imperialism has recently concluded his nine-day pilgrimage to the United States. This visit, with U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter and his guest from Peking lavishing kisses and praise on one another, marks the open consummation of the warmongering U.S.-China alliance. Teng Hsiao-ping’s visit shows just how U.S. imperialism is “playing the Chinese card”. Washington has entered into, a counterrevolutionary alliance with Peking to prop up the crumbling U.S. world empire, to suppress the people’s revolutions and socialism. It has entered into an alliance with China in order to contend for world domination with the equally savage and imperialist Soviet social-imperialism, to murderously instigate conflicts between the social-imperialists of China and those of the U.S.S.R. and to inaugurate the wholesale plunder of China by the U.S. monopolies.
For their part, Teng Hsiao-ping and Hua Kuo-feng are pursuing an openly counterrevolutionary pro-imperialist policy, hitching themselves to U.S. imperialism for their own great-power chauvinist and warmongering ends. The Chinese revisionists have entered into an imperialist alliance with the U.S. in their drive to turn China into an imperialist superpower by the end of the century, to “modernize” China’s capitalist-revisionist economy by subjecting the Chinese people to the slavery of the international monopolies. At the same time they are attempting to carve out their own global sphere of influence with the aid of U.S. imperialism combined with a frenzied warmongering strategy to instigate war between their American and Russian imperialist rivals.
The enormous hoopla and fanfare with which the U.S. monopoly capitalist ruling circles greeted Teng Hsiao-ping’s visit is evidence of the fact that the U.S.-China alliance is a dangerous conspiracy against the revolutionary forces. It is an alliance directed against peace, socialism and the liberation of the working class and oppressed peoples. It is an alliance directed against the proletariat and people of China, the U.S. and the world. Therefore, while the U.S. ruling circles celebrated Teng’s tour with elaborate banquets and pomp, the U.S. revolutionary proletariat and people along with the progressive people the world over, greeted the visit of the Chinese revisionist renegade and traitor with the greatest contempt and hatred for U. Sc imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism and their fiendish alliance.
That Teng Hsiao-ping was welcomed by Carter and the other leaders of U.S. imperialism with such unprecedented fanfare and warm embraces surprised no one. Teng Hsiao-ping was hailed in Washington not as a leader of the socialist and Marxist-Leninist state that China pretends to be, but as a leader of a big revisionist state, a state where the bourgeoisie is in power and which is following a big-power chauvinist and imperialist course. This is why at the various gala events, where all the U.S. reactionaries, big bankers, monopolists and war criminals from Nixon to the Pentagon generals gathered to celebrate Teng’s visit, the “common perspectives” of the big imperialist states of the U.S. and China were toasted with champagne over and over again. As Carter proclaimed to his guest, Teng Hsiao-ping was invited to the U.S. to receive an invitation to link arms in a “common journey” towards “similar goals”.
Teng Hsiao-ping and his crew of revisionist renegades, of course, are only too eager to accept Carter’s offer. As Teng declared to his hosts, “Though there was a period of unpleasantness between us for thirty years, normal relations between China and the U.S. have at last been restored”. In other words, for Teng, the years when China took positions and fought against savage U.S. imperialism was a period of “unpleasantness”. However, the previous years of the bloody rule of Chiang Kai-shek, who slaughtered the Chinese people on behalf of the big capitalists and landlords and on the orders of the U.S. imperialists, this was a pleasant period of “normal relations”. And today, under the fascist regime of the Teng Hsiao-ping-Hua Kuo-feng clique which rules China on behalf of the revisionist bourgeoisie and its alliance with U.S.-led imperialism, in this period, “normal relations” “have at last been restored”. Thus, Teng Hsiao-ping’s U.S. tour was aimed at eliminating any “unpleasantness” or “misunderstandings” of the past, and sealing the U.S.-China alliance of today.
The Carter administration and the Chinese leaders held extensive talks and arrived at various agreements to formalize their “new partnership” on the economic, political, cultural, scientific and military fronts. All the important representatives of American monopoly capital, from the most infamous capitalist exploiter Henry Ford to the bloodstained architect of U.S. imperialist aggression, Henry Kissinger, cams to consult and give Teng their blessings. Teng Hsiao-ping, U.S. imperialism’s “man of the year”, did everything he could to let his hosts know that China has abandoned even its pretensions of supporting revolution and instead stands firmly for the maintenance of the capitalist-imperialist exploitation and oppression of the proletariat and people, and that China will not and cannot hurt American imperialism’s interests in the slightest. As a gesture to prove their pro-capitalist nature, during Teng’s tour the Chinese leaders declared the restoration of the rights of the Chinese capitalist bourgeoisie, returning to the former businessmen and industrialists their bank deposits, former high salaries and other wealth, with interest. The bourgeois media chortled as it likened Teng’s visit to the U.S. pilgrimage of Nikita Khrushchov in 1959 when the grovelled before the leaders of U.S. imperialism. Khrushchov acted the buffoon in order to demonstrate that the revisionist Soviet Union had without question taken the road of betrayal and collaboration with U.S. imperialism. Despite Teng Hsiao-ping’s claim that “something ugly should not be described as beautiful”, Teng, like all revisionists, did everything he could to present himself as beautiful to the chieftains of U.S. imperialism, flirting with senators, corporation owners and generals to show just how harmless and well-intentioned are the Chinese revisionist leaders.
In Georgia, Teng’s delegation was greeted by a host of big bankers and industrialists eager to invest their capital and unload their goods on China’s vast market which has once again been flung wide open to the plunder of foreign monopolies. In Texas, Teng went to the NASA space center, prospecting for military hardware. There his delegation held talks with the oil monopolists who are negotiating the plunder of Chinese oil. In Seattle, Teng discussed the purchase of Boeing jets for China’s military and transport needs. He also chatted with Senator Henry Jackson, once again promising that China will be able to pay back the enormous debts to the U.S. finance capitalists with which the Chinese leaders plan to “modernize” their capitalist economy and turn China into a superpower.
But the Carter administration did not invite Teng for a U.S. tour only for friendly chats and to negotiate deals for the plunder of China by the U.S. monopolies or for other ordinary business between two capitalist states. Behind Teng’s visit lurks a dangerous, warmongering U.S.-China alliance being formed against the proletariat and peoples of the world. Teng Hsiao-ping put the question bluntly: that the normalization of Sino-American relations is a result of “long term strategic considerations” and that “one aspect of it (normalization of relations – ed.) is the development of relations between the two countries, but what is even more important is from the point of view of global strategy”.
Carter put the same point more subtly than his Chinese counterpart, stating that the U.S. and China “share many common perspectives” and “matters of common global interest” which means that “A strong and secure China which contributes constructively to world affairs is in our interest, and a globally engaged confident and strong America is in China’s interest.”
So what are U.S. imperialism’s and Chinese social-imperialism’s “common perspectives” and “common global interests” and what are their respective “global strategies”?
Despite the lying sermons of the Chinese revisionists about American imperialism being in “strategic retreat”, reduced to a timid mouse that only wants to be left in peace, U.S. imperialism has been and remains the most powerful, savage and barbaric power the world has ever known. The unbroken series of acts of aggression and intervention by the U.S. in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia, including the most ferocious wars of imperialist conquest in Korea and Indochina, has been unprecedented in history. The ongoing slaughter of the Iranian people by U.S. imperialist henchmen is just one example of the fact that American imperialism, just like the equally savage and aggressive Soviet social-imperialism, has not and will not change its imperialist nature until it is destroyed.
As a result of the triumph of revisionism and capitalism, China too has embarked on the road of imperialism. Peking’s instigation along with the Kremlin, of the bloody fratricidal conflict in Indochina and the recent open threats from Teng Hsiao-ping of a Chinese invasion of Viet Nam, and especially the Chinese leaders’ chauvinist and hostile activities against the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, the only genuine socialist country, and against the revolutionary liberation struggle of the proletariat and people everywhere, are the crimes of a typical imperialist. Under the rule of the new and old bourgeoisie, with the rapid liquidation of anything of a socialist nature in the Chinese economy, China has been transformed into a big, warmongering imperialist-capitalist state which is seeking its own sphere of influence and its own place in the sun among the imperialist powers.
It is this “common journey” on the road of imperialist slavery and world domination which has joined U.S. imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism in an aggressive alliance.
The entire world capitalist system is in the grips of all-round crisis and is sharpening its weapons of repression to suppress the working class and socialism. Socialism is the aspiration of the workers everywhere. The revolutionary movement of the proletariat is causing deep concern among the leaders of world imperialism. Carter’s “human rights” fraud is aimed at corrupting the working masses at home and abroad with pacifist phrases in the face of his fascist and warmongering policy. The bourgeoisie is going all out propagating the ultra-reactionary, pro-imperialist stands of the Chinese leaders in order to spread the view that socialism is impossible and create maximum pessimism in the working class. And Chinese revisionism with its “three worlds” theory, like the revisionism of Browder, Tito and Khrushchov before it, prettifies and sanctions the savage dictatorship of monopoly capitalism, corrupting the proletariat with a class collaborationist and social-chauvinist line. Here too, the Chinese revisionists, with their “three worlds” theory which repudiates any role for the proletariat in making revolution and denies the very existence of socialism, who stand in direct opposition to the revolutionary working class movement with the Marxist-Leninist parties at the head and who have savagely attacked the Socialist homeland, Enver Hoxha’s Albania, are providing a great service to U.S0 imperialism and world capitalism.
To protect their vast neo-colonial interests in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the U.S. imperialists under the Carter administration are pushing a fraudulent “human rights” campaign to convince the people that U.S. neo-colonialism has changed and is no longer the bloodstained monster it was in the past. In this way, while arming their neo-colonial regimes to the teeth with the most up to date means of slaughter and torture, the U.S. imperialists hope to divert the revolt of the proletariat and oppressed people in these countries against imperialism and its local tyrants such as Pinochet in Chile, Marcos in the Philippines and Mobutu in the Congo (K), etc. The Chinese revisionists, too, in coordination with the State Department’s “human rights” are rushing to the defense of U.S. neo-colonialism, for which their “strategic concept of three worlds” is especially suited. According to this revisionist theory, the various neo-colonial regimes of the so-called “third world” are not only “progressive” but are even declared “the motive force pushing world history forward”! Now, for instance, at the same time that the U.S. military advisors are directing the Shah’s fascist army in Iran to shoot down the demonstrators in the street and trains the SAVAK agents in the latest means of torture, all to defend the interests of the U.S. multi-nationals, the new Chinese emperors are heaping praise on the “anti-hegemonist” fascist monarchy of the Shah and even send Premier Hua Kuo-feng to Tehran to show him their support.
China, of course, would like its own neo-colonialist domination of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Peking would like to emerge as the undisputed “leader” of the so-called “third world”, but only lacks the finance capital, the economic and military capacity to push aside the older imperialists and establish their own neo-colonial slavery. This is why, for the time being, Chinese social-imperialism has chosen to combine itself with U.S., Japanese and European neo-colonialism and in this way find the strength to carve out-its own sphere of influence. Therefore, U.S. intervention and neocolonialism and China’s own big power chauvinist ambitions in Asia, Africa and Latin America, their joint efforts to undermine the revolutionary national liberation movement, is a “common perspective ” underlying the U.S.-China alliance.
In short, the “common global interests” of U.S. imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism on which their all-round political, economic, military, and ideological alliance is based, are directed first and foremost against the revolution.
It is also well known that “from the view of global strategy” the U.S. and China have combined into an alliance against their common imperialist rival, Soviet social-imperialism.
The U.S. imperialist bloc and the Soviet social-imperialist bloc are locked in a sharp inter-imperialist rivalry. Today, this rivalry is bringing untold suffering on the people with imperialism and social- imperialism carrying out intervention and whipping up local conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, all in preparation for a possible devastating world war to bring about a redivision of the world market between the two superpowers.
Under the hoax that the United States is in “strategic retreat” while the Soviet Union is a “rising” superpower, and therefore the only aggressor and the “one main enemy”, Chinese social-imperialism has openly merged with the imperialist bloc of the West in its preparations for war against the imperialist bloc of the East. This policy of open collaboration with imperialism the Chinese revisionists justify with their nefarious theory of “three worlds”. As Teng Hsiao-ping shamelessly put it in his recent interview with Time magazine:
“According to our view of the three worlds, the first world consists of the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but in this concept of our thinking of three worlds, we proceed from the establishment of a united front against hegemonism and for the defense of world peace and security and stability, and this united front includes the U.S.”
That China has included savage U.S. imperialism in its so-called “united front”, or more precisely, that China has hitched itself to the U.S. imperialist bloc of imperialist states in rivalry with the Soviet Union, has of course been cause for celebrations in the U.S. State Department and at the Pentagon. Nevertheless, the U.S.-China alliance is part of the dance of imperialist alliances. It is based on the pragmatic policies of the Chinese revisionists and the U.S. imperialists in common pursuit of a temporary advantage over their mutual rival, the Soviet New Tsars. Both Carter and Teng are well aware that their present love affair is not so lasting or deep as it is advertized to be, that each is using the other to serve their own separate imperialist strategies for world domination.
During Teng Hsiao-ping’s tour, the Carter administration and all the monopoly capitalist politicians warmly applauded Teng Hsiao-ping as he made open calls for a war alliance “to curb the polar bear”, with the U.S., Japan, Western Europe and China as its foundation. Concerning Teng’s rabid warmongering the State Department declared that “it was comforting finally to have another world power beating the drums... and taking a harder line that Washington” against the Soviet Union. Indeed, Teng Hsiao-ping proved himself to be a more brazen and gung-ho champion of the U.S. imperialist cause of aggression and war then the most hardened U.S. reactionary politicians.
At the same time, the Carter administration went out of its way to disassociate itself from Teng’s ravings for an open military alliance and “united action” against the “Soviet threat”. Mr. “Human Rights” Carter is a sly politician and would just as soon have Teng Hsiao-ping exposed as the only warmonger and protect his own “peacenik” image. Meanwhile Carter will continue to draft record military budgets and consolidate in the name of “peace and security” the aggressive alliances which Teng Hsiao-ping is openly demanding.
Teng’s extreme warmongering declarations were not empty phrases, but a real reflection of Chinese social-imperialist strategy of incitement of inter-imperialist war. Teng Hsiao-ping in his Time interview outlined the direction of this counter-revolutionary strategy:
“After setting up this relationship between China, Japan and the U.S., we must further develop the relationship in a deepening way. If we really want to be able to place curbs on the polar bear, the only realistic thing for us is to unite. If we only depend on the strength of Europe, it is not enough. We are an insignificant, poor country, but if we unite, well, it will then carry weight.”
From this it is quite obvious that the Chinese leaders, who deck themselves out as socialists and Marxist-Leninists, do not rely on the proletariat and the working masses for their strength, but for them the “realistic thing” is to rely not exclusively on the strength of the U.S. imperialists alone, but on the imperialists of Europe and Japan as well! Furthermore, Teng asserts that it is the U.S. and other imperialists, with their great economic and military “strength”, with their enormous arsenals of hydrogen bombs, cruise missiles and nuclear submarines, who are “able to place curbs on the polar bear”, while China is only “an insignificant, poor country”. In other words, China’s social-imperialist strategy is aimed at having the other imperialists knock each other out, at having U.S.-led imperialism do the fighting and then afterwards China will “carry weight”. Their cynical warmongering strategy is to drive the U.S. imperialist bloc against the Soviet bloc, to push them towards a full-scale inter-imperialist war in Europe, bringing about the mutual destruction of these imperialist blocs and an unprecedented slaughter of the toiling masses, but from which China will emerge untouched and the sole remaining big imperialist power.
However, the U.S. imperialists are not so naive as to not realize Teng Hsiao-ping’s plans and have their own equally diabolic and warmongering strategy in response. Carter’s answer to Teng Hsiao-ping’s call for a “united front” against the Soviet Union, was that he instead favored an “even-handed” and “balanced policy” between the U.S. and Russia. By this Carter meant that the U.S. policy is to play the “China card” and the “Soviet card” at the same time. That is, to welcome China into their lair, working feverishly to instigate the Chinese against the Soviets, supplying China with economic and military support, including technology for nuclear weapons, while at the same time maintaining “good relations” with Moscow, hoping to embroil the new Chinese emperors and the Soviet New Tsars in a war in Asia. The bloody fighting in Indochina and the Chinese threatened invasion of Viet Nam are dangerous indications of the fiendish strategy of U.S. imperialism to hurl China and the Soviet Union against each other.
In either event, whether the U.S. strategy or the Chinese strategy or some other imperialist strategy “wins out” the formation of the U.S.-China alliance is part of the murderous dance of imperialist alliances. Its aim is the suppression of socialism, the world proletariat and the national liberation movement and preparations for a new round of inter-imperialist conflicts in which the working masses are turned into cannon fodder in a war for the redivision of markets and spheres of influence between the U.S., Soviet, Chinese and other imperialist powers.
The U.S.-China alliance, which was further sealed and celebrated from coast to coast with Teng Hsiao-ping’s U.S. tour, is part of the imperialist offensive against the proletariat and people of the world, including the people of the U.S. and China. Thus, the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries in the U.S. and across the globe have condemned this warmongering aggressive alliance. However, despite the wishes and desires of the likes of Carter and Teng Hsiao-ping, no “common perspective” or “united front” of imperialists and reactionaries, whether strong ones or insignificant ones, can prevent the proletarian revolution and the liberation of the oppressed peoples. It is the revolutionary struggle of the peoples which can and must put an end to the dance of imperialist alliances and the warmongering strategies of the imperialists.