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No, they're right, Xi would be helpless trying to explain dialectical materialism to a reader of the Wall Street Journal
Joke is on us, they got us all to read the WSJ!
I’ll be honest it took me a minute to figure out what they could’ve meant aside from this
That fully reads as “Xi Jinping says Marxism because you’re too stupid to understand dialectical materialism”
And even more to the author of that piece
I love checking the byline on these opinion pieces.
The author is a member of the “Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong” and has based most of his career on fearmongering Tiananmen Square. He was banned from entering China years ago, so obviously is extremely unbiased.
his “B.S. in chemical engineering” came out of a hollow program for politically favored people, and his 1998-2002 “doctorate in Marxism” was written by his staff.
Sounds like a bunch of unsubstantiated rumours
he is widely disliked within the party
What.
he controls the levers that keep him in place.
I hate it when liberals try to talk about other country's political systems. The fuck are "levers of power"? Are there a set of levers in the NPC that if you control you can change the weather in china or something? Joking aside, there is no explanation of what the fuck mechanism there is by which xi can be chair of the party despite being disliked by it.
Its utter emptiness is evident when you set it side-by-side with his parallel claim to inherit Confucius
This is the closest the article comes to making a valid critique of xi's grasp on Marxism. While I am skeptical of the value of confusian thinking myself, it is ironically anti-materialist to assume that a pure Marxism untainted by the values and traditions of a person can exist.
I would much rather chinese communists openly proclaim the influence of their culture on their thinking than for them to assume that they have surpassed the flow of time. As althusser puts it, the distinguishing mark of ideology is that it proclaims itself to have no history. As such, Xi's view is far closer to the scientific practice of Marxism than to ideology (in the marxist sense).
Sounds like a bunch of unsubstantiated rumours
Even Wikipedia, which straight up starts talking about censorship in his article's intro, says nothing about these claims. Even the sources they use for facts about his education background, one of which is a lib Guardian article, mentions nothing about this. So it's likely he made it the fuck up or an "unnamed source" told him about it.
“unnamed source”
he is widely disliked within the party
Which is why they keep electing him
he controls the levers that keep him in place.
He is the president goddammit! Controlling levers is what presidents do.
The fuck are “levers of power”?
While Stalin was spooning the Ukrainians, Mao used the Levers of Power to take China and North Korea for the communists.
To be fair, Confucianism is extremely reactionary and should be combated. It would make much more sense to have a Daoist Marxism than a Confucian one.
I wouldn't say "extremely" reactionary but it does have reactionary elements. Probably not more than Abrahamic religions do, though i will admit i'm not an expert on Confucianism. (And yes i know it's a philosophy and not strictly speaking a religion, but i think the comparison is fair in the sense that it's one of the ideological frameworks that left a very big historical imprint on the cultures and systems of government in the region, much like religion did for Europe and West Asia.)
Whether it should be combated or not is not for me to say since i'm not from that region or culture.
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I don't know anything about daoism (or taoism, are they similar?). Got any books to recommend?
Taoism is the same thing, just using the old transliteration system where Beijing is Peking and Mao Zedong is Mao Tsetung.
My recommendation is just to read the Daodejing. It's a pretty short compilation of poems that is the main text of Daoism.
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This article is hilarious. I am not even sure who the target audience is meant to be -sinophobic liberals who know what dialectical materialism is? That seems very niche. Maybe it doesn't have to make sense, maybe they were going for a word-salad vibes-based character-assassination.
Also the "shrodinger-style" attack; apparently Xi is both a very smart CPC president and also not able to explain dialectical materialism. Obviously no citations or proof offered for any of the allegations including the attacks of his higher education credentials.
The imperialist intelligensia must be getting more and more desperate as the contradictions of their parasitic economies draws on evermore deepening crises.
Addendum - I just saw someone else make a similar comment before me. I'll just leave it here rather than deleting this.
this just caters to ultras, who funnily don't know what dialectical materialism is.
Maybe but I am not sure ultras as a group have any sufficient political presence globally. I am not sure the author/editors are smart enough to target them specifically let alone WSJ be aware of their presence to merit propaganda aimed at them. Collectively western propaganda and intelligence win historically because of the sheer size of capital they put behind their schemes (backed by populations benefiting from the unequal exchange and security apparatus barbarism) - individuals may be evil and smart but as organisations they are large and blundering. You would think by now they would deftly versed in marxist-leninism - you know just from the viewpoint in defeating their enemy. However, their propaganda is so weak in substance that a superficial overview of an ML understanding of the world is sufficient for westerners to breakthrough their smokescreen (if they wanted to). I think one of Marx's key breakthrough is how capital after being reified can defend itself "organically".
its definitely weird, but i do think there is an abundance of ultras in the west who despise China more than the US itself. Also not every article has to cater the largest groups, articles like this can cater liberals and ultras alike.
I can testify to that; there are a considerable group of "leftists" who despise China.
I read exclusively wsj to learn concepts like dialectical materialism
This is silly. Because even if Xi is a secret capitalist roader revisionist etc, which I don't believe, he probably could explain dialectical materialism, having been raised and educated about Marxism.
Like Viktor Orban or Vladimir Putin could probably explain dialectical materialism, having both grown up under communism and being former communist party members. But obviously neither are communist.
I honestly don't understand why diamat is treated like some mysterious and inscrutable thing in the west. I recall Chomsky also has this comment how he doesn't know what it is. Yet, people seem to have no problem understanding terms like thermodynamics, selections pressures, or emergent phenomena. It just seems like a case of a term intentionally being made out to be difficult to understand to discourage people from trying.
Chomsky saying he has no clue what dialectics is and no intention of finding out is a masks off moment.
absolutely
Apparently creationists learning biology enough to pass university level tests without believing the content is common enough
lmao
Wait, this is a real article? If so, then holy shit, this is the first time I have seen a liberal, much less someone on the wall street journal mention the concept of dialectical materialism.
Yes. It is very believable that the guy who holds a doctorate in Marxism is unable to explain the concept of dialectic materialism. I am sure this is a very serious and credible text
To be fair, explaining diamat to the average WSJ reader is hard mode
The Wall Street Journal, truly the last bastion of Marxist understanding. What the fuck am I looking at?
Marxism
~~Mar~~ xism
~~Mar~~ Xi ~~sm~~
Gasp, they're right! 
Marxism is a mask for Xi
The most mediocre westerner thinks they know more than the leader of a nation of a billion people that is by most criteria operating smoothly. That's how badly orientalism has seeped into culture here.
By Em. Professor Perry Link, Princeton University. American Sinologist. I wonder, what's his beef with Xi?
From Wikipedia
Link has been a Board Member of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) since 2021. CFHK is a US-based non-profit organisation, which presses for the preservation of freedom, democracy, and international law in Hong Kong.
Along with Andrew J. Nathan, he translated the Tiananmen Papers
This is like John Bolton writing an opinion piece about Iraq or Iran. A little harsh, sure, but he's definitely not a neutral party. I wonder what he was up to in June 1989? Not even one of your standard anti-CPC mouth pieces, this guy is a main part of the horn and played a significant part.
My favorite quote from the article, taken out of context:
"It is a claim to intellectual heritage that he makes to enhance his prestige—and hence his power. Its utter emptiness is evident..."
Em. Professor. Perry Link
Ok, that last part was me lashing out because I am particularly fed up with PhDs at this moment.
"American Sinologist" has some big "making sense of the savages and their strange oriental ways" kind of vibes.
I'll take things said by both the WSJ and smug western ultras for $500 Alex.
Xi before author was born:
I wouldn't rate that very highly on diamat
disagree, the essay is very simple but full of dialectical thinking and materialist philosophy.
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Noam Chumsky 🤝 Xi Jinping
Not understanding dialectical materialism
I just realized that you can't even spell Marxism without xi. Really makes ya think.
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They think everyone has unqualified leaders like the US
Is this an IGN article? It feels like one.
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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