The lawyer Jörg Lang on China’s global role, criticism of the reporting on the Asian great power and a necessary repositioning towards Beijing (part 2 and conclusion)
After a conversation with the sinologist Andreas Seifert , Telepolis continues the double interview on China with Jörg Lang.
For many years he was a lawyer in political criminal matters, immigration and refugee law, especially for clients from the Near and Middle East, as well as in social security law.
He also worked for seven and a half years in the PLO’s foreign information department in Beirut.
Mr. Lang, how do you perceive the People’s Republic of China, i.e. its role in world politics, on the issue of human rights, participation, democracy, the environment and the economy?
Jörg Lang: My assessment of the role of the People’s Republic of China in the reorganization of world politics is shaped by my findings and personal experiences, especially in the Middle East.Accordingly, we are actually in a dispute about the so-called new order of the world, which is decisive for the existence and future of mankind: namely that between imperialism, now led by the USA, and on the other hand the globally growing anti-imperialist forces or the forces for peace and that Survival of the world.This is not sufficiently taken into account in the study by Andreas Seifert’s Militarization Information Center in Tübingen.“Imperialism“ is not simply a state or empire’s striving for power. Rather, I understand imperialism to be the aggressive economic, political and military characteristics inherent in the system of the current „western“ private-capitalist system.
Andreas Seifert noted in the first part of this double interview that China is embedded in capitalist globalization – there is „no spectator on the sidelines who is doing everything right“.
Jörg Lang: For me it is still characteristic of this imperialism: the appropriation of all profits from production and services, ultimately in the interests of today’s highly organized private production, IT and financial monopolies; accordingly a control of all private and social investments, which is basically just as primarily oriented towards their private interests, including the media control of people’s consciousness.On a global level, inherent to the system, this imperialism also includes the tendency to occupy other countries and regions or to dominate and exploit them politically, economically and militarily in the interests of private capitalist monopolies.The consequences of this global aggressive policy are still: exploitation of other countries; Destruction or underdevelopment of local productive forces; Sanctioning and corrupting national liberation movements; everyday murder of numerous individuals, e.g. also by drone attacks; brutal regime change; sustainable destruction and destabilization of the affected states and entire regions, including their infrastructure; growing arms exports and armament.
The estimated military spending of the People’s Republic of China increased from 2004 to 2020 from 66.8 billion US dollars to 252.3 billion US dollars .
Jörg Lang: But in my opinion, the current foreign and security policy of the People’s Republic of China is not shaped by similarly aggressive political-economic imperialist constraints. I consider them to be an important anti-imperialist force.How do you rate the general and internal development of the country?Jörg Lang: Overall, the People’s Republic has achieved an almost unbelievable comprehensive development of the productive forces over the past 70 years and led hundreds of millions of people out of hunger, misery and poverty.If one believes the Chinese requirements of the 14th five-year plan, the development of a modest prosperity and a higher quality, environmentally friendly way of life for people in harmony with nature and increased climate protection are now on the agenda.At least in the past, the CCP has largely implemented its plans, despite all the constant prophecies of doomThe economic basis is a „socialist market economy“ as defined by the CPC Party itself, or a capitalism controlled by the Communist Party.
Land and mineral resources in public hands
How does this capitalism differ from our economic system?
Jörg Lang: This is characterized by the development of a wide variety of forms of ownership and business, some of which are privately owned. However, the key industries, the core of the banking system, land and mineral resources are still in public hands.The distribution of consumer goods and services takes place mainly through market and competitive mechanisms, with services of general interest, health care and old-age pensions being in public hands.Overall, the appropriation of profits and, above all, the management of socially important investments are still under the control of the public sector, i.e. the Communist Party.The overall development takes place in a rationally comprehensible common interest and, in spite of all the strong differences in income and wealth currently occurring, not only serves the privileges of individual or private monopoly interests, but also the working people, the general population and the overall development of the country.According to Andreas Seifert, the VR government understands compliant behavior as a prerequisite for its benevolence and commitment.
Jörg Lang: There is no comparable country that has been exploited by western colonialism and devastated by imperialist wars that has achieved a comparable development of the productive forces and of society as a whole in the common interest in the past decades, including securing livelihoods for everyone, order security, stability and the Peace.And all of this precisely not on the basis of the exploitation of third countries and direct and indirect wars against them.What term do you use to characterize the Chinese system?Jörg Lang: Andreas Seifert describes the People’s Republic of China as „autocracy“ in contrast to a democracy, although he does not define what the essential elements are for a living democracy and does not go into whether it is „with us“ or in what he called the „West“ still exist or are increasingly being dismantled.The PR China defines itself in its Janus-faced constitution as a „dictatorship of the people“.
Your understanding of democracy depends more on whether a rule serves the people and less on the formal rights of a „people“ or certain members of a people.
Human rights are understood existentially and collectively
The question is then what influence people have.
Jörg Lang: According to my personal information from China, people’s opportunities for social and personal participation, at least in their immediate areas of life and especially at work and in companies, seem more real and more pronounced than „with us“, where they tend to decline.The rule of law and the role of the courts have evidently been expanded in recent years. There is an active and passive identification of the people with the Communist Party and its meanwhile more than 90 million members, especially at the local level and through the neighborhood committees. This was particularly evident during the pandemic.It is correct that – as far as „systemic issues“ are concerned or the rule of the CCP as such – there is no freedom of the media. But even „with us“ the leading private and public media are now acting increasingly uniformly when it comes to the alleged rule of the private capitalist system as such and the domination of this system in the world.
And what about human rights?
Jörg Lang: In the „West“ today, the focus of human rights is on individual rights to self-fulfillment. In practice, however, for the majority they are increasingly limited to freedom in consumption, in events and entertainment, and in private life.According to the understanding of the People’s Republic of China – and also of the people in the still plundered and devastated countries of the world – human rights, on the other hand, are more existentially and collectively related, i.e. to the realization of the right to life, food, water, housing, health, Education, security, peace.The PR China does not need to hide here. Especially not in comparison to countries like India, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, Iraq, etc., which are still under Western private capitalist dominance.
Do you realize that your judgment is diametrically opposed to the dominant image of China in this country?
Jörg Lang: If you look carefully, the predominantly negative reporting in the Western media for decades turns out to be part of an increasingly orchestrated psychological warfare against the People’s Republic of China.This also applies to the ongoing campaign on the alleged serious violations of individual human rights in China. However, as experience shows, the goal is not the defense of human rights, but the attempted destabilization of a so-called system opponent and, if possible, the overthrow of the rule of the Communist Party of China.
The question for you too: How do you rate the security policy? Or, to put it another way: who is threatening whom?
Jörg Lang: Andreas Seifert is evidently of the opinion that the PR China, with its „massive armament“ in recent years on the global political level, has meanwhile become a militaristic power comparable to the western military alliances under the leadership of the USA.But one cannot evaluate China’s armament or its „militarism“ without reference to the above-mentioned imperialist world politics of the West since the end of the Second World War.And above all, one cannot simply ignore the historical, quantitative, qualitative, strategic and also economic-political differences.Historically, China did not occupy Europe or Japan as a colonial power. Conversely, they, including Germany, plundered China for more than a century and covered it with war.
Washington Post: China is being used as an excuse for rearmament
However, the cited rising armaments expenditure is a fact.Jörg Lang: According to the figures published by the International Peace Research Institute in Stockholm (Sipri) on April 26, 2021, global armaments spending in 2020 amounted to almost two trillion US dollars.The US account alone accounts for $ 778 billion, or 39 percent. Together with the NATO allies, it is around one trillion US dollars, around half of all arms expenditure worldwide.By comparison, China spent just $ 252 billion on armaments in 2020, about 13 percent of global spending and only about a third of U.S. spending.If one relates this expenditure to the respective population, it is only about a twelfth. These sober figures are in blatant contradiction to everything that is suggested to us every day in almost all „leading“ media about the allegedly growing military threat „from the East“; and what is currently being invoked here by almost all „leading“ politicians, including the Greens, to justify an even stronger armament.The US columnist Fareed Zakaria, on the other hand, soberly stated in the Washington Post on March 18, 2021: „The Pentagon is using China as an excuse for huge new budgets.“He also points out that, in terms of quality, the US military armament, for example with aircraft carriers, modern fighter jets and unmanned missiles, is still superior to the PRC.Strategically, the US alone has 800 overseas military bases worldwide. China only maintains one military base for its fleet in Djibouti.
And: it is still US aircraft carriers and submarines that maneuver in abundance in the South Pacific and the Taiwan Strait, among other places. You won’t encounter any Chinese military ships in the Gulf of Mexico or the Baltic Sea.After all, China is and will remain a nuclear power.
Jörg Lang: The acting head of the US Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, recently threatened bluntly in his article Forging 21st Strategic Deterrence .China acts „aggressively to question democratic values and to shape the global economic order to its advantage“. This has to be countered through increased armament. And: „nuclear use is a very real possibility“.Politically and economically, the People’s Republic of China – unlike Western imperialist powers – is in any case not subject to an immanent compulsion to rule and exploit third countries.It is true that the People’s Republic of China is also paying close attention to its own advantages in its economic cooperation with other countries, especially in Africa, in Asia, Africa and Latin America.However, their trading terms are more favorable; and China attaches great importance to developing the infrastructure of other countries.
So what’s next in relation to China?
Jörg Lang: In my opinion, it is not our job to judge China and its overall development, so to speak, from an independent perspective of progressive intellectuals in the West and according to their values.Objectively, this does not seem possible to me either. It would be more appropriate to compare the development of the People’s Republic of China with, for example, countries such as India, Brazil or Nigeria and with the situation of the people there.We should certainly not exaggerate the development of the PRC either. We can hardly judge with certainty whether their development process, which shows contradictions, will result in the human socialism we have hoped for.In any case, however, our political judgments and positioning cannot be made apart from the current fundamental contradictions of the West itself, in which we live as its parts.Against this background, the very existence of China and the achievements achieved by the VR must be defended, as well as their overall positive effects on the stabilization of the world.It is not about copying Chinese developments or even trying to transfer them to us. But we shouldn’t tell the People’s Republic of China to align their policies with „our“ western individual rights to freedom and participation, which in practice are also becoming increasingly meaningless.One of our tasks here is primarily the resistance to the all-encompassing armament, internally and externally, with which capitalism wants to master the increasing crisis of its own system.This upgrade is not only pointless from a military point of view. Above all, it is highly dangerous and destructive. Instead, the world needs disarmament. Therefore, in our own interest, we must do all we can to oppose the demonization of the People’s Republic of China.At the same time, it is important to advocate every form of cooperation with China in the interests of both parties and the world, and for human, cultural, economic and political exchange at all levels.Not against, but only with China, the trouble spots and wars in the world can perhaps still be pacified, the impoverishment of large parts ended, the food and health problems of many countries fought, the flow of refugees stopped and the earth and its nature preserved as the basis of human existence.
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