Author: Oliver August,
in Beijing
Publication: The Times,
UK
Date: October 31, 2000
Diehard Chinese Communists
have decided that globalisation, the new buzz word of the modern economy,
is old hat. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, they say, invented the
concept more than 150 years ago.
In a desperate attempt
to marry their flagging ideology to modern economics, experts at a Beijing
University conference suggested that there was no inherent contradiction
between China´s market reforms and the continued worship of Marxism.
Now the theme has been
taken up in the media. A report by Xinhua, the official news agency,
headlined ''Marx, Engels predict globalisation in Communist Manifesto''
endorsed the academics´ views. It stated that Marx and Engels
had seen globalisation as ''the inevitable outcome of production and contacts
in the world'', adding that the experts thought it ''will not alter the
destiny of capitalism''.
Chinese reformers yesterday
derided the idea that Beijing was still following Marxist ideas.
One online entrepreneur said: ''If that´s true, then Al Gore really
did invent the Internet.''
Foreign observers see
the Chinese globalisation debate as a sign of internal Communist Party
strife. Reforms, including the creation of stock markets, have undermined
Communist dogma and alienated many party members.
In coming months, China
is expected to become a full member of the global community by joining
the World Trade Organisation -- bringing an influx of foreign capital long
opposed by ideological purists.
This week´s conclusion
that Marxism incorporated globalisation all along may help China´s
transition to a market economy, but its diehard Communists have by no means
given up. They now argue that globalisation is one more step on the
dialectic path mapped by Marx. Fully- fledged communism is still
their aim.
One expert is quoted
as saying: ''Globalisation does not change the nature of capital.
It is not a solution to the exploitation problem in the capitalist society,
either.''
The experts failed to
mention that Marx and Engels never used the word globalisation. Their
picture of an inter- connected world may adequately describe late 20th-century
economics, but it fails to explain globalisation as a wider cultural phenomenon.
Vernon Bogdanor, the
Oxford University political scientist, recently suggested that globalisation
was first envisaged by Norman Angell, who wrote his classic work, The Great
Illusion, in 1910 -- 62 years after the Communist Manifesto.
