When speaking of “the economy,” it has long been necessary to gain at least a basic familiarity with China. In the past few years, this has only become more unavoidable. Today, it isn’t an exaggeration to say that almost no political conversation can occur without some need to “weigh in” on what we call the “China question”—which is actually a series of questions relating to the current character of the Chinese state, the social struggles that exist within the country, the prospects of the Chinese economy, the supposed decline of US hegemony, the role of Chinese investment in poor countries, the impact all of this will have on the environment, etc. This is most apparent within the media, where a certain clickbait genre of dark sinofuturism has taken hold. Here, classical orientalist tropes of the “yellow peril” are reformatted into myths of an omnipotent totalitarian state seeking to colonize the world with its supercharged, state-owned industries and its massive populace, brainwashed into an unthinking nationalism. You are probably familiar with the genre.
At root, these myths are displaced anxieties about everyday life in the countries whose ruling classes form the apex of the imperial hierarchy, such as the United States, where a much more wide-ranging police state already exists, buoyed by violent and virulent forms of nationalism. This actually-existing police state already has all the “totalitarian” features that the media associates with China, including an expansive “social credit system” (in the form of the combined criminal and credit record) that is systematically biased against the poor, the largest carceral apparatus in the history of the world, and the ability—in fact, we might instead say enthusiasm—to commit extrajudicial murders on an almost daily basis, particularly against ethnic minority groups. Similarly, mass uprisings centered in deindustrialized cities are put down with military-scale police deployments, all while the actual military—the US wielding the largest imperial force in history—patrols every ocean with its fleets and every continent from its numerous bases, monitors the earth from its missile-guiding satellites, and regularly coordinates with affiliated defense and intelligence agencies to orchestrate coups (if not outright invasions) against oppositional governments.
But sensationalist propaganda isn’t the only source of misinformation about China. After all, it’s natural for those who feel politically helpless to seize upon far-off examples, which they then demonize into totalitarian dystopias (making their own life appear better by comparison) or idealize into rapturous utopias (giving them hope that there is some force for good out there in an otherwise dark world). For China, this is nothing new. Ever since Marco Polo, the polities of mainland East Asia have served this purpose for Europeans and their colonial descendants.[1] Some project their fears onto China, others project their hopes. Those who fear China, portraying it as a dark, totalitarian empire, generally have a chauvinistic attitude toward the rest of the world and make use of obvious orientalist tropes. But those who place all their hope in China are little better. Even if they may seem less conservative at first glance, they build up an equally racist caricature to worship from a distance, fetishizing superficial aspects of Chinese culture and using this exotic image of a supposedly “socialist” China as a prop in local political battles.[2] Ironically, this image then substitutes itself for the very voices that such supporters seek to promote: those of the Chinese administrators and political theorists involved in what is, without a doubt, one of the most significant state-building projects in the history of the world. In all cases, the overall effect is to cast a mirage over the horizon of the world, obscuring whatever might be approaching in the distance.
In contrast, Chuang’s founding goal has been to burst through such illusions. We have sought to provide a clear-eyed appraisal of China as it actually exists and to translate the numerous voices of those involved in the country’s own social struggles, all in order to reckon with likely futures and contribute, in some small way, to the worldwide rekindling of communism. This has necessarily involved complex, often esoteric engagements with theory and history. But the project is not, fundamentally, about producing communist theory. We simply consider this to be a necessary step in building substantive ties of international solidarity. After all, communism is a politics of action. It cannot be reduced to a matter of individual faith or Marxist exegesis without suffocating its vital power. In other words, for communist theory to remain communist, it cannot be confined within the golden prison of academic inquiry. It must be torn from the page and set into the fire and flesh of the world. Our goal is not to build up some theoretical edifice but to build power.
Communism is, and always has been, an international project designed to span the borders that divide us. It is also a popular politics, rather than the domain of elite theorists. To have an impact, theory must be translated into vernacular terms and embroidered with attractive, accessible advertising. It doesn’t matter how right you are if no one is listening. Every theorist is also obligated to be an effective teacher, translator and transmitter of knowledge. In our case, the increasing centrality of China to even the most colloquial political conversations means that the time has come for us to help produce simple, handy and easily reproducible summaries of the communist perspective on China.
To this end, we are launching an ongoing blog series responding to frequently asked questions about China. These are the sort of questions that anyone with some knowledge of China will have been asked with some regularity. At one point, they would have been limited to political scenes or academic settings. While some of the questions we present here are still more common to hear in these more specialized spheres, it has become increasingly common to hear many of them posed in mass media or raised in everyday social interactions. The answers we give here, then, are not geared toward “the left,” but are intended for general use. All will be available in both Chinese and English. Most are collectively authored, but some questions relate specifically to the experiences of our Chinese members. In these cases, we’ve disaggregated the collective response into individual voices, often asking other Chinese comrades to weigh in as well. In addition to the China FAQ series, we’ll also be adding a special “Chuang FAQ” entry answering some common questions about our own collective.
To commemorate the launch of the series, we’ll be releasing a new entry roughly every other week for the next few months. After this, the open-ended series will continue indefinitely, with new entries added as they come in. The answers will be compiled on the new FAQ page of our website. Over time, we hope to simplify many of these points even further and to repurpose the material for use across different media. We encourage everyone to make use of these materials freely, keeping to the spirit of the project. If you’ve created any content drawing from the China FAQ series, please e-mail us ([email protected]) so that we can link it here and promote it on social media.
常见中国问题解答 — 系列序言
很久以来，谈起“经济”的时候，对中国有一点基本熟悉度是有必要的。在过去的几年里，这变得愈加必不可免。今天，我们可以毫不夸张地说，任何有关政治的对话或多或少都需要“讨论”我们所谓的“中国问题”。“中国问题”其实是一连串的问题，关系到中国国家当下的性质、中国国内的社会斗争、中国经济的前景、美国霸权的所谓衰退、中国在贫穷国家的投资的作用、上述问题对于环境的影响等。这在媒体里最为显著，那里充斥着黑暗中华未来主义题材的标题党文章。经典东方主义者的“黄祸”桥段在这里被重组成了一个全能的极权国家的神话，这个国家意图用其超能的国有产业和被洗脑到无智的巨大民族主义人口来殖民全世界。你大概对这类题材并不陌生。
究其根源，这些神话是被错置了的对日常生活的焦虑，它们所在的国家由统治阶级构成了帝国等级制度的顶层，制度里存在着一个广大得多、靠民族主义各种暴力和剧毒的形式来承载的警察国家，比如美国。这个实际存在的警察国家有着所有媒体联系到中国的“极权”特征，包括一个宽泛且对穷人存在系统性偏见的“社会信用系统”（以犯罪加信用记录为形式）、世界历史上最大的牢狱组织，和几乎每天都有、尤其针对少数族裔的法外谋杀的能耐（其实与其说“能耐”，我们不如称其为“热情”）。同样，集中在去工业化城市的暴动被军队级别的警察部署镇压，同时真正的军队（美国坐拥史上最庞大的帝国军力）利用它的舰队巡逻每一个大洋，借助它众多的基地观察每一个大洲，用制导导弹的卫星监视整个地球，并定期协调盟军的防御和情报部门对敌对政府策划政变（如果不是直接入侵的话）。
但耸人听闻的宣传不是对中国的误导信息的唯一源头。毕竟，对在政治上感到绝望的人来说，抓住远处的例子，将其妖魔化为极权的反乌托邦（对比之下他们的生活显得更好）或理想化为极乐的乌托邦（给予他们这个黑暗世界仍有正义力量的希望）是十分自然的。对于中国来说，这不新鲜。从马可波罗开始，东亚大陆的政体就为欧洲人和他们的殖民后代发挥了这个作用。[3]有些人将畏惧投射到中国之上，有些则投射了希望。那些畏惧中国、将中国描述为黑暗的极权帝国的人，他们普遍对本国以外持沙文主义态度，并且利用显然的东方主义的桥段。但是那些把全部希望寄托于中国的人也没好到哪里去。即便他们乍一看没那么保守，他们实际上构建了一种同样种族主义的滑稽印象以便远远地崇拜，迷恋于中国文化的表层皮毛，并将这种异域风情的所谓“社会主义”中国形象作为本地政治战中的道具。[4]讽刺的是，这种形象反而取代了这些支持者想要推广的声音：中国的行政官员和政治理论家，他们参与着一场毫无疑问是世界历史上影响最深远的的国家建构规划之一。无论如何，总体效果就是用海市蜃楼笼罩住世界的天际线，遮掩了迫近的远方。
与此相反，《闯》成立之初的目标便是冲垮这种幻相。我们力图提供对实际存在的中国的清晰估量，将身处中国自身社会斗争之中人们的诸多声音传递出来。这都是为了思索可能的未来，也以我们的微薄之力助力共产主义的国际复燃。这必然包括涉足于复杂的、有时冷僻的理论和历史。但是从根本上讲，这个项目的目的不是生产共产主义理论。我们只是认为，这是建立实质的国际团结关系所必需的一步。毕竟，共产主义是一种行动的政治，若是缩水成个人信仰或马克思主义的释经学必将扼杀其生机。换句话说，如果共产主义理论要是共产主义的，它绝不能被困在学术探求的象牙塔中。它必须从纸中脱身，走进世界的火与肉里。我们的目标不是建立什么理论大厦，而是构筑力量。
共产主义是——并且从来都是一项国际事业，致力于跨越分隔彼此的边界。它也是民众的政治，不是精英理论家的地盘。理论要想产生影响，就必须被翻译成朴素的语言，放进诱人而平易的包装。如果没人听，你多对也没有意义。每位理论家都有义务做一个有效的知识传授者、翻译者和散播者。对我们来说，中国在最通俗的政治讨论里的愈发重要，意味着我们是时候助力于生产关于中国的简单、便利和方便复制的共产主义视角的摘要了。
为此，我们发起一个连载的博客系列，回答关于中国的常见问题。这些问题是任何对中国有一定了解的人都会经常被问到的。曾几何时，这些问题局限于政治舞台上和学术背景下。我们提出的问题有一些仍更常见于这些专业领域，但是它们在大众媒体力和日常交际中也愈发普遍。所以，我们在这里提供的答案不单单面向“左翼”，而是希望面向大众。所有问答都有中文和英文。大多数回答是我们集体创作的，但有些问题尤其涉及到我们的中国成员的体验。在这种情况下，我们将集体回应拆分为个人的观点，并且通常也会请其他中国的同志分享见解。除了这个“常见中国问题解答”系列之外，我们还会加上一期特别的“常见《闯》问题解答”，回答关于我们这个集体的一些常见问题。
为了纪念系列的启动，接下来的几个月内我们大概每隔一周更新一期。在这之后，该系列会无限期连载，不时添加新内容。所有的回应将会汇集到我们网站的新“常见问题解答”页面。假以时日，我们希望可以进一步简化一些这里的论点，并将这些材料移植到不同媒介。依照这个项目的精神，我们鼓励所有人自由使用这些材料。如果你根据本系列的内容创作了内容，请邮件联系我们（[email protected]），以便我们在这里链接和在社交媒体上宣传。
[1] This was actually when the modern notion of “China” emerged in the West, long before it would emerge in the region itself. For more detail, see this excellent article.
[2] This is by no means a recent phenomenon. If anything, it was most widespread in the latter half of the 20th century, visible in the development of what came to be known as Maoism. There are many good histories of this phenomenon. For a quick overview, as well as a useful bibliography, see this article.
[3] 这其实正值现代的“中国”概念在西方出现的时候，当时离这个概念在东亚地区出现还尚有时日。更多细节见这篇精彩的文章。
[4] 这绝不是近期才出现的现象。要真举例的话，这种现象在20世纪后半叶最为广泛，就表现在后来称作“毛主义”的发展过程中。这篇文章提供了简短的概述和实用的书目。
