Chinese New Left

is the first person to be called China's "New Left". The term was first used by Chinese journalist Yang Ping, who published a review in the 21 July 1994 issue of Beijing Youth Daily about intellectual Cui Zhiyuan's article "New Evolution, Analytical Marxism, Critical Law, and China's Reality", remarking that China had produced its own "New Left wing". Initially, the term was propagated by liberal opponents who contended that there was no fundamental difference between diehard Maoists and the New Left. The term "New Left" remains fraught with confusion due to the lack of clarity in its definition. Some intellectuals labeled as New Leftists, including but not limited to Gan Yang, are associated with Western conservatives, including Leo Strauss, rather than the New Left movement of the 1960s. ==Origin==

The concept of the New Left arose in China during the 1990s. According to New Left theory, market-economy challenges stem from the fact that under the reform and opening up, the market economy has become the dominant economic system; China's socialist economic reforms have brought the country into the global capitalist sphere. The 1990s New Left intellectuals criticized market reforms for increasing inequality. The development of the New Left is correlated to increased Chinese nationalism after its period of low-profile presence on the world stage during the Deng Xiaoping era. It is seen as a response to problems faced by China during its modernization drive since the 1980s, which has led to growing social inequality between the coast and hinterlands, and rich and poor. Some scholars believe that, based on its unique and drastic 20th-century economic and political changes, China cannot adopt the social-democratic, capitalist model of many Western countries. The Chinese New Left is concerned with the country's social-inequality issues. Some scholars believe that although the movement is not yet mature, it is likely to embed itself in Chinese society over the next century (assuming that polarization continues). Strikes, sit-ins, slow-downs, and peasant uprisings, sporadic due to government suppression, are on the rise and may become more organized with the development of the New Left. According to Zhang Xudong, "An advocate for New Deal-style economic and social policies in China was considered to be liberal in the 1980s, but as 'New Left' by the century's end." This overlap suggests that ideals set forth by the New Left strongly resemble the democratic socialism of the 1980s. ==Intellectual views==

Economics plays a significant role in the Chinese New Left, whose development is closely associated with the reform and opening up. Many supporters of the New Left generally believe that a leftist economic model should be found to tackle China's dependence on exports and savings, reduce the growing economic gap between rural and urban areas, and stimulate private business through public ownership and state planning. The capitalist free-market model applied in most social-democratic programs is undesirable because, instead of challenging and reforming the existing market economy and representative democracy, it seeks to moderate the social consequences of structural division and hierarchy. A suitable, sustainable market model is vital for China's leftist movement. At the same time, the New Left criticized market reforms by citing the damage they caused to the countryside as an argument. Like China's Old Left, the New Left supports state socialism as the alternative to neoliberal capitalism. Some in the Chinese New Left use critical theory, such as postmodernism or postcolonialism, to critique China's market-oriented reforms. ==Social movements==

According to the Financial Times in 2016, several experts estimate that if there were free elections in China, a neo-Maoist candidate would win. This Maoist revival movement precedes the tenure of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, whose own revival of Mao-era elements seem to be intended as a conciliatory move towards the neo-Maoists. It is believed that the rising popularity of neo-Maoism is due to the growing economic dislocation and inequality under market reforms and globalisation. Critiques of CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin's 2001 decision to allow private business people to become party members, referring to the decision as "political misconduct" and "ideological confusions", helped fuel the rise of what would become known as the New Left movement. Neo-Maoists first became prominent under CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao's administration, delivering far-left attacks on CCP policy from websites such as Utopia, or MaoFlag. They expanded into a political movement through association with the Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, and succeeded in surviving crackdowns. It is believed that the CCP leadership is reluctant to eradicate these groups due to their connection with CCP history and ideology. Maoism and neo-Maoism have been increasingly popular after the rise of Xi Jinping among millennials and poor Chinese people, and they are more frequently covered by foreign media. During the 1990s, rural industry began to stagnate and China's large peasant population was seen as a hindrance to the country's development. Popular demand for further modernization, urbanization, and marketization began to outweigh the successes of the previous Township and Village Enterprises. Cui Zhiyuan and Gan Yang began to establish small, rural industries and collectives to mitigate the increasing socioeconomic gap and provide an alternative to large-scale capitalism. Although Hegang has had the largest number of laid-off workers since 1996, the city has registered China's highest rate of economic growth. Cui Zhiyuan suggests that the cause of this phenomenon is its "combining public land ownership and the market". Hegang has focused on stimulating its real estate market to stimulate the development of related industries. Of the Chinese Communist Party's current ideology, the idea of privatising China's countryside has not been accepted and it remains in public hands. Although most non-urban land is used privately, it cannot be sold (unlike urban property). In 2008, the Third Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party () began a new round of land-privatization reforms, but these measures were limited; the transfer of land remains ambiguous, not "officially endorsed and encouraged". Zhengzhou incident On 24 December 2004, four Chinese protesters were sentenced to three-year prison terms for distributing leaflets entitled "Mao Forever Our Leader" at a gathering in Zhengzhou honouring Mao Zedong on the anniversary of his birth. Attacking the current leadership as "imperialist revisionists," the leaflets called on lower-level cadres to "change the current line (of the party) and return to the socialist road". The Zhengzhou incident is one of the first manifestations of public nostalgia for the Mao era reported by the international press, although it is unclear whether these feelings are widespread. It is an example of Marxist Chinese New Leftism in action. Maoist Communist Party of China A group of workers and students formed the Maoist Communist Party of China in 2008, an underground, non-recognized political party opposing the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government. A reported party manifesto, The Ten Declarations of the Maoist Communist Party of China, was posted on the Internet, in which the legitimacy of the CCP was questioned. The party advocates a reversal of the Deng Xiaoping reforms and a return to socialism. Chongqing model Politician Bo Xilai was promoted in October 2007 to party chief of Chongqing, a troubled province with high levels of pollution and unemployment and poor public health. Bo began a policy of expanding state-owned industries, in contrast with the rest of China, which was embracing market reforms. He led an economic reform of the region which was known as the Chongqing model and focused on expanding state influence in the economy, anti-corruption campaigns, and the promotion of "Red Culture". The policy also supported strong public welfare programs for the poor, unemployed, and elderly. Bo began the Red Culture Movement in 2008, which promoted Maoist culture in opposition to the capitalist culture that characterized the Chinese reformists. Radio and television played Maoist propaganda and students were organized to "return to the countryside" and promote the singing of "red songs" during this period. From 2009 to 2011, Chongqing began prosecuting alleged Triad members in the Chongqing gang trials. An estimated 4,781 people were arrested during the crackdown. The prosecution was controversial in its use of torture, forced confessions, and inhumane treatment of witnesses. In 2013, Bo was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is incarcerated at Qincheng Prison. Bo was removed as Chongqing's party chief and lost his seat on the Politburo. Bo's supporters formed the Zhi Xian Party to protest his conviction, but it was swiftly banned. The Red Culture Movement drew New Left intellectuals. Xi era Chairman Mao! Long live Chairman Gonzalo! Long live the theory of protracted people's war!" (毛主席万岁！贡萨罗主席万岁！持久人民战争理论万岁！) graffiti on a wall at Qinghua South Road, Beijing, 6 December 2021. The Xi administration, while imposing political controls on businesses, has also promoted greater economic liberalisation in Shenzhen, which was then held up as a model for the rest of China. In September 2020, the former mayor and party chief of Shenzhen, Li Youwei, published a sharply-worded commentary in Wen Wei Po, warning that due to the resurgence of leftists discussing class struggle, China was at a crossroads for economic reform. In 2021, The New York Times reported that Maoism is being revived among China's generation Z due to China's growing wealth gap and the 996 working hour system, as they call for a crackdown on capitalists and posting "À la lanterne!" on social media. 2015 Luoyang meeting In February 2015, a group from 13 provinces and municipalities in China, calling themselves "Chinese Maoists Communists", held a two-day secret meeting in Luoyang, calling for a "new socialist revolution" to "reverse the restoration of capitalism". The group seemed to claim to have party elders as backers. The group was quietly arrested. 2017 Guangzhou incident In November 2017, a group of Maoist students and workers was arrested in Guangzhou for organizing a Maoist salon. 2018 Cultural Revolution anniversary celebrations On the 52nd anniversary of the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, dozens of neo-Maoists from all over China gathered in Hong Kong for commemorations, saying that their activities had been banned in the mainland. They wore Mao-era blue military uniforms and waved hammer-and-sickle flags. These Maoist groups are highly critical of the CCP's market economics, which they claim are responsible for rising inequality and corruption. Jasic protests A number of Maoist students participated in the July–August 2018 Jasic incident, protesting in support of factory workers and workers' rights. The students formed the Jasic Workers Solidarity Group, which included #Me Too advocate Yue Xin. The rally was largely organized through the popular far-left neo-Maoist online forum website Utopia. Fifty student advocates were later arrested; their whereabouts are unknown. Student leaders of the Jasic protests have been detained, punished and subjected to forced education by the CCP. Common prosperity After Xi's emphasis on a more equal society and promotion of the term "common prosperity", Li Guangman, a retired newspaper editor affiliated with the Chinese New Left, published an article that claims a "profound revolution" was close that would take the party closer to its socialist roots. Major Chinese state news agencies published the article, including ''People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency, setting off worries about parallels to the Cultural Revolution. In response, the news agencies tried to downplay the incident by not carrying the article in their print versions, some of them removing the article from their sites and, in the case of People's Daily'', publishing a front-page editorial in support of market forces. ==See also==