This headline may be misleading: “Xi touts Chinese wisdom and solutions as a model for developing nations.” The wisdom of Confucius would not be allowed in original form, and forget about the governance proposals of libertarian-leaning Lao-tzu. It’s the “wisdom” of the socialism with Chinese characteristics, of the Chinese Communist Party, of Xi Jinping Thought, of regimentation and repression that Xi is talking about.
Xi gave a speech on the occasion of the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (The Associated Press, July 1, 2026).
“We advocate the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, providing Chinese wisdom, Chinese solutions and Chinese strength for addressing major issues facing humanity,” he said at an event marking the 105th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Communist Party.
The world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation, putting humanity at a crossroads, Xi said. He repeated past pledges to push forward the construction of a new type of international relations to promote world peace and development.
His remarks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing echoed many of the themes of his speech on the party’s 100th anniversary in 2021, including the importance of a strong military and of bringing Taiwan under China’s control.
Sinocism.notion.site seems to have the full authorized text of Xi’s address. In alternating paragraphs, the site presents both a transcription of the Chinese and an English translation.
Mao etc.
Xi praises the “glorious course our Party has traveled.” Including the path traveled under the leadership of the psychopath Mao, who inflicted and incited mass torture, mass ritual humiliation, and mass murder?
Yes, says Xi. “At this moment we deeply cherish the memory of the older generation of revolutionaries such as Comrades Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, and Chen Yun, and of Comrade Jiang Zemin, and we deeply cherish the memory of the revolutionary martyrs and people of high ideals who advanced wave upon wave, sacrificing and giving of themselves for national independence, the liberation of the people, the prosperity of the country, and the happiness of the people. The great deeds they performed for the country and the nation will forever be recorded in history. Their lofty spirit will forever be enshrined in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people.”
Sacrifices occurred. There was much sacrificing on the altar of the lust for power and sadism of Mao and others.
For “high ideals,” read “low ideals.” For “liberation of the people” read “enslavement of the people.” For “prosperity” read “mass starvation,” for “happiness of the people” read “misery of the people.” For “great deeds,” read “vicious deeds.” For “forever be recorded in history” read “forever be recorded in history by honest historians and forever obscured and evaded by CCP propagandists.” For “lofty spirit” read “malicious and sanguinary spirit.”
After Mao, the Party no longer wreaked havoc with the same abandon, and market processes, albeit still always under the thumb of the Party’s central planners and subjected to pervasive distortions, have been permitted to an extent that enables people to avoid starvation, earn a living, and sometimes grow rich, whether through markets or corruption. No relatively positive development can change what Mao did and what life in the People’s Republic was like under his policies or what it is like today.
Yet Xi, an enslaver and murderer himself, talks about Mao’s “high ideals.”
Socialism with CCP characteristics
If you feel yourself at risk of being swept away by any of Xi’s leaden effusions, pause to check what he’s saying against what he is leaving out.
Suppose you come across a sentence like this in the transcript: “Today the vigor and vitality of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics have fully borne out the scientific and truthful nature of Marxism, fully displayed its people-centered and practical character, and fully demonstrated its openness and contemporary relevance.” Pretty exhaustive vindication.
Cure 1: Read Marx’s Das Kapital, or at least the first few pages of Marx’s coiled pseudo-explication of “value.”
Cure 2: Think about what “openness” might mean in the context of the CCP’s ubiquitous censorship, surveillance, and propaganda.
Cure 3: Ask the many people in China who have been imprisoned for their politics or religion or ethnic background or ask the families of people murdered in Chinese prisons or murdered for their organs whether Xi’s socialism with Chinese characteristics is displaying a fully “people-centered and practical character.”
Xi says: “Upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics is the shared cause of the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups across the country.” He is saying that the hive-mind consensus inculcated and demanded by the Party is also shared by the people of all the persecuted ethnic groups, that they value and appreciate the Party’s assaults on culture, language, and self.
Yet he also says that the Chinese Communist Party “is resolutely committed to the pursuit of truth…”
