Category: Opinions

    What was Yellen’s visit to Zambia for?

    What was Yellen’s visit to Zambia for? Featured

    January 27, 2023 by Socialist Party Zambia in

    What was the purpose of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s trip to Zambia and other African countries? To address Zambia’s debt with China, to undermine China’s position in Zambia and Africa, and for what? Critical minerals!

    And it coincided with International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva’s visit to Zambia. What was Georgieva’s mission to Zambia? The answer was transparent in all her meetings in Zambia, including one with President Hakainde Hichilema – the media was present. From what we observed this was nothing but a PR stunt by the IMF to claim that the institution had become better and more humane.

    Zambia has requested a 38-month arrangement from the IMF under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement (ECF) in the amount of SDR 978.2 million (Special Drawing Rights) – 100 percent of Zambia’s quota. The proposed ECF-supported programme aims to restore macroeconomic stability and foster higher, more resilient, and more inclusive growth.

    To support this, the IMF is seeking extensions of maturity dates and reduction of interest payments. But there are serious challenges. Unlike the debt relief efforts of the 1990s and early 2000s, where lenders were mainly bilateral and multilateral – and all belonged to the Paris Club – today, lenders include private bond market holders.

    Presently, the lenders have different characteristics and motives. And today there’s also China, which was not one of the lenders of the 1990s and 2000s. The Chinese debt is a mixed basket of private, quasi-government and government creditors. This makes it very difficult to reach a common framework.

    Even when the characteristics of the lenders were similar under the Paris Club it took more than ten years to agree on the debt relief we received in the early 2000s. And how long has it taken the IMF and the Zambian government to reach a deal? They started negotiating in 2017. This complex mixture of lenders may take a long time to reach a deal or some consensus. It will certainly not be fair and just to blame China for this.

    The truth is that following the “China debt-trap” narrative being thoroughly exposed as a fraud internationally, there is a new two-pronged game in town: China must bail out Western bondholders controlling the debt of many nations in distress; at the same time, the International Monetary Fund, the US, and the EU are pressuring those nations to abandon infrastructure projects financed by China in return for debt relief. In the case of Zambia, the IMF made this very clear.

    This seems to be the goal of the visit by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to Zambia, i.e. making Zambia an example or a template for this new push to block the Belt and Road Initiative and China-Africa cooperation, which is soundly based on building infrastructure (transport, power, water management, modern telecommunications, healthcare and education) and modern agriculture and industry. This is the way, as China proved at home, for these nations to escape the double traps of poverty and chronic debt distress. At the same time, the looting of the raw materials of African nations by the same nations’ transnational corporations continues with great vigour and malice under the guise of reforms, privatisation, and investment incentives. In the case of Zambia, the situation is probably as bad as it was in the colonial period.

    The debt distress experienced by these countries predates China’s involvement through the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa and Asia and, was made worse with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. It continued as inflation in global energy and commodity prices maintained pressure throughout 2021, and finally dramatically worsened with the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in February last year.

    The nations that rely heavily on imports of fuel, food, and fertilisers are the worst hit. Zambia is a case in point. Zambia already defaulted in November 2020 on Eurobonds (not Chinese debt service) and has been negotiating a financial assistance package with the IMF and international creditors. Zambia had resorted to borrowing heavily from international private bond markets even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

    When the commodity prices plunge took place in 2014, Zambia entered a major financial crisis, pushing it to resort to borrowing from international private bond markets. In 2014, Zambia issued Eurobonds worth US$1bn, in a deal supported by the IMF and managed by Deutsche Bank and Barclays. In 2015, another US$1.3 billion Eurobond was issued. The interest rate was an incredible 9.3 per cent. Maturity time for these bonds varied between seven and 11 years. The Eurobond issuances were intended to fill a gap in the budget deficit of US$ 2 billion, and not to invest in any productive processes.

    In November 2020, the country defaulted on a US$42.5 million payment on one of the Eurobonds. This was not because the Zambia government couldn’t raise this amount of money. Its advisors on debt told them not to pay it because it would make other lenders less eager to cooperate on its debt relief efforts.

    For the IMF it is a matter of the same recipe being repackaged with better public relations in light of its dented image in the Global South.

    The exact same mistake is being made in the new “debt relief” arrangements of the IMF, which focus on filling fiscal gaps in government finances rather than developing the economy. New loans ease emergency needs and will be consumed without any impact on improving the productivity of society. The new loans will mature sooner or later and the vicious cycle will be repeated.

    The demands being made by the West on China and the type of conditions being imposed by the IMF on Zambia in return for assistance reveal several objectives that could be problematic for China and the Belt and Road Initiative:

    The call on China to provide more assistance in the IMF-driven debt restructuring of Zambia implies that China contributes to bailing out Western private sovereign bond holders, who themselves are pressed by the global financial crisis.

    The IMF is demanding that Zambia stop borrowing (from China without naming it by name) for important infrastructure projects.

    Zambia is being pressured by the IMF to resort to “public-private partnership” in financing and building infrastructure. This means that many projects will not be achieved, as their financial yield would be deemed as too small or non-existent by private investors. Or, otherwise, certain vital strategic facilities will be privatised and owned by foreign interests.

    There is a risk of asset grabbing by the same Western interests and their allies focused on strategic raw materials.

    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s counsellor Brent Neiman said in a speech on September 20 last year that China’s lack of cooperation with the G-20 and the IMF on debt relief could burden dozens of low- and middle-income countries with years of debt-servicing problems, lower growth and underinvestment.

    “China’s enormous scale as a lender means its participation is essential,” Neiman said in the speech citing estimates that China has US$500 billion to US$1 trillion in outstanding official loans, mainly to low- and middle-income countries. However, these numbers are difficult to ascertain and it is not clear to what projects and what countries these loans were extended.

    China’s share of Zambia’s foreign debt is a mere 30 percent. The real culprits that Yellen should be focusing on are the Western private bondholders. It became obvious that the IMF’s main conditionality to help Zambia was to cut a deal first on repayment of the debt of Western bondholders.

    The statements by Yellen and other American officials are being used in Western media to show that China’s unwillingness to help the IMF programmes is undermining the efforts to help poor nation with debt restructuring. But China is doing the right thing by avoiding the IMF methods and focusing instead on its own solutions.

    Zambia is Africa’s second largest exporter of copper and other industrial minerals like cobalt and gold. But while the mining sector constitutes 70 to 80 percent of the country’s exports, it does not contribute more than four to five percent of government revenues, because foreign Western companies largely own the mining sector. The absolute largest of these are: Glencore PLC (Glencore Xstrata PLC), Konkola Copper Mines PLC (Subsidiary of Vedanta Resources), Barrick Gold Corp, First Quantum Minerals Ltd, Axmin Inc., Caledonia Mining Corp, Lubambe Copper Mine Limited, Trek Metals Limited (Zambezi Resources Pty Ltd).

    Only one major company is Chinese, China Nonferrous Metals Corporation (CNMC).

    Most of the profit from mining does not return to the country. In 2021, Zambia estimated exports were US$8.1 billion. Copper accounted for US$6.1 billion of that (76 percent of total exports). But those companies repatriated only less than US$1 billion to Zambia. These companies do not use local suppliers for the mining operations and all machinery and services are supplied from abroad. The privatisation of the mining sector was part of the liberalisation process in the 1990s agreed upon with the IMF and World Bank. These policies also made foreign mining companies largely exempt from taxation under the pretext of encouraging more foreign direct investments into the country.

    Zambia external debt reached US$8,472 billion in late 2021. Eurobond holders held $3 billion of Zambian debt plus US$336 million of interest arrears at the end of 2021. British Abrdn (Aberdeen) is one of the largest bondholders, and it leads a committee of bondholders estimated to hold around 45 per cent of Zambia’s international market debt. Aberdeen and its partners were opposed to any “haircut” to the bondholders in any settlement. American giant investment fund BlackRock holds around US$215 million worth of these bonds. BlackRock has reportedly made big profits from these holdings through the years. By comparison, Zambia’s nominal GDP was reported at US$17.1 billion in December 2019.

    Chinese loans to Zambia account for 30 percent of its total external debt. However, these are long-term loans with long grace periods dedicated mostly to infrastructure projects, such as airports and hydropower projects, roads, highways, telecom and digital infrastructure, hospitals, and clean drinking water management systems.

    The most important results of the agreement between the IMF and Zambia’s government to be granted a zero-interest loan of US$1.3 billion with a grace period of five-and-a-half years and a final maturity of 10 years, was indicated in the reports of the IMF staff. To receive the financial support, Zambia had to accept specific conditionalities to reduce government spending, but most emphatically to stop borrowing for infrastructure projects.

    The IMF staff report in September 2022 stated clearly, “Zambia is dealing with large fiscal and external imbalances resulting from years of economic mismanagement, especially an overly ambitious public investment drive that did not yield any significant boost to growth or revenues”, it asserts also that, “rapid debt accumulation on the backdrop of deteriorating economic fundamentals has led to unsustainable debt levels and subsequent accumulation of arrears. Debt contracted has mainly been for infrastructure projects in sectors such as roads, education, health and defence”. This is outright sophistry, since the most poisonous part of the debt was accumulated through borrowing in the global bond markets from mainly British and American sources. China’s credits were long term and focused on improving the physical economy and productivity of Zambia.

    This has been the demand of the IMF since the previous government started its negotiations in 2017. It led the government to cancel a large number of projects mostly agreed with China, but whose loan disbursements were not yet made. Some of the Chinese projects cancelled are:

    • A major highway – the US$1.2 billion Lusaka-Ndola dual carriageway funded by China Jiangxi Corporation. Zambia has engaged China Jiangxi to cancel US$157 million in undisbursed loans.

    • Digital projects, such as Smart Zambia phase II (US$333.2 million), which was being implemented by Huawei Technologies and funded by China Exim Bank. Digital terrestrial television broadcasting systems in Zambia phases II and III.

    • Zambia asked China Exim Bank to cancel US$159 million of funding for the building of Chalala army barracks in Lusaka.

    • FJT University under the Ministry of Education.

    • Rehabilitation of Urban Roads phase III under the Ministry of Infrastructure and Urban Development.

    Given the conditionalities imposed by the IMF and Western partners on Zambia and other countries to cancel vital infrastructure projects, mostly with China under the BRI, it is not reasonable for China to participate in these programmes.

    When 77 percent of Zambia’s population do not have access to clean drinking water, 60 percent do not have access to electricity, 46 percent do not have access to the internet, and the roads are in a bad shape, it is unfathomable how cancelling all these infrastructure projects will lead to any improvement in the country’s economy. There is no evidence supporting the IMF staff assertion that these infrastructure projects “do not yield any significant boost to growth or revenues”. It is a basic fact of economics that improvements in infrastructure lead to direct and indirect increase in the productivity of the economy by creating efficient transport networks, lowering the cost of production through abundant electricity and transport facilities, and increasing access to markets.

    The other risk resulting from this policy is that the government will be allowed to continue non-productive public spending, such as payment of public employees and disbursements to mitigate the globally induced inflation. This will increase the non-productive financial burden. At the same time, the IMF conditionality of lifting government subsidies on fuel will lead to an increase in the cost of production of most commodities.

    China will be pushed back as a partner and the Western-controlled multilateral partners, like the World Bank, will assume the major role through assistance measures that are directed as social programmes to deal with effects of poverty rather than dealing with the causes. This will keep the country, where over 60 per cent of the population is under the poverty line, in a permanent state of poverty and reliance on aid programmes from the West.

    If this push in Zambia succeeds in achieving the goals set by the United States and its partners, it will be used as a template elsewhere, where it will become the precedent and standard.

    The attempt to pressure China to make concessions to the IMF and other financial institutions is intended to help bailout the private interests in the US and Britain, which are themselves facing huge risks due to the current Trans-Atlantic financial and banking crisis. The other goal is to block BRI projects, especially in the least-developed countries with large mineral reserves.

    China is recommended to make public its position on “no bailout” of private interests, with loans to those countries not made to benefit the people but to make profit in times of crisis. China must make it clear that its loans to those countries, especially for the building of vital infrastructure, are “qualitatively” different to the Western loans, because China’s projects lead to an increase in the productivity of the countries and their ability to refinance their debt. Western loans in times of crisis are intended to pay old debt (especially to private interests as argued by the IMF itself). This kind of credit policy puts developing countries in a real debt-trap and vicious spiral, as they are not given the opportunity or permission to invest in productive projects.

    China should, otherwise, continue its well-known and documented debt-forgiveness and rescheduling in a case-by-case manner. China’s loans for vital infrastructure projects must continue because China has become the creditor of final resort for such important investments to pull nations out of poverty. In the worst case, China may shift to “investments” in infrastructure rather than financing and constructing through loans, and secure the mineral resources it needs for its industrial development through win-win cooperation with mineral-rich countries.

    African nations have to take control of their natural resources in a fair and organised manner. The neocolonial methods have to be exposed and ended.

    African nations need to abandon the primitive economic process of exporting raw materials. These raw materials, if processed and manufactured into products inside the countries will add value in many orders of magnitude to the raw materials extracted. The recent case of Zimbabwe banning the export of raw lithium and entering a joint venture with a Chinese company to build a lithium-ion battery plant in the country is a revolutionary move. It has the potential to reconstruct the relationship of the whole African continent with the rest of the world.

    The age of exploitation of nations through colonialism and neocolonialism has to end and be replaced by the win-win concept manifested in the Belt and Road Initiative.

    Fred M’membe,
    President of the Socialist Party

    Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, 2022 Movie

    Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, 2022 Movie Featured

    November 21, 2022 by Socialist Party Zambia in

    Since the release of Wakanda Forever, many people in Zambia and across the globe have made their way to cinemas to watch it.

    I have also taken time to watch the film. It is insightful, thought provoking, evokes a mix of emotions, and captures the spirit of fighting and struggling for one’s nation. It equally sends a wave of sadness, especially with the mourning of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman (T’Challa), who was initially supposed to be a member of the cast but died from colon cancer in 2020. However, all the characters play unique and fantastic roles.

    While the movie has many catchy moments and storylines, what stood out for me was how the leaders in the world of Wakanda – a fictional African country – fight hard to protect their nation’s strategic mineral, vibranium, in the wake of King T’Challa’s death.

    In the film, Wakanda’s economy is based on the production and uses of the fictitious metal, portrayed as strategic for 21st century technologies, an aspect that scientists may find fascinating. The movie also reveals women running the military and production sector of the economy, with roles played by Queen Ramonda, Shuri, Nakia and Okoye, the general of Dora Milaje.

    We are taken on an intriguing journey in which Wakanda is under immense pressure from big powers that want to access its strategic mineral. There is a scene in what resembles the United Nations General Assembly, in which Queen Ramonda, mother of T’Chella and Shuri, exposes the West’s schemes, particularly those of France and the USA’s CIA, to attack Wakanda. The CIA and US Navy SEALs invade using a vibranium-detecting machine to locate potential deposits under water in Wakanda. Their mission is unsuccessful, though, because an expedition of water-breathing superhumans led by Namor – the mutant son of a human sea captain and a princess of the mythical undersea kingdom of Atlantis – attacks them. While Wakanda was not involved in the attacks, the CIA believes it was responsible.

    For Wakanda, the emergence of Namor’s superhumans, who help the country expose the West’s ploy to detect and access vibranium, is seen as a cause for concern, realising that its national and military security has been compromised. So, not only is it presented with the West as a threat, but also from Namor, who confronts Wakanda’s leaders, presenting a serious challenge that results in a war leading to many deaths, including that of Queen Ramonda. Shuri fights to avenge the death of the queen – her mother – through her new leadership role as female Black Panther. In the end, Wakanda defeats Namor’s fighters, and the two parties decide for the sake of peace to form a strategic alliance to defend their interests against the West.

    While the story of Wakanda is fictitious, it resonates well with aspects of our own country’s history and present-day dynamics. We also have strategic minerals, such as copper and cobalt, needed for development in the 21st century. Unlike in the Wakanda story, though, where its leaders are forming strategic partnerships and fighting to preserve the vibranium needed to develop Wakanda, what we have in Zambia are puppets, sell-outs.

    Fred M’membe

    President of the Socialist Party

    (Image credit: IGN)

    FIFA, QATAR WORLD CUP AND HUMAN RIGHTS

    FIFA, QATAR WORLD CUP AND HUMAN RIGHTS Featured

    November 20, 2022 by Socialist Party Zambia in

    FIFA President Gianni Infantino has accused Western critics of Qatar’s human rights record of hypocrisy.
    “What we Europeans have been doing for the last 3,000 years, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before starting to give moral lessons,” said Infantino. “Reform and change takes time. It took hundreds of years in our countries in Europe. It takes time everywhere, the only way to get results is by engaging … not by shouting.”
    Admitting things weren’t perfect, Infantino said some criticism was “profoundly unjust” and accused the West of double standards.

    In our daily lives few things are as important to us as being treated with respect, justly, fairly and humanely.
    Last month Pope Francis slammed Europe’s treatment of migrants as “disgusting, sinful and criminal.” He noted that people from outside the continent are often left to die during perilous sea crossings or pushed back to Libya, where they wind up in camps he referred to as “lager,” the German word.
    “Indeed, the situation of migrants is criminal. They are left to die in front of us, making the Mediterranean the largest cemetery in the world. The situation of migrants is disgusting, sinful, criminal. Not to open the doors to those who are in need. No, we exclude them, we send them away to lager, where they are exploited and sold as slaves.”

    One of the great gifts of Western civilisation is the philosophical wisdom bequeathed by its great thinkers. At a time when torture and Guantanamo still exist, the West should revive its commitment to using reason to understand and improve the world.
    One of the greatest joys of my life was studying Western philosophy, absorbing the wisdom of great Western thinkers from Socrates to Wittgenstein. The dedication of all those great thinkers, over thousands of years, to the power of logical reasoning, was truly inspiring.

    Hence, for me, the power of the West was always associated with this commitment to using reason to understand and improve the world.
    Western logic was always irrefutable. Plain logic would create irrefutable statements. Hence if the premise was “all dogs are animals”, the consequence of the claim “Fido is a dog” was the irrefutable statement that “Fido is an animal”. A similar rigor applied to moral reasoning. Hence, if a human being called X said “Human beings should not torture other human beings”, the irrefutable conclusion was that X was obliged to also say “I should not torture human beings”. The rigor of this logic is absolute. No exceptions are possible. Anyone who made the first claim and denied the second claim would be justifiably accused of hypocrisy.

    In theory, the West condemns hypocrisy. In practice, sadly, it indulges in hypocrisy massively. A few major contemporary examples will illustrate this. For several decades, after the US Congress passed legislation instructing the US State Department to publish annual reports on the human rights performance of all states in the world except the US, the US State Department would painstakingly record the cases of torture practiced in other countries. For example, the State Department condemned “near drowning” and “submersion of the head in water” as torture in reports on Sri Lanka and Tunisia. By the logic of moral reasoning, the US was declaring that it did not practice torture.

    In 2001, after 9/11 happened, the US went on a global campaign against the radical Islamist terrorists that had attacked it. However, after the US captured some terrorist suspects, it took them to Guantanamo and tortured them. By so doing, the US was clearly declaring that it had shifted its moral stance from “Thou shalt not torture human beings” to “Thou shalt torture human beings”. The US never said this verbally, but by the logic of moral reasoning, it had made this statement even more loudly with its actual behaviour.

    One of the greatest modern works of moral philosophy is the book “The Language of Morals” by the English philosopher, R.M. Hare. Hare wrote parts of this book on toilet paper when he was a prisoner of war of the Japanese in Singapore in World War II. The opening line of this volume is very powerful. It says “If we were to ask of a person ‘What are his moral principles?’ the way in which we could be most sure of a true answer would be studying what he did.”

    In short, since Western moral reasoning is brutally ironclad and allows no exceptions, when the US began torturing human beings, it was declaring “Thou shalt torture human beings”. Since this was undoubtedly the moral position taken by the US, the logical consequence should have been for the US State Department to stop issuing annual reports “condemning” torture in other countries. Clearly, this would be hypocritical. Quite amazingly, the US State Department did not stop. Even more amazingly, the largest and most powerful “moral industry” in the world is in the US: no country can match the output of moral judgments that spew out from the editorial pages of US newspapers and from the reports of the greatest think tanks and universities in the world. This massive “moral industry” should have exploded in outrage at this blatant hypocrisy of the State Department Reports. None of this happened. The annual State Department reports continued to be published and reported and cited in the media.
    If Socrates were alive today, he would have made the next logically irrefutable statement: the US media was abetting the hypocrisy of these reports.
    The second largest “moral industry” in the world, outside the US, can be found in Europe. Most European governments and nongovernmental organisations have not hesitated to condemn countries like Russia and Iran when they received reports of “torture” in these countries. By the logic of moral reasoning that flows from the statement “thou shalt not torture”, the same European governments and organisations should have immediately condemned the US for practicing torture. Amazingly, to this day, not one European government has done so. Neither have they been called to account by their “moral industry” over their failure to be logically consistent and condemn the US. Here too, we saw a massive dose of hypocrisy.

    Even more importantly, all moral philosophers have emphasised that the best way to demonstrate one’s fidelity to moral principle is not when it is convenient to do so, without any sacrifice involved.

    Hence, when European governments and nongovernmental organisations condemned, for example, human rights violations in, say, China, Zimbabwe or Venezuela, they could do so happily as they would not pay any political and economic price for taking these correct moral stances. Since no costs are involved, there is no real demonstration of moral commitment. This is why the non-condemnation of the US practice of torture is very significant. By failing to condemn when the costs of doing so were high, as there could have been retribution from the US, the European governments and nongovernmental organisations were showing their real moral stand by, as R.M. Hare says, what they did. Hence, when they did not condemn, they were essentially saying that their true moral position was “thou shalt torture human beings”.

    One of the heinous acts one could carry out on a human being is to practice torture.The world would be a better place if all Western governments and nongovernmental organisations would once again demonstrate, in words and deeds, their total adherence to the strong moral statement “Thou shalt not torture”.

    Fred M’membe
    President of the Socialist Party

    Hearty congratulations!!!

    Hearty congratulations!!! Featured

    October 23, 2022 by Socialist Party Zambia in

    As President of the Socialist Party (Zambia), I send our congratulations on the successful completion of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), on the election of the new leadership of the Party and the re-election of Comrade Xi Jinping as General Secretary of the CPC.

    History is full of twists and turns, and the world struggle for socialism has its highs and lows. The role of leaders is crucial at critical periods and key moments in history. In the history of world socialism, leaders such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Deng Xiaoping, made crucial decisions at critical moments and had a significant impact on history. Without these important leaders, socialism would have experienced many more setbacks.

    Over the past decade, the CPC, under the leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping, has led China to achieve world-renowned success and promoted socialism with Chinese characteristics. His theoretical ideas have boosted the development of scientific socialism and innovative Marxism. The China model for socialist-based modernization and the statement on the Party’s self-reform being a journey on which there is no end are of great interest here in Africa.

    China’s dramatic success, since 1949, means it has now advanced further than any society in history. The burden and responsibility of leadership and the necessity for innovation has fallen on to the CPC and to General Secretary Xi Jinping. His ideological innovations have expanded the frontiers of scientific socialism and answered the question of where socialism should go in the new era.

    Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era adheres to people-centred development, focuses on solving the imbalances and inadequacies of economic development, advances common prosperity and comprehensive development for all people, insists on safeguarding and improving people’s livelihood through development, and maintains the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature.

    The world today is facing serious challenges. We agree fully with the observation by General Secretary Xi Jinping that we have entered a new period, one not seen in 100 years. In this dark period before the dawn, Comrade Xi Jinping’s re-election as General Secretary of the CPC and his continued leadership of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era is a blessing for the CPC, as well as for the Socialist Party (Zambia), and for many progressive political parties and people’s movements from Third World countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We believe that Comrade Xi Jinping is not only an excellent leader of the CPC, but also a very important leader of world socialist and communist movements.

    We look forward to strengthening ties and cooperation with the CPC under the leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping, and to nurturing the next generation of progressive leaders. Socialism has saved China in the past; today, only China can save socialism, and only socialism can counter the barbarism of Western imperialism and fascism.

    Fred M’membe Lusaka, Zambia

    (Image credit: China Daily).
    First pass selection of quotes. Some quotes from the Opening report to 20th Congress, Oct 16 2022

    First pass selection of quotes. Some quotes from the Opening report to 20th Congress, Oct 16 2022 Featured

    October 17, 2022 by Socialist Party Zambia in

    *Ten years ago, the situation we faced was that the reform and opening up and the socialist modernization drive had made great achievements, and the new great project of party building had achieved remarkable results, which laid a solid foundation, created favorable conditions, and provided important opportunities for us to move forward. At the same time, a series of long-term accumulation and emerging prominent contradictions and problems need to be solved urgently. In the face of these prominent contradictions and problems that affect the long-term governance of the party, the long-term stability of the country, and the happiness and well-being of the people, the CPC Central Committee reviewed the situation, made bold decisions, forged ahead, overcame difficulties, and united and led the entire party, the entire army, and the people of all ethnic groups in the country to roll up their sleeves and work hard. We will move forward regardless of the weather, and we will carry out the great struggle with many new historical characteristics without hesitation.

    *——We have comprehensively strengthened the leadership of the Party, ensured the authority and centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, and ensured that the Party plays the core role of leading the overall situation and coordinating all parties. Our Marxist political party with more than 96 million Party members is more united and unified. *The proportion of my country’s total economic output in the world economy has reached 18.5%, an increase of 7.2%, and it ranks first in the world. Second place; GDP per capita increased from 39,800 yuan to 81,000 yuan. The total output of cereals ranks first in the world, and the scale of manufacturing and foreign exchange reserves ranks first in the world. Breakthroughs have been made in some key core technologies, strategic emerging industries have grown and developed, and major achievements have been made in manned spaceflight, lunar and fire exploration, deep-sea and deep exploration, supercomputers, satellite navigation, quantum information, nuclear power technology, large aircraft manufacturing, and biomedicine. , entered the ranks of innovative countries.

    *——We implement a more proactive opening-up strategy, and the joint construction of the “Belt and Road” has become a popular international public product and international cooperation platform.*We rectified the “four winds” with the spirit of nailing the nails, opposed the idea of privilege and the phenomenon of privilege, stopped some crooked winds that had not been stopped for a long time, and rectified some stubborn diseases that had not been eliminated for many years. We have launched an unprecedented fight against corruption. With the mission of “offending thousands of people and not losing 1.4 billion”, we have taken on the task of eradicating turmoil and controlling chaos. The fight against corruption has won an overwhelming victory and has been consolidated in an all-round way, eliminating serious hidden dangers within the party, the state, and the military. Through unremitting efforts, the party has found self-revolution, the second answer that jumps out of the historical cyclical rate of the rise and fall of chaos, ensuring that the party will never change, change color, and taste.

    *While fully affirming the achievements of the Party and the country that have attracted worldwide attention, we must be soberly aware that our work still has some shortcomings and faces many difficulties and problems. We have taken a series of measures to solve these problems, and we must intensify our efforts in the future.

    *Scientific socialism has radiated new vitality in China in the 21st century. Chinese-style modernization has provided new options for mankind to realize modernization. The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people have provided more and better Chinese wisdom to solve common problems faced by mankind. China’s plan, China’s strength, to make new and greater contributions to the noble cause of human peace and development!

    *Marxism is the fundamental guiding ideology for us to establish the Party and the country, and to rejuvenate the Party and the country. Practice tells us why the Communist Party of China can do it and why socialism with Chinese characteristics is good. In the final analysis, it is a Marxist practice, and it is a Marxist practice that is sinicized and modernized. Having the guidance of Marxist scientific theory is the foundation of our party’s firm belief and grasp of historical initiative.

    *From now on, the central task of the Communist Party of China is to unite and lead the people of all ethnic groups in the country to build a powerful modern socialist country in an all-round way, achieve the goal of the second century of struggle, and comprehensively promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese-style modernization.

    *To build a powerful modern socialist country in an all-round way, the overall strategic arrangement is to take two steps: from 2020 to 2035 to basically realize socialist modernization; from 2035 to the middle of this century to build our country into a prosperous, strong and democratic country A powerful modern socialist country with civilization, harmony and beauty. The next five years will be a critical period for the start of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way.

    *My country is a socialist country under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. All power in the country belongs to the people.

    *Wholeheartedly rely on the working class to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of employees.

    *We must adhere to the fundamental system of Marxism’s guiding position in the ideological field, adhere to serving the people and socialism, adhere to letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend, adhere to creative transformation and innovative development, and develop advanced socialism under the guidance of socialist core values.

    *We must build a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leadership, firmly grasp the party’s leadership over ideological work, fully implement the responsibility system for ideological work, consolidate and strengthen mainstream ideology and public opinion in the new era, and strengthen the construction of an all-media communication system , to promote the formation of a good network ecology. Extensively practice the core socialist values, carry forward the spiritual pedigree of the Chinese Communists with the great spirit of building the party as the source, carry out in-depth publicity and education on the core socialist values, deepen the education of patriotism, collectivism and socialism, and focus on cultivating an era of national rejuvenation newcomer. Improve the civilization of the whole society, implement the project of civic moral construction, carry forward the traditional Chinese virtues, strengthen the construction of family education and family style, promote the morality of the whole society, abide by the public morality, and be strict with the private morality, improve the people’s moral standard and civilization quality, and promote the spirit of labor in the whole society. , The spirit of struggle, dedication, creativity, diligence and thrift.

    *We need to improve the distribution system. Adhere to the principle of distribution according to work and the coexistence of multiple distribution methods, adhere to the principle of more work and more rewards, encourage hard work to become rich, promote fair opportunities, increase the income of low-income people, expand middle-income groups, standardize the order of income distribution, and standardize wealth accumulation mechanisms.

    *Adhere to the basic state policy of equality between men and women, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of women and children. Promote the all-round development of the cause of the disabled.

    *Nature is the basic condition for human survival and development. Respecting nature, conforming to nature, and protecting nature are the inherent requirements of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way. We must firmly establish and practice the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, and plan development from the height of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.

    *We will further advance the prevention and control of environmental pollution, continue to fight for the defense of blue sky, clear water and pure land, basically eliminate heavily polluted water, basically eliminate urban black and odorous water bodies, strengthen the prevention and control of soil pollution sources, improve the level of environmental infrastructure construction, and promote the urban and rural living environment remediation.

    *… implement major projects for biodiversity conservation, promote grasslands, forests, rivers, lakes and wetlands for recuperation, implement a ten-year ban on fishing in the Yangtze River, and improve farmland fallow Crop rotation system to prevent the invasion of alien species.

    *…adhere to the principle of first establishing and then breaking, plan and step by step implementation of the carbon peaking action, further promote the energy revolution, strengthen the clean and efficient use of coal, and accelerate the planning and construction of a new energy system, Actively participate in the global governance of climate change.

    *.. implement the military strategic policy for the new era, uphold the Party’s absolute leadership over the people’s army, and insist on building the army politically, reforming the army, strengthening the army with science and technology, strengthening the army with talents, and governing the army according to law, and speed up military theory.

    *Comprehensively strengthen the party building of the people’s army, and ensure that the barrel of the gun always obeys the party’s command.

    *We insist on the prospect of peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and our best efforts, but we will never promise to give up the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary measures. This is aimed at the interference of external forces and the very few “Taiwan independence” separatists and their separatist activities. , is by no means aimed at the majority of Taiwan compatriots. The historical wheels of national reunification and national rejuvenation are rolling forward, and the complete reunification of the motherland must be realized and can be realized!

    *At present, the changes in the world, the times, and the history are unfolding in an unprecedented way, and human society is facing unprecedented challenges. The world is once again standing at the crossroads of history, and where to go depends on the choices of people of all countries.

    *China always adheres to the foreign policy purpose of maintaining world peace and promoting common development, and is committed to promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.