This new piece by Jiang Shigong is remarkable for several reasons. It claims that the US plot to achieve “peaceful evolution” was actually working precisely as DC hoped – engagement created a materialistic pro-US class that wanted privatization and democratization. (thread)

Drawing upon Karl Polani, Jiang argues peaceful evolution failed because these liberalizing forces created a counter-reaction in society, a “social self-defense mechanism,” whose victory was facilitated by lesson of collapse of USSR.

Jiang attributes China’s triumphs to a sort of “middle path” between regime change and “being closed and dogmatic.” In that sense, he stresses continuity, yet in key ways he makes points that are a clear break in precedent.

Jiang is bluntly cynical: “Politics are not like morality, and must include naked struggles for interests and contests of power.” That is unabashedly an un-Maoist statement, as the Chairman believed that a righteous cause contributed to political power.

Yet the biggest and clearest break is with Deng: the key threat, as identified by Jiang, is ideological fragmentation: “what people need is not just an increase in wealth; much more important is to renew our belief in how to act…”

Deng, on the other hand, believed explicitly that the key to saving the regime was to achieve economic growth. Now, Jiang is saying, economic growth contributed to corruption, and therefore ideological disintegration, in society.

The break with Deng is even clearer when Jiang says the “new great struggle” is against the “inevitable Thucydides” trap – in other words, the US.

The whole point of Deng’s Southern Tour in 1992 was to resist pressure within the party to make combating peaceful evolution as important as reform and opening – now Jiang is saying opposing peaceful evolution is the top priority.

Significantly, Jiang does not characterize this primarily as a battle between socialism and capitalism. He says “the Chinese people… pay little attention to ideological differences between capitalism and socialism.” Drawing on Huntington, he puts *cultural* combat first.

One last point – Jiang justifies removing term limits for Xi as “tantamount” to the failure of peaceful evolution, as it eliminated the ability for the US to intervene “in Chinese politics through a change in generational leadership.”

Thank you to David Ownby for the great translation.
https://www.readingthechinadream.com/jiang-shigong-ten-crucial-years.html