Abstract

Contradictions of Market Socialism in China (Part II) James Petras* The Two Faces of Chinese Dependency While the campaign against "bourgeois liberalism" was in full swing and student protesters were discouraged from participating in demonstrations for democracy, the Chinese mass media were full of Western films, rock music, sexually suggestive advertisements and strident promotion of foreign investment. Clearly what the Chinese leaders consider "bourgeois liberalism" has little to do with the real thing, as the students were hardly bourgeois nor has economic liberalism been very kind to political democracy in many parts of the Third World. Clearly, the regime is using double-standards in criticizing Western influence--promoting the commercial, managerial and technocratic ties and rejecting democratic and critical ideas. The result is a rather unattractive mix of domestic authoritarian and Western market values. Unlike the issue of democracy (where the elite are in agreement against it), growth of linkages to the West has become an arena for debate and concern. Not over the principle of "opening to the West"--on that there appears to be near unanimity--but on the degree, terms, areas, etc. And these concerns are linked to what seems to me the most profound and pervasive ideological element in