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(Deutscher in the sense of someone with illusions about the possibility of bureaucratic self-reform.) The irreplaceable europe-solidaire website has a new review of Au Loong-Yu’s “China’s Rise,” a book I've admired and widely recommended. The reviewer, Ryan Mitchell, uses his review to trash Au's commitment to rank-and-file worker-led social change and democracy. Mitchell draws upon postmodern commonplaces about "postindustrial" class and nation restructuring, as well as discourse theory, to deny the realism of Au's project at the same time as he insists we trust the regime's vapid rhetoric. Mitchell sees current Chinese leader Xi Jinpoing as a reformer upon whom we should all bestow our best wishes and hosannas. Mitchell has also written on US/China relations, once again privileging discourse over facts and actions, saying we should take the Chinese bureaucrats at their word(s) and not insist on cold reality to judget them by. (Mitchell's approach is wholeheartedly endorsed by Timothy Garton Ash in a patronizing piece saying Western "liberal democrats" should just let the Chinese be Chinese. (Shades of the "friends of the Soviet Union.") http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article35246#top _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
