Complicities: The People's Republic of China in Global Capitalism by Arif Dirlik (review)

Complicities: The People's Republic of China in Global Capitalism is a collection of essays on politics and development in the People Republic of China (PRC) written by Arif Dirlik (1940–2017), a scholar with strong left-wing beliefs who devoted almost forty years to studying socialism and anarchism in the Chinese context as well as clearly admiring Mao Zedong. Dirlik was the author of numerous books, including The Origins of Chinese Communism and The Postcolonial Aura. He lived in Eugene, Oregon, until his dying day. As the last book of Dirlik, Complicities: The People's Republic of China in Global Capitalism "dedicated with deep respect and admiration to all those from the PRC to Turkey—and elsewhere—who at great personal risk uphold citizens' and human rights against oppressive power." Overall, Dirlik's study on China is characterized by gusto and critical ambition, unique and insightful perspectives mixing with ideal and utopia. To be a responsible intellectual, Dirlik thinks it is a more worthy task to learn to think dynamically and relationally rather than statically. I would have preferred that Dirlik had written an entirely new book on China rather than simply the group of essays brought together. As a matter of fact, a slightly loosely connected relationship between each discussion may well be what the book is really about.

As China has grown in economic power, the impact, too, of the PRC's "rise" is "not only as a source of investment and affordable commodities but as a rival to advanced capitalist societies that has opened up new spaces for political maneuver" (2). This collection of essays embodies two premises: on the one hand, "the PRC's integration into global capitalism over the last two decades requires criticism directed at it also to attend to the structure of the system of which it is a part"; on the other hand, "given the economic, social political, and cultural entanglements of global capitalism, criticism must account for outsiders' complicities in the PRC's failures as well as successes" (back cover). In the analysis of two premises, the collection embraces five parts. Part I, "The Idea of a 'Chinese Model': A Critical Discussion," concerns the notion of "Chinese Model," for the term itself has appeared with increasing frequency over the last decade among those scholars and observers both outside and inside China. Three questions are of particular interest in this discussion. First, "what significance do we attribute to the idea of a 'model' in the contemporary world, especially with respect to the deployment of the idea of model within a PRC political discourse"; Secondly, "what might be the features of a so-called 'Chinese Model?'"; Finally, "in what sense might this 'model' be appealing to others" (15)? Just following the disastrous failure of the "Great Leap Forward" (dayuejin 1958–1960) and other attempts to improve agricultural and industrial productivity, China's decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) shook the politics of China and the world. The Cultural Revolution was very complex and often obscure, and it remains controversial, while undoubtedly a valuable movement in Mao's China because Mao Zedong (1893–1976) himself was a brilliant tactician, a political theorist, and a statesman who ruled a billion people for three decades. Mao's philosophy is the articulation of a "Chinese Marxism" or "recreating" Marxism in China. Mao Zedong Thought, Mao's Marxism, or Maoism can be viewed as "Sinicized" Marxism while the term "Maoism" has been used internationally. Unfortunately, "[t]he popular quasi-religious zeal inflamed by the regime that pushed the revolutionary movement to self-destructive extremes under Mao Zedong," which may have "tarnished the PRC's image to some extent, at least among some constituencies" (3). To Dirlik, structural transformations after "reform and opening" in 1978 within the spatial context of Eastern Asia have been of "the utmost importance in directing the trajectory that changes in China have followed." One...