Roland Boer's Blog, page 28

The Chinese Model: A different approach to engaging with Africa

This insightful article was published recently in The Global Times. It is written by He Wenping, a senior research fellow at the Charhar Institute in China, and by Hisham Abu Bakr Metwally, an economic researcher at the Central Department for Export and Import Policy under the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Industry.

It’s time for Europe to learn from China in engaging in Africa

The just-concluded EU Summit on migration has come up with measures like securing centers for migrants to p...

The Passing of Domenico Losurdo

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On 28 June, 2018, Domenico Losurdo passed away after a brief period of brain cancer. He was only 76 and his death is a shock to many who have come to appreciate his work and his person. An official announcement from the secretary of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI) can be found here (see also here). Indeed, Losurdo enthusiastically joined the re-established the PCI, after it had been dissolved back in 1991.

Many are the dimensions of his contribution to Marxist philosophy and history, with...

Nobel Prize for Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in?

Although I have little time for the Nobel Prize, with its dubious history of supporting European imperialism and anti-communism, perhaps it could gain a tiny bit of credibility as follows:

This year’s Peace Prize should go to Kim Jong Un, chairman of the DPRK, and Moon Jae-in, president of South Korea.

Why?

Let me recap the history of the last six months:

Kim Jong Un makes a major statement in his new year address, indicating it was time to restart the peace process in line with long-standin...

New China-DPRK strategic partnership?

An insightful article from the Global Times, which includes the following:

Kim’s three China visits indicate that China-North Korea relations have recovered and developed well … As two sovereign states, China and North Korea have the right to develop friendly relations. Facts have proven that since the outbreak of the North Korean nuclear crisis in the 1990s, stable Sino-North Korean relations have played a positive role in maintaining regional peace and stability.

Some Chinese scholars hold...

Third meeting between Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping

Chinese papers have already reported on Kim Jong Un’s third visit to China and to meet with Xi Jinping over the last couple of days, but I have been waiting for KCNA to report, especially since they always have the best pictures.

A selection from the lengthy report at KCNA:

At the talks the result of the historic DPRK-U.S. summit, which was successfully held amidst the unusual interest and expectation of the international community, and appreciation, views and stand on it were informed each o...

The Deindustrialisation of the United States

The situation in which the United States currently finds itself – a lone superpower that lacks true power, a world leader nobody follows and few respect, and a nation drifting dangerously (Wallerstein 2003, 17).

One of the consequences of the supposed ‘end of the Cold War’ in eastern Europe and Russia has been the process of deindustrialisation. With the aggressive ‘shock therapy’ of the 1990s, industries in one country after another in that part of the world were bought up by western Europea...

China’s socialist model enriches global governance philosophy

I rather like this piece from the Global Times yesterday:

The most discussed challenge to liberal democracy in the West nowadays is the perceived threat of China’s rise and the “Chinese model.” That China has rapidly risen in a development model different from that of the West has startled and upset the West. Does China attempt to overthrow the Western liberal order? Would it spread its development ideas, values and political system to other countries? Such worries haunt many Western scholars...

Friedrich Engels: The State as a ‘Separated Public Power’

A perfect society, a perfect ‘State [Staat]’, are things which can only exist in the imagination [Phantasie]. On the contrary, all successive historical states [Zustände] are only transitory stages in the endless course of development of human society (Engels 1886 [1990], 359, 1886 [2011], 126).

The following material comprises an initial draft concerning Engels’s thoughts on actually existing states. It will eventually form part of a chapter in a book called The Socialist State: Philosophica...

Flesh of Flesh and Bone of Bone: Engels on the First Bourgeois Statesman

I am thoroughly enjoying the study of Engels’s many important – but often ignored – works on the state from the 1880s. The most insightful is ‘The Role of Force in History’, which offers a worthy companion to Marx’s ‘Eighteenth Brumaire’. While Marx focused on France and Louis Napoleon, Engels deals with Bismarck and Germany’s belated dialectical leap. But Engels also has some wonderful insights into Louis Napoleon, such as the following:

Louis Napoleon was now the idol of the European bourge...

Full report on Singapore Summit from Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)

This is the fullest report you will find on the Singapore Summit, including more details on items discussed and agreed:

Halting US-South Korean military exercises. Invitations for Kim Jong Un to visit Washington and Trump to visit Pyongyang – invitations accepted. Step-by-step simultaneous action for peace, security and stability.

I should also point out that this follows China’s long-held proposal of ‘suspension for suspension’. And, as this item from the Global Times points out, Trump has...