Roland Boer's Blog, page 33

Kim Jong Un, statesman

This has already gone beyond what might have been expected: another step towards Korean reunification. As multiple sources report in the two Koreas, a high level delegation from the south has recently concluded a two-day visit to the north. This is the third such event in the last couple of months. They met with Kim Jong Un and other leading officials and put everything on the table.

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As KCNA reports: (also here):

Shaking hands of the special envoy and his party one by one, respected Supreme...

Key figures: Two sessions in China

Since it is difficult to get concrete details about the two sessions of China’s parliament underway at the moment, here is a table with Premier Li Keqiang’s proposals for targets in 2018:

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China’s multi-party system: ‘a great contribution to political civilisation’

The all-important ‘two sessions’ (lianghui) are underway in Beijing. These are the National People’s Congress (NPC), the highest law-making body in China, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which provides advice and recommendations to the NPC. You can watch a brief video about the two sessions of 2018 here. These two sessions are perhaps even more important this year after the landmark 19th congress of the CPC in November of 2016.

During the first session of t...

Red Theology: Table of Contents and Introduction

This book – subject to reviewer suggestions – may well be published later in 2018. It is called Red Theology: On the Christian Communist Tradition. It began as a collection of essays, but as I worked through the material, I realised my thoughts had developed, so I ended up rewriting most of the book, along with with chapters that have not as yet appeared in print.

Here are the table of contents and the introduction.

Chapter 1 – Karl Kautsky’s Forerunners of Modern Socialism

The Manifold Types...

CPC Central Committee proposes changes to the constitution

In preparation for the two sessions of parliament, the CPC Central Committee met to discuss – among other things – changes to the constitution. It is useful to see these in the wider context, since some international commentators have been making a bit of noise about the removal of term limits to the presidency. As you will see, what the document actually suggests is that the terms for president and vice-president be the same as delegates for the National People’s Congress.

And it turns out t...

Edelman Trust Barometer: China tops the world

These curious reports keep appearing. I have already mentioned the Ipsos survey from last year, which found last year that 87% of people in China are confident in the direction the country is heading. Now we have the Edelman Trust Barometer, which finds the following for China:

Trust among the ‘informed public’:

In government: 89%

In business: 85%

In media: 80%

In NGOs: 76%

Average: 83%

Trust among the general population:

In government: 84%

In business: 74%

In media: 71%

In NGOS: 66%

Average:...

Even the World Bank is starting to take notice: China’s ‘unprecedented poverty reduction’ and the role of the CPC

A detailed report from the World Bank, called Towards a More Inclusive and Sustainable Development has been raising interest in some quarters. Among many features of the report, it notes that China’s policies have enabled the “extreme poverty rate, based on the international purchasing power parity (PPP) US$1.90 per day poverty line, to fall from 88.3 percent in 1981 to 1.9 percent in 2013. This implies that China’s success enabled more than 850 million people to escape poverty.” Over the las...

What do Friedrich Engels, Louis Althusser, Terry Eagleton, Kim Il Sung and Stalin have in common?

They all made the – often difficult – step from religious faith to Marxism. Engels, with his Reformed background and the strong religious commitment of his youth, set the initial example. In his footsteps followed Louis Althusser, Henri Lefebvre, Terry Eagleton and Kim Il Sung, to mention but a few. Crucially, they did not give up their interest in matters theological and ecclesiastical. Even if they had “lost” their faith (and not all did), they maintained a lively interest in, if not an ins...

Florida massacre a major abuse of human rights

Yet another massacre in the United States, this time in Florida, indicating that the USA is a major abuser of human rights. As this article indicates, the US might want to learn a lesson or two from China in the full exercise of genuine human rights:

The US will have to adopt gun control in the future. It’s better to decide sooner rather than later. Gun ownership in China is strictly regulated, which helps reduce gun-related crimes and deaths. The US should learn from China and genuinely prot...

The Vatican moves slowly, but it does move: the China-Vatican deal

Christians have been in China, on and off, since at least the seventh century CE. At that time, the Church of the East – the largest Christian church in those days – made contact and established churches during the T’ang Dynasty (based in Chang’an or modern Xi’an). The Church of the East had a distinct Christology, which is often dubbed ‘Nestorian’ (Jingjiao) but should be called dyophyticism, stressing the divine and human natures of Christ. It lasted in China until the 10th century, only to...