MOSCOW (Realist English). Sergey Sanakoyev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Asia-Pacific Research Center, sinologist, answered these and other questions of the Realist News Agency.
Sergey Feliksovich, China and Vietnam are among the world leaders in reducing poverty. As you know, these countries practice the political economy of Marxism and five-year planning. What do their successes indicate?
Sergey Sanakoyev: The answer is obvious — the advantage is the demonstration of economic development. And even though there are certain specifics in China, nevertheless, they demonstrate exactly that Marxism and Leninism are science, and not quackery, as some have been presenting to us for 30 years in Russia, and it is quite obvious that it was achieved under the socialist system of governance.
Is socialism defeating capitalism?
Sergey Sanakoyev: Definitely. There can be nothing else purely objectively and scientifically. It is enough to read Marx’s Capital to understand that all these are objective processes. It doesn’t depend on how we think about it. Everything goes according to the canons of the development of the society and of course socialism is a more progressive form of management of human society and the economy, because it is focused on the masses of the people, so that it is the people who are the beneficiaries of this development. Then the motivation is completely different, without antagonism, that is, there are no classes. Of course, this is a much more developed form than capitalism.
What or who prevents Russia from returning to economic planning?
Sergey Sanakoнev: They did not commit a coup in 1991 and destroy the country in order to easily give power back to the people now. The system that came to power in 1991 interferes, and it’s not even about the fact that oligarchs rule the country, but simply there are no such forms of capitalism in the world as was established in Russia in 1991.
If, globally, they tried to play along and created Norwegian socialism, Swedish, and even imitated it in Arab countries, then in Russia, on the contrary, they argued that this was all wrong and we urgently need to forget socialism. Therefore, they have quite openly switched to the wildest forms of capitalism.
A hundred years ago, China looked up to Russia with hope. Now everything is the opposite. What does Moscow expect from Beijing, and Beijing – from Moscow?
Sergey Sanakoyev: When my Chinese friends hear an argument about which way Russia should go – Western or Chinese, it becomes funny to them. They went our Soviet way. You need to remember your own experience. Yes, of course, certain reforms were required, there was not the slightest sense to clamp down on entrepreneurship, as the Chinese experience shows.
Socialism may well combine market mechanisms and entrepreneurial motivation. We had it even earlier than in China. Let me remind you that under [Joseph] Stalin, small and medium-sized businesses were quite legitimate forms of entrepreneurship, and it was even encouraged. But, unfortunately, we have moved away from this. Today, China is demonstrating the real advantages of the development of socialism, will we return to this? I think Beijing expects this from Moscow.
In this case, our cooperation, which is a strategic partnership of a comprehensive nature at the highest level, will be even more firm and stable from the point of view of ideology. Today, if we encounter any contradictions between countries (which our opponents are trying to use to the maximum to quarrel our two countries), this is due precisely to the fact that we still do not have a socialist development system and individual oligarchic groups are interested in these relations. And on the Chinese side, it is a monolithic group of negotiators responsible for national interests. When the Russian authorities cease to be capitalists, they will work not only for individual groups, but on the whole for national interests, this will create the most comfortable conditions for Russian-Chinese relations.
Chinese cars and other goods from China can now be found more often on the Russian market. Is the withdrawal of Western manufacturers from the Russian Federation an emotional or rational decision?
Sergey Sanakoyev: It is difficult to call this decision emotional or rational. Most likely, this is a forced decision, they were forced to leave the market, because business may face serious consequences as a result of the actions that are being carried out today by the current hegemon through the Ministry of Finance.
We are creating a different economic space together with China, the SCO and BRICS countries, and this space is much larger than the Western space. And many companies already understand that the future belongs to us and do not enforce the sanctions. Nevertheless, most are still afraid of losing their tangible assets. That’s why they have to leave. But the holy place is never empty, these niches in the market are being occupied by Chinese and other companies that see much more prospects in this.
What do you think about the G2 format? Are the elites of the USA and China ready to form a “Big Two”?
Sergey Sanakoyev: This is an absolutely unrealistic format. And all the attempts that have been made since the time of former presidents, including [Barack] Obama were unsuccessful.
The “Big Two” cannot exist because these two countries have completely divergent goals in their global development. And even if we say that China also observes some rules of globalism, then we need to understand that the scenarios of this globalism are different. The Western one is aimed at creating a model of the “Golden Billion”, but this does not mean at all that a billion people will live well, only a few hundred specific surnames and families will live well.
The rest will just serve. And the remaining seven billion will be used for destruction and slaughter. China is absolutely not satisfied with this, it will never follow such a scenario. That’s the difference. Therefore, G2 is not possible. Moreover, these two states will sooner or later face a severe conflict.
Do you think the war in the Ukraine worsens or improves US-Chinese relations?
Sergey Sanakoyev: It worsens. I remind you that the assessment of the Chinese is quite unambiguous. They affirm this and emphasize it at the official level during various briefings by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. They perfectly understand who is really the culprit of this conflict, who is actually the aggressor, and who is rocking the escalation today. They unequivocally blame the United States for this. There can be no other options here.
