[Fwd: Re: [A-List] Conference in China]

[Craven, Jim]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [A-List] Conference in China
Date: 	Sat, 18 Sep 2004 15:33:30 -0400
From: 	Henry C.K. Liu <hliu at mindspring.com>
To: 	The A-List <a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu>
References:
<B52C1E7AE3795B499FF6DD3C957E762E01158605 at odin.clark.edu>

Henry wrote:

I encourage Jim to write and record his impressions and thoughts on his
recent trip to China.  It should be noted that Jim's host was the ultra
neo-liberal stronghold of Tsinghua University, practically a transplant
of the American Enterprise Institute or Cato.  

Response: All I can say is that I was asked to return to China to teach
and to work on a project examining land-tenure systems in rural China
vis-a-vis emerging urbanization land-use patterns and I don't think it
was due to my "charming personality" and "superb diplomatic skills." My
paper (for those who have not read it
http://www.marxmail.org/CravenChina.htm) was an in-your-face attack
against neo-iberalism as nothing more than warmed-up neo-imperialism,
and was also a very general as well as very specific attack against
neoclassical economics (not only as bogus metaphysics masquerading as
"science" but also as but one more of the "Trojan Horses" of imperialism
as it is spread throughout educational systems globally. During the
conference I also made specific responses to neo-liberal arguments
embodied some of the papers.

Before I left for China, I asked if I could visit the Mausoleum of
Chairman Mao and visit the grave of Pai Chu En (Dr. Norman Bethune) and
noted that as a Blackfoot, it is our way to visit and pay respects at
least once in our lives (like Muslims going to Mecca) to those who we
respect and have given us inspiration in our lives. These places are not
generally known as "holy shrines" for neoclassicals and neo-liberals. So
what I am (and what I will remain until the day I die as the capitalists
have nothing I want or need ever) was very clear--as was the message I
was about to deliver--prior to my leaving for China (and I gave them
plenty of opportunity to retract my invitation as I have a lot of work
to do and do not need to go to China to spin my wheels). Perhaps they
invited me wodnering what kind of freak I am or perhaps there is more
academic freedom in China than here as the neoclassicals/neo-liberals
hire their own here and refuse to debate.

Everything I wrote I truly believe and I am the first to note how
ignorant I am of many of the realities of China (I do not, for example,
speak Chinese and I do know, as I do speak other languages, that fluency
in the language is critical to really understand at the people's level,
when visiting another country.) I can say that at the conference I was
the first to use the term "di guo zhu yi" (imperialism) and noted that
China should only be compared with China (before and after liberation)
and not with other countries like the U.S.--or even India--and that any
discussion of the realities of China today without reference to the
horrible legacies inherited from the machinations of colonialism and
neo-imperialism, the past and present-day encirclement and machinations
of imperialism, the threats of nuclear annihilation China has suffered
causing large sums to be diverted to defense away from development, the
continual subversion and social systems engineering to which China has
been subject--past and present--etc etc is a superficial and even
reactionary discussion.

My private discussions, well received, were at all times
anti-neoclassicism and anti-neo-liberalism but not those of an
ideological or theoretical purist as I come from a People, Blackfoot, on
the verge of extermination, who have had to make--and still must
make--all sorts of very odious tactical compromises just to survive to
fight another day--and yes, those tactical compromises can easily result
in one's own nature and intentions changing (the object of those who
force the tactical compromises) which was my warning to China.

Jim C