The East Is Still Red: Book Launch

On Sunday 13 August 2023, the International Manifesto Group will host a launch event for Carlos Martinez’s book The East is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century. The launch is co-hosted by Friends of Socialist China, Midwestern Marx and the Critical Theory Workshop. Author Carlos Martinez will discuss the book with a panel of commentators. About the book China provides a powerful living example of what can be achieved with a socialist system; by a Marxist-led government firmly grounded among the people. The East is Still Red explains the escalating hostility by the imperialist powers towards China and clears up various popular misconceptions. All available evidence indicates that not only is the Communist Party of China committed to Marxism, but it is a leading force for the development and enhancement of Marxism in the 21st century. If the first century of human experience of building socialism teaches us anything, it is that the road from capitalism to socialism is a long and complicated one, and that ‘actually existing socialism’ varies enormously according to time, place and circumstances. China is building a form of socialism that suits its conditions, using the means it has at its disposal, in the extraordinarily challenging circumstances of global imperialist hegemony. Carlos Martinez provides a concise, deeply researched and well argued account that China’s remarkable rise can only be understood by acknowledging its socialist past, present and future. Speakers Carlos Martinez is an independent researcher and political activist from London, Britain. He is the author of The East is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century (2023), No Great Wall: On the Continuities of the Chinese Revolution (2022) The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse (2019). His main area of research is the construction of socialist societies, past and present. He is a co-editor of Friends of Socialist China and co-founder of No Cold War. Dan Kovalik graduated from Columbia Law School in 1993, and currently teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is the author of NICARAGUA: A History of US Intervention and Resistance (2023) and The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela: How the US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil (2019), which includes a Foreward by Oliver Stone. He served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers for 26 years. Kovalik has been traveling to Nicaragua since 1987 and has been a friend of Nicaragua and the Sandinista Revolution since that time. He has written extensively on the issue of international human rights and U.S. foreign policy for the Huffington Post, Counterpunch and RT News, and has lectured throughout the world on these subjects. Sara Flounders is a longstanding political activist and author based in New York City. She is a Contributing Editor of Workers World Newspaper and a leader of the United National Antiwar Coalition, the International Action Center and the SanctionsKill Campaign. She is the co-author and editor of numerous books, including Capitalism on a Ventilator: The Impact of COVID-19 in China and the US (co-authored with Lee SiuHin) and recently released: SANCTIONS – A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy. Chen Weihua is the EU bureau chief of China Daily, having previously served as chief Washington correspondent and deputy editor of the US edition of China Daily. Amanda Yee is the host of Radio Free Amanda, a podcast focused on politics and media criticism from an anti-imperialist perspective. Ben Chacko is editor of the Morning star. Qiao Collective is a Chinese diaspora media collective that aims to challenge rising U.S. aggression towards the People’s Republic of China and to equip the U.S. anti-war movement with the tools and analysis to better combat the stoking of a New Cold War conflict with China. Moderator - Radhika Desai is Professor at the Department of Political Studies. She is the Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. She is the convenor of the International Manifesto Group. Her books include Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy (2023), Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013), Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics (2nd rev ed, 2004) and Intellectuals and Socialism: ‘Social Democrats’ and the Labour Party (1994), a New Statesman and Society Book of the Month.