No abstract

As China has risen as an advanced technological society, a new type of Orientalism-Digital Orientalism-has likewise emerged. Using historical materialism, this paper details these developments, including China's change from a civilizationstate to modern nation-state and its transition from a technical state to an advanced technological society, closing the technology gap that had left it vulnerable to foreign aggression and continued forms of international dominance and hegemony. It reviews and develops theories associated with technological societies, and how these relate to technophobia generally and the rise of Sino(techno)phobia specifically. It then theorizes three distinct but overlapping trends or themes in Orientalist depictions of China over the past two centuries: 1) 'classical' Orientalism, first theorized by Edward Said; 2) 'Sinological Orientalism,' described by Daniel Vukovich; and now 3), 'Digital Orientalism,' which was first introduced by Maximilian Mayer. This paper develops analyses associated primarily with the third theme, investigating contemporary developments in the context of China as a rising power and how scholars and other nations have responded in turn. It argues that China appears to have surpassed others now as a technological society, including the US, with China's response to COVID-19 as a clear example, and with clear implications for China's national advancement and global position vis-à-vis the United States particularly.

Given market-oriented reforms and opening up since 1978, many view China’s WTO accession in 2001 and a decade’s worth of related activities since then, including an on-going willingness to finance the global capitalist system amid crises, as indicators of a non-Marxist way of thinking. Contrarily, we argue that China’s membership in the WTO and indeed, its intense participation and integration with the global economy represents, on the one hand, an admittedly significant tactical adjustment within a broader strategic approach that, on the other hand, retains key aspects consistent with a Marxist project. In strict terms, we argue Chinese reforms indicate “praxis” and not “pragmatism,” and we illustrate why this distinction is important. We agree that cost/benefit analyses can help understand China’s behaviour, as long as they are coupled with the sort of Marxist historicist perspective that continues to shape Beijing’s policy making. In this sense, we discuss how Beijing views the current era with respect to its vision of the past and the future and, therefore, elucidate a different interpretive framework for assessing on-going tactical adjustments within a global system and way of thinking that is likely at odds with Beijing’s vision of the future.

This work discusses why Marxist vanguard parties require ideology in their struggle to gain and maintain political power. Despite being considered theoretically inconsistent with classical Marxism and western vernacular, I chart etymologically how "ideology" came to China and proliferated during the Mao era as a positively framed term via, in all likelihood, Japanese renderings of Leninism. After discussing ideological challenges under Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, I explore whether Hu Jintao's scientific development and harmony concepts might be understood as ideological campaigns which-by synthesizing Maoist and Dengist approaches to ideologyeffectively address what otherwise be referred to as the Party's telos problem, and thus resolve in part the threat to the Party's vanguard claim.