Sit Tsui

Manichaeism with Chinese Characteristics: A Look Back on the “China and the Left” Conference

The Qiao Collective, Monthly Review, and People’s Forum came together to hold a conference on the topic of “China and the Left” on September 18th in New York City, an event featuring such luminaries of the tankie left ranging from Max Ajl to Mark Tseng Putterman and Vijay Prashad. Reportedly around 150 were in attendance, though many hundreds more attended online by livestream, and videos of the event accumulated thousands of views in the days afterward...

The Monthly Review’s China Issue Reveals the Narcissistic Inward Gaze, Self-Flagellating Politics of the Western Left

At this late stage in the game, one should not be surprised at how incredibly poor the western left’s understanding of China is. Many western leftists remain unable to conceptualize any imperial or capitalist power outside of the US and therefore romanticize or downplay China’s authoritarianism because it seems to them at least an alternative to US global hegemony. This is the case, then, with respected leftist magazine Monthly Review’s recent August issue, featuring such writers as Asian American tankie commentator Mark Tseng-Putterman, and no less than the diasporic ethno-nationalist Qiao Collective. It proves of some hilarity to see the Monthly Review, which once hosted the Brenner debates and writing by luminaries such as Herbert Marcuse, Noam Chomsky, C. Wright Mills, and others, now platform the Qiao Collective...