Chinese-Style Modernisation: Revolution and the Worker-Peasant Alliance


Lu Xinyu

In Western ideology, China is no longer perceived as a socialist country, although traces of its revolutionary legacy remain. According to this perspective, the objective of modernisation in China has replaced that of revolution, which has in turn played an important role in stabilising the global capitalist system. In other words, China’s integration into global capitalism has helped to solidify the process of capitalist globalisation. Consequently, modernisation and revolution, as well as globalisation and revolution, are presented as dichotomies, similar to that of democracy versus authoritarianism, freedom versus autocracy, and state versus society. These dichotomies can be viewed as the extension of Cold War ideology into the politics of the 1990s, subtly embedded within the theories of “globalisation” and “modernity.” Today, the world remains confined by dichotomous thinking, which is the foundation for the intellectual and ideological continuity in the so-called “New Cold War,” to alarge extent also serving as the boundary between the GlobalSouth and Global North. This thinking, however, does a disservice to understanding China’s path of development toward socialist modernisation and national sovereignty since the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was formed in 1949.

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