The anniversary is celebrated by reminding those who would listen that the CCP prioritizes security over everything, including economic development.
by Hu Zimo
Qiu Jini is a researcher and important CCP ideologist who served as the Deputy Minister at the Minister of State Security and whose title is now Special Researcher of the State Council Counselor’s Office. There are periodical reports that he fell out of grace, but it doesn’t seem so since he signed on June 6 one of the main theoretical articles on security issues published this year in the CCP’s organ “People’s Daily.”
The article celebrates the 10th anniversary of Xi Jinping’s creation a new “Comprehensive National Security Concept.” Echoing Xi’s own concerns, Qiu insists that the root of this concept is Marxism. In fact, national security is just “Marxism in practice.”
The starting point of Qiu’s article is taken from the 11th of Karl Marx’s 1845 “Theses on Feuerbach”: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” “Marxism,” Qiu comments, “has a distinct practical character, and is committed not only to scientifically ‘interpret the world’ but also to actively ‘change the world.’” The tool to change the world, in countries where Marxists are in power, is national security. By studying Xi Jinping’s thought, Qiu writes, “we have a deeper understanding of the distinctive practical character of Marxism embodied in the Comprehensive National Security Concept.”
For the first time in history, Qiu insists, implying that this did not happen in the Soviet Union, “national security is firmly rooted in [Marxist] ideology.” The basic Marxist principle is that security should govern economic development and not vice versa. In fact, security should govern everything: the “political, economic, cultural, social and other fields, both traditional and non-traditional” (certainly this includes religion). According to Qiu, even “nature” itself should be controlled by national security.
This is the “practical” side of Marxism, and indeed has practical implications. Delusions entertained by Westerners notwithstanding, the priority of security over development means that in China great care is exerted to avoid that the pursuit of the economic development may undermine national security, which Qiu defines as the protection of the absolute control on the country by the CCP, its Central Committee, and its General Secretary. If favorable economic paths risk undermining the national security, then these paths should be abandoned.
Westerners are never far away from Qiu’s argument, but they are seen like a threat, a continuous conspiracy to impose on the Chinese something different from Marxism and from the control of everything by the Party, the Central Committee, and Xi Jinping. They should read more texts like Qiu’s, which would help them understand that more economic development does not mean for China less Marxism and less totalitarian control by the Party.
