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Chuang Issue 2: Frontiers
ln our second issue we turn our focus to the frontiers of crisis and capital in China. We expand our conceptual framework here, digging more deeply into some of our central theoretical concerns while also providing coherent narratives of historical events and contemporary faultlines. As always, we include interviews and translations alongside our own original work. This issue also contains, for the first time, two commissioned articles by authors outside of Chuǎng, each a regional specialist focusing on some portion of China’s borderlands.
We take these borders as our starting point. This issue therefore begins with the expanding frontier of capital itself, with our second long-form article on the economic history of China, “Red Dust: The Transition to Capitalism in China,” detailing the process by which the socialist developmental regime was dismantled and incorporated into the capitalist economy. We then move on to China’s literal frontiers, our two intakes exploring tensions in Xinjiang and Vietnam. Finally, we include a series of pieces exploring the frontiers of struggle and repression within Chinese industry.
We take these borders as our starting point. This issue therefore begins with the expanding frontier of capital itself, with our second long-form article on the economic history of China, “Red Dust: The Transition to Capitalism in China,” detailing the process by which the socialist developmental regime was dismantled and incorporated into the capitalist economy. We then move on to China’s literal frontiers, our two intakes exploring tensions in Xinjiang and Vietnam. Finally, we include a series of pieces exploring the frontiers of struggle and repression within Chinese industry.
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Published January 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 1, 2019
A well-written and well-researched Marxist survey of China's political economy and its recent past. The main feature, a history of China's transition to capitalism, is very in-depth but somewhat dry. The other, shorter features are about contemporary dynamics around Chinese statecraft and class struggle, and are more colorful and engaging, particularly "Picking Quarrels", an analysis of post-2010 social conflicts. Overall a must-read for anybody interested in radical and insightful analysis of China.
August 26, 2021
Gets four stars just for Red Dust, which is excellent. The other, more timely pieces are also really interesting and well-written. Not sure about the piece on the Uyghurs, which cites a parade of US State Department-adjacent sources like Adrian Zenz, Human Rights Watch, the Economist, and Radio Free Asia. I'm sure some of it is reliable, but it was disappointing to see the author draw from so many clearly biased sources.
April 17, 2025
I think the thing that makes this such a worthy intervention in not just the history of Chinese socialism but of modern world history is the same thing that makes it very much a meme of itself. Despite that, this is one of the best communist journals out there.
What I mean by meme of itself is that Chuang is bascially just if Endnotes did China. I don't know if there's any crossover between the editors/writers of the two journals, but you know before you even read a page of Chuang, that there's going to be Camatte, there's going to be Brenner and there's going to be Value form theory. Which is to say it is very sectarian, but of a sect that still runs counter to the "mainstream" of ML brainrot or MLM brainrot. And for that it's very welcome.
Red Dust is a very worthy successor to Chuang's previous part on the history of communism in China, Sorhum and Steel. I think I actually preferred Red Dust, as it wades into the messy question of just what capitalism is, before maybe missing the mark a bit on what communism is. They hit the nail on the head perfectly by describing the transition to capitalism anywhere on the planet as a process. It is not something a formalist scholar would be of much use in pinning down, as there are several mutually reenforcing things that need to exist in a society in order for it to be capialist (commodity production, private property and alienated wage labor). Red Dust is quite a dense history, and where it doesn't quite deliver on the promise of explaining what else could have happened had China not reformed its way to capitalism, it does a good job reminding you that hindsight bias is a scourge on the study of history. For a long time, China's future was well up in the air.
The essay on Xinjiang and the Uyghur population in China was a very well written marriage of a political economy of "internal peripheral colonies" within modern capitalism and the concrete, horrifying situations this creates. The interview with Lao Xie was quite good as well, even if I found myself disagreeing with a long of what was said.
Overall, Chuang remains very principled in their work and is well worth your time to read. Looking forward to Pt 3.
What I mean by meme of itself is that Chuang is bascially just if Endnotes did China. I don't know if there's any crossover between the editors/writers of the two journals, but you know before you even read a page of Chuang, that there's going to be Camatte, there's going to be Brenner and there's going to be Value form theory. Which is to say it is very sectarian, but of a sect that still runs counter to the "mainstream" of ML brainrot or MLM brainrot. And for that it's very welcome.
Red Dust is a very worthy successor to Chuang's previous part on the history of communism in China, Sorhum and Steel. I think I actually preferred Red Dust, as it wades into the messy question of just what capitalism is, before maybe missing the mark a bit on what communism is. They hit the nail on the head perfectly by describing the transition to capitalism anywhere on the planet as a process. It is not something a formalist scholar would be of much use in pinning down, as there are several mutually reenforcing things that need to exist in a society in order for it to be capialist (commodity production, private property and alienated wage labor). Red Dust is quite a dense history, and where it doesn't quite deliver on the promise of explaining what else could have happened had China not reformed its way to capitalism, it does a good job reminding you that hindsight bias is a scourge on the study of history. For a long time, China's future was well up in the air.
The essay on Xinjiang and the Uyghur population in China was a very well written marriage of a political economy of "internal peripheral colonies" within modern capitalism and the concrete, horrifying situations this creates. The interview with Lao Xie was quite good as well, even if I found myself disagreeing with a long of what was said.
Overall, Chuang remains very principled in their work and is well worth your time to read. Looking forward to Pt 3.
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May 2, 2025Very interesting and informative. As with vol 1 I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to judge their economic history and characterisation of the “socialist developmental regime’s’” transition to capitalism. The broad strokes seem reasonable and I appreciate their lack of sentimentality towards the great (helms)men of history.
While communiser politics does sound a lot like a hope and a prayer, I don’t feel anyone has adequately responded to their (thinking mainly of endnotes) analysis of long 1970s stagnation/class decomposition. I like to indulge in some sinophilia as much as the next man (who doesn’t love high speed rail?) but it’s important to be serious at times. The law of value will come for us all eventually. Stagnation and deindustrialisation weren’t just arbitrarily imposed on us by nasty neoliberals, it was a crisis response to capitalist development running out of steam. China’s day will come too, and afterwards, who knows.
While communiser politics does sound a lot like a hope and a prayer, I don’t feel anyone has adequately responded to their (thinking mainly of endnotes) analysis of long 1970s stagnation/class decomposition. I like to indulge in some sinophilia as much as the next man (who doesn’t love high speed rail?) but it’s important to be serious at times. The law of value will come for us all eventually. Stagnation and deindustrialisation weren’t just arbitrarily imposed on us by nasty neoliberals, it was a crisis response to capitalist development running out of steam. China’s day will come too, and afterwards, who knows.
April 26, 2020
The Chuang collective really put some work in. The follow 'Sorghum and Steal' from issue 1, with 'Red Dust', a major contribution to understanding the Chinese transition from socialism to capitalism, the wrenching of the socialist era safety net, the massive migration to the new cities, and the role of China in the neo-liberal social and economic order. The focus is relentlessly economist; there is next to no discussion of the commanding heights or of non labor social structures.
They do what they do very well, and this time period is well served by a narrow focus. I particular enjoyed the essays on the rise of labor struggles, especially 'picking quarrels'.
They do what they do very well, and this time period is well served by a narrow focus. I particular enjoyed the essays on the rise of labor struggles, especially 'picking quarrels'.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews