Author: 吴晟 / Wu Sheng
Source: https://longlivemarxleninmaoism.online/t/topic/15957
Editor’s notes: In China, there is a opportunistic clique represented by Li Minqi (李民骐), a professor at the University of Utah. We usually call it ”white China net” (instead of their red China net). They deliberately misinterpreted Lenin’s “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, and claimed that the revisionist China is not an imperialist country but a so-called “semi-peripheral country” based on the “world-systems theory”.
The sparrows are small but are fully equipped. So, “dissect sparrows” means to tell the general trend from a tiny phenomenon. This article is used to analyzes the monopoly status of China’s several industries to tell the general trend and to refute their arguments.
During the debate on whether revisionist China is imperialist, some persons put forward some plausible claims that revisionist China has a monopoly of major domestic industries or even a high degree of monopoly and misinterpreted Lenin’s theory of imperialism[1].
What exactly is the degree of industry monopoly in revisionist imperialist China? Let us take several industries as cases to “dissect sparrows” and conduct more in-depth research:
The Electric power industry
By the end of 2010, there was a total of 18,345 power business licenses had been issued to power generation enterprises nationwide.
The nationwide installed capacity is 960 million kilowatts, of which the five major power generation groups directly under the central government (五大发电集团) (including China Huaneng Group, China Datang Corporation, China Guodian Corporation, China Huadian Corporation, and China Power Investment Corporation) have a total installed capacity of 470 million kilowatts at the end of the year, accounting for about 49.03% of the national full-caliber installed capacity; other seven power generation enterprises directly under the central government (其他中央发电企业) (including Shenhua Group, China Three Gorges Corporation, China Resources Power, State Development and Investment Corporation, China National Nuclear Corporation, China General Nuclear Power Group[2], Sunburst Energy Development Corporation) have a total installed capacity of 110 million kilowatts at the end of the year, accounting for about 11.41% of the national full-caliber installed capacity; the total installed capacity of 15 large-scale regional state-owned power generation enterprises (大型地方发电集团) at the end of the year was 90 million kilowatts, accounting for about 9.65% of the national full-scale installed capacity. Overall, the installed capacity of the 27 large-scale power generation groups accounted for about 70.08% of the country’s total installed capacity, an increase of 0.9 percentage points year-on-year.
The 27 large-scale bureaucratic monopoly power generation enterprises, constituting 0.147% of the country’s total number of power generation enterprises. However, these enterprises contribute 70.08% of the national full-caliber installed capacity.
The Coal Mining Industry
According to the “2012 List of Top 50 Coal Enterprises in Coal Production”[3] issued by the China Coal Industry Association, the combined coal output of the top 50 enterprises is 2.68 billion tons, which accounts for 73.2% of the national coal output (with the national total production being 3.66 billion tons). This concentration is significantly high. Seven of those top 50 companies have coal production exceeding 100 million tons: Shenhua Group, China Coal Energy, Datong Coal Mining Group, Shandong Energy Group, Jizhong Energy Group, Shaanxi Coal and Chemical Industry Group, and Shanxi Coking Coal Group. Among them, Shenhua Group’s coal production is as high as 407 million tons, far surpassing the others.
The vast majority of those top 50 coal enterprises are owned or controlled by the central government or state-owned assets supervision and administration commissions of various provinces and cities. Among them, the total coal output from 41 bureaucratic monopoly enterprises is 2.427 billion tons, accounting for 66.3% of the total national production. This fact shows the bureaucratic monopoly capital’s control over the coal industry.
However, according to the “13th Five-Year Plan for the Coal Industry Development”[4] issued by the revisionist Chinese authorities, under the process of shutting down small coal mines and promoting industry restructuring and mergers, there are still 6,000 coal enterprises in 2015, so the number of coal enterprises in 2012 undoubtedly more than 6,000. Conservatively, based on 6,000 companies, the top 50 coal enterprises accounted for 73.2% of the country’s coal output with 0.83% of the total; among them, 41 bureaucratic monopoly enterprises accounted for 66.3% of the country’s production, with 0.68% of the total.
The Banking Industry
As of the end of 2016, China’s banking financial institutions include 1 China Development Bank, 2 policy banks, 5 large commercial banks, 12 joint-stock commercial banks, 134 city commercial banks, 1114 rural commercial banks, 8 private banks, 40 rural cooperative banks, 1,125 rural credit cooperatives, 1 postal savings bank, 4 financial asset management companies, 39 foreign-funded corporate financial institutions, 1 Sino-German Bausparkasse, 68 trust companies, 236 finance companies of enterprises groups, 56 financial leasing companies, 5 currency brokerage companies, 25 auto finance companies, 18 consumer finance companies, 1,443 village banks, 13 loan companies, and 48 rural mutual funds. There are 4,399 legal persons institutions in banking financial institutions, employing 4.09 million people. (Quoted from China banking regulatory commission 2012 annual report)
Among them, 1 China Development Bank (国家开发银行), 2 policy banks (政策性银行), 5 large commercial banks (大型商业银行), and 12 joint-stock commercial banks (股份制商业银行), totaling 20 banks, constituted only 0.45% of the overall count of financial institutions. However, their combined market share in assets accounted for approximately 67% of the total.
Let us have a look at some of the arguments from Jinggangshanweishi’s [5] article “Is China an Imperial Power or Not from the Perspective of ‘Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism’”[6]:
- Lenin pointed out several examples reflecting the degree of monopolization. First, those industrial enterprises in late 19th-century Germany, accounting for 0.9% of the total enterprises, possessed 75.3% of the steam horsepower and 77.2% of the electric power. Second, in 1909, 1.1% of industrial enterprises in the United States held 43.8% of the output value. From a global perspective, Comrade Lenin believed that the degree of monopolization in imperialist countries at that time was approximately such that “Almost half the total production of all the enterprises of the country was carried on by one-hundredth part of these enterprises.”
Comments: Comrade Lenin provided descriptions of monopolization in Germany and the United States at that time, but he did not set specific numerical thresholds for the degree of monopolization. Is it the case that something over 1% is considered a monopoly, while something below 1% is not? This is a mechanistic criterion and analytical approach because each industry possesses its characteristics, developmental context, and conditions, thus making it inappropriate to make sweeping generalizations.
- According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, in 2016, large-scale enterprises, accounting for 2.54% of China’s total industrial enterprises, held 37.7% of the entire business revenue (conceptually like output) and 37.2% of the total profits. It means that the monopolistic level of 2.54% of China’s industrial enterprises is even lower than the 1.1% of industrial enterprises in the United States a hundred years ago and significantly below the 0.9% of Germany’s industrial enterprises. Regarding the overall monopolistic level, China has yet to reach the threshold of imperialism-era countries as perceived by Lenin.
Comments: Taking the current data on China’s monopolistic situation and comparing it with Germany and the United States from over 100 years ago, isn’t this conclusion without considering changes in circumstances? The global capitalist economic system has profoundly changed over the past 100 years. Therefore, such a straightforward data comparison spanning a century inherently lacks persuasiveness.
If such a horizontal comparison must be made, according to the dialectical materialist analysis method, we should compare the degree of monopoly between China and the currently recognized imperialist countries (such as the US, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, etc.).
- According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, for the entirety of the prime operating revenue from large-scale industrial enterprises in 2016, state-owned holding enterprises accounted for 20.6%, private enterprises accounted for 35.4%, and foreign-invested enterprises including those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan accounted for 21.6%. The proportion of prime operating revenue for private enterprises is far more than those state-owned holding enterprises, which stands in stark contrast to the lamented notions of “state-owned enterprises are monopolizing” and “state advances, private retreats” propagated by some liberals (as well as proponents of the “China is an imperial power” theory).
Comments: This argument lacks substantive analysis of the generalized data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics. It fails to identify valuable data and information to genuinely assess industry monopolization.
Specifically, there is no focus — no identification of the “key minority” in each industry. The study of specific monopolistic levels within an industry should primarily examine the proportion held by the top few dozen enterprises. However, such data is not readily available from the National Bureau of Statistics resources, but rather, better data can be obtained from industry associations or regulatory bodies within each industry. These sources provide statistics and tracking of the number of enterprises, production, sales, and other relevant aspects within the respective industries.
Combining our analysis of various industries earlier, we can observe the following results:
In the electric power industry, 27 large-scale bureaucratic monopoly power generation enterprises constitute merely 0.147% of the nation’s total number of power generation enterprises. Yet, they hold 70.08% of the total power generation capacity.
Among the top 50 coal mining enterprises, 0.83% of companies collectively control 73.2% of the national coal production output. Within this group, 41 bureaucratic monopoly enterprises, accounting for 0.68% of the total enterprises, contribute to 66.3% of the nationwide coal output.
Twenty large-scale banks, making up just 0.45% of the total financial institutions, possess approximately 67% of the total assets.
These data clearly illustrate the pronounced monopolistic state in fundamental and pivotal industries within revisionist imperialist China. Furthermore, such monopolies often tend to be highly associated with bureaucratic capital.
Even the concerns raised by Jinggangshanweishi regarding removing foreign investment restrictions in the coal and electricity industries through the “Special Management Measures for Foreign Investment Access (Negative List)” in 2018 shall be somewhat alleviated. The worries might be unnecessary. The foreign asset share in the banking industry is only about 2%. The top 50 coal enterprises consist of domestic bureaucratic capital and private capital enterprises. In the electric power industry, foreign investments peaked in 1997 but were largely phased out in two waves of divestment in 2000 and 2004.
Therefore, we should remember Chairman Mao’s teachings: Strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously. We must not assume that the revisionist Chinese authorities are foolish. During the capitalist restoration over the past 40 years, revisionist Chinese authorities have “nurtured” many “talents” with experience in various fields and industries. Meanwhile, the proletarian revolutionary forces have only begun to reorganise after being dispersed. And their struggle experience, and knowledge are still in the early stages. Hence, facing reality, taking shame as a motivator for courage, and earnestly studying and analyzing various situations are crucial. Suppose we don’t conduct thorough and systematic investigations and studies and merely base our judgments on incomplete information, assuming the enemy is foolish. In that case, it’s not the enemy that’s foolish, but us.
Notes:
[1]In Chinese, “the theory of imperialism” is usually used to refer to the book titled “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, which is written by Lenin.
[2]Formerly China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group.
[3]https://longlivemarxleninmaoism.online/t/topic/15957/2
[4]https://policy.asiapacificenergy.org/sites/default/files/煤炭工业发展“十三五”规划.pdf
[5]Another person of Li Minqi clique.
[6]http://redchinacn.net/portal.php?mod=view&aid=36034