Research and study of ideologies of social and national emancipation and their application to conditions within imperialist society

Labour government urged: engagement with China should go much further.

Labour government urged: engagement with China should go much further.

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Prospects for US-China relations in Trump’s second presidency

Prospects for US-China relations in Trump’s second presidency

Prospects for US-China relations in Trump’s second presidency

From the Friends of Socialist China website:

The London Region of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) held its 2025 Annual Conference online on Sunday 12 January.

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett was among the speakers in a session entitled, NATO, war, nukes: Outlook for 2025, where he was joined by CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt; Jess Barnard, a member of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC); Carol Turner, Chair of London CND and a Vice Chair of national CND; and Vijay Prashad, Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. The session was chaired by Christine Shawcroft, a Vice Chair of London CND and editor of Labour Briefing.

A keynote opening speech on Prospects for Peace and Justice was given by Jeremy Corbyn, former Leader of the Labour Party and now the Independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North, introduced by Murad Qureshi, a Vice President of London CND and a former Chair of the Stop the War Coalition.

Further discussions focused on Ukraine and the Middle East as testing grounds for new tech weapons, with expert input from Peter Burt, a researcher for Drone Wars UK; and Dave Webb, Convenor of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space; chaired by former MP Emma Dent-Coad; and a final session on Peace Movement Priorities, with Baroness Jenny Jones from the Green Party; Tony Staunton, a Vice Chair of CND; and Angie Zelter, a founder of Lakenheath Action for Peace; chaired by Hannah Kemp-Welch, a Vice Chair of London CND.

 

Text of the speech

 
 
Text of the speech
   Text of the speech with introductory note on website of Friends of Socialist China

 

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Another year of friendship with China celebrated

Another year of friendship with China celebrated

Another year of friendship with China celebrated

From the website of Friends of Socialist China:

Friends of Socialist China held its second annual Christmas dinner at the Hiba Express Palestinian restaurant in central London’s Holborn district on Sunday, December 15. Just over 60 people attended, including senior representatives of the embassies of China, Laos and Cuba, members of the Chinese media corps in London, the London representative of Sinn Féin, comrades from Malaysia, Holland and Luxembourg, and activists from a broad range of progressive organisations with whom we have been working over the past year.

Speaking before dinner, our co-editor Keith Bennett reviewed our work over the last 12 months and reiterated our solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Responding, Minister Zhao Fei from the Chinese Embassy said:

Over the past three years, the Friends of Socialist China have done incredible work in helping more people learn about and understand China.

As 2024 draws to a close, China has calmly navigated the changing domestic and international environment with comprehensive strategies. Our economy continues to grow steadily, and we have made significant progress across many areas. The upcoming year, 2025, marks the final year of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan. It is also a pivotal year as China begins its march towards the second Centenary Goal of building a modern socialist country by building on the success of building a moderately well-off society. A host of major strategies, reforms, and projects will be implemented, injecting fresh vitality and momentum into Chinese society. The future of socialist China will surely be even brighter and will bring more opportunities for global development.

We also took the opportunity to honour Comrade Kamal Majid, a lifelong communist of Iraqi origin, retired professor and member of our Advisory Group, on his upcoming 95th birthday. His birthday cake was suitably decorated with red flag and hammer and sickle icing.

Text of the speech by Keith Bennett

 
Full account of the celebration on the website of Friends of China.

 

 

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Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and Multilateralism — Institute’s Patron addresses international conference

Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and Multilateralism — Institute’s Patron addresses international conference

Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and Multilateralism — Institute’s Patron addresses international conference

 

The International Conference on Practicing True Multilateralism and Improving Global Governance System was called by the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Centre and China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), and was held in Beijing on 11 November 2024.

The conference was held on the occasion of the release of the Report on the True Multilateralism: Conceptual Development, Core Essence and China’s Practice and International Conference on Practicing True Multilateralism and Improving Global Governance System.

Participants in the Conference included diplomatic representatives to China, representatives from international organizations and relevant experts from China and abroad, including the Ambassador of Chile to China; the Head of the Arab States’ China representative office; the Deputy Secretary General, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation; the Chairman of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council of Cambodia; the China-Arab Research Center on Reform and Development, Shanghai International Studies University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The conference was opened by Chen Bo, Secretary General, Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Centre and President, China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), who delivered a briefing on the report, and was also addressed by Miao Deyu, Assistant Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China.

Keith Bennett was a panelist on the session on True Multilateralism and Reform of Global Governance System, and delivered his speech on behalf of the Xi Jinping Thought Study Group of the Institute for Independence Studies.

All friends and supporters of the Institute are warmly encouraged to study this significant speech, which concludes that “it is the Global South, with China in the forefront, that is the key driver towards true multilateralism and the reform of global governance. The  programmatic basis for this key challenge facing humanity at present is at the heart of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy.”

Full text of the speech.

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Sovereignty, independence and new international relations – key demands of our times

Sovereignty, independence and new international relations – key demands of our times

Sovereignty, independence and new international relations – key demands of our times

Sovereignty, independence and new international relations – key demands of our times

Speech to the Seminar on the occasion of the 76th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea organized by the European Regional Society for the Study of the Juche Idea, the International Institute of the Juche Idea and the Korean Association of Social Scientists, and hosted by Bulgarian friends of Korea. Sofia, 9 September 2024.

Full text of the speech.

Some main points in the speech:

In the course of this speech, Keith Bennett presents a wide-ranging review of the progress of history in our times, showing that it fully confirms the profound analysis of our era made by Comrade Kim Il Sung.

The speech notes that countries such as Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and Venezuela have made the revolution and embarked on a socialist road imbued with their own national characteristics and sentiments. These countries also stand in the vanguard of the elaboration of a new type of international relations which has socialism at the core.

The speech addresses the current stage of the world peoples’ struggles for Sovereignty, independence and new international relations, noting that the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77 Plus China, ASEAN in south east Asia, the League of Arab States, the African Union, the Caribbean Community, CELAC, UNASUR and ALBA in Latin America, and many others, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS cooperation mechanism, now expanded to BRICS Plus, with nine members at present and around 40 other countries having expressed varying degrees of interest in joining, have China and Russia at their heart, and all these regional or global bodies enable the people of the world to engage in dialogue and address the key issues facing humanity, without the meddling and interference of US-led imperialism.

The speech addresses the events surrounding the Russian Federation’s Special Military Operation to demilitarize and denazify the puppet regime in Ukraine, noting that, very nearly unanimously, the countries of the Global South, having learned bitter lessons from imperialism’s wars of aggression in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere over recent decades, rejected and refused the anti-Russian policy of sanctions. Indeed, Russia’s standing in the Global South has reached and even surpassed the prestige it enjoyed in the days of the Soviet Union.

The speech notes the increasing isolation of the United States resulting from its blatant hypocrisy and double standards regarding the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, as seen in repeated votes in the United Nations, as well as in the recent recognition of the State of Palestine by such countries as Spain, Norway, Ireland and Slovenia.

The speech cites the standpoint of President Kim Il Sung calling on all those opposed to imperialism to unite; those who are less firm or vacillate in the struggle should be induced to become more positive in their standpoint, so that all anti-imperialist forces, whatever the level of their determination, can be united in the strongest possible anti-US united front. This remains, concludes the speech, a key, and completely correct, guideline for the struggle for sovereignty, independence and new international relations today, shining a light illuminating the path that humanity must follow towards a free and independent new world.

 

 

Text of the Speech.

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