"Whether in the 1960s and 70s or today, ‘Chinamaxxing’, looking to China as a reference point and inspiration, and for answers to some of the greatest and most existential questions facing humanity, was not wrong then. And it is not wrong now." Keith Bennett, speaking on a Webinar organised by Friends of China.

In addressing a webinar organised by Friends of Socialist China on 12 April 2026 (see report below), Keith Bennett said:

“Today, we see the ever increasing and ever more visible inability of social democracy to represent working class interests in even a partial or degenerated way; decaying infrastructure, rising poverty and an increasingly vicious assault on democratic rights[3]; an utterly discredited, corrupt and venal ruling class, now aptly called the Epstein class, with its tentacles reaching from the White House to the royal family to the Labour Party; a looming climate catastrophe; the promised peace dividend with the end of Cold War I has become the ‘forever wars’ and Cold War II, and the nuclear clock ticks ominously closer to midnight.

“While an earlier generation of young people was moved to tears and roused to action by the pictures of a little Vietnamese girl running screaming down the road, her body aflame with napalm, today’s generation is similarly moved and roused by the genocide in Gaza and increasingly elsewhere in the West Asian region that is livestreamed 24/7 on their phones.

“Whether in the 1960s and 70s or today, young people in particular, in looking for explanations and alternatives, saw, and are increasingly starting to see, that China presents a different option. That a better world is not only necessary but possible. That it actually exists and is being built. Not without difficulties, mistakes and setbacks – the inevitable fellow travellers of all human endeavours – but in very real and concrete ways nevertheless.

“Whether in the 1960s and 70s or today, ‘Chinamaxxing’, looking to China as a reference point and inspiration, and for answers to some of the greatest and most existential questions facing humanity, was not wrong then. And it is not wrong now.”

 

Report on the Webinar from the website of Friends of Socialist China:

On Sunday 12 April, Friends of Socialist China hosted a webinar on the subject of Socialist Chinamaxxing: How China’s achievements are a product of socialism.

In spite of several years of intense propaganda and misinformation about China in the media, large numbers of young people in the West are going through “a very Chinese time in their lives”, not least because they are seeing China’s extraordinary achievements in poverty reduction, technological innovation, ecological protection, infrastructure development and more.

This webinar explored how these achievements are a product of China’s social, political and economic system: socialism. The speakers argued that China’s progress would simply not have been possible within a framework of capitalist rule, and that the country’s experience provides a powerful example of the superiority of socialism in terms of delivering for the people and for the planet.

The speakers were:

• Li Jingjing (Journalist and political commentator, CGTN)
• Tings Chak (Asia co-coordinator, Tricontinental Institute)
• George Galloway (Former MP, leader of Workers Party of Britain)
• Danny Haiphong (Geopolitical analyst and journalist)
• Ben Norton (Editor, Geopolitical Economy Report)
• Chen Weihua (Former China Daily EU bureau chief)
• Qiao Collective (Diaspora Chinese media collective)
• Ileana Chan (Host of the Global Majority for Peace podcast)
• Keith Bennett (Co-editor, Friends of Socialist China)
• Chair: Carlos Martinez (Co-editor, Friends of Socialist China)

Videos of all the contributions are available on

The full text of Keith Bennett’s talk is available here.