Mao Zedong

President Donald Trump arrives for a White House senior staff swearing in ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Better watch out, Vlad. When Western propaganda throws an “-ism” at you, the gloves have come off. Think Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, communism, socialism, extremism and “Islamic” terrorism, for starters. After all, behind the Great Western Firewall, they are all the same thing, right?

Punto Press, a small press dedicated to progressive titles, has published China Rising: Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations by Jeff J. Brown. The book is an effort to educate fellow Westerners about the realities of China and demolish the multiple layers of western disinformation and propaganda that demonize this nation with a 5000-year history.

We should go to the masses and learn from them, synthesize their experience into better, articulated principles and methods, then do propaganda among the masses, and call upon them to put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their problems and help them achieve liberation and happiness.
— Mao Zedong1 (p. 106)

I have been amazed by the rosy images so many Chinese youth hold of the West. Chinese Communist Party (CPC) officials are faced with an unenviable task. The CPC needs to provide jobs and a decent standard of living for the Chinese people, and these goals can come in conflict. The CPC has delivered in terms of improving the economy and pulling hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty. However, the environment has suffered as a consequence. The CPC does not hide this fact (it is after all pretty hard to hide air pollution and water pollution) and publishes regular air quality reports.

The rise of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the late 1960s signified a monumental step toward the development of self-determination in the United States.