On June 3rd 2021, the new book in English, China’s Great Road, by Senior Fellow of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China (RDCY), Mr. John Ross, was launched by The People’s Forum of New York. This book features ten articles by Mr. Ross, published between the years 2010 and 2021, all of which provide a clear analysis of China’s economic and foreign relations policies over the past decades.

The launch meeting was hosted by Layan Fuleihan, education director of the People's Forum and the co-editor of 1804 books. Speakers at the meeting by Zoom were Wang Wen, Professor and the Executive Dean of RDCY; John Ross, author of the book and Senior Fellow at RDCY; Radhika Desai, Professor at the Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada and Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group; Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and the Chief Editor of Left Word Books; Brian Becker, Director of the ANSWER Coalition, Founder of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and host of The Socialist Program.

Wang Wen, Executive Dean of RDCY, expressed his congratulations to John Ross on his new book. He said as the first former Western official to work full-time in a Chinese think tank, Mr. Ross has made important contributions to China's development and China's exchanges with the world, and he had an important influence in Chinese policy-making and academic circles and the international community. He agreed with Mr. Ross’s opinions in the book, that China's road has learned from the experience and lessons of the West, and also fully demonstrates China's unique wisdom and strengths. China needs more scholars like Mr. Ross to explore the road and the future again.

John Ross, author of the book, and Senior Fellow at RDCY, said life expectancy in China since the creation of the People’s Republic has increased by 30 years. In only 72 years, a single lifetime, China has gone from being almost the poorest country in the world to the brink of the high-income economy by international standards with all the educational needs, health, service, culture, and other steps forward this represents. But this will transform the world. At the present time, only 16 % of the world's population lives in high income economies. But China by itself is 18 % of the world's population. Therefore, China becoming a high-income economy will more than double the number of people living in such countries. China has, consequently, produced the greatest improvement in the conditions of life of the greatest proportion of humanity in the whole of human history. That is not rhetoric, it is just a simple statement of fact. After all, that's what socialism is about, improving the lives of people.

Radhika Desai, Professor at the Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba thought John Ross, is uniquely qualified to deal with this subject - namely communist China's growth record. He has consistently engaged with China and Chinese issues as can be seen in English from his blog Learning from China. John Ross also has a very deep engagement as an activist, as well as a scholar, with Marx and the Marxist tradition more broadly – including in China. She believed this was also important.

Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, said that this book is important because it makes a case against what he think is the rather facile approach which has existed for many decades in the West, particularly among left academics, of disparaging any experiment with socialism anywhere in the world. The important thing he pointed out was the idea of the ratio between volunteerism and determinism. When looking at the Chinese story, in telling the Chinese story, John Ross is attentive to the ratio between voluntarism and determinism. And that's the reason, he thought, John Ross’s approach both to the Mao era, and to China today, is so scrupulously accurate - because you look at the ratios in two different kinds of geopolitical international periods.

Brian Becker, Director of the ANSWER Coalition, expressed the view that the book is, first of all, the best antidote to the non-stop demonization of China by the so-called intellectuals and pundits who work in the service of the U.S government - which has now decided to make major power conflict, or major power competition, its focus. John Ross focused on the Marxist theory of the economic policies of the Chinese government, and of their implications for Marxist theory. This model, because it conforms to Marxist theory, thus functions and should function as a model for others. Brian believed that for a full understanding of the period of dynamic and spectacular economic growth by China in the last four decades, we should, in fact, pay close attention to the political conjuncture that produced it.

John Ross, a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China(RDCY).

Vijay Prashad is senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China(RDCY).

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