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For Immediate Release
August, 25 2008, 05:00pm EDT
Monday August, 25 2008, 05:00pm EDT
Contact:
Taruna Godric, 416-916-5202
smcommunications@therealnews.com
The Chinese Communist Party
Minqi Li Says It's Not About Ideology; It's About the Material Interests of the Elite
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - Professor, former political prisoner and political economist Minqi Li states there is a consensus in China's ruling elite and party leadership that the country should move ahead in terms of capitalist development, neo-liberalism, and globalization, as well as international development without challenging American hegemony.
Despite the efforts to address social conflicts under the new administration of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, Li states it has not changed the overall consensus. "By removing taxes on the peasants, by increasing some expenditures on rural healthcare and education, although by no means enough, in my opinion."
Li believes the leaders are keeping the future ambiguous, while continuing to pursue their own interests. "Maybe because after 1989 they were convinced capitalism was in fact superior to socialism, that may be part of the reason. And partly, so many things have changed in China, so it's no longer just about ideology; it's also about real material interests, I'm talking about the real material interests for the ruling elites themselves."
Although there has been mass resistance throughout the country and spontaneous protests from urban workers in rural areas against land privatization, Li says there is currently no unified public movement against neo-liberalism in China. "If China's social conflicts, environmental problems, economic problems continue to develop, and if China could not maintain its current record on growth 10 to 20 years from now, then these accumulated problems would be very serious by then."
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Health advocacy organization Defend Public Health said that it felt comfortable trashing the yet-to-be-released Kennedy report given that his previous report released earlier this year "fundamentally mischaracterized or ignored key issues in U.S. public health."
Instead, the group decided to release its own plan called "Improving the Health of Americans Together," which includes measures to ensure food safety, to improve Americans' ability to find times to exercise, and to ensure access to vaccines. The report also promotes expanding access to healthcare while taking a shot at the massive budget package passed by Republicans last month that cut an estimated $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade.
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Defend Public Health's report also directly condemns Kennedy's leadership as head of the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), as it labels him "an entirely destructive force and a major source of information" who "must be removed from office." Under Kennedy's leadership, Defend Public Health charged, the federal government "is now leading the spread of misinformation."
Elizabeth Jacobs, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizona and a founding member of Defend Public Health, explained her organization's rationale for getting out in front of Kennedy's report.
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In a historic letter, 123 doctors from around the world who've served in Gaza demand international action to stop the horrors their Palestinian colleagues & Palestinian people face.“We reject the violence of silence and supposed neutrality while our colleagues are starved and shot at by Israel.”
[image or embed]
— Prem Thakker ツ (@premthakker.bsky.social) August 13, 2025 at 8:14 AM
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The letter continues:
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"I will remind you again that we're dealing with a complicated, horrible situation," she told a reporter from Al Jazeera Arabic. "We refer you to Israel. Israel has released evidence al-Sharif was part of Hamas and was supportive of the Hamas attack on October 7. They're the ones who have the evidence."
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Ginsberg warned that even "our own journalism community" across the world has thus far failed reporters in Gaza—now the deadliest war for journalists that CPJ has ever documented—compared to how it has approached other conflicts.
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