Pinarayi Vijayan, Ramachandran Pillai: One party, two conflicting stands on China in Kerala

Inaugurating the party conference in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday, Vijayan, the Kerala Chief Minister, said socialist countries are making interventions in tune with the changed world order. In contrast to the Soviet era, these nations have adopted a stand after imbibing the changes in their environs.

Even as he lauded China’s declaration that the country has lifted its people out of poverty, Vijayan said, “They themselves have declared that they are being troubled by the issues of inequalities and corruption.”

Recalling the CPI(M) ideological resolution on China adopted in the party Congress held in Kozhikode in 2012, Vijayan said, “We had raised the criticism that as a socialist country China was not willing to adopt a proper stand against imperialist countries. Our stand on China remains the same now as well.”

Vijayan’s views came a day after Pillai said China has grown to the stature of questioning American imperialism.

Addressing the party district conference in Kottayam on Thursday, the senior leader said, “The astonishing progress China has made over the years is a continuum of the fight against imperialist forces. China has become powerful and is facing a global attack targeting its achievement of socialism. These anti-China campaigns are meant only to target the achievements of that country.”

“America has made several alliances to attack China and India is also part of such alliances. How many alliances are there against China? India, Japan, America, and Australia. But China has made links with 180 countries and has supplied Covid-19 vaccines to 116 countries free of cost,’’ he said.

Pillai said the CPI(M) is the target of the anti-China campaign in India. “China is facing a concerted attack because that country has gained more strength. In India, the only motive behind attacking China is to target our party and to raise sentiments against it. We would have to confront this conscious attempt of the rivals. In the past, we had faced it and in this modern era also we must encounter such attempts,” he said.

Pillai said the growth of China is a gain of socialism. “Recently, while observing 100 years of Communist Party, China has been declared a moderate prosperous country. In February last year, China declared that it had eradicated poverty. Now, China’s contribution in fighting global poverty is 70 per cent, whereas India constitutes 60 per cent of the impoverished people in the world.”

BJP state president K Surendran said the CPI(M) is blatantly doing spy work for China. “It is only a continuation of that party’s anti-national stand. The CPI(M) has become a party that supports all anti-national activities,” he said.