The Chinese journal Qiushi, the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee Bimonthly, has published in its third 2026 edition “Take the road of financial development with Chinese characteristics and build a financial power,” which as it says in an endnote “is an excerpt from General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech at the seminar on promoting high-quality financial development by major leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial levels on January 16, 2024,” which makes it two-years old. The obvious question is why now? The answer appears to be connected to the implementation of the 15th 5-Year Plan which is being rolled-out today as this report by Global Times documents. A salient fact about the self-described Marxists and Marxist-Leninists of the Soviet Union and China was revealed at the very end of a podcast featuring Michal Hudson and Vijay Prashad—Hudson:
I had spent a year of my life studying Marx’s theories of surplus value. At the beginning, only volume one was translated. Russia fought against its being translated, and the Communist Party actually destroyed the printer’s plates for volume two because it was so upsetting. Same thing in China. They’re not very happy at all to hear discussions of volumes two and three of Capital.
That prompted me to ask Dr. Hudson at his Patreon page if he would explain further. Here’s what he shared:
It's a long story. One dimension is that the Stalinists only focused on Vol. I: industrial employers exploit labor. The other is the confusion of Stalinists (incl Maurice Dobbs) between price and value. For China, they already kept money as a public utility. But they did not tax land or distinguish between economic rent (unearned income) and value, with Rent = Price - Value. They simply rejected Marxism as tainted by Stalinist bureaucracy and avoided studying Marx's Vol II and III since 1980 under Deng. Their universities give priority to Chinese students who have studied economics in the United States and simply have been neoliberalized.
So, we can conclude that the self-described Marxists weren’t very Marxist since they rejected Marx’s most important tracts. IMO, this revelation is very important for both historical and contemporary reasons. Dr. Hudson knows China well as he often taught courses there and has a series of them in video format. But exploring this isn’t the aim; rather, it’s purpose is to show what Xi prescribes is a hybrid that blends traditional Chinese philosophy with Marxist and other Western political-economic thought. It should also be noted that many elements of what follows are incorporated into China’s various Global Initiatives and into its developmental philosophy for the Belt & Road and also finds its way into bilateral trade agreements.
Another reason why Xi’s speech was delayed publication for two years is China’s own development, particularly its performance in winning the Trade War initiated by Trump in 2025 that saw its correct anticipation of Trump’s actions and the methods taken to avoid them while generating a record Yuan valuated amount of exports. Thus, there’s national self-confidence that allows China to present its vision of what constitutes a proper financial system:
