Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, em viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas.
O que é este blog?
Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida.
segunda-feira, 3 de fevereiro de 2025
Nunca houve nada parecido com o Holocausto em toda a história mundial - Registros em francês
Trade: How Free is Too Free? History of US Trade Policy with Douglas Irwin - China Talk
250 years of US trade policy
JORDAN SCHNEIDER, TEDDY KIM, AND LILY OTTINGER
CHINA TALK, FEB 3
As Trump throws 10% tariffs on China and 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, it’s worth reflecting back on the long scope of America and trade.
Back in 2019, back when this humble substack was still called ChinaEconTalk, we interviewed the dean of US trade history Doug Irwinabout his magisterial Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy.
In this interview, we discuss:
· A historical tour through 250 years of American trade policy;
· Parallels throughout US trade history to recent policy;
· The evolution of GATT and the WTO;
· Whether tariffs now are likely to have the intended effect;
· The three R’s of tariffs: revenue, restriction, and reciprocity.
Read here:
Maria da Conceição Tavares (1930-2024) Um patrimônio nacional do Brasil - Daniel Afonso da Silva
Maria da Conceição Tavares (1930-2024)
Um patrimônio nacional do Brasil
A morte de Maria da Conceição Tavares no 8 de junho de 2024 não passou despercebida no Brasil. E por uma razão simples: a sua vida inteira também não passou despercebida.
Ela foi isso que os franceses chamam de intelectual. No sentido mais profundo da expressão. Uma pessoa engajada, moral e espiritualmente, com as epopeias nacionais e internacionais de seu tempo. Uma personalidade que, pela sua inteligência e pelo seu empenho, tornou-se referência incontornável da intelligentsia brasileira. Sendo uma das primeiras mulheres a adentrar os jardins intranquilos da Economia, da Política e do political decision making process e ficar. Ficar em pé. Seguir relevante. Sem jamais se vender.
Uma hagiologia completa da mestre imporia lembrar que ela nasceu em Portugal no ano de 1930. Ficou por lá até concluir uma primeira formação, em Matemática, em 1953. E, em seguida, singrou para o Brasil em 1954.
O seu pai era marchand de importação e exportação de vinhos. Instalou-se no Rio de Janeiro, ainda a capital do país. Mas não tardou edificar uma fábrica de cervejas no Paraná, estado mais ao sul. Enquanto isso, Conceição Tavares, casada desde 1952, permaneceu no Rio de Janeiro com a família e em 1955 ingressou no Instituto Nacional de Imigração e Colonização (INIC) como analista estatística. Em 1957, naturalizou-se brasileira e, no ano seguinte, ingressou no Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico (BNDE), na função de analista matemática, que exerceu até 1960, quando concluiu a formação em Economia e ingressou na Comissão Econômica para a América Latina e o Caribe (CEPAL). Na CEPAL, agência das Nações Unidas nas Américas, ela permaneceu de 1961 a 1974, quando fincou raízes na universidade brasileira.
Ela já era professora da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Mas, de retorno do Chile, sede da CEPAL, ao Brasil, veio para São Paulo ajudar a consolidar a Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) e fundar o curso de Pós-Graduação em Economia. Doutorou-se, ela própria, na UFRJ em 1975 e, em 1978, tornou-se professor titular de Macroeconomia, sucedendo o importante economista Octávio Gouveia de Bulhões (1906-1990).
Vivia-se, no Brasil, o regime militar desde 1964. Um momento – para dizer o mínimo – controverso. Onde existia privações de liberdades por um lado e sucesso econômico por outro. A performance da economia brasileira do período chegou a dois dígitos, com um crescimento econômico que, portanto, ultrapassou os 10% ao ano. A euforia foi espetacular. Notadamente sob a presidência do general Médici. Tanto que se convencionou chamar o momento de “milagre brasileiro”. Mas Conceição Tavares não localizou nada de milagre. Muito pelo contrário . Por princípio, Conceição Tavares sempre se enquadrou à esquerda. E, portanto, hipertrofiava a sua percepção ao encontro das iniquidades sociais, que o dito “milagre econômico” não estava sendo capaz de aplacar. Diante disso, eram imensas e frontais as suas restrições ao encontro do mainstreameconômico do período. E, devido a isso, ela seria presa, maltratada, desrespeitada, desconsiderada, humilhada e ultrajada pelo regime militar.
Mas, a partir do início da abertura “lenta, gradual e segura” ensejada pela presidência do general Ernesto Geisel, ela passou a se situar às voltas com o Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB) que se opunha à Aliança Renovadora Nacional (ARENA), partido dos militares – vale lembrar que, sob o regime militar brasileiro, suprimiam-se os partidos permitindo a atuação apenas do MDB e do ARENA.
As presidenciais de 1973 fizeram emergir uma personagem decisiva para a reabilitação política do Brasil de nome Ulysses Guimarães (1916-1992). Naquele pleito, ele apresentou uma candidatura de protesto contra o candidato militar, que era o general Geisel. Ulysses, por óbvio, perdeu. Mas abriu caminho para a ampliação da capilaridade do MDB no imaginário dos brasileiros. De maneira que as eleições para o Senado no ano seguinte, em 1974, permitiram um avanço considerável da legenda no Parlamento assim como o pleito municipal de 1976 fez avançar consideravelmente a representação democrática nas prefeituras e na vereança. Conceição Tavares vendo tudo isso, não resistiu: ingressou no partido e se transformou em um de seus expoentes a partir de 1980.
E, assim, desde dentro da engrenagem e de modo privilegiado, acompanhou os principais momentos da vida nacional brasileira. Das Diretas Já! – movimento em reivindicação do retorno de eleições diretas para o cargo máximo da nação, vez que as eleições eram todas indiretas desde a inauguração do regime militar – à eleição indireta do presidente Tancredo de Almeida Neves, primeiro civil alçado ao poder magnânimo depois de 1964. Da presidência de José Sarney – devido à morte do presidente Tancredo – à Assembleia Constituinte à Constituição Cidadã de 1988 à eleição do presidente Fernando Collor de Mello em 1989 aos planos econômicos dramaticamente fracassados ao impeachment de 1992 à afirmação do Plano Real – plano de estabilização econômica – sob a presidência de Itamar Franco.
Uma experiência, inequivocamente, rica. Que levaria Conceição Tavares a migrar do, agora, Partido Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB) para o Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) – vale, singelamente, lembrar que o sistema partidário brasileiro foi recomposto a partir de 1980 quando se permitiu a pluralização das agremiações políticas no país com a mutação de MDB em PMDB e com o surgimento outras tendências como o PT.
No PT, em 1994, tornou-se deputada federal e exerceu o cargo na legislatura de 1995-1999. Foi, como sempre, combativa, responsiva, contundente e genial.
Saiu da política e, em certa medida, da vida pública em seguida. Viu – ajudou e cooperou para – a ascensão de Lula da Silva à presidência da República em 2003. Acompanhou – e indicou muita gente – a organização do governo. Frustrou-se, como todos, com o dito escândalo do Mensalão em 2005. Discutiu caminhos para a contenção e superação da crise financeira mundial de 2008. Observou a indicação e aceitação de sua antiga aluna, Dilma Vana Rousseff, para a presidência da República em sucessão do presidente Lula da Silva.
Ficou, como muitos, perplexa com o arranjo desenvolvimentista, sob a Nova Matriz Econômica, ensejado em 2011-2016. Chocou-se com os protestos de junho de 2013. Não foi insensível à inegável brutalização da totalidade das relações sociais no Brasil – e, especialmente, a política – no torvelinho desse período. Foi combativa em oposição movimento de impeachment de 2016. Seguiu embasbacada à deriva brasileira doravante. Conteve-se, elegantemente muito, quem sabe, pela idade, durante a presidência de Jair Messias Bolsonaro, 2019-2022. Sondou sem ilusões o retorno do presidente Lula da Silva ao poder em 2023. E preferiu se privar de comentar os movimentos dessa nova aventura política brasileira.
A sua morte em inícios de junho de 2024 deixou um vazio imenso na vida nacional brasileira. Sem Conceição Tavares, o país parece ficar menos circunspecto e, quem sabe, até menos digno. Conceição Tavares nunca saiu das trincheiras. A sua vida inteira foi de luta. Luta contra as injustiças e luta por um Brasil bonito e bom.
Durma em paz, mestre!
Muito obrigado.
Daniel Afonso da Silva
The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future, by Chun Han Wong - Book review by Benjamin Tze Ern Ho (H-Net Reviews)
H-Net Reviews
Wong, Chun Han. Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future. : Avid Reader Press, 2023. xvi + 395 pp. $20.99 (paper), ISBN 9781982185749.$30.00 (cloth), ISBN 9781982185732.
Reviewed by Benjamin Tze Ern Ho (Nanyang Technological University)
Published on H-Diplo (February, 2025)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)
Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=61176
Among contemporary China watchers, there is a view that President Xi Jinping—in more than a decade of ruling China—has refashioned and remodeled the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s political landscape into his own image. A case in point can be seen in the emphasis in recent years (particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic) on national security concerns instead of economic development, consequently affecting China’s relations with the rest of the world (particularly the West and the United States, which Beijing views as having designs on undermining its national security). Not surprising, scholars have attempted to divine what Xi’s worldview might be and how his thinking has shaped China’s foreign policy practices. Some notable works in recent years include Kerry Brown’s Xi Jinping: A Study in Power (2022), Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung’s The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (2023), and Kevin Rudd’s On Xi Jinping: How Xi's Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World (2024).
While these widely acclaimed books have provided good clues and insights into the thought forms and political world that Xi inhabits, their analyses tend to focus on specific aspects of Xi, such as his personality (Brown and Rudd) and his political ideas (Tsang and Cheung). Chun Han Wong’s Party of One moves the needle on the study of Xi in a decisive manner, in this case, attempting to connect Xi’s ability to effect real changes in China’s sociopolitical space through his executive power vis-à-vis the CCP. Among Chinese scholars, there is an acknowledgment that the CCP is not monolithically defined and that there exists a variety of views, factions, and ideological positions within the party. That said, I argue that under Xi, these factions are rendered powerless or irrelevant unless they happen to square with his own personal views. To evidence this, Wong uses his years of experience as a Wall Street Journal reporter who honed his craft in China. He provides us with a multilayered and multi-textured portrayal of Xi and illustrates how the CCP and China have been thoroughly “Xi-nicized” as Xi has stamped his influence not only within the party but also on the broader Chinese society.
To make sense of Chinese politics these days, one way is to recognize that the CCP sits on top of Chinese society and Xi sits on top of the CCP. By marrying Marxist-Leninist principles of control with a veneer of Chinese traditional thought (taken from the repertoire of Confucian and Legalist ideas), Xi has managed to exert and extend his control of the party and society in ways unimaginable since Mao Zedong—thus making him the paramount leader of modern China today. This is where Wong’s investigation and analysis in writing this book helps his work stand out from other comparable works. By telling the stories of the ordinary Chinese and Chinese officials, Wong is able to weave a compelling narrative of how Xi’s leadership has been decisive in spreading the widespread changes we see today in Chinese society. The common Chinese saying “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away” is sometimes used to lend credence to the belief that many local officials often disregard the wishes of the central authorities in Beijing, especially if these instructions run up against their own local priorities. Reading the Party of One, one comes away with a slightly different take in that “heaven may be high, but the emperor is not far away.” In other words, Xi’s influence is total and his political tentacles and reach go very far. As Wong observes in his analysis of how the party has exacted control over its own cadres (wherever they may be), “the leadership keeps tabs on elite party families through informants within their staff—scrutiny that dissuades many princelings and retired elders from criticizing Xi” (p. 73).
The focus on the mark Xi has made on the party is the strongest and most compelling aspect of the book. All eight chapters are single-mindedly focused on one outcome of Xi’s rule: the party. As I have observed elsewhere, Xi’s derivation of power and influence is intrinsically linked to his preeminence and position in the party.[1] To use a J. K. Rowling analogy from the Harry Potter books, Xi and the party have made “horcruxes” of one another.[2] Without the party with which to execute his wishes and commands, Xi would just be another Chinese citizen (out of the 1.3 billion citizens) or political official (with political ambitions but without the political platform to implement his ideas). Likewise, without a unifying figurehead in the person of Xi, the party would inevitably be consigned to factional struggles and internal competition, and in the worst case it would suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union some three and a half decades ago.
Xi has worked to ensure that party survival is contingent on the party being obedient—even subservient—to his wishes, while his ability to stay in power depends on his mastery of the party and his use of the party apparatus to achieve his own political goals. Unlike Mao who viewed himself as above the party, Xi’s fortunes are wholly linked to his place and position within the party. Wong thus tells the story of Xi’s power and influence within the party, from invoking anti-corruption measures (as of this writing, its defense minister Dong Jun is under investigation for corruption, suffering the same fate as his two predecessors), to writing the rules of governance, rejiggling the economy, and projecting its influence globally. While most of these observations and insights will not be new to seasoned Chinese watchers, Wong does an excellent job unpacking and putting on paper what has hitherto only been discussed or speculated about. His wide contacts of sources within China (intellectuals, dissidents, ordinary citizens) allow him to connect the dots in the Chinese political space and to conclude that “Xi’s efforts [in maintaining domestic stability] have yielded a nonpareil system of social control” (p. 92). By allowing his contacts to tell their stories where possible, Wong provides us with a kaleidoscope of narratives testifying to the overarching narrative: Xi’s words are law, what he says becomes policy.
Since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and opening up in the late 1970s, China has prided itself on wanting to be open to the outside world so as to ensure economic growth. Even during the Tiananmen period of the late 1980s, where relations between China and the West witnessed a downturn, Beijing’s purge of liberal-minded colleagues was only short-lived as Deng himself embarked on his southern tour in 1992. This was followed by Jiang Zemin’s declaration that China aimed to build a socialist market economy, enshrining Deng’s path as official orthodoxy. All these have seemed to change under Xi; the party—not the market—reigns supreme. As Wong puts it, what is happening to China today is an economic “hybrid system that combines central planning with market mechanisms, where state and private enterprises act in concert to advance the party’s economic agenda” (p. 131, emphasis added). In other words, what is ultimately important to Xi is not economic efficiency (in which market forces play their role for better or worse) but the party’s benefits as a result of economic policies. The longevity of the party, not the health of the Chinese economy, is ultimately of key importance. A more vivid example would be the extended lockdown by Chinese government during the coronavirus pandemic in which Beijing did not open up almost a full year after many countries started to open their economies and to live with the virus as being endemic. As a result of the draconian measures taken during the pandemic, the Chinese economy tanked and Beijing today is still trying to recover from the economic damage.[3]
Given the above, one may think that Xi’s godlike status within Chinese society will be eternally secure or that there are no areas of weaknesses in Xi’s political armor. This is not the case, and this is where I think Wong’s portrayal of Xi—as being essentially unchallenged from both within and without—is not quite as clear-cut as the Party of One suggests based on my reading. To be fair, Wong in the conclusion makes the correct observation that “Xi’s China is brash but brittle, intrepid yet insecure” (p. 280); however, Wong does not go so far as to quite point out the chinks within the party, unlike other public intellectuals, like Singapore’s Bilahari Kausikan who talks about Xi as being a “single point of failure within the CCP system.”[4] In other words, by arrogating power to himself, Xi is creating a system that is ripe for disaster, especially when things turn sour. The lack of decentralized decision-making power means potential paralysis in decision-making. By second-guessing what Xi likes, rather than what he needs, Chinese officials and policymakers have little agency to “speak truth to power” and instead end up parroting official Chinese-speech. As evidenced by the coronavirus pandemic, Chinese officials in Wuhan were slow to act as they could not make any meaningful decisions until permission was given from the top in the early stages of the pandemic back in January 2020. Likewise, the recent purge of senior officials at the highest echelons of China’s political office, such as its former foreign minister Qin Gang and three defense ministers, suggests a level of incongruence between decision-makers at the top (including Xi) and the information they are given to make decisions (why weren’t these problems spotted and highlighted earlier?).
Seen this way, the problems within the Chinese political system should not be viewed in isolation and as having no bearing to the broader structure that has enabled the existence and even permissiveness of these problems. As William Shakespeare puts it in Hamlet, “there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” One would hope that in sitting at the apex of power in the Chinese political system, Xi’s philosophy of the world would be sufficiently enlightened to recognize that in his party of one, the buck stops with him.
Notes
[1]. Benjamin Ho, “Why Xi Jinping Cannot Back Down on Coronavirus,” National Interest, June 4, 2022.
[2]. In the Harry Potter books, a horcrux is an object in which a dark wizard or a witch had hidden a detached fragment of their soul in order to become immortal or invincible.
[3]. “China Posts Record Deficit in 2022 on Covid Zero, Property Slump,” Business Times, January 30, 2023, https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/china-posts-record-deficit-2022-covid-zero-property-slump; and Sun Yu and Yuan Yang, “Why China’s Economic Recovery from Coronavirus Is Widening the Wealth Gap,” Financial Times, August 18, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/e0e2940a-17cb-40ed-8d27-3722c9349a5d.
[4]. Bilahari Kausikan, “Address by Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan at the Third Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture,” Ministry of External Affiars, Government of India, Media Center, January 23, 2023, https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/36142/Address_by_Ambassador_Bilahari_Kausikan_at_the_third_Atal_Bihari_Vajpayee_Memorial_Lecture_January_23_2023.
Benjamin Tze Ern Ho is an assistant professor in the China Programme, Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He specializes in the study of Chinese international relations and Asian comparative political order.
Citation: Benjamin Tze Ern Ho. Review of Wong, Chun Han. Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. February, 2025.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=61176
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Entenda como o Brasil e os outros Brics querem evitar o dólar nas transações - Camila Pati (Revista Veja)
Entenda como o Brasil e os outros Brics querem evitar o dólar nas transações
A ideia de criação de uma alternativa à moeda norte-americana enfureceu o presidente dos estados Unidos que, mais uma vez, ameaça impor barreiras tarifárias
Por Camila Pati
Veja, 2/02/2025
A ameaça do presidente dos Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, de taxar 100% dos produtos dos Brics caso os países membros do bloco passem a utilizar uma moeda comum alternativa ao dólar para as transações reacendeu um debate que teve início em 2023.
Tradicionalmente o dólar é a moeda utilizada nas transações comerciais entre os países membros do Brics, o grupo formado por Brasil, Rússia, Índia, China e África do Sul e que recebeu outros países nos últimos anos: Egito, Etiópia, Irã, Emirados Árabes Unidos e a Indonésia.
No mundo, 58% dos pagamentos internacionais, excluindo aqueles dentro da área do euro, utilizam o dólar, e 54% das faturas de comércio exterior são denominadas na moeda americana, segundo os dados do Brookings Institution de 2022.
No entanto, a ideia de criação de uma alternativa à moeda que tem dominado o comércio internacional desde o século passado, ganhou força em agosto de 2023 depois que a Rússia começou a propor mudanças nos pagamentos feitos a partir de transações comerciais entre os membros do bloco.
Isso porque os bancos russos foram excluídos do sistema SWIFT, que promove a comunicação entre bancos e outras instituições financeiras, como parte das sanções internacionais após a invasão da Ucrânia. O SWIFT permite que as transações internacionais sejam realizadas de forma segura, rápida e padronizada.
Uma das propostas dos russos é utilizar tokens. A Rússia propõe o uso de tecnologia de registro distribuído (DLT) ou uma plataforma multinacional para transações com tokens, destacando a eliminação do risco de crédito associado ao sistema bancário tradicional. Os argumentos são de que o uso dessa tecnologia agiliza e reduz custos, eliminando intermediários e verificações de conformidade. o que poderia gerar uma economia de até US$ 15 bilhões anuais para os países do Brics, caso metade das transações entre os membros do bloco fosse feita via DLT.
A ideia de substituir o dólar é apoiada pela China. Mas o país busca fortalecer a própria moeda e tem promovido o uso do yuan nas transações comerciais. Já o presidente Lula tem se posicionado em defesa de um sistema financeiro menos atrelado ao dólar. Em discurso por videoconferência durante reunião na cúpula dos Brics em Kazan, na Rússia, em outubro do ano passado, Lula defendeu novamente que o bloco avance nas discussões sobre o uso de uma moeda comum nas transações entre os países do bloco.
“Agora é chegada a hora de avançar na criação de meios de pagamento alternativos para transações entre nossos países. Não se trata de substituir nossas moedas, mas é preciso trabalhar para que a ordem multipolar que almejamos se reflita no sistema financeiro internacional. Donald Trump reagiu logo após vencer as eleições ameaçando tarifas de 100% contra países que apoiarem uma nova moeda do Brics e reiterou a ameaça nesta semana. Na prática,atéagoraodólarsemantémforte,apesardosesforçosdoBrics para reduzir a dependência da moeda.
domingo, 2 de fevereiro de 2025
Restauração do velho Palácio do Itamaraty no Rio de Janeiro - Instituto Pedra
https://youtu.be/VQVh1RYDqQQ?si=7MaP2jol7FZFgH5L
O complexo do Palácio Itamaraty, no Rio de Janeiro, é um dos maiores tesouros da história cultural e diplomática do Brasil. O local foi a sede do Ministério das Relações Exteriores entre 1899 e 1970, antes da sua mudança para Brasília, e é composto por cinco edifícios: o palácio – que abriga o Museu Histórico e Diplomático –, o edifício da biblioteca, mapoteca e arquivo, o Ererio – onde está o escritório de representação diplomática e serviços consulares –, o edifício das cavalariças e, por fim, o edifício Niterói, que atualmente se encontra desocupado. Os prédios estão organizados em torno de um lago, formando uma praça interna.
O Instituto Pedra coordena os trabalhos de restauração e readequação do espaço e museologia do acervo, além da implantação de um plano de gestão. O projeto é viabilizado por meio da Lei Rouanet e convênios com Itaipu Binacional, além de apoio de BNDES, Instituto Cultural Vale, Emendas Parlamentares e Prefeitura Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. A realização é do Ministério das Relações Exteriores, por meio do Escritório de Representação do Ministério das Relações Exteriores do Rio de Janeiro, e do Ministério da Cultura.
═ ═
O Instituto Pedra é uma organização da sociedade civil sem fins lucrativos que desenvolve ações no campo do patrimônio cultural. Conheça com mais detalhes o nosso trabalho:
👉 Site: http://institutopedra....
👉 Instagram:  / institutopedra
👉 Facebook:  / institutopedra
👉 LinkedIn:  / instituto-pedra
O 8 de janeiro e a questão militar - Hamilton Garcia de Lima
O 8 de janeiro e a questão militar
Hamilton Garcia de Lima
sábado, 1 de fevereiro de 2025
A jovem democracia brasileira segue seu curso, em seu ciclo mais extenso e profundo sob a República, sem se animar a sanar os graves problemas que a acometem desde 1985 (vide A crise e suas raízes). Seguindo assim, continuaremos suscetíveis a ameaças políticas como a representada pelo bolsonarismo.
A bem da verdade, o malogro do golpismo bolsonarista se deveu mais à inconsistência de seus estrategos (vide A viagem redonda – de volta à política de vetos) do que a qualquer propalada fortaleza institucional. Quem conhece nossa história republicana sabe que intervenções militares exitosas só se produzem quando em conexão com amplos movimentos sociais extra-caserna. A tentativa de Bolsonaro de se manter no poder passou longe disso.
Forjado no âmbito do centrão como líder corporativo (militar), sem ter estudado a história, Bolsonaro imaginou que a mera mobilização do “soldado-cidadão”, à moda da República da Espada (Governo Deodoro-Floriano, 1889-1894), junto com o toma-lá dá cá da Nova República, seria suficiente para pavimentar seu projeto autoritário. Não foi.
Um breve olhar sobre a Questão Militar do século retrasado nos ajuda a entender tanto o apelo anti-sistema do militarismo em pleno s.XXI, como também sua impotência política. A Questão Militar emerge em 1886 ecoando a consciência de si adquirida pelos militares depois de cinco anos de encarniçada luta do exército regular e dos corpos de voluntários na Guerra do Paraguai (1864-1870). Na ocasião, a governança aristocrática sobre o Exército e a Marinha foi posta à prova, sobretudo no primeiro caso, em função das péssimas condições das forças, desprovidas de materiais e recursos humanos apropriados, além de uma estrutura de apoio capaz de sustentar um conflito daquela magnitude. Em consequência, os militares passaram a perseguir, nos anos seguintes, tanto o reaparelhamento como o adequado treinamento das Forças, além do reconhecimento político e social de sua importância para o país.
Nenhum desses objetivos foi encampado pelo regime imperial, que passou a temer a consciência recém-assumida em combate pelos militares como prenúncio de contestações violentas à ordem escravista vigente. Ao contrário, operaram de modo rápido e descompromissado a desmobilização/fragmentação das unidades combatentes, o que foi percebido pelos oficiais como um menosprezo aos valores e méritos militares.
Desde então, uma série de crises foram colocando lenha no descontentamento do setor, como a da contribuição militar ao montepio (1883), da adesão pública à causa abolicionista (1884) e da autonomia administrativa para inspeção/punição militar (1885), esta última desencadeando uma série de artigos na imprensa que culminou com a proibição de manifestação pública dos militares e punições disciplinares em série (1886) que dariam ensejo à movimentação cívico-militar que culminaria com a fundação do Clube Militar no Rio de Janeiro (1887).
A dimensão da crise militar ficou plasmada nas metas do Clube, que previam não só estreitar os laços de união e solidariedade entre os oficiais do Exército e da Marinha, e defender seus interesses e direitos, como incentivar manifestações cívicas e patrióticas em prol da honra nacional e da dignidade militar. Ato contínuo, o Clube reitera a posição anti-escravista dos militares enviando à Princesa Isabel uma petição contra o engajamento de soldados em operações de captura de escravos. O documento defendia, em tom eloquente, que a liberdade era um valor supremo para os militares e tal designação era incompatível com a missão do Exército e a dignidade do Império.
Todas estas tensões, como sabemos, desaguaram no golpe contra a monarquia (1889) liderado pelo Marechal Deodoro, sob influência do Coronel Benjamin Constant, com o apoio de republicanos civis como Rui Barbosa, Aristides Lobo e Quintino Bocaiúva. Tinha início o ciclo de intervenções cívico-militares que marcariam todo o s.XX.
Refletindo sobre a necessidade da arbitragem militar para a proclamação da República, o monarquista Joaquim Nabuco afirmou de maneira premonitória:
“A República precisa do militarismo como o corpo humano precisa de calor; a questão é tê-lo no grau fisiológico (…). Ter o Exército como força ativa é tê-lo demais, tirar ao Exército todo o caráter político, é tê-lo de menos; a temperatura exata, seria tê-lo como força política de reserva – o que é (…) uma espécie de quadratura de círculo”[i].
A percepção liberal oitocentista de Nabuco foi reiterada, meio século depois, pela novecentista de Raymundo Faoro, que sustentava que, “para a propaganda reacionária, o Brasil (…) seria o prisioneiro (…) (d)os ‘bacharéis de espada’”. A tese expressa por Faoro, em 1958, era que “o afastamento total do Exército da política equivaleria a consagrar o imobilismo oligárquico do regime (…) com a fachada política dos governadores”, concluindo que “a força armada será, por muitos anos, o elo último de intermediação entre o país submisso e a ordem universal em movimento”.
Àquela altura, Faoro constatava que o intervencionismo militar, que trazia vários inconvenientes, como a politização da caserna – que implicava, no limite, no direito de insubordinação militar contra seus superiores – e a militarização da política, estava limitado pela incapacidade militar de governar como ditadura sem o apoio da sociedade e dos partidos regionais (de fato, embora não de direito) – hoje poderíamos sustentar a mesma tese substituindo os partidos pelas lideranças majoritárias no Congresso Nacional.
Foi precisamente esta limitação do poder militar que a Doutrina Góis Monteiro, a partir de 1930, trouxe à baila, determinando todas as intervenções posteriores em termos de suas chances de sucesso ou de fracasso. E foi a ignorância desta lei de bronze do intervencionismo militar que fez com que os linha-dura da caserna fossem reiteradamente derrotados até 1964. Mau aluno que é de História, Bolsonaro ignorou a lição e apostou todas suas fichas na agitação de ruas e estradas, sob o “ideário” de uma hipótese (adulteração das urnas eletrônicas), e na cooptação do oficialato, ignorando que a forte presença militar nos governos dos primeiros anos republicanos (1889-1891) não bastou para a manutenção do poder, e que, mesmo nesse período, o protagonismo dos chefes militares estava baseado não em ambições pessoais, mas nos “interesses nacionais e patrióticos”.
Tivemos sorte que a liderança autoritária tinha esse perfil. Mas, devemos colocar nossas barbas de molho, pois, sem as reformas que precisamos para dar maior solidez à democracia – inclusive a reforma moral-intelectual (de todos) –, continuaremos a contar com sorte.
*Hamilton Garcia de Lima (Cientista Político, UENF/DR[ii])
[i] Citado por Raimundo Faoro, Os Donos do Poder: formação do patronato político brasileiro (vol.2); ed. Publifolha/SP-2000.
[ii] Universidade Estadual do Norte-Fluminense/Darcy Ribeiro.
Christian Lynch: Fundações do Pensamento Político Brasileiro: a construção intelectual do Estado no Brasil - Felipe Freller (FSP)
Hu Yaobang e o começo das reformas na China: Book: Robert Suettinger, The Conscience of the Party: Hu Yaobang, China’s Communist Reformer - Chen Jian (Foreign Affairs)
Review Essay
The Man Who Almost Changed China
Hu Yaobang and the Unfinished Business of Reform and Opening
Chen Jian
Foreign Affairs - January/February 2025
CHEN JIAN is Director of the Center on Global History, Economy, and Culture at New York University–Shanghai and East China Normal University and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the author of Zhou Enlai: A Life.
One of the most consequential events of the twentieth century was China’s historic turn, in the years after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, toward a sweeping program of reform. By relaxing the state’s grip on the economy and its control over society in this period, Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader from 1978 to 1989, helped put in motion the forces that would in mere decades pull hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty, transform China into the workshop of the world, and set it up as a great power in the twenty-first century—the only plausible rival to the United States. Although Deng led this process, he was aided at the time by the advice and work of a less heralded leader, Hu Yaobang.
Hu does not enjoy the broad name recognition of Mao, Deng, and the leading Mao-era statesman Zhou Enlai. Even in China, many people who came of age after 1989 know little about him. But as the international relations scholar Robert Suettinger shows in The Conscience of the Party: Hu Yaobang, China’s Communist Reformer, Hu was an essential figure in the grand process of “reform and opening.” Leading up to and during his tenure as chairman (and then general secretary) of the Chinese Communist Party from 1981 to 1987, he worked to shatter the ideological hold that Maoism had over Chinese politics, restoring the rights of millions of people purged during the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976, and striving to ensure that the imperatives of reform prevailed in Chinese policymaking. Hu’s commitment to political reform, however, led to his downfall, after a rift with Deng forced him out as CCP general secretary in January 1987. But he was still regarded by ordinary Chinese—as well as intellectuals and young students—as the champion of China’s political democratization.
Hu died suddenly of a heart attack in April 1989, and his passing would spur the fateful occupation of Tiananmen Square in Beijing by pro-democracy protesters and similar demonstrations across the country. After seven weeks, Deng had the protests quashed ruthlessly, in the process foreclosing the political democratization that Hu had hoped for. Hu’s key insight was that economic growth was not enough to power the Chinese state; without the legitimacy afforded by political reform and democratization, China would experience turbulence in its modernization and development. Chinese leaders may believe they have found a way to break that connection, but there is good reason to think that Hu will be proved right—and that ultimately, as they deal with a faltering economy and mounting discontent, they will have no choice but to confront Hu’s warning.
THE IDEALIST
Suettinger’s biography is a pathbreaking account of Hu, prodigiously and thoughtfully exploring what kind of person he was and how he emerged as a leader with reformist aspirations in a world of apparatchiks. It is the first full-dress biography of Hu in English. But Suettinger, a former national intelligence officer in the Clinton administration and a longtime scholar of China, isn’t the first American academic to have attempted such a work. The social scientist Ezra Vogel died, in 2020, before he had finished his own biography of Hu, a volume he intended as a sequel of sorts to Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, his much-acclaimed 2011 biography of Deng. The two leaders are something of a pair; their fortunes rose and fell together during the tumultuous decades of Mao’s rule before they both came to power after Mao’s death. Hu’s legacy would be defined in large part by his eventual rift with Deng, one that embodied their different visions of reform.
To draw a full picture of Hu’s life is no easy task. The most apparent and seemingly insurmountable barrier to any biographer is lack of access to archival and other primary sources, which in Hu’s case remain largely inaccessible to both Chinese and Western researchers. Suettinger spent nearly a decade finding sources and interviewing contemporaries, and in so doing managed to dig deeply into Hu’s life in ways no Western scholar has done before. The result is a remarkably nuanced work that not only depicts Hu as a courageous and thoughtful reformist leader but also illuminates an important turning point in China’s recent history.
Hu was an idealist, an honest, sincere, and candid man, as described by many who knew him and worked with him. He was born in 1915 into a poor but educated peasant family in Hunan Province. With the support of his parents, he received a good early education, albeit in tough circumstances; for several years, he had to walk 12 miles of rugged mountainous trails every day to school. At the age of 14, he joined the Communist Youth League, the youth wing of the CCP, and joined the fight. The fact that he was educated, combined with his dedication to the revolution and enthusiasm for work, helped him rise quickly through the ranks of the Red Army (which would later become the People’s Liberation Army) and the CCP. He survived the harrowing and legendary Long March—the Red Army’s retreat between 1934 and 1935 to the interior of the country—that would only further bolster his Communist credentials. By the time the CCP took over China in 1949, Hu had become the youngest army corps political commissar in the military.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. In 1932, as part of a campaign to suppress supposed “reactionaries” in their midst, Mao’s agents accused him of being an enemy agent without any evidence; he escaped the death penalty only through the last-minute intervention of two Youth League inspectors who knew him to be a loyal comrade. In the early 1940s, during a campaign launched by Mao to consolidate his dominance over the party, Hu and other CCP members had to go through the mental torture of endless self-criticism. Such ordeals, as Suettinger points out, sowed in Hu the seed of doubt about Maoism and its propensity for brutally trying to control how people think and behave.
Hu’s key insight was that economic growth was not enough to power China.
Hu nevertheless remained deeply loyal to the CCP after the Communists drove the Nationalists to Taiwan and founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949. He soon had the opportunity to work with Deng. From 1950 to 1952, Hu was the local CCP secretary in northern Sichuan Province, reporting directly to Deng, who was then the CCP’s head in Sichuan. Hu flushed out the remnants of the Nationalist forces in the area, restored order in the wake of the civil war, carried out land reform, and promoted agricultural and industrial production. His outstanding track record and devotion to work won him Deng’s admiration. Their accomplishments also earned them the attention of the grandees in Beijing.
By 1953, together with Deng, Hu was elevated to the national stage and transferred to Beijing to take up the position of secretary and then first secretary of the Communist Youth League. But in that post, Hu was involved in a series of disastrous Maoist endeavors, including the Anti-Rightist Movement, a political campaign that sought to purge alleged dissidents among the ranks of intellectuals; the Great Leap Forward, the economic and social drive beginning in 1958 that resulted in a devastating famine; and the Socialist Education Movement, a campaign of deepening ideological indoctrination in the early to mid-1960s.
Hu tried very hard to engage himself in these movements by following and implementing all orders from Beijing as faithfully as he could. But he was alarmed by the way many of his comrades and subordinates were groundlessly labeled “rightists” and by the suffering of everyday people during the Great Leap Forward. Those experiences cultivated in him a deeper suspicion of Mao’s utopian program of “continuous revolution.” At a CCP Central Committee plenum in Lushan in 1959, he was reluctant to follow the general push to criticize Peng Dehuai, the former defense minister whom Mao had identified as the head of an “anti-party clique” for making critical comments about the Great Leap Forward. Not surprisingly, when the Cultural Revolution began, in 1966, Mao singled out Hu and other leaders of the Communist Youth League for severe attack. Hu himself was repeatedly brought to denunciation rallies, where Red Guards would inveigh against him and seek to humiliate him in public. Deng also suffered during the Cultural Revolution, twice purged by Mao and his allies.
In 1969, Mao’s agents at the Youth League Center banished Hu to a farm in Henan Province for “reeducation.” He was forced to perform heavy manual labor almost every day and he suffered greatly in this period. After the death in 1971 of Lin Biao, one of Mao’s key lieutenants, Hu was allowed to return to Beijing but was not fully rehabilitated into the ranks of the party elite. In this period, he read voraciously—including classic Marxist works, Chinese history, books of philosophy and ethics, and even the translated plays of Shakespeare. He became increasingly critical of Maoism in both its theory and practice. When Mao died, in September 1976, and the old order seemed in jeopardy, Hu was ready to advance the radical cause of reform in China.
OPENING THE DOOR
Mao’s death led to a period of uncertainty in which various factions vied for power. Hu aligned himself with Deng, who was emerging from his second period of exile during the Cultural Revolution. Whereas Deng’s principal adversaries, including Mao’s chosen successor and the party chairman Hua Guofeng, claimed to adhere to “the two whatevers”—the slogan that “we will absolutely uphold whatever decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave”—Hu sought a different path. In May 1978, the Guangming Daily, a party ideological organ, published an essay, written by a group of teachers at the Central Party School (Hu was then its executive vice president and reviewed the essay before publication), titled “Practice Is the Sole Criteria to Judge Truth.” They argued that the truth must be tested and proved by practice—an implicit rebuke of the implacability of Maoist dogma and its claims to truth. The essay sent shock waves through the system; it effectively eroded the legitimacy of Hua (as his position as China’s top leader entirely relied on Mao’s designation) and rejected the restrictions that Mao and his ideology had imposed on China. This ideological salvo greatly enhanced Deng’s position in the intraparty struggle with Hua’s faction and helped lead to Deng’s eventually becoming China’s paramount leader in 1978.
As Deng rose, so did Hu, who became the head of the CCP’s Central Organizational Department in December 1977. In this role, Hu sought to correct the injustices of the Cultural Revolution and other Maoist political campaigns. Under Hu’s direction, tens of thousands of CCP cadres, including hundreds of high-ranking ones, were rehabilitated and assigned to official positions. Hu also helped end the ostracization of tens of millions of ordinary citizens who had suffered during Mao’s destructive initiatives and let them live normal lives. These efforts to redress the excesses of the Mao era won Hu much support from within the party and among the wider public. In 1981, Hu replaced Hua as chairman of the CCP Central Committee (the next year, the title of the position would change to general secretary), allowing him to effectively function as Deng’s right-hand man in the launch and promotion of reforms.
Between 1978 and 1982, Deng and Hu advanced a series of policies intended to open China’s economy. These included abandoning the rigid centrally planned economic system borrowed from the Soviet Union, decollectivizing agriculture, embracing some market mechanisms, allowing foreign investment into the country, seeking greater trade with Western countries, and sending Chinese students to study abroad. As a result of these changes, the overall economy ballooned—with annual growth rates of around ten percent throughout the decade—as did productivity. Before the reforms, China’s share of global GDP based on purchasing power parity hovered around two percent; today, it’s around 20 percent.
Curiously, Suettinger focuses on Hu’s domestic contributions in this period, altogether missing how he helped transform China’s orientation to the outside world. During the Mao years, China styled itself as a revolutionary country, bent on challenging the existing international system and its institutions dominated by the United States and other Western capitalist countries. Hu was among the first Chinese leaders to see the need for a less instinctively confrontational, more cooperative, and forward-looking foreign policy. In the early 1980s, he played a central role in a CCP grand strategy review that led to the party’s jettisoning the Maoist notion that another world war was inevitable and reaching the consensus that it was in China’s long-term and fundamental interest to strive for a peaceful external environment. Good relations with the outside world would allow the country to concentrate on economic development and the pursuit of socialist modernity. Hu shaped the trajectory of the change, understanding that opening to the world could speed reforms at home. He was a firm supporter of the normalization of ties with the United States in 1979, championing a friendly relationship between the two countries; he endorsed and even got personally involved in China’s improving cooperative relations with its erstwhile foe Japan (in 1983, for instance, he invited 3,000 Japanese students to visit China); he strove to improve Beijing’s relations with London by visiting the United Kingdom and receiving Queen Elizabeth II during her state visit to Beijing in 1986, which helped make more credible Deng’s promise that China would not alter the special status of Hong Kong until 2047.
EARLY RETIREMENT
With Deng as paramount leader and Hu as general secretary, it seemed that China was on the path to ever-widening reform through much of the 1980s. But it was not to be. By around 1984, Deng, Hu, and several other CCP elders began to have critical disagreements on the way forward. The main point of contention was whether to create more checks and balances in the CCP system, which is what Hu wanted. At first, it seemed that Deng also favored this approach. As he consolidated his own power, however, Deng became increasingly worried that such reforms would result in the embrace of Western-style democracy, threatening the CCP’s one-party domination of the country. Although he was willing to promote economic reforms and open up the economy, he repeatedly called on the party and the country to fight “bourgeois liberalization” and maintain the “four cardinal principles,” adhering to the “socialist road,” proletarian dictatorship, the leadership of the CCP, and Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideological beliefs.
Hu, by contrast, wanted to go further in the direction of political democratization. A fissure opened between the two men. When Deng persistently emphasized the need to resist “bourgeois liberalization,” Hu spoke openly about the need for more democracy, more freedom of speech, and more public participation in politics. Deng grew disappointed with Hu’s forthrightness and began to lose trust in his longtime ally.
Hu at the National People’s Congress in Beijing, March 1987Gene Del Bianco / Reuters
Events came to a head with Hu’s public call in 1985 for the “youthification” of the aging CCP leadership. He began with himself, stating, “I’m almost 70 years old, and I’m about to retire . . . . Those veteran comrades over the age of 80 even more should step down.” Deng never rejected this suggestion, and even indicated that he might be willing to retire. But that was merely rhetoric. When Hu naively suggested that Deng would set a good example by “taking the lead in retiring,” it was a step too far for the paramount leader. In January 1987, at a “democratic life meeting” attended by top party leaders and presided over by Deng and other elders, Hu was compelled to resign as general secretary. Hu calmly accepted almost all the charges against him as he saw, in Suettinger’s telling, “the need to preserve stability and unity within the leadership.”
But this defenestration was not the end of Hu’s story. Although he was pulled from China’s political stage, he continued to haunt it. Many people in the country referred to him as “the conscience of the party”—the metaphor was not just praise but also implied that the CCP had lost its way without him. In the years following Hu’s resignation, the gap between rapid economic and social change, on the one hand, and political stagnation, on the other, continually produced tensions between the state and the citizenry, as well as within Chinese society. Discontent and anxiety about the sclerotic pace of political reform spread far and wide.
When Hu died, in April 1989, students in Beijing—and then citizens from all walks of life—quickly turned the mourning of him into a powerful public demonstration of their frustration and anger at the lack of political reform and widespread corruption. Protesters flooded Tiananmen Square in Beijing. What followed became a defining moment in China’s history. On June 4, Deng and other CCP elders ordered troops to crack down on students and other demonstrators, resulting in the bloody tragedy that shocked the world.
HU’S WARNING
More than four decades after the launch of the reform and opening-up project, China is now at another inflection point. Its economic growth during the reform era was extraordinary, and by 2010 it had become the second-largest economy in the world. That success has many causes, but one of the most important factors is that China in the era of reform and opening enjoyed a long peace; guided by the likes of Hu, it strove to craft amicable relations with the outside world and avoid confrontation, particularly with the United States.
But the other vision of political reform—Hu’s vision—is decidedly unfulfilled. The CCP remains entrenched in Beijing. The prospect of a political system with greater checks and balances seems distant. From Deng’s rule onward, the CCP leadership has taken full advantage of China’s continuous and rapid economic growth to boost its legitimacy and has taken credit for all of China’s economic successes. Legitimacy so defined, however, depends on continued strong performance; China’s rapid economic growth must last forever if the government is to enjoy the legitimacy that accompanies that economic record. The current slowing of the Chinese economy is much more than an economic issue. It represents a serious challenge to the Chinese state. In his time, Hu understood this problem, which is why he wanted China to embrace greater political reform and put mechanisms in place that would satisfy the demands and social, moral, and cultural aspirations of the Chinese people.
Those needs remain unaddressed, a deficit that has periodically inflamed tensions between the Chinese state and society, as well as between China and other countries. Hu saw this coming. Even as he sought to remake China in the world, he understood that the biggest challenges facing China come not from without but from within.