On 16 May 2021, Professor Roland Boer, from Dalian University of Technology’s School of Marxism, was a keynote speaker at a webinar organised by the ‘International Manifesto Group’ from the University of Manitoba, Canada.

Professor Boer presented a comparison between Eastern European experiments with ‘market socialism’ and China’s ‘socialist market economy’. He was joined by other keynote speakers: Professor David Lane from the University of Cambridge, Professor Cheng Enfu from the Academy of Marxism (CASS), and John Ross from the Chongyang Institute of Financial Affairs, Renmin University of China.

This was a very important event, with 500 international participants, and many more joining via the livestream of the event. The interest in the webinar reflects a clear desire by more and more people around the world to understand the true China, and especially Chinese socialism.

The webinar was titled ‘(State) Capitalism or (Market) Socialism: The Social Character of the People’s Republic of China’. It was organised by the ‘International Manifesto Group’ at the University of Manitoba. This group is part of the ‘Geopolitical Economy Group’ (geopoliticaleconomy.org), led by Professor Radkia Desai and Alan Freeman. Not only has the research centre become a key international venue for constructive engagement with Chinese Marxism, but our school and the research centre have begun academic collaboration and exchange.