Industrial Party (China)

In the 1990s, a great debate erupted in Chinese intellectual circles between the New Left, liberal, and neoconservative schools in the face of China's rapidly changing economic situation. As the debate spread to the Internet and as a reaction to the liberalism tendency, Chinese cybernationalists with science and engineering academic backgrounds gathered in online forums.[4] A debate progressed in late 2004 and early 2005 by Chinese thinkers Chen Jing and Zhong Qing and marked a precursor to the term.[4]

Regarded as a "tabletop role-playing game novel" covering repeated descriptions and analysis of the possibilities of industrial development, Illumine Lingao further paved the path for the rise of the Industrial Party.[5]

In 2011, a number of Chinese nationalistic thinkers, including Wang Xiaodong and Song Xiaojun, argued only an improvement in means of production and industrial technology could transcend differences between political parties and ideologies.[4] In Wang's blog, "China's Industrialization Will Determine the Fate of China and the World: The 'Industrial Party' versus the 'Sentimental Party'" (Chinese: 中国的工业化将决定中国与世界的命运——兼论“工业党”对决“情怀党”, later published on a magazine), he analyzed that:

Here, I would like to introduce the dimension of industrial party and sentimental party. [...] In China's current situation, there is indeed another dimension, which is the Industrial Party versus the Sentimental Party. According to Song Xiaojun, this expression was invented by a female reporter of a mainstream newspaper. As the name implies, the Industrial Party has an industrial tendency, and is relatively more suited to industry in terms of knowledge structure and intelligence - of course, they do not necessarily have to engage in industry. For example, I consider myself to be a member of the Industrial Party, but I do not work in industry. Considering the way of thinking, they are more similar to scientists and engineers, and they like this kind of stuff. For example, when I saw the fourth-generation fighter, although I could not be as "teary-eyed" as some young people, but I did have wet eyes a few times, which is also called sentiment, but this is the sentiment of the Industrial Party. As for the Sentimental Party, they are happy to talk about sentiment, morality, culture, and emotion. In terms of ability, they are poor in logic, mathematics, scientific, and technological knowledge, as they have a big difference with scientists and engineers. In terms of value orientation, they often tend to ignore and belittle the achievements made in industry. They actually have more of the characteristics of pure literati from the pre-industrial or agricultural civilization era.[6]

Wang's essay is often considered to have formally introduced the term "Industrial Party", although Wang himself said that "this expression was invented by a female reporter of a mainstream newspaper".[7] One year later, "Ma Qianzu" (a pen name) and four other people born in the 80s co-authored and published The Big Goal: Our Political Negotiation with this World (Chinese: 《大目标：我们与这个世界的政治协商》), which is regarded as the manifesto of the Industrial Party.[8] The same year, Ma and some other industrialists joined guancha.cn, and tried to use the website as a platform for the spread of the idea.[4]

The Industrial Party tendency continued to rise in the 2010s.[9] Both Liu Di's commentary on Radio Free Asia and the Initium Media have linked Liu Cixin, a famous Chinese author, and his novels to the Industrial Party.[10]

Members of the Industrial Party generally agree:[11]

• Technology determines social structure.
• Technology first.
• Socialist planned economy
• Technocracy.
• Chinese nationalism.
• Pragmatism.

A reaction to liberalism, Industrialists don't focus on political participation and democracy. Instead, they focus more on effectiveness and academic knowledge. Thus they oppose:[12]

• Agrarianism (which they regard as musty)
• Capitalism (especially free market economics)
• Universal values (which they regard as "Western cultural infiltration")

• All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
• Industrial Party Affair
• Rise of the Red Engineers
• Saint-Simonianism
• Technocracy movement