Esta nota que se publica en el número de abril de 2026 de la Revista de Ciencias Sociales de ChinaIt is an interview based on the article he wrote Nicholas Lynch* last year “29 Days in China” (https://otramirada.pe/29-d%C3%ADas-en-china) after a visit to that country in which he gave the lecture "The dilemmas of democratization in Latin America".

El artículo fue enviado a la revista por la profesora Yiyang Cheng, académica de la Universidad de Fudan. La nota recoge las impresiones de Lynch en su viaje, abordando la combinación de tradición y modernidad que atraviesa China en esta época y que, dados los gravísimos momentos por los que atraviesa América Latina y el mundo en la actualidad, puede ayudar a pensar estas realidades.

29 days in China

This text is a chronicle of a journey that does not pretend to be exhaustive or conclusive. Finding the right narrative tone has not been easy for someone like myself, accustomed to analytical and conclusive language, but I believe it is worthwhile to begin recounting such an important experience that literally took us to the other side of the world. What I write is the product of my personal observations, as well as the many conversations we had during the trip, and it does not claim objectivity but, like everything I have written in my life, is nourished by my feelings and ideas.

It is impossible not to connect my desire to learn about China, at least during the brief academic and sightseeing trip I took between July 5th and August 6th, 2025, with the beginning of my political life at the National University of San Marcos in the 1970s. It is unnecessary to elaborate further, as I have already covered these details in my early book, "The Red Youth of San Marcos," in its two editions of 1990 and 2019. In these short months, I have sought the underlying reason for this desire and have found it in the impression made on me by the connection between egalitarianism, nationalism, and audacity professed by the Chinese version of Marxism and its application in socialist construction, as expressed by Mao Zedong. This was a version expressed with great independence of judgment by the Chinese leaders. We should recall their unorthodox emphasis on the role of the peasantry as the majority class in the revolutionary change, their concept of war as both popular and protracted—in a country with a long history of reflection on the subject—and the letters exchanged between the Chinese and Soviet leadership that motivated the "Nine Commentaries," which would form the basis of the break they underwent in the early 1960s, leading up to the "Cultural Revolution" and its emphasis on "revolution within revolution," before experiencing the setbacks of that process. However, my reasoning on this topic had never fully matured until I visited China and felt the contrast, both as change and continuity, between those early reasons and the transformations that had taken place over the last fifty years.

But I was also plagued by more immediate concerns. On the one hand, there were the assessments of the Western, and more specifically Latin American, left regarding the shift that occurred in China under Deng Xiaoping from 1978 onward, and on the other, China's growing role in the world, which, due to its importance, is the subject of daily news coverage these days. Regarding the first point, the question has been: what is being built in China? Socialism or capitalism? Perhaps as an echo of the rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution and the so-called Gang of Four, which pointed to the dangers of a "capitalist restoration" as they assumed had occurred in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Regarding the second point, the question is whether China, in its global projection over the last few decades—a very important aspect of its economic and political development—has an imperial ambition, as the United States has and practices today, and as other Western countries have practiced in the past. Capitalism and imperialism, one precedes the other and are mutually reinforcing, as the classics of Marxism point out. This dilemma then becomes crucial. Finally, the democratic question. Whether we like it or not, this “far west,” which in some ways is Latin America, is part of the Western political tradition and, as such, is not immune to the influence of liberal democracy. It is very difficult to view China differently. However, given its economic and social successes and the crisis—in some cases, the bankruptcy—of liberal democracy, it is worth trying to understand the Chinese institutional regime in political terms as well.

El viaje

I had been warned that it was going to be a long trip, but even so, I had no idea of ​​what we were about to embark on. The first decision was to avoid the United States, so as not to fall victim to any of Trump's bluster. This made the trip longer, about ten hours or perhaps more. We went through Europe and crossed the Middle East, finally traversing Asia and arriving in Shanghai. 34 hours in total if we include flight time and layovers in airports. The journey itself, however, was already a showcase of the mosaic of groups and cultures we encountered along the way. Latin Americans, Europeans, Arabs, Iranians, and finally Chinese, passing through airports that reflected different ways of treating people.

Shanghai

El aeropuerto de Pudong presagia lo que serían otros terminales aéreos y estaciones de tren. De apariencia muy nueva, aunque luego nos dirían que no lo era tanto, pero con un diseño, limpieza y orden que desmerece a cualquier otro que hubiéramos tenido en la cabeza. Aunque tuvimos que postergar para otra vez, viajar en el tren bala que une el aeropuerto con el centro de Shanghái en ocho minutos, debido a la amabilidad de nuestro anfitrión de la Universidad de Fudan, que nos estaba esperando con un taxi, para llevarnos al hotel. La postergación no fue en vano porque pudimos entrar a Shanghái por una autopista de ocho carriles y múltiples viaductos que, a pesar de la lentitud del tráfico por la hora punta, nos fue mostrando la arquitectura de la metrópoli desde sus suburbios hasta el centro mismo, para llegar a la “concesión francesa” donde estábamos alojados.

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* Nicolás Lynch es académico de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos e integrante del Comité Directivo de CLACSO representando a los centros miembros de Perú.