ABSTRACT
In his 1937 essay, ‘On Contradiction’, Mao Zedong wrote of two opposing ‘world outlooks’.1 One was the correct ‘materialist dialectical’ view that takes all phenomena in the natural and social worlds to be the outcome of contradictions. The incorrect ‘metaphysical’ view affirming the existence of transcendent properties such as truth and natural rights. In his 1937 essay, 'On Contradiction', Mao Zedong wrote of two opposing 'world outlooks'. A 2013 film produced by a PLA propaganda unit and leaked online reminded observers of the ongoing dominance of the materialist-dialectical world outlook in Beijing in Xi's 'New Era'. A similar mode of thinking has, ironically, also gained ground within policy discussions on the PRC's overseas political activities in liberal democracies. Aggregating the array of risks presented by the PRC's overseas political activities into a CCP-orchestrated campaign of subversion not only aligns with the 'materialist-dialectical' view of politics, it also plays into the CCP's hands politically.
