His spiritual father and teacher, the French sociologist Alain Touraine, has just died. And with a tribute to him we begin the interview with Manuel Castells (HellÃn, 1942), who has just published Testimonio. Living History (Editorial Alliance). He explains how Daniel Cohn-Bendit told Touraine, in the midst of the revolt of May 1968: “For reformists like you to succeed, revolutionaries like us must attempt failed revolutions.” Castells, who was a leader of that revolution, has been close to many others and to countless social movements, be it in Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, the indignada movement in Spain, Occupy Wall Street in the States United or at the dawn of the feminist revolts in Iran against the use of the chador. Or advising the Russian democratic movement in the Gorbachev period or in China.
He dreamed of a democratic Russia. But the KGB took power, invaded Ukraine and brought the war back to Europe. When and how do you think it will end?
When they get tired of killing each other pointlessly. And it will end with a negotiation, as all wars end.
Peace for territories?
Well, yes, peace first and then the territories. I see the solution of the Korean peninsula, where there is war, but with an armistice since 1953. I don’t see any other short-term solution. In addition, a very serious mistake is being made from the Western point of view, which is to try to put China in the same bag, since it is considered by NATO to be a strategic enemy. China supports Russia, but only on certain things. Do not consolidate this alliance by putting them in the same sack.
China does not like instability…
No, China wants to do business. It wants stability, a basis for doing business, and time to be the first economic and technological power in the world.
Its relationship with China is ancient…
Yes. I visited it in 1983 and then, starting in 1987, when the Council of State asked me and a colleague from Stanford to develop a new technology and international economic policy. I ended my relationship with the Chinese government with the Tiananmen massacre. I came back in 2000, but through universities, and have been with their big tech companies, like Huawei and Tencent. I also have a view of its civil and industrial society, rather than of the properly political part. If we manage to articulate China productively without questioning its political system, it will open up, let’s not push it. In China it is not pushed. China will not serve world hegemony to the United States and NATO and let Putin fall.
Do you think that the confrontation between the United States and China can lead to war?
A conflict No, no. China doesn’t care, it doesn’t suit China. And so far the ones who have bullied China are the United States.
I Taiwan?
Taiwan was quiet. And, suddenly, Mrs. Nancy Pelosi, in order to retire in glory, is going to de facto recognize the regime. Taiwan, which had never been recognized. China maintains that in the long run Taiwan is China. And it turns out that Taiwan’s founding party, the Kuomintang, which remains in second by a few votes of difference with the pro-independence party, says the same thing. He says the same thing, but he says “We’ll see how we articulate”, they want to be part of the great Chinese nation. Second, the largest foreign capital investor in southern China is Taiwan. In other words, Taiwan is already so embedded in China that it is not worth it for the Chinese to put up the Chinese flag as long as they are not provoked.
Are the Chinese the weakness of China? They trust the Government more than their fellow citizens…
Well, they trust above all in the family, it’s the only one. Thinking quickly, I’d say yes. The Government has an approval of over 60%. Because? Because there are many oppressed by local bosses, by mafias and by a very wild Chinese capitalism in which unions exist to defend the company. It’s China’s big problem. Manufacturing capacity is causing more and more social explosions linked, on the other hand, to urban social explosions, because they are changing cities completely and pushing people out of homes and agricultural lands where cities are expanding. It’s a gunpowder. The other is technological innovation: there are engineers who really stand out, they emigrate.
Meanwhile, Europe, touched…
Security and the fear of Russia are being prioritized, which is why the European Union is under NATO. Today NATO, for European integration, is much more important than the European Union. Far more. And security, ultimately, is military. If stability is not reached, I do not say peace, but lasting stability with Russia, Europe and all the big projects will be conditioned by this. For now, the EU is at the mercy of NATO.
And now comes artificial intelligence. And the promoters are asking governments to please regulate them…
Well, there’s an unlimited downside, because they know there’s going to be a lot of legal problems, a lot. At the same time, the capacity for innovation that this represents, they are not going to stop and develop it, they are developing it, because it is a huge field of technology and business and they are enthusiastic about its technological wonders. Of couse. But, since a big demolition will happen, they are saying “No, regulate us if they can”. They will not stop innovation.
how will it happen
Now there’s a universal reaction to ChatGPT… And we’re not thinking about the important stuff. The first is privacy. With artificial intelligence and good databases, algorithms, if they want to, control us, not only do they know everything about all of us, but they can also project what we will do, following patterns of development. In other words, the big digital brother is here. Now yes. Before it was more of a fear. Artificial intelligence invades everything, knows everything, controls everything, and people, without knowing exactly, but they are reacting.
How do you imagine the future?
At this point, I would say that the world has entered a phase without a future. That is, there may be many futures on an individual scale, but there is nothing predictable, because we oscillate, now seriously, scientifically, between the extinction of habitability on the planet, not of the planet, but of our ability to live it, moral and social disintegration in much of the world, growing hostility between human groups, racism, xenophobia. I hate I hate, exactly, the hatred of the other. fear and hate And with little hope, because common projects are falling apart.
