AT the invitation of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (IDCPC), a four-member delegation of the CPI(M) led by Venkatesh Athreya and consisting, in addition, of Vijoo Krishnan (invitee to the CPI(M) Central Committee), KN Harilal (Professor, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram) and Archana Prasad (Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University), took part in the seminar on the ‘Theory and Practice of Capitalism in South Asia’ organised by the CPC in Beijing on December 7, 2015. The seminar was also attended by four other delegations, each with two members, representing the following Left Parties from South Asia: Communist Party of India, Workers’ Party of Bangladesh, Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist-Leninist) and the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) from Sri Lanka. The Chinese side in the seminar was led by Fengxiang, vice minister of the IDCPC, while the delegation of the South Asian Left Parties was led by Venkatesh Athreya. The Indian delegation submitted four papers at the seminar covering the overall political economy of capitalist development in India (Venkatesh Athreya), issues relating to agrarian distress and the policies of the current Indian government (Vijoo Krishnan), the role of external economic policies in India (KN Harilal) and the labour question in India (Archana Prasad). In addition, Archana Prasad also submitted a note entitled ‘Class, Community and the Patterns of Resistance’. While Athreya made a presentation at the seminar on behalf of the CPI(M) delegation, all the four delegates actively contributed to the seminar deliberations. The delegations from the five Left Parties from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India were in China from the night of December 2 till December 12, 2015. Three days were spent in Kunming, the capital of the province of Yunnan, four in Beijing and the final three days in Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton), the capital of the province of Guangdong. In Kunming, the delegations held discussions with officials from the People’s government of Yunnan Province and from the CPC as well as academics from the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences. Among other aspects, the discussions covered the prospects for greater economic cooperation between China in general and Yunnan in particular, on the one hand and the countries of South Asia on the other. The delegates also visited a major state owned enterprise - the Yunnan Construction Engineering Group - where it was possible to see the enormous strides that Socialist China has made in the decades since liberation. In Beijing, besides the seminar on contemporary capitalism in South Asia, the delegates benefited from a lecture on the decisions of the Fifth Plenum of the Eighteenth CC of the CPC Congress delivered by a senior professor from the CPC Party School. The highlight of our stay at Guangzhou was a session involving intense discussions with professors from the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies on issues of trade and development in relation to countries at different stages of development and with different socio-economic and political regimes. All in all, the visit was very useful and afforded the delegates a great opportunity to learn about a fascinating and substantially successful struggle for socialist advance being waged in China in various forms. It was also very inspiring to visit the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in Beijing. The CPC ensured outstanding hospitality to the delegates from the South Asian Left Parties throughout our stay in People’s China.