A historical perspective on China By Sam Marcy

A historical perspective on China

By Sam Marcy 

This article by Workers World Party founder Sam Marcy appeared in WW on June 3, 1993, when the bourgeois media were attacking China on the anniversary of the Tienanmen Square events. It continues to have great relevance today.

Once again, China is shaking the world. This time, however, it is not experiencing a great revolutionary convulsion like the Peiping Rebellion of the 1850s, the May 4th Movement, The Canton and Shanghai Communes of the late 1920s, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, or the Cultural Revolution. These events shook the capitalist world to its foundations and inspired revolutionary struggles of oppressed people all over the world.

The latest development, while it is shaking up U.S. imperialism, is of a very different type [and] may in the long run be of decisive importance.

A surge of production

It has become plain in the last few months that there has been a phenomenal surge of production in China. Capitalist accounts here tell us that China’s economy is likely to expand at a rate of 13 percent this year, after a similar growth rate in 1992.

It is alarming the bourgeoisie here. They express concern over the plague of inflation, which of course would erode the economic gains. But why would the bourgeoisie here worry about that? The truth of the matter is they are far more worried that China has demonstrated its capacity to produce in great quantity and can compete to some extent with Western capitalism in the production of certain goods, if not services.

China’s growth rate has come to the fore in the capitalist press just at a time when the Clinton administration is to decide whether to allow Chinese imports on the same basis as before, or utilize a provision of the Jackson-Vanik law that gives the president authority to ban them by imposing onerous restrictions.

New method shows much bigger economy

The New York Times disclosed on May 20 that a new calculation of the world economies catapults China into third place in world production, exceeded only by the U.S. and Japan. It is, of course, a remarkable feat.

Under the new method, based on the purchasing power of a country’s currency at home rather than its value on international exchanges, China’s gross domestic product in 1991 was calculated at $1.66 trillion, as against only $370 billion using the old method.

Why the sudden change in methodology? Was it to do China a favor?

Under the new method, if China needs loans from the IMF or the G-7 imperialist nations, the interest would be based on a different formula. Now that China is no longer categorized as one of the poorest countries, it is not eligible for certain kinds of debt relief.

The imperialists are quite disturbed by China’s ability to expand its production at such a fast rate.

Different from Gorbachev’s reforms

China’s economic growth is based upon the introduction of capitalist reforms similar to those introduced in Eastern Europe and the former USSR. This can scarcely be disputed.

The difference, according to Chinese sources, is that the reforms are working and that the growth in production is the biggest boon to the Chinese people since the revolution triumphed in 1949.

However, it is important to differentiate China’s reforms from the way capitalist practices were introduced in the USSR. It is now seven years since Mikhail Gorbachev began to experiment with market reforms. The result has not been a socialist modernization of the industrial and agricultural apparatus but a dismantling of socialist projects in industry and in agriculture. Indeed, it has resulted in a breakdown, a vandalizing, of the achievements of socialist construction in an effort to bring about a restoration of capitalism.

In China, however, as best as we can see from here, there has been a rapid development of industry, a tremendous surge in the construction of hundreds of industrial projects, rather than the dismantling of existing socialist projects with a view to privatization, as has been going on in the former USSR.

However, China’s industrial growth is being carried out openly and unabashedly on a capitalist basis. And it is going forward at a very rapid rate, even exceeding the objectives of China’s economic planners.

Production under capitalism, except when it is interrupted by crisis, natural disasters or war, can and does rise to phenomenal heights, exceeding all previous modes of production. Raising production is not a huge, let alone formidable, problem under capitalism. The problem lies in the antagonism between private ownership and the social character of production.

Since the bourgeois counter-revolution, however, a rise in production has not been achieved in what was the USSR. Just the opposite. This is because the objective of the reformers there is not to increase production but to privatize the existing means of production, and there is tremendous opposition to that. The difference must be kept in mind.

Struggle over trade

During the [George H. W.] Bush administration, an opinion piece in the New York Times by Leslie Gelb communicated a threat to China that it was vulnerable to having its coastal provinces detached from the rest of the country. These are the areas where the free-market “special economic zones” are located. The threat was meant to force China to accommodate to the U.S. on matters regarding “human rights”–a code name for allowing counter-revolutionary activity.

However, Bush was opposed to tightening trade restrictions on China, notwithstanding the uproar by the Democratic Party faction in Congress. [Bill] Clinton, on the other hand, attacked Bush’s stand on China during the election campaign and called for new restrictions on trade.

Now Clinton finds himself in the same position as Bush. He has changed his position and is opposed to giving so-called human rights pre-eminence over trade with China. Once again, economics determines politics and not vice versa.

Class character of China

The growing influence of the capitalist market in China has occasioned economists and political leaders on both sides of the Pacific to give consideration to a class definition of China’s social structure and state. For instance, last year the Congress of the Communist Party characterized China as a “socialist market economy.”

It is well known by all students of Marxist economics that the two terms are incompatible with each other. China has had a planned economy. How well or poorly it has been doing is not the issue. The fact is that it instituted a planned economy soon after the revolution’s triumph in 1949. The kernel of a planned economy has persisted through all the struggles and turmoil since.

A capitalist market economy is not planned, but is spontaneous, unpredictable, chaotic. The capitalist class everywhere is lyrical about the freedom of the market, about how it sets free prices and production. But this should not be taken as literally true. Monopoly capitalism restricts capitalist trade and production….

A market economy by definition is generally understood to be the very opposite of a planned economy. The two terms are incompatible with each other. But that does not necessarily exclude the possibility of their coexistence within the framework of a national state for a period of time.

In fact, such a situation was created in the years closely following the Bolshevik Revolution. Under far different circumstances than exist today in China, the capitalist market was reintroduced for a time, even as plans were laid for the building of a socialist economy.

GATT enters the debate

The question of the class character of China’s state and of the reforms has undoubtedly caused a great deal of debate in China. Nor is it of theoretical or political significance in China alone. For instance, the organization known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is by no means an innocent bystander watching the debate in China. GATT is an organization set up by the imperialists that includes 105 countries. It says in so many words: If you want to trade with any one of us, you have to abide by certain rules that we set.

Under GATT’s rules, devised some years, ago, China, the USSR, Eastern Europe, Cuba, the DPRK, Vietnam and a few other countries could not become members unless they agreed to certain restrictions. Such as free trade.

China is undoubtedly trying very hard to meet those restrictions and get into GATT. An article in the Wall Street Journal of March 3, entitled “Chinese Entry into GATT Is Stalled by Thorny Socialist Market Economy,” explains that the officials of GATT, servants of the seven imperialists, have asked China to describe precisely what it means by “socialist market economy.” Part of the debate in China over this term is precisely over how to meet the restrictions of GATT. [Editor’s note: GATT morphed into the World Trade Organization, which China joined in 2001.]

Thus the struggle over the class characterization of China’s economy and state is not solely a debate among so-called doctrinaire communists, it reaches into the summits of the capitalist government as well.

Agriculture since the communes

If China is to be called a socialist country, what about the class character of the agricultural system? China has a vast population of peasants and a minority of workers. In the early 1960s, after collectivization, the commune was established as the unit of agricultural production. Farm work was elevated to collective labor, and private ownership of the land was abolished.

The dismantling of the communes in the 1980s signified that agriculture in the main returned to private ownership….

Either because of crop failures, natural disasters, or the inability to sustain themselves on the farm, peasants in China are now flooding into the cities in a manner similar to that in many Third World countries. This has made it possible to employ millions in industrial projects.

One may say that what is going on in China is a period of industrialization similar to that in England in the last century. The millions who were dispossessed from the land made cheap labor in industry possible and profitable. Marx described the horrors of early industrial development, including the employment of women and children for long hours, in his illuminating chapter in “Capital” on primitive accumulation.

A planned economy?

China’s collectivized and nationalized property in industry has become weakened as a result of both the privatization of agriculture and the institution of capitalist reforms.

Is China today a planned economy in the sense that the basic elements of production and consumption are planned and that the operations are pursuant a given plan?

The answer at the present time is no. The introduction of bourgeois reforms inhibits full-scale planning, so that to a large extent it is becoming a commodity producing economy. The larger the special economic zones, the larger the capitalist reforms, the more China becomes a commodity-producing economy and not a planned socialist economy.

However, China’s history since the beginning of the 19th century has been full of convulsions as it has attempted to free itself from imperialist domination. It has also fought to remain a centralized national state with a degree of autonomy for the provinces. Were each province to decide for itself how and what it would produce, a planned economy for the state as a whole would be impossible.

Immediately before and during the Tienanmen Square days, China appeared to be in danger of disintegrating into warlordism. This was overcome and the decentralizing process that threatened to emerge was eliminated. That was a victory of socialism.

The question of how far the Chinese government can go with the capitalist reforms will certainly be up for review, notwithstanding a constitutional provision meant to make the reforms a permanent feature in Chinese society.

One fact has certainly emerged: the millions who left the rural areas for the great cities of China and were absorbed into the proletariat have given the Chinese government and Communist Party the opportunity to strengthen the socialist character of the state. The growth of the proletariat is the objective factor most needed for the building of socialism.

It’s important that the process of production be carried out in the spirit of socialist construction. The calculations of the bourgeoisie are that as a result of their widening influence in the special economic zones, they will ultimately overwhelm the socialist sector in China. They believe that the socialist sector, lacking the material conditions necessary for its growth, including skilled labor and specialists, will be stillborn. The alternative, they say, is massive material assistance from the imperialists, and this will undo socialist construction.

For the moment, the Party seems to be united on going forward with the reforms because they are bringing results deemed indispensable at the present time. Without a doubt, a generation of young people, a new breed of Tienanmen Square elements, is being accommodated politically to this situation. But the inevitability of a capitalist recession, especially if it stems from a worldwide capitalist crisis, is bound to create a classic confrontation between the socialized and the bourgeois sectors.

The question is how significant is the proletarian revolutionary element, what is their influence in the higher councils of the Party? Even if they are tiny and weak now, the objective basis for their revolutionary growth is assured.

As Frederick Engels explained in Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (part of his book Anti-Duhring), the great philosophers of the 18th-century Enlightenment–Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Saint-Simon–reflected the disillusionment with the old order and tore to shreds feudal ideology with their brilliance and wit. On the other hand, socialism is the ideological offspring of the growth of the proletariat.

China had its own Enlightenment period that undermined feudal ideology. The period in which the proletariat comes forward with its own ideological approach has been more protracted, given the necessity to fight imperialism on all fronts and a more obdurate and stultified feudal system.

Nevertheless, with all its ups and downs, China is moving toward socialism. The efforts of the imperialists to stop it by force and violence have failed over the decades, and their efforts at economic strangulation will also surely fail. The road to socialism in China, like everywhere else in the world, may be difficult, but it is assured.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

       Purchase "Unnatural Beauty;Poems from the Han Riverside" here.

        Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

China is the only country- Mao quote

China is the only country in the world today where one or more small areas under Red political power have emerged in the midst of a White regime which encircles them. We find on analysis that one reason for this phenomenon lies in the incessant splits and wars within China's comprador and landlord classes. So long as these splits and wars continue, it is possible for an armed independent regime of workers and peasants to survive and grow. In addition, its survival and growth require the following conditions: (1) a sound mass base, (2) a sound Party organization, (3) a fairly strong Red Army, (4) terrain favourable to military operations, and (5) economic resources sufficient for sustenance.

- Mao Zedong

Is China Socialist? The New Afrikan Communist Party affirms

Is China Socialist? The New Afrikan Communist Party affirms the socialist character of the chinese revolution:

Given China’s increasingly important international role, it is critical that progressives and revolutionaries correctly understand the country.

This year marks the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, established on Oct. 1, 1949. The Chinese Revolution, which nearly doubled life expectancy in its first 30 years, is recognized as a hallmark of the socialist tradition. After nearly seven decades, China’s Communist Party — now comprising nearly 90 million members — continues to lead the country and maintains its commitment to socialism and Marxism.

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However, today, many, particularly in the West, dismiss the notion that China remains socialist or even a progressive force in the world. According to this view, China abandoned socialism for capitalism following economic reforms which were initiated in 1978. They fail to understand the nature and character of socialist development.

Given China’s increasingly important international role, it is critical that progressives and revolutionaries correctly understand the country. This article outlines why China is still a revolutionary, socialist state, and a friend to all those struggling against capitalism and imperialism around the world.

Reform or counter-revolution?

Existing in the periphery of global capitalism and facing consistent imperialist aggression, China has pursued socialist development under hostile conditions, having to address inequality not only within its society — the most populous in the world — but also globally, against the uneven development wrought by imperialism.

Since 1978, China has implemented economic reforms in order to overcome the severe underdevelopment which was historically imposed upon it by Western and Japanese imperialism. At that time, while having significantly improved living standards, China was still poor and underdeveloped, with a GDP per capita figure lower than that of India. The reforms allow for a sphere of bourgeois development, while the commanding heights of the economy remain under public ownership and the firm control of the socialist state. Following their introduction, China has achieved unprecedented economic growth, building a modern, moderately prosperous country and becoming the second most powerful economy in the world, establishing a socialist base of operation.

If these reforms constituted the overthrow of socialism, one would expect to see a significant reduction in Chinese living standards. In Eastern Europe, capitalist counter-revolution led to the greatest population loss in modern history.

However, in China, living conditions are consistently improving. Since 1978, China has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty, more than the rest of the world combined, and is working to eradicate poverty by 2020. From 1978-2015, real income for the bottom half of earners grew 401 percent, compared to falling by one percent in the U.S. Chinese wage growth is also soaring, with hourly manufacturing wages rising 12 percent per year since 2001. Social supports are expanding as well—just this week China declared health care a universal human right.

China is also a global leader in environmental sustainability — praised for the “best response to the world’s environmental crisis” — leading the world in renewable energy production and employment.

It is clear that China stands in sharp contrast to the capitalist world, where climate destruction runs rampant and the majority of people’s livelihoods constantly face attacks. The qualitative difference between China and capitalist countries is precisely because China’s economy is not dominated by the capitalist need to maximize profit. This is especially apparent when China is compared to capitalist countries also in the Global South.

Class struggle continues

While capitalists exist in China today, unlike in capitalist societies, they are isolated and not organized in pursuit of their collective interests. Instead, they exist under the rule of the socialist state to aid national economic development. Capitalists transgressing their boundaries are swiftly dealt with by the Communist Party and the Chinese people. An annual list of China’s richest citizens is commonly called the “death list” or “kill pigs list” because those named often are later imprisoned. Capitalists also regularly get taken hostage by workers to win labor victories with police actively assisting workers.

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While the reforms have presented new contradictions for China — particularly, greater income inequality — the Communist Party recognizes these challenges and works hard to address them. Since 2008, income inequality in China has stagnated and steadily decreased. In recent years the Party has waged an anti-corruption campaign, including cracking down on inappropriate uses of public funds. Promotions of government officials have also been tied to achievements in advancing people’s interests, such as environmental protection and raising living standards.

China has also emphasized strengthening Marxist education in the Communist Party and throughout society. President Xi Jinping has called for efforts to deepen understanding of Marxism, stating that “if we deviate from or abandon Marxism, our Party would lose its soul and direction … On the fundamental issue of upholding the guiding role of Marxism, we must maintain unswerving resolve, never wavering at any time or under any circumstances.” In primary and middle schools, youth receive daily education on socialist values, and universities are implementing new standards for Marxist education.

China supports the Global South

Internationally, China works with nations in the Global South, providing beneficial alternatives to imperialism and promoting greater representation for developing countries in global governance. While imperialist powers like the U.S. threaten nations with regime change and total devastation, China is committed to world peace and development across the Global South, where it builds infrastructure, forgives debt, and abides by the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Close relations with China have significantly benefited nations facing direct imperialist aggression, including Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, and North Korea. A key example of China’s global impact is the Belt and Road initiative — called “the largest single infrastructure program in human history” — currently involving 68 countries and 1700 development projects.

China is the primary force building a multipolar, more democratic international order, ending 500 years of Western imperial dominance. As such, China’s rise is bound with and supports the liberation of all peoples oppressed by imperialism.

The most promising hope

In spite of its achievements and distinction from capitalism, some still refuse to consider China revolutionary or socialist because of a supposed failure to conform to preconceived notions of a “true socialism”. This idealism was addressed by Fidel Castro, speaking in 1994:

"I think China is a socialist country … they insist that they have introduced all the necessary reforms in order to motivate national development and to continue seeking the objectives of socialism. There are no fully pure regimes or systems. In Cuba, for instance, we have many forms of private property. We have hundreds of thousands of farm owners … Practically all Cubans own their own home and, what is more, we welcome foreign investment. But that does not mean that Cuba has stopped being socialist."

Impressed by China’s achievements, Fidel declared, in 2004, that “China has become objectively the most promising hope and the best example for all Third World countries,” and that “Xi Jinping is one of the strongest and most capable revolutionary leaders I have met in my life."

As the crisis of capitalism deepens, the U.S. aggressively seeks to defend its unipolar dominance over the world. The greatest force challenging U.S. imperialism is China, and for this reason, the U.S. considers China it’s “greatest threat” and increasingly hostile towards it. As such, China’s character is not an unnecessary, abstract subject to consider, but of crucial, immediate importance to all those who are struggling for peace and justice against capitalism and imperialism. In understanding China to be a revolutionary, socialist state, we must recognize that China is a leading member in that struggle and a friend to whom we owe respect and solidarity.

By Ajit Singh with NACP edits. Comrade Ajit Singh is a Marxist, anti-imperialist writer and activist. He received his Juris Doctor in Law from the University of Western Ontario in 2014.

CLB: Pro-Worker or Anti-China?

          About China Labour Bulletin’s sharing “HKCTU urges Hong Kong workers to take tomorrow off and protest the government's proposed amendments to the extradition law,” I commented to them: "You say CLB is a workers' rights NGO about China, but you are lying. You are really an anti-Chinese government group using workers' struggle in China as an excuse. I urge you to keep to your mission in your title and cease your useless political propaganda.”

      About “CLB Director Han Dongfang, Wuer Kaixi, Dr. Shao Jiang and Zhou Fengsuo discuss[ing] the nature of democracy, the legacy of China's 1989 protests and June 4 crackdown at the Oxford Union,” I commented: “This article has nothing to do with labor in China. It is a political piece. CLB should stick to reporting labor issues in China.” But most of their posts do support workers’ rights in China, if not Taiwan.“CLB is introducing more original Chinese language content on our website. Here we look at the working conditions of China's truck drivers, one year after their nationwide strike.” 

     But about some alleged workers and students uniting for Tiananmen, they support the western propaganda against Chinese 'lack of free speech' when it is clear there is as little free speech there as  in the U.S. I commented: “China could have been another Iraq if the U.S. had its way. China was almost caught flat footed for the destabilization attempt that the U.S./NATO would have jumped on.” About a piece longing for the road not taken after Tiananmen, I commented: “This is anti-Chinese propaganda. Subversion by capitalism is not acceptable in socialist nations. China dealt with it the only way how.” About the alleged survival of ‘free thought’ after Tiananmen, I commented: “This article has nothing to do with labor issues.”  

     CLB won’t touch Taiwan worker issues, and for that I shame them. I asked why not and they wrote back "China Labour Bulletin as an NGO we have limited resources and we have to focus on what we know best, the Chinese mainland, when conducting our work. Since its establishment in Hong Kong in 1994, China Labour Bulletin has always focused on mainland China, leaving even Hong Kong labour issues to other institutions." So when they posted  'about ‘Brother Chan Kam Hong, tireless fighter for workers' rights and occupational health and safety in Hong Kong [who]passed away [that day] aged 60-years old [and] will be greatly missed,” I pointed out their hypocrisy. CLB insisted their only concern is China, not HK or Taiwan, so why are they concerned with this HK man? 

    I complained that they do not follow up on labor issues in Taiwan or even Taiwanese businesses in China such as Foxconn. Response from CLB to my alerting them to labor issues in HK and Taiwan are not investigated.  They only do Chinese labor issues? No.  I pointed out they comment on Hong Kong issues, too, as is evident supporting the organized opposition to China extradition law for Hong Kong criminals; someone thinks lawbreakers, especially ‘free speech’ against China, will get off easier in Hong Kong courts.

      The jury is still out on that. Hong Kong is an enclave of privileged capitalist leftovers from colonial times.There was subterfuge then and there is subterfuge now. CLB is not neutral or on workers' sides in Chinese speaking lands. To CLB, an injury for China is an injury to all. 
     I’ve had it with China Labour Bulletin; their only interest in helping workers is destabilizing China. They are one of the NGO instigators of the anti-Chinese riots in Hong Kong. For many years I have been sharing their reports on my blog and Facebook page to friends and comrades. I was bamboozled by their intentions in an “Injury to one is an injury to all” Wobbly worker solidarity but CLB isn’t interested in injury to workers anywhere if it can’t be blamed on the CCP. 
     Their Facebook monitors kept throwing “like” icons when I shared their posts about worker grievances in China but I will share them no more; in fact I condemn the CLB for their role in destabilizing Hong Kong for no worker’s well-being at all; all in the name of protecting their right to spread negative or false news about China from within their H.K. Trojan Horse. They have helped do young people and workers of Hong Kong a disservice and they are not constructive about helping workers in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan or anywhere else. I hope they are investigated, get arrested, and put on trial for treason in Chinese courts

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com      

        Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Ketagalan Media: Taiwan News from a Top-down Gaggle of Expats.

There’s a new Facebook group emanating from Taipei called Ketagalan Media apparently started in October 2013. It says it is “...the gateway that informs, inspires, and facilitates the movement of ideas and trends between Taiwan, Asia and the rest of the world” but it is just a mouthpiece for Lynn Jenna Cody, Cory Donovan Smith, Michael Turton, and other CIA wannabe expats. I do not communicate with any of them since I was publicly insulted on Facebook pages they run, the moderators of Taichung Info Exchange and Taiwan News in English Facebook pages a few years ago. But I couldn’t help but comment on a few dicey articles they posted to support or disclaim their misinformed view of Taiwan.

I know their views are misinformed because they are all anti-union. To me, any improvement in a society begins with a living wage for its workers. Ketagalan and its  moderators think top-down politics is all that matters; they cannot tolerate a grass root movement steeped in labor union organizing; only if it is political, top-down, and manipulative by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) does it matter to them.

One article they shared was from “Dissent” Magazine Online. Titled “The Island the Left Neglected” by Jeffery C.H. Ngo, fall 2018. The teaser was “If the American left is serious about opposing a reactionary foreign policy that preserves unequal power relations, it should speak up for Taiwan.” It was so ridiculous in convincing “the left” to support socialist tendencies in Taiwan (Universal Health Care was one example) as a union man with anarcho-syndicalist tendencies I commented:

“Taiwan, because it is anti-union and pro-business, with the media following sooth, with gangsters actively leading many Buddhist temples, is not the place a leftist can dream of promoting. The co-opting of the youth dubbed "Sunflower Movement" helped President Tsai and the DPP win in 2016 but she promptly dropped the ball in 2018 when people saw their wages weren't improving. China, with a socialist foundation wrestling with the last Western colony of Taiwan, means well and shares a cohort with Taiwanese. Chinese women went through a revolution that Taiwanese women, no matter how many in government, never experienced. The writer of this article does a disservice misinterpreting Taiwan.

A few weeks later, I got another share on my Facebook timeline from the Ketagalan group, “Order from Chaos”. It was a put up so they could refute a real CIA creep’s opinion about not having Tsai Ying-Wen be invited by Nancy Pelosi to speak to the U.S. Congress; Ketagalan thinks Tsai speaking would help Taiwan somehow. The teaser “The problem with inviting Taiwan’s Tsai Ying-Wen to speak to a joint meeting of Congress” introduced the Richard C. Bush article from Friday, February 8, 2019. I must have been bored because I put my two cents into a comment:

“The U.S. insensitivity in allowing Taiwan to normalize relations with its cultural cohort is imperialistic in nature. At least the U.K. and Portugal made right giving up their colonies stolen from China, the U.S. has not given back Taiwan to even the Taiwanese themselves. The U.S.is forcing a showdown with China that will do no one in the world any good. Pelosi or Trump, two sides of the same coin in sham democracy, must retract from its international belligerence.”

This brought Cody out of her lair to “lol” my opinion, but I got the last laugh and laughed hardest:

“There is no squeeze from China if Taiwan doesn't have pressure from the U.S. It's obvious that the people here won't fight for independence and that the U.S. uses Taiwan to contain China so it can dominate in Asia. Tsai Ying-Wen has an opportunity, as Lee Teng-Hui did, to tell the U.S. they "are not Taiwan's father" and shouldn't tell Taiwan what to do, but Taiwan must do something and China is offering a nationhood; the U.S. is offering colonization and exploitation. She'll end up like Chen Shui-Bien did; disgraced and imprisoned if she doesn't move fast. She must negotiate a reunification for Taiwan's good before the KMT wins the presidency, as it will, in 2020, because it is China that is being squeezed.”

Of course, Michael Turton had to rear his head in conceited put-down. I just sent a laughing icon to him, too; none of them are willing to consider worker solidarity and the lack of it in Taiwan; why bother to respond to them. As a matter of fact, I think I will stop getting notifications from this gaggle of misinformed expats.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

       Purchase "Unnatural Beauty;Poems from the Han Riverside" here.

        Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

“Concerned” People in Glass House

  
     There are a number of news organizations, such as the BBC and Reuters, partial to the United States and NATO’s point-of-view, saying that there are inhumane policies in China that deny its people freedom of expression, as if the government policies and media of the West safeguarded these liberties for us, a notion that Edward Snowden and other whistle-blowers have proven wrong; the teapot is calling the kettle black. Concerned people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. 

            These media outlets warn us about Muslim detention camps in Xinjiang that the Chinese government says are education centers; that they are really internment camps. Ex-inmates tell of abuses and torture of the one million ethnic minorities, the Uighurs, Kazakhs, victims of “intensive political indoctrination.”

“It is not mistreatment,” Li Xiaojun, the director for publicity at the Bureau of Human Rights Affairs of the State Council Information Office, told reporters. “What China   is doing is to establish professional training centers – educational centers.”

Li added: “If you do not say it’s the best way, maybe it’s the necessary way to deal with Islamic or religious extremism, because the west has failed in doing so. Look at Belgium, look at Paris, and look at some other European countries. You have failed.”

According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on Monday, former detainees described being denied food, being shackled or forced to stand for 24 hours, and being subjected to solitary confinement and sleep deprivation.”

Amazing that, percentage wise, American prisons educate so many more.

My friend tried to bait me: “So you feel these camps are justified? Seems reminiscent of Jews in Nazi camps. Neither group was trying to control the State.”

“No, not slave labor for the private American archipelago; there's no way to rehab a whole nation of drug addicts, thanks to big Pharma.”

   My troll wanted to keep the ball in his court. ”I am not asking you about the American opioid crisis, which I agree with you on, but the camps in China for Muslims.”

I pointed out that he knew more about the opioid crisis and prisons for profit than reeducation camps in China. I reminded him that China has been targeted often with foreign intervention bent on destroying its society. If the Chinese government. feels there is a need to protect its borders, I agree with it. China would have gone the way of Native Americans if it had let the foreign powers have their way and intoxicate their citizens. In Taiwan, the U.S. was complicit in dropping two million foreign ruling class invaders and with the 228 massacre of Taiwanese intellectuals and thus destroyed any chance of Taiwanese independence. I believe it would be best for you to be concerned and active with righting the wrongs of the U.S. govt. rather than being fearful of a sovereign nation protecting its borders from religious and political turmoil.

My personal American troll defended himself: “If they had left them alone it would not be part of China," he said flippantly like he supported automomy. His Taiwanese wife's father from China was one of the KMT [soldiers] that came over in 1949. "Although he was not perfect (none of us are)," he texted,  "he was not ruling class and killed no intellectuals.” I texted back he was probably shanghaied there with Chiang Kai-Sheks retreasting army.

My troll complained about Muslim camps in Xinjiang so I reminded him about other ethnic leansing closer to home. Here is an article by Dolores Cox posted on December 19, 2018:

“In Australia,  too, Aboriginal people are estimated to be only about 3 percent of the population now, yet they make up 27 percent of the prison population. According to Australia’s Justice Project, their radicalized incarceration rate is 13 times that of the white prison population. (tinyurl.com/ybdq7g6z). Aboriginal people also have higher arrest rates than whites, more convictions and a greater likelihood of imprisonment. Non-Indigenous prisoner rates have not increased since 2008.

The Australian Indigenous have experienced dispossession, exclusion from education and employment, and displacement. Only about 10 percent of Aborigines speak their native language. Only 59 percent of Indigenous youth ages 15-18 attend school, with just 34 percent graduating. And just 8.5 percent attend universities. Aboriginal home ownership is approximately 39 percent, and average income is only two-thirds that of non-Indigenous people.

Parallels in Racism

Parallels exist between the actions of white Europeans and European-descended Americans when it comes to the treatment of people of color worldwide. The U.S. was colonized in the 1600s by European settlers, resulting in the massacre, destruction of property and wholesale displacement of Indigenous people who had inhabited the land for thousands of years. Today, Native peoples comprise only about 2 percent of the U.S. population.

The U.S. has only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet jails 25 percent of the world’s total prisoner population. Similar to Australia, racial disparities dominate in the U.S. African Americans comprise approximately 14 percent of the U.S. population, yet 34 percent of prisoners are African-American men, women and children. Black men are incarcerated at nearly 6 times the rate of white men. And their prison sentences are 19 percent longer.”

Not liking the taste of his own medicine of my post to him, he reacted: “I like the image you sent, but not on my timeline.”

“And I not your negative comments on my posts,” I said

“Maybe you are right,” he patronized. “I could have messaged you about it, sorry. You can delete them.”

 I admitted to him I was selective in Facebook about what I see. All comments from friends cut me deeply and I wanted to respond, but so often a sarcastic friend, only out to support America and break my point-of-view down becomes a personal troll, not friendly at all; privately messaging me is better if a friend really wants to discuss politics.

Another instance was concerning a Workers World Party Facebook post. I said I supported the party that has always been there for workers and defending any communism, no matter how far from the theory they’d become.  A former Fellow Worker anarchist reminded me, “Sam Marcy supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary to crush the workers councils there.” As a product of the time, I would support Russia now if Ukraine wanted war.

In another instance, I read a post that said dozens of steel workers had been arrested in Iran, for protesting unpaid wages and government corruption - but they were still striking and taking to the streets to avoid arrests. “Workers at the National Steel Industrial Group in Ahvaz have been on strike since November 9. Homes have been raided at night and arrests have been made without warrants.”

            I say, sometimes, the solidarity of the state takes precedence over divisive factors, especially when it is under siege by NATO/USA/Israel. This is why I support any nation that counts those three imperialist states as enemies; one job at a time. Capitalist imperialism and fascism must be defeated first.

Some guy chided me in a comment: “So you are on the side of the Islamic fascist regime of the mullahs against the workers. The Iranian workers, of course, know better who their enemies are. And these are not the US and Israel. Congratulations and peace of your ashes.”

To this concerned citizen of the world I replied, “You, by sharing a labournet.tv and iranwire.com post  should be aware that though workers suffer all over the world, realize who is blowing the whistle on which nation's labor issues and their ulterior motives. If you are against "Islamic fascist regime of the mullahs against the workers" perhaps you are in favor of U.S. imperialism and destruction of U.S. anti-unionism and workers' rights. Clean up your own backyard. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones or accuse a stranger who you know nothing about.

But since an injury to one is an injury to all, I don’t hesitate to share posts from the China Labour Bulletin, although they conveniently don’t discuss labor issues in Taiwan. I shared “Global Support for Disappeared Left Activists in China is feeling angry” which issued a bulletin: “URGENT! In the past week, another wave of mass arrest was carried out by the police. 9 more comrades of Jasic worker support group were taken away!”

 My personal troll, playing dumb, asked, “Why are these good comrades being arrested?”

“Better to ask,” I responded, "Why are there no comrades in Taiwan being arrested?" These workers dared to stand up against workplace abuses, and there are thousands in China but workers in Taiwan, who are abused, even more so, with salaries that haven't kept up with inflation in 18 years, don't dare to organize because of KMT gangsters and American obstruction via the DPP.

   For this reason, I choose to ignore the so-called “Joint Declaration by the Representatives of the Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan within the Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee.

Since some people care so much about genocide and indigenous rights, and some are Jewish victims of one, like I am, I think readers might like to be reminded of the backyard they could clean up before worrying about the indigenous rights of Taiwanese natives, most of whom vote KMT, were co-opted by local corrupt politicians, and are being used again for sympathy against reunification. There are not any official spokesmen of these tribes; this is anti-Chinese propaganda. The vote buying and Stockholm effect from Christian missionaries who deluded them and burned their icons is more correct in the assessment of a people who are mostly assimilated, many alcoholic, and disinherited by the DPP and KMT. Again, I urge you to consider aiding a local indigenous population to soothe their savage souls.