GUEST BLOG: Dave Brownz – Stop War between China and US!
The reviving of Trump’s ‘China Virus’ scare by Biden with no conclusive evidence is a political ruse to escalate the cold war with ‘communist’ China. ‘China Virus’ is cold war 2.0 code for ‘Red Menace’ the global threat to democracy and human rights. Every aspect of global politics is determined ultimately by the growing contest between the two main imperialist blocs – the US/EU and China/Russia over hegemonic control of the global economy. The main driver of this heightened competition is the global struggle between the rise of China and the decline of the US measured in economic growth and political and military power. To win each bloc must mobilise its proxies and rally its working masses to arms and victory over its rival.
Every hotspot, or regime change in the world, is underwritten by this inter-imperialist rivalry. In Palestine, Israel wants US backing to smash Hamas, the tool of Iran, the regional ally of China/Russia. In Burma (renamed Myanmar by the military), the military coup leaders are puppets of China. In India, the US is pressuring the fascist Modi regime to break relations with China. In Ukraine there is a stalemate between the US/EU backed regime and the Russian annexed Crimea and Russian backed breakaway Donbass region. In Venezuela, Brazil, and South Africa, all members of the BRICS, the ruling class is divided in its subservience to the two blocs. In Australia, New Zealand and Samoa, Chinese interests are being resisted by US backed political forces. The list goes on as the two main blocs are vying for control of as many countries as they can to defend or extend their sphere of influence.
China Virus 2.0
workers question the real causes, they will end up blaming the Capitalocene – the impact of the rise and decline of capitalism in destroying nature. That would open the road to mutinies against imperialist wars and fuel the socialist revolution. Therefore, to avoid another ‘weapons of mass destruction” farrago, expect Biden to double down with his 90-day report to produce the ‘proof’ that China deliberately released the Virus to destroy the West and become the new hegemonic power.
Meanwhile, 90 days gives the intelligence and research apparatus of the US the time to build a clinching case to justify war. It also creates the opportunity to push the other issues to build a ring of military support around China. Netanyahu has engineered US backing for isolating the Arab state rulers from the Palestinian masses, and advancing his cause to destroy Iran’s influence in the region. Free vaccines to India would push Modi and the Quad into a military build-up against China in South Asia. Myanmar will become a human rights cause celebre in search of a candidate for a colour revolution. Australia, deputy dog for the US in the region, will foam at the mouth to put its ships into the South China Sea to agitate for democracy and freedom of movement. Japan and DRK are already tied to their US bases in readiness. In Samoa the standoff between the longstanding Government which has negotiated a major new port with China, against a newly created opposition demanding power to cancel the deal, feigns to be a fight over democracy and the constitution, and not over which imperialist power will call the shots.
Uyghurs, democracy and human rights
Regarding China itself, the surveillance sources of US imperialism, its ability to dictate the ‘news’ agenda, and its ability to rely on subservient, chauvinist, neo-Stalinist left hackery, are mobilised to brand China as a Red dictatorship and an abuser of the human rights of the Uyghurs. Of course, as a capitalist and rising imperialist power, it would be strange if China was not anti-democracy and anti-human rights. China is no worse, maybe better, than every other imperialist power in history, most certainly the USA. Not only that, most of these powers had a hand in oppressing China since the 19th century, tried to smash the peasant based national revolution, and then into opening its borders, finally failing to subjugate it once more as a colony, as China rose again as an imperialist power, and now have the hypocrisy to claim the moral high ground on democracy and human rights.
As revolutionary Marxists we oppose all abuses of bourgeois democracy and human rights, including those of China. We are for the self-determination of Hong Kong, but we oppose the role of the US in dividing Hong Kong workers from mainland Chinese workers. China has territorial rights to both Hong Kong and Taiwan (Formosa) formerly occupied and defended by the US and other imperialist powers. We also fight for the right to self-determination of the Uyghurs, Tibetans and all other oppressed minorities. But self-determination from Hong Kong to Tibet will fail short of a Chinese socialist revolution to overthrow the Red Bourgeoisie and to create a Workers’ and Farmers’ Government. That in turn would not be possible short of a world revolution that overthrows all the imperialist powers and their lackeys and replaces them with a world federation of socialist republics.
For the World Revolution!
To be clear we oppose any war between imperialist powers as we do all their proxy wars. This would be a world war in which the allies on all sides are dragged into the war. A war between the US and its allies, and China and its allies, would end human civilisation much more abruptly than global warming. To avoid a real holocaust, workers in every country must build an international united front to intervene with its armed forces in support of all anti-imperialist struggles, against both the imperialist enemy and the national bourgeois enemy. Such United Fronts exist in a rudimentary form, as in workers’ blockades of arms and munitions to Israel, armed solidarity with the Syrian Revolution, and the international XR movement when it goes beyond civil disobedience to organised workers’ actions. This level is a step towards the internationalism required for a global workers united front. But that can only come out of a new world leadership composed of a revolutionary party and program that does not capitulate to either the US/EU bloc or the China/Russia bloc.
The new leadership that is lacking is that of a Trotskyist International rebuilt on the theory and program of the defunct 4th International. For Trotsky, like Marx and Lenin, since the mid-19th century the only progressive way forward for humanity was for the Permanent Revolution led by the Party of class- conscious workers. Today this means a world party with branches in every country with a program to defeat imperialism, its crises and wars, and its national bourgeois comprador allies. To win workers to this program we fight for transitional demands for elementary economic and political rights that capitalism cannot deliver and which can only be won by workers themselves. This drives workers to fight for workers control which brings them up against the state apparatuses, and in defence to form armed communes or councils as a base for a Workers’ and Farmers’ Government. By uniting these struggles internationally as one fight for one revolution, workers can realise the power they have to smash capitalism and open the road to socialism.
Dave Brownz is TDBs guest Marxist blogger
China does not have territorial rights to Taiwan. It is occupied/colonised territory since the 1600’s or so. Saying that is the same as saying UK has territorial rights to northern Ireland or saying in 400 years time that the Chinese have territorial rights to Tibet, Ughurland & probably a bunch of other lands by that time.
Does the Marxist no longer believe in the absolute right of nations to self-determination? Does colonisation/imperialism get a pass once a certain number of years have gone by? CCP/China believes that they own all Chinese. Do you concur that ethnic Hans all belong to China & how various Chinese communities feel about that doesn’t matter? If Hong Kong Chinese/Cantonese feel they have a different culture/reality to that of mainland China do they not have the right to autonomy/independence? If Taiwanese Chinese identify as Taiwanese primarily instead of as Chinese, does that not matter? Many Han Chinese in Taiwan have blood connection to native groups with which they intermarried after first colonisation and many are recognising that now just like many in NZ are recognising their Maori connections. They see themselves as Taiwanese just like Maori & Pakeha intermingled see themselves as Kiwi. Your reasoning would seem to imply Spain has territorial right to Catalonia, Italy to Lombardy, England to Scotland, Wales etc
Only reason Chinese/Han in Taiwan in big numbers now is coz of two events
1) Qing take over China defeating the Ming but a Ming Loyalist Lord/General/Admiral Koxinga fights on in the south, losing he retreats & gathers some of people in the territory he controls. He defeats the Western colonists from Portugal & Spain & a few native polities thus replacing one one coloniser with another. Him and his successors run their own kingdom.
He had upwards of 30, 000 sailors/marines/soldiers/farmers to occupy an island that only had about 100, 000 natives at the time (including western outposts/colonists). Later his son brings another 7000+ loyalists to Taiwan. Over the twenty years or so of the independent kingdom he established many Ming supporters migrate to Taiwan. In 1681 the kingdom surrenders itself back to mainlandQing control.
2) History repeats …defeated Chiang Kai-Shek evacuates bulk of forces & their families with Naval forces still in his control. This time a couple of million land on the island with more escapees to the island over the ensuing years. Chinese are no less colonist in Taiwan than the Europeans before or the Japanese after/before the Chinese waves. You spout off this idealist bullshit about a socialist revolution in China/worldwide socialist revolution …but it’s a mirage …it ain’t gonna happen.