China and Socialism

Same old anti-communist crap continues to ooze from the AFL-CIO

2010-11-22T13:20:00.001-06:00

Monday, November 22, 2010

Same old anti-communist crap continues to ooze from the AFL-CIO

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/11/21/report-the-real-story-behind-disney-toys-not-suited-for-children/

My response:

I doubt this is true about the child labor--- the conditions do sound a lot like what workers are subjected to at Lillian Vernon, Wal-mart and in the Indian Gaming Industry. I find it very strange that the AFL-CIO makes up these stupid stories about China when your own "coalition partner," the Democratic Party, devised the "Compacts" creating the Indian Gaming Industry which now has some two-million Americans--- mostly young or very old and many people of color including thousands of "undocumented workers"--- employed in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages working for a bunch of violent mobsters like the Fertitta's where workers have no rights at all under state or federal labor laws... and not once have you mentioned any of this on your blog or anyplace else... but, you publish a "report" accusing China of allowing child labor without one single shred of proof.

I will tell you what... if the AFL-CIO will pay for the trip, and Richard Trumka will accompany me, I will arrange with Chinese officials to go with us to visit these plants in question to see what's going on--- if, upon our return, Richard Trumka will come with me to see what is going on in the Indian Gaming Industry.

China definitely has its problems; but, exploiting child labor is not one of them.

Say, have you ever seen the faces of child poverty on Indian Reservations right here in the United States?
I am sure Richard Trumka could have accompanied his buddy Barack Obama to India and seen real exploitation of child labor.

I notice you don't publish the child victims of Obama's dirty wars on your blog, either. How many Chinese troops and drones do you see killing children?

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Obama and India... some concerns

2010-11-19T20:00:00.001-06:00

Dear Colleagues,

Last year, an organization called BRIC was formed which is a group combining Brazil, Russia, India, and China in an arrangement for consultation and development in a cooperative way amongst themselves and vis-à-vis developing countries since they are the most developed (other than the Western world). It is an expression of the development of a bi-polar economic world that is characteristic of 21^st century changes in economic relations and a challenge to Western domination, in particular the USA.

Only last week, Obama was in India. Why? To our dismay, he was representing US finance capital. Our foreign policy is being run by the Pentagon also under the aegis of financial capital (they are the ones that have gotten the world into an economic mess). His mission is obviously to induce India to work with the USA rather than with BRIC. This means finance capital investments and a strongly capitalist development of India with this foreign capital. Perhaps, some objective is to build India more rapidly than China as a competitor. This possibility is like blowing in the wind. Simply, if India goes along with US finance capital, it will still be on the basis of individual capital investments in particular industries rather than a planned national development of India’s total economy for the benefit of its own people. China, on the other hand, will continue its economic development on the basis of national planning within which each individual industrial enterprise must fit its program into the national objectives for which they set goals every five years. In fact, China now, being the second most productive nation in the world, is expected to reach the production level of the USA variably within fifteen to thirty years. Even that is not the achievement that China will be building simply because, were they to seek the national level of the USA (the number one), they will not be able to develop a standard of living for the country as a whole anywhere near what we have achieved (but is being diminished) since they have a population four times the USA.

We are witnessing capitalist gasps within a changing world in which developing countries are moving forward, freeing themselves from the privatization mania of US finance capital. We now see many of the developing countries moving into new social forms.

The big danger is that US foreign policy is turning towards military alliances aimed at China. We have seen some evidences of it. Not only is the military threat developing but also the economic currency war is being pushed by the USA with little support even from other capitalist countries. The big danger in the world today is the US creating a military situation with China. Note that, from the Chinese, there has not been a single move or a single threat in response to the pressures from the USA that have been accelerating in the last few months. The IMF turned down the US proposal on currency reform. G20 refused to discuss it, and capitalist countries opposed it. In the meantime, over the past few weeks, a new development has taken place emanating from China, highly peaceful from a monetary point of view. They are developing a gold market, which has no doubt an objective of creating international currency valuation on gold as the basic valuation. Someone will say this is dangerous because gold is overvalued. So what? That is not new. It will fluctuate, but it is solid and has international value where currencies must be keyed to it, and it can act as a stabilizing factor in trade and international investment on a peaceful basis. I am introducing two articles from the latest edition of the Beijing Review. These two articles deal with the practical partnerships that China has been developing with ASEAN countries and the region. It is beneficial to all and certainly an example of peaceful cooperation and development. While I am not sending anything on China’s relation with Africa at this time (which I will in the future), its involvement in Africa will turn it to industrialized modernization for the people of that continent and completely free it from the harness and reverberations of colonialism. Also, note the independent economic development of Latin American countries – independent of US finance capital domination. The world is moving on two axes, and we should, in our own country, start fighting for change, prevent the impoverishment of the working people in this country, demand stopping the wars, use the money to build up industry, help them create jobs, and invest in high tech, These are the only ways they will turn around this particular economic crisis, which will develop into a deep depression if they do not do it.

We had better start shouting.

Sincerely,

Sidney Gluck

Click HERE to view “A Practical Partnership” at http://www.bjreview.com.cn/quotes/txt/2010-11/09/content_310359.htm

Click HERE to view “Uninterrupted Progress” at http://www.bjreview.com.cn/quotes/txt/2010-11/09/content_310361.htm

What do you think about these articles?

2009-03-25T14:23:00.004-05:00

Dear Colleagues,

I am elated to be in a position to share with you articles from China in the English version of their magazine Beijing Review. The articles deal with the handling of the economic crisis that capitalism has foisted on them. They had relied too much on the export market in their economic growth rather than focusing on increasing domestic consumption. I believe they have learned their lesson and are now using the social capital available to them to facilitate their move down the socialist road and change their basic economic plan and market and banking regulations to foster domestic consumption which means taking care of their people's condition. I think they will succeed.

These three articles which I am now sending to you give you information which indicates their current thinking forced by the real conditions of a changing world in the 21st century. We are truly moving in a bipolar world. The strength of China's industrial, economic and social development and their relations with developing countries around the world will guarantee growth in spite of the financial capital which has dominated globalization. I believe we will see in the coming meeting of the G-20 that new directions will develop dealing with the relationship between the two poles of economic life for nations all over the world. I would like your comments after you've had an opportunity to digest this material.

CRISIS FOCUS: Forex Reserves to The Rescue -- Beijing Review

Positively Convinced -- Beijing Review

Re-employment Is Crucial -- Beijing Review

Sincerely,
Sidney J. Gluck
SJGluck@aol.com

UPDATED: March-16-2009 NO. 11 MAR. 19, 2009

CRISIS FOCUS: Forex Reserves to The Rescue

http://www.bjreview.com.cn/print/txt/2009-03/16/content_185302.htm#

When Premier Wen Jiabao told this year's World Economic Forum in Davos that the Chinese Government was exploring more efficient ways to use its massive foreign exchange (forex) reserves to boost the domestic economy, he emphasized that the reserves could only be used overseas.

Zuo Xiaolei, Chief Economist of Beijing-based China Galaxy Securities Co. Ltd., recently wrote an article in the Securities Times explaining why the country's forex reserves can only be used overseas and how they can help stimulate domestic development. Edited excerpts follow:

China's forex reserves are assets of the People's Bank of China, China's central bank, instead of assets of the Ministry of Finance. The central bank purchased them from enterprises and individuals through issuing more domestic currency, the yuan. Any proposal involving spending China's forex reserves to boost domestic economy would require converting them into yuan. If more yuan is issued, it would increase the domestic money supply and finally provoke domestic inflation.

All in all, forex reserve assets have their real purchase power in overseas markets, and that's why Premier Wen said forex reserves could only be used overseas.

Also, it is unfeasible to hand out China's huge forex reserve assets to the people to boost domestic consumption. If the Chinese spend $1 trillion buying goods or services at home, they will first convert the money into yuan. The $1 trillion comes back to the central bank again. Worse still, the central bank has to buy back the $1 trillion for the second time, which means it will issue another sum of yuan equal to $1 trillion. If the Chinese spend the money overseas, it won't directly stimulate the country's domestic economy, and the central bank will lose $1 trillion of its forex reserve assets. Either way will give rise to a currency crisis or inflation and the depreciation of the yuan.

Through the proposal of backing up domestic development with huge forex reserves, Premier Wen expressed the Chinese Government's confidence in reviving the economy. It indicates China still has room for maneuvering and is able to adopt measures other than printing more money to ride out the crisis.

China's forex reserves, which hit a record $1.95 trillion at the end of 2008, ensure that the country has a strong capacity for external payments and will help to stabilize foreign direct investments and prevent large capital outflows.

Furthermore, a large forex reserve base will promote an increase in domestic investments by driving imports of, say, technology, machinery and equipment. It not only will boost China's economic growth, but also serve as an active response to issues of global concern such as environmental protection and global warming, if the technology and equipment we import are eco-friendly and energy efficient.

When China imports more, it also will benefit the economies of exporters. China can make a larger contribution to the revival of the global economy if the exporters lift restrictions on technology and certain goods exported to China.

***********************

UPDATED: March-13-2009 NO. 11 MAR. 19, 2009

http://www.bjreview.com.cn/print/txt/2009-03/13/content_185303.htm

Positively Convinced

After reporting a sharp slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2008, the country's next step on the path to recovery is coming into focus

With sharp recessions on the way, the world is looking to China for some confidence. But the Chinese economy has its own woes-its drastic decline in exports and a looming economic imbalance have yet to be redressed. After reporting a sharp slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2008, the country's next step on the path to recovery is coming into focus. Premier Wen Jiabao's government work report outlined a national campaign to turn around the slowing economy.

Deputies to the 11th National People's Congress (NPC) and members of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) provided suggestions and comments about the economy.

Here are some selected summaries of their opinions.

Confident About Overcoming The Crisis

Yuan Chunqing, deputy to the 11th NPC and Governor of Shaanxi Province

The government work report of the State Council proposes dealing with the global financial crisis in an active and sound way. With the theme of sustaining economic growth, the report lays out a series of plans to stimulate economic growth.

Shaanxi has set its goal for economic growth at 13 percent in 2009. We have the foundation and conditions to realize such a goal. In the past five years, the economy in our province grew at an average annual rate of 12 percent. Last year, the economic growth in Shaanxi grew 15.6 percent, ranking fourth in the country. This has allowed us to accumulate strong power for continuously fast development in future years. Most of Shaanxi's leading industries are developed based on local resources. Because there are many large companies and large groups, they are more capable of fending off risks. As the state expands its input in infrastructure construction and public services, Shaanxi has wide space and potential for further development.

This year we will make efforts mainly in the following areas. In terms of investment, we will start a new round of major project construction, and fixed-asset investment may reach 630 billion yuan ($92.11 billion), up more than 30 percent.

Industry will be the key sector to sustain economic growth. The chemical industry is the major force to drive the development of the energy and chemical industries, and a number of major resource exploitation and deep processing projects will be constructed. Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) Co. Ltd. will play a leading role in China's large aircraft manufacturing and the development of feeder liners, and will drive the development of other related industries. The development of emerging hi-tech industries such as photovoltaic and semiconductor illumination will be stressed, and efforts in innovation will be strengthened.

The level and scale of inviting foreign investment will be improved.

Investment in projects related to people's livelihoods will be expanded to 40 billion yuan ($5.85 billion), an increase of 21 percent over the previous year, and will drive up economic growth while enhancing the level of public services.

We will set up 100 county-level industrial parks, accelerate the industrialization process in counties, support the development of 50 key townships in south and north Shaanxi, and accelerate urbanization in rural areas.

Central and Western Regions

Li Youzhi, deputy to the 11th NPC and Director of the Department of Finance of Hunan Province

Central and western regions are still underdeveloped. The process of industrialization and urbanization is backward, and the proportion of secondary and tertiary industries is low. Hence these regions are less affected by the global financial crisis than the eastern region. Moreover, with vast area and large population, the central and western regions have huge potential to expand domestic demand.

The Central Government should pursue a policy favoring the central and western regions in designing systems, arranging major projects, making policy and allocating funds. For people living in central and western regions, the most urgent demand is to improve education and health care security to stimulate their consumption.

Spending Money on People

Tian Xirong, deputy to the 11th NPC and Secretary of the Shuozhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, Shanxi Province

The government should be generous in spending money on people, because it can obtain the maximum benefit, directly enhance economic expectations, improve social confidence and increase tangible consumption. The government should concentrate on its budgetary input in housing construction, compulsory education, ecological environment and farmers' consumption.

After reporting a sharp slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2008, the country's next step on the path to recovery is coming into focus

I have four suggestions: First, we should accelerate urbanization construction, particularly the mass construction of affordable houses and low-rent houses in small and medium-sized cities to provide affordable living conditions for migrant workers and new university graduates. Real estate is one of the few industries highly related to other industries and can drive a large amount of social investment. For example, after buying houses, migrant workers and university graduates will also buy furniture, home appliances and telecommunications products.

Second, compulsory education in a real sense should be carried out in urban and rural areas; that is, families do not need to pay anything while the government pays all education expenses. This measure not only would ease the education burden on families, but also would improve people's quality.

Third, the government should make great efforts to resolve the problems of providing social security for the elderly, health care and unemployment insurance, and make steady progress.

Fourth, the central and western regions should be generous in investing in the ecological environment and providing jobs as a form of relief.

Old Industrial Bases

Cao Xinping, deputy to the 11th NPC and Mayor of Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province

There are many old industrial bases in China. In coping with the financial crisis, they should attach great importance to upgrading and transforming themselves.

The extensive economic growth pattern, especially the irrational economic structure, is the main crux of the problem in China's economic development. The global financial crisis has exposed the weak points more clearly. At present, China faces not only the challenges of declining external demand, but also the pressures of increasing restrictions from resources and the environment, growing labor and land costs, as well as the onset of international protectionism. Our traditional competitive advantages are gradually weakening. The economic growth pattern with its advantages of resources, the environment and low prices cannot last and must be abandoned.

As an old industrial base, Xuzhou has been exploring ways to upgrade and promote the transformation of an economic growth pattern focusing on structural adjustments. Some new and strong industries have been developing fast. The process of coping with the global financial crisis has also brought strategic opportunities for the upgrading and transformation of Xuzhou.

At present, Xuzhou is focusing its efforts on three areas to emerge from the crisis. First, it is expanding effective input in government investment-led projects so as to make full play of the role of government and attract more social investment. Second, it is strengthening the government's efforts to serve the market and companies, and doing its best to help enterprises solve their problems. Third, it is attaching great importance to people's livelihoods and solving serious problems that influence their production and daily lives.

Raising Farmers' Enthusiasm For Growing Grain

He Zhusheng, deputy to the 11th NPC and resident of Houying Village, Yingluo Town, Haicheng of Liaoning Province

Now it is more difficult for farmers to continuously increase their incomes. The low grain price is the main reason, which has affected farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain.

The grain issue is of great significance to the national economy, people's livelihoods and the state's stability. I suggest the state further increase direct subsidies for growing grain and increase the purchasing price of grain in order to increase farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain. This can not only increase farmers' income, but also stimulate consumption by farmers, and hence drive up domestic demand and contribute to maintaining economic growth.

I suggest the government reform the policies on direct subsidies for growing grain and purchasing farm machines and tools. Under market economy conditions, the state should pay high attention to private agricultural goods companies and farm product processing enterprises. The government should treat these private companies and state-owned enterprises of the same kind equally and create an environment of fair competition. It should not levy too many charges for farmers who establish small factories and build workshops. Only when farm product processing companies have good business can grain prices rise and farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain increase.

Culture Industry's Role

Li Li, deputy to the 11th NPC and President of the Shanxi Vocational College of Arts

The Shanxi Vocational College of Arts has performed the dance drama Wild Jujube nearly 600 times at home and abroad since 2002. The economic benefits of such entertainment and its role in boosting consumption are evident.

After reporting a sharp slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2008, the country's next step on the path to recovery is coming into focus

The global financial crisis has also brought opportunities for the culture industry, because in a slumping social environment, people feel more pressure in various respects, and they need more relaxation and confidence. This is what the culture industry can provide. Data show that since this January, China's culture industry has grown 15-18 percent. In some fields, growth has even reached 30 percent.

Therefore, the government must vigorously develop the culture industry to drive up domestic demand. First, it should formulate some policies for the culture industry during the special period, such as formulating tax policies to support the culture industry and reduce ticket prices for commercial performances. Second, it should establish and improve the government-led investment and financing mechanism for the culture industry to thoroughly solve its financing difficulties. Third, the government should participate in the creation of large cultural companies.

Managing Local Financing Platforms

Zhang Binggong, deputy to the 11th NPC and Commissioner of the National Auditing Office in Chongqing

The Central Government plans to invest 1.18 trillion yuan ($172.51 billion) within two years, creating up to 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) in local and social investments. A large portion of these funds must be raised by local governments and companies. Under these circumstances, the investment and financing platforms of local governments will play an important role.

In recent years, local governments have established investment and financing platforms such as investment companies and asset management companies, mainly serving urban infrastructure construction, small and medium-sized enterprises and education financing. These platforms have made significant contributions to local economic and social development, but still have problems and risks during operation.

For asset safety, banks are willing to grant loans to government-led projects. If local governments have fiscal difficulties and cannot invest enough funds in the projects, bank capital has to play the role of fiscal funds, thereby increasing the banks' risk of having nonperforming loans and endangering financial safety. During this round of massive investment to maintain economic growth, problems in local investment and financing platforms may become distinctly evident.

Therefore, I suggest the state formulate regulations on local investment and financing platforms and establish mechanisms for pre-warning and preventing risks as soon as possible.

Not So Bad After All

Li Yining, Vice Chairman of the Committee for Economic Affairs under the 11th CPPCC National Committee

The work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao confirmed the government's commitment to holding up domestic growth and also outlined a national campaign to contain the ripple effects of the global financial storm.

Obviously, China has learned the lesson from other countries that a sluggish response to the downturns delays the restoration of confidence. By making sizeable investments in infrastructure and social welfare, the country is gearing up to pick up some of the slack in the export sector.

Given the enormous scale of the stimulus package, I believe the target of 8-percent growth for this year is achievable. Although it is far from clear whether the export sector has put the worst behind it, domestic demand will be able to provide an expected spur to GDP growth. But the infrastructure spending spree should not overshadow the much needed shift in China's growth model towards domestic consumption and services, which would be more sustainable in both economic and environmental terms.

One looming concern is that the drop in exports is exacting a heavy toll on employment, which holds the key to social stability. The target of creating 9 million new jobs this year, reiterated in Premier Wen's work report, will not be easy to fulfill as there will be some lag before the economic recuperation works through the job market.

After reporting a sharp slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2008, the country's next step on the path to recovery is coming into focus

To firm up employment, the government is supposed to further support labor-intensive private enterprises, which are the biggest employers, and at the same time provide more vocational training for returning migrant workers.

Rural Prosperity

Chen Xiwen, Vice Chairman of the Committee for Economic Affairs under the 11th CPPCC National Committee and Director of the Office of the Central Leading Group on Rural Work

The subdued prospects for economic growth have increased the importance of bolstering domestic consumption, and rural consumption in particular. A basket of spending plans to upgrade rural infrastructure, subsidize appliance purchases for farmers, and extend rural access to healthcare and schooling will boost farmers' livelihoods and spending power. The countryside will also gain momentum from policies to increase the minimum purchase prices of grains and expand government and commercial reserves of food.

The severe drought in north China earlier this year will not put much of a dent in China's grain output, because the winter harvest makes up only around one fifth of the total. The government's timely drought-relief efforts have also helped ease the pain.

Currently, about 20 million rural migrants have lost their jobs as a result of the export collapse that drained life from the world's third largest economy. But the number has not showed signs of escalating, because many factories reopened after the Spring Festival and absorbed some of the workforce. As Premier Wen's work report highlighted, the government is acting swiftly to help them get reemployed or start up their own businesses. With more favorable policies coming into play, the country's job market is bound for a rally.

Fiscal Lifeline

Jia Kang, member of the 11th CPPCC National Committee and Director of the Research Institute for Fiscal Science under the Ministry of Finance

The strong increase in fiscal spending for 2009 plus its leverage effect should provide a floor under the slackening economy. The easing monetary environment and revitalization programs for the 10 backbone sectors will also pump steam into the industries.

In recent weeks, there have been initial signs of the economy starting to find its footing after a slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2008. New domestic currency lending has surged since November and hit a record 1.6 trillion yuan ($234 billion) in January, while power consumption in the eastern coastal provinces rebounded in February. But it remains to be seen whether these signs will turn into a more sustainable trend. Even if not, China still has plenty of scope to jumpstart the economy later this year.

According to the work report of Premier Wen, China's national budget deficit will jump more than sevenfold this year to 950 billion yuan ($139 billion), still below the international threshold of 3 percent of GDP. The United States, by comparison, is budgeting for a deficit of 12.3 percent of its GDP. However, policymakers should take a cautious approach to more tax waivers for absolute fiscal safety.

Compared with other countries, China has several potential advantages in economic resilience-relatively cheap labor and a buoyant domestic market, as well as unmatched budget flexibility. Those advantages will translate into real growth with the help of the stimulus measures.

Enough Stimuli

Li Deshui, member of the 11th CPPCC National Committee and former Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics

As the work report of Premier Wen indicated, this year will see a heady investment boom in China to offset the export contraction that is bearing down the economy. For a country like China, which is well positioned to turn around the current gloom, the goal of 8-percent growth this year is reasonable and realistic.

But we should draw a clear line between China's economic slowdown and the deep recessions of Western countries. The Chinese economy grew a modest 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008-the worst record in seven years-but was still the envy of Western countries sinking into deep recessions. Moreover, Chinese banks made an outpouring of loans this January to buck up economic growth while many of their Western counterparts were struggling to thaw a credit freeze.

That's why I believe extra stimulus measures beyond the 4-trillion-yuan ($586-billion) package are unnecessary. Premier Wen's work report underscored a considerable fiscal expansion, which combined with the credit boom will result in the vibrant stimulus we need.

More importantly, the fiscal package also adequately targeted new growth drivers, such as the consumer market and the service sector. This is crucial to rebalancing the growth model and polishing long-term economic prospects.

China's per-capita GDP surpassed $3,000 in 2008, signaling an accelerated urbanization and industrialization process to come. This also fosters a favorable economic climate for us to propel growth and restructure the economy.

Aiding SMEs

Yu Kwok-chun, member of the 11th CPPCC National Committee and General Manager of Hong Kong Yue Hwa Chinese Products Emporium Ltd.

Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employ the majority of workers-three out of four. They are also a big contributor to GDP growth. Now, with a shaky employment landscape in sight, policymakers are painfully aware of the importance of keeping smaller businesses afloat. But the question is how to warm up their souring business mood while overseas markets continue to buckle. Personally, I believe the following measures could be instrumental in aiding the beleaguered SMEs.

First, the government should prompt commercial banks to increase financing support to vulnerable SMEs whose supply chains have broken down because of a lack of cash. The banks' willingness to lend to SMEs is at its lowest level because of a risk-averse sentiment amid the downturns. Other options available include improving the guarantee system for funding SMEs and pushing ahead with the development of rural banks and microcredit.

Second, SMEs should be offered a chance to participate in the massive infrastructure projects that will generate juicy returns.

Third, the SMEs themselves should also make efforts to innovate their outdated technologies and old management modes so they are not forced out of the market in cutthroat competition. Meanwhile, they should also attach importance to brand promotion for a firm foothold at home and abroad.

Fourth, SMEs should be responsible for strengthening vocational training for their employees. This would help mitigate employment stress and also benefit the enterprises.

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UPDATED: March-14-2009 NO. 11 MAR. 19, 2009

Re-employment Is Crucial

http://www.bjreview.com.cn/print/txt/2009-03/14/content_185306.htm

A large number of migrant workers in southeastern coastal areas are returning home because of factory closures and production suspension

The U.S.-led global financial turmoil is weighing down China's real economy, which has relied heavily on exports of labor-intensive products for growth. China's employment suffers when the world economy succumbs to a recession. A large number of migrant workers in southeastern coastal areas are returning home because of factory closures and production suspension. Du Yang, a labor expert at the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published an article in China Finance that argued boosting employment, especially in rural areas, should be the primary goal of economic recovery. Edited excerpts follow:

Both central and local governments have made a series of policies to stimulate economic growth amid the global economic downturn. But those policies do not offer detailed measures to expand employment. In my opinion, an economic stimulus package that does not take into consideration job creation cannot root out the negative influence imposed by the financial crisis.

As China merges into economic globalization, any outside blow will cause sharp fluctuations in the Chinese economy, which can also be reflected in the labor market.

The 1997 Asian financial storm, a smaller version of this round of financial crisis, resulted in deteriorating economic growth and rising job losses. The Chinese Government at that time adopted active employment policies while in the meantime perfected the urban social security system.

The current financial turmoil has engulfed the Chinese labor market in the same predicament. Worse still, the crisis originated in developed countries, which absorb most of the cheap "made-in-China" products, hence taking a toll on labor-intensive Chinese producers.

However, this time, instead of urban employees, migrant workers who have relocated to the southeastern coastal regions have suffered the most from the destructive financial crisis. They not only have lost their low-paying jobs, but also are not covered by the social security network, adding uncertainty to social stability.

Unemployment imposes direct negative impacts on people's livelihoods, giving rise to social instability if a huge number of people cannot make ends meet because of job losses.

As a result, job growth should be at the top of the macro-control agenda.

In the government stimulus plans, more money seems to be allocated to infrastructure construction and large conglomerates. Those are useful to boost investment but will not effectively increase jobs or expand consumption.

To achieve an economic recovery with job growth, more stimulus measures should be granted to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are important absorbers of excessive labor in many economies.

More financial support should be given to SMEs to create a better development environment for them such as relieving their tax burden and increasing credit support if they are beset by financial problems.

Perfecting social security

To better survive the financial turbulence, we should combine active job expansion with optimized social security.

Last December, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed to "implement a proactive employment policy," which was right in time to tackle unemployment. A decade ago, we successfully weathered the Asian financial storm by actively expanding employment. This time, employment expansion must focus on the group that has been hit the hardest by the crisis-migrant workers.

A large number of migrant workers in southeastern coastal areas are returning home because of factory closures and production suspension

As I mentioned above, migrant workers are suffering the most from the economic recession. In recent years, more people have chosen to work on flexible schedules. According to our research, two thirds of migrant workers-about 90 million-are seasonal labors, whose employment status is hard to track given the current statistical system. Therefore, their job losses are most likely to be underestimated.

Not many migrant workers are covered under the social security net. Because most of them are hired as temporary workers, employers rarely take responsibility for their unemployment benefits. As a result, migrant workers are confronted with arduous living conditions once employment opportunities are not available for a very long period of time.

The mobility of migrant workers adds pressure to the implantation of the government's job expansion plans. At present, local governments do not include migrant workers in their employment expansion targets. The Central Government should track down migrant workers and make proper deployment of their reemployment.

To achieve a real economic revival with sound job growth, the government should learn from past experiences and minimize the impact of the financial crisis on the job market.

First of all, social security coverage must be broadened. The urban and rural social security system should be unified. International practices have proved that a major economic recession tends to be a crucial time to expand social security coverage and improve security levels.

When coping with the 1997 Asian financial storm, China had in the meantime built up a security system covering urban areas. Considering that migrant workers bear the brunt of unemployment, the government should extend its current urban social security network to rural areas, which would help lay a framework for a future social security system and coordinate urban and rural development.

Second, more breakthroughs are expected to take place in the fields of education, health care and old age protection, which are great concerns of the people. Once citizens are relieved of those burdens, they will be more willing to buy stuff. This will create a win-win scenario stimulating economic development at present and benefiting social security and public service in the long run. Consumption by the low-income group is likely to surge on sound social security. Moreover, if more of the central budget is spent on citizens' education, there will be more expenses and funds that can be redirected to consumption.

Third, public finance is required to shoulder a larger responsibility in supporting social security network expansion. In recent years, the labor market has been standardized, which has in effect added to enterprises' labor costs. Labor-intensive enterprises have since been heavily burdened by excessive labor costs. Judging from the enterprises' deteriorating performance, concerned government departments took a series of actions to help them by postponing their social insurance payments and incremental increases in the minimum wage. Those measures have exerted a positive influence on company performance at a time of economic downturn.

Therefore, if more public finance can be directed to social security, the enterprises' social security expenses will be reduced accordingly. In this way, if the same supportive measures can be maintained for a longer period, the conditions for enterprises will improve, and their expectations, along with investors' expectations, about their future expansion will become more stable. Hence more companies will be able to survive the financial turmoil, offering a healthier source of tax for the government. Boosting employment will ultimately create a scenario that benefits all sides.

Now the Forbes list has become the wanted list... in China

2009-03-02T15:04:00.001-06:00

From The Sunday Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5821943.ece

March 1, 2009

Tycoons tumble as ailing China turns against capitalism
How the dream has gone sour for those who got rich on the back of political patronage - then lost it

Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent

THE richest man in China has ended up in police custody and other “red billionaires” have plunged into debt or political disgrace as the communist nation’s flirtation with capitalism turns sour.

Meanwhile, millions of ordinary Chinese have lost their shirts in the stock market after share prices collapsed, and at least 20m workers have lost their jobs due to the recession.

In this atmosphere, the plight of Huang Guangyu, 39, has won little public sympathy. He is still languishing in detention after three months, while investigators probe allegations of bribery and irregular share trading.

Huang was a peasant’s son who built up a successful electrical appliance chain until it had 800 stores and he had shares worth £2 billion.
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On paper, he lived out the line that “to get rich is glorious”, a slogan that seduced foreign investors to pour billions into China, persuading themselves that it was not really a socialist dictatorship.

Business magazines wrote profiles lauding Huang as the paramount genius among China’s 391,000 dollar-millionaires. As usual in China, Huang’s ascent and his downfall seem to have coincided with influence wielded by powerful men inside the government bureaucracy.

“There’s a grey area between planned economy and market economy, in which government officials wield power and businessmen bribe them,” said Professor Liu Xue of Beijing University in the China Youth Daily.

Last November, Huang, his wife, and their chief financial officer disappeared into the grey zone that awaits those who lose their high-level protection – a world without lawyers, court hearings or constitutional rights. Huang’s net worth has crumbled. While he sits in detention, lawyers and accountants in Hong Kong try to save the company, whose shares remain suspended. He is, of course, no longer the richest man in China.

In the boom years, ordinary Chinese people watched a handful of businessmen and officials enjoying a hitherto unimaginable lifestyle of mistresses, banquets, luxury cars and foreign holidays. Public anger over rampant official corruption is now turning to class hatred as one tycoon after another ends up in prison or pleads for a bailout from friends in high places.

Protesters against graft and injustice took to the streets of Beijing last week ahead of the annual National People’s Congress. Angry citizens published an open letter demanding that the Communist party’s central disciplinary committee investigate the nation’s top property developer. “Billionaires in China blindly rely on political power,” complained blogger Chen Jinsong.

Resentment has been fuelled by the exalted levels of patronage that seem to have saved the most Anglophile of the Chinese magnates, Larry Yung, from financial embarrassment.

Yung, 66, is the grandson of a prerevolutionary Shanghai tycoon and the son of a vice-president of the People’s Republic of China. He made a fortune in Hong Kong as the public face of Citic, the first overseas investment arm of the Chinese government. With wealth came racehorses, a stewardship of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club and the ownership of Birch Grove, Harold Macmillan’s former country home in West Sussex.

But last summer a Citic subsidiary made a wrong-way bet on a derivatives trade in the Australian dollar that could cost it up to £1.6 billion. Shares in the subsidiary have fallen almost 80%. Its financial director and controller were fired, although Yung’s daughter, who worked for them, kept her job. The Hong Kong authorities are investigating the affair. Yung flew to Beijing and secured a bailout from his masters on the Central Committee of the Communist party.

Another casualty is Zhang Yin, 51, once hailed as the richest woman in China and one of only 10 self-made female billionaires in the world. Shares in Zhang’s paper company, Nine Dragons, collapsed by some 90% as Chinese exports slumped and so did demand for its recycled boxes.

There has been public glee at her misfortune because, to many Chinese, she is the unacceptable face of capitalism. Last year she used her position on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference to lobby for tax cuts for the rich and to try to block a new labour law aimed at ending sweatshop exploitation.

It was a costly blunder. Left-wingers unleashed the state media to tear into Zhang, reporters soon uncovered employment abuses and tax officials have been urged to investigate her.

Chinese billionaires are uniquely vulnerable to investigations for tax evasion and illegal land scams, said Zhao Xiao, a researcher at a state think tank, in an interview with a Chinese newspaper.

“Now the Forbes list has become the wanted list,” he said.

Failing capitalists give China "advice"

2009-03-01T13:22:00.005-06:00

Zhang Lan... is this "success?"

From: Globe and Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/GAM.20090228.RCOVER28/TPStory/TPComment?pageRequested=all

COVER STORY: CHINA

KICKING THE FACTORY ADDICTION

For more than a decade, the world gazed in awe as China grew into a manufacturing powerhouse. But suddenly, the world stopped buying and the juggernaut has become a model of overcapacity. Can a nation of fanatical producers be transformed into mass consumers? Marcus Gee visits the country's industrial heartland.

MARCUS GEE

February 28, 2009

BEIJING -- Zhang Lan is the picture of Chinese success. She grew up in the countryside, the daughter of university professors sent down to the farm during the Cultural Revolution to learn how the peasants lived.

When she grew up, she moved briefly to Canada, washing dishes and waiting tables in a Toronto restaurant.

Today she runs a chain of elegant nouvelle-Sichuan restaurants that employs 6,000 people. Her office has a big-screen TV, an Apple laptop and suite of designer furniture. Sleek assistants drift in and out with messages and cups of tea.

Just back from New Zealand, where she took a ride on China's America's Cup yacht, Ms. Zhang plans to get a boat of her own. She is learning to fly a helicopter, too. And for company, she plans to buy herself a pet crocodile. One of those little ones you keep in an aquarium, her visitor asks? "No," she replies, "I want a big one," and spreads her arms wide.

The drive and savvy of people like Ms. Zhang have helped carry China to giddy heights, transforming it from a land of Mao suits and bicycles to billionaires and bullet trains in the space of her adult lifetime.

But as the global crisis starts to hit the world's third-largest economy, its economic miracle is suddenly under a cloud.

Demand for made-in-China watches, hammers, Christmas lights and DVD players is drying up as Western consumers rein in their spending. Thousands of manufacturers have shut their doors, including half the country's toy factories. More than 20 million people have already been thrown out of work, spurring a mass reverse migration from the coastal export zones to the poor countryside.

Putting these people back to work is posing a challenge that goes far beyond just getting the factories up and running again.

The global crisis is exposing deep flaws in China's development model. As overseas shoppers have closed their wallets, China is learning the downside of a dependence on making cheap stuff for the rest of the world. Years of pumping up its industrial strength by throwing money into superhighways and supersized factories have left it too muscle-bound for its own good.

Now, like an athlete giving up on steroids, China is striving to wean itself off the high-octane cocktail of investment and exports and lean more on consumption, innovation and services. To thrive in the age of crisis and beyond, it needs a new model - one that produces fewer cement plants or toy factories and more gung-ho business people like Zhang Lan.

"The financial crisis is an opportunity to change the economic growth model," says Chang Xin, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "How to make that opportunity into a reality is a big challenge for China."

China's current model springs from the reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, opening China to the world and unleashing the power of the market. Deng consciously copied the success of neighbours such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. They achieved spectacular growth in the 1960s and 1970s by exporting manufactured goods such as toys, clothing and, later, high-end electronics to the malls of the developed world. They also used their big pool of savings, the product of a famously high Asian savings rate, to invest heavily in roads, bridges, ports and strategic industries.

It was called the East Asian model of development and, for three decades, it seemed to work as well, if not better, for China than for the "little dragons" of Asia. China's gross domestic product per head grew tenfold and its overall GDP 12-fold. Hundreds of millions of Chinese rose out of absolute poverty. China became the workshop of the world, filling fleets of container ships with the products of its teeming coastal factories.

At the same time, capital investment by government and companies soared too, reaching more than 40 per cent of GDP, a far higher rate than the other East Asian dynamos in their era of maximum growth. Fixed-asset investment - in things such as land, building and machinery - has grown by a pell-mell annual rate of 20 per cent and more.

One result: China has no less than 80 car makers and thousands of steel mills. In the steel town of Fengrun about two hours from Beijing, for example, no less than 100 mills belch smoke into the sooty winter sky.

For decades, those car makers and smokestacks served a steadily growing overseas clientele. Until they went into reverse last fall, China's exports had been growing at a frantic pace for years.

Now, that heavy reliance on trade and investment is proving to be a weak spot. There is nothing wrong with investing, especially when companies are making fat profits and the economy is growing by double digits, as China's has until now. The problem in China is that much of the money is misdirected or simply wasted. State-run banks usually lend to state-run companies, or those with political connections. Much of the money pours into cement or chemicals or big export producers, which are favoured with government-subsidized land and energy. By contrast, smaller, more innovative companies have a hard time raising money in a country with an immature stock market.

Hence, the country's surplus of car makers and steel mills. How will they survive now that demand is falling for steel to make appliances for export and build new housing at home in China?

"Basically, you could get money for free in China as long as you built a factory," said Michael Pettis, a Peking University economist. "The Chinese financial system is geared up to create an unsustainable explosion of capacity. Just as the U.S. was the world centre of overconsumption, China was the world centre of overproduction. Both have to adjust."

In other words, China needs to become more like the rich economies of North America and Europe. That may stick in Beijing's throat at a time when those economies are suffering through their worst crisis in decades. Their model of development is looking pretty flawed too.

Western consumption clearly has its drawbacks. But Beijing's focus on government-directed industrial expansion overlooked the need to create a consumer class. And there's another problem: Heavy industry employs fewer workers than service industries. So in recent years, even as the economy boomed, employment growth has slowed and the income of the population has grown at only about half the rate of GDP.

"The end result of this pattern is that the Chinese economy has created this huge production capacity but has created a very limited consumption base," Yasheng Huang, a China watcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an e-mail interview. "This means that China is very vulnerable to the economic slowdowns in the U.S. and other rich countries."

China's consumption level is the lowest for any major economy. Both Chinese households and Chinese companies are fanatical savers. That means the economy can't rely on domestic demand when exports go soft.

Services, meanwhile, account for just 40 per cent of GDP, compared to 54 per cent in other middle-income countries and 70 per cent in high-income countries. There are more and more entrepreneurial companies like Ms. Zhang's restaurant chain group, but still not nearly enough. Only four million people work in China's banking and insurance industries, for example, a trifling number in a population of 1.3 billion.

Worse, service industries are often dominated by government-backed or government-owned firms with a stranglehold on the market. In mobile phones, one of China's most dynamic markets over the past decade, the dominant player is state-owned China Mobile.

Though Chinese products crowd store shelves around the world, China has produced no global brand such as Japan's Sony or South Korea's Samsung. And though Chinese firms are trying hard to move up the value chain, their record for innovation is poor. China has yet to produce a globe-girdling multinational such as India's Tata Group, though computer maker Lenovo is trying hard.

Many Chinese companies are still simply assemblers of other people's products - bikes from Taiwan or computers from Texas, put together by hand on a Chinese factory floor with parts imported from elsewhere. China spends 1.5 per cent of GDP on research and development, compared with 3 per cent or more in some developed economies.

China's leaders are well aware of the flaws in their economic model. The country's No. 2 leader, Premier Wen Jiabao, pronounced in 2007 that "there are structural problems in China's economy which cause unsteady, unbalanced, unco-ordinated and unsustainable development."

Only this week, the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, remarked that "China has a problem of high savings and low consumption."

It noted that the share of investment in GDP has risen to 43.5 per cent in 2008 from 36.6 per cent in 1992, and the share of consumption has dropped to 48.6 per cent in 2008 from 62.4 per cent in 1992, well below the world average. This was "not conducive to the healthy and stable development of the economy."

Too true. Yet it remains to be seen whether Beijing will move quickly or decisively enough to correct the problem. To make it more tempting for Chinese to spend instead of save, Beijing has taken steps to improve its astoundingly weak social safety net.

Last month, for example, the government rolled out a new universal health care program, reasoning that people who have some insurance against illness will not have to save as much to pay for their care. It has also improved rural property rights to encourage country people to open their wallets and raised minimum factory wages to coax manufacturers to move up the value chain.

Still, the World Bank says that, so far, "there has been little rebalancing away from industry and investment towards services and consumption."

It recommends a series of measures: freeing the yuan - the Chinese currency - to rise in value, making Chinese exports less affordable to foreigners and shifting the balance away from export-led growth; shifting more government spending from investment to social welfare and education; liberalizing the banking system and stock markets so that smaller, more efficient firms can raise money and get loans more easily; dismantling monopolies and oligopolies that prevent competition in the services sector.

Taking these steps will be hard, especially in the midst of global recession. Rather than shifting away from exports, the government has quite naturally been doing everything in its power to help exporters from going under by, for instance, restoring tax rebates they used to enjoy. And far from slashing investment, it has promised to spend an impressive four trillion yuan ($740-billion) to stimulate the economy, much of it going on new roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

But, then, China has managed to reinvent itself before. Ms. Zhang, the restaurant chain owner, reminds her visitor that when she was growing up, China was "the sick man of the world." Her scholar parents were made to feed the pigs on the farm. It was forbidden to do business with foreigners or to run even so much as a private tea cart.

Today she is looking at buying six Swiss castles as part of a planned international expansion of her chain. Asked if she isn't afraid of the global economic storm, she says without bravado, "I don't know what it is to be scared."

If China managed to switch from the xenophobic Maoism of her youth to the modified capitalism of today, she is certain it can survive the current storm and move forward. Who would dare to say she is dreaming?

Trouble in Toyland: U.S. recession jolts China

2008-12-14T19:01:00.002-06:00

Chinese workers get a good dose of capitalism more poisonous than the lead Mattel sells for children eat.

Trouble in Toyland: U.S. recession jolts China

Dwindling demand hastens closure of at least 3,600 factories, stirs unrest

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28037960/

By Kari Huus and Adrienne Mong

msnbc.com and NBC News

Fri., Dec. 12, 2008

For American parents, bargain prices for toys this holiday season qualify
as good news: A Barbie fan who rose before dawn for Wal-Mart’s Black
Friday sale could secure the coquettish “Barbie Diamond Castle Princess
Liana Doll” for $5 — royally marked down from its regular retail price.
At Target, a 10-pack of die-cast Hot Wheels cars also went for just $5,
while a radio-controlled helicopter cost a mere $15. The price wars were
enough to draw consumers out of their bunkers for their first shopping
spree in months.

But wrapped up with those cheap toys are ominous economic omens for both
sides of the Pacific. The rock-bottom prices show how desperate U.S.
retailers are to plump up weak consumer demand — a symptom of the ailing
U.S. economy and a serious problem for China, which makes nine of every 10
toys sold in American stores.

Declining U.S. orders already have contributed to the closure of at least
3,600 toy factories since the beginning of 2008, according to the Chinese
government, leaving hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers suddenly out
of work in this sector alone. Some of the shutdowns have triggered violent
protests, a situation that could worsen if the Western recession drags on
through 2009, as many economists are predicting.

“Unemployment in China could deprive a lot of people of their
lifeline,” says Hu Xindou, an economics professor at the Beijing
Institute of Technology. “So it could trigger social instability or even
shake the rule of the Communist party.”

Millions of jobs at stake
The toy industry has played a major role in China’s economic surge over
the past 30 years. Exports account for as much as 40 percent of China’s
gross domestic product, and labor-intensive industries making things like
toys, shoes and clothing generate millions of jobs for its rapidly growing
workforce.

But Chinese toy makers began feeling the economic squeeze well before the
U.S. recession was made official in late November.

U.S. retailers trimmed orders after suffering weak sales in the 2007
holiday season — made worse by recalls of dangerous toys.

The volume of Chinese toys passing through eight major U.S. ports was down
5.9 percent in the first nine months of this year, compared to the same
period in 2007, according to economic forecaster IHS Global Insight, which
tracks the information for the National Federation of Retailers. Toy
traffic through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., which
typically handle more than half of Santa’s incoming booty, declined 10.2
percent, as measured by tonnage.

The draw-down isn’t readily apparent at U.S. shopping malls, where toy
shelves appear as packed as ever. And the limited inventories on hand
likely won’t become obvious unless a toy emerges as a must-have item —
like the Tickle-me-Elmo and Cabbage Patch dolls of past shopping seasons.

Slowdown makes tough time tougher
Behind the scenes, though, the decreased orders are sending shock waves
through the Chinese economy.

“A lot of what is happening in China, particularly with respect to toys,
is demand driven,” says Erik Autor, international trade counsel for the
retailers federation. “Toy (buyers) are ratcheting back orders,
reflecting a drop in consumer demand.”

Slowing orders have added to other pressures on China’s toy makers.

China’s new labor contract law, which imposed stricter conditions and
compensation for layoffs of temporary workers, took effect in 2007,
increasing costs for manufacturers that rely heavily on migrants on
production lines, including toy makers and other labor-intensive
manufacturers based mainly in southern Guangdong province. The province has
become the core of China’s manufacturing sector based on the flow of
cheap and abundant labor temporary workers from the country's poor
interior. By some estimates there are 150 million migrant workers in
Guangdong alone.

Toy makers also were hard hit by the rising price of oil, which surged to
more than $140 a barrel in June, and in turn sharply increased the price of
plastic.

Industry sources say the toy makers saw profits squeezed to the point where
many tried to renegotiate contracts with buyers — especially major U.S.
players, such as Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us. When they discovered the buyers
wouldn’t budge on the purchase agreements, many simply decided to close
their factories. Some locked the gates and vanished in the dead of night,
leaving workers to discover they had no job when they arrived in the
morning.

“Over half (of the factories) that have closed had negotiated a price,
then when they couldn’t get the retailer to move (on the price), they
wouldn’t make it at a loss and closed down,” said Britt Beemer, a
retail strategist and founder of Charleston-based America’s Research
Group.

Others found ways to cut corners, which is cited as one reason that the
problem of Chinese toy safety came to a head last year. Among other things,
some Chinese factories started using lead-based paint on their products
because it dries faster and thereby speeds production time.

“They were either closing their eyes or closing their doors,” said
Michael Zakkour, managing director of China BrightStar, a manufacturing and
sourcing consultancy.

To be sure, some of the factories that were shuttered were small shops that
employed only a few dozen workers. And the contraction is to some degree a
natural consolidation process in an industry that is overbuilt. But big
players have clearly been affected as well.

One of the most publicized cases was the abrupt closure of the Smart Union
toy company in October in the city of Dongguan, the center of the toy
industry. When the factory managers disappeared overnight, leaving 7,000
workers without paychecks or severance, protests erupted, targeting both
the government and the publicly traded Hong Kong company. The Dongguan
government finally doled out 24 million yuan ($3.5 million) to pay what was
owed to the workers and settle the conflict.

“All local officials recognize that they are judged on the basis of their
ability to control social unrest,” said Nicholas Lardy, a China expert
and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“It’s in their interest to make sure factories don’t leave town and
abscond with back wages.”

In November, toy workers rioted after the Hong Kong-based Kaida
Manufacturing Co. laid off 600 employees from its factories in Dongguan and
tried to avoid paying compensation required by the new contract law. Local
media reported that approximately 1,000 police and security guards were
called in to disperse the angry crowd, but company offices were ransacked,
cars overturned and at least five people were injured before order was
restored. Kaida ultimately agreed to renew contracts with senior employees
and offered compensation packages to others.

Reverse migration
The closures have left many migrants with no work, including 23-year-old Wu
Yang, who worked at a Taiwanese-owned factory in Dongguan for three years
before being laid off four months ago when the operation was shut down. Wu
is considering returning to his home in central Henan province, but for now
he’s killing time in local bookshops and hoping the situation will turn
around.

"Maybe I will go home, but it’s boring there,” Wu said. “And I’ll
just gamble all my money away."

Each day, thousands of other migrants in Guangdong and other coastal
provinces board trains and buses for their home villages, leaving earlier
than normal for the Chinese New Year, which begins Jan. 26. When and if
they will return is anyone’s guess.

In the short term, the exodus of unemployed workers eases pressure in
Guangdong and other manufacturing centers. Longer term, however, it hurts
families living in the poorest parts of China, who receive money from
migrant workers. That raises the prospect that the protests and violence in
the manufacturing regions could spread to the interior, many China experts
say.

“It’s a potentially scary scenario,” said Lawrence Delson, who
teaches China business courses at New York University. “If many of these
migrant workers go home, what happens to the flow of money back to the
inland provinces? … There is a deepening division between the haves and
the have-nots … raising the specter of social unrest.”

Mixed message
The Chinese government appears well aware of the threat and has taken
action aimed at stimulating its sagging economy.

In November, Beijing announced a massive $586 billion stimulus package.
Economists and world leaders praised China for putting together the most
ambitious rescue package in the world, worth about 3 percent of its GDP.

Chinese leaders did not provide many details of the package, but indicated
that it would include spending on infrastructure, health and education. The
central purpose of the package, they said, was to spur consumption in China
rather than rely so heavily on exports for growth. At a G20 meeting later
that month, China also agreed with other major economies that in grappling
with the crisis, all nations should avoid protectionism.

But with pressure mounting to protect jobs in its export sector, Beijing
also has instituted policy that is contrary to the spirit of the G20
meeting by increasing tax rebates on thousands of export products — from
toys to toasters. The rebates, and an artificially low valuation of
China’s currency, essentially give its exports a competitive edge in the
world marketplace, threatening to increase trade imbalances that have long
caused tension.

Even Chinese officials have expressed concern that the rebate policy, which
experts say covers at least 50 percent of China’s exports, could spark
retaliation from trade partners, including the United States. Some trade
experts warn that could spark a trade war, similar to what happened when
the United States put in place high protectionist tariffs in 1930, thereby
fueling the Great Depression.

“At the moment, China is the gold standard on the stimulus,” said
Lardy, of the Peterson Institute of International Economics. “But I would
give them very low marks for this (tax policy.) They are … basically
promoting exports at the expense of the rest of the world.”

U.S. has plundered world wealth with dollar- China paper

2008-10-25T11:40:00.002-05:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSPEK466920081024?sp=true

From Reuters---

Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:59am EDT

BEIJING, Oct 24 (Reuters) - The United States has plundered global wealth by exploiting the dollar's dominance, and the world urgently needs other currencies to take its place, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Friday.

The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said that Asian and European countries should banish the U.S. dollar from their direct trade relations for a start, relying only on their own currencies.

A meeting between Asian and European leaders, starting on Friday in Beijing, presented the perfect opportunity to begin building a new international financial order, the newspaper said.

The People's Daily is the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party. The Chinese-language overseas edition is a small circulation offshoot of the main paper.
Its pronouncements do not necessarily directly voice leadership views. But the commentary, as well as recent comments, amount to a growing chorus of Chinese disdain for Washington's economic policies and global financial dominance in the wake of the credit crisis.

"The grim reality has led people, amidst the panic, to realise that the United States has used the U.S. dollar's hegemony to plunder the world's wealth," said the commentator, Shi Jianxun, a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University.

Shi, who has before been strident in his criticism of the U.S., said other countries had lost vast amounts of wealth because of the financial crisis, while Washington's sole concern had been protecting its own interests.

"The U.S. dollar is losing people's confidence. The world, acting democratically and lawfully through a global financial organisation, urgently needs to change the international monetary system based on U.S. global economic leadership and U.S. dollar dominance," he wrote.

Shi suggested that all trade between Europe and Asia should be settled in euros, pounds, yen and yuan, though he did not explain how the Chinese currency could play such a role since it is not convertible on the capital account.

A two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of 27 EU member states and 16 Asian countries was set to open on Friday. Though few analysts expect much in the way of concrete agreements, Shi said it could prove momentous.

"How can Europe and Asia grasp each other's hands and together confront the once-in-a-century global financial crisis sparked by the U.S.; how can they construct a new equitable and safe international financial order?" he said.

"The world is waiting for this Asian-European meeting to achieve big results in financial cooperation." (Reporting by Simon Rabinovitch; Editing by Ken Wills)

Yummy, yummy... melamine in your tummy... "Mommy, is there a capitalist connection to me dying?"

2008-09-29T11:34:00.003-05:00

Cadbury pulls melamine-laced chocolate from China

September 29, 2008

By MIN LEE

HONG KONG (AP) - British candy maker Cadbury said Monday it is recalling 11 types of Chinese-made chocolates found to contain melamine, as police in northern China raided a network accused of adding the banned chemical to milk.

A Cadbury spokesman said it was too early to say how much of the chemical was in the chocolates made at its Beijing plant.

"It's too early to say where the source was or the extent of it," said the spokesman, who declined to be identified because of company policy.

The company said its dairy suppliers were cleared by government testing.

But American candy companies Mars and Hershey say their candy is safe to eat.

The Hershey Co. (HSY) said Monday it has never purchased milk ingredients, including powdered milk, from China.

Mars North America said in a statement that its operations in China do not get any ingredients from companies found to be selling melamine-contaminated dairy products. It says the Chinese food-safety agency tested samples of Mars China's milk powder suppliers and found them to be free of melamine.

Mars makes Snickers and M&Ms. Hershey makes Hershey's Kisses and Reese's brands.

Meanwhile, police in Hebei province arrested 22 people and seized more than 480 pounds of the industrial chemical in the raids, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The report said the melamine was produced in illicit plants and sold to breeding farms and purchasing stations.

Xinhua said 19 of the 22 detainees were managers of pastures, breeding farms and purchasing stations. It did not say when the raids took place.

The scandal broke this month when authorities said infant formula produced by Sanlu was causing kidney stones in babies and young children. Four infants have died and some 54,000 have become ill after drinking the contaminated baby formula.

Subsequent tests revealed melamine contamination in products ranging from yogurt to candy to pastries.

Authorities believe suppliers added melamine, which is rich in nitrogen, to watered-down milk to deceive quality tests for protein.

Cadbury said the 11 recalled chocolate products were distributed in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.

U.S. companies Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) and Mars Inc. said they would adhere to a recall order of Chinese-made Oreos, M&Ms and Snickers in Indonesia, but said they wanted to conduct their own tests with outside experts.

So far only a local agency has checked the products for melamine, but the levels found were considered very high.

"We have asked our trade partners and retailers to suspend the sales of our products in accordance to the agency's order," Mars Indonesia spokesman Bondan Ardi said.

Hong Kong supermarket chain PARKnSHOP also pulled its Chinese-made Oreo, M&M and Snickers products as a precaution, spokeswoman Pinky Chan said.

Countries around the world have removed items containing Chinese milk ingredients from store shelves or banned them outright.

Authorities in China had previously arrested at least 18 people and detained more than two dozen suspects in connection with the scandal.

Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall

2008-09-13T07:12:00.004-05:00

Note: Since this was posted a reader suggested a link to the Chinese media be posted... this is from China's Daily English language newspaper:

Link to People's Daily:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6498939.html

Commentary by Alan L. Maki...

Does anyone really believe, that the "market economy" and capitalist thinking introduced and pushed by deviant and corrupt Chinese leaders whose perverted world outlook has been shaped by backroom payoffs in the same manner as received by any American politicians from the Wall Street coupon clippers working in league with the likes of capitalist sooth-sayers such as Alan Greenspan in the name of the wonderfully sounding "harmonious development," which is said to be part of "Chinese culture," as the right-wing, reactionary Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation "educate" a "new generation" of Chinese youth in "business administration," rather than, the Communist Party of China doing its job in educating the working people and peasants in Marxism where socialist humanism is elevated to the highest level, can escape these kinds of atrocious, uncaring and anti-human aspects of a "free market economy" as working people are told, for some unstated reason--- and without any basis or substance to back it up--- that working people will have to wait for twenty to one-hundred years to attain their very basic and fundamental human rights?

It is because the "leaders" of China have pushed down, rather than raised up, the working class and peasantry to suit the interests of the profit gouging capitalist corporations of the West, that China now finds itself entangled in the same web of corruption and working class repression as any capitalist country... including the most corrupt and repressive of them all--- the United States of America.

This problem of contaminated milk powder went on for weeks making hundreds of babies sick simply because working people and peasants in China have been removed from the decision making process and no longer feel free to bring forward and report this kind of wrong-doing... no different than the more than two-million casino workers employed here in the United States in the Indian Gaming Industry who--- working without ANY rights--- have even less rights than Chinese workers and peasants; who, too, like Chinese workers, are now too intimidated and bullied to tell law enforcement agencies about prostitution, drug dealing, loan-sharking, and the illegal gambling operations that are now bringing corruption even to the youth in American high schools as these illegal betting rings operating out of the casinos make pay-offs to high school quarterbacks and pitchers to throw the games and manipulate point spreads for these bookies to make profits.

As both socialist Minnesota Governors, Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson, repeatedly pointed out, it is the epitome of naivete, to think or suggest, that the corruption which permeates every facet of our lives--- from the church to the schoolroom to the corporate boardrooms to the offices of mayors and the Sate Houses and Halls of Congress--- can be eliminated as long as capitalist greed is the dominant force and motivator of any society.

Both Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson were very clear on this point: For humanity to rise above the corruption and decadence of capitalist society, a new system of cooperative socialism would have to be brought into existence by working people and farmers, united, who were sincere in desiring real change... the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party, like the Chinese Communist Party tried to make the needed change--- both met stiff opposition from the same very powerful capitalist class of Wall Street coupon clippers.

One would think that working class Communists and peasants in China would have come forward already and said the same thing Barack Obama is saying about the situation here regarding eight long years of the Bush-Cheney Administration--- the most corrupt in American history: ENOUGH.

Simply taking these crooked and corrupt culprits in the management of this Chinese dairy enterprise out in a cow pasture and putting a bullet in their heads is not enough... because those who do the bribing and foster the corruption are being placed on a pedestal and elevated to positions of high power and influence.

Chinese workers--- like workers, peasants and farmers everywhere--- need to get rid of capitalism rather than give in to the perversions of "market socialism" and "new thinking," which are nothing more than code-words for allowing capitalism and all forms of exploitation and corruption to thrive.

Again, as Barack Obama has pointed out, "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough."

The same thing can be said of "harmonious development" and "market socialism" which is nothing more than putting lipstick on someone like Sarah Palin... call it what you will, capitalism is still capitalism... capitalism is the same corrupt, rotten system no matter what pretty words are used to try to disguise it... no different than a pretty face with lipstick intended to hide what comes out of the mouth as the most backward and reactionary ideas of warmongers and the Wall Street coupon clippers of the military-financial-industrial complex who have built state-monopoly capitalism into a vast web of imperialism now infecting even socialist China with its poisonous corruption.

Certainly, if the American people "have had enough," the Chinese people don't want more of what we want to get rid of.

Alan L. Maki

Link to People's Daily:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6498939.html

From Associated Press---

Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall

Sep 13, 7:22 AM (ET)

By JOE McDONALD

BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese dairy that sold milk powder linked to kidney stones in infants and one death knew weeks before it ordered a recall that the product contained a banned chemical, the Health Ministry said Saturday.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday that the dairy, Sanlu Group Col, was ordered to stop production as the number of sick babies rose to 432.

A Health Ministry statement gave no indication why Sanlu Group Co., China's biggest milk powder producer, failed to warn consumers immediately. Employees who answered the phone Saturday at the ministry's news office and at China's product safety agency said they had no more information.

In August, Sanlu's testing revealed melamine in the milk powder, a ministry statement said. Melamine is a toxic chemical used in plastics that contaminated pet food last year.

The ministry did not say when Sanlu alerted authorities about its findings but the dairy ordered a recall Thursday of 700 tons of formula made before Aug. 6.

A New Zealand dairy cooperative that owns part of Sanlu said Friday it believed none of the tainted powder was exported.

Kidney problems in infants were reported as early as mid-July but authorities failed to launch a food safety investigation, Xinhua said in a separate report. Another news report said the dairy received complaints as early as March.

Investigators are questioning 78 people about the contamination, which occurred when dairy farmers added melamine to the milk, possibly to make its protein content appear higher, Xinhua said. Melamine is rich in nitrogen and standard tests for protein in bulk food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.

The incident reflects China's enduring problems with product safety despite a shake up of its regulatory system following a spate of warnings and recalls about tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.

The biggest group of victims is in China itself, where shoddy or counterfeit products are common. Infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or injured by tainted or fake milk, medicines, liquor and other products.

The number of infants suffering kidney stones after being fed Sanlu formula has risen to 432, Xinhua said. It did not give a breakdown of where in China the cases were.

Xinhua cited a Gansu provincial health department spokesman as saying he received reports on July 16 that 16 infants under a year old, all of whom drank Sanlu milk, were suffering a rare kidney ailment. He said the Health Ministry launched an epidemic survey.

"However, there seemed no food and safety survey had been done. Otherwise, the health, and even lives, of many infants could have been saved," Xinhua said.

A Sanlu manager quoted by the newspaper Beijing News said the dairy received complaints in March and June but could not track down the problem.

Another Sanlu manager quoted Friday on the Web site of a leading Chinese business magazine, Caijing, said it refrained from making an announcement because some grocers refused to return tainted powder. The report did not say why that prevented a warning.

Sanlu buys milk from a nationwide network of suppliers that includes 60,000 family farms, according to the company's Web site.

In Taiwan, officials said they had seized thousands of pounds of milk powder produced by Sanlu after Beijing authorities notified them the product was tainted.

Liu Fang-ming of the Taoyuan county government said the shipment, which arrived in June, contained 55,115 pounds of milk powder, but only 21,660 pounds have been recovered so far.

Officials did not say whether any of the milk powder, which is used in baby milk formula and baked goods, had been consumed in Taiwan.

Taiwan has not reported any illnesses from the powder.

It was China's second high-profile case in four years involving harmful baby formula.

In 2004, more than 200 infants suffered malnutrition and at least 12 died after being fed phony formula that contained no nutrients. Some 40 companies were found to be making phony formula and 47 people were arrested.

---

Associated Press researcher Bonnie Cao in Beijing contributed to this report.

Corporate complicity with the Great Firewall

2008-08-15T10:02:00.002-05:00

Question: Does anyone really believe this is not happening in the United States, too?

Comment: Alan Greenspan, the "guru" of "free markets," says free markets work best without government interference; but, it seems that these "free markets" fear the people whether in China or the United States and it takes massive government involvement to protect these "free markets" from being replaced with the planned economy of socialism. It seems the only time the "free marketeers" don't complain about government interference and involvement is when it takes government to protect the "free market" from the wrath of the people who are fed up with "free markets."

Corporate complicity with the Great Firewall

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/china.censorship

China is strongly criticised for its internet censorship – but it is western technology firms that have provided the tools for the job

Dmitri Vitaliev guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday August 13 2008 11:00

Like its precursor, the Great Wall of China, the Great Firewall was constructed to guard China from waves of foreign influence and information intrusion. With the world's spotlight on China and widespread criticism of its repressive actions, one should not forget that the knowledge and technology used to create the world's most prominent Big Brother society was designed in the west, often by the very same corporations whose advertisements on TV take up the time between the relay race and the javelin competition.

Much more than your standard internet filtering gateway, the Great Firewall comprises an administrative collaboration of seven government ministries, unrestricted access to numerous public record databases, closed circuit television footage with built-in facial recognition systems, as well as the more well-known information surveillance and censorship technology. Software and hardware purchased from around the world continue to tighten the screws of a digital information society. Network control and optimisation, intrusion detection and other security features promised in the product brochures of western IT firms are put to use against the rights to privacy and freedom of an entire populace. This is a brief survey of the surveillance scene:

A recent (non-intrusive) scan through the website of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security revealed a number of documents listing an inventory of various security technologies. One spreadsheet details software and hardware implemented for network surveillance, packet scanning and user detection. A closer inspection reveals that the Chinese internet infrastructure employs a huge array of security products, procured from companies all around the world. An example of four tools, chosen from the several hundred found in the inventory:

XSGuard Management System: purchased from the Els Shield (Shanghai) Information Technology Co Ltd, network management software developed in the Netherlands. It allows for monitoring of network packets and performing digital forensics.

Cisco 4125 Intrusion Detection System: purchased from Cisco China and used for monitoring activity on the T1 subnet. Other items sold include the ASA 5505, which "provides intelligent threat defense and secure communications services that stop attacks before they impact business continuity."

YangNet Police Network Intrusion Detection System: purchased from the Bright Oceans Corporation in China. According to their (badly translated) website, the product "acts in a transparent based on a URL filtering and text content filtering, shielding bad, illegal site, on the conduct of fine-grained web content filtering and the precise control and prevent all internal net users to browse the cult, pornography and other undesirable foreign websites and webpages. This feature is suitable for primary and secondary schools, tertiary institutions, government, business and professional applications."

Radware DefensePro 2000: an Israeli technology organisation; in this case, the product offers an "Adaptive Decision Engine: behaviour-based, self-learning mechanism proactively scans for anomalous network, server and client traffic patterns ... and is designed for enterprise core and perimeter deployment, data centers, university campuses and carrier backbones."

A popular acronym in government, big business and the military for today's centralised surveillance technologies is "C4I" (Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence). The top shelf of the technology market offers solutions that integrate closed circuit television with criminal records databases, national health insurance with biometric ID cards, holiday travel bookings with international terrorist lists and so on.

Security China 2000, the largest national security exhibition, attended by the world's most renowned IT corporations, marked a beginning of Chinese endeavours to create the world's most sophisticated surveillance infrastructure. It was sponsored by the Chinese Public Security Bureau, the ministry in charge of policing the internet. The meeting was attended by US-based Lucent, Sun Microsystems and Cisco, European wireless giants Nokia and Ericsson, and Canada's Nortel Networks, among many others. The main event was China's Golden Shield Project – an ambitious plan to link China's national and internet surveillance networks, public record databases, CCTV cameras, speech and face recognition databases, smart cards, credit records and a myriad of regional and national ministries. Their mission was to make the network "see, hear and think" in the continuing effort to solidify state control.

Nortel Networks continues to work with the Chinese Tsinghua University on developing speech recognition software, often used in surveillance of telephone conversations, allowing the network to hear. It has also widely distributed its "personal internet suite" to providers in Shanghai, Beijing and other major Chinese cities. The software allows IPs not only to monitor what their subscribers are doing online, but to control what information is delivered to them.

Content requested from a home computer for topics deemed undesirable will be stored against that person's personal file in numerous databases. The network rolled out with product and knowledge support from western IT firms is designed to think – that is, to identify individual subscribers when they log on, matching names to IP addresses, and learning, over time, what interests them.

The Golden Shield Project also integrates a facial recognition system (FRS), partly developed by Acsys Biometrics, a Canadian company. Rolled out across closed-circuit video surveillance networks in Chinese cities, it allows the Golden Shield to see. Rick Collins, senior manager of Nortel's advanced research laboratory, ProtoNet, said of the Acsys system: "Layering Acsys' face recognition's capabilities within Nortel Networks' solutions will make communication networks more personal. I envision a network that knows who you are, where you are and can reach you whether you're on your mobile phone or at your desktop."

An enthusiastic business partner of the Chinese state apparatus has been Cisco. Notorious for its several appearances before the US House of Representatives to explain their role in supplying virtually the entire hardware on which the Golden Shield Project operates, as well as multiple systems to assist Chinese ministries responsible for catching political and social dissidents and censoring the internet. In 1997, Cisco won the contract to supply internet "firewall boxes" and, by 2006, they supplied 60% of the Chinese market for routers, switches and other sophisticated networking gear. Its estimated annual revenue from China is $500m.

In 2003, Cisco's "Policenet" software was rolled out as the backbone of the Chinese state security system. This software, in conjunction with Intel's fingerprint technology, is compatible with the Chinese surveillance systems and allows a policeman stopping a person on the street to scan that person's ID card and access instantly the individual's past political and social behaviour, family history and recent internet activity.

Terry Alberstein, director of corporate affairs for Cisco Systems (Asia Pacific), confirmed in 2005 that Cisco does indeed sell networking and telecommunications equipment directly to the Public Security Bureau and other law enforcement offices throughout China. Cisco recently stated that it also provides service and training to Chinese police officials. Unlike other IT companies, Cisco has signed contracts directly with Chinese public security authorities.

It is futile to argue whether western corporations are directly responsible for the uses to which China puts their technologies. Following basic free-trade principles, products are most likely sold "as is" to (rather than customised for) the Chinese government or third-party resellers. However, just as in the arms trade, these practices have led to the creation of a hostile digital environment, inhabited by Da Ge (pinyin for Big Brother). Whenever we pause to discuss or protest China's decision to filter websites or jail Yahoo email account holders, we must bear in mind that the technology that has made this possible was built in our own backyard.

One in Five German Firms Leaving China

2008-08-11T12:23:00.006-05:00

SPIEGEL ONLINEInternational

WHEN OUTSOURCING FAILS

One in Five German Firms Leaving China

China lost its status as the world's cheapest country for manufacturing some time ago. The momentum now seems to be shifting away from outsourcing to the Far East, with one in five Germany companies pulling production out of the country. Chinese workers, they say, are getting too expensive.

Despite massive training efforts, German premium stuffed animal-maker Steiff was unable to yield the quality it demanded from its Chinese plant.
Citing fast-climbing labor costs and pesky production quality problems, a growing number of German companies are doing an about face and pulling their manufacturing operations out of China. Some are searching for countries with lower wages (more...) while others are returning production to Germany.

The Association of German Engineers (VDI) estimates that one in five of the approximately 1,600 German companies with presences in China is planning to pull out of the market, the Tagesspiegel am Sonntag newspaper reported. "Many, many firms are naïve when they enter into the Chinese market and don't even think about the fact that wages are increasing there," VDI spokesman Sven Renkel told the newspaper.

Rising energy costs, stricter environmental rules, the elimination of many tax incentives, a dearth of skilled workers and the increasing strength of the yuan against the dollar have all pushed production costs up in China. In addition, the country's 8-percent inflation rate has also driven up wages in the past year by as much as 20 percent, Harald Kayer, a partner at the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), told the paper. For some companies and industries, China is already getting to be too expensive. They're now looking to other lower-wage countries, like Bangladesh, India or Kazakhstan, where production is cheaper, or they're bringing manufacturing back to Germany, he said.

Chinese companies, too, are increasingly outsourcing production abroad, Eddy Henning, the head of corporate banking at Deutsche Bank in Beijing, told the newspaper. "Someone who just wants to produce T-shirts is more likely to go to Vietnam or Africa," he said. For investors from Europe, Romania and Bulgaria are also competitive with China when it comes to production.

According to Hans Röhm of the consulting firm Deloitte, the companies that are most likely to return to Germany are those that outsourced production out of cost considerations -- including the consumer goods industry and textiles, which both produce in mass quantities.

But manufacturers of high-quality goods are also looking at China with a more critical eye -- at least in the longterm. A dip in quality for these companies could damage their reputation. "That's why we're advising a lot of our customers to consider production in Germany," Röhm told the paper.

Four years ago, Steiff, a world-famous German company that makes high-quality teddy bears, moved part of its production to China. In early July, though, the company announced it would return all manufacturing to Germany.

"For premium products, China is just incalculable," Steiff CEO Martin Frenchen told the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper in July. He said it took six months to train workers to produce the teddy bears' complicated stitching and to meet the company's standards for quality. "By then you might have already lost them to an automobile factory next door that pays more," he added. Despite the company's arduous efforts to produce high quality products in China, Steiff executives weren't satisfied with the end result, Frechen said.

The company also complained of the length of delivery times. Sometimes the ships carrying the company's stuffed animals would take up to three months to get to Germany. For sales successes like the company's stuffed Knut polar bear, of which 80,000 were sold, that waiting period was just too long.

Following a major scandal last year in which researchers discovered that some toys made in China were coated in toxic lead paint, the public's faith in production in the country was shaken, and Steiff decided to end its production in Asia.

Commentary:

This headline in Spiegel says it all:

Vietnam is the New China: Globalization's Victors Hunt for the Next Low-Wage Country (05/14/2008)

Through it all, the working class creates the wealth and the capitalists steal this wealth.

The question remains: What is to be done?

With one in five German firms now leaving China for cheaper labor and better quality production standards what will happen as firms from other countries follow in quest of cheaper labor markets?

Is China really on the path of "harmonious development?" Or, is this "harmonious development" just a sop--- or mere words and platitudes in the form concessions--- thrown out to pacify billions of working class people and the peasantry who are growing tired of living in poverty?

The creation of millions of capitalists has been tolerated by the capitalist moles who have tunneled their way into the Communist Party of China; these capitalist moles are out to restore capitalism in China under the guise of harmonious development.

These capitalist moles who have infiltrated the Communist Party of China are seeking to buy time to finish consolidating the return of capitalism to full power by suggesting that working people will only be able to look forward to reforms twenty to one-hundred years from now.

The facts simply do not correspond to reality in China. China has in fact become a tremendously wealthy nation... in spite of claims of being on the road to "harmonious development" the only ones living "harmonious" lives are the new Chinese capitalists.

No working class Communist Party would tolerate this tremendous accumulation by capitalists who flaunt their wealth in front of the poor and then tell workers and peasants they will have to wait twenty to one-hundred years to have all of this benefit their lives.

At a bare minimum, if there was any sincerity at all about working toward "harmonious development," all previously cut universal social programs would have been restored by now in China. For sure there is enough wealth in the hands of Chinese and foreign capitalists to finance socialized health care and free education through university along with a very substantial housing program amounting to more than the "dormitory" housing for which working people have to pay exorbitant rents.

Going back-wards for another twenty to one-hundred years as capitalists amass ever greater profits through the suffering of the working class and rural peasantry is not my idea of what socialism is about.

Already, the very capitalists who have amassed very significant wealth in China are doing just what capitalists in any other countries have done... they are taking this wealth and running to cheap labor markets where they can make even more. This is not "harmonious development" no matter what anyone claims.

Working people have a right to ask if the wealth they have created amounts to enough for them to live better lives.

Commentary by Alan L. Maki

New Times, New Opportunities

2008-07-07T18:56:00.021-05:00

Note: Sam Webb has refused to respond to concerns raised by any of those posting their opinions and concerns... so we are moving on. There is no use trying to conduct a dialogue and discussion with someone who thinks their views are beyond challenge. Alan L. Maki

Please note: All discussion of "New Times, New Opportunities" by Sam Webb can be found at this link: Discussion of New Times, New Opportunities... you are invited to submit postings as often as you want. Send all postings to: amaki000@centurytel.net

Dear Friends,

I would like to share with you an article “New Times, New Opportunities” by Sam Webb, Chair of the CPUSA, which appeared in their monthly magazine Political Affairs.

In my opinion, this marks a profound change in the approach of a Leftist organization in advancing democracy.

It is a recognition that Socialism is achieved through incremental victories in the struggle to overcome the inability of the Capitalist system to eliminate the cancers of poverty and unemployment.

Most of you know that I have taught Classical Marxism for over 50 years at various institutions, not the least was 20 years at the New School for Social Research in New York. I believe that objectivity and recognition of economic and social conflicts contained in this article are worth studying whether one is an advocate of Socialism or not. It deals with the complexity of Social change in our country.

I welcome comments and questions, especially from those who disagree and any additional information from those who agree.

Sidney J. Gluck

SJGluck@aol.com

Note: Sidney J. Gluck has obtained permission to reprint this article.

New Times, New Opportunities

By Sam Webb

Note: Sam Webb Chairs the Communist Party USA.

Excerpted from Communist Party USA National Committee report, March 2008.

The political upsurge ricocheting across the country has no counterpart in recent decades. Its breadth and depth are remarkable. Its politics are progressive. It is framing the nation’s political conversation. It rejects the old racist and sexist stereotypes. It is a mass rebellion against the policies of the Bush administration. It is seeking a political leader – one who gives priority to “lunch pail” issues, appeals to our better angels and visualizes a country that is decent, just, united and at peace with the rest of the world. And it’s the necessary groundswell and kinetic energy for a smashing victory in November.

The setting of this upheaval is the Democratic presidential primaries. So far, the turnout has been far beyond anybody’s expectations. Records are being broken in nearly every state primary. Every sector of the people is marching to the polls. Young voters are grabbing the electoral bull by the horns. Twice as many Democrats have voted as Republicans, an ominous sign for the GOP this fall.

The high octane of this upsurge is simply breathtaking. In every place where people gather, the candidates, the primaries and the issues are the subject of animated conversations. If anyone thinks that issues are getting short shrift or that it is all about personalities, I can only guess that they are just watching, but not feeling and listening to the whirlwind that is blowing across the country.

Aren’t the most pressing concerns of the American people structuring the “give and take” of candidates as well as voters? This is anything but an issueless campaign. It contrasts sharply with the last presidential elections when the “War on Terror” took up nearly all the oxygen in the room.

Thanks to this surge, a woman or an African American is on track to become the presidential nominee. This reflects the growing political maturity of the American people. It should be celebrated as a great democratic achievement. Anything that is done to diminish this fact should be vigorously challenged.

In short, tens of millions of voters have turned the Democratic primaries and the November general elections, into the main, if not the singular, terrain on which millions hope to draw down the final curtain on the whole right-wing project and set the country on a new course. No matter whether voters support Obama or Clinton in the Democratic primaries, the political intent of their votes is clear: people want change and not any kind of change, but change that puts people’s needs before war-making, division, sleaze and corporate profits.

Struggles in other arenas will continue to be sure, but all of them should find their part in the great drama that is now unfolding on the stage of electoral politics. While an ending to this drama is still to be written, it is fair to say that a decisive people’s victory will reconfigure every arena of struggle to the advantage of the people’s movement. Any mass organizations or movements that don’t insert themselves in a full-blooded and practical way into this very dynamic process will be left behind by their own constituencies and by events. They will miss an opportunity that comes along rarely in political life.

Thus, every communist should become an active participant in this electoral upsurge, if he or she hasn’t already done so. The avenues are many and the possibilities are nearly limitless.

Let’s seize the moment.

Spontaneous factor

While the working class and every other section of the people’s movement are engaged in this upheaval, it reaches well beyond their organized structures and constituencies. That it is more spontaneous than organized should startle no one.

Any upheaval of this magnitude is a work in progress and has a large element of spontaneity. The entry of people in their millions, and especially many who have been passive and disillusioned with politics up to now, cannot be explained solely or even mainly by the actions of the existing network of people’s organizations. Any mass upsurge has its own independent dynamic.

Triggering this one are a slow buildup of combustible feelings of injustice and insecurity and a deeply felt perception by millions that the 2008 elections could change their life prospects in deep-going ways. Like everything else in nature and society, a mass upsurge should be viewed dynamically, that is, in its contradictory motion. Life, to paraphrase Lenin, is always much more complicated and multifaceted than we can ever imagine. Theory, as necessary as it is, is only a guide to action.

Unfortunately, this lesson has yet to be fully learned by some on the left. Seeing little, if any, progressive potential in electoral politics or the Democratic Party, they have a difficult time taking proper measure of and responding to unfamiliar political patterns, such as the current upsurge in the Democratic Party primaries. It doesn’t fit, nor can it be easily shoehorned to fit, their political model of social change. Needless to say, we don’t share such views. In fact, this upsurge in the electoral
arena is the main political vector of struggle for the year ahead.

To our credit, we said two years ago that the midterm elections and their results were a dress rehearsal for the 2008 elections. And at our National Committee meeting last fall we went further, saying that this year’s elections could set in motion a process leading to a new era of class and democratic struggle on much higher ground.

At the same time, we have to admit that we underestimated the fury and the scope of this surge. Nor did we anticipate the Obama phenomenon.

Youth and independents

One of the most hopeful aspects of this people’s surge is the entry of young people who either were not of voting age in the last election or were old enough to vote but chose not to do so. In injecting themselves en masse into the Democratic primary process, today’s younger generation is becoming an agent of change. Not since the sixties have we seen young people bring their energy and idealism to the political process on such a scale.

The beginnings of this change were evident in recent years. More young people participated in the 2004 elections and the majority of youth voted for Kerry. Furthermore, young people were a sizeable part of the anti-war movement as well as participants in other social movements. But what we are seeing today is on an entirely different scale and level of intensity.

The reasons for this qualitative change seem clear enough. Young people are saddled with enormous debt, horrified by the Iraq war and the pervasiveness of violence, alienated from the policies of division and intolerance of the Bush administration, and turned off by a political culture that is opaque, money driven and seemingly empty of higher ideals and aims. Sensing something different in Obama’s candidacy, they are flocking into the Democratic Party primaries in record numbers as organizers and voters.

Unlike some older people, the pressures and grind of everyday life haven’t yet worn them down. “Keep on keeping on” is not a slogan they embrace. “Yes we can” better captures their mood. They eagerly desire and embrace change. They not only imagine the possibility of another world; they imagine its realization in their lifetime.

Befitting their youth, they take inspiration from yesterday’s struggles but they are not prisoners to them. The Sixties, even the Reagan years, are history, not lived or vivid experiences for them.

Finally, the young are less inclined to be cynical. This election might not begin the world anew, but for millions of young people it is a first step.

Independents are entering this upheaval, too. For many of them the Democratic presidential primaries are where the action and fresh ideas are. The politics of yesteryear no longer resonate for them; they are looking for answers to stubborn problems such as the impossible costs of health care that weigh heavily on the quality of their lives. Not least, the working class, the nationally and racially oppressed and women are leaping into this upsurge in a way not seen for many years. Each of these constituencies went to the polls in record numbers.

Voting patterns

What do voting patterns reveal? First, working people divided their vote largely between Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Kucinich and Richardson. To say that Clinton has garnered nearly all of the working class vote is simply wrong. For one thing, Black people are overwhelmingly working class and cast their vote for Obama. For another thing, Obama received the lion’s share of the working-class vote, understanding working class broadly, in many primaries and overall. At the same time, it appears that Clinton polled well among trade unionists, women workers and Latino workers.

Second, the African American people gave their overwhelming support to Obama. In nearly every primary, roughly nine of 10 African American voters cast their ballot for him. This is explained not only because of understandable pride in the possibility of electing an African American to the presidency for the first time, but also because Obama would represent their interests, unite our country and usher in a new era of fairness, justice and peace for all.

Third, most women voters supported Clinton, although younger women and African American women of all ages tended to vote for Obama. But what is really notable is the massive turnout of women of all nationalities, races and social circumstances. If one obvious reason was their deeply felt opposition to the Bush administration, the other was their excitement over the possibility of electing a woman president. No doubt both desires energized women to go to the polls and assure that women as organizers and voters will be a powerful force against the right in the fall.

Fourth, many white people, male and female, cast their votes for an African American. This might be the most notable feature of the vote so far, as quiet as it is kept by the mass media. In fact, from media reports it seems as if Obama has become the front-runner on the basis of the Black vote alone. But anyone who thinks about it for a moment knows this is ludicrous. Obama carried several states with small African American populations, and did well in the southern states and especially Virginia, where a majority of white voters supported him.

Furthermore, the millions of white people, the majority of whom were workers, who voted for Obama did so because they liked him – his manner, his style, his opposition to the war, his concern about lunch pail issues, his ability to unify our country along racial and other lines, his fresh appeal, his youthfulness and so forth.

Were some white men (not to mention other men) motivated to vote for Obama because they would never vote for a woman? Of course, but I suspect when voting patterns are studied more closely, greater explanatory weight will be given to the first set of reasons – that is, they cast their vote for Obama because they liked him.

Fifth, the Latino vote in its majority went to Clinton. But what is most striking is the increase of the Latino vote in the 2008 Democratic primaries. So far the Latino percentage of the overall primary vote is over 10 percent, whereas in the 2004 general election the percentage was 6.7 percent. In California, the Latino percentage of the Democratic Party 2008 primary vote was 30 percent compared to 16 percent in 2004; in Texas, 32 percent this year compared to 24 percent in 2004. Similar changes have occurred in other southwest states.

Equally striking is that in the primaries Latinos have voted Democratic over Republican 78 percent to 22 percent, while in the 2004 general election, the spread was much less, roughly 63 to 37 percent. With nearly five million Latinos voting in the primaries, it is becoming more likely that the Latino vote in November could reach 10 million or more and thus provide a cushion of four to five million votes for the Democrats over Republicans compared to less than two million in 2004.

The implications are obvious: the Latino vote is an essential and growing part of a larger effort to win a landslide victory over the right wing in the presidential and congressional races in November. One would never get this impression, however, from the mass media’s reportage of the primaries so far. Instead, the media spin is that Latinos flinched at the option of voting for Obama, because of anti-Black feeling. I can’t go into this in great detail, other than to say that we should take
issue with this interpretation. The vast majority of Latinos voted for Clinton to be sure, but it doesn’t follow that they are anti-Obama, anti-Black. Most did because they liked her concern about economic issues, her experience, her familiarity and her connections with the Mexican American community and its leadership. Many have positive feelings toward Bill Clinton’s administration.

To bring more evidence to bear on this point, in recent decades Mexican Americans and Latinos have given support to African American big city mayors by clear and in some cases overwhelming majorities. Look at the facts: Harold Washington won 80 percent of the Latino vote in Chicago in his successful mayoral run in 1983; David Dinkins 73 percent in New York in 1989; Wellington Webb more than 70 percent in Denver in 1991; Ron Kirk big majorities in Dallas in 1995, 1997 and 1999. In Los Angeles, Tom Bradley got a good share in his first run in 1973 and clear majorities the next four times he ran. In addition, African American members of Congress in heavily Latino districts in Los Angeles and elsewhere get significant Latino support. And in Illinois, where Obama is a known entity, he has received strong support from Latino voters.Thus this divisive media spin should be vigorously contested.

Sixth, the youth and senior votes swung in different directions, with young people enthusiastically supporting Obama and senior citizens, except for Black seniors, casting their vote for Clinton. This is not too hard to explain. Older voters prefer a candidate who is a known quantity, which Clinton is. Obama, by contrast, is new on the scene. He doesn’t have the long-standing ties to the Democratic Party. His promise of change is appealing for many to be sure, and especially the young. But for others living on the edge, change can be unnerving. In hard times, we sometimes assume that working people are eager to roll the dice and say, “Come what may.”

As appealing and as seductive as that idea is to left-minded people, I am not sure the factual evidence for it exists. There are moments when ruptures occur and people embrace a radical path of action, but it is also true that in response to deteriorating conditions of life, some sections of working people have sought incremental, protective and less ambitious courses of action, some of which have taken a negative form. Instead of manning the barricades, they built fortresses to protect themselves in stormy times. This dynamic is something to consider.

My breakdown of the vote makes no claim to be comprehensive or in depth. Many categories of voters, for example, were left out who will surely have an impact on the election’s outcome – other nationally and racially oppressed people, Jews, and peace and environmental activists to name a few. Nor did I make a precise estimate of the degree to which or how sexist and racist attitudes influenced voting patterns. That still is to be done.

Nevertheless, voting patterns bode well for the general election. The turnout was far more than anyone predicted and never before on a national level have so many crossed racial and gender boundaries to cast their vote, boundaries that a few years ago seemed impenetrable. Moreover, where voters didn’t do so – say, white workers voting for Clinton, men voting for Obama, women voting for Clinton or Black people voting for Obama – their motivations can be explained more easily in a positive than a negative way.

The Obama phenomenon

The clearest expression of this developing movement pivots around the candidacy of Barack Obama, whose inspirational message and politics have captured the imagination of millions. So much so that many commentators and politicians use the words “transformational” or “transforming” to describe his candidacy – that is, a candidacy capable of assembling a broad people’s majority to reconfigure the terms and terrain of politics in this country in a fundamental way. The Obama campaign has not only brought new forces into the political process, it has also catalyzed new organizational forms.

The surge around Obama’s candidacy, much like the larger surge in the Democratic presidential primary, has a large spontaneous quality. But what makes it different is that it has the feel of “a movement.” Its supporters see in Obama someone who is without the baggage of an older generation of politicians, and who speaks to their desires.

I have heard political commentators say that Obama mania has no spelled-out political program, lacks organizational coherence and offers no guarantees it will continue after Election Day. Hearing such observations, I ask myself why on earth anyone would think this developing movement whose life span can be measured in months would be a well-oiled machine?

Anybody with any historical sense knows that movements in their early, and sometimes later, stages aren’t neat and tidy. Ideal types never find concrete representation in real life.

While this movement has its own dynamic, it is inseparable from the personality and politics of Barak Obama. While he is not a candidate of the left or someone we would endorse – since we don’t endorse candidates of either party – he is, nonetheless, a fresh voice on the political scene. His strategic and tactical concepts are broad in their sweep and his politics are forward looking. His appeal for change resonates with millions who are fed up with things as they are. And his desire to overcome divisions between Black and white, Black and brown, white and non-white, red state and blue state, immigrant and native born, Christian and Muslim, Muslim and Jew, blue collar and white collar, male and female, gay and straight, urban and rural strikes a deep responsive chord among Americans. After three decades of acrimonious rancor and division, people yearn for a kinder, gentler and more just country.

While much has been said about his own personal journey and its formative impact on his values and outlook, what has been greatly understated is that the struggles of the African American people and the larger movement against the right also have left their mark on his sensibilities and politics. Not since Bobby Kennedy has a leader stepped on the stage with as much promise to reconfigure politics and the underlying assumptions that inform debate and policy choices. His ability to articulate a vision, give voice to people’s hopes, and use the platform of politics to educate millions is extraordinary. On paper, it’s true that some of Clinton’s positions, not to mention those of Edwards and Kucinich, are better than Obama’s. But in many ways policy statements and party platforms are not the main things that should shape judgments about a presidential candidate’s potential or the prospects for change.

This is looking at politics too narrowly. It doesn’t take into account who can inspire and unite this massive upsurge, or who can articulate a moral and political vision to tens of millions, or who has the capacity to assemble political majorities in the post election period, or who has the ability to win a landslide victory against McCain and the Republicans in November.

On these counts, advantage goes to Obama in the eyes of many voters. That isn’t to say that Clinton wouldn’t be a worthy adversary to McCain. She would. Nor is it to suggest that she couldn’t win in a landslide. She can. But it would be much more difficult.

I also suspect that she would govern to the left of Bill Clinton’s administration, in large measure because the conditions and expectations are so different now. But I have heard it asked, isn’t Obama a bourgeois politician? Hasn’t he raised a lot of money from Wall St.? And isn’t he is a centrist and a creature of the Democratic Party? All of these assertions are worth discussing, but none of them can be easily answered with a yes or no reply. And even if they could, these questions by themselves wouldn’t necessarily tell us who Obama is, what his presidency would look like and how he would interact with the broader labor led people’s movement.

Class categories

We don’t want to dispense with the categories of class and class struggle for sure, but we don’t want to turn them into frozen, lifeless categories either. Class and class struggle should be understood as dynamic processes and open-ended categories and not simply as a fixed relation to the means of production that inexorably gives rise to class struggle and consciousness.

Employed properly, class categories give us clues to attitudes, tendencies, predispositions and behaviors of political actors, whether one individual or a social group. But they don’t inscribe on these same actors a mental mindset and an irrevocable course of action. To claim they do leaves out the larger political, economic and cultural processes in which class formation takes place and turns Marxism into a dogma.

To illuminate this point further, let me mention three examples. If Frederick Douglass, the great African American abolitionist leader, posed more or less the same set of questions to Lincoln in the late 1850s and early 1860s and ignored the wider political environment and the interaction between that environment and Lincoln’s shifting views, he might well have remained with the wing of the Abolitionist movement that refrained from electoral politics, was deeply suspicious of the Republican Party, and attached little significance to Lincoln’s victory in 1860.

Or if William Z. Foster posed more or less the same questions to the “Blue Blood” aristocrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt just prior to the 1936 elections and disregarded the new dynamics of struggle taking shape at the time, including Roosevelt’s understanding of these dynamics from his own class viewpoint, he might have argued against our participation in the massive coalition to reelect Roosevelt and New Deal Congressional candidates.

Or if Martin Luther King posed more or less the same questions to Lyndon Johnson and overlooked the convulsions going on in the country and Johnson’s capacity to change, he might not have supported his election bid in 1964 – a landslide victory that undeniably and significantly contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, immigration reform and the War on Poverty.

In asking only narrowly constructed questions and in not considering the fluidity of the political terrain, the overall logic of struggle and the facility of the individual to change in each of these periods, the people’s movement would have cut itself off from openings and opportunities to secure historic victories in each instance. To employ a similar methodology today with regard to Obama runs the same danger.

Struggle for unity

For some time supporters of both Clinton and Obama have said unambiguously that they would rally around the eventual nominee. Assuming for the moment that this happens, it is easy to imagine the formation of an electoral movement that in its scope and depth has no equal in the 20th century. Moreover, such a broad-based political formation has the potential to inflict an overwhelming defeat on McCain and the Republican Party at the polls and to journey down a new highway.

Whether or not that happens, however, isn’t a foregone conclusion. Setting aside for now the divisive role of the right, tensions have cropped up in the Democratic primary contest making it far less certain that supporters of each candidate will seamlessly migrate to the other’s opponent in the event their candidate isn’t the standard bearer. To a large extent, the tensions did not arise spontaneously nor are they the inevitable product of the rough and tumble of the primary process.

How then do we explain them? Earlier I said it is a great tribute to the democratic spirit and sense of decency of the often-maligned American people that a woman and an African American man are contesting for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. At the same time, racial and gender prejudice have not been absent from the presidential primaries. This should be acknowledged and vigorously opposed as having no place at this uplifting moment in our nation’s political life.

All democratic minded people should have no truck with debasing images, double standards, demeaning words, small slights and false opposition of one form of oppression to another or, worse still, the privileging of one over the other.

All of them impede the struggle for equality and unity and weaken the struggle against the right by the whole people.

We should never forget that the struggle for equality and against racism and male supremacy in its ideological and material forms is as much in the interests of white and male workers as it is in the interests of nationally and racially oppressed and women workers. As Marx wrote, “Labor in the white skin can never be free, as long as labor in the Black skin is branded.” Much the same could be said about the struggle against gender oppression.

It is precisely this that the ruling class goes to great lengths to obscure. Working class advance is always portrayed as a zero sum game, meaning the advancement of nationally and racially oppressed workers comes at the expense of white workers or the advancement of women workers comes at the cost of male workers or the securing of rights of immigrant workers comes at the expense of native born workers, and so on.

That your political adversaries on the right would exacerbate racial and gender tensions is to be expected. It has been, after all, the main way along with narrow nationalism that the extreme right has exploited white people’s feelings and resentments in order to mobilize them around their ruling class goals.

But what is unexpected is when someone you thought was on your side employs similar if not identical tactics, which is what the Clinton campaign is doing in the primaries. So that there is no misunderstanding, I’m not talking about her wider ring of labor, women, Latino and other supporters, nearly all of whom, I’m sure, object to such tactics as harmful.

The racialization of the campaign began with former President Bill Clinton in New Hampshire and South Carolina. In both primaries his assignment was to be the bad cop, no small part of which was to introduce a racial subtext in the charged atmosphere of the primaries.

After that episode it seemed to subside momentarily, in part because of the negative reaction to it. But the pause was only temporary. Going into Super Tuesday and since then, Clinton and her campaign have acted as if nothing matters except her nomination in August. Concerns about unity seem to have been cast aside.

There is a racial subtext to remarks such as only Clinton and McCain have the experience to be commander-in-chief, or “as far as she knows” Obama isn’t a Muslim, or when she offered Obama the vice presidency on her ticket, or when her TV ads show a blond young girl next to the phone ringing at 3 a.m., or when her campaign circulated tapes of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the media, or when Bill Clinton said how good it would be if two candidates running for the presidency were both patriotic and loved their country – all of this panders to the American people’s worst fears and stirs the embers of racial feelings at a moment when tens of millions of white people are showing their willingness to transcend them.

The Clinton campaign doesn’t seem to realize what the stakes are in this election. They are playing a dangerous game. Supporters of both candidates should strongly insist that it cease its increasingly transparent attempt to polarize the electorate along racial lines. Unless resisted, this could turn a moment of opportunity and victory into a bitter defeat with all the demoralization, division, and name calling that would inevitably follow such an outcome. Thus, we cannot be silent.

Accommodation to racial and gender disunity in the name of unity is not a communist approach. Our strategic policy is to defeat the right decisively in this election. Only a united movement can do that.

A comment from Alan Maki:

It is unfortunate that Sam Webb has not extended the same courtesy and opportunity to comment on this article on the CPUSA website to what he has written here as what is now being extended to him.

I will be providing my comments; and, I know others will, too.

We welcome the opportunity to finally have an official dialogue with Sam Webb and we invite Sam Webb to respond to all comments which arise; it is a courtesy Webb should should take full advantage of since he has encouraged discussion of his "new" ideas.

It is very difficult to have a discussion of ideas if the author will not respond to criticisms; we are sure Webb understands this.

I can be reached via e-mail: amaki000@centurtel.net

We are looking forward to lively, thought-provoking dialogue, discussion and debate.

All views and opinions will be published with a title the author requests and a link to the response as part of this blog.

Discussion:

Marxist-Leninist ideology is not some dogmatic out of date babble; by Mick Gardiner

Not a single solution advanced by Sam Webb; by Ruby Magnusson

Some good some bad. I appreciate the opportunity to comment. by Janice Galatz

We can reach our goals working in the Democratic Party. Mike Younge

We have never discussed limitless possibilities; Annonymous

I am confused; by Herold Roth

I can't pay my bills in increments; by Rosalie Puchalski

Lots of discussion is coming in; I will get links posted as quickly as possible. For now just click here to go to all postings.

Shoddy journalism and shoddy construction... is there a path of corruption paved with dollars from the China to the United States?

2008-06-15T09:40:00.009-05:00

In the story below, this is the kind of shoddy journalism we get here in the United States where chauvinism is passed off as "journalism from our great "free media."

First: Where is the photograph supporting this story?

It is not here, why?

Second: Many, many American scientists, architects, engineers, contractors, and construction workers have often been involved in these Chinese construction projects--- and manufacturing rebar--- in China, and the profits they have derived from construction have been fabulous.

When was the last time you ever read a news report in the Wall Street Journal with these money-grubbing capitalists proclaiming they were concerned about any "shoddy" construction they were involved in? Never.

There is no end to the most disgusting anti-communist, chauvinist and outright hate-mongering being spewed by the big-business corporate apologists passing themselves off as "journalists."

The snob actress and "movie star," Sharon Stone, whose claim to fame is giving everyone a peek at her little boobs in the movies and crying for a bunch of parasitic monks who need a numb-skull like the Dali Lama to do their thinking for them, rushed to the "aid" of the earthquake victims saying, "The Chinese people are being punished for the mistreatment of monks and the Dali Lama." These parasitic monks are worthless; their contribution to society is sitting around praying all day as servants wait on them hand and foot as if they are God's gift to the human race when all they are is a burden on society as the rest of the people are supposed to supply them with food while other servants feed them and even wipe their butts and push the gold-plated toilet handles and bathe them.

This has been the history of what passes for "journalism" whenever it comes to writing about human tragedy in socialist countries, be it the former Soviet Union, Cuba or people suffering hunger from drought in North Korea.

These "journalists" and their publishers find a way to gloat with glee at every opportunity no matter how catastrophic and tragic the suffering--- be the suffering due to drought, hurricane, volcanoes or earthquakes when tragedy and natural disaster strikes in a socialist country.

The manner in which these journalists report stories of flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa or hurricane damage in New Orleans is quite the opposite. Then it isn't about attaching blame, it becomes about praying for the victims.

These same "journalists" never question why our military doesn't put as much effort into helping people in our own country who are victims of natural disasters with the eagerness and rapidity they launched "Campaign Iraqi Freedom."

As someone who has worked construction in this country as both a roofer and carpenter on large and small projects, I could take "journalists" on a tour of some real "shoddy" construction projects if this is truly their concern.

Not once has our great "free media" had the courage to address the problems resulting in the deadly I-35W bridge collapse or question how it is that United States Congressman James Oberstar receives huge campaign contributions from some of the construction firms involved.

If our great "free media" were truly concerned with what might be "shoddy construction" in China these "journalists" should start to investigate the path of corruption paved with dollars from China back to the United States.

Some "journalist" might want to ask Sharon Stone why God is punishing our own victims of floods, hurricanes and tornadoes.

I wonder if a story has ever appeared in a Chinese newspaper asking why in the most advanced country in the world there is such shoddy construction that an improperly maintained levy broke causing flooding of an entire city; the result of one minor hurricane.

I would be willing to bet that in China, unlike here in the United States, there will be many full-fledged investigations to determine if in fact there was a problem with "shoddy construction" practices or the materials used in construction; perhaps there will even be an investigation to see if the rebar used was up to specs.

If these investigations find someone to be at fault I am sure there will be severe punishments meted out to those found guilty. If any form of corruption is found involving shoddy construction methods or materials I think I know what the punishment will be... unfortunately, those responsible for the collapse of the the I-35W Bridge spanning the mighty Mississippi River and those who allowed the levies in New Orleans to go without proper maintenance and repair will not receive the same ten-cent punishment.

Alan L. Maki

Sensitive China quake photo removed

Jun 15, 6:20 AM (ET)

By CARA ANNA

JUYUAN, China (AP) - A photograph hinting at shoddy school construction was pulled from an exhibition about last month's devastating earthquake, an apparent indication of rising government sensitivity over an issue that has already prompted angry protests from parents of children killed.

The photo showed a hand clutching a twisted piece of steel rebar that looked no thicker than a pencil, taken from the ruins of the middle school in the town of Juyuan that was one of 40 that collapsed in the May 12 quake.

The picture featured prominently among a collection of quake artifacts when it opened to the public last week. By the weekend, though, it was gone. Organizers were reluctant to say exactly why.

"We don't know if we were told to remove the photo," said Wu Zhiwei, assistant to the general manager of Museum Cluster Jianchuan, the organizer of the exhibit and the largest privately run museum in China. "And if we were told to remove the photo, we're not sure we could tell you."

School collapses have become one of the most charged issues in the quake recovery process, and one that local communist leaders seem anxious to suppress.

The entire state-controlled media have almost completely ignored the issue, apparently under the instructions of the propaganda bureau. Parents and volunteers helping them who have questioned authorities about the issue have been rounded up, detained, and threatened.

Juyuan has become a center of the collapsed schools issue, with police pulling grieving parents away from a courthouse where they knelt this month in an attempt to submit a lawsuit.

On Sunday, police cordoned off the area surrounding the town's collapsed middle school where nearly 300 students died, angering parents who had come to observe the 35th day of mourning, a key date in local tradition.

"It's as if we're bad people now," said a man who said he was the father of a dead student.

"This is our last chance to burn incense and they don't let us in," said the man, who declined to give his name, underscoring a growing reluctance to be publicly identified and possibly targeted by authorities.

Engineers hired to inspect the school rubble say many of the schools, including the one in Juyuan, were poorly sited and badly built. The government has promised to submit a report on the schools by June 20, possibly opening the door to charges or lawsuits.

Authorities are always suspicious of independent activism, however, and the possibility of being implicated in school problems offers officials a strong incentive to suppress information about such cases.

Despite the removal of the photo from Juyuan, the quake exhibit on a sprawling campus about an hour's drive from the provincial capital of Chengdu still offered potent reminders of the school tragedies, including schoolbook bags, smashed desks and children's shoes.

Identification cards, crushed appliances and hundreds of other personal items were pulled from the rubble and donated by military rescuers and volunteers. They were displayed alongside hundreds of photos of victims, relief workers and quake devastation.

The collection even included a megaphone said to have been used by Premier Wen Jiabao as he toured the ruins soon after the quake.

The exhibit ends with a wall of photos of about 2,000 people killed in the quake, China's worst natural disaster in a generation.

Visitors on Saturday said they found the exhibit both open and moving.

"It reflects the reality," said Hou Mincu, a retired professor from Sichuan's capital, Chengdu.

Zheng Chengzhi, a 42-year-old worker, was also from Chengdu.

"The earthquake isn't finished yet," said Zeng. "Construction and other issues, we need to talk about these things."

China appears to be heading towards democracy

2008-06-06T14:02:00.002-05:00

Dear Colleagues,

We wish to share a beautifully written article on the development of democracy of China which appeared in the Irish Times on May 26, 2008 titled "China appears to be heading towards democracy." It is a moving presentation of people's attitudes towards the current government under Hu Jintao and Wen Jibao as reflected in the massive response to help in the aftermath of the earthquake. He describes the earthquake and its results in a heartbreaking manner with human content and without controversial political innuendoes. I believe you will share my feelings when you have an opportunity to read it.

You will note his quoting Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times from his May 29th article titled "Terrorism and the Olympics." Kristoff begins with a compendium and critical history (though we do not challenge those facts) of China's exercise of police power. He then follows with his personal experience which shows SOME understanding of changes which are taking place in the growing openness and appreciation of the government's efforts to build the country while finding new forms of expression for the public attitude towards government.

Nonetheless, Tony Kinsella notes the changing attitude of Kristoff in support of his own more sensitive approach. We have included a copy of Kristoff's piece for your own evaluation.

Sincerely,

Sidney Gluck

Irish Times (5/26/08)

China appears to be heading towards democracy

By: Tony Kinsella

Four important indicators suggest China is starting to move away from authoritarianism, writes Tony Kinsella

IN THE early afternoon of May 12th last a massive earthquake devastated Sichuan. Its sheer scale - 90,000 dead and missing, 240,000 injured, five million homeless - pierced our human consciousness, affecting us on several registers.

Bertolt Brecht in his 1943 play The Good Person of Sichuan challenges the audience to find a workable balance between good and evil. Sichuan today poses a related challenge to us all. What has been crushed, and what has been born?

The tragic, heroic, images from Sichuan have been striking in their portrayal of a society sufficiently similar to our own as to be instantly recognisable - the constant media coverage, the heroic efforts of the emergency services, the army, NGOs and over 55,000 volunteers from all over China. The tragedies, the small heartening victories as survivors were disinterred, the exhorting presence of political leaders atop heaps of rubble that had until recently been homes, offices, and most poignantly of all, schools, are the familiar horrific normality of catastrophes.

The very existence of those images speaks eloquently of our planet's political evolution, and is thrown into stark contrast by the uncaring paranoia of the Burmese junta. If Naypyitaw is the heartless face of dictatorship, has Beijing begun to assemble a democratic profile?

Four important indicators are certainly pointing in that direction: transparency, rule of law, media independence, and the development of civil society.

Natural disasters were state secrets in the bad old days of Helmsman Mao, like the 250,000-plus who perished in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. The official New China News Agency was reporting the Sichuan earthquake less than 15 minutes after it happened. That afternoon the state CCTV dropped its schedule to deliver live coverage.

Prime minister Wen Jiabao, followed by president Hu Jinta, flew to Sichuan, inspected, encouraged, exhorted, apologised and threatened - live on television. CCTV news anchor Zhao Pu failed to contain his tears as he described the earthquake. A remarkable transition from the Tangshan statement of Mao's widow, Jiang Qing: "There were merely several hundred thousand deaths. So what? Denouncing Deng Xiaoping concerns 800 million people."

Beijing businessman Zhao Shuangying (48) walked into the headquarters of the Red Cross Society of China on May 15th to donate EUR 10,000. "It's very simple," Mr Shuangying said, "I cannot go to Sichuan, so I came here to help." If he, and hundreds of thousands like him across China, did not have confidence in their country's legal system, they would not be propelling their country's economy forward at about 10 per cent a year.

Two days after the earthquake, bureaucrats at the central committee's propaganda department ordered Chinese media not to deploy any more journalists to Sichuan. This was likely more of a reflex action as Chinese and foreign journalists streamed into Chengdu and beyond. Obedience to such edicts used to be the norm.

One local editor advised his journalists: "If everybody pays no attention to this, then it won't really be a ban," and how right he was.

The Shanghai Securities News, a service of the state Xinhua Agency, wrote of the need to respect seismic building codes and called for an end to corrupt building practices - a courageous demand for political reform. Prof Min Dahong of the Chinese academy of social sciences observed: "This is a good opportunity to establish a system that will encourage the press to report in a timely and open manner."

Alexis de Tocqueville, impressed by the then activism of US public life, said in 1856 that "the health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens".

More than 55,000 volunteers have rushed, at their own expense, to Sichuan. Hao Lin, a psychologist, told his wife he was going to Guangzhou (Canton) before hopping on a plane for Chengdu and cycling into the disaster zone to offer counselling.

Li Xiaotang and 14 other young professionals from Shanghai met on the internet to organise their seven-hour journey to Feishui. She and her friends took a week's unpaid leave, and spent a month's salary each to fund their travel and purchases of food, medicines and mobile phones. Private citizens queued across China to donate blood, blankets, food, tents and more than EUR 400 million. Dubliner Peter Goff has helped ship 16 tons of donated material through his Chengdu Bookworm café.

By de Tocqueville's measure, Chinese democratic society is in very bonny health.

The Peoples' Republic of China is far from full democracy, and its communist party still clings to political power with a firm, if increasingly flexible, and probably quite frightened, fist.

China seems embarked on its own version of the long, awkward and occasionally brutal road away from authoritarianism towards something more democratic. Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Pakistan, Mongolia and other Asian countries have already travelled further along similar routes.

New York Times columnist, Nicholas D Kristof wrote on Thursday last that he could see the Chinese Communist Party ". . . becoming a social democratic party that dominates the country but that grudgingly allows opposition victories and a free press".

Will the new China have a unicameral parliament like Sweden, or an appointed upper house like the UK? Will it be federal like Germany or the US? Or will it reach back into its three millennia of political history to develop something new?

In a reversal Brecht would have loved, it will be up to the good people of Sichuan to judge.

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May 29, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

Terrorism and the Olympics

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
KASHGAR, China

The reports of terror plots emanating this year from this Muslim region in the far west of China might seem fanciful: A foiled plot to blow up a plane; a cache of TNT to bomb the Summer Olympics; even a “violent terrorist gang” that planned to kidnap Olympic athletes.

But these aren’t whispers on the Internet. They’re reports coming from the Chinese government. So I flew out here to Kashgar — an oasis on the ancient Silk Road, where the minarets and camels and carpets provide a Middle Eastern ambience — to look for terrorists.

Instead, China’s State Security Ministry found me. I had been in Kashgar just a few hours when my videographer, who is ethnically Chinese, called to say that two plainclothes officials were interrogating him. They asked him not to tell me since American journalists tend to be touchy about such things.

The interrogation was a sign of the authorities’ anxiety about stability in China’s Muslim west. Separatists here in the Xinjiang region aim to create the nation of “East Turkestan” and have periodically blown up police stations — even bombed three public buses in 1997.

The Chinese government has claimed that 162 people were killed in such terror attacks by Uighur separatists between 1990 and 2001. Meanwhile, China has sentenced more than 200 people to death since 1997 for engaging in such separatist crimes.

Last year, Chinese officials said that 18 people had been killed when police raided a Uighur terrorist training camp with ties to Al Qaeda. The raid netted 1,500 grenades.

Then in March, China announced that it had foiled a plot “to create an air crash,” in a passenger plane shortly after it took off from the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi. In April, the authorities said that they had confiscated explosives from Uighurs who were planning suicide bomb attacks.

“This violent terrorist gang secretly plotted to kidnap journalists, visitors and athletes during the Beijing Olympics,” The Associated Press quoted Wu Heping, a spokesman for the Public Security Ministry, as saying.

Then just this month, a crowded bus blew up in Shanghai, killing three people and injuring many more. No one publicly claimed responsibility, but it recalled the 1997 Uighur bus bombings.

Ronald Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, cited these incidents — and also reports of a separatist plot to disrupt the Olympic Games with poison gas — and told a press conference that a terror attack at the Olympics was “a real possibility.”

It’s not entirely clear what to make of all this, for as I strolled around Kashgar I found the situation remarkably calm. I wasn’t expecting to uncover a terrorist cell, but I had anticipated more hostility toward the government. Ordinary Uighurs I spoke with offered measured complaints, but they weren’t seething as Tibetans are.

“Nobody likes it when the Chinese all move in here,” said a Uighur shop-keeper. “Of course, we’re all upset. But what can we do?”

One young woman offered a different take. “When I was a little kid, my mom would tell me, ‘Don’t wander or the Han Chinese will steal you away. They eat human flesh.’ ” She laughed and added: “But now we see more Han, and we’re not afraid of them. Relations are O.K.”

Some young Uighurs criticized the Beijing Olympics, saying the Games will drain local budgets. But I could have found stronger anti-government sedition on any street corner of Manhattan.

The only excitement I found in Kashgar was playing pied piper to State Security officers who tailed me whenever I left the hotel.

Normally, the Chinese government downplays security risks, but human rights groups argue persuasively that China is using concerns about Uighurs as an excuse to crack down on peaceful Uighur dissidents. After 9/11, China declared its own war on terror in Xinjiang, but Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented that this often has targeted Uighurs who are completely nonviolent.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has largely backed this Chinese version of the war on terror. Indeed, a Department of Justice report this month suggests that American troops softened up Uighur prisoners in Guantánamo Bay on behalf of visiting Chinese interrogators. The American troops starved the Uighurs and prevented them from sleeping, just before inviting in the Chinese interrogators.

That was disgraceful; we shouldn’t do China’s dirty work. It was one more example of the Bush administration allowing the war on terror to corrode our moral clarity.

We should encourage China to tolerate peaceful protesters even as it prosecutes terrorists. But instead of clarifying that distinction, in recent years we have helped China blur it. The risk of terrorism during the Olympics is real, but that shouldn’t force us to do violence to our principles.

Op-Ed Columnist - Terrorism and the Olympics - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Press Distortions and Promotion of Anti-China Opinions

2008-03-25T19:57:00.004-05:00

Note: Please note a correction to this original posting, and a very pertinent link to further information.

The press distortions and promotion of anti-China opinions and incidence suggest a pattern with the purpose of embarrassing China in an effort to counteract the positive effect which its hosting the 2008 Olympics will have on its global reputation. Millions around the world will see the capabilities of a country that has witnessed centuries of travail and has emerged as a contender for world recognition of its contribution to development.

A sequence of events began some months ago with the Dalai Lama’s visit to the State Department. Subsequently, there were alarmist reports of China’s doubling its military expenditures and notes on Spielberg’s resignation as Artistic Advisor for the 2008 Beijing Olympics as an objection to an accusation that China was supporting dissension in Darfur (though, quite the opposite was true in its collaboration with the United Nations). The children’s toy fiasco went by with little mention of the apology by Mattel for its influence which apparently was based on cost calculations to avoid higher prices. Presently, the sudden eruption of destructive events by Buddhist demands for separation caused a degree of violence that was answered by the Chinese authorities as it might have been in any other country, we then learned that thousands had NOT been killed in the melee.

This disruption will blow over as other have. The Spielberg incident on China’s policy towards Africa (a distortion of fact) has melted away in the light of its principle of peaceful economic relations for the mutual benefit of both countries. Time will show that the Tibetan incidents will be exposed in a peaceful manner.

Please note the correction and explanation to this inaccurate statement below:

The Chinese government is now considering the question of whether they wish to administer Tibet, which had been turned over to them by the British four-hundred years ago who turned down its occupation because it didn’t pay off.

True, efforts are being made by the US in some areas to accommodate China’s rise as an economic rival. This is understandable since China has the advantage of learning much from capitalism, building its productive forces while simultaneously introducing economic planning and regulating the movement of capital and pricing structures in its socialist market economy. They have enough problems dealing with accommodation to private ownership at the same time that they build up conditions of the working class. Their objective is to form a Harmonious Society which includes private property, entrepreneurism and the social welfare of the working population in peaceful solutions to differences between these groups. In the past two years, 75% of foreign owned enterprises have signed union contracts. The unions are asking for a schedule of wage increases depending upon time and tenure of members of the work force. This is only one incident of differences which will have to be resolved in manners that differ from the union experiences in the United States from Hay Market in the 19th Century through the first half of the 20th.

We believe that the success of the 2008 Olympics with the special beauty of Chinese cultural structures and modern touch will bring more peace to the world as it opens its eyes to reality and lessens the possibility of military conflict.

*Those who read this have a right to disagree; I invite comments and differences of opinion but simultaneously expect readers to have an open mind and consider this point of view.

Sidney J. Gluck
New York City
March 25, 2008

Note: In order to encourage dialogue we will publish your opinions and Sidney Gluck's responses as part of this blog.

A CORRECTION TO THE BLOG OF MARCH 5, 2008
“DISTORTIONS IN THE PRESS RE: CHINA-TIBET”

Dear Friends,

I wish to acknowledge a correction to a reference in my last essay on the media and China called to my attention by a number of respondents.

I stated that administration of Tibet “had been turned over to them (China) by the British four-hundred years ago when its occupation no longer seemed prosperous.” This is incorrect. This concept emerged from talks and lectures I had been to over the years - not from my reading. I’ve since done my homework.

While it is true that the British, especially in the 19th and 20th Century, were involved in Tibetan affairs its influence was washed away as imperialism withdrew its control of China after 1912. The relationship between Tibet and China had been cemented for over 400 years long before the present government undertook administration of the province. In the 17th – 19th centuries, two rival Tibetan Buddhist schools were vanquished by the Lhasa school which had established the position of Dalai Lama as the religious leader who, at that time, had civil relations with the Mongols, Russians and Chinese. A change of civil relations occurred when the fifth Dalai Lama visited the Manchu emperor, Shunzhi, in 1652 in Beijing and received the seal of provincial administration without being required to kowtow. From this point on, Tibet is continuously linked with China. It was not the British who abandoned Tibet to the Chinese, but the Tibetans who linked themselves to Beijing through civil authority.

This information is published on wikipedia.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tibet

We attach the table of contents from the hyperlinked page for your perusal. You will note shifts in various centuries during which Tibet’s relationship with Beijing is a relative constant in the background (this information is found in sections 9, 11 and 15).

Tibetan history is replete with political and religious interference up until the present day. At the same time, China’s presence has continued regardless of their own lack of modernization, a situation which has changed under the present regime of the CPC which, in developing the country as a whole, has included economic changes in Tibet. These economic changes aren’t anti-Tibet, but they are positive developments of forces of production and exchange which include an increase in Han participation. Historically, it is a fact that until the Chinese Communists gained control of the central government, a conflict developed between the religious leadership of Tibetan Buddhism and the growth of secular political relations

Without making a judgment at this point for my readers and friends, I recommend that you check the history of Tibet as noted above, especially sections 11-14 and then sections 15-21, the latter dealing with the current situation.

As I write to you, Wen Jibao, the Premier of China’s National Congress and number two in the political hierarchy, has issued a public statement that the Dalai Lama is welcome to come to Beijing and set only one condition: that he does not advocate separation of Taiwan and Tibet from the PRC. I suppose, should he go to Beijing for discussions, it is possible to arrange for his position as a religious leader to be respected and conversely that the religious community would respect the national economic and political restructuring and authority, both provincial and central.

To those of you who did communicate, I wish to thank you and assure my friends that I will be very careful to fact-check my memory and reexamine any questionable information.

Sidney J. Gluck
New York City
April 3, 2008

Museum entrance fees in China eliminated

2008-01-29T17:10:00.000-06:00

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/29/content_7516590.htm

2008-01-29
Museum entrance fees

BEIJING, Jan. 29 -- It should not have taken so long. But finally it has
arrived. By 2009, except for some special historical buildings and ruins,
all public museums under the jurisdiction of the cultural authorities will
stop charging entrance fees.

No doubt this is very good news for overseas tourists, who might otherwise
be confused by the functions of our public museums.

For museum visitors in particular, the waiver will make their China
experience richer, yet a lot cheaper. If the decision-makers did not have
foreign guests in mind when they worked on the project, this is a huge
bonus. Free access to the variety of museums will facilitate outsider
appreciation of our peculiar history and culture.

Our curious guests deserve to know how much more this country has to offer -
much more than fancy delicacies and inexpensive silk.

The authorities have spent a lot in the past year on campaigns to promote
cultural understanding overseas. There were big-budget exhibitions and shows
of all kinds.

Offering free access to public museums, as we see it, is a cost-effective
supplement and a boost on the home front to those endeavors of promotion.

The foremost beneficiaries, however, are the average Chinese.

In the first place, we see an additional sign that public finance is truly
being re-oriented to upgrade public welfare. It is reassuring to see the tax
levied on us is being allocated in a more sensible manner. Our State coffers
are capable of providing more for public-interest undertakings. It is good
to see public museums getting their due share.

Museums are great venues to help nurture a basic sense of our culture and
history. This is essential for a shared sense of identity.

Entrance fees might not be the only cause of the generally low visitor flow
at our museums. But they suffice to prevent many from visiting.

The irony is while most charge for entrance, few public museums are living
on box-office revenues.

Instead, many continue to rely heavily on government subsidies. And they
keep crying for more.

There is no better remedy than the State assuming full financial
responsibility for such facilities.

Good to see the government is finally standing out.

Socialist Core Value System

2007-12-12T18:41:00.000-06:00

Note: The Comments below are from Sidney Gluck and the three following papers contain Sidney's notations in thinking about all of this.

Left-Click your cursor on the three documents to enlarge them to be able to read them.

Comments on Resolution Promoting
“Socialist Core Value System”

November 16, 2006

The Hu Administration, in order to combat the negative human nature that has permeated much of the Eastern and Southern industrialized regions of China during the past twenty-eight years of operating under the Deng Xiaoping slogan, “To Get Rich is Glorious” has initiated an ideological campaign to lay the basis for “the moral foundation of social harmony to steer the country on a Socialist Road.” This concept was first publicized at the recent 6th Plenum of the 16th CP Central Committee. The objective at this stage is to combat the human nature of private acquisitiveness and emphasize a collective identity of human nature. This is the sharpening of the present stage in a far-sighted process of the growth of socialism. It is an active application of Marxism in this moment of history in China’s national development.

Attached is a resume including President Hu Jintao’s contribution of “The Eight Honors and Disgraces in the Socialist Core Value System”

MAO: A LIFE by Philip Short

2007-11-29T14:42:00.000-06:00

This is being published in the interest of creating dialogue and discussion.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT MAO (16 finis)

MAO: A LIFE by Philip Short, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2000. 782pp.

Reviewed by Thomas Riggins; BA (Anthropology & Archaeology), MA, MPhil, PhD (Philosophy) currently university lecturer in philosophy and ancient studies

Thomas Riggins has a blog: http://leninlives.blogspot.com/

EPILOG

Short's epilogue is a mixed bag. It was written around eight years ago in 1998 or 1999 so some his ideas about "capitalism" in China may be dated. But to the point.

About a month after Mao's death Hua Guofeng arranged to have the Gang of Four arrested and removed from power. Within two years Deng had been both rehabilitated and had ousted Hua from power.

Short says Mao was correct in his view of Deng Xiaoping. Deng "was a 'capitalist-roader all along -- and the moment he was in a position to do so, he began dismantling the socialist system Mao had built and putting a bourgeois dictatorship in its place. There was indeed a bourgeois class within the Communist Party and the country did indeed 'change its political colour.'

The problem with this assessment is that at the time of Mao's death and Deng's rise to power, there was no bourgeoisie in China capable of coming to power. Neither Deng nor any other CPC leaders or functionaries owned the means of production in China-- which were basically state owned or owned by communes. In terms of a Marxist understanding a bourgeois dictatorship in China would have been impossible. Even today, while a bourgeois class has come to exist in China, it is far from having control of the state apparatus.

Deng and the CPC embarked on a program to modernize China simply because the anarchy of he Cultural Revolution (and the general backwardness of the country) had left the economy in shambles. Socialism requires an advanced modern economy to have any chance of ultimate success. The CPC under Deng made a quite orthodox decision to open up China and use the market (ultimately controlled and directed by the state) to overcome feudal backwardness. This was a process initiated by Mao himself when he invited Nixon to visit.

In 1981 the CPC rendered a verdict on Mao's role. It was the same verdict he himself had rendered on Stalin-- i.e., he was 70% correct and 30% wrong in what he had done. Short spends a lot of time going over the question of how many people died as a result of Mao's policies. The numbers who died under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are compared.

These numbers are all contentious and ultimately meaningless and unverifiable. Great historical transformations are not the result of this or that individual. Revolutions and wars are like hurricanes and earthquakes. They break out as a result of forces and pressures that build up over time and are ultimately independent of the human will. Is Lincoln responsible for all the deaths of the Civil War? Is President Johnson, this one foolish individual, the cause of all the deaths from the Vietnam War?

Neither Stalin, Mao nor Hitler ever personally killed anyone.[It is actually obscene to compare Hitler with Mao or Stalin]. Would their policies have been possible without the mindset of the people who followed their leadership and shared their values: a mindset created by the previous history of Russia, China and Germany and the development of capitalism and imperialism. Is Adam Smith responsible for all the deaths due to the transformations brought about by the wars over markets and resources waged by the invisible hand?

These two sentences from Short point up the confusions. Mao's "rule brought about the deaths of more of his own people than any other leader in history." "The overwhelming majority of those whom Mao's policies killed were unintended casualties of famine." The fact they were unintended, Short says, "puts him in a different category from other twentieth-century tyrants."

Individual leaders must of course accept responsibility for their actions. But the contexts that they are forced to confront cannot be ignored. That is why when all is said and done, Short is correct to conclude that, "A final
verdict on Mao's place in the annals of his country's past is still a very long way off."

This view is the view of most of the Chinese themselves. It is echoed in the special issue of Beijing Review of October 5, 2006 on the 30th anniversary of Mao's death ["Mao Today: How does his legacy still influence China?"]

His legacy is really "in flux." One article tells us how "the little red book" is used by the new Chinese capitalists for inspiration! One was able to get market share from foreign capitalists "by adopting Mao's military tactic of 'using the countryside to encircle cities.'" It seems many Chinese companies urge their workers to study Mao for his "spirit of rebellion" and innovative thought. This information comes from a section entitled "Mao as business guru." If US corporations want to remain competitive, I suggest their CEO's start reading Mao at once!

Elsewhere the article says the poor read him because they want to regain the social benefits lost in recent years. A university professor is quoted: "Mao is still the most popular among the farmers, many of whom face growing hardship 'Through holding memorial activities for Mao, the farmers hope the gap between urban and rural areas will narrow.'" Mao as a god!

I will conclude with a quote from Gao Hua of Nanjing University: "Mao's phenomenon is the outcome of China in a transitional period, from an imperial country to a republic . At the turn of the new century, China is facing new challenges , which requires new thinking and new systems. So all the reflections on Mao should be future-oriented."

Professor Marquit Lectures on Social Justice in China--- ignores social justice for U.S. Workers in his own back-yard

2007-09-10T19:04:00.000-05:00

The Distinguished Professor, Erwin Marquit, to speak on Social Justice... here we have a learned professor who has refused to address the issue of social justice when it comes to the Ford Motor Company making the decision behind the closed doors of its corporate boardroom in Detroit, Michigan to close the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant which will throw two-thousand autoworkers out onto the streets… without a peep of protest from Professor Erwin Marquit; and, he is going to lecture about the quest for social justice in China by way of something called the "socialist market economy."

I would encourage a big turnout for this lecture.

Saturday, 9/15, 10 to noon, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom hosts U of M prof Erwin Marquit, talking about "The Quest for Social Justice in China's Socialist Market Economy," Van Cleve Community Center, 901 - 15th Ave SE, Mpls. www.wilpfmn.org

Ask the Professor about the role of capitalist corporations in China and how they are trying to put China on the road to capitalism and counter-revolution.

Ask the Professor what he thinks of Ford Motor Company closing the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant while moving much of its U.S. operations to China.

Ask the Professor what he is doing to try to halt the closing of the Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant while Ford has opened manufacturing facilities in China.

Ask the Professor when was the last time he met with Ford workers to discuss the need for public ownership in relation saving the Ford Plant.

The distinguished Professor Marquit is one big hypocrite when it comes to social justice for working people in China or the United States.

There is no such thing as a “socialist market economy;” socialist economies can only be planned economies… part of the plan might include allowing capitalist corporations to operate in the country; however, Communists never allow these capitalists and their “market economic system” to take over, and dominate, the economy--- socialist economies can only be “planned economies” (there is no other kind of socialist economy)… “socialist market economy” is a code phrase for capitalism and counter revolution.

There can only be social justice for working people through a planned socialist economy. Look, it is not hard to figure out that Erwin Marquit has no concern for social justice for working people when he is opposed to taking any action--- legislative and/or mass action (we need a combination of both)--- right in the very city where he lives concerning the Ford Plant closing… what can such a professor who doesn’t even have any compassion for social justice for two thousand working people in his own community know about social justice for working people in China? This is such a basic and fundamental question it boggles one’s mind to think that anyone with even half a brain would pay any attention to a professor with such a perverted and distorted view of Marxism.

Show me anyone promoting a “socialist market economy” and I will show you a charlatan and a fraud… if that person purports to be a Marxist.

For years Professor Marquit has used his academic position to foster a perverted view of Marxism with the intent of confusing working people about what socialism is in the United States, Poland, East Germany--- and now in China.

I don't know of workers anywhere in the world who are dumb enough to believe they can attain social justice through any kind of "market economy."

I have spoken with many Chinese business people and they don't speak of "market socialism." They speak of "free market capitalism." Of course they are all for this... they are getting rich exploiting Chinese workers who are suffering.

Anyone can see that China's working peoples' present problems stem from capitalist corporations being allowed to operate without any controls and restrictions placed on them while dictating economic "reforms" in China. Producing goods and services using cheap, highly exploited labor where working people suffer the most disgraceful abuses at the hands of those extolling the virtues of the "socialist market economy" is the reality.

That a prominent and respected organization like the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom would give Professor Erwin Marquit a forum for his perverted and distorted Marxist views without him having to participate in a forum where his views could be challenged is a disgrace.

Professor Marquit parades around the world professing to be a Marxist proponent of the "socialist market economy" only when he has no opposition... he creates his own caricatures which he purports to be his opposition (coincidentally, all his caricatures resemble Joseph Stalin)... then he proceeds to demolish them; but, Marquit never has the intellectual honesty or courage to debate a living, breathing human being... much less a worker.

Certainly the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom must understand that Professor Marquit's views on the "socialist market economy" are highly controversial... why then, would Marquit be allowed to pontificate his fairy tales without any opposition like a Catholic Priest at Sunday Mass?

Certainly the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom must be aware of the Minnesota corporation Mattracks which has a small manufacturing facility in northern Minnesota opening up a plant in China five times the size of its Minnesota operation to make equipment for "crowd control"... all financed with Pentagon funding obtained by Minnesota's only "Blue Dog" Democrat, Collin Peterson. Just what kind of "crowd control equipment" might the Pentagon be interested in financing? But, to use the tax-dollars of the American people in order to allow this corporation's bottom line to grow fat just so Collin Peterson can get a bigger campaign contribution is a disgrace and an insult to Minnesota workers who will suffer the social injustices associated with poverty wages and unemployment... the direct result of the so-called, mis-named, "socialist market economy."

Capitalists and their cronies like Professor Marquit are always trying to give capitalism a different face by playing with words. But, to go so far as to call capitalism "socialism," as Professor Marquit does, is the epitome of deceit and dishonesty.

There are tremendous debates presently underway in China with Chinese working people dead set against any further attempts by capitalist corporations and their hoax of "market socialism." Chinese workers understand "market socialism" means counter-revolution, not the planned socialist economy they have struggled to create and improve.

It is unfair to allow the proponents of "market socialism" to pontificate their views without allowing alternative views to be expressed.

I have offered to debate this learned professor on this issue many times... his response has been to initiate a dirty, name-calling, slanderous campaign against me.

Professor Marquit should not be given a forum for his views before any organization until he is willing to have his views challenged in a real debate.

I would urge people to attend this lecture by Professor Marquit to challenge his quackery which makes a mockery of scientific socialism.

This is from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's web site:

Saturday, Sept. 15, 2007, 10 am to noon.

“Coffee With”: The Quest for Social Justice in China’s Socialist Market Economy
Speaker: Erwin Marquit, professor emeritus, U of M, leader of study tours to China
and Vietnam

Van Cleve Community Ctr., 901 15th Ave. SE, Mpls

FREE EVERYONE WELCOME

FFI: 651-458-7090; www.wilpfmn.org

China’s mixed market economy has led to social problems such as pollution, hazardous working conditions, loss of free health care and education, and a growing income gap between rich and poor. However, besides cutting the number of people living below the poverty level, it has also raised the average standard of living, life expectancy, and educational levels. Drawing on recent extended visits to China, the speaker will address the question of whether the current Chinese policies of economic development will enhance or obstruct its quest for social justice.

I would suggest Professor Marquit spend a little time talking to Ford workers in his own home town and make a trip up to Karlstad, Minnesota and talk to working people who are unemployed and employed at poverty wages there... what Professor Marquit will find is that "market socialism" is robbing U.S. workers of jobs while creating misery for Chinese workers who will be employed under prison-like conditions, forced to live like rats in a "dormitory" where they will be robbed of their earnings to pay exorbitant rents, and have to eat slop in the company cafeteria--- again, with the cost of meals deducted from their miserly, poverty-wage pay-checks--- all very reminiscent of the "company towns" on the Iron Range in the early 1900's.

Professor Marquit likes to indulge in grand utterances about "market socialism" which have little connection to real world realities... just like some Chinese officials who have abused their positions in the Communist Party and the Chinese government to evade any real discussion about social justice for working people.

In fact, Chinese workers, many of whom are members of the Communist Party of China, are beginning to wage a determined struggle to reclaim the socialist road and the adherence to a planned socialist economy in quest of the social justice they have struggled for; they have had it with the charlatans posing as Communists and government officials who pad their pockets with bribes from capitalist corporations along with American Professors be they from the American Enterprise Institute or the University of Minnesota. Professor Marquit has written these workers, and their struggles for social justice off as "Stalinist."

When it comes to real socialism, Professor Marquit has some very real problems of his own... all he can see is the ghost of Joseph Stalin every time he hears the words, "planned socialist economy;" and every time he hears the term "workers' power" he sees the ghost of Gus Hall.

The day Ford workers determine the future of their plants and what will be manufactured according to what society needs, and American tax-dollars are invested creating jobs for U.S. workers in northern Minnesota in communities like Karlstad as Chinese and American workers make the decisions to cooperate in joint ventures--- this will be the day working people can rejoice in having attained real social justice... and this day will only come when we create a planned socialist economy... just like the Chinese people set out to do when they overthrew the feudal lords and routed the imperialists.

Alan L. Maki

Some Leeway for Wolfowitz, Who Gets a Good Word From Rice

2007-07-20T07:26:00.001-05:00

The newsprint and electronic reporting has been replete with stories about Paul Wolfowitz none of which has brought to light the real controversy between Wolfowitz and some of the old hands in the world capitalist banking system. It was easy for someone to accuse the head of the World Bank of favoring a “girlfriend.” This is hardly a political event, nor did some events much more egregious in male/female relations result in any Senatorial presidential impeachment (you know what I’m referring to).

From that point on, it would appear that the European countries are angling to name the next head of the World Bank, a position which has been monopolized by the USA. Then it would appear that the European countries pressured the USA to make some compromise to effect a resignation and it looked as though that might happen until Condoleezza Rice, in a more sober and non-pernicious statement, questioned the reason members of the World Bank Board are so intent on Wolfowitz’s ouster. (Reference the attached New York Times article by Steven R. Weisman titled, “Some Leeway for Wolfowitz, Who Gets a Good Word from Rice” published online on May 10, 2007).

In truth, the real argument underneath all of this power play is Mr.Wolfowitz’s actions since 2005 in which he found reason to praise China as being the most effective in eliminating poverty. In this atmosphere, one recalls an incident during President Bush’s Latin American tour about a particular moment when Bush spoke in Columbia and Chavez, simultaneously, in Uruguay. Chavez asked Bush, “Why can’t you mention my name?” He goes on to ask, “Since you’ve been President for seven years, did you just learn of poverty in Latin America?”

The records show a progression of public statements by Mr. Wolfowitz highly praising the Chinese for their real accomplishments in poverty reduction. He was negotiating with the Chinese to establish a system of loans to help the strengthening of China’s economically backward west.

We list quotations from his public statements beginning in April 1, 2005 and continuing through October 14, 2005:

“The goal of poverty reduction is as valid in China as it is elsewhere . . . I am prepared to listen and prepared to be an international civil servant.” (“World Bank to Work with China to Cut Poverty: Wolfowitz.” People’s Daily Online. April 1, 2005)

“There are nearly 200 million people living in extreme poverty in China in spite of enormous progress that has been made in the last 20 years . . . We’re in the process of moving from China as a major recipient of World Bank assistance to, at some point in the future, probably China will become a significant donor to the World Bank.” (“Wolfowitz: China Still Needs World Bank.” China Economic Net. October 10, 2005)

“China, as we all know, has been the fastest growing economy in Asia for the past 20 years and has lifted more than 400 million people above US$1 a day poverty levels in that time . . . And when we talk of China these days, we tend to think only of Shanghai and skyscrapers, of trade surpluses and rapid economic growth and above all, of amazing poverty reduction . . . I am looking forward to seeing firsthand how China has tackled poverty on such a massive scale. I think the world has a lot to learn from their experiences and I think the Bank can work with China to share those lessons . . . Today people who make cars in Germany or saris in India are equally challenged by China's rise. People who export iron ore from Australia or Europeans who buy cheaper clothing benefit from the effects of China's rapid growth and increased competitiveness. . . The country faces some important challenges, especially in the areas of environment, natural resources, and climate change, on the one hand, and with remaining poverty and growing inequality, on the other . . . These issues all affect the sustainability for growth. China needs more and better infrastructure to provide a framework for industry and to keep the cities operating efficiently. It needs to deal with an ageing population . . . It needs to continue moving - probably even more rapidly - towards a more effective legal system and a better investment climate." (“Wolfowitz – Viewing China from Both Sides.” WorldBank.Org. October 12, 2005

“It's stunning what they've done with very little to work with. The house we were just in is a fairly big house; the woman takes care of the house and the livestock - five sheep and a cow and a whole bio-gas cooking operation. And the husband's off earning money to make it all work . . . It's very impressive. I can't imagine doing it myself. You have to be somewhat in awe of what people who, you give them a little bit of a chance, will make a better life for themselves and their children. It's really quite amazing. We've seen it in other countries; we see it here in China, and it's inspiring . . . I've been in Shanghai, I've been in Beijing, Nanjing, and Guangzhou, all within the last 5 years. We talk -- correctly -- about how much China's accomplished. This is also a demonstration of how much more work there is to be done. I'm very proud that the Bank is participating in it . . . There's still a lot of poor people in the world, even here in successful countries like China.” (“WB President Impressed by China’s Poverty Reduction.” Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in India. October 14, 2005)

Furthermore, we quote him on poverty reduction in other areas of the world.

“The fact is that when it comes to poverty reduction, it is not a question of American foreign policy, or British foreign policy or South African foreign policy. It [poverty reduction] is a unifying goal and it is one that I believe in deeply. Each organization has to focus on its primary mission and its core competencies and the World Bank's are in the areas of poverty reduction." (“Wolfowitz Sets Africa Poverty Aim.” BBC News. April 1, 2005)

Through many trade and investment deals that China has established in Africa and Latin America, it has enabled these countries to advance their development and create a base for eliminating poverty in their countries.

There is undoubtedly a lengthy rebuttal of charges against Mr. Wolfowitz which will ultimately reveal that the case against him was on flimsy charges, hoping that they would succeed in removing him as the head of the World Bank (which is obviously friendly to the Chinese regime). It is becoming apparent that there are many shifts in the positions taken by officials in the Bush Administration and notably those officials that are in contact with world leaders, and particularly those in Eastern Asia and China, appear to have developed a higher sense of diplomacy while the Administration continues to waffle.

May 11, 2007

New York City

Sidney J. Gluck

Professor Emeritus at the

New School for Social Research

Co-President of the

US-China People’s Friendship Association, NY Chapter

Chairman of the

US-China Society of Friends

Host of Pacific Rim News Review

Manhattan News Network Channel 34

NEW YORK TIMES article

May 10, 2007

Some Leeway for Wolfowitz, Who Gets a Good Word From Rice

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, May 9 — Bowing to pressure from the Bush administration, the World Bank board agreed Wednesday to give Paul D. Wolfowitz, the bank’s president, slightly more time to defend himself against charges of misconduct before the board decides his future.

In a development that might help Mr. Wolfowitz’s fight to remain as bank president, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has lobbied European foreign ministers in the last two weeks, expressing support for him.

“She has spoken with several European foreign ministers about her positive impressions of Paul and the job he’s doing at the World Bank,” Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said in an interview on Wednesday when asked whether Ms. Rice had become involved in supporting Mr. Wolfowitz.

Despite Ms. Rice’s efforts and the board’s decision to give Mr. Wolfowitz more time, bank officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations are confidential, said they saw no indication that the board was any less determined to oust him from the presidency.

Mr. Wolfowitz was given until Friday evening — two additional days — to make his case in writing to the board, and it was expected that he would appear before the board as early as Monday. The board is to vote on whether he deserves a reprimand, a vote of no confidence or outright removal.

But even those plans could change. Discussions continued Wednesday on whether to proceed with a vote next week. Many bank officials continue to hope that Mr. Wolfowitz will resign, making a vote unnecessary.

Last weekend, a special committee of the board concluded that Mr. Wolfowitz violated bank rules and the terms of his contract by directing that Shaha Ali Riza, his companion, be awarded a large pay and promotion package when she was transferred to the State Department in 2005.

There were also more reports on Wednesday of officials in Europe who favor Mr. Wolfowitz’s departure.

A senior German official, Karin Kortmann, told the German Parliament that Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, the German development minister, had told Mr. Wolfowitz last month “that his voluntary resignation was the best solution for the bank and its goals.”
But Ms. Kortmann, a state secretary in the development ministry, said the United States should be given “room to react” to the crisis before any divisive vote at the bank.

This was apparently a reference to Europeans’ hope that the United States would persuade Mr. Wolfowitz to step down, possibly in return for assurances that President Bush could nominate his successor.

It has been a tradition since the 1940s that the United States selects the World Bank president and the Europeans select the head of the International Monetary Fund.

The German comments echoed those on Tuesday by top officials in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Mr. Wolfowitz’s lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, has said his client wants to present a lengthy rebuttal to the charge by current and former bank officials that he gave Ms. Riza the raise without informing or consulting them.

Mr. Bennett said the record showed that Mr. Wolfowitz gave her the pay and promotion package only after being told by top bank officials that he had to make the arrangements on his own.

Bank officials disagree, saying that while they told him to give her a raise in compensation for being moved to the State Department against her will, he should not have determined the amount by himself, especially since it involved an unusually large amount and promises of future promotions and raises.

The committee that found Mr. Wolfowitz guilty of breaking bank rules has not yet determined what punishment to recommend. Whatever the panel recommends, however, will be subject to a final determination by the 24 board members.

Another view from the International Trade Union Confederation...

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ITUC)

ITUC OnLine...
098/010607

Statement by World Bank Board on Selection of New Bank President a Step in the Right Direction

Brussels, 1 June 2007 (ITUC OnLine): The ITUC today described a statement issued earlier this week by the Board of the World Bank concerning the selection of a new Bank President as a positive step towards transparency and due process in determining who will lead the Bank following the resignation of previous President Paul Wolfowitz.

Traditionally, the choice of President has been made by the United States, while Europe has had the power to choose the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. The international trade union movement and other civil society organisations, along with many governments, have strongly criticised these arrangements as being contrary to the principles of transparency and good governance. "It is contrary to any basic notion of democracy that the leadership of these two institutions, whose mission is promoting development and tackling poverty, has always been decided without any involvement of developing countries", said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.

Importantly, the Board´s announcement notes that any national Executive Director of the Bank has the right to make a nomination to the position and that the World Bank's President must have "a commitment to and appreciation for multilateral cooperation, and political objectivity and independence".

"This statement by the World Bank Board goes some way to allay the legitimate criticism of what have been unacceptable procedures for deciding who will lead the two main global financial institutions," said Ryder. "We trust that the procedures in this case and in future will be open and transparent, and that commitment to tackling global poverty, to good governance and to social and economic development on the basis of international standards will be key criteria in deciding on the appointment of the next World Bank President", he added.

In setting a closing date for nominations of 15 June, and a period of 15 days after that in which to make a decision, the Board noted that it had been informed by the US that it intends to make a nomination. US President George Bush has put forward the name of investment banker Robert Zoellick, a former US Trade Representative, in a move which has been criticised as putting the Board under pressure to maintain the practice of the US having the exclusive right to decide who will fill the position.

Founded on 1 November 2006, the ITUC represents 168 million workers in 153 countries and territories and has 304 national affiliates. Website: www.ituc-csi.org

For more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on +32 2 224 0204 or +32 476 621 018.

Reaction to Cheney’s Initiation of Anti-China War Mongering

2007-04-30T07:19:00.000-05:00

Reaction to Cheney’s Initiation of Anti-China War Mongering

On February 16, 2007, Vice President Cheney, after visiting Pakistan, proclaimed that China’s increase in military budget was a threat to the world. This hot-air balloon was reflected in world renowned newspapers such as the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. The reports noted remarks by high level political persons, some of whom are in the Bush Administration, cautioning against exaggeration.

As far back as August 18, 2006, Sha Zukang, China’s Ambassador to the United Nations told the British Broadcasting Corporation Radio (BBC) that US concerns about his country’s “burgeoning military might” were misguided. He goes on to say, “It’s better for the US to ‘shut-up’ . . . China’s military build-up is not threatening anyone.”

On March 5th, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was quoted as saying “I would say that our relationship with China is multifaceted and it’s a very important relationship for the US and I don’t believe we need to make China an enemy. If we manage the relationship - - the overall relationship with China properly, it’s going to benefit both of our countries for a long time to come.”

Of course, the Chinese responded that they were increasing the military budget by 18% from 2006-7. On March 6th, the PLA issued a report stating that “China’s defense expenditures in 2005 of $30.6 billion accounted for only 1.35% of the country’s GDP, while the United States and Britain spent 4.03% and 2.71% of their GDPs on defense.” Their intent is to increase the technical capability of their military forces and keep up with modernization. In fact, on March 2nd, China’s Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense issued a new policy, encouraging private companies to invest in the national defense industry.

In February, responding to the backlash against the destruction of its own space satellite, China had issued a white paper disclosing their space activities and proposing discussions with the USA to come to an understanding of militarization of outer space. One can hardly consider the obliteration of its own satellite by self- guided missile, a threat. Rather, it serves notice that the USA monopoly of outer space military advantages is over. Undoubtedly, the Russians have a similar capability. Nonetheless, the US has shunned invitations to have an international agreement on non-militarization of outer space. We are now awaiting a proper response from the USA.

One can suspect that Vice President Cheney was beginning a new set of presumptions, exaggerations and, if I may use the term, lies about China’s military prowess and intent. China has never been involved in any international military conflicts (with one short-lived incident in the 20th Century). This is par for the course for the Bush Administration. We know they directed the development of intelligence stories with regards to Iraq, where we never found any weapons of mass destruction. It was our invasion that created mass destruction in Iraq itself. We lost over 3,000 soldiers and have caused almost every Iraqi family to lose a member due to the conflict our invasion released.

As for the facts of militarization, we attach a table below which shows the world’s total military expenditure, as well as that of nine countries. This chart compares each country’s published military expenditure, population and the percentage of their population in the world’s total. The last column calculates the per capita military expenditure of each nation. The results are astounding. The United States is almost $1,800. China is approximately $35.

[Please note: This Chart is available towards the bottom of our blog in a larger, more readable format; just scroll down.]

We calculated and grouped the per capita military expenditure of India (which has the lowest per capita of roughly $19), with Russia (approximately $230) and China for a total of approximately $38. Note that these three countries are not dominated by American military structure and, in their independence, have joined together for development. Hence, we view them as a special group to compare to the US military position. Whichever way you look at it, the United States per capita expenditure is 46 times the combined per capita expenditure of India, Russia and China.

Where is the logic in assuming that a country with 1.3 billion people and 20% of the world’s population, spending only $35 per capita for its military establishment, is seeking domination anywhere in the world against existing interests of the USA with only 4.6% of the world’s population but an expenditure of 533 billion dollars for 2007 (or a per capita expenditure of $1,769).

Please, someone out there, give me the logic. If you can’t, then it doesn’t exist and we must conclude that Mr. Cheney and the forces in the Bush Administration, for which he is spokesman, are on the verge of concocting a new series of lies to destabilize peaceful relations. This is hardly the way to resolve real differences that have developed in our economic relations. There, again, please note that the negative trade balance of the US to China and the US indebtedness of over half a trillion dollars could be relieved if we were to sell them the heavy equipment and technology which they continue to tender as a major step in balancing our accounts. Furthermore, China is ready to invest in USA industries to produce commodities that they can import which would reduce the negative trade balance considerably. The solutions are there. The political economic policies of the USA are not defensive, but offensive in making it appear that China is an enemy and we should fear their military.

China’s foreign policy is to rise peacefully as an economic power. It has proven and intends to continue to make win-win trade and investment deals with all countries, particularly developing countries which will have an opportunity to improve their own states. Call a spade, a spade. Cheney is throwing up a balloon which lies in the hope that it diverts attention to the recalcitrants of the USA to work as equals with China, recognizing the inevitability of China’s future rise. The resolution of conflicting interests, from the Chinese point of view, is to be handled diplomatically without any allusions to the military.

Warfare in orbit is only news when China does it
The Real 'Masters of Space'

By Karl Grossman

(Appearing in April 2007 issue of Extra! The Magazine of FAIR--The Media Watch Group)

As a graphic proclaiming "Red Storm" flashed on the screen, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs intoned: "Communist China tonight refusing to explain its motives for conducting its first-ever anti-satellite missile test. That test, the latest in a series of dangerous new challenges by the Chinese military to this country’s interest."

He threw it to correspondent Christine Romans, who declared, "Defense experts see a pattern of behavior that highlights China’s strategy to exploit American weakness." Romans went to John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation, who, she reported, "says that American policymakers refuse to recognize China’s hostile intentions toward this country."

The segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight (1/24/07) didn’t mention anything about the U.S. military's space strategy of recent years (Extra!, 5-6/99). There’s not a word about a key 1998 U.S. strategy document, the U.S. Space Command’s Vision for 2020, which envisions space-based laser weapons zapping targets on Earth, and speaks of the U.S. military "dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment" and "integrating Space Forces into war-fighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict."

Nor was mention made of the 2001 Rumsfeld Commission report, which declared, "In the coming period, the U.S. will conduct operations to, from, in and through space to support its national interests both on the earth and in space." The Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, chaired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, also urged that the U.S. president "have the option to deploy weapons in space."

Also left out was a new U.S. National Space Policy adopted by the White House last year that took a still more aggressive U.S. position on space warfare, announcing that the U.S. will "develop and deploy space capabilities that sustain U.S. advantage."

Just as the continuing U.S. development of space military capabilities wasn’t reported, nor were the repeated efforts led by China, Russia and U.S. ally Canada to have the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the basic international agreement setting aside space for peaceful uses, broadened to include a ban on the deployment, testing or use of weapons in space--or the U.S. opposing this initiative, all but alone at the U.N., in vote after vote.

Instead of placing the story in context, explaining the precipitating factors, China’s successful destruction of one of its old satellites was simply labeled--in a banner across the screen--as "Communist China’s Rising Threat to the United States."

The New York Times (1/19/07) was only somewhat better. After the jump, its lead story ("Flexing Muscle, China Destroys Satellite in Test") did inform readers that China has "been trying to push a treaty to ban space weapons." No reference, however, was made to the U.S.'s lonely and sustained opposition to this.

And the quote on which the story is hung, in the fourth paragraph on Page 1, is Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer, declaring: "This is the first real escalation in the weaponization of space that we’ve seen in 20 years." Where exactly has McDowell been as the U.S. has ratcheted up its space warfare program over the past two decades?

The space industry trade newspaper, Space News (1/22/07), emphasized the folly of banning weapons in space in its front-page story about the test ("China’s ASAT Test Widely Criticized, U.S. Says No New Treaties Needed"). It filled six of the first eight paragraphs of the piece with long, virtually unbroken quotes from an anonymous "U.S. State Department official."

A key quote from the unnamed official: "Arms control is not a viable solution for space. For example, there is no agreement on how to define space weapons." How about "weapons in space"?

Aviation Week & Space Technology (1/17/07) revealed the January 12 Chinese test on its website in an article that omitted any mention of the U.S. space military program. But it did state, "China’s growing military space capability is one major reason the Bush administration last year formed the nation’s first new National Space Policy in 10 years."

In a subsequent full-page editorial, headlined "China’s ASAT Test: Irresponsible and Against International Norms," Aviation Week (1/29/07) declared that news of the test "that we broke on our website…should not come as a surprise. While the precise timing of the test may have startled most of the world…the People’s Liberation Army has been signaling its intent to master the space realm for more than a decade."

Aviation Week might have acknowledged that "Master of Space" is not a motto coined by the Chinese, but by the U.S. Air Force Space Command’s 50th Space Wing in 1992the words emblazoned to this day above the entrance of its headquarters in Colorado.
The publication made no explicit mention of China’s efforts to ban weapons in space and U.S. opposition to that, but it did remark that the general hand-wringing about "militarizing space" or an "arms race in space" that we have noticed in some quarters strikes us as downright silly.

First of all, space has been militarized practically from day one…. And even if the genie could be put back in the bottle, why should it be?... Today, the U.S. is understandably reluctant to invite the nations of the world to discuss restrictions on a technology in which it is preeminent. No armed forces enjoy the advantages of the orbital high ground more than those of the U.S.

"When I say last week’s coverage was bad, I mean textbook bad, without even token context," Brian Dominick wrote for the New Standard website (1/25/07). "The only background we’re offered--in some articles--took the form of acknowledgement that the U.S. has the capability to nix Chinese satellites. But even that came in a paraphrase attributed to an expert who appears to be some kind of U.S.-space-domination cheerleader."

Among the pieces he singled out was an Associated Press story (1/23/07) that spoke about the test by China "carried out under the auspices of its highly secretive, military-dominated space program." Dominick observed: "It’s hard to think of better terms to describe the U.S. space program other than by adding ‘profit-aware.’ But you’ll never see ‘secretive’ or ‘militarized’ as adjectives describing NASA--at least not in the AP."

Great detail need not be offered to provide context. For instance, the British journal New Scientist (1/27/07) simply noted:

Despite protests from the Bush administration over China’s action, analysts point out that the U.S. has consistently refused to discuss a new UN treaty on the peaceful uses of outer space. Instead, it will this year spend at least $1 billion on anti-satellite weapons research.

The mainstream U.S. media coverage of the Chinese test--riddled with omissions and jingoism--is no surprise to Bruce Gagnon, who for 15 years has been coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (www.space4peace.org). He tells Extra!:

While China's ASAT test is troubling, it is also hypocritical of the U.S. to criticize them for doing something that our country has been doing since the 1980s. The Pentagon today is developing a host of ASAT weapons technologies that would give them the ability to knock out other countries’ satellites. Sadly, the American people don't know anything about this because the corporate-dominated media refuse to cover the story.

Every year, he notes, the Global Network presses the space militarization issue by holding a Keep Space for Peace Week. "We send information out to the mainstream media locally and nationally but they completely ignore our efforts," he says. "You'd think that the fact people are holding positive actions to educate the public about preventing a news arms race would be newsworthy." Last year, during the week of demonstrations and talks, the bellicose new National Space Policy was announced (DATE), and thus "all the more reason for a story about a global movement working to prevent the weaponization of space. But nothing was reported on it."

"Why do the mainstream media not report on a growing international movement to keep space for peace?" Gagnon asks.

Could it be that much of the media today is under the control of the very corporations who will benefit, directly or indirectly, from a new arms race in space? The Pentagon has long bragged that Star Wars will be the largest industrial project in the history of the planet. In order to create the fear and acceptance of such a plan, the media must manage the news around this issue so that the American people remain compliant.

The move by the U.S. to turn the heavens into a war zone "has all the elements of a big story--money, power, domination, corruption," says Gagnon. "But the corporate-dominated media rarely go near it. The big money is keeping a lid on this story for a reason."

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at SUNY College at Old Westbury, is author of Weapons in Space (Seven Stories Press) and The Wrong Stuff (Common Courage Press) and host of the TV documentaries Star Wars Returns and Nukes in Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens ( www.envirovideo.com).

China... the Trade Off in having capitalist partners

2007-03-25T15:54:00.000-05:00

We would like to share an article from Beijing Review on the impact and problems that have developed with China’s Opening to the West as it expresses itself in trade and investment relations. Without a doubt, for historic reasons of low-cost production in colonial China which has achieved modernization in only part of its country where more than two-thirds remain undeveloped, China has nevertheless emerged as a viable competitor to major capitalist countries. At the same time, it is a valued customer for raw materials from many undeveloped and developing countries, giving them opportunity for independent growth. In fact, the US has raised sharp complaints in the WTO against what they claim is China’s subsidizing exports. Of course, the US will not own up to the fact that its subsidies to cotton growers has kept the price of US cotton low and resulted in 10,000 African farmers being put out of production.

The West, particularly the US Treasury, is pinning the solution on increasing the value of Chinese currency as though a change in the means of exchange would resolve what is essentially a production problem. No doubt, some adjustments can be made in tariffs, import, and export, arrived at in reasonable negotiations and the opening of trade and investment privileges. Of course, China is making efforts to increase consumption in its own country to absorb a larger share of the GDP and rely on production for export. This is a long term process and will depend upon the rapidity with which the Hu government creates the Socialist Welfare State they promise to be in place by 2020 for 90% of the population.

A more equitable share of wealth in China will go a long way to resolve the competitive inequalities that have arisen. However, in the interim, the trade imbalances can be alleviated if opportunities for China’s imports from countries with large disproportions would help both China in its economic growth and the complaining countries would have a higher level of exports to China. The result is a more workable balance; but this means that countries like the USA must relax its policy of refusing the sale of heavy and high tech equipment to China and the right to make legitimate investments in production intended for export to China. Unfortunately, US super-power politics is in the way of logical economic decision-making, though Bush has encouraged one major technology deal.

The kernel of solution of competitive realities is clearly noted in the last paragraph of the article “A Trade Off” by Zhou Jianxiong.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

A Trade Off

Beijing Review vol. 50 no. 7

February 15, 2007

By ZHOU JIANXIONG

China's growing trade surplus has become a major concern for some of its major trade partners, such as the United States and the European Union. As the latest statistics from China's Customs Administration suggest, while the country's export growth rate fell 1.2 percentage points and that of imports rose 2.4 percentage points, the total surplus grew $75.59 billion last year to hit a record high of $177.47 billion. This proves to be a direct cause of friction between China and these trade partners. By the third quarter of last year, 70 cases of antidumping and countervailing investigations had been launched against China, making it the world's primary target of trade punitive measures. In addition, this trade surplus has brought about overheated investment in the wake of huge capital deposits building up in the banking sector, a phenomenon the Chinese central authorities have vigorously sought to control in recent years.

Many Chinese scholars and trade officials have attributed the trade surplus to the massive transfer of global manufacturing industries to China, which has boosted its export potentials, and led to an overcapacity that curbs demand for more imports. Others believe that a stronger global demand for Chinese processed goods may be the cause. This is substantiated by figures from the Ministry of Commerce showing that the trade surplus from processed products has been greater than that of general trade over the past six years. A higher savings ratio is also held accountable for the trade surplus, as it gives rise to an accelerating pace of investment as well as inadequate domestic consumption.

Whatever the causes, this trade surplus remains and is still rising, and given its status in the globalization process, cheap labor and other resources, and current stage of social development, China is likely to maintain an overall surplus in foreign trade over a relatively long-term period.

This, however, does not mean that the Chinese Government is taking an indifferent attitude toward the issue. On the contrary, various measures have been adopted recently to curb the rising surplus, including setting up a managed floating exchange rate system, lowering the rate of export rebate, and concluding of procurement contracts worth billions of dollars abroad. Chinese leaders have reiterated on many occasions that China has no intention of pursuing a huge trade surplus with any other countries, and the Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai has declared the reduction of trade surplus one of his top priorities for 2007. Conceivably, a series of new policy readjustments will be made to attain the goal in the foreseeable future, ranging from a more liberalized floating exchange rate system, replacing export incentives with new policies that encourage import and investment overseas, to optimizing the lineup of export commodities and taking fresh steps to stimulate domestic consumption.

Some Western observers have pinned their hopes on the appreciation of the Chinese yuan, assuming that a higher exchange rate of renminbi will be a miraculous cure to easing the trade surplus. This is only correct on paper, for China's trade surplus does not originate from an imbalance of international trade, but is a result of the changing setup of global manufacturing activities and international division of labor and market. Under such circumstances, China really needs outside help from some of its trade partners to cut its trade surplus, such as lifting restrictions on China's purchase of hi-tech products and clearing the barriers to Chinese business investment abroad.

The Emerging Hu-Wen-Zeng Troika

2007-03-02T12:15:00.000-06:00

[Please note: Due to travel and inclement weather this blog was not posted according to schedule, therefore it will remain posted until Monday March 12. I am sorry about this problem... Alan Maki]

Dear Colleagues,

On January 16th we sent you comments on the Herald Tribune Article that we interpreted as a trial balloon to push Hu into the background of the PRC’s international relations and pull Zeng forward. We suspected, and still do, that this move was inspired by the anti-Hu centrist super modernization wing of the Communist Party, together with foreign influence to push China on a capitalist road and divert the Hu/Wen moves to rebalance the distribution of wealth and develop a Welfare State. We included information about Zeng’s position as the main advisor to Jiang Zemin who followed the ultra-modernization line.

We have now received a two-part article titled “The Emerging Hu-Wen-Zeng Troika,” which appeared in the Hong Kong Asia Times on February 21st. It appears that Hu, at this time, remains the super diplomat in control of the direction of the government of China. He, undoubtedly, will continue a deft but public crusade to clean out the corruption that has categorized decisive levels of the Communist Party and government officials, many of whom are or were Party leaders (we learned a year and a half ago that 78 billion dollars had been sent overseas by some 4,500 top cadre who fled the country and are still being sought). We are now aware of his breaking the Shanghai Gang, of which Zeng was an important advisor to the previous regime under Jiang.

Hu, as you will note, has turned over the role of organizing the cleanup of corruption in the Communist Party at this year’s 17th Congress in the Fall of this year. We have a very strong feeling about Hu’s genius as a diplomat and believe it possible that he could manage exemplary results from such a troika. Of course, Wen has always closely collaborated with Hu. Zeng, who is undoubtedly a highly competent leader and original thinker, might be groomed by them into a new direction and a strong bid for the future on a socialist road rather than a questionable capitalist direction.

Therefore, we hope that all the information you glean from the enclosed copy of Wu Zhong’s article by the China editor of Asia Times will give you considerable information to develop your own concept of the build up and results of the forthcoming congress whose main theme is the elimination of corruption and the forwarding of programs to build a harmonious society, rather than urging individuals to get rich quick.

Sincerely,
Sidney J. Gluck

-----------------------------------------------------------

Asia Times (HK)
2/21/07

SUN WUKONG
The emerging Hu-Wen-Zeng troika
By Wu Zhong, China Editor

HONG KONG - Chinese President Hu Jintao is in firm command of the preparations for the Communist Party's 17th Congress scheduled to be held in the autumn. This is a sure sign that Hu's authority as the supreme leader of the party and the country will be truly established in the upcoming five-yearly party congress and that he has walked out of the political shadow of predecessor Jiang Zemin.

Sources in Beijing confirm a report in the latest issue of The
Mirror, a Chinese-language pro-Beijing China-watching monthly based in Hong Kong, that two leading groups have been set up to take charge of the preparatory works for the party congress: one to oversee the draft of the keynote report to be delivered at the op ening that will set the party line for the next five years, the other to take care of personnel matters - including the selection of delegates and, more significant, the election of the new Central Committee.

With Hu's approval, Premier Wen Jiabao, now ranking No 2 in the party hierarchy, has been assigned to head the political-report-drafting group and Vice President Zeng Qinghong, now ranking No 5, to lead the personnel group. This indicates that a Hu-Wen-Zeng troika has been formed to lead the party's 17th National Congress and likely to be become the core of the party's leadership afterward, the sources say.

This debunks some earlier rumors, one of which had Jiang demanding that Wen step down if Hu wanted to force Jia Qingling, ranking No 4 in the Politburo's Standing Committee and also chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and the ailing Vice Premier Huang Ju, ranking No 6, to retire at upcoming congress.

Both Jia and Huang are seen as Jiang's proteges. Another rumor said Hu was being urged to cede the presidency to Zeng, suggesting the two were locked in a power struggle ahead of the party meeting.

The keynote political report to a party congress is normally delivered by the party's leader. In the history of the Chinese Communist Party, there were a few exceptions in Mao Zedong's time when the Great Helmsman had his hand-picked successor read the report instead, though all of his designated successors proved to be politically short-lived.

So it is believed the political report will be delivered by Hu himself, though Wen is now overseeing its drafting. The Mirror report said Wen has already recruited elite party theorists and researchers from top think-tanks into the drafting group.

The report is expected to elaborate on Hu's idea of "building a socialist harmonious society" and "pursuing a harmonious world". Sources say that following party tradition, it is essential for Hu t o have his own ideas developed into the party's guiding ideology. Only in this way can his supreme leadership truly be established. From this viewpoint the drafting of the political report is a very important task. So to have Wen head the drafting group shows Hu believes the premier will faithfully accomplish the task.

And the approval of the political report (which is surely expected) means Hu's idea will be officially adopted as the party line. Some sources say the party constitution is also likely to be revised to include Hu's line as the party's theoretical guideline parallel with Deng Xiaoping's "thought" and Jiang's "three represents" theory.

Adoption of this line will formally mark the opening of the Hu era. "No doubt, the next five years will be strongly branded with the Hu stamp," said Li Ji, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), in an interview with The Mirror.

In the division of labor in the current Politburo Stan ding Committee, Zeng's portfolio is to oversee the party's construction and organization affairs - a job Hu himself had concentrated on until he became party chief in late 2002. As such, Zeng is concurrently president of the Central Party School, the training center for senior cadres. And the party's Central Organization

Department, which handles the appointment and promotion of senior party and government officials, is directly under Zeng's supervision.

Given this portfolio, it is logical for Zeng to be assigned to head the preparatory group on personnel affairs. Nevertheless, it still shows that Zeng, who used to be regarded as a protege of Jiang and a key member of the so-called Shanghai clique, has won the trust and become an ally of Hu.

The reshuffle of personnel in the upcoming party meeting is so important to Hu that it would simply be unthinkable to have a rival in charge. Hu needs loyal cadres to implement his line. Or, as Mao put it: "Once the party line is established, c adres become the key factor" for implementation of the line.

Zeng's group has first to supervise the selection of 2,200 deputies from the 38 constituencies representing 72 million Communist Party members across the country. They include the 31 mainland provinces, the party's central units, the central government units, the People's Liberation Army, the paramilitary People's Armed Police, the state-owned enterprises, financial institutions under the central government, and the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots (supposedly representing Taiwan).

According to the rules, 70% of the 2,200 deputies will be party and government officials. The 200-odd full members and 150-odd alternative members of the party's new Central Committee will be elected from among these 2,200 deputies during the congress. So another important task for Zeng's group is to work out a list of candidates for the new Central Committee.

Normally, all party chiefs and governors of the 31 mainland provinces are on the Central Committee. Thus all provinces are required to hold their local party congresses to pick new provincial party committees and party chiefs. This is to ensure that new blood will be injected into the new Central Committee. So far, 15 or so provinces, mostly in central and western China, have already convened their regional congresses. But economically important regions on the east coast such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangdong have yet to hold their provincial-level congresses.

Analysts say Zeng will not be able to work out the list of candidates for the new Central Committee before the end of June when official reshuffles in all provinces are to be completed.

For this new round, Hu has instructed that strenuous efforts must be made to prevent the promotion of "ill" officials. In Chinese, the word "ill'' in the context of his speech has a double meaning. It refers not only to physical sickness but also to evil deeds such as corruption.

There are reasons for Hu to be concerned with the state of heath of those to be promoted. In the past, a couple of Politburo members died soon after they were elevated to the power center. The current example is Huang Ju, who is very ill, reportedly suffering from cancer of the pancreas since early last year. Hu's instruction signals that Huang definitely will have to say goodbye to his political career this autumn.

But Hu is surely more worried that corrupt officials might be promoted. In the past quite a number of corrupt officials were promoted to higher positions. Disgraced Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu scorned the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection's warning that his secretary Qin Yu was suspected of involvement in a corruption scam, but insisted on promoting Qin to head a district in the city. Eventually, the CCDI's investigations of Qin led to the exposure of Chen himself. This has become a well-known example of "ill-promotion" am ong Chinese officials.

Sources say that an important condition in the selection of deputies to the party congress and of candidates for the new Central Committee is that they must be free of any suspicion of corruption. In this regard, the CCDI and regional party anti-graft watchdogs may play a role in the selections.

However, given the runaway protectionism at regional levels and nepotism in today's China, it will indeed be a backbreaking, if not impossible, mission for Zeng's group to be sure that all party cadres promoted ahead and during the party's 17th National Congress are clean.

Subject: A Disturbing Trial Balloon
Date: 1/16/2007 5:54:38 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: SJGluck

I would like to share a story from the International Herald Tribune. There appears to be a move to push Hu Jintao out of the Presidency of the State and give this position to Vice President Zeng Qinghong.

No doubt, there is a move to reduce the effectiveness of Hu Jintao, who is leading the country to a positive role in giving attention to poverty, the peasants and the conditions of workers, in other words, social security with equal emphasis to the question of economic growth. This has been the consistent move by Hu from the very beginning even in the first two years when he had considerable difficulty getting rid of Jiang Zemin's office holding and influence.

I will share with you an excerpt we have from a biography of Zeng Qinghong:

"As the Deputy Director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee from 1989 to 1993, Zeng guided Jiang, an outsider to national politics, through the inner workings of the party, military and bureaucratic structure in Beijing. He promoted Jiang's leadership and thinking, broadened Jiang's network, and became Jiang's right-hand-man. Over the 1990s, Zeng consolidated control of party organs responsible for the appointment of cadres to important political positions. As head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee from 1999-2002, he strengthened Jiang's position by promoting members of the president's "Shanghai clique" to leading central and regional posts. He also helped advanced Jiang's guiding political philosophy the Three Represents."

Clearly, the objective of this underground move is to bring back the influence of the influence of Jiang Zemin, which would concentrate strictly on the GDP without true concern for the masses.

Many of you know I have said that the establishment of a Socialist Welfare State under Chinese conditions would turn out to be an early stage on the road to socialism. Under Western conditions, the Welfare State and the New Deal were liberal defensives against the USSR in the 20th century. However, there have been incursions of various degrees in every country to reduce the benefits to the masses. Although it is also true that a Welfare State in China is a defensive, unless there is a reversal of the Hu Jintao trend towards development, there would be no incursions against it. This may be a hard pill for colleagues who believe in socialism, but I ask your consideration of the actual State of Affairs.

It is quite possible that Hu has won over Jiang because of his proven superb diplomatic abilities; but we cannot know this until we observe Jiang's performance as the appointed head to lead the preparation of the 7th Plenary in the Fall of 2007 which is intended to concentrate on eliminating corruption in the CCP at the expense of reducing its numbers, but cleaning out the opportunists. We should keep our eye on the progress of this trial balloon, pro and con. We might also tune in on any slight allusions on the part of Hu himself or Wen Jibao who is definitely of the same general line of opinion as Hu.

Sincerely,
Sidney

---------------------------------

Hu is urged to cede his position to the vice president

Reuters
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
BEIJING

The Chinese leader Hu Jintao has been urged to cede the presidency to a rival-turned-ally, sources said, a step that would sweep aside two decades of established practice and let him focus on extending Communist Party power.

Political allies of Vice President Zeng Qinghong have urged that he be promoted to state president at Parliament's annual session in 2008, the sources with close ties to the top leadership said, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for speaking to foreign media.

It was not certain whether the proposal would be adopted, but the debate is a sign that jockeying among leaders has begun in earnest before the 17th Communist Party Congress, due sometime between September and November of this year.

"There are voices in the party that it is no longer necessary for one person to hold all three positions," one source said, referring to the presidency and the top party and military jobs all currently held by Hu.

A second source said Zeng's supporters were arguing for a return to the modus vivendi of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when power was shared by four national leaders.
The practice continued under the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s, with Hu Yaobang as party chief, Zhao Ziyang as prime minister and Li Xiannian as president. After Hu's political demise, Zhao took the top party post and Li Peng was prime minister.

In a departure from that practice, Jiang Zemin was given the presidency and the top party and military posts to bolster his relatively weak position as he rose to power after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Jiang ruled for 13 years until 2002, when he handed the party general secretary post to Hu, who replaced Jiang as president in 2003 and military chief the following year.
Hu, who reversed Jiang's emphasis on embracing the growing ranks of rich capitalists and has instead pursued policies over the past five years lifting up the rural poor, is expected to signal a fifth-generation heir and further consolidate power at the party congress.

While some analysts said that handing the presidency to Zeng could be perceived as a sign of weakness, other political sources said it could show Hu's confidence in his grip on power. He would still hold the more influential posts of party and military boss, and would have more time to focus on internal issues to strengthen the party's monopoly on power.

"Domestically, Hu will be seen as magnanimous if he lets Zeng become president," a third source said. "It'll be a recognition of Zeng's work."
"But it's a difficult decision because Hu needs the presidency to break out into the world," the source added.

Subject: The Disturbing “Trial Balloon” is Blowing Up
Date: 2/5/2007 6:09:21 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: SJGluck

Dear Colleagues,

Following our response to the Herald Tribune article sent to you on January 16th, which was the first public appearance of a program to create sentiment for Hu Jintao to give up the presidency of China in favor of Zeng Qinghong, the point man for Jiang Zemin who was succeeded by Hu after a good deal of pressure, there has been another leap forward in the publication of an extended story in the Asia News. We are attaching the communication just received from one of our associates who is not always gung ho about China. While this article repeats much of the original, it is much sharper about Hu’s resignation than the speculative tone of the Herald Tribune original. It is now quite obvious to the writer that a campaign is developing with great assistance from outside of China itself for the shifting of Hu’s responsibilities away from the international scene.

It is precisely his position as the Head of State of the government that allows him to exercise a most sophisticated ability for diplomacy that has become the benchmark of China’s foreign policy in the past few years following Hu’s ascension to leadership.

Further, the article in Asia News puts coloration on the relationship between Zeng and Hu which totally ignores the fact that it was Zeng who was the main advisor to Jiang Zemin for all of the critical aspects of government policies that ignored the Chinese people and maintained a touch of belligerency in its foreign policy over Taiwan. It further makes references to Deng Xiaoping (who was not a top leader of the Communist Party, only a highly respected advisor because he carried the label of modernization stamp on him by Chou En Lai), allowing for unfinished references to a three man leadership of China which was changed by Deng and Jiang Zemin, giving Jiang the full power for which the scepter has passed to Hu, not without a struggle.

The removal of Hu as the top spokesman for China on the world scene would be a set back for world developments and create an opportunity for elements within China to return to policies which were intolerable at best and suspect at worst.

Stay tuned and keep your eyes and ears open. The battle between private and social interests in China is sharpened under circumstances which at the moment still favor a road towards socialism through a Welfare State. We are witnessing the acceleration of a campaign to derail the social programs in China and China’s positive relations with countries around the world.

Sincerely,
Sidney J. Gluck

PS: An afterthought: If Zeng has changed at all in the present Political Bureau structure; it is because of Hu’s influence. Any change by Zeng is yet to be tried in the responsibilities that have been turned over to him in the fight against corruption that will take place very sharply in the forthcoming 7th Plenary later this year where Zeng has been put in charge of the program. I believe that this is a test rather than an approbation of Zeng’s actions since Hu’s ascendancy following Jiang’s final relinquishing of leadership of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AsiaNews - www.asianews.it
Last Updated: 01/17/2007 18:57
CHINA

Hu Jintao should cede the presidency to his former rival

Sources in the Communist leadership are saying that within the party there is one faction that is pushing for Zeng Qinghong, the last member of the Shanghai gang, to replaced Hu as president. The decision should come at the next annual meeting of the People's National Congress.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - Hu Jintao has been urged to cede the presidency to Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, a rival-turned-ally, and focus on extending Communist Party power as party general secretary, sources close to the top leadership said. Mr Hu, who is president, party leader and commander in chief of the armed forces, should make the change at next annual National People's Congress.

Although it is not clear whether the request will be heeded, the fact that it is raised is a sign that a debate is going on within the top leadership of the Communist regime

"There are voices in the party saying that it is no longer necessary for one person to hold all three positions," one source said.

A second source said that this would represent a return to the system under Mao Zedong, when the top political spots where filled by four different people. The practice continued under leader Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s, but changed when Jiang Zemin came to power in 1989.

For some observers, Jiang was given top state, party and military posts to bolster his relatively weak position inside the communist leadership. After Jiang gradually relinquished power, Hu replaced him in all posts.

While some analysts believe giving up the presidency might be seen as a sign of weakness, others say it could show Mr Hu's confidence in his grip on power. However, it is a difficult decision since the president is the one who maintains relations with the world.

Having Mr Zeng take the presidency opens other possibilities. He is the last member of the Shanghai gang, Jiang Zemin's power base. From being rivals, he Zeng has become Hu's ally and has backed all his decisions. Sharing top positions seem more of a way of keeping power by preventing any fall out.

Even the decision to sack Chen Liangyu as Shanghai party boss for corruption seems to be a blip on the radar designed to strengthen the new alliance.

But for top leaders, the proposal by various intellectuals to differentiate government and party posts is seen as heretical. Several times they have said that the party's leading role cannot be questioned.

China and Africa: Neo-colonialism or Example of Cooperation, Fair Trade, Social & Economic Assistance, and Non-Interference?

2007-02-19T18:28:00.000-06:00

By: Sidney J. Gluck

February 19, 2007

In the past few weeks there have appeared a number of articles in the general press characterizing China’s relations with Africa as “neo-colonialism.” Since the West, over centuries, has done nothing but exploit, colonize and then be pushed out of Africa, culturally they have been inured to considering a close relationship with African states as “colonial.” That situation began to change with the establishment of the United Nations and the freedom of colonial possessions. This was followed by an association of former colonialist countries at a conference over fifty years ago in Bandung, organized by India and China, at which a general pledge was made to conduct foreign relations on the basis of non-interference in internal politics. This, of course, did not rule out economic aid, trade, and investment. Former colonial countries have maintained relations through economic controls and influence of politics. This, too, is coming to an end. Accelerating that process is the relationship between China and Africa.

One hundred years ago, W. E. B. DuBois predicted that the “world color line,” an expression of colonialism and imperialism, would be broken when Asia and Africa get together. Some thirty or forty years later, he specifically stated that China and Africa’s relationship would create a fundamental change in historic world relations. That is where we are today. Some six years ago, China organized the African Forum bringing together Heads of States to Beijing. In January 2004, China forgave the indebtedness of thirty-one African nations. It has annually brought together African leaders, culminating in last November’s China/Africa Forum which embraced forty-nine of the fifty-one African nation’s leaders in Beijing. China has been engaged in specific programs with African countries such as Angola, South Africa, Somalia, Sudan and other East African nations.

This is a super challenge to world imperialism which does little to assist economically and is simultaneously both engaged and confused in political relations. On the other hand, China does not get involved in political relations, yet is most friendly with all countries in mutually beneficial strategic contracts that deal with development of resources, health facilities, infrastructure, rebuilding of destroyed industrial equipment, modernization, etc. without political connotations on a purely win-win economic basis.

We are doing an in depth study of Sino-African relations. In this context, we have just received the February 8th issue of Beijing Review (English edition) which features, “China-Africa – Taking Relations to a New Level.” One of the main stories is a written interview with Eleih-Elle Etian, the Cameroon Ambassador who specifically deals with the mis-characterization of China’s relationship as neo-colonial. We attach relative sections of the article.

----------------------------

Beijing Review

Vol. 50 No. 6

February 8, 2007

Increasing Rapprochement

In a written interview with Beijing Review, Eleih-Elle Etian, Cameroon's Ambassador to China and dean of the Group of African Ambassadors, discusses China's burgeoning relations with Africa, especially with Cameroon, which was the first leg of Chinese President Hu Jintao's eight-nation Africa tour

China and Africa

Can you comment on "neocolonialism," a policy that some people believe China is pursuing in Africa?

First of all, I wonder whom those people are, those who believe China is pursuing a neocolonial policy in Africa. I'm afraid they are worried about the geopolitical incidence on the international scene of an increasing rapprochement between China and Africa. I'm also afraid they just want to distract Africans from a political option that will for once be to their advantage, just to prevent them from enjoying the bright prospects of that cooperation.

China was a close partner of Africa in the early years of the continent's struggle for independence-I mean in the de-colonization process of Africa. It would therefore be unfair to accuse or suspect China of embarking on a colonial or neocolonial policy in Africa. China is a responsible country and would not engage in a policy it has been fighting for decades. Ever since then, China and Africa have built their relations upon the five principles of peaceful coexistence, which include mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. Both parties remain faithful to these principles and that is why we can witness such an increasing cooperation today.

Fortunately, neither China nor African countries are fooled by the saying of "neocolonialism." Counting on the usual support of all our traditional partners, we know our cooperation with China is one of the most strategic or simply the most strategic stake of the future of our international cooperation for the coming decades.

Increasing Rapprochement -- Beijing Review

China: The 21st Century in an Era of Epochal Change

2007-02-14T14:40:00.000-06:00

The 21st Century in an Era of Epochal Change

By: Sidney J. Gluck

Submitted to the Salzburg Seminar 438 on China – December 5-10, 2006

The myriad of contradictions in China’s revolutionary development cannot be fully grasped unless we place it in the context of an epochal world transition from one form of production relationships and its social content to another that carries forward achievements of the old society to better serve humanity. Such transitions have taken place in the history of civilization. The center of change shifted geographically. Within this context, human nature and relationships have also changed, in essence, reflecting property rights and the goals of commensurate relationships.

The most recent historic example is the European transition from feudal agricultural and handicraft based production relations to wage-labor relations of the capitalist system. The transition took hundreds of years of ebb and flow of conflicting interests between a rising mercantilist bourgeoisie and monarchial dominated feudal land enclosure which limited commerce, production and the extension of money forms of exchange and accumulation. Many nations experienced revolutionary moments before the demise of feudal domination.

In periods of transition, contradictions between the socio-economic relations of the new system and elements of the old (the old within the new and the new within the old) defy description by any one simplistic set of relationships. The pace of change depends upon the ability of the old structure to make contributions to economic growth and ability to sustain and improve human conditions. The new grows as it brings greater social benefits. China’s peaceful rise to world prominence must be seen through multiple lenses to determine the nature of its present stage of development and socio-political direction.

We live in an epoch of change that made its first appearance almost one hundred years ago after WWI when conflicts among the dominant colonialist and aspiring imperialist nations showed the gluttony of the private capitalist system which dominated the rest of the world. The social revolutions that challenged the system were defeated in all but Russia where a new system in the name of socialism emerged.[1]

Karl Marx may have predicted an era of Socialist Revolution growing out of class antagonisms and exploitation in Europe (he noted that the Asian experience would differ and intended to elaborate); but it was Lenin who opened an era of Socialist Revolution by turning an inter-imperialist conflict into a civil war. He turned the disillusionment of Russian working people and peasants, who were the majority, into a democratic expression of national aspiration.

This opened an era of change by introducing a new form of government that had yet to establish its social and economic structure, a process interrupted by his death and altered into a centrally planned command system without recognition of private property. The new era did not open on a consistent line of development. Lenin had warned that the road to socialism must be a many-sided struggle for democracy; hence, from the beginning, the epochal change had contradictions within it. In fact, when some Eastern European countries under Communist governments proceeded with more democratic elements in their growth, the Soviet Union took military action to keep them as clones.

Lenin had proposed an economic policy that invited capitalist forms of investment and construction to participate in introducing modern industrial development with the intent of a more just distribution of social wealth, essentially introducing mass participation with social planning that would lead to socialism. He saw the revolution as a process in stages. This seems to correspond with Karl Marx’ vision that after a government takes power in the name of the working population, the majority in the nation, that there would be a long period of continuation of “bourgeois private rights,” entrepreneurism and the distribution of social wealth on the basis of individual capability of contributing to growth (“from each according to ability, to each according to contribution” – not equal, but relatively equal since he recognized that individuals differ and yet are part of the whole).

The capitalist world responded in two ways during the 1920s and 30s. One, as an example, was the Welfare State in England and the New Deal in the United States as liberal defensives against the socialist idea. Simultaneously, a second reaction was the support for German Fascism which promised a “grand march to the East” for military destruction of the Soviet incubator.

The introduction of macro-economic planning as a structural mechanism for social control and guidance of economic objectives and growth, as distinct from individualist control of capital formations in the West, was a major departure from capitalist methodology resulting in a consistent growth rate without economic recessions. Unfortunately, the five year plans in the Soviet Union concentrated on military defense that proved equal to the most advanced in the Western world. On the other hand, other aspects of social and economic life (with the exception of culture and education) were neglected, as were the individual capabilities of citizens organized for maximum creativity which dampened natural entrepreneurial propensities. The Soviet Union defeated the German invasion at Stalingrad before the second front was opened from the West. One still wonders whether that second front was opened as an ally or as an effort to stem a Red Army advance to the English Channel as German defenses collapsed.

In 1947, the United Nations was founded as a peacekeeper to resolve problems arising from a world moving in two economic systems. We make no comment here on the differences between the socialism of the Soviet Union and how it related to the Eastern European socialist countries that in some cases were put down by the Red Army. While the UN was established as an oasis for compromise, in the very same year, Churchill (in Fulton, Missouri) rang the gong for the opening of the Cold War.

Still in the epoch of change, the world entered a period of imminent mutual destruction as both sides had the atom bomb. The USSR failed from its own internal contradictions, not following a democratic course involving its entire population. It also followed a policy of exporting and supporting revolution. In this context, it aided the Communist movement in China after the split of the KMT and supported the civil war with Chiang Kai Shek who assumed control of the KMT-led central government. Sun Yat Sen had hoped to maintain a single KMT Party as a democratic expression which combined the Communist movement with the Chiang Kai Check comprador capitalists; but it inevitably fell apart after his death.

Ironically, while the civil war in China continued for the next fifteen years, the Japanese invaded China in the opening of WWII. The USA, in efforts to defeat the Japanese, built the Burma Road and air routes in order to supply the Chinese with military equipment. Since the geographical contacts were with Western China, where the Communist movement had built a Red Army, it was possible for the Communists to build a second army, the People’s Liberation Army.

Chiang Kai-shek maintained a civil war while the two Communist led armies confronted the Japanese until their surrender and then confronted the KMT with its superior forces. After four more years, the KMT fled the mainland to the islands of Quemoy and Matsu as stepping stones to the occupation of Taiwan. The inclination to pursue them led to USA gunboat presence in the Taiwan Straits threatening intervention in China’s civil war. That separation of Taiwan from the mainland is now in the diplomatic stages of integration into the economic growth on the mainland with political implications that will probably result in ultimate reunification. The present Chinese regime differs in its approach to Taiwanese-mainland unification. Since 2003, the new regime has substituted diplomacy, economic opportunity and national pride, superseding the military stance of Jiang Zemin. We have witnessed increasing friendly political and economic exchanges towards peaceful integration, embracing the “One China Principle” that had been recognized by successive USA presidents since Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972. The Taiwanese economy would be much like that of Hong Kong as another part of China’s characteristic “One Country, Two Systems,” another example of the complexity of China’s mixed economy.

A year before Nixon’s visit, the United Nations General Assembly had recognized Beijing as the legitimate occupant of China’s seat in the Security Council, ousting the Taiwanese-Chinese who had been installed under Churchill’s pressure during its formation. This confirmed the legitimacy of the “One China Principle.”

In 1957 China split with the Soviet Union. Mao’s contention, having been denied high tech help, was “China will not be a junior partner in socialism.” Notwithstanding the chaos of the economic mis-planning of the Great Leap Forward that followed the split and the ten year disruption of the Cultural Revolution (all based on meager economic development and lack of knowledge of Classical Marxism and Political Economy), the Party’s leadership was sustained by an egalitarian rice bowl economy based on the concept of collectivity. This had no base on political economy or theory, though it did ideologically connect with Confucius’ principles of “fairness” and “education.”

By 1975-6, both Mao Zedong and Chou En Lai had died. Towards the end there had been a mass democratic surge in the population. Chou En Lai, in his last year, had left a recommendation in the hands of Deng Xiaoping (whose life he had protected), proposing a new economic approach to building the economy so it could sustain the Chinese people. He advocated modernizing industry, which meant establishing extensive socialized forms of production that would require a commensurate marketing exchange system. He also recommended an opening of economic relations with the West. Deng Xiaoping, who was not the top leader in the Communist Party, nor even an experienced political economist, spent three years to convince the Party’s political center to embark on a new economic revolution. In 1978 the Party decided to modernize, establishing a regulated market and the sanctioning of private ownership, along with State Owned Enterprise and the opening of economic relations with the West.

The world is now aware of China’s success as a growing economic power. Notwithstanding contradictions and conflicts among economic groups, China’s accomplishments have not only been internal. Since China’s growth is dependent upon foreign supplies, it has affected global economic relations, resulting in the emergence of a new plateau of international relationships that foster the independence of undeveloped, former colonial nations.

The present stage of globalization is failing to eliminate world poverty and contributing to planetary destruction. According to Wolfowitz of the World Bank, China’s effort to eliminate poverty is exemplary and the Bank is encouraging this process with a small loan program to stimulate development. One must also take note of the fact that the Chinese Communist Party has had to change its economic and social planning because of the plethora of public demonstrations based on egalitarian principles and fairness.

The plans of the new regime in China have rejected the slogan “To Get Rich is Glorious” and are emphasizing a harmonious society that will undergo structural changes to create an equitable distribution of its wealth to all sections of the population. In essence, the structural changes will probably lead to establishment of a form of Welfare State – a New Deal, which has been under discussion in China since 2002. In fact, the current five year plan that began in 2006 has had its objectives altered in that direction with a promise that 90% of the population will be benefited by structural changes to guarantee Social Security by 2020. If this is accomplished, it is a great example to other countries. The very process is not to build a super-power but an economic power that is the engine of change affecting many of the smaller nations seeking their own economic independence.

This is the nature of the epoch we are living in. It is probably difficult for people who have been accustomed to private decision making to readjust to more collective forms of functioning; but private decision making is not meeting the needs of the majority of people around the world, hence, the people in each country in democratic ways will find ways of participating in the new economic plateaus that will give them an opportunity for self development.

Notwithstanding the spectacular growth of one quarter to one third of the country, which is now integrated into the world economy, the vast majority of Chinese people and the land are underdeveloped. China then can act in many ways as an advanced economic entity but is faced simultaneously with the drag of underdevelopment, just as the people of former colonial countries today. Yet, China must be invited to play an important role in the WTO and the World Bank to influence decisions and direct international capital towards efforts to support underdeveloped nations in their economic development as a basis for eliminating poverty.

The 20th century saw the beginning of an epoch of social change. World conditions did not favor a rejection of private capitalist motivation for development, but the seeds and pressures for social change continued to grow even as multinational corporations created a super-power dominated globalization. Simultaneously, during the last quarter of the century, new elements emerged to challenge this mode, demanding a share of technology, productivity and consumption.

The 21st century then emerges with two centers for change: The United Nations and China. This assumes non-military conflict resolution, non-super-power progression. From having shunned diplomatically to avoid relations with the West, the imperialist occupation of China in the 19th century and its re-emergent independence in the 20th century has now grown to be a nation open and willing to share and participate peacefully as an economic force in the world.
There is much confusion and contention in influencing the direction of China; much wishful thinking and profit taking, as well as condemnation from the Left. To quote a participant in a recent Radical Philosophy Association Conference[2]:
“What's Wrong with China?

There's plenty wrong with China, as everyone knows.

· The income gap is large and widening--China's Gini coefficient, a standard measure of income inequality, is now larger than the U.S.'s.

· Unemployment is rising as large numbers of state-owned enterprises shed workers, before or after they are privatized.

· There are sweatshops providing the Wal-Marts of the world with cheap manufactured goods.

· Corruption is rampant.

· So is environmental degradation. Consider the comments of Pan Yue, China's Deputy Environmental Minister, made in a recent interview:

‘Our raw materials are scarce, we don't have enough land and our population is constantly growing. . . . Cities are growing, but desert areas are expanding. . . . Five of the most polluted cities in the world are in China; acid rain is falling on one third of our territory; half of the water in China's seven largest rivers is completely useless, a quarter of our citizens lack access to clean drinking water.[3]

With so many things wrong, China must be capitalist, right?

A recent Pew Research Center survey finds China to be "the world leader in hope for the future"--the most optimistic of the 17 nations surveyed. Not only was personal optimism high, but China led the list regarding "satisfaction with national conditions. Fully 72% indicated satisfaction, as opposed to 19% dissatisfied. This compares with only 39% of the U.S. population surveyed indicating satisfaction, 57% dissatisfied. That is to say, the percentage of people satisfied with the condition of their country is nearly double that of the U.S., whereas only a third as many are dissatisfied.”

Internally in China the intense effort to build industrially neglected the conditions of workers. In fact, it destroyed what there was of collectivism among the peasants and the security system of workers in the State Owned Enterprises. A legitimate question was raised as to whether China was developing into a strong Capitalist country, exploiting their own people and abandoning Socialist principles of fairness, sharing and collectivity, or as they put it, abandoned the Socialist Road. By the year 2002, the Left around the world was convinced that China’s Market Socialism had wronged its people and cried “Restoration of Capitalism.”

In a course taught by the writer of this essay, we observed that:

“National variants in the socialist economic and political system have fostered misconceptions and illusions as to the nature, theory and practice of socialism . . . . Socialism develops in stages before and after a revolution, in democratic surges . . . . National variants of socialist models are inevitable . . . . Revolution is not an import . . . . nor an export . . . . but arises out of history and reflects the resolution of antagonisms within each country.” [4]

Yet, macro economics coupled with social planning for an equitable distribution of the social product is common to all.

Almost one hundred years after the first Socialist Revolution, following a long period in which Western capital continued its growth and contribution to world development, it has reached the stage where there is only one super-power and, as a system, contributes little to protection of the planet and the health and living conditions of people around the world. The twentieth century incubated epochal changes with the rise and demise of a Socialist minded power, the stifling globalization of financial capital and the emergence of a Socialist minded competitor and creditor to a lame growth Western World suffering negative trade imbalances and indebtedness despite multi-billion dollar merges and financial accumulation.

In 1906 W.E.B. Dubois predicted that the time would come when Asia and Africa joined their development, it would break the color line around the world. Before he died in the mid 20th century, he predicted that China’s relationship with Africa would be decisive. We are, at this moment, living that prediction, wherever it leads. Witness changes in Latin and South America, particularly Venezuela, and the championing of China’s representing the developing countries in the WTO, as well as being urged to assume a more active roll in the UN.

The Wall Street Journal reported on December 14, 2006 that at an opening conference on currency and trade relations in Beijing, Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi told US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his delegation “Americans simply don’t understand China.” At a dinner the evening after he met with President George W. Bush on April 20, 2006, President Hu Jintao pronounced, “One of the main problems in US-China relations is the question of planning.” This simple statement posits the main difference between private decision-making on national destiny with a new form of social decision-making in macro-planning. This is the fundamental development emerging in this historic epochal change.

May the sensibility of diplomacy prevail over the senselessness of unilateralism and military determinism – and humanity achieve the prescient religious concept of a harmonious society in the name of “socialism.”

December 8, 2006
New York City

Sidney J. Gluck

Professor Emeritus at the New School for Social Research
Co-President of the US-China People’s Friendship Association
President of the Sholom Aleichem Memorial Foundation
Textile Innovator and Patent Holder

[1] The concept of socialism actually arose among religious groups and was hotly debated pro and con at the time that Marx and Engels wrote The Manifesto, so they chose to call it the “Communist Manifesto.” Socialism should not be a scare word since it has humanistic intent.

[2] David Schweikart, “China: Market Socialism or Capitalism?”

[3] Andreas Lorenz, "China’s Environmental Suicide: A Government Minister Speaks," Open Democracy (April 5, 2005).

[4] “Comparative Socialism” at the New School for Social Research, New York City, 1973.

A reader responds...

with views that differ with Sidney...

... what do you think?

-----Original Message-----

From: Michael Wood [mailto:mwood42092@yahoo.com]

Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:22 PM

To: Alan Maki

Subject:

Re: China and Socialism Blog

Comrade!

I appreciate the opportunity to read this article.

I am unable to make a comment on your blog so I am sending it to your e-mail.

I believe that formulations about the USSR in this blog, such as the following are questionable:

"The USSR failed from its own internal contradictions, not following a democratic course involving its entire population."

I warmly wish to point out that the former Soviet Union was, despite it's shortcomings, an inherently democratic society which guaranteed full employment and free healthcare.

I believe that the above formulation does not consider the encirclement of the USSR by hostile capitalist countries nor the revision of Marxism-Leninism by leaders such as Gorbachev.

I am concerned that if we don't draw the correct conclusions about the USSR from a working-class standpoint that we may make unnecessary errors in the future.

We invite all blog readers to comment on, and question, anything posted on this blog. You may send your comments to:

amaki000@centurytel.net

We reserve the right not to publish unsigned comments, but common sense will prevail... When sending comments or questions please state if you want them published on the blog.