November 29, 2022
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
CHINA: THE STRUGGLE OF THE MASSES LEAPS FROM THE REGIONAL AND LOCAL LEVEL TO THE MASSIVE PROTEST AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL
“(If capitalist restoration occurs)…the dictatorship of the proletariat will be transformed into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a reactionary and fascist dictatorship.” (Chairman Mao, Seven Thousand Cadre Conference Speech)
From the mobilizations of the masses in the provinces and regions, growing during the present century, against the officials of those governments and the leaders and committees of that level of the revisionist party, “struggle against officials”, the struggle develops up to the national level targeting the Xi Jin Ping’s government and the state of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the fascist regime. China is a social-imperialist country with a fascist government, which expresses more and more decomposition in the march towards the definitive bankruptcy of revisionism. Corroded by its internal contradictions, since the end of 2020, it has applied a redoubled policy of greater suppression of rights, freedoms and benefits against the proletariat and the people, while collusion and struggle against the other faction of the Chinese imperialist bourgeoisie increases, a redoubled policy of repression against the organization and protests of the masses. Meanwhile, more and more, it focuses on arms to strengthen its military power in search of the revisionist dream of becoming a superpower, which increases its collusion and struggle with the Yankee imperialist superpower and the other powers.
As in the other imperialist countries that have used the “measures against Corona” to further react to the State of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, advancing in the suppression of rights and freedoms and prohibiting the mobilizations of the masses; temporarily curtailing or prohibiting freedom of movement and the right to demonstrate; all of the above, under the cover of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. In social-imperialist China, the much publicized “Zero-Covid” policy is applied, as a great success of the regime, unlike the “Western countries” (the other imperialists), where the pandemy caused a large number of deaths. But, now all this has exploded in his face, not only because it shows the true character and objective of his measures, but also that this health policy of the regime has failed, which is demonstrated by the low vaccination rates and the little effectiveness of vaccines to control the disease and its spread. The foregoing has something positive, because it serves to crush the revisionist campaign about “China’s fabulous success in controlling the pandemic”, which is very important in Latin America.
All of the above occurs on the basis of great economic difficulties, as part of the general and last crisis of imperialism, with recurring crises of overproduction, with increasingly shorter cycles up to the present, which in China has been unfolding since the world crisis of 2007-2009, appearing as an increasing decrease in growth, from the digits in which the economy grew to less than 10 up to 6 or 7 in recent years until the current one that continues to decline (*), with 4.9 % by 2022, well below the growth needs of the Chinese economy, to catch up with the imperialist countries with the greatest capitalist development, always seeking to make the dream of the Chinese social-imperialists of becoming an imperialist superpower come true and dispute world hegemony. This determines a greater collusion and struggle with the Yankee imperialist superpower, as can be seen in the dispute over Taiwan, in the recent meeting of the so-called “G20”, where in the face of Yankee pressure it distanced itself from Russian imperialism and Putin, insofar as to the war of aggression against Ukraine and then Xi’s hugs and gestures with Biden.
The fight against the “Zero-Covid” policy is a fight for the rights of association, demonstration and strike, which for their effectiveness depend on freedom of residence and movement, these are preconditions for the proletarian struggle for freedom of work and for wages, hours and working conditions. All of the above, essential for the independent organization of the proletariat for its true present and historical interests, the struggle to reconstitute the Communist Party and the counter-restoration against capitalist restoration through people’s war as Chairman Mao expressly established for the case of China (Back to the Chinkang Mountains). The struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism.
The political character of the present struggle of the proletariat and the masses in China shows the development of the bourgeoisie-proletariat contradiction, which appears as a contradiction between the popular masses against the revisionist government and its fascist regime; it also shows the development of the inter-bourgeois contradiction in China, between the bureaucratic faction headed by Xi and the revisionist party and the demo-bourgeois faction, which is about to displace the dominant bourgeois faction. Here, too, there is that temporary and relative real convergence between two forces that are irreconcilable enemies, because the difficulties that the demo-bourgeois faction creates for the bureaucratic faction favor the proletariat and, on the other hand, the struggles of the proletariat and the masses favor their enemy, the other faction in their reactionary dispute.
In short, greater decomposition of Chinese social-imperialism on the way to its final bankruptcy. And, what is main, the need for the reconstitution of the Chinese Communist Party.
Let’s review the facts on which we base ourselves:
China: Violent protests at the world’s largest iPhone factory
On the 22nd of this year, information from the international press revealed violent protests at the world’s largest iPhone factory in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, A series of violent protests were reported at the world’s largest iPhone factory, 123 According to images that have circulated on the internet.
Hundreds of employees marched and clashed with security personnel in personal protective suits and riot police. The protesters were beaten by the police. Videos also captured the clashes.
After those images were made public, the manufacturer Foxconn said it would work with staff and local government to prevent further violence.
In a statement, the company said that some employees had doubts about the salary but that the firm would comply with the payments established in the contracts.
The company also called rumors that newly recruited new employees were asked to share dormitories with workers who had tested positive for Covid as “false.”
Foxconn said the rooms were disinfected and inspected by local authorities before new staff moved into them.
Last month, rising Covid cases forced a lockdown at the factory, from which some employees fled and returned home.
The company then recruited new workers with the promise of generous bonuses.
They ask for their rights
The workers shouted: “Defend our rights!”
Others were seen breaking surveillance cameras and windows with sticks.
“They changed the contract so we couldn’t get the subsidy they promised. They quarantine us but they don’t provide us with food,” a Foxconn employee said during the live broadcast.
“If they don’t attend to our needs, we will continue to fight.”
According to reports, there were injuries from the beating inflicted by the police.
The reports refer to what happened at the Zhengzhou plant, where workers were protesting that Foxconn had “changed the contract that they had promised.”
“Those workers who are protesting want to receive the subsidy and go home,” said a staff member.
The authorities
On Wednesday morning there was a large police deployment at the plant. Other live videos showed a crowd of armed police officers at the scene. The specific reason for the protests was because they are mixing new workers with old ones who had tested positive [a covid].
In late October, many workers broke out of lockdown at the Zhengzhou plant to return home by bus and truck.
Foxconn, a Taiwanese firm, is Apple’s main subcontractor and assembles more iPhones at its Zhengzhou plant than anywhere else in the world.
In late October, numerous workers fled the plant amid a surge in covid cases and allegations of mistreatment of staff.
The escape was captured on social networks as they were mounted on trucks to their homes.
Since then, the firm has imposed a so-called closed-loop operation on the plant, keeping it isolated from the rest of the city of Zhengzhou due to the covid outbreaks that have occurred there.
Subsequently, this is since yesterday new protests began to be known in various parts of China.
Barricades and arrests in China after unusual protests against Xi Jinping and his government’s handling of the pandemic
Police in China have been detaining a number of people as anti-government protests have spread across several of its major cities. The demonstrations present an unprecedented challenge to President Xi Jinping.
Protests that began against China’s covid restrictions following a fire that killed 10 people in a flat block in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, spread to the capital Beijing and Shanghai on Sunday.
Hundreds of people demonstrated holding up blank sheets of paper in a silent protest, while others publicly called for the resignation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
But on Monday morning the streets of Shanghai appear to have fallen silent, with images showing normal traffic activity.
However, police in Shanghai detained several people at the scene, where the only reminder of the weekend demonstrations seem to be the rows of blue barricades.
Often one object symbolises an entire protest movement. In China, that object is a humble piece of blank paper.
On Sunday evening in Shanghai, some of those who gathered at a vigil to remember the victims of Thursday’s flat block fire (in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region) that sparked protests against China’s covid restrictions did so carrying blank sheets of paper.
Similarly, in the capital, Beijing, protesters came armed with pieces of paper to a demonstration at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, where President Xi Jinping once studied.
Meanwhile, another striking video showed a young woman walking through the streets of Wuzhen, a city in the eastern province of Zhejiang, with chains on her wrists and tape over her mouth, clutching a blank sheet of paper in her hands.
This trend has its roots in the Hong Kong demonstrations of 2020, where residents held up blank pieces of paper to protest against the city’s draconian new national security laws.
To analyze the facts, which we have extracted from the bourgeois press and draw our own synthesis, which heads this article, among others, we have used the important document: Commemorating the Centennial of the Foundation of the Communist Party of China of the Communist Group (Maoist), China July 1, 2021.
From the document we highlight:
Chairman Mao pointed out that “(if capitalist restoration occurs)…the dictatorship of the proletariat will be transformed into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a reactionary and fascist dictatorship.” (Speech of the Conference of the Seven Thousand Cadres)
In the new Constitution of 1982, the right of the masses to strike, hold great debates and make posters of great character was eliminated, reaffirming the fascist dictatorship on the legal level.
The contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie intensified to an unprecedented scale with the reforms. Working conditions for hundreds of millions of peasant workers and poor urban proletarians are very vile, withholding wages, cruel management and workplace accidents are the norm for workers, as basic protections under the socialist system were abolished by complete a long time ago. When workers fight against exploitation, they are often repressed by the police. Unionization remains completely illegal to this day, while official unions formed by a handful of bureaucrats almost never have any effect.
With the beginning of the new century, the Chinese workers have never stopped their struggle for demands. According to official data, “mass incidents” in China are increasing every year, and “in mass incidents with more than 100 participants, the main cause is the conflict between labor and capital.” The workers’ struggles took many forms, including strikes, marches and sit-ins, with the most intense struggle being the “Tonghua Iron Group Incident”, where angry workers beat a reactionary manager to death. Apart from that, the workers of some factories raised the demand to form unions. Due to the reactionary nature of the Chinese reactionary regime, these struggles are almost all waged under the threat of police repression.
With the slowdown in economic growth, the social contradictions, which softened slightly, intensified again. The main force of the struggle for demands expanded from the urban industrial proletarians and the poor peasants to the workers in all fields of society. In 2018, tower crane operators launched a united nationwide strike, increasing demand to raise wages. Workers in the service sector: supermarket clerks, taxi drivers and delivery men all waged striking struggles against capitalist exploitation. On the Internet, computer programmers raised the call against “996” (working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week), gaining widespread support. The struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie is intensifying more and more, the old method of exploitation that was based mainly on obtaining absolute surplus value cannot continue.
The middle classes, even with the position of petty bourgeoisie, are constantly polarizing. The status of the intelligentsia continues to decline, small businessmen face the threat of bankruptcy, middle peasants face agricultural crises, among others, lowering a considerable number of them to the position of the proletariat.
In Hong Kong, riots broke out against reactionary laws and demanding the expansion of democracy. This struggle was led by reactionary liberals, but it objectively exposed the severe class contradiction in the area, which is the product of collaboration with the big bourgeoisie and disregarding the interest of the broad working people since the cession of Hong Kong in 1998.
Internationally, the big bourgeoisie in China is facing a new crisis. China carries out policies to facilitate the export of capital such as “One Belt, One Road”, stationing armed forces in Africa. These acts intensified the contradiction between Chinese social-imperialism and the internationally oppressed nations, as well as the contradiction between China and other imperialist powers. The mass of many oppressed countries burned the Chinese flag and told the Chinese capitalists to get out. The United States launched a trade war against China two years ago, hitting its exports and forcing it to cave in many ways. This year, the imperialist powers of North America and Western Europe launched a joint sanction against China under the pretext of “human rights” among others. The contradiction of the competition for global dominance between China and other imperialist powers is irreconcilable. China’s desire to re-divide the world came into conflict with the former imperialist powers. On the basis of these contradictions, a new world war or cold war is brewing. However, China today is not “one of the two poles” as some people think. It is only one among the countries of the Second World. The United States remains the only hegemonic superpower and the number one enemy of the peoples of the world.
More importantly, the subjective forces for the revolution in China have had some developments in recent years. In the 1990s and 2000s, the “leftists” who made “revolutionary” calls under Chairman Mao’s banner were mostly reformists inextricably linked to the revisionist regime. Although they participated in a limited way in the demand struggle of the working masses at that time, they could not truly lead the revolution. Some relatively advanced groups were quickly suppressed by the fascist state after it emerged. Almost no one was able to truly understand Maoism, some could not distinguish between the “restoration of capitalism” and “privatization” and saw the 1990s as the period of the restoration of capitalism in China. Some were severely influenced by nationalism and produced an incorrect understanding of the character of Chinese society, thinking that China has become a “semi-colony” and that a national revolution is needed before a socialist revolution. The understanding of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was also vulgarized, the struggle against the bourgeoisie within the Party and to limit the rights of the bourgeoisie was misinterpreted as the palace struggle of a few high-level individuals. With the development of the situation, many “leftists” became rightists.
Despite suffering such severe setbacks, the spread of advanced ideas is inevitable. More and more people realized the fascist nature of the regime which claimed to be “socialist with Chinese characteristics”. As Chairman Mao noted, “if there is a right-wing anti-communist coup in China, I am sure they will not have peace, possibly not for long, because all the revolutionaries who represent the interests of more than ninety percent of the people are not will tolerate it. At that time, the rightists may have the advantage using my words, but the leftists will definitely use my other words to organize and bring down the rightists.” The main problem in the current period is that people willing to accept communism do not yet know Maoism, many advanced elements are not capable of fully differentiating Maoism from revisionism. Prolonged work of the revolutionaries is required.”
From the bourgeois press we have used the following sources for the part on the declining growth of China’s economy:
El Economista – 25/09/2022
China weighs on the growth of the rest of the developing economies of Asia. This is what the Asian Development Bank (ADB) foresees, which has cut growth expectations despite showing signs of recovery due to China’s zero Covid policy.
It is the first time in thirty years that the rest of the developing countries grow more than China, according to the ADB report. You have to go back to 1990 to see a situation like this, in that year the rest of the countries grew by 6.9% while the Chinese economy fell by 3.9%. Currently the distance is less: China is expected to grow by 3.3% while the rest will grow by 5.3%, according to the report….
Although it should be noted that both figures represent further reductions in expectations. In the Chinese case, in July, the growth prospects range from 5 to 4%. On this occasion they attributed the decline to the anti-covid policy, the problems in the real estate sector and the economic slowdown due to the weakening of foreign demand that the country is suffering. Looking ahead to 2023, ADB has reduced the growth of the Asian giant from the 4.8% that it gave in the month of July, to the current 4.5%. This is due to the “deterioration of external demand that continues to slow down investment in manufacturing,” they point out.
General view
In the general calculation, ADB expects that in 2022 the growth of Asian countries will be 4.3% and in 2023 it will be 4.9%. A perspective that, as in the Chinese case, has been reduced compared to the forecasts for the month of July, where 4.6% and 5.2% respectively were expected, according to the report published this by ADB. Generally speaking, Asian developing countries are showing signs of continued recovery, especially due to tourism. But the global situation is slowing down this growth.
BBC News – 5 keys to understanding why China’s economy is in trouble
China’s economy is slowing as it tries to adjust to a punishing “zero covid” strategy and weakening global demand.
Official growth figures for the July-September quarter are expected soon, and if the world’s second-largest economy contracts, the chances of a global recession will increase.
Beijing’s target, an annual growth rate of 5.5%, is now out of reach, although authorities have downplayed the need to meet the target.
China narrowly avoided economic contraction in the April-June quarter. This year, some economists do not expect any growth.
The country may not be battling strong inflation like the US and UK, but it has other problems: The world’s factory has suddenly found fewer customers for its products, both domestically and internationally.