Category: New Cold War

China’s DeepSeek AI scores important victory against US tech hegemony

We republish below three articles about the recent release of DeepSeek R1, an artificial intelligence (AI) model that performs as well as – or better than – its major US-based competitors, but at a fraction of the cost and using relatively low-grade semiconductors.

The first article, by Marxist economist Michael Roberts, notes that DeepSeek R1 is fully open source, meaning that the code behind it is fully visible to programmers around the world and can be freely used and adapted. “This is a real blow to the ‘proprietary’ secrets that OpenAI or Google’s Gemini lock away in a ‘black box’ in order to maximise profits. The analogy here is with branded and generic pharmaceuticals.” Indeed, the whole orientation of DeepSeek is towards scientific research and the production of social goods, rather than the relentless pursuit of profit at all costs.

Michael observes that DeepSeek has caused unprecedented losses to US technology stocks – “chipmaker Nvidia and so-called ‘hyperscalers’ Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta Platforms collectively shed almost $750bn of their stock market value in one day” – as it became apparent that the tech giants’ spending of billions of dollars on scaling their computing power is essentially unnecessary. These companies have put all their eggs in the hardware basket, but a small team of researchers in China have shown that the mathematical/algorithmic component is at least as important.

Meanwhile, the DeepSeek phenomenon is a powerful demonstration that the US “chip wars” are not having the desired effect:

What must enrage the tech oligarchs sucking up to Trump is that US sanctions on Chinese companies and bans on chip exports have not stopped China making yet more advances in the tech and chip war with the US. China is managing to make technological leaps in AI despite export controls introduced by the Biden administration intended to deprive it of both the most powerful chips and the advanced tools needed to make them.

Michael further points to the political economy of the situation, noting that “state-led planned investment into technology and tech skills by China works so much better than relying on huge private tech giants led by moguls.” He quotes billionaire tech investor Ray Dalio: “In our system, by and large, we are moving to a more industrial-complex- type of policy in which there is going to be government-mandated and government-influenced activity, because it is so important… Capitalism alone — the profit motive alone — cannot win this battle.”

The second article, by Gary Wilson in Struggle La Lucha, provides a broad overview of the geopolitics of the “chip wars” and the significance of DeepSeek’s success.

DeepSeek’s model outperformed OpenAI’s best, using less data, less computing power, and a fraction of the cost. Even more remarkable, DeepSeek’s model is open-source, meaning anyone can use, modify, and build on it. This stands in stark contrast to OpenAI’s closed, profit-driven approach.

Gary’s article continues to contrast DeepSeek’s business model – and China’s overall approach to AI – with that of the US tech giants:

Corporate rulers want AI to monitor workers, lower wages, bust unions, or shift work to machines altogether, leading to cutbacks and layoffs. The World Economic Forum famously predicted that AI would replace millions of “useless” human workers by 2030. Unlike US tech companies seeking monopoly control, DeepSeek treats AI like electricity or the Internet — a basic tool that should be accessible to everyone… AI, as a public utility, can be used to complement human labor, improve safety, reduce drudgery, and create better-paying jobs rather than eliminate them.

This touches on the broader question of the role of technology in society. Under capitalism, AI is used to maximise profits, which often means replacing human labour with algorithms, thereby deepening unemployment and, ultimately, impacting the long-term viability of the entire system by reducing the rate of profit. Under working class leadership on the other hand, technology can be used to improve the quality of life for all.

An editorial in the Morning Star on 28 January reiterates the blowback effect of US’s tech sanctions on China. “In placing sanctions on microchip exports to China, it forced developers in that country to use their chips more efficiently.”

Furthermore, DeepSeek is indicative of China’s emergence as a technology superpower. “The days are gone when Chinese economic advance largely relied on technical innovations developed elsewhere.” As such, “this week’s events are a landmark in the decline of US hegemony, and in the development of global multipolarity. With all its contradictions and contestations, that can only be welcome.”

AI going DeepSeek

Most readers will know the news by now. DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, released an AI model called R1 that is comparable in ability to the best models from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, but was trained at a radically lower cost and using less than state-of-the art GPU chips. DeepSeek also made public enough of the details of the model that others can run it on their own computers without charge.

DeepSeek is a torpedo that has hit the Magnificent Seven US hi-tech companies below the water line. DeepSeek did not use the latest and best Nvidia’s chips and software; it did not require huge spending on training its AI model unlike its American rivals; and it offers just as many useful applications.

Continue reading China’s DeepSeek AI scores important victory against US tech hegemony

The US seeks to reverse China’s progress and bring it to heel

The International Manifesto Group (IMG) organised a webinar on ‘Trump’s Presidency and the Prospects for Peace in 2025’ on Sunday 19 January, the day before the US presidential inauguration.

The speakers were:

  • Ramzy Baroud (Palestine Chronicle)
  • Jacquie Luqman (Black Alliance for Peace)
  • Andrew Murray (Stop the War Coalition)
  • Gabriel Rockhill (Critical Theory Workshop)
  • Keith Bennett (Friends of Socialist China); and
  • Sara Flounders (International Action Center)

The event was moderated and introduced by Radhika Desai on behalf of the IMG and was also sponsored and supported by Friends of Socialist China, Palestine Chronicle, Critical Theory Workshop and the International Action Center.

Building for the event, the IMG wrote: “Given that the US is usually the prime instigator of our world’s conflicts and given that Trump sometimes spoke on the campaign trail about ending at least some of them, we ask what prospects the incoming Trump administration offers for peace. Will Trump’s second term be more or less aggressive than his first? Will he honour his campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine? Will he double down on his enthusiastic support for Israeli genocide? Will he escalate the New Cold War on China or attempt another ‘deal’? Will opportunities for peace in Korea and Iran be seized or squandered? What to make of Trump’s bellicose rhetoric in relation to Central America? How will the new administration affect humanity’s trajectory towards peace and multipolarity?”

Keith’s contribution focused on China and Korea and we reproduce his remarks below. Videos of all the contributions can be viewed on the IMG’s YouTube channel.

Meeting on the theme of Trump’s Presidency and the Prospects for Peace in 2025, it is natural we look especially at the war raging in Ukraine for nearly three years and at the situation in West Asia, as a tentative ceasefire emerges after more than 15 months of unrelenting genocide in Gaza. With so many thousands of lives being lost is it self-indulgence or overreach to also turn our attention to the Asia Pacific region?

But today, no bilateral relationship is more important, more strategic and more fraught with dangers of global conflict than that between the United States and China.

Faced with the peaceful rise of China, a rise unparalleled in human history, it has essentially become a consensus among the otherwise contending wings of the US ruling class that the preservation of US global hegemony necessitates taking China as Washington’s principal adversary. From Greenland to the South Pacific. And from semiconductors to social media.

As with Cold War One and the Soviet Union, the US seeks to reverse China’s progress and, at best, bring it to heel, through a combination of a debilitating arms race, ideological subversion and economic and technological strangulation. A key difference is that not only has China drawn lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whereas the USA and the USSR were essentially economically insulated from one another, China has spent the best part of half a century integrating itself into the global economy, creating such facts on the ground in the process as ever more complex global supply chains, and with China accounting for some 11% of US foreign trade.

So, what does Trump’s return mean for China/US relations?

First, Trump revels in his role as Disruptor-in-Chief, so the first thing we should expect is the unexpected. Certainly, if he carries through on even a fraction of his recent threats regarding tariffs, not only will China face an economic challenge. The entire global economy, in a parlous enough state as it is, and not least the US economy itself, will be plunged into crisis.

But overall, there seems little reason to anticipate a fundamental change of direction. When Biden assumed the presidency, many had hopes for a return to a more rational and constructive China policy in Washington. This did not materialise. Far from reversing Trump’s anti-China measures, the Biden administration ratcheted them up substantially, especially in terms of trying to restrict China’s access to computer chips and other advanced technology.

To the extent there was change under Biden, it came essentially in two areas:

•       His administration largely eschewed the openly racist rhetoric of Trump (kung flu, Chinese virus, etc.), which undoubtedly made life somewhat more tolerable for many Chinese and other Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

•       Whereas Trump was an ‘equal opportunities bully’ when it came to insulting and threatening allies and adversaries alike, Biden’s team worked hard, and with a considerable degree of success, to reinforce cohesion in NATO, get the EU onside, and reinvigorate and reinforce old alliances, such as those with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, all with a view to confronting China, along with Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and other states in Washington’s crosshairs.

So, even if Trump ups the ante with China, it will not break the essential continuum established by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton with their 2011 ‘pivot to Asia’.

Continue reading The US seeks to reverse China’s progress and bring it to heel

Prospects for US-China relations in Trump’s second presidency

The London Region of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) held its 2025 Annual Conference online on Sunday 12 January.

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett was among the speakers in a session entitled, NATO, war, nukes: Outlook for 2025, where he was joined by CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt; Jess Barnard, a member of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC); Carol Turner, Chair of London CND and a Vice Chair of national CND; and Vijay Prashad, Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. The session was chaired by Christine Shawcroft, a Vice Chair of London CND and editor of Labour Briefing.

A keynote opening speech on Prospects for Peace and Justice was given by Jeremy Corbyn, former Leader of the Labour Party and now the Independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North, introduced by Murad Qureshi, a Vice President of London CND and a former Chair of the Stop the War Coalition.

Further discussions focused on Ukraine and the Middle East as testing grounds for new tech weapons, with expert input from Peter Burt, a researcher for Drone Wars UK; and Dave Webb, Convenor of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space; chaired by former MP Emma Dent-Coad; and a final session on Peace Movement Priorities, with Baroness Jenny Jones from the Green Party; Tony Staunton, a Vice Chair of CND; and Angie Zelter, a founder of Lakenheath Action for Peace; chaired by Hannah Kemp-Welch, a Vice Chair of London CND.

Keith’s speech focused on the prospects for relations between China and the United States during Donald Trump’s second presidency. We reprint it below.

An edited version was also carried by Labour Outlook. The full conference proceedings can be viewed on the YouTube channel of London CND.

Thank you to London Region CND for the invitation to take part in this distinguished panel.

With war raging in Ukraine for nearly three years and with the unrelenting genocide in Gaza, now well into its second year, both naturally forming the main day-to-day focus of most peace campaigners, is it self-indulgence or overreach to also turn our attention to the Asia Pacific region?

I would argue that it is not. No analogy is ever exact, but a clear parallel can be drawn with events in the 1930s. Local conflicts, in Spain, Ethiopia and, indeed China, were the proverbial canaries in the mine, which presaged the global conflagration of World War II.

Today, no bilateral relationship is more important, more strategic and more fraught than that between the United States and China. On the potentially positive side, the world needs these two powers to work together constructively if humanity is to meet an existential threat like climate change. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of China, and of a couple of US politicians, there is little sign of this happening. Something that will most likely be exacerbated when Trump quits the Paris Climate Change Accord. Again.

Continue reading Prospects for US-China relations in Trump’s second presidency

Goals behind Trump’s tariffs: cut taxes on rich and escalate New Cold War on China

US president-elect Donald Trump has been touting tariffs as a means to reduce both income taxes and the national debt, which currently exceeds 120 percent of GDP. In the article below, Ben Norton describes these claims as “utterly false, and mathematically absurd”.

Ben notes that, during Trump’s first term, significant tax cuts were enacted, primarily benefiting the wealthiest Americans. These cuts resulted in the richest billionaire families paying a lower effective tax rate than the bottom half of US households. Consequently, federal deficits increased from 3.4 percent of GDP in 2017 to 4.6 percent in 2019, prior to the pandemic-induced surge to 14.7 percent in 2020.

The article observes that “every advanced economy got its start through protectionism”, but that the US from the 1940s has been preaching (and sometimes violently imposing) free trade as a means of opening up markets for its exports. “However, something happened in the 21st century that changed everything: the People’s Republic of China carried out the most remarkable campaign of economic development in history.”

China’s extraordinary rise has taken place in parallel with a sharp decline in US manufacturing and an increasing financialisation of the US economy. “The US capitalist class decided it would much rather be the banker of the world rather than the factory of the world, because creating parasitic financial and tech oligopolies that use monopolistic market control and intellectual property to extract rents is much more profitable than actually making things.”

Trump’s proposed tariffs will not help the US to re-industrialise – such a project would require massive long-term investment in infrastructure, education, and research and development. In reality, tariffs will be used “to justify cutting taxes even further on the rich” and, further, “to escalate the new cold war on China, which is a bipartisan gift to the Military-Industrial Complex that will only distract from the domestic problems caused by the US ruling class and externalise the blame”.

This article originally appeared on Geopolitical Economy.

Donald Trump cited billionaire egghead venture capitalist Marc Andreessen to advocate for high tariffs. Trump argued that tariffs will magically replace the income tax and pay off US public debt (which is more than 120% of GDP). This is utterly false, and mathematically absurd.

For Trump, tariffs are just another convenient excuse to cut taxes on the rich — which will in fact increase the US deficit, and therefore public debt.

Thanks to Trump’s tax cuts during his first term, the richest billionaire families in the US paid a lower effective tax rate than the bottom half of households in the country. Meanwhile, US federal deficits increased from 3.4% of GDP in 2017 to 4.6% of GDP in 2019 (before the deficit blew out to 14.7% of GDP in 2020, due to the necessary stimulus measures during the pandemic).

As Trump continues to reduce taxes on fellow oligarchs, tariffs will decidedly not make up for the lost revenue. A study by the Wharton School, the elite business school of the University of Pennsylvania, estimated that Trump’s economic policies will increase the US deficit by $5.8 trillion over the next decade.

Nevertheless, the sudden interest in tariffs shown by US billionaires is about much more than just taxes; what it is really about is industrial hegemony and economic dominance.

Here is the actual history, which oligarchs like Trump and Andreessen don’t know:

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States used tariffs as a form of infant industry protection, to build up its domestic manufacturing capabilities, following the dirigiste ideas of Alexander Hamilton.

Every advanced economy got its start through protectionism (including Great Britain, France, Japan, South Korea, etc.). The state needed to protect infant industries during the initial industrial “catch-up” period, because it is very difficult for a developing economy to compete with a dominant economic power that already has an established industrial base that benefits from economies of scale.

By the 1940s, the US became the dominant industrial power on Earth, especially after World War Two destroyed its competitors in Europe. In 1946, US net exports were 3.2% of GDP; then, in 1947, they were 4.3% of GDP. This was a peak the US would never see again. (US net exports have been negative without exception since 1976, as the US has run the largest consistent current account deficits ever seen in history, which have only been possible to balance due to the fact that the US prints the global reserve currency, and can thus sell more and more Treasury securities and other financial assets to foreign holders of dollars.)

In the 1940s, US industry no longer had significant competition, so Washington lifted tariffs and began to preach “free trade”. This benefited the US, because at that time it had a large surplus, and insufficient domestic demand, so by imposing “free trade” (often forcibly), it could open new markets for its exports.

The US wasn’t concerned about losing local market share to a foreign manufacturer, because there weren’t any left at the top of the value chain. So US companies could dominate both foreign and domestic markets.

What the United States did was not unique; the British empire did the exact same thing in the mid 19th century. After the UK established industrial dominance, it repealed the Corn Laws in 1846, moved away from strict protectionism, and began to impose “free trade” on its colonies. (This history was detailed by economist Ha-Joon Chang in his groundbreaking book Kicking Away the Ladder.)

However, something happened in the 21st century that changed everything: the People’s Republic of China carried out the most remarkable campaign of economic development in history.

By 2016, China overtook the United States as the largest economy on Earth (when GDP is measured at purchasing power parity, according to IMF data).

Even more importantly, China rapidly industrialized and established itself as 
the “world’s sole manufacturing superpower”, responsible for 35% of global gross production.

Meanwhile, the US lost its industrial hegemony, due to the deindustrialization and financialization of its economy in the neoliberal era. The US capitalist class decided it would much rather be the banker of the world rather than the factory of the world, because creating parasitic financial and tech oligopolies that use monopolistic market control and intellectual property to extract rents is much more profitable than actually making things.

Just 10% of US GDP consists of manufacturing. More than double, 21%, is made up by the FIRE sector: finance, insurance, and real estate.

Today, US companies can no longer compete with Chinese firms. So what is the response of the US government, which is the representative of US monopoly capital? It has abandoned the “free trade” ideology it had spent decades imposing on the world, and has instead returned to its old strident protectionism.

During his first administration, Trump launched a trade war on China. But this is totally bipartisan (as is the case with almost all US wars). Joe Biden has continued Trump’s trade and tech war on China, imposing even more tariffs.

Demagogues such as Trump like to scapegoat China for the problems that were caused by US oligarchs like him and Andreessen, who got much, much, much richer thanks to the deindustrialization and correspondent financialization of the US economy.

Now they think tariffs are the panacea that will fix everything. But they won’t, because the US industrial base has seriously eroded, and that can’t be rebuilt quickly; it takes many years.

Even more importantly, billionaire oligarchs on Wall Street — who are close friends and allies of Trump, Andreessen, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Elon Musk — will fight tooth and nail against a significant devaluation of the dollar, which would be needed to re-industrialize, reduce production costs, and disincentive imports. Financial speculators want a strong dollar, to keep inflating the biggest bubble in the history of US capital markets.

So the logical result of this is that Trump will use tariffs not truly to re-industrialize, but rather for two main reasons: one, to justify cutting taxes even further on the rich (thereby increasing US public debt, which will be pointed to to demand neoliberal austerity and slashes to social spending); and two, to escalate the new cold war on China, which is a bipartisan gift to the Military-Industrial Complex that will only distract from the domestic problems caused by the US ruling class and externalize the blame.

Podcast: Celebrating the achievements of Chinese socialism and opposing the New Cold War

We embed below the latest episode of CommieCast, the podcast of the Communist Party of Britain, in which Roger McKenzie (International Editor of the Morning Star), Georgina Andrews (General Secretary of the Young Communist League of Britain) and Carlos Martinez (co-editor of Friends of Socialist China) discuss a range of topics related to China, including their recent visits to the People’s Republic, the achievements of Chinese socialism, the nature of the US-led New Cold War, and the crucial importance of building solidarity with China in the face of imperialist aggression.

The next episode, to be recorded in the coming weeks, will take a deeper dive into the escalating campaign of containment and encirclement of China.

“Nothing like before” — China is out-competing the West on EVs

The following article, written by Paweł Wargan for Progressive International, examines the neverending accusations by Western media and politicians regarding China’s putative ‘overcapacity’ in electric vehicles (EVs). Paweł explores the reasons for these accusations, and comprehensively refutes them.

The article observes that China’s industrial utilisation rates and inventory levels are similar to those of the US, and furthermore Chinese profit margins are soaring. These factors indicate that there is no significant overcapacity in China’s EV sector.

As for the notion that China’s rise has caused the decline of Western industry, Paweł points out that the decline of Western manufacturing predates China’s rise. “In the US, the trade balance has seen a sustained deficit since the late 1970s. As the productive structure of its economy shifted, industrial capital made way for financial capital. The number of manufacturing jobs decreased from around 20 million at their peak in 1979 to under 13 million today — a period in which the US saw its population rise by 100 million.”

Describing some of the extraordinary innovations taking place in China’s EV sector – in particular a ‘road-cloud-vehicle’ integration that improves safety and reduces energy use – Paweł comments that “this degree of integration is only possible through control over the entire EV value chain”. Particularly in the light of US-led sanctions and tariffs, “China began to move quickly towards technological sovereignty in all areas, from chips and artificial intelligence to cars and batteries”. As a result, “it competes not only with the automobile industry — historically the domain of the West. It also now competes with the tech giants of Silicon Valley”. Obviously, this speaks to the superiority of a socialist economy where decision-making lies ultimately with the people, rather than a few billionaires.

Paweł writes that the accusations of overcapacity provide a convenient pretext for the West to embark upon its own program of protectionism – exactly what it accuses China of doing – as well as “allowing the Western leadership to blame China for the structural long-term decline of the global capitalist economy”. Alarmingly, the situation also shows that the West would rather sabotage China’s economy and the global green transition than cooperate sensibly with China on the basis of mutual benefit.

Paweł Wargan is an activist, researcher and organiser. He serves as Political Coordinator at the Progressive International, an international coalition of over 100 popular movements, political parties, and unions. He contributed to our conference marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

The past year has seen a concerted effort by Western politicians, regime intellectuals, and media stenographers to accuse China of “overcapacity”. The coordinated narrative has accompanied a choreographed escalation in the West’s economic war on China. What is motivating these accusations?

In May 2024, the White House announced a series of new tariffs on Chinese products, including a 100% tax on imports of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), set to take effect later this year. The European Union followed closely behind. In July, the Commission announced duties ranging from 17.4% to 37.6% on Chinese EV manufacturers. And in August, Canada announced 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs along with 25% tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium.

The White House insisted that the measures would “protect American manufacturers from China’s unfair trade practices” and ensure that “the future of the auto industry will be made in America by American workers.” The European Commission cited China’s “unfair subsidisation” and Canada warned of the threat of China’s “intentional, state-directed policy of overcapacity”. In this narrative, now choreographed and ritualized across the West, China’s “overcapacity” is to blame for the West’s rising trade deficits and persistent inability to reindustrialize.

China has responded firmly to these accusations. In a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen in May, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that there is no such thing as “China’s overcapacity problem”, and emphasised China’s contribution to the green transition. China’s Foreign Ministry said that the “overcapacity” thesis was a “pretext” to create new restrictions on China’s energy products.

China’s “overcapacity” and the West’s industrial decline

Overcapacity can be measured in three ways. First, we can look at the “capacity utilization rate”, or the degree to which available industrial capacity is being used. Second, we can look at inventory levels; a high number of unsold goods gathering dust in warehouses might suggest that production exceeds demand. Third, we can look at profit margins, which would have to fall to help empty the brimming warehouses and make way for new goods.

As French economics commentator Arnaud Bertrand found, China does not show signs of “overcapacity” across any of these measures. On the contrary, its industrial utilization rates and inventory levels are similar to those of the United States, and Chinese profit margins are soaring.

Continue reading “Nothing like before” — China is out-competing the West on EVs

Interview: Socialism holds its ground and grows stronger with China’s contribution

In a recent interview with the Global Times, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez discusses China’s development over the past 75 years and the role it plays in the world today.

The interview discusses the forthcoming Chinese translation of Carlos’s book The East is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century, and its significance for Chinese readers:

I hope Chinese readers will feel encouraged to know that there are people in the UK, Europe and the US that oppose the new cold war; that oppose the campaign of containment and encirclement against China; that stand for peace and multipolarity; and that want to see close cooperation in pursuit of peace, prosperity, ecological conservation and a sustainable future for our shared planet. The concepts of “common prosperity” and “building a community with a shared future for mankind” have relevance and resonance among progressive circles in the West.

In response to the question of what the Western left can learn from China, Carlos notes that “China is taking extraordinary, unprecedented steps forward on poverty alleviation, renewable energy, biodiversity protection and more”. These are successes of the global socialist movement, and the Western left can learn and take inspiration from them.

Addressing the “China threat” theory, Carlos points out that China’s record is remarkably peaceful:

China has not been at war for many decades. It does not maintain a global infrastructure of hegemony, unlike the US, which has over 800 overseas military bases, in addition to troop and weapons deployments around the world… On the global stage, China stands consistently and firmly for peace. It has put forward detailed and viable proposals for peace in Ukraine and Gaza. So where is the threat?

Editor’s Note: Recently, an English-language collection of essays, People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red, was launched to examine China’s trajectory since 1949. British author and independent political commentator Carlos Martinez (Martinez) was one of its co-editors. Martinez has been trying to help Western people better understand China’s development in its different phases and aspects. In a recent interview with Global Times (GT) reporters Xia Wenxin and Xu Jiatong, Martinez shared his view on China’s marvellous successes over the past 75 years, as well as its contributions to the world, including to the socialist movement.

GT: When we interviewed you last year, your book The East is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century (hereafter, The East is Still Red) had just come out and gained international attention. Now, the Chinese version of the book is about to come out. How do you feel about this? What do you hope Chinese readers can grasp from this book?

Martinez: I’m very excited and honored that The East is Still Red will be published in Chinese. Although the book was written primarily for the Western audience so that they could come to understand modern China better, I hope it will be useful for some Chinese people to see how Marxists in the West view China and how Chinese socialism becomes an inspiration to the global socialist movement.

I think the analysis of the West’s vicious anti-China propaganda will be interesting for Chinese readers, who may struggle to understand the reasons for the West’s hostility and its slander campaign in relation to Xinjiang, Tibet (Xizang), Hong Kong and other affairs.

And I hope Chinese readers will feel encouraged to know that there are people in the UK, Europe and the US that oppose the new cold war; that oppose the campaign of containment and encirclement against China; that stand for peace and multipolarity; and that want to see close cooperation in pursuit of peace, prosperity, ecological conservation and a sustainable future for our shared planet. The concepts of “common prosperity” and “building a community with a shared future for mankind” have relevance and resonance among progressive circles in the West.

GT: This year marks the 75th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Which aspect of China’s development during this period has impressed you the most? How do you view China’s contribution to the world in the past 75 years?

Martinez: The founding of the PRC constituted a profound turning point for the Chinese people after thousands of years of feudalism and then a century of invasion, domination, unequal treaties, chaos, warlord rule and intense poverty. Living standards have risen continuously since 1949. Life expectancy has risen from around 35 to 78 – several years above the global average.

China has advanced from being a very poor and technologically backward country to being a global leader in science and technology. It has eliminated extreme poverty. It is making by far the greatest contribution to the struggle against climate breakdown. It has leaped from a “low” Human Development Index (HDI) 30 years ago to a “high” HDI today and is on the cusp of moving into the “very high” group. It is building its own path to modernization.

Looking at the global scale, China has provided crucial support to national liberation movements and countries in the Global South. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence continue to provide a framework for relations between countries, particularly developing countries. Via the Belt and Road Initiative and other initiatives, China is sharing its infrastructure development expertise and providing a means for the countries of Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, the Caribbean and the Pacific to break out of underdevelopment.

And, of course, China is a force for peace. Its foreign policy is based on negotiated solutions to problems, the pursuit of peace, mutual benefit and global friendship. This is a very important contribution to the world.

GT: In a recent article, you urged the Western left to “learn a great deal from China” and “take a great deal of inspiration from it.” Could you please elaborate on this?

Martinez: China, along with the other socialist countries, is building socialism. So, people around the world who support the process of building socialism should seek to learn from China. The people of China are “taking part in the practice of changing reality,” and they are the trailblazers of the left globally, so we should learn from them.

Furthermore, China is taking extraordinary, unprecedented steps forward on poverty alleviation, renewable energy, biodiversity protection and more. In my view, the successes in those areas are successes of the global socialist movement, and the Western left could take inspiration from them. 

In 1989, Deng Xiaoping said that “so long as socialism does not collapse in China, it will always hold its ground in the world.” Thirty-five years later, socialism is still holding its ground in the world, and growing in strength, thanks in no small part to China.

GT: What are the common misunderstandings about China and its development in the West? Why could China’s development lead some in the West to the sense of being “threatened”?

Martinez: The notion of China as a threat to some people in the West is patently absurd. Unlike the NATO countries, China’s record is remarkably peaceful. China has not been at war for many decades. It does not maintain a global infrastructure of hegemony, unlike the US, which has over 800 overseas military bases, in addition to troop and weapons deployments around the world. Of the nuclear powers, China is the only one to maintain a consistent policy of no first use and to pledge never to use – or threaten to use – nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.

China is accused of aggression in the South China Sea, and yet there is not a single instance of China preventing normal, non-military navigation. Regarding the Taiwan question, China’s position of working toward peaceful reunification has not meaningfully changed in many decades, and the one-China principle is recognized by the majority of the world’s countries. 

On the global stage, China stands consistently and firmly for peace. It has put forward detailed and viable proposals for peace in Ukraine and Gaza. So where is the threat? This “threat” seems to be unacceptable to those working toward a Project for a New American Century, and therefore, they slander China and wage a propaganda war against it.

GT: You have been introducing the real China to your audience in the West. What do you think is an effective narrative for China to tell its story to the world?

Martinez: On the basis that “actions speak louder than words,” I think China should continue what it’s doing.

Its progress on environmental issues – becoming the world’s first renewable energy superpower and blazing a trail on biodiversity protection and water management – is very inspiring to people around the world who are concerned with preventing climate breakdown.

China’s successes in poverty alleviation and improving the living standards of its people are also drawing admiration. And China’s orientation toward peace and its principled positions in international relations are opening people’s eyes. 

Increasingly, people are coming to reject the relentless anti-China propaganda they’re fed.

Richard Wolff: US shifts blame onto China because it cannot address capitalism’s flaws

In the following video interview with Global Times, prominent Marxist economist Richard Wolff explains the central contradiction in the US ruling class with respect to its relationship with China.

On the one hand, the US business community is eager to maintain good economic relations with China, which represents an important market, trading partner, avenue for investment, and source of investment. US companies “want to be able to produce in China, and even more, they want to sell into the Chinese market, which is one of the fastest-growing and largest markets in the world.”

On the other hand, the US political establishment is increasingly hostile to China. This hostility is driven to a significant degree by the fact that China is challenging the US’s global hegemony. “The last century has been the century of the American Empire, and it now sees its role in the world economy – financially, in export and import, and in other areas – being challenged above all by the People’s Republic of China.”

Meanwhile the US is facing a deepening crisis of capitalism, with growing inequality, economic instability, and a shrinking middle class. Politicians have identified two convenient scapegoats for these problems: 1) immigrants from Latin America; 2) China. Wolff points out: “Capitalism has always moved in this way. But because our politics are controlled by big business, politicians can never blame capitalism. They cannot blame the big businesses that fund them. So, who do they blame? China.”

Wolff conjectures that it may be possible to use this division in the US ruling class to pursue an agenda of peace and cooperation; that the peace movement may be able to work together with the business community to prevent a war with China.

Donald Trump and the drive to war against China

In the following article, which first appeared in slightly shorter form in Labour Outlook, Carlos Martinez assesses the prospects for the US-led New Cold War against China under a second Trump presidency, and the possibility of military conflict between the world’s two largest economies.

The article begins by noting that US policy towards China has been relatively consistent for over a decade, starting with the Obama-Clinton ‘Pivot to Asia’ in 2011, followed by the Trump administration’s trade war, and then the Biden administration’s sanctions, tariffs, semiconductor war, military provocations and the creation of AUKUS.

What will change under Trump? Carlos notes that “a deepening of economic confrontation seems more than likely”, given Trump’s repeated promises to impose unprecedented tariffs on Chinese goods. And while Trump made noises during his election campaign about wanting to end the US’s “forever wars”, “the appointment of inveterate China hawks Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz as secretary of state and national security adviser sends a clear signal that Trump is planning to escalate hostilities”.

Marco Rubio is an anti-China fanatic, who stands for more tariffs, more sanctions, more slander, more support for Taiwanese separatism, more provocations in the South China Sea, and more destabilisation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Mike Waltz has long pushed for closer military cooperation with India, Japan, Australia and other countries in the region in preparation for war against China.

The article notes that China’s consistent offer to the West is based on working together “to tackle the urgent issues facing humanity, including climate change, pandemics, peace, nuclear proliferation, food security and development”. However, it is clear that only mass movements will force Western governments to take up such an offer.

Although the Pivot to Asia was initiated by the Obama administration – when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was tasked with developing a strategy for “America’s Pacific Century” – it was the Trump presidency from 2017-21 that really turned up the dial in terms of US anti-China hostility.

Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 on a promise to protect jobs by addressing the US’s trade deficit with China: “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.”

In power, the Trump administration launched a full-scale trade war, imposing enormous tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports. This was combined with a systematic attack on Chinese technology companies, removing Huawei from US telecoms infrastructure and attempting to prevent TikTok and WeChat from operating in the US.

Militarily, Trump ramped up the US’s presence in the South China Sea and sought to revitalise the Quad group (US, Japan, India and Australia), working towards a broad regional alliance against China.

The State Department oversaw a crackdown on Chinese students and researchers, and, with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump resorted to flagrant racism, talking repeatedly about the “kung flu” and the “China virus” – all of which fed in to a horrifying rise in hate crimes against people of East Asian descent.

As such, many breathed a sigh of relief when Joe Biden was elected four years ago. Unfortunately, however, Biden has essentially maintained the anti-China strategic orientation of his predecessor, albeit without the crassly confrontational rhetoric and overt racism. Biden in many ways has been more systematic in pursuit of military and economic containment of China, particularly when it comes to building an international coalition around US strategic interests.

In September 2021, the US, Britain and Australia announced the launch of AUKUS – a nuclear pact, manifestly contravening the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and evidently designed to counter China.

Biden has hosted numerous Quad summit meetings, at which the member states have reiterated their “steadfast commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific” – that is, to preserving a status quo in which the US maintains over 300 military bases in the region, along with tens of thousands of troops, nuclear-enabled warplanes, aircraft carriers, and missile defence systems aimed at establishing nuclear first-strike capability.

The combination of the Quad and AUKUS looks suspiciously like an attempt to create an Asian NATO. Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 trip to Taiwan Province was the highest-level US visit to the island in quarter of a century. In 2023, Biden signed off on direct US military aid to Taiwan for the first time; a BBC headline from November 2023 noted that “the US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth”. This undermines the Three Joint Communiqués – which form the bedrock for US-China diplomatic relations – and is clearly aimed at inflaming tensions across the Taiwan Strait and setting up a potential hot war with China over Taiwan. A recently-leaked memo from four-star general Mike Minihan predicted war over Taiwan in 2025: “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025”.

The Biden administration has expanded Trump-era restrictions against China’s technology industry, in particular by launching a ‘chip war’ to slow down China’s progress in semiconductor production, artificial intelligence, mobile phones and more. And while the US government under Biden has set several ambitious climate goals, it has also introduced sweeping sanctions on Chinese solar materials and imposed huge tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

The unfortunate truth is that there is a consensus among Democrats and Republicans. In Biden’s words, “we’re in a competition with China to win the 21st century” – and the US must win this competition at all costs.

To what extent can we expect the situation to change under a second Trump presidency?

Continue reading Donald Trump and the drive to war against China

Trump presidency threatens us all

What follows is a blog post by Sophie Bolt, the new General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), on the threat posed by the Trump presidency to global peace.

Sophie notes that Trump has promised to “stop wars, not start them”, and yet he has already nominated several notorious warmongers to his cabinet, including Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Michael Waltz as National Security Adviser, and John Ratcliffe as CIA director. Marco Rubio is an anti-China fanatic, who stands for more tariffs, more sanctions, more slander, more support for Taiwanese separatism, more weapons to Taipei, more provocations in the South China Sea, and more destabilisation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Waltz has long pushed for closer military cooperation with India, Japan, Australia and other countries in the region in preparation for war against China. Ratcliffe refers to China as “the top threat to US interests and the rest of the free world”.

The article points out that the incoming administration is likely to escalate the US-led New Cold War against China, as well as continuing the drive towards hot war:

As well as intensifying Trump’s protectionist ‘America First’ policy, by increasing tariffs on Chinese goods, a key focus will be racheting up a military confrontation with China. A military build up across the Asia Pacific has been underway for more than a decade, supported by 400 US military bases encircling China and the AUKUS nuclear alliance with Britain and Australia.

Meanwhile Trump’s climate denialism will be another major setback to global cooperation around the climate crisis.

This article was first posted on the CND website.

In Trump’s victory speech, he said he was going to stop wars, not start them. Excuse me if I’m not reassured. Based on his track record and the ultra-hawks he’s putting in the State Department, the threat of war and nuclear confrontation looks higher than ever.

Last time he was President, the US bombed Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, carried out extra-judicial killings and developed ‘useable’ nuclear weapons. Under his leadership, the US withdrew from landmark nuclear arms control treaties including the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). And it withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Trump’s new team for the State Department includes ultra China and Iran hawks, Marco Rubio, expected to be nominated for Secretary of State, and Mike Waltz, appointed National Security Advisor.  Certainly Trump’s victory and open support for annexing the West Bank has already emboldened Netanyahu’s genocidal expansionism. This increases the risk of an all-out war on Iran.

As well as intensifying Trump’s protectionist ‘America First’ policy, by increasing tariffs on Chinese goods, a key focus will be racheting up a military confrontation with China. A military build up across the Asia Pacific has been underway for more than a decade, supported by 400 US military bases encircling China and the AUKUS nuclear alliance with Britain and Australia. Richard O’Brien, former security advisor to Trump, laid out in Foreign Affairs what to expect next. ‘As China seeks to undermine American economic and military strength,’ O’Brien argues, ‘Washington should return the favor—just as it did during the Cold War, when it worked to weaken the Soviet economy.’  This prospect of a new cold war is truly horrifying , when we remember how the nuclear arms race in the 1980s, lead to a permanent state of nuclear danger.  

With speculation about what Trump will do in Ukraine, the new British government doesn’t want to take any chances of de-escalation. Starmer has again pressed Biden to agree to Ukraine’s use of its long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which could strike deep into Russian territory. He knows full well that Russia has changed its nuclear use policy in response to such an attack. This only reinforces the need for an urgent negotiated settlement.

NATO membership of Ukraine remains a key factor in the conflict and Ukrainian neutrality will be critical for de-escalating the crisis. But there is absolutely no evidence to back up concerns amongst NATO hawks that Trump will abandon the world’s most powerful nuclear alliance. On the contrary, Trump has called on NATO states to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP. So, continuing to push the burden of funding onto the populations of NATO states. This means the toxic combination of increased militarism, nuclear dangers and austerity policies will continue across Europe.

Trump’s election will strengthen the far right and fascists globally. In Britain, Farage and Tommy Robinson will be emboldened further to whip up hatred, justifying greater military spending for another world war.  

And, as the US is one of the world’s largest polluters, Trump’s decision to pull out of Paris Climate Accord again, is another major set-back for climate action and investment in green technologies.

This shows more starkly than ever how war, racism, austerity, climate breakdown and nuclear annihilation are increasingly interlinked. We can’t allow this recklessly dangerous leader to drag the world towards annihilation. This is why CND is working with all those who oppose Trump to help build the broadest alliance possible for peace, justice and a sustainable, nuclear-free future.

Trump’s return – the critical issue for Britain remains disengaging from the US war chariot

In this insightful article for Stop the War Coalition, Andrew Murray discusses the implications of Trump’s return to the presidency for the anti-war movement in Britain.

Andrew notes that the collapse in the Democrat vote “is surely in part attributable to the Biden-Harris administration’s sustained and unqualified support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people”. While there is little prospect of a Trump administration being any better on this issue, the Democrats’ utter failure to stand up against the Gaza genocide has clearly lost them support among progressive voters.

In relation to China, while many had high hopes that Biden would adopt a less confrontational approach than Trump, in reality “Biden’s rhetoric and actions have been the most aggressive of any president since the 1960s”. Under the incoming Trump administration, “continuity in escalating confrontation is most likely”.

Andrew writes that, for the anti-war movement, “our fight is against imperialism” and, in Britain specifically, “the critical issue remains disengaging from the US war chariot”, regardless of whether it is driven by a Democrat or a Republican; regardless of whether its character is “centrist liberal war-mongering” or “populist chauvinist war-mongering”.

Andrew Murray is the political correspondent of the Morning Star. He has served as the Chair of the Stop the War Coalition, Chief of Staff at Unite the union, and as an adviser to Jeremy Corbyn MP when he was Leader of the Labour Party. The author of several books, he has contributed a chapter to the recently-released volume People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red.

Donald Trump’s unexpectedly emphatic election victory clearly poses new challenges for the anti-war movement in Britain and globally, and calls for sober analysis.

Trump appears to have won the support of most working-class people who bothered to vote, including millions of Muslim Americans and larger minorities of African-Americans and Hispanic Americans than a Republican can usually expect.

Many issues obviously contributed to this, including the state of the US economy and cultural questions, broadly defined. However, war and peace impacted in two ways.

First, the huge collapse in the Democrat vote from 2020 (Trump’s poll also declined, but by much less) is surely in part attributable to the Biden-Harris administration’s sustained and unqualified support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.

This made the idea of supporting Kamala Harris quite impossible for millions, who may instead have voted for Green candidate Jill Stein, other progressive candidates where they made the ballot, or simply have sat the election out. There is an analogy here to the masses who refused to back Keir Starmer’s Labour in July because of its support for Israel.

Second, part of Trump’s base lies in sections of the working class sick of the “forever wars” in which a liberal-neoconservative elite send ordinary Americans to die for US hegemony. The Biden administration has sat squarely in that imperialist tradition.

To those voters can be added a larger number who are receptive to the position advanced by Trump, and more stridently by his vice-president J D Vance, that the vast sums being sent in military and economic aid to Ukraine to prolong the war with Russia would be better spent on other things, or not at all.

Trump’s own record and rhetoric on world issues is reactionary without doubt. However, he has made much of not starting any fresh wars when last in office, and of trying to extricate the US from direct engagement in those that he inherits, or at least diminishing its involvement.

Continue reading Trump’s return – the critical issue for Britain remains disengaging from the US war chariot

Imperialism fails to quash China’s EV revolution

The following article by Chris Fry, a retired autoworker who worked as an assembler at Chrysler’s Lynch Road Assembly in Detroit until the company closed the plant in 1980, addresses the crisis facing the car manufacturing industry in the US and Europe, noting that many of the largest car manufacturers are shedding thousands of jobs and closing plants.

Chris notes that car manufacturers in the West have failed to invest seriously in electric vehicles, and industrial policy has been shaped to a significant degree by the interests of the fossil fuel industry. Meanwhile, “China, due in large part to its socialist economic and social system and its social ownership of much of its production and its scientific planning, has developed the infrastructure of EV production in a vast scale capable of producing emission-free vehicles of high quality at an affordable price for working class consumers”.

Rather than develop a coherent industrial policy, successive administrations in the US have turned to protectionism, imposing tariffs on Chinese EVs “designed to deny workers in the U.S. affordable emissions-free vehicles, notwithstanding all the supposed ‘concern’ from Washington over global warming”.

Chris concludes: “The accomplishments by the Chinese workers and their workers’ government represent a pathway to victory for ourselves and our families for an empowered and prosperous future.”

This article was originally published in Fighting Words.

On October 18 tens of thousands of Italian auto workers held a nationwide strike and marched through the streets of Rome. Organized by three unions, this action was led by workers from the Italian-based conglomerate Stellantis, composed also by the French company Peugeot as well as the U.S. Chrysler Corporation.

Stellantis is the world’s fourth largest automaker. It is projected to end the year with a loss of $11.2 billion.

The worker’s militant action not only targeted the company, but also was against the right-wing Italian government. The unions are demanding incentives to allow workers to be able to afford electric cars.

This was the first such militant worker action in Rome in 20 years.

UAW lines up to confront Stellantis

On October 3, the UAW, led by President Shawn Fain, held a rally and march to the Michigan Sterling Heights Stellantis Stamping plant:

Outside the UAW Local 1264, about 400 UAW members listened to speeches from UAW leadership, including UAW President Shawn Fain, and chanted, “Keep the promise” and “Fire Tavares” (Carlos Tavares is the CEO of Stellantis, the automaker that owns the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands). They then marched about a half mile to Stellantis’ Sterling Stamping Plant.

“Are you ready to do whatever we have to do to save American jobs,” Fain asked the crowd. “This is our generation’s defining moment. Over this last year, we moved a lot of mountains, but we’ve got more mountains to move.”

The union is demanding that the company live up to the 2023 contract and reopen the Belvidere Assembly Plant, converted to an EV battery plant in Illinois and keep Dodge Durango production in Detroit.

The week before the company had announced plans for indefinite layoffs “across its footprint” and the firing of its “supplemental workers” but refused to give specifics.

It has already laid off 1,100 workers at its Warren Assembly plant.

The UAW action comes after an announcement by the union that it would hold a company-wide strike vote by Stellantis workers demanding that the company abide by the contract won last year after a six-week strike.

Of course, the auto company executives and their government minions blame Socialist China and its so-called “over capacity” for these massive job losses and broken promises.

EV crisis at capitalist auto companies.

It’s not just Stellantis that is facing this deepening crisis.

In September, the German company Volkswagen announced plans to lay off 30,000 of its 300,000 workers. VW’s software subsidiary is laying off 2,000 workers over the next two years.

Mercedes Benz is laying off workers in Seattle, Washington and London. ZF Friedrichshafen, a major parts supplier to 55 auto brands, announced it would lay off 12,000 of its workers, while another supplier, Bosch, announced that it was cutting 1,200 jobs.

Continue reading Imperialism fails to quash China’s EV revolution

Chen Weihua: China’s peaceful rise is a miracle unprecedented in human history

We are pleased to reprint below the speech delivered by Chen Weihua to our September 28 conference celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Chen describes the founding of the People’s Republic as a turning point in Chinese history: “Chairman Mao’s declaration 75 years ago that the Chinese people have stood up made Chinese extremely proud of being Chinese, after the nation had suffered a century of humiliation inflicted upon by imperial and colonial powers.”

China’s progress since then – lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, developing universal healthcare and education, massively improving living standards, and becoming a global leader in green technology – has been remarkable, but has also raised alarm in Washington, which sees China’s rise as a threat to its strategy of hegemony.

This is the context for the trade war, for the US’s unilateral sanctions on China, and for the escalating military encirclement campaign. It also provides the context for a relentless propaganda war, in which China is demonised and labeled a threat to peace and democracy. “The US often portrays China as a major threat to global peace. The truth is that China has one of the best records for peace. The US has been engaged in constant wars and regime changes, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya, just to name a few.”

Chen points out that, in an interconnected world, “it is more important than ever for the world to come together to tackle common global challenges from climate change, nuclear proliferation and pandemic to economic growth and global governance”, and concludes by calling for a coordinated struggle against the New Cold War.

Chen Weihua is a prominent Chinese journalist and EU bureau chief of China Daily.

It’s a great honor for me to speak to you in my personal capacity at this important event marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

I want to express my appreciation for Friends of Socialist China for your good work in advocating world peace and justice and in supporting China against the US new Cold War and its reckless smearing campaigns against China.

Chairman Mao’s declaration 75 years ago that the Chinese people have stood up made Chinese extremely proud of being Chinese, after the nation had suffered a century of humiliation inflicted upon by imperial and colonial powers.

China’s rapid peaceful rise, especially since the reform and opening up in the late 1970s, is a miracle and unprecedented in human history. China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty, greatly raised the living standards of its people, advanced its capacity in education, public health, science and technology. And China has become a global manufacturing powerhouse, including in renewable energy and other clean industries.

China has been playing an important and responsible role on the world stage and as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and as a voice for the developing world.

It’s exactly such China’s independent foreign policy, unique development path and rapid peaceful rise that have made many in Washington feel threatened in sustaining US global hegemony. That is why the US has been going all-out to contain China’s development.

The US has been waging trade wars and tariff wars against China. It has put hundreds of Chinese tech companies on its notorious Entity List of export control. The US has been forcing countries to choose sides in its bid to divide the world into Cold War type political blocs.

Continue reading Chen Weihua: China’s peaceful rise is a miracle unprecedented in human history

Time to step up against China-baiting

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy is paying an official visit to China, October 18-19. It is the first visit by a cabinet member to China since the Labour Party won the July 4 general election.

Lammy’s visit was inauspiciously prefaced by an exchange in the House of Commons on October 16 between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his predecessor and outgoing leader of the Conservative Party Rishi Sunak.

In its October 18 edition, the Morning Star newspaper carried an editorial arguing that it was ‘’time to step up against China baiting”.

It noted that Sunak used one of his last appearances at Prime Minister’s Questions as Leader of the Opposition to run through “a familiar litany of sinophobic talking points”, related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Ukraine and Britain’s higher education sector, and added:

“Sunak is yesterday’s politician. The alarming thing about the exchange is that Keir Starmer agreed with him on every point.”

It noted that while Starmer claimed that Britain stood for a combination of cooperating with, competing with and challenging China:

“In fact, the government’s position is worse than that. It appears fully signed up to the Washington-led agenda of confrontation with China.”

The editorial goes on to argue the need to, “focus on the central issue – this military, political, economic and diplomatic offensive against what will shortly be the world’s largest economy runs profoundly against the interests of working people in Britain.

“Addressing the economic and social problems crippling Britain after 15 years of crisis, austerity and degradation of core state functions depends, among other things, on developing links with a Chinese economy that remains among the most dynamic in the world.

“Sanctions and disruption of trade will certainly hurt us here in Britain more than they will damage China… if there is indeed a ‘black hole’ in the public finances, then better relations with China would go a very long way to filling it.”

It concludes: “Peace demands an end to sinophobia. The labour and peace movements must step up.”

The following is the full text of the editorial.

In Britain as in the United States there is a political consensus around China-baiting. Never has the old saw that when the House of Commons is united it is nearly always wrong been more applicable.

In one of his last appearances at the dispatch box as Tory leader, Rishi Sunak spent his time at Prime Minister’s Questions this week running through a familiar litany of sinophobic talking points, prompted apparently by Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s impending visit to Beijing.

First, there were the military manoeuvres the People’s Republic is conducting near Taiwan, internationally acknowledged to be Chinese territory under the “one China” principle.

Then there was the human rights situation in Hong Kong, a former British colony where London maintained a regime of political repression and the denial of any democratic rights until its return to China in 1997.

That was followed by a denunciation of China for not falling into line with Nato’s position over Ukraine, as if China was obliged to follow the diplomatic diktats of its former imperialist overlords.

And then Sunak raised various purported threats to Britain’s domestic security from China, in higher education and elsewhere.

Sunak is yesterday’s politician. The alarming thing about the exchange is that Keir Starmer agreed with him on every point.

The Prime Minister claimed that Britain stood for co-operation with China where possible, along with competition economically and challenging it over “values” and national security.

In fact, the government’s position is worse than that. It appears fully signed up to the Washington-led agenda of confrontation with China.

This involves conducting a slander campaign about China’s internal affairs while escalating military tension in the Far East, most notably with the Aukus pact with the US and Australia which gives a new twist to the arms race there.

It is not necessary for socialists and peace campaigners in Britain to provide a counter-narrative on every single issue. China can well look after itself and it is sufficient to note that many of the matters raised in this new cold war are China’s internal concerns which it has the sovereign right to address.

More important is to focus on the central issue — this military, political, economic and diplomatic offensive against what will shortly be the world’s largest economy runs profoundly against the interests of working people in Britain.

Addressing the economic and social problems crippling Britain after 15 years of crisis, austerity and degradation of core state functions depends, among other things, on developing links with a Chinese economy that remains among the most dynamic in the world.

Sanctions and disruption of trade will certainly hurt us here in Britain more than they will damage China.

Sorting out our beleaguered higher education sector, with universities on the edge of insolvency, requires more, not fewer, Chinese students.

An intensified arms race of the sort involved in Aukus and other military deployments to the Pacific will also cost working people dear at a time of floundering public services.

Take these points together then, if there is indeed a “black hole” in the public finances, then better relations with China would go a very long way to filling it.

But the main reason for challenging the bipartisan hostility to China is that it is setting the country on the road to war, trailing as ever behind a US desperate to prolong its fading global hegemony.

Britain has no business whatsoever in striking military poses on the other side of the world, nor in interfering in relations between Beijing and Taiwan.

Peace demands an end to sinophobia. The labour and peace movements must step up.

Solidarity with China is necessary for the collective future of humanity

The following article by Sara Flounders, originally posted on Workers World, takes up the question of China’s social system: is it socialist, as it claims? Or is it just another capitalist-imperialist country?

Sara lists a number of ways in which China’s emergence is helping the countries of the Global South – from the Belt and Road Initiative to the provision of financial and technical assistance for infrastructure construction. “China is a lifeline for the Global South. The Africa Summit just held in Beijing confirmed this a thousand times over.”

Meanwhile, as a result of sustained efforts over decades, China has eliminated extreme poverty and “achieved the fastest growth in living standards of any country in the world”. Furthermore: “China has gone green and solar and put a half-million electric city buses on their streets. US city buses are still belching out pollution coming from fossil fuels.”

One outcome of this progress is that “US imperialist strategists see China’s gains as an ominous threat to their domination of the world, and have moved to counter China with a whole new level of aggressive militarism”.

Sara notes that mass opposition to a rising US-led New Cold War against China is essential, but that the left is sometimes reticent to defend China because of a misunderstanding of its social system. “Many in the West said that the enthusiasm engendered by Western corporations’ heavy investments in China had already succeeded in bringing China back into the capitalist orbit.”

The article points out that, while China today has vast wealth disparity, along with private capital, its market is “built on socialist pillars”, and “central planning remains decisive”.

The key economic role is assigned to the state, a state controlled by the working class. Every major industry, especially banking, remains under state control — a state controlled by a massive communist party. The central banks play a crucial role in subsidizing and developing key industries.

Meanwhile the Communist Party of China, with its close to 100 million members, exercises overall control of the country’s economic development.

Sara concludes that “stepping up the defense of China, its revolution and its accomplishments is necessary for the collective future of humanity.”

An ideological assault on China is taking place that cannot be fought piecemeal, answering each lie. Of course, it is crucial to refute the lies and propaganda, but it is not persuasive if the reason behind the U.S. ruling class’s extraordinary and pervasive hostility to China is not exposed. We must expose the class differences between People’s China and U.S. imperialism.

China’s emergence is a game-changer on a world scale today, with its Belt and Road Initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation agreement and the BRICS+ meeting this September at the United Nations. China has become a resource, an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, with their brutal structural adjustment, deregulation and privatization programs (SAPs). China is a lifeline for the Global South. The Africa Summit just held in Beijing confirmed this a thousand times over.

China was able to end poverty for 800 million people — something neither the U.S. nor any other capitalist country has been able to do. Life expectancy is higher today in China than in the United States. China has achieved the fastest growth in living standards of any country in the world.

So U.S. imperialism is doubling down. Candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump agree. The Pentagon agrees. NATO agrees. New sanctions, new tariffs, new rounds of propaganda directed at China are aimed at preparing for war by 2025.

In the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea, U.S. strategists are rushing to construct a military alliance similar to NATO. It will include Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the Philippines and is directed against China.

Every arm of the imperialist colossus is predicting and planning for this war. The vicious and relentless propaganda, the expanding military budget, the relentless war “games” and military maneuvers and the total agreement of both Democratic and Republican parties testify to the danger.

Which side are you on?

“Which side are you on?” is the oldest formulation in the class struggle.

The group Friends of Socialist China provides a valuable framework to explain the country’s most important contribution. Political movements, parties and organizations of the working class that take sides in the global class struggle are the most valuable anchor to withstand the crisis confronting the working class and all oppressed peoples. Without this anchor, this basic understanding, workers and activists are cast adrift in the onslaught of each imperialist flood.

An important part of understanding the changing world situation can be found in Workers World Party’s evaluation of China’s rapid development. U.S. imperialist strategists see China’s gains as an ominous threat to their domination of the world, and have moved to counter China with a whole new level of aggressive militarism. We say China’s gains hold a liberating potential for humanity.

If we can explain the reason for U.S. imperialism’s hostility and why Washington calls Beijing “the greatest threat,” it can strengthen popular resistance to the U.S. war drive.

Continue reading Solidarity with China is necessary for the collective future of humanity

Quad leaders’ summit foments confrontation

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue leaders’ summit took place over the weekend of 21-22 September. Indian PM Narendra Modi, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida and Australian PM Anthony Albanese joined US President Joe Biden in Delaware – ostensibly to “expand security cooperation”, but in reality to discuss ways to escalate the US’s containment and encirclement campaign against China. The article below, originally published in the Global Times, observes that, while the joint statement issued at the summit did not directly name China, Biden was caught on a hot mic telling the other leaders that an “aggressive China is testing us”. Meanwhile, the report cites Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian as saying “the Quad has been scaremongering, inciting antagonism and confrontation, and holding back other countries’ development”.

More than anything, the Quad demonstrates the fundamental continuity in US foreign policy. Dormant for nearly a decade, the Quad was revived by Donald Trump in 2017, with the aim of increasing military pressure on China and putting together an Asian NATO. The Biden administration has continued with, and expanded, this project – the New Cold War is one of the few things that Democrats and Republicans can agree on.

Biden emphasised his commitment to the project, saying that “while challenges will come, the Quad is here to stay”. However, the Quad has achieved essentially nothing so far and its future is uncertain. India, Australia and Japan have nothing to benefit from anti-China aggression and everything to gain from developing friendly and mutually beneficial relations with China. The US is thus increasingly isolated in its Cold War manoeuvring.

At the Quad leaders’ summit US President Joe Biden hosted in his Delaware hometown over the weekend, the four-nation group – which consists of the US, Japan, India and Australia – agreed to expand security cooperation, including joint coast guard mission, with China on mind.    

The agenda of the meeting and its joint statement, which referred to East and South China Seas, exposed Quad’s nature of bloc confrontation, analysts said on Sunday, criticizing the four-nation partnership for its detrimental role of fomenting confrontation and inciting geopolitical tensions in Asia Pacific. 

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan insisted earlier Saturday during a briefing with reporters that “China is not the focus of the Quad,” CNN reported, but the issue (of China) featured throughout the day.

The joint statement, released on the White House’s website, did not directly name China, but it did mention “East and South China Seas,” meanwhile, Biden was caught on a hot mic telling the other leaders that an “aggressive China is testing us,” CNN reported.

Anchored by shared values, the Quad leaders seek to uphold the international order based on the rule of law and they are “seriously concerned” about the situation in East and South China Seas, according to a joint statement after the summit. 

Create division

Ding Duo, deputy director of the Institute of Maritime Law and Policy at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, noted that Quad members have made efforts to downplay its focus on China, emphasizing instead the shared values and strategic interests of the four countries. However, analysis of the summit’s outcomes reveals it is targeting China.

“Targeting China” is not only at a strategic level but it also involves tactical arrangements, and specific plans, Ding told the Global Times on Sunday. 

Per the joint statement, the four countries have agreed on a joint coast guard mission in 2025, and vowed to enhance logistics cooperation as well as data and information sharing within and outside the bloc, giving attention to developing maritime security ties with Pacific Island Countries and Southeast Asia. 

Ding pointed out that the Quad could support countries like the Philippines and Japan, which have maritime disputes with China, through specific joint maritime operations. 

The Quad statement also mentioned so-called “dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels, including increasing the use of dangerous maneuvers,” hinting at China’s frictions with the Philippines; however, in face of Philippine provocations under US instigation, China’s actions aim to safeguard its sovereignty and legitimate rights, analysts said. 

The Quad has been scaremongering, inciting antagonism and confrontation, and holding back other countries’ development, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a press briefing in July in response to a Quad foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo which voiced “serious concern about the situation in the East and South China Seas.”  

Some countries outside the region have frequently sent advanced military aircraft and vessels to the South China Sea to flex their muscles and create tension, and have formed various groupings and incited division and confrontation in the region. All of this makes them the biggest threat and challenge to regional peace and stability, Lin said.

Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Sunday that the Quad mechanism is US-led and serves as a strategic tool to favor the US in its competition with China at both regional and global levels. 

Although India, Australia and Japan have their own interests, the nature and direction of this mechanism will remain aligned with the strategic needs of the US, Li said.

Biden would not give up the opportunity of his last Quad summit to hype up China issues to amplify “China threat” rhetoric, and create a wrong impression that Washington’s China policy is embraced widely, Li said. 

Loose partnership

Although the Quad mechanism has convened meetings at different levels in the past few years and the US has strived to paint a picture of extensive and in-depth cooperation under the mechanism, “the outcomes have focused on political and diplomatic realms, being more of a posture,” Ding said. 

Cooperation is difficult when it comes to substantial inputs and spending of money, Ding said, adding that many of the proposals, such as joint actions and information sharing, can actually be carried out in a bilateral manner without a structure like the Quad. 

Also, the obscure reference to China in the Quad statement could be the result of an internal compromise, analysts said, as members have different views on the approach to deal with China – Japan, Australia and India have intensive economic or people-to-people exchanges with China.    

Different from US alliance with Japan or Australia, the Quad is a rather loose partnership, with each member aspiring to utilize the bloc to elevate their own international status, Li told the Global Times. 

“It remains to be seen whether the Quad will continue to be a loose group or become a real alliance and further consolidate,” Li said.

Zhang Weiwei: NATO is a relic of history that should have been disbanded long ago

In the video embedded below, Friends of Socialist China co-founder Danny Haiphong interviews Professor Zhang Weiwei, a Chinese professor of international relations at Fudan University and the director of its China Institute. The interview covers a wide range of topics, including the Western media portrayal of China as aggressive, the concept of the civilizational state, China’s preference for a peaceful approach to international relations, the conflict in Ukraine, China’s diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East, and the changing global balance of power.

Zhang Weiwei notes that, while the US and its allies insist on describing China as a threat to regional and global peace, China’s record of peaceful development speaks for itself. China has not fired a single shot in over 40 years, and is the only nuclear power to have a consistent policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. When the US was economically ascendant, it was already waging wars around the world. China however is now the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, and yet it maintains a powerful commitment to peace and to solving problems through negotiations. Zhang highlights China’s diplomatic breakthroughs this year with regard to Middle East politics, including its mediation of the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and its role in bringing together 14 Palestinian factions.

Professor Zhang points out that the conflict in Ukraine is mainly the result of US policy and the insistence on NATO expansion, stating that most Chinese feel that NATO is a relic of history that should have been disbanded long ago. China will be resolute in opposing NATO’s expansion into Asia.

Discussing the concept of “changes unseen in a century”, Zhang Weiwei highlights the emergence of a credible alternative for the Global South in the form of the BRICS grouping – whose GDP is already larger than that of the G7 – along with the Belt and Road Initiative, the economic emergence of several countries, and the failure of the US’s tech war against China.

Counselling the US to adopt a more peaceful approach to international relations, Zhang Weiwei notes that the Biden administration’s nuclear strategy is based on the concept of mutually assured destructions, when what the world needs is mutually assured prosperity.

Professor Zhang is providing a video contribution to our events to mark the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, in London and New York City.

Canada’s unjustifiable tariffs on EVs from China

The following opinion piece, written by International Manifesto Group convenor and Friends of Socialist China advisory group member Radhika Desai for CGTN, critiques the Canadian government’s recent decision to slap 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs).

Radhika notes that the Trudeau government’s stated justification for the tariffs – that “China has an intentional state-directed policy of overcapacity and oversupply designed to cripple our own industry” – is pure misdirection. The real reason is to prove Canada’s loyalty to the US in the run-up to the renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. As for China’s “intentional state-directed policy”, “the most authoritative development economists will agree that there are no known instances of successful industrialisation where the state has not played a central role. This is as true of Japan or Germany or South Korea as it is of the US itself and even Canada.”

China’s government has intentionally concentrated resources on the EV industry for over 20 years, “particularly focusing research and development in making lithium iron phosphate batteries that were safer and cheaper than lithium nickel manganese cobalt batteries almost as energy dense as the latter.” The authorities provided further support by buying vast numbers of electric buses to provide low-emission public transport, and by building EV charging infrastructure throughout the country.

As for the oft-repeated trope about China’s “overcapacity”, Radhika writes that “if anything, the world needs more production of these things” – echoing the sentiments of former under-secretary-general of the United Nations and former executive director of the UN Environment Programme Erik Solheim.

Radhika observes: “What such complaints really mean is that there is a market for high-technology goods that is no longer being supplied by the US or the West, thus endangering their 200-year-old monopoly on such goods. Well, for all the crocodile tears Western politicians weep over the poverty and lack of the development in so much of the world, they do get mighty upset when one part of it, namely China, manages to develop and even push back the technological frontier.”

The article concludes by noting that the US and Canada, having followed the path of neoliberalism and financialisation for several decades, have precious little chance of success in competing with China on advanced manufacturing.

Three months after the U.S. announcement slapping 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EV), Canada has followed suit. As local observers see it, the Trudeau government faced a choice. On the one hand, it could risk retaliatory tariffs from China on Canada’s much smaller economy: The memory of those imposed on Canadian canola, pork and soybeans worth billions in trade in 2019 in retaliation for Canada’s illegal arrest of Meng Wanzhou remains fresh. On the other hand, it could risk U.S. anger should China extend even part of its EV supply chain into Canada to get the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement access to the U.S. market. Such anger would be bound to spill over into the renegotiation of that agreement in 2026.

Canada chose to avoid risking U.S. anger. But that was not how it justified the decision. Instead, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland claimed that “China has an intentional state-directed policy of overcapacity and oversupply designed to cripple our own industry … We simply will not allow that to happen to our EV sector, which has shown such promise.” This justification is clearly cooked up.

Let’s take all the elements of that statement in turn.

The reference to “intentional state-directed policy” is a bizarre instance of trying to tar a virtue as a vice. The most authoritative development economists will agree that there are no known instances of successful industrialization where the state has not played a central role. This is as true of Japan or Germany or South Korea as it is of the U.S. itself and even Canada.

The right to pursue industrial policy was recognized by the erstwhile General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and is recognized by its successor, the World Trade Organization. Moreover, both the U.S. and Canada are themselves talking about industrial policy and state subsidies to sectors facing competition from China. 

As a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pointed out, China’s success in EV development is a classic case of a successful industrial policy. It began investing in the sector as early as 2001 when it became clear that its internal combustion and hybrid car industries were too far behind major manufacturers in the U.S., Germany and Japan.

Moreover, EVs would also have beneficial effects in reducing pollution and oil imports. Chinese authorities concentrated resources on this nascent industry, particularly focusing research and development in making lithium iron phosphate batteries that were safer and cheaper than lithium nickel manganese cobalt batteries almost as energy dense as the latter. They also began providing the fledgling industry with markets by buying its vehicles for public transport.

Nor was China at all autarkic. On the contrary, it invited Tesla in, giving it the same tax and subsidy treatment as domestic producers. Tesla extended its supply chains into China while also stimulating domestic producers to compete with it.

Next, let us come to “overcapacity and oversupply.” Since when did the production of low-cost and high-quality products, particularly those that advance the world towards its critically important climate goals, become a matter of overcapacity and oversupply? If anything, the world needs more production of these things. Canada, the U.S. and the West should join in the effort to produce such goods.

What such complaints really mean is that there is a market for high-technology goods that is no longer being supplied by the U.S. or the West, thus endangering their 200-year-old monopoly on such goods. Well, for all the crocodile tears Western politicians weep over the poverty and lack of the development in so much of the world, they do get mighty upset when one part of it, namely China, manages to develop and even push back the technological frontier.

As for “crippling our (Canadian) industry,” that’s pretty ridiculous coming from countries that have been sparing no effort – sanctions, tariffs, military alliance and base building, “freedom of navigation” and other military exercises, propaganda, fear-mongering and false “development” advice – to prevent the rise of China and, one might add, that of most of the developing world.

Finally, Freeland speaks of Canada’s own EV sector “that has shown so much promise.” Undoubtedly, the thing that countries like Canada and the U.S. ought to do is find a sector or product that they have the unique strengths to develop, as China did with EVs, knowing that it could not compete internationally on conventional cars or hybrids.

However, there is a big distance between “should” and “can.” Today, notwithstanding the corporate subsidies that the U.S. and Canada are giving to their manufacturers, it is unlikely that they will be able to replicate China’s success in manufacturing, not least because, as they have gone down the road of neoliberalism and financialization, they have lost the capacity for sustained industrial policy they once had.

Plutocracy of private capital creates a crisis of US political legitimacy

The following article by Friends of Socialist China co-founder Danny Haiphong, first published in Global Times on 13 August 2024, addresses the crisis of legitimacy facing the United States’ political and economic system.

Politicians from both major parties attempt to deflect attention from the US’s structural failings by pointing the finger at China and others, leading to an escalating New Cold War and moves towards hot war. Danny writes that the Biden and Trump administrations’ “continuity on US foreign policy toward China extends into their military posture as both administrations saw greatly intensified US militarization in the Asia Pacific presence along China’s border and dangerous escalations over Taiwan in violation of the one-China principle”.

Ironically though, this aggressive stance towards China is not only failing to address the US’s internal problems, but is actually exacerbating them. “Nothing about US foreign policy, whether it targets China or another nation, benefits the American people. Trillions of US dollars have gone unaccounted for, while many Americans struggle with debt, increasing rates of poverty, lowering life expectancy, inflation and stagnant wages.”

With Kamala Harris taking on the foreign policy legacy of her predecessors – promising to ensure that “America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century” – progressives in the US will “continue to look for ways to fulfill their desire for a more people-driven and people-centered political agenda”.

The US is confronting a political system facing a crisis of legitimacy. A major component of the crisis is structural and inherent to US governance. Politicians in the US do not succeed in politics because of their service to the people. They are first selected by a tiny fraction of society wielding immense wealth and power before they are presented to voters. 

Nowhere is the gap between the policies that US politicians pursue and the well-being of the people bigger than foreign policy. A cursory look at the economic approach to China under the administrations of former president Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden demonstrates this clearly. Under the Trump administration, the US imposed tariffs on Chinese exports and sanctions on China’s tech sector. Under the Biden administration, the US increased these tariffs to include the Chinese electric vehicle sector, expanded “black list” of Chinese tech corporations and targeted the semiconductor industry as a flashpoint in arresting China’s high-tech development. The two US administrations’ continuity on US foreign policy toward China extends into their military posture as both administrations saw greatly intensified US militarization in the Asia Pacific presence along China’s border and dangerous escalations over Taiwan in violation of the one-China principle.

Nothing about US foreign policy, whether it targets China or another nation, benefits the American people. Trillions of US dollars have gone unaccounted for, while many Americans struggle with debt, increasing rates of poverty, lowering life expectancy, inflation and stagnant wages. This has led to a crisis of political legitimacy where support for Congress and the president are at an all-time low while support for third-party alternatives to the two-party system is at a high point. The question is, then, why do US politicians fail to serve the interests of their constituents? What makes them choose to enrich military contractors and monopoly financial institutions while neglecting the ordinary worker?

The US is not a democracy. It’s a plutocracy of private capital. One percent of the US population owns more than one-third of US wealth. But more importantly, this one percent comprises the property owners of the biggest monopolies and financial institutions in the US and have designed a political system where their patronage directly corresponds to US policy. While politicians may promise ordinary Americans that their policies will benefit them. However, once elected these same politicians pursue an agenda which enriches the wealthiest corporations at the expense of the well-being of the people. In 2014, two US scholars conducted a study on the impact that various interest groups hold on government policy. They found that big business and interest groups made a huge impact on US policy and average citizens made little to no impact at all. Their findings find no shortage of validation. While the vast majority of people face economic and social strife, US politicians are busy sending more military aid to Ukraine and Israel and holding fundraisers with the richest in the corporate and finance sectors. This has given way to political malaise in some respects, but it has also encouraged more people to seek alternative political avenues to the two-party system.

As the gap between US policy and the interests of humanity reaches an all-time high, US politicians will continue to compete among themselves over how to best manage a growing crisis of legitimacy. An ever-increasing number of Americans will grow disdainful of this process. This means that an even more polarized political environment is coming to the United States as people navigate gross power distortions between the average American and the elites. Meanwhile, they continue to look for ways to fulfill their desire for a more people-driven and people-centered political agenda.

NATO, nukes and a New Cold War

We are pleased to republish below a series of three articles by Kenny Coyle analysing the new Labour government’s foreign policy, in particular the “progressive realism” espoused by Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

This putatively “clear-eyed approach to international relations” shares a great deal with the pro-Washington, pro-NATO, hawkish foreign policy of recent Conservative governments. Kenny notes that Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to commit 2.5 percent of GDP to military spending, and Lammy’s critique of his Tory predecessor at the Foreign Office is largely focused on the need for a more aggressive stance against China, Russia and Syria.

Lammy praises Ernest Bevin, Labour foreign secretary from 1945 to 1951, for “bringing us the Nato alliance that is still the bedrock of our security” and “fighting for a nuclear bomb as he put it with the Union Jack on top”. Meanwhile, Lammy’s most coherent policy in relation to the Global South is to develop deeper relations with India. As Kenny points out, “clearly this is part of Western efforts to woo India away from its close relations with Russia and to maintain a level of mistrust between Delhi and Beijing”.

Labour is proposing to intensify Britain’s involvement in the US-led campaign of China encirclement. Lammy makes clear his support for the AUKUS nuclear pact, demanding that it be considered “as a floor, not a ceiling” for the UK’s military posture in the Pacific. He also calls for deepening Britain’s military coordination with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, with the obvious aim of contributing to the US’s island chain strategy against China.

Meanwhile there seem to be shifts occurring in Labour’s position with regard to Taiwan Province, including the establishment of Labour Friends of Taiwan in March 2023 and a recent Labour Party delegation to the island led by Lord Leong. Kenny writes: “The danger is that a current or future British government will abandon [its] One China positions and lean toward the ‘One China, One Taiwan’ policy that is gaining ground in Washington. The emergence of a generously funded Taiwan lobby within the Labour Party and at an all-party level needs to be further exposed.”

The series concludes:

Whoever enters the White House, the cosmetic modifications on offer from Starmer and Lammy commit Britain to a dangerous path in the Asia-Pacific, particularly the under-the-radar military agreements with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. The left needs to ensure that the arguments against ‘progressive realism’ reach deep into the labour and peace movements.

The articles were originally published in the Morning Star in August 2024.

A new window on the world?

August 2 (Morning Star) — The guiding philosophy of Sir Keir Starmer’s foreign policy has been described by Foreign Secretary David Lammy as “a clear-eyed approach to international relations: progressive realism.”

In a series of speeches, interviews, articles and pamphlets over the past year or so, Lammy has elaborated this apparently innovative outlook in British foreign policy.

The most substantial of these were an article for the influential US journal Foreign Affairs in May, The Case for Progressive Realism, Why Britain Must Chart a New Global Course later republished in The Guardian, and a 2023 pamphlet for the Fabian Society, Britain Reconnected A Foreign Policy for Security and Prosperity at Home.

“Progressive Realism” is designed to meet the challenge of a whole range of global issues, including, AI, climate change, international economic supply-chains and development.

However, since Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to commit 2.5 per cent of GDP to military spending and to conduct a thorough security and defence review, it’s essential to analyse the military and diplomatic aspects of what this new Labour government stands for on the international scene.

Continue reading NATO, nukes and a New Cold War