The following is the text of the speech delivered by Alex Gordon to the opening session of our conference held on September 28 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, “a moment of pride and achievement for the people of China, but also a moment of hope and inspiration for peoples around the world.”
Alex refers to President Xi Jinping’s May Day message this year to the Chinese working class as well as his letter to Serbian steel workers and contrasts this to the looming job cuts at the at the Port Talbot steel plant in South Wales.
He goes on to compare the fiasco of Britain’s HS2 high-speed rail project with the relevant experience in China:
“In the decade it took to turn HS2 from a rail infrastructure project into luxury homes opportunities for billionaires, China developed a 40,000 km publicly owned, high-speed rail network, the largest in world history.”
He also outlines the work of the Chinese trade union movement, noting that Xi Jinping had emphasised that the unions should earnestly safeguard the rights of workers and strive to solve practical problems concerning their vital interests, in particular for workers in new forms of employment.
Alex Gordon is the President of the rail workers and seafarers’ trade union RMT, the Chair of the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School and a member of the Political and Executive Committees of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB).
Chair, Minister, Your Excellencies, Comrades and Friends,
On behalf of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), please allow me first to pay tribute to the great work and militant life of our late comrade Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]). CPB General Secretary, Robert Griffiths has paid tribute to Comrade Sitaram in a eulogy published in the Morning Star. Comrade Sitaram was a friend of China, but also a friend of the CPB and did so much to strengthen and deepen the links between our two parties. We mourn his loss and send our condolences to all his comrades. Vale comrade.
The 75th anniversary of the founding of People’s China is a moment of pride and achievement for the people of China, but also a moment of hope and inspiration for peoples around the world.
On behalf of the CPB, I want to recognise also the significance of this achievement for the working class in our country. But my remarks apply to workers more widely across the developed G7 economies and beyond.
In his May Day greeting to China’s working people this year, President Xi Jinping called on them to “actively participate in advancing Chinese modernisation with high-quality development and work tirelessly to promote the building of a strong country and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts.” He asked party committees and government bodies at all levels to “realise, safeguard and develop the legitimate rights and interests of workers.”
President Xi also replied to a letter from Serbian workers at the HBIS Smederevo Steel Plant who he met on a state visit to Serbia in 2016.
Continue reading Alex Gordon: PRC’s 75th anniversary a moment of hope and inspiration for peoples around the world
