The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) held its Welsh national congress in Pontypridd on November 30, 2024.
In addition to summing up its work since its last Congress, analysing the current situation in Wales and charting its path ahead in the next period, it welcomed Liz Payne from the CPB’s Executive Committee, along with four guest speakers, namely:
- Beth Winter, Labour MP for Cynon Valley, 2019-2024, who recently resigned her Labour membership in protest at the party’s steady rightward trajectory under Keir Starmer
- Owain Meiron from Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society)
- Twm Draper from Cymru Cuba; and
- Keith Bennett from Friends of Socialist China
In his contribution, Twm said in part:
I was lucky enough to visit Cuba for May Day in 2022 as part of a Young Workers Trade Union delegation. I had the opportunity to see firsthand the benefits a socialist country can bring. One example was the creation of vaccines to protect people against Covid and sharing their supplies with developing countries. A true sign of solidarity and internationalism.
We also heard about how the Young Communist League in Cuba was at the forefront during lockdowns, helping their neighbours in isolation to get essentials whilst keeping the community safe.
May Day had to be the highlight of the trip and something I’ve never experienced before or since. The march saw close to one million workers being celebrated for their contributions to society and every role was seen as equally important. The respect for workers and the importance of union organisation could be seen in all aspects of society.
Whilst this brought me hope that a different future is possible in Britain, it was clear how the inhumane 64-year-old US blockade impacts Cuban lives on a daily basis.
Whilst Cuban doctors were able to create five Covid vaccines, this was out of necessity because the US blockade played with Cuban lives, preventing them getting medical supplies such as needles to administer the vaccines.
At the beginning of this month, Cuba was without electricity for a second time in a matter of weeks following another hurricane. Due to the US blockade, Cuba was unable to import repair parts or fuel, leaving millions without electricity
These are just a couple of examples of many where the US blockade impacts Cubans’ lives daily. And despite everything Cuba is faced with, they remain true to their internationalist values of sharing the resources and expertise that they have with the rest of the world.
We have been promoting and enjoying the people’s release of ‘Comrade Tambo’s London Recruits’ this week. Cuba was at the forefront of internationalist action. In the words of Nelson Mandela, ‘if it were not for Cuba, I would not be a free man today.’”
In his contribution, Keith focused on outlining some of the history of people-to-people ties between Wales and China and of the mutual support and solidarity between the working class and peoples of the two nations.
The main congress resolution, adopted unanimously, identified one of the party’s priorities in the coming period as being to: “Improve and increase the work of the Communist Party in the peace and international solidarity movements in Wales, not least through Stop the War Cymru, CND Cymru, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Cymru-Cuba and Friends of Socialist China.”
We publish the text of Keith’s remarks below. A report on the congress was published by the Morning Star.
Dear Comrades
First, on behalf of Friends of Socialist China, I would like to extend warmest greetings to all members of the Communist Party in Wales. Thank you for the invitation to attend your Congress and to make a presentation. We wish success to all your deliberations.
Friends of Socialist China is a young organisation. We were set up in May 2021, with the goal of supporting the People’s Republic of China and spreading understanding of Chinese socialism. We have, throughout, enjoyed excellent working and comradely relations with the Communist Party of Britain, along with the Young Communist League and the Morning Star. One of our very first activities was a joint webinar, organised with the Morning Star, to celebrate the centenary of the Communist Party of China, held on July 3, 2021.
With China playing an ever more important role in the world, with its continuing advance along the road to socialism, as well as the daily more acute international situation, not least the new Cold War, we believe that the need for an organisation such as ours has never been greater.
I could speak further about this, but you can find plenty of material on our website, socialistchina.org, in the books and pamphlets available at the back, including ‘The East is still Red’, written by my comrade Carlos Martinez and ‘People’s China at 75: The Flag stays Red’, as well as in the regular excellent features and editorials in the Morning Star, including today’s centre spread on ‘China’s bridges to a socialist future’.
Instead, in the time available, I’d like to say something about two inter-related issues, namely the history of people-to-people links between Wales and China and about the solidarity and mutual support among the working class and peoples of Wales and China. I think this needs to be better known not least to encourage and guide the development of future work.
In 1983, Cardiff became the first city in the UK to sign a twinning agreement with a Chinese city – with Xiamen, a major port in Fujian province.
In 1987, Swansea signed a friendship agreement with Nantong in Jiangsu province. A double ceremony saw the Welsh flag flying over Nantong while in Swansea, then Deputy Council Leader Charles Thomas helped raise the Chinese flag over the Guildhall and commented:
“History has been made in Swansea and Nantong today and we hope it will be the start of a long, happy and prosperous relationship between the two.”
In 1989, 25 young students, aged 9-15, took Welsh culture, song and dance to four Chinese cities. Prior to their departure, they appeared on the Saint David’s Day edition of Blue Peter. Some of you might be old enough to remember the programme! A song that was composed for their visit had these lines in its chorus:
From the Welsh Dragon our song we sing
To the Chinese Dragon our love we bring
In 2002, Chinese Ambassador Ma Zhengang attended the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod – the first, but not the last, to see Chinese participation.
In 2006, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by First Minister Rhodri Morgan, on behalf of the Welsh government, and the municipal government of Chongqing, in the west of China. This was followed by a formal cooperation agreement, again signed by Rhodri Morgan in Chongqing, during his second visit in 2008. This agreement had originally been proposed by then Vice Premier (and later Premier) Wen Jiabao when he visited Wales in 2000. In 2013, Chongqing staged the ‘Wales, Land of the Red Dragon Exhibition’, featuring Welsh culture, language, history and landscape.
In 2011, the Welsh folk artist, The Gentle Good, aka Gareth Bonello, took up a musical residency in the city of Chengdu. He produced an album based on the work of the revered Tang dynasty poet Li Bai (who lived 701-762) and the visit encouraged him to combine traditional Welsh folk melodies with Chinese instrumentation and scales.
In 2014, Bangor University became the first Welsh university to establish a campus in China. Lord Dafydd Wigley of Plaid Cymru was among those present at the signing ceremony.
Turning to the longer history of solidarity, let me give just two examples.
In 1859, a public meeting was held in the town hall in Neath, presided over by the Mayor, to unanimously adopt a petition to parliament, “praying for the total and immediate repression of the opium trade” that Britain had foisted upon China, which it further described as iniquitous and demoralising.
Perhaps not surprisingly for those with some familiarity with Welsh working class history, pride of place has to be given to the South Wales Miners’ Federation.
In 1937, it adopted a resolution, which read in part:
“This Council of the South Wales Miners’ Federation, representing 120,000 members, expresses its deep-felt horror at the savage and inhuman massacre of defenceless men women and children in China by the invading forces of Japan. We urge the Trades Union Congress Council to make every effort through the International Federation of Trade Unions and other working class organisations, particularly in European countries, Australia, United States and Canada, to adopt a policy of refusing to handle any goods and materials for export to or imported from Japan and to create a worldwide movement to boycott all Japanese goods, until the Japanese have left Chinese territory.”
The next year, while making a donation for the provision of medical supplies to China, it passed the following resolution:
“This Executive Council of the South Wales Miners’ Federation expresses the strongest indignation and protest against the ruthless war of aggression which Japanese imperialism is waging on China, accompanied as it has been by the systematic barbarous and pitiless massacre of the Chinese civil population.
“It hopes that the victories of the Chinese armies over the Japanese armies will continue and that they will have the effect of wearing down and ultimately smashing the power of the Japanese military clique, thus opening the way of peace, freedom and democracy in Japan as well as liberating China from the danger of foreign domination.
“This Executive Council therefore calls upon the members of the South Wales Miners’ Federation to do whatever they can to assist the Chinese people in their struggle, particularly in regard to boycotting Japanese goods and creating a public opinion to force the British government to adopt a more positive policy in aid of China and against the present imperialist rulers of Japan.”
In 1955, some six years after the founding of the People’s Republic, Will Paynter, President of the Federation, who was also, of course, a leading member of the Communist Party for many decades, and who had fought with the International Brigades in Spain, submitted a resolution to the delegate conference of the South Wales Area of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which strongly condemned, “the policy now being pursued by the United States government in bolstering up the regime of Chiang Kai-shek in Formosa (Taiwan) and other islands off the Chinese coast. Such a policy can only result in World War threatening the extermination of humanity.”
That same year, Dai Dan Evans, Vice President of the South Wales area of the NUM, whose picture appears on your new banner behind me, represented the union on a delegation of the Welsh National Peace Council to China, “to convey the greetings of Welsh miners to the Chinese people”.
As co-author of an introduction to Evans’ report on his visit, Will Paynter wrote:
“The class approach with which Dai Dan reports on the New China has its roots in 26 years of toil at the coalface in the Swansea Valley; years of service in this union as a Lodge Secretary, Miners’ Agent and more recently as Vice-President. His understanding is that of a socialist whose sincerity and ability is unchallenged.
“We commend this report to our members not merely as a source of information upon New China but also as a stimulus to greater activity to ensure full recognition of the New China by the United Nations; to compel the removal of all trade barriers and to maintain peaceful coexistence between our two countries.”
Evans also reported back that the problem of the chronic lung disease pneumoconiosis was a serious one among miners in China. He had taken lung samples and equipment with him to China. This was followed up by a visit of a Chinese miners’ delegation to Wales in 1956, whose programme included visits to hospitals, and to the pathological laboratory at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary and the mass radiography department for tuberculosis in Llanduff, among other specialised institutions.
Expressing thanks for the visit, following its return, the chairman of the Chinese miners’ union wrote: “In their report they emphasised the close friendship between the miners and the peoples of China and South Wales.”
Comrades, I mention this history, not to archive it, but to inspire us with regard to what needs to be done. What can be done. This is a great legacy on which to build. Of course, the present times are not easy ones. But when were they ever? Certainly not in the 1930s or the 1950s.
I hope that working together, in 2025 and beyond, we can also reach out to people in the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru, in the trade union and anti-war movements, in social and cultural organisations, and in other walks of life, so that Wales once again becomes a trailblazer in friendship and solidarity with China, as an essential component of our overall fight for peace and socialism.
Thank you very much.
