China
The class nature of the Chinese state
By Doug Lorimer
[The general line of this report was adopted by the 18th DSP Congress, January 5-10, 1999. This text is taken from The Activist, volume 9, number 1, 1999.]
The purpose of this report is to motivate the adoption by the party of the "Theses on the Class Nature of the People's Republic of China" approved by the National Committee at its October plenum last year.
Since 1993 our party has held the position that the ruling Chinese bureaucracy has been presiding over the restoration of capitalism in China. However, our policy toward China has been ambigious: while taking an oppositional stance in our public press toward the ruling bureaucracy's restorationist course, we have left it unclear as to whether we continued to believe that China is still a bureaucratically ruled socialist state.
China: 'A sixteen-point proposal on China's reform'
By Martin Hart-Landsberg
China: Elite rule faces rising social and working-class struggles
[For more discussion on China's economic and political development, click HERE.]
By Kevin Lin
February 11, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- China’s transition to state-led capitalism over the past three decades has generated numerous social struggles against the state and capital. With China’s ascent in the capitalist world economy, the social struggles inside China not only have a significant domestic impact, but increasingly international ramifications.
As China celebrates the Year of the Dragon, it is an opportune time to critically review the situation for social struggles and their prospects for the future.
State and elite politics
John Bellamy Foster & Robert W. McChesney: Global stagnation and China
[Links International Journal
Philippines: No to an anti-China alliance! For an independent foreign policy and a non-aligned ASEAN
Will US forces return to the Subic Bay naval base?
Martin Hart-Landsberg: Globalisation, capitalism and China
Workers at the Foxconn (the Taiwanese multinational corporation owned) factory located in China in which many Apple products are assembled.
[For more discussion on China's economic and political development, click HERE.]
By Martin Hart-Landsberg
January 24, 2012 -- Reports from the Economic Front, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- A January 22, 2012 New York Times story, "The iEconomy: How US Lost Out on iPhone Work", has been getting a lot of coverage. The article makes clear that Apple and other major multinational corporations have moved production to China not only to take advantage of low wages but also to exploit a labour environment that gives maximum flexibility.
The following quote gives a flavour for what attracts Apple to China:
China: Workers' action and collective awakening -- the 2010 auto workers' strike wave
[For more discussion on China's economic and political development, click HERE.]
By Wang Kan*, translated by Ralf Ruckus
Sozial Geschichte Online #6 (2011), posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- On May 17, 2010, a strike erupted at the Honda parts plant in Nanhai, a city located in the Chinese centre of the manufacturing industry in Guangdong province. More than 1800 workers participated, and the strike disrupted all of Honda’s spare parts production facilities in China and led to the paralysing of Honda’s car production in China. On May 28, the strike wave spread to a Hyundai carfactory and on May 29 to US-American Chrysler’s joint venture Jeep factory, both in Beijing. On June 18, Toyota’s second car plant in Tianjin had to close, due to a strike.
In July, the Chinese media were universally asked to restrict their coverage of the strikes, but the strikes in the auto industry still did not stop. Prior to July 22, at least two of Honda’s joint venture factories saw strikes. The organisers and most important participants of these strikes were migrant workers (nongmingong, peasant workers). During the strike wave they showed very strong collective consciousness and capacity for collective action.
China: Misery in Santa's workshop -- inside China's toy factories
A 2004 film shows that little has changed.
[For more discussion on China's economic and political development, click HERE.]
December 23, 2011 -- A new report by Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) reveals the terrible working conditions endured by workers who produce many of the toys that will be enjoyed by children in the Western world this Christmas.
In Guangdong province, from where 70% of China’s toys are exported, migrant workers’ official basic salary is around 850-1320 yuan a month (US$134-208), the statutory local minimum wage. The minimum wage is barely enough for self-subsistence.
[For more discussion on China's economic and political development, click HERE.]
The following petition, organised by the Hong Kong-based coalition Left21, explains the background to, and demands of, the rebellion by the people of Wukan.
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China: Marxism with capitalist characteristics?
[For more discussion on China's economic and political development, click HERE.]
Ian Parker reflects on a recent visit to China
November 9, 2011 -- Socialist Resistance -- Capitalism in China is rapidly uprooting and throwing into the marketplace all that seemed fixed and frozen since the revolution in 1949, but -- as with all other forms of capitalism -- this market is all but free. The bureaucracy holds in place systems of authority necessary for capital accumulation, and the Chinese state is a key player in the enrichment of a new bourgeoisie. There are particular political-economic and ideological conditions for this transition, of course, and one of the most important is the legacy of Maoism, and how the claim to be a socialist country is squared with the rapid abandonment of each and every tenet of socialism.