US brings charges of economic espionage against six Chinese engineers and businessmen

Patrick Martin

The US Justice Department has brought charges of economic espionage against six Chinese citizens, including three who studied together at the University of Southern California (USC) a decade ago, the agency announced Tuesday.

The department unsealed a grand jury indictment on Monday night, May 18, two days after one of the six men, 36-year-old Professor Zhang Hao of Tianjin University, was arrested upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport. He was coming to the US from China to attend a conference.

The other five are believed to be in China, according to press reports, and would not likely travel to the US now that an indictment against them has been made public. Their names and ages are given in the indictment as Pang Wei, 35; Zhang Huisui, 34; Jinping Chen, 41; Chong Zhou, 26; and Zhao Gang, 39.

Zhang Hao, Zhang Husui and Pang Wei all received degrees in electrical engineering in 2006 from USC, then went to work at three separate small American companies: Avago, in Colorado; Skyworks, in Massachusetts; and Micrel Semiconductor in California.

The three men discussed plans to form a Chinese company that could develop technology similar to what they were working on in the United States, which sought to filter out unwanted noise from wireless devices like cellphones. Avago and Skyworks are both suppliers of filter chips to Apple for use in its iPhone, which came out in 2007. Similar chips are used by Samsung, Motorola, Nokia and other cellphone makers, with the overall market valued at about $1 billion.

The three engineers had returned to China by 2009 and formed several companies, in which the other three indicted men were allegedly involved, filing patents in the acoustic technology area. Some of the companies were joint ventures with Tianjin University, where the engineers had obtained academic positions. According to US press reports this week, Avago learned about the “thefts” of its technology in the fall of 2011 and went to the US authorities.

Even if the facts are as presented in the indictments—which certainly remains to be proven—the actions of the six Chinese men amount to garden-variety practices of capitalism in the technology industry, on both sides of the Pacific, where the hoarding, purchase and theft of “business secrets” is commonplace. Companies in Silicon Valley are notorious for raiding each other’s engineers in order to gain access to technology.

The charges were brought under the Economic Espionage Act, using a provision that requires proof that theft of business information is on behalf of a foreign power. In this case, the link to the “foreign power,” China, is flimsy, based on the joint venture with Tianjin University, a state-run educational institution.

Nonetheless, US government officials were at pains to present the case as a major national security issue. The US Attorney for San Francisco, Melinda Haag, whose office is handling the prosecution, said, “Sensitive technology developed by US companies in Silicon Valley and throughout California continues to be vulnerable to coordinated and complex efforts sponsored by foreign governments to steal that technology.”

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke added, “Economic espionage is something that we take very seriously. We’re always vigilant about these kinds of concerns.”

Such statements, however, beg the question, given that more than three years have passed since this supposedly major technology theft came to the notice of federal investigators. The timing of the arrest and the indictments suggests other considerations are driving the case.

The well-publicized indictment comes as the Obama administration is ramping up its military-diplomatic campaign against China, dubbed the “pivot to Asia,” which involves presenting China as an aggressive, expansionist power threatening the position of US imperialism in the Asia Pacific.

In particular, the arrest of Professor Zhao comes on the eve of votes in the House and Senate to grant Obama “fast-track” authority to complete the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a grouping of 12 Pacific rim countries, including the United States and Japan, excluding China, and based on trade and investment rules unfavorable to Beijing.

Faced with a strident protectionist campaign against the TPP mounted by the AFL-CIO and Senate liberals like Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown, which led to an embarrassing, if temporary, setback in the Senate last week, the White House has stepped up its arguments for the TPP as a national security measure aimed against China.

As the New York Times wrote May 12, “Mr. Obama has repeatedly framed the Pacific accord as a way to counter China’s rising power in Asia, giving countries like Malaysia, Brunei, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam an economic alliance that would be a counterweight to China’s increasingly assertive policies in the region.”

The Washington Post elaborated on this theme in a lengthy article May 18, reporting that “Washington’s Democratic foreign policy elite has mounted a fierce defense of the pact as crucial to the Obama administration’s national security strategy. Behind their warnings lies the uncomfortable truth that some inside the administration view the TPP, a broad 12-nation accord, as a policy aimed foremost at China.”

There is little doubt that these geo-strategic considerations, rather than anything the six Chinese men have actually done, accounts for their indictment and the arrest of Professor Zhao.

US prepares to challenge China in the South China Sea

Peter Symonds

A front-page article in today’s Australian confirms the advanced preparations being made in Washington for a provocative confrontation with China in the South China Sea. Entitled “US showdown with Beijing looms over Chinese military build-up,” it declares that “momentum is building strongly in Washington” to fly warplanes or send warships within the 12-mile territorial limit surrounding Chinese-held islets and reefs.

For months, US officials have condemned China’s land reclamation activity on disputed islets in the South China Sea. In late March, Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, denounced China’s actions as the construction of “a great wall of sand” that threatened to bring strategic waters and shipping routes under its control.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal revealed that US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter instructed the Pentagon to draw up plans to directly challenge China’s territorial claims by sending military ships or aircraft within the 12-mile limit. Such an utterly reckless move could provoke a conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers.

The Australian article, based on sources in both Washington and Canberra, points out that the Wall Street Journal article was leaked by US Pacific Command (PACOM) “which was extremely concerned about Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea.” The leak was clearly aimed at putting pressure on the Obama administration, which if it “did not undertake a freedom of navigation action... will be seen to have backed away from asserting America’s core traditional position.”

Former senior National Security Council official Mike Green told theAustralian he believed the Obama administration had “firmed up recently” on the South China Sea. “There is now a consensus that something has to be done. They haven’t yet decided from the menu of options,” he said.

According to the Australian, a US operation would likely occur after Defence Secretary Carter addresses the Shangri-La Defence Dialogue in Singapore at the end of the month and before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington in September. The article noted that the Australian government “would be almost certain to provide diplomatic support,” even though it “would inevitably provoke new tensions in Canberra’s relations with Beijing.”

US propaganda over China’s activities in the South China Sea is being ramped up. At a conference in Jakarta yesterday, US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Beijing of provoking instability and tensions in the region by making “sovereign land out of sandcastles and redraw[ing] maritime boundaries.”

Such statements are completely hypocritical. Having ignored the festering maritime disputes in the South China Sea for decades, the US has deliberately stoked up tensions as part of its “pivot to Asia” aimed at undermining China and encircling it militarily. While formally claiming to be neutral in the disputes, Washington has encouraged South East Asian countries to more aggressively advance their claims. For all the hue and cry about China’s activities, the US is completely silent about land reclamation and construction being carried out by the Philippines and Vietnam.

Moreover, any intrusion into waters or airspace claimed by China, on the pretext of protecting “freedom of navigation,” implicitly denies China’s sovereignty over the shoals and reefs that it currently administers. One only has to consider Washington’s response to any attempt by China to assert its “right” to “freedom of navigation” in waters off the coast of California to understand the provocative character of the US plan.

The media is playing its part. In a featured exclusive, CNN sent a news team yesterday to accompany a US P8-A Poseidon surveillance aircraft on a reconnaissance mission near Chinese-controlled islets. The report makes clear that such operations routinely take place and provoke Chinese warnings—eight in this case—even without entering the 12-mile limit. The article claimed that “China’s alarming creation of entirely new territory in the South China Sea” was part of “a broader military push that some fear is intended to challenge US dominance in the region.”

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Admiral Michelle Howard, vice chief of naval operations, declared that it was time for China to explain its land reclamation activities. In Singapore for a defence exhibition, she encouraged the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to take action against China. “If the ASEAN nations want to get together and do something to demonstrate their united purpose, we’ll be supportive of that,” Howard said.

Washington has been strengthening its alliances and strategic partnerships throughout the region. This week, military commanders from Japan, Australia, the Philippines and 20 other mostly Asia-Pacific countries were in Hawaii for the PACOM Amphibious Leaders Symposium to improve the cooperation and integration. All of them participated in a war game involving an amphibious landing by boat and helicopter to destroy a fictitious military training camp.

The event was clearly directed against China. Visiting officers and officials were given a ride on an Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and a tour of the amphibious assault ship, the USS Essex, and other naval vessels. “I don’t think China can match the complexity,” Martin Sebastian, head of the Maritime Institute of Malaysia, commented to Reuters.

The USS Essex is part of a three-ship Amphibious Ready Group and Marine Expeditionary Unit that is about to be deployed to the Western Pacific and the Middle East. Details of its mission have not been released, but the official announcement declared: “[T]he Essex ARG/MEU serves as a sea-based, expeditionary crisis response force capable of conducting amphibious missions across the full range of military operations.”

Other US naval forces are being concentrated in the Western Pacific, with two American aircraft strike groups currently in the area. The USS Carl Vinson, which was in the Middle East and is heading home, last week engaged in joint exercises with the Malaysian military in the South China Sea. The USS George Washington, which is also due to return to the US, is taking part in exercises in the Western Pacific.

Given the political and military build-up, a US military challenge to China in the South China Sea is likely sooner rather than later. Such an operation poses the real danger, whether deliberately or by miscalculation, of provoking an escalating conflict that neither side is able to control.

EU approves military operation against Mediterranean refugees

Johannes Stern

The European Union is putting its plans for a military intervention in the Mediterranean and North Africa into action. The decision was made by EU foreign and defence ministers at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.

A press release states: “The Council has agreed today (18 May) to establish an EU military operation—EUNAVFOR Med—to break the business model of smugglers and traffickers of people in the Mediterranean. This decision, which is one element of the comprehensive EU response to the migration challenge, will enable the formal start of the operational planning for the naval operation.”

The first phase of the mission to uncover the smuggling networks and their routes will begin immediately, to be followed by a second and third phase “that would work to search, seize and disrupt the assets of smugglers.”

According to the press release, the Italian Rear Admiral Enrico Credendino will direct the intervention. Rome will be the headquarters of the operation, which will initially last 12 months. The costs of a two-month “preparatory phase” are estimated at €11.82 million.

The appointment of Credendino alone makes clear the nature of the mission. The Italian Admiral has been in command of Operation Atalanta, the EU’s military intervention off the coast of Somalia. Warships of EU member states hunt for suspected pirates, attacking not only ships, but also supposed pirate camps ashore.

Although initially only the first phase is to be implemented, it is clear that the EU is prepared for much more extensive action. According to the press release, the operation will “tackle the root causes of irregular migration as requested by the European Council on 23 April 2015.”

At that time, following a series of terrible disasters in the Mediterranean with more than 2,000 deaths, the EU leaders had adopted the infamous “Ten-Point Plan for Migration.” It includes stricter police and military operations against refugees and lays the foundation for a massive military intervention in Africa.

Since then, the plans have advanced further. Prior to the meeting on Monday, Spiegel Online reported a concept developed by the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini: “What Mogherini has prepared over six pages, is no less than the possible launch of a new EU military mission.” Its mandate relies on Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which authorizes the use of military force.

The text of Mogherini’s document suggests a far-reaching plan of attack. “The mandate should expressly allow operations in the waters of Libya and on Libyan territory to destroy the smugglers’ infrastructure there,” it states. Threats from the weapons in the possession of Libyan militias, including air defence systems and ground-to-air missiles should be countered with a martial “Force Protection” operation prepared for a “hostile environment.”

The EU’s plans are as revealing as they are criminal. Of course, the European elites and their henchmen in the mainstream media fail to make any mention of the fact that the chaos in Libya and the dramatic refugee disaster in the Middle East and North Africa are a direct result of Western policy. The wars conducted and supported by the US and the European states—including the NATO bombing of Libya in 2011 and the arming of Islamist militias to overthrow Gaddafi—have destroyed an entire region and turned millions into refugees.

Now, the imperialist powers are using the disaster to once again prepare military interventions behind the backs of the population.

Over the weekend, Bild am Sonntag published an “exclusive interview” with the German Commander Alexander Gottschalk, on board the frigate Hessenoff the Libyan coast. While the paper tried to present the naval action as a “humanitarian” operation to rescue small refugee children, it is clear that military actions have already begun.

Asked what would happen to the boats after the refugees were rescued, the captain responded: “We must destroy the boats because they are a maritime hazard to other boats on the open sea. On the other hand, it could be that we erroneously regard an empty boat from the air as a boat in distress and go to save it. That can cost valuable time lost in saving occupied boats. Therefore we let the air out of inflatable dinghies and set them on fire. We also sink the less common wooden boats.”

Even Die Zeit, which publishes war propaganda in weekly instalments, noted under the headline “German frigate has license to sink” that using the military to destroy smugglers’ boats was “controversial.”

In addition to legal questions, it was “also unclear how the boats are to be detected. The military access powers were still open, with an eye on the position of the UN Security Council.”

To put it plainly: without a UN mandate, the military operation is in violation of international law and has even less legal cover than the criminal NATO attack on Libya four years ago!

Nevertheless, in contrast to its hesitation to intervene in Libya then, Germany stands at the head of the intervention today. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD, Social Democratic Party) declared in Brussels that the mission could begin quickly, adding that this was the consensus within the EU. At the same time, Steinmeier, who has repeatedly demanded a greater role for Germany in the world, warned that military action alone would not change the situation.

What is envisaged by Steinmeier and the German elite is a much broader EU engagement in Africa. Even before the recent EU foreign ministers’ meeting in April, he had declared to the press: “I think we need to see that we are faced with a daunting task ... We know that the migration pressure will not relent as long as we have instability in North Africa and therefore what needs our attention, and it will be not be resolved in the short term, are the transit routes and countries of origin, and the most important transit country is at the moment Libya, a country that is falling apart if we do not interrupt and reverse the process.”

On Monday, at a joint press conference with Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU, Christian Democratic Union), he urged the “bringing to power of a government of national unity” in this resource-rich country.

A WSWS perspective, “The refugee catastrophe and the new ‘scramble for Africa,’” explained what the real objectives of Brussels and Berlin are.

To understand this, one needs only to look at the “Africa Policy Guidelines” adopted by the German government in the spring of 2014. The document speaks of the “growing relevance of Africa for Germany and Europe,” stemming, in part, from the growing economy and “rich natural resources” of the continent. The statement calls on the German government to act “early, quickly, decisively and substantially,” and to “use the full range of its available resources.”

Token fines for banks caught rigging foreign exchange markets

Andre Damon & Barry Grey

In yet another wrist-slap settlement for bankers involved in criminality on a massive scale, the US government on Wednesday announced that five major banks had pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy and antitrust charges and agreed to pay a combined total of approximately $5 billion in fines.

The payouts, much of them tax deductible, are a fraction of the combined profits of the banks. The amounts have already been set aside by bank CEOs as the cost of doing business in an environment in which banks routinely break the law, secure in the knowledge that there will be no serious consequences.

The banks—JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Barclays and RBS—admitted to conspiring to rig global currency exchange rates. They made billions of dollars by illegally manipulating rates affecting countless businesses and individuals around the world. All of the banks were previously implicated in rigging Libor (the London Interbank Offered Rate), the global benchmark used to set short-term interest rates for hundreds of trillions of dollars in loans.

Two of the banks, UBS and Barclays, carried out the foreign exchange fraud in violation of the terms of their non-prosecution agreements with the US government stemming from their involvement in the Libor scandal.

The documents released by the Justice Department in relation to the settlement point to the culture of fraud and criminality on Wall Street. As one Barclays vice president put it, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”

Since the Wall Street crash of 2008, these and other major banks have been cited for crimes ranging from fraudulently selling worthless mortgage securities, to laundering money for Mexican drug lords, facilitating Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and concealing billions in speculative losses. For these crimes they have suffered no serious consequences.

Instead, regulators in the US and internationally have crafted settlements in backroom negotiations with the criminals involving token fines that turn out to be significantly smaller than the nominal figures announced by government officials.

“The criminality occurred on a massive scale,” said FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe, announcing the foreign exchange fraud settlement on Wednesday. He explained that traders at multiple banks rigged estimates of global currency exchange rates every day for up to five years.

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke of the conspiracy’s “breathtaking flagrancy, its systemic reach, and its significant impact.” Aitan Goelman, the head of enforcement at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, called the five banks a “cabal.”

These statements, meant to give the appearance of government toughness toward the banks, only underscored the gaping discrepancy between the scale of the crimes and the toothless character of the punishment. Wednesday’s announcement was further confirmation that the US and international financial aristocracy is above the law.

Not a single major bank has been closed down or broken up since the 2008 crash, triggered by reckless and illegal speculative activities. Not a single bank CEO or top official has been prosecuted or jailed for crimes that have led to the impoverishment of countless millions of people.

But a petty crime carried out by a US worker or working-class youth brings down the wrath of a so-called “justice system” that is merciless when it comes to the lower social orders. Tens of thousands of workers and poor people are cast into America’s prison gulag every year for offenses that pale in comparison to the crimes carried out by Wall Street CEOs.

Or they are killed outright by the militarized police who occupy America’s working-class neighborhoods. Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed youth, was gunned down last August by a Ferguson, Missouri cop who was tracking him for allegedly stealing a package of cigarillos from a convenience store.

In the deal announced Wednesday, the banks pleaded guilty to felony charges. This is a departure from previous settlements in which the government allowed the banks to avoid any admission of guilt.

But the guilty pleas were part of a scheme worked out between the government and the banks to render the pleas virtually meaningless. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued waivers exempting the banks from the legal repercussions of committing a felony, giving them continued preferential treatment in issuing debt as well as the continued ability to operate mutual funds.

In today’s thoroughly corrupt political environment, totally dominated by corporate money, there is no stigma attached to a bank that effectively admits to being a criminal enterprise. The media pays no attention and the markets could care less. Shares of most of the banks involved in the settlement spiked on Wednesday. UBS and Barclays both rose 3.4 percent. RBS finished the day up by 1.9 percent.

Wednesday’s settlement is further evidence of the reassertion of the aristocratic principle in contemporary capitalist society: there is one set of laws for the vast majority, the working people, and an entirely different legal framework for the financial oligarchs—one that can be summed up with the phrase “Anything goes.”

Britain’s anti-terror law and the global assault on democratic rights

Jordan Shilton

In the year marking 800 years since England’s Magna Carta, which asserted that kings could not simply impose their will without oversight and freemen could not be punished unless they violated the law of the land, Britain’s new Conservative government is preparing a massive assault on civil liberties.

The Tories are set to enact new legislation targeting “extremists” that poses a fundamental threat to political opponents of the government and to the working class. The claim that the new law is aimed simply or primarily at Islamic terrorists is a lie.

Under the legislation’s provisions, the authorities will be able to punish anyone engaged in “harmful” behaviour, ranging from public disorder to threatening the functioning of democracy. Individuals or groups subject to “extremist disruption orders” and “banning orders” will be compelled to submit to the police all material they intend to publish, including on social media. Individuals may also be prohibited from attending public gatherings and speaking at demonstrations or protests.

Prime Minister David Cameron indicated the sweep of the government’s intentions when he proclaimed that Britain has been a “passively tolerant society for too long, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.” Freedom from persecution by the state will no longer be guaranteed, even to those who obey the law.

The British government’s proposal is only the latest in a raft of anti-democratic measures adopted internationally in recent months. The new push for police state powers was initiated by the United States.

In a speech at the United Nations last September, President Barack Obama called on Washington’s allies to step up efforts to combat Islamic extremism. The call came shortly after the US initiated its latest war of aggression in the Middle East with the bombardment of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) positions in Iraq and Syria.

In February, Obama hosted a terrorism summit in Washington involving 65 states. The US president remarked in a speech that both domestic and foreign policies had to target not only “terrorists who are killing innocent people,” but also the “ideologies, the infrastructure of extremists—the propagandists, recruiters, the funders who radicalize and recruit or incite people to violence.”

The World Socialist Web Site warned at the time that such all-embracing formulations could “potentially include virtually anyone who condemns the supposedly ‘moderate’ policies of US imperialism.”

Within weeks of this summit, draconian measures have been imposed in a number of countries.

Last month, the French parliament adopted a new anti-terror law allowing for a vast expansion of state surveillance. Seizing on January’s attack on the offices of the publication Charlie Hebdo, the Socialist Party government of François Hollande included in the law an increase in military and intelligence service positions so as to expand monitoring of the Internet and social networking sites. Intelligence agents will be authorized to read documents of individuals under surveillance and a new database for air travel is to be established.

In Canada, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper is rushing a law through parliament that hands draconian new powers to the intelligence services. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) will now be empowered to actively “disrupt” groups considered to threaten economic or national security or the country’s territorial integrity. The CSIS will be given a green light to violate the Canadian Constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and break virtually any law in so doing.

As in the case of Cameron’s forthcoming legislation, the definition of national security threats in Canada’s Bill C-51 is so broad and elastic as to cover political opponents of the government’s militarist foreign policy and striking workers.

Bill C-51 also provides for the prosecution of individuals accused of “promoting terrorism,” in line with similar provisions passed in Australia last year targeting free speech.

A significant feature of the new “anti-terrorism” and “anti-extremist” laws is the rapidity with which they are being implemented. Over the course of a few months, legislation has been enacted in France and rammed through Canada’s House of Commons that undermines long-standing democratic norms. The British law is due to be included in the May 27 Queen’s Speech, which outlines the government’s legislative priorities, and will be implemented within months.

There is no serious opposition within the ruling elite internationally to the abandonment of democratic procedures and implementation of police state measures. The Cameron government’s new law was presented at the end of an election campaign in which all of the major parties upheld the right of the intelligence services to continue their mass surveillance of the population, supported Britain’s aggressive militarist foreign policy abroad, and advocated fresh attacks on the social rights of workers at home.

The British Labour Party, during its thirteen years in power, oversaw the strengthening of police powers to detain suspects, codified in the 2001 Terrorism Act, the criminalisation of the “encouragement” and “incitement” of terrorism in 2006, and Britain’s leading role in the operation of a global spying network in alliance with the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The US led the way in the initial assault on democratic rights in the aftermath of 9/11, with the passage of the Patriot Act, the opening of the gulag at Guantanamo, the policies of rendition and torture, and the vast expansion of the NSA’s spying programme.

Edward Snowden’s revelations brought to light the fact that all of the major imperialist powers are complicit in the mass surveillance of their own populations.

The claim that these governments are pursuing a crusade for democracy in the supposed “war on terror” has been exposed as a fraud. This was most recently illustrated by the revelation that the 2011 assassination of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden came after US intelligence had been aware for a year that he was being sheltered by Pakistani intelligence.

In pursuit of their imperialist interests around the globe, the US and its allies have been more than willing to collaborate with the same Islamic extremist groups they cite to justify attacks on democratic rights domestically. In both Libya and Syria, the Western powers backed forces loyal to Al Qaeda, some of which went on to form ISIS. So brazen was the support for jihadist forces in Libya that, as revealed recently by the Ottawa Citizen, Canadian military officials joked in 2011 that NATO warplanes were operating as “Al Qaeda’s air force.”

There are two interconnected reasons for the establishment of the infrastructure for dictatorship. First, as the danger mounts of a global conflagration between the imperialist powers, fears grow within the bourgeoisie of the potential for a mass movement in opposition to militarism.

Second, the same limitless self-enrichment by the financial oligarchy that animates the turn to militarism and colonial-style wars of conquest underlies the assault on jobs, wages and essential services that Cameron has declared the new “age of austerity.”

The prevailing level of social inequality—the ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society alongside the impoverishment of the vast majority—is incompatible with democratic forms of rule. The preservation of such a social order demands coercion and state violence.

Countering Left Wing Extremism: Failures within Successes

Bibhu Prasad Routray


It is a curious cocktail of bravery, success, and also operational paralysis. Like most incidents reported from the theatres affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE), the 16 May 2015 incident in Chhattisgarh also has a twist in the tale. In the end, the big picture that emerges from the incident merely reinforces the oft-repeated assertion that a victory over the reds is improbable in the near future.

In the early hours of 16 May 2015, an encounter took place near Ponjed in Bijapur district, between the Special Task Force (STF) and the District Reserve Guard personnel of the Chhattisgarh police (who were conducting an anti-LWE operation) and the extremists. A prolonged exchange of fire resulted in the death of three police personnel and two Maoists. Notwithstanding the loss of lives of its three men, the police establishment projected the incident as one of their "best battle[s]."

The "best battle" assessment by the Director General of the Chhattisgarh Police is based on the success of the police personnel in recovering the corpse of Hemla Masa alias Vijay, the commander of Company 2 of the West Bastar Division of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) who was killed in the encounter. Maoists usually drag the corpses out of the encounter sites. The recovery of Masa's corpse, described as the lone case of such recovery of a "top-most cadre in the entire history of the Maoist conflict," is an achievement.

Additionally, 15 rounds of AK-47 ammunition, nine shells of the Under Barrel Grenade Launcher, a 12 bore rifle and a wireless set were also recovered following the encounter. Given that it took almost 24 hours for the police to recover the bodies of seven of its personnel killed in the 11 April 2015 encounter in the neighbouring Sukma district, a task that was achieved only after the local journalists sought permission from the extremists, the recovery of Masa's body could be a source of gratification, although with negligible operational value. 

This 'success' of the Chhattisgarh police, however, needs to be placed within the overall context of a difficult phase of anti-LWE operations in Chhattisgarh. This year, till 16 May, 30 security forces have been killed in the state, constituting a staggering 83 per cent of fatalities among the forces in all LWE-affected states. This data underlines why the state is the worst affected by the LWE problem. However, what invariably points at a much deeper malaise affecting the anti-LWE operations in Chhattisgarh is the fact that not a single one of these 30 fatalities belong to the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which has deployed 593 companies in the LWE-affected states according to the last count. 

Far from an expected deduction that the CRPF personnel have been more successful in avoiding losses among their ranks, the on-ground reality remains what a prominent newspaper report concluded recently. The CRPF "has almost stopped sending its men to distant areas for operations," wrote the Indian Express on 18 May 2015. Notwithstanding the periodic rebuttal issued by the CRPF, which flaunts its own set of data of successful anti-LWE encounters, the force, once at the fore-front of the anti-LWE operations, has today become a defensive one, operating with the sole objective of completely preventing deaths among its personnel. According to a directive issued by the CRPF headquarters last year – which is still in vogue – officers on the ground must wait for sanctions from their higher-ups in the headquarters before launching an intelligence-led operation. The invariable bureaucratic delay ensures that such operations are either avoided or achieve little purpose when carried out due to the fact that these were undertaken much after their specific period of utility.

In his April 2015 media interview, CRPF chief Prakash Mishra attributed the drastic reduction of casualties among his personnel to tactical and intelligence-based operations. He outlined that the CRPF now focuses on helping building infrastructure in affected states, providing more facilities for people in the areas, including medicines, which will eventually lead to "more surrenders of Naxals in the coming times." He also pointed at the problem in generating ground level intelligence especially in areas where no functional police station exists. Some of Mishra's assertions run contrary to the opinions of the Chhattisgarh police authorities who swear by the 'CRPF taking a backseat' narrative. They emphasise that there is a persisting problem of coordination among the state and the central forces and accuse the CRPF of acting like an "unhelpful big brother."

New Delhi on several occasions in the past has underlined its intention to effect policy changes to resolve the LWE problem. Deployment of more forces, allotment of more resources, and undertaking of development projects in the affected areas have been highlighted as priorities. Somewhere in these big policy statements, the persisting operational problems affecting coordination between central and state forces appear to have been missed out. A course correction is urgently required, especially at a time when the extremists are struggling with their own set of existential issues.

Maoists in the Western Ghats: Propaganda or Substance?

Uddipan Mukherjee


On 4 May 2015, at a bakery in a village near Coimbatore, Roopesh and his wife Shyna were arrested in a joint operation by the police departments of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The two have allegedly led Maoists in Kerala for years and are key strategists for the left-wing extremists.

It is worth noting that the Maoists are attempting to push into northern Kerala for some time now. In November and December 2014, a number of incidents in Palakkad and Wayanad districts indicated Maoist presence. 

The latest issue (January-March 2015) of the Maoist mouthpiece, People’s March, is out in public domain. Among many diverse revolutionary topics touched upon in this issue, a key one to be focused upon is the Politico-Military Campaign (PMC) in the Western Ghats. The essay shoots thus:

“Overcoming innumerable obstacles and snatching initiative, PLGA fighters and urban action team combatants led by the Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee (WGSZC) of the CPI (Maoist) have opened up a new warfront in the State of Keralam…Some of these actions were done in broad day light through bold and rapid moves in urban centres, stunning the enemy and enthusing the people…”

The Maoists claim that “these actions were carried out as part of a PMC carried out over a three-month period from November 2014 to January 2015.” Moreover, the ultras believe this ‘success’ to be a “qualitative turn” in their revolutionary war. They admit that a similar initiative undertaken a decade earlier had been muted in the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala by the security forces. 

In fact, an abysmal failure on the part of the ultras pushed them to form the WGSZC to propel forward. The document reveals that the Maoists had begun systematically infiltrating the tri-junction of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala from May 2012 itself from their base at Malnad. According to the narrative, since February 2013, when the presence of the Maoists was exposed to the security forces, the extremists developed contacts with the adivasi masses, and practically and simultaneously propagated revolutionary politics and the necessity of armed struggle. The PLGA cadres also studied the socioeconomic conditions of the region. In parallel, the Maoists fought in the plane of propaganda against their ex-comrades, whom they, with derision, term “exalites” – who had dismissed the Maoist expansion in Kerala. 

As per their suo moto admission, the region of Maoist concentration in Kerala is inhabited by approximately fifty adivasi tribes engaged in agriculture and herding. Quite expectedly, the Maoists have chosen their area of expansion in place that has large concentrations of agricultural and plantation workers – spanning both adivasis and dalits. 

Historically, the Maoists have attempted to gain strength and credence from the proud history of fierce resistance to British colonialism by the Kurichya adivasis during the late 18th and early 19th century in the Wayanad area. Wayanad was also one of the main areas of revolutionary struggles in Kerala during the armed peasant rebellion of Naxalbari. 

Finally, the essay zooms out by saying that this particular campaign at the tri-junction and consequent foray into Kerala defies the tall claims of the Indian state that the Maoist movement is confined in the Central and Eastern spheres of India only. 

What could be gleaned out of the narrative in their commentary? 

First, this ought to be construed as a major propaganda construct by the Maoists as opposed to reality. Though it is a fact that reports confirmed Maoist presence at the tri-junction of the three Indian states, a mere presence does not automatically mean establishment of a guerrilla base. The presence is qualitative; no quantitative factors have been posited by the guerrilla group.

Second, the Maoists are still using the term PLGA – which categorically proves that they are still far off from the third and decisive phase of guerrilla warfare – that is, the Strategic Offense phase with the People’s Liberation Army being ready for a conventional war. 

Third, the claims of attracting the youth and the urban folk must be taken less seriously. The fact remains that certain issues related to the urban proletariat and the students may allow the Maoists to creep in and generate a wave of sympathy amongst the urban youth and intellectuals; but the Maoist movement is hundreds of miles away from gaining a considerable foothold in the growing urban network in India. 

Nonetheless, a stream of aid from the city bases – howsoever fledgling, is a cause of worry for the security and intelligence forces of the Indian state. Also the fact that educated, yet disgruntled individuals like the law graduate Roopesh taking to left-wing extremism implies that cities and towns would continue to provide shelters and logistics to the ultras. 

Fourth, such an attempted expansion towards the southern part of the sub-continent indicates that the Maoists are trying hard to break the stranglehold of the counter-insurgency operations unleashed by the security forces over the past four to five years. Moreover, by diversifying their bases, the Maoists are keeping their ‘Plan B option’ open. If indeed they are forced to evacuate their primary stronghold of Abujhmaad, they can re-settle in the new guerrilla base. 

Nevertheless, it could be safely admitted that a serious attempt has been made by the Maoists to intrude the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. They are targeting the adivasi and dalit masses who live in marginal conditions. Militarily too, they are studying the geography of the region to create vantage points in order to ambush police forces. Political propaganda is on. It would be prudent for the police forces and the law and order authorities to take their positions. However, it is heartening to find that joint operations by the police forces of the four southern states are in full swing – well compounded by intelligence inputs.

Sin, Socialism And Sacrilege

Thomas Riggins

In some ultraconservative circles as well as groups of “Christians" and other misguided religious zealots the issue of gay marriage has become the cause célèbre du jour. [I use the term ‘misguided’ to refer to bigoted and backward thinking not in tune, in my view, with modern religious and philosophical opinions.] I propose to discuss a typical article from the right casting aspersions upon the concept of gay marriage as a constitutional right that must be respected under the law and protected from bigoted attacks disguised as authentic religious beliefs claiming also to be constitutionally protected. I will attempt to demonstrate that gay marriages should be constitutionally protected and that no religious objections to it are worthy of respect on legal, ethical, or moral grounds.

The article in question is by an ultra-right political "journalist" Charlotte Allen and was published on May 1 on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal: "Modern Sin: Holding On to Your Belief." What is the belief at issue? Socialists and other progressives don't usually think in terms of "sin." The term "politically incorrect" is the one that we prefer. To hold on to, and act upon, discredited beliefs such as racism, sexism, fascism, xenophobic nationalism, chauvinisms of all kinds including religious chauvinisms, and certain kinds of behaviors that are dishonest, socially destructive of people's well being, and many more too numerous to list here are considered not to be politically correct [PC].

So the question to be addressed by the WSJ article should really be what beliefs are people holding on to, and acting upon, that are not PC and, in religious jargon, are "sins" against other human beings and hurtful to them. If your notion of the deity includes the idea that It wants you to act in a hurtful way to other human beings, attacking their rights and happiness in order to make you feel better about your own, my article will hopefully convince you that you are wrong and have a false notion of what "sin" is all about.

Ms. Allen’s article is a sympathetic account of the trials and tribulations of small business owners whose bigoted interpretation of religion has led them to discriminate against gay couples who wish to marry. Their arguments are not unlike those given a few generations ago by those who also discriminated against interracial couples on religious grounds.

There are, Ms. Allen points out, a small group of [ misguided Christian] “bakers, florists, and photographers’’ who maintain that “their Christian beliefs in man-woman marriages preclude their providing services to same-sex marriages.” Well, “Christian beliefs” are also opposed to pagan ceremonies and polytheistic worship but they don’t seem to preclude people from baking, taking pictures or providing flowers for Hindu wedding ceremonies. There are “Christian beliefs” against divorce but are divorced people getting married again refused these services?

Businesses open to the public must serve the public in a non discriminatory way.
A misguided Christian restaurant owner is not entitled to tell a couple of same sex individuals they will not be served if he overhears that their meal is a wedding brunch. Or is he? This is the issue. Does freedom of religion include the freedom to discriminate and impose your beliefs on others in the public arena?

It seems that these “Christian” business people are committing acts of common bigotry under the guise of “acts of [selective] conscience.” Ms Allen supports the business people involved. She presents the case of a Southern Baptist florist who was fined for refusing to serve a gay wedding because she claimed to have a personal relationship with [an imaginary friend called] “Jesus” who, it appears, is anti-gay marriage. This defense against anti-discrimination laws did not impress the lower courts in Washington State and is now on appeal. Her case would be strengthened if she could present her friend as a witness. But I doubt “Jesus” will appear since his constituency includes both gay and non gay people which makes this not a question of “Christian” belief so much as one of personal interpretation.

Ms Allen thinks holding misguided “Christians” responsible for their bigoted actions (no one should object to their private or public beliefs only their public activities if they impinge upon the rights of others under the law) goes against former California Supreme Court Justice Ronald M.George’s statement that: “Affording same-sex couples the same opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official or any other person.” Ms. Allen is, of course, wrong and the Judge is right.

“Religious freedom” is not absolute in the U.S. It is freedom to practice your religion under the law. For instance, American Muslims don’t have the freedom to marry four wives, people can’t practice human sacrifice, people of one sect are not free to behead those of a different sect, and Amish elders don’t have the right to debeard their opponents, and people considered to be heretics, sacrilegious, or blasphemous cannot be burned at the stake or otherwise dispatched.

All of these practices are, be it noted, sincerely held religious beliefs, some of them by Christians, and to the list should be added discriminatory practices and hateful deeds directed against gay people or any other subsections of society which lawfully seek to enjoy life and peacefully practice their beliefs and life styles in ways not detrimental to the legally protected rights of others.

Businesses serving the public whether they be caterers, bakeries, florist shops, photo stores and studios, wedding planners or any business permitted to engage in services by the state should not, and generally cannot, discriminate against people based on their race, religion (or lack of religion), sex, gender preferences, ethnic origins, looks or age, etc. This means that individuals or groups, including institutionalized religious organizations cannot engage in discriminatory practices against others based on their own shared and practiced beliefs and feelings. They can do as they please as long as it is legally permitted and does not infringe upon the legal rights of others. If there are existing laws permitting such discriminatory actions they must be repealed.

If you have a sincerely held religious belief that same sex marriage is immoral and against the will of God (although God is quite capable I should think to see to it that his will is not violated without any help from humans) then no one can force you to marry someone of the same sex. It is wrong, however, for you to seek to prevent others from engaging in same sex marriage or refuse to serve them if you have a business open to the public.

Ms. Allen fears that if the Supreme Court finds that gay marriage is a constitutional right then a “persecution of Christians” will follow. All that will follow is that Christians, and others, who have a long history of persecutions against others themselves will find it more difficult, if not impossible, to engage in the hate crimes and discriminatory behavior against gay people that they believe their Imaginary deity requires of them. I say “imaginary” because no purportedly perfect and good deity would countenance such behavior and truly religious persons should consider it a sacrilege to believe otherwise.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies To Hit $5.3 Trillion In 2015, Says IMF

Ed King

Subsidies for fossil fuels that cause climate change have soared since 2013, a new study from the International Monetary Fund has revealed.

Oil, gas and coal costs will be subsidized to the tune of US$5.3 trillion a year in 2015. The last time the IMF ran the data it calculated they were worth $1.9 trillion.

Economists say the latest figures are more accurate as they represent the “true” cost of energy, which includes the environmental, health and climate impacts of burning fossil fuels.

“Over half of the increase is explained by more refined country-level evidence on the damaging effects of energy consumption on air quality and health,” IMF officials Benedict Clements and Vitor Gaspar wrote in a blog.

The figure is larger than the health spending of all the world’s governments combined, a reckoning the pair called “shocking”.

Coal is the biggest recipient of polluting subsidies, the IMF found, given its combined impact on air quality and high carbon emissions.

“The most dramatic difference, compared with the pre-tax figures, is for coal which is the biggest source of post-tax subsidies, amounting to 3.0% of global GDP in 2011 and rising to 3.9% in 2015,” says the study.

The World Bank and IMF have been campaigning hard for countries to stop subsidizing fossil fuels, arguing it can help stimulate stronger and more inclusive growth.

In the past three year’s leaders at the Major Economies Forum, G20 and G7 have all called for an end to harmful subsidies.

Earlier this year US secretary of state John Kerry said coal subsidies were “simply destructive”, but the IMF research suggests high levels of funding are still common around the planet.

The largest national offender is China, which when pollution is taken into account, offered a $2.3 trillion subsidy to its one billion energy consumers this year.

It’s followed by the United States (US$699 billion), Russia (US$335 billion), European Union ($330 billion), India (US$277 billion), and Japan (US$157 billion).

UN talks

The news comes as leading economies meet in Berlin to discuss plans for a global climate treaty, due to be signed off in Paris later this year.

Slashing subsidies this year could cut carbon emissions 20% and boost government revenues $2.9 trillion says the IMF, and raise what it terms “economic welfare” by $1.8 trillion.

“Conditions are ripe to decisively engage in energy taxation and energy subsidy reform, further favored by lower international oil prices and low inflation,” said Clements and Gaspar.

“Steps at the national level could hasten progress at the global level ahead of the Paris climate change summit in December.

“By acting local, and in their own best interest, policy authorities can contribute significantly to the solution of a global challenge.”

Black America and the Political Economy of Neoliberal Trade Deals

Ajamu Baraka

President Obama and the corporate democrats continue to press Congress to provide Obama with trade promotion authority (TPA), or so-called fast-track authority to conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the first of a series of pernicious so-called free trade agreements.

The Flush the TPP website, a major resource for the anti-TPP movement characterizes the TPP as: “A secret trade agreement…(that) threatens to undermine democracy by entrenching corporate power in virtually every area of our lives, from food safety and the environment, to worker rights and access to health care, the TPP is about much more than trade. It is a global corporate coup.”

In the process of organizing the fight-back to deny President Obama fast-track authority to conclude the TPP and ram it through Congress behind the backs of the people, I wrote about the fact that in some black circles there was uncertainty regarding the priority that the TPP should be given or whether or not it was even an important issue for African Americans.

However, over the last week African Americans organization have rallied in opposition to the TPP and established its defeat as an immediate priority for black people, even as some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are wavering in their initial opposition as a result of pressure from the Obama administration.

Saladin Muhammad, long time union organizer, veteran of Black Liberation Movement and spokesperson for the Black Workers for Justice, captures the view of a number of black activists who are naming neoliberal capitalism as the enemy: “structural policies of global capitalism like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), must be opposed and challenged by the Black working-class as part of the struggle for Black liberation and social transformation.”

The logic of Saladin’s comment is grounded in a critical analysis of the relationship between African Americans and the capitalist political economy that suggest that the debased conditions of black working class existence in the U.S. is produced and reproduced as a result of the inner logic of this system.

And since the degrading and dehumanizing conditions that characterize black working class existence are inherent to this system and cannot be altered through liberal capitalist reforms, an anti-capitalist position is the only logical political position that African Americans can take.

Its Capitalism not Culture

“Current configurations of so-called “free trade” agreements are at best kinder and gentler, neoliberal versions of more of the same.  For the vast majority of Black workers, who languish without relief at the very bottom of the economic rung, such agreements only reinforce longstanding exploitation, visceral racism and denial of good jobs and equal opportunities.”

— Jaribu Hill, the Executive Director of the Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights

Contrary to the culture-of-poverty nonsense being offered by Obama and his neoconservative friends as a way to explain why African Americans are engaged in “unapproved” resistance in places like Baltimore, the real explanation for the conditions that produced that resistance is situated within the context of the very same neoliberal capitalist policies being championed by Obama with the TPP.

A number of scholars have argued that capitalist globalization has had a disproportionately negative impact on African Americans over the last four decades.

The neoliberal restructuring of the national economy that began in the 1970s and accelerated under Reagan in the ‘80s ushered in a period of economic stagnation and decline in black America from which we have never recovered. Not that life was a bed of roses for African Americans who had just migrated from the totalitarian conditions of the South during the Second World War and in the years following. However, there was some relative economic advancement, although uneven, in the immediate post-war period for African Americans able to land a job in the industrial heartland of the country.

However, the always precarious situation of black workers and the relative weakness of the black middle-class became an existential crisis after the capitalist implosion in 2008.

While the destructive impact of the economic crisis was experienced by families and individuals in every sector of society – except the super-rich – for African Americans the crisis was nothing short of catastrophic.

Staggering losses in household wealth, income and labor force participation decimated large portions of the already small and fragile black middle-class and plugged black workers into desperate poverty. The latest capitalist crisis, however, revealed something even more frightening for African American workers.

Not only did the economic crisis strip away the chimera of prosperity created by access to easy credit for most workers who hadn’t experience real wage increases in decades and were living paycheck to paycheck, but it also exposed an unacknowledged and unspoken reality for vast numbers of unemployed black workers: that they had moved from the category of being a part of the “reserve army of the unemployed” – labor ready to be reemployed when the economy picked up – to the category of a surplus work force. That is, it became painfully obvious that black laborers had become a work force and population that was no longer needed in the globalized U.S. economy.

Today the labor participation rate for African American men is the lowest on record. The plight of African American women is ever more precarious, although their employment rate is a little better. However, African American women’s increased participation in the economy is offset by the fact that black women are disproportionately tasked with the responsibility of caring not only for themselves but their children.Linda Burnham points out an additional economic reality that black women face and that is because black women are overrepresented in the low-wage sector they suffer from both the gender and the racial gap in wages.

Confined to unsteady and unpredictable low wage service sector jobs, it should not be surprising that the fastest growing population of homeless in the U.S. is African American women with children.

Neoliberal globalization also had a devastating impact on working people in cities like Baltimore. The shattered communities and pockets of absolute poverty that exist in that city did not come about as a result of fathers not being in the home or black people not taking advantage of opportunities but is a direct result of the 100,000 unionized manufacturing and seaport-related jobs lost in Baltimore when those jobs were shifted out of the U.S. by corporate and finance capital. The closing of Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point Works that employed 35,000 people and the dramatic reduction of jobs at Baltimore’s port were body blows that the working class community of Baltimore never recovered from.

The terrible reality facing increasing numbers of African Americans is that as the U.S. continues to shift to a low-skilled, low-wage economy, the labor force is also contracting, with the result being that large numbers of African American workers and the poor are destined to not be able to secure full time employment during their entire lives!

And for those lucky enough to secure a job, the new jobs that are projected in the U.S. will be in such low-paying occupations as fast food, food prep, retail, and healthcare aides.

North-South Solidarity in the Struggle to End Global Oppression

The systemic capitalist crisis that led the captains of finance and free-market capitalism to line up for rescue by the state in 2008 dramatically exposed the fraudulent nature of neoliberal capitalism as a strategy for long-term, sustainable capitalist progress.

This is true in the capitalist center as well in the peripheries of the global system. That is why black opposition to neoliberal free trade agreements is not just based on the negative impact of those agreements on black people in the U.S. but on the recognition of a common agenda with the exploited and colonized peoples’ of the world in ending global capitalist oppression.

Opposition to the TPP and free-trade must be seen as one front in the resistance to further U.S. imperialist consolidation. Jaribu Hill reminds us that “free is a misnomer for control and a maintenance of a status quo that will always require the sufferers to suffer more while maximum profits are made on their backs and at the expense of their safety and yes, their lives.”

African American oppose the TPP because we understand that the workers in Vietnam, who will be primarily women, are being primed for super-exploitation under the terms of that agreement. We understand that under North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), millions of farmers were driven from their land in places like Oaxaca, Mexico and ended up landless urban dwellers in Mexico or working for slave wages as undocumented workers in the U.S.

We oppose the TPP because neoliberal free trade between the U.S. and Colombia has resulted in the accelerated loss land for Afro-Colombians as their lands are stolen for illegal mining and the corporate expansion of palm oil and sugar cane processing for bio-fuel production for the markets in Europe and the U.S.

And even though the elites of those countries who are part of the agreement prostrate themselves before Uncle Sam, we oppose the TPP in the name of the people of the global South.

For those who might ask why African Americans would question and oppose free trade agreements, we point to history and say that if there any people on the planet who should question so called free trade it should be the descendants of the people victimized by the most barbaric trade regime in the history of the planet.