IMF lifts Chinese currency to reserve status

Nick Beams

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided on Monday to admit the Chinese renminbi (also known as the yuan) into the basket of currencies used to value the fund’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).

The IMF executive board said the currency met the existing criteria to be included in a new SDR basket, which will come into effect on October 1 next year. The fund said the weighting of the Chinese currency in the basket would be 10.92 percent, placing it third after the US dollar, on 41.73 percent, and the euro, 30.93 percent, but above the weightings of 8.33 percent and 8.09 percent for the Japanese yen and British pound respectively.

SDRs, which were created in 1969 and expanded after the 2008 financial crisis, function as a global reserve currency and are used in the calculation of terms and interest rates for countries taking out loans from the IMF.

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said the inclusion of the renminbi was “an important milestone in the integration of the Chinese economy into the global financial system” and “recognition of the progress that the Chinese authorities have made in the past years in reforming China’s monetary and financial system.”

In determining whether the renminbi should be included, the IMF review had to consider two criteria: whether the currency was “widely used” and whether it was “freely usable.”

The first condition was met some time ago, with the rise of China’s significance within international trade. China is now the largest trading partner of more than 120 countries.

The contentious point has been the second condition, because Chinese authorities control entry to the country’s financial markets and regulate the value of its currency. Unlike the other four currencies in the SDR basket, the renminbi is not freely convertible. This led to the rejection of China’s push to be included in the SDR basket at the last IMF five-yearly review in 2010, largely due to opposition from the US and Japan.

However, moves by Chinese authorities over the past year to ease controls on the movement of the currency and to liberalise the setting of interest rates, swung the balance in Beijing’s favour, with the US not opposing the recommendation that it now be included.

But an expression of underlying US attitudes has been the claim that the IMF has bent its own rules to accommodate China because its currency is not fully convertible. “They are stretching their criteria,” former US Treasury official Edwin Truman, a long-time commentator on the IMF, told the Financial Times .

One of the considerations behind the US reversal may be the considerable opposition an American veto would have provoked from other IMF members. They are already critical of the US Congress’s refusal to pass legislation to enhance China’s voting power in the organisation. At present, China, which is by any measure the world’s second largest economy, has the same number of votes in IMF governing bodies as Belgium.

Pointing to the significance of China’s moves to open up its financial markets and allow freer movement of the currency, Lagarde said: “If you had asked me a year ago whether this would happen today I think I would have reserved judgment. Clearly an enormous amount of work has been undertaken by Chinese authorities.”

While the move is largely symbolic, at least in the short-term, it will tend to increase the flows of capital into the Chinese financial markets as governments, banks and other financial institutions adjust their currency holdings to take account of the enhanced status of the renminbi.

However, so far as Chinese authorities are concerned, the decision has a longer-term significance in that it tends lessen the dominance of the US dollar within the international financial system.

In a speech delivered in March 2009, following the eruption of the global financial crisis the previous September, People’s Bank of China (PBoC) governor Zhou Xiaochuan called for reform of the international monetary system so that a single credit-based national currency, the US dollar, was not the global reserve currency. The greenback has effectively played that role since the gold backing was removed from the US dollar in August 1971, which ended the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, and fixed exchange rates were completely abandoned in 1973.

“The frequency and increasing intensity of financial crises following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system suggests the costs of such a system to the world may have exceeded its benefits,” Zhou said. He called for “creative reform of the existing international monetary system” toward an international reserve currency with a stable value to ensure global financial stability, suggesting that a greater role for SDRs could be part of such a system.

The decision to include the renminbi in the SDR basket is by no stretch a move in that direction—the US dollar retains its dominance in the global financial system. However, Chinese financial authorities will view the shift as providing more leeway in negotiating international financial storms and lessening dollar dependence.

China has already negotiated agreements with individual countries under which the renminbi, rather than the US dollar, can be used for international transactions. Beijing will no doubt hope to move further in this direction now that its currency has been accorded reserve status.

However, the IMF decision is very much a two-edged sword because it places added pressure on the Chinese regime to further open up its financial system to international capital flows and cut back on regulations.

Central bank governor Zhou has made clear that he opposes full convertibility of the Chinese currency, which would require China’s financial markets to be completely open in the same way as London, New York, Tokyo and the European financial centres.

Last April, Zhou told the IMF that the convertibility China was seeking to achieve was not based on the traditional concept. Rather, drawing lessons from the global financial crisis, China would “adopt a concept of managed convertibility.”

From the other side, the IMF, an organisation devoted to the interests of international finance capital, sees the decision as drawing China closer into its orbit. Its announcement of the renminbi’s elevation included the following significant passage: “Authorities of all currencies represented in the SDR basket, which now includes the Chinese authorities, are expected to maintain a policy framework that facilitates operations for the IMF, its membership and other SDR users in their currencies.”

The IMF is basing its calculations on forces within the Chinese regime itself who want to push further ahead with China’s integration into global financial markets.

The head of the PBoC’s survey and statistics department told the Wall Street Journal: “We will have to build up confidence in renminbi assets from investors both at home and abroad and at the same time, prevent the financial risks associated with a more global currency. That calls for carrying out various reforms in a coordinated way.”

“Reform” of China’s financial system, however, based on its further opening up to global capital, is not simply a technical question. Under conditions of deepening financial problems in China—as evidenced in the stock market turmoil earlier this year—and a slowing economy, the issues are intensely political. Key sections of the Chinese ruling elite rely on state control of finance, and the economy as a whole, to maintain their political and economic power.

Mounting tensions between India and Nepal over blockade

Vijith Samarasinghe

The standoff between India and Nepal intensified yesterday after the Nepalese Armed Police Force detained 13 Indian border guards for allegedly crossing the border. They were released several hours later by Nepalese authorities, who accused them of carrying weapons without permission in civilian areas.

The incident is the latest in the mounting tensions between the two countries over what Nepal claims is an “undeclared blockade” of the landlocked country by India. Ethnic Madhesi protesters have blocked imports from India over the country’s new constitution, which was passed in September. Madhesi political parties, with India’s tacit backing, are demanding amendments to grant greater regional autonomy.

Police opened fire on November 21 on Madhesi protesters blocking the main highway from India in southern Nepal’s Saptari district. Two demonstrators were killed in the clashes and at least 28 people were injured, including police officers. The following day, police shot dead another person after angry protesters set fire to a police van. At least 40 people have been killed in confrontations with police since August.

Last Wednesday, the Nepalese government summoned the Indian envoy in Kathmandu to lodge a complaint after Indian border security forces fired on and injured four Nepalese in a southern border village. The envoy claimed that the Indian personnel fired in self-defence after being shot at by Nepalese smugglers.

Last Friday, thousands of students took to the streets in Kathmandu to protest against the blockade. Fuel shortages have forced schools to extend holidays and cut the number of classes. Students chanted: “Stop the blockade. Education is our right.”

The Indian government denies imposing a blockade but is clearly using the Madhesi protests as the pretext for doing just that. New Delhi keeps close ties with Madhesi parties to use them as a lever to influence policies in strategically important Nepal.

In a televised speech on November 15, Nepal’s Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli openly criticised India for continuing a blockade of cross-border trade. “It is unthinkable that a sovereign nation faces such an inhumane and severe pain, misery and blockade in the 21st century,” he declared. “Imposing a blockade to a landlocked nation is a breach of international treaties, norms and values.”

Nepal depends heavily on India for 60 percent of its imports and all its fuel supplies. Fuel has been rationed for private vehicles. Daily commuters are compelled to buy black-market fuel for as much as 250 Nepali rupees ($US2.40) a litre. Domestic flights from Kathmandu airport are routinely cancelled. Many Kathmandu households have reverted to cooking with firewood, due to the lack of bottled gas.

Hospitals are running low of essential medicines and other supplies such as medical gases. Doctor Swayam Prakash Pandit of Bir Hospital in Kathmandu told CNN: “We are running critically low on drugs used in the emergency, ICU and operation theatre.”

To ease the fuel shortage, the Nepal Oil Corporation signed an agreement in October to source fuel from China, ending the longstanding monopoly of Indian Oil Corporation as Nepal’s sole fuel supplier. Nepalese authorities also announced on November 16 that discussions were underway to source liquid petroleum gas from China.

Nepal is increasingly becoming a focus for geo-political rivalry. India, backed by the US, is intent on maintaining its dominance in Nepal, which it has long regarded as part of its sphere of influence in South Asia. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has taken an even more aggressive stance in order to counter China.

In 1989, the Indian government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi imposed a trade blockade that lasted for more than a year, using disputes over the renewal of a bilateral trade pact as the pretext. New Delhi’s main concern was that the Nepalese government was negotiating with China to develop northern trade routes and buying Chinese weapons.

As a result of that confrontation, Nepal’s King Birendra was forced to back down from his economic demands. He also had to make concessions to the Nepali Congress Party, which, with India’s backing, mounted protests calling for the lifting of political restrictions. Birendra agreed to reforms, allowing the election of a Nepali Congress government.

Central to India-Nepal relations has been the Peace and Friendship Treaty signed in 1950, granting substantial concessions to New Delhi. However, India’s considerable control over the largely rural economy of Nepal has withered with economic globalisation and China’s rise in recent decades. Kathmandu has increasingly turned for investment to China, which in 2013 surpassed India as the country’s main investor.

In response, New Delhi is trying to exploit close ties with communalist Madhesi parties to boost India’s influence in Nepal. The Madhesi parties, which have expanded from six in 2006 to 13, form an amorphous grouping that emerged from various non-government organisations and breakaway factions of the country’s Maoist guerilla movement.

These parties do not in any way represent the interests of Madhesi workers and peasants, but rather the grasping local ruling elites who calculate that their relations with India and greater regional autonomy will enhance their political and economic position.

Bomb detonates at Japan’s war shrine

Ben McGrath

An explosion occurred in a restroom at Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo during a national holiday a week ago. While no-one was injured in the blast, the incident highlights the controversial nature of the shrine. No individual or group claimed responsibility, but the site has been the target of attempted attacks in the past.

The shrine is an infamous symbol of Japanese militarism, where those who died in Japan’s wars, primarily World War II, are symbolically interred, including 14 class-A war criminals, secretly added in 1978.

The explosion took place around 10 a.m. last Monday near the shrine’s south gate while people at the shrine were marking the annual Niinamesai Shinto festival, a traditional harvest celebration. The shrine’s main hall was closed following the blast. The ceiling and walls of the restroom were damaged and a small fire broke out, which was extinguished before firefighters arrived

The authorities apparently believe that a single individual placed the bomb, not an organized group. Video footage reportedly captured a man entering the area near the bathroom with a paper bag and later leaving without it shortly before the explosion. A timing device, wiring and batteries were found at the scene, along with four items resembling pipe bombs in the ceiling.

The Yasukuni Shrine has long been a rallying point for right-wing Japanese politicians. On October 20, 70 lawmakers including Katsunobu Kato, head of the new Citizen Engagement Ministry, visited the shrine for Japan’s autumn festival. Representatives from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) were in attendance.

A few days earlier, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering—a masakaki tree—while two more cabinet members, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi and Justice Minister Mitsuhide Iwaki, visited the shrine.

Given the symbolism of the Yasukuni Shrine, it is possible the bombing was a misguided and essentially reactionary protest against the militarist agenda being pushed by Abe.

Following closely behind the attacks in Paris by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Japanese government and security apparatus will undoubtedly use the incident to push for more police-state measures at home. “Terrorism should not occur in Japan,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said last Tuesday. “We will conduct strict warning and surveillance activities in order to ensure public safety.”

Until 2001, no post-World War II prime minister visited the Yasukuni Shrine in an official capacity, except for Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1985. This changed when Junichiro Koizumi, prime minister between 2001 and 2006, made six visits. Abe was the next sitting premier to go to the memorial, doing so in December 2013.

There is widespread opposition in Japan to Abe’s drive to rearm and cast off the constitutional constraints that formally prevent it from again going to war to reassert its imperialist interests, as it did in World War II.

Throughout the summer, numerous and at times large protests took place in Tokyo and throughout the country, comprised of workers, farmers, and students, calling for the scrapping of legislation that was ultimately pushed through the Japanese legislature in September. The new laws permit the government to dispatch the military without a special law being passed.

In the name of “collective self-defense,” the bills also allow Japan to militarily support allies—in other words, to take part in US-led wars of aggression in the Asia-Pacific and around the world. The laws codify the Abe government’s “reinterpretation” of Article 9 of the post-World War II constitution, which formally renounced war forever.

The shrine is also a focal point for anti-Japanese sentiment elsewhere in Asia, particularly in China and South Korea. Both Beijing and Seoul regularly express anger when Japanese politicians visit the shrine, whipping up anti-Japanese hostility in order to distract from worsening economic and social conditions domestically. In 2011, a Chinese man attempted to set fire to the shrine before fleeing to South Korea. In 2013, a South Korean man was arrested for entering the shrine’s compound with flammable materials.

More than 2.4 million individuals are interred at the shrine, having been killed in Japanese wars dating back to the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The building is not simply a memorial for Japan’s war dead, as Japanese nationalists and their apologists claim. It is a symbol of Japanese aggression before and during World War II, when it was used as a focus to encourage emperor worship and militarism.

An associated museum has military displays and literature that downplay Japanese war crimes such as the Nanjing massacre, during which the Japanese army murdered as many as 300,000 captured Chinese soldiers and civilians in 1937. It refers to World War II as the Greater East Asia War, claiming that the war was meant to liberate Asia from Western imperialism and create an Asian “co-prosperity sphere.”

After World War II, right-wing politicians attempted to rally support for and pass a law that would extend state protection to the Yasukuni Shrine. Such a law would have enabled politicians and the emperor to worship there during festivals. Between 1969 and 1974, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party attempted to pass such a law on five occasions, but failed each time.

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and other opposition parties have sought to capitalize on the widespread popular opposition to Japan’s remilitarization, but the DPJ has no fundamental differences with the LDP.

The visits by Japanese prime ministers over the past 15 years and the overall turn to militarization make clear that Japan’s militarists and sections of the political and corporate establishment will continue to use the Yasukuni Shrine as a rallying point to try to build support for future wars of aggression.

Humanitarian disaster on the Balkan refugee route

Martin Kreickenbaum

The crisis situation for refugees seeking to enter Europe escalated November 28 on the Greek-Macedonian border. Macedonian police used stun grenades to repel refugees who have been prevented from entering Macedonia from Greece. A total of 40 people were injured and photos show refugees with severe head injuries.

Hundreds of refugees, men, women and children, have been stranded on the border in freezing weather and without food at the cordoned-off border near the northern Greek city of Idomeni. For about a week, only refugees with Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan passports have been allowed to cross the border. Refugees with other nationalities are rejected on the grounds that they do not come from “war zones.”

In particular, refugees from Iran, Pakistan, Eritrea, Somalia and Bangladesh are stranded on the Greek border and do not know what is going to happen to them. The makeshift camp at Idomeni operated by the UN refugee agency UNHCR is completely overcrowded. Hundreds of refugees are camping outdoors, without adequate sanitary provisions, and with inadequate supplies of food and clean drinking water.

In protest against the racist screening of asylum seekers at the border, the refugees have been blocking the single-track rail link between Macedonia and Greece for days. More than 60 refugees have gone on hunger strike, and eleven of them have sewn their own mouths shut.

Last Thursday around 200 desperate refugees stormed the border, throwing stones at the border policemen stationed there. The newly erected barbed wire fence along the border was demolished over a length of approximately 40 metres. Some refugees were caught in the barbed wire, others were chased by the police and forced back with batons. Only five people actually managed to get to the Macedonian side, where they were quickly intercepted and detained. Police officers armed with assault rifles moved to block the place where the border fence had come down.

“We cannot wait any longer, last night we slept in the rain,” 31-year-old Heritier Shabani told the press. He comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and arrived on the Greek island of Samos about ten days ago. The refugees do not receive any help from the Greek authorities. “If there were buses, we would return to Athens, but there are none, at least not enough,” said Shabani.

As a result, more and more refugees are stranded at the border. Of the approximately 4,000 refugees who had previously crossed the Greek-Macedonian border each day, more than 90 percent were allowed to cross because they came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. However, hundreds of refugees arrive each day for whom the border remains closed.

The humanitarian disaster developing along the Balkan route began with the decision by the Slovenian government on 19 November to no longer allow so-called “economic migrants” into the country. The governments of Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia followed suit.

Dimitris Christopoulos from the International Federation for Human Rights fears that the “nightmare scenario for Greece” has begun, because the border closures mean the country has now gone from being a transit state to one in which refugees are detained. There was no appropriate infrastructure in Greece for looking after asylum seekers, he said. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sharply condemned the actions of the authorities in the Balkans.

“To sort out refugees based on their adopted nationality violates the right of all people, regardless of their nationality, to apply for asylum, and their right to an individual examination of their need for protection,” Ban noted in a statement on Tuesday.

Asylum seekers from African countries such as Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea or the Republic of Congo, where no less bloody wars are raging, are routinely turned away at the borders along the Balkan route “by visual inspection” as alleged “economic refugees.” Hundreds of African refugees, taken by surprise by the developments, are now sitting in no man’s land in Croatia, Serbia or Macedonia, since they can neither move on or go back.

The real originators of the border closures are the governments in Germany and France. They are taking advantage of the terrorist attacks in Paris to further seal off Europe against refugees. The target of these racist measures, which constitute a blatant violation of international conventions on refugee protection, is to turn away as many refugees as possible at the borders of Europe.

While in Germany, the demands for a “ceiling” for refugees are growing louder, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has called for a complete stop to the influx of refugees from the Middle East to Europe. “We cannot accept any more refugees in Europe—that’s not possible,” Valls told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The European Union must find solutions with Syria’s neighbouring countries in order to process more refugees, Valls said, “otherwise Europe is placing in question its ability to effectively control its borders.”

On Sunday, the European Union heads of state and government met with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in an attempt to negotiate a dirty deal. In return for a payment of 3 billion euros and the prospect of opening up further EU accession negotiations, Turkey would commit itself to preventing refugees from travelling to the EU.

Turkey has so far accepted around 2.5 million war refugees from Syria, but they do not have refugee status there. Some 250,000 people live in 25 huge camps without access to work or education.

Although the war in Syria has intensified with the enormous air strikes by France and the United States, as well as Russia, and the remaining infrastructure of the country, including schools and hospitals, is being razed to the ground, Turkey has begun to reject all refugees at the border.

In March, Turkey had closed the last two open border crossings. Until recently, however, refugees who needed urgent medical help could still enter. But in recent weeks they have also been denied this possibility. “The closure of the border forces pregnant women, children, old people, the sick and injured to run a gauntlet of border guards in order to escape the horrors of the war in Syria,” said Gerry Simpson of Human Rights Watch.

As a result, hundreds of refugees are gathering in the woods in the hills southeast of Antakya, Turkey in order to be taken across the border illegally by smugglers. There, border guards mercilessly hunt down refugees, forcing them back into Syria. Refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch tell of gunfire and severe mistreatment by the Turkish border police. Families are torn apart, and refugees herded into detention camps, before being forcibly removed to Syria.

These massive violations of the Geneva Convention are being carried out by Turkey under pressure from the European governments, which do not want to accept any more refugees, and are using Turkey to do their dirty work in pushing back refugees. In face of the inhuman treatment of the now millions of Syrian refugees, all talk of a military escalation in Syria being necessary to stop a humanitarian catastrophe is exposed as pure hypocrisy.

US: More than 3,000 laid off in closure of Fresh & Easy grocery stores

Jake Dean

Billionaire Ronald W. Burkle and his investment firm Yucaipa Companies announced the liquidation of all Fresh & Easy grocery stores in the United States in October. More than 3,000 workers have been abruptly thrown out of work with no guarantee of being relocated to one of the many other grocery chains owned by Burkle.

Based in El Segundo, California, Fresh & Easy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October for the second time in a span of only two years. All 97 of the chain’s locations in California, Arizona and Nevada were shut down last month.

Yuciapa Companies acquired the company from the British supermarket giant Tesco in 2013, when it first filed for bankruptcy. Burkle did so by means of a $120-million loan from Tesco itself.

The closure of Fresh & Easy comes on the heels of the recent store closures by Haggen, the Pacific Northwest grocery chain. In the span of only three months, more than 3,800 grocery workers, from both Haggen and Fresh & Easy, have lost their jobs.

A public statement issued by Fresh & Easy management read: “Over the last two years, we have been working hard to build a new Fresh & Easy. While we made progress on stemming our losses and moving the business closer to break even, unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain financing and the liquidity necessary to fund the business going forward.”

The company also cited increasing competition from giant retailers such as Walmart and Target, both of which have incorporated fresh food into many of their stores. Analysts have pointed out that on many popular items Fresh & Easy charged as much as 20 percent more for its private labels than their name-brand counterparts.

David Living, a supermarket analyst at DJL Research of Waukesha, Wisconsin, stated that he had expected Fresh & Easy to collapse. “They failed because it was a poor format without an identity, and they took bad location,” he said. “You couldn’t do any worse unless you did it on purpose.”

Whatever the factors contributing to Fresh & Easy’s demise—tough competition, bad training of the staff, overpriced food—the attack on grocery workers is part of a much broader campaign by the corporations and banks to drive down the wages and living standards of the entire working class.

Grocery workers throughout the country have experienced stagnating or declining real wages, already at poverty levels, as well as being subjected to insecure and irregular employment. The closure of both Fresh & Easy and Haggen is a testament to the ruthlessness of finance capital in the drive for profits at the expense of the working class.

The timing of the announcement is also significant in terms of impact on the company’s workforce. Losing their jobs right before the holidays, a stressful time for many working class families, Fresh & Easy workers will be forced to look for low-paid seasonal work just to make ends meet.

Yucaipa Companies, founded by Burkle in 1986, specializes in private equity and venture capital with a focus on leveraged buyouts and turnarounds. With a net worth of $1.63 billion, Burkle is the 248th richest person in America. Yucaipa Companies is a controlling shareholder in a number of other multimillion-dollar companies, including entertainment distributor Alliance Entertainment, Golden State Foods foodservice, and Dominick’s, Fred Meyer and Ralphs supermarkets.

Burke is a long-time Democratic Party contributor and was at one point the business partner of former president Bill Clinton. Serving as senior adviser for Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund, Clinton was brought on its board to persuade the Teamsters union to accept a 15 percent wage cut at trucking firm Allied Holdings. Clinton left Yucaipa in 2009.

Burkle also has strong ties to prominent California Democratic Party figures, donating to the campaigns of Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Barbara Boxer and former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Burkle has also cultivated a reputation as a “friend” of the trade unions, and has been publicly praised by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. “He’s probably the best employer we ever dealt with,” said Ricardo Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles. “I have done a lot of things with him and he never looked for publicity. Never. You’d never suspect he’s a billionaire.” As demonstrated by the closure of Fresh & Easy, the question is not whether Burkle “looks, dresses or acts” like a billionaire, but his relationship to the means of production.

While Fresh & Easy was nonunion, the UFCW had attempted to unionize the company’s employees and the union represents workers at Ralphs, also owned by Burkle.

Effectively functioning as Burkle’s press agent and loyal accomplice in imposing low wages and exploitation upon supermarket workers, the UFCW has made no statement condemning the billionaire for the recent store closures, not to mention any call for uniting workers at Haggen, Fresh & Easy and the rest of the supermarket chains throughout the US in a common struggle against layoffs and low wages.

Germany to send 1,200 troops to Syria

Johannes Stern

Just days after the German government announced it was deploying tornado aircraft, a warship, a tanker plane and satellite technology for combat operations in Syria, the extent and costs of the military mission are becoming increasingly clear.

On Sunday, in a two-page interview with Bild am Sonntag, under the martial headline “Germany’s top general declares war,” General Volker Wieker revealed that Germany would send at least 1,200 troops to Syria. Wieker said that while the “final decision” on the number of soldiers to be included in the mandate had not yet been made, “from a military point of view… about 1,200 servicemen and women will be necessary for the operation of the aircraft and ships.”

On Monday, ARD News reported that a joint cabinet submission by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party—SPD) and Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union—CDU) specified “the area of operation as the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and adjacent sea area,” while leaving room for “a possible expansion of the mission.” The 16-page text, expected to be approved today by the cabinet, put the cost of the operation at 134 million euros.

This makes the operation in Syria the largest and second most expensive foreign deployment in the history of the Bundeswehr (the post-World War II German armed forces), without even considering likely increases once the deployment begins. As part of NATO missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo, 996 and 907 German soldiers are currently deployed in those countries, respectively.

For the Bundeswehr missions abroad, the Defence Ministry has estimated costs in 2015 of 460 million euros, 263.2 million of which are for Afghanistan. Almost overnight, and without any public debate, a combat intervention has been set in motion whose consequences and final extent are unknown.

There is an additional ominous aspect of the interview with Wieker. Seventy years after the end of World War II, the constitutionally enshrined principle of the primacy of the civilian authorities over the military is being upended. As in the Kaiser’s Empire and under the Nazis, the German military is once again playing a central role in the drafting of German foreign and war policy.

In introducing the interview with Wieker, the Bild am Sonntag reported that “Germany’s highest-ranking soldier,” in “his office in the Defence Ministry,” was planning “combat missions against ISIS.” In the interview, Wieker at several points explicitly expressed himself politically. The newspaper wrote that the general, when asked “how long the Bundeswehr would be involved in the Syria operation,” declared that while the politicians would decide “the duration,” the Bundeswehr was “militarily self-sustaining.”

Wieker spoke explicitly in favour of deploying ground forces in Syria and announced a massive rearmament of the Bundeswehr. He said ISIS could “certainly not” be defeated simply with air strikes and added that the “best suited troops” for the fight on the ground were those with a “high motivation to defend their own country.” From a “military point of view,” he continued, “everything that attacks ISIS” was beneficial.

At the end of the interview, the general announced, “Employing about 5.6 billion euros, we will invest heavily in the coming years in the improvement of the operational readiness of the Bundeswehr.” Some 650 measures had already been initiated and many of them would show “lasting effect in 2017,” he added.

He said the “operational readiness” of the main battle tanks and armoured transport vehicles, ships and submarines, and Tornadoes, Euro fighters and transport aircraft had been improved, but the situation with respect to helicopters was “still not satisfactory.”

Monday’s cabinet decision was accompanied by a veritable war hysteria on the part of prominent politicians and the media. Von der Leyen published a so-called “Six-Point Plan Against ISIS” in the Bild. In it, she declared that Germany and “everyone in the Alliance” had to show “military strength” and “weaken ISIS, limit its range of movement, destroy its training camps, recapture towns one by one, cut off ISIS’ oil revenues, and break its aura of invincibility.”

To achieve those goals, a “temporary political marriage of convenience” was needed. “The fight against ISIS must be a top priority,” wrote von der Leyen, “for France as well as for the US, China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, the Arab states and us.” This meant that, “air strikes must be clearly directed against ISIS, not against the opponents of the dictator Assad, who terrorizes his people with barrel bombs.”

In the name of the fight against ISIS, Germany is pursuing a strategy of bringing all the powers to the table to install a puppet regime in Syria, which would allow Berlin to advance its geo-strategic and economic interests throughout the Middle East.

The German generals, politicians and newspaper hacks who beat the drum for a massive German intervention in Syria know well the crimes they are preparing. Stefan Kornelius of the Süddeutsche Zeitung declared Sunday on the ARD “Press Club” program that the intervention in Syria would “not be a clean story” that would produce “moral laurels.”

He gave free rein to his dreams of a new round of German colonial policy. Kornelius declared that the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan was a mistake. He said the reorganization of Syria would take “an incredibly long time” and would be “incredibly expensive,” noting that nation-building was “a matter of decades, not a few years.”

On Monday, the editor of Die Welt, Stefan Aust, who, following the attacks in Paris, called for a “global war on terror,” published an apocalyptic article on the likely outcome of the escalating war in Syria. He wrote of a new “Thirty Years’ War in the Middle East,” and prophesied, “Maybe the year 2015 now coming to an end will go down in history like the last summer of peace in 1913 or the equally desperate and unsuccessful attempt at appeasement before the [second] great conflagration erupted.”

Polish government cracks down on culture

Dorota Niemitz

The deputy prime minister and minister of culture, Piotr Gliński, in the newly formed right-wing government in Poland led by PiS (Law and Justice) Premier Beata Szydło has immediately gone on the offensive with blatant attacks on the constitutional right to freedom of expression. Gliński has demanded the banning of a play by a Nobel-winning author and threatened to cut public spending for “alternative and leftist” art projects.

Based on the measure of “preventive censorship”, banned since the dissolution of the Polish People’s Republic in 1989, Gliński appealed to the governor of the Lower Silesia region to “immediately prohibit staging the playDeath and the Maiden before it premiered at the Polish Theatre in Wrocław” on November 21. The reason given for the ban was the fact that the play’s director, Ewelina Marciniak, had hired several guest porn stars.

“There will be no pornography in Polish theatres funded with public money”, stated Gliński, who had not seen the play himself. According to TV Kultura, the sex scene in the play lasted around 60 seconds in a two-and-a-half-hour production. The culture minister then went to note that the 5 million złoty (about €1.2 million) annual contract to subsidise the Polish Theatre in Wrocław is about to expire at the end of the year—a statement clearly implying financial blackmail.

In response, the governor of Lower Silesia, Cezary Przybylski, stated merely that the play should be evaluated after its premiere, not before it. “We cannot rule out that the media frenzy around the play is a planned marketing campaign aiming at increasing interest in the premiere”, he said.

The opening night of Death and the Maiden had a full house, with the public providing a standing ovation. All the tickets for this year’s performances are sold out.

The play was written by the Austrian playwright and novelist Elfriede Jelinek (Lust, The Piano Teacher, Illness or Modern Women). Jelinek is feted in postmodernist, pseudo-radical circles for her advocacy of feminism and identity politics, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004. Death and the Maiden, first published in 2000, is described on the Polish Theatre’s web site as “a spectacle on how to inflict torture in the most efficient way”, with a warning that the play is suitable for “very adult audiences only” as it contains sex scenes.

The protest arranged in front of the theatre on the night of the premiere was organised by the religious group Rosary Crusade for the Fatherland. About a dozen nationalists tried to block the entrance to the building, among them individuals from the neo-fascistic National Radical Camp (ONR). ONR members are notorious for burning an effigy of an Orthodox Jew holding an EU flag during anti-refugee demonstrations at the Wrocław Market Square on November 18. The next day, the home of the theatre’s artistic director’s 82-year-old mother was pelted with eggs and tomatoes. According to the theatre’s director, his employees have received threats.

The Rosary Crusade called for the ban of the “pornographic” Death and the Maiden on their web site: “We will not allow this profanation and Bolshevik chutzpa in the Polish Theatre!” Jelinek was a member of the Austrian Communist Party from 1974 to 1991.

The Rosary Crusade also picketed the play Golgotha Picnic by the Argentine Rodrigo Garcia in several Polish cities last year and the removal of the play from the programme of the Malta Festival in Poznań in 2014.

The protest against Jelinek’s play was supported by the daughter of late president and PiS leader Lech Kaczyński, Marta Kaczyńska. She wrote in the far-right weekly paper wSieci (inTheNet) that “porn in the Polish Theatre without a doubt automatically degraded the institution.”

One day after the premiere, during an interview with the “Past 8 p.m.” show, minister Gliński turned on the Polish media and accused the news channel TVP Info of being responsible for “manipulation and propaganda” in recent years. In the course of the interview, talk show host Karolina Lewicka reminded her guest of article 73 of the constitution that guarantees the freedom of artistic expression. This was enough to prompt Gliński to demand her suspension from her job for “unethical behaviour.”

The journalist has been defended by her colleagues, who released a statement protesting the threats issued by representatives of the new government and calling them an attack on basic democratic rights. Gliński, on the other hand, received full support from the head of government, Beata Szydło, who agreed that the public funding for culture should go to projects abiding by “certain cultural norms”.

Immediately after entering office, Gliński had already indicated that the ruling PiS would reallocate funds for culture. “The division of the public cake will certainly be different than up to now”, he told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Making clear that the priority of the government would be the promotion of extreme nationalism, Gliński stressed the importance of a revival of “cultural snobbism” and declared that the government would favour institutions and projects based on national identity, pride and history, such as the Museum of Polish History and the Polish Army, as well as the Hollywood-style film productions promoting Polish national heroes. He also revealed government plans to transform public media such as TV, radio and the Polish Press Agency into “missionary” tools of the nation state.

The artistic director of the Polish Theatre in Wrocław, Krzysztof Mieszkowski, also a new member of parliament on behalf of Nowoczesna (Modern), a pro-business opposition party, called on Gliński to resign from office. “So far I don’t think we had a case where the prime minister of the Polish government openly tries to break the constitutional law”, he said. Mieszkowski himself has in the past been a target of criticism from the former neo-liberal PO (Civic Platform) government.

In its previous period of rule between 2005 and 2007, the PiS already made a major change in the country’s broadcasting law that allowed the government increasing control of the media. The current initiatives of the PiS threaten the autonomy of all art and cultural institutions, which may soon be subjected to blatant censorship and checked for the proper “level of their patriotism or religious morality”.

Sections of the country’s liberal intelligentsia that support PO are now hypocritically crying foul. But the PO was also responsible in government for turning the mainstream media into a nationalistic and religious propaganda machine, promoting war and privatisation, and justification for social and economical inequality, while distorting the harsh reality of life for the majority of the population. In so doing, PO, whose former leader Donald Tusk is current president of the European Council, paved the way for the even more authoritarian methods favoured by PiS.

The PiS leadership is evidently drawing from the example of the far-right government of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, which has been able to erect an authoritarian, racist regime under the nose of the European Union and with the support of leading European political parties. Orbán was recently guest of honour at a conference of the Christian Social Union (CSU), one of Germany’s ruling coalition parties.

Entergy to shutter two nuclear plants in US, laying off 1,200

Steve Filips

The energy company Entergy, based in Louisiana, announced last month the decision to close the Fitzpatrick nuclear plant by 2017, resulting in the layoff of over 600 workers. The plant is located near the small city of Oswego, New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. The company has said that it will save up to $275 million within five years if the plant is shut down.

In October, the company said they would be closing down the Pilgrim nuclear power station in Plymouth, Massachusetts, 40 miles southeast of Boston. Entergy also owns the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which is in the process of decommissioning. It takes several years to close and fully decommission a nuclear power plant.

The upsurge in closures is largely being driven by lower energy prices due to the glut in the supply of oil and natural gas from the recent boom in hydraulic fracturing of shale, alongside reduced demand caused by stagnant economic conditions.

Natural gas-fired electric plants are, for the time being, producing lower priced power than the single reactor power plants with their higher overhead and costly repairs. The three plants being closed are all single reactor power plants and, due to their advanced age, are prone to significant costly repairs.

New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo is in closed-door negotiations with Entergy to keep the Fitzpatrick plant open. In the past, Cuomo has offered companies millions in tax credits and other incentives to keep plants open.

It is likely that discussions included the topic of the 20-year extension for the operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the lucrative Entergy-owned Indian Point reactors.

Entergy operates two of the three reactors at Indian Point Energy Center, 25 miles north of New York City. The plants are near a seismic fault zone. Entergy acquired the Indian Point 2 plant for $528 million from Con Edison in 2001, and purchased the Indian Point 3 plant the previous year from the public utility, New York Power Authority (NYPA). In total, Entergy has acquired nine nuclear plants and is eliminating single reactor plants that are less profitable from its holdings.

The downstate region has some of the highest costs for electricity in the nation. In an effort to replace the power generated at Indian Point, Cuomo has promoted the building of the Champlain-Hudson 1,000 megawatt transmission line from a hydroelectric project in Canada to supply New York City by 2018, with an expected 3 percent savings on utility bills.

While the project was held up for years by objections from environmental groups such as Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper, they are all now supporting it after the establishment of a $117.5 million mitigation fund that the environmental groups will help administer.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) contends that the Fitzpatrick plant is still viable and that another owner should be found. Rather than mount a struggle against the closures, the IBEW seeks to divert workers’ attention with the hope that the plant can be sold to other owners.

They have suggested possible buyers, which include the prior owner, the NYPA or their competitor Exelon, which owns the nearby Nine Mile Point One and Two nuclear generating station and Ginna Nuclear Power Plant, near Rochester.

The US Department of Labor’s 2014 annual report for IBEW Local 97 lists 34 employees, with nine pulling down six-figure salaries, including $145,472 raked in by local President Ted Skerpon.

Last year, Exelon announced the planned closure and decommissioning of the Ginna plant. A recent study into the effects of Ginna’s closing found that it would leave the power grid unstable, leading to probable blackouts. The closings have been averted for the time being through the imposition of a 2 percent surcharge on consumers’ utility bills in the area.

It is expected to take up to 2019 for the installation of the upgrades to provide an alternative energy supply for Rochester Gas and Electric utility customers.

In a lawsuit, Entergy is also seeking to stop a deal struck by the Cuomo administration with the NRG company, which owns two coal-fired plants near Buffalo. Those plants were slated to be shuttered, but gained new life with the state granting financial aid for their conversion to natural gas.

Entergy claimed state involvement would be unfair because it would force prices for energy lower. The shortfall in energy represented by the loss of power from these plants is expected to be made up by coal-fired generators in Pennsylvania and from the Canadian portion of the Niagara Project.

The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, also a single reactor plant, is scheduled to be shuttered by 2019, axing over 600 full-time workers. It is estimated that $60 million in upgrades would keep the plant running. The plant provides from 5 to 10 percent of the region’s power, a significant enough shortfall that is expected to cause energy price rises with the closure.

Like at the Fitzpatrick power plant, the union representing workers at the Pilgrim plant has made it clear it will do nothing to oppose the shutdown of the plant and loss of jobs.

Acting Utility Workers Union of America Local 369 President Craig A. Pinkham released a statement saying, “[Massachusetts] Gov. [Charlie] Baker, officials at the New England power grid, ISO-NE, and our state and federal legislative delegations need to tell Entergy to work harder to find a way to keep this resource up and running, safely and economically.”

US: 2,200 locked-out steelworkers lose health care

Samuel Davidson

On Tuesday, 2,200 steelworkers who have been locked out of their jobs since August 14 had their health insurance eliminated by Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI).

“My wife goes in for an MRI on Monday,” said a steelworker on the picket line in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. “I don’t know what to expect or what will happen,” he said.

For workers to continue with their health insurance they will have to pay the full premiums, which range from $800 a month for individual coverage to as much as $1,800 a month for family coverage, an amount they cannot afford.

Steelworkers Dave and Dave picketing outside ATI’s flagship mill in Brackenridge Pennsylvania

“I had to find another job,” said Dave (pictured right), who had worked nearly eight years at ATI’s Brackenridge mill and is now locked out. “It doesn’t pay as much, and there are no paid holidays or time off, but at least I do get health insurance.

“By the end of February, the unemployment runs out and you are going to have 2,200 people without any benefits at all.

“I don’t understand why they are doing this. We were willing to work; it is the company that has locked us out.

“I don’t have kids at home. It is really hurting the guys that have a family to support and take care of. I don’t know what people are going to do. You have to have health insurance when you have kids. It is a waiting game.”

Workers who don’t continue coverage through the company’s plan will be forced to buy insurance elsewhere or face being fined under the Obama administration’s misnamed Affordable Care Act.

Picketing alongside Dave was another steelworker, also named Dave (pictured left), who has worked for ATI nearly 10 years. He said that he is able to get health insurance from his previous job, where he had been a coal miner for 20 years until the mine where he worked shut down.

“I would just like to know what we did that was so wrong to deserve this,” Dave said, speaking of the lockout.

“You have a group of guys who know how to do their jobs. We got the production out, we did quality work and we did it safely. I worked in the three departments, and on the afternoon and midnight shifts we didn’t even have any supervision and we always got the product out.

“What company wouldn’t want to have a workforce like us, instead of always having to have someone standing over your head telling you ‘do this and do that’ all the time? Unless there is a breakdown or something, a supervisor is never there in the afternoon or midnight shifts.

“Health insurance is very important for us. We work with silica and acid fumes and lots of dangerous things in there.

“They don’t want to talk to the union; they are trying to break the union. I think the big companies are behind this, they want to use us to set the example.”

ATI began locking out its workforce at 12 mills in six states on August 14, several days after putting forward its “last, best, and final offer.” ATI is demanding steep increases in out-of-pocket health care payments, which can amount to more than $10,000 a year per family, factoring in deductibles, prescription drug costs and other expenditures. In addition, ATI is calling for massive cuts to benefits for new hires, including the replacement of pensions with 401(k) plans.

The company also aims to turn its workforce into casual labor, demanding the ability to contract out 40 percent of all jobs. Proposed new scheduling rules would essentially eliminate time-and-a-half overtime pay after eight hours of work, while placing workers’ schedules at the day-to-day discretion of employers.

ATI has replaced its workers with scabs through Strom Engineering of Minnesota, which specializes in hiring scabs for companies during strikes or lockouts.

ATI is being used as a model in the entire steel industry, which is seeking to place the full burden of the drop in demand and falling prices for steel onto the backs of its workers.

For its part, the United Steelworkers (USW), who represent the locked-out workers at ATI, continue to isolate and divide the workers. Thirty thousand steelworkers at US Steel and ArcelorMittal have been ordered to continue working despite the expiration of their contract on September 1. Both US Steel and ArcelorMittal are making similar demands for massive concessions in health care and contracting out as at ATI.

Far from defending steelworkers, the USW is seeking to prove to the companies that it can be relied upon to provide a disciplined workforce and thus serve as a second level of management in restoring the steelmakers’ profits.

Parasitism and the slump in US manufacturing

Andre Damon

In the latest sign of a downturn in the global economy, US manufacturing activity last month hit its lowest level since June 2009, when the economy was still reeling from the Wall Street crash the previous September.

The Institute for Supply Management said Tuesday that its index of manufacturing activity fell to 48.6 last month, from 50.1 in October. The fifth consecutive monthly decline brought the figure below the milestone of 50 that indicates contraction.

There were sharp declines in both demand and output, with new orders falling 4 points and production declining 3.7 points.

More than seven years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the US economy remains in a protracted slump. It has grown at an average rate of just over 2 percent during the official economic “recovery” of 2010-2015. This is markedly less than the 3.2 percent growth rate in the 1990s and the 4.2 percent rate in the 1950s.

Despite the Obama administration’s claims that it has turned US manufacturing around, there are 4.7 million fewer US manufacturing jobs today than there were in the late 1990s, and 1.8 million fewer than in 2006. The last time there were as few US manufacturing workers as at present was in 1950, when the population was less than half its current level.

In recent months, leading financial commentators and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund have been forced to admit that there exists no prospect for a return to “normal” economic conditions in the foreseeable future.

It is clear that the monetary policy conducted by the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve in response to the 2008 financial crash, based on the provision of essentially unlimited funds to the financial elite with no strings attached, has failed to restore the real economy.

These policies were sold to the American people as a means of promoting economic recovery and “creating jobs.” In reality, they have facilitated a massive growth of financial parasitism, in which an ever-greater share of social resources is diverted away from productive economic activity into various forms of financial speculation.

This process has been fully on display this year. “Business investment across the US is fizzling out,” declared the Wall Street Journal in an article published Monday. The newspaper added, “Companies appear reluctant to step up spending on the basic building blocks of the economy, such as machines, computers and new buildings.”

As evidence, the newspaper noted that orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, a measure of business investment in productive economic activity, fell 3.8 percent in the first ten months of 2015 compared with a year earlier.

Nor is business investment expected to grow in the future. A survey by the Business Roundtable released Tuesday showed that 27 percent of US chief executives expect to cut spending on capital goods over the next six months, the largest share planning to reduce investment since the 2008-2009 crisis.

The money that corporations are refusing to spend on productive investment is being channeled back to the financial elite in the form of share buybacks, dividend hikes and increased CEO pay.

US companies increased their dividend payments by an “astonishing” 24 percent in the third quarter alone, according to Henderson Global Investors. Firms listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index have increased their share buybacks by 10 percent in the third quarter compared to a year earlier, and share buybacks are up 80 percent over the past decade.

An analysis by Bank of America found that for every job created by major US corporations over the past decade, companies spent $296,000 buying back their stock.

The growth of economic parasitism takes its most malignant form in the boom in mergers and acquisitions, which are on track to set a new record this year. These transactions, which create billions of dollars in paper wealth for the rich investors, executives and financial firms that orchestrate them, result in mass layoffs, wage cuts and speedup for employees.

A case in point is the newly merged Kraft Heinz Co, which announced last month that it would close seven North American plants as part of its plans to slash $1.5 billion in costs. At the same time, the company said it would raise its stock dividend by 4.5 percent.

By means of stock buybacks, dividend hikes, mergers and other parasitic activities, the financial aristocracy has plundered the real economy to boost its personal wealth. The resulting destruction of decent-paying jobs, pensions and health benefits has fueled a vast upward redistribution of wealth, which only accelerated during the so-called Obama “recovery.” While the income of a typical US household fell 5 percent between 2010 and 2013 (on top of an earlier fall of 7 percent), the wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans doubled from 2009 to the present.

It is worth noting that the US financial markets responded enthusiastically to Tuesday’s dismal economic figures, with all three major indexes up by around 1 percent for the day. US markets are solidly in the green over the past month, despite a continuous stream of negative economic data, the Paris terror attacks, the ongoing refugee crisis, and the danger of the proxy war in Syria sparking an international military conflagration.

This reality points to certain fundamental characteristics of the present period. In a process that grows more naked by the day, the wealth of the financial elite is derived not from productive investment and the expansion of the productive forces, but the plundering of existing wealth, which goes hand in hand with the impoverishment and ever-greater exploitation of the working class.

This process is mirrored in the sphere of foreign policy in the drive by every major global power, spearheaded by the United States, to use military violence as a means of ensuring geopolitical dominance. Accustomed to making its money through parasitic and semi-criminal means, the ruling elite sees international law as a dead letter and proceeds to bomb and invade countries at will.

Economic stagnation, parasitism and war are accompanied by an enormous buildup of the repressive apparatus, to be used against any and all domestic opposition, above all, the financial elite’s historic enemy—the working class.

Slump, war and dictatorship have a common root: the capitalist system and the financial oligarchy that presides over it. The great task of the present historical period is to overthrow this system, expropriate the financial aristocracy, and reorganize society on socialist foundations.

China’s Cult called Xi Jinping

Monika Chansoria

November 2015 marks three years since Chinese President Xi Jinping (习近平) took over the reins of power by assuming office of the Party Commission in November 2012. At that point, it was hard to fathom that within a short span of three years, especially in the context of a large nation like China, Xi would be able to establish, what perhaps has been China’s most tight-fisted socio-political control since the era of Mao Zedong. Interestingly, this is not the astounding part. While leaders in democracies around the world have certain commonalities in terms of their approach and consequent connect with their masses/electorate, the case of China is different for obvious reasons.

In this reference the demeanour of Xi Jinping spreads far and wide - of smiling and laughing in public, cuddling babies, enjoying sports, shunning the state limousine motorcade and opting for a mini-bus to travel with the masses instead, self-serving a bowl of dumplings at local restaurants, and having a meagre traditional meal in a farmer’s hut in the countryside - thereby pointing towards a vital changing reality vis-à-vis the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP is finally being associated singularly with the face of its leader - Xi Jinping - who strikes a chord with the Chinese public and keeps track of public opinion, to the extent that he is often referred to nowadays as “Xi Dada” in local Chinese media.

For that matter, even the People’s Liberation Army owes open allegiance to Xi Jinping with state-run and controlled newspapers carrying full-page expressions of absolute loyalty by military commanders across regions (for more details, see, “The Power of Xi Jinping,” The Economist, 20 September 2014) as an attempt to quell any form of rift between the Party and the PLA, as has been debated frequently. Xi Jinping happens to be the youngest leader to take over command of China’s 2.3 million-strong armed forces. Owing to his political capital, his association with the PLA and having witnessed military diplomacy up close, Xi’s control over the PLA is far greater than both Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, who struggled to coagulate their authority during their respective tenures.

In the backdrop of the above, it appears that the winds of Chinese politics are taking a definitive, yet very gradual bend. Xi became the Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission and General Secretary of the Party in November 2012 and thereafter the President of the PRC in March 2013. While popularising his image among the Chinese masses, Xi made an astute and deliberate attempt to strengthen his grip on power, especially by placing effective checks on the power elite. The most profound manifestation of this came in the form of reducing membership of the most powerful political decision-making body of the CCP - the Politburo Standing Committee - from nine to seven members. Noteworthy is that no member, as of now, is exclusively responsible for domestic security, and it remains Xi Jinping’s fief (for more details, see, “The Power of Xi Jinping,” The Economist, 20 September 2014).

Xi Jinping has given out a clear message on who calls the shots in China, unlike his predecessor Hu Jintao. Recall that Hu had been challenged by then Politburo Standing Committee member, Zhou Yongkang (in-charge of the entire law-enforcement apparatus, from the police, secret police and judiciary). Incidentally, Zhou Yongkang is presently being tried for corruption charges and his investigation and trial grabbed international headlines primarily because Zhou is among the highest-ranking officials to have been subjected to the kind of trial that was unheard of in China ever since the Party took over in 1949. Xi Jinping is sparing no political elite when it comes to charges of corruption, and by doing so, in effect, is neutralising all potential political rivalry that could threaten his power and control, in any way. A person whom Xi Jinping would not like to forget is Bo Xilai, the Party chief in China’s south-western province of Chongqing, sentenced to life-in-prison on charges of corruption and abuse of power. Bo and Xi had many similarities in traits and background - both being Princelings with a proclivity to enchant masses. The alternative argument suggested that it was the challenge that Bo posed to Xi’s political rise, which became the key reason for his eventual downfall from public life.

The unimaginable and unprecedented crackdown on corruption is becoming the most potent tool in Xi’s hand with more than 200,000 been rounded up by party investigators, as reported by The Economist. Corrupt officials above ministerial level have apparently been identified in all 31 provincial regions of the Mainland. As the anti-graft campaign in China catches momentum, key political appointees are falling prey, and are being formally charged with taking bribes and embezzling public funds, including prominently:

Ai Baojun (Vice Mayor of Shanghai and Head of the Shanghai Free Trade Area), Lyu Xiwen (Deputy Party Chief in Beijing), Yao Gang (Vice-Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission), Zhang Yujun (Assistant Chairman at the Securities Regulator), Lu Qinhua (Former Vice Mayor of Qinzhou city in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region), and Mao Xiaobing (Former Member, Standing Committee of the CCP’s Qinghai Provincial Committee).

The Communiqué released following the fifth plenary session of the 18th CCP can be described as a caveat that summed up the objective of the anti-corruption campaign, “… so that officials … do not want to be corrupt, do not dare to be corrupt, and could not be corrupt even if they wanted to be.” (Xinhua Press Release, “CPC tightens anticorruption efforts as Shanghai, Beijing officials fall,” 12 November 2015.) That corruption in China is systemic and widespread is all too well-known and acknowledged, but, the fact that Beijing and Shanghai - China’s political and economic hub - too have fallen to corruption charges as the last provincial-level regions only reflects the depth of the roots of corruption, now a social pandemic in China.

Notwithstanding that Xi’s political standing and control at present pronounce him as China’s most powerful ruler since Deng Xiaoping, and possibly even since Mao Zedong, it simultaneously brings to light the nation’s turbulent political past when Chairman Mao’s reign was notoriously reminiscent of the turbulences of a dictatorship. Although Xi Jinping is attempting to add a dash of populism to his rule, the concurrent tightening of control on online social networks and brute crackdown against political dissent and activism shall blemish the very idea of being “Xi Dada” - which he would like to be remembered for.