Left Alliance wins Nepal’s elections

W. A. Sunil 

The recently-formed Left Alliance in Nepal won the parliamentary and provincial elections held on November 26 and December 7. Two Nepali Stalinist parties, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPUML) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre (CPNMC), established the Left Alliance in October, announcing that the parties would merge after the election.

The CPUML and CPNMC, respectively, won 80 and 36 seats in direct polls, and 41 and 17 seats under a proportional system. Nepali Congress Party (NPC) could secure only 23 seats in direct elections and 40 under the proportional system.

The remaining seats have been divided among smaller parties, including the Federal Socialist Forum (FSP) and the Rashtriya Janatha Party (RJP), which claim to represent ethnic minorities, including the Madhesi and Janajati people.

Having a total of 174 seats in the 275-member parliament, the Left Alliance is set to form a government. CPUML leader K.P. Sharma Oli is likely to replace Sher Bahadur Deuba as prime minister in mid-January.

The Left Alliance also won 239 seats in provincial assemblies, while the NCP won just 45.

The victory of the Left Alliance is not an expression of popular support. Every party in the Nepal political establishment is corrupt and widely discredited. Since the Constituent Assembly was formed in 2008, following the fall of the monarchy, all the major parties have led governments that implemented International Monetary Fund (IMF)-dictated austerity measures and suppressed democratic rights.

The CPNMC broke from the Nepal Communist Party in 1994, “rejecting” the parliamentary system and declared adherence to Maoism. It launched a decade-long guerrilla insurgency, from 1996 to 2006. In 2006, the Maoists effectively derailed mass unrest against the monarchy, by laying down their arms and joined other bourgeois political parties under an Indian-backed “Comprehensive Peace Agreement.” The pact included the formation of a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution.

The Maoist CPNMC won the largest bloc of votes in the first constituent assembly election in 2008, but dropped to third place in the recent election, revealing the erosion of its base of support.

Launching the Left Alliance election manifesto on November 7, CPNMC chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) said the alliance’s objective was “to end the country’s elongated political instability by forming a strong and a single communist centre, and ultimately achieve stability and prosperity.”

These parties have nothing to do with communism. Their perspective has always been to reform capitalism rather than abolish it. Since 2006, the CPNMC has rapidly evolved into a party of the political establishment.

In a revealing statement, CPUML chairman Oli told a media conference that countries such as China had become “superpowers and prosperous without adopting a parliamentary system” and “democracy can also be strengthened through executive government.” Both “left” parties have voiced support for an executive presidency, a form of autocratic rule.

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, with only $US862 per capita annual income. While the overall national poverty level is 25.2 percent, rural poverty has increased to staggering 45 percent. About 12.5 percent of working people earn less than $US1.90 a day.

Officially, national unemployment is 2.7 percent. However, according to a recent International Labor Organization report, youth unemployment is 19.2 percent and graduate unemployment is 26.1 percent. Around 92 percent of young people work in the “informal” sector—that is, without proper wages, working hours or job permanency.

The Left Alliance’s promise to establish “stability and prosperity” in Nepal is illusory. The geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific region are sharply expressed in Nepal. The country is strategically located in China’s underbelly. India and US are seeking to strengthen ties with Kathmandu as part of broader efforts to undermine China throughout Asia.

The election results have evoked much concern among major powers, including the US and India, Washington’s regional strategic ally. International media outlets immediately declared that a pro-Chinese alliance had won in Nepal. The New York Times ran an article headlined: “Communist parties’ victory may signal closer China ties.”

India issued a face-saving statement, “welcoming” the election results. However, Indian analysts have commented that New Delhi is losing its influence in Nepal. India’s ruling elite considers South Asia, including Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives, to be within its “sphere of influence.”

Analyst Kanwal Sibal told the New York Times: “China’s influence in Nepal is well known and one hopes that after he [Oli] assumes charge, he will behave with maturity and not cause fresh headaches for India.” He claimed that China would try to extract a price from the new government.

S. D. Muni of the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis, a New Delhi-based think tank, said: “If India fails to establish itself as a credible development partner of Nepal; the Chinese will surely gain in popularity.”

During the election, the Left Alliance promoted anti-Indian chauvinism. Over the past two years, India’s relations with Nepal have been strained as New Delhi sought increasingly to undercut Beijing in Kathmandu.

In September 2015, India effectively imposed a trade blockade on Nepal for five months, sharply reducing the country’s oil supplies. India supported demands by the Madhesi movement for changes to a draft constitution, to give more autonomy to the Terai region that borders India. New Delhi used the Madhesi demands as a lever to pressure the Kathmandu government.

Land-locked Nepal depends on India and its ports for almost all its trade. During the embargo, Oli turned to Beijing for fuel supplies and economic assistance, deepening the tensions with India.

In July 2016, the Oli government collapsed after the Maoist CPNMC withdrew its support. This was, in effect, a regime-change operation engineered by Delhi, which secured the CPNMC’s support to topple Oli and install Deuba’s NPC-led government.

In October, however, CPNMC leader Dahal removed support from the Deuba government and formed a new alliance with Oli’s party. The Indian media, without evidence, declared that China worked with the Maoist party to end the NPC government.

It increasingly appears that a section of Nepal’s capitalist class is seeking to break from its dependence on India. The two Stalinist parties represent the interests of these layers.

The US has stepped up its efforts to undermine Beijing’s position. On December 15, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert described the elections as a “historic milestone” and said the US was “looking forward” to working with the new government.

Assistant Secretary of US State for Central and South Asia Alice Wells told US Congress in September: “Nepal has been selected for one of the US’s most high profile projects to increase regional connectivity within the Indo-Pacific.”

As these comments indicate, the US and India will intensify their own interventions in Nepal to combat China’s growing influence.

Australian retail union reportedly signs another wage-cutting deal with Woolworths

Oscar Grenfell 

According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald this month, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), a union that covers retail employees, has signed another regressive enterprise agreement with Woolworths, one of Australia’s two major supermarket chains.

While the company and the trade union have sought to keep the contents of the deal secret, it appears to slash wages for 400 low-paid warehouse workers across the country. This would make it the latest in a series of wage-cutting agreements between the SDA and supermarket giants, such as Woolworths and Coles.

The deal was reportedly struck on December 8. It covers workers who will be employed in four “dark stores”—warehouses that stock Woolworths’ content that can be bought online, across the country.

The Sydney Morning Herald claimed that Fair Work Commission (FWC) deputy president John Koviac, who presided over the signing of the deal this month, approved a request by Woolworths that the details of the agreement, including wage rates, be regarded as “commercial-in-confidence.”

The FWC is the pro-business industrial tribunal, set up by the last federal Labor government, with the support of the unions. Since then, it has been the forum for company-union collaboration in the destruction of jobs, wages and working conditions.

A University of Adelaide law professor, Andrew Stewart, quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, described Koviac’s ruling as “extraordinary.” FWC legislation mandated that the details of an agreement be made public. “Clearly that includes the wage rates in the agreement,” Stewart stated.

According to figures cited in the article, workers in the “dark stores” will likely be paid at least $1.50 an hour less than other supermarket workers, at an estimated cost of up to $3,000 per year for each worker.

The deal underscores the role of the unions as arms of company management. The SDA agreement seeks to slash costs to maintain Woolworths’ profits and market position, amid growing competition.

The establishment of “dark stores” is a response to Amazon’s opening of a warehouse in Melbourne, and an online shopping operation. The US-based corporation, one of the largest in the world, is notorious for its low-costs, based on economies of scale, ultra-low wages and onerous working conditions.

Woolworths’ Australian shares fell by almost 4 percent earlier this year on the back of Amazon’s takeover of the US food retailer Whole Foods. The nervous response reflected fears that the $18 billion acquisition was a signal that Amazon would compete directly with Woolworths and Coles in the Australian food and produce market.

The secrecy provisions obtained by Woolworths, apparently with the SDA’s support, are a direct attempt to keep workers in the dark and prevent any opposition to the company-union wage-cutting. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, an SDA spokesman claimed that workers had been shown the deal’s pay provisions before they were forced to vote on it. The Fairfax Media publication stated, however, that this “did not appear to be the case.”

The SDA’s regressive agreements have faced mounting opposition from supermarket workers, and other working people.

In 2015, Duncan Hart a Brisbane employee of Coles, filed a FWC challenge to an agreement signed between that company and the SDA the previous year. In 2016, the FWC upheld Hart’s case, ruling that the 2014 agreement would be null and void unless night-time and weekend penalty wage cuts in the deal were reversed.

The decision was made on the basis of the “Better Off Overall Test” in FWC legislation, which supposedly requires that no worker be worse off overall as a result of an enterprise agreement.

Instead of raising wages, Coles then reverted to a previous 2011 pay-cutting agreement with the SDA. Penny Vickers, another Coles employee challenged that deal in a FWC case that Coles, the SDA and other unions sought to quash. Vickers argued that the 2011 deal had resulted in her pay being reduced to $33 per week less than the mandated minimum award wage.

After months of being stonewalled by the company and the union, Vickers abandoned her case last month, reaching a confidential settlement with Coles. The company, like Woolworths, was moving to sign a new agreement with the SDA.

A Fairfax Media investigation last year found that Coles-SDA agreements since 2011 have resulted in some 43,000 supermarket workers being “underpaid.” The investigation alleged that the average underpayment was $1,500 per worker each year, resulting in annual savings for Coles of up to $100 million.

The previous Woolworths-SDA agreement similarly resulted in the bulk of the workforce being paid below official minimum wages. A Fairfax Media investigation claimed last year, for instance, that 60 percent of workers at a Woolworths Melbourne supermarket were paid below the legally-required rate.

At Senate hearings in August, Woolworths government relations manager Alison Penfold conceded that agreements between the company and the SDA could have resulted in workers being paid below required pay rates.

Numbers of major employers have struck wage-cutting agreements with the SDA. Fast food companies McDonalds and KFC have also been implicated, with estimates that up to 250,000 poorly-paid workers have received lower wages.

Other unions have collaborated with the large retailers. The Australian Workers Union, the country’s biggest, was a party to the 2011 and 2014 SDA-Coles wage cutting agreements.

Sally McManus, the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the national union umbrella organisation, has explicitly defended SDA cuts to wages and conditions, despite her bogus claims to be leading a fight against social inequality.

When asked about the SDA’s pay cutting agreements last May, McManus cynically declared: “No union is going into negotiations trying to cut people’s wages.” She added: “If you’re working at McDonald’s, you have protection against discrimination, people to stand up for you. You’d be one of the best-paid fast-food workers in the world.”

As a result of SDA deals, McDonald’s and other fast-food workers are paid as low as $10 an hour, depending on their age, and, in many cases, do not receive penalty wages.

The SDA’s pro-business agreements, replicated by unions in every other sector, have contributed to the lowest Australian wages growth in history, recorded at around 1.9 percent this year. At the same time, labour’s share of gross domestic product is smaller than ever, at just 46.2 percent. The record of the unions underscores that as workers enter into struggles in defence of jobs, wages and conditions, they will confront these corporatised entities as bitter opponents.

South Korea’s deadliest fire in a decade leaves 29 dead

Ben McGrath

A large fire at a fitness center in Jecheon, South Korea last Thursday left 29 people dead and close to three dozen injured. The eight-storey building housed a gym, public sauna and restaurants. The fire was the deadliest in South Korea since 2008, when 40 people died in a warehouse fire in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. Jecheon is a small city located in North Chungcheong Province, 168 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

The fire began in the ceiling of the first floor parking garage, which was undergoing maintenance work. Within seven minutes, the entire building was engulfed in flames, fueled by highly flammable cladding on the structure’s exterior. Authorities revealed that the sprinkler system had been shut off and the emergency exit in the women’s sauna on the second floor was blocked by storage shelves.

Of the people killed, 20 were found in the women’s sauna, which had only one remaining exit. A witness told Kyunghyang Shinmun: “The bathhouse entrance is narrow, and it’s difficult for two to three people to enter at the same time. The people would not have been able to see because of the smoke, so it wouldn’t have been easy for them to find the exit.”

Saunas in South Korea are typically inexpensive and ubiquitous throughout the country. The cheap, highly flammable cladding on the building is commonly used by construction companies to cut costs. On top of burning quickly, it also releases a toxic gas that likely contributed to the deaths.

Comparisons were immediately drawn to a January 2015 fire at an apartment building in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, which killed four and injured 124. That structure similarly had been covered in flammable cladding. The latest blaze also calls to mind the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London, England that left at least 71 dead.

Kong Ha-sung, a professor in the Department of Fire Safety at Kyungil University, told the Korea Herald: “So many more buildings have already been wrapped by the flammable cladding, so the government should come up with solutions to ensure fire safety.”

However, little or nothing will be done to improve fire and safety regulations, which are often weakly enforced, allowing landlords to skirt around them in order to boost profits. A law was passed in 2015 banning construction companies from using flammable cladding on buildings six storeys or more, but did not require the removal of these materials on existing structures.

Constructed in 2012, the Jecheon fitness center had been purchased by a new owner over the summer, renovated and then reopened in October, giving ample time and opportunity to remove the dangerous material from the building’s exterior.

Survivors and family members of those killed have criticized the firefighters for being slow to bring in ladders and break windows to rescue people trapped in the fitness center. The fire, however, revealed the large gap in firefighting capability between large cities like Seoul and small-to-medium sized cities like Jecheon.

According to the Hankyoreh newspaper, Jecheon is able to immediately mobilize just half the rescue workers and three quarters the number of vehicles of the average fire station in Seoul. Even given the population differences, it is clear Jecheon’s fire station, as well as others throughout the country, are undermanned, an effect of government cost-cutting. Throughout North Chungcheong Province, only 70 rescue personnel were recruited in the second half of 2017 despite the stated official intention to hire 90.

President Moon Jae-in made a publicity appearance in Jecheon on Friday to deflect anger from the government. He instructed rescue workers to “make utmost efforts for speedy rescue and firefighting operations.” This is an empty and meaningless expression often utilized by officials around the world to give the appearance of leadership at a time of crisis.

In the same vein, authorities issued arrest warrants Tuesday for the building owner and its manager. The two men, identified only by their family names Lee and Kim respectively, were first detained on Sunday. The owner will be charged with manslaughter by professional negligence and violation of the fire code. The manager will only face the manslaughter charge. The government hopes to make scapegoats on these two and sweep the common practice of ignoring safety regulations under the rug.

Manslaughter by negligence conviction carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and maximum 20 million won ($18,500) fine. Violation of the fire code comes with a maximum 10-year prison term and up to 100 million won ($92,900) in fines. For the wealthy, these fines are little more than slaps on the wrist.

Authorities stated last week: “The cause of the accident and issue of responsibility will be available after the investigation is over. We are putting all of our efforts into supporting those who have lost their relatives due to the fire, for example, we are first going to provide administrative support for them to go through funeral procedures.”

In other words, the government’s failure to enforce regulations and halt the use of deadly construction material will not be genuinely addressed. Any information that does come out of any inquiry will be delayed until after anger has died down and designed to deflect blame.

Disasters leading to major losses of life are all too frequent in South Korea, where companies regularly cut corners to save money and then receive minimal punishment, if any, when a catastrophe does occur. Such tragedies, however, are increasingly provoking widespread resentment and opposition. Anger over the Sewol ferry sinking in 2014 that killed 304 people, mostly high school students, contributed to massive protests against the previous administration of President Park Geun-hye in late 2016 and early 2017.

Moon’s government is conscious of this public hostility, compounded by deteriorating social conditions for working people. However, the government, which defends the profit system, has nothing to offer except crocodile tears.

UK Conservatives seek closer economic ties with China

Jean Shaoul

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government is establishing a $1 billion investment fund with China to back China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Her predecessor, David Cameron, will become vice-chairman of the fund, which is being set up by Cameron’s friend and Tory Peer, Lord Chadlington, on whose behalf Cameron lobbied Beijing. Douglas Flint, the former group chairman of HSBC bank, will become Britain’s envoy to the project.

The BRI, also known as One Belt One Road (OBOR), is a massive infrastructure investment project for high-speed rail, roads, Internet links and port facilities aimed at more closely integrating the Eurasian land mass.

As well as boosting economic growth, Beijing regards the project as a means of establishing closer ties with Europe and thus bypassing the US, which has opposed European participation as part of its broader effort to isolate China diplomatically, economically and militarily.

Chancellor Philip Hammond announced the fund along with a raft of new investment agreements finalised during his two-day visit to Beijing, as part of Britain’s efforts to boost its global trade and investment links before leaving the European Union in 2019. There will be export credit guarantees to support up to £25 billion in investments in BRI projects. There will also be a $50 million matching contribution with China to the $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to expand operations into less developed countries. The AIIB was set up in 2015 as China’s equivalent to the World Bank. Britain was the first Western country to pledge its participation.

Other measures include a direct channel for trading China’s renminbi on London’s foreign exchange markets via R5, a London-based fintech (financial technology) firm that will provide the trading platform for Chinese banks, and a Shanghai-London Stock Connect that will allow companies in each market to list depositary receipts in the other.

The former prime minister and his chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, made economic ties with China, centring on Chinese investment in the UK, a central axis of their economic policy. In March 2015, Cameron defied pressure from the United States and Britain’s own security agencies and joined the Chinese-sponsored AIIB, a decision that reflected the interests of the City of London in exploiting the opportunities that could open up.

Cameron’s new job testifies to the revolving door between high political office and a financial career. He follows Sir Danny Alexander, a Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury in Cameron’s Conservative/Liberal coalition, who became vice-president of the AIIB in Beijing after losing his parliamentary seat in 2015.

Cameron’s role was approved by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), which gave him special dispensation to circumvent the normal two-year ban on former British ministers taking jobs that capitalise on their insider knowledge of government.

The British economy has become ever more dependent on the speculative and parasitic activities of its major banks and finance houses, which view participation in the AIIB as an opportunity to profit from enhancing the global role of China’s renminbi as Beijing’s economic and financial power increases.

The announcement points to the divergence between Britain’s commercial interests and those of its foremost ally. For most of the post-World War II period, Britain has been able to “punch above its weight” because of its supposed “special relationship” with the United States. Now that relationship is coming under increased strain as President Donald Trump’s increasingly reckless policy in both the Middle East and East Asia cuts across Britain’s commercial interests.

While May was initially cautious about making overtures to China, ordering a review of the Hinkley nuclear power station in which China is involved before giving it the go-ahead, she has now given the nod to BRI and Britain’s involvement in it. A major factor in her calculations has been the importance of securing trade deals and attracting investment after leaving the EU, the world’s second-largest economy, in 2019.

This has become urgent, given that Trump’s promises of a favourable post-Brexit trade deal with the US are both vague and problematic, not only due to Trump’s “America First” policy, but also in the wake of high-profile rows over Trump’s re-tweeting of a fascist Britain Firster’s anti-Muslim videos and Britain’s refusal to join Washington in recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Washington’s intense opposition was made clear. An opinion piece in the Washington Examiner described Cameron’s appointment as “undercutting a US-led international order built on fair commercial law.”

This divergence of interests is echoed throughout Europe. When Cameron announced, with little if any consultation with the US, that Britain would become a founding member of the AIIB, other major European countries swiftly announced their intention of joining. Washington viewed the bank as a strategic rival to the US-dominated World Bank and the Japan-led Asia Development Bank and denounced the move by the European powers as part of “a trend towards constant accommodation” with China that was “not the best way to engage a rising power.”

Then-Chancellor Osborne could not afford to ignore the fact that China’s economy is expected to be twice that of the US economy by 2030, and that Chinese investment in Britain had grown by 85 percent annually since the Cameron-led coalition government took office. He went to Chengdu, China and urged firms there to bid for seven contracts worth £11.8 billion covering the first phase of a proposed high-speed rail service between London and Birmingham. He also invited bids for £24 billion in further Chinese investment in northern England under the government’s “Northern Powerhouse” project, designed to link deindustrialised northern cities so as to facilitate the exploitation of a 15-million-strong population by international corporations.

In October 2015, Cameron feted Chinese President Xi Jinping during his state visit to Britain, when trade and investment deals worth £40 billion were agreed.

China has become Britain’s seventh largest trading partner, making China the UK’s second-largest non-European trading partner. Bilateral trade rose to more than $80 billion last year, up 8.9 percent from 2015.

China’s investment in the UK has also risen, reaching $11.15 billion (£8.4 billion), double the amount in 2015, far more than in Germany, France and Italy combined. This includes the £19.6 billion project to build a nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, in which China’s state-owned CGN has a one-third stake; Chinese developer ABP’s Royal Albert Dock re-development in east London; and the “Cheesegrater”—the tallest buildings in London’s “Square Mile” financial district—which was sold to Hong Kong-based CC Land for £1.15 billion this year.

Last April, the first UK-to-China freight train left its terminal in Essex to begin a 7,500-mile, two-and-a-half-week journey to Zhejiang province.

As far as the US is concerned, the advance of China’s economic influence in Asia and Europe expressed by the rail link and the enhancement of its military and strategic capacities are inseparably linked, and together represent a growing threat. This places Britain in a quandary: How far can it go in pursuing its own interests without jeopardising the strategic relationship with the US, the world’s dominant military power?

European Union threatens to impose sanctions on Poland

Clara Weiss

The European Commission announced December 20 the imposition of sanctions on Poland under Article 7 of the European Union treaty. The Polish government, led by the nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS), had prior to this effectively abolished the independence of Poland’s courts. The conflict between Brussels and Warsaw is an expression of the ongoing breakup of the European Union.

The PiS’ laws, which subordinate the judiciary to the government, have provoked bitter conflicts for two years between the PiS and the European Union and stoked liberal opposition within Poland. The two latest laws concern the Supreme Court and the National Judicial Council. One of the laws enables politicians to determine membership of the Council, which, in turn, appoints judges throughout the country. The second law reduces the retirement age for judges on the Supreme Court, making 40 percent of its current occupants no longer eligible to serve.

Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoed aspects of the latest laws last summer because domestic and foreign policy tensions had risen sharply. However, he fell into line with the government in the autumn and signed the new laws in December.

Małgorzata Gersdorf, chair of the Polish Supreme Court, compared the laws in an open letter to a “coup.”

In its 20 December statement, the EU Commission warned of the judicial reforms’ consequences for foreign investors and the European single market. The EU gave Poland three months to rescind the laws. If this fails to occur, the EU member states will discuss the initiation of a package of sanctions described by the German daily Die Welt as a “partial ejection” from the EU.

Poland could lose its right to vote in the EU as a result. To initiate the sanctions, the EU requires the votes of 22 of the EU Council’s 28 members.

The European press’ use of military terms to describe the conflict gives an indication of the EU’s internal state. Die Welt described the sanctions as the “nuclear option.” France’s conservative newspaper Le Figaro spoke of the use of “heavy artillery.” The Spanish newspaper ABC wrote, “Brussels is launching a war with Poland over attacks on the rule of law.”

German media outlets such as Die Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung have applauded the measures as a tough but necessary step. However, Stefan Kornelius warned in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that in the aftermath of Brexit, a Polexit could be the last resort.

The Polish media responded with panic to the EU Commission’s announcement. Gazeta Wyborcza, the most important mouthpiece of the pro-German and pro-European liberal opposition, referred to “judgement day.” The conservative Rzeczpospolita, which often supports the government, was no less horrified. An initial comment stated, “The worst is yet to come.” The newspaper compared Polish politics to a speeding car “which has been driving towards a wall for months and has now spectacularly crashed into it.”

Rzeczpospolita also warned of the withdrawal of foreign investors from Poland and predicted severe economic consequences for the country. Another commentator wrote in the same newspaper, “Some colleagues are already discussing where would be the best place to emigrate following a Polexit. We hope that these discussions are groundless.” He then listed a number of factors that could prevent Poland’s exit from the European Union, including the geographic isolation of the Baltic states that would result from them having no border with the European Union after a Polexit.

The fact that the EU has initiated sanctions against Poland that could ultimately result in the country leaving the EU is a symptom of bitter national divisions within Europe and the advanced state of the EU’s breakup. Nationalist movements are on the march throughout Europe. In Ukraine, they were supported directly in their seizure of power by Berlin, Brussels and Washington. In several European countries, including Hungary and other Eastern European states, as well as Austria, right-wing nationalist forces are in government.

Like the PiS, these governments frequently pursue domestic and foreign policies that run counter to the interests of Germany and the EU. Over recent years, the PiS has pursued a so-called “Intermarium” strategy, which involves the establishment of an alliance of far-right, anti-Russian nationalist forces in Eastern and Central Europe. This alliance, which has been promoted with particular vigor this year, aims to create political, economic and military structures to compete with the EU.

During his visit to Warsaw in the summer, US President Donald Trump assured the Polish government of his full support, encouraged its nationalist agenda, and indicated that he views Poland as an instrument to combat Germany as well as Russia.

The British government is also trying to exploit the Polish-EU conflict for its own nationalist interests. Prime Minister Theresa May traveled with her chancellor, Philip Hammond, State Secretary Amber Rudd, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Economy Secretary Greg Clark to Warsaw to conclude wide-ranging bilateral accords.

May and the new Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who replaced Beata Szydło just a few weeks ago, signed an agreement on security and defence cooperation. In it, Poland agreed to assist Britain against the “very dangerous” EU protectionism following Brexit. May declared at a press conference, “I am determined that Brexit will not weaken our relationship with Poland. Rather, it will serve as a catalyst to strengthen it.”

Even prior to the Brexit referendum, Britain was one of Poland’s closest allies, since it not only pursues the same hard line anti-Russian policy as Warsaw, but also opposed the dominance of France and Germany in the EU.

The EU, which imposed brutal austerity measures on Greece, Spain and other countries without even the semblance of democratic mechanisms, is now seeking with its sanctions program to whip Warsaw into line. Britain’s Independent welcomed this by stating, “It is becoming increasingly clear that the nationalists of Europe lack a deep understanding of and commitment to liberal values or economic progress in equal measure. Time for them to be taught a lesson: you cannot have your cake and eat it.”

The PiS’ initiatives in domestic and foreign policy in Poland over the past two years were thoroughly reactionary and represent a serious threat to the working class. PiS has assumed control of the intelligence agencies, effectively abolished independent courts, weakened the Polish parliament’s powers, placed public media outlets under government control and taken major steps to enforce the militarisation of society. The demonstration of some 60,000 fascists in Warsaw in November was a direct product of the policies adopted by the PiS, which has promoted right-wing and outright fascist tendencies since coming to power and propagandised on their behalf.

But the PiS did not emerge out of the blue. The forces united in the party grew out of capitalist restoration, which was encouraged by Western European states and the United States. They have been strengthened by the social catastrophe bound up with capitalist restoration and Poland’s entry into the EU, which have transformed Poland into a cheap-labor paradise for European, and in particular German, big business. The establishment of Poland as a NATO bulwark in Eastern Europe, which has led to the militarisation of Polish society, was part of a deliberate policy.

The same forces in Brussels now attempting to bring Warsaw to heel by means of sanctions bear responsibility for the rise of PiS and similar forces in Europe. The EU’s response to this crisis will strengthen these forces and fuel the rise of the nationalists throughout Europe.

UK steps up provocations against Russia

Steve James & Chris Marsden

Christmas Day saw the frigate HMS St Albans shadow the Russian warship Admiral Gorshkov as it passed through the North Sea.

The BBC report dutifully cited the Royal Navy stating that the presence of the new guided-missile frigate, which is still undergoing sea trials, as being “activity in areas of national interest” and an example of a recent “upsurge in Russian units transiting UK waters.”

This was contradicted by the Royal Navy’s admission that the Admiral Gorshkov was in fact only “close to UK territorial waters” and the BBC’s own admission that Russian ships have used these international waters “regularly… in recent times to sail to and from the Mediterranean for deployment off Syria.”

This did not stop Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson striking a heroic pose, declaiming, “I will not hesitate in defending our waters or tolerate any form of aggression… Britain will never be intimidated when it comes to protecting our country, our people, and our national interests.”

The incident is only the latest example of the UK stepping up its propaganda campaign against Russia.

On the military front, this month saw leading figures in the British military, NATO, and their associated think tanks claiming, without evidence, that Russian naval forces are developing a capacity to sever undersea fibre optic cables.

Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshall Sir Stuart Peach, posed “a new risk to our way of life.”

“Can you imagine,” asked Peach, speaking to the Royal United Services Institute, “a scenario where those cables are cut or disrupted, which would immediately and potentially catastrophically affect both our economy and other ways of living?”

Conservative MP Rishi Sunak in a report, “Undersea Cables, Indispensable, Insecure,” from the Policy Exchange think tank banged the same drum.

A foreword by former NATO Supreme Commander in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, warned that the Atlantic Ocean was in transition “from being a theatre characterised by near complete NATO supremacy following the collapse of the Soviet Union to a space that Russia is actively contesting through a resurgent and revanchist naval doctrine.”

Sunak’s report underscores the modern world’s dependence on undersea fibre cables. Each cable consists of between 4 and 200 fibres protected by steel wire, insulation, armouring and plastic sheathing. Each fibre can carry up to 400GB of data per second. Ninety-seven percent of current global communications travel over 545,018 miles of cabling organised in 213 separate systems.

The main daily physical threat to the cabling network is the continual stress from the conditions in which they operate. Undersea landslides caused by the 2006 Hengchun earthquake, for example, knocked out six of seven undersea cables carrying phone and internet services between North America and much of South East Asia. Repairs took 11 ships nearly two months to complete, during which time the region's communications with North America travelled along the one remaining link. However, such is the nature of internet routing that should one route to a destination address be unavailable, others will be automatically sought and exploited. In 2012, for example, flooding in Manhattan data centres caused by Hurricane Sandy knocked out major network hubs, but the impact on global traffic was minimal.

Less dramatic outages happen all the time. Of all reported cable breaks between 1959 and 2006 as many as 44.4 percent have been attributed to fishing, while 21.3 percent are classed as unknown.

Even such cable breaks can have military consequences. In 2008, shipping in the Mediterranean accidentally cut three cables connecting Italy with Egypt, reducing 80 percent of bandwidth between Europe and the Middle East. The US military, which uses the commercial cable network for 95 percent of its strategic communications, was unable to operate many of the drones deployed against Iraq and Pakistan, so that flights were reduced from “hundreds of combat sorties per day” to “tens.”

Sunak nevertheless centred his attention on direct military risks, warning that cables can be cut under the sea, but cited no example of Russia doing so and only one undersea operation, involving the cutting of telegraph and telephone cables during the First World War—by the Royal Navy.

He naturally ignored the primary threat to the internet--the wholesale data harvesting operations mounted by US and British intelligence services as revealed by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. As of 2014, British spy agencies could access data feeds from more than 18 submarine cables making landfall in Britain.

However, Sunak did refer to the US- and Israeli-devised Stuxnet worm which wrecked Iranian nuclear centrifuges, but only to suggest that similar software (by implication Russian) aimed at sabotaging control systems could undermine the network management of entire cable systems or regions. He neglected to draw the obvious inference: that the US is undoubtedly equipping itself with such capacities.

To reinforce his message, Sunak cited the limited revival of the Russian Navy, particularly its submarine fleet over the last decade and a half. The Putin government has, besides modernising its ballistic-missile-armed nuclear deterrent vessels, built a small number of relatively powerful attack submarines. It also has a spy vessel, the Yantar, which allegedly has been working to identify cable locations.

Even so, every single investigation of relative strengths places the US, with or without NATO assistance, as possessing numbers and capabilities well in advance of its cash-strapped Russian rival.

This did not prevent the holding of a tabletop exercise, “Forgotten Waters,” hosted by the Center for a New American Security think tank, which considered a war scenario in which American warships and troops were seeking to cross the Atlantic in large numbers to reinforce NATO forces in Europe in a major confrontation with Russia. The naval war gamers confronted, “Atlantic waters infested with Russian submarines, surface vessels, or aircraft that transited south” through the GIUK gap--the waters between Greenland, Iceland and the UK. They were also told that “an undersea cable between Iceland and Canada had been cut, creating a significant telecommunications disruption.”

The discovery of this new “Russian threat” should be seen alongside the hysterical and unsubstantiated accusations of Russian meddling in elections and plebiscites.

On December 22, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. The meeting saw a public clash over accusations made by Johnson and May of Russian political interference--including in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

May, in a November 17 foreign policy speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet, accused the Putin regime of “deploying its state-run media organisations to plant fake stories and photoshopped images in an attempt to sow discord in the west and undermine our institutions.”

Prior to departing for Moscow, Johnson described Russia as “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic,” and said it could not be “business as usual” in relations between the two countries.

Citing the alleged threat to undersea cables, Johnson added that the UK is “prepared and able” to launch retaliatory cyber-attacks, if hackers continued to target Western power stations and communication networks, subvert elections and spread fake news.

At a joint press conference with Johnson, Lavrov described relations between the UK and Russia as “at a low point,” before adding, “We hear some aggressive statements from London. Despite all that, we have never taken any aggressive measures to reciprocate.”

Lavrov publicly rejected accusations that Russia had interfered in Britain’s general election and Brexit referendum, to which Johnson replied, “Not successfully.”

Health care threatened for nine million low-income US children

Patrick Martin

State health officials throughout the United States are preparing for major cutbacks or outright shutdown of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The plans are going forward despite stopgap legislation enacted by Congress December 21 and signed into law by President Trump that supposedly averted an immediate collapse of CHIP, which provides health care coverage for nine million low-income children.

In Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Virginia, state agencies sent out letters notifying families of children enrolled in CHIP that the program is likely to terminate January 31 without additional congressional action. The state of Alabama delayed its own shutdown—originally set to begin January 1—until the end of the month.

The legislation passed last week provides only a short-term patch to the program, funneling $2.85 billion into CHIP through March 31. This is entirely inadequate, since funding authorization expired September 30, at the end of the last fiscal year, and full annual funding would require $16 billion, or about $4 billion every three months. That means the $2.85 billion does not even cover spending for the October through December period, let alone the first three months of 2018.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which manages the allocation of CHIP funds to the states, has averted the program’s shutdown so far by shuffling funds from states with temporary surpluses to those which were imminently running out of cash. The imbalances between states are themselves a product of the patchwork character of CHIP, which is treated by some states as part of Medicaid, and by others as a free-standing program.

The redistribution of funds between states can only go so far, and ultimately has the effect of bringing forward a nationwide collapse of the entire program, since all states will now run out of funds more or less simultaneously. According to a report by Georgetown University released last week, 25 states will run out of funds during the month of January and six more during the month of February.

In those states where CHIP funding is exhausted, those children covered through Medicaid will remain covered, under a provision of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) which requires that states maintain eligibility levels under Medicaid. But those children covered through CHIP as a separate program will be dropped.

According to the Georgetown study, the January cutoffs could affect nearly 2 million children, while another million children would be targeted in February. The largest statewide totals include 719,612 in Texas (February); and 424,976 in New York; 238,317 in Pennsylvania; 201,703 in Florida; 166,948 in Georgia; and 118,016 in California, all in January.

In some states, funding will dry up even before beneficiaries and providers can be properly notified, since IT systems that handle the payment of benefits have to be reprogrammed and web sites updated. Some states cannot meet the required 30 days of advance notice to families that their benefits are being terminated.

In some cases, states plan to dump families into the Obamacare exchanges, which, even if they can find an insurance plan, will cost much more. CHIP caps cost-sharing like deductibles and premiums at 5 percent of a family’s income, but there is no such ceiling on the cost of insurance on the exchanges.

The passage of a supposed temporary “fix” to the CHIP funding crisis that actually resolves nothing—and may bring forward the total collapse of the program—is an indictment of the congressional Democrats as well as the Republicans and the Trump White House.

The year-end continuing resolution required a 60-vote margin to pass the Senate, where the Republicans control only 52 votes, giving the Democratic caucus significant leverage in how to structure the legislation. On the two most salient issues—extension of CHIP and protection for immigrant children under DACA—the Democrats caved in and essentially did the bidding of the Republican majority.

Moreover, many of the state governments that are implementing the CHIP cuts, including three of the four states (Colorado, Connecticut and Virginia) that have recently sent off mass cutoff notifications, are under Democratic Party control. At the state level, both capitalist parties are pursuing austerity policies with a vengeance.

There are many additional cuts in health care coming in the New Year, some incorporated in the continuing resolution passed by the House and Senate to fund the federal government through January 19, others being enacted by state governments on their own authority, using the “flexibility” provided by executive order from the Trump administration.

* One provision takes $750 million out of the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Fund to pay for community health centers and other programs that would otherwise have been defunded, essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul.

* Two measures that assist rural hospitals, the Medicare dependent hospital program and the low-volume adjustment program, also expired September 30 and were left out of the continuing resolution.

* The state of Arkansas is awaiting rubber-stamp approval by the federal Department of Health and Human Services of its request to reduce the qualifying income for Medicaid down to the official US poverty line. The effect would be to eliminate insurance coverage for about 60,000 people currently enrolled in the program in Arkansas, an action that Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said would “contain costs and eliminate waste.”

Meanwhile the growing need for health insurance coverage is reflected in the ongoing surge in enrollment into the Affordable Care Act health plans, including 9 million people so far during the federal open enrollment, despite it being shortened by several weeks in one of many Trump actions to sabotage Obamacare. Several million more are expected to sign up in state-run exchanges that have longer enrollment periods.

This increased enrollment—nearly matching last year’s total—does not express any popular enthusiasm for Obamacare, where premiums continue to rise and coverage networks shrink. Rather it reveals the growing desperation on the part of millions of people who have no other alternative, given the cutbacks in employer-based coverage and in other federal health insurance programs.

The US government and the Russian election

Andre Damon

Over the past year, the Democratic Party and leading American media outlets have been monomaniacally focused on unsubstantiated allegations that the 2016 US elections were undermined by Russian interference.

It is worth considering these claims as one assesses the response to the decision of Russian officials to block Alexei Navalny from participating in the upcoming presidential election. The move has been met with self-righteous denunciations in the American and international press. Newspapers have run articles lauding Navalny as an “anti-corruption crusader” and the “democratic” face of “popular opposition” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Washington Post published an editorial condemning the move to bar Navalny. It declared that Navalny’s “real offenses were helping to lead opposition” to Putin’s “authoritarian” government and “bringing out tens of thousands of followers in cities across Russia this year to denounce the regime.”

The hypocrisy and cynicism here are breathtaking. While the alleged Russian “meddling” in the US elections consists of several tens of thousands of dollars in Facebook advertising, Navalny is almost entirely a creature of the US State Department.

A graduate of the Yale World Fellows Program, Navalny is listed on Yale’s website as a cofounder of the Democratic Alternative Movement, an organization shown in a leaked diplomatic cable to have received funding from the US government-backed National Endowment for Democracy, a fact it had concealed for “fear of appearing compromised by an American connection.”

The World Socialist Web Site gives no support to the Putin government’s crackdown on political opposition, but the posturing of the US press in defense of “human rights” and “democracy” is preposterous. The United States, the most unequal and undemocratic developed country in the world, the leading force for war and dictatorship worldwide, is in no position to lecture others about “democracy.”

There is no other country that intervenes in the political affairs of foreign states so directly, regularly and shamelessly as the United States. American foreign policy is one massive intervention in the politics of other countries, running the gamut from propaganda, destabilization, financing of opposition parties, electoral fraud and coups to military bombardment and occupation, all of which taken together have killed more people than any government since Nazi Germany.

Professor Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University has assembled a database documenting as many as 81 occasions between 1946 and 2000 when Washington interfered in elections in other countries. This number does not include military coups or regime-change operations following the election of candidates the US opposed, as in Iran, Congo, Guatemala, Chile and many other nations.

The intervention of the US government and President Bill Clinton personally to secure the reelection of Boris Yeltsin in the 1996 Russian election was so brazen that Time magazine featured on its July 15, 1996 cover a caricature of Yeltsin holding an American flag, accompanied by the headline “Yanks to the Rescue.”

For its part, the US electoral system—with the vast influence exerted by billionaires and corporations and the maze of antidemocratic rules that impose huge hurdles for third-party candidates—blocks the overwhelming majority of the US population from having their voices heard.

Reporting on his visit to the United States this month, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights declared, “There is no other developed country where so many voters are disenfranchised…and where ordinary voters ultimately have so little impact on political outcomes.”

Despite substantial evidence that the entire Navalny campaign represents an effort by the US intelligence agencies to intervene in Russian politics, the US press has found a way to tie Putin’s moves against Navalny to the claim that the Kremlin is subverting American democracy.

“Even as he outlaws political competition in Russia, Mr. Putin continues to oversee attempts to undermine and tilt elections in the West,” wrote the Washington Post in its editorial. “For him, democratic contests are a vulnerability, to be avoided at home and exploited abroad. In that sense, Western governments and Russia’s democrats have a common cause in countering Mr. Putin.”

According to the intelligence agencies for which the Post is a mouthpiece, the Russian government sought to intervene in the US election by promoting third-party candidates. Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee announced that it is investigating Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2016 presidential candidate, on the grounds that her campaign received coverage on RT, the Russian-based TV network. This can be seen as nothing other than an effort to intimidate third parties and their supporters.

Through an incredible sleight of hand, the Post denounces the suppression of a third-party candidate in Russia while legitimizing efforts to brand supporters of the Green Party in the United States as traitors.

There is another problem with the official presentation of Navalny as the voice of popular opposition to the Russian oligarchy—the fact that he is a right-wing extremist who enjoys only marginal support among the Russian electorate.

While masking his right-wing politics behind the catchall of opposition to corruption, Navalny has a long history of extreme nationalism, connections to neo-Nazi groups, and the promotion of racist conceptions. In one YouTube video, he compares minorities within Russia to “cockroaches,” adding that while cockroaches can be killed with a slipper, for humans he recommends a pistol. During the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, Navalny repeatedly called Georgians “rodents” and demanded the eviction of all Georgians from Russia.

Writing in Salon, Danielle Ryan noted that while the US-aligned press hails Navalny as a hero, “What is reported less often about Navalny are his nationalist leanings, ties to neo-Nazi groups, xenophobic comments and extreme anti-immigrant views. References to Navalny’s nationalism in the West are usually buried or brushed off, while the headlines sing his praises.”

The State Department’s money is indeed backed up by overwhelmingly uncritical support in the US and international press. The New York Times has published 387 articles referencing Navalny, the Washington Post has published 344 and the Financial Times has run 299.

Despite the international coverage his campaign receives, and broad popular hostility to social inequality, which is almost as high in Russia as it is in the United States, Navalny has the support of just two percent of the electorate, according to a recent independent poll.

The political conflict between Putin and Navalny ultimately represents a struggle within the Russian kleptocracy, into which the United States is forcefully intervening. It is up to the working class of Russia to sweep away Putin and the oligarchy for which he speaks, not the US State Department and intelligence agencies.

Election Year in Pakistan: Key Dynamics and Prospects

Rana Banerji

Despite several hiccups, on 19 December, the Senate of Pakistan passed the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2017 - resulting in the amendment to Article 51 (5) of the Pakistani constitution - which will enable elections to the National Assembly (NA) to be held on the basis of the 2017 provisional census results. 

Under the newly demarcated constituencies, of the 342 NA seats, Punjab will have 141 General seats and 33 Women seats (7 General and 2 Women seats fewer); Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will have 39 General and 9 Women seats (4 General and 1 Women seat added); Baluchistan will have 16 General and 4 Women seats (2 General and 1 Women seat added); and the Federal Capital Area will have 3 General seats (1 General seat added). The existing 61 General and 14 Women seats in Sindh and 12 General seats in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) remain unchanged. The term of the present parliament ends on 31 May 2018. After the Election Commission implements these changes, elections could be held, after Ramadan, sometime in mid-August 2018.

Coincidentally (?), Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Bajwa addressed Senators a few hours earlier on the same day. This `in-camera’ briefing, leaked soon enough to media, laid to rest speculation about a government of technocrats prematurely replacing Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s team. It did not dispel persisting doubts about the Army’s interventionist clout, which re-emerged after photographs of the Director General (DG) Punjab Rangers, Maj Gen Azhar Naveed Hayat Khan, distributing cheques to Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYR) volunteers went viral on social media on 07 Dec 2017.

This could be tested afresh in January 2018 when Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT) leader, Tahir-ul-Qadri resumes street agitation, asking for the sacking of Punjab Law Minister, Rana Sanaullah, as a price for the heavy handed police action during the August 2014 demonstration in Model Town, Lahore. The Justice Baqar Najfi judicial enquiry findings, which were made public on 5 December 2017, places the already beleaguered Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML(N)) regime on a weak wicket in this regard. How it counters this agitation may impinge on the prospects of Shahbaz Sharif's prime ministerial candidacy.

Senate Elections

The next important landmark would be the Senate elections, scheduled for 2 March 2018. This poll would enhance the PML (N)'s strength, though not by enough to give it two-thirds majority. At present, the 104-member Upper House has 27 PML (N) Senators; 26 Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senators; and 7 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senators. After the election, PML (N) will have 37 seats, PPP, 16; and PTI, 13.

Caretaker Governments

As per the 20th constitutional amendment passed in February 2012, caretaker governments have to be formed to conduct free and fair elections at the national and provincial levels. These are to be chosen through a consultative process between legislators of the ruling party and the opposition under Article 224A of Pakistan's constitution. Though some wrangling on names can occur, fear of the Army’s `Damocles sword’ will possibly ensure that consensus is reached soon enough. This time, PTI Chief Imran Khan may try to get a toe-hold in, to get one or two `Caretakers’ of his choice in the interim set ups in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also at the national level.

The elections may see a fragmentation of the right of centre vote bank, especially in Punjab, between the PML (N), PTI and the new mainstream contenders of the Islamic parties – Hafiz Saeed's Milli Muslim League (MML) and the Barelvi factions of the TLYR and Mumtaz Qadri adherents, some possibly in the garb of Independents. The PPP and Mohajirs may hold on, respectively, to their bastions in rural and urban Sindh, though the latter may be split into various contending factions. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa may see how Imran Khan’s party copes with the twin threats of anti- incumbency and a rival ganging up of right radical Islamists led by Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (F)'s (JUI-F) Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman. The FATA merger issue could be a thorn in several throats.

Presently, there is much speculation in the Pakistani media about possible `course corrections’ which a defensive Army leadership makes to cope with the mainstreaming of Islamists. A `divided’ judiciary is seen trying to ameliorate injured civil society sentiment about the biased handling of the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif and the lease of life given to Imran Khan. Though Nawaz Sharif’s charisma and `victim’ narrative remains the prime `vote-catcher’ for PML(N), Imran has not done anything too controversial since his `disqualification survival’ and currently, seems slightly ahead of Shahbaz Sharif in the prime ministerial race.

Role of the Army

Gen Bajwa seems well in control now of his collegiate leadership group. 2018 will see retirements of only five lieutenant generals in October. These vacancies may enable slotting of some aspirants as corps commanders. How the Army manages to balance or control emerging political equations will be of greater interest. Overall, it may be content to let political permutations evolve as long as a democratic facade is maintained and the new political leadership at the centre does not question its control of security, neighbourhood and nuclear policy.

Indo-Pak Relations

On relations with India, much will depend on the International Court of Justice’s verdict in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case. Pakistan’s latest going back on assurances on how to treat his mother and wife does not provide any ground for optimism. Neither should one expect any change of heart on the Mumbai 26/11 terror accused trials or generally, in how the Army keeps cocooning favoured `non-State’ actors.

“Xi the Dictator:” a Myth Born of Ignorance and Prejudice

THOMAS HON WING POLIN

The buzz from Western media had started years ago. It reached a crescendo recently with China’s 19th Communist Party Congress, which approved a second term for Xi Jinping as national leader.

The chatter has been fulsome about how Xi is now China’s most powerful leader since Mao and Deng, or even Mao outright. He had prevailed in the customary power struggles and grabbed authority from rivals, goes the narrative. The latest coinage is “Xiconomics,” suggesting he has taken over China’s economic helmsmanship as well. A persistent undertone has been innuendoes recalling the dangers of dictatorship, overconcentration and abuse of authority, repression, etc, etc.

That Western narrative is but another demonstration of the ignorance and prejudice its creators have long held towards China. To understand Xi Jinping’s position, it is necessary to take a closer look at what Chinese governance is today, and how it got there.

Today’s China is a genuine collective leadership, and a meritocracy. These two defining characteristics began to take shape during the Deng Xiaoping era. For Deng and his reformer comrades, the devastating excesses of the Mao period made it crystal-clear that unchecked power at the top was highly hazardous to the nation’s health. Deng forbade anything hinting at a personality cult around himself. In any case, the presence of other first-generation revolutionaries — like Chen Yun and Li Xiannian — meant Beijing no longer had one-man rule.

Early in the post-Deng era, China settled into a system whereby the Communist Party head shared authority with colleagues in the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). They began to institutionalize today’s mature meritocracy, resurrecting the imperial-examinations ideal of ability as the ultimate measure of suitability for high office. In the 21st century, that has meant experience and achievements in governance. The result: a senior party and government leadership with far richer, more impressive track records than is possible among counterparts in any democracy.

With 85 million members, the Communist Party itself is larger than most nations on Earth. The “one-party dictatorship” of ignorant Western fantasy is actually a collection of many factions, with diverse interests, under a single roof. Differences among the factions are greater and notably more meaningful than those among, say, the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. Intra-CPC debates on policy are frequent and vigorous. In the end, unresolved issues are settled by the PSC.

The best governance brains of the nation debate and decide the best governance policies for the nation. So it’s no accident that in recent decades, China has accomplished what is increasingly recognized as the greatest uplift in human welfare in all history.

It is this governing mechanism that decided, about a decade ago, that Xi Jinping was the best person to lead China into the next phase of its momentous comeback from a historical nadir. Contrary to Western mythology and obsession, Xi did not “struggle” for or “seize” power on his way to the top. It was the Chinese meritocracy, evolved over several generations, that decided to put him there, after he came through its screening systems with flying colors.

The meritocracy chose Xi to tackle an immensely difficult task. His brief is two-pronged: resolving the awesome problems accumulated from decades of rapid reform (rampant corruption, lax military discipline, intensifying hostility from the US Empire, etc), and taking China’s development to the next level. And to ensure he stood a chance, the collective leadership vested him with the most authority since Deng Xiaoping.

Next time you hear about Xi the dictator or Xi the power-grabber, keep all this in mind.